SAN FRANCISCO — Linux advocates had their say at a raucous "Linux vs. NT" public forum at the 35th Design Automation Conference here. The strongly pro-Linux audience revealed a sharp disconnection between rank-and-file engineers and their own corporate CAD managers.

Linux is a freely distributed version of PC Unix with passionate advocates among engineers, especially those who frequent Internet news groups. But EDA vendors say they hear little or no demand for Linux from real customers — corporate CAD managers who sign purchase orders.

The major EDA vendors therefore embrace Windows NT instead as their operating system for Intel-based platforms. But there is a strong and emotional dislike for Windows NT in the chip-design community, where many view Linux as a more stable operating system that supports familiar Unix utilities.

"Everyone I've worked with is on the 'hate-NT' side," said one audience member. "My Linux box doesn't randomly lock up once a week for no apparent reason."

Linux is becoming somewhat of an "underground" phenomenon in the engineering community. One audience member, an engineer at Hughes Network Systems, said he has been using Linux quietly for the past year and a half — and doesn't want his information technology (IT) department to find out about it.

Panel member Larry Augustin, Linux developer and president of VA Research (Mountain View, Calif.), asked how many audience members wanted EDA tools on Linux. Many audience members raised their hands. When he asked how many preferred Windows NT, not a single hand went up.

Augustin sought to dispel several "myths" about Linux, such as the idea that it's not a "real" operating system, is unreliable and has no support. He quoted a Datapro 1997 international user ratings survey that claimed that 14 percent of all Unix installations are running Linux, and that it has become a significant factor in many corporate environments. The same survey rated Linux No. 1 in overall user satisfaction and Windows NT last in quality and functionality.

'Great support'
"A lot of people say Linux is unsupported, but it has great support, better than Windows NT," Augustin said. Commercial vendors supporting Linux include Red Hat, Caldera and his own VA Research company.

The hardest job at the forum may have been that of Dan Small, technical evangelist at Microsoft Corp., who came to defend Windows NT. He said that it promises "seamless integration" between tools, and that once users get acclimated to it, it provides the same level of reliability and support as Linux.

"You can get technical support for Linux, but if a chip contains errors, who's responsible for it? There is really no accountability in the Linux marketplace," Small said. This comment prompted one audience member to ask if Microsoft is taking responsibility for bad chip designs. Small responded that Microsoft will "fix any problems that occur" with Windows NT.

At another point in the discussion, Small prompted loud boos by calling scripting "almost a failure of Unix, not a virtue." Panel member Phil Tomson, founder of the FreeHDL Project, called this statement "characteristic Microsoft arrogance."

Two EDA vendor representatives helped bring the discussion back to reality. Venk Shukla, vice president for marketing at Ambit Design Systems (Santa Clara, Calif.), said that during Ambit's two-year existence not a single customer has asked for tools under Linux. Making Linux a reality, he said, requires demand from people who make purchasing decisions and a "critical mass" of EDA software.

Dan Page, member of the chief executive officer staff at Avant! Corp. (Fremont, Calif.), noted that supporting new platforms takes time away from putting value into software. "What troubles me is how many different flavors, environments and configurations of Linux are out there," he said.

A Cadence representative in the audience said, "We haven't heard boo about Linux in 10 years, and in the last two months the phone has been ringing off the hook. Unfortunately, they're mostly university people. There has to be a groundswell with a lot of dollars."

One audience member said he's written to a number of EDA vendors asking for Linux tools, and another called on vendors to proactively ask the users what they want. But Ambit's Shukla got in a pointed last word: "Your problem is not with the EDA vendors; it's with your own management."