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Technology Stocks : LINUX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Charters who wrote (860)	1/16/1999 10:58:00 PM
From: JC Jaros	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 2617

The other spots that it is needed is in set-it and forget-it machines that need to be remote manipulated and monitored on server locations and networking solutions. This is the whole point. Linux (Unix) isn't seeking to displace MS Windows with a similar context. I believe the ongoing Wintel desktop PC hoax is over, and that we are now in the 'post Microsoft' epoch. You may be underestimating the 'other spots' demand curve. The reality of the "home user PC" is that the promise of the MS GUI insulating the user from the machine complexities and administration tasks was bullshit. New Windows PC users and experienced Windows PC users alike, can relate to that. Here comes the bandwidth: PC users are going to fork from here into a) network users and b) system adminstrators. The network users will be 'upgrading' to and (in a much larger way) making initial entry with, (multiple) thin clients. Administration, for the most part, will take place on the servers, just like (if not AT) the phone company. Linux (and other PC Unices) are an excellent, reality based use for all of these legacy PCs. In addition to giving the hobbyist PC owner a more meaningful and practical experience, it avails infinitely greater control over the user environment (which is after all, the whole PC precept). It's fascinating to me how willing so many PC owners are to mount the rather steep learning curve of Linux. That's a good thing because the tremendous demand for Unix SysAdmins otherwise completely outstrips supply. That demand cannot be understated. A secondary school student with a Linux box to admin at home, ends up with a rather good paying trade to fall back on, in the event that he ends up stalling out on first year junior college english.<g> What pervades: A few months ago, my mother-in-law felt the need, at the behest of a more up-to-date ladyfriend, to upgrade her 75mhz Gateway Pentium PC running Win 3.11 and AOL, to a 350mhz Micron PII monster running Windows 95, and AOL. The old (out of date) M$ PC was rotated out incidentally to my 15 yr old step son as a RTFM (and turn down the Metallica!) Linux workstation. Micron offers the consumer choice of Win95 OSR2 in place of Win98. I figured it'd be more stable. That's important because she lives in a different town (far far away). To date, it has been extremely problematic. Her friend attempting to resolve a serial device conflict, erased the modem from Windows altogether, and the machine is offline until I can get up to restore the modem in person. My mother-in-law is an extremely non-technically minded (average) user. "I just want my AOL working again", she laments. This is where it really gets nutty. With the AOL/Netscape/Sun deal came a proclamation from AOL that they would be porting the AOL client over to Solaris 7. I already have Partition Magic at the ready. As soon as AOL for x86 Solaris is released, I'll be configuring her machine to boot Solaris by default. It just makes sense. In addition to being stable and availing remote admin, she'll have Sun's JVM. GUI programs needs great simplification manoeuvres. A return to client server central OS control of the windowing system would put an imprint on the control structure that would prevent X-OS crashes and conflicts that exist now and open up fast program development. This would make Linux a dominant force. "Central OS control of the windowing system" is a quaint notion that got lost somewhere between Geoworks and The Blue Screen of Death. There is no such thing as an "X-OS" crash. X crashes (amazingly infrequent, considering), and when it does, the underlying OS is still happening. It's one of the basic tenents of Unix philosophy (the title of an excellent book btw, by Mike Gancarz, Digital Press ~150pages). I found the book to be quite enlightening. From Unix Philosophy: The primary tenents of Unix philosophy. 1- Small is Beautiful 2- Make each program do one thing well 3- Build a prototype as soon as possible 4- Choose portability over efficiency 5- Store numerical data in flat ascii files 6- Use software leverage to your advantage 7- Use shell scripts to increase leverage and portability 8- Avoid captive user interfaces 9- Make every program a filter Anyway, based on what's visible to me with the two divergent PC installations (step-son's workstation/ mother-in-law's 'functional thin client' dedicated AOL machine), the GUI in either case is increasingly less relevant to that which is the 'dominant force'. Having said that, I really admire your ambition and apparent abilities. I enjoy reading your posts here on the SI Linux thread, and your great humor. :) -JCJ