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<title>Confessions of a Former VMS Junkie Issue 25</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<center>
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<H1>Confessions of a Former VMS Junkie </H1>
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<H2>One Techie's Journey to Linux </H2>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:pavlicek@radc17.cop.dec.com">Russell C. Pavlicek</a></H4>
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<I>Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...</I>
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<P>
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Someone once told me that phrase was the perfect way to begin a story with a
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happy ending. If so, then I am inclined to employ it here.
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<P>
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It has been over 20 years since my first programming experience. An
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ASR-33 Teletype with a paper tape punch attached to an acoustic coupler (do
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they even tell today's Computer Science students about the joys of a 110 baud
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acoustic coupler?) would whir, clunk, chunk, and ding as it magically made my
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dry, clinical code come to life and perform wonderful tasks! Amazing! And, I
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was told, the wondrous machine miles away on the other end of the telephone
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could not only breath life into my coded creations, but it could simultaneously
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do likewise for dozens of other aspiring Dr. Frankensteins who, like me, wanted
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to see dry, dead algorithms transformed into living, breathing computer
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creations.
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<P>
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That's how it all started. In retrospect, it involved a dreary little teletype
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in a bleak little room connected to a slow little coupler (for you recent CS
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grads, that's a modem that connected to a phone using an acoustic cradle rather
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than today's direct modular phone wire) connected over a telephone line to
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a computer that probably didn't have the computational power of a modern
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programmable pocket calculator. By today's standards, it was a trivial
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computing experience. But it shaped my perspective on computing forever,
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because that ancient assembly of antique parts could not only perform
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computations, but it could support multiple concurrent users. It did something
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that those of us with grey in our hair used to refer to as "timesharing".
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<P>
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When I went to college, I was exposed to and learned the internals of a DEC
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PDP-11/34 running the RSTS/E operating system. Another fine timesharing
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operating system, RSTS/E happily supported an entire campus population with
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a mere 124K words -- just 248K bytes! -- of usable memory and 12.5M bytes of
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hard disk storage! But this Resource Sharing Time Sharing / Extended system
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made each user feel like they had a whole computer at their beck and call.
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It was a marvelously reliable workhorse that ran for days without crashing,
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even while hordes of unthankful students stretched it to its very limits on
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a daily basis.
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<P>
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Soon after I entered the business world, I met another highly impressive
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operating system. It was called DEC VAX/VMS. It was an iron horse of a
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operating system that was seemingly massive in its internal complexity, yet
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uniform in its appearance. When properly tuned, a VAX/VMS system could
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satisfy the needs of dozens or even hundreds of concurrent users for months
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on end. Even now, Digital's OpenVMS (the current incarnation of VAX/VMS)
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can run for years between reboots faithfully servicing the needs of its
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users.
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<P>
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It was here that I settled down. It was here I dug in. Nestled safely in
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the FABs and RABs and QIOs of OpenVMS internals, I settled in for a long,
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comfortable stay. Where else would a programmer rather go? Here was
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reliability. Here were strong multiuser capabilities. Here were
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documented system calls... uniform presentation... true upgradability...
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all found in a system that just wouldn't quit!
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<P>
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I was home!
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<P>
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Yes, I knew there was more out there. There were all those mainframes.
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But who the heck wanted to work with IBM? They were on top. They were
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the Big Corporate standard. They were the "safe choice". What fun
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was that?
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<P>
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Then, there was Unix. Or, shall I say, the plethora of Unix-like systems.
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Each different. Each ugly. Commands that made no sense. Non words like
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"grep". What's a "grep"? Editors named after people's initials. Uck.
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Phewy! Give me commands like SEARCH and EDIT any day.
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<P>
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Then, of course, came the ground swell which was dubbed the "PC revolution".
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Here, at last, was computing for the common man. You could have your own
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system with your own software to do your own work. Magnificent concept, but the
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tools... yow! The popular PC operating systems were so anemic. Remember,
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these operating systems were responsible for the word "reboot"
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entering common speech. They were lucky if they could accomplish one thing
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at a time, let alone serve the needs of hundreds of people simultaneously.
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<P>
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Yes, color and sound became standard through the PC influence, but so did
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the notion that an operating system could have a nervous breakdown whenever
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it pleased. With the introduction of these systems into the business realm,
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the bar of technical excellence for operating systems plummeted to
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previously unimagined lows. Amidst the growing cry for open standards, the PC's
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proprietary operating system with undocumented system calls inexplicably
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soared in
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popularity. Suddenly, interface was everything. Reliability was nothing.
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<P>
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Yet, though I tinkered with the PC at home, I was happy to continue my work with
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solid, feature-rich OpenVMS. Then, one day, it happened. I was attending
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training on migrating software from OpenVMS to Unix (ugly though it was, at
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least Unix was a product of people who
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knew what it meant to have a reliable operating system). I picked up a
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mail order catalog and there was an ad for an inexpensive PC-based Unix called
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Linux. I passed it around during class and by the end of the training
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session, there were several people intending to purchase this product as a
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means of brushing up on Unix skills.
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<P>
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That's how I came to use Linux. After the class was over, I ordered a copy
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of Yggdrasil
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Plug-and-Play Linux (Nov 1994; kernel version 1.1). At first, I created an
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80 MB partition on my 386SX/40 and ran most of the operating system off of
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the CD. The few people I found who knew of the operating system said it was
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"still a bit buggy, but cool". I quickly found out that a "buggy" Linux was
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<I>still</I> more stable than the more "mature" PC operating systems I had been
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fiddling with.
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<P>
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One of my first practical uses for Linux presented itself during a 2 week
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intensive training course I needed to attend. As I wanted to touch base
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with my wife daily, but knew that the schedule could make it difficult for
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us to connect on the phone, I decided to set up my little Linux box as a
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mail server during the training. I created a turnkey account and menu for
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my non-technical wife to create and read mail messages on the box at home,
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while I would compose my mail messages on my laptop and dial in to my home
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system to upload and download my mail. Much to my amazement, my limited
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little 386 turned out to be a marvelous little mail hub. This lowly little
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box, which many would dismiss as having insufficient resources to perform
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any serious computing, was suddenly transformed into a true multiuser system
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which easily handled the task of being a miniature mail hub!
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<P>
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I soon discovered that there were familiar friends available to help me get
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acclimated to my new O/S. On the Web, I found Anker Berg-Sonne's
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<A HREF="http://www.ultranet.com/~anker/sedt/sedt.htm"> SEDT </A>
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editor to give the EDT emulator I desired. I also found source code for an
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implementation of the TECO editor which compiled nicely under Linux. Suddenly,
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I was ready to give programming a try in this "new world" I had discovered.
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<P>
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The robust GNU C compiler proved to be a rich engine for developing software.
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Coupled with the XFree86 software that provides the standard X windows
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interface, I soon found that the Linux environment was a splendid development
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platform for producing some 3D object rotation software that was requested
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by one of my clients. Even though the target system was an OpenVMS workstation,
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I found that I could port the software I developed under Linux by simply
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changing a couple of #include directives. Wow! I now had the ability to
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create and run workstation software on a low-end PC!
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<P>
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But that was only the beginning. Soon, I upgraded my system
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and made the strategic decision to allocate a large portion of my new disk
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drive to Linux. That is one decision I have never regretted. The operational
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advantages of my new platform were becoming more and more significant.
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<P>
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Like any PC, my Linux box enjoyed numerous inexpensive hardware options.
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Yet, unlike
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most PCs, this operating system could <I>really</I> perform multiple tasks
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simultaneously. And, unlike most PCs, I didn't have an operating system that
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needed constant rebooting. I could develop and run software based on open
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standards without having to focus on proprietary system calls. I could employ
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a TCP/IP stack that was sure and solid. And, I had
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the power of a true multiuser, multitasking operating system.
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<P>
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Then came the 1997 <A HREF="http://www.ale.org/">Atlanta Linux Showcase</A>.
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I talked my manager into letting
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me attend it as a training event. Suddenly, I was surrounded by hundreds of
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people who were even more enthusiastic than I. Amidst the technology and
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training, there was passion and conviction. I discovered that Linux wasn't
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merely the pleasant pastime of a few hackers; it was the growing wave that was
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beginning to wash over the beaches of corporations worldwide. Listening to
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the impassioned appeals of people like maddog Hall, Eric Raymond, and
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Robert Young, I was affected. The software paradigm was changing, and I had
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to find my place in this new world.
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<P>
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At work, I liberated an old 486 languishing in a corner and turned it into
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a intranet web server. It had been considered too weak for most "serious" PC
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applications, yet it has plenty of horsepower to serve as my personal
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workstation, intranet ftp server, and intranet web server. Its intranet web
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pages are dedicated to Linux advocacy, attempting to convey, convince, and
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convict folks within the corporation that Linux is a new market that will
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not be ignored. In its first
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6 months of operation, the server has processed requests for over
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3300 HTML pages. In all that time, the system has <I>never</I> crashed due
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to software (we had a power outage once), and at one point the system
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exceeded 10 weeks between reboots (I have had to shut it down for
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hardware upgrades and environmental reasons).
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<P>
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I have used Linux to develop software for US government customers, both on
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site and off. It has proved to be an extremely capable development platform
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for software destined for OpenVMS, Digital UNIX, and even Windows NT. Linux's
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adherence to industry standards makes it an excellent base for designing
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portable software. Plus, the addition of exciting technologies like
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KDE and GNOME bring the concept of a user-friendly desktop to a
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POSIX-compliant system. Who could imagine the day of a sharp looking Unix
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desktop that even the most hesitant end-user could conquer?
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<P>
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Today, Linux is my preferred platform, both at work and at home. I still
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have a deep fondness for the robustness of OpenVMS, but I relish the
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possibilities of an operating system that can scale from a lowly
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386 to a networked army of thundering Alphas.
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<P>
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I do not know all that is ahead for Linux, but I'm tempted to invoke the
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normal conclusion for all good stories:
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<P>
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<I>... and they lived happily ever after!</I>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Russell C. Pavlicek<BR>
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Published in Issue 25 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, February 1998</H5></center>
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