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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."
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.
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.
Are you honestly gonna tell me that only cost a company incurrs in running an OS is the administrator's paycheck?
Have you checked what a the price of a Microsoft win2k license is nowadays? Not to mention the $$$/minute to call MS support?
And don't forget the viruses, patches etc... (time spent on making the system run the way it was supposed to run out of the box).
I'm sorry if this sounds like a flame, its not supposed to be - all I'm saying is running a server costs a lot more than an admin's paycheck.
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.
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.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Small applications are the only areas that Linux will ever beat Solaris on Sun hardware. I'd like to see a Linux cluster beat SunFire15k or even an older E10k in a performance vs. total cost of ownership chart.
.44, and see if it's still up. I'd guess the answer is no. Doing the same with a properly configured SunFire 15k would result in a high replacement cost, but an up and running system nonetheless. Processing power? Single cpu vs single cpu is getting closer. But for fault tolerance, full hotswap upgrades (as in lets pop a few more cpus into this machine...while it's running), high end SMP (way more than 8-way, try 72-way), and high end memory size (as in my server as 200GB of ram, what do you have under the hood?), Intel isn't even close. Sun, OTOH, has been doing it for a few years now.
Let's see, so we hire 10 people at 80k a piece to manage our 500 machine cluster, which will need to be replaced every 4 years at a minimum, just so that we can utilize a free OS?
Or, do we shell out some bucks up front, and get fault tolerant hardware, running an OS in a 5th generation VM environment, that will only require 2 people to manage, and will not need to be replaced for at least 10-15 years. (Upgrades not being considered replacements)
I'll stick with Sun, thanks. I'd much rather deal with a single machine, using extremely fault-tolerant tech than having to deal with 500 commodity pc's that are going to go through the usual 4 year replacement cycle.
Linux and Sun both have their place. Linux is a nice server, and a moderate desktop OS for the tech-savvy (at least I use it as a desktop). It's good for ftp servers, web servers, even small to mid database servers. Sun, on the other hand, is great for extremely high availability situations, where the 0.001% of down time in a 99.999% uptime plan could cost the company a few million in revenue.
Linux is saturating the low end market. Good! The low end market could use some low-cost & stable server software that runs on inexpensive hardware. But Sun caters more to the high end market where uptime is critical and data-sets are unbelievably large.
And no, Intel is no where near doing what Sun can already do. Go shoot your precious linux server with a
So...how was linux going to kill Sun again?
- First they ignore you
- Then they laugh at you
- Then they fight you
- Then you win.
Seems we're at #3...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.
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.
Funny how these people used to be quite proficient with things like word perfect for dos and quattro pro for dos. If they were forced to go back to that, they would use it. It is their job, after all. They are capable, but everyone gives them the pointy-clicky thing that they can use, but never really understand. It used to be that people actually understood the tools they used to get their work done, since they actually *HAD* to read manuals on using that tool. Nowadays they are just amusing toys that actually get in the way more than help.
The hassles you speak of are imaginary. If people knew their tools, no matter what those tools may be, there is no hassle. The problem these days is you have people using tools that they certainly do not understand, and there is no incentive for them to do so.
There are tons of 'free' software packages that I used to enjoy running back in the 1.2 kernel days that have just plain died off from lack of support from anybody.
Yeah, I know. Someone can pick them up and carry them forward. Nobody has. Those are just the facts.
... 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.
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)
>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.
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
"friendly", and "useful" are two different things. Macintosh may be more soothing -- appealing shapes and colors, friendlier text and error messages (bombs and frowns anyone?), but it is not easier for a newbie to use. Have them sit down and actually try to do something. From trying to launch an app, to setting system configuration, Apple is way behind Microsoft. Their focus groups need to spend less time asking people how they feel, and giving them real world tasks to complete. Using a computer is stressful, but making sitting in front of the machine less threatening isn't the answer. That's like getting drunk before battle (or sex). It may calm your nerves, but it won't help you get the job done.
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).
This is why there are no IT people in management. Your answer to everything is RTFM. No thank you, I want sales people closing deals. I want my management team managing the business. I don't particularly want them spending time learning how to recompile a kernel.
That is why we have an IT support department. If something is broke, they go fix it and fix it fast. If a tool does not increase productivity, it is not adopted. If a regulator forces me to use a complex tool, I will hire a dedicated resource that has RTFM.
My sales force does not need to know the latest advantages of the 2.4 Kernal VM. They need to know how to enter their contacts into their planner, and respond to follow up notices. My R&D department does not need to know if the application is libc or glibc based, they need to log their time into a research journal.
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).