Quick facts about Linux for CSE/IT
Choose the freedom ! Choose Linux !
Linux is multiplatform.
This means that by choosing Linux, you choose a portable operating system on which you can run or
develop portable applications. Linux runs on Sparc (Sun), Alpha (Compaq), Mips,
ARM, x86 (Intel), PowerPC, 680x0 (Motorola), RS6000 (IBM), and so on...
Intel running IBM compatible PC !
Choose Linux to choose freedom of choice !
On a Linux box, several users can logon simultaneously. This means that you have the freedom to share the
same computer among various tasks launched by various users. This means you can share the same
program installation among various users. This
allows you to
– Save license costs
– Save installation time
– Save backup time
– Save upgrade time
This is only possible if the operating system is very stable and separates efficiently the data and code belonging to various users. Choose Linux because it is multiusers
Linux is opensource.
This means you have access to the code of the operating system. You can actually learn computer
science, change the code and experience the result. You can even participate to the development code.
Linux is good for students. Other non opensource operating systems do not allow learning how a
system works.
Linux is multivendor.
This means that by choosing Linux, you choose to depend on a set of (more than 50) Linux distributors
in the world, plus the opensource community.
This is definitely safer than depending on a unique vendor.
Choose Linux to avoid monopolies !
Linux is stable.
It manages properly the memory, tasks, user rights, access to the I/O and hardware, so that some Linux
hosts are running actively since more than 5 continuous years !
When does a Linux system stops ?
– When there is a hardware failure
– When there is a power outage
– When there is a system upgrade
– When it is shutdown by its owner
Linux development team started even the development of a system allowing upgrades without
interruption of the services ! Compare this kind of stability with Win NT4: Microsoft recognized that
an internal bug caused the system to crash after only 47 days ! Nobody notice, because Microsoft systems
are always crashing anyway !
Choose Linux to choose stability !
Linux manages properly the memory.
Linux properly manages the memory (demand paging).
The consequence ?
• If a buggy software crashes, you don't need to reboot the computer
• If a software ends, it does not leave unused memory (memory leaking) leading to "Low on resources" error message.
• If a malicious code gets executed, it does not spread among the entire system memory.
• Two users sharing the same computer at the same time can't corrupt the other user software memory.
Choose Linux to increase your productivity !
Linux gives you the choice !
On Linux, you have choice. Tenth of different office suites are available, for various prices, with various
license models, open source or not, with various key possibilities.
Ex: StarOffice, OpenOffice, Koffice, ApplixWare, WordPerfect, Latex, ..Same applies to mail readers, web browsers, ... Linux is not a monopoly. You have choice !
Choose Linux to keep your customer choice !
Linux is European technology !
The creator of Linux, Linus Torvald, is European! Linux is now used throughout the world (Asia,
Oceania, North and South America). Why not in Europe ? Do we need to depend on technological matters on foreign countries, while we have the best technology in town ? Are we plan to add to our regrettable energetic dependency the hightech one ? What might become Europe without technological capability ? Our only resource is our brains. If we become technologically dependent of a foreign country, we are going to become a thirdworld country within the next decades.
Linux is cheap.
Linux, as operating system, is and will always remain free (in the sense of a free beer). There is no
license to pay to anybody. More than that, Linux cost of ownership is very low because of:
• You don't need expensive antivirus software.
• You don't need to maintain a license database.
• You don't need to reinstall crashed/corrupted systems
• You don't need to install expensive remotemanagement software
• You harmed by very old well known bugs that have not yet been fixed
• You can choose your operating system supplier (no monopoly)
• You can choose between various equivalent softwares (alternative solutions exists on Linux)
• You can adapt the system to your exact needs: you remain master of your software solution.
Choose Linux because it's cost effective !
Linux is efficient.
Oracle made a comparison between Oracle 9i running on a Windows 2000 and the same computer
running Linux. The result is 2530% more efficiency with Linux... The problem is that the Windows 2000 license prevents you (the licensee) to compare Microsoft software with other solutions... However, Oracle
published the result because they claim that they don't compare Microsoft's software efficiency, but
their Oracle implementation... Nobody is faked: Linux is advised officially by Oracle as operating system of choice to run their relational database !
Choose Linux because it is efficient !
Linux is not under the control of NSA.
The NSA (National Security Agency, USA) and Microsoft recognized that two sets of secret keys where shipped with Windows in order to allow either Microsoft and NSA to enter any Windows
running computer in the world. Do we accept a foreign security agency to control our bank accounts, our official mails, emails, our justice records ?
Do we accept our armies to run such software ? Linux is opensource. Anybody can check if there is such a backdoor in it. NSA is working on a certificated secure version of the Linux kernel for
USA use, because they know Windows is not secure. If USA chooses Linux for security, why not
Europe ? Use Linux because it's not controlled by foreign intelligence agency.
Linux is not under the control of a software development
company.
As software development company, you can choose Windows as preferred operating system, delivering Windows solutions to your customers. If you do that, you know that soon or later, you will loose your business in favor of Microsoft.
Why ?
Because as soon as Microsoft will identify your business as significant, they will use the same technique they used against Corel, Netscape, Borland, ... They will change the API such a way that your software will become unstable, inefficient and buggy. They will develop hidden API that only their software will be able to use, giving them unfair market advantage... And they will win: they are playing on their backyard... And it's you that choose to fight with them there !
A good counterexample is the success of Sony in the game market: their PlayStation II is NOT RUNNING Microsoft system. That's why they are still on tracks.
Choose Linux to not choose some
competitor's controlled system for your
developments.
Linux is a standard respectful platform.
When you develop on Linux, your software will likely use standardized APIs from standardized
programming languages (Perl, Bash, Tcl/Tk, Java,Posix, AnsiC, C++...) so that your software will be
easily ported on other operating systems:
• BSD
• Mac OSX
• Solaris
• HPUX
• AIX
• True64
• Irix
• Hurd
• QNX
With a bit of care, it is even possible to develop directly pure portable code. So Choose Linux to develop
platformindependent code
Linux is a longterm platform.
Linux has no (marketing) reasons to become incompatible from releases to releases. Far from that. When you develop on Linux, you know that you are using longterm available development tools, APIs, languages... So that your software will last and will not require porting on new operating system flavor. Ex: The bank software developed in 60's on Cobol is\ still usable on Linux. What about availability of VB 4 on XP ? What to do when an operating system provided by only one vendor is not maintained even less than 10 years after its first release ? Can you rely on such a system for your business ? Choose Linux because it's long lasting.
Linux is multitasking operating system
What does this means ?
This means high productivity. You can at the same time print, work, download, write a CD, play music,
compile, compute, backup your system, and so on... By the way, you may be even not the only user to do
that on your system at the moment, because Linux is also multiuser...
Click twice on an icon. Linux will launch twice the application. Did you already tried to overload your
system while writing a CD on a non multitasking system ? Your trash would be full of missed CDs... Multitasking means that instead of using in average 25% of your CPU, with Linux, you can use 100% all the time.
Choose Linux to use 100% of your hardware !
Linux is multiconsole.
Linux comes usually with 6 textbased consoles, plus 1 graphical one. On that graphical console, you
have by default 4 virtual screens. First users gets confused by so many "screens". Once used to it, systems providing only one desktop will look frustrating to you. Why should you be limited to only one desktop ? Why not launch the word processing tool in plain screen on one console,
the web browser in an another one, and leave my preferred game paused on the third one ? Soon, you will increase the number of such consoles to 8, 12 or 16... And surprise ! You will not even
need to reboot to enjoy it !
Choose Linux to increase your working environment
Linux is a new technology !
Linux is modern: its development started in 1992 (only). Compared with other systems that are DOSbased
(DOS comes from the 70's), it is strange to heard about "New Technology" when speaking
about Windows... So, Linux had no problem with the (unpredictable) year 2000 issue. Linux doesn't know 640KB or 64MB memory problem. Linux systems works with
up to 4096 MB... Linux has no problem with "8.3" file names (such as
MYDOC~11.DIR or hard disks having more than 1024 cylinders...
Linux has no problem dealing with time zones or Ipv6 because it's a modern operating system !
Choose Linux because it's new technology !
Linux is the stateoftheart for R&D
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) engineers the new protocols and applications for the worldwide
Internet. It is the meeting point of all the R&D (Research and Development) teams in the world (Cisco, Nortel, Alcatel, Philips, Lucent, Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Sun, ...). Their working groups are
writing the RFCs: the standards for the Internet.
They are mainly using
• Linux
• BSD
• Solaris
for their prototype implementations, for their validations, their tests...
During meetings, half of the installed computers are running Linux. Only the employees of Microsoft are
developing on Windows, because other have no access to the core of the system.
Choose Linux because it's the state of the art at world scale !
Linux runs on a Journalized File System (JFS).
What does this means ?
It means that in case of unexpected system crash (not a bug, we are speaking about Linux) as a power
outage, the file system is not damaged. The next use of the file system (when the system will bootup
again, as example) will lead to a very fast (some seconds on very large file systems) recovery, with
guaranteed rebuild of all the files, including the one that were opened at the crash instant.
This means no file corruption, no file loss, no system corruption (lack of DLLs....) and very quick system
availability. Some very well tuned Linuxbased file server have recovery time of 25 seconds in case of system crash. This delay is perceived by users as a network overload, while actually the entire server rebooted !
Use Linux to save your data !
Linux provides software RAID services.
What is RAID ?
RAID is a way to get protected from harddisk failures. An example of RAID ? Let's imagine the three directors of CocaCola company. If one of them knows the entire production secrets, he might build his own company. If each of them knows only the third of the secret, as soon as one dies, the product is lost. So, let's divide the product secret in three: part A, B and C. Director 1 knows secret A, director 2 knows secret B and director 3 knows secret C. For redundancy reasons, let's learn to director 1 the
secret B too, to director 2 the secret C and to director 3 the secret A. In this case, none of them knows the entire production method, but any of them might die, the remaining knows what to learn to the newly hired
director. The only thing we know about harddisks is: they will die. But no one's know when. If you want your data to survive your hard disk, use RAID (as Linux provides you for free). You will have the opportunity to replace your crashed harddisk and see the system rebuild the missing data without even stopping you to work ! Use Linux to save your data !
Linux proposes the stateoftheart desktops environments.
Linux means freedom. Also freedom of choice: you can choose between several desktop, window
managers, ... It's not only about customization: you really can choose between alternative solutions to manage your working environment.
• Gnome
• KDE
• CDE
are various graphical environment available on Linux. They are not only curiosities: the well known Sun Microcomputers ships KDE and Gnome as desktops with its very famous Solaris operating
system ! Choose Linux to enjoy the
stateoftheart
working
environment !
Quick facts about Linux...
Linux is the most used operating system in the
world.
Linux is (quiet) a safe platform.
The famous ISS company (Internet Security System) selling Internet security tools advises officially
during trainings the use of BSD or Linux as platform of choice to run their products.They state that they had the possibility to check and/or amend the code of the underlaying operating system to guarantee the security of the overall system, while they can't guarantee whatever about
the security provided by their security software when running on non opensource operating systems, such as Microsoft's products.
Choose Linux because it's a almost safe platform
Linux is used by the most prestigious companies in the world.
Other companies wants to hide this, either because they are not proud of using free software for marketing reasons (as RollsRoyce or Microsoft) or because they don't want their
competitors to know about this leading technology, considering the use of Linux as a trade secret.
Some are no more free of taking the right decision: some commercial operating system vendors are shareholders,or they signed a commercial agreement... However, prestigious
companies are using Linux, such as:
* Toyota * EDF * Deutch Bank * Boing * Alcatel * Nortel *
IBM * NASA * France Telecom * P&T Luxembourg * AT&T
* British Telecom * Pixar * Sun Microsystems * SESAstra
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