Conference nlfdc::linux-users

584.0. "Datamation article 4/96: A good Linux summary" by NEWVAX::PAVLICEK (Stop rebooting! Use Linux) Thu Mar 13 1997 20:47

[Image]UNIX
       UNIX
                                                                     [Image]
Linux Opens Corporate IS Doors

By Lar Kaufman

Most corporate IS shops turn up their noses at shareware, but LINUX is good
code for free. Well, almost.

Linux, a shareware UNIX-clone operating system, has appeared on countless
desktops around the world. It has all of the traditional advantages of UNIX,
a multitasking, multiuser OS, combined with the advantages of complete
documented source code. Linux can fill many roles, from Internet or intranet
server, to router, to special purpose workstation, to general purpose
system. Linux was initially developed for 32-bit Intel PCs and is now
available on a growing variety of physical platforms, including the Acorn,
Amiga, Sun 4, Apple Power Mac, and Digital Alpha. Is Linux suitable for use
in your corporate environment? Probably. But a better question might be, how
widely Linux should be used in your company, rather than whether it should
be used.

CODE FOR FREE

The most obvious advantage of Linux is that it can be freely redistributed.
Linux and its utilities are copyrighted, of course, and each part is
distributed under one of several different copyright licenses, but you can
copy, use, and modify Linux with only a very few reasonable restrictions.
You can acquire one of several major Linux distributions simply by
retrieving it from the Internet, or you can buy a convenient distribution on
CD from one of the many vendors that offer the package. (See sidebar, Where
To Get Linux on p. 76.)

Linux development and debugging is very rapid, through the efforts of
programmers around the world, and Linux kernel development continues to be
guided by Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux. Vendors are cooperating to
standardize the organization of Linux directories and the placement of files
in them so that users can combine or switch Linux distributions without
causing redundant duplicate files in different directories. The developers
of Red Hat Linux provide the RPM package management utility, which makes it
simple to upgrade and enhance their distribution. They also make the utility
available on the Internet to the Linux community. Since the Red Hat Software
distribution is also the basic package from which several other value-added
distributions are developed, it is becoming increasingly convenient to build
and maintain a complete and up-to-date Linux package, even for users who
have no system administration expertise. (The Debian distribution provides a
utility that serves the same purpose.)

The vast amount of software that is available for Linux makes it suitable
for a number of special purpose needs. Linux is an excellent platform for
developing and running scientific applications. Linux can be used to broadly
support multimedia development, using an array of tools that support
database management; image scanning and output; graphics format conversion;
audio recording and manipulation; and of course the ability to read files
from one platform, manipulate them, and output them to another platform. The
Yggdrasil commercial distribution of Linux is particularly rich in
multimedia tools and includes the multimedia-oriented Andrew user interface.
The plethora of noncommercial tools developed for Linux makes it
particularly practical for doing rarely performed tasks without having to
buy commercial software.

Linux is intended to be fully POSIX compliant, but as a collaborative,
shareware effort, it has not gone through the process of certification to
standards. For those companies that must have a "standard" UNIX, the
Linux-FT package developed in the U.K. by Lasermoon is worth consideration.
Lasermoon is a member of X/Open, the consortium managing the development of
the X Window System for UNIX and has developed a certified POSIX.1-compliant
Linux. Lasermoon makes available a C compiler for Linux-FT that is fully
ANSI 9889:1990 conformant and is working on Linux-FT compliance with FIPS
and XPG4 specifications.

WHY SAY NO?

The primary objection to Linux in the corporate environment is that it's
alien to the average user. But almost all popular utilities of both BSD and
System V UNIX are available for Linux, as well as a variety of shells and X
Window System window managers and user environments. And one Linux vendor in
particular has attempted to overcome this problem. Caldera has licensed
SunSoft's WABI so that popular Windows apps can be run on the Caldera
Network Desktop on Linux.

The Linux community continues to improve Linux to support more commercial
applications. The included IBCS utility allows you to run under Linux most
commercial packages developed for Intel platforms running XENIX or System V
UNIX.The DOSEMU package allows DOS applications to be run on MS DOS, PC DOS,
or DR DOS under Linux control on Intel platforms. The WINE package (WINE Is
Not an Emulator) is a shareware partial implementation of the WABI
specification that currently supports a few Windows applications on Linux.
Increasingly, though, commercial UNIX developers are recognizing that the
Linux community constitutes a significant market and are porting their
applications to Linux.

Linux developers have gone to great lengths to make Linux compatible with
other OS file systems. Linux can coexist on a hard disk with DOS, Windows
NT, OS/2, as well as other UNIX file systems on Intel PCs. The Linux loader
(LILO) permits you to select which boot partition you'd like to use to boot
the operating system you want to run.

On other platforms, such as the Amiga, Linux generally can coexist with the
predominant native operating system. On Digital Alpha platforms, for
example, Linux (implemented as a true 64-bit operating system) can coexist
with Windows NT or Digital UNIX. Linux can read from and write to the
foreign disk partitions and file systems as well as its own, although
currently it cannot write to OS/2 HPFS partitions.

Even if Linux isn't for every desktop in the company, it deserves
consideration for some specific solutions. As a product of Internet
collaboration, and as you might expect, it makes an excellent and rugged
network server. It supports an amazing number of network protocols including
TCP/IP, SLIP, PPP, RIP, UUCP, Token Ring, ARCnet, and IPX/ SPX. The Linux
kernel supports network firewall features that improve control of network
security over older UNIXs. Linux supports a variety of network file systems,
including Sun's NFS and Carnegie Mellon University's Andrew File System
(AFS). Linux supports the traditional Internet services, including FTP,
Telnet, SENDMAIL, and Usenet newsgroup management.

A major misconception about Linux is that, as shareware, it's unsupported.
First, most commercial vendors of Linux provide initial support services.
Second, there are firms that specialize in providing contractual support for
UNIX operating systems and applications, including Linux. Third, Linux has
relatively good documentation developed by the Linux Documentation Project.

Most important, Linux is supported on the Net by myriad programmers and
system and network administrators. If you have a problem with Linux, you can
almost always find the answer in the comp.os.linux.*, comp.unix.*, or gnu.*
netnews hierarchies. If you don't find the answer in the documentation or
see it in a newsgroup, you can post a query.

The Linux community identifies bugs and security risks and fixes them
(usually within hours of their discovery). It provides device drivers for
obscure, new, or obsolete devices that no other version of Intel UNIX
supports. It offers powerful freely distributable applications, programming
languages, and database packages and continues to develop and enrich them.
In communities around the world, local Linux user groups have emerged,
offering help and training to users and administrators of Linux. The Linux
community is a priceless support resource that has made Linux the versatile
and vital operating system it is. [Image]

Lar Kaufman is the author (with Matt Welsh) of Running Linux: A Free Unix
Clone for the Personal Computer.

Illustration by Jeff Barnes

[Image]

Columns | Features | Evaluation | Cutting Edge | In Box | Over the Edge |
DATAMATION

DATAMATION Copyright � 1996. All rights reserved.