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Turbolinux Not Dead Yet
Abdul Nabi writes "I found this article on Linux Today which is a response from Turbolinux to the recent rumors of a shutdown. The responds contends that they are restructuring rather than shutting down." Ya know, I can't
think of a single person that I know that runs Turbolinux. Maybe that has
something to do with their problems.
giving them any market share outside of the pacific rim, turbolinux might have a small following of users in the u.s. and europe desiring proven IA-64 support (they were first to the linux market) or a really nice stable desktop for application development (ok, so no one i know personally ...). i get the impression they are part of united linux because of the strength of their usability - but SuSE is so gosh-darn usable i don't see that being their contribution to the group. their focus on the rim and a largely marginalized sector of this century's growth in professional and business computing is going to make it tough for them to make it on their own or as part of united linux.
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
If you want your favorite commercial Linux distro to survive then you'd better give it more support than Lip Service.
Have you been downloading those Mandrake ISO CDs? Great! If you are poor and/or from an under-developed country then enjoy them in true spirit of the Linux commons. BUT, if you live in the developed countries and have disposable income each month then do your part and purchase a boxed set at least once each year. Total up the license costs of the Windows OS and apps you would have to purchase to obtain what comes in most Linux distro boxed sets and compare your annual costs.
APP Windows Linux
OS $200 $80
Office $200 $0 or $60 (SO)
CAD $$$$$ $0 to $100
Graphics $200 $0
Animation $$$$$$$ $0 to $$$$$
Educational $$$$$ $0 to $50
Math $800-$2000 $0 to $250
Science $$$$$$$ $0
GAMES $50@ $0 to $50@
AntiVirus $50+ N/A
Firewalls $50-$1000 $0
Network tools $$$$$ $0
etc...
Windows base costs are more than $1000. Mandrake 8.2 base cost is $80.
Let's ignore the crashes, lost data, stolen personal info, countless security holes, MS trojan apps that phone home or add and remove software from your box at Gate's whim.
Better bargins are hard to find.
While competition is a good thing, too much competition in a small market will kill some of the competitors.
I wonder how many commercial distros will be left in some years. RedHat, Suse, Debian of course, but others ?
Well, you'll have a steady flow of small/niche distros appearing and going bankcrupt soon after. But I doubt we'll see any other big wonks.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Basically, they are shutting down their US dependance to reduce cost. The US market is overcrowded with Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake and Caldera who all try to sell support and services, too. So Turbolinux is going back to their home market where the competition is not that stiff.
We've already seen this with SuSE back in August last year when they layed off 30 of their US staff.
Yeah, like your friends are so special.
As far as I know Turbolinux is pretty 'big in Japan'. After Redhat and SuSE (in europe), they might even be the most 'sold' distribution.
---------------
Founder of the The Free Linux CD Project
Turbo to this day has an installer that can compete only with slackware and debian, if you noticed neither of those installers are actually what anyone would call "user friendly". But they weren't designed to be user friendly they were designed to install their distribution. Turbo's marketshare is in Asia and Southern America. Europe and the US see RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake and Debian and think that the other distros of the past are dead.
Has anyone here every looked at the list of linux distributions out there today? It's not like there is a perfect distro for everyone. I wouldn't say Turbo was dead, just like I wouldn't say that and OSS project is dead. A dead OSS project is unknown because someone has forgotten about it. If there is at least one person who knows and uses a distro/software then it's not dead.
On a wee bit of a side note, if you want to count how success and whether or not something is alive by monetary values. How much money can one really expect to make on something that is free? I'm not trying to start a Open Source flamefest, but just identifying the original intent of Open Source, freedom. Can you put a price on freedom? I can't.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I can't think of a single person that I know that runs Connectiva. But that doesn't mean they're in trouble. Connective just isn't all that popular where I live (Britain). Similarly, Turbolinux isn't that popular stateside or here. But just like Connectiva is really popular in Brazil, Turbolinux is really popular in Korea, China, Japan and other areas of Asia.
/rant >
< rant > I know this is slashdot, but for some reason I was under the impression that the blokes who actually posted the stories had something at least partially resembling a clue. Maybe the reason that you don't know anybody who uses Turbolinux, dear poster, is that you almost certainly live in the states! Sigh. <
"Caffeine is not an option. Caffeine is a way of life."
Turbolinux is dead, eh? Then why is their distribution preinstalled on servers from these manufacturers:
IBM x135, xSeries
Gateway
Compaq Proliant
HP (duh) tc2110 rc7100
NEC
Hitachi
Fujitsu
SGI
They are also working with these manufacturers to customize code in the kernel and various apps to increase performance / reliability under heavy load under specific configurations for specific applications.
This whole discussion is absurd, don't think it's time to retire the Turbolinux icon yet, Captain Burrito.
Google search Turbolinux+preinstalled+server would give you a free clue, but then what would everyone do with all their spare time...
Why aren't you people coding?
BTW I was using Turbolinux as a desktop before I relegated the machine to more mundane tasks, and describing the distro as 'horrible' is just silly. I actually found it much more flexible at install time than Slackware (in 2.2.x days), although with the five-disk-Slack install now there are lots of module options etc...
Home users trolling about what is largely a server distribution is again, silly (slaps your wrist)...
fdisk3hs
Surely you're not suggesting that the hordes of Free Software/Open Source users actually PAY for any of the software that they use. Don't you remember? "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!". Nevermind that RENT WANTS TO BE PAID or FOOD WANTS TO BE BOUGHT, but when it comes to software all the rules in the universe are reversed and those who write software for a living are not supposed to actually be able to make a living. Those lucky few programmers are supposed to live on forestland communes where they forage for fruits and berries while their latest kernel compiles with the -hunger flag.
Frankly you disgust me by implying that we should enable certain free software developers to live in dignity via getting paid for what they most likely spent 4 years in college learning what to do. Only EVIL people such as Doctors, Entertainers, Lawyers, OTHER kidns of Engineers and such go to college to get ew... PAYING jobs and professions. The most honorable Computer Science graduates however nobly sacrifice their highly marketable skills for the greater good. To suggest that a CS grad should be able to afford moving himself or his family out of his mother's basement is an affront to the FSF, GNU, Slashdot and the entire Free Software Community! SHAME ON YOU SIR!
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.