Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst questioned the relevance of Linux on the desktop, citing several financial and interoperability hurdles to business adoption at a panel on end-users and Linux last night at the OSBC.
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Member since:2007-04-30
Well, I may have stated this before... but as my father is a small town OEM in IA, he sells desktops and servers. 80% - 90% of the Ubuntu based. Ok I can hear the Iowa Jokes already... but the point is still valid. He has found that in that marked segment:
1, Boards with Nvidia work well on all aspects. If there is a problem a different board gets used... Just like with 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP... Vista never arrived. Customers have been happy.
2, Those who do not care about the big corporations making money have not found any problems using VLC and libd*vd. Those who care are content with LinDVD (same manufacturer as WinDVD) Customers have been happy.
3, Printer and scanners work flawlessly for is customers, by selecting and selling the right hardware. Customers have been happy.
4, I do not know so much about peripheral support... But the Meizu music player has been great, and the bundled software for converting video works great with wine (as suggested on the manufacturer’s web site). All, mice and keyboards have worked well... as have thumb drives and external had drives and USB wireless cards...
5, Photoshop CS2, and others run fine with Crossover.
On another note; in the extremely large home electronics dealer where I work there is a strong push for Linux and Virtualization.
Member since:2006-03-12
2) Inferior DVD and video support.
3) Less than ideal support for printers and horrid support for scanners.
4) Spotty support for peripherals.
5) No commercial professional applications like Photoshop, QuickBooks, Illustrator, etc.
I'm well quite frankly shocked, you must try a Modern Distribution again *since* 1994.
BTW have you looked at the article "commercial professional applications" will move online.
Member since:2005-07-06
You don't get it do you ?
Sites like these and others have 'shills' who do nothing more than spread 'FUD'
FUD means Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Most people around here do not fall for FUD from these shills.
BUT....
The other person was not spreading FUD, there are two parts to his/her argument, read the post again please.
Now: About the REAL shills...
There might be one or two less experienced people who have heard rumours of this system called Linux that their friends have tried and had no problem with, and these people come onto this site to find out more information. So, the shills, like the one you replied to, spout off a load of lies and try to put people off trying Linux. If one person decides to stick with Windows, then their job is done.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that anyone who has a problem with Linux and puts up a story is a shill, but, if you actually read some posts, you wonder if there really are people who are so unfortunate that ALL reported problems over ALL distros affect this ONE person.
Edited 2009-03-26 07:48 UTC
Member since:2005-07-05
Did you even bother to read what I said?
What does anything mentioning "will" have to do with desktop Linux today? Also, I highly doubt that I'm going to be uploading 300+ megabyte graphic files so I can work on them in Photoshop-online any time soon.
I don't know what you think I said (I'm not sure you even know what you said), but I've been using Linux since 1994 and I am very pleased with it. I haven't used Windows at home since 1994, and I haven't used Windows professionally for about five years, since I was hired to develop software on Linux.
Having said that. Linux is not the perfect desktop. It has flaws that keep many people from using it. If you're too big a fanboy to accept that, how to you expect to ever correct the issues?
Member since:
2005-07-05
I'm sure internal politics and, I don't know, patents and licensing fees have played a large role in what the modern Linux desktop is. However, that's a bit nebulous. Here are some of the reasons the Linux desktop fails for me:
1) Imperfect graphics drivers (artifacts with nVidia and just plain crap with ATI -- random hangs, poor compiz support, etc.)
2) Inferior DVD and video support.
3) Less than ideal support for printers and horrid support for scanners.
4) Spotty support for peripherals.
5) No commercial professional applications like Photoshop, QuickBooks, Illustrator, etc.
Yes it has. Since 1994, actually.
The response to this statement shouldn't be "Good for you" though. Instead try to understand exactly why Linux has worked so well for some of us.
Reasons would include:
1) High ability to automate and schedule tasks.
2) Thousands of quality software packages.
3) Excellent development tools.
4) Highly customizable.
5) Strong education potential.
6) Better distribution.
7) BASH
Neither list is comprehensive.
Edited 2009-03-25 19:59 UTC