UNIX fragmentation editorial

Mac_Daddy writes "Stan Gibson with PC Week Online magazine gives a short editorial about the many flavors of *nix. It talks mostly about SCO OpenServer, and also mentions NT. "

Comments

post voodoo

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there are post problems, someone should work on the beta or let me do it.

slashdot comment system problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

The main index says five comments, yet I see only two. Something is amiss!

interesting glass-half-full perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

In the absense of any robust OS alternatives, *NIX variants will compete with each other - which is a good thing. It drives forward feature sets and security while discouraging bloat. *NIX users simply don't believe in the "new OS means new hardware" philosophy. Linux still runs on 386s, and Solaris still runs on ancient Sparc5s. I agree, the more *NIX variants the better.

Variety is the spice of life, after all.

Variety..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. Not to mention being the spice of evolution!

This article gives readers an erroneous impression

[Anonymous Coward]

That impression being that SCO is a viable product with a bright future.

slashdot comment system problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

did you try lowering your threshold? :)

Huzzah for niche markets

[Anonymous Coward]

The editorial was a concise, well-written piece (a rarity among computer journalism of any kind), and made a good point: that part of the strength of Unix is that it can serve lots of specializaed niche markets with great efficiency.

While Unix has always been the swiss army knife of operating systems, it's success is also due to the fact that it doesn't try to be all things to all people. For instance, I prefer to run Linux on my home machines, but might prefer FreeBSD for a high-performance server, or Solaris if I needed support for particular commercial applications, or Irix if I were doing lots of workstation graphics. If you try to build an OS that attempts to offer something for everyone, it's likely to end up as a watered-down toy that is satisfactory to no one (insert disparaging comment about WinNT).

The fragmentation of Unix may make things tricky for some application developers, but as a fairly experienced programmer/admin, I've never had major problems moving from one flavor of Unix to another. Sure, I may have to type 'ps -ef' instead of 'ps aux', and of course you have to recompile your code, but for the most part the underlying guts are mostly predictable. Diversity can be a nice catalyst for innovation.

I thought that was Mark Twain....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm....I thought that the origin of the quote about not beloning to an organized party was Mark Twain, not Will Rogers. Either my memory is faulty or the author has confused the source of the quote.

Will Rogers also said he never met a man he didn't like, so I for one don't put too much trust in his judgement. :-)

SCO OpenServer is worse than NT

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been using both Linux and Solaris for
the last four years and it rocks.

Last year I bought and tried SCO Openserver. I wished I never had spent a single cent on it. It
truly *SUCKS*. I was so angry I felt like burning the CD + Books + box. I tried to sell it for a resonable price, but no offers. It now lies in a shelf, waiting for the fire.

he also,

[Anonymous Coward]

At least he didn't have himself stuffed, a la Jeremy Bentham.

interesting glass-half-full perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that be 100% too large?

Several Standards on one Base...Possibly,

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been thinking about the standards issue for a while now, and I think I may have come up with a solution that might work, as far as GNU/Linux is concerned.

Create an Enterprise standard, Home User/SOHO standard, and a Developer standard(which would be coordinated to allow ease of development for which ever branch they wanted to focus on and allow for compatibility with the other.)

i.e. It would not make any sense (to me at least) to be running the same Standard on a Supercomputer and a 250mhz PC.
Likewise creating two branches in one Standard Base would enable developers to focus in on the area that interests them the most with little difficulty switching to the other if they so choose.

This would, in effect, short circuit the corporate steamrollers attempts from dictating thier view of standards on a community which requires the freedom to work as they please. Of course any sort of standard will place some restrictions on development, however it would be better to establish an open standard rather than have it be dictated by the needs of a corporate hierarchy.

A little splintering is inevitable; or could we call it consolidation. I choose to view this as an oppourtunity rather than a problem to be fixed. However if we dont get on the ball, it will become a problem, a very unpleasant one at that. By consolidating a couple of branches on one Linux Standard Base, we could meet the needs of both corporate and individual developers and/or users without sacraficing our autonomy.

Is this idea short sighted? I'm certainly not some all knowing guru. This just seems like a pragmatic solution to an inevitable problem(to me anyways).

I'll shut up now and let the users do the talking. ;->

Comments? Suggestions? Flames? Should I go back to the drawing board? ;->

Chris

Tranicos@grnet.com

Several Standards on one Base...Possibly,

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's supercomputer, tomorrow's palm pilot. What's the difference really?

SCO OpenServer is worse than NT

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Sounds like a personal problem. Keep your Slowlaris and Winblowz (I'm gonna take your Linux though.. you don't deserve it).

Actually, that seems like a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point is taken. I will post to the LSB mailing list.

I wouldnt think that keeping the software on the branches close together would be too difficult, but then again, I could be wrong.

I'm thinking "What kind of apps would home user run that would be run in a huge corporate environment as well?".

I havent spent much time in corporate enviro yet.

Naturally all the standard *NIX apps should run well across both branches. i.e. gcc, telnet, ftp, vi, et...

But as far as Databases and Word Processors and such, I'm not quite sure. Naturally a small office/home user is not going to put as intense a demand on such applications as, per say, Sears Roebuck would.

This should be discussed. Perhaps not here though.

Talk to you on the list.

Chris

Tranicos@grnet.com

Actually, that seems like a good idea-Reply fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

I should read what I write before I post.

I meant to say that keeping software on the branches close together would NOT be too difficult.

Sorry. ;-p

Chris
Tranicos@grnet.com

Unix is unified because ...

[Anonymous Coward]

of open standards like POSIX, and X, and because of the GNU system.

Try the GNU system, now with Linux!

he also,

[Anonymous Coward]

Horse? I thought he lived in the 25th century?

Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Life implies change. Change implies risk. The trick is to take the risks with minimal damage and reap the benefits of what works out. If you compare this to waging war (of which I know next to nothing), there are a few very obvious rules.
1) do not put general headquarters on the front line.
2) do send out expendable scouting parties to probe enemy strengths, etc.
3) do not move batallions single file through enemy territory.

Even if you are trying to solve one problem, in one context, you need diversity.
AC running IE5 on NT4SP3 wishing and waiting.

Solaris 7 runs on a SparcStation1

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, MacOS 8.5 will run on any Mac made in the last five years.

gcc and other open source tools available for SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI:
gcc and egcs are available for download from SCO. It's true that many programs require some porting to compile under the SCO supplied complier, but normally it's not difficult.

There is also lxrun which lets you run many linux binaries without recompiling.

Many of the tools you "go looking for" are also probably at the SCO Skunkware site for free download.

Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the people who bought Xenix (not the same thing) years ago from Macrocrap, and accepted giving equity to them as part of the transaction.

SCO OpenServer is worse than NT

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew when I saw SCO mentioned on the Slashdot page, I'd find clueless idiots spouting "SCO SUCKS!", and sure enough, here's one.

To keep the flame brief and to the point, if you can't get GCC working on OpenServer, you're an idiot. There are custom installable binaries on SCO's web server, or get it off of the FREE Skunkware CD which SCO includes with every system, which has dozens of other freeware compiled binaries for idiots like yourself, ready to install.

About the only time you CAN'T get something to compile on SCO is when it's written by some idiotic Linux programmer who thinks Linux == UNIX and uses Linuxisms that don't appear in other UNIXes.

Fear not

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is the result of us little guys SCREAMING at reporters for the last three years.

There hasn't been available a decent mailing list manager for at least that long. They've all been pushed aside in favor of the VB/Access combo that developers love and end users curse.

We've been asking them to cover something else, anything else. I put together a spiffy combo of Adabas/PHP to manage donations and grants. So easy, and impressed the heck out of a small time reporter. He really zonked over that browser interface.

kmode exception: scokrnel.dll crash at vemacs.ocx

[Anonymous Coward]

And why didn't you listen to the Toolman's advice? Now look what its done to your brain.

Wrong: UNIX fragment. is a killer for corporate IT

[Anonymous Coward]

No corporate manager type wants to take the risk of choosing the "wrong" UNIX and/or Linux distribution that won't survive for 10 more years. Microsoft is still a "safe" bet. Any fragmented platform introduces excessive risk which is totally unacceptable to the techo-fearful, which frankly, there are a lot of.

This is also a problem for Linux consumers on the desktop.

This is perhaps not as big a problem for large UNIX servers, where UNIX does OK partly because you can afford to pay people to move stuff from one UNIX to another, and your real lockin is typically the database, but even in that scenario, that's still work an IT person'd rather avoid (as its totally unproductive in nature.)

Decent developer types know how to overcome the risk of choosing one of several similar UNIX platforms. Others generally don't know, and pick a platform with less risk, e.g. Windows. Good Linux advocates better have a compelling argument for this rather than than the old "it's a strength" saw. That was a loser for the major UNIX vendors vs. NT.

Plus, any fragmented platform is fundamentally less appealing to ISVs. Porting is easy, I agree, but so what? The 80/20 rule still hurts, because 20% of the work is porting, and 80% of the work is testing and supporting multiple platforms.

Willing to change my mind, but haven't seen compelling arguments why I'm wrong on this. Have been using Linux off and on since 1993, thanks. Really don't want to see Linux blow it; others' dismissing it out of hand is not an adequate solution.

I have to agree with poster #1.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a lot of people complaining about SCO that never do their research. SCO has 2 very important patches that need to be applied. One is mainly a networking patch and the other is mainly a SMP patch. Most poeple I've seen complaining about Openserver 5.02 (I have not tested 5.04 or 5.05)have not applied these patches.

I agree that it sucks that they have patches to fix their OS but until these patches are applied people have no grounds to bitch.

It's bad, but it's *not* worse than NT

[Anonymous Coward]

We used OpenServer for a while before I was able to convince the higher-ups to switch to Linux. (The Halloween documents helped.) OpenServer was ass, this is true, but about the same level as HP-UX. Neither of these sucks nearly as much cock as NT, not by a long shot. It may not be as good a unix, but at least it's still unix.

Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every corporation I've come in contact with has had MAJOR problems dealing with Windows fragmentation. Most still feel you need to at least support Win 3.1, many have 95 as a standard as tjeu didn't want to upgrade to 98 due to rumored stability problems. Their users want 98 however and install it, causing all manner of support problems. Then you've got NT, WinCE and the Win2K vaporware. And now it looks like Win2K will be fragmented at the kernel level too. It's bad enough managing your client setups and licensing, god help you if you're planning on doing development.

Wrong: MS fragment. is a killer for corporate IT

[Anonymous Coward]

MS users have the same (actually, worse) problem: which Windows do I choose for deployment?

Win95? Win98? WinNT 3.5x? WinNT 4.0 SPx? Win2000? WinCE? Workstation? Server? Which licensing combination is best? Which apps do I need? What do they run on? Can I "second source" any of these?

Who's to say that any one of the above platforms will be alive and supported in ten years by Microsoft? The risk isn't just the same - it's greater, since you are completely dependent on a single vendor during the life cycle of your project.

This is why UNIX rules (and will continue to rule) in the enterprise space. The "open systems" model has proven to be the best model for a customer to protect their IT assets while preventing vendor lock-in. When it comes to Open Systems, nobody does it better than UNIX.

UNIX, fragmentation, other thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not all positiive. Check out this article also on ZDNET:

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/mags/pcmag/thismonth_pcma g.html

"ancient" Sparc5?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, now you have hurt my machines feelings. So it's a little old, the only reason I now have a Sparc20 (50 Mhz, Baby!) is that my old 5 couldn't play mp3's while I was doing a lot of other stuff.
But, this is comming from someone who still runs a 486 50 at home(try running NT or 98 on that!)

Ziff Davis Confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it, one week a Ziff-Davis publication (Or even the same magazine) is writing bad UNIX/Pro NT articles then next week they're writing pro UNIX/bad NT articles.

I think fragmentation is a good thing. Especially in the computer software market.

Unix fragmented?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unix isn't fragmented, it is distributed. :)

Microsoft is unsafe

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, Microsoft itself admits that the next generation of Windows products will break compatibility with previous versions of Windows.

There is no way any of the code/apps you write for Windows today will still work 10 years from now.

Do you sign your checks "calx"? Oaf....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we should sign our posts with our Citizen Identification Numbers; it would add so much to our arguments.

Multi-vendor UNIX support from single UNIX vendor

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think Tivoli TME is? Made by Tivoli/IBM, supports multiple UNIX and NT flavors.

Many more examples of this out there... too lazy to name 'em all.

16-bit apps???

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the common denominator? That justifies the various versions that are spit out by a company that can't even keep its own house on line?

Stop smoking crack and get back to work.

Live in a glass house? Don't throw bricks :-P

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the MS product line is so pure when it comes to this problem.

Name one example

[Anonymous Coward]

of a Win32 call that hasn't been supported on subsequent releases.

UNIX, fragmentation, other thoughts

[Elvii]

Lately there's been alot of positive stuff on UNIX/Linux coming from mainstram media.... hopefully I'm not the only paranoid one who is afraid this all might be a by product of the current state of legal affairs of a certain corporation. Course, always the chance that people are seeing UNIX for what it is, superior in some cases, the same that can be said for anything.. Don't know, just wondering if maybe my Linux interest and knowledge might be something that I can use the same way NT knowledge seems to useful now...

End of my rambling, please return to your regular browsing.

Variety..

[Bill Currie]

But isn't evolution part of life? I would say that `variety is the spice of life' covers evelution quite nicely.

Having said that, I agree with you: without variety, there can be no (?little?) evolution.

interesting glass-half-full perspective

[Bill Currie]

Your thinking in the wrong direction. You're right that the required capacity is 50% less than the supplied capacity, but the supplied capacity is 100% more than the required capacity (a nasty trap that gets many people).

Using your glasses and water, your 2 cup glass can hole 1 more cup of water than the 1 cup you have, and 1/1 is 100%. So, using your words, the glass is 100% too big, or the water is 50% too small (???eep, now I'm confused!)

Basicly, it depends very much on how you look at it; you're back to the half full/half empty problem, you just can't get away from it.

Unix not "fragmented"! Film at 11.

[pingouin]

I thought the commercial Unixen adhered to a set of standards. Isn't that enough? Just because I can't run Solaris on MIPS, or SCO on Alpha (can I?), doesn't mean the whole thing is fragmented. It's variety, yes, but it's not fragmentation - that word should apply to the overall OS space (MacOS, Amiga, Linuxen/Unixen, Win*, etc); surely the learning curve is bigger when you transition from, say, a Mac to IRIX, compared to a transition from Solaris to IRIX.

--

Source compatibility -- mostly....

[Craig]

> But can you run Solaris/x86 binaries on a SCO box?

No, but why would you want to? The whole "shrink-wrap" ethos is basically an outgrowth of the PC explosion.

Note that game suppliers and the packagers of bundled software for (e.g.) scsi scanners simply provide both Win and Mac versions on the distribution CD -- and at this point differences between SCO, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX sources are so well-known that operating from a common source base isn't at all difficult -- and the "intellectual property" concern leading to the distribution of binary-only code is based on the source, anyway.

One of the design mistakes made with OS/2 -- or at least one of the things that hampered its spread -- was that you couldn't simply recompile a Win application for it. IBM tried to remedy that, to a limited extent, with Merlin's compatibility APIs, but it was too late. Although you never know, it may yet recover in the current wave of interest in Microsoft alternatives; reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated before....

Craig

Good point ....

[Craig]

... and in fact, if anything you understate the case.

Microsoft's habit of casually diddling the core of the operating system every time they need something new for marketing reasons has lead to fragmentation even within nominally identical platforms.

For example, if you apply Service Pack 1 to Visual C++ 5 and recompile your application, you discover that suddenly your code won't load on a machine running the original Win95 Retail. Why? Because SP1 changed a header file to default to using routines from a version of comctl32.dll -- one of Win32's most central libraries, the Common Controls library -- that was distributed only with Internet Explorer 4! You can fix your code once you've discovered the problem, of course, but documentation for this "upgraded feature" is totally buried in an obscure section of the documentation, and isn't even mentioned in the release notes!

Likewise many sites have found NT4 Service Pack 4 to break a number of crucial apps. So the "unity" of the Win32 platform is largely illusory anyway; at Microsoft, the perceived needs of the marketing department so far outweigh any technical considerations and user requirements that there's no contest.

And, when all is said and done, this is really what's hanging Microsoft. IT professionals all over the planet are sick of these marketing games and the resulting shoddy code; they're eager -- almost desperate -- for an alternative to Microsoft in the server room (which is where their most critical problems originate). And this is why they're leaping into Linux (and FreeBSD and even NetWare (again)) with glad cries and tears of joy and relief.

Craig

Standards rule...

[Ami Ganguli]

Lot's variations of Unix are good as long as they follow standards and the standards continue to evolve.


As near as I can see the current system words really well. Different vendors come up with new features. The good ones get copied and improved upon by the competition. Once something has been hashed out in the marketplace a little, it is standardized and everybody moves to comply.


The MS model is more like: 1/ marketing dude gets a bright idea, 2/ engineering does a half-baked implementation, 3/ the API is cast in stone and any mistakes in the design process are carried forward forever.

I thought that was Mark Twain....

[Eccles]

While often inaccurate and with large gaps, the web is the world's largest encyclopedia. I did a web search on "Will Rogers organized party democrat", and quickly found multiple sites that also attributed that quote to Rogers.

The Web has made me obsolete as a source of useless trivia...

he also,

[kfort]

Stuffed his favorite horse after it died. Weird.

Transition....

[ninjaz]

Of course, it depends on who the user is. It may well be easier for a Mac user to use the Irix desktop productively than it is for the system administrator to administer the Irix server environment well.

I think a better example may be Solaris -> Digital Unix and Mac -> Digital Unix, since both Solaris and Digital Unix use CDE as their desktop environment and have fairly similar workings under the hood.

interesting glass-half-full perspective

[ninjaz]

I've got another interesting glass-half-full perspective, as stolen and paraphrased from a message on a joke list someone sent me..

The Optimist says: The glass is half full.
The Pessimist says: The glass is half empty.
The Engineer says: The glass is 50% too large.

I think whether the glass is half full or half empty depends on whether the glass is (or will be) emptied or filled.

Regarding framentation, the direction I see UNIX currently taking is more toward is unification, except where it's not desirable. Perhaps that sounds self-serving, but witness the various other x86 Unices beginning to support Linux binaries (*BSD. SCO, and hints from Solaris); On the other hand, the variety of applications to choose from, which, if they're free, means they can be recompiled or ported on the target flavor, or if they are non-free, the move to support Linux means that the binary-compatible OS's will be able to use them, also. The existing of choices is not evidence of fragmentation, imho. After all, there's a problem for nearly ever solution. ;)

interesting glass-half-full perspective

[ninjaz]

Shouldn't that be 100% too large?

No. If you have 1 cup of water in a 2 cup-capacity glass and you take away 100% of the glass's capacity, you end up with a wet table. ;) If you take away 50% of the glass's capacity (1 cup) it exactly fits the amount of water present.

Several Standards on one Base...Possibly,

[ninjaz]

However, if the majority of the Linux community gets suckered into buying a commercial distribution which contained a core proprietary component, such as speech recognition in an office suite, that commercial vendor could wind up with quite a lot of standards control.

But somehow I suspect there will still be folks out there running command line Debian systems on 386's. No speech recognition necessary.

Several Standards on one Base...Possibly,

[ninjaz]

Now, with that quote out of the way, I agree, but, my Debian systems have k6, pentium pro and alpha 21064 cpu's. :)

Open standards to use something proprietary (a certain ISO standard comes to mind...), have always seemed somewhat corrupt to me. Granted, it at least tells everyone what to expect with the implementation (as opposed to the Microsoftian "change the standard once other people begin to figure out how to implement it, too"), but still.. Hopefully the LSB will never reach that point, but, where to draw the line, and how strictly enforced it is are somewhat of an issue.

For instance, Debian systems come with a wrapper to install RealPlayer [tm] from the Redhat 5.x RPM offered by Real Networks [tm], which integrates it into the Debian filesystem and uses a wrapper for LD_PRELOAD of open.so (to fix realplayer's behavior wrt to 2.2.x kernels) ..

If there were a standard saying "If RealPlayer is included, it *must* be installed with x files in x location", that may force Debian to be marked non-compliant or not ship wrapper or ship the program such that it only works with 2.0.x kernels. I think protection for this type of thing should be built into the system, possibly by allowing for an LSB repository for LSB standard fixes for this kind of problem. :)

On the other hand, it is Linux Standard *Base*, and a barely-supported and outdated application like RealPlayer which requires X to run doesn't quite fit with what I would consider the Base of an OS like Linux.

Unix IS unified... kind of

[robin]

One thing all Unix have in common is a C compiler [...]

It's an option on recent Solaris releases. Which brings me on to another gripe: whenever I start work on a new Solaris box the first thing I have to do is spend time installing a decent toolset: a grep that doesn't break on lines longer than 4k, a vi that doesn't have all of the antique bugs, gcc, less, etc. One of the really nice things about Linux (and the BSDs, for that matter) is that the distributors take the time to keep the tools reasonably current.

--
W.A.S.T.E.

Unix IS unified... kind of

[Chemical Serenity]

One thing all Unix have in common is a C compiler, and the tradition of freely available source for a wide range of tools. From the compile-it-yourself-after-futzing-with-#ifdefs perspective, Unices ARE unified. More or less.

Of course, most people don't look at the compile-and-run perspective yet... most people who weren't involved in *nix from way back are still pretty much immured in the pay-to-play philosophy (not that it's a COMPLETELY bad idea, particularly for those coders who write stuff for cash... although I'm sure RMS would disagree entirely)

I won't comment on SCO's viability, aside from saying that based on my personal experience, I certainly wouldn't be recommending it to anyone... unless you're conducting some sort of archeological research ;)

--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)

Hmmm... okay then, how about:

[Chemical Serenity]

"All unix variants have a C compiler available and hoardes of software which in many instances can be brought online with a simple 'make install'"?

SCO was (is?) like that too. I tend to forget about that particularly mercenary tidbit due to the fact that I program for a living, and have never had to deal with an environment that's sans-compiler... or at least not for long! ;)

--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)

Wrong!

[Matts]

One thing all Unix have in common is a C compiler

That's what I thought too - until I had to install perl on an AIX box. The compiler is extra (and holy cows - is it ever expensive) on AIX. So I went to www.bull.com and downloaded a "package". Actually AIX's package system was nicer than redhats....

Standards rule...

[Fandango]

A bit like the Unix mode: 1/ Berkeley student gets a bright idea, 2/ Berkeley writes half-baked code and paper, 3/ POSIX casts the API in stone any any mistakes... ?

No, it's more like:

1/ Berkeley student gets a bright idea, 2/ Berkeley writes half-baked code and paper, 3/ AT&T writes gratuitously incompatible but slightly more full-featured implementation, 4/ POSIX standardizes on a third API based on both AT&T and Berkeley, but gratuitously incompatible with either.

For example, Berkeley sgtty turns into SYSV termio, which turns into POSIX termios. Or Berkeley termcap turns into SYSV termlib, which turns into SYSV curses (with a broken BSD implementation followed later by a proper free version, ncurses).

-Jake

With Open Source, the risk is much smaller

[Fandango]

Others have already commented on the fallacy of your argument (that Windows is in fact fragmented, and IT managers have to constantly worry about mass upgrade migrations of their desktops to the next latest thing).

While UNIX is already useful in making "vendor lockin" much more difficult, keep in mind that free UNIX's like Linux and FreeBSD have a further benefit: Open Source. There's nothing stopping you from keeping all of your systems running Linux 2.0 kernel, or even Linux 1.2 if you're happy with it. Even if you want to upgrade 1000 desktop machines to Linux 2.2, or the latest version of your favorite distribution, the changes are likely to be so small that all of your old apps should still work, with so few exceptions that I can count them on one hand (RealPlayer breaks with Kernel 2.2 because of a bug in RealPlayer, and some apps which use private glibc symbols will break with GLIBC 2.1). If you find any bugs, you're free to fix them yourself in-house, or pay any programmer to fix them for you. You can use RedHat, or Debian, or even Slackware, because even if the original maintainer of the distribution stops supporting it, almost certainly you'll find other volunteers taking up the crusade to maintain it.

This point was driven home to me on the Squeak web page. They say, "What will happen if the Squeak developers stop working on it?" The answer was, "You have the source code, you can support it yourself even if we stopped supporting it." I thought this was very sensible.

-Jake

linux will unify unix. Also unix is not a os but a

[winnt386]

Unix is not an os but a standard! When will these ms loyalists relize this. I guess they are all use too the gui being intergrated into the os and even kernel and having stuff like the explorer part of the os. WIndows users see all these things in windows and the macintosh and then they think stuff like bash and xwindows is part of unix and the kernel. They also see vendor apps that come with each unix os like cad ones for irix and security ones for aix (I haven't finished my unix course yet at college so I don't know what they are) and all the windows guys say ohh no interoperability, no compadiblity, unix is hopeless. THey don't understand that many unix apps can run or be recompilied for each other or just run on each different unix. Ms is soo bad with being proprietary and the mac is right behind it, that most users think its very hard to keep things open and its impossible to even try. Can you really blame them. If every unix vendor behaved like ms, their would be 0% compadibility. To me the kernel is not important because it does stuff that the user shouldn't have to do or worry about doing. In user space all the unix's are very open and almost identical. Most ms users think they are different because the kernels are different and there for have to have different interfaces and apps. I thought this way before I installed linux because all I knew was the mac and windows. The fact is, the kernel doesn't matter because unix is standard and linux will fill in everything so it can be unified. Windows NT can be a unix if you buy the proper bash/xwindows package with support for .elf files. I believe their is a company that sells one for NT that is even unix98 branded! Any os can be a unix and the linux .elf files and libraries will be that new unified standard. Freebsd supports them, sco now supports them, the next version of solaris will support them. SGI loves linux and will probably support them as well or just give up irix and use a mips version of linux. Sgi is working on a mips version of linux. All unix programers will probably just compile their aps for linux since we own more marketshare then all the other unix's combined and it will be compidible for ever unix like solaris, freebsd and sco. We are the new standard and we all bring new innovation to the unix market like gnome, kde, gtk, etc.

kmode exception: scokrnel.dll crash at vemacs.ocx

[winnt386]

HELP! Sco keeps on crahsing when I launch Microsoft visual emacs ++ ,visaul qtscript and sqlserver on my xenix (oops I mean sco box.). I am sick of getting this blue screen of death and I selected reboot on error under the properties of my computer so the machine is rebooting in a loop. Can anyone help. I called microsoft tech support and they said that since BIll Gates invented unix it shouldn't crash. Help! :-)

tHANK GOD MICROSOFT SOLD XENIX TO SCO. IMAGINE THE HELL IF THEY DIDN'T DO THAT. ALso linus probably would of used and therefor linux wouldn't of been born. I love the sound of visual emacs. :-)

I was joking

[winnt386]

DId you know that sco was orignally microsoft xenix. The kernel might of been rewritten but it has its roots. If microsoft ever kept it linux would of never been born and xenix would urle and microsoft would own 100% of every os computing market. If NT was reliable as sco (oops I mean xenix), unix would of been history and visual studio would be the programming answer to every problem. IT would of been scary if BIll was smart enough to keep it though.

I have to agree with poster #1...

[Squeeze Truck]

I tested SCO, NT, Warp4 and Netware at SVL (Server Validation Labs) at Intel. SCO was the most unstable of the lot. I was highly unimpressed.


--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.

little older then 1.5 years.

[CrAlt]

the newest MacOS8 (MacOS 8.5) only runs on the PPC CPU's....up untill that 8.X ran on the old 68K's. Thats ok becaue my 68K Mac runs NetBSD, not macOS.

Several Standards on one Base...Possibly,

[maynard]

Regarding Linux Standards Chris writes:

[ ...] Create an Enterprise standard, Home User/SOHO standard, and a Developer standard(which would be coordinated to allow ease of development for which ever branch they wanted to focus on and allow for compatibility with the other.)

AND:

[ ...] This would, in effect, short circuit the corporate steamrollers attempts from dictating thier view of standards on a community which requires the freedom to work as they please. Of course any sort of standard will place some restrictions on development, however it would be better to establish an open standard rather than have it be dictated by the needs of a corporate hierarchy.

I take this to mean that one way to solve the problem of standards is to allow for multiple distributions like we have now. I don't have a problem with that, but I think it's inevitable anyway. For example, I don't think a corporate controlled standard would ever be able to force the Debian project into implementing something they didn't like.

However, if the majority of the Linux community gets suckered into buying a commercial distribution which contained a core proprietary component, such as speech recognition in an office suite, that commercial vendor could wind up with quite a lot of standards control.

But somehow I suspect there will still be folks out there running command line Debian systems on 386's. No speech recognition necessary.

Standards rule...

[Ben Hutchings]

The MS model is more like: 1/ marketing dude gets a bright idea, 2/ engineering does a half-baked implementation, 3/ the API is cast in stone and any mistakes in the design process are carried forward forever.

A bit like the Unix mode: 1/ Berkeley student gets a bright idea, 2/ Berkeley writes half-baked code and paper, 3/ POSIX casts the API in stone any any mistakes... ?

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but some of POSIX is pretty dumb for the same reasons that some of Win32 is.

exactly

[bgue]

I think your analysis is pretty much right on...ever try to work with RIFF/WAVE and it's 4,732 variant encoding schemes? Bleagh.

About fragmentation ...

[Etyenne]

Let's see what I have here (I am running an elementary school computer lab) : several version of DOS (both MS and PC from 3.3 to 7.0), 3 implementation of Win16 (3.0, 3.1 WfW), two flavor of Win95 (pre- and OSR2), WinNT 4.0 wich lag behind Service Pack (never finished the 80 MB download for SP4...). If I would buy a bunch of new PeeCee, I would have to specify Win95 in my RFP if I don't want YAOS (Yet Another OS), that is Win98.

The solution to this fragmentation ? The only one I could see is standardizing on two OS : one for the obsolete PC (let's say WfW + same version of DOS) and one for the newer box (let's say Win95 OSR2). But where am I suppose to get the cash for that upgrade ??? This is the kick : Windows world isn't fragmented because people are willing to pay for bug fixe and marginal feature.

(Actually, I could'nt standardize on OSR2; the only way to use it legally is if it was pre-installed on your machine)

For the DOS fragmentation problem, I'll be standardizing on DR-DOS 7.02, wich is still hopefully free for educationnal institution. I know, I know : Linux would be a better solution, but not an option until the educationnal app the teacher use are available for it. So I am stuck juggling with MS mess (patch, revision, service pack and implementation). And they call it consolidation ???

Of course on benefit of fragmention

[Jonathan]

...is the availability of source code. Because the Unices aren't binary compatible, even if they are more or less source compatible, the distribution of source has become standard for practical reasons beyond the philosophical reasons of "Free" or "Open Source" software. Consider the Windows and PalmPilot worlds -- the single target platform means that even freeware for these platforms rarely includes the source code.

First Good Aricle on zdnet? Yep

[edgy]

Maybe, because as far as they are concerned, we are now becoming the mainstream, or at least the more knowledgable of the mainstream, i.e., and they can't get away with complete FUD anymore, because the Internet works to expose FUD really quickly?

Could that be possible?

I doubt it. :-) I have no respect for certain huge corporate publications that try to cater more to the $$$ from advertisers rather than to the people who actually have to administer it and/or use it. It seems like everything is huge and corporate nowadays, and I hate seeing the hanging threat of business and corporate $$$ all the time affecting our laws from drugs, to software patents, to intellectual property laws, ad inifinitum. All of the worst laws are put there because of greed. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe capitalism wasn't such a good idea because now the government is controlled by greed and money. But then again, every other system has failed at one point or another because of that, and I guess capitalism is no exception at all. Bleh, let me shut up now.

I'm depressed.

See what you did?

Actually, that seems like a good idea

[edgy]

Maybe you should post this to the mailing list for the LSB. I think that this would be the best way to approach a Linux standard that is actually a combination of two.

The only problem would come in keeping the two standards as close to each other as possible, so that most software will run on both.

SCO OpenServer is worse than NT

[Steve Bergman]

I've been using SCO at work for years. I really liked it in a character based/non-networked environment. Now that networking is big, I've found that it really sucks. Now that I've gotten to know Linux, it's very difficult to work with SCO. It just seems so primitive and proprietary. All of these tools that I'm just used to having at my command in Linux I have to go out looking for. And I have to find binaries since SCO doesn't come with a compiler unless you pay extra to buy it. And even if you do, it's not gcc. GCC is available but I've never gotten it to work on SCO. And I've never had much luck getting much of anything to compile with the proprietary native compiler.

BTW, does anyone else think that that article read like a SCO ad? "Sure, I'm open to Linux, once I see a proven track record of support at a reasonable cost" or whatever the exact quote was? SCO support is $200-$300 per incident and in my opinion, not very good.

First Good Aricle on zdnet?

[calx]

see subject. Maybe I'm wrong.

Do you sign your checks "calx"? Oaf....

[calx]

It's real easy to find out who I am, BigGuy.

Yes, Let "Anonymous Coward" Fix Slashdot

[calx]

see subject. I could be wrong. =]

The ability to choose is a good thing

[calx]

Hell yeah. That is (I think, I maybe wrong) the greatest selling point of any *nix. Flexiblity. I want to configure my machine the way I want it to run. I love actively controlling every aspect of my OS. While this might intimidate those who want it to "plug it in, use some Network Administration Wizards and reboot it every week or so", it never bothers me. I could be one of those crazy people. Not to say I am a guru, just an apprentice. =]

he also,

[Lemmy Caution]

No, that was Buck Owens.

Linux is helping unification

[rpk]

I don't think it will be the only Unix in ten years, but I can't help but beleive that it's going to take out of few of weaker variants, especially on Intel-based hardware. If the development effort can be managed properly, you can also build kernel variants that allow you to get the same kind of diversity that you get from different Unix brands now, but still be confident that it's still Linux and that you will still be able to track changes in the "normal" versions.

he also,

[dadams]

that was Roy Rogers.

To continue the confusion, I declare that his horse's name was "Trigger."

C compiler

[kels]

Many vendor Unices (e.g. Solaris, IRIX) have been unbundling their C compilers in recent years, then charging often exorbanant fees for licencing. Hence some of the growth in popularity of gcc on these platforms. On IRIX, you don't even get NFS in the base package. You do pay for many of these commercial Unices (or at least for important components of them), and you keep paying.

I think the workstation manufacturers are desperately seeking revenue sources in the wake of an onslaught on the low end by Intel/Linux and other cheaper machines. The licensing stuff is prohibitive to individuals, though, and many corporate/acadamic users are starting to think of Linux as a real alternative in many cases as well, so I can't believe this is really in Sun/SGI's long term interest.

Hell yeah.

[Dast]

Not to say I am a guru, just an apprentice.

Isn't it wonderful? I learn something new about *nix every day that allows me to customize things to my liking.

I wouldn't give it up for the world.

yummy

[Ex Machina]

Different Vendors, Competeting implementaations = good

momopolies, 3 crippled implimentations (nt,ce,98) = bad

xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]

Sure it is.

[IntlHarvester]

By the end of the year, the antitrust trial might be over and Windows 2000 might be out. The hype machine will be in overdrive, and good Unix/Linux press is going to dry up like last week's potroast.

These guys have to sell sexy new stuff to push their ads. Right now, MS has got nothing, so they look elsewhere. Enter Linux. The columnist even dares to hype Unix (in general), a topic that every core market PC Week reader (aka IS Managers) thinks they know all about.

(Of course, most of them haven't touched a Unix box since their college timeshare system in 1981.)

--

You overstate the case ...

[IntlHarvester]

A reasonably well written 16-bit Windows application will run on 3.1 through 2000, OS/2, and probably WINE too. Likewise with DOS apps. You might not have the dancing paperclip, but it will work well enough.

Where as with Unix systems, you're going to have to roll a IFDEF combo and compile for each Unix OS you run across. Look at commercial Unix vendors. Do any of them have support for *all* Unixes? If not and it's so easy, why not?
--

Your Example

[IntlHarvester]

Are you saying that there's no combination of compiler options and libraries that will not break, no matter the Linux distribution?

The advantage is, with source, you can fix these problems, maybe.

(If you think Windows is bad, look at the MacOS. Everytime they do a .01 patch or a new Mac comes out, 10 major apps break. The users and vendors are just used to it.)


--

No, there are cases when /. loses posts...

[arivanov]

See subj ;-)

Solaris 7 runs on a SparcStation1

[James Thompson]

Did an install last week of Solaris 7 on a SS1. It wasn't fast but it works.

Compare that to a guy I know who was complaining today that the newest Mac OS wouldn't run on his 1 1/2 year old Mac.

Thanks to SCO

[Bigman]

I think we should all be thankful that SCO's deal with micros~1 means that they can never enter the Unix market.. I mean, can you imagine the damage if they did??

Loading Micronix.....
SEGMENTATION VIOLATION
Core dumped. Press any to reboot.
(Twice).

A big YAWN, folks

[rabbit]

Boring. Like, is this guy some kind of authority or what? Waste of bandwidth.

interesting glass-half-full perspective

[SimJockey]

As an engineer, I'd say the glass has a conservative design factor which would allow for future expansion. ;-)

The ability to choose is a good thing

[LanMan]

People I've talked with (mostly M$ users) tend to believe that the different UNIX variants will eventually die because that refuse to be unified. Personally I love the fact that I have the ability to choose which flavor of a particular OS I choose to install on a server, workstation, etc. I love the fact that I have more than one window manager to choose from. I love the ability to run without a GUI if I see fit. I think these things are strengths, not weaknesses. I doubt anyone can deny that UNIX-based OSes will be around for quite some time.

First Good Aricle on zdnet? Yep

[akintayo]

You are correct ZD has finally seen the light, who knows maybe they will start writing for those of us who do not use widows.

Then again, why would we read ZD mags?.

interesting glass-half-full perspective

[SeanNi]

The optimistic engineer says: The glass is 100% too large.

The pessimistic engineer says: The water is 50% too small.

:-)
--
- Sean

Unix not "fragmented"! Film at 11.

[coreybrenner]

To that I would say:

But can you run Solaris/x86 binaries on a SCO box?

I agree that Unix is the best OS currently available (though it _still_ sucks), but too much variety can be a *bad* thing.

--Corey

he also,

[coreybrenner]

I thought that was _Roy_ Rogers...

--C

Unix not "fragmented"! Film at 11.

[coreybrenner]

Oh, almost forgot...


"The popcorn you're eating has been pissed in. Film at eleven."

Great article...

[Puppet Master]

"NT is not ready for prime time"

Ain't that the truth...

I have a friend who runs an ISP with FreeBSD Unix machines and NT machines... The FreeBSD servers can hold 300+ users without a hiccup. The NT servers will hold about 50 before it starts to crawl... And people wonder why I dislike Microsoft...

First Good Aricle on zdnet? Yep

[bitwize]

Note the title of the column. This was obviously written for suits. :) It takes a long, long time for Management to see the light but eventually, they do.

Hell yeah.

[bitwize]

I hear this kind of thing all the time. Eventually Microsoft will wake up and realize that its "One World, One OS, One Philosophy" approach doesn't fly in the Real World of mission-critical computer applications. Then it'll probably do something like buy all of SCO and say "Hey, we have Unix too!"