Giant Linux Boost From Washington Post

You've seen Penguin Computing's "Tux stomps Microsoft HQ" ad, right? It's the one with the caption, "Good evening, Mr. Gates, I'll be your server today!" This morning, when I opened up my copy of the Washington Post, that ad, in full color, dominated the entire front page of the business section. Below it was a story headlined, Microsoft's Next Trials - Windows Case Could Open Doors for the Upstart Linux Operating System. This may be the most unabashed piece of journalistic Linux advocacy ever published in a major daily newspaper. The print edition, but apparently not the Post's Web site, also contained a sidebar story about how the article's author installed Corel Linux on his home desktop computer -- and found it fairly easy to do. Indeed, he says, the hardest part of his personal Linux foray was parting with the high-end Linux-loaded Latitude laptop Dell loaned him to test. "It will pain me to give it back," he said.

Comments

FYI

[craw]

John Schwartz, the author of the featured story, has a /. account. He also wrote two previous /. related articles for the Washington Post. The 1st article was mainly about /., CmdrTaco, and Hemos. The next article was about the Kerberos flap between MS and /. Both stories were featured here. Another WashPost writer, Rob Pegorano who writes articles for the weekly Fast Forward section (featuring techie stuff) also has a /. account. They hardly post any comments, but I would guess that they do visit the site now and then.

At least they say that they are "working" when they come here. Then again maybe not as Pegorano seems to indicate.

Re:Must say..

[CrusadeR]

Incidentally... Penguin Computing has another Tux graphic rendered with Quake-style armor:

http://www.penguincom puting.com/graphics/gamingtux800x600.jpg

hmmmm

[1%warren]

How many people have just had a guts-full of anti M$ BS? IMHO that Pengiun ad just makes us look lame....
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Re:hmmmm

[JoeWalsh]

How many people have just had a guts-full of anti M$ BS?

I for one am not tired of the anti-Microsoft sentiment I see in this community.

First, this is the world that Microsoft created. They set the tone of the software industry very early on. Specifically, I'm thinking of that enraged letter Gates sent to the Altair community about the pirating of his BASIC interpreter. The letter was extremely unprofessional, whiny, and combative. It set the tone for the industry, and he and his company have kept it up ever since. Dirty tricks, lies, and outright illegal behavior are the rule of the day with Microsoft, as shown quite clearly in the antitrust trial. Being anti-Microsoft, to me, means being against that sort of corporate behavior. So I'm not tired of people being anti-Microsoft.

But that's not the only reason I'm not tired of it. The other reason is that Microsoft has made my life much harder than it would otherwise be. If they hadn't used illegal practices to dominate the industry, my life would be much better. Because in that case, either better products from other companies would be the standard, or Microsoft itself would themselves have produced products actually worthy of the industry leader. Either way, my life as a computer professional would be much better. Instead, they chose to use illegal practices to make their inferior products the standard. Again, this is a very valid reason to be anti-Microsoft.

So, while I sometimes abhor the tactics used by some members of the community, my feelings parallel theirs. And I can't really blame the most ardent Microsoft haters, given Microsoft's criminality, immorality, and general disrespect for its customers.

Being anti-Microsoft is simply the right thing to do.

-Joe

Re:hmmmm

[Jon Peterson]

It's a really bad advert. It's the kind of thing a 19yr old CS student would think was good. I sure hope they didn't actually pay an ad agency to think it up.

As far as I can tell it simply makes Linux look like the favourite OS of young geeks who don't make decisions in companies. It says nothing about the product, it doesn't even say anything about MS products, it simply preaches to the converted, and looks juvenile and silly.

I said as much to Penguin Computing when it first came out and never got a reply. I make purchasing decisions for my company I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. The advert just screams "Hi, we only really want to sell to 30-man companies full of geeks who will be wowed by our free T shirts".

I dunno, maybe it's just a US thing, the gung-ho anti-competitor advertising (adverts in th UK are not allowed to mention competitors).

But yeah, it sucks.

Re:linux supporters want it both ways

[Kaufmann]

I personally am not a "Linux supporter", but I'm in shock nonetheless.

Tell me, what's your secret? How is it possible to fit so much stereotyping in just one single message?

Have you just gone through previous Slashdot discussions, picked up anything that any given "Linux supporter" ever said, and taken that as representative of the thoughts, desires and beliefs of the entire "Linux supporter" community? It sure seems like it.

You might as well finish off by claiming that all Windows users are MS-loving zombies, or that all Mac users are braindead graphic designers.

If this is the kind of stuff you post to Slashdot on a regular basis, then it's a tribute to the idiocy of the moderation system that you've managed to get the +1 score bonus.

Totally TOTALLY disagree

[Tony Shepps]

The Penguin ad, for which I have the poster (and 5 mousepads earned through buying/recommending their hardware to various clients), is the perfect kind of advocacy: humorous double-entendre, making its point by promoting Tux.

And what exactly is wrong with 30-person companies full of geeks? What exactly is wrong with allowing a little attitude in your purchasing? I suppose your preference is a cold corporate just-the-facts approach, where companies trot out bogus benchmarks a-plenty, and marketing means deciding once again to make the cases putty-colored. Penguin Computing gives their T-shirts away with purchases instead of solely at trade shows where half the browsers are there for the free stuff.

As long as they put together excellent products, (and Penguin Computing does, IMO,) a company gets many bonus points with me if they have an attitude and a sense of humor.
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Re:Gotta point this out...

[Surak]

Until Linux gets some applications that are clearly superior to the ones in Windows, it will never get any significant penetration. People need a really good reason to switch, and there just isn't one when it comes to Linux -- but there are a whole slew of negatives.

Isn't it obvious? Linux' killer application, right now, is development tools. The development tools, right now today, are clearly superior to anything offered on any other platform. Why do you think Linux has been able to attract so many software development geeks?

<soapbox mode: on>
Remember, Windows didn't always have superior applications to other alternatives. When Windows 3.0 was first introduced, the superior applications were on the DOS and Macintosh platforms (which is why Windows 3.0 beat out OS/2; better DOS compatibility). The fact that M$ developed what were then superior development tools to what was on DOS or Macintosh is exactly what M$ claims is the reason for the flocking of developers to its platform, and thus, ultimately the development of large numbers of applications, and the eventual superiority of those applications.

(While this claim is not entirely true, there is some element of truth to it.)

The point is, folks, that we're there. We've arrived. Now its time for the developers in the open source community to stand up and write those superior apps. There are a lot of things going on this arena (KOffice, GNUOffice, etc.) and its going to take time before we stop playing catchup, but if, and only if, we are willing to stick with it, and continue the fight, these superior applications will come.

My belief is that the key area where Linux developers need to concentrate on, once we get the basic office apps out of the way, is in the area of Internet-enabled apps. This is where MS and everyone else is headed, this is where we need to head as well. But we have the key experience that no one else has: many open source developers were on the Net before there was an HTML or a World Wide Web. This is an area where we have a chance to shine. Furthermore, developments in mobile technologies and embedded devices are equally as important, and we have some key players in these areas already, with Transmeta and others doing stuff for mobile and embedded devices...

My point is that the future is not as bleak as many who are not forward-thinking might expect. We won't be chasing MS forever, and eventually, we will succeed in "total world domination, but in a good way."

<soapbox mode: off>

Confused posters want it both ways

[MostlyHarmless]

They fail to realize that two posters can have constrasting viewpoints; at the same time they blast "linux supporters" for having splits in the community

They think that because one person says something it is representative of the whole community; at the same time they just do not understand that it is possible for two people out of the thousands to see things a different way.

SATIRE=OFF

Seriously, some people think that MS _does_ need to be punished, while others think that free market forces will destroy it anyway.

Don't you get the fact that two people can have opposing viewpoints? By labeling a whole mass of unique people as "linux supporters", one overlooks the wide range of opinions contained therein. It is easy to mock a community by pointing out contradictions, ignoring the fact that there are always differences in the opinions of the community.
nuclear cia fbi spy password code encrypt president bomb

Re:Confused posters want it both ways

[Spoing]

"Why send the murderer to jail when he's going to die in a few years?"

"...and after all, in his old age, he can't kill too many more people...so why bother stopping him?"

Re:World Domination

[aufait]

Another reason is the anti-trust trial. Regardless of what happens on appeal, the damage has been done.

Boise, who also represented IBM in their big anti-trust case, told Neukom before chagres were files, "You know, once the United States government files suit against you, everything changes. People are more willing to come forward and testify against you. Others are more willing to question you, resist you. The whole world changes."

Microsoft's biggest asset before the trial was that it was preceived as being invincable. Nobody has betten Microsoft. Even IBM has lost to Microsoft. That perception has changed after Microsoft's bumbling defense.

Now Dell, Compaq, etc. are willing to risk Microsoft's wrath by offerring alternative OSs on their computer. Something they would have never doen before the trial. AOL and Gateway have even gone as far as to totally eliminate the Wintel duopoly from their set-top box.

And, don't forget the free publicity Linux has received because of the trial. I don't recall seeing any article even mention Linux before the trial. However, the week after Microsof's lawyers haeld up a box of RedHat in the courtroom and declared that "This is our competition", almost every newspaper carried at least a "What is Linux" sidebar. Redhat, SuSe, Caldera, etc. can't purchase that kind of advertising.

Microsoft's defenders still continue to increase the Linux mindshare. Almost every article or opinion piece I have read attacking the court's remedy as "too draconian" point to linux as a viable competitor.

This presents Microsoft with a no-win PR problem. On one hand, they must portray Linux as a viable competitor in order to attack the court's remedies. On the other, they must belittle Linux as a toy OS written by long-hair kids in their basements and garages.

400 million less one

[SurfsUp]

"When we set out, our goal wasn't to convert the 400 million PC users from Windows to Red Hat Linux," Young said. "There are 6 billion people on the planet. Our goal is to build technology for the other 5.6 billion."

Perfect quote, sums up my feelings except for one thing: I'm sure glad that *I* was one of the 400 million Windows users that got converted in the slipstream.
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Re:Forgot One Thing

[JoeWalsh]

One thing the author of the article forgot to discuss is that he did not have to install, or configure it. Now, I know for almost everyone on here, that wouldn't be a problem, but you can't tell me it is as easy as WinNT to setup...

As others have pointed out, he did try to install Corel Linux and found it to be easy.

I just wanted to jump in here and mention that, a few weekends ago, my wife and I took some time and tried lots of different operating system installs just for the heck of it. We performed the installs on my computer, which normally runs SuSE 6.4 quite well. Epson Stylus Color 740 printer, 3Com 3C905B ethernet, external modem, SoundBlaster AWE64 sound card, Sony 100GS monitor, and Diamond v550 video card. Pretty mainstream, boring hardware (except maybe the printer).

The OS's/distributions we installed were:

- Debian GNU/Linux
- Corel Linux Deluxe
- Red Hat Linux 6.2
- Slackware 7.0
- SuSE Linux 6.4
- OpenBSD 2.6
- FreeBSD 3.3

We just went through the installs of each, accepting the defaults and pretending we knew nothing of UNIX, but did know the names of our hardware devices. We were going for typical consumer knowledge level.

Using that methodology, Slackware didn't install - it bombed out trying to write LILO to the floppy, then said it couldn't write it to the hard drive either. Said there wasn't space on the floppy or the hard drive (16GB hdd). I fooled with it a bit and eventually got it installed, though I had to use more than general consumer knowledge to do so. Once installed, it was OK, but it didn't detect any of my hardware. Not a good consumer distribution.

Debian installed OK, but all those questions after it's copied the packages to the disk were horrid. Of course, Debian doesn't try to be a consumer OS, so this probably isn't a fair assessment of the distribution itself. The fact remains though that a consumer would have a horrible time with it.

Corel Linux seemed pretty slick, but it didn't detect much more than our monitor, mouse, and video card for us. Setting up the printer, modem, and ethernet was our problem after installing, and no consumer's going to know how to do that. Oh, and it left us with a blank root password, which is really bad. Again, not something I'd recommend for consumers.

Red Hat was about the same as Corel (although it spontaneously spit out the CD and rebooted during the package install phase the first time around; I had to re-start the process thereafter and it went smoothly). It detected what Corel Linux did, and again left it to us to figure out printer configuration and so on after the install. Again, not for your average consumer.

SuSE Linux 6.4 was the best. We'd been upgrading right along, so hadn't used yast2 at all. Well, I'd tried out 6.3 at work, and hadn't been impressed with it. But 6.4 does it right: it detected /all/ of our hardware, led us through the simple steps of setting it all up (including our dialup account). When we were done, our network was working, the sound card worked, the video was perfect, the mouse was running...even the Epson Stylus Color 740 was auto-detected and the appropriate apsfilter and ghostscript packages installed. This one is definitely ready for consumers.

OpenBSD's install was elegant...if you're a UNIX afficianado. Following the examples in the little booklet that comes with the CD would be fine, but the result would be an install that gives you no pre-setup hardware beyond a network card. You'd have to run XF86Setup yourself to do monitor, video card, and mouse. And as for printers, well, you'd have to roll your own filter/driver setup. Same with the sound card. Definitely not for consumers. (I love it as a server OS, though, and as I mentioned in a previous post, we use it there now.)

FreeBSD was pretty much like the average Linux install. No recognition of the sound card, printer, or even the modem, but the normal setup does give you an opportunity to get the X stuff going. It's not automated, though, and would be very confusing for the average consumer. Again, not a consumer level OS.

So, of those we checked out, the only one I'd recommend for consumers is SuSE 6.4. It does it right. Of course, after it's installed, the user will have to learn some UNIX admin stuff over time, but out of the box he or she will get a very usable workstation.

As for me, I ended up switching to FreeBSD. As someone who knows UNIX well enough (and who enjoys learning new things), it was the ideal OS for me. I ordered 4.0 and the Handbook, and I've been happily using it since then.

Everything2

[Money__]

The tag line at the end of the article sums it all up very well. I quote:
" In other words, total world domination.
But in a good way."

This is exactly the atraction to Linux and open source in general. Companies competing to add features while making all the source available back to users to prevent lock in. Users can't loose.

Right now, you can get the same thing from ms, but everything they do is a "trade secret" protected by the never ending patent called DCMA (Digital Copyright Millenium Act). This locks in users to the ms way, like it or not.

This will be the second big shift in the computer industry in recent years. IBM lost share in the 80s and ms will loose share 2000 and beyond and the timing of Linux and open source couldn't have been better.
___

How many of us are sick of M$ astroturf droids?

[viveka]

It's odd... the Slashdot readership seems to be changing. This site has always been pro free software and open standards, and anti proprietary software and closed standards. That's the ethical stance to take, and there's no more necessity to present the other side of the story than there would be to present "the other side of the story" than the mainstream media would do when reporting on the arrest of a homicidal maniac.

Objectivity in media is, in any case, a lie, invented by wire services so that they could sell their canned reports to both left and right wing newspapers. Every publication is informed by the views of its management and staff ; it's more honest to do as Slashdot does, and just declare your biases up front.

So I wonder what draws all these trolling incoherently pro-MS people here, with their extremely thin arguments, and studied reluctance to ever engage an interlocutor by responding to a refutation. It frightens me to think that people might be such dupes as to actually think that MS has been a force for good (other than MS employees, who have plenty of motivation to deceive themselves, or who take comfort in the positive efforts of their own ethical group within the belly of the beast (remember though the admonition that it is impossible to do good within an evil system - this is what i try to live by, though i realise that many sincere and intelligent people disagree))... so, in order to avoid the yawning chasm of that thought, i prefer to believe that these pro-MS trolls are one guy at an IP-spoofed terminal at Redmond Marketing.
Please let it be so.
[ hypermedia | virtual worlds | human interface | truth | beauty ]

Gotta point this out...

[Reality Master 101]

On the desktop, people use applications, not operating systems, to get work done.

Until Linux gets some applications that are clearly superior to the ones in Windows, it will never get any significant penetration. People need a really good reason to switch, and there just isn't one when it comes to Linux -- but there are a whole slew of negatives.

I mean, what's the "killer app" in Linux for the desktop? There are no end-user apps that I can get that are better under Windows. With Win2K, Linux doesn't even have the stability advantage anymore.

This is not to say that Linux won't see more penetration in the server arena. I personally like Unix better when it comes to server apps. But for the desktop, there simply isn't an overwhelming reason to switch.

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Other story mentioned in the article

[puppet10]

This is the story on installing Linux mentioned in the WP and Slashdot article.

http://www.washin gtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36124-2000Jun10.html

Re:Forgot One Thing

[David Ham]

"you can't tell me it is as easy as WinNT to setup"

that was once correct, but not any more. i have a "thing" with operating systems - they interest me very intensely, and so i try them out quite regularly. in the past few years, i've installed slackware 2.x, redhat 4.x, 5.x, 6.x, mandrake 5.2, 6.0, 7.0 and now 7.1, corel 1.1, windows nt server 4.0, windows 9x (probably 2-300 times), various versions of dos, freebsd, beos from 3.0 up to current... the beos installer was pretty simple, but i can *honestly* say that i have *never* seen a system better set up than the mandrake 7.1 system i installed a few days ago. it detected EVERYTHING it needed to and set them up accordingly. sound blaster live, crap onboard video, etc. win9x is relatively easy to set up, but this installer, quite honestly, put it to shame. you may prefer windows, and that's fine - to each his own. but please don't say things like this around easily influenced people and prospective linux users. it borders on propaganda...
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