From: johnn@eskimo.celestial.com (John Navitsky)
Subject: Future OS's (was: CBM Discusses Future Amigas)
Organization: =>ESKIMO NORTH (206) 367-3837 SEATTLE, WA.<=
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 17:23:32 GMT


In article <...> gilgalad@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes:

[...]

>>Yes!  Imagine the alternative....  Windows NT.  Yuk.  :-(
>
>This is a religious matter.  Personally, I have experience on Solaris

 Yep.

>and I think it is horrendous because it is that SysV thing :>

 Hmmm.  As many have pointed out, SysVr4 is more like BSD than it is like
 SysVr3.  

>Both from a programmer and sysadmin standpoint, I like BSD better.

 Haven't programmed on either so I don't know about that, but I've adminisered
 SunOS systems and SysVr3 systems for years and am not particularly 
 worried about the change in the OS.  Now if they said they were going to
 migrate to SysVr3 ... That would be a different story :-)
 
>Many of my sysadmin friends won't be doing the upgrade from Solaris
>1.0.x (SunOS 4.1.x) to Solaris 2.x (SunOS 5.x) simply because it
>is such a complete turnaround.

 I don't think this is a practical reason for a system administrator- 
 I think lack of the software you need is a good reason and one that may
 apply here (at least for applications from smaller companies or other
 older - custom - whatever software).  Also, you may want to wait to 
 install a new OS until you have decided it is stable.  But there are many 
 reasons I can think of that a system admin should upgrade and not 
 much of it has to do with technology or philosophy... 
 One benifit of a SysVr4 based OS is a greater degree of software 
 compatibility.  Right now you need to look for a copy of 
 software for SunOS.  I'd rather have more options.  (IBM syndrome here...
 you know the one - "no one has ever been fired for buying IBM"?  It isn't
 safe for a system admin to tell administration we are going to buy a
 computer from a company none of them have heard of.)  Also, there are
 decided disadvantages for _not_ upgrading to a new OS.  You limit your
 software choices - there are not improvements to your OS, etc.  It's also
 a vicious circle that forces you to increasingly more desperate actions
 as time goes on...  I need software X from company XY that only runs
 on OS vZ.  Well, software T has a bug under OS vZ and they recommend you
 upgrade to OS vZ2 but you can't because that will break software X.  So,
 you patch the binary for software (X or T) and...  Well, you know.  Sometimes
 you do have to do this but it's best (IMO) to avoid it.  

>NT is an obvious nightmare.  It seems obvious to me that Microsoft
>is reinventing an immature, inadequate version of the wheel (UNIX that is).

 Yes I agree.  And a very proprietry one at that!  I'm not particularly
 impressed with either DOS or Windows.  I feel that MS has stifled the
 market for a long time.   

>It is sad that the uninformed public is going to gobble NT up as though
>it were something new and innovative.  It will be a nice OS for the PC,
>but hardly the end all OS.

I couldn't agree more.

>
>-Ralph
>

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