[LI] Re:<Linux hype Can you trust the Penguin> Well I think so, may require some effort from you but still you can.

[C Hanish Menon <hanish@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

Let me accept one thing about linux that many of the features in linux are as
of now not very userfriendly to configure or setup. One requires some or good
knowledge about the subject at hand to get an efficient solution in linux. Also
one may have to patch the things a bit here and there and is not for the faint
heart as of now.

Coming to some issues that were raised in the article, as the author himself
acknowledges most of the problems he has faced have solutions in linux BUT ONLY
THAT THEY ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE USER KERNEL RELEASE AS OF NOW, one can get
patchs for many of these and for others they have been already included in the
2.3.x kernels and should find themselves included in 2.4 kernel.

These include issues like 

 a) Larger Memory (2.4 or 2.3.x )

 b) Journaling  (I think as of now its to be Patched for ext based filesystem)
or you have other Filesystems which do provide journaling in linux. This is
mentioned at the website containing this article itself.

 c) SMP (2.4 or 2.3.x) i.e the more robust and flexible one.

 d) Posix ACL (Is a patch)

 e) Clustering (Hell lot of different implementation has Patches(MOSIX,
BEOWULF,etc), One who is working on distributed computing will know that a
Do It yourself approach with source code availability WILL MOST PROBABLY give
more power in implementing it than an off the Selve proprietery solution in the
LONG RUN)

 f) Desktop apps, Even thou one can find an hell lot of Desktop apps
normaly you have a handful of these which are most regularly used like Office
suites, Internet apps, etc. For this you have good solutions in Linux, may be
not popular everywhere but you do have good solutions.

 g) As far as apis are concerned I program for diverse enviornments so I
have used Win16 and Win32 api, MFC (VC), VCL(DELPHI), VB, etc. As well as the
XLIB, GTK based (and I have looked into QT and KDE based ) solutions. I would
say that GTK and QT provide a better solution to fitting event driven
programming to C or C++ than MFC's macro based approach in C. As far as Object
Pascal is concerned well there Borland as control over many of the features
they add to the language so to a application programmer It does provide a clean
interface.       

I don't see any reason as to why cann't a programmer write EXCELLENT programs
for Linux and XWindow UNLESS HE IS LAZY THAT HE WANTS A APPLICATION FRAMEWORK TO
DO MOST OF THE JOB FOR him, Even here the GTK, QT ( and KDE api built on QT
and other protocols ), LESSTIF, XFORMS, (why not even tcl/tk, ATHENA) etc
provide him most of what he requires. 

However one who has used these Application Framework for large projects will
know that many a times we have to work around the Framework implementation or
use Lower level apis to get the required thing done in an efficient and proper
manner.


On Sat, 13 Nov 1999, you wrote:
> ______Linux___________________________________________
> 
> Can You Trust The Penguin?
> Forget the hype. This special report, more than 10 months in
> the making, presents the truth about Linux, once and for
> all.
> 
> http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?12823:4646466
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------


-- 
Keep :-)
HanishKVC

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