[NTLUG:Discuss] Mac v. Linux

Tue Jun 7 19:55:35 CDT 2005

solaris?? I'm trying to decide if you're flaming, kidding, or if I should
actually respond...

Sun is a dying company... has been for years, if you don't believe me, check the
stock market.  The only thing keeping solaris alive is Fujitsu, and they have GE
level resources, so they'll be around for a while.  But the Japanese are smart,
when nobody cares anymore that they can beat Sun on performance for like 80% of
the price, they'll quit doing the solaris R&D for Sun.

Sun may be around for a while... but they are pricey and the market is
tolerating that less every year... the move to amd workstations is a good move
for them to keep costs in control, but they still put out a very expensive box,
and I've seen steady detorating demand for that.

linux may have some ground to cover still, but several of the distro's are
already solid enough to be taken seriously and in a far better position to be
that 3rd OS than solaris (isn't sun just as happy to run linux as they are
solaris on their opteron workstations?)

j

Quoting Burton Strauss <Burton_Strauss at comcast.net>:

> Wrong.  It will be HUGELY visible.  Don't you remember the conversion from
> 68xxx?  EVERY SINGLE application needed to be re-written (at a minimum
> re-compiled) and for years and years had to be offered in two versions.  At
> least with CD and DVD, you can probably get all of this on one disk so it's
> largely transparent - for NEW stuff.
>
> But all of the old stuff won't work.  And just like at other transitions, a
> lot of code will be orphaned.
>
> Besides, I think you are also wrong on how much commodity hardware will
> creep in.  It's just not cost effective to design a new bus and then new
> North/South bridge chips.  So it's still going to be SATA and USB and PCI
> and DDR.   So while there may be a custom boot rom (BIOS), at some point
> it's going to load x86 code.
>
> My bet?  If you want to run windows on the ApplePC, go ahead.  They'll tell
> you it's not supported, but it will probably work...  And if you can boot
> Windows, you can boot Linux.
>
> So now you're back at the question of why anyone would pay the Apple Tax for
> commodity hardware.  And whether you want to pay for an OS to get support or
> roll your own.
>
> I can see a future where there are three viable desktop OS choices -
> Windows, Mac and Solaris - all running on the same cheap Chinese hardware.
> And then there's the oddballs - Linux and the *BSDs.  Which will be used by
> a few die-hards but mostly by people who have cars in their front yards
> sitting on cinderblocks.
>
> -----Burton
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org] On Behalf
> Of Steve Baker
> Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 7:22 PM
> To: NTLUG Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Mac v. Linux
>
> Andrew Brown wrote:
> > Well the hoopla is a hoopin' over the Mac to Intel move. Been reading
> > some articles today about how this may impact Linux. Some of the
> > "pundents" seem to see this as more a challenge to Linux than to MS as
> > Mac OS is the "best of breed" Unix system.
>
> I find it hard to see how it'll have any impact whatever.
>
> The key thing to understand is that Mac-on-Intel does *not* mean Mac-on-PC.
>
> Apple are a hardware company - their new machines almost certainly won't be
> PC-compatible, and there is no indication that they'd ever sell their OS for
> PC's.
>
> So my prediction is that Mac's will still be Mac's - and the fact that they
> have a different CPU inside will be pretty much invisible to everyone.
>
> About the most impact it'll probably have is to gradually reduce the numbers
> of people maintaining Linux PPC distro's as the PPC Mac's start to become
> obsolete.
>
> ---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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