The rise of linux (was RE: [ILUG] Pre configured boxes)

[Jakma, Paul]

> if at the beginning of this year someone said two folks from 
> compaq and
> dell would be duelling on ilug over who had better raid support you'd
> have said they were off their rocker.  granted, both paul and john are
> frequent tech contributors and not marketting folks, but it's pretty
> neat to see!
> 

:)

i have to say i've never seen a dell server though. Just wanted to point out
as an ILUG'er that I've found the cpq machines to be pretty good linux
machines.

As for the corporate side of it, i have a feeling that it's the exact same
in dell as it is here in cpq. A lot of the technical grunts know and believe
in linux. And slowly it will filter through to the marketing/business guys.
(if it hasn't already).

Eg in the case of Compaq[1], linux has gone from 0 to the point where cpq
are now officially marketing linux for the computational Alpha market (eg
Beowulf) and for web servers, has released optimised Forth and C compilers
and has qualified linux on a large range of their hardware from desktop
(deskpro) to high-end servers (ES alpha). All in the space of about a year
and a half - not including DEC's long standing linux involvement[2]. Another
example is SGI. They're going to pin their future on linux. (see link from
slashdot). I've used their stuff in the past and was impressed. Their
hardware was light years ahead, and IRIX just feels 'right'[3]. And now
their engineering expertise is going to start pointing ever more at linux.

It's mind-boggling. A lot of people on this list are long-time linux users.
Think back to when you first installed it. You sat in front a very stripped
down unix-like box, maybe with a really clunky fvwm or twm GUI, if you were
lucky. Did you think it would get this far? Then after you'd used it for a
couple of months, weren't you sure?[4]

All i can say is: www.compaq.com/linux. Inconceiveable not even 2 years ago.

-paul jakma.

[1] i'm not cpq marketing. I speak for myself, just cpq is the example i
know best obviously.

[2] DEC were involved with linux very early on. But the relationship never
really progressed past engineering until Compaq took over.

[3] borrowing from Jon Hall's quote about linux.

[4] I'm convinced Linus' secret to success was figuring out how to subtly
change the console refresh rates to send subliminal messages.