Slashdot Mirror
Dvorak On Linux And "The Big Time"
Cyberllama writes "John C. Dvorak's latest commentary is up at ZDnet. " I've been seeing this story came across quite a bit today. Dvorak offers an insightful commentary on Linux and "The Big Time" (He uses IRC servers as an example), although one that I don't necessarily agree with. In a switch from the normal take, he sees strong growth on the desktop, while predicting Linux won't grow in the workhorse server area much. Can anyone confirm or deny the allegation the IRC servers and Linux mentioned in the piece? Update: 09/21 06:29 by H :Click below - proof is below that Linux does at least some of the machines.
[root@brain:~]# queso -p 4400 dallas-r.tx.us.undernet.org
204.178.73.175:4400 * Linux 2.1.xx
[root@brain:~]# queso -p 6667 Haarlem.NL.EU.UnderNet.Org
194.178.232.52:6667 * Linux 2.1.xx
It's just that, his tone angers me. He takes the approach that Linux is A Bad Thing because it has weaknesses. That's absurd. Everything has weaknesses. Linux just overcomes its weaknesses quickly and efficiently.
There's no need for taking an inflamatory tone when stating facts....he could have written the same article, state some of the same facts, and said merely "due to these shortcomings, there are times when Linux isn't the best solution." If he'd done that, I wouldn't be so angry.
Werd.
Well, I know _many_ small IRC servers do. Most IRC servers are running FreeBSD. But most developement for IRCd is done for FreeBSD. Posibly because awhile back in linux you had to apply patches to get many file descriptors. However, if you look through dalnet's old server descriptions you will find voyager.dal.net and ohare.dal.net ran linux. Both of those servers actually have quit dalnet since then. Albeit, I forget the name of the network they moved though. I'll see if I can find the URL for the server descriptions a little bit later.
Efnet and dalnet have few linux servers because the HUB servers refuse to link a Linux server. This has been the case for over 5 years. You have a couple choices. Use *bsd, use solaris or find a network that will link you.
This has little to do with linux's current ability to perform as an IRC server and alot to do with the fact that HUB admins are "old school" and of the opinion that linux isn't UNIX and its a toy.
-- You can be a geeklord too
As an aside, I notice that Dvorak likes to accuse Linux advocates of being groudlessly optimistic. I in turn find him to be groundlessly pessimistic. Linux might not be the answer to every possible need, but it's more likely to achieve that end than any piece of bloatware that microsoft is likely to put out.
Something I've observed is that some of the "big time networking guru's" that Dvorak alludes to have been around too long! That is, they've been around so long that the first time they tried Linux is WAS a buggy system that couldn't stand up under high loads.
Many of them promptly went to *BSD for the market segment that Linux is targeted at. Also, I've got to say that BSD does seem to be preferred for MUD's, which are from a programming perspective very similar to IRC.
However, this doesn't really validate Dvorak's conclusion that Linux will not be able to compete in the server market. (I've been reading his stuff for ten years and still haven't seen him be right). IRC is a very specialized application that you don't see much of in the "real world".
I do think that Dvorak is right about Linux's big area of growth being the client -- there are just more of them out there. However, I think he's missing the boat calling for the low end client: until something is done about netscape and staroffice being pigs Linux doesn't run as well on low power machines as does windows '95.
The real need I see for Linux is more tightly focused distributions. I don't think every distro should try to be both a client and a server. This would result in much cleaner installs for both servers and much faster, more robust clients.
-- Slashdot sucks.
I saw this "they aren't running NT either" comment a few times on ZDNet, too. Why do people insist on doing this? You're only proving one of Dvorak's points for him -- that is, when you criticise Linux, don't expect a reasoned response. Too many people do this. "Linux can't do X". "Ah, neither can NT, yah, booh, sucks to you!". It would be both more interesting and better for Linux to hear some explanation of Dvorak's assertion about Linux not being able to run an IRC server: whether it's true, are there any examples of heavily-loaded Linux IRC servers, etc. We do ourselves a disfavour by assuming that anyone criticising Linux has ulterior motives -- promoting NT, for instance, as many people seem to think.
This was in 1998, I believe.
The DalNet Server application has this to say about Linux:
The question is... how long has this statement been in there... and is it still true?
I can't talk on the IRC issue, its been years since I've used IRC, but I seem to recall there being some sort of an issue with the networks themselves, not with the robustness of the platform. In the early days of Linux, I saw that a lot for Usenet, IRC, and other network tasks that "old school" administrators saw as being the realm of the "real" Unixes. Sometimes it'd be tough to get the feed in the first place, not to deal with it once you got it.
The eBay comment, though, I thought was an interesting one. I could say with virtually 100% certainly that you could EASILY get a Linux-based system to perform more reliably than the current system, but that's not the fault of Solaris and itsn't a Solaris vs Linux issue, its simply a network application architecture issue.
Dejanews has the right idea, boatloads of Linux systems with a good application architecture, and you'll never have any downtime.
Admitted eBay has an interesting situation in that the nature of auctions where users can have bids automagically updated means running a lot of business logic on the database server, which can really move the bottleneck to the actual server software and the stored procedures, not the OS itself. My understanding is eBay runs Oracle, and Oracle has always struck me as being a real bitch to get good redundancy on and replicated servers that can cleanly fail-over.
A site like e-bay could easily be reliably run on Linux systems using a well designed architecture though, with database servers (running Oracle on Linux) that are handling only portions of the site, and a lot of inexpensive front-end servers. Adding a tier in front of that, made up of http-accellerators, would make the system even more robust.
Salon and dejanews both show that properly done, you can do high-profile with Linux. Certainly more so than you can with NT, particularly if you don't have millions to throw at hardware.
I can remain silent no longer. It is time that the manufacturers of internal combustion engines accept the fact that no IC engine can drive the major steamships of today. These engines are fine for emergency power on your weekend sailboat, but it takes coal, lots of coal, to turn water into steam to move the Big Ships across the Big Seas!
It's time that IC supporters recognize the fact that there are exactly two modes of transportation in the world today, million tonne displacement steam ships and single passenger motorscooters (notwithstanding the fact I just mentioned a third, pleasure watercraft), and that since they can't drive steam ships (today or any day, so say I), then they should focus on the only other market niche in existence!
(Silly? No sillier than Dvorak ranting and raving about Linux's perceived (or simply alleged) failure to perform well in certain extreme causes while ignoring the 800-pound elephant turd in his eye that is NT servers pressed into duty to replace "doesn't require a 20-MB GUI front end, so it must be bad" Unix server.)
Has anyone else noticed that it is becoming more common to hear a *bsd slanted article where the author talks about Linux in the same way we talk about Windows?.
:).
Something is wrong with this.. its not how its supposed to be. We are supposed to get along with our *bsd brothers and sisters. We are not against them.. we are with them.. for the good of software everywhere
Every Free OS installed is a wonderful thing for us all. every installation of Linux at the expense of Freebsd is a BAD THING.. every Freebsd install at the expense of Linux is a BAD THING.
Picking the best OS for the job is one thing. Spreading FUD with no facts to back it up is another. If linux really can't cut it as a Efnet IRC server, where are the facts? HUB admins have not allowed someone to link a major linux server so how do they know if it can not perform?
-- You can be a geeklord too
For that reason, it is reasonably fair to say that the Dvorak essay is significantly flawed.
It is, after all, not particularly informative when Dvorak comments that Linux isn't used on the big IRC servers when he makes no comment on what is actually used for the purpose, or why.
The only implication that the gentle reader could reasonably guess, from the vendors mentioned in the article, is that the big IRC servers are all running on NT.
Is it therefore a "Pro-MSFT, Anti-Linux" piece? Probably not.
It's certainly not a "Well-written, well-argued, well-defended" pice.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I think Dvorak was just wanting to get more fame by putting this crap on zdnet.
204.178.73.175:4400 * Linux 2.1.xx
dallas-r.tx.us.undernet.org.
194.178.232.52:6667 * Linux 2.1.xx
Haarlem.NL.EU.UnderNet.Org
I'm sure there are more.
Dvorak: how about checking stuff before you spew it out?