September 1, 1998

Linux revisited

Technical Editor Brian Dipert's commentary on the Linux operating system (EDN, July 2, pg 40), in which he expressed how EDA vendors view Linux users, drew a big response from EDN's readers. Here are some of their comments:

Linux users are indeed a minority—right now. Various estimates put Linux at around 5% of the PC-user base, which is roughly a tie with the Macintosh for the No. 2 position. But the Linux-user base has doubled every year since 1994 and is expected to continue exponential growth for a while longer. Linux is at the crossover point where a long, slow incubation turns into a period of explosive growth. In fact, Linux already dominates the Internet-service-provider market and is in use in most MIS departments of companies of 50 employees or fewer. No other OS is experiencing similar growth today. Application vendors that ignore Linux are gambling with their futures.

And it isn't because Linux is free that users are installing it. They install it because it's the best OS in existence. Linux has become the OS of choice in mission-critical network applications, because it's such a bulletproof workhorse. The low price just makes it much more available; if corporate management balks, the ultimate users buy it out of their own pockets and install it anyway. Many top-level executives are unaware that their companies' internal networks depend on Linux.

Adopting Linux is by far the best way to minimize support problems, too. Linux's cooperative support via the Internet, by both commercial companies and newsgroup volunteers, is effective and fast. Bugs don't have a chance to get entrenched in Linux. Because far more programmers are continuously working on Linux than even the richest vendor could afford, problems often get fixed within hours of discovery.

Linux does have soft spots, but they're being dealt with. Third-party application software is steadily appearing in native-Linux form; a few examples are Netscape, WordPerfect, Corel Draw, LinuxCAD, and several office application suites.

Jack Carroll

If a tool already exists for Unix, why have so few EDA vendors been willing to take the relatively minor step (compared with rewriting for Windows NT) of modifying it for Linux? In my experience, it's typically not that big a deal. I spoke last year to an engineer from a major vendor who confided that his company actually does much of its in-house development on Linux and then ports to Solaris and Irix.

Ian Board
Raytheon Advanced
Products Torrance, California

I'd like to contribute a thought from the perspective of an EDA-software developer. I have been interested in a way to port our Unix applications to a PC platform so we can demo them from a cheap laptop, which means using Solaris x86 or Linux. Linux would be great, except that GCC isn't ANSI-C++-compliant. To port would require a large amount of developer time for the port, and the changes to the code base would be significant enough to require a full quality-assurance effort on all of the other platforms. On the other hand, once HP fixed its compiler, porting was relatively painless. For this reason alone, the choice between Solaris x86 and Linux is made for me—Solaris or nothing.

From my point of view, the lack of standard development tools increases the cost of a port. The more expensive the port, the more revenue I would have to have contingent on a Linux version before I allocate scarce development resources to it.

Jason McCampbell

The biggest question Corel Computer had to answer in deciding to support Linux was, "How can Corel run a business if it gives its software away for free?" But promoting Open Source Software in no way impedes Corel Computer's business objectives of becoming a highly profitable organization. The selection of Linux was based on the performance of the OS and the availability of the source code. Access to the source code has allowed Corel Computer to build a highly robust platform with numerous applications.

Oliver Bendzsa

I've been using Linux since kernel 0.99. I have a Linux installation in my home and a covert one at work. As for my home system, you're right about Linux users being cheap; I haven't spent 1 cent specifically on Linux software. As for work, I don't really care if the stuff is free or not. The most important thing is whether I can get my work done. When I used Windows 3.1, it crashed at least twice a day; Linux has crashed on me twice in three years.

In your statement that Linux drivers aren't available for various peripherals and that a vendor's tech support would have trouble helping a user debug a driver, you're missing the point. Linux users rarely ask for drivers from manufacturers. What we ask for is information so that we can develop drivers ourselves. If there's a bug in a driver and if the "common people" have the source code, then someone will fix the bug and post a patch on the Internet. If the patch is wrong or is in some way inelegant, you can be sure that others will mention it.

Do I want EDA tools for Linux? Not necessarily. We have other "commercial" Unix workstations that work just fine for such things. Do I want EDA tools under some flavor of Windows? Definitely not. The few I've tried (like most Windows experiences) have been a frustrating series of crashes, lockups, and generally bad perform-ance.

John Breen

I use Linux because it is technically excellent, fast, and stable. In other words, I use it for all the same reasons that any engineer would choose to use something superior over something inferior.

When was the last time you called the manufacturer for support on the software in the embedded microprocessor in your keyboard? I'll bet the answer is never. Why? Because the software in a keyboard actually works. You have to support only software that doesn't work. The solution to the support problem on any OS is to write quality software that actually does what it is supposed to do.

Robert E Canup II
Electronic Power Design
Houston, Texas

The advantage of Linux is that you don't have ongoing costs for mandatory updates. I have four different versions of Linux running on four different computers, ranging from a 20-MHz 386SX to a 200-MHz Pentium. There's no need to upgrade or downgrade Linux to run it on a specific platform, and I've never had a crash.

The EDA vendors' argument about Linux users being a support nightmare is completely wrong. A typical Linux user has more people to talk to about a problem than a Windows user does. I don't mean just talking and complaining, but to get real answers, so a vendor's hotline would be the last stop, anyway. And, yes, you can get a new version of Linux almost every month, but only fanatics update Linux that often. Usually you update when you need something that's not implemented in the version you have. For the computers in my company, this turns out to be about once a year. An update takes about one or two hours, including the restoration of all applications. Compare this to a reinstallation of Windows. You have to reinstall all your applications from scratch, and no backup is of any help unless you want to keep all the zombie entries in the startup files.

Ulrich Paul
Paul Elektronik
Leitershofen, Germany

EDA vendors think we're a minority, and so far we are. But Macintosh, Sun, HP, and SGI are minorities as well—and about the same size.

Petr Vicherek
Ericsson Mobile Networks

The point that Linux users are cheap is valid. Yes, we are. However, there are two observations to be added to this:

1. Windows/DOS is also popular, because applications are easily (if illegally) installed on multiple machines with only one license. Hence, many PC owners are cheap.

2. People will pay for tools to do their jobs if they feel they need to and the price seems worthwhile. Just because the OS is free, the applications don't need to be. Andrew Hately Eurocontrol

Many applications have been ported from Unix to NT but not to Linux, which makes no sense, since "porting" from Unix to Linux is almost only a recompile and link. Porting to NT is work!

Kenneth Scharf

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