It would seem that the upcoming release of Microsoft’s Windows Vista does not seem like a good thing for the desktop Linux community. After all, this update to Windows XP is going to focus on two attributes which have pushed users to Linux for years- security and stability. Upon closer inspection though, the move to Vista may be the perfect time for the Linux community to make headway on the desktop and increase its user base dramatically. The number of features which Microsoft has cast aside since Longhorn and the hardware requirements of Vista have set the stage for a large scale move to desktop Linux.
yah!
before the Longhorn onslaught. Too bad Linux core devs won’t listen and fix up the problems that plague Desktop distros. -_-
Did they fix the X server’s laggy response time yet?
— “Did they fix the X server’s laggy response time yet?”
Along with a massive amount of other improvments to desktop linux, yes, X Windows is getting better. The truth is that X is not nearly as laggy as you think though. Your desktop environment’s speed is a far bigger part of the overall performance of the desktop.
What Linux core devs would those be?
While the extreme lateness of the next version of Windows has definatly been helpful for alternatives, I think it remains to be seen wether the actual release will be beneficial for them.
The cost and system requirments will not be noticable to those who simply buy their OS with their computer, the vast majority of users. They will simply use Windows XP until they need a new PC, or if they need to switch to Vista for some reason they will probably need a new PC anyway.
I don’t know why my pasword thing is not working so I am log iin as anonymus.
I am wondering about the hardware too because hardware is becoming cheaper but they don’t bring that much memory or higher cpu. How many people you know go into best buy and are willing to buy a 3.0HX p4 machine with 512 memory. My parent just bought a laptop and they just need thing like e-mail, word and napster. What requirements are they going to need if they want to run napster, word, and ei if just the os needs all that. I guess that I am trying to say is that it is going to take a while for most people to adopt Vista since it really doesnt offer anything new.
Not a real convincing article to switch to desktop Linux. The article basically said that since Vista is having its features cut, just move over to Linux and everything will be OK. It would have been better if the article explained what advantages Linux has over Vista on the desktop. Also, give them a reason why they should switch from their current XP which is working fine for them to Linux for their desktops. Does it have all of the same features, how easy is it to install and maintain applications on each workstation, does the internal IT department know how to effectively troubleshoot it, can they do remote desktop? Answer some of these questions and it might be a little more believable.
All in all, I just wasn’t convinced based on this article.
It hardly qualifies as an article. I mean the guy has 2 arguments and not even good ones. Zero insight, no analysis, nothing new and opinion presented as fact. It’s nothing more than a conversation starter if you’re generous (or flamebait if you aren’t.)
Blah… very unconvincing. How many times we heard that this is time for Linux desktops? Did it happen? You guess… 😉
When someone (like that Firefox guy a while ago)dismiss such baseless statements, people tends to cry out about conspiration.
I still believe that they should release quality desktop alternatives instead of statements. And remember that you need a far better system to make people switch. If Linux was close or equal to XP (which is not), that would be enough to switch.
My .02
> How many times we heard that this is time for Linux
> desktops? Did it happen? You guess… 😉
Sure. Each year since 2000 we’ve been hearing that “This is the year of the Linux Desktop”, and each year it was true, just a different desktop. Back in 2000, it was a good Unix techie desktop. About 2002sh it was a good Unix or Windows power user’s desktop. About 2004 it became a solid corporate desktop. These days its getting close to the educated Joe user stage. It’ll take a bit more time to get to the average Joe’s desktop and even longer for Joe sixpack’s desktop, but it can get there. It was “The year of the CD” for 10 years before it hit critical mass, and CDs have an enormous advantage over LPs for both stores (who need less shelf space) and people (better quality, need less space, less chance of scratching). Mass change takes time.
The key thing missing for most people right now is a support network. I don’t mean support from companies like Microsoft, Novell or Red Hat, I mean friends who know how Linux or people at your local computer or electronics store who can give recommendations.
I like your list. Spot on. That said I’ll offer some contrarian comments…
These days its getting close to the educated Joe user stage. It’ll take a bit more time to get to the average Joe’s desktop and even longer for Joe sixpack’s desktop, but it can get there.
Last year, I installed Linux for Joe — my bartender housemate. He’s still using it even though he can boot into Windows 98 anytime he would like. If he doesn’t qualify as ‘Joe sixpack’ I don’t know who the better candidate would be!
The key thing missing for most people right now is a support network. I don’t mean support from companies like Microsoft, Novell or Red Hat, I mean friends who know how Linux or people at your local computer or electronics store who can give recommendations.
They exist. The problem is that most people don’t know they can ask and get a positive response…so they don’t ask…and so the people who could help don’t consider saying anything.
I did the same thing with a guy in work. He bought a second hand laptop from a business sale, so the laptops hard drive was wiped.
He asked me to “get it working” for him.
I advised him he could try Linux for free, or I could install a copy of Windows, but he would have to pay for the Windows.
As he was a complete beginner, he did not know the difference, so he said he would try the free one first.
So I installed Mandrake 10.0 for him. He spent a couple of days asking questions about how to do this, how to do that, thenm he was fine.
Last time I was speaking to him, he had updated to 2005LE, (keeping all his data in the /home partion )
and he is proficient in Linux.
He mocks work collegues who get virus/trojan/spyware problems.
Microsoft’s pervasive conspirary has a lot of power:
* Hardware vendors in terms of support, compatability, and pre-install availability
* Niche Windows-only software such as your grandma’s electronic sowing machine designer software and Visioneer scanner drivers
* MSIE-only web sites (including most local government web sites here)
* Grade schools, colleges, and universities, that require and indoctrinate Microsoft software. Even my public library promotes classes on Microsoft Word, Excel, and MSIE.
* MSCE scared/unwilling to retrain, and relatively few officially skilled Linux workers.
* Business leaders scared to take risks, and they believe anything Microsoft tells them.
* General public who are afraid at the /prospect/ of having learning something and think Windows Vista will be easy. These people buy a new computer when the first one has spyware and worms.
In other words, Microsoft’s business team has put it in such a strong position that Microsoft can surve millions of wrongs in its technical department.
MSIE-only web sites (including most local government web sites here)
I work on a government web site. ADA compliance means coding to standards, not to browsers. As a state and federally funded institution, ADA compliance isn’t optional.
I’m so tired of discussions about desktop linux and how it’s just about to take off and get real popular. We’ve (we as in the Linux community) been saying this for years. For the most part, Desktop Linux is no better now than it was 3 years ago. There is barely anything I can do with a Linux desktop today that I couldn’t do three years ago.
Maybe I’m just really out of touch but can someone name me 5 *real* reasons why Desktop Linux is better today than it was 3 years ago. I don’t want to hear about GNOME is finally going to provide a clipboard manager or that KDE loads faster. I don’t want to hear any bit of garbage that GNOME and KDE and their associated apps are more stable than <insert OS here> because just isn’t true in my experience.
– DRM (Windows Media Player has decided not to play any of my music files. Yay!)
– Trojans
– Viruses
– Stability
– Security
– Reboot
Did I mention reboot?
So Linux on the desktop had all that 3 years ago? Perhaps you should re-read what he was asking.
You describe nothing of Desktop Linux. All that you made arguements for are reasons I would choose Linux as a server but necessarily as my desktop box. I have 0 issues with virus, trojans stability and the needs to reboot in XP. We have reached a point where keeping either OS patched and running either OS with some basic security principles such as running as non-root will keep you secure.
FWIW I am a big time Linux guy. I love Linux as a server but there has been no real progress on the desktop front in 3 years.
Really? So, the removable media support in KDE/Gnome didn’t happen? XRenderAccel doesn’t exist? ATI drivers haven’t improved massively? Gaim hasn’t been able to keep up with Yahoo and AIM, or AIM and Yahoo haven’t quit moving the target? Firefox didn’t happen? Gecko hasn’t improved its rendering? Konqueror didn’t pass Acid2 (not a very big deal)? GTK didn’t just switch to Cairo? QT4 isn’t very cool? Linux Kernel 2.6 didn’t improve file I/O? Evolution didn’t happen? Thunderbird doesn’t exist? X.org never happened? Vino, kde rd, x11vnc never happened? OpenOffice didn’t happen? OpenOffice didn’t massively improve? Alsa certainly never happened? Ndiswrapper doesn’t exist? Wine hasn’t improved? Cedega is a dream? UT2K4, Doom3, and others don’t run natively? Autopackage doesn’t actually exist?
Yep, the Linux desktop is certainly as it was in 2002.
What version of KDE/GNOME do I need to be running to make that work right? And are you telling me that I can finally, after 3 years put a cd in, copy files and hit the eject button and tada, it pops out? All of the supermount and automount stuff sucked 3 years ago and still doesn’t impress me today.
XRenderAccel — google found one example of what this is so it can’t be too earth shattering.
ATI driver support..no comment, I don’t play many games and improved 3d graphics still won’t let me run google earth.
GAIM works no better today than it did 3 years ago. I *still* can’t transfer files worth crap, I *still* can’t do voice with it. The *only* thing it has managed to do is continue to access the things you list. Despite that, I still use GAIM on Windows and Linux because I love the tabbed conversations and
Firefox and Gecko. Firefox does indeed rock but I would argue that the Linux desktop isn’t any better now than it was before Firefox. Why? Because Gecko is what really matters and like all other browsers Gecko only continues to evolve. Firefox provides some nice features but Gecko is what renders the pages. Gecko has been included as the rendering engine for Mozilla for years. Gecko was used in Galeon which was the first browser I really liked in Linux.
Konq and the Acid2 test. Shouldn’t you say that Safari passes the Acid2 test and because of that, now Konq does as well? I’d still rather use a Gecko based browser than Konq for personal preferences.
GTK, Cairo and QT4. None of which are available easily at the time of writing. I will wait to see what these really bring, outside of what I read to judge them.
2.6 Kernel improving file I/O. No, new hard drives did. I find 2.6 based machines to have a slower overall feel than 2.4 based machines on older hardware. FC3 and FC4 boot far slower than FC2. In fact, since the release of Red Hat 8 I have found the general performance of Linux on older hardware dissappointing.
Evolution. Please, Evolution is barely different than what it was 3 years ago. It *did* exist 3 years ago and I used it and loved it but got tired of how often it would crash. Later on it became slightly less prone to crashing but had a mysterious problem with not obeying a rather simple setting. For what ever reason, it refuses to listen to the IMAP folder setting and insists in scanning my entire home directory. This can take hours. I get sick of it and quit using it.
Thunderbird is like Outlook Express where as Evolution is Outlook. Why use OE if you have Outlook? I want calendaring, contacts and tasks…integrated.
Vino, KDE RD, X11VNC. These are nice additions.
OpenOffice 2.0 is looking good.
Alsa. What did it improve?
Wine and Cedega. Codeweavers had something good going on but I haven’t checked in for a while to see how things have progressed. Other than that, both work less well than needed and ultimately do not provide what Linux is meant for. You can’t tell me you want a “free” computing experience and use wine in the same sentence.
UT2K4 and Doom3 I can’t comment on as I’m not much of a gamer.
Autopackage…does it exist? Where? Who uses it? Can I get these improved ATI drivers you speak of using Autopackage? Or the latest release of GAIM? Or maybe Doom3, openswan or even the kernel.
“XRenderAccel — google found one example of what this is so it can’t be too earth shattering. “
Let me guess, you don’t know what it is so you base your opinion on how many google results it turns up? That’s no way to determine whether or not it’s an improvement.
“ATI driver support..no comment, I don’t play many games and improved 3d graphics still won’t let me run google earth.”
It’s an improvement for gamers and we don’t all need to run Google Earth, it may not be an improvement for you but it’s still an improvement.
By the way, I’ve tried Google Earth and after all the hype and experimentation there really isn’t anything overly incredible about it. I’ve run it a few times and since then lost all interest in it, it’s cool now because it’s new, not because people need to use it.
“Konq and the Acid2 test. Shouldn’t you say that Safari passes the Acid2 test and because of that, now Konq does as well? I’d still rather use a Gecko based browser than Konq for personal preferences. “
It’s still an improvement whether you benifit from it or not. I certainly benifited from it, I like Konqueror even if I still have to wait a little while longer to get adblock.
“GTK, Cairo and QT4. None of which are available easily at the time of writing.”
They will be soon, and it’s an improvement over 3 years ago for sure.
“2.6 Kernel improving file I/O. No, new hard drives did. I find 2.6 based machines to have a slower overall feel than 2.4 based machines on older hardware.”
Actually the 2.6 kernel brought on several speed improvements for newer hardware, and if you have older hardware there are distributions out there that provide you the option of using the 2.4 kernel or the 2.6 kernel. Just because hardware sped up doesn’t mean that the 2.6 kernel wasn’t improved to use that hardware faster than previous versions.
“Thunderbird is like Outlook Express where as Evolution is Outlook. Why use OE if you have Outlook? I want calendaring, contacts and tasks…integrated.”
We don’t all want that stuff, I would rather have thunderbird and have my mail client load faster than have all sorts of features I’ll never use slowing it down.
“Alsa. What did it improve? “
Alsa supports more sound cards now than it did 3 years ago.
I hate to complain, but you’re not being impartial here; no one but yourself can determine what you specifically would consider an improvement and quite frankly in some cases you seemed to be nit-picking in order to have a case. You may not have anything to gain in switching from Windows to Linux, but that doesn’t mean you have to downplay every new feature.
Dude, the original poster was asking you to name 4 reasons why Linux should be adopted as a desktop. Not why MS shouldn’t. Given the reasons you’ve supplied, I could just as readily choose BSD, OS X, or some other OS other than Linux.
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
1) xorg. Since the fork from the original xfree86 development X windows is getting better. It’s getting some nicer features put in and appears to be getting a little more stable.
2) Whether you like them or not the OSS office suites are getting nicer. They’re better than they were at handling MSOffice formats than they were 3 years ago which is good. Sure, they all still have a long way to go and are by no means perfect but they’re playing catch up and actually providing an alternative.
3) 3rd party interest. Even nero have a linux port of some of their software now. The odd games company has been releasing titles specifically for linux aswell. Ok, there’s not nearly as much 3rd party stuff avaliable for linux as there is for windows (we’re talking non-OSS stuff here folks) but it’s improved in the last 3 years.
4) Distros have been on the case of user friendliness. You can get along much better using just the GUI now. I don’t *think* you can really administer a linux box effectively without touching the CLI but compared to 3 years ago it’s better and still improving.
5) Hardware detection. yes, it’s better. Trust me, I do clean installs every 6 months or so (because I tend to make a mess of my drives, not because it actually needs it) and I’ve found that more and more of my hardware works without any hassle than it did even a year ago.
All in all I don’t think “the year of desktop linux” will be here anytime soon. Improvements will continue to be made and it’ll get much easier for joe sixpack to deal with. In fact I’d prefer for “desktop linux” to mature for a few more years before people start trying to get it into the real mainstream. At least then the average user who doesn’t have any linux using friends won’t be left with a bitter experience and never use it again.
Maybe I’m just really out of touch but can someone name me 5 *real* reasons why Desktop Linux is better today than it was 3 years ago.
I can try. Here are my personal favorites
1) Mplayer + codecs means I can watch the
movie trailers over on apple’s movie trailer
website + I can play any of the homegrown fanmovies
out there.
2) Firefox. A better browser than mozilla, stable,
with the all important tabs + popup blocker + plugins, etc.
3) KDE’s konqueror got tabs too, improved support for
any plugin that will work with mozilla, kmail got
support for crypto stuff.
4) OpenOffice got better, much better with the upcoming 2.0 version (try out the 1.9.126 version
in cvs)
5) The 2.6.x kernel series has gotten much, much, better support for devices. I can now use kino + firewire to download video from my camcorder and make my own dvds. I can actually get dvb type broadcasts
to work (2.6.10 + patches from linuxtv.org)
6) Amarok + rhymthbox rock my world. I can listen to
online radio stations or my own ogg collection with an actual decent (good even) pair of applications.
Neither one existed as far as I can tell 3 years ago.
7) I can now watch dvd’s with decent interfaces.
I used to use Mplayer 3 years ago, but it didn’t have support for dvd navigation, now I can use totem for Gnome, or my personal favorite, kaffeine in KDE (kaffeine actually uses xine to do the rendering, but the interface is sooooo much cleaner’s than xine.)
8) Gimp got better. I won’t say it’s easier than
photoshop or whatever is your favorite graphical application. I don’t use Microsoft based applications, so I have no basis for comparison, but
for me gimp has become considerably easier to use.
9) I can now use gimp, xsane, or my new favorite, kooka to scan images from my scanner in an actually
easy to use interface, surprisingly at that.
10) I now have decent enough software such as dvdstyler that I can make my own dvd’s after editing
with kino.
I hope this gives you some idea of some of the improvement that has happened in the last 3 years.
–Johhny
Thanks for actually answering my question. I’ll look again at DVD editing on Linux since that was one of the reasons I migrated back to windows. I wanted to edit video and I wanted to do it with little hassle.
Do you think any of the applications you listed will increase Linux’s market share on the desktop?
Firefox is a huge deal for Joe Flabpack… Just the fact that he’s using a common browser, instead of a niche browser gives him a lot more say seeing as how a large percentage of the programs people use are online today (not the useful ones, just the ones people use; and yes google is a program
).
>Do you think any of the applications you listed will >increase Linux’s market share on the desktop?
I don’t know. Having apps like firefox + OpenOffice 2.0 (when it comes out in the near future) + decent
device driver support (2.6.x series really helped
out here.) can’t hurt. I think as far as promoting
Linux market share on the desktop what needs
to really happen is that folks need to advertise
more what Linux can go do for folks right now.
By advertise I don’t mean yet another review
of <fill in the blank> distro. Those reviews
are fine for folks already using Linux or I
suppose the “power user” folks who wouldn’t be
intimidated at trying out something new.
What I really mean by advertise is making commercials
if you will for <fill in your favorite distro here>,
something that folks can see with their own eyes
and hear with their own ears without requiring them
to actively have to do anything with their computer
up front, not even necessarily run one of the live
cd distros like knoppix.
Of course, as we all know, commercials cost $$
(I think the current estimate is $1 million for a minute of time on U.S. national tv on Superbowl day), and last time I checked, most Linux users, or organizations are not overflowing with money to burn.
Plus, how much can you really show folks in a minute,
or 2?
So what I’m really envisioning is someone making their own infomercial DVD, say an hour or 2 long
with chapters for various aspects of a particular distro, and then releasing the DVD iso on one of
the bittorrent sites for anyone to download, that
way you don’t have to spend massive $$ for
a commercial that only runs for 1 or 2 minutes,
but you can reach a large audience relatively cheaply.
–Johnny
So am I.
I’m in love with the *IDEA* of Linux on the desktop.
Its kind of like a hot date on Friday night; you get excited, whisper all sorts of inuendo in her ear, etc but when Saturday rolls around, all that’s left is the smell of cheap perfume.. In other words, Linux is like a cheap date. She might not cost you much, but her looks spoil the fun.
I still love Linux the server. But for the desktop and consumer products, its a cheap date.
It’s really too bad for everyone really interested in good alternatives. Those who are not Linux gurus still find too much missing in the Linux desktop to switch..
“Those who are not Linux gurus still find too much missing in the Linux desktop to switch…”
Yours is of course a personal opinion. I find hardly anything missing, except maybe for a good download manager, but since I discovered FlashGot, which I combine with cURL, the situation is a lot better.
True, I am not a hardcore gamer, the only real point where Windows still has an advantage over Linux. But would you believe it? I find many native (free) linux games really nice.
And then synaptic tells me that I can install 19032 apps with a click of the mouse… A lot easier than in Windows: search over the Internet, read reviews, spend money, accept spyware as a way of life…
I agree with nonymous Penguin. I use Fedora and my productivity is FAR FAR FAR better with linux than with Windows. When I do development job I have a lot of handy reference (via man) , I have very responsive desktop (when I run DSP code in C++) and yes konqueror is far better than IE when viewing java docs. Even some problems with Printing are long gone with new CUPS. Gnome system monitor and HW browser save me a lot of trouble. Nautilus USB browsing is far better than windows and and all this with apps not produced from a single vendor.
I cannot separate from kwrite or nedit , I use excessively GIMP, and kmail does not crash. I am in love with OpneOffice although I show in http://www.pcbsd.org n alternative (better than MSWORD) compatible word processor with better memory utilization. XMMS is comparable to Winamp when I listen to music and yes I cause pain to the ears of my colleagues with Xine when I listen to Galxy Radio. I click on hybrid to get ebooks and pdfs I find bugs with ddd and yes, If you want linux you need some knowledge of the system.
But have you ever tried to find compatibility with Solaris or BSD with windows? Have you ever observed the speed of execution of programs?
I agree that Desktop Linux lacks some polishing on device configuration, I totally agree and I think this is the way Linux/BSD/Solaris should target themselves.
For my grandma and grandpa I recomend MacOSX since it has all the glory of WIN$$$ but with the magic of Linux/UNIX. For a corporate desktop or the literate user I recomend LINUX or Zeta or Amiga.
And for the network paranoid I recomend Solaris or BSD.
Windows ??? Kiss my ass. The only problem is the statanic vendor+MS alliance. But it seems to change.
And stay away from Intel !!! But this is the story for another posting. Cheers !!!
ppl will move over when MS closes win updates, today one can just manage the add on (active-x loaded in explorer), but when that happens for 100% then..
Like now one “can” not downl directx 9c, mediaplayer 10 and so on. When this gets a to big of a problem, one would se more ppl going for linux- for now it`s to hard for win users, I had problems going back to an xp install, using fedora/+ div others for about a year. So when a 3 year linux users have to use google on xp, then think what your dad needs to do?
Does your dad find his lost doc`s on a mac??
.. just saying, but I am hoping that ibm/hp etc start to offer linux on all computers or a dualboot.
It’s very easy to download media player 10, DirectX 9c, or even SP2, you don’t need to go to windows update to do it, just go to downloads on M$’s main site, and search for what you want.
“It’s very easy to download media player 10, DirectX 9c, or even SP2, you don’t need to go to windows update to do it, just go to downloads on M$’s main site, and search for what you want.”
Synaptic for Linux is a program which allows the user to download what they want in an easy to use all in one program, this includes kernel updates. It’s easier than Windows Update and you don’t have to run in a treadmill of links on some corporate website to use it, either. Maybe M$ will learn from Synaptic and apt-get superiority and one day model their update systems after this, maybe.
But why would I want to download the things you describe? I can’t look at the source code myself, nor can others so why do I want to install binaries on my system which may or may not work the way I like? Oh, because M$ says so? That’s not good enough.
Security comes when source code is made available, not hidden in some closed source, click to authenticate, pay to play commercial scheme.
The problem of linux desktop is only one
GNOME.
if gnome will die desktop linux will ^_^
The majority of computer users are stupid, mindless sheep.
They are the ones whose eyes will glaze over with delight when they fondle the next Wintendo offering in the stores.
They are the same who when asked what kind of computer they have respond “Windows”.
These are the people who are nothing more than virtual nipples to be milked for money and spread the dark philosophies coming from the Electronic Mordor.
Chains fall upon us all by the rule of big corporate devils because of the permissiveness of the mass public.
In time if this idiocy continues, all open source will be illegal at the whim of corporation number one with the votes in the politicians pockets.
Lovers of open source need to make their voices heard peacefully before it’s too late.
Open source hippies they call some of us, failing to realise that the hippy culture served to stir more action and thought than much of the current generations of pale skinned, overweight, ipod clutching couch lizards who whine if they’re not in an air conditioned environment and forced to walk further than a block for anything.
Attack my spelling, grammar, abuse of the Enter key, what have you, but you know deep down in your soul that I am right, and because of this you will either ignore this post, or attack it.
The majority of computer users are stupid, mindless sheep.
The same is true for the vast majority of people in general, mainly because they are allowed/encouraged to be that way by the powers that be.
I couldn’t read the parent article, perhaps sheep got to it and modded it down, who knows, but for those who can’t see it because of sheeple votes, this is what it said:
“The majority of computer users are stupid, mindless sheep.
They are the ones whose eyes will glaze over with delight when they fondle the next Wintendo offering in the stores.
They are the same who when asked what kind of computer they have respond “Windows”.
These are the people who are nothing more than virtual nipples to be milked for money and spread the dark philosophies coming from the Electronic Mordor.
Chains fall upon us all by the rule of big corporate devils because of the permissiveness of the mass public.
In time if this idiocy continues, all open source will be illegal at the whim of corporation number one with the votes in the politicians pockets.
Lovers of open source need to make their voices heard peacefully before it’s too late.
Open source hippies they call some of us, failing to realise that the hippy culture served to stir more action and thought than much of the current generations of pale skinned, overweight, ipod clutching couch lizards who whine if they’re not in an air conditioned environment and forced to walk further than a block for anything.
Attack my spelling, grammar, abuse of the Enter key, what have you, but you know deep down in your soul that I am right, and because of this you will either ignore this post, or attack it.”
And this arrogant attitude is part of the reason why I really don’t expect Linux to grow past the geeks. Do you actually talk to inexperienced computer users in that way? As I have said here before, the last battle ground for Linux is the home desktop, so if I were you I would get used to talking to those “sheep” about Linux. They are going to be the hardest sell of all since all of that “open source” bullshit means nothing if their favorite app doesn’t work or run on Linux.
“And this arrogant attitude is part of the reason why I really don’t expect Linux to grow past the geeks.”
Kind words don’t always get the job done. If that was true, drill sargents in the military would never yell or say things which could be considered ‘mean’. How was fire discovered, not by sitting on two sticks!
“Do you actually talk to inexperienced computer users in that way?”
No, I switch them over to Linux, showing them the advantages, and they’re always happier than a pig in sh!t afterwards.
“so if I were you I would get used to talking to those “sheep” about Linux.”
Most of the “sheep” are asleep
“They are going to be the hardest sell of all since all of that “open source” bullshit”
Open source … bullshit? Thanks for revealing your TRUE nature. I can see the point of the parent post you replied to went over your head by miles.
“means nothing if their favorite app doesn’t work or run on Linux.”
You just do not understand
Of course you just completed the prophecy of the parent post by attacking it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ All in my opinion for educational purposes ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
“Kind words don’t always get the job done. If that was true, drill Sargent’s in the military would never yell or say things which could be considered ‘mean’.
How was fire discovered, not by sitting on two sticks!”
Drill Sargent’s have a purpose for saying “mean” things to cadets. They do that to try to get the cadet acclimated to an environment where the team matters, not the person’s personal feelings about a given task.
Drill Sargent’s use “mean” techniques to “break down” the cadet’s self esteem, so the cadet can become part of the team.
Unfortunately, drill Sargent tactics don’t work well in the consumer computer world. Unlike the military, home-computers will seldom have the chance of killing you literally, and people can and should have the right to choose what operating system works for them, be it windows or mac or even Linux. One of the basic tenets of the Free Software movement is the ability to make choices about the software you’ll use for a given task. So, in the spirit of freedom -of-choice, don’t bash people for not using your preferred OS, and don’t limit people’s choice by telling them that they can only use open-source software if they want to be “one of the elect” or something like that. Windows and Mac have there respective problems, but so does Linux.
Sir, you do have some good points about the social state of the computer industry, but fear-mongering won’t convince people to adopt your position. This post is just trolling.
“you do have some good points about the social state of the computer industry”
Of course
“but fear-mongering won’t convince people to adopt your position”
No butts, poor retort.
“This post is just trolling”
Then why did you post if you were just going to troll? LOL! omgwtflol
Of course you just completed the prophecy of the parent post by attacking it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ All in my opinion for educational purposes ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This post is an exact copy of an earlier post from a month or 2 months ago. And IIRC, the author didn’t post anonymous then.
Conclusion: nice copy/pasting!
“This post is an exact copy of an earlier post from a month or 2 months ago. And IIRC, the author didn’t post anonymous then.”
Yes it is and yes the author did post anonymously but it looks like you were too lazy to check and link it here for us. Google is a wonderful and useful tool, you know, you should try it.
“Conclusion: nice copy/pasting!”
Conclusion: link to your proof prior to making an accusation, troll.
Sure people does not yet use linux just because they think that windows just “does the job” and they can handle it?
A willing windows user, and a CS-literate.
People are not sheep, they just want a computer to do exactly what they want it to do without any trouble. What if someone asked you how to do video editing on their linux machine? Why isn’t their digital camera working? Wireless networking? What about quicken? XP home is only $85 right now at newegg and is well worth it, it works with any software or hardware that you can get. Blame whomever you want, but the reality is that it makes sense for most people to buy XP at this time.
“People are not sheep”
Sorry, it’s a fact which has already been established by proof throughout history.
“XP home is only $85 right now at newegg and is well worth it”
Linux is free and the user can choose from any number of distributions. Linux is open source, so they can feel safer knowing that something evil doesn’t lurk within, or that they will have to expect tons of patches for remote exploit takeover issues. They can be sure that the ROOT account actually belongs them them, and not someone from a big corporation or government entity.
“it works with any software or hardware that you can get”
As long as it supports it, otherwise you’re out of luck.
“Blame whomever you want, but the reality is that it makes sense for most people to buy XP at this time.”
Wrong, the reality is, most people know the name of Windows and if the name LINUX was as well known, things would be different. It’s all about the BRAND NAME and how many people know about it.
“it works with any software or hardware that you can get”
As long as it supports it, otherwise you’re out of luck.
You’re ignoring the obvious and not telling me anything that I don’t know.
Look at it this way:
I pay $85 for XP home, and I can run 95% of the hardware and software at Best Buy.
I save $85 by buying linux but I have to spend more time setting it up, and I can probably run 5% of the hardware out of the box and none of the software at Best Buy. Can’t run most printers, wireless-g network cards, video cameras, etc. The hardware support just isn’t there yet. There is no quicken for linux, and most quicken users would pay $85 just for quicken because it saves them so much time and effort on their taxes. Linux is great for servers, but does not currently make sense for the average user.
“Blame whomever you want, but the reality is that it makes sense for most people to buy XP at this time.”
Wrong, the reality is, most people know the name of Windows and if the name LINUX was as well known, things would be different. It’s all about the BRAND NAME and how many people know about it.
It isn’t about brand name at all, brand name only becomes the deciding factor when two products are similar in function. XP has too many advantages over linux right now, and I’m glad most people haven’t tried it because at this stage it would be rejected by the public.
I don’t want to hear any bit of garbage […] because just isn’t true in my experience.
Well, mate, if you don’t want to listen, what use if we speak ? Ehh, what I’m tired of are guys like you.
I don’t care why or how is or isn’t a specific linux distro (in my case Debian) better or otherwise different than 6-7 years ago. What I only care for is:
– can I do what I want under my distro of choice ?
– can I solve problems (if they pop up) easily and comfortably ?
– is my desktop environment of choice easy enough to use ? does it provide me with a customizable environemnt to create my own, for my best way of work ?
– can I play my music files, CDs, DVDs, grabbed videos, captured videos, etc. with it ?
– can I easily solve all hardware related issues that come up from time to time ?
In my case, for all the above questions the anwser is yes. I don’t care how hard it was 6 years ago (believe me, it was hard, I remember quite well, but it also was fun).
For me, it’s not a company or a new release, or a marketing train that can make me change distros or OSes. It’s only and just my own needs nothing more. I don’t care about the hype.I know windows from it’s childhood, I use it I develop for it, I test it. I know it’s goods and bads. If it will be much more suitable for my needs than any linux distro, I will stop using linux. Otherwise, not much will change.
Im in the same boat. I used Windows. I installed all the cool freeware, cygwin, litestep, windowblinds, etc. I tried winamp and virtualdub and MS Office. I even tried Xmouse and various extensions and plugins to give me my prefered look and feel.
But there was no way for me to make my desktop on Windows behave like my desktop on Linux. Its impossible. Windows was not designed to work the way I work.
I need tabs, lots of tabs, virtual desktop space, themable widgets, free dev tools, a stable kernel, efficient use of resources, and many other things you just can’t pay for.
I don’t need pop-ups, worms, viruses, spyware, adware, DRM, overpriced software, bugs, ignored security vulnerabilities, or businesses that try to behave like some authoritative parent for their childish customers. I don’t need my government or my school or my company telling me how I should live my life. I don’t need to be censored to protect my fragile lil mind. I don’t need to join a group to be different.
I can think for myself.
6-7 years ago doesn’t count. Nobody was saying this is the year for desktop linux 6-7 years ago. But we were 3 years ago which is my point.
we hear this constantly. Don’t you get sick of it?
*linux cna make inroads now!!*
*its the year of linux!!*
*linux will rule THIS quarter!*
——-
we hear this constantly. Don’t you get sick of it?
*linux cna make inroads now!!*
*its the year of linux!!*
*linux will rule THIS quarter!*
——-
Yes…almost as much as I get tired of Microsoft touting…
“Improved Windows Security” (almost oxymoronic)
or any new feature that the promise which ends up being vaporware.
heh.. touche !
Why is it that people think Linux users are bothered about Linux being popular on the desktop? If you want to use Linux do, if you dont then dont, it’s as simple as that
Vista will not kill or slow down Linux since alot of people duel boot, I doubt many will drop Linux totally just for Vista, infact they may well come to Linux because of it.
Desktop Linux is getting better, but there are still tons of issues that need to be fixed LONG before the normal computer user ever switches from Windows.
OSX is a more likely switch, if a switch occurs, in my opinion, espcially with OSX Intel on the horizon.
There are a whole number of things that the Linux community needs to get away from doing, and many of these are Unix-rooted things like calling programs stupid names that a normal user wouldn’t understand.
If a Desktop version of Linux were to be a contender, it needs to develop:
1) Complete no-console package/program installation, upgrade, and uninstallation patterns (pkgs and RPMs don’t cut it)
2) A much more standardized Look & Feel with heavy emphasis on User Interface design.
3) Simplicity and advanced features. The desktop much be very simple to interact with. Advanced user’s must have the ability to do what they want to do however. Linux is strong in this department, but the Simplicity element must come from excellent UI design.
4) Better driver support.. this has to be there.
5) NOTE: Too much configuration ‘can’ be a bad thing sometimes.
1) CLI is better than GUI in many ways.. and GUI is better than CLI in many other ways. Different strengths and drawbacks. CLI is not needed as such – there are lots of GUI-frontends on linux. However. Pupils ought to be educated in use of CLI as well as GUI. And not just on the inferior windows platform. (However… OSX _is_ nice…. just way to resourse sucking)
2) May I mention the HIG?
3) This is something Linux is already good at. And will be better at, as more and more applications starts following HIG. But as you can see, we pretty much agree on this point.
4) It’s already pretty good. And it will be better. most of the issues in regard to linux on the desktop are based on old myths.
5) Yes. Too much configuration can be bad, unless the HIG is followed.
Anyway. As a desktop OS linux today is every bit as good (or bad) as Windows. It’s just safer and stable.
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Stable. As opposed to Windows 2000, XP and 2003 which are… what? Oh yeah, STABLE!
Windows 2000 is somewhat stableish, but not real stable. And it’s very insecure as all versions of windows.
XP is even worse. 2003 has major security issues and is meant as server only. As a desktop os it’s very problematic. Like NT 4 server (which I used a lot).
We may have a different definition on ‘stable’
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
I said nothing about security, way to try and deflect.
2000, XP and 2003 are all very stable. If you had any stability problems, it was either bad hardware or bad drivers. Anyone who actually uses one of these 3 OSes regularly will tell you this.
My definition of stable is the whole sysetm not crashing or slowing down. I haven’t had a BSOD in 3 years. When I did, it was a problem with an nVidia driver.
I said nothing about security, way to try and deflect.
2000, XP and 2003 are all very stable. If you had any stability problems, it was either bad hardware or bad drivers. Anyone who actually uses one of these 3 OSes regularly will tell you this.
My definition of stable is the whole sysetm not crashing or slowing down. I haven’t had a BSOD in 3 years. When I did, it was a problem with an nVidia driver.
2000, XP and 2003 isn’t really stable in my mind. Security is an important aspect of stability, because poor security means a lot of maintainence meaning low uptime (which is true for all win-os’es).
I haven’t had a BSOD with win2k yet. But it’s far from stable, compared with other OS’es. I use win2k as gaming platform (almost) solely – and linux (mostly) for productivity.
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Oh yeah. Mind telling me what “major security issues” 2003 has?
“Oh yeah. Mind telling me what “major security issues” 2003 has?”
Ever read a “Microsoft Security Bulletin”? Look at them, and you will see they affect Win2K3 almost everytime they affect XP and/or win2K. has a many issues as all the other windows versions. Mostly due to the idiotic IE integration.
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
cut the crap with Windows being insecured, if Linux is the most popular desktop on earth, underground community will try to get the bragging right to create worms and viruses for Linux.
You want to be secured ? cut your internet cable.
I use win2k3 as my desktop, and I’m playing NBA 2005 Live all day, coding with eclipse, vs.net, dev-c++, listening musics with iTunes, watching movies with Windows Media Player, PowerDVD, VLC, you name it.
Linux with Firefox isn’t a perfect solution either
http://secunia.com/product/4227/?period=2005#statistics
My gnome-applet sometime crashed, my Firefox also crashed once in a while, stable huh ?
The thing with the community is this, when MS released a new product, they will try their hard to stab it. But when there is a new open source DVD player for Linux, people will cheer it, they don’t give a rat with the source code, they will just download it, compile it, install it and enjoy it ( and post some review how _great_ the dvd player is on the next day in osnews.com )
_NONE_ is better than the other.
do not show off your ignorance
you are proving to the whole world here, that you do not understand the underlying security models of linux and windows.
until you do comprehend them, please refrain from such stupid statements as this;
“if Linux is the most popular desktop on earth, underground community will try to get the bragging right to create worms and viruses for Linux. “
Considering the hardware requirements of Vista, the majority of installations of the new Windows release will be preinstalled on new computers, rather than upgrades. An entrenched monopoly like Microsoft will have the upper hand here, an 800-ton gorilla upper hand
As for Linux competition with those taking the XP to Vista upgrade, Microsoft will need to flex its lock-in muscle. Such as with Vista-only IE feature updates, cooperation with online media outlets for Vista-only DRM, and incompatibily/reduced performance with OpenGL for games. Considering the high hardware requirements, again it seems that a consumer eying an upgrade to Vista will most likely purchase a new computer, as it will be a better value proposition. Of course the power user and enthusiast will mostly likely have the required hardware already and is probably dual booting with Linux.
Those that cannot afford the inevitable hardware and software upgrade for Vista will find Linux a very affordable and functional route.
The funtional improvements in Vista seem very debatable at this point. Businesses will ask themselves what ROI will materialize from an upgrade. Many business have not migrated from Windows2000 to XP as of yet. Case in point, I am writing this post from a Win2k machine, and there isn’t a single install of XP at my business….by choice.
So in summary, my $0.02 is that the outlook for Linux migrations look quite rosy, and the majority of MS Vista installations will be new computer purchases. I forsee retail sales of Vista to be very disappointing.
There is one thing that Linux developers avoid as long as there has been Linux. Desktop wise Usability. There is only one exception to this:
http://www.gobolinux.org/
These guys got things right. Big boys should learn from them. If a small team of developers was able to make such great changes why can’t SUSE or Fedora or Ubuntu make such an effort.
Gobolinux, the distro that gets it right in terms of usability? From the Gobolinux FAQ:
“Is it a newbie-oriented distribution?
No, it is not. It is geared towards people who prefer to install applications from the original source packages.”
Hmm, doesn’t sound like the kind of usability the mainstream is going for. More like the kind of thing an ex Slackware user would go for.
Gobo gets it right for at least with trying to innovate a new directory structure. But there are problems in Goboland. There’s basically not enough manpower to really polish it and things like MakeRecipe have problems with not knowing the minimum version of dependencies because it uses ldd to figure that out. Check out foresight linux for a new package system that is pretty interesting. I wish gobo would adopt it to their directory structure.
It would be great for someone with deep pockets to take a hold of gobo and really shake things up, but I just don’t see that happening.
I totally agree with the article. Lately everyone is using Linux, mostly because people are fed up with the problems that plague Windows. The more Vista gets delayed and the more problems it will have the more people will get turned off and jump on the Linux bandwagon. Once you are on Linux you’ll never want to touch Windows again.
…but the desktop is not ready for linux…
As more people are exposed to Linux in the work place they become more likely to try it at home.
Then, to make it a done deal, you need someone like Sony to get behind it.
I don’t claim that 2005 (or even 2006) is the year of desktop linux–but as surely as Spring follows Winter, its time will come.
First of all, I’d like to ask … what ARE the hardware requirements of Vista? Clueless journalists are constantly talking about these mighty-high requirements, but as far as I know, Microsoft hasn’t actually said anything. Judging anything by the current Beta 1 release is stupid, because not only is there tons of debug code enabled, but debug symbols are active, and there are a LOT of extraneous files around (there were two folders in my C: that had something like 18,000 other folders inside, all with files).
All of that will be cleared away, and Vista will probably end up to be pretty snappy. XP will run very comfortably on anything from a PII-266/192 MB and up. I have faith in Microsoft’s ability to make a high-performing operating system. Vista will scale even better when it comes to graphical doodads. For those of you who are complaining that you’re going to have to buy 2 GHz+ processors, 1 GB of RAM, and high-end DirectX 9 video cards … shut the f*ck up.
Yes, you’ll need that to experience all of Vista’s special effects, but you won’t need that to use it. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You either buy the hardware if you want all of the eye candy, or you don’t buy the hardware and use it without as much eye candy. You don’t see me complaining about not being able to play Doom 3 on an 800 MHz Thunderbird with a GeForce 4 MX.
Anyway, as for Linux itself … the developers of the kernel/X/KDE/GNOME/what-have-you rarely ever listen to the general user base when it comes to implementation. You know what I’d like to see in Linux? A kernel-embedded graphics server. Oh, wait … I can hear it now …
“Whaaa, whaaaaa! But we don’t want a graphics server in the kernel! That’s just bloat! Whaaa!”
Ah … hold on one second. You talk about the great modularity and configurability of the Linux kernel … but suddenly this is a problem? If you don’t want it, don’t compile it/load it in. Those who want an integrated kernel/graphics server can use it, and experience relatively pain-free GUI-ness. Of course, KDE/GNOME will have to be improved in terms of performance, memory usage, and clutter — but that’s a whole other 5 years.
To put it simply, I don’t see Linux happening on the average user’s desktop until its fragmented nature is fixed. Right now you have many many kernels, and many patchsets. You have many X servers, many X desktops, many X window managers. You have many libraries, userland tools, file systems, compilers, distributions of all this … The list goes on.
Granted, it’s difficult to go from complete fragmentation to a solidified, unified system — but if Linux goes in the direction of FreeBSD, that will already be a huge help. FreeBSD is developed, tested, released, and supported as one entire entity. “FreeBSD 5.4” encompasses a compiler, shells, kernel, userland, libraries, and so on. “Windows 2000” does the same. Can anyone tell me for sure what glibc, gcc, bash, kernel, libpng, GNOME, KDE, X.org (…) Susie’s Mandrake 10.0 install contains? What about John’s? Bob’s?
No one can. There’s your problem.
I’d like to add something that I forgot to add …
Once Linux is unified, external problems such as package managers, dependencies, and configuration will automatically fix themselves. Companies will be more willing to release binary/closed-source software for Linux, because it will be relatively pain-free to get it working and supported. You’ll see more drivers, because companies won’t be saying “Why should we bother with Linux drivers if the kernel devs will just break them by next release?”.
It’s endless. I can’t believe that the blind lead the blind in such a manner. It’s frustrating.
Right, mod me down because it actually brings up good points about what’s wrong with Linux today.
Yours is the kind of attitude that causes stagnation in the Linux world. As opposed to listening to real points and fixing things, you just silence the people who are saying something. Linux is perfect, right?
“Right, mod me down because”
You sniff poo?
“Once Linux is unified”
If something is unified, it can be attacked easier and fall easier, study the major conflicts of the world and solid structures of unified organizations vs. the seemingly “distributed” nature of rogue organizations and you’ll see big differences. A simple comparison is how the Americans retained their land vs. the British.
When the people line up, the fall much easier, demonstrated by the old ways of British warfare and “rules” of war.
I’m sure someone (maybe the parent poster) will try and debate my words here, picking them apart with the beak of a vulture trying to sow discord, but my point stands.
You can retain unity without having to have all tongues wagging in the same direction at the same time.
Your last line really wraps it up. You’re absolutely right. It’d be great if you could customize Linux to your liking, but still retain the same kernel, core libraries + userland, and configuration schemes.
How can anyone possibly say that this is bad? If people are so confident about Linux’s inherent security, having a unified system should not be an issue. It would be wonderful.
To put it simply, I don’t see Linux happening on the average user’s desktop until its fragmented nature is fixed.
That “fragmented nature” isn’t broken in the first place.
What is broken is the average user’s perception of what “Linux” and OSS in general is.
It’s broken from an end-user’s perspective. Why should users have to worry about which libraries/kernel/X they have installed? Consider the following statement:
“You need third-party code in order to boot Linux.”
To me, that’s pathetic. It extends to virtually every nook and cranny of Linux.
“You need third-party code in order to type commands.”
“Your C library runtime is third-party code.”
And so on …
do you really think joe sixpack cares?
Joe Sixpack cares that he can’t download Program X and double-click the icon because the shoddy package manager that came with his distro says something about missing components. It doesn’t matter to Joe Sixpack WTF the problem is — to him, it’s just broken. Joe Sixpack cares when he can’t install some video codec in order to watch a porn clip.
Sorry, that’s the reality of things.
Joe Sixpack cares that he can’t download Program X and double-click the icon because the shoddy package manager that came with his distro says something about missing components. It doesn’t matter to Joe Sixpack WTF the problem is — to him, it’s just broken. Joe Sixpack cares when he can’t install some video codec in order to watch a porn clip.
Sorry, but if you’d seen users out there you’d realise that a non-technical user has trouble doing even this on Windows. It’s just on a Linux system it is a bit more difficult, but if everything is installed it’s a lot easier. Unfortunately, not even Windows makes this easy enough for that vast majority of people.
… My completely computer-illiterate aunt who lives in a rural town in Poland, and who has never seen a computer in her life until I brought one over on the plane for her, managed to send me an e-mail and install an IM client.
My slightly more computer-literate dad installs all of his own programs and codecs. I don’t see what is so difficult about “Download, double-click, Next, Next, Next, Finish”.
My slightly more computer-literate dad installs all of his own programs and codecs. I don’t see what is so difficult about “Download, double-click, Next, Next, Next, Finish”.
Its even simpler than that using synaptic on Linux – get a clue.
“I don’t see what is so difficult about “Download, double-click, Next, Next, Next, Finish”
Neither do most of the filthy virus/trojan authors, welcome to Windows, what do you want to disinfect today?
Seems like the piles of poo are collecting a lot today.
Shouldn’t you be compiling a kernel right about now or something? You have nothing worthy to say.
Neither do most of the filthy virus/trojan authors, welcome to Windows, what do you want to disinfect today?
So you suggest to protect against malware by making the OS environment as complex as possible so that most ordinary users will not be able to do anything, right?
Boy, MS should hire people like you – you are the main reason they have no competition in the desktop market.
“So you suggest to protect against malware by making the OS environment as complex as possible so that most ordinary users will not be able to do anything, right?
Please don’t put words in my mouth, my words in my parent post stand, they don’t need translation from English to Gibberish.
“Boy, MS should hire people like you”
They hired the founder of Gentoo Linux, didn’t they? No, M$ couldn’t hire me, I don’t support closed source software and philosophies.
“you are the main reason they have no competition in the desktop market.”
What planet are you from? Competition to the beast is everywhere.
Joe Sixpack cares that he can’t download Program X and double-click the icon because the shoddy package manager that came with his distro says something about missing components.
and the problem is ?
if you actually used a recent distro, you would have realised that your point is moot. The package manager would simply download the missing components and install them.
ALSO
this bit about downloading program, double-click etc is the reason Windows is in the state it currently is in.
Users were too used to blindly installing crap without a second thought about WHAT they were actually doing.
It doesn’t matter to Joe Sixpack WTF the problem is — to him, it’s just broken. Joe Sixpack cares when he can’t install some video codec in order to watch a porn clip.
I agree totally with you there
I used a recent distro — Fedora Core 4. I tried to play MP3s. It wouldn’t let me. I followed the Fedora FAQ. Yum said it couldn’t find the package. I downloaded the package manually (an RPM). I double-clicked it. It complained about 4-5 missing dependencies, and that’s as far as it went.
Translation: Bullshit.
Translation of translation: patents suck, and prevent the spread of freedom software. Windows sucks for embracing such an inhibiting force in software.
Well said.
Your choice of distro was not a good choice. Fedora Core is a testing ground, and it has all codecs etc removed for patenting reasons.
However.
All you needed to do was ASK.
what you type is “yum xmms-mp3” to install mp3 capability, however, you needed to set up a repository first, not the official Fedora ones.
anyone here would have told you which one..
but
Fedora is not a distro for casual use, if you want to test software for RedHat, and be an unofficial beta-tester, then work away, but if you want something that works out of the box, then Mepis or Mandriva is for you.
YUM is a crap package manager IMHO, I much prefer urpmi from Mandrake or APT/Synaptic from Debian based distros.
APT/synaptic is a really powerful combination, and once you get a good selection of repositories, you will never look back. It is far easier than even the Windows way of “find site, find program, download program, click setup.exe, click next, next, next, next, next OK”
To use Synaptic, you simply browse the available selections of software genres, click one and read the description, tick the box and click apply.
All the dependencies will be downloaded with the package itself, and thats you sorted.
I think your poor view of Linux was caused by your poor selection of a distro, but you cannot be blamed for this, as most magazines market Fedora Core as a “free alternative” to RedHat Linux, when it is instead the distro that the developers do all the testing in.
– Yum is in evolution. Current version (2.40) is marginally better than the old 2.1.X. For example, repositories are on directory called yum.repos.d/ and their filename ends with .repo.
– Now third parties provide their own repo packages (usually reponame-release.noarch.rpm)so users do not need to manually edit yum.conf.
– Now yum is better documented on http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/. For example, do you know that yum localinstall command is the equivalent of rpm -ivh with better handling of dependencies?
– First, you are supposed to know FC4 does not provide mp3 support http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems?highlight=%28mp3~*…
– Second, you are supposed to know about fedoraforum.org which is the excellent Fedora community support.
– Third, you are supposed to know that rpm is not designed to solve dependencies which is the job for yum.
– Fourth, you said you followed Fedora FAQ. See the first and second point.
– Last, to get mp3 support, read fedorafaq.org first.
I’m supposed to do/know all of this just to play MP3s?
No wonder the average user stays away from Linux.
Are you supposed to read Fedora FAQ? If not, then you are no one but yourself to blame.
Define “average joe”. That word is overused as it assumes every people use computer which is not true. What about other people who never touched a computer in their life?
Actually it’s damn straight easy. In many ways easier than on Windows. Ever heard of selfextracting archives
Anyway, you will have the same problem on windows.
About Joe Sixpack… well, we all know the average user needs to be educated. That’s what should happen in junior high and even in kindergarten and so on. Nobody should leave 7th grade without knowing something about CLI and GUI :p
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Installing software by double clicking setup.exe is a bit of a pre-Internet way of doing things. It’s still big in the windows world, but forcing the OS to retain compatibility with obselete and broken libraries is a poor compromise IMHO. Give me a package manager any day.
Regarding codecs, well we all know the legal issues involved, which are irrelevant to package management.
It’s broken from an end-user’s perspective.
Get a clue. Stop talking about something about which you know nothing. have you ever tried a recent Linux distro – no!
Yes. Three, in fact: Fedora Core 4, Ubuntu 5.04, and Mandrake 10.X (whatever the newest one is).
Actually you have used none of them , you tried to poke around with them , tried to apply the same broken principle of Windows to it and it failed because its a superior system.
You dont know what your doing , your not even using the support in place because you assume you know better , you dont read the documentation or ask for help on the support site or on the support system in place.
There is a good system for people like you now :
PcLinuxOS , it whas built with people like you in mind. Those who have no clue what they are doing but whant everything to work out of the box using GNU/Linux.
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/
Right, I don’t know anything. I’m a complete noob.
Who made you King?
“Right, I don’t know anything.”
Got a working system with GNU/Linux ? thats a proof by itself.
“I’m a complete noob.”
Yes , and whats worst you assume GNU/Linux is the same as those other crappy OS you used and refuse to learn how to make it work properly at all , you refuse to be trained on how to make it work and you refuse yourself the availibility of expert who will help you freely , granted you have to be polite in your question to them.
“Who made you King?”
I guess you Did to be King one as to be able to install properly GNU/Linux and have a working system after they are done with there setup according to you.
I stand by what I said :
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/
its for people like you it as the best Out of the box GNU/Linux offer at this time.
BTW I dont get why your using GNU/Linux as backend for your server when you say its crap :
http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?host=http%3A%2F%2Ftomchu…
I guess professional know better then you whats best.
I use it because my host does not give me any other choice. When I hosted the site myself, I used the best server OS on the planet: FreeBSD. 🙂
The reason I don’t use GNU/Linux is because I prefer to USE my computers, as opposed to wasting my time getting my computers to WORK. For that reason, I use OS X for my general work, and Windows for gaming.
“I use it because my host does not give me any other choice.”
Thats my point professionals use GNU/Linux , because they know its better.
“The reason I don’t use GNU/Linux is because I prefer to USE my computers”
NO , its because you cant make it work properly and you keep thinking its the OS fault.
“as opposed to wasting my time getting my computers to WORK.”
Those who know what they are doing set it up once.
“I use OS X for my general work, and Windows for gaming.”
I do everything with GNU/Linux. I dont need 3 computer with 3 different OS or more. Its does more then what the other OS can do and it does what the others cant do too.
Yeah right….. Mr linux attacks again.
Its GNU/Linux ;-), and off course I am right I always am 😉
“I have faith in Microsoft’s ability to make a high-performing operating system”
So what’s your job title at M$? You sound like a clueless fanboy.
And you sound like a clueless Linux troll. Get real. How can you say that 2000/XP do NOT perform admirably? You can run them on virtually any level of PC (with the exception of <Pentium IIs). Try running a modern Linux distro with KDE/GNOME on a PII with 128 MB of RAM.
“Try running a modern Linux distro with KDE/GNOME on a PII with 128 MB of RAM.”
Ubuntu runs on PII’s. Up until a few months ago, I myself ran Ubuntu on a 7 year old beige mac.
“Runs” and “runs usably” are two different things.
‘”Runs” and “runs usably” are two different things.’
I agree, but it’s the same with XP. It may run on that PII, but not usably. One of our work computers (400 MHz) runs terribly with XP. And of course, no version of Windows runs on that 7 year old Mac I mentioned.
I put together a cheap system running Windows XP on a PII 450 and it runs beautifully. I don’t what you have done to make it run terribly, but mine runs completely fine.
Give me a break, i have a 400 celeron that can run xp
much better than it can linux. I’ve tried fedora core,
now there is a hard drive grinding experience for you!
“Give me a break, i have a 400 celeron that can run xp
much better than it can linux.”
Then you must be doing something wrong. By the way, Linux isn’t the desktop, you can choose desktops you don’t have to use KDE or Gnome: fluxbox, icewm, blackbox, etc. a lot of light weight window managers exist.
It’s so nice to see you trolls whine about stuff you don’t understand.
1. Well, if youv’e got a problem, fork it. that’s the beuty of software darwinism. besides, the GNOME desktop is very user-geared… if you have used it in the last year or so.
2.Why would you want a kernel-embedded graphical server? it’s bloatful, unstable, and hard to turn off. besides, it gives you NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER, So what’s the point? just use Xorg.
3. Check your news, both KDE and GNOME are striding towards better memory usage. and with undue respect to your whining, GNOME has been more usable than windows for quite a while (and KDE is getting there). besided, maybe you should tell us how fast and responsive the WinXP GUI is…
4. Actually, Linux is the only Linux kernel, last I checked. and the many versions of it… well, it’s hard to avoid when there are is constant and transparent development.
Also, Xorg is now the mainstream X server. and even if it was not, X11 is a standard and programs can run under one X server as easily as another.
And what’s wrong with choice in the desktop/WM area? last I checked, there are no compatibility problems with them as long as the use freedesktop.org standards.
I really don’t see your point about how bad the ability to chose your tools is. The problem is lack of standards, not the lack of one mainstream tool.
in conclusion, that’s just the regular whining and FUD. not that linux does not have problems, but your view of them is unbased in reality and logic.
.. things will stay the same:
Intelligent users will move to Linux, Mac or something else… except those other intelligent users who also happen to be gamers, who will keep on copy of XP in a dual boot configuration, but who will use that something else for their everyday work.
Intelligent users will move to Linux, Mac or something else… except those other intelligent users who also happen to be gamers, who will keep on copy of XP in a dual boot configuration, but who will use that something else for their everyday work.
Yea, it makes a lot of sense to dual boot so you can run the same exact programs that are freely available for xp. There are plenty of good reasons to run xp, it usually comes with the computer and works with all hardware. I’m not even a fan of microsoft but comments like yours are ridiculous and give the open source community a bad name.
The only way OSX becomes a main switch platform is if it runs on hardware outside of the Apple paradigm. This can not be a hacked version, but rather something that is fully supported by Apple. I am sure I can say that most do not ever see this happening.
I do not see Linux becoming a desktop standard either, at least not until some companies begin to force users to use their Linux based products. The installation is currently about as user friendly as OSX and Windows, it has a fairly standard look and feel but lacks simplicity, and like OSX has a lack of driver support. However, as a whole OSX at least has better portable device support (cellphone, PDA, Camera) out of the box.
Linux lacks this because it is hard to justify building a driver for a number of different platforms/distros (either or) and to release the specs on a select device would be to go against the nature of standard company operations by releasing information on trade secrets.
Still, as more and more problems are beginning to creep up it is likely that people will continue to abandon the Windows platform (like a slow, very slow leak). I just do not see it dropping below seventy five percent anytime soon.
I agree with you 100% there. I do cross platform development across Windows, Apple and Linux. OSX is my ‘consumer experience’ OS of choice, but the only way for OSX to gain mass acceptance is for it to run on the existing hardware of the masses. Either that or (HIGHLY UNLIKELY) Apple manages to promote the fact that their systems can run Windows.
The incoming xorg-x11 7.0 will change the way modules willl be installed. Vendors like Nvidia have plenty experience on that field.
About drivers, it is related to manufacturers themselves. Any sane people willl be smart enough to research a product that is compatible with any Linux distros.
The real problem is some people do not understand that Linux is NOT Windows design wise.
linux on the desktop will only be viable when you can pop the cd into any computer and do an install and have a working desktop without having to type anything at all or compile anything or whatnot. ive tried a few different varieties of linux, and was frustrated with the different distros not being able to utilize my video card, not being compatible with my motherboard chipset, not working due to my onboard soundcard or whatnot. if the average user has to look at any kind of article to figure out how to make his computer work by configuring anything at all more complex than “name, address, phone number” then desktop linux will never be more than it is now.
Suse Linux 9.3
Dell Inspiron 8600
No compiling, no config files. All a gui based setup.
ive tried a few different varieties of linux, and was frustrated with the different distros not being able to utilize my video card, not being compatible with my motherboard chipset, not working due to my onboard soundcard or whatnot
Most of this isn’t due to Linux, but due to 3rd Parties with their drivers or their hardware. The open source community needs information from vendors to create drivers, but vendors don’t want to release the info.
So they attempt to try on their own to release a driver, but without the information, it can be difficult.
if the average user has to look at any kind of article to figure out how to make his computer work by configuring anything at all more complex than “name, address, phone number” then desktop linux will never be more than it is
Unfortunately, Bill Gates did Windows users a disservice by making things look rock simple, even though they aren’t. Gates makes a PC equate to a hair dryer in use. PC’s require more than a switch to be turned on and off.
I used to complain that 3rd parties were part of the reason Linux couldn’t take off as well but I’ve come to realize that it’s complete crap. Linux is a moving target…no wait, it’s 100+ moving targets. Why? Because there are 100+ distro’s out there each with their own kernel version, patches, filesystem layout and what have you. This equates to a very small market and who do you target with out upsetting someone?
You could say “but all kinds of people use Linux so the market is huge.” The problem, like I said, is that you never know which “Linux” they’re using. No wonder 3rd parties don’t want to get involved. They’re in this game to make money, sell products. How can they sell and support a product for 100+ variations of an OS?
I used to complain that 3rd parties were part of the reason Linux couldn’t take off as well but I’ve come to realize that it’s complete crap. Linux is a moving target…no wait, it’s 100+ moving targets.
More like 5 or 6.
SuSe(Novell)
RedHat
Mandriva
Debian
Slackware
Yes, there may be over 100 distro’s out there, but most are usually based on these. So from 100 to 5…that’s not bad at all.
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows NT
Windows ME
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
That’s about the same size list.
Honestly, the support list is about the same.
This is what 3rd party mindsets are:
1) Developers have no one on staff that can program for a Linux platform.
2) Sales and Marketing don’t know how to market the product because it uses a different business model than Microsoft uses.
3) Executives don’t really know how to get their best ROI out of doing a Linux driver and a linux based product.
So as you can see, much of this is on the 3rd party.
Why? Because there are 100+ distro’s out there each with their own kernel version, patches, filesystem layout and what have you. This equates to a very small market and who do you target with out upsetting someone?
First, have them target the one’s I listed. From there, if they see any additional target markets from a particular distro, then look into that distro.
Put the onus on the community to develop a driver from source and most distro’s will be able to handle it.
the example is bad, tout-court. or at worse, willingly wrong.
different distros can have different ssets of installed libs, eventually with some incompatibility.
win32 is a standard, and compatibility copes with need and market share.
you can write a program for win95 and it’ll run out of the box under XP. This works even better with Win98/WinXP compatibility.
More features or improvements require backward compatibility installations (like for unicode) or using the newer API.
That’s more difficult to handle in Linux, which is a sensitive issue for developers who want their software to be “clean”
Linux will go much more far if it can get a much more solid api specification for the the different areas of the OS, my 0.02€
Most of this isn’t due to Linux, but due to 3rd Parties with their drivers or their hardware. The open source community needs information from vendors to create drivers, but vendors don’t want to release the info.
So they attempt to try on their own to release a driver, but without the information, it can be difficult.
You don’t get it, do you? Most hardware vendors DON’T want to release specifications for their devices. That’s a fact. Why? Maybe because they don’t want enthusiasts to write crappy drivers for their hardware in their spare time. Users will usually blame the hardware vendor for any malfunctioning instead of the driver developer. But it’s their choice after all. They will conduct their business the way they whink it’s most beneficial to them – there’s nothing wrong with that.
MS realised this and came up with a solution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Model
Pay attention to this:
By conforming to WDM, drivers can be binary and source compatible across Win98, Win98SE, Win2000, WinXP and Win2003 on x86-based computers.
So for most types of hardware devices you can provide a pair of an .inf file and a .sys file and it will install and support your device on 95% of the PCs running Windows. And you can still release the source, if you want to. Now this makes things a lot easier for both driver developers and users, doesn’t it?
So can the Linux kernel developers come out with an ABI that allows a compiled driver to work accross distributions and kernels versions? I’m not a kernel guru, but I suppose it is technically possible. However, they still force driver developers to either:
1. Release drivers as source code
or
2. Release compiled drivers for a certain number of compiled kernels, usually the default ones of recent versions of the major distributions.
The same incompatibility happens with windows. True, there are usually drivers for most chipsets (some come with the operating system), but in most cases the average user will still have to download drivers off the Internet (assuming he knows where to fine them). It’s true that Linux is harder to set up in these situations, but don’t forget that there’s a reason why most windows machines are pre-configured by manufacturers. Most windows boxes are pre-configured by manufacturers, so compatibility with chipsets is almost assured because the drivers have already been set up without user intervention. In most cases, the user doesn’t even have to install the OS themselves; all they have to do is answer a few simple questions, and there off.
I think Linspire pretty much does that… You click next and say “wipe my drive” and whatnot.
the real reason why people will switch to linux, is when microsoft takes too much freedom away. whenever someone can’t rip mp3’s because microsoft only lets wmp access the burner so they can only copy drm’d windows media files. or whenever someone can’t make a backup copy, of a dvd they own, because the sofware is so locked down that its not even useful anymore. whenever someone is flat out required to buy a new monitor to be able to watch videos. these are the kind of things that will push people away from windows. people are going to be hacking windows up so they can use it how they want. I hope that with the software and hardware combonation required for xp that it will be impossible to hack. that way people flat out cant use it how they want. then i think people will start using linux more and more.
“when microsoft takes too much freedom away”
Freedom dies with closed source so why speak in past tense?
In it’s current state, Linux and the surrounding software just isn’t good enough to produce a working, stable desktop to replace Windows. There are more issues at stake than just stability and usability. It’s all the surrounding issues like software installation. There’s simply no reason it can’t though, because all the ingredients are there. All it takes is one distributor to take the bull by the horns and say “Right, this is what we’re going to do”. But no, no one does it.
Linux distributors also need to work hard on Linux as a server and look at some of the tools Microsoft has. Microsoft’s server config tools aren’t exactly the greatest, an the technology isn’t either. If Linux distributors can look at what they need to be doing all the ingredients are there for them to really cement Linux’s place in the server world. About the best server tools I’ve seen are Apple’s and Microsoft’s are not great but they’re complete. Red Hat’s, Sun’s, and Suse’s (yes even YaST) are a complete joke and not what I want to see in a commercial product). I might even write and article about that though.
I find the lax hardware requirements funny though. You might get away with it with a desktop like KDE to a certain extent (but you still need a minimum of 128 MB memory) the Gnome and GTK people are now off into the wide blue yonder of Cairo and hardware-acceleration requiring closed source drivers.
Wow, you said a lot without actually saying anything. RedHat’s and Suse’s graphical utilities aren’t server tools btw. They’re old desktop tools; not quite so old in the case of Suse.
“Cairo and hardware-acceleration requiring closed source drivers.”
Cairo only supports X11, Win32, and image output. Glitz and gl are unsupported and recommended against. I *wish* gl were supported today though!
Wow, you said a lot without actually saying anything. RedHat’s and Suse’s graphical utilities aren’t server tools btw. They’re old desktop tools; not quite so old in the case of Suse.
What did you say about saying nothing? That is the most meaningless thing I’ve ever heard. YaST is a bunch of, mainly, server config tools, designed for server use.
In it’s current state, Linux and the surrounding software just isn’t good enough to produce a working, stable desktop to replace Windows.
It may not be identical to Windows, but what is the point of that? If you want a Windows clone, use Windows. Linux is different – if you don’t want different, then butt out. Linux is not for you, and your view on it is irrelevant.
There are more issues at stake than just stability and usability. It’s all the surrounding issues like software installation. There’s simply no reason it can’t though, because all the ingredients are there. All it takes is one distributor to take the bull by the horns and say “Right, this is what we’re going to do”. But no, no one does it.
So reading from your post, there is a problem with installation. But you don’t identify what the problem actually is, and furthermore (and probably as a logical consequence of not actually identifying the problem) suggest no specific solution. So that paragraph is a waste of pixels on my screen. BTW, software installation on linux is just fine. Package management is a very good way of installing AND removing software. Being able to sit on my arse, and install packages over the net for free is a lot more convenient than having to go to a store to pick up a CD, or hunt on the net for something, then manually downloading and installing it – dependency resolution has been solved – deal with it. It requires you to think differently, but as set out above if you want a Windows clone, then use Windows.
Linux distributors also need to work hard on Linux as a server and look at some of the tools Microsoft has. Microsoft’s server config tools aren’t exactly the greatest, an the technology isn’t either. If Linux distributors can look at what they need to be doing all the ingredients are there for them to really cement Linux’s place in the server world.
Linux has a huge share in the server room, and it’s growing faster than Windows (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS00153905). It doesn’t need to do squat – Linux in the server room is mature, accepted and doing just fine without your advice. You say Linux should look at emulating some of Microsoft’s tools, which you then say aren’t that great. Why the fuck would Linux (which is growing faster than MS) want to emulate what you describe as “not exactly the greatest”.
About the best server tools I’ve seen are Apple’s and Microsoft’s are not great but they’re complete. Red Hat’s, Sun’s, and Suse’s (yes even YaST) are a complete joke and not what I want to see in a commercial product). I might even write and article about that though.
Linux has great server administration tools, and they’re not YaST or Red Hat tools, they’re universal tools like Bash, Perl, Text Editors, and a thing called training, reading and thinking. Servers should never be administered by people who don’t know what they’re doing – even Windows servers. Furthermore, server administration isn’t a product, just like security isn’t a product. You can’t package it in a box or a gui. The admin has to actually know what to do with it. In my view, the CLI is a far more powerful admin tool than any gui once the admin knows what he’s doing. Why else would MS be spending valuable developer time on implimenting a proper CLI shell for its next server release? I’m looking forward to your article though, I do enjoy a bit of self parody.
I never understand why people want Linux to “dominate”/”win” on the desktop. Currently it has enough market share and developer enthusiasm to provide exactly what I want in a desktop for free. I have all the tools I need, including rich multimedia apps, PIM apps and productivity apps – in fact I have more of these than I would in Windows, because they’re mostly free of charge. Linux doesn’t need Joe Sixpack. So in my view, emulating Windows to attract Joe Sixpack is just counter-productive.
Funny how complainer failed to understand that RHN is beyond the mere up2date tools. I would not be surprised Novell SLES has a similar tools. Both are entreprise distro btw.
There’s at least one really good reason to wish Linux to dominate the desktop. Hardware support.
Take Logitech, for example. They make really cool stuff, like that camera on a stalk that can track you as you move and the diNovo Bluetooth keyboard with that LCD in the keypad.
But they won’t provide documentation on how to use any of that. If Linux had more people using it, hardware companies would feel more pressure to support Linux systems.
[quote]
In it’s current state, Linux and the surrounding software just isn’t good enough to produce a working, stable desktop to replace Windows.
It may not be identical to Windows, but what is the point of that? If you want a Windows clone, use Windows. Linux is different – if you don’t want different, then butt out. Linux is not for you, and your view on it is irrelevant.
[/quote]
If this is true, your opinions on Windows are irrelevant aswell. So please, stop telling Linux is better and blablabla
A third anonymous
Linux is different – if you don’t want different, then butt out. Linux is not for you, and your view on it is irrelevant.
My view on it is relevant since I do use alongside Windows servers as well. Both have pros and cons. If Linux can eliminate the cons which makes people use Windows in some scenarios you’re going to see Windows waving goodbye to the server world.
So reading from your post, there is a problem with installation. But you don’t identify what the problem actually is
It is far easier for me to install and configure lots of open source software on Windows, get it up and running and keep it up to date.
It doesn’t need to do squat – Linux in the server room is mature, accepted and doing just fine without your advice.
Yes it does. I love the ‘we’re perfect’ attitude.
Furthermore, server administration isn’t a product, just like security isn’t a product. You can’t package it in a box or a gui. The admin has to actually know what to do with it. In my view, the CLI is a far more powerful admin
Yada, yada, yada. For some thing you need to save time, and good admin tools save you that time.
Linux has great server administration tools, and they’re not YaST or Red Hat tools, they’re universal tools like Bash, Perl, Text Editors, and a thing called training, reading and thinking. Servers should never be administered by people who don’t know what they’re doing…
You’re not tackling the real issues.
So reading from your post, there is a problem with installation. But you don’t identify what the problem actually is
It is far easier for me to install and configure lots of open source software on Windows, get it up and running and keep it up to date.
How so? On Windows, you have to find it, download it, click on it, click next, next, next etc. On linux, find it in repository (index locally stored), click install, done. Seems to me to be pretty similar. Then there’s update – on windows, work out there’s an update, go find it, downlaod etc etc etc. On Linux, issue single command/press update button – programme goes and finds updates to ALL your apps in one go. How can you say Windows is easier?
It doesn’t need to do squat – Linux in the server room is mature, accepted and doing just fine without your advice.
Yes it does. I love the ‘we’re perfect’ attitude.
I didn’t say it was perfect, I said it would do fine without your stupid advice. I notice you snipped your advice; I would have too if I were you. However, your advice that linux should emulate what you describe as Windows’ “not the greatest” admin tools will get linux nowhere. As I said linux will do fine without your advice – as it is already.
Furthermore, server administration isn’t a product, just like security isn’t a product. You can’t package it in a box or a gui. The admin has to actually know what to do with it. In my view, the CLI is a far more powerful admin
Yada, yada, yada. For some thing you need to save time, and good admin tools save you that time.
A good admin tool is a customised script you wrote yourself to do exactly what you want, and will do it for thousands of users, over and over again. A good admin tool is not a gui that you have to configure for every single user, cannot automate, and cannot script to your own needs. Hence the fact that MS is now implimenting Monad to catch up to that kind of usability and time saving.
Linux has great server administration tools, and they’re not YaST or Red Hat tools, they’re universal tools like Bash, Perl, Text Editors, and a thing called training, reading and thinking. Servers should never be administered by people who don’t know what they’re doing…
You’re not tackling the real issues.
See above. Lets take an example – backup. How come on my Windows 2003 Server, I have to spend big $$$$ on a backup program plus get add-on agents to deal with open files; when on linux, I can do a custom backup with a 10 line bash script. That’s a real issue. Ease of administration and TCO my arse.
Sorry, for me, a real admin doesn’t use graphical tools. In fact, a real server doesn’t need a graphical interface.
I work in a french faculty, all servers are linux without X11.
The user with a trollin’ username is the one that is making the most sense. O_o
First of all, a big middle finger to those pricks saying that all the “intelligent users” are moving to *nix. Sorry guys, but some of us still do prefer Windows. And I’m not a gamer, I’m a developer. I don’t neccesarily hate nix on the desktop, but I prefer Windows for everyday use. I do run Ubuntu and FreeBSD though, and used to run debian for my last job.
Now, let me analyze this amusing “article”.
but as we learn more about it and Microsoft’s plans for the future, the changes are constantly being scaled back from what was originally promised. Whether it’s the lack of a new file system or the “Monad” scripting shell, the absence of innovation in this operating system is giving it a black eye, no matter how nice the GUI
He says “constantly being scaled back”, then lists the only 2 major things that have been announced as not being shipped with Vista (but still being developed). Way to be misleading. And how can you make a statement about innovation an OS that is a year away from release? There actually is some innovative stuff in it, but some people refuse to do their research and isntead rely on the plethora of FUD out there about Vista.
or how much Internet Explorer 7 resembles FireFox.
This is just a joke. Did you see people bitching about Firefox resembling IE when it came out? No, people praised them because it provided a familiar interface. IE7 is trying to make changes but keep a familiar interface. That, and it doesn’t even resemble firefox. That’s just a trollish statement.
If this was not enough to turn people off from Vista, there are the hardware requirements.
Most users don’t care about that. Like already stated, most users will get Vista with a new computer, so that’s not an issue. The ones that do upgrade with their current system are usually either geeks which tend to have the powerful systems or more well-off people who are okay with shelling out the money for the latest and greatest hardware and software. Now people seem to think that it requires higher spec systems for optimal performance, that it will be more bloated and run worse than previous versions of windows. This simply is not true. It will run more efficiently and quicker than XP on the same hardware, and this is even evident with Beta1 on systems with supported hardware.
And even the author stated that if you don’t have newer hardware, you can STILL run Vista in a lower tier, similar to what XP has now, or even just “2k style” interface (classic). Most people will be quite content with that.
It should also be noted that people have gotten Beta1 to run efficiently on lower-end hardware. We’re talking 700mhz PC with 128mb of ram. If someone has a PC like that, the chances of them being able to afford an upgrade to Windows are slim anyways. Again, a non-issue.
The rest of the article is talking about moving to Linux, which I ave no problem with. Just wanted to address the first page and how terrible it was.
“And I’m not a gamer, I’m a developer”
Yes, let’s not forget there are a lot of people who make money off of fixing the issues with a bloated, buggy, closed source OS. Switching them to Linux would DEPRIVE them of this income. If a scientist developed a cure for the rodent problem in NYC and made most if not all rodent s vanish overnight, you can bet the exterminators would be mighty pissed.
“a big middle finger to those pricks saying that all the “intelligent users” are moving to *nix”
Sounds like ‘YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH’
/me laughs at the clueless M$ fanboys
Actually I do development for Windows, Linux and for the Web. Nice try though, troll.
It is funny that he only mentions Monad and WinFS. Because of you go back about 5 years you’ll find Microsofts old publications about it bringing a .net OS… That was all very vague stuff, but really they haven’t done any of it.
I think if you look at Vista hard you’re going to see this: It’s big workover to add some features like searchability wherever possible. Otherwise, major polishing. Fixing up old bad ideas like allowing applications to stop a shutdown. But in the end, Vista was pimped for a long time, and the closer you come to today in history you’ll see that they’re becoming less vague and things are sounding less and less cool.
I’m not saying Vista sucks. No, they’re addressing a lot of good problems. But, it really isn’t nearly what it was originally said to be, and it has “steadily” come down to what it is marketed as now.
Actually, on new hardware. I think most users do care. And that’s what has given microsoft such a bad time on getting people onto Windows XP. And it runs on older hardware! But it’s a passive care; it’s that they don’t care to upgrade anything at all.
I have a 700MHz notebook I use often. I can’t afford a $1500 replacement, but I certainly can afford a Vista OEM! Unless it’s way more expensive than XP Pro.
Some people, like me, use older hardware because it’s proven. My laptop has yet to have a failure while my friends new Dell’s seem to be stuck in the shop all the time!
I’d say Windows has never had a bloat problem. I think a lot of the things people perceive as bloat problems are just badly written applications. If anything, Windows has historically been too lite.
It is funny that he only mentions Monad and WinFS. Because of you go back about 5 years you’ll find Microsofts old publications about it bringing a .net OS… That was all very vague stuff, but really they haven’t done any of it.
I won’t argue that. That was 5 years ago though. They haven’t been pushing that for a while now. But yes, they made a huge marketing mistake with talking it up wayy before they should have, and they still are making SOME mistakes in that aspect. But I don’t listen to the marketing, and neither should anyone with a brain.
But in the end, Vista was pimped for a long time, and the closer you come to today in history you’ll see that they’re becoming less vague and things are sounding less and less cool.
I disagree. When Paul Thurrott published his 2005 Road to Vista article and MS put out some documentation for Vista Beta1 SDK, there was more cool stuff than I expected. I of course already knew of Avalon, XAML (for devs), WinFX, Indigo, and the major components. But then I saw some other cool stuff that no one was talking about AT ALL. There are still even things that MS hasn’t talked about that may end up in Vista, like low-level network “compartments” (jails).
Now that Beta1 is out and the SDK is out, pretty much what is in there, is likely staying. So here’s a short list of some stuff I think will be cool:
Theming Unlocked; Kernel: Application Resource Management; Kernel: TCP/IP Offloading; Built-in DVD Recording; Windows Assessment Tool (WinSAT); Improved Task Scheduler (time and event based now, and comes with an API now); New WinPE environment; Impending failure diagnostics (already seen in Beta1); Transactional NTFS (the API for this is quite simple and can be used for Files and SQL Queries); Windows Filtering Platform (low-level networking filters and policies); Auxilary Display Platform; Virtual Folders; Stacks; New printing architecture; Improved sleep mode;
And that definitely isn’t everything.
Good Reference, but not complete: http://winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_preview_2005.asp
Some of that stuff is advertised, but it looks cool. Virtual Folders for one.
Looked thru the -Microsoft’s Windows Vista- link in the article.
Still can’t find any of these “new and exciting” features that’s not already available (defines as 99% same functionality) in Tiger or Linux variants. Someone should produce a grid showing that everything in Vista is available elsewhere NOW.
Put Linux + Gnome/KDE + FTPd + SSHd + Apache + Some web browser + Other applications then you’ll get an insecure OS. You can argue that they could be a little bit more secure than Windows.. but not that much.
In Windows world, most of the problems I always heard are around 2 subjects : Internet Explorer and IIS (and sometime Outlook).
Can’t really hope MS to be the most secure OS in the world with these applications. IE is not a small software, it has many plugins, integration with Office (same thing with outlook).
Most Software in Linux only supports of “opening files from different format”. Not quite a big of plugin/integration by the way.
Linux illness always around the misconfigured server-side software, race condition (the popular one) and overflow here and there say zlib, apache, some ftp software.
MS Goal would be future, most Linux distro goals is to fix the current state of their own software that comes with the distro.
Excerpt from “Computer Systems: A Programmer Perspective”
“MS Windows imposes a stronger alignment requirement, any k-byte(primitive) object must have an address that is a multiple of k. In particular, it requires that the address of a double be a multiple of 8. This requirement ehances the memory performance at the expense of some wasted space. The design decision made in Linux was probably good for i386, back when memory was scarce and memory buses were only 4 bytes widfe. With modern processors, MS’s allignment is a better decision”
I know talking about i386 is outdated but it is one of example that Linux can do well for the current state but MS always thinks about the future.
I saw a short interview/lecture from Windows kernel architect from http://channel9.msdn.com . He said in the future, most of us will use dual processors machines. So all in all.. Vista might be slow for now, but when the market settles for dual proc, Vista could run very well.
All we see in Linux software everyday is just another clone of what MS ppl did. Nothing new, not fun for many users. We want to see/use new things, new innovation. Linux ppl could argue that they did one thing, and did it pretty good, but to users.. that is friggin boring. You can say that Windows sometime stole the idea from their competitors, but at least they made improvements, they made more user friendly, in short, they made it looks good, better, and maybe sometime they made it looks a bit different than the original idea.
I haven’t seen blue screen of death for years since win2k, now I’m using win2k3 and it boots and runs faster than most of Linux distro I tried. The desktop environment in Windows is also more simple and well designed (those UI guy can flame me on this because I’m not an UI expert, but judging from the number of people who use Windows.. I would say that the UI team did good on it, besides, what good a perfect UI according to UI ppl out there if the users can’t use it or don’t feel comfortable using it)
Integration everywhere in Windows (of course.. under one company.. no doubt) everything is just easier to use Windows. Meanwhile in Linux you have to get to know various different applications with different UI, different format, different here and there.
Framework support. Development in Windows (Vista especially) should become better and easier with .NET framework. You don’t see that in Linux. All you see is 2 technologies competiting to rule the environment, GTK vs Qt. Also not to mention if you know C#, you could do a lot of things in the upcoming Vista. Now in Linux you have to know different technologies starting from GTK(C), Qt(C++), Python, PHP, Perl, Ruby and their own framework such as Zope (and the rest that I’m not well aware of because they just keep on changing it every year, not good eh)
I’m not a regular average joe user, I run FreeBSD as my gateway because I admire its performance, stability and security (with default installation). I’m not saying that FreeBSD is the best OS there, but what I’m trying to say that each OS has their own goals, stop fighting about it, stop arguing about Linux vs Windows in desktop. Linux could win if we’re talking about cluster or server deployment but Windows wins in desktop. It is what MS wants from the first place, every house to run Windows. Hence, the users are the main target for MS.
I want to use my browser to open nice streaming movies from movies.yahoo.com , or from musics.yahoo.com , I can only do that with Windows. (well they support Quicktime for Mac in movies section, but haven’t tried the musics section yet). I want to open MS Words file from my browser with a single click on the link. I want to play games, I want to make more money by developing software that many people can use. To achieve all of these, Windows provided me an environment to do so, not Linux. (One could argue that with CodeWeavers you could do some of these as well, but with software like CrossOver , Wine, and those emulator kind of stuff, it just makes your Linux runs slower).
Windows is forced to accept users while Linux forces to be accepted by users.
“I want to use my browser to open nice streaming movies from movies.yahoo.com , or from musics.yahoo.com , I can only do that with Windows. (well they support Quicktime for Mac in movies section, but haven’t tried the musics section yet). I want to open MS Words file from my browser with a single click on the link.”
Then convince M$ and Apple to develop open source products. The problem is with CLOSED SOURCE and people/companies who want to masturbate with money rather than actually HELP HUMANITY.
“I want to make more money by developing software that many people can use.”
Another red flag. Are you employed by M$ too?
“it just makes your Linux runs slower”
If M$ believed in releasing open source programs, codecs, etc. then Linux wouldn’t have to emulate them. Either press your beloved company for change or kindly STFU!
“MS Goal would be future”
MS Goal? Is that a new game? Anything like MS Bob? LOL You pro-M$ guys are so amusing. Are they offshoring cheap disinformation workers now?
“You pro-M$ guys are so amusing”
Thank you if we can amused you 🙂 Because you’re friggin bored us.
I’m not saying I love MS with all of my heart, it’s getting bored to see linux fanboy scream so loud and attacking every other OS except their own. If you read all of my arguments is that I also use FreeBSD for my gateway and I’m comfortable with my current systems.
Now somebody else was talking about to help humanity ? ask Bill how much money has he donated through his wife’s foundation. Ask other people how computer has helped their life or improve their life. By the way, at least 80% of these computers use Windows not Linux hence most of the computers that actually improve other people’s life runs Windows.
All you can do is to keep saying RTFM, STFU, similar to some of those comments in Linux kernel.
“In Windows world, most of the problems I always heard are around 2 subjects : Internet Explorer and IIS (and sometime Outlook). ”
Not really. Go read secunia..
“Most Software in Linux only supports of “opening files from different format”. Not quite a big of plugin/integration by the way. ”
Actually, integration in *nix in general is excellent. People have complained about it for years: “This seems like it’s written for programmers not users” “That’s because it’s a program that was meant to be scriptable.”
“Why does this have 18 deps.” “Because the program reuses a lot of other people’s code.”
“Linux illness always around the misconfigured server-side software, race condition (the popular one) and overflow here and there say zlib, apache, some ftp software. ”
No, the first is a flaw of threading, and sometimes even multiple processes. *nix culture shuns threading unless it’s necessary for speed. The second is a problem with c machines.
IIRC Microsoft Windows (ia32) reserves 2GB of RAM for kernel purposes, Linux defaults 1GB. Nee-ner-neee-ner-nee-ner. If you wanna debate kernel memory handling go argue on kerneltrap: Good luck.
“All we see in Linux software everyday is just another clone of what MS ppl did.”
For example…
“Integration everywhere in Windows (of course.. under one company.. no doubt) everything is just easier to use Windows. Meanwhile in Linux you have to get to know various different applications with different UI, different format, different here and there. ”
What if you install Easy CD Creator?
“Framework support. Development in Windows (Vista especially) should become better and easier with .NET framework. You don’t see that in Linux.”
Arrrgh! Hello, 1992, Python! Hello, 1995 (??), Java! Hello, 2003, Mono (an admitted blatant copy)! Hello, 1970 (ok, not quite), shared libraries?!
“Hence, the users are the main target for MS. ”
Actually, developers have historically been the main target. And indirectly, users. All that backwards compatibility stuff? Yea, that keeps Software Company A from having to maintain its software on multiple systems.
“I want to use my browser to open nice streaming movies from movies.yahoo.com”
Legally, if they support Real we’ve had it for a good year now (I don’t count it until Real 10). Otherwise, well, I rarely can’t watch one
. Most of that is legal. And some have sought to gain the money to solve it.
<hello>
“Framework support. Development in Windows (Vista especially) should become better and easier with .NET framework. You don’t see that in Linux.”
Arrrgh! Hello, 1992, Python! Hello, 1995 (??), Java! Hello, 2003, Mono (an admitted blatant copy)! Hello, 1970 (ok, not quite), shared libraries?!
</hello>
Helloo how many Python developers out there ? Helooo what does Python offer more than .NET or Java platform ?
Helloo Java runs well on Solaris first, Windows second and Linux third. Helloo Java can’t be integrated that deep in OS except maybe with Solaris (but then again I’m not a deep coder so it is a “MAYBE”). Of course SUN wants Java to run seamlessly on Solaris and their hardwares.. business decision.
Helloo, what Mono offers ? they just wrapped GTK with GTKSharp, what about web dev ? I thought you need to buy extra commercial software to run ASP.NET on Linux no ? Mono is not as complete framework as .NET is to Vista, but then again, what do you expect…
oh by the way… isn’t Mono an example of cloning what .NET is ?
I use Linux occasionaly (Fedora that is) and FreeBSD most of the time, but I grew increasingly tired to see these technologies/dev-tools in Linux keep changing. Create one damn framework for OS + APPS + WEB that programmers can work with it for years for pete sake, at least for the next 5 to 10 years.
Over .net? Python offers full static compilation equivalency. You can make a python “binary” which will include the needed sections of the interpreter and libraries.
Python offers extremely easy use of a lower language: c. Python offers no worries about compilation, at least in theory. (not a very big deal).
“oh by the way… isn’t Mono an example of cloning what .NET is ? ” Yes, and I said that.
Web apps? I don’t think CGI has seen major compatibility changes for a decade.. Perl strives to keep backward compatibility, and ansi c is always backward compatible, php interpretors generally support old versions… I think Python is actually about the only moving target on the web. The rest seem to try and keep compatibility. And you’ll notice Python isn’t popular on the web.
Gcc changes like once every 5 or so years, and it’s small. GDB hasn’t changed much in the couple years I’ve used it… Yes, Gcc does break c++ binary compatibility occasionally.
According to Sun Java runs fine on Linux. It is supposed to be its own platform….
Java runs fine on Linux, just not better compare to Windows or Solaris (esp in Sparc boxes) of course SUN is not dumb to say “Yeah.. we know.. Java is sluggish on Linux”
By the way, don’t you know that SUN is hugging MS again ?
Um… why aren’t many people using Python ? could you please tell me ? it’s such a superior language (judging by how you explain it to me)
Why cant people realize that Gnu/Linux isn’t Windows, and will never be. There will never be ONE Linux Distribution or one standard, because the fucking software is free. Nobody has the right to tell someone “Hey, you can’t use that version of glibc, or my lawyers will have your ass”.
It’s free for anyone to change and restribute, and therefore there’ll always be disagreements among developers wich will lead to forks. Live with it. It’s not like it’s bad either; competition is usually seen as something good, but maybe that’s not true here on osnews?
Concerning closed drivers: well this only shows how much more flexible OpenSource is. If they release open drivers, they won’t have these problems. And there’ll always be reverse engineering, so that the specs of the hardware could be used by their competitors is imo just a scapegoat
And that’s Linux greatest strength, that’s why Linux will gain popularity. Both with normal users, when they finally get fed up with MS’s bullshit DRM and Palladium, and with corporations who finally will be able to dump high licensing costs and stupid restrictions.
To get popular with “Joe Sixpack” hell would have to freeze over; normal people would actually have to start to value their freedom before it’s too late.
And yes, the article was plain crap, didn’t stop me from posting something that either will be ignored or flamed though.
Why cant people realize that Gnu/Linux isn’t Windows, and will never be. There will never be ONE Linux Distribution or one standard, because the fucking software is free. Nobody has the right to tell someone “Hey, you can’t use that version of glibc, or my lawyers will have your ass”.
It’s not about that at all. It’s about qt and gtk apps having different look and feel. It’s about a gtk-based app looking and functioning worse under KDE than under GNOME and vice-versa. It’s about a config file laying in different directories in different distributions, when in fact there is no practical reason for this change. It’s about this kind of staff.
Why cant people realize that Gnu/Linux isn’t Windows, and will never be. There will never be ONE Linux Distribution or one standard, because the fucking software is free. Nobody has the right to tell someone “Hey, you can’t use that version of glibc, or my lawyers will have your ass”.
That’s true, and many of us realize that. But here we are talking about Linux as a desktop alternative to windows, and that’s the main problem Linux as a viable alternative is facing. If things are never going to change, I guess it’s time we finally accept Linux on the desktop will sadly never be a global reality. It will only be the desktop of us geeks who can live with that.
Linux localhost 2.6.11-hardened-r15 #1 SMP Thu Aug 25 23:13:40 CEST 2005 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
gcc version 3.4.4 (Gentoo Hardened 3.4.4, ssp-3.4.4-1.0, pie-8.7.8)
That’s all that is relevant for me.Xorg works although almost all options of Grsecurity and PAX are on,xine,mplayer,beep-media-player,kdetv,streamripper and streamtuner to name a few as well.
Interesting to see so many comments about the what the Linux distributions need, to be able to compete with Windows. It seems to me that some won’t accept Linux as ready for the desktop before it becomes Windows.
Linux is hard to use for a longtime Windows users, so what – it literally is a completly different world here! I had massive issues when first starting on Linux, because some of the concepts were just completly alien (a huge database of software you install applications from, how weird). Superuser/regular user – how irritating, Gnome/KDE/XFCE/Bla – wtf?!
It WILL take some education of the user to appreciate that all these things are among the unique strengths of the platform, and NOT a weakness.
Kind regards, Michael
People who are in college today and have fell in love with it. Guess what, in 10 years IT departments will have linux experts… They do now, but not like they’re going too.
Linux is Free. It never tells its administrators no. Nothing bugs me more than setting up license servers…
Linux isn’t bankruptable.
Linux is adapatable: Guess what. When PC’s commodotize, the sellers are going to want software which they can own, know, and sell without paying for.
You know I ran linux for a while, but always rebooted to windws to edit video. When a video editor gets close to Sony Vegas let me know. But what’s out there now (main actor, kino, etc) jsut isn’t cutting it.
Sure, linux for general computing is at a nice point, and for development, it’s great. But for niche things like say video editing, it’s lagging. I understand render farms and things like Apple’s Shake are doing fine, but that’s not the area of editing I’m talking about.
What’s wrong with MainActor 5? The Linux version is now being developed ahead of the Windows version. It’s a very competent video editor.
Hey I’ve never heard of that. I’ll have to remember that!
When a video editor gets close to Sony Vegas let me know.
it is attitudes like yours that need to be changed in order for linux to progress more.
Instead of waiting for linux developers to release a version of software that does everything the way you want it too. Give feedback !
Some people might think it is selfish of you to ask a programmer of a piece of free software to alter his work just for you, but if it can be seen as a way to “better” their work, then almost all programmers would welcome your feedback.
Other people might think you are cheeky, in that you do not use their software, but instead go back to what you were using before, just because things are not done to your liking……
but if we do not know, how can we be expected to change it ?
this has not been a reply to the person above…
but to users in general.
open source software can be contributed to in many way;
programming
cash
help files
translations
but the most important one of all,,,,,,
user feedback
and this is something we can all do.
Talking about missing features in Vista like it actually matters. If Vista turns out to be that bad, most of us Windows users will stick with XP, at least for the time being. If we wanted to use Linux, we’d be using it already. You guys act like us Windows users have been sitting around on pins and needles waiting on Vista. Personally, I couldn’t give two shits about Vista. The apps I’m running work just fine in XP, but they DON’T work in Linux. That in itself should speak volumes to a lot of you.
All it is another wishful thinking, let’s hope for mass migration away from windows. The vast majority of people will just stick with XP until their hardware gets dated and then move on to Vista.
//Linux isn’t bankruptable.//
Neither is Microsoft. $40 BILLION in cash. That’s many times the GDP of dozens of COUNTRIES.
MS is here to stay. Deal with it, when you get out of your parent’s basement.
The real killer desktop application is Mozilla and its derivatives. Nobody really cares about Gnome or KDE. Once people see XAML/Avalon in IE (if they get it in), then you’ll see a bigger push towards the rich client in a brower.
Check this out with your favorite mozilla-based browser
http://www.faser.net/mab/
That’s really the future – at least in the corporate environment, or some other XUL standard from the w3c.
But mom and pop will continue to run windows because (a) they don’t care about spyware or (b) they’re saavy enough to have a router/firewall, run firefox and don’t have virus problems. The benefits of “linux on the desktop” aren’t great enough for some mass migration. You’ll see a lot more mom-and-pops going to OSX before Linux.
Linux has always had the problem and distinction among most OSs in that there is no Linux operating system. It’s just a kernel. You’ve got GNU userland and other stuff to top it off – and then if you add in the GUI it’s a whole another can of worms.
So you’ve got these umpteen distros and their repositories and as far as mom and pop is concerned that is linux and they’re just as locked in as if they were on windows because they have no idea what they’re doing. And then there is still a lot of command line stuff when things go wrong and sometimes even when they don’t.
Linux will gain in marketshare – mostly in the corporate sphere – but don’t expect to linux on the desktop to ever be mainstream at home. OSX has a much better chance of becoming a mainstream “unix on the desktop” then linux ever will.
It’s not like KDE or Gnome just runs on linux. The vast majority of KDE/Gnome developers don’t try to push linux they push their respective platform.
It’s becoming increasingly normal to have Linux as primary working platform (documents, video, other graphical tasks, font-designing etc.)
And then dual-boot so we can play CS or whatever we can’t get to work using wine/wineX.
Windows is mostly for gaming now a days (for the wiser users).
I don’t even have to recommend people to switch to linux. They just want my help to get rid of XP and swith to win2k in dual-boot with linux.
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
Bull $H!t.
Unless the Linux camp get their act together and build a coherent and unified desktop platform which developers and hardware manufacturers can target, it does not stand a chance. And since they never seem able to agree on anything, I fear it will never happen and Linux on the desktop will always be but a dream.
I’m a Gentoo linux user, and I like my system. I have the expertise to run it by myself, and I love the Free Software concept. But I also know 95% of the people out there won’t never use Linux in it’s current state. And that’s the sad truth.
Actually Gnome and KDE are the main desktop environment. freedesktop is where the standard is defineed. If you have followed xorg-x11 branch, you will notice 7.0 is the modular version. http://wiki.x.org/wiki/
But I also know 95% of the people out there won’t never use Linux in it’s current state. And that’s the sad truth.
Statistics mean moot without the source and and reference. It could be that you asked people you know around. =)
I’m a Gentoo linux user, and I like my system. I have the expertise to run it by myself, and I love the Free Software concept. But I also know 95% of the people out there won’t never use Linux in it’s current state. And that’s the sad truth.
…as a Gentoo user, I can see that.
Gentoo isn’t Linux, it’s ‘a Linux’. There are easier distributions to use. 5% capable of using Linux is an artifically low guesstimate.
Gentoo isn’t Linux, it’s ‘a Linux’. There are easier distributions to use
Yes, and that’s the problem. I mentioned Gentoo because it’s the one that works for me, but I am a geek. There’s a million distributions, yet no one is still up to the task for an ordinary user. Some of them are ‘easier’, until that nice device of yours does not work out-of-the-box. Then googling and hell begins for a newbie.
And now you’ll tell me lack of drivers it’s not exactly Linux fault. You may be right, but the point is there’ll be no good support until we can all agree on what ‘Linux Desktop’ is. My point of view is similar to that of autopackage’s guys, but I think the concept it’s useful beyond software installation.
http://www.autopackage.org/faq.html#5_1
You can also read here why Linux is not a good desktop platform, I agree 100% with that although I’m not an OS X lover:
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/conclusion.html
Finally… of course, 5% was by all means a guesstimation. But, if you look around… I don’t know a single Linux home user who is not a geek. Not one. To me, after all these years, it tells me something is very wrong with Linux desktop, and Gnome/KDE is not the problem.
And now you’ll tell me lack of drivers it’s not exactly Linux fault. You may be right, but the point is there’ll be no good support until we can all agree on what ‘Linux Desktop’ is. My point of view is similar to that of autopackage’s guys, but I think the concept it’s useful beyond software installation.
Look for the message “ready for the desktop, little test”. Good review of OSX, Windows XP, and Linux.
I think it is a better answer to your POV than anything I could whip up in a few minutes.
Finally… of course, 5% was by all means a guesstimation. But, if you look around… I don’t know a single Linux home user who is not a geek. Not one. To me, after all these years, it tells me something is very wrong with Linux desktop, and Gnome/KDE is not the problem.
OK, here’s my POV using two real people; Joe and Mike. (I could give you a more detailed answers, though these are fairly representitive of what I’m seeing.)
My housemate Joe, the bartender. Has used Linux — Fedora Core 4 currently — for the last year. He surfs the web, watches porn, listens to music. He’s vv happy.
At any point, Joe could switch back to Windows by selecting it at boot time but he chooses not to; the Windows drive has not been touched in the last year (I checked file dates).
I did a minimum to set up his computer, I answer regular computer user questions, he updates his computer — *ALL PROGRAMS AT ONCE* — by himself. If I’m there to answer questions, I check for upgrades and do them for him.
OTOH: My housemate Mike, a medical research assistant, asked me to help him with his XP system that was taken over by a spam bot. He first asked me if he also could run Linux…and I said ‘let’s stay with XP…we’ll put Linux on if it fails again’.
Reinstalled XP, added SP2 and a couple extra patches, put on Firefox (current), and let him go. 2 weeks later, he gets a prompt to update XP, and he does. Network card stops functioning.
Long story short, and quite to my amazement, ended up wiping out XP again and reinstalling XP+SP2+extra patches and Firefox. Told him ‘do not update unless you hear from me that you have to’. That was the last time we will install XP … if his system breaks again, he’ll swith to Linux too.
So, it’s not as clear cut as ‘Linux is not ready for desktop use’.
If you want to make things difficult, you can indeed make them amazingly difficult using Linux. The same can be said for the operating systems mentioned — if you want it to be difficult.
“I don’t know a single Linux home user who is not a geek. Not one. To me, after all these years, it tells me something is very wrong with Linux desktop, and Gnome/KDE is not the problem.”
It tells me that these geeks can think for themselves. Something is very wrong, you’re right, but it’s not with the Linux desktop, it’s with the PEOPLE WHO ARE SHEEP:
They want their computer to work like a toaster
They want everything to work with a remote control or mouse
They don’t want to think, but when they have to, they squeal to the geeks for help
The ‘geeks’ aren’t satisfied with a closed source piece of shit shoved down their throats, they can think for themselves. It’s the geeks who are helping the sheeple, one by one, see the benefits and real strength of Linux.
Dear I’m tired, evidently you have not used Linux lately. As far as we are concerned around here, Linux is popular on the desktop. Three years ago it was hard to burn a data, music, or DVD on Linux and you could never be sure K3B, or whatever, would work. Now it’s easier to burn a cd/dvd on Linux than it is on Windows. It is really a surprise if burning cds/DVDs doesn’t work. Usb devices just work as well as printers etc. Just plug em in and Viola, they just work. Just about everything about Linux has changed.
It is true that no one Operating System can do everything. Sooooooo, we use Win4Lin and Windows 98 to do things that no software in Linux will do, which is about 10%. Things like QuickBooks and some insurance programs which will only work with Windows. In other words, Linux has become the secure base and Windows just another application on our desktop. No more spyware, trojans, etc. So I guess it depends on your perspective.
You owe it to yourself to try Linux. I would suggest Xandros Business for your business and Deluxe for everyday computing.
There are many reason to move to Linux, for those who are able to. If you have a need for specialized Windows programs like Premiere, or medical shops who use billing, prescription and imaging packages, then your workplace may have no practical choice.
For those in the home, the reasons to move to Linux are as compelling now as they would be when Vista comes out. It can be as simple as not wanting to have to register with Microsoft when you first turn your new PC on, with their assumed guilt until proven innocent…no thanks, I will take my Fedora Core. Many home users could do just as well on Linux as in Windows if they just gave it a shot, and this has nothing to do with Vista. The average user of Windows probably cannot even tell you what Vista will for them-they will use it because it comes pre-installed with it. IF their machine was pre-installed with say, an HP or Dell modified Fedora or Suse, I wonder how many would then go buy a full price version of Windows Vista.
How can you do proper security when your bloody users insist on running Windows under Administrator priveledges (cause it’s easier).
Fuck em I say. I try to support these people but if they insistantly try to get around what I’m doing for them then they are on their own. I am sick of user laziness. I hope MS locks Vista down hard so these Morons realise there is more than just a few “paranoid” admins out there who try to take security seriously.
This comming from a firm that is supposedly meant to supply “highly secure deposit boxes”. Good luck to them I say.
When XP was first released, virtually no one bought it (no one being relative to MS potential customer base, that is). I remember the news articles that outlined the disappointing sales of retail packs, and MS clouding the issue by claiming new hardware sales were being driven by XP being pre-installed. Right. The average consumer is a sheep, and will generally take whatever OS is pre-installed. Companies, however, are different and in fact, my own company was installing Win2K overtop of pre-installed XP systems (only MS could hold the market sway that would earn them revenue for two licenses on a new computer). It will be the same for Vista, adoption will be driven by new system purchases and the inevitable support bullet that will be pointed at companies using XP. A very small minority (again, small being relative to potential) will upgrade to be on the cutting edge.
Linux will not succeed as a consumer desktop until it can come pre-loaded. And it will not come pre-loaded until one of the majors has the cajones to stare Microsoft down and offer it as an alternative to Windows. And that is already happening outside of North America. Particularly in China, a market that has the potential to single-handedly hold much more sway over the IT industry than NA and Europe do, where major manufacturers like HP and Levono DO offer linux as a pre-installed option. So Linux will eventually make it’s way onto desktops. Sometime, but not too soon.
Linux as a desktop will find it’s greatest success initially as a corporate desktop. It can be easily deployed and easily managed with the *proper* infrastructure. It is easy enough to use for the average worked that simply needs email and office-type apps. Companies will hit a point where they start questioning the value in purchasing new desktops and applications for basic operations, which has frankly become commoditized at this point.
Even more so when they start rolling thin client applications. My own office just went thin, all of our apps are now running over citrix from remote servers, which coincidentally allows my linux laptop to function perfectly within our infrastructure now. Citrix apps look and operate the same on linux as they do on Windows. I had previously used it with OpenOffice and samba connections to server shares, but now I’ve also got access to my Notes client and our ERP app. Yet everyone in our office is running 3Ghz HP desktops with 512MB of memory and XP. For thin client. Why? Because that is our standard corporate desktop, but at some point the beancounters are going to keep looking for cost savings and they’ll start asking questions. Then things will change.
Do I expect a revolution? No. Do I expect Microsoft to bite the dust? No. Do I expect Linux to be installed and running everywhere? No. Actually, maybe yes, eventually in some form, but that’s a different argument.
Linux has the potential to succeed, we just need to be realistic with our expectations and not expect it to happen overnight. This is not the year of Linux on the Desktops. This is just yet another year of small but steady gains for Linux on the desktop.
Monad should be in beta two or RC0 of Vista.
The only thing that was taken out of Vista (longhorn) was the WINFS file system and that is only because it’s going to be in BETA when Vista is available to the public via shrink wrapped box.
WinFS is going to be added back in, but they didn’t want to delay Vista and thus took it out to be put in later as a service pack, big friggin deal.
The hardware requirments are not that high either.
It seems someone is hoping a huge move to linux is possible and is trying to make up as much FUD as possible to try to make that happen.
The bad news is I am not their bitch.
quote from Salvatore Cangeloso’s article…
“After all, this update to Windows XP is going to focus on two attributes which have pushed users to Linux for years- security and stability.”
This single quote shows how ignorant Salvatore Cangeloso is and how OSnews.com continues to promote FUD!
Windows has no security model. It never has!
Learn your history surrounding UNIX and Windows and get the real facts!
Otherwise you have no business running a website discussing such topics or allowing such individuals to post such articles. It only encourages mis-truths and hype surrounding real world issues!
OSnews.com’s internet presence is not a gift it’s a responsibility!
stop being part of the problem!
For the avarage user the statement ready for the desktop would mean. I can use this OS for doing my daily things.
Like:
– Internet & Email, Instant Messaging
– Music (Itunes, Ipod, Mp3 etc)
– Photos (like: digital camera etc.)
– Writing letters
– play games
I have several Gnu/Linux distributions and 2 MAcOSX machines at my office. I lent a Windows XP machine from a colleauge and we conducted a small test with the 5 point above in our head. This is not a troughout preformed test and you may not agree with the finding but we just installed the OS, connected several devices to it and…
I used: Linux (Linspire 5), MacOSX Tiger (with updates until 25-08-2005), Windows XP with Service pack 2 installed.
sidenote: Software install is as easy as it comes with CNR. Click and install, its sorted by category, name etc. Very Usefull! I wonder why nobody yet copied this but i suspect this feature will come into Vista, click , buy and install software.
Internet:
Linux: You can choose from several browsers in CNR
but the instaled browsers are Mozilla (Linspire Internet Suite) and Konqueror. Both are very god browsers but Mozilla is kind of slow starting up so some users would double-click the button about 10 times…
Windows: Internet Explorer, fires up quick and workes with every website on the planet. USers are very know with is. Its fairly stable and preforms nice.
MacOSX: Safari is the default browser with uses the KHTML engine (same as konqueror) its blazing fast, renders mostly good (sometimes websites do not work very well and we wonderd why pop-up block was not
checked initial, unil we saw the apple website uses popups sometimes
Instant Messaging:
Linux: Gaim is installed but in CNR you will find: aMSN, Kopete, Gizmo and Skype.
Instant messaging under LInux lets you use ALL protocols like: AOL,Yahoo,MSN, ICQ
Windows: Only thing i could find was MSN messenger, i did not support, ICQ, AOL, or Yahoo…we needed to install other IMs to use other protocols.
OSX: was somewhat confusing for several users in my office, mac menus (while i love them) appear above and mostly people did not notice them or treid to right click everything
, They(we) could not find any IM, We needed to install and external application, we found several on the apple website, installed Yahoo and MSN.
Music/mp3:
Linux: Xmms is a very good Winamp (clone)?? and can even use winamp (classic skins), users could instantly work with xmms. Linpsire also has Lsong installed by default, its best to see it as an Itunes clone, workes
very good but its interface is somewhat clutterd, unfinished. I showed them Amarok 1.3 (installed by CNR)
and all the reactions where woaw, great etc.
Most people where very to speak about; photo/album preview, getting songtexts, and organizing stuff in Amarok. It is the best player i know. In Lsongs the Ipod does not work.
Windows: XP had Windows Media player 10 installed, the interface is somewhat clutterd but the players is nice, preforms good and seems to have all things needed to listen to cd or wma/mp3. Some users prefered Winamp so we downloaded it.Ipod did not work. We could download Itunes however.
MacOSX: iTunes is installed by default and it works good and has some very nices feautures like Lsong, like directly burn your cds from within Lsongs. We could download several other music players. Ipod worked flawless.
Photo/Video:
Linux: I fired up Lphoto and I plugged in my Samsung Digimax V700. Lphoto would reconize my camera and began importing photos from the camera. Nice interface very easy to use, we could directly edit and organize the pictures, and most important i did not had the need for drivers, software whatsoever it used worked!
Windows: After we connected the Samsung, Windows Xp began to trow little messages on the screen (usb storage found etc.), we where then asked several questions/options to do after we pluggin the camera, we choose open folder(or something like that) and we where presented with photos on our camera, we could only see them no edit!
MacOSX: iPhoto did reconize our samsung camera diectly (i suspect it did not actually reconize it but transfered the phptos from the usb strorage, but never the less it worked flawless. We could edit and organize are photos from whitin iPhoto.
Writing Letters:
Linux: Be default OpenOffice 1.3 is installed, its a complete office suite with reads,writes, excel, word, and powerpoint files. Its kinda slow to startup but all users could instantly work with it.
Windows: No office suit.
Mac OSX: No office suite
Playing games:
Linux: Several games where installed by default but for the hardcore gamers you needed to use CNR. We installed, Wolfstein 3D, Unreal Tournament 2004 demo, Americas Army, Postal 2 demo, Supertux, Tuxracer delux, tuxkart etc., battle dor Wesnot, Possible Worlds, Marathon Infinity, Chromium, Frozen Bubble (Monkey Island). etc. all for free, one click, wait, play.
Windows: Be default pinball and some card games, rest of the world games known to mankind run on Windows.
Best gamers platform out there.
MacOSX: Chess and was all we could find…oh wait somewhat hidden we found a very nice looking 3D games , you control a dinosaur bird that woulld fly trough dinousaurs, a shoot game. Nice game but why so hidden?
MacOSX get somewhat supported by the gaming industry but i think Linux is after Windows the no.2 gaming desktop OS. I checked the apple website and found some more nice games, not free like Myst and free like Flightgear.
As you can read in this test Linux was very ready for the desktop, so was windows and so was macosx.
Linux lacks some third party drivers but so does MacOSX, we could not get our Logitech LX700 keyboard/mouse the word prob. under MacOSX and the Logitech Control center for MACOSX (downloaded seperatly, did not ven reconize it??!?), Windows has the advantage it get supported by the industry but besides that it lacks a lot of features and possbilities Linux and MacOSX have, and has a lot of feautures happly Linux and MacOSX do not have like; viruses, spyware, stability problems…
I would say MacOSX is the best from both world but for some reason i keep getting back to Linux.
I used: Linux (Linspire 5), MacOSX Tiger (with updates until 25-08-2005), Windows XP with Service pack 2 installed. …
Linux lacks some third party drivers but so does MacOSX, we could not get our Logitech LX700 keyboard/mouse the word prob. under MacOSX and the Logitech Control center for MACOSX (downloaded seperatly, did not ven reconize it??!?), Windows has the advantage it get supported by the industry but besides that it lacks a lot of features and possbilities Linux and MacOSX have, and has a lot of feautures happly Linux and MacOSX do not have like; viruses, spyware, stability problems…
Good review! Thanks!
I would say MacOSX is the best from both world but for some reason i keep getting back to Linux.
Very true,Linux is going strong and gets better by the day.
I would like to add;
wathing (cable)TV/listening to (cable)radio:
tvtime,kdetv,kradio,gnomeradio,etc
Listening to internet radio:
Streamtuner,Streamripper (i-tunes? what’s that,-:)
Burning whatever to cdr(W)/dvdr(+/-)(W):
k3b
Do i have to hear this every year! But this time it’s some totally unknown XYZ Computing(never heard it before this)site which seems to Linux fan, so nothing new.
And the article arguments are just crappy. Most of people don’t change operating systems to some old machine because they think it’s slow, they buy new machine.
If you look what Vista needs and see what most common computer in sale are you won’t have any problems running Vista on those. And this is over year before Vista gonna come out!
I hate when Linux fans use this kind a crap to argue there point, Linux isn’t so light either. So lets face the fact that we have every year better machines and taking all out of those powers is important.
Companies renew there computers every 4-5 years so playing the old hardware card just tells me that theses guys don’t know anything about business or consumer markets.
And in the end it’s not the OS that takes all juice out of machine but software, mostly games. But these days home videos and other new stuff need more and more power of your machine too, so you don’t have much choise than buy new computer.
I think Microsoft made a big mistake by dropping the WinFS filesystem from Vista, as that is one feature that fulfils a need of modern computer users and would be hard for the Linux community to duplicate. From what I’ve seen of Vista so far, it doesn’t offer much (if anything) more than Linux with Enlightenment – now there’s a desktop to win people over.
As for Windows users being sheep, what do you expect people to do when they’ve never encountered a computer before and want to buy one? Immediately buy a set of Gentoo CDs and a set of textbooks? No, they’re going to go along with whatever their friends and family are using and what they can get easy support from their dealer for. I’m a Linux user with a lot of family members using Windows, and accept that for them it was a logical choice.
Been hearing this “desktop linux” nonsense for years now. Come on guys, let’s cut the crap already…it hasn’t happened. The day when my 50 year old dad (who has been using computers and programming for almost 20 years) can pop in the cd, install the OS, and start using the net without opening up a console and using hacked up ndiswrappers just to get his network cards working, THAT’s the day linux will have succeeded…
Been hearing this “desktop linux” nonsense for years now. Come on guys, let’s cut the crap already…it hasn’t happened. The day when my 50 year old dad (who has been using computers and programming for almost 20 years) can pop in the cd, install the OS, and start using the net without opening up a console and using hacked up ndiswrappers just to get his network cards working, THAT’s the day linux will have succeeded…
Did your 50 year old dad install Windows? (Not from restore CDs, retail package, with hardware CDs as needed.)
Have you installed Linux over the last couple years? (Your comments on ndiswrappers tells me ‘not FN likely’.)
He can. Try buying a supported wireless card… Windows certainly won’t be desktop ready until it can update the firmware on Mac graphics cards and find the driver automagically! Obviously, that’s not true, but then again neither is all this raving about how my “cheap hardware QZA” doesn’t work and so I didn’t even bother telling the company that I wanted a Linux driver I just go onto forums and rant about how Linux doesn’t support all the hardware and that makes it bad!
Is it too much to expect someone to have enough knowledge to shop around a little before they buy things? There are probably 400 forums on the net filled with “nice” people ready to help you find the places to look for compatible hardware. There’s probably 100 irc channels you can go to and ask for help getting your incompatible card you shouldn’t have bought working. Why don’t you try thanking the nice folks who made ndiswrapper for you even having a chance at using the hardware, because the company shipping it doesn’t care enough about you to hire one stinking guy to port drivers to Linux! Probably because people like you don’t bother to tell them you want one..
“Is it too much to expect someone to have enough knowledge to shop around a little before they buy things?”
The majority of people? Yes.
The ‘cow people’ or ‘sheep people’ as some like to call them are too busy sitting on their arse and holding their mouth open, broadcasting their ego soaked stupidity, waving their heads back and forth like a hungry baby bird , and just like a baby bird they want all the goodies with zero effort.
Honestly, all this Linux vs. Windows flame wars amount to very little. You do know that a powerful company who is protecting their products can easily, if they wanted to, pay people to spread disinformation, right? This has already been discovered time and time again, so a lot of the time these people defending a crappy product will just be doing their low paying job. Why bother with them?
The real thing to do is push Linux to the world peacefully and not engage these trolls.
Well that’s not as much fun!
I don’t think that the developers have the right mindset for linux to succeed on the desktop. All tech, no ease (relatively speaking)…
Once again, someone who hasn’t been paying much attention lately…
I find it ironic that we are still having this childish “My-rocks-are-better-than-your-rocks” argument. This is another example of the real v. ideal.
The ideal would to be living in perfection and having a perfect operating system. The reality is taht there is no such thing. Maybe some near absolutes but no perfection.
As a long-time Windows system administrator, I have not felt comfortable with Windows until XP SP2. Seriously. The patching has gotten much better.
I have applied my *nix/Linux knowledge to setting up Windows systems and they are solid and stable. If anything, I have used skills learned on *nix/Linux to uncover the deeper problem with Windows systems – cracking attempts. I think worms like Zotab are just a smoke screen for unpublished vulnerabilities.
As-far-as Windows wooing Linux users, I doubt Vista will have much of an effect on this. People generally stay with what they are comfortable with. My job as a systems administrator and small computer business owner is to support and repair their needs.
I have applied my *nix/Linux knowledge to setting up Windows systems and they are solid and stable. If anything, I have used skills learned on *nix/Linux to uncover the deeper problem with Windows systems – cracking attempts. I think worms like Zotab are just a smoke screen for unpublished vulnerabilities.
Good comments. This one I totally agree with.
“The ideal would to be living in perfection and having a perfect operating system. The reality is taht there is no such thing”
But there are spell checkers to enable perfect spelling.
“As a long-time Windows system administrator, I have not felt comfortable with Windows until XP SP2. Seriously. The patching has gotten much better.”
How long did it take to find and patch remote exploit takeover issues? Several of these problems existed and weren’t patched (and/or discovered) for a LONG time. Remember, folks, a BACKDOOR is only a remote exploit if someone discovers it. The patching has gotten much better? How do you know? Can you view the source code of every patch they release? Why not?
You can say you’re a sysadmin as much as you want and it may wow a few readers but it doesn’t wow me. Apes and monkeys can be ‘dows sysadmins, it’s not a challenge at all.
“People generally stay with what they are comfortable with”
It won’t matter what V1sT4 is like AT ALL, what matters is the power of the NAME and how well the general public knows about it. It could be called BrokenPieceofShitOS and if the majority of sheep have heard of it and use it, it would be the most used, even if it was a horrible, slapped together, closed source OS. Go figure.
At the end of the day, the sheep get what they want, more stupid, broken shit.
“I have applied my *nix/Linux knowledge to setting up Windows systems and they are solid and stable”
If you had any *nix knowledge you’d know that it’s impossible to make ‘solid’ something which has a form you have no direct control over (the source code). All anyone can really do is tinker a bit and HOPE they have done something better but in reality more REMOTE EXPLOITS with COMPLETE TAKEOVER POWER continue to be discovered all the time.
But that’s ok, because saying you’re a sysadmin makes it all ok, and it gets the chicks.
Do the sheeple dance
Troll! This windows sysadmin was just expressing his particular opinion on the windows and Linux worlds. your response to him shows your underlying attitude: you don’t really want Linux to succeed on the desktop because if you did, you wouldn’t be talking down to ignorant people in this manor. If you want to convince more people to move to Linux, teach them about it. Guide them along with a ferm but yet gental hand, so that they may learn about Linux with a helping hand to guide them along. Don’t act like the Saddam of the Linux world hoping to impose your will on all flesh within your reach.
Yep. I can be properly called a Windows system administrator. I work on a campus that has for the longest been a Windows-only campus. Until recently. The Banner and Oracle systems changed that. Funny thing. I am a hard-core Linux user and open source advocate. I use it at home and in my small business. I also have the campus’ only Linux server running on an isolated adult basic education testing network.
I understand Mr. Anonymous but believe his anger may be a little displaced. It is ‘because’ of my Linux skills that my Windows skills are better than all the other IT staff. In time they may catch up but that may take a while.
Yes. I also miss-spell. Part of being human and using computers.
So lets do cut through it, I dont know ANY other OS that lets the average job download hundreds of packages of software in a few click! Windows dont.
Having to run a virus, spyware and firewall to fend off such problems is not the OS average joe wants. Windows falls on it’s arse because of these facts which no one can deny, Linux simply doesn’t have this problem. 2 members of my familty run without a firewall in Linux and have had no stability or worm, virus ect.. at all.
Next time you people claim Linux isn’t desktop worthy, look around you and see what people have been saying for years. Also look in your Windows task bar at whats protecting you and remember, Linux dont need this even though millions are using it on there desktop.
Having to run a virus, spyware and firewall to fend off such problems is not the OS average joe wants. Windows falls on it’s arse because of these facts which no one can deny, Linux simply doesn’t have this problem.
True. That’s not what average Joe wants. But as long as they can get all their hardware and apps easily working, that will not push them to Linux. Come on, people… Linux needs to be not equal, but much better in order for them to switch.
Rememmber windows 95? Shitty os, but it had hardware compatibilty, apps, and support. That’s why it won. Many people still don’t get this simple fact.
It’s the A/V that gets me… I’m not sure how the free ones are, but McAfee is a resource whore. I haven’t used Norton in a long time either. I get McAfee for free, otherwise I’d never pay for signature updates (unless they brought it down to more like $10 a year, maybe).
I think I’d rather just run without it and do reinstalls every 6-12 months when I get some off virus by somehow..
If Linux can eliminate the cons which makes people use Windows in some scenarios you’re going to see Windows waving goodbye to the server world.
As far as the server is concerned just that is allready happening.Linux is perfectly suitable as a server.And most of the times you even don’t have to make compromises especially security wise.In the financial world many switched to Linux and bro’s instead of spending a lot of money on reviewing the code in conjunct with the milennium problem.Till now many in the financial world run on Linux or are migrating to Linux.
The desktop is a different breed.For me personnaly MS has absolutely nothing to offer.That doesn’t mean my choice to use Linux is a valid one for others.It has to be seen from case to case.A lot of people have invested in MS products or are simply not aware of alternatives and pretty happy with what they currently run.
MS doesn’t really have a sence of security especially with desktop products,so they have to improve a lot of cons as well.
Linux is going stronger day by day and working towards more usabillity and ergonomy for a even broader range of users.For a lot of people myself included Linux can fullfill in any need possible though.
And i thank the OSS world who has made what Linux amongst other OS’S is today.
to make people switch to linux you would have to enable a direct to brain interface.. my wife just blew an install of software on my mac.. if she cant do it there(of course..permissions:P) she would never get her done on linux.. hell most people are too stupid to even run M$ products..they just do it because they are ignorant and too lazy to learn/use an alternative. Unfortunately i think loonix will continue to be used in 3rd world countries(like compton) academia and among the geek cognoscenti.
(Written from Ubuntu 5.04 hoary running e17)
Is it too much to expect someone to have enough knowledge to shop around a little before they buy things?
That’s very sane.I’m afraid most people aren’t on the same wavelength.At a certain point Linux can’t be made anymore comfortable without sacrifycing it’s known security and stability framework.Linux is a surgical tool for the net right out of the box.Though you can cloak the powertools and CLI as much as you want,still any user can very easy screw up the system beyond his/her abillities to reapair.
So my take is the target audience is getting bigger but i think it has it’s limits so Linux doesn’t loose to much from the root identity.
>2 weeks later, he gets a prompt to update XP, and he does. Network card stops functioning.
>Long story short, and quite to my amazement, ended up wiping out XP again and reinstalling XP+SP2+extra patches and Firefox.
You must have applied your Linux skills to fixing Windows problem.
In Windows, System Restore will roll back changes with the click of the button.
Linux will be ready for desktop when this industry standard functionality is present in it.
average joe doesn’t want to waste time to learn Linux because average joe is forced to deal with viruses , trojans, worms and stuff once in 3 months so they know how to DEAL with them eventually, and they will stick with Windows because it is what they have used for years.
So quit flaming/boasting/keep threading about how good Linux is, how sucks Windows is. Pointless.
By the way, average Joe eventually learns more from using Windows due to hard time that it causes such as viruses. They will eventually read advisories from Windows, they will eventually use Google or Wiki to learn more about viruses, trojans, worms and other stuffs.
Because they depend on their Windows machine and they do not see any reason why they should change to Linux because viruses, trojans, worms and other BORING stuff that Linux fanboy keep mentioning are just in their daily agenda and they come to accept it and live with it, they learn how to backup their data, how to create a partition to separate data with C:Windows folder.
Back in 2000, my first Linux experience was Mandrake 7.0 and Redhat 6.0. Redhat font SUCKS so bad that I decided not to use it. Mandrake 7.0 runs OK just that the web browser keeps crashing sometime, well it’s true, no Blue Screen of Death, but it crashed. So that was my experience with Linux, just like these Linux pro that has used Linux for 7-10 years because their FIRST encounter with Windows was a BLOW. Now I rarely use Linux except at my university only if the Windows Lab is full. I do have Fedora Core 4 installed somewhere just to learn a little thing about Linux, but I still feel more comfortable with using FreeBSD as an alternative rather than linux. MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE.
Linux people can only yell that windows is not stable, windows is this, that yadda yadda, well apparently you guys have been using Linux for the past 7 to 10 years (according to your usual and boring testimonial). The only Windows that you used probably was Windows 95 and 98 , and the experience you got was bad.
I agree that 95/98 was bad, just an OS on top of DOS with GUI and stuff. But since you have not used Windows 2003, and FOR SURE have not used Vista please quit flaming.
(This only targetted the audience that uses Linux for 7-10 years with less to none Windows usage and those fanboy who jumped to Linux bandwagon because they want to show off/trying to look l33t/trying to look different with eyecandy themes that KDE/Gnome offers yadda yadda)
If you want Linux to be in the desktop in every house, starting yelling at DELL/Compaq/HP and other pre-built PC companies to ship Linux with it. Nobody will move to Linux if you only flame, yell, scream, and spread stuff over the net. Well maybe only 1% of the world’s population.
I’m using win2k3, haven’t had any crash, haven’t had any trojan/virus/worm or other shit. I use Norton anti virus, they sell it here in canada for 49 bucks, not a bad price. It keeps the economic wheel moving as well, creating oportunity for Computer Science student a field for them to work and get some money.
So what if these linuxes have repositories ? doesn’t mean jackshit for me, most likely the software you need will be asked whether you want to install it or not via Installer the first time you install <_DISTRO_> Linux.
Eventually you will have to search for other things, esp new things that just come into the Linux community.
So what if I have to go to http://www.mirabilis.com to download ICQ ? it’s not a sweat. We have a browser, we can go there, check some new things, check their websites, surf here and there, learn what their community offers. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not a sweat either.
We have http://www.download.com, we might come across other applications (during searching) that we might feel interested.
First time I used Ubuntu and launch apptitude it was like, what the heck is this console traditional boring, uncomfortable to be used stuff. (ncurses never really suprised me)
“average joe [..] deal with viruses [..]”
Gee, I wonder why? Look to the closed source OS for the reason.
“DEAL with them eventually”
They will never learn how to deal with them because new methods of malware are coming out and changing by the day.
“Windows because it is what they have used for years.”
Cow-people speak
“quit flaming”
Why not take your own advice?
“average Joe eventually learns more from using Windows due to hard time that it causes such as viruses.”
False: IMO they’re stuck in quicksand, perpetuating the same errors if they continue to use any product which is vulnerable to such issues.
“They will eventually read advisories from Windows, [..] Google or Wiki to learn more about viruses, trojans, worms and other stuffs.”
Or they could use Windows offline, disconnected from the internet, and dual boot with Linux and use Linux on-line only, thus saving themselves from reading about viruses, trojans, worms, and “other stuffs” LOL They can actually be productive with their time and forget about the increasing amount of Win related security issues.
“they depend on their Windows machine [..] do not see any reason why they should change to Linux”
Only because Linux isn’t well known enough, they may know the name ‘Mac’ but not ‘Linux’. If you haven’t heard about something enough or at all, how can you begin to compare to form an opinion?
“because viruses, trojans, worms [..] are just in their daily agenda and they come to accept it and live with it [..]”
Accepting and living with viruses and trojans and increasing numbers of security vulnerabilities is not something I’d want to do. You can backpeddle in the water and always be looking for and avoiding the sharks or you can travel in a vessel which is immune to shark attacks and giggle at those who continue to swim in the water and always be on the lookout with a spear in hand. Some people learn to deal with bullies, other people come up with solutions and think for themselves.
“my experience with Linux”
What you mentioned didn’t sound like much of an experience to write about at all. OMG BAD FONTS LOL Jesus, man, come up with something original at least if you enjoy writing fiction.
“used Linux for 7-10 years because their FIRST encounter with Windows was a BLOW.”
Actually a good number of Linux users had used Windows in various incarnations, in businesses, at home, etc. so please don’t begin to claim knowledge of Linux users and their experience with Windows. The majority of Linux users I’ve met used DOS and other operating systems prior to Microsoft’s creation.
“but I still feel more comfortable with using FreeBSD as an alternative rather than linux. MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE.”
Folks, do you know WHY people are saying MacOS or FreeBSD instead of Windows? It’s because the competition to Linux WANTS you to think MacOS or FreeBSD. Why? Because MacOS already has the world’s attention, and when/if it goes to x86, M$ could still profit from selling their programs through MacOS on x86. FreeBSD isn’t as well known to the mass public as Linux, so there’s no threat in telling people to go to FreeBSD. That’s the truth
“Linux people can only yell that windows is not stable, windows is this, that yadda yadda, well apparently you guys have been using Linux for the past 7 to 10 years”
So you would have us compare Windows XP to an early version of Red Hat? What are you smoking?
“only Windows that you used probably was Windows 95 and 98”
How much are you being paid to write this junk? You have no clue, check out any Linux discussion forum not part of a psyop M$ venture and ask any of the real Linux users how much experience they’ve had with Windows products.
“But since you have not used Windows 2003, [..] Vista”
You’ve never used Duke Nukem Forever, so please don’t flame about any game that came before, lol omg wtf.
“l33t”
They don’t need to look like a scr1pt k1tty, but I guess that might be important to you?
“I’m using win2k3, haven’t had any crash, haven’t had any trojan/virus/worm or other shit.”
Can you see the source code to all the programs you use, including your OS to make sure there is no trojaned code and backdoors? Of course not, so your point is nulled. How can we see that you haven’t had any crash, or malware aside from the closed source issue, are we there every day as you run your machine? Of course not, and one person’s experiences doesn’t even make up a 1% figure.
“I use Norton anti virus, [..] for 49 bucks, not a bad price”
IMO Any price over free is too much for an anti-virus. If you have to PAY to obtain closed source to protect closed source, you’re putting lipstick on a pig. How can you be sure the closed source you add doesn’t have malware in it? (regardless of program, company, etc.) You can’t! You have to TRUST a company or person and their word and/or reputation. GOOD LUCK! We’ve seen how far that’s gone in the history of companies with their closed source.
“It keeps the economic wheel moving as well, creating oportunity for Computer Science student a field for them to work and get some money.”
If someone were to breed rodents and let them loose in a big city every week, they would be giving exterminator companies business, as well as various companies who produce mouse traps, bait, etc. IMO paying for an antivirus product is condoning the problem, NOT solving it. Remove the source of the problem: CLOSED SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEM and you remove the present day virus problems. I don’t NEED to buy an anti-virus, anti-trojan, anti-spyware, anti-adware, firewall, anti-this, anti-that for my Linux box.
“So what if these linuxes have repositories ? doesn’t mean jackshit for me”
Because you use Windows, right? So how are you going to use Linux repositories with Windows?
“most likely the software you need will be asked whether you want to install it or not via Installer the first time you install”
Wrong, and this doesn’t include updates, either. Compare repositories Debian has and the simple Synaptic program to using Windows update. IMO Windows Update is a JOKE compared to Debian+repositories+Synaptic.
“So what if I have to go to [..]com to download”
The point is, with repositories you don’t HAVE to open a web browser to download/update, everything you want it right there, within a nice little listing with powerful filters and customization features like Synaptic has. If we want, we can browse Linux related sites and download programs too, just like you mention for Windows, except Windows has NOTHING comparable to repositories like Debian, and it doesn’t have an easy all-in-one tool like Synaptic.
“download.com”
Linux has http://www.sourceforge.net and http://www.freshmeat.net among many others, each of which IMO blows poor download dot com away.
“First time I used Ubuntu and launch apptitude it was like, what the heck is this console traditional boring, uncomfortable to be used stuff.”
Never used Synaptic, eh? Shame. “console traditional boring uncomfortable” Interesting because traditional is right, it’s a tradition for powerful OS like Linux/Unix to come with and use console programs. Now I know it’s difficult to have to use a keyboard and a brain for many, they’d rather just mindlessly move their little happy over priced M$ mouse on the funny happy flash animation pop the monkey sort of thing, I know it must’ve been so hard for you. LOL! What a crock.
Next week maybe you can try and compare BeOS to Windows Vista and we’ll all share a laugh, pick our noses, and dismiss your post as just another aftershock in the Beavis And Butthead culture of today.
most of my illiterate techie friends did learn how to deal with viruses. Now they know more than they were before. They know how to backup their registers, they know how to create a backup image, they know how to protect their windows better, the point is that they have become aware, yet before they were illiterate techie.
of course they want to save their data w/o reformatting Windows, so forget that stupid stuck in sand stuff, maybe your grandma stuck in it, but not my parents nor my friends.
for disconnecting windows ?? LOL, they could also double click SSH, and other shit, and misconfigured it, then got hacked by some script kiddies downloading exploits, thank you.
I’m not telling people to switch to FreeBSD, but I’m saying that it’s all based on your feel to which OS you think is more comfortable, apparently 80% or more computers are using Windows because people feel comfortable using it, and apparently I feel comfortable using FreeBSD because to me it is easier to work with, nice directory structure, nice port utility.
I haven’t feel bugged by this nonsense closed-source, so do many people in the world, maybe you’re just being too paranoid ? do you read every software you want to install entirely ? do you read the source code of OpenSSH ? do you read the source code of Apache before you installed it ? do you read every patch, every updates and every new versions of these open source ? NO, it’s basically based on TRUST too.
Now synaptic, well, you see that most windows user can live with browsing and surfing on the Internet, what’s wrong with that ? just because Debian has synaptic so we have to move to Linux ? it’s nothing spectacular by the way.
So what if freshmeat and sourceforge exist ? my point is that there is download.com and A LOT of people accept it for whatever it is, another point why we DON’T have to move to Linux, plus when I browsed sourceforge, most of them are on Alpha, Beta, none of them are finished (I’m talking based on my experience, of course since you are highly more intelligent and superior to me, you can choose whatever you want to do with those applications, maybe read the code to make sure it is not trojanned ?)
by the way, I use freshmeat a lot to search for theme for my FreeBSD laptop, and to tell you the truth, I am dependent on it for themes but I still think the website sucks, I don’t like the design, I don’t like to navigate around it.
By the way, I used port in FreeBSD a lot, and geeez, it’s far better than aptitude.
what the fuck is everyone doing, responding to anonymous trolls.
I think you should know better than that.
to all the anonymous trolls around here… register and let us know who you are, of fuck off back to ./ wankers
The door is open right now but I do not see anyone beyond Apple stepping up to the plate.
Vista is going to change things alright, its going to put MS back in a position of having an OS that competes with everything else on the desktop and its going to usher in new hardware sales.
The time to take the marketshare is NOW, not after vista ships.