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Right. What would you consider a "non faulty OS, Linux? Then I guess Torvalds should be shot because when it comes to bugs here they come! . Oh and don't forget which OS it was that gave us heartbleed. Was it Windows? No no no no, was it OSX? No no nooo no, was it Linux? yeah yeah yeah yeah! BTW you should try to play the "how many year old Linux bug" game, its fun and easy! Simply type into any search engine " (X) year old Linux bug" with (X) replaced by a random number, see how far back you can go! I doubt you will be able to top 20 years old but single digits are easy peasy!

Anybody still on XP deserves what they get, they got 12 years of support, which just FYI is 10 years longer than the average Linux distro LOL, unless you consider the bi annual death march to be "support", and they have had more than enough time to switch over to a newer version of Windows. They can't even use the hardware excuse as the average XP box is a power piggie P4 and for less than $100 you can toss that P4 board for a Bobcat or jaguar board that will run rings around the P4 while using less power under load than the piggie P4 does at idle. they can even keep their old IDE drive using a $7 IDE to PCI converter so there really is no longer any excuses, anybody who hangs onto a thirteen year old OS (XP was released in 2001 and has more in common with NT4 than it does with a modern OS like 7/8) that is three and soon to be four versions behind? Deserves what they get.

Out of the hundreds of boxes I moved to 7, how many problems did I have? A grand total of THREE, and one of those doesn't count since the software in question (Quickbooks 07 IIRC, may have been 06) was "broken by design" and tied to a VERY insercure version of Flash (V7) and would refuse to install if ANY version of Flash other than 7 was on the system, but it took less than 30 minutes to turn the XP install into a VM and run it on Win 7 via Virtualbox. The other 2? A scanner from 2000 that was so low res a $35 all in one printer gave the guy a 300%+ increase in quality and an old ATI IGP that ran but was flaky, it cost a grand total of $8 to replace the IGP with an HD2400. That system was a first gen C2D with 2GB of RAM and was recently traded back in on a new quad, I turned around and sold it to my landlord who runs it 6 days a week and it purrs like a kitten. If a 8 year old system can run Win 7 so well the customer who buys it in 2014 says "I just love this machine,it runs my stock software and surfs like a dream" there really is no excuse, let XP die already.

Oh and just for shits and giggles I tried the "hairyfeet challenge" using that box before I reloaded Windows, since it would probably be considered high end of the XP era hardware and thus would give Linux a performance advantage over some dusty P4, result? Ubuntu crapped the video first update, PCLOS crapped out on the second, no point in continuing after that since it had already failed the test.

Good lord are we REALLY gonna have to explain on every. damned. security. story. how having the source isn't magic? The "many eyes" myth is just that and just because a program or website is FOSS doesn't make it more secure? hell watch how easy it is to blow "many eyes" out of the water, ready?

Now we ALL know that Slashdot is one of the most FOSS loving websites there is,right? That while the global numbers of Linux users are around 0.9% we could easily hit double digits here, right? this is like Geeker heaven, yes? Okay here goes...show of hands, how many of you have done an extensive code audit on Libre Office? Gimp? Firefox? Anyone? Bueller?

NOW do you understand why simply having source means jack and squat? For many eyes to work IRL you'd have to have 1.- Enough guys with the requisite skills and experience to even SPOT the flaws, see the Obfuscated C contest as to why THAT is important, 2.- Those guys have nothing better to do than to scan and debug YOUR code all day, which considering how in demand highly skilled programmers are? Not very damned likely, and finally 3.- Have enough of them to keep up with the changes that when you are talking about FOSS is practically a torrent. hell I bet it would take a good year to do an extensive code audit of a large program like Libre office...how many releases did LO have last year? See the problem yet?

Having the code fixes ONE problem and one problem alone, and that is old versions being abandoned. If you have the code AND you have the skills OR the money to hire your own dev team than and ONLY then will that code be a life saver, the rest of the time, and especially when we are talking about security, which involves not just the program itself but the underlying OS and subsystems? yeah...not so much. Frankly if even 3% of the code in your average distro gets seen by anybody but the guys running the projects I'd frankly be amazed but thanks to the "many eyes" myth people think because something CAN happen it HAS happened. Well by that logic because theoretically an immortal CAN be born then there are immortals running the earth, but i really don't think I have to worry about a 400 year old Scotsman with a sword coming at me in the parking lot, do you?

First of all a public service announcement: To everyone that writes "M$" in 2013...This...Is...YOU! and this is what everyone sees and instantly dismisses when you write that lame ass M$ in 2013. You could write the most brilliant post in the history of Slashdot but a good 80%+ will NEVER read it because they see M$ and think "douchebag" and move on. So don't waste your time unless you want people posting your group photo as the very next post.

Second of all lets get something VERY clear for those that don't seem to understand how these things work, okay? ALL OPERATING SYSTEMS that would be what we consider "modern" are some of the most complex pieces of software EVER written, we are talking millions of LOC in the kernel alone and thousands of little sub-programs that ALL have to work in concert to give the user the illusion that its all one program that "just works". Is Linux even close to immune? Not only is that a big NO but to even suggest it is is a symptom of what is known as "magical thinking" such as "If you buy (product X) then you will magically be safe!". We in IT have seen magical thinking used to sell everything from OSes to firewalls to routers and reality will blow holes in that lie every single time.

So if Linux is vulnerable why don't we see Linux attacks in the news? We do only they are called "Android attacks" and in fact its predicted that later in the year Android will reach the one million infected mark which considering that Android isn't even a decade old is pretty impressive.

Look its actually VERY simple, and evidence has bore this out time and time again. Criminals ARE LAZY and want to do the least amount of work for the biggest bang so they want to go after the biggest targets to yield the most infections they possibly can. I mean writing a OS/2 virus today would probably be the most trivial thing in the world yet you don't see anybody doing it, why? Because the fact is even though eComstation still sells OS/2 there are too few using it to make it a juicy target. But the malware writers WILL go where the targets are, used to be it was always Windows, then Vista bombs and everyone in the press starts talking about how Mac adoption is climbing, what happens? Mac Guardian and Mac Defender. Android phones and tablets explode in usage, what happens? Thousands of Android malware released weekly.

So anybody who thinks their OS is gonna magically protect them from malware because "(product X) doesn't get bugs!" is merely deluding themselves with magical thinking. There are even articles that helpfully helpfully explain this and point out how switching platforms just for the sake of magical thinking (in the article OSX for Linux but you can insert any from and to in there and it still fits) just doesn't work. Be it Linux, Mac, or Windows you can find plenty of bugs, I could spend 5 minutes and cover this page in reports of bugs for all 3, I already listed the 2 biggest Mac bugs of recent memory, TFA is a Windows bug, and just off the top of my head there was the KDELook theme bug and the infected Quake 3 that was served up by most repos for a year and a half on Linux. NO OS is safe, NO OS is immune, and if you are gonna claim security by obscurity is actual security you might as well run Win95 or BeOS because hey, there aren't any bugs circulating targeting those OSes either.

Oh wow Alex being a FOSSie and throwing insults, surprise surprise. Hey here is a video of RMS you'll find enlightening and as a public service allow me to post some facts (with links, which of course you can NEVER provide) to give those that aren't sucking GNUoolaid some information about the product you keep championing blindly like a Moonie following his master.

How about a nice kernel exploit? Or how about the guy that wrote EEEBuntu saying Ubuntu sucks? which considering they are the current savior of Linux kinda tells you something.

How sad was it that even when a bug was spreading through OSX there were writers pointing out that's no reason to torture yourself with Linux , after all even a virus ridden OSX actually runs which is more than most distros LOL! But hey, you can always tell them they can fix it otherwise they don't need that right? LOL! And I noticed you just couldn't fricking resist screaming "Nigger!" which in FOSSie is done by screaming PaidMicrosoftShill, hey you think you could throw in one more FOSSie cliche please? Then I'll have a FOSSie Flush ROFL!

But if you didn't have cliches and your pathetic attempts at insults why then you might have to have an independent thought and realize what everybody knows that even when MSFT put out a universally reviled OS you STILL got curb stomped, does that give you ANY clues? or all they all brainwashed by those black choppers that have been following you? Hell when the Chinese were given the choice of your "free OS" or pirating Windows they chose the latter even if it meant staying on XP and using IE fricking 6, LOL! Does that ring ANY bells? A smart person would say "what are we doing wrong the other guy is doing right?" but a FOSSie who is just like a Moonie in that they blindly follow, instead says "Its all a conspiracy! They are all shills keeping the masses from true salvation!" and then you wonder why we all laugh at you because you DON'T Listen, you DON'T learn, and Torvalds could take a big steaming dump and hand it to you and you'd thank him for his generous gift. So enjoy that fresh bitchslapping loony, enjoy the fact that the world really doesn't care...but I do, I enjoy slapping you, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

See this is why I love to LMAO at the FOSSies, they are so "There is but one true god!" they can't even think, its like a cross between village idiot and conspiracy nut, all rolled into one!

You want some fresh bitch slapping? Be careful what you wish for FOSSie, how about a nice kernel exploit? Or how about the guy that wrote EEEBuntu saying Ubuntu sucks which considering they are the current savior of Linux kinda tells you something. But why don't you say "Use Distro X" and then have the balls to name the X so i can show its just as big a POS, huh? BTW frankly everyone has stop giving a fuck about your OS, you aren't even newsworthy anymore really. Now its all Win 7&8, OSX&iOS, and of course Android which just shows what happens when a company bitch slaps the community and takes it away from them, why it actually fucking runs!

How sad that even with a bug spreading through OSX there are writers pointing out that's no reason to torture yourself with Linux , after all even a virus ridden OSX actually runs which is more than most distros LOL! But hey, you can always tell them they can fix it otherwise they don't need that right? LOL! And I noticed you just couldn't fricking resist screaming "Nigger!" which in FOSSie is done by screaming PaidMicrosoftShill, hey you think you could throw in one more FOSSie cliche please? Then I'll have a FOSSie Flush ROFL!

But if you didn't have cliches and your pathetic attempts at insults why then you might have to have an independent thought and realize what everybody knows that even when MSFT put out a universally reviled OS you STILL got curb stomped, does that give you ANY clues? or all they all brainwashed by those black choppers that have been following you? Hell when the Chinese were given the choice of your "free OS" or pirating Windows they chose the latter even if it meant staying on XP and using IE fricking 6, LOL! Does that ring ANY bells? A smart person would say "what are we doing wrong the other guy is doing right?" but a FOSSie who is just like a Moonie in that they blindly follow, instead says "Its all a conspiracy! They are all shills keeping the masses from true salvation!" and then you wonder why we all laugh at you because you DON'T Listen, you DON'T learn, and Torvalds could take a big steaming dump and hand it to you and you'd thank him for his generous gift. So enjoy that fresh bitchslapping loony, enjoy the fact that the world really doesn't care...but I do, I enjoy slapping you, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

See this is why I love LMAO at the FOSSies, they are so "There is but one true god!" they can't even think, like how you at the very first sentence threw an insult and then dared to get butthurt when i slapped your dumb ass down.

You want some fresh bitch slapping? Be careful what you wish for FOSSie, how about a nice kernel exploit? Or how about the guy that wrote EEEBuntu saying Ubuntu sucks which considering they are the current savior of Linux kinda tells you something. But why don't you say "Use Distro X" and then have the balls to name the X so i can show its just as big a POS, huh? As for why the older ones? frankly everyone has stop giving a fuck about your OS, you aren't even newsworthy anymore really. Now its all Win 7&8, OSX&iOS, and of course Android which just shows what happens when a company bitch slaps the community and takes it away from them, why it actually fucking runs!

How sad that even with a bug spreading through OSX there are writers pointing out that's no reason to torture yourself with Linux , after all even a virus ridden OSX actually runs which is more than most distros LOL! But hey, you can always tell them they can fix it otherwise they don't need that right? LOL! And I noticed you just couldn't fricking resist screaming "Nigger!" which in FOSSie is done by screaming PaidMicrosoftShill, hey you think you could throw in one more FOSSie cliche please? Then I'll have a FOSSie Flush ROFL!

But if you didn't have cliches and your pathetic attempts at insults why then you might have to have an independent thought and realize what everybody knows that even when MSFT put out a universally reviled OS you STILL got curb stomped, does that give you ANY clues? or all they all brainwashed by those black choppers that have been following you? Hell when the Chinese were given the choice of your "free OS" or pirating Windows they chose the latter even if it meant staying on XP and using IE fricking 6, LOL! Does that ring ANY bells? A smart person would say "what are we doing wrong the other guy is doing right?" but a FOSSie who is just like a Moonie in that they blindly follow, instead says "Its all a conspiracy! They are all shills keeping the masses from true salvation!" and then you wonder why we all laugh at you because you DON'T Listen, you DON'T learn, and Torvalds could take a big steaming dump and hand it to you and you'd thank him for his generous gift. So enjoy that fresh bitchslapping loony, enjoy the fact that the world really doesn't care...but I do, I enjoy slapping you, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Oh and Microsoft doesn't need shills, they have YOU. Its batshit loony tunes like YOU that make the entire community look like retarded basement trolls, its YOU that gives everyone the fodder for all the "Linux is for lusers" jokes, because you sound like a religious whacko. Frankly all any Microsoft or Apple rep has to do is show posts like yours and say 'you would want you company de

You can try this one instead.

OS/2 is still used quite extensively in Australia by banking institutions, who claim it is still more reliable than the Windows equivalents. Much of the critical banking infrastructure reliant on OS/2 has since been ported to Linux (Mostly running atop RHEL.) The combination of high stability. the very configurable and flexible workplace shell with REXX IPC, at a time when the NT kernel was still being sorted ensured rapid uptake and penetration in some vertical markets. Like the AmigaOS it was very economical of system resources and had a very consistent UI. There are still lessons in the Workplace Shell (OS/2) and Intuition (Amiga) for both KDE and GNOME. Window managers with some of the WS features for Linux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_Shell and related http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7822082064.html

I used to love KDE. I turned a lot of other people onto it.

After 4.0, 4.1, 4.2... After what they did to Amarok... After the pathetic state of the last several Kubuntu releases... The question is, should we even bother to look at this release? Or are they still digging their hole deeper?

Yes, I am aware of the fascinating debate about who is responsible for these disasters. From 10,000 feet above it, it looks like the KDE leadership went to the dogs after v3. But I don't know, and what's more, I just don't care. The point is, the KDE brand is ruined right now. I know I am not alone in thinking this. Remember Linus? This Linus?

He switched to Gnome too. I held out a lot longer before I gave up. I loved KDE3 so much. And I really hated Gnome. Look at Mono for fuck's sake. But you know what? The KDE team beat all that loyalty out of me, crash by crash, regression by regression, blog post by blog post.

And you know what else? Somewhere a long the way they cleaned Gnome up, sanded down the worst rough edges, made it launch fast, and look pretty. It works. My Mom could use it. Unlike KDE4+, last time I looked. Which was months ago, because it was so bad I didn't even want to look anymore.

If I were the "KDE Team," I would lay very low, clean house, and labor until I had something amazing - something that would wow people again. Something original. Something worthy of their legacy.

Is this that release?

Or is it just another bandaid on the broken mess I've been watching unfold?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trolling: I've been a Gnome user since pre-1.0, but there have been times when I have felt that some of the developers needed a good whack with a cluebat.

You're not the only one. Linus has personally tangled with these extremely parochial people.

The spatial view thing was just more Gnome iconoclasm hell bent on showing the world how misguided and foolish it had been for suffering "browser" mode file managers. It took this long to pile up enough bullshit to conceal the giant egos behind such mistakes and finally make the correction.

This fixes one issue. All of Gnome, however, is permeated by the sort of thinking that ruined Nautilus. I'm with Linus; just use KDE.

Well, of course it didn't save them money or make them more efficient...they're using Microsoft junk, right? :-)

Well, duh...anyone knows MS junk makes you inefficient, wastes time and costs money.

They obviously didn't do their research...linux is the answer, not windose...:-)
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7753498575.html
http://www.guardiandigital.com/company/casestudies/hipaa.html

Etc., et cetera :-)

Ah I see you subscribe to the 'popularity myth'.

Thoroughly debunked here:

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5785842995.html

Here's a sort of corollary idea... HyperSpace or ESXi with DSL or similar runs on the machine (from flash, of course) and if you want to run something more complicated you load it in a virtual machine. One possible virtual machine would be a LAMP appliance that would make the browser in your machine more useful by hosting web applications; another one would be a storage appliance...

I'm not saying you're wrong but you haven't refuted the claim regarding large desktop deployments in the EU.

Here's one that is large but probably hasn't been deployed and isn't in the EU.

Also, since the study is 5 years old, you would need to find references of large desktop deployments in the EU that are at least that old.

WHY DOES AN OS have to be written for fucking morons? Why cant the advanced features be displayed by DE-FUCKING-FAULT?!?!?!

Just ask Apple, it's been working for them. Or GNOME.

/me ducks.

Well with Puppy the trick is to pick the right one for the size of the PC. Ecopup runs best on at least a 300MHz with 128MB of RAM. The article here gives a good general overview and if you want to run it on the REALLY old, I'm talking the ones that have 100MHz CPUs(or less) and 64MB or less on the RAM front I would get either Puppy Linux 3.01, which is made to boot and run decent in as little as 48MB of RAM and still give you a full desktop experience, or pupflux which uses fluxbox for the shell(real easy to use, as there are no buttons or icons. Simply right click and the programs files list shows up) and the great thing about pup is you don't NEED disc space! I've run puppy 3 on machines without a HDD at all and it runs fast! It loads its essential programs straight off the CD into a RAMdrive and since the ones I linked to are both less than 100MB if you have 48MB or better it will load nearly the whole OS into RAM and run from there. Very cool.

I don't care for Ubuntu. That'll probably get me flamed here, but to me Ubuntu is the WORSE choice for trying Linux. It seems to embrace all the bloat of Windows Vista and OSX and has way too much "bling bling" like 3d flipping desktops. When I am using a PC I want it to work, not try to baffle me with bullshit. And for older machines it is a slug, just way too bloated! While I still love to tweak Windows sometimes you want to have a "set it and forget it" PC, and with really old hardware an AV or antispy will drag it down to a crawl. With DSL or Puppy the PC doesn't need any malware protection and as long as the hardware doesn't fail neither will the PC. Great for grannys or for a guest PC where you don't want to risk your Windows setup. And with their pre packaged program puplets installing a program is even easier than Windows. Simply download and drop it in the programs folder. That way you can start out with a "barebone" style puppy and just drag and drop the programs you are going to want to use. Cuts out all the bloat.And it is a great way to play with Linux, as there isn't any need for tons of Unix CLI junk. If your hardware is supported, you're golden. Just boot from CD, make sure everything works, and there you go. And you can install Puppy on a 400MB HDD easy. I bet you have a ton of pre GB HDDs lying around, don't you?

I have no problem using the cheapo PSU as long as I follow the 150w rule. You break the 150w rule at your own peril. But that PSU calc I've found is not only good for designing a system, but also for "what if?" scenarios where you might be adding some extra HDD, GPU, etc to the box later. For example I have a Geforce 5200 and a 6200 sitting here in a drawer. On this next build(which I'm hoping will either be the 2.8GHz Celeron or the 1.5GHz Athlon if my buddy can get the cap changed out) I will figure in the power cost of the 6200 so that even if I don't use it I will have enough headroom that I could. But for basic builds (under 2.2GHz with integrated video) I've found those OEM PSUs work fine for those. The key with a PSU is to know what it can handle and what it can't. With a cheapo it is better to give it a minimum of 150w of overhead to keep from pulling too hard on the 12v. But that way I don't have to throw away working PSUs even if they are OEM. Just follow the rule and you are good! But I have found they are quite reliable if you follow the rule. they have a bad rep because those damned OEMs will put a 250w PSU in a machine that spikes at 300w. Talk about a sure death.

And finally I avoid public service orgs like the clap. As you said they have to blow every dime. Reminds me of how my buds in the USAF would bring home killer gear out of the dumpster because the base "had" to upgrade even when they didn't need it to keep their budget from being slashed next year. Your tax dollars at work, huh? When I say places like ch

I second this recommendation.

Using a smaller specialized distribution is IMHO a better choice than all the bloat found in "full" dists like Ubuntu -- notice that I do use Ubuntu :-S.

Years ago, I used a PentiumIII with 128Mb and a terribly slow disk. It booted Debian into Gnome (a very old version - can't remember which) in 23 seconds. My "Core Duo" laptop, or brand new Quad-core desktop take more than twice that to start up. BTW both run Ubuntu.

In my experience, this claim/expectation that XFCE is significantly faster than Gnome or KDE just doesn't cut. IceWM and LXDE are the real contenders here.

whilst it's always good to see genuinely open formats in use, isn't there already an ISO standard document format? If there is, is it better to use the ISO standard or an open standard?

ODF is an ISO standard, as is Microsoft's OOXML format. However ODF is an open standard whereas OOXML is proprietary. As the Star-Telegram article says "If the Constitution was in WordPerfect 5.1 format, it would probably be difficult to read right now", substitute any of MS's formats and it would still be true.

Falcon

You can make things even easier by using AbiWord, the multi-platform word processor.

AbiWord has a collaboration plug-in that allows multiple authors to simultaneously work on a document. It also has a LaTeX exporter that will preserve most formatting and document elements, including MathML equations (which are converted to LaTeX ones during export). You could also save in OpenDocument format, open the .odt file in OpenOffice, and then use its LaTeX exporter, if you find that its LaTeX output is better.

Either way, you should be able to handle collaboration and LaTeX export with easy-to-use, open source word processors instead of (potentially) confusing tools.

EeeOS is designed to be a minimalistic Custom Debian Distribution that provides a base system (drivers, system tools, Xorg) and nothing more. The idea behind such a release is so that users of Eee Linux OS can configure and build their own Eee experience ... an EeeXperience if you will :P While systems like Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse and Xandros are all amazing in their own right, they often come pre-configured and with a lot of bloat. Some power users prefer to have complete control over their systems and it is with these users in mind that Eee OS was created.

I was going to go on a lengthy explanation about how you could use Slackware or Gentoo to provide the optimal configuration you are interested in but after reading your summary, I doubt you're interested in this sort of devotion to squeezing your eeePC like a lemon over your enemy's eye.

... though I've been told with great enthusiasm that it actually works "out of the box."

Ubuntu has worked "out of the box" for two of my DLink WiFi cards. It worked on a no name CompUSA brand rebate PCMCIA card on my laptop but there were ... annoyances ... with lack of encryption options.

Also, why did you go with an Eee Ubuntu and not Xubuntu ... which I guess would be more widely supported?

Who told you that OSS is less safe than closed sourceWho told you that OSS is less safe than closed source?

A representative of a company who wants to sell!

MS is known to have used a business tactics known as Fear, Uncertainty and Disorientation

Facts are:

MS source code can be obtained by Hackers/Crackers through illegitimate channels - the availability of source code is not an argument.

Thousands of experts monitor OSS source code and vulnerabilities are discussed in the open. Hackers recognizing vulnerabilities in MS source code are not to publish it, but to write exploits!

Number of successful attacks on MS and other closed source products in comparison to OSS products speaks for itself.

Average workload consumed per machine for remedy of exploitation coed ( malware removal ) was per Windows machines 20 manhours, for Linux machines 0.01 hours at a company running 5000 PCs

You can offer security tests and penetration tests to your costumer !

The largest institutions and companies where security is an issue use Linux

• DoDs http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3846976086.html http://www.forbes.com/2003/06/20/cz_eb_0620linux.html
• NSAs even created SE linux http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/
• IBM - you know IBM?
• DHS http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=dhs.gov
• FBI http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?restriction=site+contains&host=fbi.gov&lookup=wait..&position=limited
• Navy http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?restriction=site+contains&host=navy.mil&lookup=wait..&position=limited
• Air Force http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?restriction=site+contains&host=airforce.com&lookup=wait..&position=limited
• Amazon http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-275155.html
• Google just google Google about use of Linux

• Contraindications - or failures of MS installations in the media:

• French http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Computer_virus_grounds_French_fighter_planes/articleshow/4094774.cms
• British http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/15/royal_navy_email_virus_outage/
• US http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/38384

Maybe cheap on the hardware end, but the VMWare per node licenses are going to be pretty painful.

Maybe cheap on the hardware end, but the VMWare per node licenses are going to be pretty painful.

Nope, just do not use VMWare...

Of course Linux being open source, there is always a way to get anything to work if you are willing to spend the time figuring out how to do it. From a corporate standpoint, the hard part is getting things to work the first time, after that you simply duplicate the steps. Sadly some companies will not give their techs the time to figure out how to get something to work...deciding instead to only buy software and hardware with the promise of support from the outside, whether or not that support will work or not. As long as they promise to support it, my butt is covered and protected...dont you hate that short sighted attitude, I know I do. Sometimes what they do is in the best interests of the company, however most of the time it is NOT, just misguided CYA.

These types of computers are great if they do everything you need them to do out of the box. If not then you might have issues.

If its built in to the net book, it just works...sometimes adding something can be a problem.

If a netbook or laptop has WiFi built in, Cam built in, NIC built in, USB Built in(2 or 3 are better), External monitor port Built in; head set and microphone jacks built in; than it just works. Oops, just described an Eee PC there... These $99 - $399 Linux netbooks, laptops and computers have been around since October 2007 and are only getting cheaper today. And thank goodness they will run some version of Linux.

Maybe cheap on the hardware end, but the VMWare per node licenses are going to be pretty painful.

Maybe cheap on the hardware end, but the VMWare per node licenses are going to be pretty painful.

Nope, just do not use VMWare...

Of course Linux being open source, there is always a way to get anything to work if you are willing to spend the time figuring out how to do it. From a corporate standpoint, the hard part is getting things to work the first time, after that you simply duplicate the steps. Sadly some companies will not give their techs the time to figure out how to get something to work...deciding instead to only buy software and hardware with the promise of support from the outside, whether or not that support will work or not. As long as they promise to support it, my butt is covered and protected...dont you hate that short sighted attitude, I know I do. Sometimes what they do is in the best interests of the company, however most of the time it is NOT, just misguided CYA.

These types of computers are great if they do everything you need them to do out of the box. If not then you might have issues.

If its built in to the net book, it just works...sometimes adding something can be a problem.

If a netbook or laptop has WiFi built in, Cam built in, NIC built in, USB Built in(2 or 3 are better), External monitor port Built in; head set and microphone jacks built in; than it just works. Oops, just described an Eee PC there... These $99 - $399 Linux netbooks, laptops and computers have been around since October 2007 and are only getting cheaper today. And thank goodness they will run some version of Linux.

How about controlling my right click.

As demonstrated by your other reply to another post of mine, your idea of an organized DE seems very much to be geek-think, not user-think. Which is fine, but don't expect anybody else to think it doesn't suck.

The whole basis of their lawsuits against IBM is from the fact that SCO claims to own the UNIX IP.

Yes SCO claims it but they do not own it. Judge Dale Kimball even ruled Novell owned Unix IP. That was an old link, from 10 August 2007. So here's one from 16 July 2008, Ruling: SCO owes Novell $2.54 million from SCO-Sun SVRX deal.

Falcon

Similarly, can you name anyone who uses Linux for professional photography editing? Eh? I mean, the GIMP is nice, but it's no photoshop.

I have a friend who does professional photography and he uses The GIMP. As far as I am concerned I have no idea how to use PhotoShop so I could easily use the GIMP if I wanted to without trying to make useless comparisons.

Yes the GIMP is not PhotoShop but you can get gimpshop which makes the GIMP have a PhotoShop look and feel and it is still free while PhotoShop costs. Of course if you as a professional photographer still want PhotoShop and pays for it (cough !) you can still run it under Linux via Wine see this .

In many respects comparing PhotoShop to the Gimp is not much more different than comparing MS Office to Open Office. Yes the one you pay for will have more functionality and most likely look prettier however the the overall differences in usable functionality for most people is negligible. Comparing most proprietary software to their Linux equivalent usually sees this trend so why pay for something that has a particular functionality that you are rarely if ever going to use.

Well, you can give Moonlight a try, from the second link, it seems they were working on supporting moonlight users. I know it may irk some to use proprietary codecs in linux, but worth a look.

It took off like a rocket and then Intel dumped it for an RPM-based distro.

Go figure.

Ubuntu isn't as well suited for mobile devices as fedora is?

It just goes to show that Ubuntu being popular has nothing to do with it's packaging system OR anything to do with it being any good as a distribution. Mark Shuttleworth really knows how to market things..

You think? I use Ubuntu because Debian stable is outdated most of the time. And for me one major reason for Debian is it's package managment system. Just look how many distros are based on Debian vs. how many are based on fedora or openSuSe (distrowatch).

It took off like a rocket and then Intel dumped it for an RPM-based distro.

Go figure.

It just goes to show that Ubuntu being popular has nothing to do with it's packaging system OR anything to do with it being any good as a distribution. Mark Shuttleworth really knows how to market things..

Intro: "Microsoft has confirmed that there will be a widespread public beta of Windows 7 in early 2009, while urging device manufacturers to start immediate testing with its pre-beta release to avoid the widespread hardware compatibility problems that contributed so much to the negative perception of Vista."

Interesting.

Meanwhile, Linux driver developers are begging to write drivers (at no cost) for hardware OEMs.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6669895837.html

As a hardware OEM, you would have to be thinking that it is going to cost you way, way less to get a working driver for your new product written for Linux.

As further evidence of the egos, remember when Linus attempted to contribute the patches to Gnome as part of the Linus versus Gnome war?

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8745257437.html

Anyway he didn't start small at all. Go Ego :)

You need konqueror then I think. Yes it runs on windows now under KDE4, but I think they crippled it because it was too good.

See http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT4753761802.html for an example image of split browsing.

Also, Amazon is selling this same "complete edition" of ubuntu. There's a article on it on DesktopLinux.com: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5306637369.html

http://packages.gentoo.org/feed/arch/amd64 - So I know when "sudo emerge --sync" is particularly called for

http://www.desktoplinux.com/backend/headlines.rss - Occasionally informs me of things not covered on Slashdot

http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot - Yup

http://feeds.feedburner.com/rawstory/gKpz - Politics

"there is nothing like Photoshop, and no killer video capture and editing software, and for some, games are important too"

Photoshop under Linux

CINELERRA, the first Linux based real-time editing

For games, buy a PlayStation or Nintendo ..

There that sorts it out, 2500 is no where near 1/4 of all US pc's

So, you know how many PCs Publicis Groupe uses?

I'm not going to bash it (other than being proprietary and expensive)

I'll grant you proprietary, so is Windows, however Macs are not expensive. At least not anymore expensive than Windows PCs.

With the looming recession I don't think there will end up being all that many of those votes, especially when GNU/Linux is making so much headway.

Looming? As if there isn't already a recession? And what headway is GNU?Linux making? Is it against Macs? Both Linux and Macs are making gains against Windows: Windows is caught between Mac and Linux". And that's a Linux website not a Mac site.

If the numbers in TFA are true (36 million students, growing to 52 million by the end of 2009), then this is absolutely huge in terms of Linux install base. In fact, I think this project would approximately double the install base.

I know that "counting" the number of Linux installs is essentially impossible, but here are some random numbers I've accumulated that point to the approximate size of the Linux user base:
1. The Linux Counter estimated 29 million installs in 2005. This estimate involved numerous assumptions, such as extrapolating from 8 million installs reported by Red Hat in 1998.
2. According to an IDC study, the Linux marketshare for PCs was ~3% in 2003.
3. There are about 1 billion Internet users. Browser logs indicate that Linux accounts for ~0.8% to ~3.9% of web traffic. This gives us an estimate of 8 million to 39 million Linux users. (The upper estimate is undoubtedly an over-estimate since the value comes from W3Schools, which probably has a greater fraction of 'technical' users.)
4. According to Canonical's server logs from OS updates, there are approximately 6 million active users of Ubuntu (see here and here). Assuming that Ubuntu represents 30% of Linux usage (based on this), you can come up with an estimate of 20 million Linux users.
5. According to Fedora's logs for OS updates, there are approximately 2.8 million installations of Fedora Core 6, and 1.6 million of Fedora 7. Assuming Fedora represents 9% of Linux installs (again, based on this), you can estimate 48 million Linux users.

Obviously all of these methods have their own problems. I'm not claiming that any of these estimates are robust. However they do at least suggest a range for the number of Linux users (~20 million) and the marketshare of Linux (~1% to 2%).

So, this single project, it would seem, is drastically increasing (doubling?) Linux usage. This is huge, in my opinion, because a generation of students who have learned Linux will be far more likely to use and improve upon FLOSS when they enter the job market.

If the numbers in TFA are true (36 million students, growing to 52 million by the end of 2009), then this is absolutely huge in terms of Linux install base. In fact, I think this project would approximately double the install base.

I know that "counting" the number of Linux installs is essentially impossible, but here are some random numbers I've accumulated that point to the approximate size of the Linux user base:
1. The Linux Counter estimated 29 million installs in 2005. This estimate involved numerous assumptions, such as extrapolating from 8 million installs reported by Red Hat in 1998.
2. According to an IDC study, the Linux marketshare for PCs was ~3% in 2003.
3. There are about 1 billion Internet users. Browser logs indicate that Linux accounts for ~0.8% to ~3.9% of web traffic. This gives us an estimate of 8 million to 39 million Linux users. (The upper estimate is undoubtedly an over-estimate since the value comes from W3Schools, which probably has a greater fraction of 'technical' users.)
4. According to Canonical's server logs from OS updates, there are approximately 6 million active users of Ubuntu (see here and here). Assuming that Ubuntu represents 30% of Linux usage (based on this), you can come up with an estimate of 20 million Linux users.
5. According to Fedora's logs for OS updates, there are approximately 2.8 million installations of Fedora Core 6, and 1.6 million of Fedora 7. Assuming Fedora represents 9% of Linux installs (again, based on this), you can estimate 48 million Linux users.

Obviously all of these methods have their own problems. I'm not claiming that any of these estimates are robust. However they do at least suggest a range for the number of Linux users (~20 million) and the marketshare of Linux (~1% to 2%).

So, this single project, it would seem, is drastically increasing (doubling?) Linux usage. This is huge, in my opinion, because a generation of students who have learned Linux will be far more likely to use and improve upon FLOSS when they enter the job market.

If you're not developing for Windows, you can junk Visual Studio. None of the devs where I work use it (even the ones who use Windows).

Even if you ARE developing for Windows, you don't need Visual Studio. Many of the alternatives run fine under wine (better than they do natively in Windows).

Also, those who have switched to linux from xp have found the kde desktop to be superior to the windows desktop. Switching chat programs was just a matter of entering their icq and/or msn info. As for media playing, try playing 3gp files from your cell phone under windows. Or accessing your cell phone w/o special software. Under linux, just plug it in and start transfering the data.

If you really need hand-holding (*real* developers don't need no stinking IDE :-) eclipse supports java/c/c++, and there are IDEs for pretty much everything else if you really need them.

For the average user, linux is easily the better solution for one reason - updates for ALL the software for the thousands of optional apps is centralized - just hit your distro's update servers or let the auto-updater take care of everyting, unlike Windows, which only updates Windows.

There's no registry, no HK_KEY crap, backing up user data is as simple as making a tarball of the /home/joe or /home/mary, and those hundreds of thousands of Windows viruses just don't run ...

Also, photoshop runs on linux, and has for the last 5 years - go here for support for many more Windows apps

BTW, GIMP can handle hundreds of layers, no problem. When I first switched, I found it klunky, but part of that was that its different. For many people, it's overkill, same as photoshop, and size is, like always, dependent on ram and cpu.

Im sorry regarding formatting!
So a formatted reply! :-)
Gnome the favourite for bashing!still Gnome improves with each release(consistent).

    Gnome UI is very easy for even a n00b! Gnome liked by many in their hearts,but tries their best to avoid because after seeing the comments of Gnome basher's in slashdot and other EUROPEAN sites,they are confused! Gnome is the most used Desktop Environment.but we feel like it is not!because most of the users who are commenting are basically Europeans!Europeans loves kde for some unknown reason.EU ppl likes OpenSUse!go figure out!dont believe linuxquestions.org polls.it is opened for 1 month or so.all kde ppl from EU voted for it. while an Independent sudden 3 day poll was opened by http://desktoplinux.com/ [desktoplinux.com] and the winner is Gnome with a huge gap followed by kde!!!

    Gnome is a FSF project!even if you believes FOSS Utopia wont happen ,I support Gnome and GTK2+ applications. Gnome does not mocks winblow$ registry,instead Gnome uses gconf a centralized xml database which is actually easy and useful!unlike winblow$ registry which is binary and buggy! Gnome For The Win! Kde=worst windows copy! qt=a good toolkit(gui)

  Q.I really wants to use kde,but I know it is as bloated as Madras Metro Lorry's garbage!

  Ans:Use Kdemod,which is only available with Archlinux! Kdemod=kde+modular=kde -most of the fucking bloats!

  make Gnome The Desktop Environment standard!use it,embrace it! to Gnome users: Prevent De Iqaza and Co from bundling mono apps with Gnome!that sucks!

Gnome the favourite for bashing!still Gnome improves with each release(consistent). Gnome UI is very easy for even a n00b! Gnome liked by many in their hearts,but tries their best to avoid because after seeing the comments of Gnome basher's in slashdot and other EUROPEAN sites,they are confused! Gnome is the most used Desktop Environment.but we feel like it is not!because most of the users who are commenting are basically Europeans!Europeans loves kde for some unknown reason.EU ppl likes OpenSUse!go figure out!dont believe linuxquestions.org polls.it is opened for 1 month or so.all kde ppl from EU voted for it. while an Independent sudden 3 day poll was opened by http://desktoplinux.com/ and the winner is Gnome with a huge gap followed by kde!!! Gnome is a FSF project!even if you believes FOSS wont happen ,I support Gnome and GTK2+ applications. Gnome does not mocks winblow$ registry,instead Gnome uses gconf a centralized xml database which is actually easy and useful!unlike winblow$ registry which is binary and buggy! Gnome For The Win! Kde=worst windows copy! qt=a good library(gui). Q.I really wants to use kde,but I know it is as bloated as Madras Metro Lorry's garbage! Ans:Use Kdemod,which is only available with Archlinux! Kdemod=kde+modular=kde -most of the fucking bloats! make Gnome The Desktop Environment standard!use it,embrace it! to Gnome users: Prevent De Iqaza and Co from bundling mono apps with Gnome!that sucks!

Codeweavers doesn't make Wine!!

D-BUS is great. D-BUS is wonderful. But, DBUS and SOM do entirely different things. DBUS is meant to be a universal IPC (interprocess communication) mechanism for the Linux desktop. See http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4449390454.html for more details. SOM's a set of object libraries. You would use them together. In fact, D-BUS, since both the GNOME and KDE communities have embraced its use, would make an ideal interface for SOM. Or, in other words, DBUS would enable applications to more easily access the power of SOM objects.

Steven

Stats are a funny thing. For example, the 2007 Desktop Linux survey showed more people using GNOME than KDE.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8454912761.html

I know way more GNOME users than KDE users (I prefer GNOME myself (I guess I don't know :P)), so I can't really put a lot of stock in your anecdotal evidence, either.

Meh, just use whatever you prefer.

And they use the (r) here plain as day. Mea culpa - it would have been so easy to look first. *blush*

The rest of my statements were accurate, however, despite my lapse of memory. Microsoft's initial request for a trademark on Windows was rejected as generic, but they succeeded in overturning that ruling on appeal. Lindows sought to have the trademark invalidated as generic as part of their countersuit. Microsoft launched a blitz of lawsuits worldwide to (I believe) drive Lindows into financial distress and force a settlement rather than litigate on the merits of their case. And Microsoft did pay Lindows $20 million to end the lawsuit and change their name (to Linspire) - which looks less like a victory to me than a payoff. You can read the details here and here.

Perhaps I was wishfully thinking. I believe the original rejection of the trademark was proper. That and $5 will get you a coffee at Starbucks, of course.

Here is a Slashdot story submission that helps explain why corporations have not adopted Firefox. The submission was rejected: "008-01-09 02:36:24 Mozilla gets a new CEO (Features,Mozilla) (rejected)".

Many people depend on Slashdot to help them learn about important events in computing. But this event hasn't been covered, and apparently is being ignored: It appears that Firefox does not have more market share because Firefox development has been very poorly managed.

Here is the Slashdot story submission:

Winifred Mitchell Baker has given up her position as CEO of Mozilla.

Firefox is now partly a profit-making effort. There has been considerable discussion about the possibility of Firefox issuing stock and becoming a public corporation. Firefox made a profit of $47,000,000 on revenues of $67,000,000 in 2006.

That enormous profit percentage that raises a question: Why did Firefox take in $67 million, but only spend $20 million? What is happening with the rest of the money?

Firefox development has been glacially slow. For example, in 6 years the CPU hogging and memory hogging bugs are still not fixed (although there has been considerable improvement).Thunderbird development has been abandoned. Opera is able to restore sessions, but the Firefox session restore feature throws away URLs if response is slow. Why is that, when millions of dollars are spent on development each year?

Firefox makes money when people use it to visit ads. Google pays because Firefox uses Google as the default search engine. It seems likely that a profit-making Firefox will eventually prevent add-ons like AdBlock Plus that stop the display of ads which many users find annoying.

The former CEO, Winifred Mitchell Baker, has no technical knowledge. She is a lawyer. She took the job when no one thought there was money in development of Netscape/Firebird that became Firefox.

Will the new CEO manage better? Or will Firefox development begin to be unfriendly to the user so that it will make money?

I disagree.

You can disagree all you want. It doen't make that disagreement sound or valid.

Yes, of course. Unfortunately for you, that goes both ways.

Seems that everybody forgets that months ago Microsoft latest strategy against OSS was to cut "interoperability" and "patent protection" deals with every Linux distribution it could (a move that allowed them both to throw FUD and -potentially- profit on OSS at the same time).

Well, it isn't that everyone forgets, the fanaticism died down and they were able to look at the details of the deals to find that what was being said about them wasn't true. Only the truely foolish and the fanatics continue to spout ideas like you are.

Sorry, but bashing and name calling won't get you nowhere, and judging by the level of your "argumentation" I'm pretty sure you're the one acting as a fanatic. Perhaps it would be best if you just shed some light on the details you're talking about which supposedly disprove my view.

It was the release of the GPLv3 (which among other things, closed that possibility) what made them back out; something which was accomplished without needing any actual project to change their license (the mere threat that it could happen was enough).

Well, it was more or less Novell that backed them out. But something more interesting is that Linspire, xandros or whatever it is called now and a few other companies made a deal with Microsoft knowing full well about the GPLv3 and what it said. Or are your forgeting about those?

No, Microsoft was actually the only one to back out from the deal: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/misc/07-05statement.mspx (Novell response: http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=365)
Microsoft-Xandros: june 4, 2007 http://www.xandros.com/news/press_releases/xandros_microsoft_collaborate.html
Microsoft-LGE: june 6, 2007 http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/jun07/06-06MSLGEPR.mspx
Microsoft-Linspire: june 13, 2007 http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9642338710.html
GPLv3 release: june 29, 2007 http://www.fsf.org/news/gplv3_launched
But I'm sure they had studied the license extensively (even though the GPLv3 was released weeks after the last deal...)

I'd say that alone justify it's existence and is prove enough that there is a point to GPLv3.

I would say your either ignorant of how it didn't accomplish that or you are attempting to pump up the GPLv3 hoping that people are dumb enough to believe you. Either way, what I wouldn't say is that you are correct in your interpretation.

Ooops, you caught me there. I guess there's no point in keeping it secret any longer: I'm a GPLv3 zealot payed by RMS himself to post on Slashdot as part of the worldwide FSF conspiracy to take over the world.... (you know, your username almost honours you...)
Back to reality, I stand by my original point: even is the GPLv3 were impractical in most cases, it has already had a significant positive impact on OSS by putting an end to that. I'm afraid that to prove your point you'll have to do a bit more than posing a false dichotomy where I must either be completely ignorant or have some obscure agenda.

Just because it's not perfect it doesn't mean that it's not better than it's predecessor (and it certainly doesn't mean it's worst). That

The Classmate PC doesn't run Sugar, the XO's UI. Instead, it runs Windows.

Hey don't let the facts get in the way of your religion. My apologies if that makes 3/4 of your comment an uninformed rant.

The rest of your comment is similar nonsense. Either untrue, unfounded speculation, personal bias or nostalgic mis-remembering.

I'm a GNOME user, so I didn't know much about KDE4. Here are some interesting links I just found while researching what KDE4 is going to include:

KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop

KDE 4.0: Well worth the wait!

KDE 4 is almost ready to go

KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 features new shell

KDE 4: some reasons for design decisions

I don't think I'll switch from GNOME, but KDE4 sounds like it will have some cool features.