[ale] Unix Vs Linux

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 01:00:48PM -0800, Stephen Turner wrote:
> i have an old high school friend whos father is
> supposedly a computer genious, this i dont doubt and
> the kid is very smart with computers however he said
> something i would like to not believe but i want the
> facts rather than a "religion" to my os ;) 

> fact/question is he said Unix out performs linux. i
> find this hard to believe considering the number of
> people that work on linux. whats the facts? opinions
> or thoughts?

	You say you want the facts, so ask for them.  Ask "your
friend's father" for the facts instead of his religious opinion.
I strongly suspect that I am of the same generation as your friend's
father.  My son is now works at ISS on the X-Force as I do and has
earned his own reputation.  Plus I have a grandchild.  So I'm an old
fart, as well.  I'll weigh my religious opinion against your friend's
father's opinion and, old fart to old fart, I'll say he's more full
of shit than a Christmas goose.  Now, everybody's even.  Let him come
forth with his facts...

	Fact is that versions of Linux can outperform several versions
of Unix (this is from personal experience) and can be outperformed by
several versions of Unix.  And, by version, I mean versions within
product lines.  It also depends upon application.

	On comparable iron with similar horsepower, I have seen Linux
be outperformed by SunOS (4.x) and have both outperform Solaris, Solaris
x86, HP/UX, and AIX.  In fact, I've seen Linux outperform several of the
other flavors of Unix when they are on clearly superior iron.  That is
based on compiling identical products in parallel on systems
simultaniously.  But that's compiling and linking...  That was also
several years ago and Linux has come a long way since.  So has Solaris.
While Solaris (SunOS 5.x) might actually be competative with SunOS 4.x
NOW, I don't think AIX or HP/UX has improved dramatically over the years.
On identical hardware, Linux will stomp the shit out of SCO Unix,
Solaris x86, and Unixware for every application I have.  But there
may be applications tuned for those other systems which will be superior
on them.  I just haven't seen them.  This is all from personal, first
hand, experience with boxes sitting side by side in a lab together.

	Throw a database at it, and the results WILL be different.  Throw
a web server at it and the results WILL be different.  Linux may or may
not come out on top...  It has were I've seen it side by side with
the others...

	Let's hear his FIRST HAND experiences and then you can judge.

	Mike
-- 
 Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
  /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/       |  (678) 463-0932   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
  NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471    |  possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!

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