Aug 29th, 2007.

Linux? You BET!
Back in 1997 I started to hear rumblings about something called Linux. Over the 1998 christmas holidays, I decided to install a version of Red Hat 5.2 on a Compaq DeskPro XL 560 that I originally bought to run OS/2 so I could run VisualAge Smalltalk for OS/2. I had a copy of VisualAge Smalltalk V1.0, which I bought to learn Envy. The nice thing about Linux is that information is freely given on the web. The first thing I did was look for a HOWTO. Sure enough, there was a Linux Compaq Deskpro XL HOWTO. However, it had some bad things to say like "Use another computer if you can". But this was Christmas! A bad time to get another machine! I struggled onward. Was it bad? You BET! Did I get it to work? You BET! That little machine proceeded to run Linux for six months until it was replaced by a much larger machine. The faithful Compaq was sold, and became a GPS workstation for a friend's large yacht. From that difficult installations I learned a few things, which in turn proved helpful when installing a alpha version of Red Hat 5.2 on a Mac SE/30 and a Q950. That was tougher! Would I do this for a client? No. I'd recommend a mainstream machine, to save dolars, time, and energy!

What does this tell you about Linux? Well, it runs on anything from the smallest machine to the largest cluster, even those old mainframes. (see an independent review) It's very stable, it does the job, and has 24 hour support world-wide. The fact that I could get it to run on an SE/30 is impressive. Could you get Windows 98 to work on a 386? NOT!

On a recent project, I encountered a serious bug with the TCP/IP stack on Solaris. Did Sun fix it? No! If we had used Linux, the problem would have been fixed. Did the bug cause us grief? You BET!. Another example is a problem I found with running Visualworks for a long time, again a fix took years! { I'll note that Cincom moved towards a model of suppying the source code to Visualworks which has led to people providing fixes via their mailing list, this model has worked well}

In summary, Linux is a free, Unix-like Operating System that has been developed by a loosely-knit team of talented programmers working from all over the world. Linux works on almost every kind of computer in existence, and provides a robust platform for a wide variety of applications. Some history can be found at IBM site about Linux: Its history and current distributions by Tomas Schenk

Unlike most Operating Systems, Linux is free in almost all respects. One can download it off the internet at no charge, pass on copies to friends, and even modify its internals! This 'freeness' has been one of the most critical reasons for its success, and is turning heads in the industry and mainstream media. Can You Trust This Penguin?

Does Smalltalk run on it? You BET!

PS I managed to get a 68K and a powerPC version of Linux for free. It boggles the mind. The cable modem helped a lot.

Strange at it may seem in early 2000 on my new assignment I setup a Linux box to service up SMB, AppleShare, print services and an Internet connection to a group of a dozen or so consultants. Seems no-one could get the NT server on hand to work, or remember the password, or have time to get it to a viable point. A 40 dollar book of Linux (with RedHat 6.1) saved the day.

2001. Earlier this year I migrated many of our machines to FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Why? Not because of any failure of Linux, rather Mac os-x is based on FreeBSD and I wanted a more consolidated environment to work within. Also I found OpenBSD was more secure for the firewall and it supported the Q950 in a server configuration without hassles. Plus the package update schema for BSD is much better than the RPM environment.