[ale] Linux

[Chris Ricker]

On 29 Dec, David S. Jackson wrote:

> This is what sells me on Linux again and again.  I can load the sucker
> down with all sorts of applications, big and hungry apps, and Linux just
> keeps chugging.  Win95 hangs if you look at it crossways.  It's a toy
> compared to Linux and Unix in general, IMHO.

Unless, of course, that Unix is Solaris 2.6/x86 .  I recently added
that to one of my linux machines.  Before I got done, I had to go
through:

2 cpus (not really Solaris' fault)
2 cdroms (both allegedly supported; the first one wasn't really)
3 motherboards (first motherboard died, required mb and cpu upgrade;
	2nd motherboard was TX/Ami bios, which Solaris apparently doesn't like,
	requiring 3rd mb that was VX/Award bios)
3 ethernet cards (all three allegedly supported; the first 2 weren't
	really)
2 power supplies (probably not Solaris' fault, but by this point I'm
	blaming them anyway ;-)

And my video card still doesn't work at 1024x768x24-bitx75Hz, even with
the updated driver Sun told me would fix the problem.

Not only that, but interactive performance is not very good.  I tried a
parallel make of some big code under CDE with Netscape loaded.  After
waiting 3 minutes for the cursor movement to catch up with the mouse, I
don't think I'll try that again ;-).  The exact same machine flies
under linux.  I've had the misfortune of prior experience with SCO
before, but I was expecting better things from Solaris....

later,
chris

--
Chris Ricker                                 gt1355b at prism.gatech.edu