Im just curious. Weve been touring some companies lately-plant visits. Most of them use Unix base systems in their network. Does this mean Unix is more stable than Linux. What about Slack? They dont use M$ by the way.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux-Enterprise and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

As someone who relies on Slackware in a small business environment, I would say the following:

1. It isn't that Slackware is particularly more "stable" than other Linux distributions. Slackware simply has certain "architectural features," that suits some people's administrative methods, and that it is as "stable," as about anything else is. As an example of a feature that is useful to me, Slackware is easier for me to strip down to a small subset of the distribution/OS for installation on older hardware, or on current hardware as a box dedicated to selected server tasks. But that doesn't mean it is more or less "stable" than, for example, SuSE Professional.

2. Marketing and the offer of "hand holding" support are important factors in corporate migration to Linux. You find things like the first "Beowulf" cluster built with Slackware when the 486DX was the latest and greatest...but that was a creation of academics and scientists. A company seeking an alternative to NT/2000/2003/XP is likely to have an IT staff comfortable with Windows. They want, and should look for, an approach to Linux different than Slackware provides. Slackware targets a different demographic, and doesn't have a high profile marketing/support program.

3. The question of whether Linux is "better" than other Unices is subject to a great deal of argument. But if a company is running Solaris on Sun servers and relies on applications that haven't been ported to Linux -- or they simply haven't outgrown whatever Unix system they have been using -- there isn't any particular advantage to migrating to Linux...yet.

4. Companies like Oracle focus on "Enterprise Linux" distributions -- not on Slackware.


All these factors mean you are unlikely to see Slackware used much in large companies other than for the occassional server or workstation. It's commercial use is more prevalent in small companies like mine, and even there, it is overshadowed by RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc.


Which is okay by me. Slackware is there for those who need it...but most of the growth in Enterprise Linux will be provided by distributions that specifically target the Enterprise with Enterprise-specific tools, features, support, and third party binary apps.

I work for an IT company that controls servers used by many big name companies. Some use Solaris, Linux, a few still have HP-UX or AIX, and some use Windows. We are talking midrange servers here. The OS such as Solaris or Red Hat comes bundled with the server. The price is inclusive. Most companies aren't going to replace it or insist on a different distro such as Slackware.

Also, if you're touring plants that are likely to have mainframes or miniframes, it's not very surprising that they would use UNIX for most of their systems. Their hardware was probably purchased before Linux even existed, and the mainframe admins would be more accustomed to UNIX than anything else (although mainframe OSs are not at all like UNIX, but they often have UNIX emmulation modes).

Plants want stuff with 99.999% uptime and things that are very well tested and proven. Until very recently, Linux was relatively untested in mainstream corporate environments. It will probably be years until industrial shops would adopt Linux, especially since they almost never upgrade their systems. They're not like a normal IT environment.

Another issue is: What is the "enterprise?"

Obviously, a sole proprietorship with two additional employees is "an enterprise," but it isn't what most people mean by "the Enterprise."

A shop with 3 Windows 98 desktops might benefit from a Samba file and print server built on a still clean P200 with a CD-RW for backups and only 32 MB RAM -- along with an old 486 as a firewall/gateway/router. Clearly, such an operation can't use RH ES on those machines, and will need to either run a distribution like Debian or Slackware, or spend some money to buy more powerful hardware.

But you won't find that situation at Boeing or General Motors. That's another reason why there is a fairly healthy representation by Slackware at the lower end of the SME market, but not so much in "the Enterprise."

We have just recently converted over to using Slackware on all our server boxes from openbsd. Slackware is our distrobution of choice because of the basic installation, and more overall 'unix' type feel, no package manager etc.... Gentoo would be our second choice, but we'd rather not waste the time during the installation and just use binaries, no biggie.

Glad to see you here AbecX!, Also good to see some companies out there useing slackware