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Linux in the Enterprise: Fact vs. FUD
Kelly McNeill writes "When I first started touting Linux as a soon-to-be superior alternative to Microsoft Windows, almost no one at my company had even heard of the product. Nearly two years later, it's difficult to find a computer magazine that does not extoll the virtues of Linux. However, these praises are often laced with caveats: Linux is a "server OS", that it's difficult for novices, that it's "not ready for the desktop". To some extent these concerns are simply due to a reasonable fear of the unknown. "
If my wife can figure out how to get MacOS -> Linux on our iMac, it's set.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
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Four years ago, I tried installing linux on my machine. The install was unhelpful, and I finally gave it up as a bad job, not having enough time to make it work.
With Redhat and others producing Linux for the market, there is support and competition to produce a user friendly product. When I get ready to install Linux on my new machine (the old one being to kludgy & loaded to bother with), I expect the install & operation to go relatively smoothly. Maybe not as smoothly as an WinNT install, but I haven't done dozens of them either.
Mike Eckardt
meckardt@yahoo.nospam.com
http://www.geocities.com/meckardt
Also, many believe there are no GUI tools for doing anything (for much the same reason). Again, there are many, as anyone who browses Freshmeat - or even the menu options of many X11 window managers knows.
Many believe it doesn't support current hardware, unaware of just how much Linux 2.2 and 2.3 support.
Many believe that Linux doesn't have any software. Star Office, Applixware and KOffice all testify otherwise. But people won't know about these, if they never hear of them!
This, I think is the key to it. People have no real, reliable information on Linux. There are no ads on TV, no ads in the papers or the magazines, no posters in the major stores, no demo machines in the windows... These are major sources of information for a lot of people, and Linux doesn't have any of them. Instead, people only hear how Microsoft doesn't make it, how Microsoft doesn't write anything for it, how MS Office won't run on it, etc. All they hear is the negative.
If you get told often enough that the glass is half-empty, you will never see that it's also half-full.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
When I first took my current job, I suppressed the urge to push Linux at my boss, because I figured that the cream rises to the top. He told me before I got here that I could run Linux on my desktop, which I do. He let me know earlier this week that he had ordered, for us, a Dell PowerEdge 1300 with 2 processors & RAID & had ordered Linux to go along with it!
If you build it, and it is quality, they will come.
Pman - playa@linuxpimps.com
I started out learning Linux about 6 months ago with a RedHat 5.2 installation, dual-booting with Windows NT. I have a P200MMX box that ran NT like a tank. Slow, *relatively* stable (stabibility is always relative - at least my box wasn't being rebooted 4 times a day like my roomies). But, every once in a while, my NT ball will go "balls up" on me, and NT bluescreens are a lot harder to remove than standard 9x bluescreens. I was blesssed with living on a floor with a few geeks on it, and 2 of these geeks were Linux users who showed me the door. They helped me with an install, with recompiling my kernel, etc. Within 2 months I found myself killing the old Windoze distro, and getting a bigger hard drive to mount my root partition on. I still have a dual boot machine, but the only time I boot into Windoze is to install software to run under WINE. Since I've switched almost fulltime to Linux, I've learned far more about my computer than any compsci class can teach me. I'll never have to hear the words "Our software is not designed for that", or "wait for the upgrade". I run a stripped down version of Win98 on my laptop, but that's only because it's out of necessity and because there are hardware that my Linux box doesn't support (parallel port scanners, etc + stuff that won't run under WINE, such as chem programs). As far as getting new users onto my box, the biggest hurdle is the login prompt and adaptation to the GUI. Adaptation to the GUI is pretty easy if I select a non-fancy theme that looks and feels close enough to windows. And, once that's done, about the only other thing that users miss from a Windows system is a blue screen 8-) I think in order for Linux to suceed in the desktop arena, it should have a standard, stock GUI that's easy to learn. For the newbies who have never seen a M$ box, Linux is not a bad choice, once the box is all configured and ready to go. With enviroments such as GNOME and KDE, it's quite possible that a person can do all their work without ever dorpping to a terminal/shell. Having worked for tech support, a standard GUI helps. I have enough trouble getting people to right click on "My Computer" already, could you imagine supporting the miraids of possible themes? Not saying that the configurability is a bad thing, but corperations should have standards to make IT staff's life easier. -=- SiKnight
Haven't we seen this topic on slashdot 50000 times???????????????????? Why don't we just dig up the old archives rather than rehashing this shit once a week?
And this isn't something that is going to be fixed by slapping a few GUI fronts on some of the configuration files. Linux is not designed for non-geeks and it's silly to keep on pushing it as a desktop OS in its current form. Most of the people who hack Linux and many of the people who advocate it fiercely don't even understand Joe-average-user enough to understand why Linux is so hard for him to use.
As a computer programmer, there is a lot about Linux that I love. But I also know that designing software that is easy to use by anyone is one of the most difficult and important goals of designing good software, and this is an area where Linux doesn't even attempt to make an effort. And why should it? It makes a damn nice server for people who know what they're doing. Leave it at that and stop harrassing those poor dumb Windows users. They have enough problems.
Ok, you can start telling me how wrong I am now...
I've been using Slackware as my desktop OS at work and at home for about 4 years. It especially makes sense at work, where I open a bunch of xterms to Sun servers. Most everyone else struggles with Exceed's X implementation on Windo$e. I never could get it configured right. With Linux, it works right out of the "box".
BTW, a lot of M$ zealots make claims like "Linux is command line based, doesn't have a stable GUI, etc, etc" I guess they don't know that the first X Window System release was in 1984, about the same time as M$ Windoze version 1.0.
Captain Kirk said that he only runs Windows, even though Spock said that Linux was the logical choice, and all Bones could say was "Damnit Jim, I am a Doctor, not an operating system".
I'll get flamed for this, but...
:)
I love kde, and the gnome and enlightenment combo. And the tools like netcfg and such that linux provides are useful... but people seem to be missing that you still need to know what's going on below the surface. I *seriously* f#cked up my system when python bombed netcfg a while back. And I didn't know what files were being touched. I eventually had to torch the box and reinstall. Kinda like NT. And I sorta knew what I was doing... I can't imagine my parents being able to cope.
Really, for the desktop, an OS needs to be built from the ground up around the user expierence. I *love* the Unicies, but user interface has *always* been a secondary consideration. And it shows.
Just my humble opinion, however.
It is difficult in particular, but not just, for novices. Given the dominance of Windows and the commitment of the hardware vendors to this platfor, a novice still has to worry about hardware compatability issues for Linux while this is largely a non-issue for Win98.
I don't think I'm a novice, but after three weekends I'm still trying to figure out how to get Linux onto my sexy new Sony Vaio N505X. It's an all singing, all USB and ilink, single PCMCIA slot laptop, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to plug and play the modem, the video controls only work in Windoze etc, etc. Even softboot from Win to Linux is more difficult than I thought. (But next weekend I'll get it working - I think...)
Enough about my woes: the point is that as a (novice) user you have to worry about compatability issues. People who are setting up servers are paid to worry about these issues - and presumably skilled - but my mom just wants to read e-mail. Linux is not a choice for her (yet!).
Hi!
I think we're forgetting something. A large portion of us have been using computers since we were 5 or 6. To us, everything seems obvious -- how to install new software, the difference between root and the rest of the users, why sometimes we have to use the keyboard to do things instead of the mouse...
But Linux simply isn't ready for non-computer-geeks to be using all the time. It's propbably okay for smart non-computer-geeks, as long as they have a bit of support once in a while. But it's still not ready for Aunt Helga who wants to check her email once in a while and run a word processor.
- Drew
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
And if a Linux GUI is the user's first experience, there won't be any Windows training to undo. It seems reasonable to me...
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I don't think I'd ever reccomend Linux as a server OS actually. While you all may call me a BSD bigot or whatever, I've never seen a Linux server widthstand the pressures of the serving environments I was in. You can all say that I needed to tweak it more, and I can counter with, "ok, show me the *SINGLE* tuning point that I can use to increase performance/capacity like MAXUSERS with *BSD". I've never had anyone come back with a reasonable response.
I've never seen Linux maintain a reasonable uptime while being a heavily loaded server. I've never seen Linux's file system handle a crash well. I still don't think its secure enough for me to want to deploy anywhere than a desktop.
It was a pain. In the end, I don't even know why we got it to work -- it was one of those "fiddle with it until something works" kind of things. There were no GUI tools and the help was lousy. Sometimes, when we did a netstat -r, it would hang for 5-10 minutes. WHY?!
If you showed a novice the trials we went through compared to the ease with which you can accomplish the same thing using a simple Linux GUI (or even CLI tools that worked), they'd guess that Linux was the expensive commercial operating system.
We would have been better off installing Sparc Linux over Slowlaris and gotten some real work done. I'm totally serious.
I have an equally low opinion of HPUX. Nowadays, when I'm faced with the prospect of using a commecial OS (and not just NT), I cringe.
Microsoft also claims that Linux has no journaling file system, ignoring the fact that the SGI's XFS is a journaling file system(10). They also ignore the fact that NT 4.0 itself lacks a journaling file system!!(11)
#11 Try this: go to http://www.microsoft.com, select Search, and search the Microsoft web site for NT Journaling File System. You'll get three hits, and the first of these in order of relevance is the "Linux Myths" page! One is a false hit in that it simply links to the "Linux Myths" page, and the third is the Server Operating Systems Newsflash, Volume 5, Issue 40, that quotes from the "Linux Myths" page.
A search for the exact phrase "NT Journaling File System" gives ZERO hits while a match on all words gives 62 hits.
In both cases, footnote #11 is completely incorrect no matter how you search.
It's this sort of thing which makes the analysis no better than MS's Linux myths page.
FUD by any other person is still FUD.
The fear of the unknown is precisely why RedHat, LinuxCare and other future support companies will be making money, certainly the IBM global service arm is not complaining. Let's face it, for the non-cognosti, computers are complex, difficult and tempermental (and that's just the installation :-) ). You, as the resident Linux expert, get paid for reducing risks of the IT budget being flushed down the toilet (correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the track record is 50% of major IT projects are a complete disaster and have to be scrapped). If IT is not their strength, it makes sense for companies to outsource the operation of their infrastructure to others, much like we just pay for water and electricity without worrying about the piping and dams. Given this model, the logical conclusion is that Linux would be the preferred choice as less of the profit disappears into their coffers. Expect their app-host hosting efforts to redouble once Linux starts taking big chunks of their developer/desktop market.
The internet does change things in that it refocuses efforts on the services and thus reduces hardware to supporting roles and software to enabling agents. As I've been telling people at this end, the cost is in the infrastructure but the value is in the services. Once the hype of e-commerce dies down, then you might be able to objectively measure the value-cost proposition and work out what needs to be done in redesigning corporations around the flow of information, much like old factories needed to be freed from the constraints of steam-driven belts and pulleys.
LL
Why do we constantly insist on oversimplifying the "Linux" package? Marketing reasons from the commercial sector? Whichever reason, here are the facts:
The entity commonly refered to as "Linux" is based on a kernel called Linux, which does all the low-level dirty work in the OS. On top of Linux we've got the basic GNU tools, and several free-and-stable programs that can make a copmuter running the operating system a hell of a server. Sysadmins like that.
But, GNU tools are optional. Add-ons. So is the server software.
And, the X windows system is optional. You can choose from a variety of X servers, or none at all. You can also use a completely different window system. you can use differnet GUI based end-user applications. Each one is unique, and completely optional. They might kick ass, and they may suck. But if they do suck, QUIT BLAMING LINUX AS A WHOLE. This is mainly directed to the thousands of clue deficient software reviewers and evangelists out there who couldn't tell the difference between a daemon and a watermelon.
Too many local "Linux experts" who have seen my computer, running Enlightenment in X, say "Hey, my Linux doesn't look anything like that." And most of the naysayers to the Linux movement have less of a clue than that. Frankly, I'm starting to care less. Don't get me started on how many people out there think Linux is a new company in silicon valley.
FUD is just the end result of ignorance and laziness on the part of members of the press trying to make a quick buck. The same press that keeps discovering "new" technologies like E-mail, multi-gazillion dollar net startups like e-lemonade.com (for all your lemonade needs!), and internet cell phones.
I'm not saying that Linux should be touted as complex, but that there are millions of parts to the commonly reffered to whole of Linux. Denying the individuality of different projects commonly included in each Linux distribution is akin to denying that your car has four seperate tires, and each on can be made by a different company or have different characteristics.
I just want to give some thoughts on the matter.
I am not going to say that Windows is the best OS possible. I won't even dream of it. However, I do have to say that there is some comfort in familiarity. If you take someone that has never used Linux before and plop them in front of a Linux running KDE or GNOME (or whatever you are using for an X-GUI) they will be able to do most of the GUI-related functions without problems. Launching apps, browsing the file system, change the background and all that. However...that is where the similarity begins to end. Trying to explain how the file system works or how the directory structure works to someone that is DOS-based can be quite a challenge. Basic things like the use of the slash are opposite. DIR is replaced by LS. The GUI isn't as "clean" or "neat" as Windows 95/98/NT4 to most people. It is different enough to have people who are used to Windows pine for what they had previously because there is a shift in preception that needs to ocurr...and most people are not willing to put the effort into making that change. Most users who use Windows don't even know that it is just a pretty DOS, nor do they care. They can point and click and that does what esoteric commands like "copy *.* c:\temp" does (said with tremendous sarcasm).
On the other hand, most (proficient) Windows users are steeped in DOS history. Something that has caused heartache all around the computing world because this fear to remove DOS from our everyday life has left us with Windows95/98, an amalgamation of old DOS and new "32bit" code which, honestly, does not work efficiently (or correctly at times as people on this group frequently point out). If only MS could have stepped away from DOS (kind of like OS/2 was going to) and created something new that worked better than just patching DOS up to a "useable" "32bit" level. I know most people here are not NT fans, but it is at least a step in the right direction for MS with an attempt to remove DOS from the day to day lives we all lead. All they have to do is mask what the "OS" is under the GUI of NT and you can convert all of the people who are relying on DOS to become "deDOSified".
Thankfully Linux is a nice opportunity to help us rid ourselves of good 'ol DOS and force people into changing their thoughts and mindsets on how things ought to be. However, I have to say that Linux won't make it to your average person's desktop until you can mask what is underneath of the GUI in a manner that they don't have to deal with the underpinnings of the OS to make it run like they are used to.
Of course, making Linux look and operate like Windows would take all the fun out of playing with it now....but if you want to reach the masses here is one of the many ways you can bring Linux to the desktop.....
cdmz1
...they were right about you...
I've worked in an environment where I tried very hard to get people to start using linux, and even among technical people, there's more resistance than you think, and some of it probably isn't linux.. it's just human nature to resist change, good or bad. Linux will have a signifigant curve to climb just here.
But, let's be realistic: Joe user cares zero about adminstration or even backups in most cases. They should, but that's just not the case. Linux is very much geared towards power-freak gadget-head techies, and that's why we love it so much!
This isn't a bad thing though! What we need is a idiot-friendly version of linux that installs from windows with 2 clicks. Something that makes redhat look technical. An installer that can automatically detetect common partition configurations, make linux a home automatically, and install away! Hell, I'd even like that.
But it doesn't stop there. You need to have a distribution that is 100% gui oriented. No complicated user add procedures - and adduser myname is too compliciated. Just boot into E or KDE or whatever, run a web browser and have a WHOLE $HITLOAD of GUI applications available in the start menu, with lots of eye candy.
Gnome and KDE are coming a long way towards this goal, but we're a few years off. Everyone working on their own little piece will bring us this goal - are you listening, Corel/Redhat/Debian?
Kudos..
..don't panic
"Microsoft claims that existing Linux GUIs are cumbersome and difficult to use. In fact, my /mother/ sat down and began using the KDE28 desktop with no training, no prior experience, and not one single problem. " Big deal. My mother uses VMS every day. But seriously, KDE is only one of several GUIs available for linux. Redhat is the most dominant linux distro and pushes GNOME. And most linux apps today are either command-line or designed for only x windows in mind. The only way linux is going to be "easy to use" is if everyone decides to stick with one desktop with UI guidelines so that you know when you press control-c you are copying. Or was that alt-c :) And that's never going to happen. It's not what linux is about.
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XFS is certainly not yet supported under
Linux, and probably won't be for awhile (though reiserfs, another journaling
filesystem, is due in the 2.4 kernels and is
currently available as a quite-stable patch).
Also, the 4 gig file size limit is _not_
filesystem dependent. The 4 gig limit is in the VFS layer, which _all_ filesystems use. The VFS layer on 64-bit platforms supports 64-bit
file sizes, though.
"Microsoft also claims that Linux has no journaling file system, ignoring the fact that the SGI's XFS is a journaling file system. They also ignore the fact that NT 4.0 itself lacks a journaling file system!!"
o mplete/windows/winnt/winntas/technote/ntun ixvw.htm
E
Can anyone clarify the issue of journaling file systems? I took the author's advice and searched microsoft.com for "ntfs journaling file system". A new article popped up (November 1999 Technet) where the following claims are made:
"NTFS is a journaling file system with fast file recovery. Journaling file systems are based on the transaction processing concepts found in database theory. Internally, it more resembles a relational database than a traditional file system. It is comparable in function to the Veritas file system found on some UNIX implementations."
http://technet.microsoft.com/cdonline/content/c
Also, is there a version of XFS that will build on Linux? ftp://oss.sgi.com/www/projects/xfs/download/READM
claims the following:
"The code in this directory is original IRIX-XFS xfs_log* code which has not yet been ported to work in Linux. It is intended for viewing, not compiling."
Hopefully, we aren't replying to FUD with FUD...
BTW, I'm typing this from my Linux desktop that is also acting as a file server, and a router -- only 22 days of uptime due to a power outage...
"Also, Microsoft, when charting throughput of Internet Information Server vs. Linux+Apache carefully refrains from mentioning that it would take at least 5 incoming T1 lines attached to your Linux server before this scalability becomes a factor. How many "common customers" have 5 dedicated T1 lines feeding into a 4-processorserver? I'm not sure I know of any."
This is very common now that people are saying that a X Linux configuration could easily saturate a T-1 (or multiple T-1s). For some reason this is still an acceptable benchmark. In the day of people having 10mbit cable connections and 1.5mbit DSL connections in their home, the bar for a server should be can it saturate a T-3 or above. This T-1 reference non-sense is antiquated and has to stop.
New, hip, generic term for intentional misinformation.
- Microsoft also claims that Linux has no journaling file system, ignoring the fact that the SGI's XFS is a journaling file system. They also ignore the fact that NT 4.0 itself lacks a journaling file system!!
- I've got Doom, Quake, and other multiple player games for entertainment (although I'm personally a board game fan).
- Thirdly, even if other Unixes were cannibalized, what would it matter? Linux would remain, and the point I made in the above paragraph works in reverse. Those Unix developers that now exist will move to Linux with no effort, and there will be no discernible effect in the workplace.
- An entertaining footnote (#40): Again, the Gartner Group plays tug-of-war with themselves. The same short report recognizes that SCO and SGI are competitors and supporters of Linux, but the Gartner Group never bothers to answer the question as so why this may be the case. Clearly, the study in question is severely flawed and displays a shocking lack of understanding.
And the above list is just a quick sampling of Leigh's errors and misunderstandings. The mistakes are all the more annoying since they appear to be direct regurgitations of things that have been repeated countless time by the less-iformed zealots [0] here onFirst of all, wasn't there a thread a couple of weeks ago in which we discussed the journalling abilities of NTFS? Second, XFS has not been released for Linux yet. Third, there is a journalling filesystem for Linux, but it's not XFS: it's ReiserFS.
This is just silly. Game support under Linux is extremely sparse right now. In a world where even Macintosh doesn't get ports of even the most popular games (witness the recent Half-Life debacle), we'd be really foolish to claim that Linux has enough games for the average home consumer.
Clearly, this was written by somebody who doesn't know much about Unix. Linux is like Unix, and the transition would likely be easier for commercial Unix developers to make, but it's hardly going to be a transparent, effortless transition.
No, clearly Dave Leigh displays a shocking lack of understanding about the technology industry, where relationships of simultaneous competition and support are incredibly common. Sun, for example, supports Linux by releasing StarOffice under the GPL; on the other hand, it would be entirely happy cannibalizing the Linux market to grow Solaris/Java if it could. In fact, most astute observers believe this is exactly where Sun wants to lead us.
If I want to hear things like this, I'll read an old
~k.lee
[0] As opposed to the well-informed zealots, who are (unfortunately) all too rare.
(remove nospam for email)
Fear
Uncertainty
Doubt
It's bad luck to be superstitious
It would be nice if people who knew what they were talking about would write these articles. This guy is way out of his league, and his ignorance of both Linux and the "Enterprise" computing space shines through like a cutting laser through Glad[tm] wrap.
To whit:
Also, Microsoft, when charting throughput of Internet Information Server vs. Linux+Apache carefully refrains from mentioning that it would take at least 5 incoming T1 lines attached to your Linux server before this scalability becomes a factor. How many "common customers" have 5 dedicated T1 lines feeding into a 4-processor server? I'm not sure I know of any.
Perhaps he has never heard of Dell? Or Barnes & Noble's? Those are two large IIS installations that I'm sure are using at least "5 incoming T-1 line". Which is not to say that there aren't Linux installations that are of the same scope (although they escape my mind in this moment). The point is saying that the Mindcraft benchmark is totally meaningless because most people don't need to scale that high is tantamount to saying, "Well, ummm, we do better on the low-end," which is true, but I wouldn't advertise it.
While the largest swap file size is 128 MB, you can mount as many as you need. However, most users do not use swap files at all; they use the more stable swap partition, and this is not limited in size.
This is flat out WRONG. Swap partitions, at least in 2.0.x could only be 128 MB. Yes, you could have multiple swap partitions.
Anyway... it just irks me, since this kind of sloppy advocacy just makes us all look like a bunch of idiots.
--
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"In Cyberspace, no one can hear you be sarcastic"
Bite the hand.
Ok, a couple of minor technical notes: Swap files and partitions are NOT boundless, but they are not bound to 128M. That limit was done away with a while back. I beleive the current limit, on an i386, is 2G. I've tested that. It didn't care much for more than that. Of course I wasn't using the BigMem patch(64G Physical :)) Security: It's Plug 'n Play. If you don't like ext2's security you can always switch to a Kerberos/AFS or CODA security systems. That will give you much finer grain control. You would still need a traditional filesystem(or devfs) or /dev. But, with that type of setup you would only need to have administrators in /etc/passwd. Thus only they could access stuff in /dev once you remove other access. - kimo_sabe --- Free your software, and your ass will follow
Where the hell does this writer come off saying that NT 4.0 lacks a journaling file system?
NTFS has had journaling since 1993, as far as I know.
OTOH, It fragments very badly, but so does ext2.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
The Federation spaceships computers will not be running Linux anytime soon. Lt. Coronel John Francwitz, the officer in charge of all in-board systems explains that "while Linux is pretty much stable and clean, the lack of a clear (and suable) corporate sponsorship makes it impossible for us to even suggest its use". Francwitz also points that the cost to port the thousands of apps present even in a mid-range spaceship would make it economically impratical.
But that may not be the end of the story. Some Earth government officials are now saying that with the recent acquisition of the last remaining Microsoft by The Borg, the use of Windows SE (Space Editon) 4000 as the Federation's main spaceship OS is probably going to be questioned. But the same officials are fast to say that even if the Federation decides to stop using Windows, the logical choice for its sucessor would be Mac OS 5977.3 (that powers the Fleet's planetside Virtual Reality Servers).
Inspired by:This fine Segfault piece by Rob " The Hitman " Cormick
In order to reduce the flamage, I will stop here and post only one reference: comp.human-factors. This is a newsgroup dedicated to people who know and pratice usabilty. Read the recent thread on Microsoft and Linux. All the experts agree the Linux falls way below the Windows GUI. There is alot of criticism of Windows, but the consensus is that Linux has not yet proven itself as a desktop machine.
--Ivan, weenie NT4 user: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
I can understand that.
People get comfortable with things and don't want
them to change.
How many of you know someone who refuses to
learn another programming language?
Why, I've used this for years. Works fine for
me!
just a thought
Since when has malicious intent been a prerequisite of FUD or ignorance an exemption from it?
I won't repeat the definition.
As far as I know it was first applied to IBM, who invented vaporware, preemptive product announcements, etc. Micro$oft is now the Mother of all FUD Factories, but they stole that idea too.
But Linux simply isn't ready for on-computer-geeks to be using all the time. It's propbably okay for
smart non-computer-geeks, as long as they have a bit of support once in a while. But it's still not ready for Aunt Helga who wants to check her email once in a while and run a word processor.
Actually, I think that's -exactly- who it's ready for, if she can get it preinstalled. If Aunt Helga has a preinstalled Netscape and WordPerfect and either has KPPP set up or has step-by-step instructions like are handed out by ISPs for setting up windows... she's all set. The system won't crash, won't get viruses, won't re-mail worms to her friends via outlook... Okay, okay, I'm spreading FUD against MS now, I'm bad.
I think who it's -not- ready for is non-geeks who want to do a lot of advanced stuff. It's when you start doing Advanced Stuff(TM) that you start needing the command line. It's also true that Linux -doesn't- have all of the software that Windows does, and the more esoteric the application the more likely that Linux doesn't have it. (Though, we have some pretty esoteric stuff.) The print-seperations advantage of Photoshop over The Gimp comes to mind, and I don't think we have a professional CAD program yet.
But a friendly word procesing/web/e-mail environment? Sure. No prob.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
It obviously sucks for MS to spread lies about Linux, but we shouldn't spread lies about them.
NTFS is a logging filesystem, which to my understanding is basically the same thing as journalling (each transaction is written to a log (or journal) and then is only written to the appropriate place on the disk afterwards, then the transaction is marked as complete)
Also, AFAIK, XFS is not actually yet available for Linux, though it will be in the near future.
Linux advocacy is great, but we should make sure and get the facts straight.
Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
I would guess the average Futurama viewer has heard of Linux. An ad would be more benefitial if it were in the middle of Friends or Wheel Of Fortune (non-geek shows :-).
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
NT lacks a full JFS. It is only a partial journaling FS, which is good enough for the marketing department. Most people are referring to a full JFS when the word journaling is mentioned (which Linux still lacks until XFS or Ext3 comes out).
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
But I'll bet $5 she didn't install it, or Linux for that matter. I've extolled the virtues of Linux and have helped/watched a few friends attempt the installation process. These folks like computers, know their way around Win9x, and so they're probably a few levels above mom, but only one out of three went through with the entire thing and kept Linux on his system -- and I can understand. One continually had X lock up on him. It turned out, after many, many hours of trying everything else, that his "Logitech" Mouse was actually recognized as a Microsoft mouse. Even better, the Microsoft mouse choice he needed was only availible in xfree86config - none of the mouse options in RedHat's xconfigurator worked. Another was attempting to get sound working on his TB Pinnacle card. He finally suceeded, but the story behind it is as tedious and long as the previous one I described. Let's not even talk about package the extreme nightmare of unresolved dependencies (and conflicts between old and new versions of the same package). To be fair, I haven't seen RedHat 6.x's installation, which I've heard is much improved (and I would pick RedHat's installation as the easiest of the three I've had any real experience with - Slackware and Debian being the other two) Needless to say, none of my friends were duly impressed with installing it, and once running, it simply does the same exact things they do in windows... only with a far smaller software base to choose from. Anyway, I like Linux and I really hope it manages to break into the desktop market further, but it's not ready yet. It seems like it may be on the horizon, and maybe the day mom could actually go through the Linux install on her own is on the horizon, but not yet.
To be fair, I can and do use Linux as my primary desktop. And a mix of Linux and Solaris on production servers. But my "business desktop" remains NT. Because:
1.) Corporate file format requirements. I must be able to read, write, and modify documents that are shared activities. These documents are in MSWord format, MS Excell, MS Powerpoint, Visio, and PDF formats. I know and sometimes use Star Office. But it cannot modify MS documents without loss of formatting. There is no Visio. There is only PDF reader, not a full function PDF creator.
2.) Corporate communications requirements. I am required to have dial in and LAN access to Lotus Notes. No client support yet.
3.) Hardware variation support. Linux cannot support some of the highly integrated devices found in laptops and low-cost PC's. In my particular case it is a laptop. I don't get to pick the model. I have to take what the corporation provides. It is good quality, but has Linux problems. In general Linux support trails hardware availability by 6-12 months.
You can point in each case to a truthful "we are working on it". But working on it is not the same as available and robust today. These are reasons why I anticipate that within a few years Linux (and probably also *BSD) will be viable on the desktop. But viable in a few years is not the same as viable now.
Other people will have other particular problems, but the general categories of mandated file formats, mandated corporate communications, and hardware variations will keep coming up.
Visit the FUD-counter site at:
http://fud-counter.nl.linux.org/
The project is still new and we could use a few volunteers to help us out...
That's why I said "about the same time".
An advantage of Linux is that if the customer is on the 'net, you can (if they give the authority) telnet/ssh into their box and, and start a remote X session that shows on -your- desktop. If you're logged into their user account, you'll see exactly the desktop they have.
I know that -I- wouldn't want to let tech support log into -my- account or root on my box... but, I'm a techie and perfectly capable of fixing my own box. I think the ordinary user would, in most cases anyway, be willing to compromise their privacy in exchange for tech support being able to just go in and -fix- it instead of those tedious phone conversations. "Click Control Panel... Click Gizmo-Driver... Select the 'Advanced Settings' Panel. Please read me the values from top to bottom... "
Anyway, my entire point being that customizable does not necessarilly mean less supportable.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
My grandmother would like to get a computer. She says she won't get one because she doesn't know how to use one. Say I decide to get her one for Christmas. I have two choices. I could get her Windows, and hear her complain every time it blue screens or hangs. Or, I could get her Linux, and try to explain virtual filesystems, users, permissions, and a whole host of other things. Should she want to get any kind of additions (modem upgrade, software, internet, etc..), the local Best Buy would be absolutely clueless, and in all likelihood, sell her something she can't use. Chances are that either way, she'll get frustrated and won't use the machine. So much for a "Personal Computer". The fact of the matter is that most consumers can't use a PC; they aren't technical enough for Linux, and Windows keeps them from using their machines via the "random crash" feature.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Here we have someone talking about NT, Linux and the Enterprise, who obviously knows very little about either NT or the Enterprise.
"How many "common customers" use 4-way NT boxes? Very few, in my experience"
We are talking about the Enterprise. We are talking about 1000+ users on systems - in these circumstances such servers would be common. Just because lots of Linux people work with single CPU linux boxen in small companies doesn't mean that multi CPU machines are at all uncommon in larger companies.
"(Linux supports many file systems6; NT supports far fewer). Among the file systems Linux supports is SGI's XFS, recently released to Open Source, with a max file size of nearly one million terabytes7. "
I was not aware that XFS was part of linux - perhaps it has been rolled into the latest kernel version. Or perhaps we are counting third party file systems that can be used with each OS. XFS is brand new to Linux, and I am aware of very few applications that make use of it - maybe Oracle 8 does?? NTFS has been around for years, and is well supported.
". Also, Windows NT clustering is limited to failover ONLY. Linux is capable of distributed clustering ("Beowulf" technology 12), which can enhance system performance dramatically. "
I'm not at all sure I see the relevance of Beowulf clusters in the Enterprise. We are talking about large corporate IT systems, not scientific type systems.
And do you _really_ believe that Linux failover clustering is as well tested as NT's? And have you administered both kinds of cluster? Or are you infact merely re-iterating a TurboLinux press release?
". While your support options for Windows are limited, your support options for Linux are not"
I see. So you are discounting the many many 3rd party Windows support operations? Are you really saying that HP's windows support is no good? Or that the many large resellers have no idea what they are doing? Are you saying that ICL doesn't support Windows when it uses it in projects?
There are far, far more people able to support NT than Linux, especially when 'support' means support of large, complex developments, rather than simply supporting a distribution, or providing general Unix Q and A style help.
"Although you can purchase local support for Microsoft products, such support is strictly limited to training and workarounds. "
This is utterly untrue.
". Microsoft Windows support is simply not in the same league.
"
Rubbish. Microsoft may be no good at supporing Windows, but there are plenty of 3rd parties who are.
-----
Simple: you didn't have a route set up to your DNS server (or possibly had a route set up that was broken somehow; I forget which causes DNS lookups to hang instead of just break), so "netstat -r" blocked waiting to do a reverse dns lookup on something like your gateway. On Linux use "netstat -rn" to avoid reverse lookups; it's probably the same for solaris.
Allow me to beat my drum on one issue - we repeated hear how Microsoft is the system for the 'common user', the Aunt Edna's who could care less about techie details, the appliance users, just want to type a letter and fax it, browse the Web and send mail to a grandchild in college.
Now, MSFT is no Saint either! How do the laity deal with the MSFT obvious quality problems, particularly when adding/removing hardware/software? As one with a little reputation I constantly get people bugging me to try to get help for their home pc's running Windows 9x, and recently have been telling them I just don't do home pc's, sorry. Also at work I constantly have to go and reboot X's pc because the inbox got hung up - recently had to redo a Win95 install when another inbox would fail to start w/ "registry error" (-ugh-). Another guy told me recently how he'd d/l some kind of Japanese language enabler or something and it bunged up his browser, etc., etc. Don't most grannies depend on some family 'pc guru' to turn to when Windows9X hoses itself? Or do they, like I recommend to people, take it to a c shop where they have to pay $60/hr for someone to TRY to straighten out a hosed disk but with the usual software disclaimer (no backups? Too Bad!!). I get the feeling that a LOT of MS users are just 'suffering in silence' with glitches, weirdities, what-was-that's etc and just blame it on their own ignorance (impune the user) because it was made by a multi-billion dollar outfit so it MUST be good.
Granted, there are probably lots of Windows PC's that were setup for say Office97 and an Internet package that have been running for over a year or so - but, what do they do when something DOES go wrong?
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
There are a few things that can be meant by a journaling filesystem. What NTFS has is -not- what xfs or reiserfs have.
What people mean by a journaling filesystem in this context is a filesystem that has a scheme whereby changes are written to the journal, then, in idle moments, marked 'in progress' in the journal, written to the filesystem, and then marked 'done' in the journal.
With this scheme, if you go down in mid-write, you simply scan the journal for the 'in progress' notation and re-do the right. Ta-da, stable filesystem. You -can- lose data, if a write doesn't get into the journal, of course, but you won't get filesystem damage. As a result there is virtually no fsck time on reboot.
Take an SGI/xfs machine, and a Windows NTFS machine. Start them doing some stuff, and then pull the plugs. Now reboot. NTFS needs to scandisk, because NT is not a true journaling FS. SGI checks its journal, and is up and running in no time.
I expect true journaling in NTFS-2K. If it isn't there, well... then MS will lose the server market completely in no time.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
I understand the point that sombody always ahs to make about "Linux is the Kernel!", but as an OS, the entire package does need to be evaluated. Bash, pdksh, tcsh, etc. are not "Linux", but then what? M$ can now tout that "You're getting an operating system that doesn't even have a command prompt!" Really...
I can understand where your coming from man, but geez! Save those comments when somebody complains about E crashing, or other such rot, but "Linux" to the rest of the world IS the entire distro.
Unless you're just running a router you NEED the rest of the stuff. Can you imagine the reviews of just the Kernel??
"We are fairly sure that Linux supported most of our hardware, We saw the bootup screen in glorious VGA, and of course we had no way to play sound, etc...."
Thats just my $0.02
P.S. Moderators, just label these both troll...
My comments here were based on the article, which is a comparison between FUDslingers and the Linux community. I understand that there are many developers who code for the sheer joy of coding, but your arguments are flawed. Many of the applications being created by OSS developers are simply a functional remake of a product that they were missing in Windows, or that they liked in Windows and wish to see in Linux.
I really did not mean to imply that we are "aiming our missles" at MS. I meant it more to be like this:
You say I cannot run a mile in under 6 minutes. I practice and practice until I can not only run a mile in under 6 minutes, but can do it in under 5, just to prove I can. There is no better feeling than accomplishing something that others tell you is impossible.
Remember, when Linus wrote the original kernel, he was only able to do it because he knew that writing an OS was supposed to be impossible. Guess he proved everyone wrong. =]
wolf31o2 Developer, Gentoo Linux Games Team
Nothing is ready for non-experts who want to do a lot of advanced stuff. This is pretty much the definition of "experts": "Those who can do advanced stuff". And what is a geek, other than an expert computer user?
Unless you are an expert driver, can you do a bootlegger reverse? No. Unless you are an expert pianist, can you rip through "The flight of the Bumblebees"? No. Unless you are an expert accountant, can you do your company's taxes? No.
Unless you are a geek, can you do advanced stuff with a computer? No.
Linux is not ready for non-geeks who want to do advanced stuff. No OS is ready for non-geeks who want to do advanced stuff. No OS will ever be ready for non-geeks who want to do advanced stuff. As systems get easier to use, the definition of "advanced stuff" will change to match.
--The basis of all love is respect
I use Suse62 and Netscape runs great, as well as IE under a current NT4. It's very smooth and I'm very happy with it.
It isn't a Netscape issue, it's how well the software distributor has debugged the stuff on the CDROM. You're going to have trouble with Netscape on RedHat, they just slap stuff together without testing. I've briefly looked at Mandrake61, Netscape seems to work fine at first use.
I still prefer Suse; the navigation keys, the arrows, backspace, and delete, work like they're supposed to, that is, how MS makes them work. That statement you'll just have to accept.
It depends what you need at the desktop. RH is not meant to be a desktop productivity distro, don't try to use it as one, it is for C/C++ programmers. I can see why programmers wouldn't like Suse, and I don't recommend it to Win programmers.
Course, I always turn off Java and Javascript, so your mileage will vary.
NT is a nightmare to install compared to Linux.
Give me a break.
First you install the basic OS with a couple reboots.
Then you install the hotfixes and service packs at home to 20MB a piece (just how are you supposed to get those if you only had one machine??? Each one of these requires a reboot. (5 reboots)
Then, if you have a laptop, try to get the PCMCIA ethernet to work. Last year I had to pay $80 to SystemSoft to get a software layer that would allow my 10/100 card to work, after buying a new one because the old one wouldn't. (2 reboots)
Then install apps, noting that MS says that you must install all hotfixes and service packs after installing any software. I suppose this is needed to replace any of the shared crap in the System directory, etc. (A reboot for some apps and 5 more after installing the OS fix/upgrades again.)
Not to mention that I couldn't get NT to use more than 4GB for a partition.
Something like 40 reboots before I had a database and an app builder working.
Linux on the other hand, takes one reboot and at worst installing a new version of the PCMCIA drivers. Configuring video/audio is sometimes a problem, but recently these have been 5-20 min tasks meaning I'm still done before I would have been through babying an NT 4.0 install.
sdw
Stephen D. Williams
An embarrassingly bad article from someone who shows little experience of either Enterprises or NT.
"How many "common customers" use 4-way NT boxes? Very few, in my experience. "
What little experience you have, then. Such hardware is commonplace in the Enterprise.
"Understand that while Linux is not the correct choice for every server application it's becoming increasingly hard to find an application for which it's not the best fit. "
Well, all applications that want to access storage faster than SCSI. All ones that require efficient LAN speeds >100MBs. All ones that require not only a jounaled fs, but one that is supported by applications. All the ones that require hot-swappable CPU's. All the ones that require more than 4 displays. All the ones that require more than 4 CPU's. I'm not saying NT does all this either - but your statement made it look as though Linux was overtaking Solaris. I think not.
"While your support options for Windows are limited, your support options for Linux are not. "
I see. So you are saying that there are fewer support options for Windows? Companies such as ICL, HP, Compaq don't count? All the integrators such as Logica don't count? Resellers don't count?
FAR more companies support NT than support Linux. More importantly, they support large complex, customised rollouts and systems, not just a particular distro or general unix q and a. Cygnus is a proper support company. There are many, excellent companies like Cygnus in the NT world.
"Although you can purchase local support for Microsoft products, such support is strictly limited to training and workarounds. "
This is simply untrue. Call it FUD or a lie.
"As for the availability of applications, let me simply tell you about my own experience. I've used Linux on the desktop in my home exclusively for the past two years. "
Right. I thought we were trying to get beyond personal anecdotes, and that we were talking about the Enterprise, not your home. Enterprise desktops have requirements as different from home user desktops as you can imagine. If you had worked in the IT department of an Enterprise on desktop builds, you'd know that.
"For business use, the major general purpose tool Linux lacks at the moment is a Lotus Notes client. "
And Office. And Remedy. What's remedy? Ah, it's the fault management and order handling system used in many many enterprises. Enterprises, remember? What about front ends to SAP and Baan? What about call center software? What about ProE? What about Oracle Financials and OSM? Ah.
"Now PCs ship with no language at all (unless MS Office shipped with your PC, in which case VBA sort of counts). You have to buy a language on your own, which takes desire and money... lots of it"
Right. So I have to buy Perl for Windows? And I have to buy the djgpp C compiler for windows? And I have to buy lisp for Windows too, eh?
Less of the FUD please.
I think that's plenty of criticism for one evening. This article discredited Linux.
-----
I'd love to start using Linux in replacement of Windooz, and deploy software on Linux.
It's true that my users are to a large extent clueless as to what OS to choose. They simply use the OS and the software I install, and because all of that is a solution to their problem, they are quite happy too; if there is a problem, they call me, I walk in, and I solve the problem.
So, if I said from now on, it will be Linux, my users would not object. As a matter of fact, they couldn't care less, as long as they keep getting the service they are paying for.
Now, why am I not moving to Linux. Well, I'm waiting for the development tools that will enable me to write those custom office procedures that my users pay me for. I use VB/MsAccess on Windows, and I haven't found anything on Linux that allows for rapid development as much as VB/Access. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind writing the custom office procedures using gcc, but I am quite sure nobody will pay for the drastically extended amount of development time.
So, because Linux is not fit for the purpose of deploying typical workgroup database-driven client/server business office procedures, I tell my customers it's still a lot cheaper to pay Bill Gates.
I should've been a little clearer. When I say 'advanced stuff' I don't necessarilly mean 'advanced computer hacking and networking things'... I mean, things like, designing your own animation; photo editing/seperating ; um...
;)
I'm stalling out here, I know there are more examples.
There are people out there who use computers as a means-to-an-end. They don't want or need to know how to do advanced computer stuff to do advanced audio/video/image/science/whatever stuff.
At least, they -shouldn't- need to know. The computer should facilitate, not inhibit. If people cannot accomplish advanced tasks with a computer without also being computer experts, then computers aren't doing there task correctly.
Or, to extend your analogy, if an expert driver also needs to be an expert mechanic to do a bootlegger reverse, then there's something wrong with the car.
I don't really think that you meant to say that, though, I think I wasn't clear enough in what -I- meant. I have to admit 'advanced stuff' is a pretty vague category.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Hmmm. I see I ended up posting my first draft as well as my second. Ooops. Not an attempt at spammage, more an inability to use a browser :-)
-----
No journalling in Windows NT 4.0's NTFS 4.0.
Journalling in Windows 2000's NTFS 5.0.
Journalling in both Linux and NT today is alpha/beta level, neither supported nor shipping. Journalling has been in conventional UNIXes for years, with AIX (!) introducing it earliest in 1991.
--LP
This was an excellent analysis. That is what I always believed. People want what they are used to, and more and more people are using Linux (students the future ceo's it's etc...)
The kernel needs a Gtk/Gnome-based post-install device configuration tools "a la" make xconfig. (Better sig coming soon
Federation Net console v10.90.3.4.56.98alpha-omega-red
Incomming transmission........
#########################################
#########################################
################
We are the borg. Resistance is futile. You will now receive all copies of your "OS" at once. Linux has already been assimiliated by species 3456. Your technological destinctiveness has in this case not been aded to our own. Prepare to reveive the drone you call Bill. This inferior drone has done enough damage to the collective.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
You are 100% on the money. I love rpm (the program) - it's so reliable and it's a joy to use once you get to know it. But I was a linux-newbie a few short months ago - hardly knew how to man or --help, so I used gnorpm. Gnorpm is - um - really badly designed from as far as user interface goes, but at least it knew things I didn't at the time, like where to find files and how to issue the commands...
Sombody who wants to establish themselves quickly as an open-source star please create a better interface to rpm. For bonus points, make it work seamlessly with
Install Package - gives you a file browser window filtered for rpm's (and debs?). Automagically shows the package info as you move the cursor, as well as telling you whether the package is already installed and showing the existing info if it is. Single click to show info, double-click to install.
Remove Package - gives you a list of installed packages that you can see the info about by single-clicking or remove by double clicking.
Note how we get away from m$'s Add/remove programs stupidity. (1) Not all packages are programs. (2) I always know whether I want to add or remove, so give me two separate menu items, please (3) I want this primarily accessible from a menu, not from some icon buried way deep in the system. Sure, make it idiot proof, but don't make it user-proof.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
On Mac and Windows machines I select something, go somewhere else and hit "paste", then realize that I forgot to "copy" and have to go back and do it all over again. And don't even talk to me about the semantics of focus or window-stacking. And typing 'ls' in a command prompt gives me "invalid command or filename," what's this nonsense?? (I still can't get a command prompt on the Macintosh)
;-) )
Clearly Macs and Windows machines are difficult and unintuitive to use.
Daniel
(for those who haven't figured it out, the above is..not sarcasm, but certainly not literal truth, since I can and do use Windows and Macintoshes, minus some back-and-forth flailing when I have to cut-and-paste
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I can't fully stick my neck out on this, but it is my understanding that NTFS only keeps file system layout data in the journal, whereas other filesystems keep file data in the journal. I could be wrong on this.
The entire point was that MS will tout NTFS as journaling, where other filesystems are more advanced on other platforms but are never mentioned in the comparisons.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
The notion that Linux (preinstalled) is difficult for beginners to grasp or use is a complete fallacy, perpetuated primarilly by the likes of Microsoft and numerous astroturfers lurking about the net. It has absolutely no basis in reality, to wit:
... with Linux?" which is a breath of fresh air compared to what I used to get "Jean, my Windows PC doesn't work anymore, can you come over and fix it?"
I gave Linux to my mother. Now she refuses to ever use Windows.
I gave Linux to my sister. Now she refuses to ever use Windows.
I gave Linux to a pilot friend of mine. Now he spits on the Microsoft name (I kid you not)!
What do these people have in common? They are all basically computer illiterate. For a long time they remained that way because they were running Windows. Whenever the machine would break running Windows they would blame themselves for "having done something wrong and broken it." They were afraid to try doing things themselves, without someone (usually me) holding their hand, for the same reason. Lost Saturdays and reinstalls of the hosed Windows OS were all too frequent.
All three are very pleased with Linux, StarOffice, Netscape, and KDE (gnome in one case), and aren't afraid to try things out because, after months of having things work right, they have gained confidence in knowing that, as a regular user, they CAN'T break anything. The kinds of questions I am now confronted with take about two seconds two answer and are of the form of "Jean, how do I do
Now they can use their computers to reliably get done what they want to get done, and I can get on with my life, spending almost no time having to play tech support for them.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
That problem HAS to be fixed (which I understand it will be) before Linux can be a desktop OS. You can't have users reinstalling Linux every day because they reboot the computer when Netscape crashes, and then don't know how to fix it when X doesn't come back up.
If the point of this document is to show that the Linux community is just as capable of generating FUD as Microsoft, then it has succeeded. As a tool for realistically positioning Linux's capabilities, though, it is quite useless.
... not too difficult to crack.
This is some of the most half-baked blathering I have seen in a very long while, and it is really quite sad: every fool who goes in making claims like these and is promptly shot out of the saddle will set the movement back in the eyes of those who watch it happen. If the Linux community is going to get serious about taking on Windows NT, it will have to do a lot better than this.
How many "common customers" use 4-way NT boxes? Very few, in my experience.
This statement is a brilliant testimonial to the sheer naivite of Linux advocates, showing a very deep misunderstanding of how servers are deployed and used. This kind of comment strongly supports the view that many Linux developers are holed up in a bedroom somewhere, tweaking code on a home PC in their spare time.
NT loses these same benchmarks when comparing single-to-single processor and dual-to-dual processor machines.
And which benchmarks are these? I didn't see a footnote here.
Microsoft also claims that NT performs better than Linux when serving static web pages. However, e-business is not powered by static pages. It's powered by Active Server Pages and CGI5. Windows doesn't fare nearly so well in these comparisons.
Again, where is the evidence for this claim?
As for the technical specs quoted by Microsoft... they are out of date. The Linux kernel addresses 4 GB RAM, not two.
The 4 GB function is a kernel patch to the 2.3 kernel, which means that it is non-production, beta code until 2.4 ships. If I buy Red Hat 6.1 or some other 2.2-based kernel today, it will support no more than 2 GB...period.
Among the file systems Linux supports is SGI's XFS, recently released to Open Source, with a max file size of nearly one million terabytes
Again, this is not production code...it is a statement of intention by SGI to release its XFS code to the Linux development community.
Note that not all of the features supported by Linux are included by default in every distribution, but they all can be added if missing.
OK, and who will support these functions when they are added? The distribution suppliers? Not if it isn't in their product. The hordes of volunteer help-desk personnel idling on USENET groups? Only if it's a K00l question, dude. The profusion of promising startups dedicated to supporting commercial Linux sites? Better check that fine print again...!
The fact that this can be compiled into the OS kernel or not, depending on the needs of the users allows every installation to tailor the smallest, fastest, most stable custom kernels to their specific needs.
Assuming they know how to compile a kernel...
Linux's stability is only based on anecdotes. Microsoft seems unable to differentiate anecdotes from testimonials.
OK, and where are these "testimonials" again (and I'm not counting USENET or Slashdot postings)?
Be that as it may, there are a lot of these anecdotes. Many of them are include documented uptimes ranging from months to years. Footnote: I myself experienced an eight-month uptime between kernel upgrades, and I do not mean scheduled uptime.
See above.
Microsoft also claims that Linux has no journaling file system, ignoring the fact that the SGI's XFS is a journaling file system
Again, this is not production code.
They also ignore the fact that NT 4.0 itself lacks a journaling file system!!
This is just wrong, and you are not doing the Linux community any favors by essentially lying about Windows NT's capabilities. Here's a simple test for you: put two identical systems next to each other, one running Windows NT 4.0 and the other Linux. Boot each of them up. Then pull both power plugs out, and reinsert them at the same time. Which system will be up and running faster?
Also, Windows NT clustering is limited to failover ONLY.
This is also wrong. Windows NT 4.0 has Web-server load balancing functions built in as part of its Convoy clustering technology. Oracle Parallel Server is widely deployed on Windows NT to create scalable database clusters.
Linux clustering was developed in association with NASA, an agency having a far stricter definition of "mission criticality" than any commercial entity. NT has no equivalent technology.
This is wrong again. The PVM and MPI technologies on which Beowulf is based have been running -- and have been widely deployed -- on NT for years.
Free doesn't mean low TCO. Actually, it does. Microsoft's TCO calculations are based against other commercially marketed Unixes, which have very expensive initial acquisition and support contract costs and traditionally high education costs.
And Linux support contracts are free? There won't be any education costs to move users to Linux?
Support costs can be very low, as purchased support can be supplemented with award-winning Usenet support.
I'm sorry, I am picking myself up off the floor from laughing so hard. I have submitted many, many questions to various Linux discussion groups over the years and the quality of answers is *wildly* uneven, with the majority of answer ranging from irrelevant to plain old wrong. Any IT professional who depends solely on USENET for Linux support should be fired.
Microsoft itself charges for support for a product that they licensed (not sold!) you at considerable cost without warranty.
And Linux support programs *do* come with a warranty? Please, show me these programs!
However, with Linux you're not required to purchase support at all.
With Windows, you're not required to purchase support either. What's your point?
The Linux User community, operating at no charge, garnered the 1996 InfoWorld Product of the Year award for Best Technical Support.
InfoWorld has a long history of anti-MS sloganeering, and seems to give out its awards simply based on the fact that they aren't MS products. After all, this is the magazine that for the previous five years had given OS/2 their product-of-the-year award. If I as an IT professional had made a purchasing decision based on InfoWorld's recommendations in 1994, I would be in fairly deep trouble right now.
Microsoft claims that your security administrator must be an expert to properly configure security. My own knee-jerk reaction to this is, "When do you NOT want an expert supporting your systems? If you can't afford one full-time you hire a consultant"
OK, and you just got through going on about how low Linux cost-of-ownership was?
In point of fact, NT's security is
OK, this is is just plain FUD (meaning you have made a claim that is supported by nothing more than the fact that you made the claim).
Properly configuring Linux security is mostly a matter of removing those services that are not needed and religiously applying security patches as they appear. This should be standard operating procedure for any, regardless of the platforms used.
Correct, so why should it be any different for NT?
Microsoft claims that existing Linux GUIs are cumbersome and difficult to use. In fact, my mother sat down and began using the KDE desktop with no training, no prior experience, and not one single problem.
OK, now let's put her in front of a GNOME desktop with a stopwatch, and see how long it takes her how to figure out how to do things there.
For business use, the major general purpose tool Linux lacks at the moment is a Lotus Notes client.
And an Exchange client (although that is hardly surprising). So now we have taken about 90% of the messaging users off the table.
And the Windows Notes client can be run if you simply install WINE (Windows emulator for Linux).
And just how long will the program run before a segmentation fault?
The Future.....
In the future, we'll all be flying around in air cars! Nuff' said.
I'm glad you have such a high opinion of yourself, maybe instead of cap-locking everything you should think for a second. I am currently a computer science freshman. i taught my self java and know my way pretty damn well around a windows box. i'm currently running linux, but without sound and i occationally run into other BIG problems. My hardwear isn't always supported and almost always has configuration problems. I consider myself VERY computer literate/compatent. Maybe instead of calling someone else and idiot, you should be satisfied that you didn't run into major problems. you might not have made it through if you did.
This page on Microsoft's site says, in part...
I cannot claim to much knowledge on the issue, but, if the Win2k version *adds* a journaling, that strongly suggests the current version (NT4), against which Linux was compared, does *not* have this feature.
So, in other words, once someone makes a point you dislike, you redefine it away. NT does have a JFS, it's just not "full" enough to suit you. Personally, I don't care.
I don't like or dislike the statement. I was only saying that some people will disagree with this since some people will only call a file system "journaling" if it is considered "full journaling".
To be fair, you must now concede that NT is reliable, because if you reboot regularly enough you only get scheduled downtime
If your definition of "reliable" requires substantial (MS's 99.9% yearly uptime is acutally substantial downtime) reboots, then yes. My definition of reliable requires minimal rebooting. Rebooting should only occur during very low level system software upgrades (e.g., kernel), or hardware upgrades/failures. Installing applications should never require rebooting (as it does on NT).
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
I have stepped outside of the bounds of my knowledge on this topic. I am not familiar with the difference between "metadata logging" and "log-structured filesystems". Care to offer a definition of each?
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Hate to rain on your parade but Windows 2000 takes a hell of a great deal more resources than your computer could handel anyway. So what does that mean? It means that with the next "upgrade" of MS's OS you will be left out in the cold. Your choice of window manager could use a little refining. Try using Window Maker or icewm. I use both and they work quite well for the hardware (486/dx 66 16Mb Ram 20 VM 340HD runs, xemacs, gimp, gnome-terminal, gcc,g++, etc quite well).
Well for financial applications as such as you describe perhaps your could use WINE to do everything you need to do. And if none of the above works perhaps you can upgrade your hardware somewhat. At least you aren't stuck in the same boat I am with a computer with absolutely non upgradeable components and little way to get it to change. I stress the use of linux because if you stay with windows and MS eventually if you can't upgrade you will be left out in the cold with nowhere to go and a great deal of problems.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
But barely knowing the basic Unix commands (my previous experience with Unix dealt with adding users to an Informix server with AIX) I setup a dualboot with 9x when RH 5.1 came out.
.pdf of Linux Administrator's Security Guide (and of course, the Internet) I am on my way to becoming a successful Linux SysAdmin.
Although really inpressed I could not figure out how to mount my CD. Not having enough time to spend on it, I scraped it but knowing that I wanted to come back to Linux when I needed it.
RH 6.0 came out and at this time I had needed a Firewall Server for my cable modem connection at home (to protect my weakass no-security-havin' Windoze machines).
I thought to myself "Self, I don't have thousands to spend on a machine to run NT, why not try Linux?".
I went at it again, this time install RH 6.0 on a P100 (no Y2K BIOS) 32 MB RAM and 2x 1.5 GB HD. I later found out I would need some hardcore machines to run proxy or firewalls and not break my bandwidth.
I instead used the machine for a Web/FTP server.
What have I done on this machine (coming a long way from not being able to mount the CD-ROM drive):
- Uninstall X Windows. From here on out, I did everything through terminal
- Upgrade WuFTP to 2.6.x. This was totally easy.
- Uninstall and reinstall Apache to the latest version.
- Lock out all ports but FTP, WWW.
- Fearing for security, I locked out the telnet port and installed SSH.
I much work to be done before it goes live. When live, I get to colocate at an ISP with a fresh OC-12 installed. Sweet!
Sure, I had help from friends and the Internet but setting something up like this on NT... I would not be near as successful. Getting support on NT is like pulling teeth.
Linux is mad easy and much more robust than Windoze could ever be.
Future projects for myself:
- Installing Linux on a SparcStation20 (I got the machine for $150 and it really works... I just don't have the root passwd). I will attempt to do the install through FTP! I will make this my Graphics workstation using GIMP as an image editor and Copernic (my official sponsor of my website) as my cataloging tool.
- Still need that Firewall
- Setting up a Linux file/print server using Novell NDS.
- Ultimate achievement: will attempt to run Linux on a Macintosh II Color machine.
After a week of answering questions and taking notes, I stop asking question and figured out things for myself. Armed with Linux In A Nutshell 1st Ed and a
I also want to try my hand at FreeBSD, OpenBSD and BeOS (I want to use BeOS as a music editor).
ChozSun [e-mail]
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
The opponents will alway say that they need a user-friendly GUI and productivity apps. So the zealots shout "We have KDE! We have StarOffice!"
Alright then, let's go back to the original arguement that Linux is better than Windows... are you saying the KDE is a better GUI than MS Windows ? Are you saying that StarOffice is a better, more stable office solution than the others? Obviously, they're not. So when you really dig in at look at this, you see already we're starting to erode the zeolots' platform. It's also worth noting that I've had just as many crashes as a result of using KDE and StarOffice as I've ever had using MS Windows. Sure the kernel didn't crash, but as I said, you don't get work done with the kernel.
Zeolots will also say that Linux has 300+ apps. I suppose this includes every old, rinky-dink app like gnuplot and xeyes. Suppose I want need CAD? Suppose I need to balance my budget and do my taxes? Can my Linux "desktop" do that?
Now suppose my office needs to do some custom programming and integration of various apps and systems. We want to tie together our office applications, a central database, and an automated package-shipping system (lifts, conveyers, barcode readers, etc.) Can I do this more easily with Linux and it's 300+ apps?
These are the kinds of practical needs facing corporate America. Those who believe Linux is ready to tackle these problems have no idea what people are really doing in those offices. The IT professionals (who are constantly derided as being ignorant for not implementing Linux) know what their offices need, and that's why they DON'T choose Linux.
Creme rises to the top. When a platform is good at something, people will use it for that. That's the reason Linux is known as a server OS: it's speedy, stable kernel make it ideal for that.
Maybe if we spent less time shouting about how Linux is ready for the desktop, we'd have more time left over to make it so.
Let's applaud the efforts of those who've brought us great apps like the GIMP and StarOffice, but have the maturity to see that the day is young and the road is long. And let's make Linux great because we believe in it, not because we hate Microsoft!
----
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
How else would all those iMacs run it?
---CONFLICT!!---
The official slashdot $ police? I'll use them if I want to, and ignore your attempt at censorship. Maybe I'll even get Judge Jackson to issue a restraining order, so you can't post here anymore. Oh, I see you are YAAC*, so I guess it will have to apply to all of you.
Howz this? M$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
*Yet Another Anonymous Coward
I agree, corporate desktops and servers should be running stable versions of Linux and the apps, not alpha/beta's. This rules out USB, XFS, Koffice, etc - however as another poster pointed out, lack of USB is not a huge problem, as most large companies run NT 4.0 desktops, and NT doesn't support USB at all.
I'd like to see the Linux community compare Linux 2.3 and bleeding edge kernel stuff to Windows 2000, and Linux 2.2 and stable apps to NT 4.0.
I don't know what video card you are using or what you are doing, but I haven't had an X session crash in eons.
Yeah, but what will Aunt Helga do when she realizes that after a few weeks of usage her cracked Linux box is also a p0rn and warez server? Do you think she could setup a decent firewall script? What happens when she needs to update packages for security/stability reasons?
Everyone harps over installation issues, but the real bugger for the non-techy is ADMIN issues. If you can't properly admin your Linux box, you are asking for BIG trouble.
I was talking to a non-techy guy at work who just bought his first computer (Win) a few months ago. I asked him how much hard drive space he had left. Not only didn't he know, he didn't know what a hard drive was! Most Slashdotters, who have been using computers for most of their lives, forget what it was like at the beginning.
Win95/98 is a much better system for a person like this. If Linux was made usuable for such a person, the system would have many of the same flaws that the Winboxes now suffer with.
Okay, we should host that article as a "'Linux Myths' Myths" page. Additionally, I think we should have a "Windows NT Myths" page to refute all the hype MS is spewing.
- Ed.
Apparently it does something kind of, almost like journaling, but not quite.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
----
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
Just like in spam: "This is not a spam" (spam follows).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Do you turn to stone?
I find X crashing when I use Netscape. Sometimes Netscape crashes by itself. Sometimes it takes X with it. It's rock solid otherwise.
I need a better browser. Anyone used Arena? I'm planning to try that out.
(I am on the far left of the slashdot bellcurve, so pretend I am Aunt Helga for a moment ...)
... :) But hopefully someone could print this out at a friend's house or the library, or print it using the OS that came with their Compaq Presario before reformatting and installing something better.
I wrote the directions on
this page for anyone interested in connecting to an ISP using kppp.
They're not perfect, I but I meant them to be lighthearted and easy to follow.
Even still, there is an undeniable catch-22 in that someone who wanted to use these directions or any other online documentation won't have it to use from home. This is getting to be less and less of a problem as Internet access gets more and more ubiquitous - hopefully soon we'll all have DSL and kppp will be only a memory
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I even previewed, I swear it! How did that closing dissapear?! I don't know.
My bad. But the page still works, I think. If not, it's here.
humbly,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
And I'm running 32mb ram, 166mhz cpu, 1024x768 16bpp, and KDE with no themes or wallpaper whatsoever. Why can't Linux GUIs be as fast as Windows? Sure, the thing is stable, but it is hard to get anything done.
Configure your IDE disk parameters with hdparm -- what you see is inefficient swapping caused by over-conservative configuration. Or/and add memory to reduce swapping.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
ooooh ...... isn't there a hockey team called the penguins .....
It's obvious I know, but one of, if not the chief reason that many people can't use Linux (actually, can't use anything besides Windows X or Macintosh) at work is the dysfunctional relationship that companies have with Microsoft, which goes somehthing like this:
... some of our suppliers now have a newer version of Word and send us files in it all the time. Can we read them with our old version of Word?"
... OK."
;)
SCENE ONE: The recent past
Company: "I want a word processor."
MS: "Here's MS Word."
Company: "Great! It's got an OK interface and lots of features! We'll standardize on it, and figure the cost of buying it is money well-spent."
MS: "Nice doing business with you. See you in a few months!"
Company: "What?"
MS: "Oops -- look at the time. Gotta go."
SCENE TWO: The even more recent past.
Company: "Errr
MS: "ha, ha. No. But you can buy this economical upgrade and then be using the same version they are. ha ha."
Company: "That doesn't seem very nice, but
MS: "Nice doing business with you. See you in a few months."
Company: "Hey, do you mean this keeps happening?!"
MS: "Whoops -- look at the time. Gotta go. You have a nice day, hear?"
Companies which deal in information exchanged electronically have it in their interest to insist on non-proprietary formats unless they absolutely need them, for functional reasons. (Lotus notes, say. -- but not WP docs.)
So what are good formats?
Text, for things that don't need pretty formatting
HTML, for things that need to be accessed in a variety of formats
XML - for more complicated things what need to be acessed in a variety of formats
PostScript - for manuals etc for which you need exact typographic control.
And yes, this message contains forward looking statements. It's true that not every place of business is flexible or imaginative enough to use a different color of paint, never mind an operating system other than the one in place now. But long term, I think the linux infection will keep casting shadows on hothouse-flower file formats.
As others have pointed out, now is not the same as Soon. True -- but would you rather get on the boat leaving now or the jet leaving soon?* Best case scenario I would think for companies which are unable / unwilling right now to switch to a Free / free OS would be to at least study the possibility, because sooner or later you'll have to consider it. To mix a few metaphors: Inertia is a powerful force in business, but tides do turn eventually, and this is a full moon.
Cheers,
timothy
*Too many variables left undefined, I know, but you get the point
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
>I used to, as a matter of usability, have my >Linux shut down by powering it down on a regular >basis with no ill effect.
Yes, it is just like FAT, while a crash may in theory cause corruption it is highly unlikely to damage anything more important than temporary files that are rendered useless by a crash.
Linux and recent versions of windows will automatically check partitions if it suspects they have been corrupted.
The only place we use lfs' are on the servers where uptime is really important, and we don't want to have to check the partitions if a calamity forces a reboot.
One niggly thing about Linux2.2 is that by default it that it now wants user-interaction before it repairs a broken fs. This could be a pain for a new user.
We use GNU/SunOS.
Please remember my conditional 'if it comes
preinstalled.'
It's trivial to block the ports by default with tcp_wrappers in the install script, so only localhost can access them and disable the services that aren't needed even locally. This can be done at the shop before Aunt Helga even sees the box.
Besides, even if it's not done, who's going to set up a 'p0rn and warez' server on a dialup box that's only connected thirty minutes a day? Let's be serious, Aunt Helga doesn't have DSL.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Uhhh, how people can be that childish sometimes? So many posts are really problem-oriented here.
Let's turn the things upside up and be solution-oriented.
Of course, people feel uncertain and scared. And the harder we push, the worse it feels.
What? No more This-Editor? That-Spreadsheet? How am I supposed to do things?
This is the key Q. StarOffice and all Windows imitations are bound to fail,
because they are trying to enforce an ideology that is alien to Unix-like enviroments.
The most important thing is IMHO how to convince John R. Luser that
Linux is not just another OS to run the same app, but an enviroment where things
can be done in a different way and that this way is better, faster and easier to learn.
And not to overlook the solution. If another OS is better- use it. And let the best win. Time will show
KuroiNeko
>It's trivial to block the ports by default with >tcp_wrappers in the install script, so only
Gee, name a distro that does this NOW. All of them leave everything wide open. Even with this lousy security setup, you still see users requesting to disable what little security is available: ie. telnet into box root, etc.
Again, what happens if the box breaks? Reinstall? How is this better than Windows? If Helga only surfs on the web for 1/2 hr, I'm sure the stability differences between Win95/98 and Linux is moot, as well. Why bother with Linux?
I still state that only a computer-savy operator can keep a Linux box up and running and make the experience worth while.
Cpt. Kirk: "Scotty...we've got... to have... *more*.. power"
... power"
... I'm not sure...uh..who's Dr. Watson?"
Scotty: "Aye Captain... just one moment while I turn the power up on the engines"
--a short pause followed by several loud whirring noises... then loss of speed
Cpt. Kirk: "Scotty... we're losing speed ! we've got... to have... *more*
Scotty: "..uh (several mumbling sounds) Captain... we've got a problem..."
Cpt. Kirk "Quick Scotty..what's the problem ?"
Scotty: "Well
Cpt. Kirk: "Dr. Watson ???? Scoty... *what* are you... *talking*... about?"
Scotty: "Well Captain... My screen is telling me that I've got a problem and Dr. Watson is making a log file for me... but I don't know where the file is... "
Cpt. Kirk: "Dammit Scotty... just reboot the damn thing."
--fade to darkness
Windows'', how can third parties be any better?
I can't follow the logic. Okay, I write some software and only I have the source code. I can't manage to support it well, yet people who don't have the source code can do a better job? In what universe?
Like the man said, support is basically limited to training and workarounds. Without access to the code, if an issue arises, all you *can* do is work around it. Some of these third parties are simply good at providing workarounds.
If I'm wrong, show me one service pack, for any version of Windows, that didn't come from Microsoft.
Argh! Feel... tension... rising... must... flame... :) From the latest alpha's To Do list: /usr and / (the hit for reading is very slight approaching 0) and meta only for the rest. Way cool. :)
I don't know what gets under my skin more - the folks saying NTFS does 'full logging' when it doesn't or the folk saying ext3 doens't when it does.
Ext3 logs both the meta-data and the file data. It's even concidered a 'bug'.
* Journaling of metadata only. Currently everything is journaled, incuding data, resulting in a performance drop as all data gets written twice.
Journaling of metadata only is supported but is not enabled. It turns out to involve several extra complications in the journaling buffer state, so I'm testing the simpler case first to get that reliable on its own.
I've been using the alpha for a while now and there is a big performace hit with full logging. I can't wait until we get a choice of full or meta-only logging. Eventually we should be able to have full logging on those rarely written to partitions like
It's an alpha product - flaming it or praising it are both a bit premature - but if we must talk about it at least we could talk about what it -acutually- does.
... with eskimo chains i tatto my brain all the way...
Why don't we have cheap homes that are based upon the victorian style of homes? How about castles? These styles were en vouge when they were around but now they just cost a great deal and are difficult (and consequently much, much more costly).
:(. And FWIW the Sears ones I remember from my childhood in the Mid-West weren't the sturdiest things ever built. Always creaking and groaning, sagging in the corners and porches falling off (though I'm sure with the right maintenance...). It may be possible to get one cheaply and renovate ;)
:)
IIRC Sears and Roebuck used to sell prebuilt Victorian style Houses, delivered by rail (Turn of the century, roundabouts, my dad has all the old catalog reprints) and set up at your location. One of the neighbors in my old 'hood had one that was set up similarly but built around 1988.They do exist but obviously it's much easier to just go straight from the aprtment into one of those ever-so-charming cookie cutter "starter homes"
As for castles, they were obviously a lot cheaper with slave-labor to build them for you. Still I like to toy with the idea of having my own "castle" using cinderblock and concrete construction, reinforced everything, with a little turret on top with the family coat of arms banner, just to be that way
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
Linux actually has been working on macs for years.
Mklinux was apple's port of linux to the macintosh, using the mach kernel. Then there's the linuxppc distribution, which has also been around for awhile. Then you also have yellow-dog linux distribution, from Terrasoft, and they do some cutting edge server stuff.
www.linuxppc.org
www.terrasoft.com
are two good places to look. If you're into BSD, you might also want to look at www.macbsd.com. BSD is also out there for the mac.
Definately try it out. It's probably as cheap of a risc based linux solution as you can get.
I have a bunch of Linux computers which act as a "better replacements" for windows in my jurisdictions. Just simple workstations, two of them are even used by our secretaries.
Noone has found them difficult to use, but I have had a big hedache in upgrading these machines lately. Machines used to be RH5.x based, with a lot of updates. They worked fine for a while, but it has became very difficult to keep them "up-to-date" because of the incompatibilities between the "5.x" and "6.x"-based distributions. Then I had to add two more machines, and I realised it is time to start updating a whole set...
- First I tried the RH 6.0, but I had some problems with samba+vmware (yes, we do have legacy applications). Besides, Star Office was very instable.
- At the same time I have tried Mandrake 6.1 at home and I liked it a lot, so I decided to turn them all into Mandrake. Star-office seams to run more stable nnow, but unfortunately, I have run into major set of difficulties with network printing, and samba+vmware still do not like each other as much as I whish they would. I have been thinking of giving RH 6.1 a try, but people seam to have all kinds of problems with these too...
So what we have now? Linux has got much easier to use lately. At the same time the quality has got worse. If this continues in the same direction, soon there will be no difference between Linux and Windoze. I hope to see some improvements soon.
I really hope that you havn't missed TeX / Latex, otherwise I highly recommend them for any serious typesetting work..
/Andreas - M.S. Student - Juggler
I agree, corporate desktops and servers should be running stable versions of Linux and the apps, not alpha/beta's. This rules out USB, XFS, Koffice, etc
:)
If the issue is that they should be running stable software that surely means they shouldn't be running a pile of the Microsoft stuff they use now
Yes, it is just like FAT, while a crash may in theory cause corruption it is highly unlikely to damage anything more important than temporary files that are rendered useless by a crash.
As well as temporary files volatile files are also vulnerable, Linux dosn't have anything as volatile as SYSTEM.DAT.
I've been using Linux for around 8 years now, since long before v1.0 of the kernel (in fact I think it was v.89something) and IMHO, Linux has never been a viable solution for a desktop workstation for the average joe. For us, yes, it's great, we can do most of the things we want, but for your average person, don't even think about it. A GUI is a great tool, but under it lies the huge mess of configuration files and tools that make linux what it is. All these new GUI's are is a big "User Friendly" patch, and not a good one. You can't configure everything with your GUIs. Heaven forbid you upgrade one of your programs and the configuration GUI suddenly doesnt work!
Guess what you could subsitute "Windows" for "Linux" in the above and all the points are true. In fact Windows is even worst since it uses binary configuation files so the sysadmin can't even use a text editor to fix things.
If that doesn't tend to work I alternatively use [CTRL][ALT]{F2}, then [CTRL][ALT]{F1} then [CTRL]-C to ungracefully kill Xwindows. If that doesn't work on a non-networked machine then it's the Coooooold-Boooooooty. ;)
Dosn't the idea of this being an "Enterprise" setup tend to exclude non-networked machines. (Even if it's at the level of "A fax machine noise starts comming from it then it sorts out when I phone support".)
The average user doesn't want to type rpm -ivh long_ass-package_1.1._with-lots_of-charcters.rpm. They want to click setup.exe or something like that and have it added to the menu.
Then that average user should expect their system admin to ask them what they think they are playing at and why arn't they getting on with their work and if they really needed that program there was an appropriate way of if being made available on their (and for that matter anyone else's) workstation.
It isn't the end users job to be installing software, quite frankly anyone who needs software installation to be made a case of "double click on setup.exe" probably isn't competant to understand the consequences of their actions.
This isn't about people's own computers at home it's about those they use at work.
8 years ago was 1991, the same year Linus started the project. There was never a version 0.89. According to the archives of ftp.kernel.org, Linux jumped from version 0.12 of Jan 1992 to 0.95 of March 1992 (whose gzipped tarfile is less than 1% of the size of the one of 2.2.13).
-- Abigail
Can you say BACK ORIFICE?
Poor Aunt Helga, how are you going to explain to her that people all over the world now have full access to her computer? How do you think she's going to take that? How are you going try to explain to her what to do about it? Let's see how she enjoys trying to navigate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch of the system registry, just because Windows 9x's poor security model allowed her to unknowingly install destructive software on her computer.
All it takes to compromise a Windows box is one little e-mail to a naive user saying "The program I've attached is really cool, you should run it." Putting an uneducated user on a Windows machine, come back a few days later, and count the viruses and trojans. Put an uneducated user on a properly configured Linux machine, DO NOT give the person any kind of root access, and come back a few days later. More than likely Aunt Helga will still be bashing on random keys trying to figure out how to exit Emacs, but that's beside the point.
The point is, NO system is really secure when it's operated by an uneducated person. However, while there's a chance that Aunt Helga's Linux box might someday get compromised because of a tiny security hole, on a Windows box she's likely to be trojaned within a week.
I've got dozens of examples, and as soon as I can safely and easily install linux on my laptop and do the things I want to do (see below), I'll do it in a heartbeat. I want to...
1. Add new printers and scanners without thinking about technical details.
2. Use my dual-function modem/network card without thinking about technical details.
3. Make complex word processing documents with intra-footnote references, changing layout, etc. (just need software for that).
4. Perform mapping analyses of data and print out pretty maps (just need software for that).
5. Edit videos without thinking about technical details (almost have software for that).
...you get the idea. By technical details I mean things that mac and win machines allow me to do without much expertise. Plug in a new scanner, recognize and configure my modem/network card, recognize, configure, and not fry my video card.
Some of the stuff I do is "advanced" by the average computer users standard, but little of what I do is technical or requires much technical knowledge of the OS or machines I use.
Portions of this essay are inaccurate. Since it is certainly not my intention to combat FUD with more FUD, I've updated the article, which can be found on my website at http://www.cratchi t.org/dleigh/linux/Linux_in_the_Enterprise.htm. Factual corrections will be found there. It's a long document, so I won't go over it again in detail here. If you want to pass on additional corrections to me I'll be happy to include them as well.
Of the responses I've received, many demonstrate that the authors have misunderstood my position entirely. I've been characterized, among other things, as some kind of religious Linux zealot. I believe if you read the essay you'll find that I do not espouse the use of Linux in every situation. Obviously a "Linux uber alles" fanatic would not suggest that a major role of his pet OS is to act as a training ground for other, more powerful systems. I don't think Linux right for every use (I explicitly said as much), and I personally use at least three additional operating systems, including Windows.
Also, when I say that Linux is ready for the enterprise, I don't mean every task in the enterprise, although some people have assumed this. It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to me to base everything in your company on some one-size-fits all solution. Linux IS right as a server, and as a desktop, in many situations. And Linux does have price and stability advantages that become more and more significant when considered in bulk. These advantages are compelling, and are becoming moreso as time goes on.
--
mailto:dave.leigh@cratchit.org
http://www.cratchit.org/dleigh
Until linux supports 32bit UIDs, it will not be ready for the enterprise. (My UID at work is in the 300000 range.)
Actually, all three had problems - 1) X would not run 2) No sound and 3) Ethernet card was not getting recognized properly. All were fixed, eventually, but it literally took days to figure out what the problem was in each case with liberal help from other friends in the local Linux users group.
Win9x certainly isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get up and running than Linux is. And yes, part of that has to do with the fact that companies spend a lot of time making sure their products work under windows. It doesn't matter though - the end effect is the same.
Anyway, yes, Linux types do often try and sell Linux as "easy to use" and "ready for the desktop". Much like the writer of this article and mom, and you generally implying in your response that Linux isn't difficult to install (or maintain), Win9x is just as bad, etc, etc. This is where the lines of being a Linux "advocate" and "fanatic" start to get drawn.
Damm where are those moderator points when I need them.
I have to say you are (unfortunately) correct on everything you have said, although there is a hospital/medical managment software package that appears on freshmeat every month or so. But I can't say if it is ready for the bigtime yet.