Re: downfall of linux? my my editorial <OFF>

[Aaron Clow <aaronc cmj com>]

Edward Baichtal wrote:

> Intel just wants to sell more processors, and especially in the case of BeOS
> which is a multimedia OS, it will require a lot of CPU power for doing
> video, etc.

Actually, the whole point on which BeOS was founded upon was to build a
multimedia OS that capitalized on older processors used in a
multi-processor layout. Of course some people are going to want dual
PII450's, of course, but the whole point of this is that you could set
up a quad-Pentium 200MMX system that was more powerful (and cheaper)
than a PII450Mhz system running Win98 or even Be...

The big thing is that as older processors come down in price, you can
just pop more in (provided you have space on your motherboard) and NOT
have to cave to the proposed Intel timeline for processor upgrades.

One of the big reasons Chrome is being developed is so that the Intel
guys can constantly sell their latest processors to the business
community. If everyone at your company is running Word and Excel just
fine on their recently-upgraded PII 266 systems, why in hell would you
want to upgrade everyone to the latest 500Mhz processor from Intel?
Well, Intel would like to GIVE you a reason to perform that 400- or 500-
seat upgrade every one-and-a-half to two years... After all, it's the
business community that Intel really makes their bucks on. How fast do
you really need to run Word or Excel though?

But this is the beauty of Linux, FreeBSD, etc. I have a dual-PII system
at home with one 266Mhz processor in it. Now that the 450Mhz' are out, I
can just pop in another processor for what, $200? Presto...speedier
machine. That was the whole point of BeOS, except that it was
specifically designed for multimedia and that it wanted to do away with
all the legacy crap that Windows is buried under...

Aaron