[svlug] Why do you guys Linux so much ?

[John Conover]

Christian Einfeldt writes:
> >
> > I don't know why people like Linux so much.
> 
> For me, it's the freedom and the community and the cost savings and the
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MS is a reasonable choice for an un-initiated desk top user.

But if you run a lot of boxes that are net-centric, (i.e., various
server, dns, firewall, routing, etc., capabilities,) and do
development, (i.e., the compiler, profiler, etc.,) a MS box is a good
chunk of change, and a lot of boxes adds up cash really fast-and is
only good for about 4 years, and then you get to spend it all over,
again.

Plus the fact that writing code for MS takes a lot of time, you write,
and write, and write, to get even trivial programs written, (for
example, "Hello World," requires going through the Windows API, which
means opening a window ... before the printf.)

Additionally, there is little code base infrastructure for MS, (for
example, go to google and find an example C routine to include dns
calls in an MS C program, vs. finding how to do it in Linux/Unix.) It
wasn't that way in the past, but MS's developer's code base has kind
of deteriorated over the past few years. There is just not a lot of
infrastructure there, anymore.

But if you don't want to run a few net-centric boxes, or do
development, then MS is probably a reasonable cost effective
alternative as a desktop machine.

FWIW ...

     John

BTW, that's why there are more wireless devices for the desktops-its
an economic issue; there are more terminal nodes, (e.g., desktops,) in
a network than non-terminal, (e.g., servers,) and HW manufactures will
go after the largest market because of economies of scale. For
example, there are, relatively to the laptop market, very few wireless
devices for the Dell 5500, running MS server.

-- 

John Conover, conover at rahul.net, http://www.johncon.com/