Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 22:15:44 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Ben" <ben@cahostnet.com>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: FreeBSD and Linux (More Questions!) Message-ID: <003a01c0ac4e$33e8df60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <008401c0abc3$879168c0$6102a00a@nhqadmin17>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: Ben [mailto:ben@cahostnet.com] >Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 5:43 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt; questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: FreeBSD and Linux (More Questions!) > > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >I agree with you on what you're saying but let me clarify some things >here as well. I've been in the computer industry for quite some time >now myself. Probably not as long as you but I'm no newbie in the >computer industry. When I say the term industry standard I really >mean marketing trend. In other words where will I find the most >bang for the money. If I use Solaris for example, I can almost >guarantee that I will find something in the Unix world that I can fit >in. Linux has also emerged to be a big player now in the market. >This is all marketing trends. I suspected you were thinking along those lines and my original post was incomplete (I was getting tired). Aside from the reasons I gave before that it didn't matter which Unix you used, I also should have mentioned that all UNIX's are 80% alike, once you know a few of them it's pretty easy to pick up any one that you might need to use. It's like learning Windows 95, once you have that you pretty much know 98, and ME. The UNIX market is much more mature, in many ways it parallels the automotive industry. With cars, they are all alike, which is why this issue of "branding" is so important. Windows doesen't have this because it's so incredibly immature compared to UNIX that it changes so fast that nobody else wants to bother making a competitive version. But, we are already seeing new Windows version deployments stalling all over the place, many sites still run Windows 95 for example. This hamstrings rapid advances in the Windows OS as you surely know - because when you still have 40% of the market on Windows 95, you can't release a new version of Windows that isn't compatible with it, and the more newer versions of Windows that you release that are backwards compatible the more market inertia and resistance develops to making major changes. The Windows market is maturing right before our eyes, in 10 years it's going to be like the UNIX market, without fundamental difference between the "brands" of Windows. > Tomorrow it could be something else >and that's fine. No, there's something else operating here, the process of market maturation. During the first 10 years of the PC lifespan, tremendous differences were made in PC architecure. During the second 10 years, the architecture remained similar, just got faster, and changes were more evolutionary. In the next 10 years we probably won't see many changes in the basic PC save increased speed. The rate of change is slowing down. PC operating systems have developed in a similar manner, even FreeBSD. For example, you take most UNIX programs that compiled on FreeBSD 2.2.8, and you could probably compile most out of the box on version 4.2. But, I remember installing software on 2.2.8 that was developed 10 years earlier on old Solaris and utek boxes and it was a lot more difficult to get built. That's what the industry is today. What you learn >today could be gone tomorrow. This is the reason I posed my >question. Basically what flavor of Unix can I use that will be best >for learning the operating system so I can adjust to any type of >other flavored Unix platform. Most of everyone here stated that they >thought BSD was the way to go because how it was structured and how >close that structure was to Unix itself. > Well, obviously, as this is a BSD questions list. >Me personally, I work in an NT shop with some Unix. My group will be >getting some Unix in the near future. What we don't know. See how >this can benefit me and put me in a better position to impress my >boss and better help my team? Considering I wrote a book targeted exactly at you and people in your situation, don't feel that you need to explain this. ;-) As stated by you, no one can know >everything and that's correct. Even the smartest engineers don't >know everything. They may be perfect in their current position but >may not fit someone else. I try to remain neutral whenever possible. >There's always room for the typical Unix machine and the NT machine. >I don't get in this war as I have to keep an open mind when it comes >to designing system for customers. Not everyone needs Unix and not >everyone can benefit from NT either. There are several factors to >consider. > Your preaching to the choir. >I've pretty much made up my mind to go with FreeBSD since I have >couple of servers already running for testing. This will give me >more knowledge about it. Thanks to everyone that replied. It helped >in my decision making and I appreciate it. > I'm actually very much more interested in what made you bring up FreeBSD in the first place. With a Windows background it's not like your going to be getting a tremendous amount of press on any of the UNIX's, let alone FreeBSD. Since Linux is what has taken square aim at the Windows users, the more typical profile is someone from a pure Windows background would try out Linux first. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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