AT&T Chooses Ubuntu Linux Instead of Microsoft Windows (betanews.com) 167
An anonymous reader writes: one of the largest cellular providers is the venerable AT&T. While it sells many Linux-powered Android devices, it is now embracing the open source kernel in a new way. You see, the company has partnered with Canonical to utilize Ubuntu for cloud, network, and enterprise applications. That's right, AT&T did not choose Microsoft's Windows when exploring options. Canonical will provide continued engineering support too.
Ok? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, it's one of the reasons Azure supports *nix etc. in the first place.
Going back to its roots (Score:3, Informative)
Going back to its roots in Unix,
How was Windows, rather than Unix, the alternative (Score:4, Interesting)
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Linux has for many years proven itself as a great Kernel and with good support of the GNU stuff it makes a great OS.
Re:How was Windows, rather than Unix, the alternat (Score:4, Insightful)
Current vs. Former AT&T Companies (Score:2)
When The Bell System split up in the 1980s, AT&T got to keep Unix and most of the Labs, and the 7 Baby Bells owned most of the Bell telcos.
When AT&T split up into AT&T, Lucent, and NCR back in the 1990s, Lucent got most of Bell Labs, including ownership of Unix.
SBC (aka Southwestern Bell, the Texas Baby Bell branch) in the late 2000s and early 2010s bought Pacific Bell, Southern Bell, Ameritech, old-AT&T, and renamed itself AT&T because that had more brand value than SBC. The wireless b
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I think that the GP is correct.
About ownership of Unix, that went to the Open Group, while ownership of the code went to Novell, and then there was that lawsuit b/w SCO and everyone else. I don't think that the Baby Bells ever owned Unix. However, the original Unix authors stayed at Lucent, where they worked on Plan 9.
Unix, as in SVR5, remained w/ SCO, and found its way to the last version of UNIXWARE.
Guest vs. Host Cloud OS's - OpenStack vs. VMware (Score:2)
Remember that this announcement is about Cloud Stuff - no matter what client operating systems you're using, the host environment is almost certainly either controlled by VMware or OpenStack or Amazon or Azure, and the servers are almost certainly Intel-ish CPUs running VMware ESXi or KVM (on some Linux platform) or maybe Windows Hyper-V. There are some exceptions (Docker's busy disrupting and overlapping with that space, and there's a bit of Xen left, and some switching/routing platforms like ODL or *NFV*
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Yeah, and it's probably not going to be client side anytime soon.
A lot of the industry stuff isn't Linux. (iTunes is still used sometimes to work with phones; then there are tools like MCE (http://store.mce-sys.com/pages/mce-platform-system-requirements); and tools for the old feature phones the firmware updates etc were all windows applications (this has largely gone away, but not completely).
Both major networks around me (not AT&T) use iQmetrix for point of sale which is a cloud based database with a
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"In the cloud, the competition is pretty even between everything that isn't based on Mac OS"
Please show me an example of competition in the cloud with a Windows OS? Even MS Azure is heavily Linux. Other than crufty aging enterprise running AD and Exchange, there is zero presence for Windows based servers. In the "cloud", AWS and the like provide their own directory services not to mention Oauth has become significantly more important than traditional LDAP.
Been that way for a decade now. What century are you
Re:Ok? (Score:5, Informative)
Sure. Here's a good reference from the Linux Foundation [linuxfoundation.org] showing the continuing improvement of Linux's foothold in the context of cloud applications. 75% Linux (all flavors), 23% Windows (all flavors), etc.
but considering that the 75% figure is made of all Linux distributions, the breakdown is likely split between CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, et cetera. Everyone's in the double-digits. I'd call that comparable, potentially "even," and I'd certainly call that greater than your "zero presence" figure.
I'd attack your character much the way you attacked mine with "What century are you in?", but it's easier to just use facts.
Re: Ok? (Score:3)
How is 75/25 even? If you want to compare Linux distros to Windows distros (you have ~3 iterations split into another 3-6 distributions each (from Small Business to Datacenter versions), you would probably still get a 75/25 split. Windows in the cloud is expensive and useless unless you have it subsidized (which is probably the only reason Windows is so high).
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If you want to go granular and compare by kernel version (5.2, 6.1, etc.), then you have to do the same for different versions of Linux OSes too.
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It's just a plug, an announcement to put on the brochures, not meant to "surprise" anyone. Canonical wants into Fedora's market.
BIG deal for Canonical, AT&T is 20x the size o (Score:5, Interesting)
A better headline might have been:
Canonical lands huge contract with AT&T
AT&T is a $200 billion organization, Canonical is about $10 billion. This deal might boost Canonical's revenue by 50%.
Also, it's a major credibility boost on Canonical's corporate resume. AT&T is a major, major company full of network experts, so it's a very significant endorsement of Canonical supporting large-scale applications. Consider Canonical trying to sell a new a customer, maybe Fisher Price or Nabisco:
Fisher Price: How do we have confidence that your team can support services at the scale Fisher Price needs?
Canonical rep: We run AT&T's systems, at the much larger scale they require.
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Now if the next step is Ubuntu on AT&T workstations that will be a huge change but hardly surprising should it be that it was the main reason AT&T went with Ubuntu in the first place. Many Internet companies will change as they baulk at the idea of M$ harvesting the networks for information free of charge and there will be more and more pressure to force out M$'s privacy invasion of the entire internet.
true, $10B buys Canonical's potential (Score:2)
True, Canonical's current revenue in no way justifies a $10 billion valuation. Talk of that kind of valuation is based on their growth potential. By revenue, the importance of the AT&T deal is even more significant- AT&T is a huge customer, for a company the size of Canonical.
just doubled that and will again, so yeah maybe (Score:2)
The valuation isn't justified by their 2014/2015 revenue, but this one sale may have just doubled that revenue and more deals like it (and many smaller ones) are likely. So discussion is of a value somewhere in that general neighborhood. _I_ am not trying to buy 20% of Canonical for a billion dollars or so, but someone might, so I was generous in my comparison vs AT&T. (My point was how -small- Canonical is compared to AT&T, so I trade not to exaggerate how small they are.)
Re:Ok? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seen as "Linux runs a few more servers", not news at all. Seen as "Canonical gets a high profile contract", it is a decent piece of business news.
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Yes, A linux OS running enterprise applications in the cloud doesn't generate as much revenue as on the desktop.
The thing is that most companies that decide to deploy linux on their datacenter are most likely prepared to support them inhouse. In my case, only 50% of my linux deployment, which we classify as critical system, are covered with Red Hat services. The rest of them are supported inhouse. And they are inherently stable and rarely break to begin with.
Re:Ok? (Score:5, Funny)
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and 99% of statistics are skewed by selection bias of the reporter - quote them if they back up your position, skip them if they don't.
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and 99% of [quoted] statistics are skewed by selection bias of the reporter
This is really true (and unfortunately so)
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99% of the internet is run on Linux and BSD.
If you don't count 90% of the devices connected to the Internet.
They are clients or a shrinking set of servers, but not internet infrastructure. There's a solid reason for this, and that is security. Windows doesn't have it.
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99% of the internet is run on Linux and BSD.
If you don't count 90% of the devices connected to the Internet.
They are clients or a shrinking set of servers, but not internet infrastructure. There's a solid reason for this, and that is security. Windows doesn't have it.
Then you should have said "99% of the internet infrastructure is run on Linux and BSD".
Internet != Internet infrastructure
If you want to say "the Internet", then you have to count the servers on one end and the billions of devices on the other end; PC's, laptops, phones, etc, not to mention all the peer-peer stuff. And that ain't 99% Linux and BSD
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Probably not 90% - think of how many Macs, iPads, iPhones, iPods, Droid phones and Droid tablets are out there....
AT&T probably wants to avoid the GWX nagging (Score:5, Insightful)
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To me it appears that Microsoft is no longer a trustworthy partner, in business or in the home.
Re:AT&T probably wants to avoid the GWX naggin (Score:5, Funny)
With what Microsoft has been doing in the consumer world with the Windows 10 installation nagging (~how many times do I have to tell Microsoft that I do not want to install Windows 10~) and the unwanted Windows 10 downloading, it is no surprise that AT&T is looking elsewhere for solutions.
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To me it appears that Microsoft is no longer a trustworthy partner, in business or in the home.
Umm, where have you been the past 30ish years?
Microsoft has NEVER been a "trusted partner" - "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run!" and all that.
Re:AT&T probably wants to avoid the GWX naggin (Score:4, Funny)
birds of a feather flock together.. at&t and microsoft should be best buddies. both shit on their customers and customer data.
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Well get the flock off my lawn... and the customers need to raise a little more hell if they want better treatment.
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With what Microsoft has been doing in the consumer world with the Windows 10 installation nagging (~how many times do I have to tell Microsoft that I do not want to install Windows 10~) and the unwanted Windows 10 downloading, it is no surprise that AT&T is looking elsewhere for solutions.
Yeah some consumer OS issue which doesn't affect the scenario is what drove a mega corporation who can't give a shit about consumers to ditch another mega corporation's cloud service.
More likely scenario: Azure was more expensive. And it IS more expensive.
Cloud Servers != Consumer Laptops (Score:2)
(Disclaimer: I work for AT&T, but this is just my personal opinion, not an official corporate position.)
This announcement is about infrastructure for some of AT&T's cloud services; it's really separate from anything about laptop or consumer OS's. Basically everything in the world that used to run on servers seems to be migrating to cloud-type architectures, and I couldn't tell from the article which part of the business this was about (AT&T runs a wide range of cloud and hosting services for cu
AT&T invented Unix (Score:5, Informative)
Re:AT&T invented Unix (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes and no. AT&T was split up and Southwestern Bell was one of the baby bells. Then SW Bell bought the shell that AT&T had become. After so much time and so many business school weenies running the companies, AT&T is only the bastard son of MBAs.
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I thought it was the desktop... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sincerely speaking, when I read the headline, I thought the choice was for the desktop.
Alas was I wrong!
Is there anyone else who thought the same?
Which major enterprise is using Linux on the desktop is I may ask?
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How major is google? and some others... [techrepublic.com]
Press space to wipe and reenable OS verification (Score:2)
Chrome OS by default is locked down not to run any app other than the Chrome web browser. If you put it in developer mode to install Crouton (a chroot with GNU and X11), it'll beg you every time it starts up to reenable operating system verification, which wipes the entire drive. Most other PC operating systems allow someone with physical access to wipe the drive but don't exactly encourage it. So you'd need to keep reinstallation media handy at all times and never save files to internal storage.
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Sorry for the (partially) offtopic reply, but I just saw your question about Trusted Network Connect here. [slashdot.org]
I haven't been hearing much new news about Trusted Computing or Trusted Network Connect recently. Ordinarily I'd consider that a good sign that it wasn't moving forwards, however it's looking more like a successful slow-quiet-rollout strategy. Both Microsoft and Google make the Trust chip mandatory on phones, and Microsoft has declared that it's mandatory on all desktops and other devices in a few month
Encrypted /home (Score:2)
It doesn't have separate OS and data storage?
Even if it did, the data storage is encrypted, and the master key for the volume changes when the device is switched between developer mode and not-developer mode.
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I think that Red Hat uses Linux on some of it's workstations. From what I hear, nobody really likes it, though.
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Sun was never a Linux company. Linux on Sparc has always and will always be rather weak. You run Sparc hardware, it's Solaris or a BSD.
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Sincerely speaking, when I read the headline, I thought the choice was for the desktop.
The headline leaves you wondering. It doesn't say where. If a company just uses Linux on some servers, then it's not news. So you wonder if they mean the desktop, at least for some employees. It's clickbait.
The article itself is poorly written too. It hedges things with virtually and arguably but then exaggerates, with dramatically and runaway. It uses bloated words like utilize, partner, and mutualistic. It's riddled with cliches, like "everyone and their mother," "the venerable," and "some much needed mon
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Which major enterprise is using Linux on the desktop is I may ask?
Canonical maybe?
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I know that Lowe's uses Linux on the desktop. Hell, the computer kiosk in the paint section usually has a not-too-well hidden keyboard nearby - press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and watch X close up, only to be quickly reopened to relaunch the Adobe Flash-based kiosk animation.
I've interviewed at Lowe's several times at different stores (for menial retail positions), and each time I made a point of asking the managers how many Windows machines they had on-site. The answer has never been more than "two".
Year of Linux (Score:4, Funny)
Wow! 2016 really is the year of Linux on the server stack!
Oh wait.....
What? (Score:2)
(recently heard at a MS board meeting)
Allright, spill it, who dropped the ball and didn't invite the AT&T board to the golf resort?
Red Hat #2 (Score:5, Insightful)
> Canonical will provide continued engineering support too.
Looks like Canonical found its business model.
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not a real choice (Score:5, Interesting)
In telcos, Linux is the successor to Sun/Solaris. It's been happening for a while now, and it really sped up a lot when Oracle bought Sun. Windows was never a real option here.
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In telcos, Linux is the successor to Sun/Solaris.
In universities as well. The S in Sun was originally Stanford, after all.
Cheaper licensing and more stable/longer uptimes (Score:2)
Re: AT&T will soon switch back to Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Enterprise Linux is a different beast altogether from desktop Linux. When someone can pay for professional support, that's typically what they get. If you think Linux is inherently inconsistent and unstable, it shows your own lack of knowledge of the platform.
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Enterprise Linux is a different beast altogether from desktop Linux. When someone can pay for professional support, that's typically what they get.
If you think Linux is inherently inconsistent and unstable, it shows your own lack of knowledge of the platform.
It shows how the Linux platform can appear to someone who cannot afford enterprise-grade technical support.
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And we are talking about a company who can afford enterprise grade support.
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Yea that corp server needs wpa-supplicant. Oh yea it' doesnt not ever.
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Enterprise customers pay big money for support regardless of the OS. The only advantage there for Linux is that there is no licensing costs for the software itself. The disadvantage is that people that know Linux are usually more expensive. We've got Windows where I work and our IT support is under a constant struggle to keep it going. It's 1000% better since we got Win7 to replace Vista but still there are always problems. That's why tech support is so profitable. Strangely every day when I log in I
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People who know anything are more expensive, the problem is that there are many people who claim to know windows but in reality know very little about it, and these people are the ones who have a constant struggle.. A lot of this is also down to MS' traditional marketing which claimed you didn't need expensive and well trained staff to run windows. That simply isn't true, incompetent staff can struggle along but they could with modern linux too if they wanted to, but the end result will never be any good...
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Windows has a lot of easy GUI tools to help with management. That makes it possible to mostly get by with half trained monkeys. The problem of course is when things go beyond the capability of those tools. Then you actually have to know how things work. Our organization has one or two of those guys. I don't know how many times I've seen a couple of dudes show up, get their ass handed to them by our problem and they end up calling one of the real IT guys.
Re: AT&T will soon switch back to Windows (Score:2)
Lol wpa supplicant fighting has been solved about a decade ago. I deploy RPis fully automated with wifi in a commercial setting, not a problem regardless of the wifi config. Back in the day the only wpa fighting I did was with devices that didn't correctly support wpa and even Windows needed drivers for both wifi cards and APs. This hasn't been an issue since wpa was standardized and there are even nice GUIs (X, shell scripts and ncurses).
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I think I finally put my finger on what, for me, is the big difference.
Let's be honest. Windows systems need work. Linux systems need work. There's some customization, some number of problems to be solved, some usability issues, etc., on both platforms.
But what I find different is that I have to work against Windows, while I'm able to work with Linux.
For instance, on new machines for some reason I always seem to end up with Nvidia. On my Linux Mint installs, that usually means adding a boot parameter and/or
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On Windows when you have some hardware trouble you can go to the Device Manager, whose GUI hasn't changed for 20 years.
Download CPU-Z and GPU-Z to get fine details on some of your hardware if you're curious (you can know about used and empty RAM slots without opening the machine)
Importantly, with any third party software tool you can view all temperatures and voltages reported by sensors, whereas linux will show you one to three temperatures and no voltage. This means you can't diagnose the PSU, although it
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whereas linux will show you one to three temperatures and no voltage. This means you can't diagnose the PSU
Don't blame Linux because you chose shitty hardware. On my Linux desktop, I get a bunch of temps and voltages, and on my FreeBSD server it emails me if the power supply volt stats get out of spec.
But then, I chose quality hardware and not bottom-of-the-barrel consumer-grade "enthusiast" crap. And it didn't cost me much more... a price difference I was more than willing to pay for better reliability and functionality.
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Wow talk about being on a high horse.
So you can see voltages on server hardware, that's a good thing. I've never seen voltages reported on a desktop. And I like low end, reliable boards with a ton of BIOS options and firmware upgrades available i.e. mine runs a CPU that came three years after the board first came out on the market.
Do you have a Supermicro board or something? Tyan, etc. If so you likely paid more for the motherboard that I did for motherboard, CPU, RAM and power supply.
The sensors library on
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And I like low end
Well there you go.
If so you likely paid more for the motherboard that I did for motherboard, CPU, RAM and power supply.
Yes, if you want better than low-end, Windows-only hardware then you're going to have to pay a bit more for quality.
The sensors library on linux supports like 10-20% sensors out there whereas a Windows monitoring program supports more like 95-99%. That looks more like a failure of linux (or BSD etc.) to support the hardware rather than a problem with the quality of hardware.
No, it looks like you fell for buying Windows-only hardware in an attempt to save money. There are lots of printers that fall into this category as well, and back in the day modems. If Microsoft can have their way, there'll be even more full-out computers that refuse to run anything but Windows. If that's not the world you want, then you need to start voting with your dollars
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Maybe you're right in some sense but you're discarding 99% of desktop hardware. Few are interested into getting server hardware to run a desktop. Or skimping on food, clothing and transportation for that (not everyone is US middle class)
Not sure how voting dollars work if you're representing 0.0001% of the market.
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Maybe you're right in some sense but you're discarding 99% of desktop hardware.
Not sure how voting dollars work if you're representing 0.0001% of the market.
And 87.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
It's hardly 99% of desktop hardware, and I can assure Windows does not control 99.9999% of the desktop market. And it's not always "server hardware". And since you mentioned SuperMicro, you can get a SuperMicro board for under $100 if you'd like. If you spend less than $100 total on your MB+CPU+PS then you're really asking for trouble.
Do most desktop users run Windows? I wouldn't even give you that, considering how many Macs I see. But even if they did...
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I've sort of wanted to retract my comment, as the discussion seemed a bit heated, well I think I sounded aggressive and don't want to.
In the news there is Supermicro moving into consumer hardware (Z170 motherboards) and consumer brands (Asus, Gigabyte) doing motherboards with C2xx chipsets. But not sure if they'll further the cause of sensors support.
I might have the motherboard brands in too high esteem ; I've always thought that's where you found "freedom", that is much more freedom that with OEM PCs. I d
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Between phone and laptop we use KDEConnect over WIFI.
Laptops vs. desktops (Score:2)
GNU/Linux on servers and desktops has been so smooth since, let's be conservative, 2012
Servers yes. Desktops yes. Purpose-built laptops yes (source: System76). Random laptops not so much, as a lot of manufacturers of laptops that ship with Windows cut corners by using chipsets for which one or more of audio, WLAN, or suspend is unsupported on Linux.
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AT&T can have its own Linux distro ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Imagine, AT&T maintaining its own version of *nix? ;-)
Nah, that's a silly idea. It would never work.
GNU's Not UNIX (Score:2)
Especially because GNU's Not UNIX. As far as I can tell, OS X is the only widely used desktop operating system to be certified as a UNIX® system.
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. The unprofessional nature of Windows, its poor quality and performance
FTFY.
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You mean AT&T will switch back to M$ when M$ pays them to. M$ will do a multi year commitment where the first half is 3/4 of what the services are valued at, and the 2nd half is 6/4s of what they are valued at, then slip in fine print charges that double the prices of both.
After all, that is what AT&T does via DirecTV
Obligatory: https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... [penny-arcade.com]
10 LET M$ = "Microsoft" (Score:2)
M$ is a callback to its origin as a publisher of BASIC interpreters. In the line number era, before Dim ... As String, all string variables' names ended with a dollar sign.
10 LET M$ = "Microsoft"
20 PRINT M$;" introduces Windows"
30 END
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Who is logo?
Are you that cunt who keeps phoning me about problems with my computer?
Linux could be replaced with BSD (Score:1)
Android is the Linux kernel with a Java implementation running on top.
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@perpenso: "Linux could be replaced with BSD and few would care or notice" Android is the Linux kernel with a Java implementation running on top.
The Linux kernel is just the current host for Android. Android is much more that its interface to the host environment. And the fact remains that this host environment is not visible to users and most developers. Again, if Linux were replaced by BSD few would notice or care.
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So because you can't see Linux means it doesn't run Linux? So a lot of these Servers, NAS, routers and search engines do not run Linux then.
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So because you can't see Linux means it doesn't run Linux?.
How is hosted on Linux not "running on" Linux? What was said is that if Linux were to be replaced with BSD very few would know or care, and that includes most Android developers. To imply that Android is some sort of Linux environment is very misleading, Android is in reality its own OS to its developers and users.
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Linux could be replaced with BSD and few would care or notice.
And that statement will hold only until you realize the plethora of architectures and devices the Linux kernel has been ported to, which can't really be said about the BSD kernel.
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Enquiring minds might be interested to know that there are effectively 3 main BSDs: FreeBSD - the fastest and most stable, but mostly on Intel Achitectures
OpenBSD - the most secure and with solid support for a range of architectures popular for security and infrastructure, like Sparc,
NetBSD - the most portable (and, in my experience, the least stable).
They are not like L
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I wouldn't call NetBSD the least stable. Porting an OS to many different architectures shakes out a lot of bugs that you don't see with an architecture that plods along running on only one or a few platforms.
The BSDs, particularly NetBSD and FreeBSD, are very compact, and there's only one 'distribution' of them. When a tag is laid down for a new version, it's not just a kernel, it's an entire core userland that can be checked out, updated, and built consistently. BSD isn't a 'distro' because it's not com
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That may be so because Linux is a kernel. The fact that very few users and developers interact with the kernel is a fact of any operating system, actually.
I wasn't referring to Linux merely in the kernel sense, I was referring to it in the operating system sense. To users and most developers Android is their operating system, what Android is hosted upon is irrelevant to them.
Re:Yes, and? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I understand competition between Canonical and RedHat, but is the Debian Foundation a full service provider? I've only ever heard of Debian as an OS and without the additional service it wouldn't be a contender save for companies which have a fully staffed Linux admin team.
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As a matter of fact, this can be done with Win 8(.1) too these days, even though I o
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You can find it out using Linux:
sudo hexdump -s 56 -e '"MSDM key: " /29 "%s\n"' /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM
( Source [superuser.com])
Now, it is true that there are pre-activated keys for OEMs disks like HP, Dell, etc.. At least for Windows 7 it was like that. They have so called SLP Keys (System Locked Pre-Installation Key) and they are not the same as the one printed on your Windows 7 machine
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bought a skylake based HP Envy 17t last week. There is no bloatware-free install of Windows 10 Pro provided by any means that I found (the "minimal image" install that previously appeared with HP laptops is gone, apparently). After de-crapping Window 10 as best I could I shrank a partition and installed Ubuntu 15.10.
I built a Skylake i7-6700 based desktop recently and all including keyboard & mouse, 1 x SSD, 1 x 3TB HDD and monitor came to nine modules, so it was like putting together up market Lego. Basically all I did was to pre-prepare an installable USB key with Fedora 23 - KDE spin (see the web for info on how to do this - it's easy), inset the USB key in one of the USB slots in the case then. When the install info appears on the screen set-up (what I normally do) or just accept the defaults (for new users) an
Quite unlikely... (Score:2)
For such large enterprise environments, once they've picked something, they will generally be very careful not to have to change their minds that much. Maybe Red Hat could have a shot, but any further from Ubuntu would be a really tough sell.
Also, MS's ambitions are more bread and likely to conflict with AT&T goals. Canonical and SuSE are probably the two remotely viable companies that are the furthest from competing with AT&T in any conceivable way.
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Hardware wise: They went with IBM.
They are as serious as can be concerning " The Cloud ". Putting an enormous amount of emphasis on it company wide.
...As in Lenovo X86-64 servers? If they went with Ubuntu, then it must be X86-64, right? Sure, IBM will still be providing support for the X Server for years to come...
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Ubuntu supported architectures [ubuntu.com] list says that it easily could be IBM servers - the P-series boxes are pretty powerful machines.