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WHile you're post doesn't say what kind of distribution you are looking for, it may be easier to sell you boss on a commercial solution that sells specialized distributions. does just that, I have never used their products, there are some reviews out there, linux journal has a review of the web server, Linux Mag loved The Web Server, Thick Book has a review of The Firewall (run through google to avoid PDF), as does Linux World.

Hope this helps you sell a linux solution

Is here.

Hmm, you'd think a "printer friendly" version would remove JPGs of Unix-nerds. No one wants to print those out. Actually, I'd be happy if that were the only thing it did.

According to this interview Bill Joy did not invent vi during one weekend:

Linux Magazine / November 1999 / FEATURES : The Joy of Unix: page 4

It seems that the August article on the "Linux Chameleon" in Linux mag was a bit uninformed as the instability of his position there. Its a great article but the you'll have to grab the print copy of it since the website seems only to carry the TOC. Its a crying shame to see him get his walking papers. But, needless to say, I think a "keep an eye on that one" is appropriate, whatever his "personal insterests" turn out to be.

The typical consumer shopping for a computer at Dell or IBM or Compaq will not even see the option for Linux because the sites are so hard to navigate. Everything I've ever heard or read (even this fairly nice one) has shown that Dell was half-hearted at best in their Linux support.

Linux is user supported--i.e., if you want to support Linux, use it. Even the poorest running Linux box I've worked on has run rings around any Windows except 2000. And I always have far more difficulty properly configuring W2K than Linux.

There was a good article recently in Linux Magazine on what the CLR would need

• GCC.NET
  -- Mark Mitchell, release manager for gcc 3.0 and CTO of CodeSourcery
  What is Required for GCC to Support Microsoft's .NET? (April 2001)

• Independent State
  -- Interview with Dick Hardt of ActiveState.
  Pages 3-4 discuss .NET : What it is, what it is like to code for, why linux needs an implementation, what needs to be done. (April 2001)

• Embrace and Extend
  -- Jon Udell from Byte
  What linux can learn from .NET's component architecture. (February 2001)

For all the throwaway remarks Bruce Perens makes, I don't think it is going to be an easy job -- and cloning the libraries will be a massive undertaking. (For comparison, just look how much of the standard Java libraries are still to be implemented by GCJ).

But even incomplete first steps could be very worth while, especially

• Mechanisms to inherit and efficiently extend objects from pre-built libraries, using a common cross-language ABI.
• C#, which does have a certain amount going for it.

I guess its a step towards weaning Microsofties away from Microsoft servers, but it seems like a lot of effort

I think you are altogether too sanguine.

The aim of the .NET API is to dramatically lower the bar for writing server-based apps, leading to a huge expansion in such platforms. MS's services like Hailstorm are only a tiny part of the picture. Unless the unix community can effectively market an alternative API for creating server applications which is both as friendly for end-users and as easy to develop for, we risk lock-out from what is likely to become the dominant sector of the server market.

There was a good article recently in Linux Magazine on what the CLR would need

• GCC.NET
  -- Mark Mitchell, release manager for gcc 3.0 and CTO of CodeSourcery
  What is Required for GCC to Support Microsoft's .NET? (April 2001)

• Independent State
  -- Interview with Dick Hardt of ActiveState.
  Pages 3-4 discuss .NET : What it is, what it is like to code for, why linux needs an implementation, what needs to be done. (April 2001)

• Embrace and Extend
  -- Jon Udell from Byte
  What linux can learn from .NET's component architecture. (February 2001)

For all the throwaway remarks Bruce Perens makes, I don't think it is going to be an easy job -- and cloning the libraries will be a massive undertaking. (For comparison, just look how much of the standard Java libraries are still to be implemented by GCJ).

But even incomplete first steps could be very worth while, especially

• Mechanisms to inherit and efficiently extend objects from pre-built libraries, using a common cross-language ABI.
• C#, which does have a certain amount going for it.

I guess its a step towards weaning Microsofties away from Microsoft servers, but it seems like a lot of effort

I think you are altogether too sanguine.

The aim of the .NET API is to dramatically lower the bar for writing server-based apps, leading to a huge expansion in such platforms. MS's services like Hailstorm are only a tiny part of the picture. Unless the unix community can effectively market an alternative API for creating server applications which is both as friendly for end-users and as easy to develop for, we risk lock-out from what is likely to become the dominant sector of the server market.

There was a good article recently in Linux Magazine on what the CLR would need

• GCC.NET
  -- Mark Mitchell, release manager for gcc 3.0 and CTO of CodeSourcery
  What is Required for GCC to Support Microsoft's .NET? (April 2001)

• Independent State
  -- Interview with Dick Hardt of ActiveState.
  Pages 3-4 discuss .NET : What it is, what it is like to code for, why linux needs an implementation, what needs to be done. (April 2001)

• Embrace and Extend
  -- Jon Udell from Byte
  What linux can learn from .NET's component architecture. (February 2001)

For all the throwaway remarks Bruce Perens makes, I don't think it is going to be an easy job -- and cloning the libraries will be a massive undertaking. (For comparison, just look how much of the standard Java libraries are still to be implemented by GCJ).

But even incomplete first steps could be very worth while, especially

• Mechanisms to inherit and efficiently extend objects from pre-built libraries, using a common cross-language ABI.
• C#, which does have a certain amount going for it.

I guess its a step towards weaning Microsofties away from Microsoft servers, but it seems like a lot of effort

I think you are altogether too sanguine.

The aim of the .NET API is to dramatically lower the bar for writing server-based apps, leading to a huge expansion in such platforms. MS's services like Hailstorm are only a tiny part of the picture. Unless the unix community can effectively market an alternative API for creating server applications which is both as friendly for end-users and as easy to develop for, we risk lock-out from what is likely to become the dominant sector of the server market.

Linux Magazine has a good article on how GCC could support Microsoft .NET.

You can find it here

Linux servers are going to find themselves at an increasingly serious market disadvantage, if they can't run scripts written for MS's new platform.

With luck this release should take a few weeks off the clean-room reverse-engineering.

Recent relevant articles from Linux Magazine:

• Independent State
  -- Interview with Dick Hardt of ActiveState.
  Pages 3-4 discuss .NET : What it is, what it is like to code for, why linux needs an implementation, what needs to be done. (April 2001)
• Embrace and Extend
  -- Jon Udell from Byte
  What linux can learn from .NET's component architecture. (February 2001)
• GCC.NET
  -- Mark Mitchell from GCC
  The practical work needed before GCC can be the cornerstone of a .NET-compatible environment (April 2001)

Getting .NET onto linux is a neccessity -- and soon. It's also probably a bigger project than any one company can support. But it is an effort that needs to be got underway a.s.a.p.

Linux servers are going to find themselves at an increasingly serious market disadvantage, if they can't run scripts written for MS's new platform.

With luck this release should take a few weeks off the clean-room reverse-engineering.

Recent relevant articles from Linux Magazine:

• Independent State
  -- Interview with Dick Hardt of ActiveState.
  Pages 3-4 discuss .NET : What it is, what it is like to code for, why linux needs an implementation, what needs to be done. (April 2001)
• Embrace and Extend
  -- Jon Udell from Byte
  What linux can learn from .NET's component architecture. (February 2001)
• GCC.NET
  -- Mark Mitchell from GCC
  The practical work needed before GCC can be the cornerstone of a .NET-compatible environment (April 2001)

Getting .NET onto linux is a neccessity -- and soon. It's also probably a bigger project than any one company can support. But it is an effort that needs to be got underway a.s.a.p.

Linux servers are going to find themselves at an increasingly serious market disadvantage, if they can't run scripts written for MS's new platform.

With luck this release should take a few weeks off the clean-room reverse-engineering.

Recent relevant articles from Linux Magazine:

• Independent State
  -- Interview with Dick Hardt of ActiveState.
  Pages 3-4 discuss .NET : What it is, what it is like to code for, why linux needs an implementation, what needs to be done. (April 2001)
• Embrace and Extend
  -- Jon Udell from Byte
  What linux can learn from .NET's component architecture. (February 2001)
• GCC.NET
  -- Mark Mitchell from GCC
  The practical work needed before GCC can be the cornerstone of a .NET-compatible environment (April 2001)

Getting .NET onto linux is a neccessity -- and soon. It's also probably a bigger project than any one company can support. But it is an effort that needs to be got underway a.s.a.p.

To wit:

ZDNet

WSJ

Linux Magazine, where he's a contributing writer.

Regardless of what you think about Linux and MS, this isn't the guy to be writing about it.

You're right of course... they can't open up the entire code base for AIX right off the bat, but I think that within 3-5 years AIX and Linux will be basically one and the same animal, and quite possibly with a lot of code-sharing. Plus right now most of the AIX code is optimized for the RISC 6000 processors, so it's not like you could download it and run it on a PC - you'd be buying IBM hardware to run it anyways. Background: I'm a sysadmin who works with OS/390 and AIX, and I think IBM is looking forward to community involvement to improve some of their drivers etc. The AIX ones have been known to have some problems in the past *cough understatement cough*.

This strategy would allow Big Blue to concentrate on hardware - I'm no IBM bean-counter but my experience leads me to believe that they make more bucks on hardware and services than anything else, plus the licencing fees for other software (especially middleware) such as Websphere, MQSeries, DB2, and even VM to run virtualized Linux on S/390 (aka Z900).

The OS is something they're pretty much obliged to provide for customers - they have enterprise-scale hardware and have to have an enterprise-capable OS with enterprise-level OS utilities to sell that hardware. It's not an option to sell the customer the dandy hardware and then tell them "Piss off and find an OS to run on it", they wouldn't be in business long (makes me wonder how MS got so big - they essentially did the reverse. Here's a * passable server OS *, now piss off and find some enterprise-level hardware to run it on). So if Linux slowly took that responsibility off of their hands for the most part, or helped them to maintain a 'feature edge' over other commercial *nixes it's worth the ROI for them. Plus I'm sure that they figure they can compete pricewise on hardware with Sun, EMC etc., so if the OS is commoditized and can run on anybody's hardware maybe it puts them into a more competitive position.

IMHO this is probably one of the smartest moves that IBM has made recently. Here's a link to a very interesting interview that indicates IBM is basically willing to open-source ANY code that the community feels is useful (it's with Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who is a heavy at IBM, I think this inteview was mentioned in a Slashdot article previously). I haven't lost my mind, I don't expect them to open up the entire source code to DB2 or similar profitable products, but I don't see AIX or many of AIX's utilities as being such.

IBM is not shorting the community on their commitment from what I can see. Just my $0.02

----

Actually you're both sort of right.

He's talking about the second Mindcraft test in which Microsoft and RedHat both tuned their respective setups and PCWeek supervised. It was a fair test.

You appear to be talking about the first Mindcraft test, which was completely flawed and worthless.

In an interview in the December 2000 issue of Linux Magazine, Linus Torvalds said that he had trouble believing the results of the second test for a little while before he realized that it was an opportunity to improve Linux.

It was called "insane" and compiled as a kernel module.

Look at one of last years Linux Journal issues (or was it Linux Magazine?). They had a list of the top 100 most influential open source people. You may want to contact a few of them. Some may even be in your neck of the woods. Western PA should have a fair supply of open source developers and beowolf people.

The article really only delves into what the techonology itself is, and doesn't even mention how well these devices work under Linux. There is a stunning article in the August issue of Linux Magazine that you can find here that demonstrates setting up wireless networking in your home and incorporating it into existing networks. Unfortunately, I don't think the article is featured online. If you'd like to see it and can't find a copy of the magazine, feel free to mail Linux Magazine and ask.

The article really only delves into what the techonology itself is, and doesn't even mention how well these devices work under Linux. There is a stunning article in the August issue of Linux Magazine that you can find here that demonstrates setting up wireless networking in your home and incorporating it into existing networks. Unfortunately, I don't think the article is featured online. If you'd like to see it and can't find a copy of the magazine, feel free to mail Linux Magazine and ask.

IBM seems to think so, according to recent articles ("We think that Linux could do for applications what the Internet did for networking. That is, become the standard of choice for developing applications."). Why do you think all the Unix vendors are working on Linux binary compatibility? Sometimes a standard is just where everyone is, and everyone's going to Linux.

existing high-quality implementation (have you ever looked at linux code? And it changes every two minutes)

So some of it's not pretty, but in the end it works damn well for a lot of purposes. Remember, this is an industry that puts up with Windows NT.

existing widespread hardware support (DVD? Hardware RAID even? ....)

Hardware RAID is coming along ok. DVD is a special case. The important points are that Linux supports more hardware than anything but Windows now, and that support for new stuff will almost certainly get better.

non-techies are comfortable with it (please ...)

If you thought I meant comfortable using it, I was unclear. I meant comfortable about it being used in their organizations.

Liberal licencing (GPL!!!)

Look, BSD isn't in the picture here. If BSD advocates know what's good for them, they'll ride Linux's coattails. The alternatives to Linux in this context are Windows, Monterey, and other proprietary stuff.

Excerpts:

ON THE DIRECTION OF LINUX

Wladawsky-Berger:
Now the thing that I don't know is the priority that the Linux community puts in making Linux enterprise-ready. There is so much going on with linux in high volume applications: Linux in embedded client applications, Linux in desktop, Linux in appliances. This area is so full of possibilities that the community could say, "Irving, this is very nice, but this is our hightest priority right now. So, given that you have AIX already, this Linux compatibility in AIX is perfect, because then you have a totally complementary Linux strategy." Linux on Linux, and then Linux applications on AIX."

ON FORKING THE KERNEL

LM: There seems to be a sense that some of these enterprise features may detract from Linux on the low end.
Wladawsky-Berger: I know, and I know that Linus [Torvalds] and the team are resisting forking the kernel. That's always one possibility: to have multiple kernels, and I know so far nobody wants to do that. And if that is the wish of the community, we are cool with that because that's where AIX is complementary to Linux.

He didn't explain it fully in his answer.

With your example you still have multiple individual computers connected to a central server that store /home and /usr

But with linuxNOW it doesn't sound like you have a central computer just a bunch of computer that are connected. Some of the data may be stored on your buddies computer down the hall. If you access the same data a lot it would move itself over to your hardrive.

This is what I understand at least.

check out these other articles aobut it:
http://www.linux-mag.com/online/pro geny_01.html
http://www.linux.com/interviews/2000071 2/63/

I wouldn't say that they care less about the Linux community than Microsoft. They do, however, care in a very different way...

A prime example of this can be found in an interview with Bill Joy in Linux Magazine a couple of months back (November 1999):

"If I look at the graph of what percentage of customer dollars I'm likely to get next, it's much higher if they start with Linux than if they start with Windows. So in all cases, I'd rather win and get Sparc/Solaris/Java as the solution. But Linux/Sparc/Java would be my second choice."

(you can get the full article here.)

Granted, they aren't going to be making any money directly off of Linux, and that is, afterall, the goal of any corporation, especially the big ones.

It's interesting to note that in the same article, Bill Joy talks about how he doesn't see any benefits for releasing software under the GPL or something similar...Apparently there is now some kind of benefit. Whether that is a benefit to the product and the code itself, or to Sun as a PR move remains to be seen.

Your Friend,

Yes. It came from a project called "Blacker" project. Here's the Linux Magazine article where he states that.

At some point the Linux game industry will reach the volume needed to justify a magazine targetted at Linux gamers (or serious inclusion in the Windows gaming mags), at which point you'll be able to get the demos on CD's that come with many magazines or are handed out at computer stores...

Actually, that's sort of what Maximum Linux seems to be. Granted, there's only one issue to judge it by (and that one has a TurboLinux eval CD bundled with it), but its headline article is "Linux Got Game!". A lot out of date now (Myth2 was the current Loki game at that point), but closer to the "mainstream" PC (gaming) mags than either Linux Journal or Linux Magazine.

It grated a little on me, but I can imagine them having cover CDs with various demos in forthcoming issues. In fact, I'd welcome it. I have a 33.6 =/

(Actually, people with fat pipes and CD burners can make demo and patch CDs for their friends ;-) )

I am happy to report that I did successfully install and create a dual boot system (Win98 and Redhat 6.1) on my fabulous new Thinkpad 570. I'm thrilled to pieces. No, of course the modem doesn't work. But since I needed an ethernet card anyway, I bought the 3com 10/100 Lan 56K (3CCFEM556B) - works great!

I also have a Zip drive with an Iomega (probably Adaptec) SCSI PCMCIA card, which I thus far cannot get to work. Of course, my scanner, hanging off my Zip, is still in lala land.

Of course, getting linux installed is not nearly the same as IBM offering support, but it does work.

Hey IBM! If you can't give the specs to the open source community, why don't you hire some enterprising folks from /. to build the drivers your machine needs? Money where your mouth is? I freely admit that I would even consent to buying the binaries - yes, yes I know this goes against the grain, but consider this: although there are many reasons to use Linux, one of the driving motivations I've seen is that linux is a cost effective alternative. In other words, Linux users are (collectively and statistically now), um, economically disincentivized? Let's face it, your average linux user is not running off and buying a top of the line $4000 laptop.

But for those of us who do, shelling out $25 (or whatever) to IBM to get a fully supported OS that I want on my machine is not a big deal. It's not about free, it's about useful. I site Larry Wall:

"In particular, we really needed to have a commercially packaged version of Perl for the Windows folks, because many of them were (and still are) clueless about open source. It's almost like we're doing Windows users a favor by charging them money for something they could get for free, because they get confused otherwise." -- Larry Wall

I don't care how IBM figures out how to support laptop linux, I just want them to bust a move and make it happen.

$.02

neil

make that: printe r-friendly version

Link: 10&article=uncultured">http://www.linux-mag.com/cg i-bin/printer.pl?issue=1999-10&article=u ncultured

The printer friendly version has the whole article on one page, rather than balkanizing the thing into five sections. (Why do websites do that? Chance to show more ads to readers?)

linux-mags linux howto can be found here

I think the AT&T break up provides the best anti-example of how to break up a monopoly. The judge put in to place a group of non-competing effective monopolies for local phone service. It was left to Congress to sort out exactly when and what competition would occur in the local and long-distance markets for phone service. Consumers are still suffering from the lack of local competition and the fact that it is re-spawning the vertical Trusts (such as AT&T & MCI providing all services) to thwart horizontal market competition from new market entrants.
Rather than dividing Microsoft along divisional lines, it would be better for competition and restoring the "invisible hand of the markets" if Microsoft was split horizontally with 3 or 5 sub-classes inheriting all of the IP of the parent and then beheading Microsoft such that no current executive at Microsoft could have contact with any of the "Baby Bills" and that no contacts were allowed between any of the 3 or 5 for some number of years.
If you think that it should be along application lines, read Bill Joy's comments in this month's Linux Magazine about the need to reproduce competition in the Office Suite market to seriously affect the desktop OS market.

But, I do think that Microsoft should change it's business practices, and perhaps a little less of the diversity training and a little more ethics training is in order, hmmmm?

On linux and the complexity of the command line interface. In last month's issue of Linux Magazine there was an interview with Alan Cox, and he said the following about the future of Linux:

"...the user interface is going to be as easy to use as Windows. But that isn't good enough. Windows is still the Black and Decker power tools of the computing world. We need to have something much simpler than that. A lot of people don't want to learn how to use the computer: you shouldn't ever have to read a manual. You shouldn't have to deal with file managers. Why should you have to understand all this file stuff?"

So, clearly, there's going to be a movement away from the command line interface, thou I'm sure it'll still be an option to run Linux with no GUI...

Well, sort of on-topic - I picked up the July issue of Linux Magazine this weekend - has an intro to GTK programming that might be interesting to some folk here (being that that's GNOME's toolkit), also - interview with RMS and an article on Licensing by Bruce Perens.

Unfortunately, their website isn't very useful just yet. Here it is

Oh, anyone ELSE see SuSE 6.1 at Best Buy this weekend for $29.95? ;)