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List:       kde
Subject:    Re: Why NT is better than KDE/UNIX
From:       Jon Svejgaard <jon () ace ! dk>
Date:       1998-08-20 20:58:16
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On Thu, 20 Aug 1998, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

> I would still like to see an attempt made to create a cross-platform
> integrated Unix management suit that looks and feels native to the KDE.
I do understand what you're calling for, but I also believe that you're 
describing Utopia. Consider the nature of UNIX versus that of NT.

UNIX has evolved by contribution from many sources who individually had 
ideas about how things should be. This is why many programs under UNIX 
perform similar tasks and still are different. They all have one thing in 
common, though, if you look at the traditional UNIX programs: they are 
small, perform simple, individual tasks, and fairly well documented once 
you understand your way through the documentation.

Meanwhile a lot of the UNIX old-timers regard UNIX users as a community 
so a lot of assumption about the background of other people is taking 
place, which results in documentation being ofttimes quite terse until 
you find the *real* manual.

NT, on the other hand, is created from scratch by a staff in one company 
according to a plan. I will not venture to discuss the qualities of these 
three elements (company, plan, staff) since this is being done so 
eloquently by many people :-), but they *are* neccesary to achieve 
uniformity and interaction of the kind you are looking for.

Unfortunately, if you want to excercise the same kind of control over 
UNIX that Microsoft has over NT, you *will* need those three components.
One company has in fact done that. They are called SCO.
They have always strived to reach the goal that their product should be 
as easy to administer as the next operating system, and in their latest 
version, Open Server 5, they have actually proven that it can be done. 
They have written an entire suite of administration programs in their own 
version of Tcl and done a great job of it. It's as easy to handle as 
Windows 95 when Windows 95 is behaving well.

SCO only have two drawbacks: It's expensive, compared to other systems, 
e.g. NT, and for some peculiar reason they have always been sneered at 
from both communities: the UNIX community, because it ran on 'toy 
computers' and the DOS/Windows community, because it was UNIX.
I have worked with SCO products for over 12 years and I have never had 
reason to complain about performance or stability. I find it even today 
more stable and solid than Linux (and AIX, for that matter).

The good news is that SCO are giving away the basic version of their 
system for free these days, if you approach them as a private person.
I recommend interested parties to have a look at it:
	http://www.sco.com

Going back to the main thread, I do not believe that we will ever get to 
the same stage of uniformity throughout the system with Linux/KDE as what 
we see in NT. The flame wars will see to that.
The advantage of UNIX over NT still is, however, that with UNIX, you can 
get behind stage and handle things there, given time to gain knowledge 
and experience about it - this is not nearly as true with NT. And so with 
UNIX, you can promise your 'customers' - whoever they are, be it your 
wife, your boss or a client - a system that will operate solidly and 
stably and getting the job done, even if it is not based on a plan.

Brgs
=========================================================================
Jon Svejgaard                           | ACE - Member of solutions!group
                                        | Avderoedvej 30
                                        | 2980 Kokkedal
mail: jon@ace.dk                        | DENMARK
http://www.ace.dk                       | +45 4828 0799
=========================================================================


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