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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. "
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)
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.
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.
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