Linux - salvation for the "ABM" crowd

Okay, we hear you! Linux (we pronounce it "LIE-nucks" although its creator, Linus Torvalds, pronounces it "Lee-noocks" and Bill Gates pronounces it "Linnucks") users have spoken, and PC Buyer's Guide is now committed to providing regular coverage of this powerful and fast-growing operating system. Read our test results of Red Hat, Caldera OpenLinux, CorelLinux, S.u.S.E. Linux and others at pcbuyersguide.com.

The new PowerPC Linux is turning into an operating system worth checking out, booting into a graphic desktop environment and including Netscape Communicator 4.0.5 and a professional-grade graphics editor ignomiously called GIMP. Faster and more stable than previous releases, PowerPC Linux runs on virtually every PowerPC produced, including the Power Macintosh, Macintosh clones, and the PowerBook 3400 and G3 series. It also runs on the Apple Network Server, BeBox, IBM ThinkPad 850, Motorola PowerSTACK, and several RS/6000 models.

As well, LinuxPPC Inc. has announced the availability of LinuxPPC Lite, a new version of the Linux operating system for PowerPC computers. LinuxPPC Lite is a 75 megabyte version of LinuxPPC 4.0. Like its larger cousins, LinuxPPC Lite boots directly into the KDE graphical environment, and includes a basic set of Internet utilities and standard Linux applications such as PICO, PINE, and vi.

Lite's size makes it ideal for booting from removable media, such as Zip disks, and is a more practical for downloading across fast Internet Internet connections. Lite can be easily bundled on CD-ROM discs, such as computer magazine CD inserts. There is no charge for bundling the LinuxPPC Lite. The full install of LinuxPPC 4.0, a 600 MB package, is still available on the Internet and on for sale on CD-ROM from LinuxPPC Inc.

LinuxPPC Lite also marks the debut of easy installation and dual-boot capability on Power Mac hardware. A new Mac OS utility called BootX provides a simple control panel-like interface that allows the user to choose to boot Linux or the Mac OS at startup. Linux can be booted at any time from within the Mac OS from the BootX application.

This isn't the only version of Linux for the Mac, either. MkLinux Developer Release 3, released on July 31, 1998, is available from http://www.mklinux.apple.com.

Meanwhile, the coverage of Linux in The Computer Paper has elicited many responses both for and against this alternative OS. Responding to a letter from Luke Rollins published in the Aug. '98 issue of TCP, Alan W. Irwin wrote, "Luke Rollins is wrong on at least three counts. (1) Linux has nothing to do with OS/2 and it obfuscates the issues to claim otherwise. Instead it is a high-quality operating system for PC's with a rapidly growing number of users which has recently attracted application ports from Netscape, Corel and Oracle to name several prominent software companies that believe in Linux as an alternative to Windows 95/98/NT. (2) He implies that TCP pushes Linux, but I am afraid that the opposite is often the case (e.g., no mention of Linux in "Encryption on a desktop" even though a port of PGP has been available for Linux for years). (3) He compares apples and oranges; pre-installed Win 95 versus having to install Linux from scratch. I agree that installing any operating system from scratch can be a headache. However, he forgot to mention or didn't know that it is now possible to buy PC's with Linux pre-installed. Currently you do have to shop around for this option; not all PC assemblers have realized yet that Linux is the fastest growing operating system for PCs."

Alan added, "Linux share is a hard number to pin down for obvious reasons, but I have heard indirectly that the August 10, 1998 issue of Forbes magazine (which I have not yet had a chance to read) mentioned 5 million Linux users with the number doubling each year." (Readers: Please read the Forbes article for yourself.)

The Aug.10/98 issue of Forbes highlighted the phenomenon of free software, and featured Linus Torvalds on the cover. The cover article provided an excellent account of the dynamics of free software, talked about the Free Software Foundation, and discussed the commercial relevance of Linux, Apache, and Sendmail. You can read the coverage on the web from the following URLs:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/0810/6209037a.htm (cover)
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/0810/6209094a.htm (article)

Alan continued: "if there are 300 million windows 95 users we are talking something like 1.7 per cent for the Linux share but rapidly increasing. From my reading of TCP I would be very surprised if a search of your website indicates you really do mention Linux anywhere near its fair share of the time compared to the [number of] Windows 95/NT mentions. I believe you did mention the Corel port to Linux in the last issue, but your Linux mentions in TCP are few and far between compared to the drumbeat of Windows 95/NT mentions.

A specific example was your encryption articles. I found the general issues discussed were useful to this Linux user. However, when you discussed the various software products you mentioned windows 95/NT availability for most of them and the cost of that port, but failed to mention PGP availability for Linux at zero cost. PGP is the only encryption software I know about.

The other software packages you mentioned may have had a Linux port, but I won't be able to find this out from your article. This doesn't help the comparison shopper very much and adds to the myth propagated by Microsoft that Linux applications are few and far between. I have believed this myth somewhat myself, but I have begun to wonder what the truth really is when I run into a situation where you clearly ignored the zero cost Linux application in favour of an expensive '95/NT version of the same software."

Irwin concludes with a request for a test comparing Linux on a Mac with Linux on Intel. Good idea -- there's already such a test at http://www.macintouch.com/linuxnetscape.html. Any more takers?

Is the Alpha a good platform for Linux? That depends. Support for Alpha is definitely diminishing and prices, as this comparison reveals, tend to be high, relative to x86-based systems. However, Linus Torvalds (the original Linux author) is allegedly still using the Alpha as his primary platform, and all Red Hat Linux (http://www.redhat.com/) CDs come with an Alpha install option. With a very minimal knowledge of C you can port pretty much any Linux x86 package to Linux Alpha with very few changes. And, although high-end systems are pricey, we've seen older Digital Alphas with a 233MHz processor, 32MB of RAM, PC Card reader, SCSI CD-ROM drive, and an 8MB video card selling for as little as C$699.

According to Lucas Thompson (wiz...@arnold.ca), Lead Developer at Arnold Publishing Ltd., a 466Mhz Alpha On a T3 at RIT (Rochester, NY) handles up to 4 million web hits an hour without skipping a beat and, explains Thompson, in the foreground it usually has a user running Netscape "and stuff." Says Thompson, "He doesn't even notice when we do big web tests or flood tests on it."

Alphas, explains Thompson, use pretty much the same motherboard chipsets as the x86 chips, so an FX or LX series board would use DIMMs, and a BX/NX/GX series board would use 10ns SDRAM similar to that used in the PentiumII and the Power Macintosh G3.

Thompson also voiced his opinion on reports that Alpha isn't so great for stability. "NT stability is 'iffy'," he says, "since usually you have to run all your apps through FX!32, a 32-bit Pentium emulator. "Only the really big/major software packages," he adds, "have actual native 64-bit versions. (Oracle, MS SQL, Netscape Server, and of course, Quake :-) )"

Stability under Digital Unix, he claims, "isn't even an issue." In 3 years of 24/7 serving, Thompson says his 466MHz Alpha has been rebooted twice, "and that was for very low-level software patches. We've installed and hotswapped webserver software and e-mail software on the fly many many times without a glitch. Under Linux it's a little worse, since it's still in development, I'd expect you'd want to reboot it and update it about once every 4 to 6 weeks, just to make sure you have the latest bug fixes, etc..."

The nicest part about running an Alpha with Digital Unix or Linux, he says, is 'clustering'. Say you get the 266Mhz for $700 and keep it around for a while, then you find a 400Mhz and purchase it, if you're running Linux you can basically allocate the 2 boxes as a single 666MHz (heh) machine using 'PVM' software from Red Hat. It's a little tougher under Digital Unix, says Thompson, but is still much nicer than trying to cluster an NT system.

Linux Server Market
Linux continues to be strongest in the server side of the market. In fact, a March 5th, 2001 report on CNET notes that Linux' presence in the server market increased more than Windows in 2000. Linux installations, say analysts, grew by 24 percent, while Windows grew by 20 percent. Windows still lead in new server installs with a share of 41 percent, with Linux at 27 percent. However, if you combine the Linux numbers with that of Unix for the year 2000, Linux/Unix ties the market share of Windows servers.

Microsoft, hard-pressed to come up with something nice to say about sluggish sales of Windows 2000, shot back with a press release the same day, claiming "Windows 2000 Server will continue to expand market share in 2001, according to the results of an Ipsos-Reid study." No doubt. According to the study, 51 per cent of IT decision makers will upgrade their existing desktop OSes within the next 12 months.

Linux Support
How do you get support for a free operating system? Ask around. InfoWorld gave the Linux user community the Product of the Year Best Technical Support Award in 1997. See http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?97poy.supp.htm.
Also, there are a number of stores that specialize in Linux wares. In Vancouver, see Multimedia Technologies, a block east of Cambie, for a huge selection of Linux wares, as well as unusually low prices on imported software titles for Windows PCs, including those from big-name business and graphics vendors.

Web links:

Linux for PowerPC
www.linuxppc.org

RedHat Linux

www.redhat.com

Linux Clustering

www.beowulf.org

Alpha vs. Athlon

Ace's Hardware

Archives of the Alpha Linux mailing list:

linux.ucs.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/alpha

What to build when you have way too much money, time, and Alphas:
cnls.lanl.gov/avalon
http://slashdot.org/
Linux Today: What's new in the Linux world.
Jan. 2001: Linux Kernel 2.4 released.

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Linux - salvation for the "ABM" crowd

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