On Jun 5, 6:56 pm, Mark Kent <mark.k...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Rex Ballard <rex.ball...@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> > Actually, The "year of Linux" was 1999,
> > when the DOJ was prosecuting
> > Microsoft for Antitrust, Microsoft was
> > trying to squeeze more money
> > out of OEMs and Corporate Customers,
> > and IBM officially "blessed"
> > Linux as a supported Operating System.
>
> I think you're right, at least in terms of Linux getting corporate
> mind-share. I think we've seen several tipping points in different
> markets since then.
> 1999 was where major corporates started to tip.
Actually, Corporate executives began to tip in 1997. In a survey
conducted in 1996, no CIOs knew of any Linux servers, and the
following year 17% discovered that their companies were using Linux
for a number of functions ranging from e-mail and file sharing to
internal web sites and CVS repositories.
The big shift really began when attempts to use Windows NT 4.0 for
server projects that had previously been done by Unix were ending up
300% late and 500% over budget. Worse, IT managers were finding that
it often took 6-8 NT servers to do the work previously done by a
single Sun 4 processor server. Suddenly they had this PC hardware
that was available because the NT 4.0 projects had been scrapped or
scaled down. The result was that projects that might have been done
on Unix were being done on Scuttled NT servers that had been converted
to Linux.
To get the maximum "bang for the buck" from expensive NT licenses and
Client Access Licenses, the CIOs would order the newest and fastest
machines with NT server, transfer the CALs to the new machine, and put
the old machine into the "Linux pool".
Successful Linux projects that were outgrowing their servers were then
migrated to AIX, Solaris, or HP_UX, all of which offered source code
compatibility with Linux through the GNU compilers and libraries.
> > Since then, Linux has taken more and
> > more server market share, Linux
> > "appliances" have become ubiquitious,
> > Linux powered consumer devices
> > including HDTV, SDTV, and DVRs as
> > well as many HD DVD players been
> > powered by Linux or embedded Unix.
The list belowt is great.
We also forget so much of the infrastructure that was seeded by Linux
as well. Microsoft adopted (and tried to corrupt) many of these
standards, but often unsuccessfully.
> Things which go down as seminal steps include:
>
> Open/FreeBSD
> FSF/GNU (gcc, bash, libc, etc. etc.)
> Linux
> nfs,nis
> Apache
> Slack
> Debian
> Red Hat
> SuSE
> mysql
> perl
> python
> LAMP
> Samba
> LVM, RAID
> Cygnus/cygwin
> Gnome & KDE
> knoppix
> Fedora
> Eclipse
> Wine
> Firefox
> OpenOffice
> Evolution
> Xorg
> GamePark GP32/GP2x
> Nokia N770/N800/N810
> OSDL
> Motorola phones (A780 etc.)
> Sony PS3
> Excito Bubba
> Ubuntu
> Mythtv
> JBOSS
> Moodle
> ODF
> Compiz
> Virtualisation
> OLPC
> LiMo
> OpenMoko
> Asus Eee
> Elonex
> Android
> Linux foundation
Don't forget that Instant Messaging, collaboration, and other
interaction tools were originally created for Linux and Unix.
As usual, Microsoft tried to adapt by adopting and then corrupting,
these standards. Often, these corruptions also resulted in more
errors and security vulnerabilites.
> Desktop recovery seemed previously
> to be mostly around a "reinstall"
> viewpoint.
One of the biggest expenses for most corporations is the reinstall of
a corrupted Windows system. The cost, in terms of lost time, lost
work, installer time, reconfiguring and reinstalling 3rd party
applications, and other "personal" settings can be significant. With
more people using laptops, and not being tethered to an office, it's
not an option to leave all files on the corporate network, which means
that even more can be lost. If the corrupted desktop user was on the
critical path of a project (often the case), or the time is critical
(also often the case), then the expenses can be multiplied ten-fold or
even a hundred-fold.
Desktop virtualization, coupled with USB drives, provides a very
effective method of getting an environment that can be recovered in a
matter of minutes rather than several staff-days.
> Linux doesn't suffer from
> this problem, so I suspect that
> we'll see the end of the reinstall
> as the "fix-all" approach.
This is why more companies are looking at Linux as the hosting
operating system for Windows VMWare guests.
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