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Unix: Which One to Choose?
Posted by
HeUnique
on Fri Mar 17, 2000 12:23 PM
from the very-interesting-question dept.
from the very-interesting-question dept.
I just found this story on Sm@rt Reseller which talks about which Unix (or Linux) they're suggesting to use for various uses (web, applications, etc..) - Its a very long article, and it talks also about the Windows 2000. Worth a read IMHO.
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Unix: Which One to Choose?
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Balance in an article! (Score:3)
Once people, especially in the Open Source community, realize "one OS everywhere" is bad regardless of which OS it is we will make some real progress toward truly great computing systems. Our emphasis should be on interoperability and using the right tool for the right job -- articles like this are extremely valuable tools in this way.
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Re:My recommendations for UNIXen (Score:3)
Steven, Editor at Large, Sm@rt Reseller
Wait a minute.. (Score:3)
We had a good laugh at such a completely stupid and meaningless statement, and then went back to work.
What the HELL is 'linux compatibility' supposed to mean? Linux hasn't unified anything, and I'm damned sure that the real (read as commercial) unix vendors aren't going out of their way to make their OS's linux compatible in any more than a marketing sense.
For instance, how many commercial unices include term type 'linux' in their termcap database? How many use
All of these programs exist on most unices, and they certainly don't behave in the way the GNU versions do. This is incompatibility, and for someone who write system software across a buttload of unices every day (DYNIX/ptx, solaris, AIX, and linux), these things all suck.
A handful have started porting some utilities or subsystems to linux, but the truth is that unix is based, loosely, on standards, and that linux adheres, loosely, to those standards.
It's a stupid article that makes a lot of false assertions written for people who won't ever know the difference.
Enjoy.
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blue, bleeding karma from the eyeballs and loving it.
Re:I like reading articles like this.. (Score:3)
Re:Where (if anywhere) to get Xenix? (Score:3)
That's not the trick. The trick is retarding your computer so that it will run. Race conditions render Xenix unstable past 486/75. I can't laugh too hard, though...it runs on a 286!
SMP Support (Score:3)
Re:some ignorant leads. (Score:3)
A) No-one uses Solaris for multimedia.
B) Solaris 8 is pretty fast, but for single proc. performance it is still slower than FreeBSD.
C) Even the x86 version is really fast for dual procs.
D) The sound system isn't anything special. Its straight OSS.
E) They do have some media apps, especially speech recognition and multimedia authoring.
F) Doesn't really support graphics cards that well. (In SunX)
So I guess Solaris is out. Anyone know if IRIX is coming to x86?
Moderation of non-linux topics WAS Re:FreeBSD (Score:3)
Think of it this way: At school, you got your best grades when your answer fit what the teacher wanted. And here at
I don't see it as humorous, just hypocritcal. And a very human response.
Re:linux and unix--same thing! (Score:3)
Linux doesn't inherit the 25 years of UNIX history. Other UNIXes are either SVR chidlren or BSD children. Linux "does its own thing" in a couple of key areas.
The linux IP stack was home grown. Note the plethora of of DOS attacks on linux's stack. These basically did not affect any other UNIX more often than not. Traditionally there have also been scalability/reliability concerns amongst ircd operators for instance, where last I heard freeBSD was the platform of choice.
The VFS/vnode layer in linux is quite different from the 4.4BSD implementation (or the SVR4 one for that matter). For more information, consider reading the websites/papers on GFS (the Global Filesystem at University of Minnesota). To paraphrase, the linux VFS layer is very local-file-system oriented, thus making it tricky to implement distributed/remote file-systems.
UNIX has been a moving target for years and years. Most modern unix deriviates are just that -- branches of the original. Linux is different. It does not contain any code retaining any of the original UNIX licenses. It was developed to work similarly to UNIX, and in many ways it does and sometimes can even work better. But it is not derived from the original codebase, nor from any of the subsequent branches. This has its good and bad points. Two "bad points" are mentioned above. The good points of starting with a clean slate (as far as implementation goes - functionality must be mimicked) are obvious to anyone doing software development.
Top 5 Distros... (Score:3)
Inconsistencies (Score:3)
Secondly, I found conflicting bias regarding Linux vs. FreeBSD. While they did recommend FreeBSD for web services, they made BSD sound like it was on its death bed. There was no mention of the BSDIFreeBSD merger, nor was there mention of the whole slew of companies embedding FreeBSD in Thin Servers/Server appliances. They cited a lack of development tools, but lets be honest here. I honestly dont think that Delphi for FreeBSD will help, as FreeBSD is primarily a server platform, not a desktop platform. GCC Anyone?
I don't know. I had a bad taste in my mouth when I read that article. It sounded like it was written by someone who based the article on the advice on others, and not experience.
the positive reporting of Linux is a good thing, but at what cost?
Jailbrekr.
I like reading articles like this.. (Score:4)
A while ago, Unix==Big Iron hardware. Today, Unix can equal a 486/33. The only 'Big Iron' I'm gonna need is the hardware it'll take to make W2K fly.
I also smiled when he said 'Unix will have more software, enjoy it while it lasts.' All in response to the incompatibilities between MS'es own new OS and their own software.
On the flip side, Linux wasn't without growing pains. The lurch from libc5 to glibc wasn't too pretty a while back, but nothing was really stopping you from installing compatibility libraries. Even going 2.0 -> 2.2 was amazingly compatible. In Debian slink, I think there was about a half a dozen packages, out of thousands, that needed upgrading with the kernel.
It's amazing just how badly MS is handling the growth of Unix. You think they'd borrow a page from the Book of Good OS'es.. But instead they go on doing their thing. Scalability? Portability? Unheard of. POSIX seems to be the future of OS'es.. Who'da thunk it?
Re:I like reading articles like this.. (Score:4)
But we all know that Windows NT is "posix compliant", right?
(I can here the gails of laughter already. Has anyone actually gotten any of that to work?)
Re:SMP Support (Score:4)
Note that they're comparing W2K to 2.2 kernels for greater than 3 processors. They're quite positive on 2.4 being likely to beat out W2K on SMP scaling, and they even make a point of not benchmarking because of how much 2.4 will change the numbers. In fact they largely damn W2K with faint praise as far as its SMP "advantage" goes. No insinuation that Linux can't do SMP, just a belief that it's temporarily behind W2K for >3-way SMP and a statement about that changing soon. No need to get defensive.
My recommendations for UNIXen (Score:5)
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a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
Re:SMP Support (Score:5)
As for SMP in general, if I had to have heavy-duty SMP Right Now on Unix. I wouldn't use Linux or Intel. Solaris on SPARC and AIX on PowerPC is where you can really hit the gas with Unix and multiple processors. I haven't tested AIX recently, but Solaris eats NT's, and everyone elses, lunch.
Steven, Editor at Large, Sm@rt Reseller
Linux-like operating systems (Score:5)
Linux/Unix is the same thing. To most people, Linux and Unix are synonymous because they have the same architectural structure, same POSIX libraries, same POSIX tools, etc. Does it run X? Does it run vi? Do you have a command shell somewhere that takes lots of cryptic commands? Then it's Unix.
Even the vast majority of developers will not see a significant difference in the way they develop code for a Linux vs. "Unix" system. A few files are in a different place, a few commands have "odd" flags, but overall it's about as much difference as between Dallas and New York, vs.
New York and New Dehli. With the common use of GNU tools, there's much less perceived difference between Linux and *BSD than Solaris and HP/UX (or AIX!)
But in the same way that many French Canadians can't forgive the British Canadian majority for a defeat hundreds of years ago (going as far as putting "I Remember!" on their the car license plates) we have a few tormented souls who want to make sure that we never, ever, forget the fact that the Linux source tree can't list three pages of "begats" that lead back to King Davi... sorry, back to the original AT&T source.
Is there a real difference? Yes, but the number of people who actually have to worry about them will probably fit into a small room. For the rest of us, the only real difference is a group that's coming across as increasingly bitter that they have finally achieved the Holy Grail of "Unix" Integration only as they band together to fight the Linux intruder... and they *really* hate to be told that this constant "Linux isn't Unix, nah nah nah" harping is exactly the childish mindset that lead to Unix fragmentation in the first place. This is how they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory a decade ago, and many of us really don't want to see a repeat of it.
I know one of the defining characteristics of geeks is great precision in speech, but it's time for everyone to remember the big picture. We're in the game show of life and one side has the MS family (daddy W2K, Mom Win98, insane child WinCE) and the other side has the Unix family (daddy AT&T, brother *BSD and adopted brother Linux), and it only helps MS when the Unix family's first response to a question is to whip out a gun and commit fraticide.
Balanced and well written (Score:5)
Which Flame War do you want to get today? (Score:5)
After testing extensively the different brands of flamewars available on the market, our SmashDot(tm) test center has decided to extensively analyze the performance of the following flame wars on geeks, nerds and system administrators. The results are as follow:
Of course, your mileage may vary. Honorable mentions include newbie questions, news for nerds that were posted before, the classic "Emacs vs vi" flame burst (unfortunately losing steam these days) and the "This does not belong on Slashdot!" flame war, which may well be a strong contender as long as
Since we certainly want the best, hottest and brightest flame wars for our own site, we'll stick with the tried-and-proven favourite: the Jon Katz flame war.
Jon Katz -- a good roasting guaranteed every time! Get yours today!
Another public-service testing from the SmashDot(tm) team!
FreeBSD (Score:5)
FreeBSD is a OpenSource OS with a licence that promotes the software to be used ANYWHERE, is stable and robust, and has a strong UNIX(tm) tradition.
Oh, and it can run Linux binaries, SCO binaries, Xenix binaries, and I've gotten mine to run Solaris X86 and Rhapsody DR1 binaries, with some tweaking.
(And on a more humorous note: Linux script kiddies come knocking but don't get in. It takes a BSD script kiddie to get in