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Robin's Report From LWCE
For everyone who can't make it to New York, roblimo has posted impressions of LWCE's first day, in which he takes note of Start buttons, prods Dell about laptops factory loaded with Linux, and watches the Golden Penguin Bowl. I suppose he was also asking vendors some of your questions.
Bastard sales people, using the OS they know to present cross platform software, that's not right.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
must say the booth babes are really hot this yr...
Yeah nothing like one look at Jon 'maddog' Hall's Santa Claus beard to get the ladies' panties in a bunch.
must say the booth babes are really hot this yr
What are these "booth babes" you speak of? There are none of them in my basement... =P
For the linux hobby person it may seem like a good things but for those in the know it is not. Big business come in and take over just like they do the Internet and the small hobby person lose all rights. Big business no care about the regular linux geek, they care only about the money.
This another reason why I make the big move to FreeBSD. This where the next big success come from as Apple already understand.
All the best,
--Achmed
Swaribabu Consulting Inc. -- We code so you don't have to
Do we get Batman's report too?
See, thats what you get for using the wrong distro. Booth Babes (tm) being non GPL are not avilible for download and can be found in binnary only form with licensed copies of Linux.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
from the article: whichever distribution they [Dell] chose, it seemed most customers wanted another one...
This is a genuine problem in buying a laptop (as I understand it) -- not only do they have to pick a distribution (Debian, RH, etc) but also the role the computer will be fulfilling. If I'm going to be putting in a firewall, I don't want all kinds of other junk (web, mail, ftp servers, for instance; or games; or word processing programs) installed. If I'm getting a desktop for my use home office use, i don't want any type of server but I need the word processing programs -- how can they configure a computer properly? This isn't as much of an issue in the Windows world because most software costs money. The only real exception to this is RealPlayer, AOL, etc that come with the computer, and then we complain about the junk that is on our computers...
So, anyone have any thoughts on how companies like Dell can ship Linux computers, keeping in mind that in general only their more advanced users want Linux; and those people don't want any extra cruft on their systems?
Why the heck did they get rid of the reset button? I don't need it for linux, but for all the windows machines, its a pain. Did they think they could save $.10 on each PC by not including a freakin reset button?
But, the fact that they are making cross-platform software in the first place bodes pretty well for the open source effort. Here's hoping to an eventful 2003.
From the article
"Not only that, an IBM employee I know personally gave me quite a rant about how I (and other journalists) ought to badger the people in Microsoft's booth unmercifully. "They're only here to tear down Linux," my IBM buddy said. "They hate Linux. They want to ruin us all. They don't belong here."
Gosh, who'd have thought it; a software company isn't fond of the competition.
I have a sneaky feeling that the Microsoft staff might have been told to expect a load of shit from fanatics.
This excerpt from the article is rather interesting I though.
"An awful lot of hardware vendors that push Linux on servers seem to feel it's just fine to have lots of Windows screens on the computers."
Sure, in an ideal world your sales people would also be very comfortable with the product and target platform. But the platform is Linux.
The answer this [booth sales person] gave: "Well, our software runs on all platforms -- Linux, Windows, AIX, Solaris... I'm a sales guy, not an engineer, so I don't know how to run Linux and I stick to Windows 'cause that's what I know."
Indeed it is. But I bet if you gave him OS X, he'd be fine with it. Linux as an OS, well that's a different story now isn't it?
OS X R00lZ D00D.
Batman: That's right my spandexed teen sidekick. It would seem evil is afoot. Start menus are found in windows, windows are something you look through, you also look through MySQL datasets, datasets like the list of blond jokes I downloaded this morning, jokes are like riddles. THE RIDDLER HAS INFILTRATED THE TRADE SHOW!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
They need to offer a choice of distro disks when you customize. To make this work, they would have to have a distro already installed, just a base one, perhaps stick redhat on there, with a typical install, just to make their lawyers happy. Then let the buyer do what they want. Selling PC's without an OS installed would be a good way to make them lose their priveleged status with microsoft.
Probably not the best solution, but it was the best I could think of right now.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
So who are you disgusted with?
I read an article at Cnet that had an interview Peter Houston, one of the directors charged with leading the new strategy, shortly before he got on a plane to attend the opening of LinuxWorld.
Speaking of which, over at CNET.com, there's an article about Linux revenues: " "Three and a half billion dollars in revenue--not bad for a free operating system," said James Governor, an analyst at research firm Redmonk. "It is clear that there are real, high-dollar Linux transformations going on" as companies switch from more expensive technology to Linux systems."
Man Gets 70mpg in Homemade Car-Made from a Mainframe Computer
I call karma whoring BS! Just look the troll's history.
I knew there wasn't a such thing as "Booth babes"...
His second answer was that Dell's big problem with selling Linux laptops -- and desktops -- was that whichever distribution they chose, it seemed most customers wanted another one; that if they settled on Red Hat, they'd get calls for SuSE, you might say, and if they chose SuSE, they'd get screams about not offering Debian, and so on. All this more or less boiled down to Linux users not being able to make up their minds and all demand one distribution and set of software packages. When that happens, sure, Dell will talk about Linux, okay? If, that is, they see enough demand to make it worth their while.
Ok, how about selling hardware without an OS on it and letting the end users choose what they want to put on it? I think that the desire is more to obtain hardware without providing Microsoft money for an operating system we'll never use. Give me DOS, give me a blank disk. I don't care. Just don't require me to pay for Windows.
-- derby
Please ask them how NT is a better UNIX than UNIX.
(The marketing idea behind NT 3.1-3.5)
They need to offer a choice of distro disks when you customize
They didn't give you the disks when you ordered a laptop with Linux? Or am I misinterpreting what you typed?
Your idea is a good one, except for the fact that there would be some newbies wanting to get into linux and a base install (interpreted as minus XFree86) wouldn't get them very far. Newbs like GUIs. (Generally speaking). Most people I know don't run servers with X (I'm not saying it doesn't happen) Then again, who runs a server on a laptop?
Basically, linux users want two things when they buy a laptop: First, linux drivers for the hardware. Second, saving some cash by not paying for windows. The rest is irrelevant. Sure, throw in a CD of the latest linux version that the buyer wants to save them the download, whatever.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
LWCE? How about explaining the acronym so I know what the fuck you're talking about.
LOL LOL LOL!
If these companies claim that they can do "multi platform" they need to be showing "multi platform". Demonstrating your wares on the dominant OS defeats the whole purpose.
These sales idiots should be fired.
And the guy that hired them.
Then get some sales people who are bright enough to be trained up on *nix.
Dirty heathens.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
from the how-are-the-tshirts dept.
So, how were the tshirts?
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)
Because linux doesn't work as a desktop OS.
Just ask michael
Relax, it's just a joke. And it's funny 'cuz it's true.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I prefer to build my own systems, but if Dell offered your option 1 for desktops as well as laptops, I would maybe go for one. Why not just offer a "blank machine" and include a CD of drivers (Linux and Windows) for all the hardware.
Even at work, our IT department installs what they want on a machine anyway before anyone gets it. I can't believe that it is easier for Dell to sell a machine with nothing installed instead of with nothing.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
how else is he supposed to restart a machine that is locked up so tight that even CTRL-ALT-DEL won't work?
geesh - I know that, it even happens on win2k, and that has a journalized file system - shouldn't really screw it up that much, should it?
I have to agree, bring back the reset!
base: meaning typical install, sorry for the confusion there
As for the disks, the system comes with redhat with a typical install. However, when you buy, you get to choose what install disks you want; redhat pro, redhat personal (subtract $40), debian(subtract $70), suse (same), mandrake pro(same)
You get the disks you want, wipe out the preinstalled distro if you want, and start from scratch. This gives the user a choice, if they really care, they'll install it anyway, plus the distro you want gets part of the profit.
Stuff and nonsense. Fanaticism like this keeps Linux from being socially acceptable. Who'd want to be identified with people like this? It's like getting emotional about toasters.
By the way, three of the 4 companies you site as being destroyed by MS are still in business.
Yeah, MS has a near-monopoly on the PC desktop, and like every other successful business it behaves in its own best interests. But, if you're old enough to recall the late '70's and early '80's, you'll remember that prior to the wedding of the IBM PC architecture with that of DOS (which, by the way, has always been available from vendors other than MS), the PC desktop world was flooded with different and incompatible hardware and software standards. What ran on a Commodore didn't run on an Apple. What ran on an Apple wouldn't run on a Kaypro. Etc., etc. This wasn't an issue for the hobbyist market, but it was for the business market. That market wants to be able to buy compatible hardware and software from multiple vendors. Hence, their desire for standards (they don't care about the ssame standards that exercise develpers).and their problem with the multiplicity of Linux vendors. Standards tend to foster the growth of only a few big vendors. Microsoft's dominance was inevitable, even if they'd behaved themselvs.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
That would be the slashdot username/nickname roblimo (one word) formed from an amalgum of Robin Miller (his name)
His second answer was that Dell's big problem with selling Linux laptops -- and desktops -- was that whichever distribution they chose, it seemed most customers wanted another one; that if they settled on Red Hat, they'd get calls for SuSE, you might say, and if they chose SuSE, they'd get screams about not offering Debian, and so on. All this more or less boiled down to Linux users not being able to make up their minds and all demand one distribution and set of software packages. When that happens, sure, Dell will talk about Linux, okay?
What a convenient excuse!! "We'd be glad to do Linux, just get all the nerds to agree on a single distro..."
Laptop manufacturers have always customized the OS to fit on their machines. If they can do this for an M$ OS, surely they ought to be able to do it on an Open Source OS. Sure they'd probably still choose RH, Suse or Debian as a starting point, but if they go ahead and "brand" it, they and their customers would have the best of both worlds: assurance that all the hardware was supported and a coherent scheme for managing it. They could also shrink the size of the distro by limiting drivers and features to those appropriate on the laptop.
It sure sounds doable to me!!
YHBT.
Not a troll just offtopic!
A troll would someone how relate snowing in NC to the linux conference. Bashing linux in the process(note bashing MS would be +1 interesting)
hmmm. try FreeBSD or if you want to go most obscure go for Plan9, but great OS's but no marketing.
This way you can feel like your not selling out.
Your solution is great for you and me, if we were going to get a machine for our own personal use.
But it will never get linux out of the hands of geeks and onto the desktops of the grandmas and other nontechnical types of the world.
They not only dont know how to install an OS, they dont WANT to know. They dont want to know the difference between Debian, Slackware, Redhat, Gentoo, etc.. Heck, most dont even care about the difference between Windows and Linux.
They just want a machine they can plug in, turn on, and e-mail with. Right now that machine is either an Apple, or is running Windows. Linux (lindows in particular) is making inroads, but it's a long ways off until we see linux based eMachines sitting in bestbuy for 200$.
There's also the IT guy who needs to order a few hundred workstations, and really doesnt feel like setting an OS up on each one.
So there needs to be some real consolidation in the OS world. One 'OS' for the masses. Let the geeks and power users choose their own, but we need one base distrib for the Dells, eMachines, Gateways, IBMs to stick on for the home users.
It's the average Joe shopping for a computer that pays the Dells, Gateways, and eMachines bills.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Is:
1. No Windows tax
2. A simple cheatsheet listing the kernel options needed to support the hardware.
Then I'll boot it with a Knoppix CD, grab a Gentoo stage2 tar over the network, and do a chroot build of the rest of Gentoo (whose booth was consistently the most active in its sector of the floor yesterday).
So all I really want is hardware completely supported by standard kernel options, and a list of which options it depends on. And that's all any Linux user should want. If you aren't going to customize the OS, maybe Losedose really is better for you....
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I read with interest about how you feel the Linux word has sold out, but at the risk of veering away from the main topic (the sell-out) I just wonder about the wisdom of taking an open-source approach in general.
Sure it may look good on paper, but I wonder if these guys have thought about the opinion of the general public of Open Source/GNU/Linux etc.
I have been involved in the marketing (dirty word I know!) of software and hardware to non-technical people for a number of years. The consultancy group I work for numbers many of America's top blue-chip electronics and software corporations among its clients, I have over 11 years experience of marketing, and 4 years experience of software development (VB) and systems administration (NT 3.51), in addition to a marketing science qualification from one of America's top business schools - so it's safe to say that I know what I am talking about when it comes to computers and marketing.
I have been keeping an eye this forum for quite some time now, as part of my daily intelligence gathering, I find the robust exchange of views, and technical arguments make an interesting diversion from some of the other corporate bullshit I have to deal with in my working day. I also read corporate intelligence reports from the Gartner group, Forrester, the Meta group, and Olsen Online Business Intelligence Services. Slashdot has often proved to be far more accurate when it comes to the technical details,and I am often amazed at the incredible levels of intelligence and insight shown by its readership, some of whom demonstrate a knowledge of Linux and Operating systems far in advance of anyone I have ever met, even in the IS department of major corporations. For this reason, I feel I should contribute my 2c to the debate about the future direction of Linux and the whole Open Source movement in general.
I feel I can do my bit for the Open Source community by offering (free of charge) some of my hard-earned knowledge straight from the bloody trenches at the front-line of tech-Marketing. Normally I would be paid over $4000/day for my perspective, but Slashdot - this one's on me. You people can think of it as my small and unworthy attempt to "give something back" to the Community.
Why Linux/Open Source has an image problem in major US Corporations and what the community can do about it. Like any movment, political or religious, Open Source/Linux has its Leaders, High priests and Gurus. These high profile individuals represent the public face of the organization. Like it or not, these people are associated with the product in the eyes of the buying public. One of the first things the Linux movement must do in order to gain acceptence by middle-America and Joe-and-Jean Sixpack and their 2.4 kids, is to develop what we in the Marketing profession call a "Happy Face".
When Joe Sixpack drives past a McDonald's, he associates it with the smiling face of Ronald McDonald the clown,and quality food served quickly. When he is choosing a collect-call company, the smiling face of Al Bundy (of TV's Married with Children) springs to mind, and when he thinks of fried chicken in large capacity bucket-like containers, it is the image of the happy-go-lucky avuncular Colonel with his associations of good old Southern hospitality that sticks in his memory. (In marketing terms this is known as a "positive association". Because the image puts the consumer into a "buying-receptive" mental state).
GNU/Linux and Open Source lack any kind of "Happy Face". Now this in itself is not a problem, were it not for the fact that Linux has several extremely high-profile advocates who are the exact opposite of "Happy Faces" in that they invite negative associations into the consumers head and put him/her into a state known by Marketers as "passive-aggressive sales-message rejection" (In layman's terms they don't want to buy the product).
Now, I will not lower the tone of the debate by naming names. I will give a few brief profiles and community members will know who I am talking about.
In reverse order of harmfullness we have the laconic, dour nothern European. Not known for his sense of hunor, and with far too many nights spent
coding when he should have been out partying he creates an image of Linux as the OS of choice for "friendless geeks who never got laid". (note - I do not subscribe to this viewpoint, but trust me some of my focus group members do).
Then we have the good old gun-toting libertarian self-proclaimed open source guru. Although M.R. studies show that 78% of PC owners show right-wing bias this person is too wacko and off-the scale for them. He alienates them, and in the worst case scares them that they risk being physically harmed if they don't agree with his fundamentalist libertarian "philosophy".
Finally we have a bearded Communist hippy. Do I need to say any more ?
So the normal consumer associates Linux with a sucicidal friendless nerd from some godforsaken corner of Northern Europe, a plainly insane right
wing lunatic, and an "alternative lifestyle" Communist throwback to Woodstock with a facial hair problem. Is it any wonder that time after time, the message comes back from my focus groups that Linux is for wierdos ?
Here are a few example comments from a focus group session from Q3 2002 in response to a question about their attitudes to Linux and open source
software, you'll get the general idea.
"Linux - that's that geek system right ?"
"I tried Linux but it was too hard for me to install, then that guy flamed me on the newsgroups"
"I don't want any Open Source software because it is written by communists and I am concerned about security"
"My boss says Linux was written by Communists and Gun-Nuts"
"Linux is used by Communists who hate capitalism and Microsoft"
"Open source software cannot be any good because it is written by college students and hackers."
"Linux is not compatible with my USB peripherals"
"I would like to try Linux but my buddies would think I was a Commie"
"Linux users are all wankers"
I could go on and on with these genuine responses, but I think I've illustrated my point well enough. Linux has a serious image problem.
What to do about it is more problematic. Open Source proponents and Linux advocates are fiercely independent and proud of their alternative stance.
They see any form of marketing as "selling out to da man" or "not groking it" or becoming a "suit" Any mention of money or financial rewards is
derided, and developers are supposed to be content with "Kudos" from the community. Whilst this might be ok at college, or if you are tremendously wealthy, it cuts no ice with Joe Sixpack who was raised on Microsoft and associates Bill's millions with the quality of the software his company puts out. From the focus group again:
"If Bill (Gates) is worth that much money he must make the best software in the world."
"Microsoft must know what they are doing - the whole world uses their software."
"The best programmers work for Microsoft - they have the most tech-savvy hackers there."
"Microsoft spend millions on their software I think it is the best in the world. (referring to IE5)
"It just works. period."
Again the message is clear: Microsoft is winning the hearts and minds not only of Joe Sixpack, but also Juan Sixpack in South America, Bruce and Sheila sixpack in Australia, Jean-Paul Sixpack in France, Jeroen Van der Sixpack in the Netherlands, Nkwele-Olamu Sixpack in West Africa, Mohammed-Al-non-alcoholic-Sixpack in Iran, Kulwant Chandrasekhera Sixpack in India, and Boris Sixpack in the Russian Federation.
Their message is powerful, international, and presented relentlessly with no internal bickering and bitching.
What can be done ?
There are no easy answers. The Linux/Open Source community has proved unwilling or unable to accept critisim (even constructive criticism such as this) gracefully, preferring to mount foul-languaged assaults on the personal integrity of anyone who steps out from the party line.
I offer no easy solutions, however here are a few pointers:
1) As a damage limitation exercise Linux/GNU should appoint itself a "Marketing Spokesperson". This person would be the "official face of
Linux/GNU/Open Source". First and Foremost, they would wear an expensive suit, especially when talking to the press or when dealing with
high-profile major corporation with deep pockets and $$$s to spend. I realise this is ridiculous from a technical perspective, but with my blend of
tech-savvy and marketing exprience, I realize the importance of presentation over technical merit. It goes against the grain of the community, but if we are to become the next Microsoft (and why else would we be in this game if not to win it at all costs), we must fight them on our battleground, but with the same weapons they use against us.
2) The Penguin logo MUST go ASAP. Although it seemed "cute" and funny at the time, in the eyes of the corporate MIS department it just looks
juvenile. Linux needs a new logo, preferably one of those kind of eliptical ones with a swoosh that in the eyes of the public can mean one thing: Hip
and cool DOTCOM Corporation. The logo should be bland, yet robust, non-controversial yet ahead of the curve, and toned in serious businesslike
colors such as gray, silver, and white. It should transcend culture and religion to be internationally recognized like the Coca-Cola image is all over the world.
3) Downplay RMS, Linus, ESR, etc. They are technicians with zero understanding of the general public, or of software consumers in general. Indeed many of them only write their program for themselves to "scratch an itch". This is hardly the way to gain public acceptance. And their alarming character flaws scare the punters away.
4) Direct X - A MAJOR stumbling block on Linux's road to world domination is the lack of Direct X support for Linux. This trivial omission means that most games will not run on Linux. Linux could gain 1000's of new games by simply implementing the DirectX api. This is a no-brainer. Kernel support for XML would be a big performance booster too in the B2B and B2C application area, and would make Linux buzzword compliant for XML.
5) Finally FOCUS GROUPS. Before you think about starting that new open-source project, (be it a new web browser like Mazola, or simply a new front-end for the cdplayer application) Get a focus group together. Use a few minutes of your non-tech-savvy friend's time. If you don't have any friends like that, try your folks, or your grandparents. Ask them what they would like to see in your new program. This way, you will gain "market perspective" on the likely acceptance of your product by the "normal people" of the world.
thank you for your time, I hope my insight has been useful, and I agree with the guy who posted about bands, you either like a band or you don't, you don't stop liking them because they gain success.
You linux people whining about the sell-out are just playa-hatas. Don't hate the playa, hate the game!
find / \( -name "*troll*" \) -prune -o -name "*linux*" -print.
is that what you were speaking of ?
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
The marketing guy is absolutely correct, and I have another point about Linux, which is that more thought needs to be given to the naming of the distro's if Linux is to penetrate the coporate sector with any true degree of success.
As a professional consultant for a major Fortune 500 software company, I've recently gotten involved in the whole open source phenomenon as started by Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman with the release of the GNU/Linux operating system (or is it Linux? I'm not too sure on this point).
Anyway, after having compiled a report on the commercial viability of open source as an alternative to closed source in the e-commerce/b2b world, I've become quite interested in Linux myself, and thanks to a handy Corel Linux distribution, consider myself to be someway to becoming a "guru" as people here like to call themselves.
Anyway, my point is that Slackware, as a distribution, doesn't give out the professional image that Linux is trying to gain at the moment. On one hand, you've got respectable players like Red Hat, Corel and SCO pushing Linux's corporate image to new levels of respectibility, but on the other hand you've got a distribution named "Slackware", hardly the name your tech-savvy CTO wants to represent a core part of their enterprise solution.
The whole name seems to give the distribution a half-assed, "slack" even, image, surely not one that's in anybody's best interest, whether they be the average long-haired Linux sysadmin or a suited CTO looking for the next big thing. And this image taints all of Linux.
No, whilst Slackware may produce a decent distribution, they definitely need to think about a name change to ensure continued acceptance in the increasingly corporate-driven Linux market.
ROBIN IS A GIRLS NAME!!! /.???
OMG OMG OMG
A GIRL ON
~udb
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Wrong. It is not an amalagram.
He had/has a limosine business on the side.
Take the 2 points away.
As someone with years of experience in the marketing world, I am constantly amazed at the willingness of the Linux users, the Linux Documentation project and other bodies to pollute the acronym space with their content free "TLAs".
Basic marketing 101 (and an undergrad course in psychology) would tell them that the normal person is only capable of remembering approximately 7 items of data in their short-term memory, but now we have to remember HTTP, HTML, XML, XSL DTD, PHP, SSL, DSL, ADSL, ISDN, Pearl, etc etc etc
This is a text book example of the tail wagging the dog from a marketing perspective.
I have been following the standardisation of the linux for many many months now (with a view to deploying it in the enterprise as a scalable n-tier refactored agile architecture, but one thing has become clear, E-commerce will NEVER become popular so long as there are so many confusing acronyms involved. The guy in charge of marketing Linux absolutely MUST work to reduce the number of acronyms. One possible solution would be to merge those protocols which are not all that different. For example, why not merge XML with SGML ? (they could call it XSGML or SXGML or perhaps XMSGML), they seem to address the same problems. Or would that be too simplistic a solution for their pampered elitist ivy-league minds to comprehend ?
If something is not done URGENTLY, and I mean URGENTLY, Linux (and other more experimental derivatives such as FreeBSD) can never hope to be taken seriously as an e-commerce platform by the people who count - the accountants.
The miracle of Linux is that anyone actually runs it at all, considering one seems to require a masters in computer science to install it! (contrast this with NT4 which was so easy to install, we let our receptionist upgrade her own machine).
As usual my "open source" advice is free. Hopefully this time my valuable advice will be taken into account the next time the Linux hippes smell an acronym brewing.
The solution is clear. The federal government should produce legislation covering the use and introduction of acronyms to the computer science lexicon, in much the same way as the Academie Francais controls which words enter the French language. Its the only way we will ever get a handle on this issue, and the only hope if Linux is ever to gain a foothold in the enterprise.
You answer to the "too many distros!" excuse is to add another Dell branded distro?
I think Dell is right. They are in the business to sell a lot of PCs fast and cheap. They can't support 5 different distributions. The fact that they support one shows that the hardware is supported..so just use what you want.
To answer various questions...
1. the number of gray-bearded, beer-bellied geeks in attendance is down dramatically from previous years. the number of suits is way up.
2. very poor swag. about all you're likely to get is a pen. hardly any t-shirts.
3. i don't know where anyone gets the idea there are booth babes here. perhaps with a ratio of 99 men for every female, some people think these are booth babes. The women working the show are your average marketing department types. None of them are wearing spandex. None of them are models. Nothing like you see at CES, Comdex or 99 percent of the average trade show in the U.S. Apparently some guys don't get to see women wearing makeup in real life.
4. The guys manning the Microsoft booth told me not a single person has hassled them. One guy said at the last LinuxWorld show, they had one guy giving them a hard time.
Overall, considering the frigid temps in NY this is a good turnout. Maybe as many people here as were at the last few Linux shows. But the crowd is way different: suits, not t-shirts. Hardly a ponytail in site.
First time to New York - he's partying his ass off with his boss. I'll be surprised if he attends today, considering the hangover potential ;-))
db
Cig:
ôô
You need to go buy an apostrophe and an 'e'.
Any rumors among the booths about what is SCO doing?
I dunno, "Caped Crusader". Couldn't you have "Alfred" whip up something on the "bat computer" that works without bringing the web "to life"? Frankly, you'd think a superhero such as yourself would have serious qualms about bringing something "to life" - isn't that usually villain territory? What do you have there that's so secret it won't work on my "browser"?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
That's 'cause Siberia has been exported to approximately Joliet, IL. I've quit wishing for the Canadians to take their weather back; now I'm hoping the Russians will do it :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Either him or his trolling friends thought it was necessary to mod a score 0 anonymous coward post -1 overated.
My company, a BIG Wall Street firm, is currently testing LINUX to replace Solaris as our server OS.
This is a good thing. My company gets to save few bucks (they need to after paying all those fines last quarter), and we developers will get to keep a UNIX like environment.
It might not be such a good thing for Sun, as we're thinking about contingency for when/if they go out of business. It's also not too good for MSFT. Without LINUX, the suits at my co would have migrated everyone over to NT sever.
It's a good thing for the LINUX community... those of us who don't like the MS monopoly, and want to see 'mainstream' LINUX.
Anyway, what you say about 'big business coming in and taking over', is really LINUX vendors and service providers trying to make a sale TO big business.
This IS what we want to happen. Right? Microsoft losing market share has to start somewhere. This is that start.
Huh?
Forget about linux laptops. They have apparently pulled their 20" LCD, the 2000FP. I could have sworn it was on their site yesterday (for the easy price of $950, low but not as low as the $800 it has sold at).
I'm kinda bummed, as my wallet was out and at the ready.
Microsoft OS is shit. I had a fesh unused xp box freeze on Microsoft's own software so don't try giving me the "you are a moron computer n00b" bullshit. The only way to get the stupid dell box it working since the morons don't have a reset switch was to unplug it at the switch.
I am sick and tired of people who say "its your fault becuase you are a dumb ass n00b, the program/companie/os/etc shouldn't be held responsible since their programs never have any problems and errors are impossable!"
So if it crashes on you, and you do all the things you say that prevent this stuff, then it is your fault? I some how doubt you will answer yes.
I wouldn't be supprised if you are just another austroturffer.
Obligatory comment here about how Windows is the doorstop, Mac is the desktop, and how Keynote is better than Powerpoint (even the Mac version of Powerpoint, which is better than the XP one).
But then you already knew that and were just trolling.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The AMD booth was nice; they had some nifty opteron hardware up and running. A lot of the more interesting presentations were given on the show floor, Migel from Ximian had a session on Mono, but his mic wasn't working so we could hardly hear what he was saying. There was also a nifty lowdown on JXTA, Sun's open source P2P architecture. There were some others that looked promising as well, but you can only do so much in one day.
The second keynote was from Redhat's CIO talking about Linux and the finance industry. A good speech, but nothing earth shattering. The TCO examples and the architecture speel were nice, but for people are sitting in the audience at Linuxworld, they probably know this already. The Morgan Stanley case study was interesting, but nothing to get excited about, the adoption of Linux in the finance industry is old news.
The Golden Penguin bowl was boring, I don't know how they pick the guests, but quite a few of them didn't know some real easy questions. The question choice was lousy too. Most of the questions were either really obvious or really obscure to the point were not one person out of the six knew the answer. I left in the middle of the second round.
Overall, it was a good time but nothing crazy. I didn't see any celebrity developers, there were no earth shattering announcements. The biggest excitement for me during the day was opening up kismet and seeing 40 802.11b access points. I would like to thank Ximian for leaving their AP open with DHCP to the public. I would also like to than Redhat, I used their free hat to wipe off the soda that I spilled on my notebook.
Sun has taken a serious hit over the past few years but they still have a lot of heavy iron out there and not too much competition (IBM mainframe???) in that arena, and they have plenty of cash on hand to ride through the storm.
YBHD
Any Linux user that has a favorite distribution knows how to install Linux. A detailed .pdf file with hardware specs (including kernel modules)... would be all they would need to do the install.
What Dell needs to provide bundled is an easy to use free distribution. They should probably pick a 0 cost one.
Debian isn't a bad choice:
hard to install (but that's not an issue for Dell)
fairly easy to use once setup right
completely free
really anal about license issues so Debian won't need their own lawyers to spend time worrying
Being a debian mirror Dell could configure "Dell apt" which creates a low cost but high added value feeling for Dell customers
Ximian, Lycros I haven't used but they may also be a good choice though I don't know if they are 0 cost. Lindows I'd avoid because of click and run.
They need to rename the show LinuxEnterpriseWorld.
What a world. What a world.
In case you are at Linuxworld and would like to use the wireless "hotspot" here is the info:
ESSID: linuxworldny
WEP Key: aaaabbbbcccc00001111222233
If you are going to be installing a firewall you can handle a Linux installation for yourself, though for a pure firewall why not openbsd? As for the servers I think they are very useful for desktops; I ftp, sftp, sshd, telnet... to various desktop machines I use all the time.
.pdf docs outling the right kernal modules for the included hardware.
So anyway I think they go for a very full featured installation. They set the default to only allow logons from 192.168.0.*, they should be fully configured to be feature rich (i.e. for low security except for the above) and they should be configured for a small number of users. Anyway setting up a server would be advised to reinstall using the included
That's not a headache at all for Dell, "Dell provides full documentation for the included KDE at http://www.kde.org/documentation/index.html. Please type http://www.kde.org/documentation/userguide/install ation.html" into your browser.
Alternately they just link uprmi to Dell's server for all rpm distribution and the whole thing becomes "type urpmi kde"; and similarly for apt.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Linus is currently attending Linux.conf.au here in Australia. So far the conference has been great with an excellent Q&A session yesterday with Linus, Tridge, and Bdale Garbee. Topics discussed included women in IT, 2.2 vs 2.4 kernel stability, TCPA, patents, and 2.6 kernel release dates (any day now ;) ) and the name of the immininent 2.6 kernel maintainer (first initial A.) Also Linus dressed up in a penguin suit for the first time.
It's suprising no one has posted a full summary, it will probably go up after the conference ends. Stay tuned. There were some gems in the Q&A alone.
I went to the LWE this year on wednesday, and it lacked the old LWE vibe, and most importantly NO GOD DAMN SLASHDOT, and the only main attraction was about 100 god damn people nearly running over eachother for red hats, and red hat CDs. While I did have an intresting conversation about how fucked dal.net another convetion goer, and saw someone in a $500 suit attempt DDR, %90 people there were there for the buisness end. There was not "meet fellow linux geeks" attitudes, "meet and greet people who make your fav. distros" stuff, or even any "geeks"(very few, if any).
I am dissapointed.
Linux doesn't have anything as good as powerpoint (though they do have presentation software that is pretty good). They also have harder to use presentation software that is way better (like slitex). I'd imagine that there is a narrow range of presentations which are complex enough that one of the zillions of KDE/Gnome/Open Office/X Windows presentation packages couldn't handle it; and at the same time complex enough that it would be a lot easier to put together with a more powerful tool.
So I don't think its unreasonable for companies advocating themselves as being skilled with Linux to not be able to handle a slide presentation under Linux. Do you remember back in the 1980s when office workers still were doing lots of stuff manually that their computers could do but they hadn't been trained; Apple had this great advertising "Macintosh, the computers people actually use". To some extent what HP, IBM, et al are doing is the same thing, "sure our tech guys no how to do this on Linux but why bother, just use Microsoft and get the work done"... which is one of Microsoft's main arguments against Linux, that it will kill worker productivity because the apps are less friendly or less feature rich.
>>but to imply that Sun may be going out of business is moronic.
Actually, to be running a business on their machines and not thinking about the possibility of them going out of business is moronic.
If you personally were running your own shop, wouldn't you think about this? I know I would.
Huh?
ship it with knoppix, then you can install what ever the hell youd like.
In this case I am not refering to OS X as a server my friend. To say that "No one buys Linux for ease of use." supports my view that it is unfair to ask someone like a sales person to be doing demos of their product on Linux, they are sales people, they are "end users". So to scoff at the silly man in a suit and chastise him for not using your platfom.
Linux is unbelieveably portable and makes for a great server, but it's not suited for desktop use. To expect desktop users to use it for that task, just isn't reasonable.
You wouldn't happen to live in Thompson, Manitoba, would you?
Either way, keep warm and carry on, brave sir!
I think you are jumping too far here. The fact that Linux is not the best desktop OS around does not mean "it's not suited for desktop use". Its not impossible its slightly more difficult. Its like learning to drive stick; no one questions that for a while its harder to drive stick and some people never like but anyone who knows how to drive can learn to do it fairly quickly.
I went. It was small and dissapointing. I got to see opterons, and PyDDR. That was about the only upside.
The entire rest of the show is basicly "Look at our rackmount servers!" "No come look at OUR rackmount servers!" "Look at this software we have for counting your rackmount servers!" YAWN.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Furthermore, Xandros offers easy to install (one click) additional packages through their Xandros Networks. Finally, Xandros offers the spit and polish that makes the Linux desktop a solution that is easy to transition to for 'normal' (ick Windoze) users.
Hunger is the best sauce.
The women working the show are your average marketing department types.
Certainly not the type to read Slashdot... Oops.
Sorry about my lack of spandex at Xiph's booth, but I prefer my black jeans and tee.
There were some cute women out there, and most of the ones I took the time to talk to actually had something intelligent to say. Perhaps you should have hung out at the icculus booth and watched the chicks playing pyDDR. If you don't find bouncing female breasts attractive (and many of the girls I saw even had cute faces to match), then it's quite possible there is no hope for you.
I'll wear black until I can find something darker.
Look at this moron's posting history: he's certainly not in NY, nowhere near HP's booth, and probably sitting in his parent's basement drinking his own urine.