The comparison is impressive. Thanks! -----Original Message----- From: Martin Stricker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 4:32 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: General LINUX Question
Bruce Fry wrote: > 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 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. There are free compilers for nearly any programming language already in mot of the Linux distributions. If they do not fit your needs you can get commercial compilers for Linux, too. Linux *is* a Unix derivate! There is no "Unix" but lots of Unix derivates for different purposes. Most of them are commercial, but some are free, like Linux. All share the basic Unix features which make this family of operating systems so successful. So comparing Linux with "Unix" doesn't make any sense at all. If you want to compare a commercial Unix derivate with Linux, the outcome will depend on several issues, like the used hardware, costs for both the software itself and support, and most importantly your needs. Why pay huge fees for features you'll never need? Microsoft operating systems are no threat for Linux or other Unix derivates in the server realm. If you take the same hardware and software (in my case, a server with four Pentium III 600 processors and the Oracle 8.1.7 database) and use it once for Linux and once for Windows 2000, you'll see the dmfference. I had the Win2k configured by our experienced Windows admin and configured Red Hat Linux 7.3 myself (dual boot). Installed the same database and a replication of one of our production databases. Then I ran several of our reports on both platforms. On average Linux was about three to four times faster. This and the far less licensing and support cost convinced our management. IMHO on the long run performance is the most important issue anyway... The fact that IBM thinks Linux is worth to be promoted shows *me* there must be more about Linux than certain people see. IBM won't waste their money for nothing! I think the best possibility for you to find out which operating system is the best one for your needs is: Go and try all choices, take benchmarks and look at the costs, especially the hidden ones. Then compare the figures and your gut's feeling and decide which system is best for you. Worked for me... Best regards, Martin Stricker -- Homepage: http://www.martin-stricker.de/ Linux Migration Project: http://www.linux-migration.org/ Red Hat Linux 7.3 for low memory: http://www.rule-project.org/ Registered Linux user #210635: http://counter.li.org/
