USA Today and NYT on Linux rising

prostoalex writes "USA Today notices significant rise of Linux in the high-end enterprise environment. Although it doesn't provide obligatory pretty pictures, the paper mentions the projects at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and NASA. Also if you've missed the New York Times Google article of the day, the expose on John Doerr from Valley's venerable KPCB talks about venture fund investing $12 million in LinuxCare. NYT quote: "That's a freight train I wouldn't want to get in front of," said Mr. Doerr, explaining the importance to having a stake in a Linux-based venture. "Probably get run over.''"

Comments

Wow. what is Microsoft going to do?

[Muda69]

This is exciting news. I wonder what Microsoft's response to this is?

Re:Wow. what is Microsoft going to do?

[grub]

Their response? Bankrolling SCO for a few more years.

Re:Wow. what is Microsoft going to do?

[two_stripe]

Well, according to the banner add at the top of this page, Windows Server has a cheaper TCO than linux.

Maybe they'll just advertise on /. more often?

Re:Wow. what is Microsoft going to do?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw that ad dude - they're comparing Linux running on the mainframe and saying it's cheaper if you have a pentium or something like that.

Re:Wow. what is Microsoft going to do?

[Usagi_yo]

Look for Sun Microsystems and Microsoft cross license technology to give Windows the Scaleability, reliability it needs to compete in large installation sights. Meaning Solaris Server OS and Windows/Solaris hybrid clients and or Windows/Solaris server hybrids and Windows/Solaris hybrid clients.

I wish this were an indication that Microsoft was going to become more like Sun, but unfortunataly all I see is Sun becoming more like Microsoft (and I'm a strong Sun Advocate -- at least for the next few weeks ... if you know what I mean).

They will weather the rising linux tide until it reaches saturation. They will compete on both price and total cost of ownership, and work to bring that down. Sun will provide an army of support that would be needed.

As for SCO ... they are toast. I dont' believe Sun had anything to do with SCO, other then paying their obligated license fees, I think Microsoft did nudge them into it and that that needs to be looked at by the FTC and SEC.

Re:Wow. what is Microsoft going to do?

[groot]

Microsoft will never be able to destroy Linux because, nobody really owns it. There is nobody to sue, no company to go bust (hey howabout--Red Hat), ok not many. They can only make it irrelevant, if the communinity lets it.

--laz

PS, I should hide the parenthesis keys, so the voices in my head can't butt in.

King of the Unbiased

[strictnein]

John Doerr from Valley's venerable KPCB talks about (his) venture fund investing $12 million in LinuxCare. NYT quote: "That's a freight train I wouldn't want to get in front of," said Mr. Doerr, explaining the importance to having a stake in a Linux-based venture.

Slashdot.org: King of the unbiased quotes

Next article: We ask Linus if Linux is l33t and Windows sux0rz

Re:King of the Unbiased

[Anonymous Coward]

John also says everybody needs to get in before the bubble bursts.

Again.

Re:King of the Unbiased

[GileadGreene]

According to Linus even Linux "sux0rz". It just "sux0rz" less than anything else.

Re:King of the Unbiased

[Master of Transhuman]

He's right.

Linux is crap.

It's just that it's free crap. You don't pay an arm and a leg for crap like Windows makes you do.

Which is why Linux will reduce Bill Gates to blubbering incoherence.

Oh, wait, that was "The Road Ahead"...

Best line

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is minimal competition from Microsoft [Corp.] in this high-performance arena,"

Well... that isn't quite confirmation from Netcraft but...

Freight train?

[sczimme]

NYT quote: "That's a freight train I wouldn't want to get in front of," said Mr. Doerr, explaining the importance to having a stake in a Linux-based venture. "Probably get run over.''"

Unlike all those other fluffy freight trains that one could "get in front of" with no consequences. I imagine his last name is pronounced "derrr" (see 'duh' [colloquial]).

Re:Freight train?

[frenetic3]

"Probably get run over."

Well, thank God he clarified that for us. I thought the freight train would start prancing and singing show tunes.

-fren

Re:Freight train?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realized, both of you, that Linux isn't an actual, literal freight train and that he was being metaphorical, correct?

Re:Freight train?

[Black Rabbit]

The Linux Freight Train: "I think I can, I think I can..."

Re:Freight train?

[Omega1045]

Check this out:

KC Article on Doerr

From the article: His investment into Google might qualify as the best venture investment ever made -- a huge return of roughly $3 billion, or 240 times the initial $12.5 million he invested.

I think it is Doerr, pronounce ka-ching.

Re:Freight train?

[Short Circuit]

I hate it when people start throwing around talk of huge profits. Last time, it spawned a lot of companies later called ".bomb"s...

Not that I think Google will fail...but a massive rush of investment into Linux businesses could lead to another serious round of hype.

Re:Freight train?

[Deraj DeZine]

And in context:

Linux will...Probably get run over

Those shifty NYT and USA writers...

Re:Freight train?

[milkman_matt]

"Probably get run over."

Well, thank God he clarified that for us. I thought the freight train would start prancing and singing show tunes.

Actually you know what I thought was funny was the "probably" .. now if you're standing in front of a freight train, you're not probably going to get run over, you ARE going to get run over, it's not like the train's going to swerve right?

-matt

Re:Freight train?

[Omega1045]

I do too, but you can't call this guy an idiot for making nearly 3 billion smackers. Well maybe "lucky idiot".

Old! :)

[dorward]

What I was going to say:

Version 2.6, already running in some test settings

Eh? Hasn't 2.6 been officially stable for quite a while? Does it run quite of a lot of production systems?

Oooooh!

5/3/2004

A two month old article! Well done slashdot!

What I realised just before I hit submit:

Ngggg! Why can't people use ISO date format? That is the silly month/day/year format.

Re:Old! :)

[commo1]

Maybe the multi-format date conventions are part of a Microsoft plot to..... RULE THE WORLD!!!! HA HA HA!!!!... Seriously... why "can't people use ISO date format"? Does it serve any purpose other than a) aggravate and b) useful for proprietary & old data entry applications. Does anyone know exactly where other formats are required/suggested/preffered?

Re:Old! :)

[grub]

My logs and other files that I archive are named "foo_yyyymmdd" so they easily sort by year, month and day. Month/day/year is just stupid.

Re:Old! :)

[strictnein]

I think it's just how us crazy Americans refer to dates. We say "on June 5th" (6/5/04) instead of "the 5th of June" (5/6/04).

Or am I wrong on this? Do people who use the standard DD/MM/YYYY still say "Month/Day" when refering to a date?

Re:Old! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I still think we should all switch to the MySQL date format:

yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM::SS

that way, the most signifigant numbers are on the left, like our numbering system.

Re:Old! :)

[Anonytroll]

No, we say "Day/Month". In Germany we say "on 5th June". Of course I cannot speak for other countries/languages.

Re:Old! :)

[perly-king-69]

In the UK, you're most likely to hear it said "5th of June." I don't think the traditional Guy Fawkes night poem works well with "Remember, remember, November 5th."

It's always made sense to me to use D/M/Y as it's in some sort of order: Day is smaller than Month is smaller than Year. You wouldn't say 15:00:10 to represent quarter-past ten would you?

Re:Old! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

It's USA Today (reprinting an article taken from FCW), which follows the general american format of DD/MM/YYYY, thus 5/3/2004 becomes May 3, 2004, which was yesterday. Different countries and different locales within the same country use different formats and getting them all to standardize on one would be futile. It would be like trying to convert everyone on earth from QWERTY keyboards to Dvorak - it just ain't gonna happen.

Additionally, not all shops are going to drop everything the moment 2.6 comes out and spend time upgrading all their machines. Thus, 2.6, while "stable" by Linus's definition, is not yet mature enough for a production environment. Organizations upgrading to 2.6 are "trying out" the new kernel on test servers. Hence, the article's author saying "already running in some test settings" is quite accurate.

Re:Old! :)

[meringuoid]

In .uk we say absolutely anything. "June 5th" is just fine, though it would more normally be "June the 5th". You'll also hear "the 5th of June" and this will also be fine.

In writing dates, though, it's definitely dd/mm/yy.

Re:Old! :)

[pesc]

Why can't people use ISO date format? That is the silly month/day/year format.

The ISO format is YYYY-MM-DD. Big-endian, like how we write other numbers, or times. Sorts easily.

See the ISO date format campaign.

An interesting alternative is to do what VMS does: 4-MAY-2004 No ambiguity when you spell out the month (VMS uses three letter abbreviations). But it's not culture neutral of course...

Re:Old! :)

[cK-Gunslinger]

Personally, I like the YYYY/MM/DD format. Makes for easy sorting when viewed as a 8-digit number.

Re:Old! :)

[strictnein]

which follows the general american format of DD/MM/YYYY, thus 5/3/2004 becomes May 3, 2004

You mean the American MM/DD/YYYY =)

Re:Old! :)

[wass]

No, but according to your logic you should use Y/M/D in decreasing order as per your time example.

Re:Old! :)

[perly-king-69]

No, I just said that it was in some sort of order. One is ascending, the other descending. But in order nevertheless.

Re:Old! :)

[AKAImBatman]

In writing dates, though, it's definitely dd/mm/yy.

Screw that. I'd much rather have yyyy/mm/dd. It's easier to read (since you know that you're in the right year before you get to the month) and it sorts much easer.

Re:Old! :)

[wine]

In Holland we use the DD/MM/YYYY-notation and can only pronouce it as "5 juni". The much used phrase 9/11 is confusing because in our book it should refer to "9 november".

The only reason I can think of DD/MM/YYYY is more logical than MM/DD/YYYY is because the increasing size of the time spans. But than again, in the common HH:MM:SS notation the sizes are decreasing.

As other readers pointed out YYYYMMDD is very nice for sorting. Others say ISO should be used. But even then MM and DD can still be confusing.

I opt for star dates. ;)

Re:Old! :)

[wass]

Yeah, that's exactly my point. Your date order is only marginal better than the standard American system, unless you happen to write times backward.

How would you normally write 16 minutes and 35 seconds after 3 pm? Either 3:16:35 or 15:16:35 (depending on 24-hour time being used or not). Here in USA we would say this time as "three-sixteen pm" or maybe "three-sixteen pm and 35 seconds".

The American format is annoying, I agree. (I'm American). In my computer data files and scientific notebooks I use format YYYY-MM-DD, and occasionally for frequenctly-created files YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM (second MM is minutes). So that's why I had a problem with your system, as it would cause the exact same kind of problem.

A parent post above mentioned that the reason American date formats are like this is that we tend to say June 5th, and I guess Europeans and others tend to say 5th of June. But time here in USA is hour:minute (10:34). So the only real inconstincy in the American system is the position of the year, which should come first instead of at the end.

How would you write and say the time and date? I imagine it too would have inconsistencies.

Re:Old! :)

[wine]

In Holland we use the DD/MM/YYYY-notation and can only pronouce it as "5 juni"

Talking to self:
That is ofcourse only in case the date reads 05-06-2004. ;) Duh!

Re:Old! :)

[Yartrebo]

YYYY/MM/DD is good for computers, since it's easy to sort (just a simple 32-bit subcc instruction in SPARC does the comparison, using either binary coded decimal or straight binary), and I would write computer code using that format.

I use DD-MMM-YYYY (ie., 24-Mar-1562) when writing it for human consumption though, because the day is the most commonly needed part, followed by the month, followed by the year. The first two digits of the year are almost looked at, and a lot of people omit it, but I use 4-digit years and spell out the first three letters of the month so that people make no mistakes about what format I'm using. Only years have 4 digits, "Mar" can only be a month, and the remaining number must be the day.

For spoken, I'll say "The first of May, eighteen ninety-nine" (for a date) or "cinco de mayo" or "le quatorze juillet" (for a yearly event, or when the year is obvious). There are exceptions ... 11/9 just sounds weird since everyone seems to refer to it by 9/11, so I'll reverse the order and say "september eleventh" while the day before is "the tenth of september". For US holidays, I mix it up, some times it is "July fourth", and other times it is "the fourth of July".

Re:Old! :)

[theLOUDroom]

Ngggg! Why can't people use ISO date format? That is the silly month/day/year format.

Because our date format was designed for humans, not computers.

Seriously, people know what year it is, so saying "Two-thousand four, May fifth" is a big fat waste of time. By the time you're done telling what year it is, a normal, non-ISO date using person would havegiven me all the info I needed to know.
If I ask you, "What's the date?" and you start in telling me what year it is, I'm going to think "Asshole! I know what year it is, get to the useful info."

What's wrong with software conforming to humans rather than humans conforming to software?

Re:Old! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, MySQL invented that. I hear they also have this new thing called "transactions" they've been working on.

Re:Old! :)

[RdsArts]

'Sure, I'll need that by 02/07'
'Umm... Boss, it's already March.'
'Wha... What? No.. No, I need that in July.'

'And then, in 02/02/04 -'
'Feburary 2nd, 2004?!?'
'No. Moron. March 4th, 2002.'

Because humans insist on using shortform when it's confusing as all hell.

If I say 2/4, is it US notation? European? April 2nd or March 4th?

If I say 2004-02-04, you instantly know March 4th, 2004.

Of course, that wouldn't happen in spoken word, but I can't remember the last time someone made a audio-post to /..

Re:Old! :)

[dorward]

Seriously, people know what year it is, so saying "Two-thousand four, May fifth" is a big fat waste of time

Given the context is the written word, and that documents will (hopefully) persist beyond one week - the reader probably won't know that the document was written in 2004 unless the document says so.

Re:Old! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

you would be correct.

dyslexia from suffer sometimes i, ya know?

Re:Old! :)

[Just Some Guy]

But it's not culture neutral of course...

Any date representation that picks one calendar system as canonical, Gregorian included, is not "culture neutral". Someone's bound to be upset that ISO dates don't look like Prickle-Prickle, Discord 51, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3170.

I think you fnord meant "locale neutral".

Re:Old! :)

[Minna Kirai]

files that I archive are named "foo_yyyymmdd"

You can do a 1-line shell script to copy any single file into a date-stamped backup:
test $1 && cp -r $1 $1.`$0`||date +%y%m%d

(That command is non-Y2K-compliant, however)

Re:Old! :)

[4of12]

Got that right.

I learned the good ole USA way of date +"%m/%d/%y" and was de-modularized when I encountered the European way of date +"%d.%m.%y" .

I immediately realized that I had to do something that was less ambiguous. The European way is at least monotonically endian, while the USA way is not. But I have to write stuff down for fellow Americans.

Thus, date +"%Y/%m/%d" so that USA folks recognize the last 2 parts and the UK folks think "Oh! Backwards!" upon seeing the 4 digit year.

Re:Old! :)

[Herz]

Eh.. The second month of the year tends to be february :)

Re:Old! :)

[kasperd]

Why can't people use ISO date format?

I always write the abbreviated month name instead of a number, and I write the year with four digits. That avoids all that confusion. If you want as much confusion as possible write all three with two digits each. Like 060507 or 030102, and nobody will be sure what date I'm thinking about. Seriously a date with month name and four digits in the year is easy to handle in software if you give it just a bit of thought. If users type in years with just two digits (and users should be allowed to do that), immediately convert the year to four digits and show it to the user, and always store it with the full four digits.

Re:Old! :)

[kwoff]

After you've seen mm/dd/yy all your life, it's hard to change. I work in Europe now, and even though I'm a programmer and agree that it's be simpler if everyone wrote 20040503 or some such, I still find myself struggling to write down dates in practice, like when I fill out a time card for vacation where the difference between 5/3 - 5/4 for example would be possibly costly in terms of salary.

Re:Old! :)

[theLOUDroom]

Given the context is the written word, and that documents will (hopefully) persist beyond one week - the reader probably won't know that the document was written in 2004 unless the document says so.

I was explaining why the year is LAST in the date format, not why you never use it at all.

Re:Old! :)

[cayenne8]

"Ngggg! Why can't people use ISO date format? That is the silly month/day/year format."

What is this iso format? Is there another common date format other than MM/DD/YYYY?

Re:Old! :)

[natet]

Perhaps you should read the article, grasshopper... Yes, 2.6 has been considered Stable, but I know of no Linux based supercomputers currently running a 2.6 kernel.

Re:Old! :)

[PitaBred]

I use an Aztec calendar, you insensitive clod

Re:Old! :)

[gnu-generation-one]

"I use an Aztec calendar, you insensitive clod"

Can you get proper aztec fonts to work in linux/KDE, or does it just display the date as 12.19.11.4.7?

Re:Old! :)

[michael path]

Here in the US, we also say "humpday".

I definitely prefer the 'YYYY-MM-DD' format. To me, it makes sense and is easier to read in a listing view.

Re:Old! :)

[notwrong]

In Australia I think we would say "the 5th of June" significantly more often than "June the 5th", although you would of course be understood either way. I suspect you might occasionally be accused of "sounding American" if you said it in the month/day fashion.

When writing dates down, we always use day/month/year. To me this makes a lot more sense than month/day/year, as at least the significance of each part is monotonically increasing. Year/month/day would be even better, as it would match regular numbers (like an odometer).

Another post mentioned that the use of "9/11" is confusing when you're used to the day/year convention - I would say that this was true initially, but "9/11" has now been used a lot here (possibly in deference to the way Americans chose to refer to it). These days it pretty much seems like a proper noun, and is routinely used in conversation and the media without a second thought, as is the otherwise slightly unusual "September [the] 11th".

Re:Old! :)

[doom]

Why can't people use ISO date format? That is the silly month/day/year format.

I find such suggestions to be culturally insensitive, and a grave insult to my right to be an American boob.

The next thing you know, we'll all be using the metric system and speaking lojban.

Posted on 5/4/04. Deal.

Re:Old! :)

[juan2074]

I agree with you there.

For people raised in Chinese culture and other cultures that were heavily-influenced by the Chinese, dates are in that format. (Literally, it is 2004-year, 5-month, 4-day to represent 4 May 2004.)

begs the question ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Has any of the companies the John Doerr has launched every paid a dividend?

Or is this just Silicon Valley Russian Roulette all over again?

Re:begs the question ...

[nelsonal]

You were probably being facetous, but back in the day one of his first venture investments was in Compaq, which paid a dividend prior to their acquisition by HP. HP, of course pays a dividend as well. Pretty sad that you have to go back to his first venture investments (in 1980 to find a dividend paying company). Intuit could afford to and will likely begin to pay a dividend in the next few years.

Re:begs the question ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who ever bought NSCP would have made $$$$ if they'd held onto it until AOL took over...that was jimb's big claim at the end...sniff...

Re:begs the question ...

[smallpaul]

Paying a dividend is only one way of rewarding shareholders. The other is to reinvest in growth. No early investor of Microsoft complained that it took them years (decades?) to pay a dividend. The trick is for the company and the shareholders to both recognize when further growth is unlikely.

Re:begs the question ...

[nelsonal]

They haven't needed cash to invest in growth for more than 15 years. Even if you subtract their stock repurchases (really an operating expense as that is pay for their programmers and management) they haven't needed as much cash as the business generates for more than 10 years. Also, their ability to produce additional cash through investments leaves something to be desired. Windows, Office, Server tools, and bonds are the only cash generating (over their lifetime) businesses they have. Guess what the only one that is getting additional funding is the bond business.

Please not another linux rising story...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see Linux succeed as much as any other slashbot, but these "linux is gaining ground" and "XXXX is going to be the year of the linux desktop" stories all over the place are as old as the FreeBSD is dying posts. The next story(ies) I want to see concerning linux gaining ground is when linux surpasses its commercial competitors... specifically apple and MS. If anything I think the large number of them hurts the cause, because using solar energy as an example, years of reading about how much better things are getting and how big things are just around the corner makes you lose faith in the technology.

Re:Please not another linux rising story...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason you see this kind of linux propaganda is because slashdot, being part of OSDN, is up to its neck in interest in linux succeeding. Its not really a news site anymore so much as a big ad for linux.

Re:Please not another linux rising story...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd mod this up if I had the points right now.

Re:Please not another linux rising story...

[_Sprocket_]

The reason you see this kind of linux propaganda is because slashdot, being part of OSDN, is up to its neck in interest in linux succeeding. Its not really a news site anymore so much as a big ad for linux.

Say. You don't suppose Slashdot expressed a pro-Linux bias well before OSDN got involved, do you? Funny, that.

Re:Please not another linux rising story...

[Anonymous Coward]

"XXXX is going to be the year of the linux desktop"

40 is going to be the year of the Linux Desktop? Those clever Romans - they had everything first. ;)

This isn't suprising now, is it?

[MoThugz]

I mean, seriously... in high-end enterprises traditionally powered by mainframes and other big iron computers, it's just waiting to be overrun by Linux.

Sure, it can also be the *BSDs, but there's no denying that Linux is where the growth is much, much more rapid.

Within the space of a few years, Linux already has feasible clustering technologies and tremendous kernel-level improvements (as can be seen in the 2.6 series).

Those who can't see "the Linux advantage" in this area are just blind, or choosing to see it as a competitor to their traditional solutions, and not as a potentially profitable and cost-effective tool that it really is.

Re: USA Today and NYT on Linux rising

[manavendra]

I don't deny that Linux is rising. Hurrah to open source and down with evil corporations and PHBs!(err, assuming they don't exist in OSS)

However, $12 mil is too small in today's world. The LinuxCare website does not have any customer testimonials listed. Neither is the website itself too impressive - gives you the impression of a startup. Will it crawl, walk and run? Only time will tell.

But what's important is the disparate, yet collective impetus for individuals and organizations far and wide, into a solution that doesn't exist as a single dominant entity, but feeds upon the ever-increasing converts (or zealots).

Let's hope, with time, not only is Linux's use spreads to corporations, but also it becomes usable and acceptable by newbie users. We all know how great and brilliant Linux is, but the true acceptance will come the day first time computer buyers will go and buy a Linux pre-installed PC.

Another Day...

[cexshun]

Another article about how linux will take over the world. I love GNU/Linux as much as the next guy, but we've been seeing article like this since RH 6.0. Linux on the desktop is the king of vaporware. The article should be modded down (-1) Redundant

Re:Another Day...

[MoThugz]

If it was yet another "corporate desktop Linux" bullpaganda, I wouldn't have bothered clicking on the article link...

But FINALLY, it's an article about where Linux should be the OS of choice, and not where the desktop zealots think it should be.

You did RTFA before posting now, did you?

Re:Another Day...

[cexshun]

Yes I did. My comment on the desktop was slightly off topic, yet still related. But my point is still valid. How long have people been saying that linux/unix is the OS of choice for corporate servers? It's not that admins don't know about linux, it's that they just don't know how to use it. You wouldn't want to install an OS as a server that you knew nothing about, now would you?

I've talked to many other admins, and they all love the performance Linux adds to servers. But again, they just don't know how to administer linux, so they use IIS or whatever. Plus, in college, they don't teach Linux. I know at Purdue, all the classes are Visual Studio, IIS, etc. Why? Because MS gives the bookstore education copied of all their software. MS keeps the market cornered not because they are a better OS, or because linux is unknown. They dominate because they target the prime group. Students studying to be the future admins of the world.

Re:Another Day...

[MoThugz]

I agree with what you said, which is, in essence... it's not the platform, but the skills required to operate the platform properly.

Heck, I find configuring Apache to be far more easier than IIS (ok, so mod_rewrite and a handful of other obscure modules don't count ;))... and I'm an MCSE (and starting to see the point why the more knowledgable techies look down on those four letters).

I also agree that MS has made the proper approach in "cornering" the students, but as far as it goes in Asia (at least), MS did not use this approach... some may argue that it's unnecessary (due to the piracy rate, etc. etc.), but academically Linux (and the BSDs to a lesser degree) are getting more and more exposure.

Seriously, how can it not be? It's not just a base OS, but a complete development platform (agreed that this depends on installation options selected, etc. etc.). Forget about being free, more importantly, it comes without any legal baggages that most universities (and students) would like to avoid by opting for proprietry stuff (not just MS here, but also Sun Solaris or IBM's AIX for example).

Re:Another Day...

[jedidiah]

If you are running Microsoft software then the comfort level of your admins (to switch away) is the least of your concerns. Ditto for "software efficiency".

Re:Another Day...

[dr.newton]

You have a good point, I agree that education is where people need to start with linux or most of them are going to find it too frustrating to pick up something as completely different as linux is from what they know, when they are already proficient at solving problems with another platform.

I did just want to say though, that at my college (Algonquin College, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) in the Comp Sci program we learn shell scripting (bash, sed, awk), Unix/Linux Application Programming in C, we do GUI Dev in java on linux boxes, and OpenGL in C++ on Linux.

So there are some places out there that aren't entirely MS.

Re:Another Day...

[budgenator]

they just don't know how to administer linux,
I know this is going to sound like a flame, but I don't mean it to, but if you can graduate from a Purdue CS curiculum and honestly can't admin a Linux machine, you may have mis-invested your tuition dollars. I suspect that it is far more likely that you can admin a Linux box but feel uncomfortable about it. 80-90% of the differences are going to be user-interface stuff; your windows

start->my computer->control pannel->network

becomes

start->system->configuration->YaST->Basic Networking

type of things because the theory is the same.

Re:Another Day...

[Frizzle Fry]

you can graduate from a Purdue CS curiculum and honestly can't admin a Linux machine, you may have mis-invested your tuition dollars

Or perhaps he spent his time and tuition money on learning Computer Science? That's what I did when I got my CS degree (not at purdue). I think if you went to school to study cs and instead learned how to be a network admin, it may be you who wasted your tuition. Rather than speding your time learning specific technical facts that will be obselete in a few years anyway and that you could easily teach yourself, like where YaST networking configuration is, perhaps you would be better off getting an actual education while in school.

Re:Another Day...

[Thing 1]

It's not that admins don't know about linux, it's that they just don't know how to use it. You wouldn't want to install an OS as a server that you knew nothing about, now would you?

Our IT department said flat-out, "we're not implementing Linux as a solution because I lack expertise in that OS."

Hopefully we'll hire competent IT soon, but I'm not holding my breath.

Big corporations

[Elektroschock]

American provide big business stories but it usually seems to be hot air. I don't care about big business as the community depends on a few people that actually do something.

I am not intrested in IBM urging SUN to gpl Java as IBM *easily* could provide assistence to the GNU Classpath project. And what about Jikes?

Or Nat Friedman's anti-KDE Fud machine. Novells Suse supports KDE and he will not change that committment.

Business stories may delight some reader, I found it rather unintresting.

I don't think that despite for propaganda reasons big business was of any real importance. When they want provide help it's letter stamp money for them. I would like to see a real committment, i.e. manpower, code and support. I am not intrested in campaigns from the PR office.

(While IBM's patent attorneys lobby in BXL for swpats...)

Freight Train

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a freight train I wouldn't want to get in front of

Or be riding it on if it derails.

The best quote!

[Pranjal]

At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., Linux has all but taken over, said Scott Studham, associate director for advanced computing there. "When I got here three years ago, there were circa 1,000 processors here, of which four ran Linux," he said. "Now there are circa 2,000 processors, and maybe 64 of them don't run Linux."

If this doesn't show that Linux has gained over the years then I don;t know what will.

Re:The best quote!

[schon]

"When I got here three years ago, there were circa 1,000 processors here, of which four ran Linux," he said. "Now there are circa 2,000 processors, and maybe 64 of them don't run Linux."

Ahh.. so what he's saying is that when he got there, they had abacuses (abaci?), and now they have Pentium-IIs?

circa: in approximately: born circa 1900

My question (of course), is how the hell did they get an abacus to run Linux?

Re:The best quote!

[Cuzzle]

I work for the laboratory and the quote is a little misleading. We actually have closer to 10,000 processors here 2,000 of which run Linux. These are the two supercomputer clusters that we have. Most of our servers and almost all the workstations have Microsoft operating systems. My group has 8 servers and about 100 workstations and only 2 servers and about 3 workstations run Linux. The supercomputers are simply incredible though!

Re:The best quote!

[iabervon]

That link says: "circa: In approximately; about: born circa 1900"

While not as common, "circa" is perfectly reasonable to apply to numbers.

Re:The best quote!

[Anonymous Coward]

My question (of course), is how the hell did they get an abacus to run Linux?
You don't know that SuSe (alias Novell) poptred linux to abacus? it's called SUSSEX aBaCuS

Re:The best quote!

[Anonymous Coward]

While not as common, "circa" is perfectly reasonable to apply to numbers.

As long as those numbers are years.

If what you say is true, why have the "In approximately" in the definition at all?

They already do!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to walmart.com and see pre-installed Linux machines with newbie distros! SuSE, Xandros, Linspire and Java Desktop.

Please also try KDE 3.2 and GNOME 2.6, you will be SHOCKED how EASY THEY ARE!

Linux is future

[masternerd]

Linux is future for
- Developer commnunity
- Intelligent software and equipments (Embedded software)
- Governments
- Expert level users
However, for common users linux still is away as
- For various applications, it is not yet common to have linux version and linux drivers
- Level of expertise (not that it is difficult but there always is resistance to change)
- Maturity in linux.
One thing is sure, linux march will prompt microsoft to do better in terms of price and quality.

Linux is DYING

[michael path]

I've decided I'm going to write an article stating "Linux is dying", citing distribution fragmenting the market, Red Hat moving to the ~$5/mo. subsciption model, the end of FreeSWAN, and SCO's litigation invoking FUD.

I'd be full of shit, but it would be about as substanciated as some of the articles posted here on Linux lately.

Re:Linux is DYING

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Hat moving to the ~$5/mo. subsciption model
Stop spreading bullshit man, they aren't "moving" anywhere. They offer different contracts for different needs. WHY do so many slashdot readers spread so much Red Hat fud. So now its not they killed the desktop but we have to pay them $5 a month! OMG what happened to $60 a year!.. oh wait 5x12 is $60, move along..

Re:Linux is DYING

[azaris]

As the result of a comment with the subject "Linux is DYING" being moderated to "+5, Insightful", Slashdot will now spontaneously implode.

Thank you for your time.

Re:Linux is DYING

[_Sprocket_]

I'd be full of shit, but it would be about as substanciated as some of the articles posted here on Linux lately.

The difference is that the insubstantial articles used to all be about why Linux will fail. Then there were a few insubstantial articles about companies experiementing with Linux. Now insubstantial articles about Linux gaining footing in corporate, scientific, and entertainment markets are fairly common.

Granted - it's all mostly dross. So are the majority of other technical articles (read: thinly rehashed press releases). But the interesting piece here isn't the content of the articles per se.

The interesting point is that there are possitive Linux articles - and they are increasing in number.

Re:Linux is DYING

[Anonymous Coward]

The interesting point is that there are possitive (sic) Linux articles - and they are increasing in number.

Compared to what? Slashdot 2003? Don't kid yourself. If it is on Slashdot, it is all "base, trivial, or inferior"

Gripe: Use of "circa"

[goldspider]

(offtopic rant, goodbye karma!)

When did the words like "around", "about", and "roughly" become inadequate to convey an approximation?

Research lab != enterprise computing

[UNIXGK]

"High-end enterprise environments?" The article is about scientific research clusters (MPP), not enterprise business servers, which are typically large SMP boxes. There's a big difference between 100 one-way Linux boxes crunching numbers with Fortran and a 100-way Sun E15000 running OLTP with Oracle. The latter is a "high-end enterprise environment"; the former is not.

Re:Research lab != enterprise computing

[jedidiah]

Actually, an OLTP system is remarkably similar to number crunching with a Fortran MPP. Such a system is a large collection of small operations, many of which operate on discrete sets of data.

This is why real "high-end enterprise environments" that run such applications are deploying Linux clusters. Oracle is much better at scaling on multiple 8G systems than one 100G monster.

Please try GNOME 2.6 and get informed!

[Anonymous Coward]

You have obviouly NOT tried GNOME 2.6. It has been given a complete usability makeover. Most notable is the new file manager which is ultra easy to use and the computer icon which makes hardware support ultra easy. Saying Linux is hard to use with modern distros such as the upcoimng Fedora 2 is nothing but a TROLL!

Intel has open sourced their centrino drivers, NVidia and ATI all have drivers so driver problems are now extermly rare!

Re: USA Today and NYT on Linux rising

[Otter]

However, $12 mil is too small in today's world. The LinuxCare website does not have any customer testimonials listed. Neither is the website itself too impressive - gives you the impression of a startup. Will it crawl, walk and run? Only time will tell.

LinuxCare has been around for five years, and Kleiner Perkins was involved from the begining. It's been through multiple rounds of scandal and executive reshuffling already. It wasn't clear whether the $12M and the freight train quote are recent or from 1999. My impression is that the first is ancient news and the second is new, but maybe not.

Another Close Call!

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

I Scanned the article and read John Doerr . . .investing $12 million in LinuxCare..

As some may now Bill Gates invests in companies like John Deere. I thought, "so that's how he's gonna get in, through the back door". Then I RTFA and said Whew!

They play that damn Nelly and Chingy to much, when something like DEER reads as DERR and vice versa.

Didn't they already go bankrupt once?

[pridkett]

Correcty me if I'm wrong, but didn't linuxcare already go bankrupt (or nearly so) once during the DotCom flameout? I seem to recall them having an IPO planned and then canning the IPO and laying off a large portion of their staff in the same week. The only useful thing I remember from them was their bootable business card rescue CDs.

Heck, google doesn't even have a snapshot of text for linuxcare.com indicating it's been down for a while and was recently brought back up. In fact, the top hit for which there is a snippet is an article about linuxcare laying people off.

Seems like some people are getting a bit too excited about the Google IPO and thinking that once again companies with no real business plan can do IPOs worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm sorry, but you're going to check your enthusiasm in favor or results for a little while at least.

Re:Didn't they already go bankrupt once?

[yoshi_mon]

Seems like some people are getting a bit too excited about the Google IPO and thinking that once again companies with no real business plan can do IPOs worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

You present a mixed message there that really is not fair to Google. They have been private and profitable for quite some time and to lump them in with "companies with no real business plan" does not help your point.

What you point should be, imo, is that many people walking around with capital, with MBAs, or those writeing about these events have no real clue about what is really going on with IT technology and instead play there strategies off buzzwords and watered down reports.

What's new about this trend?

[News for nerds]

Linux: UP
Windows: UP
Unix and Sun Microsystems and SCO: SHARP DOWN

Considers...

[grahamlee]

Although it doesn't provide obligatory pretty pictures

Hardly obligatory then, are they?

Re:Gripe: Use of "circa"

[RetroGeek]

Because they have more-or-less the same meaning. :-))

Is This Realistic?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the future - thousands of processors and Linux
won't scale to that?
I would doubt thousands of cpu's in an SMP even
for a propriatery OS.

New applications of Linux

[justkarl]

In my free time, when not reading /., I'm an amateur producer/DJ. One program I use is called FinalScratch which implements it's own version of Linux to maximize performance. I think that hi-performance application specific apps like this, rather than using windows and outrageous system requirements, do well to implement their own shell.

This, as well as a larger support system/better useablity for Joe User, in my opinion, is what will bring Linux into the mainstream.

Re:New applications of Linux

[iso]

...except that after overwhelming complaints about FS not working on various laptops, the latest version of Final Scratch only runs on Mac OS X and Windows XP. Bad example.

Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Good news, good news. Soon there will be stories of stupid Linux users phoning support and then we'll see viruses popping up everywhere. It will all be an anavoidable monolith that will shout out the fame of Linux.

Ninnle still the best!

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon, Ninnle Linux, the best Linux distro out there, will surpass Windows in popularity. It is already far superior to anything else in flexibility, security, configurability, and just-plain ease-of-use! I'm not surprised that USA Today and the NYT are choossing to give Linux more and more coverage, but highly disappointed that Ninnle isn't mentioned once. Considering Linus himself runs it on his own system, you would think Ninnle would have a higher profile.

At the expense of HP-UX

[eltoyoboyo]

From the eWeek article on January 13th, 2003: "The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is already creating supercomputer clusters using HP rx2600 servers powered by Itanium 2 and running Linux. Scott Studham, technical lead for the lab's Molecular Science Computing Facility, said they chose Linux over HP-UX in part because they had used it in other projects. "It is very stable, very robust, and [it is] very easy to get support," Studham said."

The rising tide of Linux at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory came at the expense of the HP-UX. And why not? The PNNL (and NASA) employ a significant number of engineers and computer scientists at high expense. They can justify having them work on computer projects such as customizing or modifying the operating system. I would expect them to "roll their own". Using open source probably has saved taxpayers a significant amount of time and money, and may benefit us all.

Most fortune 500 companies do not have the FTE allocations to bring in computer scientists, and instead look for packaged products and solutions.

Bottom line: Yay for Linux!, but this is not business news.

Re:At the expense of HP-UX

[_Sprocket_]

Most fortune 500 companies do not have the FTE allocations to bring in computer scientists, and instead look for packaged products and solutions.

Which is why outfits like RedHat and IBM offer their services.

Re:At the expense of HP-UX

[geomon]

Bottom line: Yay for Linux!, but this is not business news.

I agree.

I work at the PNNL and there are damn few scientists or engineers who use Linux (or any UNIX) day in, day out. The majority of systems are Wintel, with a wonderfully amazing level of Mac use. I am the only Linux user in a building of approximately 150 staff.

Not exactly taking over the world.

Re:At the expense of HP-UX

[juan2074]

I worked for Battelle there when it was still called PNL.

In one group, we used Macs for workstations and OS/2 to run the mass spectrometers. In another group, the workstations were mostly running Windows, and some of the mass spectrometers were run with Windows, some with OS/2, and some with good old-fashioned mechanical switches and dials.

Thanks for bringing back the memories. . .

Joe user linux is here!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just try a Gnome 2.6 or KDE 3.2 based Linux such as Mandrake 10 or Fedora 2, they are really easy to use.

Ninnle Freight Train?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I KNOW I can, I KNOW I can!"

Re:Ninnle Freight Train?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction:
"I already did, and will continue doing so."

Re:Hey look

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it isn't another iPod advertisement.

Government using unix derivative - not newsworthy

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose that the government funded projects / agencies mentioned have never ever used unix before.

um

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let your fanboy-ism get in the way of the truth.
Read about those drivers on their Sourforge page:
http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/todo.php

The WEP code is unstable.
If WEP is enabled (CONFIG_IPW2100_WEP=y), it will eventually crash.
Occassionally[sic], packets start failing decryption.
Firmware restarts are still occuring too frequently.


WHOO!! Go open source111!!!

Especially since...

[bonch]

This article is from last March.

The Linux Fault Threshold

[bonch]

This humorous article pretty much sums up Linux on the desktop, and describes the Linux Fault Threshold...something seen way too often around here.

I like linux as much as the next guy

[Gigaah]

But thinking linux is taking on the world is still a bit silly to me. Sure its gained heaps of mainstream acceptace, but to think Microsoft will let it get out of hand and become a real threat just doesn't reflect history or reality. I know the /. community myself included doesn't care for MS. However, there isn't a one that can deny the corporate giants they are and what shrewed and effective buisness men run MS. I'm not a MAC fan(never even used one) but I think Apple has a better shot IF it adopted the x86 hardware. (Just ignore the crazy guy at the bottom of the list)

If the articles like this stopped comming...

[skurken]

...then I'd worry. Perhaps reporting the rise of Linux on Slashdot is a bit like preaching to the quire, but I think there are several good reasons for doing it:

1) Mentioning how great their products will be and how many are already adopting the technology (even though it isn't finished yet) is one of Microsofts many marketing tricks and one that I'd say have helped them along. Why not learn from them?

2) Making a change in something as set as the desktop OS market requires substantial momentum and, as your post implied, RH couldn't do it, SuSE hasn't been able to do it but that doesn't mean it can't be done. It's all in the numbers and if the Linux community stops announcing all the (more or less) serious attempts, how will we know somebody is trying? How will we find new partners to colaborate with?

The first article mentioning "Desktop Linux on the Rise" was news, the second perhaps a bit less so and this one maybe not at all, but the increasing occurence of such articles is news in itself.

Re:If the articles like this stopped comming...

[jonathan_ingram]

preaching to the quire

quire: A collection of leaves of parchment or paper, folded one within the other, in a manuscript or book.

Why would I want to preach to paper?

True

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux doesn't have to compete with microsoft on quality (that it does is nice though). The important thing is that linux is open, and will always be around to provide competition to prevent companies like MS from price-gouging.

I see the goal of open source as being to make software a commodity, keeping profit-margins sensible and corporations down to size.

Re:Hey look

[Anonymous Coward]

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

But this is Linux's #1 propaganda site, so what'd you expect? To load slashdot without seeing pro-linux propaganda?

Other NASA uses of Linux

[acre]

At Johnson Space Center, the flight planning workstations are in the process of migrating from AIX to Red Hat.

The laptops on the spacestation that are used for command and control are also moving to Red Hat from Solaris.

Also there is a project in work to move the Mission Control Center workstations from Dec/Compaq/HP alphas runing True64 to a new platform. The two options under consideration are HP-UX and Red Hat.

Re:Gripe: Use of "circa"

[Morel]

Ha! You think that's bad? Did you see this:

"Our customer set is not a monolithic body of like-minded individuals."

Allow me to decrypt:

"Our customers are not the Borg."

USA Today and Linux

[garymcg]

I was reading USA Today at lunch, and in the article about Frank Quattrone being found guilty for generally being sleazy, the writer states that "Frank Quattrone helped take numerous high-tech companies public, including Linux."

Just another example of us little guys being shut out from an IPO. Not only that, it's been kept secret until now...

Anti-Linux Trolls

[Nafai7]

I'm amazed how many of them are out today. Is it a beginning-of-the-month thing or what?

Re:Anti-Linux Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no! This is a result of Microsoft's recent increase in their astroturfing budget!

Seriously, haven't you noticed the abundance of Microsoft trolls here just since the beginning of the year? I do believe that Billy G. has decided that he can mould Windows into a secure, stable OS while degrading Linux enough to make it a non-competitor simply by repeating things enough times that everyone believes they are true. Must be cheaper than actually fixing product!

And, yes, this is a troll!

NASA Global Hawk UAV's will use linux

[carn1fex]

Im making the data systems for the instruments (radars, lidars, radiometers) that are going in NASAs global hawk UAVs (the air force is hopefully going to lend us some) and im going to run it all off linux.. hooray. In reality it is the best option.. of all the cards and doohickeys going in this thing, almost all of these companies supply linux drivers now and other OS's are more randomly supported. Some do linux and vxworks, others do linux and NT etc..

Re:Gripe: Use of "circa"

[Just Some Guy]

Circa 1999.

Re:Hey look

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot. Is 2004 the year of Linux taking over the desktop or has that been pushed back to 2005?

Re:Old! :) [OT]

[RdsArts]

Ah, see. This only further proves my point. They confused me even as I wrote them! ;)

The Year of Windows XP

[westlake]

Go to walmart.com and see pre-installed Linux machines with newbie distros! SuSE, Xandros, Linspire and Java Desktop.

Microsoft Sells 210 Million Copies of Windows XP . The number, based mostly on OEM installs, equates to about 10 million OEM system sales a month, up from 6 million a month last July. That does not leave much breathing room for any newbie oriented OEM Linux distro.

Wal-Mart's add copy describes Sun's JDS desktops as dedicated Star Office machines "based on Linux."

It must be paid astroturfing.

[Anonymous Coward]

The complaints aren't very heart-felt and all sound the same ... like they came from some marketing director's talking points list. They all sound alike "I'm tired of all this Microsoft bashing ... Linux just isn't ready for prime time ... I just use the the best tool [ which is Microsoft tools] ... blah .. blah .. blah ].

Oh and what distro should i use? :)

[carn1fex]

Im not a linux expert by any means.. i run redhat at home and have winamp etc installed. Im an electrical engineer. So what distro is easiest to install but has the smallest amount of BS going on behind the scenes? Lotta low level i/o coding to be done, need some good C development tools..

Bzzt!! Try Again

[Findus Krispy]

Yes I did.

You lie Sir! The article is about how Linux IS the dominant OS for high end computing (mainframes and clustering). Not servers, and not about how it's getting better, but how it IS NO.1 RIGHT NOW in that market segment.

Re:Government using unix derivative - not newswort

[faxafloi]

What's significant is that USA Today noticed.

Re: begs the question...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is happening to slashdot???

That original posting was made OVER SIX HOURS ago, and still no pedant has popped out of the woodwork to give the old "begs-the-question-means-circular-argument" whine.

That raises the question: have they finally realized that using the phrase "begs the question" to mean "circular reasoning" is really, really dumb?

Hasn't that happened already?

[metroid composite]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember an article either about surpassing Apple on the desktop, or projected to surpass Apple in 2004. It was a while ago on Slashdot, mind, so it's too far back for me to search easily and check, and they both have about 3% market share so it's not like Microsoft is exactly scared.

Re:Gripe: Use of "circa"

[UserGoogol]

More vocab = more better. Anyway, each word has a slightly different connotation, and that's where much of the beauty of English lies.

Re:Gripe: Use of "circa"

[horza]

When did the words like "around", "about", and "roughly" become inadequate to convey an approximation?

around: I'm about to round this number up to make it sound more impressive
about: this is really a shot in the dark
roughly: I counted ages ago, it can't have increased by much
circa: I think I know but I'm using this word as a disclaimer just in case

Phillip.

google link

[xiopher]

google link here