If You Use Linux Read This! - Maybe You Don't Know

[Jeff7181]

Except with Windows you pay twice, first upfront in the licensing fee and then second in the time you spend attempting to make it work. So Linux is still the better deal.

Didn't say it wasn't... just commenting on the validity of the "free" argument.

 

[Nothinman]

Didn't say it wasn't... just commenting on the validity of the "free" argument.

But the word free is still appropriate since the English language doesn't have a differentiation between monetary and personal freedom.

 

[Jeff7181]

But the word free is still appropriate since the English language doesn't have a differentiation between monetary and personal freedom.

LOL... ok man.

 

[Nothinman]

LOL... ok man.

Ok, if it was your choice, what word would you use?

 

[Colt45]

gratis & libre ?

 

[Nothinman]

Which aren't really English and you'd still spend a decent amount of time explaining the difference.

 

[JD50]

I've never understood the whole "Linux may be free, but you'll spend a lot of time making it work", like you don't have to spend any time making Microsoft products work...

 

[pdusen]

I've never understood the whole "Linux may be free, but you'll spend a lot of time making it work", like you don't have to spend any time making Microsoft products work...

Hear, hear. Installing any operating system is a chore, Linux or Windows.

The idea that Windows is any easier to install than Linux is a myth.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Woah... surprise... you can't get something for nothing.

Seriously though... even those claimed to be "free" have a cost. It may not be a direct monetary cost, but someone spent their time creating them and you will spend time attempting to make them work.

You're talking about the wrong free.

 

[sourceninja]

My company actually does our own TCO when we look at solutions. We have gone with and turned down open source solutions in the past because of the TCO. Sometimes free is free, sometimes it's not. It really depends on the skill base of your staff.

(Yes I know we are talking about another kind of free, but I wanted to comment on the money version of free).

 

[Scarpozzi]

Bah....IT folks gotta eat too. Many of the Open Source companies out there in the last 10 years were programmers that lost it when the dot coms came crashing down. I know of quite a few small open source companies that have been bought up by Microsoft, Novell, VMware, Citrix, Dell, etc...just because they had something to offer. Usually those deals pay out really well too, but the product suffers in the end because the developers cash out and leave the projects.

Linux Distros are the same....if they don't have the financial backing, they won't last. Some are linked to Universities and other sandboxes, but it takes a lot of time and expertise to assemble, organize, and enforce balanced security. Free is hard to come by.

 

[Nothinman]

Linux Distros are the same....if they don't have the financial backing, they won't last.

If that were the case Linux would've died before the year 2000. Sure somethings won't happen without money because no one wants to do it, it requires hardware normal people can't afford, etc but those are the exception rather than the rule.

 

[pdusen]

Linux Distros are the same....if they don't have the financial backing, they won't last.

And when do you expect this to start kicking in for all of the distros that have been around for over a decade?

 

[VirtualLarry]

And when do you expect this to start kicking in for all of the distros that have been around for over a decade?

And what about commercial distros, like Yiggrasil? They were the first distro to have a bootable "liveCD", AFAIK.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hear, hear. Installing any operating system is a chore, Linux or Windows.

The idea that Windows is any easier to install than Linux is a myth.

Indeed. I spent last night fighting with Windows 7. I could install XP Pro, or Ubuntu 10.04 just fine. Both are on a CD. But the Win7 installer would hang loading off of a DVD. Finally flashed the firmware of my DVD drive in XP, from SB01 to SB03.

Then Win7 installer would load, and then when you're about to pick which partition to install to, it pops up a dialog saying that it needs CD/DVD drivers. It can't find the install CD! Clicking "Browse" shows no CD drive, although it did see the the HD, IIRC. Both are on standard IDE ports.

Edit: In XP, even with the SB01 firmware, I use ImgBurn to rip an ISO of the Win7 DVD to the HD, and that completed fine. So the disc was fully readable.

 

[dinkumthinkum]

In Madrid, the taxis put up a sign in their window labeled: "Libre"

They sure don't mean "Gratis" though.

 

[ultimatebob]

Except with Windows you pay twice, first upfront in the licensing fee and then second in the time you spend attempting to make it work. So Linux is still the better deal.

Funny... I found that Windows servers are usually easier to set up than Linux servers initially. It's the ongoing support requirements (Windows security patches, reboots, AntiVirus definitions, license renewals, etc) that make the total cost of ownership higher in the long-run.

Anyway... Stallman's GNU software movement reminds me of a weird hippie commune that seems to have an aversion to software companies making a profit in any form. If they recommended a Linux distribution to me, I'd count that recommendation as a negative instead of a positive. Why? Because I know that it will be missing at least one piece of critical software that isn't considered "free" in their distorted mindset.

 

[Nothinman]

Funny... I found that Windows servers are usually easier to set up than Linux servers initially. It's the ongoing support requirements (Windows security patches, reboots, AntiVirus definitions, license renewals, etc) that make the total cost of ownership higher in the long-run.

Maybe, it depends on what the server will be doing and I tend to consider the superficially easy look of Windows to be a bad thing. Doing a basic SBS setup is pretty simple, but people still tend to screw it up. Doing anything more complicated than that requires decent knowledge of DNS, AD, SMTP, etc but most people don't have that and yet still think they can admin Windows because of how simple the wizards present things.

Anyway... Stallman's GNU software movement reminds me of a weird hippie commune that seems to have an aversion to software companies making a profit in any form. If they recommended a Linux distribution to me, I'd count that recommendation as a negative instead of a positive. Why? Because I know that it will be missing at least one piece of critical software that isn't considered "free" in their distorted mindset.

I see your point, but discounting or accepting something because of one person's recommendation is stupid. Do your own research and make a real, informed decision.

 

[EricMartello]

As an entrepreneur myself, I really do not subscribe to the "all software should be free" mentality. It's a retarded notion and in fact unamerican. Linux is and always has been a kernel with everything else stuck on top of it - all the "commands" you are used to are independent programs, not part of linux...they are just included and that is what you know as a "distro". Since most sensible people are not willing to work for free, and hey there's nothing wrong with that, making linux work with the rest of the world does require cooperation with commercial companies. As you may have deduced, commercial companies operate with the priority of making a profit.

Both Sun and IBM are examples of two big contributors to the linux project and are responsible for much of its recent innovation...you linux fanboys like to tout how open source is some kinda grass roots movement sticking it to "the man" but in reality it's very dependent on tech and insight provided by commercial entities. Did you really think some hygienically-challenged European dude living in mother's basement made linux what it is today? Hell no...he simply planted a seed and it grew into what it is today with A LOT OF COMMERCIAL HELP. The companies helping do have a vested interest in Linux because they can leverage the community efforts while dropping "nuggets" of their own to keep development on track and at a steady pace...but even something commercial like RHEL is still available for free so long as you compile the source yourself.

Read the license under which linux is distributed...it requires that the source to any changes made are provided to the community. For a company who invested a lot of dollars into developing some type of software, getting a return on that investment IS NOT a bad thing in any way...and that is why Linux is almost always going to be several steps behind an equivalent commercial OS. Fortunately it supports enough tech to be useful...but it's still not where Windows Server was 2 years ago...and only recently is its kernel able to support SMP effectively as well as maintain decent I/O performance (guess why...yeah, that's right, more commercial code contributed to the community).

 

[Colt45]

that is why Linux is almost always going to be several steps behind an equivalent commercial OS. Fortunately it supports enough tech to be useful...but it's still not where Windows Server was 2 years ago...and only recently is its kernel able to support SMP effectively as well as maintain decent I/O performance (guess why...yeah, that's right, more commercial code contributed to the community).

Hmm, that must be why no one uses linux on servers.

 

[sourceninja]

Hmm, that must be why no one uses linux on servers.

The only place I feel linux is 'behind' is in the directory/file sharing areas. I can't find anything that compares to say eDirectory or AD type stuff.

Sure novell has now moved to linux, but that isn't linux in the sense that anyone can download the source and set it up. You can kinda come close with a combo of samba and other things, but even that doesn't compare to what you can do with a windows server and AD or a Netware/Zenworks setup.

We use linux for our web, vpn, print, dns, dhcp, database, etc. But we still use netware for client file sharing, permissions, and app/policy pushes.

I wish there was a good alternative.

 

[EricMartello]

Hmm, that must be why no one uses linux on servers.

Does usage somehow indicate quality...? I use linux servers but I don't kid myself into thinking linux is the right answer to every necessity as some people seem to think.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I love how open source/free software can't thrive without commercial involvement, and yet one of the most used open source/free software application does not receive help from the commercial etities that use/rebrand/sell it.

IBM gets too many software patents for me to take them seriously. Sun doesn't exist any longer, they floundered too long. Plus the cddl is a joke, even the poor excuse for freedom of the gpl would have been better.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I love the "it's un-a-mer-can" mentality when it comes to open source. Just becaue people aren't trying to screw everyone else with it, making bombs out of it, bribing politicains with it, using it to put down groups of people because a big bearded redneck in the sky said to "git-r-done," or using it as an excuse to ignore the "untouchables" doesn't make it unamerican. It just makes it a little less corporate. But I guess to a nation founded on greed and monopolistic values, that's pretty much the same thing.

FFS, what is the ratio of american to non-american developers ayways?

 

[Nothinman]

As an entrepreneur myself, I really do not subscribe to the "all software should be free" mentality. It's a retarded notion and in fact unamerican.

OMG!? If you support free software you support the terrorists? How did I not know this!?

Since most sensible people are not willing to work for free, and hey there's nothing wrong with that, making linux work with the rest of the world does require cooperation with commercial companies. As you may have deduced, commercial companies operate with the priority of making a profit.

I guess there's a helluva lot of unsensible people out there then because while there is a lot of commercial involvement these days, most, if not all, of it started without any commercial backing or involvement. And while there is currently a lot of commercial involvement in the big projects, most of them still have a decent number of people contributing for free in their spare time.

Obviously not every app or feature would've been developed without commercial support, some of them even require special hardware that most people couldn't afford, but that doesn't mean the entire project is now dependent on commercial support.

Did you really think some hygienically-challenged European dude living in mother's basement made linux what it is today? Hell no...he simply planted a seed and it grew into what it is today with A LOT OF COMMERCIAL HELP.

The hygienically-challenged comment, while kind of funny because of the stereo-type, is mildly offensive.

And while there's obviously been commercial involvement in Linux for years now, they would'nt have gotten involved if it wasn't already mature enough for them to use and develop. Discounting the early efforts of the Linux developers is either ignorant about what they've done or hostile towards them.

Read the license under which linux is distributed...it requires that the source to any changes made are provided to the community.

Actually it says they need to be made available to those that you distribute binaries to, not upstream or the community at large.

Fortunately it supports enough tech to be useful...but it's still not where Windows Server was 2 years ago...and only recently is its kernel able to support SMP effectively as well as maintain decent I/O performance (guess why...yeah, that's right, more commercial code contributed to the community).

IME the I/O and process schedulers in Linux have been much, much better than that of Windows for many years now.

Does usage somehow indicate quality...?

Obviously not, otherwise Windows would be relegated to a few niche roles like domain controllers.