> We're researching the opportunity of server consolidation through the > investment of LINUX images on our mainframe. Is anyone aware of compiler > limitations concerning programming languages, or anything at all between > Microsoft or Unix environments to LINUX? Several members of our Network
GCC is what Linux uses. GCC is not perfect, it has its flaws, but to GCC credit it has been used in favor of many vendor compilers for more than a decade. Replace vendor compilers? No. I'm not saying that, just that GCC is pretty teriffic as a base. > team are standing firmly in the ear of management exclaiming that LINUX is > something of a toy or IBM cash cow that will not perform up to Microsoft or > Unix standards. UNIX is not the best operating system (API), but it's good. (Witness Solaris, UTS, AIX, IRIX, and others for various strengths.) Linux is not the best implementation of UNIX, but it's good. Furthermore, Linux brings to UNIX many of the ideals which had been lost over the years. Linux is not as strong as Solaris or AIX in many ways. The question is whether or not it is adequate given your constraints. To blanketly state that it "will not perform up to Microsoft or Unix standards" is ... just that, a gross generalization. Frankly, to my delightful surprise, Linux has been faster and more stable than the Microsoft offerings for at least the past five years. Is it as "user friendly"? No. These are my opinions, not necessarily those of my employer. The value of Linux is not that it is "free" in terms of money, but rather that it is "free" in terms of how you may use it, and now also that Linux runs on a wider range of hardware than ANY OTHER OPERATING SYSTEM, UNIX, Windows, or DEC VMS. I hope this helps.
