From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) Subject: Re: The best way to "support Linux"! Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1993 23:08:29 GMT
In article <kp94zxn@rpi.edu> piercj@aix.rpi.edu (Will Pierce) writes:
>Consider for a moment the arduous task of maintaining a unix system.
Not so difficult for Linux if you don't do networking or etc.; networks and
multiuser installations *always* require more management. This isn't a Unix
issue, it's a network/multiuser issue. kf8nh.wariat.org takes almost no
management, and what little I do is just because I'm nosy. :-)
>Consider the task of determining monitor timings.
The only reason DOS/Windows/OS/2 users don't have to worry about it is that
their drivers come out of a can (err, that is, from Microsoft, IBM, or the
video card manufacturer). Make Linux popular enough and maybe you can get the
video card manufacturers to include Linux drivers that can be linked against
the X server. (Granted, we'd need a nice front-end to the X386 link kit.)
Or they can just supply an Xconfig if the standard drivers will work.
>Consider the task of making your partitions, and the filesystems.
fdisk is fdisk. mkfs isn't format only because mkfs supports an obsolete
capability to leave extra space after the end of a filesystem... V7 wanted to
put swap after the end of the root filesystem. As for choosing filesystems:
apart from the larger number of choices under Linux, I don't see any
difference from OS/2 or Windows, both of which have (slightly different forms
of) HPFS as well as the DOS "filesystem" (if it can be called that).
>Consider the options we have in upgrading- recompiling the kernel.
"bootable rootdisk" ---although I still maintain that the bus mouse IRQs and
other hardcoded-but-likely-to-change "constants" should be settable at
runtime.
Also consider that Linux is still a rapidly evolving system. There's a
tradeoff here: Linux tends to be the upgrade-of-the-week... but Windows
crashes seem to be around almost forever because it *isn't* upgraded once a
week.
All in all, things aren't *quite* as ugly as you paint them --- although I
grant they're not as prettily prepackaged and preregurgitated as the DOS/
Windows/NT situation. They could be, though... take a look at Unixware, for
example. I hear some card manufacturers are including drivers for it now.
++Brandon
-- Brandon S. Allbery bsa@kf8nh.wariat.orgIt's not too late to turn back from the "Gates" of Hell... Linux. The FREE 32-bit operating system, available NOW.