[Sussex] Evesham

[Geoff Teale]

Dominic wrote:
--------------
>I consider myself reasonably educated...

...and indeed you are.  But you are amongst a minority when it comes to
computers.

>Currently I would *demand* an MS OS on a machine I bought for home use as I
>have yet to be convinced that I can get the speed of use (read 'ease of
>access to lazy features'), compatability and 'hard day at work today' type
>simplicity that I demand from my home system.  I do not care if it can't
run
>as a cluster, I do not want reliability.  I couldn't give a bugger about
>security, My checkbook is in the drawer!  
>What I want, is somethin pretty, What I want is wizards, What I want are
>messages in bubbles and loads of games that install themselves for me when
I
>wiggle my mouse at them at them.

I'm a firm believer in what you're saying. Back in the 80's and early 90's
we all had Amiga's at home and they provided the perfect tool for such a
job.  Windows is a half way house in ever major respect for what you're
talking about.  I don't think I can name one role for a computer in which
Windows is the optimum choice - there are piecs of software that run on
Windows that fall into this category, but not the platform itself.  THe
success of Windows has been in it's adaptability (utlimatly people are
happier using one thing to do everything).  People use it because they can
open the spreadsheet they use at work as well as playing the odd game and
surfing the web - not because it does any of those things particularly well.
Bear in mind that for the last ten years Microsoft have been defining your
expectations - they shape the market to fit their agenda.  

>Don't get me wrong, I want to be able to get under the surface of a web
>server too.  I want a system that I can tinker with, alter, rebuild the
>underlying kernel (one day :} ).  But that is what sets us *apart* from the
>standard user.  It is not what makes us the same.

T'is true...

>AND I can't play Dark age of Camelot on Linux!!!!

Catch 22 - if everyone used LINUX then the games would be there, but you
need the games to get people to come over.  Luckily if your desktop machine
at work was to become a LINUX box you might consider using it at home for
work, and then you'd like some games for it...  

In terms of the home market we're where Microsoft was in the early 1990's,
give it a couple of years: desktop LINUX is alreay having an impact and the
pace of improvement is phenomenal.

>Unfortunately a huge proportion of the IT support staff now have grown up
>with a GUI environment on their servers.  We all know how many cowboys are
>in our industry.  They want the same ease of use from their servers that
>they have from their desktop.  It is that simple (IMHO).  Ease of use wins
>out.  Ease of learning the system rules the *real* world.

Be careful with that *real* world phrase.  Companies with managers who never
consider anything other than Microsoft products often cite the "real world"
arguement.  Just be sure that the number of UNIX and LINUX based servers out
there is significant and has been around for longer than the NT base.
Microsoft's server business is not profitable (and hasn't been since the
late '90's) and the figures show a decline in NT and 2000 usage compared to
massive growth in LINUX servers.  

You have to question some things about the NT-age.  Prior to NT offices used
to run comparitively few servers - now they need a box for each distinct
task (because only a fool trys to run multiple servers on one NT box!) -
that's bumped the usage stats up a bit.  UNIX users only really follow that
route when they need out and out performance - traditionally the approach is
buy one big UNIX machine and get it to do everything.  IN the emergent LINUX
market you see both strategies.

Moreover there is a question of how important all those dinky little NT
boxes are. If every NT/2000 server in the world went down tomorrow it'd hurt
- mainly it would have a negative effect on productivity in offices all over
the westernised world, the occasional web site would go down, a lot of
companies would lose e-mail.  

If every UNIX (or UNIX like) system in the world went down tomorrow - well..
bye bye internet (it was nice whilst it lasted), bye bye stock exchanges
(triggering massive, world wide economic collapse), bye bye inter-bank
trading systems (which almost all demand Solaris for some odd reason), bye
bye national grid, bye bye power generation across the world, bye-bye to
large amounts of military infrastructure, bye bye to the tills (EPOS) and
stock control systems in most supermarkets, etc..  bye bye to around 40% of
database servers in the world (the majority of the others are on Mainframes
and a small percentage on windows), bye bye to almost every embedded device
(yup, that's your Microwave, your Video recorder, the phone on your desk,
all you lovelly routers and firewalls, factory control systems, your flashy
camera, your video camera).

>For discussion....
>
>Dominic

It's one of the eternal discussions of the LINUX community.

-- 
GJT
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk




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