Thought Experiment: What If Linux Never WAS ! 3774

John A. Bailo

In UNIX world before Linux was taken seriously, we had quite a few advanced terminals. The likes of the Genisco's where much of the processing could be done on the local machine with just the cpu intensive or number crunching side being handed over to the main frame.

This area was gradually expanding with the likes of the SunSystems work stations. Then you got some CPM+ machines, of cause no one really knew where computing was heading, but CPM+ as a client for UNIX was thought to be a major step because it really did open the doors for client development.

That was the key really, a client machine for UNIX that took at least a portion of the processing onto itself. Actively blocking UNIX was probably the biggest mistake MS has ever made, because they left open the door for Linux and other clients to be attractive to IT admin. Now of cause they can probably look back and realise that had they supported UNIX, been willing to be a UNIX client, shared packet types etc, then they would have been no need at all for Linux to exist. Except that Linux probably would have still been available as a server, because even within a couple of years of it's appearance it was doing an excelent job in that role.

You go out and get a new car, it's a do-it-all super car. Many will just drive theirs, only lifting the bonnet when they have no choice. But you will always get the tinkerer, who's first action on getting home is to lift the bonnet, look through the Hayes manual and eventually start poking and proding, can he get a touch more speed, how does this carb work .. what happens if I pull This out ....

Then they are another sort, the rebels, who will not want this super car for no other reason than 'everyone else has one and I don't want to be a sheep'.

How ever big MS think themselves, and how ever much bullying they do of the industry, they can't do much to stop the tinkerer and the rebel, who together will eventually come up with a rival.

The high cost of UNIX was good for us who worked in it. It was seen as a secret mysterious world, so you were paid a fortune. But in many ways the UNIX was a simpler beast than the Linux you are sat in front of now.

You could go to any UNIX in the world and know that the file structure would be pretty much the same, that most of your work would revolve around the physical communications side, because the systems themselves were so rock solid that after your daily checks (30 mins max) they was little to do but dream up ways of spending your rediculously high salary.

We kept saying to each other that we were paid well because we knew what to do when disaster strikes, we knew the complexities of UNIX. Which was true I suppose, except that it was rarely complex. Then when disaster did come what did company directors do? They would send you pizzas. Because while you are crawling around inside the cabinet panicing because you didn't keep the wireing diagrams up to date so you can't find the one that attaches to the lines thats gone down, the directors still see you as a hero, they don't question what you are doing, they just buttumed it is so complicated that they wouldn't understand a word.

Linux puts paid to that, because it is so cheap and simple to have a couple of mirrors that they isn't any excuse for down time any more. You still get to play the hero of cause, being a super hero comes with the job, but now instead of being a hero for fixing a problem you are a hero for they not being any problems, 99% of server problems are accumulative, you always get a warning, your job is to be able to spot these warnings early and deal with them before they become problems.