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Friday,
March 3, 2000 It probably comes as
no surprise that I got a lot of mail on this. There is a long exchange
between Roland and Aime Watts that I'll post shortly also.
RE: What is Linux good for?
Jerry,
Aime Watts asked in your mail column what is Linux
good for. Linux has many uses, but I think I found one application that
would be impossible without Linux and open source. At least it's different
from the usual answers "it's good as a network server" and
"why, it's good for everything!!"
http://slashdot.org/features/00/03/03/033231.shtml
is the story of one school (Beacon) that teaches
high school kids about computers in a special way, and they don't have the
resources to do it with commercial products.
A quote from the site:
"Using Linux and Open Source software as the
infrastructure, Beacon is blazing a new trail in American education. By
using free tools and expanding on their functions, Beacon does a lot for a
little, and the real winners are the students."
Do bear in mind that slashdot.org is a site that
advocates the use of Linux and open source.
-- Miguel Bazdresch
Watts raises some very good points, which I
shall attempt to address below:
1. Yes, there is something of a blatant, blindly
anti-Microsoft tilt from a lot of people in the *NIX world, especially
amongst Linux users. It's been my experience that this is generally the
product of either a) ignorance, b) general contrariness, or c) a
conflation of the two. There are some things which Microsoft do very well;
for example, Outlook+Exchange is simply the best all-around messaging and
workflow platform around. Office is pretty cool, too. And Windows in its
various permutations is not a bad OS for people who just wish to -use-
their computers, and are willing to sacrifice some flexibility in return
for stability.
I'm not saying this disdainfully, bear in mind. It's
a valid tradeoff.
2. *NIX in general is useful for a variety of
things. If you're willing to learn how to tinker with and maintain your
system, and you're something of an hobbyist, it's certainly a very
flexible workstation platform. I run Red Hat Linux on my desktop using a
gorgeous user interface - and there are many to choose from, this
customization of the look-and-feel of the machine is one of the many nice
points about *NIX in general - called WindowMaker, available from
www.windowmaker.org . I can play streaming .mp3s using XMMS (www.xmms.org),
kill some of my colleagues off with Quake 3, and *do all that whilst
merrily downloading huge files in the background and running a
packetsniffer on my machine*. Try doing that on a Windows box of any
flavor imaginable - you just can't get all those things to work together
due to the fact that the Microsoft OS takes up so much memory and
processor utilization in order to achieve the aforementioned stability.
3. *NIXes are great as server platforms for Web
sites, databases, and things of this nature. They're also very good
network-management platforms. At my firm, we run both Oracle and MySQL (a
free RDBMS available from www.mysql.org) in order to accomplish all sorts
of complex tasks, and it's far superior for that sort of thing than any
current or anticipated Microsoft OS. We run NT, as well, so that we can
take advantage of stability for our administrative staff and 'casual'
users, as well as get the benefits of Exchange. But our workhorses, our
bread-and-butter, are *NIX boxes.
4. Of all the *NIXes out there, Linux is the single
friendlest one for PCs and PC-related hardware, with FreeBSD generally
lagging about six months behind in driver availability, etc. I've yet to
feel myself limited in the hardware I use (the machine upon which I'm
typing this missive contains a SoundBlaster Live! Gamer Edition and a
WinFast GeForce 256 DDR graphics adaptor running at 1600 x 1200 on a
19" monitor). FreeBSD makes a bit of a tradeoff for stability at the
expense of flexibility in the *NIX world; Linux is more of a kernel
surrounded by modules and libraries, while FreeBSD is truly an OS, with
the time-delay in having new things available to it which comes with the
greater control exhibited over it by its developers.
5. *NIX is also inherently networking-friendly and
multi-user. My girlfriend uses my home machine to browse the Web, chat on
IRC, use Licq (a great open-source ICQ client), etc. And you know what?
Although I'm here at work, I ssh into my home machine and run my IRC
client and -my- Licq off the same box, -while she's using it, too-, merely
exporting my X-Windows displays to my box here. The entire session is
3DES-encrypted, and I don't have to worry about my application config
files and all that - they're accessible from anyplace with decent
bandwidth.
6. Decent productivity software is beginning to
become available for Linux, too. I use WordPerfect to do nice-looking
documents; of course, when I need access to Microsoft apps such as Word,
Excel, and so on, I can either reboot into Win2K, or I can run them under
VMWare (www.vmware.com) which gives me the ability to -boot Win2K
underneath Linux_. When I'm doing Visio diagrams, I have to boot into
Win2K by itself, but other than that, VMWare lets me do all the Windows
things I need to do, except for playing Windows-only games. Though this is
changing - witness Quake 3, and now Parsec (www.parsec.org).
7. *NIX really is a technical philosophy. It's for
some people, and not for others. If people in the *NIX world keep trying
to make it 'just as easy to use as Windows', I worry that they'll end up
re-inventing Windows, with all its bloat. That isn't to say that efforts
shouldn't be made to make *NIX easier for the average user, but that they
should be made with care, lest the freedom and flexibility afforded by
*NIX is swept away by feeping creaturism.
So, if you need to serve heavily-trafficked Web
sites, host big databases, manage your network infrastructure, or build an
inexpensive router or firewall, *NIX in general, and perhaps Linux in
particular (I should point out that I run big databases and heavily-laden
Web servers on Sun hardware &; OSes) may be right for you.
But, unless you're a tinkerer, there's no reason to
feel pressured to go this route. I find it unfortunate that so many people
in the *NIX world, and especially the Linux sector, are so virulently
anti-Microsoft, and pressure -everyone- to run their particular choice of
OS. Just like a new car or a suit of clothes, you should pick what makes
sense for -you-, and if that happens to be a Microsoft OS, more power to
you.
For myself, being an old *NIX user (20 years, now),
Linux comes naturally to me and fits my needs. For the majority of the
work I do, it suits admirably. When I need to run Microsoft-dependent
applications, I use the tool best suited for those things - i.e., some
flavor of Windows.
And I pray daily for a Linux version of Microsoft's
Internet Explorer; it's simply the best Web browser around. I use it on
Solaris, and it's fabulous, just as good as it is on Windows.
My personal computing philosophy is aptly, if
tritely, summed up by the following epigram:
If one's only tool is a hammer, pretty soon, all
one's problems tend to start looking like nails.
The corollary to that is that if all you need to do
is drive nails, and drive them well, then by all means don't go for the
chainsaw.
Heh.
Roland Dobbins < mordant@gothik.org
>
AND A REPLY:
Sir,
Well said and well put; all except for the initial
summation where you include using Linux to "build an inexpensive
router or firewall." An entire PC with all that it entails (MB, MEM,
HDD, FDD, KKYBD, Monitor, etc.) is not an inexpensive router/firewall
these days. I have four PC's (all running windows 9x,) a 10/100 5 port
switch (Linksys ~$100,) a dual bandwidth router (Hawking Technology PN8228
(`$96,)) and a US Robotics Modem (56K - v90); everybody's talking to
everybody and the web. I'm only using one port of the router input, that's
true but still, the hardware is so much cheaper and easier to maintain
than any *nix system.
You certainly did answer my question about what
Linux is good for but I still feel that those answers are not enough to
keep it alive for the foreseeable future unless you can sell those strong
points to businesses at large. Even though it is better for those purposes
(and I concede it is) people still won't buy it over the known and
popular; that which the IT infrastructure is in place for and growing to
deal with; and much more diverse: Windows! (I'll also concede that Batamax
was (is) better than VHS - but there you go, cheaper and easier and good
enough for everybody!)
Shall we make a gentleman's bet? I predict that
Linux will continue to be in the realm of hobbyist and for those who are
willing to tinker and maintain their own machines; and, nowhere near the
point where it is a commercially viable alternative to Microsoft. (The
Ross Perot of the computer world.)
I'd like to add here that I have built, tinkered
with and maintained all of my computers and still think that all the
software available to run on the Microsoft platform, for games, kids,
education, productivity, entertainment, etc. is the reason I'm not off in
the wild blue 'wonder' raging against the machine. After all, without
Microsoft where would we be and to whom would we rage?
It's been fun,
Aime Watts aimew@sprintmail.com (Hm) awatts@ersi.com
(Wk) 603 598-8509 (Hm) 978 264-2812 (Wk) 603 674-3892 (Cell)
Protect privacy, boycott Pentium III: http://www.bigbrotherinside.org
PS: I just bought a high speed router/switch for my
upcoming DSL connection. Linksys model #BEFSR41 - check it out.
I suppose it depends upon what you want in a router,
whether or not you consider a low-end (circa $400) PC to be too expensive.
My business is building network infrastructures and then securing them,
and I find that lower-end "off-brand" purpose-build routers
(i.e., non-Cisco or -Bay/Nortel) tend to have lots of shortcomings, not
the least of which is security. Another is protocol support.
For example, I currently have T1-speed DSL at my
home, provided by my local telco. I work for an ISP which has an aggregate
connectivity of OC-12, and of course I've total control over the internal
network infrastructure as well as DNS, etc. So, I want my home network to
be an extension of my office network. How does one accomplish this?
In my case, I have a minimally-configured Linux box
acting as a 'tunneling router' using GRE. I simply 'tunnel' my IP traffic
through the telco's network into a Cisco router sitting on my network, and
then the traffic emanates from my multihomed connection. All the IP
addresses and DNS mappings at home are therefore under my complete
control. Can you do something like that with your $96 router?
The answer, for the present, is a resounding
"No." It will certainly become possible, as hardware prices
continue to drop; same for firewalls/proxies.
Linux, and *NIX in general, are certainly not
flashes in the pan. *NIX is really just now coming into its own, and will
continue to be the OS of choice for high-end Web servers, database
servers, and so on. It will also continue to be the desktop OS of choice
for those of us who prefer its freedom and flexibility, and who also must
administer the aforementioned *NIX servers.
Microsoft OSes will continue to be the general
consumer choice, for good reason. Do I think that Linux will ever supplant
Windows on the desktop? Of course not. Do I think that Linux will continue
to grow in acceptance and 'general' use? Absolutely. If you're interested
in learning how your computer really works, there's no substitute for a
good *NIX, which lets you get under the hood and into the innards of how
the machine does what it does, as opposed to the 'black-box' functionality
offered by -any- proprietary OS.
And if you're a developer, there's simply no
comparison between *NIX and Microsoft OSes. Yes, Microsoft have rich
proprietary APIs, but since you can't see the underlying code, you are
constantly having to guess and deduce how to get your work done. There are
plenty of 'Windows Secrets'-type books out there, and there are none for
the *NIX world. You know why? Because -there are no secrets- in the *NIX
world, unless you're running some proprietary nonsense like InterShop.
Even with proprietary tools, the openness and flexibility of the OS itself
makes for a much more robust development environment.
Games are an area where *NIX in general certainly
falls behind. This is slowly changing, but in the meantime, I'll certainly
keep a Microsoft OS installed on one or more of my machines for gaming.
I'll also want to be able to use specialized applications such as Visio,
which simply aren't available - nor will be available in the foreseeable
future - on *NIX.
Do I wish they were available for *NIX? Of course.
Am I unduly inconvenienced by the fact that they're not? Not really. I
have plenty of hardware at my disposal, so I can simply install whatever
OS I need for the task at hand on a box I designate for that purpose.
If you want to talk about keeping Linux alive, all
you have to think about is the market of IT professionals such as myself.
We've kept *NIX going for 30 years; Linux brings in a whole new class of
people to keep that momentum going, you see. All the trends for *NIX in
general, and Linux in particular, are up, up, up - why else are IBM now
actively marketing Linux solutions on their servers and mainframes (!)
even at the expense of their own branded *NIX, called AIX?
So, as Dr. Pournelle points out, you don't want to
put Linux on Aunt Minnie's desktop just yet. And maybe never. I really
don't care about what OS Aunt Minnie runs, as long as she can accomplish
her goals. She shouldn't care about what OS I run, as long as I can
accomplish my goals. If she's interested in learning about Linux, I'll be
happy to help her; if she isn't, I'm certainly not going to proselytize
her.
Linux isn't a religion, with me. And I'm sorry to
say that it is, with some others. By the same token, fanatics -do- tend to
get things done; after all, they're well-motivated.
The VHS/Betamax analogy isn't really applicable,
here. I'm thinking more in terms of SVHS &; DVDs. With Microsoft OSes
tending to be the SVHS - solid, reliable, a stable performer, and Linux
being the DVD-ROM - new, exotic, powerful, somewhat problematic, but
ultimately offering greater choice of content, viewing modes, etc.
The terms of your proposed bet are framed
incorrectly, in my opinion, as is pretty much the general Microsoft vs.
*NIX debate at large. I help run an 8-figure-per-year business off, among
other things, Linux. And NT. And Windows 98. And Windows 2000. Linux is a
key player in my firm's technological infrastructure, and I see its role
within my organization only growing.
And, as a final point for your consideration,
businesses and governmental entities for whom I consult buy whatever I
recommend that they buy. They do so because I've a proven track-record in
my particular field of endeavor, and they pay top dollar ($180 -
$275/hour, depending upon what I'm doing for them) for my expertise. In
some cases Microsoft OSes and applications are the right choice; in
others, *NIX-based solutions, including Linux.
I always recommend what is best for my clients,
rather than by some private sense of technological theological orthodoxy.
I thank you for taking the time to discuss these
matters with me. And, upon reflection, I certainly hope that you aren't
left with the impression that all of us Linux-types are bent upon 'raging
against the machine'! We are in complete agreement that Microsoft have
been an important, in fact the single most important, force for making
PC-type technology affordable and available, and that is certainly a Good
Thing.
Roland Dobbins
Discussion continues.
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