Linux Replacing Windows More Than Unix 428
LordNimon writes "Over the past couple years, we've been hearing several Linux migration stories, but they have been mostly migration from proprietary Unix systems rather than from Windows. Well, this story on News.com indicates otherwise: of the migrations, 24% were from Unix, but 31% were from Windows. Sounds promising."
Re:and the winner is? (Score:5, Informative)
For those that have recently purchased new Linux servers, 31 percent were adding capacity, 31 percent were replacing Windows systems, 24 percent were replacing Unix and 14 percent were replacing other operating systems.
Re:A clarification... Expansion != Migration. (Score:1, Informative)
Anything to do with Windows = Big Numbers (Score:2, Informative)
But another way to take this, is that linux seen in the eyes of these converts, has either A) gui interface acceptible to a previous windows user, or B) easy to use, but more powerful.
Re:Where do you get 45%? (Score:2, Informative)
Bad at math? It's OK, I heard on CNN that 50% of all people are below average in math.
In any case:
From those numbers, 69% of new installations were migrations, the rest were "adding capacity".
31% of total new installations were replacing legacy Windows systems.
31%/69% is about 45%. 45% of all migrations to Linux were from legacy Windows systems.
Re:Even Better... (Score:2, Informative)
We've Done Both Migrations at Once! (Score:5, Informative)
We are an engineering company, and used to have two computers on every desk - a UNIX workstation (combination of Suns and HPs) for the "real work", and a Windoze PC for things like email and documentation. Now, these have both been replaced by Athlon 2000+ machines running Linux. The main thing we were waiting for was the UNIX EDA software (from Mentor Graphics [mentor.com]) to be ported to Linux. We now use mainly OpenOffice for documentation and Evolution/Kmail (depending on personal preference) for email.
The combination of ditching the expensive workstation hardware and the MS Office software has made the basic platform really cheap. The main cost, however, is still the EDA software, but even that is coming down. The added side benefit is less computer clutter and much simpler system administration.
You are correct! (Score:3, Informative)
People forget that Linux is not yet a true auto-configuring desktop operating system like Windows is now. That could result in a pretty frustrating experiences, especially when the desktop user starts updating hardware and adds hot-docked external devices.
Is it small wonder why the Linux 2.6.x kernel will include Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support? With ACPI support in Linux, that makes it vastly easier for end users to upgrade hardware and setup hot-docked external devices that use IEEE-1394 and USB connections.
Re:Linux isn't so great... (Score:1, Informative)
At least you are honest when you admit that you haven't used it in a while. But, then why would you spout your conclusion so confidently? If you claim to have not used Linux in a while, why do you still claim it doesn't have chance? Oracle believes in it, and name more than three worldwide companies (that are not in direct competition with them) that DON'T use Oracle. Dell believes in it, and last I checked they were the largest x86 server vendor on earth. Finally, Google believes in it. And, if you doubt the power that is Google, then I question the validity of any of your research
Re:It Shouldn't Be Surprising... (Score:2, Informative)
Well, Windows didn't support themes (D'oh adressed in KDE and finally copied by Microsoft in XP)
Well, Windows only supports MacOS-style copy-paste. (Adressed in KDE: It supports both)
Well, Windows does not have session-management (except for Non-Internet Explorer). (Adressed in KDE, when you log in, everything is just like it was when you logged out.)
Well, Windows does not support multiple menubars (Adressed in KDE)
Windows does not support scrollbar-jumping with the MMB (in KDE)
Windows does not have even nearly as many menubar-applets.
Shall I continue? There is more. What about fish: audiocd: and camera: ioslaves in Konqui?
So, yes, KDE did adress problems of Windows. Which of course does not stop ignorant trolls who never really used KDE from saying it wants to "ape Windows"
Help the Open Source EDA projects! (Score:3, Informative)
gEDA - schematic capture, board layout
Icarus Verilog - verilog simulation, synthesis
Savant - VHDL analysis, simulation (sequential and parallel)
GnuCAP - a mostly Spice compatible circuit simulator
The Open Collector [opencollector.org] has references to these projects and many more! (Full disclosure; I'm an upstream author on the SAVANT project.)
Re:Linux servers (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know, but my experiences in this are as follows:
I tried Linux first in 1995, but it wasn't ready for me, and I wasn't ready for it. It got deleted.
Ditto in 1998. That was when KDE was in Alpha.
I was finally wooed (by screenshots and happy tales from people I met online) into buying SuSE in January of this year. I switched over.
My friends watched this process with interest. They came round, toyed with Linux etc. My Machead friend experimented with it for running his old iMac as OS X was too much of a dog performance wise for it. He tried lots of distros, but didn't really do any research (he tried Debian first ;) and he wasn't prepared to do any learning, and Linux still has a sharp learning curve for home desktop usage. Another friend of mine decided to turn an old box of his into a router/firewall for to share his home network - and also to use it to play with Linux on the desktop. As far as I know, he still uses XP on the desktop, but Linux is happily running a small server.
Another friend wanted to try it, but was prevented by the fact that Linux can't resize XP NTFS partitions yet. Finally, Hugh had a brother who was into it, and so he's tried it as well.
So far, I'm the only one who stuck with it, probably because I'm the most technical and everybody has a "switch" threshold, the point at which they are confident enough and Linux is easy/compatible enough for them to make the leap.
For most people it isn't there yet, hence the tiny (2-3%) market share it has on the desktop. BUT... the server end is often a way for people to get into it, as Ken is doing.
The corporate desktop would come first I think. Really we should be concentrating on that first, as the entry barrier for the corporate desktop is lower and the demand is higher (MS licensing etc). Home desktops will follow naturally after that.
Re:Even Better... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux isn't so great... (Score:3, Informative)
>Unices. It is the media darling, partly because
>it fits the "built in someone's garage" cliche.
>It really is an alternative to Windows, and not
>Unix systems.
It depends on what Unix systems you're refering to. Will it replace a 64 processor machine from HP or Sun? No. Will it replace dual processor machines from the same companies? Almost definitely.
In fact, depending on what hardware you're talking about, Linux is a BETTER alternative to traditional Unixes on the low end because it has lower overhead. For example, process creation, syacalls, and context switches are signifigantly (read: as much as 10 times) more expensive on Solaris than on Linux.
>My personal opinion as to why... It has always
>just been something cool to hack away at. Very
>little work has been done to get security and
>stability overall. As an example, take the
>filesystem, EXT2.
Funny how the kernel developers seem to talk about security and stability a whole lot on the mailing lists. Please provide some evidence to back this up.
>Linux rarely gets used on big iron. The only time
>you'll hear about some fast set of machines is in
>something like a cluster, for
>non-mission-critical applications. Even IBM, the
>diehard supporters of Linux, will openly admits
>that it just can't compete with AIX.
And you know what? The majority of servers AREN'T big iron. If you look at the BSDs, Unixware, or Openserver, they're not running on big iron either.
As for only hearing about Linux on fast machines in clusters for "non-mission-critical" applications, I have direct experience to the contrary. I work at a company that bases its entire company (including the services we offer our customers) on Linux, with the exclusion of a handful of Sun machines. The company my brother works at runs their entire network infrastructure (mail, web, nis, nfs, firewalls, routers, vpn tunnels) on Linux.
>Anyone who has used Linux for more than a week >has had an Ext2 filesystem get corrupted. While I
>realize that there are other filesystems now, and
>that example is out-dated, I haven't used Linux
>extensively for a while, so any examples I give >will be outdated.
I've been using Linux for over 7 years without experiencing filesystem corruption that wasn't recoverable with fsck. And this includes managing upwards of two terabytes of data.
Most of the people I hear who claim this are either parroting what they've heard elsewhere, or base their claim that ext2 is prone to corruption on its use of writing metadata async, unlike e.g. ffs. First off, this is only a problem if you've had an unclean shutdown. And second, e2fsck is a fantastic program. I've never had it fail recovery.
And yes, your experience is seriously outdated. Ext3 can journal just metadata, or metadata AND data, which is actually MORE robust than most commercial offerings.
>More than that there are consistency problems. So
>much work is going into adding new features as
>quickly as possible, that stability, consistency,
>and ease of use just goes out the window.
The stable branches of the kernel (2.0, 2.2, 2.4) get only bug fixes and new drivers, NOT new features.
>Compiling a new kernel should be a simple process
>(and one that should be unessecary) but instead
>gives you tons of kernel modules that are
>unuseable.
What makes you think its commonly necessary? In almost three years I've run a total of four kernels - started on 2.2, did an upgrade to fix an Intel driver issue (stupid MII lockups), moved to 2.4, did an upgrade to fix an obscure SG driver bug.
If you're using a distribution, upgrading a kernel can be as simple as a single command (rpm -Uvh). Even if you're building from scratch, you can "make oldconfig" to avoid having to deal with menu options.
As for unusable modules, they don't show up by default. You need to explicitely choose to see experimental features.
>Linux development just has the Windows'
>attitude... Not a Unix attitude. I can't speak
>for anyone else (although it statistically looks
>like I do) but I don't think Linux has a chance
>against stable, secure, consistent,
>high-performance systems. I just think of it as a
>geek toy... Like a Dreamcast
Odd how I can use a "geek toy" to provide e-mail for literally thousands of domains and millions of users.
And what exactly is "the Windows' development attitude"?
Matt