Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #276
From: Digestifier <Linux-Misc-Request@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Date:     Thu, 16 Jun 94 19:13:16 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #276, Volume #2                Thu, 16 Jun 94 19:13:16 EDT

Contents:
  Re: xearth is really cool (Rick)
  Hayes ESP Accelerator ported to Linux ? (Marc Schaefer)
  ISDN cards ported to Linux (Marc Schaefer)
  Linux.... On a Sparc? (Leeman Strout)
  Re: 1.1.19 cua0 - device is busy?? (Jeremy Bettis)
  Re: Only 7000 Linux boxes, Re: Multiport Bored ... (Orhan Unal)
  term 1.14 ???... (jason tan)
  Re: future of Unixware (Roy Hann)
  Re: future of Unixware (Kevin MacRae)
  Re: Need recommendation for SVGA card (Grant Edwards)
  Re: cheapernet? (Dale jones)
  Re: Xwindow screen saver/lock program (Malcolm Reeves)
  Re: PCI Chipsets? URGENT! (Drew Eckhardt)
  Re: Multiport Bored and Linux (Was: future of Unixware) (Wayne Schlitt)
  Re: Only 7000 Linux boxes, Re: Multiport Bored ... (Wayne Schlitt)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: pclink@qus102.qld.tne.oz.au (Rick)
Subject: Re: xearth is really cool
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 04:30:15 GMT

bdenney@physics.oberlin.edu (Bryce Denney) writes:

>xearth shows a view of the earth from space in your root window, and makes the
>shading correspond with the time of day.  You can customize it so that you see
>the earth from the sun's point of view, or from the point of view of a
>satellite flying right over your house.  Very fun.

If you are running a 386 without a copro, expect long update times.

Rick.

------------------------------

From: schaefer@disuns2.epfl.ch (Marc Schaefer)
Subject: Hayes ESP Accelerator ported to Linux ?
Date: 16 Jun 1994 07:53:21 GMT

Has someone already ported that to Linux ?

Or, in general, were fast serial ports (>= 64kbps) or ISDN cards ported
to the Linux Operating System ?

If yes, where are the *source* of these drivers located ?  I would want
to port them to a similar hardware, but quite different UNIX OS.

Thanks.

--
+------------------_+-----------------------------------------------+
| Marc SCHAEFER _ //| schaefer@di.epfl.ch -or- schaefer@alphanet.ch |
| Battieux 6c   \X/ | MUD:mud.imp.ch@2345 FTP:litamiga.epfl.ch:/pub |
| 2013 COLOMBIER  CH| ALPHANET NF, Colombier (NE) - SWITZERLAND (CH)|
+-------------------+-----------------------------------------------+


------------------------------

From: schaefer@disuns2.epfl.ch (Marc Schaefer)
Subject: ISDN cards ported to Linux
Date: 16 Jun 1994 07:53:47 GMT

Were ISDN cards driver ported to Linux ?


--
+------------------_+-----------------------------------------------+
| Marc SCHAEFER _ //| schaefer@di.epfl.ch -or- schaefer@alphanet.ch |
| Battieux 6c   \X/ | MUD:mud.imp.ch@2345 FTP:litamiga.epfl.ch:/pub |
| 2013 COLOMBIER  CH| ALPHANET NF, Colombier (NE) - SWITZERLAND (CH)|
+-------------------+-----------------------------------------------+


------------------------------

Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help
From: stroutl@polaris.nova.edu (Leeman Strout)
Subject: Linux.... On a Sparc?
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 20:19:19 GMT

Okey... Well... dad says he wants to see if he can by a Sparc 5 without 
the Solaris 2.x license.  He wants to run Linux on it.  Can he do that?  
Will it work?  How hard would it be to make it work?

*laugh*    This is no joke, although it sounds funny enough.


Leeman Strout

******************************************************************************
... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my 
school, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental.  Any 
resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The 
question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is
left as an exercise for the reader.  The question of the existence of the 
reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient.  (A discussion
of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article)
******************************************************************************
stroutl@polaris.nova.edu           Coming soon:  strout@alpha.acast.nova.edu
lstrout@integ.micrognosis.com :prefered.


------------------------------

From: jbettis@cse.unl.edu (Jeremy Bettis)
Subject: Re: 1.1.19 cua0 - device is busy??
Date: 16 Jun 1994 05:00:59 GMT

henryc@reality.UUCP (Christian Henry) writes:

>In article <cyrillvCrCu1n.MoF@netcom.com>,
>Cyrill Vatomsky <cyrillv@netcom.com> wrote:

>>: I just compiled v1.1.19 (without any problems), but I can not use
>>: my modem any more. Modem is (has been since Slackware 1.1.2) configured
>>: for cua0. Internal on irq 4. Busmouse on irq 5.

>[ stuff deleted ]
>>Well, I guess I found the problem - at least in my case.
>>I had the same port mentioned in inittab as a dial-up line.
>>I just commented it out and it works now. Though for those that 
>>need to use the same line for dial-out and -up ...?

>Then you use /dev/ttyS0 for dial-in, /dev/cua0 for dial-out; /dev/ttyS0 is
>the one you place in your inittab.  I believe that this is described in the
>Serial-HOWTO, by the way.  ;-)

I am afraid it is not that simple.  I have dial in on ttyS0, and dial out on
cua0using getty_ps 2.0.7c, Everthing works with kernels <=1.1.12, but on
kernels >=1.1.13 it does not work.  I think getty_ps 2.0.7d was supposed to
repair this, but it seg faults for me.
--
Jeremy Bettis   -*- PGP Public key available -*-   University of Nebraska
INET: jbettis@cse.unl.edu               "Those who stand in the middle of the
UUCP: jerbo@tddi.UUCP,jeremy@hksys.com    road are often hit by passing cars."
Running Linux -- The Free Unix for i386/i486/Pentium machines. Ask me how.

------------------------------

From: unal@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl (Orhan Unal)
Subject: Re: Only 7000 Linux boxes, Re: Multiport Bored ...
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 08:09:21 GMT

In article <2to9d2$fgj@blackbird.db.erau.edu> andersoa@news.db.erau.edu (Andrew Anderson) writes:
>Cameron L. Spitzer (cls@truffula.sj.ca.us) wrote:
>[snip]
>: Have **YOU** registered **YOUR** Linux system??  I've registered mine.
>
>Just how do *I* register *MY* copies, and just *WHO* am I supposed to 
>register *MY* copies with? :)
>
>--
>|===========================================================================|
>|  Andrew Anderson                              andersoa@erau.db.erau.edu   |
>|  Novell Network System Administrator          andersoa@bart.db.erau.edu   |
>|  Linux System Administrator                   andrew@wilbur.db.erau.edu   |
>|                                         andrew_anderson@cts.db.erau.edu   |
>|                                                                           |
>| I don't speak for ERAU, and God knows I don't want them to speak for me!  | 
>|===========================================================================|

Here is the info you need to register.


HELP FOR THE LINUX USAGE COUNTER
================================
This message is intended for you to edit, and send right back to the
Linux-counter@uninett.no address.
DO NOT USE "REPLY"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can register MACHINES, FRIENDS and data about YOURSELF (PERSON).
Below is listed an example of each of the sections, with comments that
aid you in filling them out correctly.

Only use the FRIENDS section if it is unlikely that the people will
register themselves!

When the templates are accepted by the daemon, they will be added to the
database. Data will be added even if it is not parsed properly.
They may be thrown out in later duplicate elimination, or you may receive
a query from me regarding the validity of the data, but otherwise, they will
be counted.
Good luck!

             Harald Tveit Alvestrand



//FRIEND
# Your Linux-using friends, in the pattern
# E-mail address: place of usage
# For people without E-mail address, use
# ?Givenname.Surname@geographical.area.country
# like ?Joe.Smith@london.gb or ?bill.gates@newyork.ny.us


//MACHINE
# Fill in one such section per machine that runs Linux
accounts:
# Number of accounts in /etc/passwd, not counting root and so on
country:
# ISO 3166 two-letter country code
cpu:
# The pattern is MakerNumberBus/Speed, for example
# Cx386, amd486, 386DX/33, 586SX/16
disk:
# Number of MBytes of disk installed - number only
distribution:
# Slackware, SLS, LGX, TAMU, MCC,
OTHER or DIY (do-it-yourself) with optional version number
memory:
# Number of MBytes of memory installed - number only
name:
# DNS or UUCP name of machine if it has one
# If no unique network name is available, use ?machinename@geo.area.country
network:
# Type of network - SLIP, Ethernet, Term or none
users:
# Number of persons who use this machine regularly


//PERSON
# This is about yourself, the sender of this message
country:
# ISO 3166 two-letter country code of where you live
may-publish:
# YES if you agree that information about you can be published
# If not given, nothing but statistical information will be published
name:
# Your name
started:
# Month and year you started using Linux, like "nov 93"
usage:
# The place where you use Linux. Home, school, work or combinations of these


//END
The END command is only required if you have a mailer that adds stuff
below the last line of the message.

------------------------------

From: Jason.Tan@launchpad.unc.edu (jason tan)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: term 1.14 ???...
Date: 16 Jun 1994 08:11:32 GMT

Hi,
   I had been trying to get Term to work between the Linux 1.0.8 and the 
campus's SunOS4.
  My gcc 2.5.8 compiled perfectly on my Linux OS. I also made the test
and linecheck.
  According to the documentation about Term installation, I ran the ./test
locally.(I deleted the last line of test.c :sleep(36000)). I suppose if you
don't do this  it will just wait forever (36000 seconds!).
  OK. ./test ran. Next thing I did was trsh. It gave me two lines:
Remote: term 1.14
tty /dev/ttyp0. Exec -tcsh
and jumped back to system prompt. Looked like running OK!
  But that prompt will freeze up after I typed two characters!! Then I went to
other tty login as root and kill those Term related process from the previous
tty. (3 of them: trsh, term -r test, term)
  Then I went back to the previous tty and viewed the two .log file. This is
how it's looked like:
"remote.log":
Term version: 1.14
B<2><9>d<0><0>dB<2><9>d<0><0>dB.......(kind of similar patterns, 4-5 lines)
"local.log":
Term version: 1.14
:timed out at 79 trans 1
:timed out at 72 trans 1
:timed out at 71 trans 1
:timed out at 72 trans 1
:timed out at 71 trans 1
....(kind of similar too,  about 20 - 30 lines of them).

  Does anybody know why? I ran as root. Oh...I changed the BINDIR and MANDIR
in Makefile to $$HOME before I did "make DO=install linux". After compilation,
I have a copy of all those binaries in home directory, I also moved the test 
from /term114 (where I have all those source files) to my home (/root) and
ran ./test.
  Yeah...I also found that those binaries in my /root have a smaller file size
than those at the /term114! And I think test ran the copy in my home directory.
(File sizes):       /term114      /root
term                 55327        37892
trsh                 23353        13316
tmon                 23469        13316
etc...

  I'm a begineer, I just got the Slackware Linux 1.2.0 installed, the root is
running tcsh shell. I wonder if there is something like environment variables
I need to setup for term.

  Thanx for reading, hopefully anybody who had similar problems could kind
of show me how you solved it. Thanx.


Jason
6/15/94



--
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
Launchpad is an experimental internet BBS. The views of its users do not 
necessarily represent those of UNC, OIT, the SysOps or Captain Picard.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

------------------------------

From: rhh@tachy.uah.ualberta.ca (Roy Hann)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware
Subject: Re: future of Unixware
Date: 16 Jun 1994 20:03:03 GMT

nathan@seldon.foundation.tricon.com (Number 6) writes:
: In article <Cr8MDB.B5F@molly.uucp> uunet!molly!vlcek (Jim Vlcek) writes:
: (I won't tell you how blatantly easy it is to break into the RS/6000,
: you probably could have done it at CompUSA.  One thing the Goodguy's
: does is uses [deleted]
: for all passwords.  Plus, they have a terrible bug in their POS
: software that allows you to get to a shell very easily, then exploit
[deleted]
: newsgroups.  I told my friend who works there to *tell MIS
: immediately*, it's not something they should leave unfixed.)

And it's not probably something the whole net needed to know, especially
since the only apparent purpose of your posting was to disclose this. 
I'm sure glad I don't have "friends" like you.  

========================================================================

Roy Hann
Senior Analyst, Information Systems        rhh@tachy.uah.ualberta.ca
University of Alberta Hospitals            (MIME-capable mail agent)
WMC 2C2.21, 8440-112th Street,     
Edmonton, Alberta                          Tel: (403)492-4367
T6G 0N4                                    FAX: (403)492-3090
Canada

PLEASE: No shipments by courier from outside Canada; use regular mail.
========================================================================

------------------------------

From: krman@peinet.pe.ca  (Kevin MacRae)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware,comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: future of Unixware
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 00:41:48
Reply-To: krman@peinet.pe.ca

In article <2to4im$1bm@access3.digex.net> culgrp@access.digex.net (Culgrp) writes:

>>FOUR 'NIXES AND OS TOO.
>>
>>I have recent experience with four 'nixes, two each of the hobby
>>and commercial variety. To wit I have played with Unixware,
>>Consensys (both SVR4.2), Coherent and recently Linux. The first
... deleted ....
>>
>>Unixware. Wouldn't load from my (non-SCSI) CDROM. No diskette
>>version available although clearly the software is set up to
>>facilitate a diskette load. No Man pages in minimal edition, and
>>typical grungy Novell manuals for installation. Returned for
>>credit.
>>
o I believe that when I got my "new" 1.1 v.s. 1.0 upgrade, the cdrom
  version came with a mail-in card for 3 1/2" media. 

o Before buying ANY commercial variety of 'nixes, SCO/UnixWare/Consensys/
  Coherent or Linux/etc, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS check that the hardware is
  supported. I have run into this wall many times with all vendors. The
  PC market for add-on hardware is toooo long for one vendor to support it all.

o IMHO, one must buy the $99.00 SDK for the added software.

o If you could not load from your (non-SCSI) CDROM, were you running 1.1, or
  check ftp.novell.de for new drivers.

>>Consensys. A kinder gentler version of Unixware. Came with Man
... deleted ....
o If you could not load Unixware, was Consensys able to load for CD-ROM
  or was the install from floppies?

o If you could not load Unixware, how can you eval the GUI, etc.
>>Coherent. A neat little character based os that fell down somewhat
>>going to X Windows and commercial compatiblity. The very late
... deleted ....
>>Linux. I'm just getting started. Took some hacking around just to
>>get lpr working - not a good sign. Installation is elegant. I
.... deleted ....
>>
>>OS/2. Well it has a good GUI, really multitasks, runs on much
>>weaker hardware than commercial Unix, and will talk to the worksite
>>AS/400 (no small trick.) It also runs all those Windows and DOS
.... deleted .....
>>If I had to buy a Unix for work, I would probably go SCO like
>>everyone else. When it comes to standards, "de facto" beats "de
>>jure" every time.

After not using SCO for 2 years, I had to do some basic system admin,
to admin a large system is much harder on SCO than Sys Vr4. I would not
want to regress to Sys Vr3. Yes. Unixware requires some work, but it is
the best first release software I have seen. "Free" DOS merge and since
most current computers come with Windows 3.1, "Free" Windows (standard Mode)
under X. 
By the third major release "1.1.1", and their liberal beta program, most
limits are gone.

Bravo Novell.

--



Kevin MacRae                These are my opinion and therefore the opinion
                            of my company.
**************************************************************************
*  K & R Management, 20 Berkeley Way, Charlottetown, PE, C1A 8X5, Canada *
*  krman@peinet.pe.ca   (902) 566-3198      Fax (902) 566-3423           *
**************************************************************************


------------------------------

Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video
From: grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Need recommendation for SVGA card
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 19:32:05 GMT

Mark van Hoeij (hoeij@sci.kun.nl) wrote:

: >   For good speed at 1024x768x256, I would suggest a 2 mb video card,
: >S3 based

: There is absolutely no point in having 2Mb for 1024x768x256 on an S3 card.

Depends on what you're doing.  The extra memory is used by the server
as a font cache and for pixmaps, cursors, backing store, etc.  Having
_some_ extra memory is pretty much required, and having a bunch is
nice.

Transfers of bitmaps between different regions of video board RAM is
_way_ faster than going from main memory to the video board.  If there
is enough RAM on the video board to store all of the pixmaps and fonts
you are using, there should be a significant performance increase over
having them all in main memory.

: If you have an S3 with 1Mb on an ISA bus then X runs perfectly. 2 Mb won't
: give a speedup.

Yes it should (though I haven't done any tests myself).

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  Where does it go when
Rosemount Inc.                                |you flush?
                                              |
grante@rosemount.com                          |

------------------------------

From: dale@wumpus.cc.uow.edu.au (Dale jones)
Subject: Re: cheapernet?
Date: 16 Jun 1994 16:54:10 +1000

pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu (Phil G. Fraering) writes:

>I checked the HOWTO files with grep, etc., and I did not see mentioned
>if LInux could do "cheapernet" connections. I don't really know anything
>about cheapernet, or whether it's even still cheaper at the prices
>ethernet's going for (unless it can interoperate with a portable),
>but will Linux support cheapernet connections?

>--
>+-----------------------+You will know pain.
>|"Standard Disclaymore" |You will know fear.
>|pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu |And then the Amiga will die.           Sentiments
>+-----------------------+Have a pleasant flight!                seen on 
>"Death before dishonor! Death before dinosaur! Death before DOS!" -c.s.a.a.

Sure Linux supports cheapernet, it's just ethernet across RG58AU coax, also
 known as thin-net. You probably already know of it as 'ethernet'.


Dale.

------------------------------

From: reeves@strata.usask.ca (Malcolm Reeves)
Subject: Re: Xwindow screen saver/lock program
Date: 16 Jun 1994 05:49:16 GMT

Gregor Schulz (gschulz@pille) wrote:
: dbl@levad.oau.org (/bin/bash) writes:

: >Does anywone know of a screen saver other than xlock for Xwindows? I hate to
: >admit it, I have a Messy Dos Windoze screen saver that kicks butt. I have xlock
: >but it seems lame compared to the one I have for Windoze. I hate to see 
: >Windoze have something better than Linux!!!!!


Try xscreensaver I think it's a demo but it allows you to incorporate almost
anything as a screen hack. You just give it the name of the binary you want
so any graphics demo can be your screensaver. It comes with lots and lots of
examples - one problem - I forget where I got it!! Try xarchie ? I just did
"can't do that in DOS" - ftp bloom-picayune.mit.edu in pub/xscreensaver was
first on the list. Hope this helps - just to depress you Wurd-4-Windoze is
better than anything available for Linux - but on a price-performance
comparison Andrew EZ still comes out ahead....

--
==============================================================================
Malcolm Reeves, Geological Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon,
SK, S7N 0W0 aka reeves@rocky1.usask.ca aka reeves@dvinci.usask.ca
==============================================================================

------------------------------

From: drew@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help
Subject: Re: PCI Chipsets? URGENT!
Date: 16 Jun 1994 18:50:11 GMT

In article <1994Jun15.132343.23666@cm.cf.ac.uk>,
Paul <paul@myrddin.isl.cf.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <CrCt3w.Gp4@newsflash.concordia.ca>,
>Paul Quinn <p_quinn@ECE.Concordia.CA> wrote:
>>
>>I need to know the exact differences between the Saturn and the Neptune
>>chipsets?  Is the Saturn really buggy?  What are the major problems
>>with it?  If I can only get a Saturn, should I still buy PCI?
>>
>
>Terry Lambert gave me this, I doubt he'll mind me porting it.
>
>Saturn          Original.  Broken cache coherency model; results in either
>                a failure of bus mastering DMA (motherboard expecting a
>                working chipset) or vastly reduced performance (150% --
>                hacked motherboard to use bad chips).

>Mercury         Fixed.  Working cache coherency model.  Will *not* maintain
>                cache coherency correctly for bus mastering DMA if motherboard
>                was hacked for Saturn and not unhacked for Mercury.

It's my understanding that the Saturn chipsets are used in i486 machines,
and the mercury chipsets Pentiums.  The Neptunes are new, and I am not 
familiar with them.

As far as the Saturn chipset : There have been at least three 
different revisions of the chipset, with the early revisions suffering
multiple problems with the write-back caching.  Newer revisions
work fine with write back caching - I know, because I have my
Saturn system configured for write-back caching, have a write-back
cache coherency test in the NCR53c810 driver initialization code
which my system passes, and have no performance problems (40M/sec
measured main memory bandwidth, system is about 7% faster doing 
kernel builds with write-back instead of write-through).

If anyone cares to find out the chip revisions (PCI configuration register)
where these changes occurred, I could provide Linux kernel/standalone code
to verify that systems have working chipsets.  (I was utterly unsuccessful
at getting documentation out of the local Intel sales office after 
being asked about my product and answering it was software)

-- 
Drew Eckhardt drew@Colorado.EDU
1970 Landcruiser FJ40 w/350 Chevy power
1982 Yamaha XV920J Virago

------------------------------

From: wayne@backbone.uucp (Wayne Schlitt)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware
Subject: Re: Multiport Bored and Linux (Was: future of Unixware)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 06:52:05 GMT
Reply-To: wayne@cse.unl.edu

In article <CrGLxI.Gux@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
> In article <1994Jun13.221751.4801@kf8nh.wariat.org>
>       bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
> >Native support seems almost redundant.  It also seems unlikely, especially
> >from the "first tier" RDBMS vendors.
> 
> But that's the whole point. The applications drive the OS, not the other
> way around, in commercial environments.
> 
> It is a totally useless point that Linux runs this-or-that database vendor,
> though it may make people feel good. What's important is that the database
> vendor supports Linux. And so far, of the major database vendors are.

Most vendors support only SCO, and if you try to run their product on
any other version of Unix and have problems, well, gee, upgrade to SCO
is the solution.  Yeah, UW gets some support, but if you choose
Consensys, IF, Dell, UHC, etc, you are kind of running on the edge
anyway.  Linux is certainly not going to be any worse off than say
Coherent or QNX.


> IMO, the reason is that they figure someone who's about to spend >$10K
> on their database engine and 4GL, isn't going to piss around arguing
> that the OS cost $1500. When you add training, peripherals, wiring,
> networking, system design, customization, administration and maintenance,
> the difference between the cost of installing (unsupported by the DB
> vendor) Linux or (supported) UnixWare is insignificant.

Yes, and this exactly the argument that was used to show that Unipress
would always dominate the emacs market over GNU emacs.  Heck, this
argument was also used as to why PCs would never replace mainframes.


The flaw in this logic is that once you have brought something in,
whether it is Linux, OS/2 or UW, you have already made the really huge
investment in installation, training, etc.  In order to _keep_ this
investment, you will fight to get support on what you have.


If a few programmers bring in Linux so that they can use it instead of
Desview/X, and then start spreading it around, it will eventually work
its way into more and more critical/important spots.  The database
might be just a small project that isn't critical at first, but after
a few years it is grown to the point that you are running dozens of
users on it.  The two person outfit that started on a shoe string can
turn into a thriving business that has never had time to replace that
Linux system with a "real" Unix.


Yeah, no one is going to sit down today and say "I am going to install
this $100,000 dollar system that supports 200 users and is critical to
the business and I am going to run it on Linux to save a few bucks."
It is just after 5 or 10 years, you look back and see that you have done
just that.  You may have started small, but once you trust it a little
bit, you start doing more with it.


The 6.4 billion dollar question is: "How much will Linux creap into
businesses over the next few years?"  If it starts to make a
substantial presence (5-10%) then in 5 to 10 years, you can rest
assured that people _will_ be sinking $100,000 (plus inflation) into
Linux systems.


In a lot of ways, it is much easier to "grow up" than it is to "grow
down".  People _are_ replacing IBM mainframes with PCs.  Considering
most PCs have more power than 10 year old mainframes, this isn't too
surprising.  VAXs and AS/400s have grown up to replacing mainframes
too.  But the PC/370 went no where, and even the best example of
"growing down" (the VAX) didn't make that much of an impact on the
low end market. 

Actually, the "grow down" problem has been Unix's problem with
breaking into the desktop market for years.  It has "grown up" to
replace mini and mainframe OSes, but it has had a real hard time
growing down.


Anyway, I doubt that too many people will even be playing with things
like Oracle on Linux, but word processors, spread sheets, "toy"
databases and other stuff that people buy for the desktop has a lot of
potential to be sold to Linux customers.  The Linux market is _not_
going to look like the SCO market.  Linux people, on the whole, are
going to be much more intersted in soundblasters than multiport serial
cards.


-wayne

-- 
The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of
enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is
that he wants to believe.    -Voltaire

------------------------------

From: wayne@backbone.uucp (Wayne Schlitt)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.unixware
Subject: Re: Only 7000 Linux boxes, Re: Multiport Bored ...
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 07:06:17 GMT
Reply-To: wayne@cse.unl.edu

In article <1994Jun14.035515.3041@truffula.sj.ca.us> cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer) writes:
> In article <1994Jun13.134758.13245@frmug.fr.net> bernard@cpio1.frmug.fr.net (Bernard Fouche) writes:
> >
> >Linux seems to be very near to be stable enough to run business
> >applications on it. The only reason that we do not plan to quickly
> >move to Linux is the lack of support from hardware manufacturers (like
> >Digiboard) and major sofware house (that sells RDBMS).
> 
> [ ... ], the *ONLY* reason we have not already developed [ ... ],
> Linux drivers is that the best data we can get say there are less than
> 7000 actual Linux systems in use!  That data is from the Linux Counter
> project which is announced now and then in comp.os.linux.announce.


Sorry, but even that data is highly suspect.  You can't _prove_ that
those are real Linux users.  Someone could easily have forged them
all.

Now, Steve Pendergrast of USL said that IDC said that "only" 3% of all
corporations were using Linux in 1993.  For the folks in suits, that
probably comes from a much more reliable source, and it probably
represents a much larger number to boot.  I am personally surprised
that it was that high.  It wouldn't have surprised me if IDC has
omitted Linux all together.  Now, the IDC report also said that no one
planed to do anything further with Linux in 1994, but then I am sure
that no one said that they were going to do anything with Linux in
1992, and it grew to 3% in 1993.  I trust IDCs numbers of current
users a lot more than their predicted numbers.


If you run a business, and think that the Linux market _might_ be
worth your while, you are going to have to do your own market survey.



-wayne
-- 
The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of
enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is
that he wants to believe.    -Voltaire

------------------------------


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