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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.
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
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?
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?"
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
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
You so just justified my last sentence.
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
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"
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
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.
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?
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.
Unlikely. OS X is more different to Windows than the default Redhat 8 setup is. Where's the start menu? Where's the Control panel? Where's WinAmp?
The idea that people magically pick up OS X with no effort at all is a stupid one. A Mac takes ages to get used to, not only is it an entirely different OS but it has different hardware too. Mac-specific keyboards? One button mice? Even my mac-fanatic friend has bought a two-button with a scrollwheel mouse now (an MS one as well!). What's the button to get a right click menu again? What's that? I don't see any button labelled command! Oh, the one with the wierd squiggle.
5 minutes later. It's not working! Oh, not the Apple key then. What do you mean I didn't close the app? I don't see its windows. Oh yeah, I forgot you have to quit them manually. So what's the difference between closing and minimizing a window? Oh. Which should I do then?. Um, right. Where's the start button again?
Believe me, I've seen it with my own eyes. In contrast, the default Redhat 8 setup is pretty similar to Windows. Easy to change of course (first thing I did), but certainly easy for newbies.
Believe me, Linux is going to wipe the floor usability-wise with MacOS in a year or two. It has the advantage of not having any real history, virtual desktops and the X clipboard are about the only baggage and being semi-hidden features they are entirely optional for newbies. That means it can be as similar or as different to Windows as you want, depending on how sophisticated you want it to be. The Mac on the other hand has the same interface it had a decade ago basically, which was good when it was battling it out with Windows, but now the Windows UI is entrenched and 99% of people are used to it. Nowadays it's just quirky.
But Jobs won't change it! The, ah, unique GUI is basically what defines his product. Never mind that the rampant eyecandification of the MacOS UI has actually reduced its usability, not enhanced it, never mind the fact that changing parts of the Mac UI wouldn't actually make them less efficient to use. No, never mind all of that - it's set in stone and cannot be changed.
The salesguy would be happiest with something close to what he's used to, especially when they're dropped in it with no training. Clearly their managers don't really think of Linux on the desktop yet, to them it's just another product, just another day. But they will. Next time there'll be more such desktops as managers realise it's not so hard after all.