Slashdot Mirror
Linux Making Inroads, But Not At Windows' Expense
zaphod123 writes "According to this article, the stories about Amazon (and others) switching to Linux have been misrepresented. The Linux install has replaced a proprietary Unix system, not a Microsoft Windows product. This is still "A Good Thing" for Linux, but not the downfall of Microsoft that some have foreseen."
Moving from UNIX to an OS based on UNIX sounds easier, and less expensive, than moving from one based on Windows to one based on UNIX.
Just my $0.02
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
I'm a UNIX lover! not a Windows hater!
I use FreeBSD on my servers and Win2k on my workstations and it's an excellent match.
>When asked whether the company would ever consider replacing its
>Windows machines with Linux, Busch said absolutely not, noting
>the lack of "robust office packages" on that platform.
I often think that this excuse really is more like "we can't get naive users to use it without being crippled". Linux distros need to test their software on non-Unix people more. Humans. Typical office people who, if you ask them if they have a Mac or a Windows box, say, "Yeah, I think so".
>And Busch threw another wrench into any mass Linux migration by
>noting that the overall cost of Linux and Windows 2000 is almost
>identical after you factor in support and maintenance.
in other words, after you get done with the hassles of Linux, and the hassles of Win2k, the hassles of Linux are a little bit more. time=money, so the cost of that extra hassle is the same as the cost of Windows & its apps.
So much for free-as-in-beer.
This hassle is invisible to the Linux developers cuz they know how to fix or work around glitches when they arise. So it seems "easy to use" for them.
Try it on grandma. then report back.
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
it still is good news in that they decided not to change to a m$ based solution. they went for linux.
-1: flamebait should really be -1: inciteful
Solaris, their operating system, has few advantages over Linux, nowadays. Frankly, without adding the GNU tools, Solaris is virtually unusable! (And, who's gonna pay $10k for their compiler when GCC does the job?)
Sun is about to hit a brick wall. Unless they change direction dramatically, Linux is going to gobble them up, just as SGI consumed Cray. Cray was meaningful for a long time, until the capabilities of "Minis" (as Supercomputer folk like to refer to UNIX machines) silently approched the power of super computers at a fraction of the cost.
The same is happening with Linux-Sun. For a small fraction of the cost, Linux on commodity hardware (Intel) is approching the power of Sun's products. It's inevitable, without some sigificant change.
In the point of view of MS, anyone who's not using a MS product is concidered a failure. In other words, since Amazon (and et all) are not using MS, it is still a hit to MS.
AnamanFan - Trying to find the Truth, one post at a time.
I work at a webhosting compnay (Very small). And the other day one of my customers (a bank), asked me what OS I was running. When I replied 'Linux', he totally amazed me with what he said next. 'You trust linux?'. This really offended me at first. Then he went on to say, 'Why not a more practical OS, like BSD, HP-UX, or Solaris?'. Not to bash BSD, but when did it become as 'practicle' as Solaris or HP-UX?
On top of that, what is wrong with a well hardened linux box that is going to be solved with a BSD, HP, or Solaris system?
Regardless, I'm VERY happy to see Amazon move from a *caugh* 'practical' *caugh* OS to an 'obviously working' Linux solution. GO TUX!
Can all fish swim?
As MS still holds a great deal of market share in server installs, this IS a blow to MS, as they failed to sell Amazon on their own product!
Besides that fact, it's still a VERY good thing for Linux, as Amazon is a HUGE online retail operation that serves as a model for many other businesses. That's how Linux is becoming successful - word of mouth and trial by fire. Linux proves itself in a very fast and competitive market, and more people jump on. Of course *NIX and BSD systems will be the first to be replaced, because the people who maintain them aren't as afraid to make the jump to Linux (they're already somewhat familiar with it). Give it time, though, and you'll see quite a few former MS boxen turning over to linux.
I mean, honestly, two years ago, did you ever think linux would have about 24% of the server market? No! So of course it seems impossible that it might steal an even bigger share - and thus there will always be those who doubt that it will ever happen. But slowly, it WILL happen. It's already happening.
We'd have to hire a linux admin, of whom are not cheap...
-
I happen to know of one organization that has decided to convert almost all their desktop systems to Gnome+StarOffice, wherever possible. I think the plan is to have one or two Win* boxen, to act as conversion stations when having to send electronic documents to the outside world, but the overall plan is to dump Windows because of licensing cost issues.
Regardless of what that article says, the costs are very real and companies are definitely considering it. Perhaps one or two cases may have been misinterpreted, but by and large the case for converting to Linux has not been mispresented.
--jordan
Because of its robustness, modularity and stability, Linux is highly able to replace Solaris, HP-UX and AIX type licensed OS's in the enterprise. The people who buy these systems buy them to get the best technical solution to their problems and consider cost of ownership, which is high in any OS choice given the task, secondarily.
Trying to get Linux to beat Windows on the desktop is fighting yesterday's battle. Want to kill Microsoft? Sap it's growth, which is in server OS's and embedded systems (XBox, Pocket PC, etc.)
The amount of energy spent by the development community in trying to be the next Microsoft is astounding, but very few vocal developers seem to even focus on what Microsoft is trying to become.
To borrow a phrase from the Old West, "Cut 'em off at the pass" and focus on making an OS that runs devices better than Windows ever will, an OS that runs DB2 and Oracle better than any other and an OS that can be extended and integrated with server side applications at compile time with more ease.
If you take away Microsoft's revenue growth, you take away their stock price. Take away their stock price and you take away their monopoly.
Technology Marketing is what happens when people turn their hard work over to people paid to manipulate others.
We had come to the opinion that IT/IS departments that had gotten used to UNIX systems feel more comfortable about moving to Linux than IT/IS departments that had gotten comfortable with Windows. There still seems to be a strong feeling of uncertainty when it comes to planning for migration headaches (which are inevitable).
It's still awfully hard to penetrate into markets where the people involved are only aware of doing things a certain way. I can recall having a job in college where I became responsible for a file server running a quite old version of NetWare. I wasn't thrilled about it and the company that sold the box to my employer wasn't around anymore to support it. But it ran and I prayed that the box wouldn't conk out, because I feared having to convince my boss to migrate to another OS.
My sigs always suck.
But if Amazon saved some $20+ million switching from Unix to Linux, I would imagine even more could be saved switching from Windows to Linux. Besides, there are many many other stories of small businesses switching to linux and gaining added capabilities, as well as saving money. Most of these stories originate from stuff that IBM or RedHat does, but they are no less meaningful.
Go Lakers!
I think I trust winformant to tell me about Linux about as much as I trust slashdot to tell me about Windows... :-)
Sure, this isn't a case of Linux replacing Windows, but it is a case of Free replacing Proprietary, and that's just as important, if not moreso. Microsoft's Ministry of FUD has been working overtime trying to scare people away from Free Software solutions, using "arguements" that are little more than "Free Software Is Communism!".
Free Software / Linux advocates should be glad that: 1) the best a multi-billion dollar corporation can do is mimic some of the very unoriginal trolls around here; and 2) companies are not being trolled.
Cause I coulda sworn I mentioned this before.
;-)
Where's my credit??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The saving in question was made by choosing to switch to Linux rather than an NT derived alternative, demonstrating the saving that [in this case] Linux brings over Windows.
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
Linux will never make serious inroads into the mainstream desktop market until some big entity, like IBM, puts a huge amount of money into a focused effort to remove those barriers. And there's no sign that IBM or anyone else has any economic incentive to spend that much money to convert customer desktops from one OS to another. In other words, we're approaching an equilibrium state in the vast majority of the OS market: Windows and Mac OS on the desktop, Linux and UNIX on the servers.
Linux (for now) competes on low end (mostly Intel) hardware. The biggest player on the low-end by far is Microsoft, so that's who's most affected. Users who switch from proprietary Unix to Linux do so because they see a cost benefit from switching to low-end hardware. If Linux weren't there then they would be forced to go to MS.
It is true that Linux has clobbered the main lown-end Unix: SCO. Good riddence :-).
One thing that does surprise me is that Windows is still so popular on basic file & print servers. These machines don't run any special software, so they should be simple to replace with Linux boxen. We just got a Cobalt cube in our office and it's really neat. Setup is fast (like 3 minutes!) and painless, and it does everything you need from a small office server. Why aren't these things more popular?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
2005?! Like, in 3 years, right? This is said as if it's bad. Linux overtaking NT in the server market by 2005 sounds like one of the first realistic goals I've heard for the OS community.
At least it's much more realistic than the standard"Tonight? Tonight we take over the world" refrain.
Guvegrra?
It says *INTEL* switched from another UNIX, not amazon.
Bang up job.
I know you all read the article, but did anyone read the web address? http://www.wininformant.com. It's part of the Windows 2000 Magazine Network. Their motto is Windows news and information. Does anyone here see any potential bias when the website says that Windows will rule for the foreseeable future?
Linux works as a 486 in someone's closet or a cluster of database servers. There's a huge difference in the administration and usage of each of these. Probably more so than in many cases than a server vs. desktop comparasin. A large advantage of Linux is the modularity, so that it can be any computing system you want. That makes it ideal for any environment. Developers should continue to "itch the scratch" on any itches they have, be it networking, GUI, or gaming. The "right fight" is just trying to create the best desktop in the world using the only form of communism that's ever worked.
Last post!
One fellow used to cast things in terms of products for the mass market, and products for the elite class of users. Sure, there's going to be a huge market for the 'computers grandma can use', just like 'billions & billions served' - but there's also going to be a small but vocal and powerful minority of very experienced users who just don't want a computer with the training wheels bolted on and whizzards to hold your hand thru all common tasts. In the democracy of 'market choice' it will become increasingly important to ensure that the rights of the minority users who know what they want and already know how to do it don't get trampled on.
Yes, I do it the difficult way because it's more educational and I want to know what's going on and be in control. Notice how every time your super-automatic wiz-bang box craps out *I* have to come over and fix it or figure it out for you??
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Of course - most anyone skilled enough at general PC operation enough to use Linux is going to be aware of the massive ammount of software that assumes you are running in a Windows environment. Therefore, they are going to have some copy of Windows for the sake of convenience to be able to use that software if the need arises.
Note though that this only means that Linux owners are going to have SOME copy of Windows. Not necissarily the latest.
An interesting question is how the other *nix versions affect Linux. Is it better for "the community" to have several *nix variants out there competing against MS, or better to have just one, be it Linux or some other variant? Put aside your religiousish tendancies for your favorite OS, and lets discuss a wider benefit.
Having more than one version available gives more options to people and allows for several niche distros of *nix. It also presents several targets for MS instead of allowing them to focus their sights on one "problem".
With a single *nix front, we would be able to address concerns across more installs, and consolidate the knowledge from more sources to improve the overall product.
I'm not sure which way is best, and more than likely a hybrid will be the end result, and for the better. What's the feeling here about all of this?
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Why does anyone give a crap where linux stands relative to windows? You still think you're making money here? What's wrong with running linux simply because you personally prefer it, and letting others make their own choices? Real mature, this need to take over the world or seek revenge for your blue screens or whatever the hell all of this is about. LINUS HIMSELF DOESNT SEE LINUX AS A DESKTOP REPLACEMENT, LINUS HIMSELF LIKES WINDOWS, HELLOOOOO
Almost totally correct, except for the "nice hardware" bit. Sun kit has been crap for years, and is getting crappier. Underperformant, overpriced garbage. Sure, it's can be more reliable than most x86 stuff (albeit nowhere near as powerful), but that's not saying much when the systems can cost upwards of a half-million dollars, is it?
Sun is getting their nuts squeezed, by the rampaging horde of micros at the bottom and by IBM at the top. As the farcical mistakes mount (no ECC on the US3 caches? Ha ha ha ha ha!), Sun will hopefully slip into irrelevance. Good riddance!
Peace,
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Paul Thurrott, who's carer is clearly wrapped up in the success of MS products, pulls a nasty bait-and-switch in this story.
He talks about how Amazon and Intel switched some servers from $$IX to Linux, and says that the "anti-Microsoft" press has been mis-representing these moves.
Then he quotes an Intel executive saying that they haven't even considered switching their MS based systems to Linux. The implication being that NT is doing a great job in their back office. But the reason given for not making the switch is "lack of 'robust office packages'"!
So, the story, apparently, is that neither Amazon nor Intel dare run NT in the FIRST PLACE.
Or, to put my own bias on the shelf for a moment, Amazon and Intel see Linux a preferable alternative to NT/Win2k as a server platform.
How is this a win for MS?
-Peter
PS: This post was generated on a Linux desktop.
Microsoft is already a monopoly on the desktop, and all they are left with is clinging to that with challenges from all sides.
I'll have you know I personally ripped out a Microshit network and replaced it with Linux. Of course, I run a pretty ghetto shop, so we have the new rackmounts shipped blank.
The worst part is that management was behind me all the way.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I have to admit-- Linux for community documentation, support, and features.
But-- FreeBSD is STABLE (check longest uptimes at Netcraft when you get a chance). If I could go for 4 years without rebooting with Linux... They have even dethroned Irix when it comes to stability.
So yes, they are a very practical alternative to Linux. It is really that Solaris and HP-UX are not so practical or cost effective in the small ISP market.
I actually now believe that Linux will form a shield which will allow BSD to grow into certain niche markets, such as high-availability web servers (currently MS and Sun).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This should have been obvious to anyone who actually read the story.C 5098989%2C00.html
"HP has been working with Amazon since October 1999, Balma said, but the big contract win came in May 2000, when HP announced its systems would replace Unix servers from Sun Microsystems."
-- excerpt from story at http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2C4586%2
"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."
This is a quote from French Economist Frederic Bastiat.
What we have in this case is the seen: Linux taking market share from other Unixes.
The unseen: Microsoft loosing those sales. This is in fact hurting Microsoft.
In Microsoft eyes, any box not running Windows is a sale that they've lost. They are very serious about dominating the home market, the business market, the server market, ok, well, they leave the minis and mainframes for IBM.
So a web server running Linux is a loss for Microsoft's IIS. Just because Microsoft didn't have much share of that market in the past, it doesn't mean they don't expect to in the future. For example, when Netscape first started Microsoft didn't have any precense in the "internet realm". Now we talk about how IE dominates the browser world.
When you take this into account, you realize how pointless that article is...
Things are going pretty much the way I figured they would. Linux is making progress in the areas it shines in. If it keeps up, I see the following happening in 5-10 years:
The market will split into 3 basic genres. You'll still have the Apple/Macintosh vanguard, as those diehards won't disappear. Apple's done a good job of keeping that core audience, and they'll still have them. Microsoft will become less of a business solution and more of a home system. People still want an easy to set up system, and Microsoft gives them that. However, companies are already getting sick of MS licsensing and bugs. That leads to the major change, Linux will become the system of choice for businesses. Given 5-10 years, install and administration of Linux distros will be as simple as Microsoft's are now. Look at how far the last 5 years has brought Linux if you don't believe me. Businesses will go with the low cost implementation that Linux provides over the headaches that come with MS. Programs like StarOffice will make the transition of the business side less painful. Companies like Sun will find themselves having to shift priorities away from the OS in order to survive.
In short, Microsoft will stay a dominant player in the home PC field, with Apple being the secondary choice. However, businesses will tend to go with the cheaper and less bug prone Linux for their own installs. Of course, that's just my viewpoint on things. Your mileage may vary.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
UNIX is a standard, it is NOT proprietary. Windows is proprietary, UNIX vendors are not. Sure they may have large pieces to them that are proprietary but they still implement the UNIX standards.
From the article:
Making the conversion from UNIX to Linux is relatively straightforward; you can easily recompile most versions of UNIX software to run under Linux. But Windows is based on an entirely different technology, and moving between the two environments isn't that straightforward.
This is an excellent point. However, it would seem to me that it is a problem that can be, to some extent, fixed.
First off, it should probably be noted here that POSIX is now, more or less, a universal standard. Microsoft has a POSIX compatibility layer in NT making up the remnants of what used to be that Internix thing they bought out, right? (Or was their main purpose in buying Internix to sit on it? I never quite figured out which.) Well, no matter; there's still Cygwin and a number of other things that will let you run POSIX software in NT. Anyway, my thought is that it would be really neat if a drive were made to convince people to write all new server software as POSIX command-line apps, and let the Windows NT version simply have some kind of GUI wrapper program added. From the developer's perspective, this would mean they could write one program that would run on all available platforms at once. (From my self-serving perspective as a mac user, this would rock because writing a GUI frontend to a UNIX command line app is damn near effortless if you do it in Cocoa. So best case scenario, people port their server software to OS X just because rewriting the GUI in OS X is something that takes no more than a couple days, and worst case scenario people like me can buy server software and write Cocoa GUIs ourselves. HEE HEE..) Would this be something, um, feasable? Would it be something developers would want to do, would it have any negative repurcussions for the performance of the program under windows NT?
And if convincing the NT developers to all move to UNIX isn't feasable, then how possible would it be to write some kind of VMS compatibility layer that would let windows nt server software run on UNIX once you stripped out or rewrote the GUI? Would that be worth the bother, and did such a compatibility layer exist would any vendors take advantage of it to port their NT software to UNIX?
Would either of these approaches help the problem to be solved? Do developers still *care* about cross-platform-ness?
And my final question: From a raw developer's standpoint, if you're going to just write command-line apps and then tack on GUI frontends later then which would you rather be writing for-- POSIX, or the vms-y internals of windows nt? Is POSIX really any better, or do we just all like it because the kernels that run the software we all like are POSIX? If POSIX ran on WinNT/XP and low-level WinNT/XP software ran on UNIX, which would be [[fingerquotes]] "better"?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Linux will dominate the world with or without displacing existing Microsoft systems. Simply put, the potential future installed base of information systems is probably less than a percent of a percent today.
Microsoft will certainly be involved in many of the future ones, but Linux offers so many more advantages that its use will far exceed any benefits to be found in a Microsoft offering.
Won't win the desktop? Who cares! Why try to beat the McDonalds of the computing industry when there are plenty of kosher delis, sushi bars, trattorias, cafes, gyro places, hot dog stands, russian tea rooms, and so many other styles and qualities of restaurants that haven't been built yet?
That is why they don't even think of changing windows machines to Linux machines !
There is no internet browser that could be found as a decent one - and VERY far from good -, and about decent office apps only StarOffice could do the job badly if compared to Office2000/XP, etc...
Plus there is the problem of nothing is working on the desktop - end of the question! Everything is crippled, except KDE!
Everything is beta software when they release the "new/improved whatsoever" to make Linux users buy a new distro release; I speak from my own experience. They want (the distributions) to make money with the desktop, that's all.
I love and use Linux/FreeBSD only in text mode and for servers with grafical tools, NOT on day-to-day desktop/office computers. For me this is very sad, believe me on this one, because I feel Linux is superior but lacks a general strategy for the desktop, there is no master ideia, each Linux person/develloper/distribution have its own master ideia and its own standard, nobody is united by a common way of thinking about desktop usage. very sad like I said.
Like someone said above: "I am (was more on the past) a Linux desktop lover, not a windows hater", too.
"You don't base your $$$ infrastructure on a $2k LinTel machine."
If you did base your infrastructure on a two thousand dollar linux box, it wouldn't be $$$.
You can say what you want about Solaris being more reliable. I have not experienced that at all. We had a Packard Bell(yes, I know, the creme of the crap) running Linuux as our DNS server, a mSQL Database server, and SMB file services for 2 years and it only went down when we were updating packages.
Compare that to our Oracle Database running under Solaris on a 420. Damned thing crashed every couple of months. In addition, we had to replace cpu boards twice in that same two year period. Not that that is bad, or that this "proves" anything, only that my experience is that Sun is not more reliable than Linux. If you have some hard evidence to the contrary I'd love to hear it. Feel free to share your anecdotes as I have, but just remember that proves nothing more than mine do.
I don't hate sun either, certainly as many problems as we had with it, it certainly could not even compare to the hell that was administering our Windows PDC and Backup system(went down more often than a 10 dollar whore). I love how you meet with these doze professional consultants and they'd tell you, "Oh, you just don't have it configured right." They would then spend weeks reinstalling, "tweaking", and trying everything under the sun to get the damn thing to stop crashing. We went through 3 of these "MCSE"'s before we just accpeted that doze is an unstable, untested, unreliable piece of garbage. I'm not prejudiced, I reached this conclusion after adminstering NT, Linux, and Solaris for 5 years. Therefore, there is no "pre-judging" going on here, but rather, judging after the fact of being hosed too many times by that damned platform.
The point of Linux isn't to wipe out Windows, or even to compete with it. Linux is about creating a free operating system that people will choose if it's the right tool for the job. Linux doesn't have to hurt Windows to be sucsesfull, it just has to keep improving. Just because Microsoft wasn't hurt by this doesn't mean that it isn't a victory for linux.
According to the article I read, Amazon is replacing their Sun machines (which probably run Solaris) with HP machines, which I assume can run any of Linux, HP-UX, or Windows NT. The article I saw said Amazon would use Linux on most of the machines, and HP-UX for some core systems. So, given three choices, Amazon chose to go with the two that aren't Windows.
Now, this is obviously good for HP, not so good for Sun, and not a big deal either way for Microsoft. But if Amazon determines that Linux works well for them and saves them a lot of money, other corporations may also start to realize that there's a lot of money to be saved by switching over to Linux and/or other free and open-source software. A trend in that direction could do some serious damage to Microsoft's long-term prospects in the enterprise market just when MS is looking to increase sales in that area. (Remember all the TV ads for MS enterprise servers that ran a few months ago? And MS has been trying to squeeze corporations by limiting the period during which they're allowed to upgrade to XP.)
Yes, this was not a Linux vs. Windows showdown. All the same, Amazon is a high profile operation that will surely serve as a model for other corporations.
All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement:
This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
*BSD is dying
All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement:
This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
*BSD is dying
"Yeah, Microsoft is evil because they have taken away our choices, let's crush them so that the thing we like becomes our only choice" Why do we have to be for this camp or that camp? Why can't we all enjoy the best software available reguardless of who developes it?
And what of slashdot? Would you be suggesting that there's no bias here? Not that I'm saying I'd rather be using Windows right now (Galeon is the best browser EVER), just that it's not like they're too much different from us in the way they portray their favorite os.
So the question is this: how much effort should we devote to pushing Linux and BSD as alternatives to close-source OS's?
My answer to that question is "not much". We need to focus on our main adversary: Microsoft. John Q. Public and Buford T. Congressman are probably not going care much about which version of Un*x somebody ought to choose, but will care very much about whether to use Windows.
In short, "open source Un*x or close source Un*x?" is simply not on the political map, and doesn't need to be.
-Miko
Miko O'Sullivan
Right now, even when one chooses Linux from all the flavours of *nix, one then has to choose a distribution. Is Redhat the same OS as Debian? They don't feel the same to me.
At the moment we have too much choice if anything. Maybe the wide variety gives more options, makes it easier for people to find an OS that suits them - maybe - but it creates far too much confusion. You can't really tell a business to "try several distributions and pick the one you like best", when they can just pluck a Microsoft box from the shelf and have an adequate system within hours.
Diversity is good, but fragmentation is bad. It should be obvious which way I think the Linux world is tending, let alone the wider field of *nix.
I've seen more than a couple people that have already pointed this out. This is OLD news. Linux will kill some Unixes and that to some extent is good (die SCO die!). I doubt *BSD will go anywhere. Linux will probably not replace Solaris and AIX on extreme high end uber boxes, but will probably take away stuff on the fringe low end stuff. Basically windows is not going to go away because a few buisnesses switched.
No, if there is going to be a downfall comming from MS it's not going to come from Linux, or any other operating system. It's going to START with the downfall of M$ office. If Open/Star office starts spreading like the plauge (which there's a 50/50 chance it will) this will break the grip of Microsoft, and start to give people actual options.
well, they switched from Unix to linux. it *could* have been Unix to windows. who lost? if you've taken any business/financial/economics classes, you know what opportunity cost means. linux might not have managed to erode the windows market (at least in these cases). but seems to me , has managed to stop windows from eroding Unixes market share further.
i mean, around the time when NT4 came out, everyone and their brother were replacing big iron (with unix) with multiple NT boxens. seems like we've managed to check that. it's only a matter of time before linux invades the NT/w2k/(whatever they're calling it this week) market.
you gotta stop their advance before you can make 'em retreat.
if i were a redmondien, i would not be happy because linux is merely replacing Unix. i would be extreamly unhappy that linux is replacing Unix. it could have been winNT/(whatever...) that was replacing unix. opportunity costs for MS. no new revenue streams. no new market shares.
gottsa love how MS and winformants can put a spin on things.
Remember that NT was originally marketed as a UNIX killer. Then Win2000 was marketed as the UNIX killer. The significance of these switches from UNIX to Linux is that Win2000 was not able to win these UNIX seats in these situations. With the ever shrinking overall growth in the computer industry, grabbing share from competitors is becoming quite important.
it's a vote for a rising minority;
the picture does not really paint
a minority at all really, though,
and I look forward to continued
increases in Open Source momentum.
However: I have concern for how
our picture changes after we ARE
a distinct majority... what with
all the talk of the coming shift
in monopoly.
Yeah, but Novell is around (for the moment) and can support their products like gangbusters. Novell tech support has answers to just about anything that can happen to your machine - they have seen it all. We still run 4.11 just because it is so damn stable and you cannot replace ZENworks with anything - nothing even comes close.
I was one of the people who made this happen at Amazon.
While Tru64 UNIX was (and is) a pig, this was about being able to use cheap IA32 hardware. As Linux matured, that became a possibility.
Commodity Hardware was the focus. As in "we can get the hardware from ANYONE". It was clear that IA32 was becoming more than comparable to the Alpha on E-commerce workloads. As we expected, the IA32 now blows the Alpha away on those workloads.
Microsoft was NEVER an option. Technically, there was just no way.
From a business standpoint, getting locked into their software would be stupid at best (even if they would pay millions in marketing, consulting and cash).
The engineers at Amazon won't even run minor production services on Microsoft platforms. It's *THAT* big of a joke. Microsoft on the front and backend isn't even a possibility.
For the most part, Linux blew away Tru64. In some cases, it ran so much better that certain tasks had to be throttled.
And yes, the whole one click patent stuff TOTALLY SUCKED for a lot of people at Amazon. I've compiled and used GNU emacs since the mid-80's, used RMS's accounts in the early days for shell access (thanks RMS!!), was a believer in the GNU manifesto from day 1, etc. I've been around.
So there we were, workin' 80-90 hour weeks when this all blew up. We were told time and again that we were not to discuss the issue AT ALL. Suddenly, many of us found we were working for the type of company we had grown to hate. Can you imagine how that sucked? It was a happy event when I bolted.
In coming years, I think you'll get to read some interesting books on Amazon.
I find it kind of amusing that everyone kind of assumed that Amazon switched FROM Windows to Linux, when the article never really said that. I thought that as well.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Personally I started using Linux about 10 years ago because it was the best operating system which I could afford while I was at school. When most of my meals consisted of peanut butter or Raman noodles, I could not afford the luxury of paying the Microsoft pimp; I made do with what was at hand. In the process I learned Linux and its applications. Today Linux applicatons are so much better. There is absolutely no compelling reason for me to switch to Windows even though I can now afford to.
I suspect that the only way to change Linux which would persuade many Windows users would be if Linux were a key-stroke for key-stroke clone of Windows. However, those more open minded Windows users who are interested in the end results of accomplishing some task will find that Linux can achieve the goal as effectively, albeit by a different set of key-strokes.
These guys just don't learn... Linux isn't about market share - it's about making a good OS! Linus and Alan Cox don't get up in the morning and think of ways to cut into Microsoft's pie, they try and improve the existing Linux system. Woz said it in his recent interview... he cut his hacker teeth building computers that competed against their previous versions, always improving.
As for Wininformant, yay well done. You caught the fact that a Linux win wasn't actually a Microsoft loss. Here's some more news for you: WE DON'T CARE.
shut up man
After all, Microsoft has been trying to take the
"enterprise" business from the unix vendors for
years. If linux replaces a traditional unix vendor,
you can be sure they at least considered, and rejected microsoft when considering Linux.
... if Linux didn't exist? I think these analyses ignore the loss of momentum that Linux has caused Windows.
Five years ago, as NT was replacing Netware in most enterprises, many predicted that Unix systems would be the next to fall under the Windows steamroller. However, in cases where simplicity and the availability of commodity hardware are more important than raw performance and scalability, people are turning to Linux to replace Unix systems, not Windows.
So while Linux may not have made major inroads in replacing existing Windows servers, it has prevented Microsoft's hegemony on the desktop to spread to the server side, and has given Unix (generically) a new lease on life.
I think that's a pretty major story.
If you think in terms of GNU, rather than Linux, this means that things will be looking up a lot on the GNU front.(Yes, it has a proprietary Window Manager and the Apple Public License is considered non-Free by Stallman, but in time Apple users will be using a lot of GPL software that can run on their particular BSD.)
Now, if only Apple would make it easy for newbie's to set up rootless X under quartz...
I am by no means a Microsoft Suppoerter. But I think the main problem here is that. Both sides the Linux Guys and Microsoft both want Domation of the world. So when ever one side grows the other side sees it as a loss. Face it complete world domination of eather side is impossible. There are still Amiga users out there. There are Companies that are running on the Old Prime Mainframes. The main view of a lot of companies if it isn't broke then dont fix it. So No matter how big each side is neather side will have complete control. What both sides should be aiming for is better sharing and comunation with each other and at least on the source code level. Onces both sides the Linux and Windows people realize that and start working for better cross platform comunation. Although this may create less % of the market share but probly being more profitable due to the wider range of Apps on both sides and ease of switching from one platform to the next. Both sides are acting like kids MS is crying because they dont know how to strike a fatal blow to Linux. And Linux people is crying because MS has the majority of the market.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hi, you're a self-serving idiot. Thanks for your dopey comments.
There are no more "field" trips to a desktop. If it gets screwed up, you tell your management software to blow down a new image. That's the whole point of a corporate desktop. You don't bother remote admin because it's cheaper to send down a new image. Personal files on the desktop? Sorry, it's not yours, it's our machine and all business related files are on the network file server like our propriatary file management app makes you do. If you saved a file locally, tough, you shouldn't have been doing it.
Install their own software? They don't have the rights. If they do install their own software, their violating the AUP of the company. It's our desktop, not theirs.
When it comes down to the high TCO of a desktop, it's supporting the USERS with the APPS. That will remain whether it's NT, Linux, or Mac. Users are users.
Linux may make inroads into the corporate world (aside from small pockets of developers) when:
1. There are tools that plug into our management systems to adequately manage the desktop.
2. When we decide to stop spending millions of dollars developing our custom file management, accounting, billing, purchasing, instant messaging, telephone billing, office directory, HR, Benefits, the IE only Intranet, Remote Access, PKI, and the apps that integrate all the above, and start spending that money plus 100x more on hiring Linux coders, buying a duplicate server for each backend since they are mission critical apps we're not going to test the Linux clients hitting live servers, hire Network Admins to take care of the new test servers, hire trainers to train users how to use Linux and StarOffice, hire a slew of more technical support to handle the increased number of phone calls during the transition, hire a slew of people to handle all the document conversion issues that will inevitably come up.
Actually, it will NEVER happen because the first thing the CIO will ask is "Where's the ROI?" And when we show him the numbers, and say that converting to Linux on all the desktops will never pay off but we may break even in 10 years of not having to purchase Microsoft Office licenses for each desktop, the plan will get shitcanned. That's why we won't see Linux on the corporate desktop.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Not only do I admin and program on Solaris boxes, I'm also a GCC library maintainer. There're my qualifications.
"Frankly," you're utterly wrong. Not only is Solaris just fine and dandy, it has features for programmers which aren't anywhere near to showing up on Linux. For example:
Linux has none of these.
Severely uninformed statement, my friend. GCC doesn't generate SPARC code nearly as well as Sun's compiler. (Ask the GCC developers.) It's good but it's not there yet.
GCC cannot even generate a 64-bit binary yet. (Very close, but still some bugs.)
There are plenty of reasons to buy a SPARC, and to use Solaris, and to use Sun's software. It's all about the right tool for the right job, and Linux quite often isn't it. (I write this sitting on a Linux box.) Quit'cher karma whoring. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
What is up with the Anti-Linux attitude? Are all Microsoft freaks nothing more than a bunch of crybabies who hate Linux?
That mentioned a business replacing NT with Linux, so I guess this makes the article redundant.
2 9/ 011029fecase.xml
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/fe/xml/01/10/
Sorry about the lack of HTML, was in a hurry. But here is a direct quote about NT...
"To solve his problem, Roberts went back to the future, blending relatively new OS technology, Linux, with an almost ancient OS, namely an adapted version of IBM's VM, first introduced in 1964. Earlier this year Roberts bought an IBM z900 Model 102 mainframe, using VM with Linux running underneath. This lets Boscov's, from one location, host more than 100 virtual Linux servers, which will gradually replace the NT servers over the next year."
StarTux
Must be nice to get paid to promote an OS.
Linux on the desktop is ready for the Enterprise. And this must scare the daylights out of Microsoft and all their drones. Any UNIX admin can setup a desktop machine that mounts the users home and application directories from a file server that allows a user to log in from any machine on the network, or even from home, and get full access to all the users files and applications. This makes the desktop machine an easily replaceable/maintainable thing.
Compare this to the mess that is windows. I especially love the way when you log onto a machine other than your own desktop, it still shows all the icons for the apps that are only installed on your machine, but clicking on those icons just pops up the error that the program isn't installed. Very user friendly.
The thing that I find really funny is when someone says that Linux doesn't have any applications, what they really mean is that Linux doesn't run Microsoft Office. Linux has many very good applications that are even better than the bloated software that is the wonder of Office.
Microsoft office is good if you are the kind of person who only needs a large hammer and a screwdriver to work on a car.
Linux has a much nicer tool box than that. If you are writing a memo, a text editor is good enough. If you are writing a document that is going to be shared with a lot of people, you should use an html editor, if you are writing a book, then lyx is what you need to use.
Or you can just use kword or star office for everything, they have all the features that 99% of people use.
Or when someone says that Linux is harder to use than windows... That makes me laugh out loud! If you can point, click, and drool, then you can use Linux and X. Almost no difference at all.
And as far as the headline goes, that linux is not making inroads against microsoft, that is total BS. Everytime a company switches to Linux, that is a sale that MS lost.
Anyone remember the headlines from about 5 years ago that said that Windows was going to replace UNIX?
Guess what? UNIX is in more use today than it was 5 years ago, thanks to Linux. Linux is not only replacing UNIX, it is also mostly the OS of choice for the huge amount of growth in the server arena in the past 3 years.
The IDC studies have show that for the first time in about 5 years that Linux + UNIX have more then 50% of the market share on servers. Market share that Windows thought it was going to snap up. They only growth that Windows has is to replace Novell servers and a few new installs.
Nobody is really impressed that Meivin's Soup Kitchen has made the switch over to Gnome+Star Office.
They were using VisiCalc and XyWrite. And that selectric over in the corner.
Nope. We're not impressed.
Some of you guys are really either dumb or blind. Unix and Linux are really so close to each other that it makes perfect sense going from a pay to free OS.
However, going to a Microsoft OS would be so different and the transition would be too costly.
Its like switching from MSDOS to IBMDOS.
Some of you are really stupid and find any excuse to be anti-microsoft. Stop being such a mindless troll and try understand simple concepts.
I submitted a comparision of three different email servers (Groupwise 6, Exchange 2000, and Linux running Postfix) to my boss. The first two towered in price over Linux. My boss, being the lenny shortarms that he is, chose the linux system without too much discussion. My company wins because we will move to a stable and (hopefully) secure platform. I win because this gives me a chance to broaden my skills from the usual Windoze and Netware stuff I'm used to. We are a small, yet highly-profitable company with the resources to choose just about any of the major players in the market, but we are moving to Linux which is pratically free. I am excited about this and I am considering migrating other services to linux if all goes well. -spartak
One question: who do you trust more? cnet or wininformant?
Cheers,
JJ
This is exactly the point I made in a well reasonsed note sent to the reporters from CNet that "broke" this story about a week ago. I felt that they had failed to give an insightful analysis of the story and the issues.
Linux isn't a threat to Microsoft on the server side. It is a threat to Sun, HP, and others that have high-margin server hardware business that is driven by the value add of a powerful server operating system. Microsoft is already on the "commodity" Intel hardware platform. The idea that Linux is "free" is a myth. To mis-quote Richard Stallman, "Free doesn't mean now cost." The Linux installation that Amazon put in place is based on server OS offerings that are in the same price range as comparable offerings from Microsoft.
Another issue that I don't feel anyone is really addressing, is that this is old news! This change-over happened a year ago. We are only hearing about it now, because of Amazon's SEC filing that cite the benefit of this change-over and lower telecommunications costs in saving multi-millions in the last year. Of course, they didn't break out how much was due to the Linux change over and how much was driven by telecommunication savings. It would be interesting to see the balance between the two!
Another disturbing data point for those that want to see Linux overtake Microsoft server OS sales, is that according to IDC studies, Linux market share has been flat, while Microsoft has grown at the expense of the the various Linux/Unix platforms.
>And Busch threw another wrench into any mass Linux migration by
>noting that the overall cost of Linux and Windows 2000 is almost
>identical after you factor in support and maintenance.
I have experienced this time and time again. They compare the costs of the PC and the OS and Office (or whatever) but they leave out all of the support apps to make it work.
* Anti-Virus
* PC Anywhere or other remote access
* The latest remote install manager that they saw at Interop
* File and Print Access licenses
* Outlook client access
* Commercial ssh client
You get the point.
Everytime our IT department makes a case for the latest Windows network environment they leave out all of the extras they end up needing to buy to make it work the way it would have with the "Other Guys" (linux/solaris/Apple?/whatever)
I would like to just hear once an IT department to make the pitch of how much a system costs and then have the powers that be say "O.K., you got it, but that's all the money you get!"
Then maybe we would see some more accurate price comparisons.
I think part of the reason this "Win vs. Linux" cost of ownership battle rages on and on is because we're comparing apples to oranges.
Individual user workstations are rarely "mission critical". If they crash once in a while, productivity doesn't really diminish. (Sure, they have to spend a minute or two rebooting and logging back in, and sometimes they might lose the file they were last working on - but that's the extent of it.)
Servers, on the other hand, obviously pose much bigger productivity issues if they go down. Every user connected to one is cut off from what they were doing until it reboots.
Linux shines on servers for this reason. It's markedly more reliable than the average Windows-based server. If nothing else, it saves you from doing a lot of reboots when you reconfigure things. (Make a change to Apache or Samba configuration? Just stop and restart the daemon; not the whole machine.) Win2K and XP are better than ever about imitating that functionality, but they still ask you to "restart the machine for the changes to take effect" far too often to be convenient on a server.
On a workstation though, the rules change. The biggest factors become ease-of-use and training. Most employees come with a chunk of Windows knowledge in advance. Sure, some have no clue, but even temp. agencies requires experience with using the mouse, getting around Win '9x, and using MS Office apps. When you have hundreds or thousands of employees, it starts to look really good to use a lesser-quality operating system if it means most of your workers can already get around in it with no additional training.
This is something that only time will change (and then, only if people stick with Linux and keep making efforts to improve it over the years).
In the final count, everything competes with everything.
;-) X-P
It's opera or cinema, a new sofa or a new TV.
Everytime you make choices about your money, not just "restaurant" versus "fast food", but also "restaurant" versus "gift".
If someone buys CDs, I worry if they'll have money left to buy toys at my store.
So, MS really is losing here and Linux gained share at other Unices' expenses and Microsoft's.
Don't be naïve, microserf.
And stop using Linux at home! 8^D
Did you read the article? Intel moved from and old application running on UNIX to a NEW APPLICATION running on Linux. There wouldn't have been any "migration" costs.
The fact is that NT and commercial UNIXes have some of the same downsides. License costs, license compliance costs, etc. Whereas all OSes have some maintenance and support costs. Surely you have to look at each situation, but the FUD that says "MS software has lower TCO in all situations" is patently false. Witness your own example, migrating from another UNIX. (BTW, NT is supposed to be a POSIX OS. Given this claim by MS it shouldn't be any harder to migrate from a commercial UNIX to NT than from a commercial UNIX to Linux.)
Anyway, how does cost explain away the author using a quote about the lack of an acceptable office suite to explain how Amazon and Intel not switching to NT for their servers isn't a bait-and-switch? And loss for MS? (Assuming that this is a zero-sum game, which it must be given the finite nature of hardware.)
The bottom line, I think, is that this guy is wrapped up in MS, and thinks that anything trumpeting Linux successes is somehow "anti-microsoft." I wouldn't have been so put off by this, but his article is basically accusing the "anti-Microsoft" press (InfoWorld!) of dishonestly pushing some anti-MS agenda, and backs up his argument with an intellectually dishonest argument.
Finally, let me say that I'm not "anti-microsoft." I am "pro" software that gives me more freedom. I am against MS illegal business practices. But I think you are trying to take the easy way out by just labeling me "anti-microsoft" rather than addressing my complaint.
-Peter
There is still more 98 than NT than 2K than ME than XP in the world and it doesn't look to change for at least a couple years. Windows 2000 and XP is the only growth segment of the Microsoft marketplace.
ME was primarily installed only by OEMs, and XP will probably be the same. Post-market (consumer) installs of 98 continue to be greater than those of ME, but will probably slacken now that XP is actually *more* stable than 98. Such was not the case with ME. Consumer backlash from Passport registration will probably be small (but vocal) but lack of a java VM and, much more so, crippled MP3 encoding will either force Microsoft to rescind, or increase demand for 3rd party apps, which is outside Microsoft's stategic aims.
Whether or not Microsoft chooses to use XP's built in hardware and software copy protection schemes in the way critics have feared is yet to be seen, but such a move would most likely move consumers over to Windows 2000, except for cases where driver support is needed. Microsoft may or may not be able to introduce the low level protections through a Windows update, service pack or Internet Explorer upgrade. Most likely, future versions of 2000 will be indistinguishable from XP, except superficially, once the neccessary changes have been incorporated into the code base. This will achieve one of Microsoft's primary goals, a standard code base, allowing the consolidation of resources for drivers and applications as well as the core OS.
Currently, post-market consumer installs of Linux are increasing at a faster rate than any Windows OS. Total windows installations are in decline, which is closely related to declining OEM sales. Unless XP does significanly better in post-market installations, Consumer Linux growth will be at Microsoft OS's expense. This won't necessarily affect Microsoft's sales, since Microsoft relies chiefly on pre-market installations.
Business desktops are as reluctant as ever about switching to Linux, but are also reluctant at upgrading to windows XP, and still largely resistant to even 2000. Businesses have strongly resisted Microsoft's movements towards more upgrade-oriented licensing models, and while Linux is still not seen in large part as an alternative on the desktop, Microsoft's overall licensing strategy has hurt its advances into the server room. This is likely to increase as Microsoft becomes more aggressive in software upgrade tactics, especially in light of the hardware purchase slowdown, and the hardware technology having outstripped current software demands (98/NT, Office 97, etc.) in the past few years.
Linux is not a company, so we don't have to have a corporate strategy. Leave the strategizing to the folks at Red Hat, IBM, et. al. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make when they criticize Open Source. Open source is not a company, but there are open source companies with their own strategies.
What this means is that many different companies will have their own plans and these may include the desktop. When the desktop becomes a real option for most people, then these companies will be able to be there. Developers should continue to work on whatever products they find interesting.
This also means that we can deny market share to Microsoft in the short run by making companies like Amazon stwitch to Linux rather than Windows, and present a long-term threat to Windows.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Not much different than what you have already seen.
The adoption of Server O/S in an enterprise is as much or more limited by labor than it is by features and functionality.
In the days when Netware was dying rapidly, they only provided two services -- file and print. An organization could train a person in Netware reasonably rapidly as many of their pedestrain functions used a similiar command set as DOS. Admin overhead was mostly related to rights management, with a need for a small complement of persons that understood the underlying network protocols.
UNIX was a bigger burden. Even pedestrian functions required a different command set, and server administration was exponentially more complicated. UNIX admin resources cost more to train and more to retain. Consequently a lot of organizations had moved file and print services to Netware, and saved their backend data services for Mainframe or minicomputers. Relatively few companies tried to run NLM based data services.
When NT first arrived, it did little more than offer file and print. For companies that offered data services, the same range of databases existed for NT. Companies moved away from Netware for three reasons. First, the same transition was required for NT, but NT used a GUI interface similar enough to Windows 3.1 that it made since to go this direction. Two, companies could single source their non-data service software from a single company. Finally, Netware kept changing their corporate direction. They would buy office suites and sell office suits. Buy groupware, and change it to just mail, then back to groupware. They also were having economic problems when NT penetrated into their space.
NT then made a push into taking out the mini's and mainframes. They added more enterprise level services, and tightened their platform for integration. They quickly became good enough to compete in the mid-size enterprise space for most enterprise services. Large enterprise services still ran/run on dedicated clusters or vertically integrated machines.
As NT made this push, they increased their administration complexity to be fairly comparable to UNIX. Thus, a lot of mid-sized UNIX shops did not make the transition because they didn't have the labor to administrate the new machines. Linux offers a royalty-free option that allows a company to use its existing labor. The companies that changed to Linux probably would not have changed to NT
Apple and Microsoft have the clout to do that. It's the benefit of a cathedral approach: you get to have a design pope. Gnome/GTK and KDE/Qt are trying to do that, too, but I doubt that they are going to have a lot of success creating consistency when they're already competing with each other. The proliferation of distros makes that job all the harder.
Do you really believe that Sun servers are noticeably more reliable than Intel-based servers from top manufacturers like Dell or Compaq?
I'd argue that they aren't. I can buy a refurbished Dell Poweredge server for under $9000 that includes a 3 year on-site warranty, and has plenty of hard drive space, CPU power and RAM to compete head-to-head with most servers I see people using from Sun with Solaris on them.
One problem I see with Sun hardware is that it's so pricy, people tend to hang onto it for a longer time before replacing it. That's not very sensible, because it leaves them behind sites on Intel platforms doing aregular 2-3 year upgrade cycle. (The Intel admins probably spend the same or less for 2 complete systems than was spent for one Sun server.)
If you have new systems every 2 or 3 years, you don't really need to be concerned if it's built well enough to run reliably for 7 or 8 years, now do you?
out come the linux zealot phaggots and their shortsighted views of operating systems. SWEET.
Now let's see, Microsoft is not growing on the desktop because they own 90% of that market so they are going after the server market which, at the mid to high end is running UNIX. Now Linux is getting in there and taking those BIG deals that Microsoft was gunning for and it's no big deal to Microsoft.
What bull. Microsoft have anything to do with this article? Sure sounds like spin to me.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
this pisses you off right? I bet it does..
The lack of 'hot-swap anything' features make Linux every bit as unreliable, as DOS on any 'real hardware' you mentioned. There is a lot of 'low-end' hardware that supports those features, but not linux.
Does "Single User OS" mean anything to you? What about Cooperative multitasking. Running a server on Dos is like setting up a Solaris/CDE workstation and giving it to your grandma...
Oh yah, and the fact that Linux has to be rebuilt almost from scratch by the internal development teams working at those 'high-end hardware houses' doesn't mean anything to you guys, right?
Cool. YOu mean that Red Hat really doesn't do anything? Or IBM when we are looking at Linux?
And that is obviously why companies are really happy to move from Sun/Solaris to IBM/Linux?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Linux = Ross Perot
Sun = George Bush Sr.
Microsoft = Clinton
I wanted Ross Perot (Linux) to win the election, because I felt like we needed a change. But when I found out that he was stealing more votes from George Bush (Sun) than Clinton (Microsoft). I voted for Bush (Sun).
I'm sure the guy pulled up the recent Slashdot article about Amazon and saw 200 slashbot posts that said "Eat it, M$!" (despite the facts), and that got his lather up. So, he used his bully pulpit to post an "Eat it, Unix fucks!" response.
I would take this one step farther. Why not write the GUI front ends in Java? That too is really easy and guarantees that the whole thing is as cross platform as it can be.
I've done this with mkisofs and cdrecord and it worked really well. vcdimager and cdrdao (used to create VCDs to play on your DVD player) would seem to be excellent candidates for this too, because both are command line programs that will run on just about any platform.
Hahaha, you picked the worst possible example.
Pixar renders on a cluster of Ultras because they get them incredibly cheap thanks to a co-marketing agreement with Sun (incidentally, that agreement is also why you even knew about what their farm runs at all).
Even if I presume that this is all true it:
1. Has nothing to do with the "anti-Microsoft press."
2. Doesn't address the hypocracy of an article that complains that the "anti-Microsoft press" is abusing its position by abusing his postion.
It seems like you both are having difficulty seeing that "server" and "desktop" are two different things.
Oh, and I forgot to mention before, get a fucking login.
-Peter
MSWindows has been around 9+ years , is ubiquitous and Tech Support still spends time fixing problems. There are guys in my office who are salivating at the thought of receiving XP as a christmas gift.
;-) for home users, but the more experience I gain as a computer programmer and become aware of things under the hood, from a business software standpoint - this thing looks increasingly crappy to me.
deja vu when win 2k was released ($89)
deja vu when win me was released ($89)
deja vu when win 98 was released ($89)
deja vu when win 95 was released. ($89)
So much for the cost of eye-candy.
On one hand I personally feel they are making it better
I agree with you 100%. My only question is, why is it a factor on whether a server can run MS Office 2000/XP? Isn't that a non-issue? I was under the impression that servers sat there and "served" information to various terminals and that is where you run MS Office. Is that correct??
Great philosophy. The race was only worth winning if you broke all the runners' legs.
Yeah, but Novell is around (for the moment) and can support their products like gangbusters. Novell tech support has answers to just about anything that can happen to your machine - they have seen it all. We still run 4.11 just because it is so damn stable and you cannot replace ZENworks with anything - nothing even comes close.
Yeah... I seem to remember a story about one being walled in... I think it was even slashdotted...
Support is everything. I have been very impressed with the supportability of Linux over Windows and that may eventually be what moves market share...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
If you actually have a look at E10K usage patterns (excluding HPC /High-performance computing/ users), lots of customers buy the box, then break it up to 4-CPU chunks and do trivial things in each partition like providing a web server in front of a back end database. Mainframes are much better than Sun in this; have a look at the number of Lin/390 systems consolidating smaller serverfarms (especially apparent during the past six months). Don't ask why would anyone ever use an E10K that way; Linux beats Solaris in such small tasks in everything except reliability.
BTW, to get more than 99.95% from Sun hardware, you MUST have a cluster of of E10Ks and at least one on-site Sun engineer (maybe 200 KUSD/yr, depending on location) plus an on-site store of spare parts (and still no guarantee of uptime). I'm not making this up.
PS I used to be a Sun engineer before I quit end of last year. I've seen more of the above buy-the-E10K-then-use-it-just-like-a-pile-of-PCs than necessary.
Yeppers. here is a short blurb about that :)
If you have new systems every 2 or 3 years, you don't really need to be concerned if it's built well enough to run reliably for 7 or 8 years, now do you? For desktops and for servers you can afford to have down now and then, no. For mission-critical servers, yes. You want a MTBF of decades (if possible), so there is a very small chance of it going down in the 2 or 3 years before it's replaced.
That's the hardware requirement -- very good odds that nothing will break. Software requirement is, first, the only reason to _ever_ reboot is if you had to shut down to replace hardware, and second, a way to automatically switchover to the backup server if there is a hardware failure.If you see a Windows system in that sort of application, the person in charge is an idiot -- simply because rebooting to install a security patch is unacceptable.
I think that there is a benefit to having several core OSs. For example FreeBSD and Linux. For features and tons of community documentation, choose Linux. For stability, choose FreeBSD...
That heing said, more developer market share is better and provides a stronger base. I think that once proprietary OSs become beaten, I think we should look at the possiblity of making an Linux source code available for Free/OpenBSD developers. Obviously, this cannot happen until the Proprietary OS market is no longer viable. This would, however, help everyone out by allowing a greater degree of code sharing and good will...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This obvious anti microsoft attitude is insulting and immature. I can't stand MS because of crappy products, shifty and unethical business practices and crappy service, but I will strive to use that as a basis of avoidance and making my 'product' better. Perhaps if that was the attitude (winning, not eliminating) then Linux would speed up in its move towards perfection.
Sure its annoying when the marketroids and suits can't seem to catch a clue on what the difference is between substance and bells-n-whistles are, but then again, obviously neither can many of the self labled 'geeks'
...ok dear, now take your medication and go and have a nice lie down.
most places smart enough to use linux PCs in place of older systems were at least smart enough in the past to use capable systems such as Suns, HPs, and IBMs rather than winblows
>Macintosh may be more soothing -- appealing shapes and colors, friendlier text and error messages (bombs and frowns anyone?)...
I don't think "soothing" has anything to do with it. Amateur UI designers keep thinking they are making software "easy" when they stick nice but incomprehensible icons on the same unexplained concepts. That's why Microsoft invented tooltips - so you can figure out what the icon does.
Besides, I think MacOS and Windows keep leapfrogging each other on the "graphically cool" aspect. If it's a frozen photo in a magazine, that sells.
The frowning Mac face originally came about because the original Macintosh hardware was language-independent. you boot up with a French system, everything is in French. If there's an error booting up, you ain't got no text to spit out an error message. So you either put up an icon that makes it obvious what's happening, or you say in english, "this computer made by ugly americans who can't comprehend a foreigner without a CNN voiceover". "cuteness" has nothing to do with it.
>but it is not easier for a newbie to use.
I don't agree.
"Ease of Use" is a very tricky concept. In general, the easiest system to use is the one you already know how to use. And if you turn around and try to teach a newbie, your knowlege and prejudices and assumptions copy to their brain.
In general, my experience has been that unaided users still get a little farther on a Mac than on Windows.
Here's an example. Have your newbie user try to install an external Zip disk. Often I look at the installation instructions for new hw or sw, and I compare the bulk of text under "for windows" versus "for mac". It's a crude measure of ease of use, but often illuminating.
Before Plug & Play, Mac HW installation instructions were almost always shorter than for Windows. (Macs have pretty much always been out-of-the-box ready to go, by tradition. Windows went for many years with the IRQ conflict dust cloud in the user's face.)
If pcs had all implemented P&P in a fool proof way, they'd be up with Macs. But in fact P&P often fails. So now, the Windows hardware installation usually goes like this:
1) Try to get P&P to work.
2) sigh ok now do whatever you would have done before P&P
in other words, P&P has actually made the process harder, because it doesn't always work. In the Mac world, any product that didn't install instantly was, basically, broken, off the market, and out of business, cuz there was no alternative. They make that stuff work.
>Their focus groups need to spend less time asking people how they feel, and giving them real world tasks to complete.
I can't speak for apple, but they have a tradition of doing good usability testing. I know, however, that in the UI community, the consensus is:
- focus groups are lame, do usability testing
- real world tasks
- anybody in the room who knows how to do it keeps their mouth shut
- keep iterating the product until the humans get to the end
- if the user gets to the end, they'll feel good, but who cares. ship it.
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
There are plenty of reasons to buy a SPARC, and to use Solaris, and to use Sun's software
Yeah, because it looks good to venture capitalists. : )
Most of our competitors went the "big money, big hype" route. They spent millions (literally) on very large Sun machines, and wrote all of their backends in Java. We spent ~$30,000 on commodity hardware, using Linux, and our setup dishes out many times more than theirs - at a much lower latency and load. And, of course, after spending all that money, they are now almost out of business.
Even funnier is that all of the venture capitalists that we spoke to wanted to know why we weren't using Sun and Oracle - and said that they'd probably want us to switch. The VC's put three rounds of funding into our next closest competitor, they're still floundering. They never gave us squat, and now we're turning a profit.
Another reason for my negative view of Sun's software is the fact that at a previous job, we spent over half of a year dealing directly with their programmers to try and get a critical bug fixed - to no avail. Finally, we got tired of rebooting the machine several times per week because of it, and used open-source software.
Sun's kernel may have some nifty programming features, but I'd much rather have the ability to get bugs fixed in a timely manner.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Linux is cutting some distributions of Unix off at the knees. If it improves scalability it will eat away a little more of the Unix base as well. It will not totally replace Unix -- but make it or the hardware platform it runs on that much more "unique" and expensive.
Linux is still having a marginal, argued here as lost opportunity, effect on Windows.
Bill G. is laughing all the way to the bank.
Ok, it's definately true that you don't buy a cheapo clone and use it for a mission critical server. But on real hardware (high-end Intel, RS/6000) Linux is every bit as reliable as commercial Unix. The only thing that's missing is "hot-swap anything" features that are only available on really high-end hardware.
Hmmm... Linux supports hot spares on Raid Arrays and will hot swap the SCSI disks if the bus supports it. So that point is moot. See the Software-RAID howto for details.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Irix used to hold all the highest uptimes for web servers on Netcraft. These are nearly all held by BSD these days. That is my measure of stability (on a web server, if it aint broke, don't fix it...)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
No. At first we thought that problem was in the web server software, the mighty Sun Web Server. We tried different web server software, and still had the problem. Eventually after we forced memory dumps while the "unkillable webserver condition" existed, a Sun kernel engineer dug through it, finding 3 kernel locking bugs while they sent us test Solaris kernels to try, they did get it fixed eventually. It was frustrating though. At the time, we really didn't have the option of running any other OS on that hardware. And when that hardware was purchased (Feb '96), it was light years beyond the PC hardware at the time.
The point is that these proprietory Unix servers were replaced by Linux and not Win200. You can bet microsoft's sales people were in there promising free steak knives and all kinds of other enticements, but they were turned away.
This article is pure spin doctoring.
The Linux install has replaced a proprietary Unix system...
speaking as a member of the FREE software movement: works for me!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
>Want to kill Microsoft? Sap it's growth, which is in server OS's and embedded systems (XBox, Pocket PC, etc.)
One of the things I've learned about business is, in general, it's impossible to "drive" anybody out of business from the outside. Companies that get derailed do so by their own mismanagement (often under stress, sometimes from a competitor). Being well-run means responding to a changing world and finding new revenue sources if old ones dry up.
In Microsoft's case, they have revenue from many, many different sources. Smothering one of their major revenue sources is possible. Smothering all of them at the same time, and squelching any new initiatives they have, is highly unlikely. Meanwhile, they have cash in the bank, too.
If you want a goal, just stick to your own business. Make sure your own revenue keeps coming. That's something you do have control over.
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
I'm a Unix sysadmin with IBM Global Services (my opinions are my own, not those of IBM &c. &c. &c.). This is so terribly true that it's not even funny. What's more important is that every proprietary Unix is unusable without the GNU tools. They are each and every one complete and utter dog's dirt when compared to a Linux (or, I imagine, BSD) box. Kernel-wise, they are all superior--laughably so, I'm certain. But their userlands are unusable. Administering them is an exercise in masochistic abandon. E.g. AIX tries to be helpful with a Korn shell which offers--get ready to be blown away--vi command line editing! Yes, that's right kids, you get the joy of hitting Esc h to move left--naturally the bloody left arrow key doesn't work!
Don't get me started about the brain-dead qualities of such things as Solaris's umpteen-quatrillion version of standard utilities such as make, each subtly different from the rest. Or what about the fact that, when presented with the command ifconfig, both Solaris and HP-UX error out? Solaris will accept ifconfig -a to do what it is obvious you wanted in the first place. HP-UX, though, won't even do that. You get the joy of guessing what your interface are. Better fire up sam. Which, of course, uses $DISPLAY if available, unlike smit with its handy smitty TTY version (there may be an option buried somewhere, but I've not found it--not really looked, I'll admit).
You too can experience the joy of needing to perform hours' worth of manual install work, just to get a usable system. You too can run tar xzf and realise that it won't work, and you get to hunt down an unsupported binary package of gzip. If that fails, you can always hunt down the unsupported binary package of gcc--which you can then use to compile gcc, first, hoping that there are no undocumented trojans (wouldn't that suck), then try to get gzip to compile--of course, with any luck, some dead-simple thing which should be a standard, but isn't, because some half-wit of a marketroid wants to sell it to you for $$$$, is missing, and you get to find some bootleg version or, as in the case of none-broken /dev/randoms and /dev/urandoms, roll your own. Yee-frickin-hah.
Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are surviving solely because they are, for the moment, better OSes than Linux. Their deaths are inevitable because they are worse user environments than Linux. That, and the fact that every day Linux becomes a far better OS, while their half-hearted attempts at becoming better environments fail miserably (I love how gnome-cc crashes in AIX 5--that's an impressive feat!).
And before anyone tries to be clever, Microsoft's pap is neither a better OS (well, perhaps the NT kernel, beneath the layers of cruft, misdesign, maldesign and just plain folly, is--but no-one ever sees it, so it doesn't matter) nor a better environment. Unix makes sense. There's a learning curve. It's not user-friendly in some ways (rm being a chief example--users expect deletion to be undoable, and this is so achievable through several different methods), but it is extraordinarily user-friendly in others (e.g.: one app won't take down the entire machine; all basic utilites may be munged with stdin, stout and xargs; the learning curve is full of aha! moments, such as that glorious day that the full beauty of grep and, later, find is revealed in all its majesty).
Unix is great. The Unix culture is magnificent. Life in a Unix without the GNU utilities is the kind of hell I'd not wish on my worst enemy. It is an exercise in feeble-mindedness. Hello, Sun, IBM and HP: it's the third millenium--may I please have tab-completion now? While you're at it, can I have a make, a cc and a vi which are decent? Hell, can you just give me emacs and make both our lives more pleasant (mine, because I can get my work done, and yours, because I--and a thousand thousand other admins--won't be smacking you upside the head with the aluminium baseball bat quite so often)? Is it so difficult to master your bloody pride and admit that yes, a bunch of hackers turned out a better suite of utilities than your teams of engineers ever could?
Incidentally, the feeble-minded keybindings of AIX's smit are a direct result of engineers exposed to that most Unix-like of systems, VM. Hence the use of either function keys (which very often don't work across platforms) or ESC combinations (which take forever to type) instead of nice, simple, straightforward keys. Remember, PAUSE means scroll!
Sun, HP and IBM would do well to simply open-source their OSes and essentially abandon development. The Free Software community would do so much better with their code than they have ever done. Keep a dozen or so employees working on the code and co-ordinating development, and let things slowly merge into an OS which is already enjoyable to use.
You completely misunderstood the point of the previous poster. Solaris is a fine OS--much better in many ways than Linux. But its userland utilities are primitive beyond beliefs. Why can I not simply run route to get, say, the routing table? Why must it be netstat -rn? Why can Sun not ship a post-1984 shell? Why does ifconfig not do anything without a little -a tacked on the end?
There's no reason that Solaris (and HP-UX, and AIX) could not ship real tools--they simply do not want to. And their lack of wanting makes the admin's (and programmer's, and user's) job that much more unhappy. Not really harder; we can all memorise the incantations we need to force the system into behaving. Not even, really, more difficult (except when moving from an intelligent system to a brain-dead one, when we expect the fool to behave as the genius). But simply less happy and less joyful. The proprietary Unices suck the life out of one, misbegotten command after misdesigned `feature.'
Linux may be an awful OS (it's really not, of course), but it's an incredibly operating environment. I understand that the BSDs are much the same. Imagine, we let programmers do their thing and they write the systems they want to use!
Wow am I glad that you have so much time on your hands that you can't think of anything better to do than wait around Ctrl-F5-ing slashdot so you can tell everyone that you have the first post... Do I hear your scripts calling?
(apologies to moderators)
-----------------------------------------
Remove the Greed which plagues mankind.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.