I, too, think the NT-biased magazine is misleading (to say the least).
The conclusion that "Linux currently has several major limitations that
prevent it from being a contender in any arena other than the small-server
segment" is disproved by real-world examples, such as:
* The fastest SMB (NT/Win9x networking) server record goes to a
machine running Linux.
* Linux or FreeBSD are chosen for high-use ftp servers (and
internet servers in general), and often 1-CPU or 2-CPU servers beat
the stacks of CPUs used by Microsoft for its own sites.
* Massively parallel high-performance computing on Linux as way ahead
of NT (made first, allow more computers in clusters, have bigger
implemented examples).
There are all manner of design factors in operating systems that can be
attacked on performance grounds. Some people don't like the default
scheduler for instance, so somebody went off and made another one
available. You can't really do that with NT. Of course there are
grounds for saying one operating system should fit all needs, and MS
would like to get to having just one system to look after, but in
reality there are advantages and disadvantages to all the decisions
that go into an operating system and in general a flexible one, like
Linux, is going to rake up more and more winning situations as people
can adapt it to run optimally for what they need. At the moment, I
can happily say that Solaris is better for some jobs. It not only has
some features Linux doesn't at the moment, but deep-down decisions in
its design make it fundamentally a better choice *for some things* than
Linux or NT. In some cases NT is better (the disk-write speed of its NTFS
can be faster than ext2fs, but linux isn't limited to ext2fs of course).
I can even point to some situations where OS/2 is the best system.
As it stands, Linux is (easily) the best choice for a pretty wide range
of situations. Not all, but enough to totally demolish the "only good
for baby servers" myth. (Un?)fortunately, Linux people don't have a PR
department, so I doubt you'll find a neat list of Linux accomplishments
like how many internet servers use them, what is the biggest, fastest,
etc. If there is such a list please point me to it!
I expect more people will comment on the SMP questions, pointing out
differences between Linux 2.0 and 2.1, etc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Aitchison, \_ Phone: +64 3 364-2947 home 337-1225
Dept of Physics & Astronomy, <| Fax: +64 3 364-2469 or 364-2999
University of Canterbury, /) Web: www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/~physmsa
Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND. (/' E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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