That's the right attitude ! I agree with most of your arguments to beat m$... Really, a Win32 API on Linux could be a *major* chance to really crush m$ on the commercial level, but it certainly is a _lot_ of work to implement all that stuff, although it certainly is possible... Linux is such a great system to work on: no bugs, no reboots, fast as light, the very powerful shell command line, ... ... ... But, in my opinion, a major argument against Linux (but is it really ?) is that the user (let's talk about administrators straightaway, because Linux is best as a server anyway) has to have a certain knowledge of the system (processes, users, filesystems, IPC, ...), which I think most of the "administrators" don't have (that's the only way I can explain the success of NT - just click, click over here and click, click over there: it _is_ easy and "intuitive", but if you want to set up your system *as you wish*, you notice that you just can't change anything, compared to Linux). I'm a student and I'm currently making my end-of-study work in the school (Oracle Designer/2000, NT :-( ), and I'm "teaching" Linux to some interested students in the evening... Some of them don't know anything about UNIX-like systems, so I had to start with 0... Well, that's the time where you see that, maybe, it isn't that easy to understand Linux ;-) but, hey, I said "administrator" ! Is it really asking too much to have administrators who are capable of setting up Linux ?? It really isn't *that* hard, once you understand some basic things... Am I right or am I right ? ;-) bye ! Pascal P.S.: If you want some help with SaMBa, I have some experience with it (and its troubleshooting ;-) and have already helped out some people with that on several mailinglists... ---snip, snip, snip---(not that it wasn't interesting, but it would get a little long ;-)
Steve,
I understand your point of view. You just don't want to have anything to
MS-Bill. I see a place in my paradigm where folks like you could be fully satisfied with the same base Linux running on your preferred platform, while those who wanted to emulate Win32 could add that functionality to their Linux x86 systems. I have been working as a sysadmin for five years now. I remember when NT was in beta. I have watched it become a dominant market player. One of
most effective selling points of NT/95 has been the ability to do everything that a Novell server or client could do, and then some. Microsoft has produced some decent products. (Word is not one of these, BTW. ) Right now they are crushing Netscape's browser development by dumping IE on the market. That yanks my chain big time! Part of the reason that MS can do this is because of their virtual stranglehold on the intel OS market. If they could not sell NT at $250 per workstation and 95 at $100 per workstation, if there were a Linux alternative to NT/95, MS would have to compete more equally in the marketplace when it comes to other software products.
Now consider what happens when Joe administrator sets up his Linux system to run MS-SQL server. If MS-SQL server works well and does everything a Unix
server can do, then Bill gets to keep the business. If, on the other hand, MS-SQL can't hang with another product, perhaps a freeware product, Bill looses
market share. People who transition to Linux because they can get it for much less, and can still use their MS investments, will then be free to move between Win32 based products and UNIX based products.
It is also likely that software producers would be more willing to compile software for other CPUs that don't run NT, but can handle Win32 calls
Linux. There would be no need to port the code to UNIX style calls. All of a sudden, people are using a Win32 API on a non-intel platform, and Bill isn't getting a cut either.
The Linx/UNIX user who doesn't want to participate in this simply doesn't load the Win32 emulator on his system. He uses pure Linux software, and keeps a clear conscience.
I guess what I am trying to say is that one of the best ways to break down
MS proprietary fortress is to emulate MS OSs. I truly believe that Linux/UNIX can "do that too".
Remember when people were saying that the reason MS-DOS was so successful was because it would run on open system architecture. IBM made a killing on
strategy for a while and then found that is had created its own major competition? Well, its about time there was an open systems operating system that could stand up to MS proprietary products.
Mathematica: I love it! I have not yet tried it on Linux. I have run it on DOS, 95, and NT. See: www.wri.com
NT = MS-UNIX? I would not say that. I am not as knowledgeable about the core UNIX architecture as I am of NT's architecture. There are some major differences at the user interface level that I can speak authoritatively about. First off, that stuff about POSIX compliance? I work in a Major DoD lab, and nobody talks about POSIX. UNIX products run on UNIX systems and Win32 products run on NT/95 systems. The NT/DOS scripting language doesn't hold a candle to UNIX shells. The registry makes basic system administration easier, but puts many restrictions on what you can do with a system. NT seems to me to be slower in every respect than UNIX. I also have far more problems with Dr. Watsons than I do with core dumps. As a workstation I have little trouble with NT other than the fact that it seems to take twice as long to load things as it does on Linux. I installed suse a week or so ago. At first I figured that it was going to be a clunky curiosity
do with the based SQL the through the this that I
would play with a bit here and there, while my real work would be done on NT. I haven't booted into NT in days except to retrieve files. I am thinking of buying a new system. Before I tried suse, I was debating between NT and Solaris x86. (which I do like, but has few applications which run on it.) Now I am almost sure that I will put suse on my new system. (if it will run on the dual Pentium II 333 Asus MB). I then want to set up Samba and network with my current NT system.
Steve
-- "Alles Vergaengliche Ist nur ein Gleichniss" -Goethe, as quoted in Ludwig Boltzmann's Vorlessungen ueber Gastheorie.
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