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They're getting something out of this (or at least they believe they are), and if you've directly benefited, then it's reasonable to believe that it's costing you something as well (TNSTAAFL).

Yes, and Fedora Core 5 ships with Mono, which is almost certainly covered by one or more Microsoft patents.

Will Novell quietly drop out of OIN now that Microsoft have paid them? We shall see.

Only 6 users? I think Debian has a bit more users than that.

In "2006 Desktop Linux Survey" by desktoplinux.com Debian was the second most popular distro with 12.2 % of all the votes. Ubuntu won that poll with 29.2 %.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey. cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613

DistroWatch statistics show that 32.2 % of their visitors use Linux. 7.7 % of their visitors use some version of Ubuntu (or their derivatives) and 4.3 % of their visitors use Debian or its derivatives (excluding Ubuntu and its derivatives, which actually are also Debian's derivatives). So Ubuntu's percentage of the Linux-using DistroWatch visitors is over 20 % and well over 10 % of the Linux-using DistroWatch visitors use Debian. That must be more than 6 users. :-)

http://distrowatch.com/awstats/awstats.DistroWatch .com.osdetail.html

Of course, Debian is mainly used on servers and less on desktops. However, Debian testing/unstable works quite nicely as an up-to-date desktop system. (Ubuntu is a popular desktop distro but it has yet to establish its position as a server distro.)

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/03/14/fedor a_makes_rapid_progress.html

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/12/05/stron g_growth_for_debian.html

http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=205

Why are we making life so much easier for crackers?

I pick on Ubuntu in particular as it is by a large margin the most popular desktop Linux distro.

An article written in May suggested that OpenSUSE 10.1 combined with Xgl will perform better with lesser hardware requirements and wins on several other fronts too. Plus, you can probably run it on your MacBook.

I read that as you are saying the lack of Linux adoption is because there is no GUI? And hardware vendors don't write drivers for their products on this platform because there is no GUI?

No, read it once more. I say there is lack of Linux adoption (insignificant market share) because the applications available on Linux have no useful GUI (mind useful) and hardware vendors don't provide drivers or even information because there's no significant market share. This can easily proved right by reading the OSDL survey (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf) or looking into this LinuxQuestions thread (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthrea d.php?t=105955) or acknowledge that 60% of the Linux users still use Windows applications (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613).

O. Wyss

When do Linux enthusiasts realize that a Liunx desktop system isn't an option for ordinary users. It doesn't matter if the Linux kernel is 10 times better than any other OS and it doesn't matter if the Linux desktops (Gnome/KDE/XFCE/etc) are more or less usable, if the free applications an ordinary user wants to work with aren't available! Can't people understand that OSDL in its survey (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf) found out that application support is the first "Top inhibitors of Linux desktop adoption". And that still 60% of all Linux users (which currently are mostly power users) still use any kind of running Windows applications (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613). Sorry but as long as this is the case Linux isn't ready for prime time.

Most sadly there seems nobody interested in this matter, neither ODSL, DesktopLinux nor any other Organization cares about fixing this situation. Neither do RedHat, Novell, Sun nor IBM which pour much useless money into the wrong channels. So one doesn't need to be good prophet to predict that Linux won't be ready when Windows XP gets retired and quite possible also with Vista. It's incredible sad that the free software community doesn't seems to be able to acknowledge this situation and fix it. Not within this or the next year and quite possible not in the next 10 years as well.

O. Wyss

PS. I know I shouldn't write such a message since I most probably get stabbed like the early messengers bringing bad news to the king.

On the FOSS side of things of course, we have merging of designer/developers and users, so the issue is somewhat irrelevant. We can still improve our communications and documentation *a lot* though.

If this merging would be true, we all and not just a few percents would use a FOSS desktop system these days. Just think why does the OSDL survey (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf) mentions "Application support" as its first "Top inhibitors of Linux desktop adoption"? And why still use 60% of all Linux users some kind of running Windows applications (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613)?

O. Wyss

A community that's perfectly happy with EMACS and VI? ...

It's not the community that's happy with the OSS UI design, it's just the posters who aggressively voice there opinion here. Else the Linux desktop would be the number one desktop and users wouldn't use Wine, etc to run Windows applications. You don't believe me? Well why then shows the OSDL survey that a majority of the Linux users still wish for Windows applications (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf)? Or why use 60% of the Linux users any kind of methode running Windows application (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613)?

Unfortunately mostly the pro EMACS and VI voicers are also developers while rather seldom any none voicer is also a developer. Therefore most UI design mistakes don't get corrected even if it would be rather easy (see http://wyoguide.sf.net/).

O. Wyss

Usability improvements on the desktop are nice but when do people realize that usability improvements are desperately needed on the application level and only marginally on the desktop. What does it help if you have a perfect desktop but many of the applications one uses have a rather rubbish usability!

Usability is always measured in a greater context, a context which goes far beyond the Gnome desktop but spans any desktop used. Just think how an American driver feels when he drives in England or vice versa. You might interrupt that's rather seldom the case but not with computer desktops. Almost each Gnome users uses a KDE application and even 60% use a Windows application (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613 at the bottom) and everybody knows the easyness of MacOSX.

Sure application developers don't want to lose much time with usability they want to concentrate on functionality. So they can't follow multiple separate usability guidelines they simply don't have the time. Yet usability is a very important part in the acceptance of an application. To circumvent this, application developers should follow cross-desktop or cross-platform guidelines (http://wyoguide.sf.net/).

Yet Gnome might still follow the MacOSX way sticking to there own perfect way and be happy with a rather insignificant market share. Or they help working on fighting off the first "Top inhibitors of Linux desktop adoption" (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf).

O. Wyss

The recent DesktopLinux survey shows Ubuntu ahead by a huge margin:

The most popular desktop of Linux today is... well, most of you can already guess without seeing the scores: Ubuntu. Ubuntu, with 29.2 percent of the vote, has been the hottest community Linux since early 2005. While this Linux has had its problems lately, such as the update fiasco on August 21st and 22nd, users continue to download, install, and love it. And, why not? It's an excellent distribution. It's not just users who think this; reviewers have also labeled it the Desktop Linux Champ.

more: http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5816278551. html

Can you please show us all where Linux is eating Microsofts lunch? I have yet to see a report showing linux eating anything other than college hobbyists and a very small server markets left overs. At best Linux is eating into Unix market share, specifically the small scraps Windows doesn't consume as it grows.

Even OsX has over taken linux as a desktop OS.

As for there being more linux developers than windows... thats great, let me know when they write something other than yet another version of minesweeper (or some other crappy knockoff game), the 32nd chat client that sucks, the 200th+ text editor we don't need. Better yet, the 50th crappy desktop shell. Quality over quantity here. Sad to say, Microsoft has better quality (clearly not security, but in every other way, they have quality).

Before you bitch about bloat and blue screens (the common misinformed linux answer), lets look at KDE and emacs for bloat, and find me a knowledgeable computer person that ever gets blue screens anymore. Yes they happen, but with linux they actually patch IN blue screens. I know I don't get them and haven't seen one since XP was released(other than with beta drivers or intentional bad configurations).

Can you please show us all where Linux is eating Microsofts lunch? I have yet to see a report showing linux eating anything other than college hobbyists and a very small server markets left overs. At best Linux is eating into Unix market share, specifically the small scraps Windows doesn't consume as it grows.

Even OsX has over taken linux as a desktop OS.

As for there being more linux developers than windows... thats great, let me know when they write something other than yet another version of minesweeper (or some other crappy knockoff game), the 32nd chat client that sucks, the 200th+ text editor we don't need. Better yet, the 50th crappy desktop shell. Quality over quantity here. Sad to say, Microsoft has better quality (clearly not security, but in every other way, they have quality).

Before you bitch about bloat and blue screens (the common misinformed linux answer), lets look at KDE and emacs for bloat, and find me a knowledgeable computer person that ever gets blue screens anymore. Yes they happen, but with linux they actually patch IN blue screens. I know I don't get them and haven't seen one since XP was released(other than with beta drivers or intentional bad configurations).

According to this link, "I recently wrote that Lenovo was the first of the major hardware vendors to seriously pre-install Linux -- SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, to be exact. And, they have.

At LinuxWorld, however, some of them were doing their darnest to spin that "no, no, they're not really pre-installing it. They're only sort of supporting it." You could almost see the terror in some of their eyes that Microsoft was going to come along and then stagger them with outrageous new rates for XP and, someday, Vista.

Get over it guys. You do pre-install, you do support it, and it's time to stop pretending that you only sort of support it. Yes, to get it pre-installed you do need to buy more than a "onesie or twosie" as one Lenovo staffer put it to me. Other Lenovo employees, however, confided that Lenovo can certainly install SLED rather than sending a system with a blank hard drive, a copy of SLED on a DVD, and a promise that all the devices will work correctly. And, that Lenovo would be willing to do so even for its smallest customers."

You might want to look again, Nat demoed it for a large audience first time in March of 05, with a targetted release in 06, while Apple demoed it in July 2004, and released it in 2005. Microsoft has been talking about their search functionality for a couple of years as well (with regards to WinFS) So Apple & Microsoft had talked about it before Beagle, Apple demoed it almost a year before Beagle, and Apple released the finished product in their OS just a few months after Beagle's first major demo (Suse officially released Suse 10 just last month). You you like to try again?

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,64069,00.html ?tw=wn_tophead_4
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9210850677.html

There are many good resources on the web. The standard resource is The Linux Documentation Project, or http://www.tldp.org/. Another site, which is much better than it used to be, is http://www.linux.com/. http://www.linuxjournal.com/ has many great articles to guide you through a wide variety of small projects. A great newer site with helpful articles is http://www.howtoforge.com/. For help on the desktop side, http://www.desktoplinux.com/ has many articles you may find of use. Documentation and information about KDE is, of course, available at http://www.kde.org/ and it's affiliated sites (linked from their homepage). IBM is always putting up new articles at http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/ that can provide usefull information for development work under Linux. You may also find the articles on http://www.debian.org/, http://www.gentoo.org/, and http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ usefull even though the articles were written for other distros.

If you can't find what you're looking for there, you can always head over to irc.freenode.net. The #suse and #opensuse channels will be of particular interest to you. You may find #kde helpful for KDE applications. ##linux is basically a catch-all channel; we'll generally be able to field just about any question you throw at us there. If we can't, we will point you in the right direction.

Keeping up with the FOSS news can also teach you quite a bit. You already know about Slashdot. http://osnews.com/ is another very nice resource. http://www.kerneltrap.org/ is a less frequently updated site which can provide you with more advanced information. Keeping an eye on http://www.freshmeat.net/ can help you get a better feel for the various software available for Linux. And of course, with gmail you can setup alerts for Linux, KDE, etc.

If you really want to learn more about Linux, there's no better way than distro hopping. Go to http://www.vmware.com/ and download their free VMWare Server 1.0 to allow you to try out various distros without having to wipe your hard drive. This does, however, require you have a decent amount of RAM (I'd recommend at least 1 GB). Go to http://www.distrowatch.com/ for a fairly complete list of the available Linux distros, sorted by popularity.

If all these links really don't solve your problems, take yourself over to your best local bookstore and buy a book or two. The drawback of doing this, however, is that most of them will be pretty much out of date by the time they hit the shelves. On the other hand, they will give you a great foundation upon which you can build (update yourself) easily by utilizing the online resources.

Also, never forget about http://www.google.com/linux!

A recent article in DesktopLinux reported that four countries have each committed to buy 1 million laptops. The OLPC spokesperson was misquoted: no agreement had been signed. We continue to cooperate with Thailand, Brasil, Argentina, and Nigeria, but no one has committed to purchase laptops nor has OLPC asked anyone to sign a purchase agreement yet. We apologize for any confusion.

This is a pretty good step-by-step guide to getting the non-free parts of Suse 10.1 working properly. http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7527984757. html

This isn't something I wanted to see.

The hazards of clicking on links, I guess.

Excellent troll my friend. Explain http://www.desktoplinux.com/index.html

Out of the 4 Desktops and 1 laptop in my home, 2 dual-boot, 3 are full time Linux.(All Debian) All of them gamers.

With an NVidia Graphics card Linux is a viable desktop. For work, web and Leisure.

Free Software is not a hobby, it is a way of life.

I look forward to the money I will save and you will spend on Vista. I look forward to the knowledge I will gain and you will be ignorant of. I look forward to modifying my system and my code to my liking, while you look forward to being locked out, broken apps and slashed features, and unsolvable crashes. (lest I forget the required reboots and reinstalls)

To each his own.

"The problem with windows security is primarily one of legacy support."

Noncense, backward compatibility should not break security. Windows was sold as suitable for secure use in a networked environment. It was even given C2 security certification. The problem is the WinNT memory management unit running under the x86 processor. Something that was first tackled under Linux with Exec Shield. The Windows version called NX can be bypassed as otherwise JIT bytecode won't work.

"inter-processes communication was flawed lacking any authentication method, kernel / userland seperation was virtually nonexistant,"

Wait a minute WinNT was touted as being more secure because of it's use of operating modes. Ring 0 had full access while user apps were restricted to Ring 3, the highest restriction. At least that was the theory.

"these issues persisted right up till XP when microsoft started to take security seriously with SP2."

Er, They still persist. See here, much of this code is included in Windows Server 2003 and will be included in Longhorn

"Microsoft just like the rest of us is new to the whole OS design thing."

When Microsoft hired on the Digital VAX/VMS team they had an oppurtunity to design a secure OS. Most of the defects in the OS can be traced to managment decisions to favor features over security. Embedding Internet Explorer in the OS was one such decision.

"What needs to be done is .. implement a version of windows that incorporates everything we've learned over the last 20 years or so"

If by "We" you mean Microsoft, "We" haven't learned anything since 1988, 18 years ago. Why wait, why not upgrade to SuSE, all the eye candy of Vista without the security vulnerabilities.

I see a lot of this kind of revisionist history on the Internet and in the media. Is there a whole department that does nothing all day but pollute the athmosphere with self serving distortions such as this. How anyone say this with a straight face is beyond me.

'the security kernel of the Windows NT server software was written before the Internet,
and the Windows Server 2003 software was written
before buffer overflows became a frequent target of recent attacks'

David Aucsmith, Security Architect, Microsoft.

Check out the LTSP system.
With all the applications based on the server, and no program load allowed it can be just that.
It is very popular with schools.
http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3124052951.html

I should have included a link to Singing the OpenSUSE package manager blues, which gives an overview of the problems many people have been encountering.

When the linux client for Picasa was released it was mentioned that some aspects of WINE were used in the creation (link). I am interested if they continued on this path for Google earth.

There aren't many in the wild but they definitely exist and they all perform some function you wouldn't want them to perform on your computer.

The next release will be:

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6045116609.html

Read more: http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS7069459557.html

It is a futile effort. Why not install an Apple like multimedia linux OS, such as Tomahawk desktop. There is a good article to learn more about it.

Windows Vista Delayed again, why wait then? what do you gain by waiting?
Consumers should go for what is on the market now, like linux, etc.
I had read this DesktopLinux.com article (http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS7069459557.html) which seems to be an alternative for the users.

I came to know an article from http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7069459557.html website which this OS claimed to be resistant to Phishing, virus, how to justify these and is there another operation system having the similar features to offer.

Linux substitutes for "most wanted" Windows-only software
Feb. 15, 2006

DesktopLinux.com has reported recently on Novell Inc.'s survey of the "most wanted" Windows/MacOS-only applications among Linux users. As a result of over 14,000 votes and comments that have been registered since the beginning of January, some useful suggestions about good Linux substitutes have come to the fore.

Adobe Photoshop, Autocad, and Macromedia Dreamweaver continue to run 1-2-3 in the balloting, according to the online survey currently in progress on Novell's CoolSolutions community website.

"All the feedback and participation has been great thus far. As the survey continues, I wanted to share some of the suggestions that people have made regarding the top-requested applications. They have been both impressive and helpful," CoolSolutions site editor Scott Morris said.

"The more people we can expose to the survey, the more the independent software vendors (ISVs) will listen," he added. "For right now, there appears to be an abundance of software available that we can use while we are waiting for our favorites to be ported to Linux. Take a look and see if you can't find something that fits your needs."

By a good margin, Adobe Photoshop is the one application that most people want ported to Linux, Morris said. Free and open-source software (FOSS) already available for Linux that have similar feature sets to Photoshop include:

        * Pixel Image Editor
        * The GIMP
        * Krita (Part of Koffice)
        * Photoshop also works with WINE

"So, if you're looking to get Photoshop ported to Linux, you might give these suggestions a try [in the meantime]," Morris said.

Many suggestions were listed as replacements for Autodesk AutoCAD, including:

        * VariCAD, which has a version specifically designed for SUSE Linux
        * LinuxCAD
        * arcad
        * Cycas
        * Synergy

"After checking these applications out a little, some of them look pretty slick. If you need a CAD app, check these out," Morris said.

Macromedia has a couple of applications on this Top 10 Most Requested list, Morris said. Two suggestions for what to use in place of a Linux version of Dreamweaver are:

        * Nvu
        * Windows Dreamweaver, via WINE

"There were a handful of great suggestions for iTunes (replacements)," Morris said. They include:

        * AmaroK
        * gtkpod
        * Syncpod
        * Yamipod

Fifth on the list is Macromedia Flash. "Surprisingly, there are actually a number of useful resources already working on Linux," Morris said. Those are:

        * SWF Tools
        * KToon
        * Blender3D (Available directly from YAST)
        * SoftImage|XSI

"There are quite a few people taking advantage of making their opinions known," Morris said. "Let's see how many people we can get to take this survey, so the ISVs will pay attention and start porting their products to Linux."

Novell's "most wanted" Windows/MacOS-only applications survey is located here.

they do not relicense anything. actually, you could take oo.org code, add something and sell it as ohmygodoffice right now. there are companies/individuals that are/were doing this.

actually, having all copyright dually assigned allowed sun to drop sissl (that is, dual licensing) at launch of oo.org 2.0 an thus oo.org is licensed as lgpl only now.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3294924491.html

there also is a faq linked from that article (and you probably could find a lot of info in oo.org mailing list archives / website and other places)
http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/license-change.html

yes, it was a trust problem... Sun recently dropped the SISSL license for OOO and it is now purely LGPL... thius is because hardly anybody contributed code using the SISSL. The majority of contributions were under LGPL. I would have thought that you, of all people, would know about this licensing change...

First, OpenOffice.org is anything *but* an 'open-source'; Sun basically owns any of the contributions that you submit to the project, so the OOo core is more-or-less only developed by Sun (please correct me if I'm wrong on this one).

you are wrong on two counts:

count one: there was a dual license scheme where YOU got to choose which license to submit your code under, one the SISSL the other LGPL.

count two: the license changed recently to pure LGPL

"OpenOffice.org, which launched in 2000 under the dual auspices of the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) and the LGPL (Lesser General Public License), will now be governed only by the LGPL, the organization has announced.

Last Friday, Sun Microsystems announced that it was retiring the SISSL, mainly because few people were electing to use it. "Nearly all have chosen the LGPL," said OpenOpen.org community organizer Louis Suarez-Potts."

What it turned up was that:

• Applications availability was the #1 obstacle to adoption, and
• The most critical application category in the survey was e-mail.

After that there was a speculation that maybe e-mail is still the killer app, or maybe that Linux needs better mail apps, or something.

It doesn't help that this is /. pointing to a hosed article in ZD citing coverage in desktoplinux.com

The OSDL has not seen the importance of drivers. May be they don't print anything on paper. May be they have no reason to print a photo, May be they have no reason to print a CD, May be they have no reason fire a missile from the desktop, etc, etc.

The importance of drivers was not put to test. I don't see it in URL given (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5481370522.htm l).

Btw, do you guys know it is ILLEGAL to access Linux kernel services for closed source binary drivers? If you have trade secret to guard, which stupid company will ever develop an open source driver for its product?

Open source is a great way to develop software. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. The world is like that. Open source has the potentiality to make less error software because everybody can have a look at it. But it cannot protect trade secrets. In business to succeed you need a competitive advantage. How about defense related? can defense equipment manufactures release open source drivers or specs for open source geeks to jump on it? They cannot risk anybody else develop drivers for their equipments and weapons and they can release closed source binary drivers only.

Not everybody is white, not everybody speak the same language. In this world, we need to co-exists. If hardware manufactures develop open source drivers, its very good. That's the best. BUT it always doesn't happen. So legal restrictions on the Linux kernel either must be relax so that closed source binary drivers can co-exists with open source drivers or we need to sit and think a solution how to provide kernel services to closed source binary drivers in an efficient manner. Is this a technical problem impossible to solve?

Migration of Linux to desktop is severely hampered by lack of drivers from original equipment manufactures.

And if you are the bookish type, here's something to keep you company as you take your first simple steps outside of your playpen.

In fact, there's nothing about IE's "integration" that Mozilla isn't just as vulnerable to (in effect, anything IE can do, so can Mozilla, because IE just uses userland API's the same as Mozilla does).

I beg to differ. My proof is available here:

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7614463206. html

"For the undocumented API calls, the king is Internet Explorer!" - Jeremy White, CodeWeavers

The major applications have tweaks that Sun added to make JDS special. The key productivity applications include StarOffice, Evolution, GIMP, Mozilla and gaim. They compete with Microsoft Office and Outlook, Adobe Photoshop, Internet Explorer and AOL Instant Messenger. You can find versions of these applications in other distributions but Sun's just work better.

Exactly, and now that means that the compyters set up by these guys as a gesture of goodwill won't help people get the relief they need.

This sucks for the Katrina web kiosk project, which is using Linux: http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS4984662030.html

Seeing the computer use at the public library here in Baton Rouge, most of the people are using them to fill out FEMA forms or register for unemployment.

If the kiosks can't be used to fill out FEMA information, that's quite a blow. As for the poster who mentioned mailing in a FEMA request, you're talking about a major delay in getting any kind of response.

We need government policies that require a vendor-neutral web.

The source code is available free of charge. Therefor the experimental freespire project..
"The new name is under discussion ... a temporary codename of 'Squiggle' has been assigned to the project." http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9384033541.html

That lead to another round of free Linspire OS downloads.

Due to http://osnews.com/
In a short story with a happy ending, the developer of a free version of Linspire called Freespire has agreed to change the name of his project, and Linspire is offering free copies of Linspire Linux for a few days. Freespire, which first popped up on Distrowatch last week, described itself as a free variant of Linspire Linux, with proprietary components and trademarks removed.

here: http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/board/UltraBoa rd.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=katrina Please don't go there just to chat. Please only go there if you think that PublicWebStations.com is a good idea and you want to support the effort to help people in the affected area get connected again with the outside world.

The thing to do would be to go to the Desktop Linux site where they are organizing things, and help out. You might start by making a list of schools and other public places based on your google search where things like this might potentially be set up. Someone is going to have to create a map of potential sites, which will then go into a database so that we can track what places are available.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/board/UltraBoa rd.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=katrina

The article in which that graph was posted also showed a practically uknown distro (Yoper) trouncing the contenders for favorite linux distribution; Yoper users flooded the poll. Yoper runs KDE by default. While Yoper results were removed from the distrubtion preferences data, it doesn't look like their answers were removed from the rest of the survey.

If you're going to refer to poll results to bolster your position, please ensure that they're both valid and meaningful.

Sorry that the facts do not correspond to your preferences, but KDE is widely more popular than Gnome. The "Useless-ability improvements", like the crippling of the Gnome file manager, made by self-appointed "usability experts", have resulted in a surge for KDE support.

Not that Gnome is dying, but it's clear which desktop is dominating.

Very true. And the reason for this is so many people have Windows. Almost 90% of PCs on W3C have some variant of Windows. Baring in mind that this will be particularly techie community, it doesn't bode well.

The fact of the matter is, for most manufacturers, it just isn't cost effective to make their devices compatible with Linux, then test against various distros with various kernel configurations on various hardwares just to tap into under 4% of the market. Firefox has almost 1 in 10 people on the web, and some businesses still think its not viable to support it.

It's going to take some dedicated geeks to introduce Linux to the general public. Without market share, no-one's going to bother.

Linspire and (though it pains me to say this) Xandros are two viable distros that are either ready or nearly ready for the main-stream market. Hell, even SUSE is pretty useable for Linux n00bs.

As for lack of support, there are plenty of forums full of friendly people willing to help, or providing in depth documentation.

Give a man Linux, and he'll use it, get stuck and return to Windows. Teach him to use Linux, and how to find help, and we've improved our market share.

BTW, mandrake is also a natural laxative.

He says, "To be clear there are no Operating System APIs that IE uses that are not documented on MSDN", because he knows we cant go and check the source to ensure he isnt lying, BUT HE IS LYING.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7614463206. html

Jeremy White (CEO of CodeWeavers) who actually got IE to work under wine says so:

Lehrbaum: Did the issues that needed to be addressed relate to undocumented Windows functions used by the app, or non-API functions and/or environmental considerations expected by the app?

White: In the case of Quicken and QuickBooks, no. For Visio, you can see that the programmers at Visio had used some rather interesting pieces of the Windows API. These required new implementations or new understandings of the Windows API, and a reworking of Wine. For the undocumented API calls, the king is Internet Explorer!