Linux is gaining market share in the retail industry. Use of the open-source operating system to run point-of-sale terminals in North America increased 185 percent last year, IHL Consulting Group said in a study released Wednesday.
Retail Linux Usage Soars
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Eugenia Loli
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A more accurate article :
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1139737
seems to reveal that the “linux troll”(*) community is one more time lying…
(*) You know, those guy, especially fan of kde and mandrake, shouting the worst stupidity around the world while believing this is “advocating” for linux. Not open-source, they don’t care with open-source, just because they don’t understand what it is… as they don’t undertand what really linux is ;-)))
Man, someone has a chip on his shoulder. {:-) Funny how one troll will complain about other trolls!
Can you tell your mom over the phone how to add Mp3 support to her xmms player or how to get on-line with her USB modem?
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.
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L_..
That article is not more accurate. In fact it has nothing to do with the main point of the original article….and that is “Retail Linux” (point of sale terminals).
On a seperate note regarding your article post……I still dont get the whole support/TOC arguement (that linux allegedly costs more to support). What a bunch of garbage. Ive got several NT4, Win2k, Linux, Unix, and Netware6 machines I administer here. I have experience in all the flavors and when any of the mentioned gets under the weather I fix em. They all require patches and updates, but some more frequently and more painfully than others. I find windows based servers cost the most to support. Why?, its simple. Window has far more patches, security and otherwise, that need to be applied far more often. And of course I have to bring technicians in after hours at overtime pay rate to apply them since everything you do in windows requires a reboot. With Linux and Unix all I have to do is apply the update and restart the affected services. I can do that during production hours with little to no effect on the user base.
These are the facts: All platforms require competent admins. With that in mind the support cost is nearly a wash with exception to the example above. Linux is the lowest TOC solution out there. Linux is rapidly gaining marketshare in the server space. Microsoft knows this and is being forced to lower costs on some of its server products already to be more competitive on TOC. I just find it a bit hypicritical….or should I say typical of Microsoft to be lowering prices to compete with Linux in the webserver space at the same time their marketing department maintains that Windows and its licensing scheme are still somehow cheaper in the long run. Go figure.
A more accurate piece is this one.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2569166447.html
The linux project at homedepot has long been killed.
I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, Xavier, but your “accurate” article, while it is indeed and article, is completely irrelevant.
I appreciate your trolling though since it gives a nice contrast to the articles that are well thought out and informative; making them seem even more so.
Can you tell your mom over the phone how to add Mp3 support to her xmms player or how to get on-line with her USB modem?
As a matter of fact I can. Next.
Just out of curiosity, whose mums play MP3 files anyway?
Point-of-Sales systems are CASH REGISTERS and the servers that run the accounting and inventory systems and have nothing to do with grandma playing MP3s. Sheesh!
Heck, all the Subways around Ohio and the Sherwin Williams stores are running IBM POS systems on Linux.
I just thought I’d clarify that this line of discussion is about Linux gaining in POS marketshare not the desktop.
Vic
Just out of curiosity, whose mums play MP3 files anyway?
Iconoclast, you’re not fair with the gentle. This guy wanted to speak about those famous mums, just remember the mantra :
one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock
mandrake 1, it rocks
debian 2, it rocks
red hat 3, it rocks
slackware 4, it rocks
…
and so on, and so on.
And you must concede that mp3 is a definitive achievement to keep the good mantra alway on your ear ;-)))
Iconoclast:
My mother doesn’t play MP3 files, but recently she has added a scanner and USB modem to her Windows PC. All she had to do was plug them in, put in the driver CDs and follow onscreen prompts. She’s a total computer novice yet she could install this new hardware without needing me to tell her how to do it. There’s no way in hell she could have done the same in Linux, where adding the USB modem would have required her to patch the kernel, compile software and edit several config files. I doubt I could have talked her through it without first printing off and studying HowTo guides and FAQs.
Which is relevant to a discussion about Linux on the desktop, but rather OT in a discussion about Linux on POS terminals. Sorry about feeding the trolls…
I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, Xavier, but your “accurate” article, while it is indeed and article, is completely irrelevant.
Of course, the article i have proposed is irrelevant. Who can imagine anything else ?
Please, Iconoclast, be serious. Is it really usefull to remind that an article far from being laudatory upon linux, is _necessary_ irrelevant…
More than irrelevant, i will say that an article showing the bad propaganda from the linux troll “community”, is downright
obscene ;-)))
And here is the point you have missed.
Why do you believe that discribing the very bad manner of a minority, the linux trolls, could be a conclusion or a forecast on a very independant movement ?
And why are you “frightened” by this kind of article ? open-source is alive and winning, today and yet yesterday, there is no question about that. Only China and India are far more that sufficient for this, and they are not alone on this way, you really don’t need to worry about.
Xavier: Your article is a riot. If you’d actually care to read it, you’ll notice that it basically consists of an biased study vs. the word of one guy. It proves (or disproves) absolutely nothing. It’s a waste of electrons. It’s also utterly irrelevent: the retail industry is not composed mainly of small businesses. The bulk of the retail industry (in terms of revenue) is localized to a few mega-corporations. It’s these mega-corporations that are adopting Linux for point-of-sale devices.
This “Linux troll” thing is hilarious. The people who are claiming that Linux is easy enough for your mom to use are the equivilent of the Windows users claiming that Linux is communist. They’re fringe elements, and you shouldn’t take either seriously. If you take a look at what the *mainstream* Linux community (the big distributions, the GNOME and KDE projects, etc) is actually doing, right now their big focus is on servers and corporate desktops. Given Linux’s capabilities, and its weaknesses, that’s a very good target to shoot for at the moment.
Do you really have a clue of what you’re talking about?
Nadav, I don’t know what you have to do to play MP3’s in XMMS, I simply click on ‘Open File’, select a track, and there we go. You’re using RedHat? – well, I guess that’s your problem, go fetch a consumer distro. Same goes for you USB scanner (granted, some scanners may not work with Linux, but I haven’t seen any of those, yet…)
JK, if you really like compiling kernels, go ahead – but I don’t really know why you would like to do this? In fact, pnp seems to work better with Linux as with Windows, neither a scanner nor a modem, not even a soundcard or graphic adapter ever required a kernel recompile – but that depends on the kernel you’re using. I do a lot of admin work, and I’ve seen a lot of people using Windows, calling me and asking questions like ‘A friend of mine gave me MSOffice, what do I do now!?’ – ‘I have bought this new, fast GeForceXY, but Counterstrike is very slow, why?’ – ‘My son gave me his old scanner, but when I switch the scanner on, I get this blue screen(tm), what’s wrong?’…
What should I tell this guys? RTFM?
Anyway, I have to go to these people a fix the problems myself, because it’s hard or impossible to fix it over phone, so it would make no difference if these people use Linux or Windows, they would not even notice the difference in most cases…
Xavier, I could flame you for your very first statement, but my hand hurts, and maybe you’re right (in some cases, at least – but not really…).
Just out of curiosity, whose mums play MP3 files anyway?
Um, mine does. In fact, she also downloads mp3s from the Internet and burns them to an audio CD. She currently does this in Windows, but I have no doubt that she could do it in Linux as well.
She would learn how to do this in Linux the same way she learned it in Windows, by me sitting her down and teaching her how to do it
My opinion is that is the way most people (and the key word here is *most*) learn to use their computer – by having their friend/parents/children/cousin/bother/sister/whoever sit down and teach them how to use it.
That being said, I think the ease of use argument is irrelavent. I’ve found doing some things in Linux to be awkward and ass-backwards (because of my Windows background), but once I actually learned how to do it, it was just as easy or easier than Windows in a lot of cases.
Of course, using Linux means you may be limited in areas such as certain genres of applications, but as long as Linux does what you need it to do and assuming you’re willing to read or know someone who can/will help you, you should be just fine.
LaNcom:
If you know a method of getting an Alcatel USB modem working that doesn’t involve patching the kernel and editing config files, you really should tell the maintainers of the HowTo I used:
http://linux-usb.sourceforge.net/SpeedTouch/howto.html
I bet they’d love to replace their list of instructions with the simple PnP method you mentioned.
I’m sure support for this modem will be included in future distributions (if it hasn’t already), but I wasn’t willing to wait 6+ months before switching to broadband. I don’t really mind using the CLI and messing with config files, but I still found getting it working time consuming.
Installing the USB modem and getting online in Windows took a few minutes at most. All the installation instructions fitted on one sheet of paper, including diagrams showing you how to plug in a USB device and insert a CD. As I mentioned before, my mother had no problem getting it working without needing my help. I can’t imagine my mother or similar computer users being willing or able to follow that HowTo.
Obviously a lot of users have trouble with even the most simple tasks, people have plenty of problems using Windows. But that doesn’t mean that Windows and Linux are equally easy to use, personally I think there’s still a lot more complexity to be dealt with while using Linux as a desktop OS. Getting that modem working is far from the only time I’ve had to mess with config files. For example I had nothing but trouble trying to get a dual headed display working with my Nvidia graphics card, while in Windows I just plugged in two monitors and it worked. Then there are the multiple RPM dependency problems I’ve had…
I find that most users will at least try to get things working before asking for help, most home users don’t have an admin who’s willing to do everything for them. If nothing else documentation for novice users tends to be more easily available for Windows, most of the time it comes with the hardware/software that they’re using.
” No-one ever got fired for buying IBM ”
sadly, in todays world, no-one ever got fired for buying Microsoft… the ” it just works” approach to installation and configuration beats off a lot of “free” alternatives.
Don’t underestimate the ability to IT managers to choose laziness over economics.
If you know a method of getting an Alcatel USB modem working that doesn’t involve patching the kernel and editing config files, you really should tell the maintainers of the HowTo I used:
For people (all) interest: http://speedtouch.sourceforge.net/
I know it’s shipped with Mandrake since several releases, dunno about other distro. The tar.gz isn’t that hard to install though, just not “user-friendly”.
Installing the USB modem and getting online in Windows took a few minutes at most.
It’s basically about blaming manufacturers for not delivering Linux drivers, release half-testing/usable drivers or even not release their hardware specifications if they don’t want to create the drivers themselves.
Of course, there’s that chicken and egg problem, but with some willing from manufacturers, it’d be sorted out pretty quickly. HP is doing fine with their GPL printers driver, so is Epson too. Some manufacturers just decide to ignore any system that won’t help them to get $$$ in the near future. As for hardware support, it’s neither Linux, Windows or Mac to blame, but mainly manufacturers.
What held Linux back on the desktop is mainly driver availability and pre-installed computer sold in supermarkets. Linux is “good enough” for many people, it doesn’t need to be usable by the first idiot that comes to be successful and more widely used. It’ll get better as more people use it, as any other product does
I’ve titled this post “glass houses” because people who throw bricks at others should see what they’re throwing those bricks through. My mom (bless her heart) couldn’t even program a VCR, has trouble even telling me what brand TV she has. I strongly suggest that either both sides keep that in mind, before getting into rants, or they better get use to looking foolish, because they certainly are not doing their respective group, any favours.
Like I told Nadav, I guess there are a few pieces of hardware not working with Linux (but if there is no driver, a kernel recompile wouldnt help, either). Once I had an ISDN adapter by Siemens, and there was no driver for Windows NT/ 2k/ XP, so I had to buy a new one (Elsa TanGo 1000). I only use Linux for about a year now, and guess what – BOTH ISDN adapters worked out of the box! So, like allways, it depends. I found Linux hardware support very good, even exotic stuff worked for me – as long as the manufacturer releases the specs, and there is need for a driver, it will work.
And I don’t say Linux is easier than Windows. What I say is:
Most users won’t understand Linux, but they DON’T understand Windows, so it wouldnt make much of a difference…
If something is broken, they’ll ask some friend, so they’ll use the OS their computer-savvy friends will use – to be able to get help and software. A lot of the ordinary users I did support for switched to Linux after I dumped Windows – and they are happy with it…
My opinion is that is the way most people (and the key word here is *most*) learn to use their computer – by having their friend/parents/children/cousin/bother/sister/whoever sit down and teach them how to use it.
This is one of the most accurate things ever said on these boards. Most people are too afraid to even TRY something on their computer they haven’t done before without having someone they consider knowledgable looking over their shoulder.
“Can you tell your mom over the phone how to add Mp3 support to her xmms player or how to get on-line with her USB modem?”
Why don’t you just SSH into her computer and do it yourself? Oh wait.. you use windows. You wouldn’t know anything about that now would you?
JK, you don’t have to patch your kernel to use a USB modem. I walked a friend of mine through setting up a TrendNET USB modem over the phone, and she had never used Linux before. It really isn’t that hard.
Iconoclast, you’re not fair with the gentle. This guy wanted to speak about those famous mums, just remember the mantra :
one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock
mandrake 1, it rocks
debian 2, it rocks
red hat 3, it rocks
slackware 4, it rocks
…
and so on, and so on.
And you must concede that mp3 is a definitive achievement to keep the good mantra alway on your ear ;-)))
Sorry dude, your joke is totally lost on me.
Of course, the article i have proposed is irrelevant. Who can imagine anything else ?
I’m taking this to mean that we should all expect you to post irrelevant things and shouldn’t be surprised when you do. Is that what you mean?
Please, Iconoclast, be serious. Is it really usefull to remind that an article far from being laudatory upon linux, is _necessary_ irrelevant…
The article you posted is a joke. Not because it was biased (let’s go to Microsoft’s Shared Source chairwoman to get her opinion of what businesses really wan’t), but because it was based mostly on some dude’s conjecture.
The TCO items mentioned are rediculous and can immediately be validated as such by anyone equally familiar with both systems by managing a Windows server and and Linux server side by side. There is nothing in the article to back up any of the claims it makes (or rather claims it dances around instead of actually making).
More than irrelevant, i will say that an article showing the bad propaganda from the linux troll “community”, is downright
obscene ;-)))
I don’t see any Linux propaganda here. I guess when you have such a bitter resentment for something then its easy to confuse yourself.
And here is the point you have missed.
Why do you believe that discribing the very bad manner of a minority, the linux trolls, could be a conclusion or a forecast on a very independant movement ?
I didn’t miss your point, I just think it is invalid. You are whining on and on about all these damned communist, Linux trolls, but the only troll I see here is you.
And why are you “frightened” by this kind of article ?
I’m not frightened by anything related to Linux. My self-worth is not driven by Linux or altered by Linux in any way. I am not defined by Linux. Therefore, what on Earth could I possibly have to fear from Linux’s success or lack thereof?
I think it’s funny that you are on such a personal crusade here. It’s just an operating system, not a religious tome. You act like somebody just accused you of farting in church and you’re busy wafting and trying to ward off any blame. What’s the deal?
As for your article, I think poorly written articles full of conjecture and postulation are something any sane person should reject. But that’s me.
open-source is alive and winning, today and yet yesterday, there is no question about that. Only China and India are far more that sufficient for this, and they are not alone on this way, you really don’t need to worry about.
Huh?
Hey Darius, I never thought I’d say this here at OSNews since our opinions seem to clash most of the time
, but I totally agree with your assessment on how people learn things. It was succinct, to the point, and absolutely true.