Complaining about Windows Vista is a national past time on Internet forums these days. Windows Vista 'costs too much', 'has onerous product activation', 'requires too much hardware', etc. These complaints are often followed up by a very simple boast: 'I'm just going to switch to Linux'. But in today's landscape, how viable is that statment? Is the threat to switch to Linux an empty one, or is it entirely possible?"
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-04-21
many people on forums and boards will say they are switching to linux and giving up Windows completely forever but rarely does anyone do it.
Speak for yourself. The only computers I use Windows on are the ones I can't put Linux on. And the reasons I can't are responsibility-, not tech-, related. And so it has been for 8 years now.
Member since:2006-01-06
Member since:2006-03-12
Member since:2006-03-14
It is entirely possible to dump Windows.
I Dumped Windows 2 years ago. The only place I use Windows is at work where I have no choice - but I use open source apps wherever possible.
My main workstation is a Mac, my laptop Runs OpenSuse 10.2, and I have a server running Novell Open Enterprise Server (based on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server)
Thinking I would 'need' Windows, I even put boot camp on my Mac..LOL what a waste of space..I've never booted into Windoze since installing it and testing it.
Heck, after I started using open source applications: OpenOffice (and I write tech documentation for work - thousands of pages, so don't tell me OO doesn't work or isn't up to the task), FireFox, Operal, 7-Zip, Gaim, etc,etc,etc.. I found the OS irrelevant, so I switched to better OS's that I don't have to worry about viri, etc.
I have yet to find a reason to 'Need' Windows..just doesn't exist for me. If I want to play games, I fire up the game console, or run the Linux versions of the game or run them in Wine, if I must - but I find I rarley play games.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-12-30
I completely agree.
As a linux user I see that most people who show interest in Linux -and even say that they´re fed up and will abandon windows- just try one liveCD or two, then think it is slow, they do not find programs where they think they should be, find out that some browser plug-ins are missing, then try to watch a DVD, then...
These people fear change, they fear making a partition for dual-booting, they think they will spoil information on their HDs. In short: even well intentioned (towards linux)people have too many mental barriers to demolish. They just do not dare to change. That's the problem (imho). They have to cope with lots and lots and lots of problems with Windows, but cannot bear a small fail in linux.
And all the previous is about people who really want to make a try, most people do not. It is not a problem of software nor knowledge, it is a matter of following-or-not the herd.
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy."In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces."But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I hear this a lot, many people on forums and boards will say they are switching to linux and giving up Windows completely forever but rarely does anyone do it. I usually say sure you will, then 6 months down the road its "well I had to download patches for windows yesterday!". I thought you gave up windows 6 months ago? Even if it is possible to use strictly linux there is a lot of talk about switching but no action.
Edited 2007-03-07 18:43