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Linux Software

C|Net posts Special Report LINUX coverage 42

CynicalBastard writes wrote in to send us a link to something interesting that recently appeared on CNet. It's a special section on Linux with articles on Alternative OSs, Linux, Linux vs. NT, and project Heresy.
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C|Net posts Special Report LINUX coverage

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  • by Matts ( 1628 )
    They compare NT 5, an OS which isn't out yet, to RedHat 5.1, an OS which has been out for nearly a year. And Linux still comes out on top.

    My question is, this is obviously a very old review, since the reviewer says "I got the latest Apache - v 1.3.1", so what happened? Did this review get oppressed (that's probably over-dramatic), or forgotten, or what? And now they feel they have to put it out since everyone else is doing Linux sections? Go Linux...
    --
  • While still good articles, they do seem to be a bit out of date.

    "The Linux kernel is now well into version 2.1, and compatible with an enormous amount of hardware,..."

    Seems to me that would be arround mid 2.1 series. Perhaps around 2.1.90s?
  • Hello!
    If you look at the date it says: 3/25/98!
    I had very strange feeling of Deja-Vu when reading the article, and then checked the date on it. I might even have seen it on slashdot before. :)

    heh
    -Jón
  • anyone noticed that only CNet seems to have articles on their previous articles? My god, its like writing a book on a book that you had already written. Cyclic Redundancy. Someone should tell them to either hire more writers, or make their current writers write more articles. This is just too disgusting. I think i will go take a shower.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    If they're going to make a section on Linux and it's drive to world domination, the least they could do was use articles and reviews that weren't a year old.
    I want to see a FreeBSD section there too. It gets overlooked way too much these days. Both seem to inadvertently feed off one another, and I bet one would be quite different without the other.
  • >How many times is it gonna take before people stop comparing these two OSes?
    Agreed, it's getting boring. Everyone should know what is NT by now.
    > think it's been well documented that Linux is for people who lack to hack around with the internals of the OS
    s/lack/like/ I guess, but I don't agree with you. Agreed, Linux is used a lot by hobbyists and students; But that doesn't mean all Linux users are geeks.
    For admins, distributions now allow to setup servers in less than one hour, with little to no work. I don't mind looking at documentations and source to make the servers fit more closely our needs or even fix problems, but that's only because it's a possibility (yes, I have some background in software development).
    >and NT is for people who could care less and just want to get something done
    If you ask me, NT is for people that don't care of anything at all. Dunno what v.5 will be, but v.4 is the hell on earth :( Resource hungry, totally unergonomical, and when it crashes for real, you can format and reinstall from scratch. Poor excuse for an OS.
    >If I had a mission critical server, I guarantee I would not be running Linux... or NT for that matter. FreeBSD is a superior solution, and it rarely is mentioned here.
    Can't say anything about something I didn't try, but we use Linux at work, and I sleep good at night...
    Why FreeBSD didn't get all the press it should is another story, mostly political I think.

    while(1) { printf("Do you want to reboot now ?\n"); }... Not!

  • I can see the logic in recycling old newspapers. But recycling old web pages? Somebody must have been behind on a deadline.

    --
  • by Anonymous Coward
    just like those silly kids that start hating
    a song if it gets made into a video,
    i can already see the shift of time....
    linux gets a nice comfortable mainstream market share,
    and everyone starts going on about how linux (which for some reason should be called red hat, since nothing else apparently exsists anymore if you read this and many other articles) is just as lame as windoze now that it has big companies behind it, etc.

    then the chirping starts how yous gots to get bsd if you wanna be a "true" k-rad hack3r d00d.

    man i thought i left this crap when i started going to school for compsci and left skateboarding behind.
    i don't know how many times baggy pants were "in" and then two days later they were "out" again.
    but the fast pace of technology is sometimes no better than junior high. maybe if people could take a mature standpoint on stuff.

    i actually thought one of the comments they had was very good.
    "while windows isn't the fastest or most stable, it's the most versitile"
    ...well, minus the versitile part, but substitute it for "well known" and you've got the idea. everyone and their grandma knows about c:\program files, not 2% of them know /usr/local

    personally this article is a bit scary to me for the same reasons i just put down. i can see casey casem heralding the beauty of linux as more and more idiots in yahoo chat start asking how they run fdisk and then complaining how linux sucks.

    but if we ever want to accomplish what seems like the primary goal for a lot of people here (including myself); to forward the OS to the point that it becomes a huge alternative out there; we need rpms. we need idiots like cnet and zdnet telling their die-hard windoze "billy is my love muffin" users how they gotta get this, just cause it's "k3wl" and "new" (?) and most of all hot.
    and most of all i guess we need to swallow that "i told you so" or "i was here first" feeling that sits around in the pit of a lot of our stomachs.

    i would hope open source is still about people and the love of technology and pursuit of knowledge; about giving people affordable alternatives to comercial software: not about how cool anybody is because they know something someone else doesn't.

    but try telling that to my compsci prof. heh.

    this isn't a flame to the posts above,
    but more a buffer of comments i expect to follow; if not now, then in articles to come in the next few years that this is happening.

    ...and forgive me if this sounded too 'katz-ish'







  • by Pickard ( 16494 )
    It seems to be a staple of these reviews to say something like 'everything comes out for Windows first'. Yeah, everything you buy at Egghead does, but sights like Freshmeat seem to keep pretty busy with new software for Linux. That software is usually pretty portable also.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Even though Rex Baldazo pretty much gave the nod to Linux as the more customizable and scalable server he complained a little about programability, talking about how IIS has an easy interface for novice admins. I wish someone had given him a heads up about commanche, which if I remember is available in the red hat distribution. Or warpaint for web based administration.
    Also, he noted that cold fusion isn't available for linux. Isn't it being ported? Am I dreaming, or is it maybe in beta already?
    Positive on the whole, though.
  • The section on Linux downloads was totally inconsistant and likely to confuse the newcomer. It looks like someone with very little Linux knowledge put them links together.
    e.g. some apps say download for x windows (yes I know X Windows is an incorrect term too) while others just say download implying they can be run from the console rather than just through X.

    The section with the window managers is also incorrect and confusing.

    If they want to make a useful resource for newcomers they should at least put the effort in and use correct terminology and consistency.
    --
  • I really got ticked off at the "Karl Kling" characterization of OS/2 users as bitter Betamax users, railing away at nobody on a street corner about how they're better than VHS.

    OS/2 users have been actively working on the OS they love for a long time. They have made serious progress with Win95 emulation, built new GUIs, ported apps and written apps.

    Their main problems are twofold:

    1. IBM. "They're not going to support OS/2 anymore." Well, when did they ever? They pretend they're going to make the OS into some new buzzword their marketing droids read about, and hold the OS too closely for anyone else to do anything with it. I wish they'd open source, spin off, or sell, just give the OS to someone who cares. It's the Commodore Amiga story all over again...

    2. Traditionally, the OS/2 software development effort has been the traditional Windows payware/shareware model done in miniature, which hasn't been very effective. Apps get written, but they can't get market share, because the OS itself is on the fringes. Open source totally side-steps this issue, because development and deployment aren't tied to market share. This seems to be changing, as people look at Linux and do likewise.

    As for problem #1, it's more a case of being held back than being terminal. OS/2 is a full-featured, modern, quality OS with apps and everything. It's already got a lot of the UI pieces that are still coming together for Linux.

    Being an OS/2 fan is more like knowing someone who isn't applying themselves than sitting at a deathbed. You hope they'll live up to their potential, but you find it hard to keep caring. And, it's more healthy to be around people who are going somewhere.
  • Application automation. Being able to completely control applications that have OLE interfaces from languages like perl is a godsend. That's something that even commercial unixes haven't properly touched on yet. Gnome is getting there, but isn't there yet, and it's a copy of Window's version (using COM like interfaces).
    --
  • by Daniel ( 1678 )
    Besides, An Exchange server can't really be compared to sendmail imho.. public folders? forms? workflow? shared calenders?.. Sure, there are apps to do it with unix(like) systems.. But exchange neatly bundles it all.

    And this is a Good Thing??

    Daniel
  • Although this is mostly GUI automation, it also applies to any console mode application too. For example, there's no way to go _backwards_ in most console mode application automation on Linux, when you're controling through pipes.

    I don't know too much about gnome-guile, it's not nearly as good as OLE automation, but I suppose it's a lot earlier on in it's lifetime.
    --
  • I agree that Unix tends to be a superior, more efficient and reliable solution over anything provided by NT.

    In NT's defense, however, I've really gotta say that with competant, clueful admins, most any Windows machine can be made just as stable as its Unix counterpart.

    Most of the problems creep in with unstable drivers or applications or tight memory/system constraints. Most qualified NT admins, though, should be aware of these issues and know how to compensate. If you/your staff is incompetant in this regard, the move to Unix was probably a good thing.
  • >On the other hand FreeBSD is too obscure,
    >too tiny. FreeBSD is a ok for hobbyists

    You do realize that's the exact same thing people said about Linux until last year, right?
  • I've seen people using OS/2 off and on since the 2.1 days, and I've always been fairly impressed with the desktop. The "everything's an object" concept is quite powerful. I always got a kick out of the shredder's sound file too. Now that Big Blue is officially supporting Linux, I'd be interested to see the OS/2 desktop (Workplace Shell, is it?) running on top of Linux and X. Think it'll ever happen? Probably not, given the way IBM seems to feel about anything related to OS/2. It's a damn shame.

    Same thing with HPFS. IBM could offer some valuable help and/or code to the HPFS folks. But they probably won't, and likely don't even care.
  • According to a senior Creative engineer, from linux-kernel:
    "NT is mute because it is fundamentally broken, period. That any hardware works on that OS is amazing." That doesn't sound to me like they have a very good driver API.
  • Didn't OS/2 have this with Rexx? And the Amiga as well, IIRC.
  • I was one of the first non-Japanese students of Masaaki Hastsumi (Bujinkan Ninpo)a Japanese martial art. After the media "discovered" Ninpo they bastardized the hell out of it and all of us who had been in it for years welcomed the new people but those who cam in a few years after us were pissed off that "their" art was becoming known by everybody.

    In the final analysis it's the artist, not the art
    and it's the user, not the OS.



    Nick
    LSG

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