Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 8th Mar 2013 16:13 UTC
Mark Shuttleworth: "I simply have zero interest in the crowd who wants to be different. Leet. 'Linux is supposed to be hard so it's exclusive' is just the dumbest thing that a smart person could say." He's right. Lots of interesting insights in this blog post - I may not agree with everything Ubuntu does, but at least it's doing something.
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RE[3]: Comment by _cynic_
by Lunitik on Fri 8th Mar 2013 20:35
in reply to "RE[2]: Comment by _cynic_"
Member since:2005-08-07
There are many big Linux rollouts, there is a few in the hundreds of thousand system range. Again, I ask what this has accomplished. How many people using your systems care that it is running KDE, or have ended up migrating to Linux at home?
The fact that you're migrating to XFce really just shows your deployment is about cost, that is fine but I am sick of seeing the only Linux offerings in stores being extremely underpowered low end machines. How can Linux impress when it is confined to targeting people who are cheap?
Without impressing people, no one will ever adopt it by choice.
RE[4]: Comment by _cynic_
by phoenix on Fri 8th Mar 2013 20:58
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by _cynic_"
Member since:2005-07-11
We've received many comments from graduating students complaining about the lack of Linux in the universities around here. 
Especially the lack of NX Client access to their accounts, from home. We've also received similar comments from staff members that have moved on to other districts in the province.
We've also noticed a lot of student netbooks running Linux. And many Linux .iso files in student download directories.
So, while I have no definitive numbers, there are students from our district using Linux at home.
Our diskless stations aren't uber-powerhouse machines, but they aren't bottom-of-the-barrel either: tri-core AMD AthlonII CPUs, 1 or 2 GB of RAM, onboard nvidia or AMD graphics, onboard 5.1 sound, onboard NIC. No harddrive, no CD-ROM, no moving parts other than the CPU and case fans. Under $200 CDN right now.
RE[4]: Comment by _cynic_
by Ultimatebadass on Sat 9th Mar 2013 13:12
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by _cynic_"
Member since:2006-01-08
I am sick of seeing the only Linux offerings in stores being extremely underpowered low end machines. How can Linux impress when it is confined to targeting people who are cheap?
The thing is no one is going to buy a 3000usd machine with nvidia titans in SLI inside it to run linux. Cheap facebook machines are all that you can rely on really (talking about desktop market). If you pay 3000usd for a computer you damn well expect it to run the latest call of honor: battlefield not tux racer and openttd (a great game, not knocking it here).
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 11:29 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.More Features »
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Member since:
2005-07-11
Come to BC, Canada. We expose ~13,000 students to KDE3 every year.
Unfortunately, we'll be migrating the KDE3 desktops to XFce this year, instead of KDE4.