11 Jun
2009
11 Jun
'09
8:06 a.m.
2009/6/10 Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org>:
On Wednesday 10 June 2009, William Donzelli wrote:
Really? ?I assumed that you were saying that Linux was (dead|a sinking
ship) because it wasn't Windows.
Pat
--
Purdue University Research Computing --- ?http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?--- ?http://computer-refuge.org
I didn't see that implication, myself.
I think one of the most powerful things in Linux's favour is that it
shares a native hardware platform with the world's most successful (as
in, in the marketplace) OS.
Linux runs very well on cheap, commodity kit. Solaris, from what I
read, still runs best on Sun kit, especially Sun SPARC kit; I just
today tried the latest 2009-06 build of OpenSolaris on my own PC, to
find that it can't drive either of my on-board Ethernet controllers,
so I can't even get online to download drivers.
(q.v. http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/16772.html )
Linux may only have 1% of the desktop PC market, but that's 1% of an
awful lot. It is now a mass-market OS, with significant support, lots
of drivers and so on. This isn't true of the BSDs, OpenSolaris, Mac OS
X or Darwin, or indeed of *anything* else except Windows. All the
other x86 PC OSs other than Windows and Linux are still specialist,
minority tools...
But still, this is why I am always glad to see relatively obscure
minority OSs making it to the PC. The commercial versions may dead or
as good as, but there's a small chance of survival for AmigaOS (in the
form of AROS) and BeOS (in the form of Haiku) because they're now open
source projects running on commodity x86 hardware.
--
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?The
other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should
know better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are
*everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the
only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows.
?Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their
bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads?
Let's also give credit where credit is due - there are huge numbers
of *nix guys that are as bad as the Windows guys. The penguin crowd
are the worst offenders.