Shawn wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 23:19:39 -0600 (CST)
> Daniel Taylor <dante at argle.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Shawn wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Unfortunately, this will be kind of the undoing of Linux.  With all
>>>the varous distros out there, it's going to be difficult to get a
>>>"standardization" of Linux.  Plain and simple.
>>>
>>>The big UNIX's have their differences as well, but are far more
>>>standardized on things than Linux will be for a long time.
>>>
>>
>>Uh, have you used more than one "Big Unix"?
>>They are more different than Linux is from BSD.
>>
>>Linux is Linux is Linux. The differences between distros are more a
>>matter of what packages they choose to install by default than
>>anything else.
>>
> 
> 
> Uh, yeah.  Take your pick:  HP-UX (10.0x to 11.23), Solaris (2.5 to 9), AIX (4.3.2 to 5.x), Tru64 (4.0x to 5.1B).  Reread what I wrote....
>
I thought I had read it. I've used most of those as well as some others.
Simple things like code portablility. How many "special" options you
need to even compile packages with GCC on each platform. Varied 
libraries, wierd options to common utilities like 'ps' it's a real mixed 
bag when you deal with commercial Unix.

At least with Linux you know you don't have half of your admin 
executables in /etc, some in /bin, some in /usr/ucb/bin, some stuff off
in /opt/*/bin/, and who knows where else stuff got installed.

Yeah, you have different package managers, but they are of a kind.
There isn't a general admin interface as good as smit yet, but a couple 
are making progress in that direction. KDE and Gnome are starting to 
narrow in on a decent UI, though I wish both of them would cut down the
memory intensive eyecandy on the default installs.

If you are "old school" you go with fvwm or something else lean and 
familiar, and it is there. All the core command line utils are available
for every distro, and THE LIBRARIES ARE ALWAYS THE SAME! YAY!


> They (the big UNIX) are far more alike than Linux is IMO.  Well, with the exception of AIX, which is a beast of it's own.  But, the other three are very similar.
>
AIX has smit, smit is awesome. All else is forgiven.

> The big problem I see with Linux is that each distro does it's own things differently.  The only real underlying consistency of Linux is the kernel, and some of the base packages.  Otherwise, things are different. 
> 
"Some of the base packages" Like pretty much every useful command-line
utility, _all_ the core libraries, X11 and the classic window managers,
ghostview, an available selection of daemons (with different default 
selections), samba, and the kernel providing common nfs and firewalling 
service. Show me two commercial Unixes that have as much in common and 
I'll shut my mouth about it. The major distros have even settled pretty 
nicely on the structure of /etc, though there are still SysV vs BSD 
camps on init.

Differences: KDE vs Gnome defaults, default daemon selection (especially 
lp and smtp), and auto-device-detection and management, rc.d.

> In reality, we're entering the "big shake down" of Linux (IMO).  Look at UNIX years ago, there were companies sprouting up all over the place.  Now, there's only a handful of them.  Linux is going thru the same thing, and we'll see some disappear and other come in.  But, I think overall the total number of distros will drop to a handful.
>
Because Linux isn't encumbered with the BSD license, I think this is 
_one_ shakedown of Linux companies. I think that it will continue to 
cycle with new companies coming in to the fray as old ones mature, die, 
or get acquired. RedHat is pretty mature, and they have found their niche.


> Linux is the kernel.  That is all what Linux is.  A distro is far more than just packages on it's base install.  It's where they place things, tools they use for administration, etc.
> 
The core admin tools are the same. I expect that as new generations of 
admin tools come out they will mature and become standard.


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