[Gllug] just a quick question

[Bruce Richardson]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 01:48:54AM +0000, Rich wrote:
> Nix <nix at esperi.org.uk> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, 13 Feb 2006, Dani Pardo mused:
> >>    A server without Perl is like a Solaris machine with sh. When I
> >>    install a new Solaris machine, the first thing I do is install
> >>    bash.
> >
> > /usr/xpg4/bin/ksh is the POSIX standard shell (in a really stupid
> > place).
> >
> > I'd agree that the antique Solaris /bin/sh is utterly worthless, though.
> 
> Are there *still* people who will pay for a computer with Solaris on?
> 
> I thought you could send it back as "not of merchantable fitness", on
> the grounds that Free Software was better than the * they ship with?

This is a friendly joke, yes?

Commercial Unices are often a shock to Linux users because the userspace
tools are crufty, the filesystem layout deeply eccentric and so on.
These are things that are buffed to a nice shine in the free *nix world,
because there are a lot of people using these OSen who are capable of
fixing and improving these things.  On the other hand, the commercial
systems have seriously impressive capabilities in the underlying kernel
and core systems, things with which Linux cannot yet compete because
only a small number of Linux users are up to the task and they don't
have a Sun or an IBM to focus them on the tasks.

At random, a few ways in which the commercial Unices outperform free
software:

	Resilience: Linux falls over under high load where most of the
	commercial products will just suck it up.

	Filesystem management: Linux LVM is very directly inspired by
	HP-UX LVM, for example, but the HP-UX version is still more
	robust and featureful.  Or look at IBM's GPFS, or Sun's ZFS.

	Complex features shipped as standard:  Want Kerberos 5 user
	management or filesystem ACLs?  Solaris has these ready to go
	and heavily integrated.

Or just look at basic TCP/IP networking, which on Linux is more than a
little eccentric.  And everybody knows (or should) that you are much
better off running your NFS server on a commercial Unix if you have the
capability.

This is why UNIX admins are paid well.  If their employer is willing to
pay for it, they can often deliver proven and robust solutions in a much
shorter time than similarly skilled Linux admins (who will spend a lot
of time selecting testing and re-compiling tools and even if they
produce something of similar functionality will have ended up with a
system that is highly specialised and unique and not widely tested).

Now, I like Linux in particular and Free Software in general, but I know
it still is not a match for commercial products in some important areas.

-- 
Bruce

Those who cast the votes decide nothing.  Those who count the
votes decide everything. -- Joseph Stalin
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