Compaq's Tru64 may include KDE, GNOME, RPM

davie writes " Jon Hall, leader of Compaq's Unix Group, said Compaq is porting its compiler suite from Tru64 to Linux, and will ship extended maths libraries under the open source General Public License. But Compaq is also considering adopting the software installation software Red Hat Package Manager, and the Gnome and KDE desktop environments in Tru64 Unix. The story is worth reading. "

Comments

Seems like a really good idea

[Erik Corry]

I've been wondering for a while why the big Unix companies don't do something like this. Ship most of a Linux distribution, but with their own compilers and kernel (and whatever else they feel they are good at). It lets them ship a nicer set of tools and GUI than they do at the moment and at the same time they can concentrate on their strengths.

It would save a lot of trouble for people who get new Unix boxes and have to spend a lot of time upgrading the tools to the stuff Linux has as standard. When you are used to Linux, 1000 little things about the big Unixes will irritate you. Like the useless versions of vi that everyone else ships, the bizzare packaging systems (none of them as good as rpm or dpkg) and the fact that that the up key just produces a set of escape codes on the screen in their shells. If it's so difficult to get right, why don't they just ship vim, rpm and bash?

Here at my University they already use rpm for all the commercial Unixes, and it seems to work fine.

But wait...!

[Glith]

I can see it now:


HOUSTON, TX -- Compaq officials rescended their idea of shipping with GNOME and RPM after receiving a threatening letter from the FSF which insisted that they rename their product to GNU/Tru64 to "give credit to the FSF project". Officials were unavailable for comment.


Hmm... maybe not :)

Linux vs. Everyone Round 1

[Graymalkin]

I think it's great that Compaq and SGI are starting to play nice with linux, it gives the rest of us a nice boost in support. But it shouldn't be world domination, just give everyone (not just geeks) a M$ alternative. OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, IRIX and half a dozen others can all do things linux cant, or do some things better. OpenBSD has über-security, NetBSD is rather portable and so forth. Linux can also do things better then all of them or some things they cant (like work the first time I install it unlike FreeBSd which didn't like my computer for whatever reason). What I hope happens is the companies that support linux add some of their features to linux, stuff they are good at. A journaling file system, better SMP support, ect.. I think that would lead to linux becoming a better all around OS, while still allowing for plenty of other operating systems. Heck, even MacOS and Windohs have their good sides. MacOS is obscenely easy for new users ad makes everything fluffy and cute while Windows drives more people to use unix.