Submitted by A Computerworld blog post reads: “You gotta love it. Microsoft has decided that it will ho ahead and kill off easy access to XP on June 30th. On behalf of desktop Linux users everywhere, and our first cousins, the Mac fans, thanks. You’ve given us the best shot we’ll ever have of taking the desktop.”
yeah right..
it will have zero measurable effect on the market, except perhaps the lubrication market.
i predict that basically EVERYONE will simply keep lubing up(probably even more so now), and bend over.
Let’s consult reality :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_netbooks
You would be wrong , most of them are XP loaded and have a GNU/Linux choice available.
xp and linux dominating the low performance machine market doesn’t say anything about the other 99% of the market. Most HP laptops have hardware that doesn’t even support xp anymore.
I am invoking the Microsoft astroturfer laws agaisnt you :
“99% of the market”
Sure if you enter the Microsoft bubble of ignorance , put your hand on your hears and start chanting ” La la la la la la can’t hear you”.
The most used OS is still GNU/Linux worldwide , Before you quack start saying no there is more Chinese , Hindou and Africans , Brazilian , Columbian , Russian then the rest of the planet put together , followed by windows 2000 in business. Followed by XP in customer market. You also have Apple to account for and last but not least as they are very vocal the BSD’s with there 0.5%.
Your high end laptop example from HP with Vista is not even 0.01% of the market …
What make the netbook category special is it’s a new category , not just new offers.
How much of the market do YOU think sub-notebooks cover? I think 1% is a pretty liberal estimate.
The laptops I am talking about are mid range to low end.
yes and netbooks are a… lets consult reality(or how did you put it?) WHOPPING COMPLETELY IRELLEVANT piece of the market..
sure, its nifty and all, but its so small, that desktop linux is a giant compared..
Intel , Everex , Asus , HP , E-Lead , Quanta Computer , Sinomanic , MSI , Lenovo , Acer Inc , Maxdata Belinea ,
Dell , Elonex , Gigabyte , Medion , VIA , Packard Bell , Emtec , etc …
All making netbooks … There is a bigger investment for hardware as opposed to software.
GNU/Linux desktop is #1 worldwide in usage and #2 in sales as been for years. More user’s , more offer , more company , more language , more country and it’s cheaper.
Even Ballmer and Microsoft acknowledge GNU/Linux as the leader and there biggest competitor.
yet its a miniscule market, compared to desktop pc’s and ordinary laptops. Vista will simply replace XP, and Microsoft will see NO losses from EOL’ing xp.
It seems possible that Linux might find it’s niche on older PCs eventually. Some of these older PCs are never going to run Vista and it’s not like Microsoft can go on supporting XP forever.
Whatever it is these analysts are smoking, I want some. Don’t people tire of Vista bashing?
Well, to be fair, Vista is quite a failure. I and some of my mates have tried the switch to Vista and each of us went back eventually to XP, and for different reasons nonetheless.
I had some performance problems with a computer that runs XP quite fast, then it started locking up out of the blue – and that with official Vista drivers for all my hardware. Then some of my applications that work fine in XP were acting up in Vista. That was the final straw.
A pal of mine experienced random lock-ups, again with proper Vista drivers and a two week old install.
And I could go on …
I’m not a big fan of Linux because I really don’t like much of the available applications or I find them insufficient for my work (but that’s another story) but if I’d have to choose right now between Linux (almost any flavor) and Vista I’d choose Linux without looking back. I really think that Vista it’s that bad.
I doesn’t offer anything compelling, it costs money to upgrade from XP, then it costs some more to upgrade your hardware, and then even some more to get the latest versions of the apps you use whether you need them or not, and for what? For Flip3D? Please …
A few pointers (from someone whose vista runs smoother then xp ever did)
Do not even bother trying to run it on old hardware. Wait until you do a big machine upgrade. A big thing to keep in mind is HD speed, as vista is very I/O happy due to its caching and indexing, and a slow hard drive will bring it to its knees.
If you tried it early on, give it another shot. SP1 fixed most of the problems people had. Unfortunately, it hasn’t done much for perception.
I am an OS fan, and have never really liked windows much. Vista is the first os they have ever put out that hasn’t made me cringe using it. It is far from my favorite out of what is available, but it is defiantly my favorite (consumer) os MS has ever put out.
That bar of yours must have been set pretty low.
why? xp was stable and responsive, but it had no polish, huge usability issues, and was one of the ugliest operating system in the last 15 years. Vista is just as stable, more responsive, many of the usability issues have been addressed, and has a very nice aesthetic.
I have yet to have a blue screen, I have yet to experience weird bugs, I have yet to not have a program I need run, I have yet to have issues copying files.
As for my standards, here is a quick rundowns of my favorite operating systems at the moment.
My favorite consumer OS out there right now is OSX, which I find sets the bar at the moment in ease of use and innovation. My favorite server OS is win2k8, think that windows server has really come into its own. I like things like WMI, powershell, and group policy, and find them easier to work with and more fully integrated then anything else out there. My favorite hobbyist OS is Sky. I am really enjoying following its progress, and am constantly amazed at how much progress one man can do. However, this may change as once upon a time Be was my favorite consumer OS (I owned a bebox), and Haiku is really getting there. My favorite UNIX is Solaris, although that could stem from the fact that most of my experience with it was on the superbly designed SPARC stations. My favorite Linux is (and has been for almost a decade now) slack, one of the few which do not compromise on quality, and favor stability and simplicity over features.
I have a great deal of experience with and knowledge about operating systems, and have enjoyed tinkering with them since I was a child. I would consider my standards fairly high. The worst thing about vista is that its performance is inconsistent depending on what you are running it on, which historically has been the (virtually only) strength of windows. Second to that is its price. Since I paid about 80$ for it, and have had no issues with it, neither of those are problems for me. I also have no problem saying that it is far from the best out there.
Not as long as Vista give us something to bash…
Well, maybe Linux or MacOS will never take over the desktop but at least their market share will improve which is good. When Windows 7 comes in 2010 I hope it will be even worse than Vista. Maybe then the playfield will level a little bit more so we (the customers) will have choice.
Such a revealing quote… So what you’re saying is Windows is such a good OS that it’s next iteration needs to be worse in order for other OSes to compete.
No, what I’m saying is that I hope Windows 7 will be bad so people will suffer so much that they will wake up form the inertia that’s driving them right now. As bad as Vista is now, people still use it. So Windows 7 has to be worse in order to get people’s attention.
or perhaps the alternatives have to get better?
You’re not a very nice person.
It’s not going to happen. MS could ship Abacus 3000 as the next “OS” and people would still buy it and try to do computing. MS is the computer.
Or it could be that there’s such a resistance to change, it would take an utter failure for the OS in use to push people to switch.
Strange. I already choose Linux and Mac OS X.
You already have the choice. It’s just that people don’t give a rat’s ass about computers, and don’t care about “choice”, just as I don’t give a rat’s ass about “choice” when it comes to beer. I don’t drink the stuff, and hence couldn’t care less whatever people give me the odd occasion I do drink it.
Yes you have choice right now, but that choice is limited by stupid companies that refuse to issue Linux or Mac versions of their software (AutoCAD, Photoshop, drivers, etc). If every single application was available for all platforms, I bet Linux’s desktop market share would be higher.
Edited 2008-06-25 20:25 UTC
An Autodesk developer told me the reason AutoCAD and Rhino can’t be ported is because the code is balls-deep in Microsoft-specific technology like DirectX and the development tools that make rapid development for it possible. This is a company that also makes video compressors for OS X, so they have the programmers, they just don’t have the time to rewrite their codebase from the ground up for OpenGL.
WINE now runs CS3.
Damn, that reminds me. A Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold, Goose Island Nut Brown Ale or Ayinger Ur-Weisse sounds good right about now. On the other hand, if people stick with the popular crap, they really don’t have much choice: typical American-style macro beers usually are so similar, and the differences get down to which ones are at least somewhat tolerable, vs. which ones just suck. Kind of like in operating systems… in fact, the big brands might as well be called “The Windows of Beers.” :p
But really–I’m not sure that people don’t “care” about choice. They just don’t really know what’s out there, and probably perceive Macs more inconvenient to get a hold of (plus more unfamiliar) and Linux a major PITA to install and use, or just don’t know about it at all. But the biggest problem… it’s damn near impossible, unless you know exactly how and where to look, to find a Linux-loaded computer. Windows? You can’t find a computer without it. Macs? Yeah, those “premium” priced computers you have to specially order.
We already have choice, what most people are missing is knowledge about those choices. OS X has been around since 2000, and Linux a whole lot longer. BSD even longer. The problem is getting the information to potential users in a form they understand, so they can make real decisions, and not just take the default.
This would imply that users will want to decide. But in most cases, they don’t want. There were discussions about how non-MICROS~1 OSes are presented, in media advertising, as boxes on the shelf, or installed on computers that reside on the shelf or can be ordered online. Users want something preinstalled that works and that does everything. I’m not claiming that “Windows” does follow this wish, but people do believe this. To make a big leap now: It’s not about knowing, it’s about believing. And finally, it’s about education. Today, you don’t need education to use a PC, you even may be illiterate, no problem, look at the squeaking buttons and dancing elephants. Education, as well as judging and deciding, involves active participation in certain topics. For most users, this seems to be too much work. The result? They just take the default, as you mentioned.
I may not agree with the way the author said it… but it’s hard not to think that MS is shooting himself in the foot here.
– I work in a big hospital and Vista is pretty much banned by the IT department.
– One of my friend who bought new PC with vista is cursing as her digital camera does not work well with Vista.
– I am actively telling several friends to just give Linux a try and see. For their use – email, web, managing pictures and music – any Linux is perfectly capable and does not cost a dime.
That’s right, tell her to try linux so she can start cursing it when her printer or whatever piece of hardware doesn’t work well under it.
In the past five years, my sole aggravations with hardware under Linux have been:
Broadcom 43xx chipset (now supported in the 2.6 kernel)
Creative mp3 player (would have been recognized if I had installed Amarok)
Hauppauge DVR card’s IR
Brief kernel regression with audio support in BTTV-based tuner cards
Switching between multiple audio cards in Mythbox between apps (solved by removing extraneous card)
Considering how few people are building experimental DVRs with Linux, you could safely ignore the last three on that list.
That’s funny, we just got new machines and while my Ubuntu machine supported everything out of the box (including detecting all the printers on the subnet and auto-configuring them) others had to grab their driver CDs when they overlayed the OEM Vista install.
Go figure.
If you are going to make an anti-linux argument try to make an informed one.
Thanks.
I predict the following: a small number of people with geeks for friends will switch from XP to $DISTRO while Vista works out its kinks. When Windows 7 comes out, they will switch back because there’s one retarded app they just can’t live without.
W7 is already being touted by Microsoft as Vista with better driver support (read “better” as “regression in kernel’s driver interface to XP code”), and you can bet this point will be astroturfed across forums like mad.
Not likely.
Vista was one of the best things ever to happen to GNU/Linux because: (1) those who didn’t want to upgrade either stuck with XP or went out and actually tried a Linux LiveCD; (2) Linux is far better suited for new, small device computing (EEE, OLPC, etc.); and (3) Vista is ass-awful, no matter how you cut it — the ways are myriad.
Edited 2008-06-25 20:22 UTC
The author stated:
“Finally, there are distributions like gOS, that any reasonably bright elementary school student can use”
Doesn’t he realize most elementary school students are smarter than us adults. They seem to get any electronic/digital gizmo to work in mere minutes…. that and they don’t bicker about how great their OS is.
With regards to Linux/MacOS gaining market share…. yeah, definitely…. but people who buy new computers will use whatever OS it comes with, so Microsoft’s position won’t change, unless OEM’s start giving a Linux option with their products (and hopefully removing the Windows logo from the keyboards at the same time). We’ll have to wait and see, really.
Which side am I on? …. well, let’s just say I own every video-game console on the market except for the XBox.
or I’m a lil too ahead … since I’ve already past the “Dear Linux, Thanks for the Help, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD” threshold months ago … and there’s no turning back for me =D
I really wish I knew what was the _really_ good reason to mod me down …
having a piece of mind maybe?
my own view?
I thank MS back in the XP alpha days … Now its time for me to thank Linux …
Is that offensive … does that break any non written rule or something?
Or ins’t comment modding controlled?
Not Linux. Why? Because people want packaged solutions. They don’t want to hack together a system, they don’t want to install some random distro downloaded from the Web, they don’t want to uckfay around with dysfunctional Linux drivers, they just want everything to work fine directly from the supplier. Unless OEMs start shipping Linux on a significant number of boxes, it ain’t gonna happen. Face it: Linux market share has actually DROPPED in the past several years, compared to Apple, which is GAINING share. It’s hard to see how ANYONE but Apple can see this announcement as a bonus.
I use both MacOS and Linux. Mac for Adobe and Corel stuff (I’m a digital painter / retoucher / fine-art printer) and Linux for everything else….
I think Linux will benefit just as much as Apple. With a worldwide recession looming, many people will tighten their belts…. and cheap Linux based systems would be the optimal solution. Many poorer nations could buy used computers from the west and use them with a lightweight Xfce based distro. Yeah sure, Apple will continue to profit from creative pros and fashion victims, but I can see Linux making some gains, especially in Asia.
Also, most modern distros work great. I’ve yet to encounter any driver problems with Ubuntu 8.04 (and I’ve installed it on 6 different computers).
Look, I can only respond by referring you to real-world numbers: Apple is increasing in market share. Linux is declining in market share. I see nothing in the market which will change those dynamics.
Linux market share declining?…. The Linux adoption rate in China is massive. Perhaps the stats you’re reading don’t include non-english language distros. Even in Japan, traditionally a Win/Mac stronghold, Linux is making small inroads.
52 million Linux desktops in Brazil should help matters in the Linux market-share area….
As for MS, the *very best* thing that MS can do to help Linux is to keep Vista at the centre of their strategy (as they’re doing with Windows 7, which has Vista as its core). Thanks, MS!
Edited 2008-06-25 22:05 UTC
Oh, puh-lease. Linux market share in China is DWARFED by the number of pirated Windows installs.
The only OS losing market share in a consistent way is Windows.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9
Edited 2008-06-25 21:43 UTC
Yeah, poor Microsoft. They’re down to a mere 91.13% market share percentage. At the current rate, Linux may crack 1% of the market in another 5 years. LMFAO! Again, the numbers don’t change my contention: Apple is the beneficiary here.
Your “figures” are not real-world numbers … they are PR spin.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/pc/565108
Current hottest sellers: A Mac @ #1, a Linux notebook @ #2, and a Vista laptop @ #3.
Eight (desktop or portable) machines in the current top 25 best sellers at Amazon with Linux pre-loaded, six Mac machines and four with Vista, four with XP.
Only in the case of the HP 2133 where essentially the same machine is offered with either Linux or a Windows version is the Windows version the more popular choice. In the case of the MSI Wind, the Linux pre-loaded version appears at #6 but the Windows version of this machine is not on the list at all.
With the possible exceptions of the Sony and Toshiba machines, more of the machines are capable of running Linux than any other OS.
Edited 2008-06-26 00:31 UTC
@tomcat:
Figures and references please. Otherwise you’re just spouting out of the back of your head or some other part of your anatomy
I use both MacOS and Linux. Mac for Adobe and Corel stuff (I’m a digital painter / retoucher / fine-art printer) and Linux for everything else….
In other words, you don’t need Linux at all.
I have more than 1 job. Please take your fanboyism somewhere else.
I tend to go for Mandriva Power Pack myself as I dont have the anti “proprietary software*” fetish that the Stallman followers have.
*GPL stuff us copyrighted and therefore also proprietary after a fashion. The only genuinely non proprietary software is public domain in its original form before both closed source and GPL programmers modify it for their own works.
People buy Vista, people use Vista and there was at least eight “years of desktop Linux” already.
Not everyone needs Firefox and OpenOffice only. And not everyone prefers Amarok over Winamp. And not everyone prefers to play Open Arena over World Of Warcraft.
And until there will be any need to manually edit xorg.conf, fstab etc. to do anything else with PC than web browsing or starting OO.org then GNU/Linuxes will stay at 1% of the market.
Vista sucks, that is certain, but I afraid that any kind of GNU/Linux as desktop solution sucks even more.
Do not blame people who do not want become hackers to use washing machine or microwave oven. The same rule apply for using the computer.
Those days are gone. I have many Linux boxes throughout my house. I do not have to edit these files. The funny things is that you can even delete the xorg.conf file on most systems and not have a problem. It is autogenerated.
But the fun part about myths is that they are fun to tell, over and over. Wide-eyed children world-wide enjoy hearing these scary stories of editing config files, cringing under their covers as they drift of to sleep…
They aren’t gone completely. Many users of Fedora 9 had to edit xorg.conf to get the desktop to load right out of the box. I was one of them.
True, that is also one of the reasons I stay away from Fedora. Often, too many things are broken out of the box. Linux nerds love to share their horror stories of how they managed to get it working. I am not in that club. On a distro such as Ubuntu, Mandriva and Suse, these things are rarely necessary. It reminds me of the past on Dos/Windows where you had to often edit config.sys and autoexec.bat. I’m glad those days are gone. The only things I will say, is at least on the distros where you sometimes have to edit one of these config files, it’s still easier than editing the Windows registry when things go wrong. What a mess that is!!
If so then how to automount a new fat32/ntfs partition for read/write access at startup, without editing fstab?
By running “gparted”
try again troll
Under Ubuntu, install ntfs-3g [0]
And FAT32 was pretty much supported by the kernel ages ago.
[0] http://www.howtoforge.com/ntfs_3g_ubuntu_feisty
I used Slackware for 4 years until I switched back to Windows and I have done nothing but make fun of people that use Linux at my school (engineering school = lots of nerdy people using !windows).
After what I have seen with Vista, I have been looking at running Linux on all my computers.
I mean, what is the article saying? I know they’re going to stop selling XP on 6/30. But ….
Is the copy of XP I’m currently running, that is working perfectly, going to deactivate itself on June 30th??? If not, what the f–k is this guy getting on about?
As I see it, Linux is getting stronger all the time.
Articles such as this bother me because they the imply that Linux can only succeed if Mocrosoft fails or makes mistakes.
Whatever happened to the notion of Linux succeeding on it’s own merit? Somewhere, way back in time, wasn’t that the dream?
So….
Let’s stop expending energy by tearing Microsoft apart and use it to build that better mouse trap.
* EOF
$$ CLOSE
$$ SOFF
Don’t you read OSNews? The mouse-era is over.
http://osnews.com/story/19912/The-Age-of-the-Mouse-Ending
We need RAT traps, my friend.
I seem to recall how the delay of Vista was predicted to be Linux’s big opportunity to gain market share against [presumably] defenseless, aging XP.
And now that XP is being sent out to pasture, this is Linux’s big chance against the [presumably] defenseless, new Vista.
Some are even going so far as to say they “hope” Windows 7 is worse to help Linux’s chances even more.
Normally, there is logic in the response, but this is just irrational vitriol.
Given the amount of “I.T. Savy” people on here, I would have thought a few of you would know how to set up a Windows based OS. Obviously not.
Vista works – is fairly simple and very stable.
Vista doesn’t leak memory like OS-X does forcing the user to have to power down and switch on. It runs legacy apps well, has a fairly pleasing user interface unlike Windows XP and it runs a lot of software that people use for their businesses unlike Linux.
Very happy to see Linux inroads but the Vista bashing and ignorance here is astounding for a bunch of tech heads.
It’s not really a tech-site. It’s a place where 3 different groups co-exist in disharmony.
Group 1. People with no social life (Linux/BSD/Plan9)
Group2. People living in denial/ignorance (Windows)
Group3. Fashion victims / Holier-than-thou types (Mac)
Keep this in mind when you read the comments, and you’ll see us in a new light.
hehehehe impressive…
Vista is a complete PITA. From the real world i have had 5 people purchase brand new laptops with Vista installed (Sony / Dell) and they have all failed or broken down somehow, these are expensive top of the range laptops. One failed after an update and restored itself back to factory settings, another just wouldn’t boot, another got stuck in an endless reboot and another lost it’s sound card drivers for no reason whatsoever. It was on, working fine, then nothing, the red cross to show no drivers, tried a restart didn’t fix it, and because we out in the field was unable to do anything about it.
Vista runs slowly on quite powerful hardware, the caching doesn’t work, i.e. it doesn’t return any memory and causes even more thrashing.
Windows XP is far more stable and faster, it gets the job done.
An earlier poster also commented on bad memory management in Mac OSX, I have multiple mac laptops which are never shut down but put to sleep, these have uptimes of usually 14+ days, when an update will require the computer to be restarted. There has never been a problem with memory allocation the machines keep their speed.
Windows XP and Vista doesn’t come close with memory not being returned causing the windows laptops to be restarted more often.
The groundwork of Vista is really good, i hope however they can polish it up in Windows 7.
Microsoft will not go away overnight, the server, office and desktop products are everywhere and generally get the job done.
Steve jobs summed it up well, “Apple can succeed without Microsoft having to fail”, i really don’t understand the mentalility that Microsoft has to fail for Mac OSX or linux to push forward. A recent report stated that there are now 1 billion PC’s out there and this is expected to double. There is room out there for all three major os’s Windows / Mac / Linux(inc BSD), it’s really horses for courses, just pick the one that works for you.
I believe the only change we are gonna see is the market share perhaps becoming a little more evenly divided.
What is leading to poor performance on those laptops would not be Vista itself per say but all the crapware that OEM laptop makers throw in on top of the OS install. This is the biggest problem Vista has at the moment and that OEM’s do not install SP1 slipstreamed with thier products.
Clean up Vista so it’s just back to basic with drivers only installed, install SP1 and you have a bloody reliable OS. Something I suppose Apple and Linux crowd doesn’t have to contend with, OEM crapware but it really can pull a powerful system down and all this crapware is configured to start with the computer. Also don’t put security suits on a Vista installation, all that is required is a good AV and even that isn’t needed if Vista is properly configured. I support Avast AVG as it has a small footprint and is discreet.
Mac’s, where do I start?
Sleep on OS-X is every clients favourite shutdown proceedure on their Macbooks. I have noticed that OS-X will present with software operational issues after a period of time that can only be remedied with a proper power down.
I like the UI on OS-X to a point – it looks pretty but it isn’t as functional as Linux or Vista and my number 1 gripe is with OS-X:
Lack of cross platform compatability. Why does OS-X have to handle file identification differently to Unix and Windows? Why can’t we use OS-X font’s on Windows/Unix and the reverse? Where are the standards complience with OS-X???
I get sick and tired of clients going out and wasting their money on Macbooks cause they are “Cool” and then trying to use them in Windows based networks with Windows apps on them. Yes it can be done but it’s a real PITA. Note to Apple, make OS-X more standards complient and work better with interoperability with Unicies and Windows systems – then I might be more favourable.
For now, I just wish they’d sod off.
That being said, OS-X is great if you just want to work in an OS-X only bubble.
Hmmmm.
Another alternative view of this topic can be found here in summary:
http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html
“Basically, Vista was designed with almost no consideration for the needs of Microsoft’s customers. James Allchin, co-president of Microsoft’s Platform Products and Services Group wrote an internal memo saying that Microsoft had lost touch with customer needs and if he didn’t work there he’d buy an Apple Macintosh. Allchin retired the day Vista shipped.”
There is section entitled “What went wrong?” which has a fair summary.
The wider popular opinion leans more towards the views of Vista expressed by Andrew Grygus in the link, I would have thought.
Here is yet another view to back it up further:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19056/53/
“Upgrade to Windows Vista? No thanks, says Intel according to an insider. The chip giant apparently has no plans to upgrade 80,000 employees from XP to Vista, in what must be a painful blow to Microsoft.”
…
“The New York Times says that, according to the Intel insider, the company has made its decision “after a lengthy analysis by its internal technology staff of the costs and potential benefits of moving to Windows Vista, which has drawn fire from many customers as a buggy, bloated program that requires costly hardware upgrades to run smoothly.” “
Edited 2008-06-27 03:38 UTC
originally i moved to linux, because of all the negative things i was hearing about vista.. i moved to linux from XP, because i figured xp was my last microsoft os. i used ubuntu for 2 years. my new computer came with vista, I played with it for a day. and then formatted it, but it left me with such a positive impression that i just decided to try vista again. And i just stuck with it.. it’s just easier, games work better in it. the graphics are good.. it’s stable. games just work on it. you don’t have to try to configure minor things. like your monitor resolution. or mouse buttons. it’s a nice system. much cleaner and more elegant than xp. the sleep mode rocks, i have never had a computer actually work well with power saving features till this vista computer. and it uses the sleep mode not simple suspend to ram. system wide searching. there’s a lot of nice new features. Before writing it off, you should give it a try.
For those of us who arent hackers or super-nerds, Vista still works better than linux.
Linux still supports only about 1/3 of the hardware that Vista does…without the need of compiling kernel by hand every time you want some new hardware piece to work.
Me, my biggest gripe with Linux is the WLAN support, having to use ndiswrapper to get windows drivers to “work” in linux is a pain
and seriously, as long as kernel devs try to force hardware makers to give away their IP for the +1% of marketshare they would gain, the hardware developers just wont take the bait.
Besides getting numbers out of your rear, you actually meant 1/3 of the “designed for windows” stuff, right?
Exagerate much?
Good thing they don’t force anyone to give away anything.
Boggle.
Are you on the crazy pills, or what?
Linux works on everything from mainframes to wristwatches.
It works on the following architectures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_portability_and_supported…
It works on supercomputers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer#Operating_systems
It works on embedded systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_Linux
“Embedded Linux is the use of a Linux operating system in an embedded computer systems such as a mobile phones, personal digital assistants, media players and other consumer electronics devices, networking equipment, machine control, industrial automation, navigation equipment and medical instruments. According to a VDC survey, Linux was used by 18% of embedded engineers.”
It works on servers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_(computing)#Server_operating_system
Have you any idea how many machines this represents?
But, even sticking to just x86 architecture for desktop computers … when Vista came out it could run only on the very newest of machines, with hefty requirements. Most of the existing billions of desktop machines in the world couldn’t run it … but most of them can run Linux just fine.
Linux works on many many times more machines than Vista does. Perhaps ten or twenty times more existing machines can run Linux than can run Vista.
Gee you weren’t far off, were you. It is probably “twenty times more” rather than “one third as many”. You were perhaps only two orders of magnitude out.
There are some manufacturers of wireless chips who are reluctant to provide specifications for their chips so that an open source driver can be written for them.
However, the situation is not as bad as you suggest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_wireless_dri…
… just pick a machine which has a supported wireless chipset, and you have no trouble. I find that the easiest indicator is to note that it will work if the machine has an Intel wireless chipset.
Finally … market share as far as wireless chipmakers are interested in it means share of machines (which include a wireless chip) that are selling right now, today are concerned.
According to this list:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/pc/565108
… of machines selling right now, 7 out of the top 25 (almost a third) have Linux pre-installed, and therefore they need a Linux driver for their wireless chip. If a wireless chipmaker is still refusing to allow a Linux driver to be written for their chipsets … then they are missing out on perhaps 33% of the current selling market.
PS: the top-selling Vista machine on the Amazon top-sellers list, the HP Pavilion DV6871US 15.4″ Laptop, has these specifications:
http://www.amazon.com/Pavilion-DV6871US-Laptop-Processor-Premium/dp…
… which means “Be ready for the next platform in wireless connectivity with the integrated quad-mode Intel Wireless 4965AGN Wi-Fi chip.”
… it uses an Intel Wireless chip.
This one in fact:
http://intellinuxwireless.org/
http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi
This machine will probably therefore run Linux way, way better than it runs Vista.
Edited 2008-06-26 10:43 UTC
Right, so all those people and companies who are so reluctant to change over to Vista, are suddenly eager to jump over to Linux/OSX. They might support more older peripherals, but their whole (probably just as old) software catalogue will only be able to run through emulation at best, I can’t imagine that most most of the people who cling to WinXP are eager to do that.
Remember, they are not the early adopter crowd.
Maybe manufacturers like Dell and HP would avoid the Microsoft tax by pre-installing ReactOS if it ran WoW, GTAIV and MGS. The profit margin is bigger though the newer the machine they sell.
First of all, hello everyone! After weeks of reading and not posting, I decided to become a member of this one good web.
Then my humble opinion as a designer: I think it’s apps that keeps us running Windows/OSX: give me Adobe on Ubuntu and I’ll switch in a minute on all the computers on my studio.
Also, Windows runs reasonably well, so I (and others) have 2 options: run the apps I want on a reasonably good OS, or not run them on a good OS.
Edited 2008-06-26 10:32 UTC
Same here,
If Linux (or any other Open Source platform) made color management painless, enabled Adobe/Corel compatibility and had good printer/RIP support…. I’d probably abandon overpriced Macs altogether.
Until then it’s Mac for work and Linux for everything else.
It isn’t quite ready yet.
http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.5.html
http://gegl.org/
There is at least a pageful of bugs that need fixing before a new stable release can be made (will be GIMP 2.6)
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=GIMP&target_milestone…
Still, when it is ready, I believe that GEGL, and through it babl
http://gegl.org/babl/
should provide the colour management support you are seeking.
Yup…. I know about all that already, but thanx anyway.
Just like to add…. I’ve seen people do wonders with GIMP, but the workflow is a bit different to what I’m used to.
I hope there’ll be more Linux options when my MacPro eventually becomes obsolete in a few years.