OSNews

Well I believe there's something of a misconception among people that HP/UX, Solaris (to a degree), IRIX and AIX are all for the most part dead. Obviously Solaris isn't, and HP/UX and AIX are still put to use in a few big iron environments and still have some market share. GNU/Linux has displaced UNIX in many high-volume uses but it certainly isn't dead.

Irix IS dead and has been for quite some time. Only its death has nothing to do with Linux. Sure a lot of Irix users moved over to linux but so what. The facts are that OS X adoption numbers have never been this high and linux got nothing on it ... now go explain that fact!

Depends on how you look at "dead." Dying? Yes, I won't deny that. IRIX was decommissioned by SGI in 2006 but there are a few places where it's still used. Effects houses still have some hardware/software combos, a few scientific applications etc.

Well if you go to such a stretch to prove your point I might as well point out that BeOS is still in use, because there sure is some lost soul still running it in his basement.

Indeed UNIX is not dead we even see file servers that were previously Linux moved over to solaris 10. Sure support for Solaris is more expensive than most Linux Free forms etc but you can get support for any platform for free or close to it if you know where to look.

Unix add's value where linux distros normaly cant afford to Big Iron why? They don't make the hardware... Linux still has people complaining about NV still not open sourcing their IP Rights. Traditional closed source don't care what is contained in those drivers as long as they have good performance which is also the aim of the manufacturer.

I must admit that AIX is heading for a path that SGI know well.... It needs a community and thats being stolen by the other OS's

SGI (almost dead). Oh, and while Sun is far from dead, it didn't opensource solaris just for fun....

+1

I don't even think Darl was pure evil. When he first became CEO the stuff he was saying is what you would want to hear from the CEO of a major Linux company in this day and age.

One of the things I like about your posts is that you are a linux fan that actually knows some history. It is interesting to see how a company could start with so much street cred, and end as one of the Great Satans. Or how a bunch of evil bastards like IBM could completely turn around their image with unix geeks the way they have.

Incidentally, the old SCO Unix was actually derived from Microsoft's Xenix Codebase. Just thought I'd throw that in there :-).

What, exactly is it that you disagree with regarding Ray Noorda?

None of the rest of your post is worth responding too. My only question there is how you can stand to be so very hateful. Hateful thoughts drain the life out of me. I find it far more pleasant to avoid them. You have done a great deal to damage the reputation of the Linux community here on OSNews through the expression of your hatred of BSD. Possibly more than anyone else I can think of. I have tried to reach you in the past, through public and private communications, through reason. I've exhausted all the reasonable strategies. So perhaps it is time to resort to an *unreasonable* one:

You can stick your head up your ass, Moulinneuf. Or, actually, I think you already have.

Edited 2008-10-24 02:05 UTC

It's is explicit and perfectly understandable , you said that SCO (santa cruz operation ) was not responsible for taking out Caldera as SCO and that the "Shady" Canopy group was responsible.

Neither are true ... But then you got that part ...

"My original post was about a very different company."

NO , the Santa Crux organization and SCO are the same company ... Not with exactly the same people , but still the same company.

"I'm not sure I really care to argue over Caldera"

There is nothing to argue here it's recorded history.

"They were never my *favorite* Linux company."

So for that your trying to change SCO recorded history ? Your loyalty and former liking of the santa cruz organization might be seen as admirable for others , but your history rewriting as no place here.

"I *think* we're still kind of on topic here. "

You don't think very hard here ...

"And apologize to those who may reasonably disagree. "

Disagree with history ? No they insanely disagree with reality that GNU/Linux won by itself and that Unix is not GNU/Linux as not helped it now or in the past , neither did BSD and that there not united.

Some people including yourself have trouble with people who are gonna disagree with them. Even more so when those people introduce a reality they don't like.

Moulineuf is so ridicules he is a self parody. Awhile back I used to try and enumerate all the OSNews terms of use that he was violating in his posts (personal attacks, inflammatory language, etc) but he just doesn't get it.

The OSNews terms could just be a link to Moulineuf's postings with the instructions "What not to do and how to not behave".

It's M o u l i n n e u f : My real life name ... but then coward like you have been here long enough to know that. Must be your copy paste that is broken again ...

"link to Moulineuf's postings "

http://osnews.com/user/uid:2598/submissions

VS

http://osnews.com/user/uid:2598/submissions

BTW what's so shameful with Lars Hansson ?

"Number of Comments: 2496 VS Number of Comment Votes Applied: 1200 "

Wow You spend your days commenting here ? You Seem to comment just as much as you vote on people.

However you spell your name, you're still a jackass that can't type. And a dumbshit to boot.

Man, you must just sit here spending your insignificant time here trolling.

is it Moulinneuf or Moulin Neuf?

"Moulineuf is so ridicules he is a self parody"

Real man have no trouble ridiculizing themself , not that I am ridicule here , because you never *laugh* at my ridicule post ... You don't get that there is more then one point of view to every discussion.

"Awhile back I used to try and enumerate all the OSNews terms of use that he was violating in his posts "

As I said then and now , None , the fact you don't get it is rather interesting , some people are "special cases" and don't have to follow the rules other have to at all the time. I am sure you did the math and are still shaking your water head that I am still able to post here ...

"personal attacks, inflammatory language, etc) but he just doesn't get it."

How can I be personal with a coward named Google Nina ?

"but he just doesn't get it."

Am I not getting it or are you not getting it ?

Moulinneuf is not worth your time. You should ignore his type, he's just noise, neither insightful nor fully human.

SCO was a good UNIX in a time where serial terminals ruled. A i386 SCO server with a bunch digiboard serial connectors could serve a company of around 256 people.

But like Microsoft they were overrun by the internet and missed the boat. Unlike Microsoft they hadn't the money and power to catch on. From mid-nineties on, SCO was a farce.

When Windows will be gone, probably computing as we know it will have changed fundamentally.

If Microsoft were to go bankrupt today, Windows would be alive even in 2020 (at least). Reverse engineering, other companies buying Microsoft's intellectual property, etc.

Windows' legacy is huge, even though some people try to deny the obvious

Absolutely. If Microsoft stopped producing Windows, we'd see a huge boost in things like Wine and ReactOS. There is too much older software for Windows.

While I don't see Unix disappearing, its role has clearly diminished. The place I got my first sysadmin gig at in 1997 started out running purely Unix, a year later a couple of Linux boxes had been added. A few years after that again it was all Linux except for one Unix server. So while they still needed a Unix admin, they needed him because of that one server as opposed to the entire shop.

So while they still needed a Unix admin, they needed him because of that one server as opposed to the entire shop.

They must have some pretty stupid Linux admins then. I have never meet an admin worth his salt that can't support multiple Unix/Linux platforms.

A short statement about job offers, just from my individual point of view: There seem to be more UNIX than Linux offers. This is because (I think) employers have a strange opinion about what's the difference between Linux and UNIX. UNIX is complicated, very technical, CLI driven; it needs a proper admin to be run. And Linux is user friendly, the 14 year old son of the boss could install it. :-) Okay, fact is: In order to run a system correctly, you still have to know many things, even in the age of "user friendly Linux". (Just to avoid misinterpretation: I always thought that Linux is user friendly.)

Beside the implication where usage share shrinks and where it grows, if you have fundamental knowledge about UNIX, you can benefit from it administrating any Linux. Those who administrate different UNIXes already know that there are differences between them, such as they are between UNIX, the BSDs and the many different Linusi.

Having said this, even if the "commercial" UNIX variants would completely disappear, the knowledge and experience they taught to today's admins will still live, and make their life easier.

My shop was a big Solaris HPUX shop for a long time. Linux and Free/Open-BSD did small jobs though.

Now we are going to Linux in a big way.

There is the impression that Linux is cheaper than Solaris but that is perception more than reality. Red Hat licenses are expensive and Red Hat support is more expensive than Sun OS support. As much as Linux has improved from an administrator's point of view I still like Solaris better. Solaris seems more robust, has a better performing IP stack, it has ZFS, and like I said is actually cheaper in a commercial environment when the license and support costs are compared.

One of the last big projects that popped up I suggest that we do a proof of concept on both Linux and Solaris to see which performs better. We could set up 2 virtual machines easily and know which works and performs better with very little investment of time or resources. I can't remember the last time one of my ideas were shot down so quickly. These days it seems that if "Linux" isn't the right answer you aren't asking the right question.

OS X in the datacenter? I doubt it

I wouldn't bother with Linux over FreeBSD anyway, which I consider a "true" UNIX. BSD blows Linux out of the water. It's almost embarrassing.

Actually I just looked it up. NO top 500 super computer is using FBSD. 75% run Linux. Who's embarrassed now?

May I ask a question? Overall, how is this sub-thread likely to benefit the world? I, personally, do not see how it is likely to. These Linux vs *BSD threads are, in my opinion, non-constructive. They hurt all communities involved. We need to learn when to ignore any perceived trolling from whichever side we consider to be the "other" one and remember that we are, essentially on the *same* side. And walk away from these silly and useless exchanges.

Edited 2008-10-23 21:37 UTC

Based on your reasoning Windows is the most sophisticated desktop operating system, since over 80% of computer owners are using it.

Cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, yet numbers alone do not denote a higher life form. (D. Adams)

Calling OS X a true UNIX is a bit of a stretch. They bought the certification, most GNU/Linux distros could too, if it made sense. The underlying OS is an even worse mix mash than most Linux implementations, not that average users care about that, Apple scores big on the stuff that matters to Joe Blow.

To be unix certified it's not just a case of purchasing a certificate from the nearest unix cert reseller, the OS has to meet certain standards and i find BSD/Mac OSX a little neater than Linux when it comes to layout.

The unix cert is not really for the desktop users, from what i can see it's forethought in apple positioning itself to sell more and more of their server software and hardware to businesses.

Agree with the other posters, this article is pretty poor, from what i can see unix will be around for a very long time to come, yes linux has got into certain datacenters, however there will always be a place for Unix, like theres a place for Windows Server.

What i mean by adding in Windows into that line is that it's annoying to see the age old argument that for one OS to win the others have to fail. This has been the argument on the desktop for a long time. However as many have said including Jobs, Gates etc.. computers are prevalent enough that there is enough room in the market for these systems to continue to thrive without the death of another.

uptimes? What uptimes? If no one is using the OS, does it matter how long it will stay up?

I find it both funny and sad to see BSD zealots defending their turf against linux. I actually like the BSD's. They have some remarkable features. But to sit there and bash Linux when so much of the source code between the two OS's is shared is pretty silly. KDE is KDE no matter what you run it on.

The Linux kernel now exceeds 10 millions lines of code, including comments, empty lines, etc.

If you only count source code, then Linux kernel is 6.4 million lines of code.

I vaguely remember that entire Windows NT was 10 million lines of code? Is that correct?

Is linux kernel growing like mad? Is it difficult to have one monolithic kernel with 6.4 million lines of code bugg free? Hell yes. Is it not as stable as it could be? Yes.

Read what Linux kernel developer says about buggy Linux kernel:
http://lwn.net/Articles/285088/

Anyway, a kernel consisting of 6.4 million lines of code is too much. It should be stripped down.

"... and in the desktop world, Linux has 1% market share approx and Mac OS/X (a true UNIX), has a 7% market share... "

In the US, and only in the US. Worldwide, Linux and OS X each have a market share of around 1-2%. For example, where I live, Apple penetration is very low, and online statistics for the largest sites here show OS X usage less than 1%, and even lower for Linux. I wouldn't bet on high Mac OS X usage in China, India, or other developing countries

Apple is pretty US focused. And the rest of the world DOES MATTER, despite what americans might think (that's why Acer for example is one of the largest PC manufacturers)

The article is referring to a case study of Sabre, if you had cared to read it, or even just the summary.

For lots of applications x86 platforms surged ahead of SPARC and other platforms in terms of performance and people realised this around eight years ago. I saw a 1.4Ghz desktop Athlon thoroughly cream an UltraSPARC III running Zope at an organisation at the time, and that was a sign that they'd move. Despite saying they never would, two years later they moved to a x86 server and Red Hat because they had no choice.

PowerPC was generally insulated from this because it was a high-end niche and used in different workloads, and still is, but Sun sold a lot of kit to dot com companies and in areas where x86 and Linux then took over. They refused to put Solaris on x86, or improve it, because it harmed their hardware sales. However, in the long-run it is debatable whether the costs of maintaining AIX and HP-UX can be justified even in areas where such high-end platforms are sold.

Was the zope stuff you saw related to the Zope on Solaris stuff I did?

http://www.zope.org/Members/glpb/solaris

This was why I was so excited when Sun started x86 servers as it meant you could get x86 performance for things like this, yet a Sun logo on the front to keep them happy

-Matt

This is plain FUD.

"3 fold speed gain" means that they have thrown out a couple of 10 year old SUN servers and instead brought in 5 times as many cheap state of the art x86 servers. I suspect.

I remember reading an article where they said the same thing "Our Linux solution is much faster than our Solaris solution". Upon closer scrutiny, the company had got rid of 800 old SUN servers for 3000 shining new x86 servers.

No wonder you have 3 fold speed gain. Pure FUD. If you run Solaris on the same new x86 servers you would also see major speed gain.

FUD.

Decent analysis of the situation. Those who are protectionist of their particular Unix will probably care. Those that aren't probably won't be as long as money is coming in. After all, people use Linux because it is Unix-like and was the way that it was designed.

Linux and x86 will probably replace a few more Unix systems where they can, but there will always be some big systems sitting around running Unix somewhere and they won't be going away. The problem for some companies like Sun is that they are, and certainly were, caught between the x86 Linux systems that people can more than adequately run, and the big iron systems that IBM in particular run that exist in their own market. It's sometimes not clear where they fit.

Unix will never die though, and that refrain has been going on for years. Sadly, it has been coming from some stupid Linux companies who think that they can keep grabbing the low-hanging fruit of existing Unix installations rather than looking at where they should be looking - competing with and replacing Windows Server. Novell in particular should be doing this, because Netware is gradually being eaten and pretending you're a Linux company to try and replace the market you're losing is not a great idea I don't think.

No FC or multi-pathing support? Are you sure? Then how are all my Linux boxes on a fully meshed FC network going to a EMC storage array right now? It must be a miracle!

Sure I'm sure! Linux is fully dependant on FC vendor's drivers and tools, which lack performancea and are not as tightly integrated with the system. They can't compete with the support Unices have, e.g. Leadville FC stack and MPxIO in Solaris 10 which are present by default. Solaris also installs with FC drivers. (Qlogic and Emulex at least)

Running on QLogic cards with in-tree kernel drivers fine here. Multi-pathing was introduced into the stock kernel via device-mapper around 2004 IIRC.

So, it seems like you're trolling or the last time you used Linux on a SAN was pre-2004.

It's not because it isn't the way you expect actually, but Linux is making progressive and great progress today.

Just wait and see the revolution.

I think that very hight uptimes are sign of admins not doing the regular patching in the first place. I still wonder how Windows got there.

wow.. I am sorry you took it to heart so much... you didn't answer my question, which was kinda rhetorical anyway, and probably didn't even understand it no worries

linux was more of a factor than you'd think because the BeOS community was still very developer centric and linux appeals to the kind of person who will install another OS on their pc.

Old Sun stuff is not optimal for super computing stuff, that is correct. Linux is simpler to tailor for super computing than Solaris kernel. But Linux scales quite bad in everyday work. If you do number crunching, a simpler Linux kernel suits better. Unless you want to tailor the well scaling Solaris for that, of course. But Solaris is more complex and this is not easily done. Of course SUN could tailor the Solaris kernel for number crunching if they want to. It is easier to tailor a kernel to a specific simple task. And it eases the task if the kernel is simple enough to modify too, that is Linux. It has a naive approach as you can see by the fact that Linux becomes unstable when you stress it hard.

It seems that lots of companies goes to Linux and when they grow, they notice that Linux doesnt cut it, with high utilization. Then they switch to Solaris and report no problems.

And Solaris support is cheaper than Linux support. And you can of course install Solaris on the same hardware as Linux. The good thing is that when you know Linux or Solaris, it is quite easy to switch OS. They are quite similar - compared to, say, Plan9 vs Windows or Windows vs Haiku. I prefer Solaris + ZFS on my home fileserver than Linux + ext3. Who wants silent corruption?