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Linux Making Inroads, But Not At Windows' Expense

Posted by Hemos on from the looking-at-things-differently dept.

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."

12 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, it IS at MS's expense!!! by turbine216 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Yes, it IS at MS's expense!!! by FortKnox · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You make a point, but its rather weak.

      Imagine the cost to port over a bunch of stuff already created in a UNIX environment to Windows. It wasn't necessarily the cost of the windows boxen as much as it was the porting.

      Going from Sun to Linux is much easier than *NIX to Windows.

      --
      Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
  2. Still Important by Troller+Durden · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  3. Re:Try it on grandma. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  4. Linux sucks in apps for Internet/Desktop, Stop ! by chicobaud · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:From the thank-you-capt-obvious department.... by Arethan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    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 .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.

    So...how was linux going to kill Sun again?

  6. Re:au contraire, they're running scared by Squirrel+Killer · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Why am I reminded of the saying:
    • First they ignore you
    • Then they laugh at you
    • Then they fight you
    • Then you win.
    Seems we're at #3...
  7. MS Positioned NT as UNIX Killer by jimshep · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  8. Re:Try it on grandma. by SCHecklerX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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".


    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.

  9. But what would the Windows growth curve have been by EisPick · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... 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.

  10. Very very wrong: here's why by devphil · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Not only do I admin and program on Solaris boxes, I'm also a GCC library maintainer. There're my qualifications.

    Solaris, their operating system, has few advantages over Linux, nowadays. Frankly, without adding the GNU tools, Solaris is virtually unusable!

    "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:

    • The proc tools, for manipulating a running process. Try using pldd(1) to find out exactly which libraries have been mapped in, or pstack(1) to print the call stack. Yes, that's right, print the function call stack of a running process from the command line, without a debugger, and it works flawlessly. There're about a dozen of these tools, man -s 1 proc for more.
    • Kernel watchpoints on memory. Tell the kernel you want to know when a process tries to read or write from an arbitrary block of memory. That process when then be frozen (or killed, as per your instructions), allowing you to find out exactly what piece of code is trashing memory.
    • A boatload of malloc(3) implementations. Want a version of malloc that uses brk? It's there. Want it to use mmap instead? It's there. Want a version of malloc that never reuses memory? Or a malloc which sets kernel watchpoints on its own bookkeeping structures, for when your code is hosing the malloc internal memory? It's all there.

    Linux has none of these.

    (And, who's gonna pay $10k for their compiler when GCC does the job?)

    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)
  11. Re:Try it on grandma. by ahde · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "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.