Slashdot Mirror
Windows 2003 takes 5% away from Linux
ZuperDee writes "According to Netcraft, the number of Windows 2003 servers has doubled since July, and 5% were running Linux before, which is consistent with the trends they've been observing for some time. This doesn't look good for Linux, in my opinion. Maybe we should all start to think about jumping ship?"
On the other hand, how many (desktop) Linux converts used to run Windows?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Also maybe someone should point out that Apache actually gained 0.54% relative market share in the past month, while Microsoft lost 0.21%. In fact, September 2003 looks like it was the Best month ever for Apache so far.
IMHO, if these viruses keep coming around, one is BOUND to attack 2003 servers. Then the 5%'ll feel bad and then revert back.
IMHO as a corporate IT director (and home Linux user), if Linux was:
a) easier to find quality support for
b) able to run more mission critical apps
I would use it in more places in my corporate network. (currently we use it for security and traffic monitoring). I know it is making strong headway, but it is not there yet. I am of course tempted to use it just to spite SCO, but that is not an entirely compelling business reason (the board does not accept your spiteful proposal).
Windows 2003 includes an incredible amount of changes bringing it more into the modular like world of Unix. It will displace some Linux I am sure. I am also sure that Linux will do something which will displace some Win 2K3 that is how this will go for a long while. BTW, understand what you quote about before you make a blatant quote like above. Most of the recent viruses attacked 2K3.
IMHO, and for someone who has been running Windows 2003 server beta on a dev workstation for the last 9 months, I been extremely happy with it.
I have got tons of tools/utils that could bring an XP box to its knees and outright destroy the damn thing. 2003 server has so far been gracefully handling the pressure with no blue screens till last week.
Last week, I came across from first core dump when I was playing around with the Cisco VPN tool and it core dumped (it was due to bad drivers, couldnt find native ones) giving a BAD_POOL_CALLER error a bunch of times.
I thought Xp was way decent than the shitty 98SE and the unbelievably piece of crap ME, but 2003 server has proved that theres a lot of room for improvement. I think they still have a long way to go to capture the server market.
Disclaimer : I have been running a server operating system on a workstation, I admit. Theres guides available to tune the OS to make it run as a workstation and for gaming.
Also, Microsoft has finally shipped an OS with most of its services disabled (including sound) rather than running in to a "gotcha" moment down the line.
Rapid Nirvana
Total installs: 43,144,374(100%)
Of those Windows2003: 185,000(0.4%)
Of those switched from Linux: ~ 9,500(0.002%)
In the meantime...
Apache runs: 27388860 (63.98%)
All IIS combined run: 10165745 (23.75%) (-5.42% compared to Sep2002, -3.70% compared to Apr2002)
Indeed, this happens all too often. About 4 years ago, I used to work at a small company which was acquired by a large giant. For several months, nothing really happened... until they broight in a new controller for accounting. Our company was smallish (about 100 people) and the controller was to be "in charge" of the computing. Perviously, nobody was really making global computing infrastructure decisions, and virtually all computing stuff was handled by a couple consultants. Of course, the new guy was a "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM... er, Microsoft", so he wanted everything migrated to a "standardized platform". At that point, the comany had 3 servers... one Windows NT, one Novell, and one Linux. The Linux machine didn't really do a lot (DNS, firewall, some other little stuff)... it was the Novell server which had been running for many years and was doing most of the heavy lifting. Likewise, the NT box ran a couple little databases (not the main one for accounting and manufacturing). Eventually, everything but the firewall migrated to Windows. It was expensive... they bought some very expensive hardware, but that was a minimal cost compared to the dozens of consultants who seemed to live on-site for easily a year, and the resulting dependance of having many more around permanently afterwards. Migrating to Microsoft Exchange was probably the most expensive part where it was a pure platform switch without new functionality. Massive money was also dumped into a new accounting package, but those things are always expensive and we'd limped along for a couple years before the company was sold... since the new owners would want us to use their software of choice (didn't actually turn out that way), and to keep a massive capital-draining software change off the books while negotiating the sale price. For a couple years, they were determined to replace that linux firewall/router with expensive Cisco equipment.... but it did some fancy things and despite their supposed certifications, they didn't really understand basic TCP/IP routing, subnets, etc (they knew some expensive gui-based firewall that dumbs down the whole process into pictures and drag-and-drop.... or at least that's my cynical view, believing that ipchains/iptables is pretty straightforward it you know what your subnets are). Windows won, and Linux and Novell lost, not because of cost or performance or any other real-world considerations. It was entirely due to the whim of a corporate guy they shoved into a position at a newly-acquired small company. However, in the matter of 16500 webservers switching from linux to win2003 (5% of something, but still only 16500 worldwide), these guys who "go with the trend" and want to "standardize" on whatever if fassionable (whatever Gartner is pushing)... they were probably not behind this. Those guys go with the older revs and rarely want to deploy the newest version. Too risky. I'd guess Microsoft "sold" win2003 to some high-profile hosting providers.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I say this constantly and get modded down for it because I'm not supposed to criticize a "volunteer effort." That attitude right there is problem #1. I don't care if it's a volunteer effort, and neither do most users. We just care about what's sitting in front of us on our screen, the net output.
My point all along has been that people really need to get out of this hobbyist volunteer mindset and realize it's time to create actual results. There's no need to become corporate-minded slaves, but I do wish people would be more professional about things, from project names to interfaces to--and this is the major one--the ridiculous mindset, which you must admit, Slashdot contributes to on a daily basis (usually through "Microsoft hole" articles, when meanwhile my sig shows that distros have more exploits per month anyway...it's all ridiculous).
Professional people admit faults and correct them. We still have some of the same Linux desktop problems as we had five years ago, and people are still complaining about them. Heck, real professional people would zero in on problems before the users even notices them. Professional communities have friendly and courteous tech support, newsgroups, and so on. They have to, because it's all about the customer, i.e., the user. Linux has zealots, trolls, and fanboys. It's not all about the user when it comes to Linux. Mostly, it seems to be about adding enough cool features to be able to take great-looking screenshots for the back of distro boxes, but when you actually grab the mouse to use the thing, it is a disappointing experience (I still remember when GNOME under Red Hat 9 had a stuck taskbar that wouldn't stop moving around with the mouse, and when all else failed and I killed X, of course, that screwed up the boot sequence for some reason...and it was a completely stock install!).
I'm tired of Linux being a hobby OS. Let's face it, outside of the server market (where it is still considered an "alternative OS" despite the fact it has the slight majority), Linux is a hobby OS. The desktop environments are just attempts to SIMULATE a desktop. They don't feel like real, seamless, responsive desktops, but they are written to LOOK like real, responsive desktops, so that people can pretend that they're cool because they use Linux in that way. I wish someone would come out with something so slick and professional that people would have no choice but to switch because of its uber-coolness and usability. This, of course, would call for a complete rewrite, because it would demand things like hardware acceleration, a sane programming API, and so on. I won't hold my breath for it, though. As a matter of fact, the only real uber-cool thing I've seen is Slicker. Its card idea is unique and innovative. Too bad it's tied in with the godawful KDE, but maybe in another few years we'll see things really shine.
But I know that won't happen because people are too busy making yet another toolkit for X or another extension or another weird project with a weird name written all in lower-case on Sourceforge. Meanwhile, in August of 2005, Longhorn is due out, with hardware acceleration, vector-scaled widgets for resolution-independent resizing, a yet-to-be-revealed photorealistic user interface, and even the ability to add and remove RAM without rebooting. I'm sorry, but I don't see all that coming in two years, because two years ago I thought we'd have stuff like that, and two years before that, and so on. It just never comes. And if you request it and wish for it, you get flamed because you're not "doing it yourself." Sometimes it's really easy to despise this community because they refuse to listen unless you're some hero programmer like Linus or Stallman. If you're a user or designer, forget it.
"Sufferin' succotash."