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Linux Replacing Windows More Than Unix
LordNimon writes "Over the past couple years, we've been hearing several Linux migration stories, but they have been mostly migration from proprietary Unix systems rather than from Windows. Well, this story on News.com indicates otherwise: of the migrations, 24% were from Unix, but 31% were from Windows. Sounds promising."
maybe I need to read the article.
It's good, very good indeed, but I am still looking for a groupware solution. I am working with different startup companies from time to time and when i get the chance to get UNIX in from the start, it's great. :) And with *BSD, linux, whatever you can get a fileserver webserver, router, firewall up and running. So I need a groupware system with email, calendar etc, like you get with Notes, Exchange, GroupWise etc. You should also be able to get agents to sync with your PDA's. I remember seeing a Suse dist. with Notes once, but is it still available and Notes seems like a big mouthful when you are only 10 people. But then again there's room to grow with it.
my sig
...of the migrations, 24% were from Unix, but 31% were from Windows.
On first reading I was wondering what operating systems could possibly make up the missing 45%, but it's not 31% and 24% of the *migrations* but of the total new Linux servers:
"For those that have recently purchased new Linux servers, 31 percent were adding capacity, 31 percent were replacing Windows systems, 24 percent were replacing Unix and 14 percent were replacing other operating systems."
So as a percentage of migrations, nearly half are Linux replacing Windows (maybe over 50% replacing MS systems including DOS):
45% Windows to Linux
35% Unix to Linux
20% Other to Linux
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
Maybe Redhat could get some mileage out of this.
How can you tell that it is near the end of the work day in my timezone and I desparately need to be entertained?
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Purchasing a new (additional) server is not a migration, Thankyouverymuch. e.g. I was born June '82, I did not migrate. :)
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
That is the REAL encoraging sign.
Sure there is the odd case of an incorectly sized server being put to a task it can't manage.
However most "Adding Capacity" is from satisfide customers who are moving other services to the platform in question or even better have grown the business so much that they need to buy more and/or biger machines.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Statistics are nice to look at, but often have glaring loopholes that some people choose to conveniently look over.
The biggest problem with this survey is that Unix usage has gone through the roof in the last two years with the advent of Mac OS X.
Since people who have Mac OS X are technically 'UNIX users', but are unlikely to uninstall OS X to run Yellow Dog Linux, it is fair to say that less UNIX users that ever are going over to Linux. Why? Because they're happy staying on BSD.
BSD classifies as 'UNIX'.. and we need to remember a LOT of people are going over to BSD from old style UNIX. Yet.. they aren't factored in here. Legacy UNIX to BSD is not taken into account, when really it's a pretty important shift.
mogorific carpentry experiments
This article seems to deal mostly with servers and corporations. What about desktop users and/or other home users.
While there are probably a lot of corps out there thinking about switching to linux from unix/windows, there are also an increasing amount of home users searching for an alternate desktop environment.
I wonder how this might tally if things such as linux firewalls, mp3 servers, and other more custom uses were considered?
Percentages mean nothing unless we have the numbers used to calculate the percentages. 31% of 10 is not such a big deal; 31% of 100 million, on the other hand, is significant.
Jamey Kirby
Evolution has really caught the attention of a lot of people in your position. It acts like Outlook and works with Exchange, but isnt filled with the M$ vuln. Plus it does a damn good job with pda compatibility. I know that there is a pilot conduit built in and they have it syncing with the zaurus pdas (not sure about pocket pc).
I really think that Evolution is one of the best products out there, I switched from kmail to it.
Plus, it's free (dont think its oss).
forget it.
Our company (admittedtly a small one - around 35 people) has done both migrations at the same time and have saved a ton of money in the process.
We are an engineering company, and used to have two computers on every desk - a UNIX workstation (combination of Suns and HPs) for the "real work", and a Windoze PC for things like email and documentation. Now, these have both been replaced by Athlon 2000+ machines running Linux. The main thing we were waiting for was the UNIX EDA software (from Mentor Graphics) to be ported to Linux. We now use mainly OpenOffice for documentation and Evolution/Kmail (depending on personal preference) for email.
The combination of ditching the expensive workstation hardware and the MS Office software has made the basic platform really cheap. The main cost, however, is still the EDA software, but even that is coming down. The added side benefit is less computer clutter and much simpler system administration.
When I came to my current job- the I.S. Director thought Linux was 'hacker junk'.
Well a lot of factors have come together and now he comes to me on a regular basis and says- "find me something open source that does such and such" We have 2 Linux servers up and running and we are looking to move a bunck of our desktops to Linux (using a browser for their apps)
The main driving reason has been cost.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Free clues for BSD fans:
;P Every mac "server" I've seen so far in the "real world" is a lowend fileserver for a cluster macs hidden in some publishing office.
1. The percentages were for _servers_. Sorry, but apple's server market share is like 0.00001% right now
2. The only people (numerious enough to be of any statistical relevance) "migrating" to MacOS X are Mac desktop users upgrading from Macs and a small number of windows/linux/whatever converts (though judging from apple's sales figures those probably fall into "not statistically relevant")
3. I love when BSD fans latch onto Mac OS X and say stuff like "see! BSD is more used then Linux!" blah blah blah. Meanwhile most people don't give two hoots about any BSD parts of the OS (they don't see it, don't really program for it). And proprietary apple-only APIs are what developers use to get the most out of the hardware and operating system. Sorry, but your average well written native apple app is about as BSD as Windows NT is UNIX (tm) Photoshop for FreeBSD anyone? Yeah... I thought so...
Oh well... time to get mod'd ( -1, The Truth Hurts )
--- polarbear
Steven: Yeah, I used to tell people to buy Window based computers all the time.
[Camera pans around a bit]
Steven: Yeah, and um, down in Austin it would get like intense over those blue screens that would pop up and like, I just totally couldn't stand that freakin' paper clip. Then my comp sci professor introduced me to Star Office. Like whoa! No paper clip! And like, my buddies say I can play around with the kernal! Yeah, I think he does fried chicken and stuff.
[Camera cuts to close-up]
Steven: Uh, my name is Steven and dude, I got a Del... uh, Linux. Yeah, that's right! Linux.
To be honest I've always found the shutdown and startup audio to be a useful diagnostic.
It means you can know that a machine has booted into X|windows without looking at it or even needing a monitor, useful if you are under the desk or in the next room.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
There has always been an element of the growing linux userbase that decides to move to a *BSD for various reasons (most for real reasons, matters of preference, etc, other for less then admirable users but thats troll take). Some move back (quite a few users of new distros like Gentoo, etc are former *bsd users who moved back for some reason or another or run both happily)
Quite frankly I think BSD is enjoying the "wake" created by Linux much like migrating birds fly in the wake of others to make the trip easier, etc. The Linux camps attracts the bulk of new users to the Linux/BSD camp and some naturally spill over to the *BSDs. Is that a bad thing? Nope, its only natural. But it was the early Linux advocates and zealots who created the wake... It was their open and more inviting attitude and it was later the GPL and the growing wake produced by early Linux that attacted the corporate interest in Free Unix after the BSDs lost it due to lawsuits and attitude problems.
The Macs are a special case where you have loyal mac users who would quite frankly use anything Apple gave them as long as it got the job done. Your average mac user will probably see never even know the terminal window exists or if they do, they might mutter something like "oh its dos" or "wtf is this" and promptly close it.
Any "techies" moving to this form of BSD are greatly outnumbered by more "mainstream users" and I believe are stastically irrelevant. Also any "BSD developer" on Apple is either going to be using "non-BSD" apis or not doing anything involving GUIs or the nifty features that make Mac OS X different from Windows, KDE, etc.
As I said before, some BSD fans are overestimating the importance of BSD. I doubt it will ever make an appreciable dent in the server market compared to Linux, Windows, etc. Though it will be interesting to see how far the X-server servers go, the only reason I can see to buy one is the pretty case but its a server, so why pay for a proprietary server platform when we are trying to get off of others (*cough*sun*cough*).
--- polarbear
In fact, the biggest growth area for Linux is NOT on desktop installations, but workgroups and departmental server installations. This is because servers are usually configured very few times, not multiple times like you have with desktop machines.
People forget that Linux is not yet a true auto-configuring desktop operating system like Windows is now. That could result in a pretty frustrating experiences, especially when the desktop user starts updating hardware and adds hot-docked external devices.
Is it small wonder why the Linux 2.6.x kernel will include Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support? With ACPI support in Linux, that makes it vastly easier for end users to upgrade hardware and setup hot-docked external devices that use IEEE-1394 and USB connections.
...due to Microsoft's new licensing scheme. That's something a lot of businesses hate with something of a passion, I believe.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
When I started my job two years ago, our data center was 100% NT-based. Little by little I've convinced management to migrate various tasks off of Windows and onto Linux. My single 2U RedHat server handles our corporate website, Intranet, FTP, DNS caching, and more. This eliminated several other systems and their associated licensing fees. The machine has been powered up stable since day one, and at 240 days, my uptime is the best in the room.
Linux has also proven itself at our company as a great free network monitoring tool, thanks to snort and MRTG, etc.
One of the biggest wins with the management here was that I was able to prove that Linux can play nicely in an NT domain. People are always surprised that it authenticates domain users and that sort of thing.
We still have alot of NT servers on the rack, but so far my one Linux box runs so well, I don't think we'll ever need another!
The Winlots might say that it's not so bad or it's only for their own good (having always the same version) some other market-speak.
But there are 2 scary facts:
1: With the new licensing scheme, Microsoft is taking the power to decide away from the user.
2: Microsoft showed that they don't hesitate long to change EULAs and licensing schemes the way they see fit.
Even if it were not more expensive (but it is!) it would be hated.
I can destroy a linux workstation with one command:
sudo rm -rf /
OMG! OMG! OMG!
Idiot.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Some of them are:
gEDA - schematic capture, board layout
Icarus Verilog - verilog simulation, synthesis
Savant - VHDL analysis, simulation (sequential and parallel)
GnuCAP - a mostly Spice compatible circuit simulator
The Open Collector has references to these projects and many more! (Full disclosure; I'm an upstream author on the SAVANT project.)
KDE seems to be striking a reasonable balance between not terrifying incoming Windows users, and curing some of Windows' ills. Have you tried the newer KDEs? KDE 3.0.x with translucency only looks like Windows until you click on something, KDE 3.1 even more so. I don't see XP ripping audio CDs for you when you drag them onto a filesystem, I don't see it giving you a choice of cut/paste methods, I don't see protocol drivers for odd devices (think palmtops) accessible within the existing file management paradigm, and so on.
Windows 3 had fixed-sized elevators because Macintosh had them. So IRL, who is it chasing tail-lights?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
How many CIO's don't even know they are running Linux??
Go out and get sailing!
The story goes something like this:
~Shop runs UNIX machines
~Base and upgrade costs on UNIX boxen are high, and Management complains of high TCO on UNIX, too.
~Shop migrates to cheaper x86 hardware running Windows NT
~Management and a few staff love Windows, the rest hate it for religious reasons.
~Windows-hating, UNIX-loving staff starts setting up Linux boxen 'guerrilla style,' shows Linux boxen working successfully to other employees.
~When employee support is high, Linux solution to task Foo is shown to Mgmt by members of staff that miss UNIX.
~Mgmt. chooses to accept or deny Linux solution.
~If Linux solution is accepted and works properly with few hitches, Linux takes over. If there are problems, shop keeps running Windows.
Red Hat wouldn't want to risk having Apple sue them for stealing the 'look and feel' of one of their advertising campaigns.
One of our customers wanted us to port from Linux to AIX, due to the "unkown" factor - they were not certain about its stability and heavy load ability, plus they were concerned about their AIX-trained staff. Now, we're putting it on hold, since they are considering migrating as many as possible of their server. It seems that cheap server hardware and reduced license fees may be a bigger saving than retraining some of their AIX people would be an expense.
Stop the brainwash
>Linux really isn't that great compared to other
>Unices. It is the media darling, partly because
>it fits the "built in someone's garage" cliche.
>It really is an alternative to Windows, and not
>Unix systems.
It depends on what Unix systems you're refering to. Will it replace a 64 processor machine from HP or Sun? No. Will it replace dual processor machines from the same companies? Almost definitely.
In fact, depending on what hardware you're talking about, Linux is a BETTER alternative to traditional Unixes on the low end because it has lower overhead. For example, process creation, syacalls, and context switches are signifigantly (read: as much as 10 times) more expensive on Solaris than on Linux.
>My personal opinion as to why... It has always
>just been something cool to hack away at. Very
>little work has been done to get security and
>stability overall. As an example, take the
>filesystem, EXT2.
Funny how the kernel developers seem to talk about security and stability a whole lot on the mailing lists. Please provide some evidence to back this up.
>Linux rarely gets used on big iron. The only time
>you'll hear about some fast set of machines is in
>something like a cluster, for
>non-mission-critical applications. Even IBM, the
>diehard supporters of Linux, will openly admits
>that it just can't compete with AIX.
And you know what? The majority of servers AREN'T big iron. If you look at the BSDs, Unixware, or Openserver, they're not running on big iron either.
As for only hearing about Linux on fast machines in clusters for "non-mission-critical" applications, I have direct experience to the contrary. I work at a company that bases its entire company (including the services we offer our customers) on Linux, with the exclusion of a handful of Sun machines. The company my brother works at runs their entire network infrastructure (mail, web, nis, nfs, firewalls, routers, vpn tunnels) on Linux.
>Anyone who has used Linux for more than a week >has had an Ext2 filesystem get corrupted. While I
>realize that there are other filesystems now, and
>that example is out-dated, I haven't used Linux
>extensively for a while, so any examples I give >will be outdated.
I've been using Linux for over 7 years without experiencing filesystem corruption that wasn't recoverable with fsck. And this includes managing upwards of two terabytes of data.
Most of the people I hear who claim this are either parroting what they've heard elsewhere, or base their claim that ext2 is prone to corruption on its use of writing metadata async, unlike e.g. ffs. First off, this is only a problem if you've had an unclean shutdown. And second, e2fsck is a fantastic program. I've never had it fail recovery.
And yes, your experience is seriously outdated. Ext3 can journal just metadata, or metadata AND data, which is actually MORE robust than most commercial offerings.
>More than that there are consistency problems. So
>much work is going into adding new features as
>quickly as possible, that stability, consistency,
>and ease of use just goes out the window.
The stable branches of the kernel (2.0, 2.2, 2.4) get only bug fixes and new drivers, NOT new features.
>Compiling a new kernel should be a simple process
>(and one that should be unessecary) but instead
>gives you tons of kernel modules that are
>unuseable.
What makes you think its commonly necessary? In almost three years I've run a total of four kernels - started on 2.2, did an upgrade to fix an Intel driver issue (stupid MII lockups), moved to 2.4, did an upgrade to fix an obscure SG driver bug.
If you're using a distribution, upgrading a kernel can be as simple as a single command (rpm -Uvh). Even if you're building from scratch, you can "make oldconfig" to avoid having to deal with menu options.
As for unusable modules, they don't show up by default. You need to explicitely choose to see experimental features.
>Linux development just has the Windows'
>attitude... Not a Unix attitude. I can't speak
>for anyone else (although it statistically looks
>like I do) but I don't think Linux has a chance
>against stable, secure, consistent,
>high-performance systems. I just think of it as a
>geek toy... Like a Dreamcast
Odd how I can use a "geek toy" to provide e-mail for literally thousands of domains and millions of users.
And what exactly is "the Windows' development attitude"?
Matt