[WEB4LIB] Thanx and Linux

[Josh Kuperman]

At 04:58 PM 12/19/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Now an informal survey:  don't want to start the next holy war here, 
>but...I'm a Linux user at home.  Our library uses NT 4.0 Server, with 
>glances towards the impending 5.0.  How many libraries out there are 
>using Linux, or some other Unix flavor, to network their PC's, provide 

When I started working at this library, we have an NT 3.5 server. At first
I thought that it would make sense to update it to NT4.0 and to start to
get some of the Back-Office services going. After working her for a few
months I realized that the NT server was basically being used for exactly
two things: providing some shared disk and supporting in house mail. Since
the in house mail was separate from Internet mail we have two groups of
people almost all of whom regularly read only one mail package. The cost of
NT is relatively trivial for Educational institutions, but by the time you
add in all the services, needed to do work, it is considerable. Certainly
way more than the $5 (maximum price for a shipped CD or Redhat 5.2 without
documentation) that almost any Linux Costs. I got my most recent copy as a
free bonus with the order of a stuffed penguin from the LinuxMall. Even if
you buy RedHat (or another) with books and documentation it is hard to
spend over $100, and you get lots of tools.  The only problem with Linux is
it does require intelligent people with a good background in computers and
networking. If you wanted to use an NT network internally (not connected to
the Internet) you can probably get away with much less skill.

While I had worked with NT before I had never administered an NT machine
before I got here and as far as I can tell for a small system with a few
users there is no way to justify the expense for an NT server system. One
of the great virtues of Linux was that it was designed to work well on
computers that people surplus. So right now I am doing most of my testing
on 486s and old Pentium 75MHz machines. 
>
>A glance at the newsgroups will tell you that humans at large have _very_ 
>strong feelings about which OS will prevail, if any.  Do members of this 
>esteemed list have such feelings?  Preferences?
>

What makes you think that any one OS would prevail? Did Ford prevail to the
extent that there are now no other car manufacturers? There are lots of
options. I still like the idea of the Java virtual machine which will just
work of a network with just the Java interpreter in rom and a lot of RAM,
but without any disk. I expect that Linux will  grow faster than any other
system largely because the traditional FUD (when a manufacturer - having no
technical advantage over a competitor -  gets market share by creating
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) won't work for the reasons MicroSoft cites
(see http://www.opensource.org/halloween.html ).

--
Josh Kuperman        Saratoga Springs Public Library
sar_kuper at sals.edu   49 Henry St  
518.584.7860x211     Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
http://www.library.saratoga.ny.us