While NetWare is not DOS (except the loader*), the classic versions of NetWare (2.x and 3.x) were certainly "DOSsy". By this, I mean it was a primative OS that ran with no multitasking and no memory protection on a single CPU, with all of the memory being used essentially as huge disk cache. NetWare was designed essentially to do one thing (file services) and do it damn fast. Hence applications were traditionally a problem on Netware, because they'd abend the server. (BTreive, grrr.)
NetWare 5.x may be completely different, I haven't been keeping track.
(*Note that every PC Os uses a real mode boot loader, including Linux and NT. Why not use DOS?) --
While a free directory system would be a good thing, the last thing most sites need is yet another directory system. Many sites currently have to manage both Novell NDS and Microsoft Domains, along with various application account databases (e-mail systems, etc), as well as various individual Unix password account databases, and maybe NIS.
In practice, this is a horrific management hassle, and while LDAP (which is a protocol, not a directory system) offers some hope for directory syncronization, in reality the products that allow you to do this easily aren't there yet.
The great unifier in all of this is NDS. Unlike anyone else, Novell is committed to port NDS to many competing platforms, and it's got years of enterprise use behind it. Having any form of Unix/NDS removes one of the huge barriers to unix implementation (it's another system to manage accounts on) at many sites. --
Correct, the fact that Lotus has escrowed 24-bits of the International version of Notes is clearly documented. (Now is it so clear for Intl Netscape?)
Just a small factual correction - Lotus has had a Intl (56 bit with escrow) and North American version (with no escrow, as far as anyone knows) for many years, and the new release (R5) has not changed this at all. (R5 NA does support 128 bit SSL.)
I fail to see how 56 bits with 24 escrowed by the USG is worse than plain old 40 bit security. --
How much have, say, the Solaris or NT kernel architectures changed, relative to the extent that the Linux (or *BSD) kernels have changed?
Not that this destructs your point, but in the early 90s, Sun was willing to dump the SunOS kernel, and Microsoft was willing to dump the OS/2 kernel. So it's possible for a big commercial vendor to completely switch over to a new kernel.
I'm no computer scientist, but it seems that the maxium that Microkernels are slower than monolithic kernels is only true until it isn't. Perhaps something will come out of Apple Darwin. --
The new data would simply corroborate the old data.
What old data?
The only thing I have dug up is a Linux/Samba blurb on ZDNet, where no lab data was given. (It turns out that a member of the Samba team tuned Linux.) That and a bunch of anecdotal evidence that Linux runs faster and better than about anything on a Pentium-90 with 48MB.
I'm not saying that the recent benches are fair by any means, but Linux has gotten larger than a bunch of guys on the Internet. That means that objective data is going to come in (something that hasn't necessarily happened yet, especially on high end x86 hardware), and some of that data is going to be sponsored by competitve vendors, and some of it is going to be cooked.
There isn't a commercial software product available that hasn't withstood this sort of 'objective' marketing attack, and especially when you're dealing with Microsoft, you have to do more than yell and maintain moral superiority. Someone (err, RedHat, Caldera, and SuSe) is going to have to post their own benchmarks and their own data.
(And, yes, Linux has enough commercial interests attached to it that you can count certain distros as commercial operating systems.) --
I suggest you do just that -- Call up your IBM rep and ask them if they are actively selling "OS/2 Warp for e-Business" to any customers who are not currently running OS/2.
What you will find is that IBM is selling AS/400s and Windows NT support services. Sorry.
(Note that I never said that Warp wasn't/isn't a capable OS. It's just a capable OS that's seen it's last major release.) --
Before the NT marketing machine went into full steam, after Windows 95 shipped, OS/2 servers were the #2 servers used.
I'd be willing to bet that 90%+ of those OS/2 servers have been replaced by Windows NT. Don't forget that a large portion the OS/2 server market in the early 90s was Microsoft LAN Manager.
Warp 5 is essentially just a bone thrown to the legacy customer base - it's no shock they didn't test it. --
Yes, but even if SGI starts selling more workstations, they would need to double the growth of the entire market for their Unix marketshare to grow. (Assuming again 50/50 Windows/Unix split.)
Too simple. SGI is in the process of moving their low-end boxes to x86. The original plan was to replace Irix with NT on these boxes.
Some customers want Unix, however, so they are going to offer Linux as an option (not a replacement for NT) on these boxes.
Which OS a SGI customer chooses probably depends more on which applications they need to run rather than their particular ideology. Right now, the engineering and 3D apps are more prevelent on NT than Linux. So you'd expect most of the boxes to have NT.
But even optimistically assuming the boxes go out 50% NT and 50% Linux, it's still a smaller marketshare for Unix relative to last year when they were 100% Irix. --
You make an extremely good point, especially with regard to "enterprise" products such as the article mentioned. While the user base might be able to bug Creative or 3dfx into releasing Linux drivers, it's going to take big corporate orders to get the enterprise products on Linux.
(PS - This must be happening though, if you look at Oracle or DB2 for Linux.) --
Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS
on
Netscape 4.6
·
· Score: 2
You're hitting the nail on the head - NT stability is highly dependant on what hardware you are using. So your "sysadmin" skills really need to be to know what hardware to requisition.
Note that this is similar to Linux's hardware support problem, except that the linux community is more honest about what hardware is "supported" (although much of that supported hardware has beta level drivers). Microsoft is totally willing to hand out hardware certifications and the "Designed for Windows NT" sticker to unstable platforms.
I was under the impression that you shouldn't hot plug PS/2 mice under any OS... --
It's only proprietary if no other company can use it. Now that it's been reverse engineered, you can expect broader implementations, *if* Creative is willing to licence the technology.
Think about it - almost everything on your PC, from the Centronics parallel port to the BIOS to the SoundBlaster card to the VGA card was "proprietary" at one time.
(That doesn't mean Glide is the best solution, but neither was Centronics, SoundBlaster, or VGA.) --
Are you talking about Microsoft "Chrome"? If so, it's hardly a big secret, MS demoed it around about a year ago. My understanding is that it's on hold pending faster CPUs. --
Actually, I think the biggest difference is the hardware. NT can be very horrid on marginally support hardware (which includes many 'servers' and HCL systems with the NT sticker). On the other hand, it seems to stay up better on Compaq, HP and other name brand stuff. --
MS says: Overall, 37% less expensive to set up and operate than UNIX. 26% less expensive to set up and integrate than UNIX 27% less expensive to administer than UNIX
Note that this may all be true, for regular commercial Unix, but the difference for Linux is certainly not that large.
I'd like to see a real (objective) comparison between the operating costs of NT versus Linux in various roles. Note that I wouldn't be suprised to see NT come out on top (even with the licences), because the most expensive part of any server is still the system admin.
(If you've got a good Linux admin working at your site for the same pay as a good NT admin, count yourself very lucky!) --
Yes, it is a bizarre strategy to say things like "Linux has yet to post SPECWeb results", when "Linux" is really nothing more than a mailing list and some FTP mirrors.
I guess you can file this with the No Roadmap FUD - non-sensical to anyone who understands what Linux actually is.
It would make more sense to post "RedHat has no roadmap" or "RedHat has yet to post SPECWeb results", because RedHat is actually an operating system vendor, who at least in theory competes with the big boys, and therefore is going to have to (at some time) start doing the same kinds of marketing. --
I would guess that most unixy slashdot types don't have much experience with Token Ring, which is too bad, because it's actually very solid technology.
Even standard 16Mbps token "feels" faster than your typical office 100Mbps non-switched ethernet segment. It's good to hear that the technology isn't being junked. --
Maybe because fiber sucks and is much more expensive. You can still by 100Mbps fibre stuff - check out the prices.
I would guess that most of the early 100Mbps short range fiber installations have been pulled in favor of cat5. 1000BaseT opens a huge market - I would suspect that prices will soon fall to around $1000 per switched port, which is affordable if you need it. --
Slashdot Mirror
While NetWare is not DOS (except the loader*), the classic versions of NetWare (2.x and 3.x) were certainly "DOSsy". By this, I mean it was a primative OS that ran with no multitasking and no memory protection on a single CPU, with all of the memory being used essentially as huge disk cache. NetWare was designed essentially to do one thing (file services) and do it damn fast. Hence applications were traditionally a problem on Netware, because they'd abend the server. (BTreive, grrr.)
NetWare 5.x may be completely different, I haven't been keeping track.
(*Note that every PC Os uses a real mode boot loader, including Linux and NT. Why not use DOS?)
--
While a free directory system would be a good thing, the last thing most sites need is yet another directory system. Many sites currently have to manage both Novell NDS and Microsoft Domains, along with various application account databases (e-mail systems, etc), as well as various individual Unix password account databases, and maybe NIS.
In practice, this is a horrific management hassle, and while LDAP (which is a protocol, not a directory system) offers some hope for directory syncronization, in reality the products that allow you to do this easily aren't there yet.
The great unifier in all of this is NDS. Unlike anyone else, Novell is committed to port NDS to many competing platforms, and it's got years of enterprise use behind it. Having any form of Unix/NDS removes one of the huge barriers to unix implementation (it's another system to manage accounts on) at many sites.
--
Oh you really learned me a good lesson, oh master.
A "Berliner" is still also a pastry, btw.
--
Correct, the fact that Lotus has escrowed 24-bits of the International version of Notes is clearly documented. (Now is it so clear for Intl Netscape?)
Just a small factual correction - Lotus has had a Intl (56 bit with escrow) and North American version (with no escrow, as far as anyone knows) for many years, and the new release (R5) has not changed this at all. (R5 NA does support 128 bit SSL.)
I fail to see how 56 bits with 24 escrowed by the USG is worse than plain old 40 bit security.
--
Are they planning to move the Alpha servers to the Proliant cases and brand name?
It would seem like a smart move to associate Alpha with the high end of the successful x86 products.
--
A "berliner" still is something like a Danish.
So you could translate it right into english - "I am a Dane" versus "I am a Danish".
--
Are you saying that there is no 'legacy' (i.e. old and buggy) interfaces in Linux?
--
I woudn't say that they are, only that they carry considerably more weight than personal testimonials to those making buying decisions.
(Now that I used the word "Objective", I have the sudden dread that an Ayn Rand person is going to jump on me!)
--
How much have, say, the Solaris or NT kernel architectures changed, relative to the extent that the Linux (or *BSD) kernels have changed?
Not that this destructs your point, but in the early 90s, Sun was willing to dump the SunOS kernel, and Microsoft was willing to dump the OS/2 kernel. So it's possible for a big commercial vendor to completely switch over to a new kernel.
I'm no computer scientist, but it seems that the maxium that Microkernels are slower than monolithic kernels is only true until it isn't. Perhaps something will come out of Apple Darwin.
--
If what I heard was correct, the NT conversion at Hotmail failed because of limitations in MS Exchange, *not* IIS.
I don't think there's any question that Exchange has it's problems.
--
The new data would simply corroborate the old data.
What old data?
The only thing I have dug up is a Linux/Samba blurb on ZDNet, where no lab data was given. (It turns out that a member of the Samba team tuned Linux.) That and a bunch of anecdotal evidence that Linux runs faster and better than about anything on a Pentium-90 with 48MB.
I'm not saying that the recent benches are fair by any means, but Linux has gotten larger than a bunch of guys on the Internet. That means that objective data is going to come in (something that hasn't necessarily happened yet, especially on high end x86 hardware), and some of that data is going to be sponsored by competitve vendors, and some of it is going to be cooked.
There isn't a commercial software product available that hasn't withstood this sort of 'objective' marketing attack, and especially when you're dealing with Microsoft, you have to do more than yell and maintain moral superiority. Someone (err, RedHat, Caldera, and SuSe) is going to have to post their own benchmarks and their own data.
(And, yes, Linux has enough commercial interests attached to it that you can count certain distros as commercial operating systems.)
--
I suggest you do just that -- Call up your IBM rep and ask them if they are actively selling "OS/2 Warp for e-Business" to any customers who are not currently running OS/2.
What you will find is that IBM is selling AS/400s and Windows NT support services. Sorry.
(Note that I never said that Warp wasn't/isn't a capable OS. It's just a capable OS that's seen it's last major release.)
--
Before the NT marketing machine went into full steam, after Windows 95 shipped, OS/2 servers were the #2 servers used.
I'd be willing to bet that 90%+ of those OS/2 servers have been replaced by Windows NT. Don't forget that a large portion the OS/2 server market in the early 90s was Microsoft LAN Manager.
Warp 5 is essentially just a bone thrown to the legacy customer base - it's no shock they didn't test it.
--
Yes, but even if SGI starts selling more workstations, they would need to double the growth of the entire market for their Unix marketshare to grow. (Assuming again 50/50 Windows/Unix split.)
--
I don't know why they *wouldn't* port FX!32 to Linux. After all, a Linux/Alpha user is one more Alpha box sold.
--
Too simple. SGI is in the process of moving their low-end boxes to x86. The original plan was to replace Irix with NT on these boxes.
Some customers want Unix, however, so they are going to offer Linux as an option (not a replacement for NT) on these boxes.
Which OS a SGI customer chooses probably depends more on which applications they need to run rather than their particular ideology. Right now, the engineering and 3D apps are more prevelent on NT than Linux. So you'd expect most of the boxes to have NT.
But even optimistically assuming the boxes go out 50% NT and 50% Linux, it's still a smaller marketshare for Unix relative to last year when they were 100% Irix.
--
You make an extremely good point, especially with regard to "enterprise" products such as the article mentioned. While the user base might be able to bug Creative or 3dfx into releasing Linux drivers, it's going to take big corporate orders to get the enterprise products on Linux.
(PS - This must be happening though, if you look at Oracle or DB2 for Linux.)
--
You're hitting the nail on the head - NT stability is highly dependant on what hardware you are using. So your "sysadmin" skills really need to be to know what hardware to requisition.
Note that this is similar to Linux's hardware support problem, except that the linux community is more honest about what hardware is "supported" (although much of that supported hardware has beta level drivers). Microsoft is totally willing to hand out hardware certifications and the "Designed for Windows NT" sticker to unstable platforms.
I was under the impression that you shouldn't hot plug PS/2 mice under any OS...
--
It's only proprietary if no other company can use it. Now that it's been reverse engineered, you can expect broader implementations, *if* Creative is willing to licence the technology.
Think about it - almost everything on your PC, from the Centronics parallel port to the BIOS to the SoundBlaster card to the VGA card was "proprietary" at one time.
(That doesn't mean Glide is the best solution, but neither was Centronics, SoundBlaster, or VGA.)
--
Are you talking about Microsoft "Chrome"? If so, it's hardly a big secret, MS demoed it around about a year ago. My understanding is that it's on hold pending faster CPUs.
--
Actually, I think the biggest difference is the hardware. NT can be very horrid on marginally support hardware (which includes many 'servers' and HCL systems with the NT sticker). On the other hand, it seems to stay up better on Compaq, HP and other name brand stuff.
--
MS says:
Overall, 37% less expensive to set up and operate than UNIX.
26% less expensive to set up and integrate than UNIX
27% less expensive to administer than UNIX
Note that this may all be true, for regular commercial Unix, but the difference for Linux is certainly not that large.
I'd like to see a real (objective) comparison between the operating costs of NT versus Linux in various roles. Note that I wouldn't be suprised to see NT come out on top (even with the licences), because the most expensive part of any server is still the system admin.
(If you've got a good Linux admin working at your site for the same pay as a good NT admin, count yourself very lucky!)
--
Yes, it is a bizarre strategy to say things like "Linux has yet to post SPECWeb results", when "Linux" is really nothing more than a mailing list and some FTP mirrors.
I guess you can file this with the No Roadmap FUD - non-sensical to anyone who understands what Linux actually is.
It would make more sense to post "RedHat has no roadmap" or "RedHat has yet to post SPECWeb results", because RedHat is actually an operating system vendor, who at least in theory competes with the big boys, and therefore is going to have to (at some time) start doing the same kinds of marketing.
--
I would guess that most unixy slashdot types don't have much experience with Token Ring, which is too bad, because it's actually very solid technology.
Even standard 16Mbps token "feels" faster than your typical office 100Mbps non-switched ethernet segment. It's good to hear that the technology isn't being junked.
--
Maybe because fiber sucks and is much more expensive. You can still by 100Mbps fibre stuff - check out the prices.
I would guess that most of the early 100Mbps short range fiber installations have been pulled in favor of cat5. 1000BaseT opens a huge market - I would suspect that prices will soon fall to around $1000 per switched port, which is affordable if you need it.
--