"For years now, Linux has been a black sheep standing in the shadow of Apple and Microsoft. Despite having a fervent and enthusiastic following, the operating system hasn't been able to grab a sizable share of the computing market and has instead been content to subsist on the customers that come away dissatisfied with the mainstream competition. But that may be about to change. With the release of Microsoft Windows 8 on the horizon, some are saying Linux may have a great opportunity to steal a significant share of the market away from Microsoft, allowing it to finally take the helm as a major operating system service provider." This has to stop, and the only reason I'm linking to this nonsense is to make this very clear: Linux will not magically conquer the desktop or even make any significant gains because of Windows 8. People who don't like Windows 8 (Vista) will continue to use Windows 7 (Windows XP). This is getting so tiring. And does it even matter? Linux is winning big time in the mobile space, server space, and countless other spaces. The desktop is and always has been irrelevant to Linux.
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Member since:2006-01-27
Member since:2007-11-11
You really should, as its the first upgrade since Win2K to XP X64 where I can point to plenty of specific, concrete, useful improvements and say "That is worth upgrading for", which BTW I can't say about Win 8 because other than the boot "hack" (Look up Win 8 hybrid boot to see why its a hack) there really isn't much to like and metro is a big pile of suck on any large screen.
But comparing XP to 7 you have MUCH better memory management. With XP you can have 4Gb of RAM and still it'll hit the paging file rather than use the RAM, whereas 7 will take that RAM and load your most used programs in a cache, this means that even on my little netbook everything launches instantly thanks to RAM caching. You can actually go 64bit now without the driver hunts like I had to do with XP X64 and with RAM so cheap its a really nice boost to your speed to have that extra RAM.
Jumplists and breadcrumbs mean its incredibly simple to get back to where you were the day before, just right click on the Explorer icon to get your folders back from yesterday and right click on your browser to get your websites back, and with breadcrumbs you can instantly hop from any point you are at in the file system to root in a single click, or jump anywhere in between. I could easily list a half dozen more but those alone make it well worth the $80 upgrade price to HP IMHO, although I don't recommend pro unless you need AD support as you can get most of the same features with third party freeware and save the extra dough.
As for Linux...sigh. See my other post and read the links I provided. There are some serious issues with the fundamental way Linux is designed that is gonna have to be changed to make it ready for the masses, but like any large org trying to get everyone to change the way they do things is gonna be difficult and take years, if it ever changes. Linux was supposed to gain when Vista bombed, instead people went to XP, and in the case of 8 people will just stay with 7. In the end Linux is too much work for too little reward, especially when you can pick up a Win 7 family pack for $120, because at $30 a license all it takes is one PITA issue to make it more costly of my time than Windows costs my wallet.
Member since:2010-06-08
The real way to deal with it is to give MS serious legal beating for anticompetitive bundling. But so far they masterfully evaded such kind of outcome by escaping the equation. I.e. if refund is possible for the Windows tax - they aren't violating the law. And refund is delegated to OEMs who make it a nightmare to get. In the end MS comes out "clean" and Windows is still de facto bundled to computers all around.
So some successful cases against OEMs (like this one:
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414500/lenovo_ordered_pay_1920_... )
can decrease their eagerness to play MS's game and will benefit Linux over all.
Edited 2012-08-28 21:38 UTC
Member since:2006-01-06
So some successful cases against OEMs (like this one:
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414500/lenovo_ordered_pay_1920_... )
can decrease their eagerness to play MS's game and will benefit Linux over all.
Oh, please, give it a rest. OEMs have given up on selling Linux on the desktop. Nobody bought it. There is no "Windows tax" for 99.9999% of users. Only the fragment that want to install Linux.
Member since:2009-03-17
Member since:2007-09-22
I think HP still sells Linux to businesses ( they would sell them anything they ask for probably ?)
I hear Dell still do, if you look really hard.
Also Dell is working on a Laptop for developers:
http://bartongeorge.net/tag/project-sputnik/
Based on the http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-13-l321x/pd?~ck=mn&~ck=mn
Member since:2007-09-22
I don't think it will happen, but it could still happen that the browser could be the killer app (think things like ChromeOS). More and more apps on mobile devices are already build with HTML5. As there is no other cross-platform toolkit for these devices.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-06
vista didn't help linux
netbooks with linux preinstalled didn't help linux
do you realy believe metro will do the trick?
i don't.... "
The only thing that will help Linux is Android. And server deployment. Linux on the desktop is deader than ... well ... dead.
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2005-07-06
Exactly. If a distro, probably Ubuntu, got significant OEM backing it might gain some ground. Until then this talk of stealing market share from MS is just silly. If anything people who don't like 8 will just elect to remain with 7.