Linux Corner

[Mac the Knife]

"On the desktop, only Windows or (in some cases) Mac OSX is appropriate,......"

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I'll inform my successful small business (mostly Linux, 2 Macs) immediately!



Mac

[Saab Dastard]

I do find it strange that such an important system was based on Linux and intel, rather than on 'NIX and high-end mid-range systems from HP, Sun or IBM.

It does suggest a penny-pinching approach or attitude that may have extended into the design, development and testing regimes.

As others have said, it's rarely the OS or hardware that's to blame, usually it's the design and implementation that's at fault.

SD

[mad_jock]

I also find it strange Saab

Although I visited an old site I used to work out not so long ago and found things very much changed.

All the Solaris servers were gone to be replaced by... Linux although to be fair it was a commercial flavour.

All the desktop sparks were gone to be replaced by linux deskyops and MS laptops. There were loads of terminal servers doing database stuff.

The enterprise exchange system which had been the bane of my life at times had been punted and it was back to using sendmail on the nix systems with IMAP.

It all looked rather shoddy to me and certainly not what you would have expected in a blue chip companys server room.

[AnthonyGA]

Although I visited an old site I used to work out not so long ago and found things very much changed.

All the Solaris servers were gone to be replaced by... Linux although to be fair it was a commercial flavour.

All the desktop sparks were gone to be replaced by linux deskyops and MS laptops. There were loads of terminal servers doing database stuff.

The enterprise exchange system which had been the bane of my life at times had been punted and it was back to using sendmail on the nix systems with IMAP.

It all looked rather shoddy to me and certainly not what you would have expected in a blue chip companys server room.

The common trait to all of these actions is an obvious, ill-informed, and greedy attempt to save money by any means conceivable. Unfortunately, any apparent savings in the short term will be offset by much higher costs in the long term. However, even accountants sometimes don't see the forest because of the trees, and may not realize that higher costs could be the result of penny-pinching decisions made years earlier.

None of the changes you describe has any real technical justification. The use of terminal servers is especially irresponsible, although I've seen it often enough. In the old days, that was called "timesharing," but timesharing worked much better than terminal servers.

I'll inform my successful small business (mostly Linux, 2 Macs) immediately!

You can get away with all sorts of things in a small business, including many unconventional IT policies (except a lack of backups, which can be fatal to any business). When you are managing 60,000 desktops in 100 countries, however, the rules change.

[Mac the Knife]

"When you are managing 60,000 desktops in 100 countries, however, the rules change."

Indeed. With their record at this sort of scale I'd be worried about using Microsoft. And even considering their massive discounts to big business users it would be expensive - though I would write it off as a business expense and get the ordinary tax-payer to subsidise me (and Microsoft).

"You can get away with all sorts of things in a small business, including many unconventional IT policies..."

I hardly think Linux per se qualifies as unconventional nowadays - should we all then be restricted to commercial UNIX or Microsoft? Would it be "better" if I was using FreeBSD (which I considered) or are only commercial offerings acceptable?

The fact is that just about any modern OS is as good (or bad) is its implementation in a business. Crap sysadmins, slack security and lazy policies will make any system liable to instability, corruption and crashes no matter how much money you have paid for it.

Mac

[Booglebox]

No offence chaps but you are all stuck in the stone age. I don't know anybody using anything else apart from regular off the shelf Linux (when not using MS) for anything from small, fairly mission critical projects (radio station) to extremely large-scale web applications that serve tens of thousands of users.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Originally Posted by Booglebox

No offence chaps but you are all stuck in the stone age. I don't know anybody using anything else apart from regular off the shelf Linux (when not using MS) for anything from small, fairly mission critical projects (radio station) to extremely large-scale web applications that serve tens of thousands of users.

Then your definition of 'mission critical' is different from AnthonyGA's (which incidentally is a pretty textbook enterprise view of things).
Also, a web app serving 10,000 users is not "extremely large scale".

[AnthonyGA]

Indeed. With their record at this sort of scale I'd be worried about using Microsoft. And even considering their massive discounts to big business users it would be expensive - though I would write it off as a business expense and get the ordinary tax-payer to subsidise me (and Microsoft).

I'm not sure what you mean by record of scale. Workloads are typically distributed over multiple servers in large enterprises. For example, Exchange is usually spread over dozens or hundreds of servers, and the same is true for domain control and validation. There are some enterprises with well over 100,000 Windows desktops in use.

I hardly think Linux per se qualifies as unconventional nowadays …

On the desktop, Linux is extremely unconventional, with only about 0.1% of the market. That percentage has not significantly changed in years, and unless some fundamental changes occur in the Linux world, the percentage will never change.

On servers, Linux is popular, because (1) it's cheap or free; (2) it has been very heavily hyped, especially by people who have never heard of UNIX; and (3) it looks a bit like UNIX (although UNIX fans will want the real thing, and I don't blame them).

Would it be "better" if I was using FreeBSD (which I considered) or are only commercial offerings acceptable?

Use whatever you want. I run FreeBSD on my server, and Windows XP on my desktop.

No offence chaps but you are all stuck in the stone age. I don't know anybody using anything else apart from regular off the shelf Linux (when not using MS) for anything from small, fairly mission critical projects (radio station) to extremely large-scale web applications that serve tens of thousands of users.

I don't know of any large organization successfully using Linux as a plug-in replacement for Windows desktops. Linux is not suitable for the desktop. The only organizations attempting this are those that are hellbent on "saving money," although there are many pitfalls to trying to move to Linux that can wash away savings and cost a fortune, as many organizations have discovered.

Linux is more popular on servers, for reasons already stated (unfortunately these reasons do not include technical superiority). A system serving ten thousand users is not "large-scale" by my definition, which comes from the world of mainframes. Even my own personal Web site serves thousands of unique visitors a day. A fairly good-sized company might have 40,000-80,000 desktops, a large company may have many more.

[AnthonyGA]

The fact that Linux may be cheap or free does not stop large companies having a business model that allows them to make some extremely good revenue out of the applications that run on that O/S. Go ask IBM about Linux on System z running under z/VM.

IBM makes a lot more money on its own proprietary operating systems. So do other companies. When they support or offer Linux, it's mainly to respond to a demand by IT managers who don't know any better than to insist on whatever they last read about in the trade rags.

The proprietary operating systems are often dramatically superior to Linux for a given type of job, too. Mainframe operating systems, for example, are extremely productive for the types of work for which they are designed, far more so than a generic OS like Linux. Even UNIX is a terribly poor choice for mainframes, and if misguided customers didn't insist on it, it wouldn't be in the catalog.

[AnthonyGA]

Been waiting for years for a commercially viable release of OSX that can run legally on any of the stuff that passes for a PC. Now that would be ideal, nice GUI on top, NetBSD underneath. Looks like I will still be waiting for a while though.

Probably. Apple—like Microsoft—has chosen to favor the desktop over the server, and the two goals are in direct conflict. Apple has written mountains of code to convert a UNIX-like command-line timesharing server into a single-user GUI-based desktop. It has succeeded admirably, but in so doing it has made its OS less and less suitable for use as a server. This isn't really a problem for Apple, which wants to sell desktops, anyway. The only reason Apple chose existing software as a basis for its new OS was that it couldn't afford to write a new OS from scratch (at the time). Writing an entirely new OS, as Microsoft did with NT, costs billions of dollars. Apple might have the cash for that today (no thanks to the Mac, but thanks to the iPod and iPhone), but it didn't back then.

Anyway, GUIs soak up much of the horsepower of any system equipped with them, irrespective of the OS beneath. Glistening, dancing, transparent 3-D GUIs may win beauty contests, but they are very expensive in terms of resources. Unfortunately, today's Windows is stuck with a GUI, which is one of the drawbacks that make it less suitable than UNIX and its ilk as a server. In some cases up to 80% of the processing horsepower of a system can be consumed by the GUI, so just having one on a server is a waste of money. Not only that, but many administrative tasks are much faster to carry out with a command-line interface than they are with a point-and-click GUI interface. Windows is very tiring to use as a server because it is impossible to avoid using the GUI for many tasks.

I'm not sure about the extent to which you can strip the GUI out of Mac OSX, but it's pretty much impossible with Windows today. XP, Vista, 7 … they all come from the NT code base for the most part, but over the years the rock-stable and super-secure NT code base (which is very well written) has been contaminated by imports from Windows 95, which was garbage. The original NT GUI was quite distinct from the kernel, and the system was very secure in consequence. Those days are gone. Both were progressively sacrificed for the sake of users who wanted a more "friendly" and "pretty" interface, which required gutting some of the security features to improve performance (whence DirectX et al.). I was never happy about that, but that's the way it went. The secure Program Manager and Explorer were discarded in favor of the mess from Windows 9x, destabilizing the system. This improved the "user experience" for Windows on the desktop, but put holes in the security for Windows as a server, and made the system more difficult to lock down. It's still more secure than OSX or Linux, though, by orders of magnitude.

Apple did the same thing with OSX, bolting on vast amounts of extra code to make it pretty and friendly, and thereby undermining the security and suitability of the core OS in a server or locked-down environment. UNIXoid systems aren't really secure to begin with, but adding a GUI makes them worse.

And there are many flavors of Linux that fall into the same trap, only the GUI is more primitive and less functional than that of OSX or Windows (not having billions of dollars' worth of top developers behind it). The fancier the GUI, the less suitable the system is as a server.

Other UNIX systems and clones are also doing this, and I don't know why. FreeBSD is run by a great many people with a GUI, which I suppose makes sense on the desktop (although why anyone would run anyBSD on the desktop is a mystery to me), but I run it strictly as a server, with just a simple command-line interface at the console and a few SSH sessions from my desktop, thereby allowing me to run plenty of stuff on a very small machine.

Anyway, the industry doesn't seem to want to accept that you cannot be all things to all people, and you cannot be the world's best desktop AND the world's best server. Until it faces this reality, you're going to have people running the wrong OS on the wrong systems, and companies encouraging them in their error.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Originally Posted by AnthonyGA

Unfortunately, today's Windows is stuck with a GUI, which is one of the drawbacks that make it less suitable than UNIX and its ilk as a server. In some cases up to 80% of the processing horsepower of a system can be consumed by the GUI, so just having one on a server is a waste of money. Not only that, but many administrative tasks are much faster to carry out with a command-line interface than they are with a point-and-click GUI interface. Windows is very tiring to use as a server because it is impossible to avoid using the GUI for many tasks.

I'm not sure about the extent to which you can strip the GUI out of Mac OSX, but it's pretty much impossible with Windows today.

Windows Server Core: Overview | SerkTools

[le Pingouin]

This improved the "user experience" for Windows on the desktop, but put holes in the security for Windows as a server, and made the system more difficult to lock down. It's still more secure than OSX or Linux, though, by orders of magnitude.

Oh please!

And there are many flavors of Linux that fall into the same trap, only the GUI is more primitive and less functional than that of OSX or Windows (not having billions of dollars' worth of top developers behind it). The fancier the GUI, the less suitable the system is as a server.

You do know with Linux the GUI is entirely separate from the underlying OS don't you? Install server tools becomes server. Install GUI becomes desktop.

[mad_jock]

To be honest its not a server if it has a keyboard and monitor attached.

The number that I used to regularly tenet into I only really knew which country they were in and which IP address to telnet.

[Mac the Knife]

50 Places Linux is Running That You Might Not Expect

Though I believe Munich has caved in to MS pressure....

Ho hum!

[AnthonyGA]

Windows Server Core: Overview | SerkTools

Well, that's certainly a welcome change, of which I was not aware. I haven't used Windows as a server in years, since the only (or main) reason for doing so would be to support native functionality on Windows desktops. I'm almost tempted to try it … but not quite. The tiny box I cobbled together from spare parts in order to run a FreeBSD server probably wouldn't even boot Windows.

You do know with Linux the GUI is entirely separate from the underlying OS don't you?

Yes, but separate or not, GUIs consume a great deal of resources and introduce many complications to the system. While this may be justifiable on a desktop, it's a tremendous waste on a server.

Sometimes it's even a waste on the desktop. In one of my earlier computers I had a Windows FTP application that never seemed to reach the 10 Mbps speed of the LAN for transfers. I finally discovered that it was spending most of its CPU time painting its window, and when I switched to the simple CLI version of FTP that comes with Windows, transfer rates immediately rose to the capacity of the link.

To be honest its not a server if it has a keyboard and monitor attached.

That depends on your configuration and environment. While you certainly wouldn't put monitors and keyboards on every server in a server farm, if you only have one server (as I do), it's not a big deal to have a separate monitor for it. I do share the keyboard, though. It also has its own mouse, although I'm not sure where I put it (I never have a use for the mouse on the server).

Even so, I do SSH into the server from the desktop most of the time, as this is more flexible and makes it easier to have multiple "terminals" connected.

Which is why if you read my post I said running 'under z/VM' - in other words as a guest OS in a totally separate LPAR.

Guest OS or not, it's still not a mainframe OS. It's just Linux. Little server operating systems are lightyears away from mainframe operating systems.

Up until around the mid 70's when MVS 3.8 existed, it was public domain and able to be installed on any competitors hardware - Amdahl, ITEL.

Freely available and public domain are not the same thing. While earlier versions of MVS were published and readily available (I think—it's been a long time), I should be very, very surprised if IBM ever released anything into the public domain. I'm not sure if anything would have entered the public domain on its own. In any case, it's not as if one can install MVS on a PC or a PDP-11/70 (without emulation).

[mad_jock]

In general I woud only ever have a monitor etc attached when the build was being done unless of course I had already built it virtually and it was a squirt job.

Most places have and I forget the system name but you hit the crt button twice and you can get access from a gold fish bowl 14" screen and a bio hazard keyboard. I never used it but have wired it up and then reallocated the fancy new monitor which had been purchased for the server room. Huge screams from the windows boys but as the racking etc came off the nix budget and it used to stop the CEO's PA moaning about doing spreadsheets on a Admin standard monitor they could go and sing.

On the subject of GUI's it used to fill me with joy when starting at a site to find the server room full of "pipes" screen savers. You just knew you were in for months of teaching folk that didn't know how to suck eggs how to suck eggs.

[le Pingouin]

Yes, but separate or not, GUIs consume a great deal of resources and introduce many complications to the system. While this may be justifiable on a desktop, it's a tremendous waste on a server.

How is that relevant if you don't have the GUI running or don't even install it?

As you commented SSH in from a desktop or if you really want a GUI on the server run something light on resources & only run it as needed.

[AnthonyGA]

How is that relevant if you don't have the GUI running or don't even install it?

It's not, but the point is that GUIs are sometimes installed and running on servers. That's certainly true for Windows servers, and the inexperienced administrator might also have Linux or UNIX servers installed with GUIs, particularly if they were set up with some sort of default install that always puts in a GUI. As mad_jock has indicated, if you start one day at a new job and you see a server room filled with screens and screen savers (either is a bad sign), it tells you something about the people already running the place. It's a bit like configuring your server farm to run Seti @ Home.

I don't think UNIX or Linux systems should ever have default installations that put in any type of GUI. If you are running these operating systems and you don't know how to set up a GUI yourself, you don't know enough to be using these operating systems. I know that this is often done to encourage the use of these operating systems on the desktop, but they are not suitable for the desktop. The obvious exception is OSX, which has UNIX-like underpinnings but has nevertheless been heavily modified to serve more or less exclusively as a desktop (if you remove the GUI from a Mac, well, why bother paying for a Mac?).

[AnthonyGA]

Incorrect.
In the 70's OS software was provided FOC when the client purchased the hardware.

That does not mean that it was in the public domain.

Since then MVS 3.8J has been readily available under public domain along with all associated software including compilers etc to anybody who wants it.

Again, making something freely available does not place it in the public domain. That is a common misconception.

However, I did some research, and it appears that some versions of MVS may have fallen into the public domain under current copyright law (which required, at one time, that copyright notices be placed on copyrighted materials published in the past in order to retain copyright protection). Apparently IBM took no steps to ensure copyright protection of some code (in the days when steps were still necessary) and has not attempted to assert copyright in some cases.

The source code for mainframe operating systems historically has been more or less public, to allow customers to modify code and no doubt because proprietary mainframe source code isn't of much use to anyone who doesn't have the corresponding hardware. However, publishing source code is not equivalent to placing something in the public domain.

[AnthonyGA]

Glad that you have satisfied yourself with the fact that IBM have software in the PD.

I had already mentioned the possibility of software falling into the public domain, but I'd be surprised if IBM ever explicitly released it to the public domain. In the early days of computing, at least some types of software weren't considered very important in terms of intellectual property. The objective of vendors was to sell hardware, and an operating system was just a necessary evil in order to get the hardware sales. Later, operating systems became important pieces of intellectual property in their own right. The potential for sales-damaging misuse of proprietary mainframe operating systems has always been self-limiting, anyway.

IBM do not make the source code of their OS's for example z/OS available to anybody.
For one thing much of it was written in PL/S which is itself only available to staff within Big Blue.

Note the word "historically" in my post. MVS was written in assembler, as I recall, although I never did any tweaking of the OS myself.