On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Tony Wells wrote:
> For the client workstation ease of use and penetration of
> application software is the driver. Win9x and NT are the clear
> winners here. Those client OSs will stay with us until another
> supplier provides a viable alternative. I'm not holding my breath.
There was OS/2 (killed by back-kniffing) there is BeOS (attempts to squash
it still to come), there was Rhapsody (killed during pregnancy by its own
mother) there was NeXTStep (the best and the greatest, so "greatest" that
was lapidated to death like all the outstanding "mostruosities" known to
the history). Still, I can give you 5 to 10 (personal) live
(generalizable) examples where Linux (with KDE and XEmacs) is THE ONLY
viable workstation (scientific computation and programming, which you have
to agree HOLDS importance, in any way more than the Joe SixPack's Flight
Simulator "training" or pornographic sites "surfing").
Guess what? Ease to use has nothing to do here. Marketing has. Windows
is easy to use because every idiot got suffocated with it from
kindergarten to university. One gets used even with a Boeing 747 cockpit
if enough time is available. But ask my colleague which is now crying here
next to me because his WinNT just "BSD"-it with all his code files 15'
work worth, ask him, what ease of use he got?
>
> Back to servers. I realise that what I am going to say next could
> be considered contraversial. But lets be realistic. Looking into
> the next century neither Unix or Linux is suitable for the needs
> of that century. Considerable time and training (as evidenced by
> the number and variety of questions on this list) is needed to set
> up and maintain a secure Unix/Linux server on a corporate site.
> Growing pressure on limiting support costs, staff costs and plain
> business needs for resilience will result in a demand for simple,
> self installing and self-maintaining servers that require mimimum
> training of staff, support and downtime. Clearly at the moment all
> current OSs do not fit those requirements.
Well, I just (20 minutes ago) finished installing a Linux server (file
print, authentification and Xapps server) for a lab here at our dept. It
took me 15 minutes to do the base install of the RH51 off CDROM, another
15 minutes to dump the user database from the old WinNT server and stuck
it in the smbpasswd, and another 30' to transfer over the net all the user
files from the old server to the new one. Guess what? The guy who will
take care of the routine admin of this server left for his vacations with
a free spirit because he hasn't anymore to be afraid of the damned GPF's
of the WinNT server he used to get twice a day during the last week. Guess
again? His users will never have a clue about a new server (unless they
will realize their network now works around the clock).
And about mailing lists. Have you ever wandered on an NT list? I did (for
necessity) I have twice the white hair I should have because of the dumb
shitty questions I had to float on there. Here the people get stuck
because of their laziness. They don't want to read. There the people get
stuck because MS learned them that they have a stupidity-proof OS (which
isn't true) so they act in consequense (I mean they act stupid) and
because if WinNT doesn't want to recognize your ether card, it wont, no
matter what you'll do. And there's no Torvalds, Cox, Baker to save you
overnight.
Cristian
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