“Our CEO has said that the path to Redmond is through Mountain View,” Red Hat’s Mark de Visser said. “We focus on Unix now, and once we gain the upper hand… we believe we can ultimately displace Microsoft, even on the desktop.” Can Linux replace Unix? This question would have seemed ridiculous just a few years ago, even as Linux vendor Red Hat’s stock shot toward the stratosphere. Read the article at NewsFactor by Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier.
How Linux Could Trump Unix
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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this is a stupid article, linux is definately going to displace unix. Its similar in design and stability and its far cheaper. Plus alot of the software written specifically for unix can be recompiled to run on a linux box without much hassle. In terms of cost/performance linux is far better than unix can ever be.
Replacing microsoft on the desktop is another matter… we can only dream about that.
Seems like there’s a article every week on Linux displacing Microsoft on the desktop.
When most of us think of Open Source our first thought is usually Linux. It’s not really any single product that is going to change things.. it’s the idea of Open Source that is changing things.
So many apps are now being copied by groups of people and it’s done open source. A good example is the Stardock products. There is a whole community devoted to creating open source and freeware alternatives to Stardock products.
I’m currently thinking about starting an embroidery software program that would be OSS. Embroidery software is just the worse! It costs A TON of money (The one I am running here at work costs over $13,000). The reason they can charge this much is because there is really little to no competition. You either use a product by Wilcom or Compucon or Brother.. that’s about it.
I think the people are tired of getting screwed by companies that 1) CHARGE for bug fixes by releasing “2nd Edition” (*cough* microsoft)
2) Go out of business leaving you high and dry.
3) Giving little to no support and no recourse for getting bugs fixed.
It’s the power of the idea.
“I think the people are tired of getting screwed by companies that 1) CHARGE for bug fixes by releasing “2nd Edition” (*cough* microsoft) ”
I am by no means a microsoft advocate, but to be fair, windows 2000 & xp can both be updated without paying a cent. As far as other companies… yes, there are definitely a bunch out there that define a “new” feature as a feature that was there before but actually works now.
“I’m currently thinking about starting an embroidery software program that would be OSS. Embroidery software is just the worse! It costs A TON of money (The one I am running here at work costs over $13,000). The reason they can charge this much is because there is really little to no competition. You either use a product by Wilcom or Compucon or Brother.. that’s about it.”
Good idea. Go for it.
I don’t think Unix will ever completely go away, there will still be legacy systems out there for one thing. If Unix ever does go away though it will be a VERY long time. I know that the company I coop for has no plans of getting rid of the unix systems they have any time soon – nor do they forsee going to linux systems (which makes me sad). The simple fact is that large corporations who are not involved in the coputing industry (for instance manufacturing companies) are not all that interested in changing from the status quo (from what I can see). I think linux will find a great home in the server rooms across the baord in the future, and I hope it will find a nice home on the desktops, but it will simply take time for both…
just my $0.02…
–Joe
Obviously there are free unixes as well as proprietary ones.
Unix will never be pushed away by linux in professional matter and linux hehehehehehehe will never replace Windows on the desktop.
A bigger chance is that Zeta (http://www.yellowtab.com) will be the biggest concurrent for Windows in the future, and will be much much much better then Linux ever will be in the coming “I don’t know how many years” of time! It is not for nothing that Yellowtab is going to be on Cebit this year with their smooth, smart, stable and oh so loved OS (for BeOS users)!!!
Face it, the only good point from Linux is that it is free and that’s it. It looks awfull, is slow, difficult to handle for newbies, always problems with installing software, drivers etc, for amateurs, lack of (good)software and like this i can go on for another hour!
Windows will stay the biggest OS on the desktop but will find a good, very good concurrent (Zeta) next to him.
Don’t worry about taking over the desktop yet. I’ll believe it when linux hits 10% of the desktop market. Whether that ever happens – I don’t know. Until that point, its up to developers to make linux more intuitive for users. At 10%, software companies will notice, and then linux software will start to really appear. This will change the desktop percentages more than anything, in my opinion.
..would have been almost believable a year ago!
Unlike the post, above, about Zeta.
Out of interest.. do any Windows apps run on LindowsOS? I understand it has a default install of Wine and some people report MS Office running on it.
I replied on the wrong page
I’m going outside to shoot myself. I may be gone some time
( Please mod these 2 postings down )
Replacing Microsoft is possible, but we need better coordination in the Linux world. There are 2 GUIs (KDE and Gnome, actually more than 2), there aren’t many quality programs for critical processes. So overall Linux sucks a little. What we need is good commercial apps on the Linux, like Office. That may come later.
Another way Linux may get into the houses is deploying linux boxes for storing documents, web serving. As people can afford to have broadband connections and build networks within their houses, Linux will be the choice for these type of applications.
How is any distro of Linux cheaper than Free/Open/NetBSD?
can you classify BSD as a pure UNIX? its POSIX compliant but then again so is linux.
>>>>can you classify BSD as a pure UNIX? its POSIX compliant but then again so is linux.
Everybody claims to be POSIX compliant — but that’s not the same as they are 100% POSIX certified.
BSD has historically been classified as pure UNIX — because BSD was originally written by the same people who wrote UNIX. It’s a historical classification issue, no matter how much the 2 OS’es have diverged — BSD will always be seen as pure UNIX.
We have had an IBM AIX unix server running for more than 5 years with no down time. Zero, nada.
Our Vax and qnx and redhat have all dropped offline many many time.
You would have to be a fool to think linux is better than true UNIX and even more a fool to trust real data to the wrong system.
Get a pro system for a pro job, not a girlie system forced on a punk computer.
“”2) Go out of business leaving you high and dry.
3) Giving little to no support and no recourse for getting bugs fixed””
One OSS scenario.
2) Developer gets bored and abandons the project to go do something new. 99.9% of the users aren’t programmers, and the 0.1% are working on their own projects, project is quietly abandoned (Sad that there are so many of these. There are some very fine programs lying on the trash heap waiting for developers).
3) Developer has a life outside of programming his little OSS project and simply doesn’t have time to keep fixing bugs, no matter how often they are reported.
Open source is an excellent idea, and more strength to it, but it isn’t the all singing, all dancing panacea that it’s often made out to be. In effect having access to the source is pretty meaningless if you couldn’t have sat down and written it yourself. For education, teaching yourself programming, or just looking at how other people have solved problems differently then it’s great, but I’m not sure wholesale copying is really in the spirit of things.
Anyhow, good luck with the program. Big fish, small pond, hope you do great.
Now to get back on topic :>
Consider the installed userbase the various proprietary UNIX OS have. Some of these systems have been around a LONG time, they’re doing their job just fine, and have been since before Linus first looked at the Minix source code. These are mature systems, their admins know them, they are NOT going to just throw them away to change to Linux. It’s all very well to put Linux onto your desktop, it’s quite another to throw a very large, mature system into complete disarray just for the sake of changing to Linux.
You can look around and find some truly ancient computers running some practically pre-historic OS today, and they’re still doing it because they do it well enough that it’s not worth the effort to change. In the same fashion the proprietary UNIX derivatives will always be with us.
“”I think the people are tired of getting screwed by companies that 1) CHARGE for bug fixes by releasing “2nd Edition” (*cough* microsoft) ”
I am by no means a microsoft advocate, but to be fair, windows 2000 & xp can both be updated without paying a cent. As far as other companies… yes, there are definitely a bunch out there that define a “new” feature as a feature that was there before but actually works now.”
Actually, I believe this was aimed more at the Win 98 to 98 SE “upgrade”. The one you pretty much HAD to have if you wanted 98 to work with any real stability. I think eventually there was a service pack or something that brought 98 up to SE standards, but that wasn’t the case when 98 SE came out. There’s lots of us out there who still use 98, even though it won’t be supported anymore.
Linux is just more popular. It’s almost like a fad and goes around like the hype it is. IMO, it just started as a frustration for being unable to afford UNIX (of course now there are the BSDs). Then people got appealed to it because it’s free and unix-like in command line and stability (so they say). This is why NOW wanabees and newbies are drawn into Linux and worship it blindly, not having tried UNIX at all. And inevitably, with such acceptance from the masses…hmmm…one can say it MIGHT replace unix in the server farm, but only in terms of numbers. But for now….dream on. Replacing microsoft? uhmm, well, you linux zealots should know best as most of you are immigrants from MS.