Slashdot Mirror
CNN on Microsoft and Linux
noise writes "Article that details Microsoft's continuing anti-Linux campaign up through Ed Muth's comments last week. There are some nice OS and web server usage statistics, as well as some information on the difficulties that MS will likely have with the 64-bit version of NT. "
Is it just me or do those graphs at the bottom, dealing with the numbers of servers planned to be added, remind me of a article/survey linked to by slashdot not too long ago? Seems that if this was really the case then the results are more likely based on slashdot readers' opinions and not those of NT users.
Good submission. Nice meaty article. Goes well with farva beans and a nice chianti. :P
You owe it to yourself to try BeOS x86. Boots in seconds. Apps start instantly. 0.0000001 configuration. Intuitive interface. POSIX layer for *nix porting pleasure (ok "pleasure" might be a little strong)
And a free demo!
TRY IT - YOU'LL SEE!
Hey, is that sig GPL'd? I want to use it! (hee hee)
So the Linux server market share has increased from 27.6% to 28.5% in four months (9/98-1/99)? 0.1% better than NT? Anybody care to tell me about that exponential growth again?
check out a good article on MS FUD
Actually, I think it means you can't just go to the store and buy what you need. Fortunately, I live in an area (Northern VA, USA) with a lot of tech companies (I work for one myself). Many of the real computer stores around here (leaving out Babbages and other game store pretending to be computer software stores) and buy Linux and, in many cases, linux software. At Best Buy, I can get Redhat 5.2 (Intel and Alpha), I can get software libraries (Linux Powertools, etc) for the same, I can get different packages of Redhat 5.2 (different additions like Netscape's webserver,etc). I can go to Microcenter and buy several different linux distros, or FreeBSD, Applixware, Netscape, etc (they had the basic RH 5.2 distro for $15 the other day!). The local Barnes and Noble has an entire section on Linux and one for O'Reilley. I'm lucky.
However, my parents live at the other end of the state. The only way they can get Linux locally is in the back of one of the few Linux books at Barnes and Noble. They couldn't buy apps locally, they probably couldn't find many people who use Linux. For them, there aren't many apps, nor is support gonna be forthcoming. For them, even if they were interested, linux "isn't quite there yet".
Chris Allen
mtnbkr@mindspring.com
I love the way the MS witness' testimony is so positive about linux that it can be used to refute Muth's own ramblings. Maybe we should try to get that guy to give a talk an the next Linux Expo or something?
as far as speed is concerned. Try running both on a low-end Pentium. Even with 32 Mb it slows to a crawl. Netscape running under FVWM2 or AfterStep alone runs over twice as fast. The problem is that GNOME uses way too many resources. Can't say anything about KDE. I haven't tried it.
My point is: Is GNOME or KDE really necessary? They may make the desktop more "integrated," but they do slow the system down.
As for Linux not having a "long term road map", that is true. Linus recently said that he wasn't sure what was going to go into v2.3, and what will actually end up in it is anyones guess. I don't think this is a problem, but to turn around and effectively say "Yeah, but MicroSoft doesn't have one either!!11!!!" is lame.
Please elaborate on the MS long term road map.
Microsoft Exec Maritz was singing the praises of LInux in his testimony. Microsoft recognizes all of Linux's strengths when it suits Microsoft's purpose. How is it FUD for Petreley to point this out? Ummmm, mayhaps Maritz was being less than truthful? Lying? Well, who is telling the truth? Maritz or Muth? Microsoft cannot have it both ways. Either Linux is a viable competitor or it isn't.
What story do you want to hear today?
Sorry, but when we did a rollout of 5 servers and 500 end user machines (note that we only need 5 servers because they were Linux based servers, and departmentalized at that :) ) software cost was a HUGE factor.
500 NT licenses for each end user machine, plus 5 NT servers with 100 user licenses for each machine was on the order of $150-$200K total. Using Linux, total licensing cost was $49 for the OS licenses (note that basically the database licenses were close to a wash.)
Now, you may come back and say, well, you have to pay more support for that. But, this entire setup is suppored by two people. And easily supported at that.
So, saving $150-$200K was a "Good Thing(tm)" for us.
The correct URL is http://www.mattshouse.com/php3/filter.php3?file=/w ww/share/htdocs/filters/opinion.html.
I am not an expert on the subject, but I would say that reliability matters a lot in this situation. The article mentions that NT + MS SQL were pitted against AIX + DB2. While NT outperformed IBM's solution in most tests, it crashed under heavy load. Now what were you saying about the cost per transaction?
What? Isn't Solaris 7 a 64-bit OS? And Digital UNIX VMS 64-bit as well?
in plaintext:= /www/share/htdocs/filters/opinion.html
http://www.mattshouse.com/php3/filter.php3?file
My wife was using Word '97 the other night to write a cover letter for her application to grad school. She was trying to have it display her e-mail address, but every time she would type it in, Word would reformat it into a hyperlink (blue text, different font). We tried for 45 minutes to change the behavior, but we simply couldn't do it. Finally, we found out how to get rid of the damn thing: select it, right click, go the hyperlink submenu, select edit hyperlink, click "remove hyperlink" button. Very obvious and intuitive.
Ease of use? I think not.
It is quiet understood that there are lot more Windows desktops than Linux in this world. Your posting is very similar to reinventing wheel or inventing anti-aliasing by MS.
If you look, he never says anything about Linux running at Hotmail. He says it runs on Sun/Solaris.
Like you're not a BSD bigot.
"So the Linux server market share has increased from 27.6% to 28.5% in four months (9/98-1/99)? 0.1% better than NT? Anybody care to tell me about that exponential growth again?"
Certainly, as soon as you re-read the article and discover for yourself that that growth rate is among NT sysadmins based on a survey given by an NT-IT shop.
Nice of him to forget the 500+ FreeBSD systems at Hotmail.
Oh and he forgot to mention that Linux is run at DejaNews too, the bastard!!!
I mean come on, get a grip. It's not like he's out to get BSD, and face it, Linux is more widely recognized which is more important than anything else, including stability and speed which Microsoft has basically proved. Would you rather have NT and 95 be the only OS'es? At least with Linux gaining market share, it is easy for users to switch to BSD, trivial in fact.
Infighting over the better Unix is a little crazy. Unite, we have a common enemy. When Goliath is dead the David's and duke it out then. If Goliath is ever killed that is.
I should also mention that Linux runs on more hardware. This is why I choose it. It is leaps and bounds more stable than NT, and it is a great development environment. It may not be the fastest, it may not be the most secure, but hell, it works on my computer. Good enough. Linux is hardly a boatload worse than BSD, although I will admit, it is worse in several areas. As it happens, I don't care about those areas. They don't effect me.
What's really needed is :
a) a good shell
b) an integration standard.
Attempting to replicate all of Windows in one fell swoop isn't really necessary or even that relevant.
What really matters is if Netscape and Word Perfect can interact with each other and the WindowManager and FileManager.
My pet combination is WindowMaker+dfm.
Why doesn't someone over at SCO get the Merge product ported onto Linux.
Or Insignia, whatever happened to them bringing SoftWindows over.
Anyone know what's going on with those?
Then we wouldn't have to listen to anymore "wine-ers" about not being able to run their favorite MS app. The final nail in the cofin me thinks.
>Furthermore, it's still quite a ways from being
>something that I would want to put on my
>mom's computer.
True, and the same can probably be said for WindowsNT, which is what the article is about.
I told Joe that he shouldn't wave his diruptor around like that...
OTOH I have had Linux kpanic on me several times (must be the cheasy scsi and/or sound cards)
Linux is the easiest operating system I have ever used. That includes Windows, OS/2, Solaris and VMS. Linux is harder to =learn= than Windows and certainly less familiar to Windows users but that's another issue and one that should be largely taken care of within the year.
I started filling out the form, but stopped when it got to the following:
Not Mission Critical yet
314.00 / 333.00 / 1099.00
My point is that this perceived by whom? Certainly not anybody I know... At that point, I decided that my results would probably have dismissed (as they were - I heard of the poll from Slashdot) and therefore it wasn't worth my time to finish.
And I came from a (formerly) 100% MS shop. (two years ago there were NO Linux server in my place of work - now there are 5 - and no NT servers.)
I just found the questions to be insulting.
Is Linux considered "splintered" because it comes in 64-bit flavours?
I think what he means, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that Linux programs will compile with no modifications going from 32 to 64 bit. NT programs may not.
Sorry, but I don't think you make a good argument. Just type an email address in Word97 and when you hit the spacebar and it's autoformated type Ctrl-Z and it will be unformatted. Simple.
It's not my intention to flame, but this is a case of the user not knowing the answer (operator head-spacing I like to call it).
My point was that if the OS crashes, the cost per transaction skyrockets.
This article was about servers. Even Be themselves don't claim to have written a server OS.
The war is over, we won. The media and the Linux groupies can finish off what's left of MS's rotting carcass.
Microsoft has more than 100 BILLION dollars. The war is not over, it's just begun.
KDE or Gnome may make it easier to use, but try getting the sound card to work with linux! besides there is no DVD support on linux that I can find, linux has loooooong ways to go for the consumer market.
You continue to miss the point -- neither Windows nor Linux have a roadmap past the next few months. Therefore, slinging lack-of-roadmap mud in EITHER direction is dumb, even in response to other such mudslinging. It turns into an "oh yeah?" -- "yeah!" kind of junior high argument with no real content.
besides there is no DVD support on linux that I can find
I'm not positive but I believe there is support, but not in standard distributions yet. Try www.fokus.gmd.de/linux and do a search for DVD. This site is better than freshmeat by leaps and bounds for finding software, in my opinion.
I find a number of problems with your critique of FreeBSD.
BSD is still good, but generally works and rots in a corner
How so?
Maybe if the kernel development were less tight-knit,
The BSD model arguably introduces updates into the code much faster than the linux model.
or maybe if it were GPL'ed
The Berkeley license is patently more free - you don't inherit someone's ideology. You are literally free to do what you wish.
I'd comment on the rest of your response, but it just looks like you are throwing a temper tantrum.
Nice article, but I seem to remember Nick Petreley going through a long OS/2 phase. AFAIK, then it was Workplace OS, OpenDoc, CORBA, thin clients, Java, and now Linux. :), but it seems that not that many other people did, in the long run. I hope this one is different.
I mostly agreed with his past crusades (well, my OS/2 bigotry died the third time it corrupted my hard drive
Brad Keryan
keryan+spam_me_senseless@andrew.cmu.edu
For example, for the author to claim he is quoting "one of Linux's most ardent supports", when he is quoting a MS executive's trial testimony is bogus.
:-) at the end of his sentence or tags around the paragraph?
Maybe he needed to put a little
Methinks this is a very effective use of it. I know I was thinking this was a quote from one of the Linux faithful when I first read it. That it turns out to be from one of MS' own witnesses is just icing on the cake!
They've already unleashed Muth and I'm sure that even as we are opening champagne here that they are putting the advertising revenue thumbscrews to the trade rags. Inevitably, though, the FUD campaign has to fail. I believe Linux has enough momentum built up to withstand their usual PR tactics. "Decommotizing" standards will only get them so far as well. Anytime "value" is added to the standards it costs their customers a LOT of money. Companies the size of Boeing and Exxon have ways of dealing with irritants. I don't think "Embrace and Extend" will work very well either. I think there is too much distrust among Linux users for anything like "Microsoft Linux" to work well. In addition, the tactic would be so obvious even my computer illiterate Mom could see through it. In the end, their usual bag of dirty tricks will prove to be mostly useless.
However, somebody pointed out Microsoft has 100 billion dollars. We can expect them to harass the core kernel, Apache, KDE, Gnome, and Samba developers with patent lawsuits. They will use the legal fruits of this to get injunctions against Redhat, SUSE and the other major distributions. We can also expect action against the major software servers like kernel.org and Transmeta. It will also be necessary for them to make every attempt to legally destroy organizations like the FSF. Between patent lawsuits and basic legal challenges against the major open software licenses, they can hold large sections of the free software movement in limbo long enough to obsolete our codebases. This is true whether or not Microsoft ultimately "wins". I think its time to give serious thought to a Linux Legal Defense Fund and a credible PR machine to expose the true motives of Microsoft's actions.
Come up with nothing, maybe I am just blind....I certainly hope there will be support for it soon, DVD drivers are getting cheaper and cheaper, movies can be rent at most video store here, all 3 dvd software player I have use under windoze are all choppy.....
I had an unpleasant experience with Red Hat 5.1 gradually corrupting itself (over time, things just started failing and files became garbled). I thought it was probably a hardware problem, but installed from scratch (not Red Hat, but something else) and the problem hasn't come back (this was quite a while ago).
No operating system is perfect, but Linux and UNIX/FREENIX in general are very good. If you look at Windows, often even NT, the ability to stay up over an extended period is considered remarkable. It is simply expected of UNIX/FREENIX. However, that doesn't mean crashes don't happen.
I don't know about a legal defense fund just yet, but there is most certainly strength in organized numbers. Check out sourcepower.org I wonder how Micros~1 might deal with a million-member organization of open source advocates with a well-oiled political and PR strategy? Time to dig out The Art of War...
I have a few questions about this article that I have about pro-MS articles:
The polling that is presented in this article seems to be the result of "open" polls which are likely to be vulnerable to the slashdot effect. I'm no opponent of
I'm not questioning the author about his comments concerning the quality of Linux vs MicroSoft, or the testimony of Paul Maritz, or the pathetic description of their ethics (i.e., throw more processors at NT to make it crash less), which really are pathetic!
We're better off at this point shifting gears to the strategy of the strong - finding and ironing out Linux's weaknesses (such as the fragmentation of Linux that is the fault of different versions of libc per distro). We are also falling prey to the proliferation of licenses and need to really look out for that, too.
This is just my knee-jerk reflexive recoil from the "hive mind" effect sweeping over the media about Linux. And from the endless blissful party linux users are engaging in - every time we go up against MicroSoft (except in the PIII Demo), we always win.
As a *BSD user, I could do without all the evangelism regarding the GPL. It seems to work for Linux, GNU, and what have you, but claims that it's superior or results in a better development model are unfounded nonsense.
/. is a haven for Linux users, so expect a degree of ignorance with regard to *BSD. Nevertheless, Linux and *BSD are much more alike than different.
I also get tired of silly claims about *BSD being closed, when OpenBSD is probably the most open development model I've ever come across (FreeBSD isn't too far behind; NetBSD is behind, without even anonymous CVS access).
Of course, I know
Is that you Brett?
Well, Linux itself is only a kernel. The various NTs (Workstation/Server/Enterprise) all share the same code base (including the same kernel, of course), as will all versions of Windows 2000 (which will use the NT kernel).
Windows 9x is just a legacy product to better support 16-bit Windows, MS-DOS and multimedia/games (which are all slower or unsupported on NT). It will die as soon as the bulk of users are willing to switch to NT-based systems.
It isn't especially relevant to the article, but I believe the HotMail web servers run FreeBSD/x86, whilst the back-end database servers run Solaris/SPARC.
or will soon be. Take a look at Pacific High Tech's web site for more info on a clustered apache package they are about to release.
If you're so smart, what are those question marks doing in your "it?s"?
Don't you know that the MS smart quotes are non-standard?
Doesn't your software warn you?
The truth is that FreeBSD is a failure. As Linux rallies industry and ISV support, FreeBSD languishes in Kevorkian's hospice for terminally ill software projects. FreeBSD is not a contender. I was talking to some FreeBSD guys who dropped by LinuxWorld Expo. They were awe struck by the huge showing of industry support for Linux. They joked about it with me but it was clear they knew that the handwriting is on the wall for FreeBSD. They also commented on how friendly Linux users are. To here them tell it, a gathering of FreeBSD users usually turns into something just short of a fist-fight.
I don't know why it is but BSD has always attracted disgruntled kooks looking to pick a fight. For years the BSDers were the resident nuts on Usenet, devoting thousands of hours to detailed conspiracy theories and enemies lists. This attitude has carried over to FreeBSD to this day. This thread is a prime example--it is full of paranoia and speculation about perceived enemies. It is funny to observe the rights of passage for BSD newbies. Whether it is today or ten years ago, the first thing a BSD newbie does when entering the fold is to show how much s/he hates some enemy: ATT, USL, Novell, Linux. You name it, the FreeBSD crowd needs scapegoats on which to blame their own failures. It is this atmosphere of bad karma and negative energy which doomed FreeBSD to failure even from the start.
No, it won't be. The growth has slowed dramatically and now it's growing logarithmically at best. Linux is following the familiar 'S' curve.
BTW, I assumed you were at least familiar with older data. I guess I'm expecting too much...
You do realize that exponential growth is impossible after a certain point.
Of course I do. I'm just challenging some people's unrealistic expectations.
The survey was a survey of one subsection of the market: Those users who run servers and currently use Windows NT. This is *not* the Linux market at large.
Bzzzzt. Yes it did. You're thinking about the last survey.
Certainly, as soon as you re-read the article and discover for yourself that that growth rate is among NT sysadmins based on a survey given by an NT-IT shop.
Wrong. There was no such bias. See http://leb.net/hzo/ioscount/
Interesting fact. I believe the thrust of your
comment is that winNT is a beached whale. how true.
For years the BSDers were the resident nuts on Usenet, devoting thousands of hours to detailed conspiracy theories and enemies lists.
Yeah...no conspiracy theories around here. (I'd say more...but you know Bill Gates is monitoring my every move!)
It did really crash, kernel protection fault which implicated X, complete and total crash. Technically, it wasn't X that crashed, but X had something to due with it. It wasn't just a locked display, it was dead. Maybe it still responded to pings, but that was it. Anyways, though the story is true, it was intended to be humorous. We beat the hell out of that box and it crashes maybe once or twice a year, usually X or SVGAlib related.
I was thinking that maybe killing and restarting the X server once per week or month might help us go for the really long uptimes.
Actually, you probably don't need a killer app - you just need to convince people that their CURRENT apps (or apps so close to them that they won't be able to tell the difference) won't die so often if they use this other operating system.
One option is to replace xdm with startx in /etc/inittab; maybe make startx's script full of several su -c lines if you don't want the window manager et al to run as root. This will boot linux into the GUI automatically with no password required.
:). My wife and I have rather different ideas of what is attractive and usable.
Or set up accounts w/ blank passwords and use kdm. You can then add icons to the kdm screen for each user - click on your icon, click go, and you're in. Then you've got something like Windows' user profiles -- no security, but multiple sets of configuration settings.
Actually, multiple user accounts (on both Windows and Linux) is probably saving my marriage
>> True, this is not Microsoft's fault alone -- there are dozens, if not thousands of software developers who are spewing out applications that are as bad or worse than the OS itself, and there's nothing you or I can do about it. :)
Actually - it is Microsoft's fault. There are also a lot of very badly coded Linux apps - I've downloaded and installed quite a few of them.
I've installed more beta and alpha software on Linux than any sane person would - but this bad habit has never broken Linux. GNOME 0.x, in spite of crashing a lot and being insanely difficult to compile and install, did not break my computer.
On linux, I have three different versions of GTK and two different versions of imlib coexisting happily on my machine. I've installed several applications in ~/Apps without root privileges.
In Windows, all shared libraries go to %windir%\system. Almost all configuration settings go in the registry. Almost every program has to make GLOBAL changes to be installed. It's no wonder that software installations can break Windows.
This is just a reprint of Nicholas Petreley's article originally on Linux World.
Have you tried Gnome or KDE? Jeez, it's already passed windows in ease of use. But that's not windows big problem. It's easy to make a program pretty or fast. What's hard is making a program correct. That's windows big problem: if you push it hard it crashes :( If you push Unix hard; it keeps going.
-ac
P.S.: Hey, lamerators! Moderate This!
Perhaps Corel's distribution will be more "idiot friendly." If so, that will be a reason for many techies to turn against the Corel distribution, and shoot themselves in the head.
No it won't. I don't know where this idea that "the more difficult it is, the better a technical person will like it" comes from, because it isn't true. The better is works the better a technical person will like it. There is a big difference.
A 3 cylinder convertible that gets 3 mpg with a spiffy paint job and mag wheels isn't what most of are looking for. Form follows function. This is the hallmark of all good design.
Sure, you /.ers always crow about how stable Linux is. Well, I had Linux crash on me the other day. The box had been up for only 150 days, only had about 5 X users at a time 9AM-9PM, and was only running 2 long simulations in the background all the time, and was only running as a file server for 6 other Linux boxes, web, and mail server. I suppose you're going to blame it on the fact that it was running a hacked RedHat 4.2 distro on a cheap PPro box with too little memory. Or that it has a cheap, old video card (X crashed).
-disappointed AC
While this article is pretty good, I have issues about a few points. First, Beowulf clusters make heavy use of message passing libraries such as MPI and PVM for clustering (these are not fault-tolerant or failover by nature). These are also available on Windows NT. Second, for those who are parallel programmers, you know that ray tracers are by nature embarrassingly parallel. Algorithms like that adapt well to any network and are scalable by nature. The IBM benchmark basically compares execution times of a DEC Alpha vs that of an x86. Those of you who program Alphas know that extra effort needs to be used when writing code for the Alpha so that you get good performance. Seeing the IBM cluster running an LU decomposition or a CG solver would be more interesting. Also, seeing code that was coded with lots of care for the Alpha against similar code for the x86 would be interesting. Third, those of you who have dealt with performance measuring know that 100Mbit Ethernet and 10Mbit Ethernet have almost the same latency. The main advantage is an increase in bandwidth. For parallel computing many Linux clusters use Myrinet. Similarly, Windows NT clusters use Giganet and Myrinet. A similar cluster to this IBM cluster with either of those two networks is far more scalable on communication intensive applications (embarrassingly parallel applications won't notice that much difference as there is little communication). There are a variety of other issues that I have with the article. I am not advocating either OS, just pointing out some points that came to my mind while reading this article. Many of the other points are valid and overall, the article is pretty good. I cringe many times when I hear people mentioning Beowulf, especially in reference to the IBM 'scalability' benchmark recently (pure marketting hype). Just for reference, the Cray T3E using MPICH (commonly used on Linux) gets ~6.5 (yep, six point five) microseconds latency and ~321 megabytes/sec bandwidth (that's right, three hundred twenty one megabytes per second). Compare this to the typical TCP/IP MPICH on Linux of ~180 microseconds of latency and ~10 megabytes/sec bandwidth and then think what a communication intensive application would do.... Now, compare this with carefully written code on an Alpha-450 (the kind in the Cray-T3E 450 - should get around 400 MFLOPS easily) to what you normally get on a PII-Xeon (less than 100 MFLOPS). I must admit, though, bad code on an Alpha-450 would be around 60 MFLOPS.
Wake up people. Mr Petreley is hardly "unbiased". He's been pounding away at Microsoft for years, as editor of "Linuxworld", and before that the ill-fated "Network Computer World". I like to see people pounding away at Microsoft, but that's where he's coming from.
Furthermore this story is a bit off-base, as his stories often are. Is Linux considered "splintered" because it comes in 64-bit flavours? Of course not, so why should Windows be? And surely the ability of some future Win64 to emulate 32 bit code should not be counted as detrimental.
Also, counting the numbers of machines running various Web servers and operating systems and attached to the Internet can't be extrapolated to, say, what IT people like to use generally. So let's not get carried away.
Anyway, what I'd really like to know is how many big NT sites use it because they receive "incentives" from Microsoft in cash and kind. At least, four years ago this was happening at some companies I was close to.
roc+sd@cs.cmu.edu
"Ease of use" depends on who you ask. On the desktop, Microsoft likely still has the upper hand--but KDE and GNOME mean that said upper hand is slipping. Things look even bleaker for Microsoft if uptime is a part of ease of use. No system is easy to use when crashed or wedged.
Much of the article was looking at NT the server, though. When running a server (as opposed to running a client that happens to talk to the server), the base assumption is that the machine is run by a professional computer operator, such as a sysadmin. From the sysadmin's perspective, a Unix or Linux server tends to be _much_ friendlier than an NT server. Most of this comes from the fact that the GUI is not wed to the backend as it is on Windows.
For one thing, the server is friendly enough to talk to you at _your_ console, not _its_ console. If I'm running a dozen NT boxes and have to do something to all of them, I have to log into a dozen consoles. To do the same job on Unix, I use X to "beam" windows to my machine from all of them.
Another "ease of use" advantage in the server world is scriptability. Most anything you can do on a Unix machine, you can do by manipulating text, whether it's manipulating data streams or configuration files. Since text generation is a simple task, this means that you can build your own macros and UIs to do tasks specific to your installation. When talking to an NT application, you have to click the buttons in their preferred order.
At the low end of the scale, desktops for casual users, Microsoft holds the upper hand for ease of use. At the high end of the scale, servers, Unix beats NT. The turning point is probably close to where the power users sit, depending on one's definition of power user.
My darling wife remarked just the other day, "Ya know, I haven't heard you screaming at your computer in about a year. What's up with that?" I got rid of Windows about a year ago. I feel much better now, thank you.
slashdot broke my sig
Ah, but Sun is probably just as dependant on MS products as MS Hotmail is on Sun products.
It isn't.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Damn! That is a great article! ;-)
It's very rare when I read something that is that inspirational. Makes me wanna go recompile somethin' (like a kernel maybe?).
-------------------------------------------- It looks just like a Telefunken U-47! -Frank Zappa
just a reprint of Nicholas Petreley's article ...
I really liked the content. Moreover, I was impressed in its being informative, factual, and written by an informed writer. It was great until I saw the author's name. [This in not a slam at Nick! ] It's just depressing that so few journalists seem to be both well informed and willing to state facts over "Copy, Paste, & Spin" type school of journalism.
I partially agree with you, but I'd like to share an experience we had in our office converting a machine over from Win95 to Linux.
We have a group of employees that don't work in the office and just come and go at different times in the day. We had one win95 machine for about 10 of these employees to come in on break and check their email and surf the web.
With win95 the machine was always crashing, and we had many problems with win95 not being multi-user.
Eventually we moved the machine into Linux and set up each person with their own username, password and Windowmaker desktop. Yes, we didn't even bother with KDE or GNOME (well we did have GNOME installed for one of the power users, but he actually requested that we remove it and just leave Windowmaker). We setup a button for Netscape, a button for an xterm and a button for an office app we occasionally use. We'll probably add one more button to let them use WordPerfect.
The largely computer illiterate users couldn't be happier! We set them up with a Windowmaker theme of their choice and showed them how to log into the school server and check their email with pine. We haven't had a single problem with this setup. Most of them probably really don't understand that they are even using a Unix varient. They just click on one or two buttons and get the things done that they need to do, and they know they won't crash the machine or break anything accidently.
This may not be a typical office experience, but it shows how easy it was to migrate users that weren't familiar with computers at all. I suspect if they had been like many Win95 users they would have complained bitterly because the system doesn't work exactly like Windows does.
I think many people forget that Windows was hard to train people on as well. In fact, I have a hard time sitting in front of a Mac machine. It is definately not intuitive to me. It took me quite some time to figure out how to eject the floppy disk! What common sense was I supposed to use to determine that to eject the disk I drag the icon into the trash can?
Linux wasn't intuitive for me to learn, but now that I have learned it, it's no harder than anything else I've done with computers.
Microsoft definately had a clue when they were still competing with Word Perfect. It let you map the Word Perfect keybindings to the new Word ones as well as giving the user help throughout to help them migrate. It's just as easy to do the same thing in reverse, and I hope it will be done!
The more you know, the less you understand.
I don't believe you. And if I did, I would say you need to get the latest service pack!
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Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Linux has already captured the market that matters: Geek desktops.
Everyone who is anyone is running Linux at home (at least in "test" mode). These people determine the future of the industry.
I'd like to see the following poll run (unbiased):
A I am a programmer/tech/sysadmin and I use Linux
B I am a programmer/tech/sysadmin and I don't use Linux
C I am not a programmer/tech/sysadmin and I use Linux
D I am not a programmer/tech/sysadmin and I don't use Linux
I suspect you will see D > A > B > C > 0
Posted by stodge:
Sorry couldnt resist it. So who do you believe? Microsoft, or.........er........Microsoft. Good article (not just because it supports Linux).
The best point is that it reminds you that one minute Microsoft views Linux as a worthy competitor, and then it proclaims Linux as something you shouldnt bother with.
Oh well, I enjoyed it
Are you currently running one or more Linux Servers?
yes: 1337
The survey was a survey of one subsection of the market: Those users who run servers and currently use Windows NT. This is *not* the Linux market at large.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
That is a fantastic article, clear and consise and backed up by real numbers that mean something.
... maybe they'll just turn around and go home and fdisk. *grin*
The fact that it was on CNN.com is even more amazing.
Someone should stand ourside an MCSE training class and hand out this article to all the people going in
If you can read this message, your threshold is too low.
you can just set it up with mlvwm and put
everything they want in the "apple" menu. thats
what i did for my compleatly computer illiterate
roomate. no problems. you can even setuid a script
for ppp. it shuts down cleanly when the modem is
turned off. my opinion, but you can make an
easier interface with unix/X than with NT.
of course, installing new software is different matter, but with you doing that, you can look for
potential problems with anything requested before
you install it.
"The ultimate pipe dream would be if people
felt compelled to switch because they found some killer app that just doesn't run on windows quite yet...."
id still prefer being able to choose my OS independantly of choosing applications.
This was a wonderfully written, slam-dunk article. It even had charts! Gives a good overall feel for the momentum that is building. This should be a keeper to show any mm's and phb's just what is going on.....and why.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
The topic of the article is "Why is Microsoft worrying about Linux?", so don't be surprised if the author talks about it and not your favorite server OS... All he said was that "Hotmail originally ran on Sun SPARCStations and Solaris", which is true, he mentions that Microsoft failed in moving it to NT, and then he says:
:) and marketed better. I could see how users of such an OS would get to feel somewhat inferior, but this isn't *my* problem, and I don't care. I try to post informative comments, and I don't need stupid ones cluttering up the place.
(If you just can't believe Microsoft runs Hotmail on Unix, see the
recent Bull Software press release, "Bull awarded major contract from
Microsoft for system management software," which states that:
The initial order is for OpenMaster to manage the hundreds of servers
and network connections of Hotmail, the world's leading e-mail
service, which currently provides worldwide e-mail services to more
than 35 million users.
OpenMaster runs on and manages AIX and Solaris, not Windows NT.)
That is it. Maybe hotmail didn't originally run on FreeBSD. Hotmail's site doesn't say *anything* about AIX or Solaris or FreeBSD, and he only cites one source which doesn't mention any *BSD. Maybe this wasn't the topic of the article anyway. He doesn't rule out the possibility, because he says that "hotmail runs on Unix", more than one, and doesn't list them all.
I'm sorry to rant off-topic, but the backlash against Linux from the *BSD crowd around here is really starting to piss me off. I don't use *BSD, but I am somewhat impressed at what they've managed to do, since they have a Linux emulator which apparently runs well, and are also generally renowned for stability. However, it's just another Unix, and not an incredibly popular one at that. Linux is popular, Solaris is well-known but inferior, *BSD is still good, but generally works and rots in a corner. Why? Maybe their development model doesn't work as well with a free community. Maybe if the kernel development were less tight-knit, you'd see more interest, or maybe if it were GPL'ed, instead of stolen by any commercial interest and then re-released proprietarily (read: Apple, for one
Someone mentioned earlier about how Solaris ran on x86 hardware when we had a small flamewar about server/operating systems, and I had a *one-line* post about how Linux also runs on SPARC hardware. What response did I get?
Not on all hardware and not very well, don't let your religion pull the wool over your eyes.--I didn't say that Linux was GOD, I just mentioned that it ran on the same friggin' hardware. I could have mentioned that it was also faster, in, say, kernel latency, or cheaper, or runs on *better hardware* (this UltraSPARC has a friggin' IDE drive in it, it's still expensive, and it doesn't run as well as my K6/300 which has crappier hardware and runs Linux) because that is a *documented fact*, but I didn't, and the bastard read into my post that *didn't* have any hidden meaning. (but I wish it had now...)
...if you want a definitive answer to your question, write to the author, don't whine to us, and I hope he slams you as hard as any of us can for acting like a moron and assuming things that you don't know.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yeah, that was a bit of a rant. I was pissed off, I just didn't want to see another silly religion comment in a topic that doesn't need it... unfortunately I might have made a few myself, but I try to give facts rather than opinions or speculation.
:)
:)
Sure, it's open. My point was that it's *so* open that anyone can use the code, for any purpose, and make it proprietary, like MacOS X. But that isn't even a big deal, compared to the attitude of their users who post (stupid stuff) on slashdot. They don't need support like that...
On the machines I use, Solaris is inferior to Linux. I've never used a machine running Solaris with more than one processor, nor am I prepared to pay for one. At my university, we use Solaris and NT for desktops. The Solaris machines range from Sparc 4 to Ultra 10, and I've used Sparc 1+, Sun 4, and Sun 3 machines. (they ran SunOS, but... well, close enough for my purposes)
If I replaced any of the NT boxes with Linux, it would be a beautiful machine. All-SCSI hardware, PII-400s, at least 128MB of RAM in each of them. The SPARCs are friggin UltraSPARC 300's with floppy drives (no CDROM), IDE harddrives, and an equivalent amount of RAM. They are, of course, still faster than the NT machines for most tasks, and don't waste as much memory, but aren't what I call efficient, either. Blame RISC architecture or shoddy hardware, but they also cost about as much as the NT boxes. The actual processor speed, by the way, is about equivalent to my K6/300 running Linux, so I got a machine that's, say, 4 times cheaper and runs things at the same (or better!) speed.
I don't think Solaris boxes could beat Linux boxes from a price/performance point of view, (which is what I care about) and although Solaris boxes may do SMP better (that's what I've heard, I haven't tested it) I'm sure they are very expensive, and Linux clusters very well. (64-processor SMP == 16 boxes clustered with 4-processor SMP, assuming you have enough bandwidth. Which is most of what people do, POVray, web servers, everything except for the most high-end and esoteric simulations. And some people still do that on Linux for the price/performance ratio!
...and my argument against Sun hardware is: you get what you pay for. You can run Linux on the same hardware, and even get the same parts for an x86 machine or an Alpha... Some of the SPARCs here use IDE harddrives, heck, I used a PowerMac that did too, one time. So the PC hardware is crappy argument doesn't work, especially since Linux runs on most hardware *and* processors.
(unlike Solaris, NT, AIX, etc, etc. This is actually one area where the *BSD's also do better than the commercial equivalents, too. I could just do without their supporters, if I want that, I'll read User Friendly.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't use BSD, so I must admit to some ignorance here, I just notice that I never see incremental public releases of the kernel for people to try out, which is something I value in Linux.
Similarly, gcc is only updated by the same tight-knit group of people, and released when they think they're done. The Linux kernel, and egcs, on the other hand, release many incremental community releases, for peer review, and I find this more friendly and open.
I didn't really want to make this part of my discussion a licensing issue, because it really isn't. However, I don't like the FreeBSD license for, say, an operating system, because I hate to see a good free operating system bastardized by Apple, Microsoft, or anyone else who can't program, can market, and makes everything they touch turn proprietary. That is what the GPL defends against. I figure if someone else wants to use my code and not share, then they can just write it themselves.
So did you have any opinions on, or disputes with, any of the facts I mentioned? I would actually find that interesting.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I just feel warm and tingly all over after reading that.
'Course it could be the pot of coffee I just finished.
Nice of him to forget the 500+ FreeBSD systems at Hotmail.
Remember when 32 bit processors came out the world was perfectly content to stick to 16 bit Win 3.1 for years until Microsoft "invented" the 32 bit OS. When Intel finally "invents" 64 bit chips the managers and CEO's of the world are going to be perfectly happy running a 32 bit OS for many years to come indeed They already are if you count Sparc and Alpha.
On the other hand, Linux is pretty much all one code base and those parts that aren't are being merged actively.
Dude, I don't use *BSD, but your message WAS very much a temper tandrum. Their licence and development process are VERY open.
Furthermore, Solaris is *INFERIOR* to Linux? Are you basing that on a technical assumption? Please, explain.
Solaris has options for high (B1) security, 64-processor SMP, failover clusters, and best of all, its source code is freely available to look at (and modify for personal use).
From a technical perspective, when dealing with a high-end server (over 4 processors), it is difficult to argue in favour of Linux.
-Stu
Sorry, I had read an article (I believe on PCWeek or Infoworld)
that was referring to the new licences for many of Sun's products that would allow
*anyone* to download them for non-commerical use. This includes the Java Developer Kit,
Java Workshop, Jini, one of Sun's UNIX applications.
I had assumed Solaris 7 was included under this "newer" licence.
I guess I was wrong.
-Stu
I wonder if there's any chance at all of persuading IBM to release the source code for the OS/2 Workplace Shell... I gather that it's really rather nice. Substitute Rexx with Guile, keep the object model, add metadata in the filesystem in the same way as GNOME, and presto. No harm in feeding the changes back into the OS/2 version -- that'd maybe make it worth IBM's while?
--
W.A.S.T.E.
W.A.S.T.E.
"Lie, lie, lie
deny, deny, deny
grovel, grovel, grovel"
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
FUD from the linux camp, FUD from the microsoft camp, that's all we ever read these days.
64-bit windows is a splinter from the main OS because it's a binary only OS. Linux apps are Write Once Compile Anywhere (well, the competently written OSS apps).
I'm impressed.. In was 'just the facts'.. Although, I REALLY liked the first part when it was quoting a Linux fan, which turned out to be excepts from the Microsoft vs. DOJ trial..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Yes, I realize that he was using humor, I saw it comming before I read any of the quoted text. Yes, I even found it humorous.
My point, however, is I don't think using the hyprocracy, and possible purgery, of MicroSoft is a good way of promoting Linux. MicroSoft is irrelevant. Getting into a mud-slinging match with them doesn't help us. Destroying MicroSoft wasn't what motivated most of the free software developers, and letting Linux advocates try and turn things into that isn't A Good Thing.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Still, I found the article to have a lot of anti-MS FUD in it, which was disappointing. Linux doesn't need to spread FUD to "win." MicroSoft is something that should be ignored, not beaten up upon.
For example, for the author to claim he is quoting "one of Linux's most ardent supports", when he is quoting a MS executive's trial testimony is bogus. MicroSoft doesn't support Linux, although they do want to say that someone could be considered a competitor to them. Yes, MicroSoft is being bogus also, but what MicroSoft does is irrelevant and can't excuse what Linux supporters do.
As for Linux not having a "long term road map", that is true. Linus recently said that he wasn't sure what was going to go into v2.3, and what will actually end up in it is anyones guess. I don't think this is a problem, but to turn around and effectively say "Yeah, but MicroSoft doesn't have one either!!11!!!" is lame.
As far as the "cost per transation" goes, MicroSoft is right that the price of Linux is meaningless. Anyone who has done real large scale roll-outs knows that the vast majority of the costs involves the labor and training expenses. While you can argue fairly strongly that Linux can have a much smaller labor expense to create a server/system, the training is not as easy to dismiss. Linux has real weaknesses, as well as real strengths. The price, when it comes down to it, is not that big of an issue.
The area of 64-bit support is also something that Linux may be "better than WinNT", but that isn't saying much. There is a lot of Linux software that doesn't run correctly on Alphas/Sparcs. There isn't even very many distributions that can claim to support these 64-bit machines.
While it is possible for MicroSoft to mess up their 64-bit support, I find it somewhat unlikely. The problems with going from 16-bit segments to a flat 32-bit model are much different than going from a flat 32-bit model to a flat 64-bit model.
All in all, I found reading this article to be much like a one-night-fling. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, but I kind feel "dirty" afterwords. There was just too much anti-MicroSoft stuff, and not enough "this is why you should use Linux". What little of the later there was, it was mostly done by tearing down MS.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Oh, what joy, what bliss! I can almost feel the sorrow Bill must be feeling right now. He must be one paranoid and worried little man by now!
there are fewer apps.
there are fewer apps.
(lets try this again). Does that mean you can't run Microsoft Office, Microsoft Explorer, Microsoft Bob?
Cause I've found plenty of things to run on Unix.
It would seem that any large body with a lot at stake (let's use a politician and his/her government as an example) will gamble by saying things that aren't necessarily true (or NOT saying things that are true), in the hopes that the heat will be turned off and things will go back to normal. Some examples from recent history include President Clinton's escapade with Lewinsky, and Premier Clark's [government's] numerous scandals (the ferries, the casino, etc). Until they know there's no turning back, they'll swear that black is white.
Such is the case with Microsoft. While they believed they were still on pretty solid ground they could quietly overlook any shortcomings of their own OS, and form arguments (that may or may not be convincing) to see them coming out on top. They could deny that Linux was a threat because, as far as they were concerned, there was no evidence to support that idea.
A breaking point came where they could no longer deny what was really going on, and unless they were to acknowledge what everybody could see was happening (That Linux does "challenge the industry leader"), they'd look rather silly.
Of course, your guess as to what comes of this is as good as mine. Many Politicians who fib manage to stay (or get back) in office; maybe Microsoft will as well.
But, my vote has been with Linux since kernel 1.2.x, and i'm not changing anytime soon.
"Give me liberty, or give me death, Zogwarg Queen!" - Spiff.
with a bit of yellow on the tip of his nose and around his eyes. Other than that it would be all puffed up nice and really tight.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
as soon as I hit SUBMIT....
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I took a course at Sun Education's Melbourne offices a couple of years ago. I thought I noticed that the receptionist at the front desk was not using MS products, so I asked what office suite she was using.
Her answer? Applix.
So I very much doubt that Sun are as dependent on MS stuff as has been suggested. MS Office is certainly not a company-wide standard.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
This is great information. Do you have a pointer to the oringinal? I'd really like to see the whole thing and I couldn't find it after a quick look at their site. TIA.
--
"First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
You've seen that happen too. Ha Ha Too funny.
And here I thought it was only our company.
kashani
- Why is the ninja... so deadly?
Furthermore, it's still quite a ways from being something that I would want to put on my mom's computer.
Well, actually I did put it on my mom's computer, I put it on all PC's at home. While it's true that it's quite a change for newbies to get used to it, it's entirely possible. My whole family is using Linux since I got rid of Windoze, it forced them to learn a bit, which is a good thing. Microsoft keeps people computer-illiterate whereas Unix creates tech-savvy users...
Of course my mother isn't a guru, she's using KDE, only knows a couple of Shell commands (startx, fetchmail, top) and has no idea about internals - but that's my job, a sys-admin's task, and I'm certainly glad she can't kill the system by making a mistake.
So Linux is a valuable choice for family computers as long as there's a knowledgeable administrator available. A stand-alone home computer for newbies might be a problem, though. That could be solved by a special distro that is especially tailored to "powerless-users" (so to speak).
-- Eavy (: Linux Is Not UniX
I haven't seen this with RedHat, but then, RedHat doesn't have the same crontab scripts. I had some theories on the cause, but none have panned out so far. I'm hoping the 2.2.4 kernel fixes things, but if not, I'll try to find the root of the problem and post the results to the appropriate places.
Of course if anyone else has seen anything similar, I'd love to hear about it...
--
Jake
Anomalous Cowherd wrote:
:)
:)
>
> Furthermore, it's still quite a ways from being
> something that I would want to put on my mom's
> computer.
I agree completely. I love Linux, but I have to use MS for work. There is no question about the advantages of Linux over Windows, but for the non-technical person out there, Windows is still easier to use. Although one may argue that these people should be using Macs instead of PCs, since they are even more idiot friendly (to use your own terminology
I'm not so sure if it will take 2 to 3 years before Linux reaches the level of "idiot friendliness" as Windows. With the momentum that the OS has gained, its development is bound to start taking a few leaps forward, and this is the main aspect that Linux developers should be concentrating the most if we have any hopes of seeing grandma buying computers with little penguin stickers on it.
Ps: Great screen name BTW
Later,
--
Joao
"Warning:this stuff certainly is beta right now"
Well, then try telling your mom to install some new software on the machine. I'm not talking about having mom over to use the machine. I was thinking more in terms of having her go to the store, buy the machine, go home, start using it, and install some software she may need. Until that is the case, I'm sorry but the average mom (hello Average Mom! :) will end up getting a windows machine, or a Mac.
Yet, the point of my message, which you apparently missed, was that the day Ms. Average Mom will go out there and purchase her very own Linux machine may be closer than the 2 or 3 years suggested in the message prior to mine.
Later.
The article comments on Linux's superior ability to cluster servers compared to NT. Although this claim may be accurate (I have no idea whether it is or not) the example he uses to illustrate his point is poorly chosen in the context of the article.
The example was of IBM's demonstration of a 17 server Linux cluster running as fast as a Cray. This claim is based on the results of the Povray benchmark, which is in no way related to normal server operations. The Povray benchmark, for those who don't know, is a benchmark based on 3D scene rendering abilities of a machine. The program that was run has been designed using parrallel programming techniques which are necessary in a Beowulf cluster. This has very little to do with your run-of-the-mill server operations that the article seems to gear towards.
As of yet there do not appear to be any significant applications (databases, webservers, etc) that have been developed to harness the capabilities of a Beowulf cluster. From a recent mailing on the Beowulf mailing list, it appears that Oracle is working on making a Beowulf capable database, but that is purely rumor.
All the above is basede on my recent observation, feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.
--- Linux... a college project gone horribly right
For what kernels do, I think the 2.2.x series does what it does very well. I can't think of anything at all that needs to be added to it. (More drivers will always be required)
I am looking forward to XFree86 4.0, and a stable Gnome though.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Now, who wants to go for a beer?
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
You mean my Beowulf cluster won't handle my workgroup's file and print services the way my Cray can?
D'oh!
I don't recall the article saying anything about "normal server operations", just comparisons to overall computing power.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
OS/2 is a closed system owned by IBM. IBM's interests do not lie in keeping it current as a desktop OS. My interests, and those of other OS/2 users don't matter. We don't have the source. It would be cool if IBM said,"We don't want this, you take it," but that's not going to happen any time soon...
I want an OS with a future. OS/2 is great now, but in 5 years, it'll be keeping my TRS-80's company in the closet.
Okay, it looks clear that as long as Linux development continues as it is, and Microsoft doesn't find some miraculous way to dig themselves out from years of bad architecture decisions, Linux will win (has won?) the server war.
Now, however, it's time to win the desktop. Between KDE, GNOME, and WINE development, I personally see Linux at taking a serious chunk of Windows desktop market share in two years, and maybe breaking the 50% mark in three years. What you do folks think, reasonable?
Really? I found this page for the Solaris SPARC and Intel Source code Program, but if you follow the Download the agreement link under "Licensing Agreement", you find it says "Please note that we cannot accept applications from non-educational institutions nor from individual students."
So to what other program are you referring to when you say "its source code is freely available to look at (and modify for personal use)."? Given that you didn't qualify that as "freely available to educational institutions", you clearly weren't referring to that program, unless I missed something else that indicates that you can get the source even if you're not an educational institution.
You're probably referring to Sun's Community Source License; these are the products they currently have under that license - but Solaris isn't one of them.
This article couldn't have come at a better time. The old standbys (e.g., the Kirch paper) are great for details, but this wraps it up in a nice, bite-size chunk that even management can understand. Icing on the cake for a certain internal memo...
-- GRR: Newtware, PNG Group, AlphaWorld Map, Info-ZIP, Google cluster infrastructure,
I don't see what OS/2 has to do with the facts Nick outlined. Could you be a little more bigoted - you almost introduced a fact. Oh:
>OS/2 corrupted my hard drive
Aw, poor baby. What do you use now, Windows NT? Has it NEVER corrupted your hard drive?? If that IS true, your NT box must be a single-tasking standalone box with scheduled reboots. That's how MSN is run... over a THOUSAND Pentium Pro NT servers on a *scheduled* reboot regimen (24 hours I think).
I get it... if you're going to get screwed, you prefer to pay for it, right?
I've never talked to an NT Support goon that DIDN'T suggest rebooting or reinstalling as one of the first 5 solutions to an unidentifiable problem. Hey, you're probably one of dem dere MSCE certified eckspert d00dZ
Regarding msn.com server farms:
.sig, I don't think MacOS is up to that kind of serving job *either* (MacOS X Server "might" be since it's just NextStep in Mac clothing. I don't know for certain). Different jobs for different tasks I say... but NT does everything second-rate.
I guy I worked with at another company (not my current employer..) told me MSN.COM's server farm was managed by a friend's company - I think Digital. I was told they had about 1800 NT Servers each loaded to the gills with RAM, but owing to the unpredicatable nature they were never all running at one time, which is probably true since it takes 12 minutes to fully reboot my dual-processor NT box. They even installed *automated* reboot scripts to make stability more predictable. How's THAT for "enterprise-ready"? . Disclaimer: I make no guarantees as to the authenticity of above statements as it is heresay from another individual. I am only reporting as I heard this. So I couldn't say it's "REALLY TRUE" as I don't work for them. I believe it though...
>I know MS NT is bad, but MS guys scheduling reboots is kind of like Microsoft admiting that their servers are unstable.
Oh, you mean like Hotmail outages when their management was too afraid to tell Bill his little OS couldn't run the webmail service, even with an unlimited hardware budget?
Or do you mean how Microsoft's "Terrabyte server" served nothing but roadmaps because it couldn't handle complex data?
1800 NT servers is pretty amazing. We had a 3 or 4 Solaris + Alpha (UNIX) boxes that handled more load than MSN's little NT wasteland server farm. It doesn't make financial sense to run something that way, until you consider how much internal clout MS Sales/Marketing has and the fear of saying NO.
Just in case any AC snips at my
Tried it - sent it back!
BeOS has a long way to go as far as working with standard PC hardware, especially CD-ROMs and internal modems!
My wife and I were discussing this very thing not an hour ago :)
I agree, his statements about Windows NT not matching Linux on clusters is probably incorrect. Beowulf, as I understand it, is simply made up of a collection of systems running some message passing software over a tightly coupled local area network (100mbit, gigabit, etc). Not counting stability, cost, performance, and availability concerns, there is no fundamental technical reason why Windows NT (or Windows 95, FreeBSD, MacOS, BeOS, etc, etc) could not be made to do the same thing. Really all that is needed is good NIC drivers, a port of the MPI code, and a fairly efficient IP stack to handle the throughput. However the fact that IBM (or anyone else) could put together one of these clusters so easily is important, IMHO. It would probably take a lot longer to do with a non-OSS platform.
Also, database systems (and probably web servers too) do not really apply in this case as they typically use their own message passing schemes, which have no need for the "Beowulf"-specific middleware layer.
STFU about slashdot bias.
not only that, but scott mcneilly banned microsoft powerpoint. result? productivity went up, fileservers with low disk space went down.
not surprising really.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
You know - every once in a while you get a pitch that's right down the middle, and exactly what you thought the pitcher was going to throw. Then, using just enough patience to not swing too soon (because you know you _own_ this pitch), you turn your body into the pitch and quickly put all your force into the end of the bat and...
Thwack!
The ball gets blasted out of the ballpark. And as you trot around the bases, you holler at the pitcher:
"Way to try and put that FUD past me, Eddie-boy!"
Nice article, Nick.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
like I said. Everyone knows Al Gore invented BeOS, MacOSX, and the first motorola CPU's.
Secondly, Steve Jobs isn't ahead of anything. His carrer is nothing more than a long sad string of aborted efforts.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Really good stuff if you have the time to read it
support gun control: take guns from cops
They already accounted for that. When more and more Linux machines joined in the poll they stopped tabulating the results and took only the first 2000 results.
This ballot was not stuffed.
If you don't believe me, click on the link to the survey on hte article, and read the paragraphs in the beginning where they explain that everything was going smoothly, then the slashdot effect kicked in, so they only took the first 2000 results.
I think the Free Software movement has more of a marketing department than MS does. They only got an interview printed in PC Week, an obviously pro-M$ publication.
We got a great rebuttal printed in CNN, a much more mainstream publication, thanks to Nick Petreley.
I say, let M$ bring on the FUD. We can fend them off much better than they can fend us off, because we also have the truth behind us.
Actually, if you go here:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/0399_ 2000.htm
You can see that when they noticed that the statistics were getting skewed towards Linux, they stopped using those statistics. Only the first 2000 responses were used. These responses were made before word of the survey got out to the Linux crowd.
There's no ballot stuffing here.
I think this is the first SOLID piece of evidence I've seen showing how much trouble M$ is in in the OS market. There's no M$ bashing. Just concrete facts, as far as I can see. The author deserves applause for writing such a brilliant piece. I would think, more so now than ever, the folks in Redmond are chasing their tails more and more, not knowing how to stem the tide of Linux. The simple fact is that Linux is going to roll right over them. The momentum is too strong to fight. Cheers to all you folks developing Linux apps!!
So whatever happened to Merced - the PA-RISC and Intel joint effort that was supposed to dominate the 64 bit chip market? I recall the hub-bub when it first went into supposed development over a year ago. HP observed MS's exceedingly slow pace developing a 64 bit OS, and decided to spring their own HP-UX 11.0 outta the box.
But then, IMHO, HP-UX 11.0 is still under development and has a long way to go before it can replace 10.20. 64bit is going to be a long way off in that camp as well.
DVD drivers are getting cheaper and cheaper, movies can be rent at most video store here, all 3 dvd software player I have use under windoze are all choppy.....
Which brings up something that's been bothering me for a year or so now: Why would anyone want a DVD drive for movies on their computer? If you want to watch movies, get a DVD player for your 27"+ TV, not your 17" monitor... I for one can't imagine sitting at a desk in front of a computer watching a movie. Am I the only one who thinks DVD movies on a computer is a dumb idea? (Okay, on a laptop, it's almost sensible, since you could hook it up to a TV easily if it had composite output, or maybe watch movies on an airplane or something...)
Now, using DVD for data storage, I can see...
Well, according to the intro, the survey taker stopped when the submitters began to all come from linux boxes (note: he didn't say 'from /.'). So unless all those hitting the survey from freshmeat were running NT, then the 'freshmeat effect' didn't have an effect on the survey.
;)
I'm glad they stepped in to ensure that they were sampling their target population - it makes the pro-linux results look even better
The enemies of Democracy are
When the author said that, he was being ironic, not bogus.
You read the quote, and it does sound very pro-linux, kinda like something a linux geek here would write when refuting the "no software" FUD.
Then the author reveals that it was an MS exec, giving testimony in the DOJ case. The significance of that is not lost on the reader, who realizes that the testimony was *not* that of an 'ardent supporter', but an exec trying to make linux seem like competition in front of the court, and in the process refutes his own company's FUD.
Wham! Irony.
Then the point becomes clear - you can't trust what the mouth of MS says, since it changes like a chameleon from pro-linux when being prosecuted, to anti-linux when trying to keep IT managers from dropping NT like a pissed-off rattlesnake.
Though the reader will also realize that the statements made before the DOJ about linux software are in fact true.
Conclusion: Ed Muth is wrong. (that is, after all, what the artical was supposed to be about)
The enemies of Democracy are
I was unaware. Being from Canada, I don't get much oppertunity to see elephants swimming. ;)
BTW, anyone out there want a couple feet of snow? We've got lots to spare.
"What do you mean, invalid parameters? 9000Gigs of RAM and it can't answer a simple question!" -- Earthworm Jim
Granted. Personally, I've been using Linux for a little over 6 months now and I would never go back. (Well, actually I do...but only when I need to edit complex Office 97 documents)
I agree with you that Linux is a ways away from being what I would put on my mother's computer either, but consider it's roots.
As we all know, Linux is a variant of UNIX, which was originally written by developers for other developers. Computers weren't household appliances. They didn't need to be "idiot friendly", they needed to be "professional friendly". And, due to hardware constraints, it had to be a lean and mean.
Windows on the other hand, traces it's lineage back to the inception of the PC, and QDOS. PCs, in contrast to workstations, had to be more "idiot friendly" than UNIX, because they were not targeted exclusively at the professional.
Now, if we bring this forward to the inception of NT, we find that Microsoft has seen the writting on the wall when it comes to the "PC" market. They can see that they have saturated the home market. In order to continue making the unbelievable amounts of revenue they have been sustaining, they need to A) Force the people who have bought their product in the past to upgrade to a new version, and/or B) Move into the server market, where the big bucks are. Microsoft decided to do both. (Hence NT, and eventually, the 9x line)
Meanwhile, the commercial UNIXes were happy as clams in a pond. They WERE the server market. There were many variants available, and the competition kept things fresh, but there was little reason to make UNIX "idiot friendly". NT (and more importantly, NT's marketing) caught them off guard. All of a sudden, NT was on it's road to becoming the big game in town, and the various UNIX vendors began loosing that ever so important market share.
Now, we bring this forward to present day. Many companies who standardized on NT have knowingly, or unknowingly been forced to bring back UNIX. Linux is rising in popularity and, for the first time, there IS a reason to make it "idiot friendly", if only to end Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC market.
The bad news is, Microsoft has been making "user-friendly" OSes complete with user candy for quite some time now. Arguably, they're pretty good at it.
The flip side of the coin is that UNIX/Linux has been doing networking for quite some time now. And I think we'll all agree, it's pretty damn good at it.
So what we have is two seperate systems, built for completely disparate environmnents encroaching on each other's living space. (Imagine a whale being forced to walk on land and an elephant being forced to swim.) And at this point, they either evolve, or you end up with a lot of beached whales and drowned elephants.
It comes down to a question of how well each can adapt to their new environment. Can NT become more reliable, scalable, and robust? Can UNIX become more user friendly, intuitive, and simple?
Linux, being open source has a distinct advantage. It can (and has) evolve very quickly. Look at where Linux was in terms of use-ability a year ago, compared to now. Then, look at NT in terms of stability, and performance a year ago, compared to now.
So, while Linux still has a long way to go, I'd much rather wait for it to become more user-friendly than I would for NT to become more scalable.
These are interesting times. Enjoy them.
"What do you mean, invalid parameters? 9000Gigs of RAM and it can't answer a simple question!" -- Earthworm Jim
You think ol' Scott McNealy fires up Outlook to send out his companywide messages? Heh. Yeah, right. This is SUN we're talking about! The first company to make personal *NIX workstations practical.
Now I'm curious, though. Anyone who does work for sun want to comment?
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
I must say, I did have a smile on my face the whole time reading thru that article.
:)
... and missing.
I ran a pretty intense ftp server for a while and when I had it running NT, it would crap out all the time. I took the same exact hardware over to linux and it just kept chugging along. Pretty nifty shit.
Oh, and with that pot of coffee, watch out or you may also get the warm tricklies running down your leg!
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
hehe, ms bob.... just what we need ported over to linux :)
::twitch::
... and missing.
I just fear the day that Microsoft comes out with MS-Linux
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
For the actual results page, click here.
Several people have pointed out that this survey could have been slashdotted.
Well, it wasn't. Here is the intro to the survey results from Sunbelt:
Sunbelt March99 Survey Results
over 1999 NT users
And now, the answers to the survey questions! Before anything else,
thanks for your many thousands of survey answers. This is a hot
topic for sure!!
First though, some background data. This survey was meant to
get an idea how things are looked at BY the NT community, FOR
the NT community. Well, that was somewhat naive I have to admit
. The questions were created while looking at discussions
between NT system administrators and were definitely written
from that viewpoint. Some claim that they were biased. There may
be some truth in that if you look at it from the Linux POV.
Sunbelt does not claim any kind of scientific validity. This
survey is a snapshot and not a random sample at all. It is not
objective but that was not the idea in the first place.
BUT, I guess if you step into a war you should expect some bullets
flying around, and I did get some flak from people. Most of these
people are both running NT and Linux and know them well. Personally
I know NT but have not much experience with Linux. We have a few
'closet' Linux users in Sunbelt though, both in sales and Tech .
Anyway, what happened is that we sent the invitation to do the
survey, and very quickly got thousands of responses back. We
followed in real-time what the results were, every 500 responses
or so. Extremely surprising numbers to start with. But even more
strange after the first few hours. Numbers started suddenly to
change and become slanted toward more Linux than before. Very odd
from a statistical perspective I remember from my stats course
in college.
Now, it so happens that the software we use to do the survey
queries the browser that was used to fill out the survey. So
we know what O/S it is running on, and the IP address it comes
from. The Linux user community had gotten word about the survey
and was getting into gear to show that Linux had support.
So anyway, we took the first 2000 survey results and did our
analysis on those. These were from predominantly NT users with
some people answering from a Linux machine. That will give some
idea about the current state of Linux use and the results are
revealing.
/snip/
And here is my own favorite set of statistics, about the supposed
advantages/disadvantages of Linux:
How important are these perceived Linux Benefits?
Scale= Very Important / Important / Of Less Importance
Linux is free
775.00 / 523.00 / 542.00
Stability
1584.00 / 195.00 / 58.00
Not Microsoft
340.00 / 290.00 / 1178.00
Better performance
1356.00 / 381.00 / 89.00
Open Software
1148.00 / 459.00 / 225.00
Other
619.00 / 294.00 / 294.00
How important are these perceived Linux drawbacks?
(Same scale)
Lack of Applications
463.00 / 449.00 / 882.00
Not Mission Critical yet
314.00 / 333.00 / 1099.00
Lack of Third Party utilities
324.00 / 352.00 / 1084.00
Different distributions / GUI's
261.00 / 299.00 / 1197.00
Lack of standardization
386.00 / 315.00 / 1060.00
Open Software
257.00 / 281.00 / 1214.00
Lack of Tech Support
324.00 / 312.00 / 1119.00
Too 'Bleeding Edge'
129.00 / 256.00 / 1347.00
Steep Learning Curve
238.00 / 401.00 / 1116.00
Hardware incompatibilities
371.00 / 404.00 / 985.00
User unfriendly
270.00 / 385.00 / 1101.00
Whoa! That was a tough one!
logan
I've never really encountered a Windows setup that didn't totally deteriorate at some point in time to the point that the user has to come ask someone like me for help -- and this is _without_ the user doing anything but typical installation or uninstallation of software using the typical packaging systems you find on Windows. Even if Windows is setup professionally and fine-tuned for the hardware it is installed upon by the same professionals, unless you never touch the machine you're going to be deluged with GPFs, ambiguous error messages ("At least one device failed", etc.), and odd quirks that are often just completly insurmountable (short of restoring the hard drive image to what it was when you first received it). The most common "troubleshooting" task involved in Windows support is the oh so troublesome "reinstall." Does the application crash every time you run it? If you can't find a hack to fix it, all you can do is reinstall. If the OS itself manages to fail in this manner (and it does and will), you've got an entire OS to reinstall. That's what you consider useable?
True, this is not Microsoft's fault alone -- there are dozens, if not thousands of software developers who are spewing out applications that are as bad or worse than the OS itself, and there's nothing you or I can do about it. This is not what I consider ease of use. This is not what I would want to subject my mother to when I give her a computer. True, Linux apps generally lack the glitz and occasionally the interoperability that Windows apps have, but which OS is more _useable_?
logan
> Pentium Pro NT servers on a *scheduled*
> reboot regimen (24 hours I think).
Is this REALLY TRUE? I find it remarkably hard to believe. I mean, I know MS NT is bad, but MS guys scheduling reboots is kind of like Microsoft admiting that their servers are unstable.
I've heard about a US Post Office NT server that had to be rebooted once per hour. I also find this difficult to believe, but the story teller I believe, and the source I trust.
-- If you met me, you probably wouldn't remember me. I'm pretty hard to remember.
It's clear he has a good handle on the strengths of Linux in comparison to today's WinNT, as well as the NT yet to be developed.
As usual, it's noted that so much FUD from the Micros~1 people downplay the importance and significance that Linux has in current Internet applications as well as home-users' desktops. MS seems to have just discovered that there indeed are GUIs for Linux, and there are applications comparable to most anything that MS has already produced. And Linux almost always does it better.
To quote:
And the reasons stating the superiority of Linux go on and on. Really, if you look at those numbers and have used Linux, the numbers shouldn't be a surprise to you. Can you really beat an OS that's not only free, but has thousands of programmers continually fixing, updating, and supporting it?
viva Open Source! viva Linux!
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
/* So what we have is two seperate systems, built for completely disparate environmnents encroaching on each other's living space. (Imagine a whale being forced to walk on land and an elephant being forced to swim.) And at this point, they either evolve, or you end up with a lot of beached whales and drowned elephants. */
A little off topic, but elephants are actually very good swimmers. Their large surface area to allows them much buoyance, and their trunks can be used as snorkels.
Just a little useless fact.
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
The smart OS developer will use some flavor of unix and simply place the user interface on top of that. Make it feel like a Mac, BeOS, NeXT, or make it smell like Windoesnt. And, of course, Steve Jobs and Apple are leading the pack. Linux is nice, and we use it here for the low end PCs (vice the Suns and SGIs), but it has a long way to go before it's ready for prime time. We need to be up and running and crunching numbers (we do chaos), not searching for SCSI and video drivers.
What, is Windows(tm) becoming, gasp, fragmented?
BooBoo
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I was stunned - it made my day - to see a shrink-wrapped copy of Applix office in the shiny new Costa Mesa/Newport Beach Borders.
There was a whole solid bookcase column (vertical member to vertical member) devoted to Linux distributions and applications. Wow!
D
----
She's actually correct. Even on systems that are already 64 bit (solaris, irix, etc.), 32 bit binaries are used more. There's no need to use 64 bits worth of data, unless needed. Currently, only servers with large databases and file systems tend to use 64 bit binaries. Workstations and desktops won't need the 64 bit power, but if NT wants to attack Unix servers, they need 64 bits.
For what its worth, I will state that you are correct about this. Corporations have bought into the Windows desktop. They are not about to just replace X thousands of OS's, the costs would be staggering (I am not talking about the cost of the OS, but the cost of retraining users, upgrading each desktop and the (temporary) increase in the number of support calls).
If X just crashed Linux is still running and very much alive, but to break it out you have to login remotely and kill the X server. If X freezes up you may also be able to punch out using ctrl-alt-backspace, though you may already know this.
Greg
--
I think what is reasonable to assume is that in two or three years Linux+KDE|Gnome will be the clear informed choice for a newbie or for someone who has found a compelling reason to leave windows. The ultimate pipe dream would be if people felt compelled to switch because they found some killer app that just doesn't run on windows quite yet......
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
"{GNOME and KDE} may make the desktop more "integrated," but they do slow the system down."
Most of my home computer's CPU time is burned up waiting for me to decide what to click or to remember a particular command sequence. A functional GUI may slow the "computer" down, but it makes the human faster.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I recall a study from a while back that indicated the real cost of supporting a computer on a big company network was something like $20-30,000 per year. That included software, hardware, wiring, servers, training, and support.
The biggest chunk (~50%) was support costs. I'm sure if you further break down support costs, you'd find the biggest chunk is labor.
While you can make a good argument that the crappyness of DOS/Windows is a big reason those support costs are as high as they are, I'd bet that the numbers don't look much different in an all NT shop (where the users don't even have Admin rights to screw up their machines).
The point is, from a company standpoint, the Windows licence is a drop in the bucket. Meanwhile, these companies are having trouble hiring techs that can correctly install MS Office, and Unix administrators can bill for $100/hour easily in the Bay Area.
You folks can certainly make a good argument that Linux actually reduces desktop support costs, but I won't believe it until the support talent starts getting much cheaper.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Windows 2000 ("Cairo") is coming out in 1997.
People took this stuff seriously. So seriously that certain CIOs had bonus clauses based on NT 5 rollouts. The article's author has a point.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Here's what Microsoft does - they march into the MIS Manager's office and offer a year or two of reduced or free software licences. They also fly him to redmond to see some sales presentations and possibly play some golf. All he has to do is pull the plug on Novell or Sun or whatever they got.
So he does it. Conversion costs skyrocket past predicitions, but with some fancy number crunching he shows the CIO and the President how he reduced support costs by 25% by switching to Windows NT. Then he's out of there to something better. After a year or two, Microsoft comes back with the bill, and annual licence and support cost is just as high or higher than Novell's or Sun's.
(By the way, Redhat could easily play this same game against Microsoft.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Be fair! the artical was about SERVERS running NT not your mims windoze box.
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
--
One thing I found interesting about the article, was what didn't get mentioned. In the description of Microsoft's Hotmail, the use of Solaris was mentioned, but not it's use of another, free, operating system, FreeBSD. An oversight, or are some people loathe to admit that Linux isn't the only free OS out there?
As far as what to put on my mothers computer? I'm in the process of building one for mine, and I sure don't plan on putting Windows on it. She lives 3000 miles away, so what's needed is a system that does what she needs (e-mail, text processing and web browsing), won't crash while she's using it, and that can be maintained remotely.
Be honest now, if Hotmail used Linux instead of FreeBSD for their web servers, do you think Solaris would have been mentioned at all?
You do realize that exponential growth is impossible after a certain point. The fact that Linux had exponential growth during the immature phase of it's growth is actually quite promising. If Linux wasn't going anywhere, one would expect very small, linear looking growth.
Also, don't forget that these are percentages, not actual numbers. Percentages by their nature have a limiting "population" of 100%. You can't have much growth that looks like exponential growth.
Also, don't forget that you're not looking at a very big interval here. 4 months isn't much time.
Aside from all that, what does it matter? Noone expected Linux to exhibit exponential growth for very long. Nothing could, not even the perfect operating system. Doesn't the fact that Linux server growth outpaced NT server growth impress you more than the fact that Linux wasn't doing it in a completely unprecedented way?
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Don't forget MIPS and PPC in there. Note that Linux runs well on all of these architectures. Linux runs in 32 bit, 64 bit, and rumor has it, there is a 128bit version floating around, though I doubt it right now. NT runs on INTEL and ALPHA. Intel has little if any footing in the Server class arena, and NT Alpha is all but a forgotten cause. If NT claims to run on Server class hardware, then shouldn't it run on hardware other than X86 hardware? NT Alpha is tiny, over 80% of NT is on X86. I guess NT is really only a Desktop Operating system.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
I thought this article was very good. I think it does more for the suits than the Gurus, which is also good, since we already know. It hints at it, but doesn't come right out and say...These OS's aren't being well planned prior to programming. Because of that the underlying code is probably not very modular, or not as much as it should be, and due to this, leads to these problems, like 64-bit NT. I wish Intel would hurry up and stop pushing cheezy chips like the PIII and go ahead with the Merced. That would further doom MS, since Intel is helping to port Linux to merced :-)
Be honest now, if Hotmail used Linux instead of FreeBSD for their web servers, do you think Solaris would have been mentioned at all?
Yes, because the typical PHB target audience is familiar with the Sun-Microsoft lawsuits and general animosity recently, so the fact that Microsoft depends on Sun's products for one of their services is a significant fact.
Furthermore this story is a bit off-base, as his stories often are.
Biased Nick Petreley may be, off-base, I would dispute. For the most part, he tends to present his opinions in a pretty reasonably justified manner.
Is Linux considered "splintered" because it comes in 64-bit flavours? Of course not, so why should Windows be?
Because with *NIX the API stays the same regardless of the word size. *NIX didn't have a huge crisis when the world moved from 16 to 32 bit like Microsoft has gone through moving from Win16 to Win32. Microsoft has always writen their APIs too close to the processor, which has hurt them in the long run.
And surely the ability of some future Win64 to emulate 32 bit code should not be counted as detrimental.
The fact that it has to rely on emulation when it will be running on a platform that is supposed to provide hardware level instruction set compatibility is what is detrimental. The fact that NT on Alpha has failed to take advantage of the Alpha's 64 bit architecture for several years is detrimental.
Also, counting the numbers of machines running various Web servers and operating systems and attached to the Internet can't be extrapolated to, say, what IT people like to use generally. So let's not get carried away.
So what numbers do you suggest Petreley should have used instead? What is being used on publically accessable sites is certainly significant. Its hard to say whether any disparity between what IT people like to use in general and what they are deploying on the Internet would fall in favor or against Microsoft.
Anyway, what I'd really like to know is how many big NT sites use it because they receive "incentives" from Microsoft in cash and kind. At least, four years ago this was happening at some companies I was close to
I would suspect that it is still going on. Even if that sort of coercion isn't, it is hard to dispute that the decision to deploy NT in many IT shops is made by nontechnical managers for political reasons rather than by technical people for technical or financial reasons.
Please elaborate on the MS long term road map.
Microsoft's long term road map is related to seeing how long they can milk their cash cows by slowly doleing out minor enhancements and bug fixes. They will let others innovate, then they will immitate or purchase then proclaim the immitation to be the original or their purchase to be their idea all along.
The fact that Microsoft has a long range plan is one of their big lies. The original edition of "The Road Ahead" barely mentioned the Internet because they had no long term plan for it, they were betting on their failed "blackbird" AOL-like technology. Their revisionism led to them tacking on a chapter for the second edition.
I am not an expert on the subject, but I would say that reliability matters a lot in this situation.
I would concur and further suggest that one doesn't need to be a technical expert to make that determination. Simple business common sense would dictate that decision.
The article mentions that NT + MS SQL were pitted against AIX + DB2.
Actually I believe it was an AS/400 which runs OS/400. It was also a single processor AS/400 compared to a multiprocessor NT box.
While NT outperformed IBM's solution in most tests, it crashed under heavy load. Now what were you saying about the cost per transaction?
Cost per transaction matters little if you can't reliably do a given load of transactions.
Actually, those results are all probbly wrong, because of the freshmeat effect. Yes, I typed that right. A little while ago, Freshmeat linked to that story and said, "Why don't we change the results a little." So we all voted, and it makes NT admins look like hypocrites!
Like it or not, MS has defined the lowest common denominator for a common GUI. Nothing that Sun has can top it and nothing that Linux has is viable (yet). MS won't be beaten on the desktop until desktops are irrelevant. That's the biggest problem with the GNOME/KDE efforts; by the time they win, no one will care.
I wouldn't read too much into those server installation numbers. MS has been waging an uphill battle on the server front, so it's not like Linux is de-throning the champ. When Linux outranks all of the other Unixen combined, then it's won.
Now, if there was a viable Linux variant for handheld and embedded devices, Linux would be positioned for the next real battle. Imagine if there was a free (speech, not beer) OS for palmtops and there were a few dozen manufacturers shipping products based on it...
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Yeah, I forwarded out the link to every non-slashdot reader I knew. This has to be one of the best non-biased articles I've read in quite awhile.
Very nice.
And if lack of apps was even an issue, (which it really isn't if you're creative), then why not slap on a virtual machine via VMware.
Stability of a linux server, with a win95 virtual to run your office suite. Still takes less than running NT on it's own, and gives you the best of both worlds.
----
For example, for the author to claim he is quoting "one of Linux's most ardent supports", when he is quoting a MS executive's trial testimony is bogus. MicroSoft doesn't support Linux, although they do want to say that someone could be considered a competitor to them. Yes, MicroSoft is being bogus also, but what MicroSoft does is irrelevant and can't excuse what Linux supporters do.
----
Uhm, I'm hoping you are the only one that didn't get the irony of the statement. It was not saying he was a supporter, it was irony. That is how Authors get a point across. Perhaps a return to Lit. 101 would help you with that.
There was no FUD about MS, just facts. The closest thing is the conjecture that W2K will suck, and be different than W64. I don't doubt the code will split, Will MS do a better job with compatibility? We'll have to wait and see, though since they are both flat models, as you point out, the issues should be much easier. Of course the sheer size of the code base makes simple things much more difficult.
And as per cost/labor, there are still quite a few UNIX admins out there, it's just that since it's harder to lie about knowing UNIX (you get found out quicker) the number of available Admins is not as bloated as NT.
Interview:
PHB: So, you know NT?
APPLICANT: Yeah, see... click-click-click.
PHB: Wow, you're hired.
3 months later:
UNIX Admin: Uhm, why are your servers routing IP traffic?
NT Newbie: What do you mean by that? Which button should I click to find out?
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
He wasn't commenting on Linux, he was showing that MS saying Linux is splintered is hypocritical.
Someone should stand ourside an MCSE training class and hand out this article to all the people going in
MCSE status offers several practical advantages.
1. PHBs think it's hard to get, so if you have one you are must be smart.
2. MCSE is easy to get if you've got $7000, a month, and a brain. Or $1000, 6 months, and a brain.
3. If you have an MCSE, you can run an NT network and earn nice money while you study for a real job.
If you read the report from which these numbers were taken, they acknowledge that yes, their total survey numbers were skewed by the slashdot effect.
However, they were snapshotting the data at regular intervals and could tell from the server logs when the slashdot effect started to kick in, so they threw out the survey responses after that point. Which is why they analyzed 1999 responses (the first 1999) rather than the >5000 (or whatever) they actually got.
Note that these data are from an NT oriented site, and they were originally expecting the results to show a lot less Linux use.
-- Alastair
No, it's just that the significance of Microsoft using Solaris of all things is much greater than that it's a unix. It's Sun's unix, and Microsoft hates Sun.
That they're using Solaris is especially telling to the audience of this piece. The use of FreeBSD may be of interest to us, but mentioning it to the PHB's just dilutes the impact.
-- Alastair
Linux is popular, Solaris is well-known but inferior, *BSD is still good, but generally works and rots in a corner. Why? Maybe their development model doesn't work as well with a free community. Maybe if the kernel development were less tight-knit, you'd see more interest...
Just for the record, the BSD development model is demonstrably more open than the Linux kernel. When I last checked, the FreeBSD team includes 50 people with permission to commit changes directly to the source tree. Linux has exactly one. (There's also Alan Cox, but if I understand the power structure correctly, Alan's development is technically forked from Linus's.)
I also doubt that the Berkeley license hurts BSD. Perl's Artistic License, which is basically BSD with a happy name, hasn't visibly discouraged people from contributing to Perl.
At any rate, you're generally right that infighting like DrZiplok's is not going to get us anywhere. I personally prefer BSD as a development platform; however, we use Red Hat on some of the servers at work, and I'm impressed with how far they've come in the last couple of years.
If it comes to a point where Linux v. BSD is the most important political issue in the community, I'd say we've all won.
You might have something there. I set up an account on my computer at home for my roommate (his computer got deepsixed) to use. After a recent usage session by him, it took me about three minutes to differentiate between hanging up the modem and logging out of his account on my computer. (Log on/off vs on/off-line)
Who'd a thunk it?
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
This is fairly lame comment. There are only 2 data points published. Go dig up usage numbers from 95-97, add the two from the article, then connect the dots.... YIB...its a curve of the exponential nature....
**** Sworn to Fun, Loyal to None. ****
(lets try this again). Does that mean you can't run Microsoft Office, Microsoft Explorer, Microsoft Bob?
Coming from Microsoft's lips, that's exactly what it means.
An app isn't an app unless it came from MS, in their view of the world.
Hey, I'm not ready to put Linux on my mom's Mac either, but the point of the article stands.
The reason this objective piece can be so persuasive is that it focuses on the server world. In the server world, Linux is legitimately kicking NT's butt, so if you want to claim victory do it in the server world. On the desktop, Linux really isn't there yet. Give it some time, and I have every confidence it will be.
I see the phenomenal growth of Linux in the server space, in a sense, as a temporary patch to hold off the barbarians while reliable desktop pieces are developed. As long as Linux remains a viable server contender, Microsoft cannot simply co-opt standards from the server side; as long as there are reasonable standards, we can make progress on the desktop side.
Of course Linux isn't going away in the server world -- that's what I use it for now and I'm not taking it out -- but don't forget its current role as a server is creating the world in which Linux desktops will one day rule (with an iron fist?).
E.
St. Lucifer's Institute for Moral Studies
Defending Alternative Morality since 1995
This is an old story from LinuxWorld. What is news is that CNN is now picking up stories from IDG/LinuxWorld. Crispin
I would suspect that it is still going on. Even if that sort of coercion isn't, it is hard to dispute that the decision to deploy NT in many IT shops is made by nontechnical managers for political reasons rather than by technical people for technical or financial reasons.
...
The U.S. Military is spending millions of tax dollars on Windows NT. NT is being pushed by upper management despite the frequent and loud protests from administrators. Pisses me off when management types choose my tools and don't have a clue what the job entails.
How come management believes salesmen and M$ marketing and not their own workers?? Oh I forgot M$ really has their customers best interest at heart
Barnaby
Barnaby
Only speaking for myself of course, but I have 2 soundcards working in Linux just fine. (yes, on the same system)
I don't know about DVD, but as far as I know the standard is locked up pretty tight. It'll be awhile before DVD can be supported. (Outside of commercial products)
I would love to see the expression on his face
after reading this article on CNN.
Okay. The article tags say there are already two comments here. But I didn't see any comments and I set my threshold to -1000. What's wrong with this picture?
Void the Warranty
I respect microsoft is trying to make a buck, but they're doing it the wrong way. (closed source)
Best of luck to the boys in Redmond, their competition will undoubtedly just get more difficult to deal with until they fall into line.
Then again, i'll never feel sorry for Microsoft.
... this is the kind of article u'd want to show them. Its from one of the bigest online publications, and one of the more respected ones to :)
...
:))
The article seems 'fair' and acurate, and slaughters MS with a blunt blade
this article made me laugh as loud as the one that stated
"I'd rather have my brains spooned out with a plastic spoon then having to re read 'Buisness at the speed of thought"
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
This is just another nail in NT's coffin. The content of the article? No, the fact that CNN carried it on their website.
I think the media is beginning to see that Micro$oft is not necessarily the only game in town.
1999 IS the Year of the Penguin
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
There is a discussion about this on the companion forum of this article on Linuxworld.
www.linuxworld.com
I've tried KDE; it doesn't even come close to Windows in ease of use, because it still lacks true integration with the OS.
i would slowly jettison windows and stick with ie as the basis for a new empire
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
thats why new macs dont have floppies ;)
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
Congratulations on your successful migration.
I've found that very few users on my network really know how to use the Windows interface, so I don't expect that switching them to KDE or Gnome would present any serious problems. Training? That's for big companies. Most folks on our network can barely copy files successfully.
After an hour or two of playing around, I suspect most people would be comfortable with KDE or Gnome. That's not the problem.
The PROBLEM is the mountain of MSOffice documents that we have. Star Office just doesn't cut it for opening existing documents, and this is where users get really antsy.
On a related note; we tried skipping Office 97, and we've been running Office95. But then some managers started getting Office97 attachments via e-mail, and demanded their own upgrades. Of course, they started saving their own docs in '97 format (they're way too lazy to set the options), so it spreading. It's sort of like a Microsoft implementation of a GPL.
Fortunately, as PC prices drop, the window of opportunity for Linux in small business widens. Currently, about 40% of our cost for a new PC is a piece of paper that we purchase from Microsoft. Even though it's a tiny fraction of the user's salary, management HATES approving the purchase. They do, but only after I remind them that felony charges look terrible on one's resume. "Of course, if you ORDER me to install an unlicensed copy, I'll obey." Heh. Never fails. But we go through this dance several times a year.
Anyway, their ears are open to alternatives. Just don't mess with their Office documents.
Not sure if your reply was meant for me but....
I didn't mean to say that Linux costs less on an ongoing basis or anything like that.
In small businesses (ours is about 80 people), good cost analysis just isn't done routinely. Often, decisions are made at purchase time. And managers hate to approve a purchase of Office, plain and simple. Not a strictly rational decision, just their gut feeling. They hate spending several hundred bucks for a piece of paper. They always hem and haw until I spell out for them that there is no other legal way to provide Office to the user, and I don't intend to get caught holding the bag.
It's not just the company I'm presently with, either. Nearly every small business I've seen works in a similar way; family-run businesses are most susceptible to this kind of decision-making, but it happens in small public companies, too. Yes, the understand that there are support costs, but they always behave as if the marginal price of support is zero. Thus the acquistion costs become the determinant.
How ironic.
Lotek---
Go grab a dictionary, look up Irony. It's sure to be informative.
however, you are directly on with the rest of your takes on the article.
Lotek---
Yep. Imagine the president of General Motors driving a Lincoln.
... "But the coup de grace is the fact that IBM did this with freely available Beowolf clustering technology and a copy of Red Hat Linux purchased the day before the clustering demo." ;-) Has anyone tried to do a Beowulf cluster of NT machines? Would you want to demo them the day after tomorrow?
The point is that IBM just "threw together" a fairly impressive demo. They brought the hardware. They were so "prepared" that somebody had to buy the software the day before. Hehe. Hehe
The Linux part of the article was great, but the
most important part to me was the flexibility of
MS in changing its opinion.
You have to wonder if some of the people in
Redmond really are starting to believe their
own press.
Oh well, no point in steering now.
Linux still has a long way to go before it will beat Microsoft's ease of use. I have been using Linux for about a year now, and I still find myself spending a lot of time trying to figure out the operating system.
Furthermore, it's still quite a ways from being something that I would want to put on my mom's computer.
A lot has happened in the last year, but I would say it'll be 2 or 3 more years before it will make significant gains on "user's" desktops. Perhaps Corel's distribution will be more "idiot friendly." If so, that will be a reason for many techies to turn against the Corel distribution, and shoot themselves in the head.
Also, Linux doesn't work exactly like Windows until it runs every shrinkwrapped software and game they've bought to run on Windows -- and due to undocumented APIs, etc. it will be quite awhile before this happens.
That being said, if you're training people on their first computer system, go ahead, teach 'em Linux. My perception is that Linux user ease of use and application available is on the verge of becoming equal to that of Windows; given Linux's more rapid rate of improvement, it should soon exceed that of Windows. Unfortunately, a slightly better solution frequently isn't enough to overcome human resistance to change.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
This confirms what I've been telling friends for a while now: Linux will beat NT handily in the server market, and this will be obvious to everyone very, i.e. in 1999 or 2000 at the latest. Microsoft has been hemoraging credibility right and left over the past year, and their one-year-and-growing tardiness in delivering NT5.0, er Win2000 is going to hurt them. Unfortunately, M$ will continue to dominate the desktop client market for quite some time, due to momentum and the difficulty and expense of retraining users to use a new client platform. (No flames please, this is just my opinion.) I suspect that this market will decrease in significance as networks of "information appliances" take on more and more of the functionality of the traditional standalone desktop computer. (The PC will survive in the form of a gateway between your home network and the internet, but currently Linux is a much better gateway platform than is Windows.) Microsoft's biggest mistake was to try to position "Windows" as the solution to all possible computing needs. It is clearly architecturally and structurally deficient to scale from palmtops to supercomputers. The customers would have been better served if M$ had concectrated on client side software (the only area where a GUI is an advantage) instead of trying to be all things to all people, and failing to completely implement any of it's promises in the process.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
That's a bunch of bs! KDE is adaquate for mom to use whenever she visits. All I had to tell her was her username, password, how to start ppp (kppp), and log off. I only had to show once
and she was on her own. She even waited for "System halted" to show up before turning off the
computer.
The thing I find most difficult for windows users (moving to linux) to understand is the multiuser concept. When I tell mom and dad to log off and let someone else use it, they ask me "why?" This is something new to them.
Anyone else think Dell using Linux in there lower end servers, a great start and maybe a turning point in Linux the OS getting even bigger? I think people should start taking this OS seriously. Also if there are any MCSE's out there that are wallowing in NT, now is a good time to learn Linux. You never know what might happen down the road. Frank