[clug] ACM Technews Snippet: Linux Grows Up

[Stephen Jenkin]

Guys & Gals,

I'm very sorry about that Linux article.
It seemed pausible when I scanned through it ;-)

Thanks to Matt for reading the quotes & commenting.
Lots of this output is for 'suits' who think _silicon_ is new, programs
radical and Linux incredibly new, untired, unproven and a real risk (to
their jobs & credibility mostly).

The use of 'Unix' in the article is loose and seemingly covers _any_
version - so it could be SCO or AIX, or ...

After posting the link, I was reading the full article and came across a
real clanger:
"This pattern is not a unique one. Unix flavors, such as VMS and MVS, also
conquered scaling out before scaling up and cut their teeth in the
financial services community, Eunice said."

This Johnathon Eunice from 'Illuminati' has demonstrated a complete lack
of knowledge of O/S'es...

Well maybe this is an object lesson in the level of competence of
'industry oracles' and the press... [And I should be a little less
trusting]

Again, sorry for the noise, but maybe it is some amusement.
Shaking in head in awe at the ignorance,
stevej

Steve Jenkin, Unix Sys Admin
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Matthew Hawkins wrote:

> 
> Steve Jenkin said:
> > Linux's suitability for the enterprise is no longer in question, and
> 
> It ever was?  Oh yes, of course, FUD.  I'd forgotten all about FUD -
> having initially treated it with the respect it deserved.
> 
> > companies need to begin seriously considering how they can best utilize
> > the technology.
> 
> Hmm, that's so last millennium.  Anyone only now beginning to seriously
> consider Linux is obviously madly rowing a dinghy, possibly with
> underlings bailing madly, with a lookout searching for the main ship which
> left the shore long ago.
> 
> > Despite its pervasiveness, Linux does not meet every
> > need but performs well under certain conditions: Unix still scales up
> > much farther than does Linux, offering scalability up to 256 processors,
> 
> *blinks* SCO's SMP support is now better than Linux'?  There's some
> conspiracy going on here...
> 
> > compared to the 32-way capability on the way in the Linux 2.6 kernel.
> 
> I've seen boot logs of 2.4 running on systems with more processors than
> this (forget whether it was UltraSPARC or something else).  And obviously,
> they're not going near Beowulf because its no sense letting the facts
> spoil a good story ;)
> 
> > The Linux market has also matured so that the number of major players
> > involved has boiled down to Red Hat and Suse Linux.
> 
> Just ask them ;)
> 
> We'll conveniently ignore Debian.  And Mandrake.  And Gentoo.  And
> Smoothwall.  And LFS.  And LBT.  And...
> 
> > Illuminata President
> 
> ...AHA!  I knew there was a conspiracy somewhere!
> 
> > Jonathan Eunice says the Suse distribution is more technically oriented
> > while Red Hat's Linux caters more to business needs.
> 
> Strange, since anyone who actually has run these knows that Redhat caters
> more to converted MS Windows end users or masochists, and SuSE to
> disgruntled Redhat users who actually need a legacy RPM-based system that
> works.
> 
> People who need work done run Debian, script kiddies run Mandrake, strange
> people run Gentoo, almost everyone runs Smoothwall & keeps a LBT handy,
> ... ;-)
> (hey, if the article can be opinionated, so can I)
> 
> > Hewlett-Packard Linux
> > strategist Mike Balma says Linux will likely take over the Web and
> > high-performance computing spaces
> 
> Ooooh!  Somebody found netcraft and spec.org and thought that the presence
> of Linux systems there was something new this year!
> ObUnderpantsGnomes:
> 
> 1. read stuff about Linux
> 2. ??? (write article??)
> 3. profit
> 
> > , and continue to grow in network infrastructure, [...]
> 
> blah blah blah blah
> 
> No wonder some managers still have problems if they have to wade through
> this cruft, with staff like me able to contradict the presented
> information.
> 
> -- 
> Matt
>