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Unix: Which One to Choose?
I just found this story on Sm@rt Reseller which talks about which Unix (or Linux) they're suggesting to use for various uses (web, applications, etc..) - Its a very long article, and it talks also about the Windows 2000. Worth a read IMHO.
>without providing any facts to back himself up.
Looks to ME like YOU are trolling.
>>FreeBSD is a OpenSource OS
FACT. Unless you know something we all don't.
>>with a licence that promotes the software to be used ANYWHERE,
Want to claim that a BSD licence does not promote the BSD code in other projects? Or anywhere else?
>>is stable and robust,
That is what the web page says. Given Microsoft said NT crashes every 5.1 days, and I've seen BSD boxes up more than 100 days, looks stable and robust from where *I* sit. Care to refute this?
>>and has a strong UNIX(tm) tradition.
Given BSD is 25 years old, and based on AT&T Unix, care to argue BSD does not have a strong UNIX tradition?
>>Linux binaries, SCO binaries, Xenix binaries,
Go to the freebsd web pages...this is listed.
>and no, he didn't give anything but rhetoric to back up his preference.
Really? Care to back this statement up?
Xenix. It's made by a really great company. I can't recall it's name at the moment....Macro...Micro... Oh well, I'm sure you guys know all about it.
I believe you can still fix that with a registry entry... of course that violates your EULA *cough*
Around here, saying that ANYTHING is better than Linux gets you modded down. The only thing more diss'ed than Apple is Microsoft.
Oh, so I should be running the same os on my firewall, my database server, my mainframe, my web server, my application server and my desktop?
The standardized protocols in which they speak are the glue that keeps the network together. Choosing one OS just because it's convenient to do so in the name of efficient administration is a lot of weight when you weigh against other factors.
I would agree that a standardize operating system is a good thing when you are talking about one "system" (e.g. accounts payable or billing system or web server array). The more heterogenous you get (this is not only operating systems, but programming languages etc as well) the more complex it is to develop and troubleshoot.
However, if I have different teams working on different projects (such as oracle and solaris for my financials, and freebsd for my web servers [see yahoo]), there is little overhead introduced by being heterogeneous. Even still, depending on the employee's (training, knowledge, experience), all UNIX or windows or whatever systems may be familiar to them. Of course, if your IS department is 3 drop out college students, you are going to have problems with inability to adapt.
In the long run it is going to cost less to install the right system because performance and functionality problems are going to cost much more than personell problems (which is an absolute statement that is obviously subjective to circumstance). Seriously though; you've got to look at all the factors.
Hmm... nobody has to have SMP; it's just a way to get performance. And Intel isn't really known for high performance either; it's known for cheap performance.
What I'm getting at, is that SMP isn't an issue. The real issue is: do you want bang, or do you want bang-per-buck? Linux/i386 is aimed at the bang-per-buck market.
here is why unix/linux will NEVER be unified:
if it was, source code wouldn't have to be distributed to work across all forms of *nix. open-source advocates will tell you it's not open-source is not forced, but in a sense it is!
if everyone used one version of linux, I would only have to release the binaries to my programs. Think about it.......
that is the true reason why open-sourcers hate standards, not for "freedom of speech", but because it will mean the end of the OSS movement.
---just an opinion, not flame or troll.
(rimshot)
Let's pop out the ol' crystal ball for a sec, and make some predictions about the future of IT.
This ain't trollin' - I'll leave that to those more qualified. These are my honest predictions:
1) More and more of the old school UNIX vendors will stop producing their own UNIX and switch to Linux, especially on or around the time when they release new (incompatible) hardware.
I expect AIX to go sometime around the end of 2001, sooner if Linux can develop the features (HA clustering, journaling FS, etc) that AIX has but Linux doesn't. Expect to see more and more IBM UNIX developer-type folks working full-time on the Linux kernel instead of on AIX.
SCO will not see 2002. Neither will HP-UX.
Solaris will hold out the longest, but the Linux tide will overwhelm it by 2005.
2) We'll see a rise in the use of the *BSD family for the next couple of years, but as more and more people are exposed to the GPL through Linux, more and more people will _expect_ the GPL on their software. Sometime around 2003 the upwards trend will reverse, and *BSD will slowly slide to obscurity and historical curiosity - made worse as it loses developer mindshare to Linux.
3) I expect that the governments of the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, and Germany will require the GPL on all software in use in government institutions by 2004.
4) Microsoft will declare bankruptcy by the end of 2005. The stock value will peak in early 2002.
5) We will see one more Windows release post-Win2k. So there will be Win2K, a stopgap WinFoo, and then that's all she wrote.
6) By 2010, the concept of "selling software" will seem as alien as selling air, or sunlight.
Happy St Patty's day.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
And I just got it connecting to the internet just now!
I didn't think that up - it's been floating around the net for a very long time - but it is kinda funny. :) Reminds me of how much I hated DOS once windows95 and long file names came into existance - they probably should have just realized that they were a 2 bit OS and not bothered implementing long filenames...
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Do you want a flame war, or a CONSENSUS? :o)
--
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Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
How can anybody be on that much medication and still find the moderator buttons?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
That is why I put cost last
because what is costly to you may not be to me
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
People tend to follow the path of least resitance That is why NT and Windows9x solutions are out Everyone believe them to the easiest things to use. I seen a payment terminal at a movie theater that crashed and it was running windows 95.I would have shot the devoloper myself. I would have choosen QNX/BSD/LINUX/OS2/DOS (not in that order) over windows95 any day but agian people don't think about what they are doing so that is why things like this happen. There are some things that I can devolop Unix that would take a longer time in window95 then the opposite is true. You always need to know that that people are going to use what they want no matter what people do or say
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
What really matters on
1) What you are doing
2) The Knowledge of your staff
3) Cost
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
They say apache has 29% of all public web servers. Isn't it 59%? (According to netcraft)
I can't get to netcraft's site right now to check.
-- Thrakkerzog
I'm really tempted to sit down and make Linux able to run FreeBSD binaries....
It shouldn't be that hard, eh?
-rozzin.
S@R an NT book!?
Our readers use every OS under the sun, and we review, report, and Use almost every one of them. Heck, we still cover OS/2.
Steven, Editor at Large, Sm@rt Reseller
I'm sorry... I thought you were replying to this comment.
No hard feelings!
:)
When people around here talk about heavy duty SMP around here, they're talking about much more than home machines running dual pentiums. Your experiences are in no way comparable to the experiences one will have when running Solaris on a 32 processor Sparc machine.
Solaris on Intel may be available, but where are the highly scalable machines for it? I mean, greater than 4 CPU's? They're few and far between, in my opinion. What about for sparc? Just go to sun's website and click order... There they are - 64 CPU machine? No problem.
Remeber IBM used to be the big chip maker many years ago, and now it is Intel and AMD is giving them a run for there money. It could happen to Microsoft too.
Incidentaly I use Redhat they are not the best, but I find them to be "almost" a standard in Linux. Many (not all) distro's use rpm and there are some other reasone that I think this but I am entitled to my opinion even if you do not agree with it!
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
When I read that part, I immediately assumed that he meant binary compatibility. There are a number of products and/or compatibility layers which are supposed to allow x86 binaries to run under many x86 Unices. Of course, these aren't compatibile with PPC Linux or Linux on Alpha, so I'm inclined to agree with you that real compatibility is fleeting.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Disclaimer: This comment was posted from a box with a running woody.
NT Workstation only can utilize up to two processors. Server can do up to 16 (4.0 NT land).
www.jackasscritics.com
Dude, what article did you read?:
>> However, the next public edition of the operating system, Linux 2.4, due out this summer, will offer SMP support.
What does that mean to you? Crappy INACCURATE writing...
I read over the article really carefully but I think I've missed something. They kept bundling SCO and caldera/turbo linux together. Is there some sort of relationship there I've missed? Anyone care to enlighten me?
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
You state the Linux is great on Uniprocessors, but will soon have SMP. *NOT* that it already has it. This is not a typo, or piss-poor proofreading - IT'S DIS-INFORMATION.
Nowadays truly "hip" geeks flame over Gnome vs. KDE instead.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
By the same token as he says to look at Linux when 2.4 comes out, the same can be said for Windows (or any other OS). Wait until SP2/3 comes out and you'll see marked performance increases. Anyone who builds a sufficiently complex system knows that it takes a while to iron out the wrinkles.
There's a pretty big difference between SPs and kernel versions. 2.4 isn't a 'service pack' for Linux, it's a whole new version with all kinds of new stuff. It would be more like the difference between NT4 SPzero, and Win2k SPzero. Also, windows and windows service packs encompass a lot more then a kernel, you should compare it to something like red-hat or whatever. A 'service pack' would be like the difference between RedHat 6.1 and RedHat 6.0...
Also, the release kernels are usually almost bug free, unlike windows...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Huh? I thought only GNU's Not Unix.
The author mentions at the beginning that this is a summary based on their past experience, and their tests that they've been publishing. It is done in editorial form, with summary of past experiences.
For those of you who want to hop to the conclusion, there it is. A summary of their summaries, but you'll have to read the other pages of the article to find the reasons.
Montgomery's short "An Introduction to Unix" points at the Unix system family tree.
That 1997 document does not mention Linux, which grew out of the POSIX definition, System V, NetBSD, and GNU tools (developed on many Unix flavors). The Unix History segment of the Unix FAQ does mention Linux briefly.
I must have one magical motherboard then. Using the SMP stubs in the Linux kernels on my dual-PII, I get twice the rc5des output than a single processor. Funny, isn't it?
You were looking at the C2 tool. It recommends you remove the POSIX and the OS2 sub systems. Dont forget to unplug your network drop and take out that floppy too. :).
funny how both of those posts (yours and his) got moderated up. /. has gotten waaay more PC recently. Just like the conservative element in the U.S. makes most of the laws we all have to live by, the whacked out element of /. makes most of the moderation we all have to live by. If you don't like how a place works, make an effort to change it (i.e. stop posting so you can moderate)...or leave.
--
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
+&x
huh? worked out of the box on a redhat 6.1 install for me with win98/95 and NT. maybe you should install redhat and let the default install of samba work for you.
yep. besides i love all the different flavours of unix and im not going to give up my irix, solaris, linux, bsd, osf/1, aix, ultrix and hp/ux anytime soon.
I run vim under win98 from vim.org and the win32 binaries that are there. No need for cygwin at all.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
Could someone give me some concrete reasons to differentiate Linux and UNIX?
Is every OS really equal or is that just postmodernism?
Sorry, my mom said I have to be nice to the people on the computer. Disregard my last message.
That depends on whether you're allowed to distribute the beer when you've finished it.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
With that overwhelming evidence, who could argue with you?
Calm down, it's just a joke! I swear!
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
MS just released SR-1 for MS Office 2000. Here's a list of the 329 bug fixes included in the service pack.
Oh, don't forget that you get a FREE copy of IE 5.01 thrown in.
The patch file, depending on your system and prior patches applied, is between 24 and 40 Mb.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Work for Change & GET PAID!
You have to remember that many of the
I don't think you know what you are talking about. There are no moderator positions. Moderators are chosen on the fly by the software. You have to stop by fairly regularly, post occasionally, and some other criteria, but there are no moderator "positions" and nobody has ever been moderator for a year. The 5 points expires after 3 days. It may be weeks before you get chosen to moderate again. As for anonymous posting being a requirement, the rule (enforced by the software) is only that you may not post in a discussion you are moderating. One time I forgot this, and after previously moderating 2 comments, I posted one. Slash undid my previous 2 moderations in that discussion while informing me of the fact, I lost those 2 points, but I was still a moderator with 3 more to spend. Do you ever actually use this site, or do you just hang on the sidelines posting anonymous speculation about how you think it works?
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Apart from the fact that, for many years, UNIX(tm) was a trademark of AT&T, there is a general consensus among the "faithful" that the operating systems which were "UN*X-like" were more similar than they were different. In that sense (and with that shot of historical reality) LINUX is "just" another UN*X.
But LINUX stands on the edge of going where no UN*X has gone (successfully) before: The Commodity (i.e. X86) Desktop. And for that, all of the UN*X faithful must be thankful.
But as a system administrator, I have to tell you that managing LINUX systems is no different or more ideosyncratic than managing IRIX, Tru64, Solaris or HP-UX (well, HP-UX sucks more than most...). It's "just another UN*X" in my shop.
My $.02.
I've always considered Mandrake a derivative of Red Hat. I know it is its own distro, but wasn't it (or maybe still is) derived from RH?
This is very good! But, just out of curiosity, how long have you been saving this post in /home/noryungi ? I enjoyed every bit of it.
sig: sauer
Dude, it's the same old race that's been happening since the beginning of moderation.. If the 'management' had decided to slam on him, it would be -5 like all of their other slams! There have been quite a few +6's as well!
.sig: Now legally binding!
Actually, my company's enterprise software is written in BBx running on SCO right now. It's still out there in a lot of decent-sized companies.
Amen! to that brother! But this is slashdot and this kind of garbage is allowed to exist because it is pro-linux. This is coming from an HP-UX lover btw just to avoid a BSD vs Linux war.
That article said that W2K was up for only 7 days. What a load of crap. There was no proof of that, they just stuck it in. I've had W2K servers up for over 4 months (and counting).
Saying windows 2000 stays up for only 7 days is ridiculus, and obviously FUD - and I'll take it as that until I see any proof it's true.
> /. has gotten waaay more PC recently.
Eh? What *DO* you mean by PC?
In your mind, is it 'PC' to think of more than Linux when someone says OpenSource OS?
(You have BSD, Cygnus, darwin(BSD-esque), HURD come to the top of my mind) If so, I make no appology for wanting the rising tide now refered to as OpenSource to float *ALL* boats. (Yes, even your dinghy.) I remember when this software was "code that you downloaded and compiled, with licencing terms which were favorable for reason X". Calling it OpenSource is eaiser, is more inclusive, AND has helped raise the profile over that long-winded name.
Or, do you have some other meaning for PC??? Because it sounds like you want to practice exclusion and not inclusion.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Oh, you want a flame war?
[lays out a token ring of protection]
I invoke thee-dark daemons of licence-debate!
Brett Glass
Brett Glass
Brett Glass
I summon thee to smite the GPL promoters! These GPL minded folk think the GPL is about freedom! Show them your might, prove you are right!
Smite them with your words of taking work and money with the GPL! Sway them to the idea of how a BSD licence allows ALL to benefit from the code!
In short, give them the pointy end of your forking process!
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
>Furthermore, the MORE unixes that exist, the more effort is being wasted, in redundant kernel code,
Then based on your feelings, why don't you advocate everyone use a BSD licence so ALL of the computers in the world can use that code?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
However, I loved the part where he says that Linux is bound to take over BSD, because Linux had more "apps" for developing web pages.
Finally, in defense of the author, the article was written before the BSDI/Walnut Creek merger. The landscape looks considerable different now :)
what got me was the "samba is a no-brainer".
well shit. me my roommate and 4 rocket scientists tried getting that thing playing nice with NT for about 12 hours with no go. maybe with a weak sauce Win98 network it would play nice. but the FAQ for NT/Samba is a freaky weird land, and defiantly not a no-brainer.
this is my sig.
A quick look at Google pulled up about 6,000 articles, mostly old. Have a look around, you're bound to find someone who knows something at these sites:
Here's an old slashdot article about Solaris8. From this article, I don't see Solaris8 on x86 becoming a hot development platform, but judge for yourself.
Here's an older looking page about sound on x86 hardware with Solaris.
Here's one from Gnome. This is one of the slickest desktops around. If it don't do sound yet, try KDE.
Look for atricles with your specific hardware and linux. I found out that MediaGX had some Linux sound support that way. It's just some hardware that I had. That sound was supported was luck of the draw. I'll bet you want better assurances than that. Sun has a forum for questions like this, here.
Hopefully, someone who knows something will answer your post. I'd like to know what you find, please post back if you learn anything useful.
The article states that FreeBSD is the choice for "Basic Web Serving" while Linux systems are the choice for "Advanced Web Serving".
Since no real numbers were given, it's pretty hard to draw this conclusion. I'll buy into the claim of "networking that's a bit more stable" and all, but does anyone have experience or hard numbers to back this up?
*shrug*.. I've never set up and run a Web server before...
Oh, sure. All you have to do is get the file POSIX_ME_HARDER.BAT.
John
I don't know about y'all but knowing UNIX, especially Solaris, brings home the bacon...and lots of it...if you know what I mean. ;-)
25-40 users on a 486/33 with 48M and 300M hd...
Those were the days...
As to linux developers making a "dash for the desktop", I don't understand what that means. Do you mean adding features that desktop users would like? And other people don't want those features? Well then they shouldn't compile those features in.
Furthermore, the MORE unixes that exist, the more effort is being wasted, in redundant kernel code, in redundant kernel-specific user code, and in porting. Do we really need Sun, GNU, IBM, HP, and *BSD all maintaining "ls"? ("ls" isn't even kernel specific! Everyone could use - and maintain together - the *BSD or GNU version *right now*, if everyone agreed. Any compelling technical reason not to?)
'course it doesn't really matter. Proprietary unix vendors aren't going to release their source code, and *BSD and Linux (or any other two OSes, for that matter) will never be able to collaborate like *BSD collaborates among themselves (which, while not ideal, is much closer to ideal than any other current situation between multiple OSes).
<sigh>
How did you get it to run Rhaptel binaries? Does that mean I could run the window server and the File Viewer as FreeBSD processes? ........... kris
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
It seems to rant about how linux brought about the reunification of unix but working for one the largest ISPs and colocations I can provide this statisic. 70% of our machines are NT, 20% Solaris, 8% HPUX, 2% Linux. Granted the ISP I work for while generally though well of from wall streets sucks the big one in technical minds what im trying to demonstrate is the Wall street buy in on the Linux. Gates is a still a marketing monster and has there ear and Sun continues to dominate the "big coperate" networks. If I had my way the datacenter would be a mix of linux and solaris but on the flip side windows I believe is a nessecary evil. Linux will survive better when Wall street understands its. Right now its generally viewed by Wall street as Flash in the pan IPO material and thats about it. We have no coperate longetivity and with the exception of RedHat have no real voice to the market. Yeah some other ipos happened and did well but those were recent. Maybe in a few years they will mean something.
Hey ... I just thought it would be funny to try out M$-Xenix. Would anyone have a clue where to het hold of a copy?
I know I was shocked one of my comments earlier got moderated up I admitted to having fun looking at WindowsCE Source. lol it generated 3 or 4 critical replies "It didnt compile it means nothing" "Its MS it cant be good its just a marketing ploy BLAH BLAH BLAH"
:p
Someone take some Prozac and relax.. Sheesh.
Actually I have moderated a couple of times and all my moderation points were spent promoting GOOD discussion not just Linux discussion. I do try but this particular moderation just irked me I try hard to not complaina bout any of it but I get annoyed some of the time. And I noticed as I replied to a post a little lower down it moved from a 3 to a 4 to a 5. I am Glad for that I found the post kind of funny and worth of being up higer myself.
ROFL This is funny I mean this is the third post ive seen that was marked at flamebait just because the author said I like This operating system which happened to NOT be linux. List some of the relative merits put a little HUMOR """:-)""" indicates HUMOR people. And its a falmebait? Huh??? Sheesh.
AFAIK there used to be SMP even in the 2.0 kernels.
The pthread-enabled programs used to run about 10 times slower than with the 2.2 kernels but, hey, it worked without any problems.
On the other hand, I never managed to make NT see more than two processors from the 4 PPros available on that computer, so 4 processors on RH5.2 was better than 2 processors on NT.
I test the QNX diskette and work great, pretty fast and no hardware problems... i think that windows (better called Wintendo 2k) will dissapear... and BeOS, MacOS, QNX, Linux, Unix, will rule on workstation.
---- EoF
Maybe the moderator was aiming at a nearby post and missed? :)
Seriously though, there's a lot of reasons this might've been modded the way it was:
Oh, waitasec...I guess you're right. There really is no !lame excuse for bad moderation. :)
--WhiskeyJack, who's been a moderator twice in the past month....eeee! And no, I didn't moderate this one!
A quick look at the right part of the Solaris x86 HCL shows a number of machines with more than 4 CPUs which have been certified as working with Solaris on Intel:
One of the reasons why there aren't more is that there aren't that many x86 motherboards with support than more than four CPUs.
That said, I'd prefer to use Sun hardware for more than four CPUs anyway - there is so much more to a system than the number of CPUs in the box after all.
It should be noted that in my article I didn't say that I'd only use x86 machines for SMP. There was also no mention of "heavy duty SMP" either. After all, when people talk about SMP on x86 systems, its rarely in the context of "heavy duty" :) Also, given the context of the original article - the use of Unix as servers in an office environment. Unless your office is very large or you're doing some large scale calculations or database work you're not going to need large scale SMP machines. You can make use of relatively low end x86-based machines to perform the day-to-day file and print serving - I wouldn't want a rather expensive 64 way Sun machine sitting idle doing nothing more than running samba.
IMHO I'd rather engineer systems which have a number of smaller machines than go for one large machine if possible. That said, this could be achieved using domains with the E10000 (or the domain software on a number of smaller machines).
Moo
>If they said that AIX or Solaris
er... I've got a dual-P90 machine which has been happily running Solaris for SMP work for about five years or so now. It uses both CPUs quite effectively as well.
Moo
I'm not familiar with the WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux, but if it's anything like the WordPerfect 8 Suite I have running on this Win98 box, I'll take it any day over MS Office. Word has a nasty habit of BSODing, something which WordPerfect never does at all.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Indeed, software developers shouldn't be allowed to sell our hard earned labor. In fact, I think we should include "selling books" and "selling art" as things that should be as alien as selling sunlight and air.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
Damn. I'm impressed. I implied that you based your article on advice of others. Considering the fact that you are actively defending yourself on the Slashdot forum, I was obviously mistaken.
You did recommend that FreeBSD is best for Web Servers, and I do not dispute that. What I disupte is as follows:
Quote #1:
"But--and this isn't a small but--you need to really know BSD to do the job right. With no reseller program, this can be a problem"
The whole strength of the Open Source movement is that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of developers out there who can offer assistance through varies channels (UseNet, email, LUGs, etc). Linux owes its existance to this, and to simply write off FreeBSd because a major corporation doesnt officially support it is a flawed statement. Keep in mind that Intel and IBM, while officially supporting Linux, are embedding FreeBSD and OpenBSD into their internet appliances.
Quote #2:
"For advanced Web serving, however, we think that Linux will prove the long-term winner. Because of BSD Unix's low profile, excellent development tools like Corel/Inprise's forthcoming Kylix, IBM and Sun's releases of Java 2 for Linux, Pervasive Software Inc.'s Tango 2000 Application Server, and Red Hat/Cygnus's Code Fusion all are appearing on Linux, not BSD. Unless more development tools are forthcoming, this disparity in development tools eventually will leave BSD out in the cold. "
Bah! Currently, FreeBSD has a project to port Java v2 to FreeBSD, and near as I can tell, they are nearly done. FreeBSD supports Linux Binaries, so any apps ported to Linux should run on FreeBSD (depending on the app). As well, to say that FreeBSD has a low profile is, in my opinion, inaccurate. With such large sites as Yahoo and Hotmail running FreeBSD, and openly admitting it, this is far from 'Low Profile'. Yes, they are behind Linux, but there is little chance of being left 'in the cold'. FreeBSD will always have a place, due to its mature code base, and BSD license. The BSD license is far more appealing to corporations, especially with embedded applications, as they do not have to release the source code, or even acknowledge that they are using FreeBSD in their embedded app. In the short term, this may not be relevant to the resellers, but in the future it will, as more and more thin servers will be introduced. It is THESE 'server appliances' which will make up the bulk of the server sales within 3-5 years. As well, with the rumblings that there is a FreeBSD port to StrongARM in the works, expect to see PDAs running FreeBSD as well.
Overall, as I am a reseller, I can see the reasoning behind your article. Resellers are usually not the code hacking, coffee injecting geeks that frequent Slashdot. They are salespeople, with a general knowledge in many areas, and perhaps specialized knowledge in one or 2 areas. Your focus is to determine the best UNIX OS based on who has the greatest reseller resources available. While, from a reseller perspective, your article was well thought out, you missed a few key points. Remember that Linux (and FreeBSD) were created on the Internet, and the Internet is the ultimate reseller channel. You just have to know where to look.
Jailbrekr.
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
Thou art correct, almighty AC. I have been humbled....
I based that on third party comments. How silly of me to spread FUD like that....
They are currently working on JDK 1.2.
Doh!
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
A while ago, Unix==Big Iron hardware. Today, Unix can equal a 486/33.
A while ago, a 486/33 was Big Iron hardware. I mean, my palm pilot can outperform some of the hardware they used to run Unix on...
...but isn't LINUX UNIX? Why make the distinction in the article between LINUX and UNIX... Or are we talking about UNIX(tm)??
I'm curious how they decided which five were top. Maybe my personal experience isn't indicitave of the general population, but I've personally met many more people running Debian than TurboLinux. Are they selecting based on the size of the corporation that owns that distro? Number of copies in use (and if so, how do they measure)
Let me say that the article's mention of a "top 5" was very "USA-o-centric".
If you look at the "most popular" (or better "most prolific") Linux distros around the world, you will see that Red Hat (and it's derivatives like Mandrake) are most popular in North America, SuSE is most popular in Europe, and TurboLinux in Asia.   Alot of this has to do with where these companies have offices, although you can get easily download these distros from anywhere in the world.   For example, having originally purchased the official boxed version of SuSE 6.1 last summer, this past Monday, I upgraded to SuSE 6.3 (then they just announced the availability of 6.4 in 2 weeks - ugh!) via FTP to their N. American site.   I also run Red Hat 5.2, Mandrake 6.5, and Caldera 1.3 (plus NetBSD 1.4.1).
It probably would have been clearer if the article had specified "top 5 in U.S" or "top 5 around the world".
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
I've always considered Mandrake a derivative of Red Hat. I know it is its own distro, but wasn't it (or maybe still is) derived from RH?
;-)
Mandrake IS a Red Hat.   Much of the difference between the two has to do with which kernel each ships with (eg., RH 6.0 shipped with kernel 2.2.12-20 whereas Mandrake 6.5, a "RH 6.0", shipped with 2.2.13-4), what packages each ship with (eg., RH 6.x ships with GNOME as a default, whereas Mandrake 6.x/7.x ships with KDE).   The installers between the two were pretty much the same, although I haven't seen Mandrake 7.0's new installer.   And don't forget Mandrake's magic wand and top hat logos that replaced that guy with the little red hat...  
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
That's a pretty odd stance, considering I know of several friends with dual-proc boxes running 2.2, and you can easily check to see the processes running on each CPU (or a quick MT RC5 check, too)...
I'm running Red Hat 6.1 on a dual-Pentium II 200 (kernel 2.2.12-20smp) at work so I'll confirm you on that.   And you can see what each processor is doing in X + a window manager with a cute little app called xosview too... 
But then I guess there's a ghost in the machine because "SMP support isn't available until kernel 2.4".   One acronym - FUD.   And please don't tell me it's just "inaccurate reporting" because if the author(s) had been running these *nixes as long as they suggest, then SMP for Linux should have been known to them.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
Having worked with AIX, IRIX, and Solaris I'd just like to say that my os of choice is LinuxOne's fine product. It truly is a disservice not to mention LinuxOne among the top five distros. Why I'd rather be developing under LinuxOne than have hot grits poured down my pants. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
What about, say, Mandrake? I guess I'm not sure where it ranks, salewise, with the "top 5." It's a _great_ distro - just wondering how much it's used out there, and whether it deserves to be up there...
"The world doesn't really need more busy people, maybe not even more intelligent people. It needs 'deep people'..."
QNX is one to watch and did they mention it nooooo "A ZX81 with ram pack wobble is more reliable than windoze" - Clive Sinclair (Allegedly)
Well, I'd rather use Coherent on anything as ancient as the machines that ran Xenix 286. Price ratio (Coherent : Xenix) 1:20; Performance 3:1; Number of manuals 1:6; Size of a single manual 1:5
I think that says it. But unfortunately, Coherent is nowhere to be found. So is Xenix 286
The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but we will meanwhile agree to meet them
I use Mandrake. It's good.
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
These "old world" tech media sources have such a funny way of writing about Unix. Why is a magazine with a 99% NT-based readership writing about Unix? Are they trying to make resellers comfortable with the alien command-line based world of Unix? Why?
Are you sure? The Resource Kit contains two vis. One's a Win32 port and one's POSIX; and with the POSIX one you have to set up termcaps and things before it'll work.
I use the Win32 one; it's quite good for horrifying people who see me using it.
Personally...I like OS X Server.
I use RedHat 6.1 at home on IA-32 hardware...but at work I run OS X Server...
It's my fav of the bunch...but for now at least it only runs on Apple Hardware. If I could run it on IA-32 stuff...I'd be all over that.
The evaluation has nothing to do with any technical meaning of "best," but merely the notion of "most sold by retailers."
In which situation Debian obviously disappears, regardless of whether it has any valuable qualities or not.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Personally, I don't think Sparc Solaris is good as a graphics workstation. Intel Solaris has a wide range of graphic cards available, but not the software (especially compared with BeOS!).
You can also see my Solaris Intel FAQ at http://sun.drydog.com/faq/
Yes, but on the very first page it says:
(emphasis mine).
The emphasized sentence is certainly a true statement - but so would be "However, the next public edition of the operating system, Linux 2.4, due out this summer, will run on x86-based PC's."
I.e., it's a true statement - but is also true of previous versions of the Linux kernel.
Perhaps you meant to say
which would also be a true statement and would speak of a difference between 2.4 and previous kernel releases.
Are you asserting that none of the stuff under #ifdef __SMP__ is ever compiled in, e.g. because enabling SMP support doesn't cause it to be defined (I don't see any place in the 2.2.14 source where, say, defining CONFIG_SMP causes __SMP__ to be defined, but a kernel tree on a machine here has -D__SMP__ in the Makefile), or are you asserting that the code in question is "experimental code" and, even if __SMP__ is defined, "none of it is ever even called"?
I agree with you on the choice issue - I just wanted to point out that there's a reason Windows is so restricted.
Micros~1 started off selling operating systems to desktop users, and computer hobbyists. They eventually developed their software more and more, till the point where they broke into the server market with NT. (It may have happened before NT to a certain degree, but they probably weren't that popular as a server platform). So here you've got a company that has always built desktop OS's, (arguably "toy" OS's compared to what is required of a server). Their approach has always been to insulate the user from anything approaching a technical decision, and to swath the deficiencies of the system in a pretty GUI.
That type of design and implementation is arguably quite good for desktop users and hobbyists, it plain sucks for server configurations. And once they had dominated the market, what's the point of spreading out and porting to other CPUs? (Especially when they're in bed with Intel)
I think the lack of choice on the wintel side of things has a lot to do with the evolution of windows, whereas UNIX has always tried to run on everything. (remember how one of the original brag points of UNIX was that it was portable?)
Just my $0.02
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I like how the article states that we have to wait until 2.4 to get SMP support. Gee. Funny how I could have swore I am running SMP now.... I think they meant to say "better support in 2.4".
---
For us, Sm@rt Reseller, we pick the operating systems we cover in large part based on their reseller presence. After all, they're our readers. Hence, I talk about Corel, but not Debian per se.
Steven, Editor at Large, Sm@rt Reseller
Darn. And here I thought I'd recommended FreeBSD as the best choice for Web serving.
9 ,2469255,00.html
As for the BSDI/Walnut Creek Merger (not FreeBSD), that happened long after the article was in. For a take on that, see my sister in writing Mary Jo Foley's latest column:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,585
Steven
And I have a J-40 8 way SMP machine that cranks out some nice numbers for distributed.net quite well. I may not like AIX, but it does a good, reliable, effecient job.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
For home use, that doesn't matter - I'm not going to pay $100/month for support - I could buy a lot of O'Reilly books for $100/month. For a medium-sized corporate system, that does matter. Real large corporations will keep a staff of Unix (or NT) wizards around for support, but a 100-person office will need someone to backstop their in-house support. Downloading Debian doesn't provide that.
If I were my company's IT person, I could take that article to my boss to say "here's a good, well-supported, Unix system that will outperform our NT servers, and you'll be able to support it after I'm gone". That would be far more convincing to the bean-counters than a simple exposition of the technical superiority of Unix.
It only took me about an hour to get it working with NT the first time I tried it. It may not exactly be a no-brainer, but it is easier to get working correctly than most of the NFS add-ons I've seen for NT.
As for SMP in general, if I had to have heavy-duty SMP Right Now on Unix. I wouldn't use Linux or Intel. Solaris on SPARC and AIX on PowerPC is where you can really hit the gas with Unix and multiple processors. I haven't tested AIX recently, but Solaris eats NT's, and everyone elses, lunch.
What about IRIX? I have run Solaris on single and dual processor machines, AIX on IBM SP2, and IRIX on Origin200, Octane, PowerChallange, and 64 processor Origin2000. I find IRIX to be superior for most tasks I do (compuational chemistry).
Note: My workstation is a 2x PIII-450 running Linux, and i love it. But when I need to hit dozens of processors at once, I like IRIX.
Just my $0.02
While infrastructure -- the invisible technological foundations -- should be standardized for interoperability's sake, homogenized interfaces are bad all-around. This is because the interfaces that an individual works most efficiently with vary from person to person. A novice will set up TCP/IP on one machine most efficiently with a hand-holding gui, while an expert will set TCP/IP up most efficiently (and possibly on a large number of machines, quickly) with text files and scripts. Same infrastructure, different interfaces.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Didn't SCO come out of Xenix? I think after they migrated from 80286 protected mode to 80386 page mode, it just got renamed... I'm not sure on this, but i seem to remember something about that...
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
PC = Politically Correct Personal Computer.
/. and I attribute it to the lack of interesting flame wars. Now, no one wants to go so far as offend anyone. This behavior is called being "politically correct" and makes for boring useless debate and generlally bland discourse.(note: /. is just more PC than it used to be, still not 10000th as much as the nightly news)
There is a much more balanced, bland feel to
Of course, the trolls are still funny.
--
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
+&x
Yup, but this AC saying that 'enalbing SMP doesn't actually do anything' is also pretty bothersome...
;-) Oh wait... that would include me on some subjects, too 8^)
Who let in the uneducated masses, anyway
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
>2.3 isn't shipping anywhere. This is sm@rt reseller. Their target audience isn't slashdot.
True, and I addressed that. It is just as 'public' if you can get it from any internet connected computer anywhere in the world for free and without special logins as it is sold on a shelf. I made that point and understand what he meant. That doesn't mean that it is accurate journalism.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
That's a pretty odd stance, considering I know of several friends with dual-proc boxes running 2.2, and you can easily check to see the processes running on each CPU (or a quick MT RC5 check, too)...
or check out http://www.phy.duke.edu/brahma/smp-faq/
If you can't get SMP properly working, there are many people who can help, I'm sure...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I meant that Solaris and AIX scale much better than NT does (example RS/6k SP ). I certainly wasn't bashing solaris (I've used solaris x86 and liked it).
Sorry for the confusion.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Yes, but they didn't say that 2.2 does SMP, but it really isn't up to par with AIX/Solaris, which would be the truth. What they essentially said was that it *doesn't* have it now, but it *will* have it soon. They didn't say 4+ procs (after which NT gained minimally, I haven't made new #s on W2k yet), they mentioned 'SMP' which means 2 or more to me and just about everybody else. It's not defensive, it's ust poor journalism. They can rip on anything that I use, as long as they do it truthfully.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
>n terms of performance, as Sm@rt Reseller has shown over the last year and a half, Linux actually outworks--on low-end Intel uniprocessor systems--all other network operating systems. It also does well on high-end uniprocessor boxes. But Linux takes a back seat to NT on symmetric-multiprocessing (SMP) systems. However, the next public edition of the operating system, Linux 2.4, due out this summer, will offer SMP support.
That is the paragraph I was quoting. It says that Linux is great on 1 proc, and 2.4 will offer SMP support. Not *improved* SMP support, just that it will (sounds almost like 'will finally') have SMP... That and the "next public edition" thing... I understand what is meant there, but all of he 2.3 series is just as "public" as the 2.2 or 2.4 stuff. Free, anonymous downloads... (but it's not on a shelf at CrimpUSA, so it's not public).
I'm not disagreeing with the general idea, it was just poorly presented.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
True, but the article was specifically about x86 Unices.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Hey, is anyone where running Solaris 8 on a single proc. Pentium II box? I want to put a UNIX on my desktop, and am thinking of Solaris because I don't really love Linux and its hodgepodge style (personal preference) and I would use FreeBSD but people bitch about its sound code. I do a lot of media stuff, so thats very important. Anyway, I'm used to using BeOS, so I'm a little pampered on the interactive performance front. Anyone using it who could tell me how it performs compared to Linux for 3D/2D graphics, media, and general use. (Clicking on files, word processing, moving around the system with the GUI. etc?) I heard that 7.0 used to be called Slowaris on Intel, how is 8.0?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
(A vi fanatic)
The cake is a pie
The key is to grab all the other libaries and move them over.
And, the process *IS* documented in the freebsd mailing lists. How I did it is I looked at the old 1995 posts on how to get Solaris for X86 binaries running on FreeBSD and applied that methodology.
I was working on formal documantation on how do do it, when Steve Jobs took over and junked x86 Rhapsody. Given few would ever be able to use the work, it was scrapped.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Well, here goes, please hear me out before you start flaming...
1. The author makes a whole lot of claims, but fails to back up many of them with any real data. Netcraft is mentioned a couple of times, but other than that, there is no hard data.
2. The author is clearly biased towards UNIX over M$ products (you can basically discount his comments about SMP support, as everyone has pointed out that it is a bogus argument). Not only that, but nearly the entire article is about how great Linux is. I will be the first to say that Linux is a high quality OS, but there are also alot of things that Windows does well. I believe that his shots against W2K are unjustified and misplaced. Has any company/group released a bug-free/best performing OS on their first version. W2K had many problems to overcome, and considering the amount of code they had to merge in and make work on NT, I am actually surprised at the performance.
By the same token as he says to look at Linux when 2.4 comes out, the same can be said for Windows (or any other OS). Wait until SP2/3 comes out and you'll see marked performance increases. Anyone who builds a sufficiently complex system knows that it takes a while to iron out the wrinkles.
3. I use FreeBSD and Linux, and to say that you need to be a FreeBSD expert to run it as compared to Linux, is just plain wrong. FreeBSD takes no more monkeying around than Linux does to get it to perform well. As a matter of fact, I find the layout of some Linux dists (read RedHat) to be significantly harder to configure than FreeBSD.
The way that he dismissed the BSDs is IMHO shortsighted to say the least (with the exception of his comments on webserving). What he fails to mention is that FreeBSD can run any binary that runs on Linux. And there is a strong push to get a native port of Java (much like there was for Linux).
There are many other things I could say, but I'll leave it at that. The article was an interesting editorial, but it is just that, an editorial. The author clearly has biases and it should be taken as every other editorial is, with a grain of salt. It was nice of the author to promote interoperability, but it should have been done in a less editorial fashion.
My 4c (all little too long for just 2c)
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
10.
Well, it can't. There is the option of enabling SMP support when you do a make xconfig, but enabling it doesn't actually do anything.
Compile times for a Dual PII 450 w/448MB RAM. Resulting kernel was 650K. 'jx' is the number of make's running, s means single CPU.
egcs-2.91.66:2.2.13:j4 261.180u 20.280s 2:27.88 190.3% 0+0k 0+0io 334324pf+0w
gcc-2.7.2.3:2.2.13:j3 232.540u 20.200s 2:11.95 191.5% 0+0k 0+0io 265191pf+0w
gcc-2.7.2.3:2.2.13:s 261.76user 16.23system 4:38.48elapsed 99%CPU
What's really interesting is how people claim that their multi-CPU machine is "so much faster" when they enable SMP. Isn't that what psychiatrists call a "self-serving fantasy?"
Damm! That is some fantasy I have been having. I must have been dreaming when my kernel compile times were cut by more than 50%.
Think before you speak.Okay Rant time! I dont do this often and most often only people who read to the bottom of the stack get to see my rants but im gonna
RANT ON
Okay every time an article compares linux to some other opearting system or operating systems EVERY time I mean every freaking time the author decides to do what good journalists should and not print EVERY SINGLE little detail to made the damn article readable? Just maybe?
What happens? It is a freaking attack on poor Linux.
OH Linux can do that in Kernel X.Y.Z the author should have *KNOWN*. Its just so annoying to always see the group mindset of Everyone is out to knock Linux down. Welcome to Marketing 101!!! Get used to it and play harder dont whine granted Im glad to know the author made a possible oversight it just seems like its happening a little often here.
Someone makes a comment about FreeBSD? Flamebait! Heresey Get it out of here.
Gosh STOP this please. Linux is a Awesome operating system and it does a lot of things very good but that dont mean everyones always gotta look for someone to be knocking Linux down! They are not I did not really feel much of a Marketing ploy in here just an honest attempt at a little information spreading and *gasp* it just didnt happen to priase Linux right.
RANT OFF
One reason I love *NIX is that I appreciate choice.
With Win2K I have one choice, Intel and Microsoft.
With UNIX, and can choose a multitude of *NIX for INTEL, PPC, Sparc, Alpha, etc. Each hardare/software platform offers strengths and weaknesses, especially considering the level of support that is offered.
Choice is a strength to an IT organization. Choose the tool that most closely matches the problem you are attempting to solve. With the Microsoft / Intel choice you are very, very limited. If it doesn't work the way you like, wit and hope that Microsoft or Intel will fix things the way you like someday.
I like to be able to choose.
Magazines would prefer to cover one platform, with one OS. It is much easier to be an expert in one thing.
timbu
If I give you beer and include the recipe for the beer, does that mean that the beer is free as in software or free as in beer.
>Solaris on SPARC
Personally I'd add Solaris on x86 to that list as well. As I said earlier on in this thread, I'm currently running Solaris on a five year old dual P90 machine. Naturally this is running the x86 version of Solaris. The Solaris HCL lists x86 based machines with up to 6 CPUs and has done since Solaris 2.5.1 (which was when I started to use Solaris on x86 SMP machines).
There aren't that many differences between Solaris on x86 and Sparc when it comes down to it. Apart from the lowest level things like device drivers, certain parts of the kernel and certain commands which are very much architecture dependant, Solaris has the same code for both Sparc and x86.
That dual P90 machine I've got is also handling mail, news, DNS, web, ftp, SMB (file and printing), NFS serving, CD burning and the normal work I throw at it (ie HTML generation and some image processing) without too many problems. Whilst I'm thinking of upgrading this old dual P90 with just 64Mb of memory and a single Adaptec HBA is happily handling this load. Even after I add a couple of new machines I'll still be keeping the machine around as it'll have lots of now empty disk space for me to fill up :)
Moo
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
"the top five Linux distributors--Caldera, Corel, Red Hat, SuSE and TurboLinux"
it makes me sick to see comments like this. when people talk about "market share" and think a distribution of linux is the most popular just because it has the most SALES.
that is total crap! most people i know DOWNLOAD linux. debian and slackware are very popular, but these writers think they aren't popular because they don't have as many SALES. i am going to go throw up.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Once people, especially in the Open Source community, realize "one OS everywhere" is bad regardless of which OS it is we will make some real progress toward truly great computing systems. Our emphasis should be on interoperability and using the right tool for the right job -- articles like this are extremely valuable tools in this way.
--
: remove whitespace to e-mail me
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
I ran Xenix on a 4.77MHz 8086. Yes, it was sllloooowwwwww. I shudder to think I actually used to program on that platform. The scars are still with me to this day!
Steven, Editor at Large, Sm@rt Reseller
My company gets the print version of this magazine. When that article came out, I took into my boss' office, and read the part about all unices moving toward linux compatibility.
/proc for tcp info? How many make sure that their utilities work under linux? How about tar, ls, or bash? Gzip? Make? Patch?
:P
We had a good laugh at such a completely stupid and meaningless statement, and then went back to work.
What the HELL is 'linux compatibility' supposed to mean? Linux hasn't unified anything, and I'm damned sure that the real (read as commercial) unix vendors aren't going out of their way to make their OS's linux compatible in any more than a marketing sense.
For instance, how many commercial unices include term type 'linux' in their termcap database? How many use
All of these programs exist on most unices, and they certainly don't behave in the way the GNU versions do. This is incompatibility, and for someone who write system software across a buttload of unices every day (DYNIX/ptx, solaris, AIX, and linux), these things all suck.
A handful have started porting some utilities or subsystems to linux, but the truth is that unix is based, loosely, on standards, and that linux adheres, loosely, to those standards.
It's a stupid article that makes a lot of false assertions written for people who won't ever know the difference.
Enjoy.
--
blue, bleeding karma from the eyeballs and loving it.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
I just fired up a utility from the Win NT resource kit the other day that recommended that I remove the POSIX compliant portion of Windows NT Workstation, as it was a security risk.
They sort of insinuate that the 2.2 Linux kernel can't do SMP - the 2.4 kernel is SMP enabled or some garbage like that... I know that Linux SMP isn't the highest performing SMP implementation out there, and that 2.2 doesn't scale to 128 procs, but they said it 'takes a backseat to NT'... last time I check NT SMP above 4 procs wasn't getting you very much... If they said AIX or Solaris, I'd have to agree, or if they at least acknowledged that people *do* run lots of SMP linux boxen. Not very informed.........
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Getting the moderators blessing on /. is less much about being correct/insightful and more about fitting the adjenda of the moderators.
/., a large number of the moderators are not Pro-OpenSource, but are Pro-Linux. And, if you are not a Pro-Linux, Micro$oft bashing, GPL at all costs poster, you don't get positive moderation.
Think of it this way: At school, you got your best grades when your answer fit what the teacher wanted. And here at
I don't see it as humorous, just hypocritcal. And a very human response.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
I'm curious how they decided which five were top. Maybe my personal experience isn't indicitave of the general population, but I've personally met many more people running Debian than TurboLinux. Are they selecting based on the size of the corporation that owns that distro? Number of copies in use (and if so, how do they measure)? File size? It seems to me that most of their choices for "top distro" are the ones that have been in the mainstream news lately (Caldera, Corel) rather than the ones that are most popular or best suited for the jobs they selected.
Visualize whirled peas.
Firstly, the article implied that Linux pre 2.4 cannot do SMP. That is false. Linux has been SMP since 2.0. FreeBSD also does SMP, although it is rather weak. This was never mentioned.
Secondly, I found conflicting bias regarding Linux vs. FreeBSD. While they did recommend FreeBSD for web services, they made BSD sound like it was on its death bed. There was no mention of the BSDIFreeBSD merger, nor was there mention of the whole slew of companies embedding FreeBSD in Thin Servers/Server appliances. They cited a lack of development tools, but lets be honest here. I honestly dont think that Delphi for FreeBSD will help, as FreeBSD is primarily a server platform, not a desktop platform. GCC Anyone?
I don't know. I had a bad taste in my mouth when I read that article. It sounded like it was written by someone who based the article on the advice on others, and not experience.
the positive reporting of Linux is a good thing, but at what cost?
Jailbrekr.
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
Ones that fly in the face of what we've been told.
A while ago, Unix==Big Iron hardware. Today, Unix can equal a 486/33. The only 'Big Iron' I'm gonna need is the hardware it'll take to make W2K fly.
I also smiled when he said 'Unix will have more software, enjoy it while it lasts.' All in response to the incompatibilities between MS'es own new OS and their own software.
On the flip side, Linux wasn't without growing pains. The lurch from libc5 to glibc wasn't too pretty a while back, but nothing was really stopping you from installing compatibility libraries. Even going 2.0 -> 2.2 was amazingly compatible. In Debian slink, I think there was about a half a dozen packages, out of thousands, that needed upgrading with the kernel.
It's amazing just how badly MS is handling the growth of Unix. You think they'd borrow a page from the Book of Good OS'es.. But instead they go on doing their thing. Scalability? Portability? Unheard of. POSIX seems to be the future of OS'es.. Who'da thunk it?
I've used a lot of UNIX flavors over the past 25 years, and I'd have to say that I recommend Microsoft's XENIX for any task. The NFS support really blazes, and it supports "ksh" or Korn shell. Give it a shot.
------------
a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
You know the joke about how "I am firm, you are stubborn, and he's a flaming *******"?
Linux/Unix is the same thing. To most people, Linux and Unix are synonymous because they have the same architectural structure, same POSIX libraries, same POSIX tools, etc. Does it run X? Does it run vi? Do you have a command shell somewhere that takes lots of cryptic commands? Then it's Unix.
Even the vast majority of developers will not see a significant difference in the way they develop code for a Linux vs. "Unix" system. A few files are in a different place, a few commands have "odd" flags, but overall it's about as much difference as between Dallas and New York, vs.
New York and New Dehli. With the common use of GNU tools, there's much less perceived difference between Linux and *BSD than Solaris and HP/UX (or AIX!)
But in the same way that many French Canadians can't forgive the British Canadian majority for a defeat hundreds of years ago (going as far as putting "I Remember!" on their the car license plates) we have a few tormented souls who want to make sure that we never, ever, forget the fact that the Linux source tree can't list three pages of "begats" that lead back to King Davi... sorry, back to the original AT&T source.
Is there a real difference? Yes, but the number of people who actually have to worry about them will probably fit into a small room. For the rest of us, the only real difference is a group that's coming across as increasingly bitter that they have finally achieved the Holy Grail of "Unix" Integration only as they band together to fight the Linux intruder... and they *really* hate to be told that this constant "Linux isn't Unix, nah nah nah" harping is exactly the childish mindset that lead to Unix fragmentation in the first place. This is how they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory a decade ago, and many of us really don't want to see a repeat of it.
I know one of the defining characteristics of geeks is great precision in speech, but it's time for everyone to remember the big picture. We're in the game show of life and one side has the MS family (daddy W2K, Mom Win98, insane child WinCE) and the other side has the Unix family (daddy AT&T, brother *BSD and adopted brother Linux), and it only helps MS when the Unix family's first response to a question is to whip out a gun and commit fraticide.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I'm amazed this has got to be the first "battle of the OS's" type article I've read in a long time that not only presents the strengths and weakness's of the various OS's in a balanced and honest fashion but also presents a conclusion at the end of the article that makes logical sense based on the reviews given during the body of the article. I've gotten used to stories (usually involving NT or w2k) that slam a certain OS for performance, stability, and price at every turn but in the end give it their "Editors Choice" because it has prettier widgets than it's competitors. What I really liked best about this story is that not only did the conclusion mesh with the rest of the story but that the author didn't name one OS King of All Unix (on Intel) but gave a nice little chart with very logical recomendations. A nice use the right tool for the right job approach. To add yet another random and disconnected thought to this little ramble of a post, I noticed that the author seemed to put a very high weight on stability, on par with any *nix user I've met, which is nice because I personally value stability above all else for both my workstations and my servers. Ok I'm done with my little pre-coffee post ;->
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
After testing extensively the different brands of flamewars available on the market, our SmashDot(tm) test center has decided to extensively analyze the performance of the following flame wars on geeks, nerds and system administrators. The results are as follow:
Of course, your mileage may vary. Honorable mentions include newbie questions, news for nerds that were posted before, the classic "Emacs vs vi" flame burst (unfortunately losing steam these days) and the "This does not belong on Slashdot!" flame war, which may well be a strong contender as long as
Since we certainly want the best, hottest and brightest flame wars for our own site, we'll stick with the tried-and-proven favourite: the Jon Katz flame war.
Jon Katz -- a good roasting guaranteed every time! Get yours today!
Another public-service testing from the SmashDot(tm) team!
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
The question: What OS do you run.... FreeBSD of course.
:-)
FreeBSD is a OpenSource OS with a licence that promotes the software to be used ANYWHERE, is stable and robust, and has a strong UNIX(tm) tradition.
Oh, and it can run Linux binaries, SCO binaries, Xenix binaries, and I've gotten mine to run Solaris X86 and Rhapsody DR1 binaries, with some tweaking.
(And on a more humorous note: Linux script kiddies come knocking but don't get in. It takes a BSD script kiddie to get in
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!