The Comdex show in Las Vegas in early November is the computer industry's largest trade show with some 250,000 attendees. This year, the big news was LINUX, the open-source operating system adapted from UNIX to compete head-on with Microsoft NT for use on small systems. Price/performance is a major advantage of LINUX. It outperforms not only UNIX, but also Microsoft NT. The big promoters of LINUX are Intel, Oracle, and Corel. Many hardware manufacturers at Comdex were running LINUX on some machines in their booths.
The other major advantage of LINUX over both UNIX and Windows NT is that the source code is sold with the operating system; therefore, it is possible for software vendors to quickly develop bug fixes and adapt given applications to specific needs. LINUX has been characterized as a "software erector set."
There are no library automation products using LINUX, but some vendors who are committed to UNIX are considering LINUX, rather than Microsoft NT, as their small system offering.
More information on LINUX is available at www.linuxhq.com.
