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On 6/16/98, at 6:56 AM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
>The short answer is "the same things are that great about Unix".
>
>Briefly:
>
>1. It comes with source code, the most powerful support tool known.
>Unix/Linux users don't have to report bugs to clueless phone-answering
>droids who then mis-transcribe them, incorrectly categorize them, and
>hand them off to overworked software teams who ignore them for years
>at a time. They just fix them.
>
Only a user who is familair with messing with an OS. I for one don't want
to think about touching my OS in this manner. I doin't know C nor do I have
any plans to know. I'll grant you that someone somewhere does fix it and
updates are more quickly available.
>2. It scales. No OS in the history of computing has a history of
>scalability like Unix/Linux, which has run on everything from Z80s
>to Crays. Unix/Linux has also had support for multiprocessor
>systems since 1980 (George Goble/Mike Marsh Dual-CPU Vax 11/780)
>and support for MIMD multiprocessor systems since 1987 (16-CPU
>Sequent Balance).
>
>3. It's robust and reliable. Contrast with other operating systems
>which are frequently crashed by application software. Note that
>Unix/Linux systems have a *long* track record of staying up until
>somebody deliberately takes them down.
>
>4. It is not a single-vendor OS. There are at least half a dozen
>major varieties of free Unix/Linux implementations to choose from.
>Healthy competition between these drives innovation and prevents
>ruthless domination of the market by any one of them.
>
>5. It is rapidly evolving. No company in the world can muster
>a development effort that's within an order of magnitude of that
>being put into Unix/Linux 24 hours a day, around the planet.
>What they cannot do for money, hundreds of thousands of programmers
>are doing for joy.
>
>6. It is THE Internet platform. All significant Internet technologies
>have been developed on Unix/Linux (no surprise: Unix was originally
>designed as a "programmer's workbench") and there is no reason to
>expect this to change. Consider: Usenet news, NNTP, Mosaic (first
>GUI browser), Kerberos, archie, gopher, Perl, tcl/tk, HTML, HTTP,
>VRML, WAIS, IRC, NFS, SNMP, PGP, Java, LDAP, MIME...and while not
>*invented* there, TCP/IP sure came a long way while in the hands of
>the CSRG group at Berkeley, who implemented it in the BSD Unix kernel
>and were responsible for popularizing it.
>
>7. It is well-designed. Unix's original design, separating kernel
>from shell and shell from utilities, isolating device dependencies
>into drivers, etc., is such that it's possible to improve/modify
>portions of the OS with a high probability that nothing else will
>be broken as a consequence.
>
>8. It performs. Unix/Linux squeezes far more performance out of
>the hardware than competing OS's. This has been true since the
>days when it competed against VMS on Vaxen; it's still true now.
>
>9. It's free.
>
>10. While it's a terrific platform for experimentation, it is
>not necessarily a hacker's OS. Given that one recent article in
>InfoWorld explained how the author's 10-year-old daughter installed
>it in two hours, it's time to drop words like "geek" and "hacker"
>from Linux articles. It's as much (and IMHO, more) of a production-grade
>OS as anything else available.
Don't belive what you read. Sticking in the RH 5.0 floppy and having it do
the install is only the first step in a linux setup. Have that 10 year old
do a modular install or do a kernel upgrade or download, modify, and
install a network card driver. My guess is unless she is a geniuos this
is way out of her league. Linux is NOT production grade yet. Yes RH does
come with a pretty good install but the OS istelf still requies a great
deal of "maintenance and tweaking" to get it working. Far more than its
competition (NT, OS/2 and 95) For Linux to be concidered a
"Production-grade" OS it must offer the same or similair installation and
support features as its competition. That includes manufacturer support
(drivers) and common tools for creating add on programs. I should not have
to compile programs I download from the net along with 3 libraries that wre
used to create it. This may give the OS and some users power but it is a
BIG inhibiter of it going mainstream and gaining the support that I think
it it deserves. If that is not possible do to the different flavors of
Linux then a common "compile/install" tool needs to be developed that keeps
those of use who could care less how that all works from being bothered by
it. (RPM is a step in the right direction) The OS is a platofrm for me to
run tools. Learning how to compile kernels and drivers may expand my
knowkledge but it makes me no more productuve at my job or computer related
hobbies it just takes time I don't want to spend on that stuff. If others
out there like downing it the "old fashioned way" then don't use the tool.
I think things are starting to turn with support from Linksys (linksys
offers phone suport for installing their network cards on Linux, states
Linux as a supported OS on the box but still provides no driver), Adaptec
and other manufactureres but the bottom line for Linux to make the jump and
start being a concidered a real option to M$ or other Unix flavors
(Solaris, HP-UX, SCO) is that it must compete on more than just its
capabilites. It has to be easy to install, upgrade, change, and provide a
support infrasturcture that is more than mailing lists. This is the
reality of the world, good or bad. I'd never let my parents install Linux
vs win95. It is way beyond their capabilities even though thier Dell
PII300 would really scream (NT would be way better than 95 for that
hardware). Just remember what happened between BETA and VHS and Apple and
IBM. What was probably the better design/performer does not always win if
its suports/manufactureres don't accept the way things work.
Just my $.02 worth.
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