Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on June 03, 2002 08:07 PM
First of all a disclaimer: I haven't set my hands on AIX5L, only on older AIXes but there are two reasons to use Linux:
1) Familiar ground: Unless IBM has made a serious effort for AIX5L being Linux-like (not only on the API) a Linux user will be quite disoriented by AIX: files are not at the same places, there is no /proc filesystem, administrative commands like "free" don't exist. That means higher training costs since you cannot benefit if the experience acquired with Linux by people who learned at university or at home.
2) Unless IBM has made a serious effort for enriching AIX you will miss many of the things you get on your average distro: for instance no Samba so you will have a hard time with users who work part on Windows and part on AIX. But also no Perl, no Python, no decent editor so programmers will complain.
3) Unless it has udergone drastic changes in AIX5L then, by Linux standards, AIX user environment stinks. To begin with the standard Unix commands (aka grep, find, awk) are severeley crippled respective to their Linux counterparts, use older algorithms (read they are slower) and have limits who don't exist in their Linux counterparts (eg AIX's awk has a limit in line length, while Linux's gawk hasn't). Add to this that as a GUI CDE is several degrees below Gnome and KDE. In fact where I work we have to drag windows users kicking and screaming to AIX. And those same users are jealous of my Linux box who at times runs Gnome and at times KDE. So this reluctance of users to use the unpalatable AIX environment leads to them using Windows even in situations where they should use the AIX server.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Three good reasons for using Linux instead of AIX
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on June 03, 2002 08:07 PM1) Familiar ground: Unless IBM has made a serious effort for AIX5L being Linux-like (not only on the API) a Linux user will be quite disoriented by AIX: files are not at the same places, there is no /proc filesystem, administrative commands like "free" don't exist. That means higher training costs since you cannot benefit if the experience acquired with Linux by people who learned at university or at home.
2) Unless IBM has made a serious effort for enriching AIX you will miss many of the things you get on your average distro: for instance no Samba so you will have a hard time with users who work part on Windows and part on AIX. But also no Perl, no Python, no decent editor so programmers will complain.
3) Unless it has udergone drastic changes in AIX5L then, by Linux standards, AIX user environment stinks. To begin with the standard Unix commands (aka grep, find, awk) are severeley crippled respective to their Linux counterparts, use older algorithms (read they are slower) and have limits who don't exist in their Linux counterparts (eg AIX's awk has a limit in line length, while Linux's gawk hasn't). Add to this that as a GUI CDE is several degrees below Gnome and KDE. In fact where I work we have to drag windows users kicking and screaming to AIX. And those same users are jealous of my Linux box who at times runs Gnome and at times KDE. So this reluctance of users to use the unpalatable AIX environment leads to them using Windows even in situations where they should use the AIX server.
#