Mat Serwas wrote:
> In a tone, that only John Cleese, a favorite of mine could do justice:
> "Sorry,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Sorry,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Sorry."
Heh...
> The rest of this is directed toward group #2:
Ok.
> I read the comp news groups alot and can say there is as much traffic
> relating to maintaining the RedHat OS as there is for the other OS's.
> So, I deduct from that that RedHat does not have a lock on OS's as far
> as superiority is concerned.
Wouldn't expect it to. For one thing, it's danged hard to get companies to
buy into an OS that has the pedgree Linux has. Even if supported.
> 1. Can RedHat perform tricks/routines that other OS's can not? No.
Well, yes, if you consider true, pre-emptive multi-user multi-tasking.
If you consider open communications, ease of remote administration, and
extensibility tricks. It inherits a quarter-century of solutions to problems
resolved in Unix. NT and 95 have a long, long way to go.
> 2. Does RedHat have a better selection of programs to choose from? No.
Well, yes, it does--but most of them aren't shrinkwrapped and on your nearby
store shelf. Why? Marketing. Aggressive manuevering and downright coercion.
> 3. Do programs written for RedHat run better than their counterparts in
> other OS's? No.
Uh...yes. In fact, Unix per se and Linux in particular get more bang for the
buck out of your hardware than any other OS. I've a 386/33 running in my
basement that has been up 24x7 for 5 years, running Dell System V Release 2.
I can still move E-mail for a half-dozen other sites via UUCP, while
recompiling the Gnu C suite, act as a SAMBA server for my wife on the
machine upstairs, while I read my Email. And it's not dogging. The only
reason I'm replacing it with Linux is (a) Dell got out of the business some
time ago, and I don't have the source to write new drivers, and (b) the
hardware's gotta go sometime--those SCSI drive bearings are ringing like
bells. Meanwhile, I couldn't do half that on a Windows 95 or NT box--even
if it was a P300. I know--we've been trying.
> 4. If RedHat is free, I would think there would be a stampede to it just
> get our from under the thumb of Bill [which is the reason I bought
> RedHat
> in the first place]? I see no stampede.
No, because most places simply don't have the staff who can maintain it.
Either business or at home. Having source means nothing if you aren't either
comitted to hiring people who know how to do OS and utility maintenance or
development; or want to and have the skill to become a home hacker.
> 5. I like all my programs in their own root DIR. I may be wrong on this
> but
> the only OS I know that allow this is OS/2, carte blanc.
This is religion; there's no upside to discussing it here.
> 6. If RedHat is so great, why can't it fix itself when something goes
> wrong?
> I think OS/2 might be ahead on that count. <<example elided>>
This is a matter of focus and intent. It hasn't been important enough to
Linux (and other Unix) developers to warrant their time and effort; they
generally seem comfortable enough with current error logging and reporting
that they'd rather spend their time on developing other functionality.
> 7. Your system crashes [don't tell RedHat doesn't]. Can you boot from
> Syquest, Iomega, CD-rom removeables to reload the OS?
Yes.
> 8. Why are there so many flavors of UNIX? I really want to know.
This is history. Bell Labs couldn't market Unix when it came out; they
were restricted from getting into the software market. They gave (ok, I think
they charged $50 or somesuch) Unix v7 to the University of California at
Berkeley. The students and comp center staff went wild with it, creating the
first major split. Others, such as SCO with Xenix, developed Unix-oid systems
either because they couldn't get the AT&T source, or didn't want to pay
royalties, or didn't like the BSD approach. When AT&T *did* get permission
to sell Unix, they boffed it. Instead of becoming a major advocate a la Gates,
and providing centralized bug fixes and enhancements, they simply sold
licenses to various vendors and let them all duke it out with little or no
coordination. There was a (largely successful) attempt to merge BSD and
System V in the late '80s; but then the X wars started right up.
So the short answer is that (a) Bell Labs couldn't let the cat out
commercially at first, and (b) was incompetent at managing it when it could.
> 9. Right now, I am editing sectors on a disk to restore lost partitions.
> Other than backing up the MBR [which all OS's can do], what snazzy utility
> does RedHat have to facilitate this? The only reason I say this is
> because MS has/requires tons of utilities. As a matter of fact, there are
> businesses out there thriving in making maintenance utilities for MS.
> So, are they built into RedHat?
I'm new enough to Linux that I can't answer this definitively; general Unix,
of course, has a slew of freely available disk defragmenters, manipulators,
etc. System V has had fsdb since forever.
> 10. I see no difference between RedHat as an OS workstation or Server.
> Why the argument? It's just the hardware configuration.
I won't argue this. Also note that NT--for all the hooraw about "NT
Workstation" and "NT Server"--is the same code, with only two different
registry entries.
> 11.The only man I know that could make RedHat a success is Bill Gates.
> And he might just be in the market with the way things are going with
> NT, so I hear/read.
Religion again.
> 12. There is not OS ready for prime time. Period. We are still coddling,
> feeding, nursing and swearing at them.
No argument. I'm tired of solving the same problems on kiddie operating
systems that we solved 20 years ago. And no matter how much faster and
fancier the hardware has gotten, it still seems like an inordinate amount
of my life is spent waiting for things to format/download/build/etc.
I will argue that virtually nothing exciting has happened in operating
systems since Unix burst on the scene. Part of this, I'm afraid, is the
overwhelming predominance of Windows--where MS goes, innovation leaves.
> I'm going fishing.
Not a bad idea...
Cheers,
--
Dave Ihnat
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