Posted on 08/10/2004 7:19:13 AM PDT by N3WBI3
Microsoft executive Martin Taylor's schedule is packed with meetings like the one in June when he met with representatives from French drugmaker Aventis in his Redmond, Wash. office. Aventis has tied together groups of computers running not Microsoft's operating system but the freely available Linux. These high-performance clusters can analyze proteins at blazing speeds. "That's great for Linux," Taylor said cheerily, at the time.
That same week -- by coincidence, the company says-- Microsoft announced plans for a new version of Windows software to handle exactly the kind of high-performance computing Aventis had set up. Says Taylor now, "I'll knock on their door in a few months so they can check out our stuff."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Microsoft has every reason to get on the Linux parade now, with MONO's .NET implementation taking off on Linux. It does them a lot of good.
Someone will have to tell Golden Eagle about this. He's been crabbing about the Chinese being able to develop nuclear weapons "for free" by using linux. Now that they can use Windows to develop their nuclear weapons, I'm sure he'll feel much safer. After all, the license fees for Windows (assuming the Chinese military bothers to pay them) will make the cost of developing nuclear weapons prohibitive.
So long as the French
make the Redmond pilgrimage,
all's well in Gatesland.
Typical of Microsoft. Vaporware: Oh, we can't do that today, but we're working on it... and believe me, when it's done, it will be better, faster, stronger, more effective, and make peanut butter sandwiches.
Bah. When a company gets as big as Micro$oft, they can't get out of their own way, much less innovate. They aren't evil, they're just too darn big. They are IBM all over again.
To extend, one must first embrace.
I work in a large corporate IT environment, and the attitude has shifted in the past three years from, "we can't afford NOT to run Microsoft operating systems"..... to questioning whether we can afford to continue doing so! I know from having friends in other sectors of the industry, that my employer isn't unique in this. Don't point the finger at Microsoft either! Every operating system that was installed which assisted in propogating a virus required that the installer AGREE to the EULA.
I have always worked in primarily UNIX shops until my current position. We have some Big Iron, and had only one UNIX server the rest was windows as far as the eye can see. I was brought in by someone who had worked with me in the past and wanted to go with more *NIX in our data center. We now have about 10 Mission critical *NIX servers and a few dozen support servers which are VM's (mostly running linux but we have a couple of AIX boxes hanging around. We are looking at SUN to host an application that will replace the mainframe.
On the desktop I don't see it yet, unless for a very focused group Linux is not quite there. We have some PB code so that eliminates the possibility of switching over but even if we were all J2EE I still think *NIX is for the server world.
I wish Microsoft would offer a barebones home version of their operating software.
That way I could install any program I want and not have a conflict with some MS software program I don't use that comes with the current versions.
They need to also eliminate the bloat of the operating system. There is no reason for it to take up 3 gigs of space.
Dear hiredhand,
Would you salvage an old Sony PCG-F290 by reformatting the hard drive and installing Linux on it? I am faced by this dilemma right now... whether or not to buy a new Dell laptop or salvage my old Sony.
If Linux is good, would you use Red Hat? Remember that you know a lot, and I don't about installing Linux and using Linux. Is the Red Hat support good enough to warrant the $170 to $300 per annum subscription?
Much obliged,
caddie
The specs on the notebook do not look bad 128MB, 6 Gig HD, DVD Rom... It might be worth it for you to try Linux on it.
As far as the RedHat subscription fee, no not worth it on a new system that you might require support on I would say go for it but on a rescue mission I would go with Fedora Which is free, and provides update via YUM (Yellow Dog Update Manager). The install is easy just accept all the defaults. If I can be of assistance let me know..
I could beat on my head with a sledge hammer while smoking crack with a 104 degree fever, and I would still be thinking too clearly to install that kind of Microsoft security hole.
I sure have, simply because that is exactly what they do.
Your buddies at IBM and Red Hat give them all the free Linux software and upgrades they could ever want, which the Chicoms use to build supercomputers that are in the top 10 most powerful in the world.
But does Nick Danger care, at all? Nope, he runs cover for the operation by somehow trying to blame Microsoft, instead. Now he's down to accusing me of "crabbing about it", since it's all perfectly fine by him, and should be with everyone else, apparently.
Now he thinks that since MS is developing a similar product to sell, it's going to be even easier to sweep his dirty little secret of completely free software for the Chicoms under the rug, and attempt to blame Microsoft again.
Of course that argument will completely fail, as always, as not only will Microsoft not be giving that sofware away completely for free to the PRC like his Linux buddies love to do, there's not a chance in hell that the Chicoms are going to build a top 10 in the world supercomputer on Windows,like they have already done with their free copies of Linux.
But his tap dances and finger pointing will be no less entertaining than now. What's that saying he's always got? "Look at the Wookie", or similar? So, everyone can either look at Danger's wookie, or look at the facts.
We're already most of the way there. Many network cards can bring Windows out of hibernation, so it would only be a small step to allow them to boot the OS from scratch. It's still buggy for MS (keeps waking up to refresh network state), but it's not a long stretch.
Interesting post. I have both the Redhat 8 CD's as well as a recent download of Fedora, as well as a spare computer that I've been meaning to use to learn about Linux. I know the hardware is supported by Redhat because I had it running as a dual boot system for a while.
I have two main objectives in this project: to learn about Linux, and to build a Linux based home network monitor/firewall.
Would you mind if I took you up on your offer of assistance? Either way, thanks for the tip. I'm off to do some reading at the Fedora site.
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