IDC's 'Windows beats Linux' claim slammed (follow up to previous story)

vnunet ^

[chance33_98]

IDC's 'Windows beats Linux' claim slammed

By Peter Williams [09-12-2002]

Resellers attack suggestion that Windows is better value over time

A new white paper from analyst IDC has reported that Windows 2000 represents a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux over a five-year period. The Microsoft-sponsored paper, entitled Windows 2000 versus Linux in enterprising computing: an assessment of business value in selected workloads, concluded Windows 2000 would give better value in four out of the five categories selected.

But some resellers were scornful of the report, which represented staffing costs as 62.2 per cent of the total and showed Linux staff as 30 per cent more expensive.

Simon Welch, group marketing manager at Sun Unix and Linux systems distributor Clarity Distribution, said: "You can dress figures up any way you like. But certainly for Windows licensing there's an ongoing expense."

"Everybody knows you have to go on paying money for upgrades unless you switch away from Microsoft," he said, adding that he thought Linux was much easier to support, while the cost of a Microsoft certified engineer was high.

Mike Lawrence, managing director of Hewlett Packard reseller Bentpenny, which supplies both Windows and Linux systems, was even more vocal, saying Microsoft engineer certification was just another way of making money for Microsoft.

"I feel quite strongly about this. Linux training is probably a lot less than Windows. Linux is at least open. Microsoft Windows is a huge amorphous mess. Source code is not available and help is not available except from Microsoft."

IDC's findings resulted from telephone interviews with 104 North American companies, most of whom had Windows 2000/NT, Linux and Unix.

Out of the five categories Windows scored anything from 11-22 per cent better in four - network infrastructure, file serving, print serving and security applications - with Linux coming out ahead by six per cent for web serving.

IDC put the higher staffing costs down partly to the relative immaturity of Linux and more readily available skilled IT professionals with in-depth Windows knowledge on the open market.

But Lawrence said that his main Linux expert had spent only 20 hours training at college to learn Linux, followed by "a bit of fiddling at home".

In its conclusions, the IDC paper questioned whether Linux could approach the level of integration achieved by Microsoft now or match its rapidly developing product suite.

It also warned the Linux community to fight against the fragmentation that undermined Unix two decades ago.

[Commie Basher]

I wonder, if I buy a new laptop with Windows XP, would it be a great hassle to use Partition Magic so I could put Linux on the other half? Then would I be easily able to pick whether to boot Windows XP or Linux?

I want to be able to learn Linux while also using Windows, so I can leave Windows slowly.

Someone should make a laptop with two hard drives, and a mechanical switch, so one can pick which one to boot up from.

[DeFault User]

You don't need two hard drives. You can have a selection of which OS to boot. This option is in most Linux packages I have heard about.

[JRandomFreeper]

Linux is at least open. Microsoft Windows is a huge amorphous mess. Source code is not available and help is not available except from Microsoft."

So you need fewer support guys because Linux last line of support is the source.. "Use the source, Luke" I can live with that. A well rounded geek should be able to read most versions of C.

It also warned the Linux community to fight against the fragmentation that undermined Unix two decades ago.

Linux is part of the fragmentation. Each different flavor has a purpose, adherants, and a niche. It's like the difference between monoculture, and a natural polyculture. Whatever the need, there is a flavor of unix/linux that fills the need. And the different flavors tend to nestle into the niche in which they work well.

/john (caveat: what do I know, I'm just a cook)

[JRandomFreeper]

You can swap out hard drives if you want, but most modern versions of linux allow dual boot. Good luck with your transition.

If you have any specific linux or solaris/sunos questions, feel free to freepmail me. I was a sys-admin/developer for the last 12 years before leaving to go to culinary school.

/john

[lelio]

A well rounded geek should be able to read most versions of C.
Its a little different than that, at least in my experience. Its not that geeks can read C (I'm never going to learn it) but that it is actually possible to do certain things. For example, I've been trying to implement an anti-spam feature in QMail, an open source mail server. Found the file I needed to patch the source so that I can put in my own filter, and that's it. Now I can go back to using Perl and all is good.
In the MS world I would of been forced to find out if Exchange supported such a feature, and wait until they do support it, or find if some company hacked together a way to do it. Its all one big mystery to me that I don't want to get involved in.

[upchuck]

The Microsoft-sponsored paper, entitled Windows 2000 versus Linux in enterprising computing: an assessment of business value in selected workloads, concluded Windows 2000 would give better value in four out of the five categories selected.

Gee, why am I not surprised at the conclusion?

[SpaceBar]

"most modern versions of linux allow dual boot"

Actually all versions of linux, modern or not, can be configured into a dual (triple, quadruple?) boot system. The main variable that affects whether it can be done successfully on a particular system from my own experience, usually involves the presense of an outdated or unusual BIOS that doesn't consult the MBR (Master Boot Record) in a standard way. Once Linux (any flavor) is installed on a hard disk partition, a boot manager program like LILO or Grub will write a special code block on the MBR as part of the install process. When the system is booted, the boot manager will display a menu with the boot options i.e. Windows or Linux. It is really quite painless when no major problems are encountered. As for using something like Partition Magic for actually resizing and creating partitions, it is a good program and easy to use for beginners who don't want to trash their windows partition. When changes are made on the system, like if you add a third partition for example with BSD, you simply run LILO or Grub again with the updated config file, it writes the info to the MBR, and you have a triple boot system. It's a very nice way to go especially with today's large inexpensive IDE harddrives.

[lelio]

GRUB's a pretty cool beast. I put it on boot diskette and can select a network available kernel to boot. Once I figured it out I would never go back to LILO. About to throw out my hard drives too, those are nothing but trouble.

[JRandomFreeper]

Its not that geeks can read C (I'm never going to learn it) but that it is actually possible to do certain things.

You should learn to at least read C and the varients. If you can handle perl, C shouldn't be a problem.

You bring up a good point, though, there is always a way to get things done with a script of some kind on a unix server.

Heck, I've passed things from an Exchange server to a Sun Enterprise 250 just so I could process things cleanly and pass it back to the company Exchange server. Which was always being hacked, and hassled. ;>)

/john

[JRandomFreeper]

all versions of linux, modern or not, can be configured into a dual (triple, quadruple?) boot system.

I was there for the introduction of LILO. I installed the first release onto a shared computer (wife and I). It munged the MBR and shredded the FAT tables because that was the same time that the "large" HDs were coming out, and the TSR that translated the fake "head, sector, platter" BS out nuked LILO.

Wife recovered her HD. Mostly. I was chastened. grin!

/john

[SpaceBar]

"I put it on boot diskette and can select a network available kernel to boot."

That's pretty damn cool. I can see some real possibilities for a network of diskless workstations with a number of available kernels depending on the task at hand.

[JRandomFreeper]

I can see some real possibilities for a network of diskless workstations with a number of available kernels depending on the task at hand.

There are some real possibilities for hackers in that scenario also. We tried diskless workstations in the late 80s, early 90s.

Central images don't work well in real life where folks want to branch out and have root at their work station. So they can do real development. Even if they don't get paid to develop.

/john

[lelio]

I'm using it in a server environment (granted this is for my own personal use and not for a business) and not for a workstation. Running X on it wasn't the fastest thing ever.
The main benefit, like you said, was that you can switch with a simple boot the entire OS, and do it for a 100 machines as easily as you can for one. Since the kernel is the only thing that needs to change between different machines (ie diff CPUs, NICs) you can have them all mount the same / and you're in business.
Right now I'm trying to get Tomcat working on three boxes and have them share information so if one crashes the others can take over. The beauty of netboot is that in order to get another machine online I can just have the machine boot off the floppy or select PXE boot from the BIOS and just sit back.
Plus if you're going to a lab to teach you can just bring 30 diskettes and a reasonably fast NFS server and you have an instant lab. No need to tell the lab tech to install certain software. No need to clean up after leaving. Just boot off the disk and everyone has the exact same environment.
Course the drawbacks are that if your NFS server dies you're completely hosed. Plus I'm not sure what happens when you run out of memory and the machine wants to swap to disk and you have the swap size at 0.

[SpaceBar]

Network booting also sounds like it would remove the tedium involved with maintaining "n" similarly configured boxes for a clustered environment.

[JRandomFreeper]

Network booting also sounds like it would remove the tedium involved with maintaining "n" similarly configured boxes for a clustered environment.

Go for it. I'm out of the business. I'm just a cook now. But I've been there, and done that, and have lots of T-shirts.

Tedium is another word for "a job well done". But go for it. Just like Mel, from 1960, consultants need clients. And your company sounds like a prime candidate.

You might try a google lookup on "diskless boxen" before you heave your whole heart and soul into it.

We did it. It failed. There is a reason it failed. Why is left to the student.

/john

[lelio]

I can see your reasonings for not liking diskless on workstations as everyone needs root once in a while, but its perfectly suited for a clustered server environment. Course that's just my opinion.

And what is it with former computer people going to culinary school? You're about the 8th person I know that's gone that route.

[Commie Basher]

And what is it with former computer people going to culinary school? You're about the 8th person I know that's gone that route.

Maybe the dotcom implosion has forced some IT people into other careers.

[JRandomFreeper]

has forced allowed some IT people into other careers.

And it's a damn beautiful thing. Food in this country is just going to get better and better.

/john (night all)

[JRandomFreeper]

And what is it with former computer people going to culinary school?

We were bored with the script kiddies? We learned about sensuality? We raised our kids and paid our bills are are now officially semi-retired? All of the above.

Night all.

/john