Novell aquires SuSE

[Nothinman]

I think n0c was referring to the fact that he only specified -CURRENT, which is not 3.4 RELEASE.
That -CURRENT could have been months old for all we know.

I thought he used 3.4 RELEASE for most of the tests but then updated to -CURRENT after he noticed all the problems to see if any were addressed.

 

[Peter007]

I'm very Happy that Novell bought themselves a new LIFE 🙂

Wonderful technololgy couple without lousy management + Marketing almost kill this company.
While Novel technology has always been more Stable than other Network OS,
They just don't have the mommentum anymore. I am glad that Novell has finally recognized that staying as
Proprietary System will only lead them to death.

They're only solution is to embrase OpenSource. Buying Ximian Desktop was a very good start, but buying SUSE is just a
Stroke of genius. I am very Excited about the future of Novell. Perhaps we'll see a more integrated Novell Linux soon.

The world is only big enough for 1 Proprietary System, that is Microsoft.
The rest of the world soon & will be dominated by LINUX.
There is no room for any other proprietary OS. Sorry SUN - soon linux will replace your Solaris.

 

[civad]

A couple of thoughts:
a. How is this going to affect the home user who runs linux on his boxes?
b. Why this discussion?

not to be sarcastic, just trying to understand. (and YES, I did read all the posts before mine)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I think n0c was referring to the fact that he only specified -CURRENT, which is not 3.4 RELEASE.
That -CURRENT could have been months old for all we know.

I thought he used 3.4 RELEASE for most of the tests but then updated to -CURRENT after he noticed all the problems to see if any were addressed.

I had to check the site, but here is a quote:

I benchmarked an OpenBSD 3.4-CURRENT. I directly installed -CURRENT to get patched up openssl and openssh versions.

And there is definitely no excuse for the flames he got. These were apparently from the users, and not developers. Quoted updates on the benchmark site relating to OpenBSD:

[Update Oct 22 2003]: While I received a lot of verbal abuse from OpenBSD users, the OpenBSD project itself is focusing on solving the issues; the 1024 cylinder limit is apparently being worked on, and the fork panic has been reproduced and a bug has been opened in the bug tracking system.

[Update Oct 23 2003]: Please see this update as well. The OpenBSD project has several patches pending in -CURRENT to speed up bottlenecks identified in these benchmarks, so the next update will probably look much better for OpenBSD.

[Update Nov 1 2003]: To my knowledge OpenBSD still has not integrated all the patches, so I have not redone all my benchmarks. However, Ted Unangst wrote me to explain the weird touch-after-mmap behaviour. It turns out that OpenBSD's buffer cache is not unified in that if you read something with read/pread and then mmap and touch it, the value is read from disk again. OpenBSD apparently has a unified buffer cache in the works, but it is not there. Ted suggested changing my mmap benchmark to improve the OpenBSD graph, but I think that would not be fair. I, for once, have always used cat to put databases into the buffer cache that are later accessed by a process with random access patters (djbdns, openldap).

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Peter007
I'm very Happy that Novell bought themselves a new LIFE 🙂

Wonderful technololgy couple without lousy management + Marketing almost kill this company.
While Novel technology has always been more Stable than other Network OS,
They just don't have the mommentum anymore. I am glad that Novell has finally recognized that staying as
Proprietary System will only lead them to death.

They're only solution is to embrase OpenSource. Buying Ximian Desktop was a very good start, but buying SUSE is just a
Stroke of genius. I am very Excited about the future of Novell. Perhaps we'll see a more integrated Novell Linux soon.

The world is only big enough for 1 Proprietary System, that is Microsoft.
The rest of the world soon & will be dominated by LINUX.
There is no room for any other proprietary OS. Sorry SUN - soon linux will replace your Solaris.

Sun currently sees a place for both Solaris and Linux.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: civad
A couple of thoughts:
a. How is this going to affect the home user who runs linux on his boxes?

Not a whole lot, right now. Other then adding more developement capitol and backing from another major technological corporation. The people who most get affected would be people who run SuSE.

The idea behind Linux attacking the corporate desktop market is that in the early days people installed MS-DOS on their computers because that's what they used at work and so that's what they installed on their machines. Right now the biggest flaw holding Linux back in terms of home use by the average person is lack of support of hardware and the difficulty of support the hundred-million different potential combinations devices in the Home PC. This is because the lack of OEM support. Many manufactures don't realy care to lose 2% of the market if it raises costs a extra 7-10%.

If Novell/Sun/IBM gets it's wish and gets Linux into the corporate desktop you will get situations were: "Sorry, Dell we had to cancel the order for the 7000 laptops for our sales division, our tests showed that there was major issues trying to get your drivers to work, so we decided to go with Gateway instead."

Since coporate desktop type stuff is pretty much the same as home stuff this can affect home users greatly. We can see this in real life in the server market were linux has much penatration. After all it's one of the major reasons I can go out and buy a SuSE OS that will run in 64 mode on AMD Opteron/AMD64 hardware RIGHTNOW. Were as windows users may have to wait up to another year to be able to go and get 64bit WinXP from stores.

b. Why this discussion?

not to be sarcastic, just trying to understand. (and YES, I did read all the posts before mine)

Because it's operating system news that at least seems important and this is a operating systems forum. 😛

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
He said 3.4-current. Did he really mean a snapshot? Or, if he did mean -current, what time and date did he update his source for the build? It makes a difference.

Umm, From the Remarks section:

6. The 1024 cylinder boot restriction has been fixed for a while in OpenBSD
Then apparently some evil infiltrator meaning harm to the OpenBSD project sabotaged my -CURRENT download set from Oct 4 2003.

It is mentioned there, you just have to have read everything. 🙂

I personally think Novell can do this right, and make a buttload of cash kicking MS out of the easy-to-admin server market.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: chsh1ca

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
He said 3.4-current. Did he really mean a snapshot? Or, if he did mean -current, what time and date did he update his source for the build? It makes a difference.

Umm, From the Remarks section:

6. The 1024 cylinder boot restriction has been fixed for a while in OpenBSD
Then apparently some evil infiltrator meaning harm to the OpenBSD project sabotaged my -CURRENT download set from Oct 4 2003.

It is mentioned there, you just have to have read everything. 🙂

Those notes were added after the benchmarks were released, so people who read it when it was posted didn't see that part.

Oh well, it's not very relevant to this thread anyway 🙂

 

[drag]

heh. 🙂

Check this out.

L I N U X

With a big red "N".

Funny/Corny stuff.


edit: I'll have to see how much it would cost to get a novel/suse certified. I wonder how much of the NDS stuff I still remember....

also check this out:

You may download the Nterprise Linux Services software from Novell free of cost. You will be required to subcribe to Novell's site through Novell Login to download Nterprise Linux Services. Once you are logged in, you will see a list of files to download.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Having seen a couple of relatively new installs of Novell technology and what these companies were doing with it...I was really impressed. The shear size of the managed system, hetergeneous databased linked seamlessly, queing speed, plus all the added background security and meta-data authenication, etc. going on..."damn" was my conclusion.

I'm thinking mainly of a financial services co. my wife was working for (until we moved recently)...their account/profolio management system was insane, just insane and the programmer I was talking to said the system is so easy to maintain and extend because of Novell's technology basis. And my wife, a pretty savy computer user said she had never used a database app that was anywhere remotely close to this system.

Not to say I'm a database app expert...by no means. But I came away from that experience thinking that maybe a lot of folks don't really know how powerful Novell's tech. really is for enterprise system/apps management.

I'm thinking this SuSE deal is going to be a real game beaker for both entities. I'm glad I bought Novell stock last week when the rumor was circulating...I just made a couple thousand dollars last night.😀:beer:

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: chsh1ca

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
He said 3.4-current. Did he really mean a snapshot? Or, if he did mean -current, what time and date did he update his source for the build? It makes a difference.

Umm, From the Remarks section:

6. The 1024 cylinder boot restriction has been fixed for a while in OpenBSD
Then apparently some evil infiltrator meaning harm to the OpenBSD project sabotaged my -CURRENT download set from Oct 4 2003.

It is mentioned there, you just have to have read everything. 🙂

I did. Notice:

Remarks

Slashdot accepted the story, and this site is being slashdotted as of Oct 19 2003. Here are a few answers to questions that have been raised in the Slashdot forums:

So, the remarks area was UPDATED as the days went by. When I read EVERYTHING on that page, not all of those remarks were there. Stilll, it doesn't mention time of download or server used (unless he added something else after I read the page 😉).

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I did. Notice:

Remarks

Slashdot accepted the story, and this site is being slashdotted as of Oct 19 2003. Here are a few answers to questions that have been raised in the Slashdot forums:

So, the remarks area was UPDATED as the days went by. When I read EVERYTHING on that page, not all of those remarks were there. Stilll, it doesn't mention time of download or server used (unless he added something else after I read the page 😉).

Yes I know, but I figured rechecking the page for updates wasn't out of the realm of possibility, especially since this is an ongoing topic. 🙂

Simply saying that his results are flawed because of OBSD's results doesn't prove anything either. Obviously something was wrong, and to be honest, using a dev kernel probably wasn't the best idea, but I know why he did (he'd have been crucified had he not). Personally, I would like to know why exactly you think that the sum of the benchmarks are flawed. OpenBSD aside, since that seems to be your initial gripe, everything else makes linux look pretty good. I'm not sure if this is a slant, or if those are real numbers, but at least I can verify them by looking at the source of the app and running it (once I'm home). His updates have definitely improved things, and answered a few questions.

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I did. Notice:

Remarks

Slashdot accepted the story, and this site is being slashdotted as of Oct 19 2003. Here are a few answers to questions that have been raised in the Slashdot forums:

So, the remarks area was UPDATED as the days went by. When I read EVERYTHING on that page, not all of those remarks were there. Stilll, it doesn't mention time of download or server used (unless he added something else after I read the page 😉).

Yes I know, but I figured rechecking the page for updates wasn't out of the realm of possibility, especially since this is an ongoing topic. 🙂

Simply saying that his results are flawed because of OBSD's results doesn't prove anything either. Obviously something was wrong, and to be honest, using a dev kernel probably wasn't the best idea, but I know why he did (he'd have been crucified had he not). Personally, I would like to know why exactly you think that the sum of the benchmarks are flawed. OpenBSD aside, since that seems to be your initial gripe, everything else makes linux look pretty good. I'm not sure if this is a slant, or if those are real numbers, but at least I can verify them by looking at the source of the app and running it (once I'm home). His updates have definitely improved things, and answered a few questions.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: chsh1ca

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I did. Notice:

Remarks

Slashdot accepted the story, and this site is being slashdotted as of Oct 19 2003. Here are a few answers to questions that have been raised in the Slashdot forums:

So, the remarks area was UPDATED as the days went by. When I read EVERYTHING on that page, not all of those remarks were there. Stilll, it doesn't mention time of download or server used (unless he added something else after I read the page 😉).

Yes I know, but I figured rechecking the page for updates wasn't out of the realm of possibility, especially since this is an ongoing topic. 🙂

I had read several of the updates, but missed those.

Simply saying that his results are flawed because of OBSD's results doesn't prove anything either.

I admit that the performance of OpenBSD is more than lacking compared to other systems. The results of the tests on OpenBSD are not exactly what I think was wrong with the tests.

Obviously something was wrong, and to be honest, using a dev kernel probably wasn't the best idea, but I know why he did (he'd have been crucified had he not). Personally, I would like to know why exactly you think that the sum of the benchmarks are flawed. OpenBSD aside, since that seems to be your initial gripe, everything else makes linux look pretty good. I'm not sure if this is a slant, or if those are real numbers, but at least I can verify them by looking at the source of the app and running it (once I'm home). His updates have definitely improved things, and answered a few questions.

I think Jose Nazario's response to Felix's e-mail about retesting sums up the situation pretty well. Do we need to go into how these benchmarks were developed in Linux and "ported" to the other OSes?

Should we go ahead and make a new thread on this? 😛

 

[Nothinman]

Do we need to go into how these benchmarks were developed in Linux and "ported" to the other OSes?

So? Most of them didn't require any porting because they were basic C semantics with open(), read(), mmap(), fork(), etc, the only thing I remember that had OS-specific parts was the poll/notification part of the web server.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Moving fefe.de discussion here, if no one else minds.

Good luck Novell!

 

[drag]

has anyone checked out the free beta version of Nterprise Linux Services?

I'd try it out, but I ran out of fresh cds to burn it to.

Also check out the documentation...

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
Having seen a couple of relatively installs of Novell technology and what these companies were doing with it...I was really impressed. The shear size of the managed system, hetergeneous databased linked seamlessly, queing speed, plus all the added background security and meta-data authenication, etc. going on...damn.

I'm think mainly of a financial services co. my wife was working for (until we moved recently)...their account/profolio management system was insane, just insane and the programmer I was talking to said the system is so easy to maintain and extend because of Novell's technology basis. And my wife, a pretty savy computer user said she had never used a database app that was anywhere remotely close to this system.

Not to say I'm a database app expert...by no means. But I came away from that experience thinking that maybe a lot of folks don't really know how powerful Novell's tech. really is for enterprise system/apps management.

I'm think this SuSE deal is going to be a real game beaker for both entities. I'm glad I bought Novell stock last week when the rumor was circulating...I just made a couple thousand dollars last night.😀:beer:

I know what your saying. I am glad I was introduced to Novell's NDS stuff before window's AD stuff. At first it was a pain in the ass to use and stuff, but you knew how it worked and what would happen if you made a change. I went to AD after that it was a pale in comparision, the tools were all awkward the templates were limiting in comparision and much more clunky all together.

Then I was talking to one of the older computer techs (higher up in the food chain) after a lecture in which the teacher (a MS-fan) was extoling the virtues of w2k. He pointed out that he had to upgrade all the computers in the lab (at the time the were fast by my moderate standards) just to handle running the workload of running w2k adv. server. Then he was talking about he had the latest Novell server on his home lan for messing around with and Netware could do with a pentium 1 what w2k could do on a 400mhz+ machine.

Then I saw the NDS tree printed out in full from a real-life functional NDS tree (from a local hospital) and it was well over 400 pages long. And it functioned perfectly.

I was then sold on the stability and performance of Novell's software.

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I had read several of the updates, but missed those.

It's not a big deal, I wasn't flaming or anything, just pointing out the information people were lookin for. 🙂

I think Jose Nazario's response to Felix's e-mail about retesting sums up the situation pretty well. Do we need to go into how these benchmarks were developed in Linux and "ported" to the other OSes?

Should we go ahead and make a new thread on this? 😛

Probably a good idea. 🙂

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: drag

I know what your saying. I am glad I was introduced to Novell's NDS stuff before window's AD stuff. At first it was a pain in the ass to use and stuff, but you knew how it worked and what would happen if you made a change. I went to AD after that it was a pale in comparision, the tools were all awkward the templates were limiting in comparision and much more clunky all together.

Then I was talking to one of the older computer techs (higher up in the food chain) after a lecture in which the teacher (a MS-fan) was extoling the virtues of w2k. He pointed out that he had to upgrade all the computers in the lab (at the time the were fast by my moderate standards) just to handle running the workload of running w2k adv. server. Then he was talking about he had the latest Novell server on his home lan for messing around with and Netware could do with a pentium 1 what w2k could do on a 400mhz+ machine.

Then I saw the NDS tree printed out in full from a real-life functional NDS tree (from a local hospital) and it was well over 400 pages long. And it functioned perfectly.

I was then sold on the stability and performance of Novell's software.

And I've talked to some other folks who really know Novell's technology and was told pretty much the same type of things. I'm considering kinda tinkering around with some of Novell's stuff just I'm familiar with the real capabilities of Novell's offering, not that I'll use it much, if ever (I'm not a IT systems CS guy -- more of a scientific programming guy), but its always good to know.

 

[NetWareHead]

Some people are viewing Novell's purchase as a joint IBM-Novell move against SCO. Kinda funny because if this turns out to be true...Novell is ripping the carpet out from under SCO and their case against Linux. 😀

Said by article:
"So, if Novell is immune (which Novell officials wouldn't comment on yesterday), and SuSE belongs to Novell, then it follows that SuSE's distribution of Linux could be untouchable. IBM's Linux strategy --- of which SuSE's Linux distribution is a centerpiece --- is preserved. Novell's cross-platform services strategy (which I'll get to in a minute) --- at least a third of which (or more) depends on the long-term viability of Linux --- remains intact. Customers seeking indemnification end up with something better--a free and clear license.

I asked Nugent what he thought of my theory. While he didn't give me much, he gave me this: "Your intuition is good. Stay tuned."

rest of article found here Link

 

[drag]

Novell realy didn't give a damn before, I don't think they realy do now. Although now that they plan on becoming a Linux company they will probably turn out a couple of lawyers and PR people to comment every once of a while. Probably mostly for the PR with the linux community.

Novell: SCO SUXOR
Linux Geeks: WOOT!

Other then that, I don't expect much. SCO is a bunch of crap and they are dead in the water as a real Unix company. There product is more expensive, slower, and has less features then any other Unix OS out there. Now Linux is getting popular it's just nails in the coffin. What do you expect from a company that specializes in burger king cash register OSes and shopping mall kiosks?

Traditionally Novell and SCO were always on freindly terms, so one doesn't go around burning bridges and stuff like that. I mean they already have IBM and Redhat pissed off at them, and the largest developer base in the world was once their freind and now considure them the anti-christ. They have no legal leg to stand on, and are threating the customers of IBM and Redhat with lawyer scare letters. MS gave them a couple boosts of income to keep them solvent and attract morons to invest in them thru the stock market.

Of course the legal proccess takes for ever so It'll go on for another couple years at least. Linux 2.12 will be out and SCO will finally release the "tainted code" and it will probably be a hacked kernel from DR-DOS.

It's like me trying to overthrough the US government by starting at in florida and rushing at the white house with a grenade in either hand, screaming, and on foot.

So basicly SCO is screwed. All Novell has to do is watch them slowly die then pick thru the ashes and get back what technologies and developers they think would be usefull, if any.