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Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!hobyah.cc.uq.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.hawaii.edu!news.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!mail2news.alias.net!myriad!mylinuxbox!suck!netcom.com!kevinb From: kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) In-Reply-To: torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi's message of 25 Apr 1996 09:27:22 +0300 Message-ID: <pspdq1h6m.fsf@frobozz.sccsi.com> Sender: kevinb@netcom21.netcom.com Organization: Frobozzco International X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.1 References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <Dpz1qL.n1G@deere.com> <kevinbDqC2K2.CAH@netcom.com> <4ln60a$vg@kruuna.helsinki.fi> Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 03:25:53 GMT Lines: 117 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22588 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:881 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3578 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3436 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18389 comp.os.linux.advocacy:47444 In article <4ln60a$vg@kruuna.helsinki.fi> torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi (Linus Torvalds) writes: > From: torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi (Linus Torvalds) > Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy > Date: 25 Apr 1996 09:27:22 +0300 > Organization: University of Helsinki > Xref: netcom.com comp.os.linux.development.system:26988 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:996 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:4046 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:4120 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:20990 comp.os.linux.advocacy:58506 > Path: netcom.com!ixnews1.ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!nntp.inet.fi!news.funet.fi!news.helsinki.fi!not-for-mail > Lines: 40 > References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <Dpz1qL.n1G@deere.com> <kevinbDqC2K2.CAH@netcom.com> > NNTP-Posting-Host: kruuna.helsinki.fi > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > In article <kevinbDqC2K2.CAH@netcom.com>, > Kevin Brown <kevinb@netcom.com> wrote: > > > >The ultimate key to the server market is the client market. The > >reason for that is that there are many more instances of clients than > >servers, and the disparity between clients and servers will continue > >to decrease as commodity hardware becomes more powerful and as client > >OSes continue to gain server capabilities. > > Halleluja! The above comment needs to be framed and handed out to UNIX > vendors (and others too, I ahve to admit). I agree. ;-) > Anybody who concentrates on the server side of things is _dead_ in the > water when the client people come loaded for bear. > > Nice graphical sysadmin programs aren't the answer. People will wade > through sh*t up to their eyebrows and be _happy_ without them (yes, even > your "average" user will accept cryptic and hard-to-use textual setup > files if you have reasonable defaults: look at windows .ini files). > > Yet all the unix vendors fall over backwards to try to make some silly > program that makes sysadmin look easy. Nobody really cares - I suspect > that the standard "it's too hard to administer" thing people say is > really a "there is nothing there I _want_ to administer", yet silly > vendors keep doing the sysadmin programs.. > > STOP doing the damn glitzy admin stuff: it's a secondary issue at _most_ > if even that. If you don't have the applications, people won't care > about the admin stuff either, because there simply isn't anything they > want to administer. I agree, but for different reasons. Once a system is up and running, administration tasks become a very secondary issue, unless the system in question is really a server in every sense of the word, in which case end-user applications aren't as important *for that specific system*. For a client or hybrid system, the primary use of the system will be by the person sitting at the console, and *that* is the person you have to please the most. To do that, you have to build a relatively good, consistent desktop and give him the applications he needs to do his job. If the person who always sits at the console also happens to be the same person who's responsible for the operation of the system, then and only then do the administration tools make any difference, and even then it's a secondary or tertiary effect, just as you say. The reason is that if it's a well-designed system, there shouldn't *be* a significant amount of administration to do: the system should more or less take care of itself. There is only one class of administrative operation that might have a significant impact on the acceptance of an OS: installation and removal of software (installation being much more important than removal, I might add, but we may as well get both of them right). Under most desktop systems, installation of software is simple: you run the install program and it takes it from there. This is how simple it needs to be for the OS in question to be taken seriously by the desktop community. The only reason this is an important operation (and therefore deserving of attention) is that it is an administrative operation that will be performed relatively often. If the OS in question (say, Linux) is to be taken seriously as a desktop OS for the home or in organizations where the person who uses the computer also has to set it up, then the installation also needs to be relatively painless (if it requires too much technical knowledge of the user, who is in this case the person who's installing it, then the user will get frustrated and not bother), *or* the OS has to be preinstalled. One of the primary reasons Windows is as "popular" as it is is that it comes preinstalled on almost every PC sold. This means that the user doesn't even have to *bother* with installation. How much more painless can it get? Unfortunately, Linux isn't quite that popular yet :-), so it needs a relatively painless installation program if it's to become accepted by the masses. This is one of the things that's holding OS/2 back (that and IBM's complete incompetence at marketing it). > The last two vendor unixes I saw (I won't name names) both came with > graphical tools for doing disk striping etc. NEITHER of them had any > applications loaded at _all_, and their shell didn't even have command > line editing on by default (This is 1996, folks, we don't need no > steenking editing facilities!). No wonder people flock away in droves > and hope for the "saviour" NT - at least MS has been known to put a few > games etc with the basic distribution. Unix used to be distributed with a number of games, though they were text-based as you might expect. Games like Startrek, blackjack, and a few others. It's a shame the Unix vendors haven't continued that tradition (updated, of course, to reflect the graphical nature of today's desktop). -- Kevin Brown kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com This is your .signature virus: < begin 644 .signature (9V]T8VAA(0K0z end > This is your .signature virus on drugs: <> Any questions?