The Future of Linux

14 July 1998

Selected Audience Questions and Answers

I've got 1000 Suns used for CAD and would like to start moving to Linux, but I have to have high-end CAD support. When can I expect it?

• Larry Augustin mentioned a recent (June 1998?) Design Automation Conference in which the 500-member audience was asked if they would like to see Linux ports of Cadence tools, Synopsys, etc. ``Everyone in the audience raised their hands.'' He noted that the vendors seemed surprised and emphasized that Linux users have to let them know that Linux ports are wanted.

What can an average person gain by installing Linux?

• I'm not sure who answered this, but the response was basically, ``more stability'' [to which I would add, ``way more performance'']. I think he also related a horror story about trying to guide his mother (the 75-year-old?) through a Win95 reinstall, all via a trans-Atlantic phone call. This led nicely into the next question...

Why isn't Linux appropriate for your 75-year-old mother? If she can do complex recipes, why not Linux?

• One of the panelists (Jeremy?) won a round of applause: ``My mother is running Linux and did a Red Hat upgrade over the phone.'' [A few months later, columnist Robin Miller wrote an excellent article on just how easy Linux can be.]

Intel wants to support Linux, but what about Intel's non-disclosure agreement on Merced (IA-64) and the proprietary [encumbered] I2O spec?

• Sunil Saxena mentioned that there are already preliminary discussions underway regarding Merced, but he agreed that it's a problem and had no further comment for now. (I think Michael Masterson mentioned that Intel gave them the choice of a marketing guy, a lawyer or an engineer; they chose the latter.)
• Linus Torvalds flatly stated, ``Don't worry about Merced'' and ``It's a done deal--just a question of time.'' He said the kernel would be no problem; the development tools will be tricky, but that just means the Linux port will show up maybe two months after Merced is released. He noted that most other vendors (especially Microsoft) still have to deal with 64-bit issues, which is a much bigger problem; Linux has had 64-bit support for a couple of years now [on Alpha AXP; a 64-bit UltraSPARC port (``UltraPenguin'') is not too far behind and, in fact, was available to developers long before any 64-bit Solaris 2.7 betas showed up].

Is there any plan to guide the GUI and/or widget set for Linux?

• Robert Hart noted that Red Hat is helping the GNOME (GUI) project and also supporting work on the GTK widget set, but more via ``resource allocation,'' not so much guidance, per se. There's also KDE (a nice-looking GUI based on the non-free Qt widget set; version 1.0 was just released this week).
• Jeremy may have noted that one of the strengths of Linux is its freedom of choice; users aren't locked into one relatively limited (and ugly?) ``look and feel'' and can even switch between several on the fly.

What are the differences between Linux and FreeBSD?

• Linus Torvalds answered first, noting that the differences aren't all that big--mostly a matter of design philosophy and ``time to market.'' FreeBSD is based on BSD, which is a stable, proven base (and its supporters view that as a strength). On the other hand, Linux has the advantage that it was able to ``throw out the crap''--for example, some things no longer make sense on modern hardware. Also, ``I get to call the shots in the Linux kernel, and very few people have the balls to complain. [considerable laughter] There's no committee--I just say, `Let's do it,' and it's done.'' FreeBSD, of course, is largely guided by the consensus of a group of people; moreover, none of the original BSD crowd is currently developing it.
• Jeremy Allison noted that FreeBSD can run Linux apps.
• Larry Augustin said that he was an old BSD guy; he switched to Linux because it felt much faster and lighter, and its development pace was much more rapid. FreeBSD's SMP support, for example, is ``still very early. (That's being generous.)'' So one might as well learn Linux. [FreeBSD's networking code, on the other hand, is considerably better than Linux's, at least as of kernel 2.0.x; that's one reason why Walnut Creek's monster servers run FreeBSD (and set a new bandwidth record: 759 GB in one day). But as David S. Miller recently reported, networking is one of the areas of major improvement in the Linux 2.1 development series, and there are indications that Linux 2.2 will have caught up to or even surpassed FreeBSD by the time it is released.]

Copyright © 1998-2000 Greg Roelofs.