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Upheavals In UnitedLinux
An anonymous reader writes "I found this story on UnixReview.com - vnunet has some commentary about UnitedLinux and it sounds like it's struggling." I dunno - I plan on still giving them the benefit of the doubt, and see what comes out. Heck, I might even try installing a machine with the "united distro" - but it's still an interesting pickle some of the primary members are in.
In my opinion Suse has always been one of the best distros out there. What kind of market share does Redhat hold anyway. I haven't seen any solid figures on the number of enterprises that use one distro as opposed to another. I know when I was the only linux geek in my shop, we all ran Suse. But another (more hardcore) friend of mine, decided that all the people in his office would run Debian. Who makes that call one way or another? Plus being the only linux capable person in the office, is great job security.
I've never tried any of the distros made by the people behind UnitedLinux, but I liked the idea that even if I found myself straying from my favorite, there were always quite a few other *quality* places to go to get something just a little different. Just because Redhat is growing by leaps and bounds doesn't mean everyone in the game has to come together just to compete. We're talking about things that usually take a while in an industry to happen, when it does a few things occur. Competition decreases, and consumer satisfaction bottoms out with it. Do we really need that kind of thing already?
I know, I'm being a little dramatic, there are tons and tons of distros rolling around but when a few big ones jump into bed, they become something that places like Redhat do have to deal with..I guess the point is why now? Redhat in the grand scheme of things is still pretty small, there's plenty of time to ramp up competition and let everyone use a field of quality products rather than a few.
Maybe of they re-visit this idea in a few years, it'll be more viable. Until them, they should all just chill and keep growing up a bit.
http://about.me/paultenny
United:
1. Combined into a single entity. 2. Conserned with, produced by,or resulting from mutual action. 3. Being in harmony; agreed.
Pull it together guys!
Romana: "How did you know?" Doctor Who: "Ah, well, knowing is easy. Everyone does THAT ad nauseum. I just sort of hope"
Out of all the Linux distos, I am using Redhat 7.3 on the servers and Mandrake 9 rc1 as a workstation. I have tried most of them at one time. ASP Linux, Caldera, SuSE, Immunix, Lycoris, Vector, Debian, Astaro, all have brought a little something unique to the table.
What this will create is a organic, cross-pollinization of ideas, to improve over time, all of the independent distros out there. No single vendor has got it perfect yet, and all of the distros are working madly to give their distro a little something unique. The true determining factor will be standardization. No one wants to be the lone man out as far as file structure, /etc/rc.d/ layout, or whatever.
That being said, I think most enterprises want a solid, stable, clean disto that does not swing too wildly from release to release. Users may want to tinker with the bleeding edge, but business want a tool that helps their bottom line.
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
...while we already have standarts...
:
See
http://www.linuxbase.org/
and If you think a Linux uses RFCs ( www.faqs.org/rfc ) as base and still a Linux system is POSIX ( http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC22/WG15 ) standarts compliant.
So why try to create standarts again?
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
Who's to say that they don't apply this same pressure to software makers? Just a wild guess on my part, really.
No, the problem is threefold (at least)
1) Internal apps. Need to be rewritten for the new OS. And believe me, a LOT of the company is run from 'Mary in accountings' custom spreadsheet.
2) User and help desk training. Can't drop a week out of production to roll out the new software, and then train the users on its use. And no, it is NOT seamless for the users.
3) Client compatibility. You MUST be able to trade documents with *all* of your clients. If Joe Blow from General Motors sends you a complex xls, you'd better be able to read it.
Bull! The point is that nobody has a monopoly on developing the code. Work for hire is welcome, and we're even starting to see it happen more often (and I can't wait for task markets to hit the big time).
But it sounded like a bad idea from the start.
Now, it's been what, a month and a half or so since it went public?
Nobody took it seriously then, and being as 2 out of the 3 companies involved in it are royally fucked, I don't know why this is such a surprise.
SCO>Caldera>SCO is fucked, turbolinux is *REALLY* fucked, and conectiva (which makes a great distribution, but I don't know anyone who actually uses it) is insignificant.
Unitedlinux was just a ploy to get stock prices driven back up. Obviously it didn't work. The market's smarter than that nowadays, after the "let's give 9 million dollars of VC money to shitonastick.com" tech bubble of the late 90's/very early 00's.
There's a pool going between my group of friends about when VA Ice Cream and Adult Novelties is going to be delisted. I call it VA Ice cream and Adult novelties because they've changed their business plan about 5 times in the last 4 years. Even their CEO bailed out (smart move there, larry. Hope you like that zaurus you put on your corporate american express platinum credit card at linuxworld nyc 2002. I was right behind you in line, and saw it, don't deny it. I'm glad you're still making 200+ grand a year, while most of the developers you brought on who worked for you are now either unemployed, or working at mcdonald's).
I guess I'm just trolling, but whatever. I'm just tired of people thinking that spin-doctoring bad ideas, throwing up lots of press releases, and *STILL* working off of bad business models will make everything okay.
here's a hint for those who think that spin-doctoring a bad business model will make everything okay: IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK, THE MARKET IS SMARTER THAN THAT!!!
Anyhow, enough trolling from me. Later.
How is Microsoft preventing companies from porting their apps to Linux? It seems the marketplace is preventing that, not Microsoft. If Linux users would pay for their software instead of downloading it off of P2P or Warez sites, the Linux platform would have bundles of software. It seems to me that the only things holding back Linux ports is piracy and the rampant anal lust among GNU/Linux users.
It's one thing to get a Linux box up and running and looking pretty for Grandma, but as soon as you try to deviate from the narrow scope of a Linux install (and other open source operating systems), such as changing resolution, adding a scanner, plugging in printer, Linux just doesn't compare. Not yet anyway.
They don't refuse to license for $MINORITY_GROUP or for use in $DISTASTEFUL_INDUSTRY, but they aren't required to accomodate business models that rely on limiting the competing options your customers have.
You are absolutely right. The situation is improving, but Linux isn't there yet.
For example, I can't understand why a user cannot change the resolution of his screen. It's trivial to implement. Let root build the system XF86Config, and let users control only the "Screen" section in their .xf86config. Build a nice GUI tool around it, and you're ready.
The only thing you'll have to work out is changing resolution when starting from XDM/KDM/GDM.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
"Linux on the desktop has failed for a great number of reasons other than Microsoft's influence ... as soon as you try to deviate from the narrow scope of a Linux install (and other open source operating systems), such as changing resolution, adding a scanner, plugging in printer, Linux just doesn't compare. Not yet anyway."
Sounds like the problem is a lack of influence from MS. I think that a lot of people are so anti-MS that they can't fathom the idea that there are aspects of Windows that are ideal.
This is not a troll. This is an observation. The problem that tokki mentioned with the 'changing resolution', for example, bugged the hell out of me when I tried to switch to Linux. Maybe I'm just too used to Windows (good possibility, really) but I found Linux to be rather scattered. It didn't help that the important commands were missing vowels.
I hope that the Linux Community, particularly those that want Linux to be a leading Desktop OS, look into the things about Windows that people DONT complain about and try to incorporate those as well. I think Linux is nearly ready for prime time, it just needs some design work on the UI.
"Derp de derp."
I think the command you're looking for is 'xrandr' (rotate and resize).
I think the command you're looking for is 'xrandr' (rotate and resize).
No, it's not. This allows a user to zoom in on a portion of his desktop. However, it doesn't allow the user to change its size or bit depth. Why? Because this is impossible in XF4.2. This is insane. Mac and Windows have been able to do this from day one.