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MS Dissatisfaction High, Users Consider Switching
chriscooper1470 writes "Almost two-thirds of respondents to a recent
InternetWeek Reader Question said they are dissatisfied with Microsoft software, and 41 percent of respondents are at least thinking about switching away from Microsoft software. Only 28 percent of users responding to the poll described themselves as satisfied Microsoft customers. There are some great comments at the bottom of the article discussing why people voted the way they did. My favorite quote: 'At the end of the day, I still wish we had a viable alternative. There isn't one -- yet. We'll keep looking.' - Sure."
MS Dissatisfaction High
They should demand satisfaction!
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
If I was microsoft, I'd be paying real close attention and trying to fix the things that my customers were saying were wrong. When you have almost half of your customer base thinking about switching away from your product, that tells you that something's wrong.
The fact is there are really no alternatives for most people. Macs are expensive, and it's hard to find a good x86 box with Linux preloaded. Until reliable, powerful PC's with alternate OSes and applications suites are easily obtainable, the unwashed masses will continue to buy MS. Sad, but true.
So, in both Gnome and KDE 3.1 I can click on an icon and.... nothing. The cursor doesn't change to an hourglass or anything, so I click again thinking I just didn't doubleclick fast enough. Of course, this opens two instances of the program.
See, it's just little things like this, but boy are there a LOT of these little things. Fix them, and maybe we'll see people treat Linux and OSS as a serious alternative.
41 percent of respondents are at least thinking about switching away from Microsoft software
But I bet less than 5 percent will. As long as there isn't a viable alternative to Microsoft software they won't have any choice.
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
...that the Linux Kernal had inculded in it code which allows it to perfectly emulate a Windows Machine for the purpose of running Windows Software, Microsoft will begin to die.
Now I just need to build a time machine.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
In the comments, one of the respondents mention they looked at Linux, but only about 5% of their users (at the company) could use it easily.
Thats their biggest concern still.
Of course end users are hacked off, they're the ones who have to put up with the dross, but they ain't the ones making purchasing decisions or deciding company strategy.
It's the managers and directors that need to be polled and won over
Well then... they should upgrade to Windows2003 (Longhorn)!
Of course, I am kidding but in some ways it's true.
Microsoft always promises the next release will work but it never quite does. The brilliant upgrade treadmill of mediocrity.
A couple weeks ago, I had had enough with MS's shenanigans and went for a dual boot with Redhat 9. I had played with unix before, but didn't really know my way around linux. In all honesty, a couple weeks later, I've found I can spend most of my time on my linux boot with a much smoother experience than is possible with windows. This isn't to say it's perfect (that's OS X), but at least it's not trying to kill me like MS.
I'm sure this article will become yet another "everybody should just use Linux" rally, but that's just not practical until _everybody's_ parents (not just yours) can set up a Linux box with minimal hassle, or at least until most Linux evangelists stop reminding everybody of that "Nick Burns, your company's computer guy" sketch on SNL.
...And this type of dissatisfaction my friends is why monopolies suck. The lack of options is a problem, but it's the secondary problem. Options are needed when the products are no good. The so-called invisible hand of the economy is supposed to ruthlessly punish companies who produce crappy products that don't give customers what they need. In monopolies, the invisible hands are handcuffed. This in turn really robs the company in question of any motivation to do it right.
I mean, what's the difference? People are going to buy their stuff whether it's good or not. This reminds me of the South Park episode where Mr. Garrison comes up with an alternative to the airplane industry. The only problem is that it has serious, terrible drawbacks. (To say the least) Still, people go after it because even if it's terrible, it provides an incremental advantage to how terrible the airlines were.
Part of the lack of choice isn't Microsoft's fault. Computers are new, and society at large is sorely lacking in the skills necessary to use them effectively. Computer education at all levels (not programming, just training on effective use) is vital if you ever want people to take an alternative to Microsoft, even if it is ever presented.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
So ? And where do they plan to go ? Or what do they intend using ? The halffinished crap offered on Linux ?
Sorry but there is nothing on Linux specially Desktop side that could satisfy a customer. There are no powerful applications for doing reallife jobs.
Only 28 percent of users responding to the poll described themselves as satisfied Microsoft customers.
In other news, 72% of the group thought the other 28% were 'too easily satisfied'.
It is not scientific, so why bother to post it?
Regardless of that little issue above, a majority still plans to hold on to their Microsoft software.
Meaning, most of them don't see ANY viable alternative. If people using the web don't see an alternative how would anyone thing Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public see the situation?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How many people where asked, what was the demographic, and what messues where taken to ensure that the results are not scewed? Look at it this way, what would you think of a poll taken at a MS dev confrance that had results like 80% of users think MS is doing a great job?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Look, I'm a Mac and Linux user myself, but come on. did you read the question they asked?
"Microsoft users are getting fed up. They're battered by worms, viruses, security patches and increasing enterprise licensing costs. Aggravation has users talking about switching from Microsoft software to something else. We're trying to figure out how much of that talk is just talk, and how much is serious action. Do you seriously plan to dump Microsoft software?"
You might as well ask, "Wal-Mart customers are fed up, since Wal-Mart employees kick puppies and laugh at old people. Are you planning to stop shopping at Wal-Mart?"
Also, it's an Internet poll...not scientific by any stretch. Seriously, I think a lot of people are fed up with MS, but linking to this story is just ridiculous.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"Who hasn't slipped into the break room for a quick nibble on a love Newton before?" - Mr. Peterman.
"I read that Linux has issued 25 patches so far this year, so what is to be gained by switching?"
Yes 'Linux'. No distro, no particular installed apps/services, no particular kernel, just 'linux'. Linux, the company, you know..
Well done Chris Schlehein... I think you really deserve your title of "Enterprise Network Administrator". Your obviously SO clued up in the world of computing.
a friend protested. "No, how can you wish death to someone just for doing bad work, it's not right!" and more such. I described in detail my several-hour adventure with MS User Support, I described several other cases when hanging would be a mild punishment. He wasn't convinced.
A week later I got a private page from him. "You were right. Gates should be hung." He bought a new PC and tried to instal WinXP on it (FYI, XP doesn't stand for "eXPerience". It's just an emoticon.) and after several hours of unsuccessful attempts he settled on installing BSD on it (he's a BSD freak) and moving XP to his older box. When I asked "What about tying him down and leaving on top of an anthill instead?" he replied "I like that idea."
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Speaking personally, I am happy with Windows XP, but the gymnastics I see the administrators at work go through to keep the Windows machines (effectively required of office staff) secure and virus free, makes me want to switch. The software I use most often is x-platform anyway, with the glaring exception of Quicken. I could always switch to MacOSX, I suppose. But given my limited resources, I'll probably switch to Linux within the year, resigning myself to a more limited personal finance program.
-- Who am I? How did I get here? My God, what have I done?!
My favorite quote: 'At the end of the day, I still wish we had a viable alternative. There isn't one -- yet. We'll keep looking.' - Sure
If people don't consider Linux a viable alternative, the problem lies with Linux, not with said people. Attitudes such as this will do nothing to help Linux.
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
Well maybe if they used Windows instead of that newfangled Linux thing, it would be more reliable.
Reality has a liberal bias
Once Linux achieves desktop world domination (or a slightly larger market share) would there not be a lot more script kiddies writing viruses to disrupt Linux? Viruses will always remain a headache, though hopefully not as large as the one caused by MS platforms. Any opinions on that?
I've been having the same experience. I assume it's just growing pains, but if not, I'd be curious to know.
-- Who am I? How did I get here? My God, what have I done?!
This is a great time to push other products.
There are viable alternatives to MS OFFICE. Open Office, Star Office are but 2 of the examples. If you have customers that aren't locked and chained to an exchange server these are wonderfull things.
Most people do not particularly care for outlook on the email front, the rest arent even aware of most features in the current office.
Push out office and windows doesn't matter.
(heh, that should lose me some karma)
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I have windows installed on both of my PC's. Why? Because there isn't enough application and driver support on Linux, and because the Linux desktop hackers STILL haven't figured out what Apple has known for eons: A consistent user interface is the number one demand for usability.
On the other hand, I've also installed litestep and cygwin to give me some real customizability and a decent command shell.
I've got desktop consistency, a real CLI, application and driver support... All I need now is a real OS kernel that all this stuff will work with. OSS preferred. Any suggestions?
MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
It's News for Nerds and this is not news!
This is flat out not true. I don't know about Gnome, but I use KDE 3.1 and whenever I click on a desktop icon or start a program, a small copy of the icon follows my mouse pointer around until the program loads.
This to me is perfectly acceptable. In fact, i'd rather have this than the cursor changing into a stupid hourglass that I can't do anything with while the program loads.
Yeah but OSX is. Buy the employees iMacs. Plenty good for desktop apps like mail and typing letters.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Instead, because it is Microsoft, the editor (namely that tool timothy) takes it as self-evident and obviously true since it confirms his own biases.
Exhibit #15432 why Slashdot can't be taken as more than a joke.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
I'm amazed that this guy accepts bi-weekly patching as a part of life. Then he asks what's to gain from switching to Linux (which by his own research has had 25 patches this year) while according to microsoft there have been a metric buttload of patches since Service Pack 1a. Granted according to Windows Update only 75 'important' patches, but that's still significantly more than linux.
That's not Linux vs Windows holy war issue.
That should go like:
Well maybe if they used Python instead of that ancient Perl thing, it would be more reliable.
Maybe some webserver thing like Apache vs ISS (but AFAIK ISS would die long time ago with this load.) Not Linux vs Windows.
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but I don't know anyone who reads InternetWeek. Not even my more tech inclined friends. If this was from maybe a national newspaper or something- something read by average users- then maybe I would find this newsworthy. Not that I'm actually surprised of course. I've never heard anyone say they love their windows. Of course the headline does ignore that 48% wouldn't likely drop MS and that 17% might and that 11% other.
Plenty good for just about everything but gaming actually. A bit more pricey but you get what you pay for.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
Unlike switching a brand of car or ketchup any switch in OS will require converting all the users tools and data/documents to the new OS. There are, of course, dozens of solutions, but what we really need is a turn-key alternative that is both cheap and well publicized.
Is there margin for profit on a low-cost alternative that can both overcome the legacy compatibility AND pay for the publicity? I think so, but we need someone with the capital and the willingness to risk it to step up.
What people want (and MS seems to be slowly taking away from them) is a simple easy to use OS with a fast responsive GUI, that you can easily install applications on.
Linux doesn't fit the bill. While it is simple to use at a basic user level, the various applications are not at all integrated. Applications are fiddly to get to work properly. X is slow unless you work at it.
When users find out that they can easily buy the applications software they want, that Linux is easy to use with minimal crashes and at far lower cost.... then there will be a backlash.
So far, we still aren't anywhere close to this being the case. Developers need to release a lot more well known applications and desktop Linux has got to become a lot more dummy-friendly. Yes, current releases of Linux are better than ever, but until this occurs, it's all speculation if Linux will ever have a chance at the average joe user's desktop PC.
Still... it _could_ very well happen.
What would Groucho do?
The truth is that there is no alternative to MS unless your computing needs are either too esoteric or too specialized.
GNU/Linux still has a long way to go in order to reach the ordinary user. OSX is not designed for workgroups (see more of my comments on this).
It's a pitty that after half a century of computer innovation and brillant discoveries in the art and science of computing, all that we have to brag about is OSX's Expose (a feature that Windows sported for years before) and MS Windows.
The question was so incredibly biased towards the anti-Microsoft response
that the entire survey is worthless.
The question is akin to asking "Grull Shampoo has been said to cause massive
internal bleeding and is rumored to be made by Al Quaeda members. Do you plan to
switch to Snorf Shampoo?" Of course people are more likely to say they will
switch.
The reason why the USSR fell is because Gosplan's monopoly on the USSR's entire GDP killed innovation, thus causing it to become so bloated that it ultimately suffocated under its own weight. The fact that more and more people are moving away from the Borg is a Very Good Thing - when MS suffocates under its own bloat, it won't take the entire industry down with it.
;)
Personally, I can't wait to see what develops. I imagine that MS will ultimately do a Soviet style collapse. Don't believe me? Put it his way - if someone told you back in 1961 that the USSR would be dead within 35 years, would you have believed it?
This message posted from the Opera browser, incidentally. See, I practise what I preach.
This post made with the Dvorak layout.
"Friends don't let friends use QWERTY"
People don't want to move away from GUIs (!), figure Macs would be too much trouble, have software that already binds them to Windows. (Have you tried to convert all that VBA script to StarOffice?)
Rats swimming in water at the bottom of slippery-sided containers eventually just give up trying, and accept their fates.
Have you been to an office lately where hardly anyone has a desktop computer? We spend hours a day in the car driving to and from work to spend hours in front of the computer. Heaven forbid we might have to learn a little bit about how either one works in order to save money or have more control over what we use!
Might as well be watching TV...
The fact remains is that there remains no viable alternative.
And I'm not just talking about games. I'm talking about more than word processing software, which seems to be the lone torch which supposed to bring users over. Well, that and Mozilla.
A good but slightly bloaty browser and StarOffice do not an operating system make.
But you can't fault Linux for not having third party support. It's a chicken and egg concept that every lone coder knows about.
Everyone knows that between a user base of hundreds of millions and a user base of a million who to code for. You want your work to be appreciated, used, and enjoyed. This doesn't mean just between the geeks who don't mind the CLI or perhaps an ugly GTK+ interface.
So the resident college coder studies MDAC and Visual Basic and uses Visual C++ Enterprise Edition because in the real world, most people want coders who can do that sort of thing.
Sure Java is an interesting market, and I have plenty of friends who make their living doing so. However, most of those java programmers are stuck relying on the user to use IE, and all that that implies.
The big corporations don't want to throw money at a non-existent market. Gaming companies run on shoe-string budgets and rarely if ever have the gumption to code for both platforms. Savage, the RTS/FPS hybrid, has both a Linux and a Windows version on the same disc. And good for them. But does that make it sell any better than Tony Hawk or Madded 200x? Didn't think so. Until the big boys line up, the smaller developers hold their breath and hope that their time and energy can be appreciated.
Of course a ton of users are sick of Microsoft software. It's not easy to dislike the exploits, the bugs, the inconsistency, the lies and the deception. The DRM that is slowly but surely infecting their user experience.
But Linux doesn't have DirectX. Mozilla will get rejected at some major websites because they accept IE only. I know this for a fact, because my quick but ultimately untimely attempt at infusing Mozilla en masse at my workplace ended with many corporate websites that are so infused with flash and other useless plugins simply demand that IE be used. The only way to get around that is to hack preferences.js, or use Opera. And even then the page sometimes screws up or just doens't show.
So again here we are at an inpass, a group of users who are fed up with their single alternative and nothing else is available. Personally, I believe its games that hold back Linux. But on the other hand, the lack of serious drafting, CAD, Image Editing, and publishing software is what makes Apple such a viable contender.
It doesn't take much thought to realize that 3rd party support is what is required for an operating system to "make it." But what made Microsoft so lucrative in getting it was exclusive deals, contracts and workarounds to assure that their 3rd party support remained their 3rd party support.
And that one-two punch will last for a good long while, at least as long as Microsoft pushes their agenda. Which will be, eh, around forever.
Coffers and user installations keep monopolies growing.
That's one loaded question. Why would anyne who disagrees with the premise even bother to answer this?
UGH! This missing piece in this puzzle is that the hugest number of servers in the US is owned by the smallest of companies -- those who can't afford to maintain their own developer staff. The choice to use Windows is not made in a vacuum. If the industry-specific, third-party (can't afford my own programmers) accounting and customer service software I need to run my business required Linux instead of Windows, guess which OS my business would choose? There IS a reason Microsoft pays to hold all of these developer conferences, you know.
If the Linux community wants to pull end users over to Linux on the desktop, KDE is great, but it still isn't gonna happen until you get the deveopers off of Windows.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Personally, I think that's a very valid concern. I have seen numerous users at my company who are very clueless about their Windows desktops, despite the fact that they have a PC at home. If they were to be switched to a completely different and unfamiliar-looking desktop (KDE, GNOME, Ximian, OSX, etc.), the push-back and necessary user training would be enormous.
Aside from the desktop unfamiliarity, applications could be a very big headache. Our corporation has desktop apps that are incompatible between Windows versions (hence, we don't have XP everywhere), so switching all users to an alternative desktop just isn't an option. Unfortunately, it's a catch-22 for many corporate IT departments. They can't switch desktops because the apps don't support them, but the vendors won't support other desktops until the userbase of alternative systems goes up.
At this time, I just don't see how a non-Windows desktop is a viable solution for many enterprises. For certain users (developers, DBAs, admins, etc.), yes, is is a good idea. But, the users in Accounting, Legal, HR, etc. may be locked in.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
I have the same problem, but I think it's a Mozilla thing. IE never seems to have this problem, but it's reproduceable on Windows and Linux using any Mozilla version after 1.4.
/. makes me load up IE to post this note.
I've lately switched to Konquerer, so it hasn't bothered me as much, but at home I only use Mozilla on XP.
It's really frustrating, and it's been about a month.
It seems to be cookie-related. If you can browse without saving your username into a cookie, it won't happen. The minute you login to post though, it's over.
I find it ironic that
In a poll at Extremetech. The question was if you're leaving Windows for Linux, why?
a ge s?msg=41778.1
http://discuss.extremetech.com/extremetech/mess
So far only 23 people have voted but of those over half are leaving because of a serious distaste for Microsoft.
Regretfully, it's not just the "little things" that pose a problem right now. It's usually the "bigger things", like major software releases not coming with a Linux version!
Nowdays, the average person is buying a computer as a means to run whatever software they see and want to be able to use. (I think this is important to realize - because years ago, it didn't really work this way. For a long time, people bought computers only because they had a vague concept that "Once I have a computer, I can do all sorts of useful/cool/fun things with it!")
I just built and sold a new AMD Athlon system to a guy about a week ago. His reason for wanting a new machine and the list of specs he gave me for it? "Well, I really want to play Battlefield 1942 and Flight Simulator. I already bought 1942, in fact. The sides of the boxes say I need a system that meets these specs....."
No matter what you think of Linux, you can't tell me there's currently much likelihood of walking into the local Best Buy, CompUSA or WalMart, selecting an app or game off the shelf, and discovering it requires a Linux OS to run it.
Yes! If only some alternative to windows existed with the stability of Unix and an easy to use attractive interface. *sigh* We can only dream.... well, I must be getting back to my Mac now...
-Alex
I would switch right now, if only the shut down command would work on my Windows machine! I guess I'll just have to keep on using it... MS are so devilishly clever. :)
"Microsoft is now as stable and secure as its competitors,"
Okay, put down the Kool-Aid and the crack pipe and step back slowly with your hands in the air.
That said...ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?
If your answer to the question is "no", perhaps you'll want to enlighten us further as to where your formulate this opinion, because right now it seems that you have no experience with Linux or Mac OS X, and are just toeing the MS Party Line.
Get an OS X box and Red Hat box and call me back after you've used them for a few months.
blog |
Looks like someone's already working on SVG
GIMP goes SVG
http://www.linuxartist.org/article.php?sid=250
what an absolutely pointless question. Why even bother to take a survey if you're going to taint it with such a slant?
They should have just asked simply, "do you plan on switching from microsoft?"
ugh. silly commoners
----(o)----
This is not a statically valid survey.
We asked the question: "Microsoft users are getting fed up. They're battered by worms, viruses, security patches and increasing enterprise licensing costs. Aggravation has users talking about switching from Microsoft software to something else. We're trying to figure out how much of that talk is just talk, and how much is serious action. Do you seriously plan to dump Microsoft software?"
A question like this is very leading, and is likely to induce a testing effect, in which the actual asking of the question, and they way it is asked, changes the answer the survey taker gives. You can't preface a question by talking about how horrible microsoft is. The question should simply say: "Do you plan to switch from Microsoft sofware?" That would be much more statistically valid, and I can almost guarantee would lead to a diffent percentage of answers. That being said, I agree with the "41%".
Sig!
And then me! Yes!
Cig? No, thank you.
Most people use computer just as a tool. Just as an example - I have a friend who is a designer. He loves his job and he's forced to use computers but hates them. He dials-up to internet without any firewall; he's PC probably is infected with all kinds of shit and was rooted long time ago... but as long as it works - he doesn't care.
Free software developers need to be honest with themselves. No Linux environment is yet on par with Windows for typical desktop use. Here are the missing characteristics:
1. direct-render windowing system. XFree86's architecture is unfixably inefficient for typical desktop users. Window dragging in X is clearly much less responsive than on Win32 due to the silly message encode/decode overhead, context switches, and inter-process copies. DirectFB provides some hope here but their multi-window code is still immature. Network transparency should still be supported (and better than Win32 VNC), but not used for the local desktop.
2. Consistent "ooh, shiny" widget set. The computing public expects computers to make them feel futuristic and sexy, not like dateless engineering nerds. WinXP's advantage over Win2K is purely visual--there were basically no interesting technical changes (proof that Microsoft is a stagnant market-driven company). With ATI releasing specs and NVIDIA losing market share to the point of irrelevance, free software can leverage hardware acceleration to build sleak UIs.
3. Much higher efficiency. Practically speaking that means straight C. Nobody has figured out how to architect, write, maintain, or compile C++ efficiently. Don't use it.
4. Avoid shared library hell. Gnome seems to require about 200 shared libraries, which slows down the dynamic linker and creates a maintenance and installation nightmare (GNUCash).
5. fast, efficient browser. mozilla is a slow bloated tribute to the horror of C++ software engineering. The dillo folks have the right idea but are way behind IE. A free browser can ignore javascript, java, flash, and ActiveX as these are not critical to building a viable desktop.
6. media players. mplayer is better than anything availible for Windows. no problem here.
7. Full Win32 compatability. Wine is making great progress here. Once Win32 apps (especially games) run at native speed it's all over.
8. Office Suite. OpenOffice is a horrid, bloated mess. AbiWord is better. Free software developers are wasting their time on backwards compatability. Develop a better system, and people will switch. It is always possible to dump the useful contents of a Word doc to plaintext or HTML using Word itself, so free software developers should not waste time trying to reverse engineer proprietary formats. Develop something faster, cheaper, more stable, better, and let users deal with the conversion.
9. package management. Instead of forcing developers to write nasty packaging scripts, design a system which takes a tar.gz URL, auto-calculates dependencies based on autoconf, then installs and manages the program transparently. Once that happens you've freed 10,000 Debian maintainers for more useful work.
10. no open ports and state-based firewalling. It's trivial to beat Microsoft here.
When companies have a significant competitive advantage using a free desktop the ones who don't switch will go out of business. The develoeprs of this system will have guaranteed, well-paying jobs. revolution complete.
How many are actually able to switch to other software packages while locked into contracts for their company/coporations that have deals with M$?
Remember, its just not that easy for entire companies/coporations to switch over from an environment such as Windows to a Linux environment. Even with Linux desktop software becoming very usable for the "regular" user, it is still quite an impact and will most likely require re-training and a temporary loss of productivity during this period (and thus loss of money).
From the article: We asked the question: "Microsoft users are getting fed up. They're battered by worms, viruses, security patches and increasing enterprise licensing costs. Aggravation has users talking about switching from Microsoft software to something else. We're trying to figure out how much of that talk is just talk, and how much is serious action. Do you seriously plan to dump Microsoft software?"
As much as I hate MS, I do think that this sort of poll question is unfair. It leads the answerer to an anti-MS position. If you're going to do something like this, at least ask the question fairly.
Lets just recall Bill Gates!
Perhaps it's just my isolated little world that is so different from the rest of humanity, but even my parents have at least three PCs in the house on top of a few Macs and an assortment of old who-knows-what. As for people closer to my age, I can't think of one that doesn't use both Windows and Linux and several with BSD and Solaris and whatever other assorted mass of software in their enormous archive.
This whole switch business seems rather strange given the fact that I don't know a single household without at least two OSs. Why throw away something you've paid for? On the other hand, why not use something that's free? But most importantly, why not do both? Why do surveys always seem to phrase it as though it's one or the other? I switch OSs every few minutes.
"... I read that Linux has issued 25 patches so far this year, so what is to be gained by switching?..."
The fact that people are still confusing the conglomeration of multiple vendor, developer and enthusiast provided packages we call Linux and the single source, no other choice, Windows product is just another sign that most higher leve executives are not well informed of the basic differences between Linux/Open Source type software and the Microsoft provided products.
The simple fact that you are free to choose from *multiple* desktops, or software management, or userspace software solutions to your problems is incredibly different from getting a system stuck full of software that probably 80% of users or even developers have no idea of how it works. The vulnerabilities in "Linux" are of course various software package problems. Lumping them all together as Linux is the same as comparing the vulnerability rates of ALL the Windows software out there. It's preposterous to compare the systems without the users being informed oif what is really being compared.
The poll is not scientific because it is addressed to the readers of a certain internet publication. :)
Since the readers of that publication are not representative of all the computer users, the poll is skewed.
I think I can safely suppose that those readers are more computer savy than the average M$ user, hence these numbers are not reliable. However, in many enterprises, there is a small number of decision makers, whose opinion weights much more than Joe User's. Hopefully (and I say hopefully), they are more computer savy. So, it is hard to figure out the impact of these numbers on OS choices. It would be much more interesting to see the trend over time. This should provide a more reliable information.
Also, it is important to see the cost of switching, as I feel it is still too high. Linux is still too unsupported at device driver level. E.g. somebody gave me a wireless card as a gift. The drivers don't work and I have to modify them to make my laptop work with them. I don't think that Joe Users would start modifying the drivers because they dont' work. He'll just give up.
PS: when i get the drivers working i will publish them
My boss is quoted. And to think, a year ago, everyone thought i was crazy for bringing my Mac into the office.
The fact is there are really no alternatives for most people.
This is false. Sit a novice user in front of KDE3 and Open Office on a machine that has been sensibly set up and they will find a familiar interface and will face few cross-training problems. The paradox is that users who are more 'highly trained' tend to find non-MS systems problematic - novices just go ahead and use the system.
I've written about my own experiences in switching (http://www.jediknight.com/~smpoole/switchtolinux. html) and I'm basically happy, but I'm not everyone.
One of the biggest complaints that a Windows user will have when making the Big Switch is the lack of a unified, cross-referenced help system. (Speaking from experience.)
KDE is a FINE desktop. It's actually better than the XP desktop, IMNHO. But there are still times that I stare at it, wondering, "what the heck do I do NOW?" If I look for help, I get a Page Filled With Tons Of Text (if anything at all).
The Open Source community has done a marvelous job concentrating on security, robustness, and eye candy (yes, that's not a typo; that's my opinion). I can do things by default under Linux that I could only dream about under Windows.
But most users don't need remote administration or the ability to have a dozen different text terminals. It's the little things, like the lack of the ability to click F1 and search for help on "modem" or "printer," that create a *needlessly* steep learning curve for the uninitiated. Mandrake (again, IMNHO) has done an excellent job of addressing this, but there's still a long ways to go yet.
Just my opinion.
Microsoft is like a black hole. They started as a bright star, shining and brilliant, but slowly grew and grew pulling in the mass of the surrounding planets (software companies)...
Now they've become a black hole, so large and massive they suck in anything even remotely close to them, endlessly gaining mass with internal hopes of consuming the entire universe until one day you eat a Microsoft TV dinner on wednesday night, and drive to work in your Microsoft XP300 SUV to work.
The problem is there is a theory that when a black hole reaches a critical mass point, it explodes.
I think this poll taken shows that the critical point might be getting close, and the BIG BANG might be comming close, or so we can all only hope.
Having no choice for a gaming desktop operating system on my PC fine... but I don't want to have NO choice when it comes to buying a new car or going out to one of the millions of Microsoft Fast Food chains.
- Voxel
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
Your average user wants to buy some hardware, take it home and then install it. Ok this isn't always simple with Windows, but more often than not there will be a driver somewhere for your Windows OS of choice.
With Linux you run into the problem of kernel versions and drivers needing to be (in many cases) released as source code. Some companies simply don't want to release such code if they feel it reveals any secrets or patented hardware knowledge. Of course you can use a part binary, part source approach, but that often means employing a full time Linux driver developer. Given the number of government agencies adopting Linux I feel that many companies will have to take notice and provide drivers.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
The sad part is MS are still laughing all the way to the bank.
Debian is not a beginner's distribution, so the idea of "sensible defaults" does not apply here as it would in other places. Should you desire newer packages, it's a very trivial matter to add unstable sources to your sources.list.
The two clearest examples are sound and clipboard. We have alsa, oss, arts, esd as various ways of getting sound ... The problem is not choice, but stability and incompatibility. If you use arts, than you can play arts apps, but nothing else ...
(it blocks the dev even when no app is running). If you just rely on oss/alsa then all kde apps no longer have sound ... Not to mention the serious synchronicity problem that makes the life of game /video player developers a hell.
As far as clipboard is concerned - countless times I got different results by using Ctrl-V and middle button.
Choice is good, but incompatibility is not. The opensource world seems to be entrenched in civil holy wars instead of trying to provide a real alternative (pretty much like the chinese factions in WWII - fighting against each others instead of the real enemy).
To conclude - I agree with you, it's the little things. And it's not a bad thing to copy UI from commercial OSes, as they actually have resources to do usability studies, whereas the OSS world most often doesn't.
The Raven
...been any popular monopoly ever? Even if they provided you with top-notch service, excellent products at near-cost prices, I swear people would go "Gee, I wish there was something better than [insert monopoly X here]"
Why? People like to have the choice, or at least the illusion of choice. Like going for Pepsi over Coca-cola or vice versa even though most couldn't tell them apart in a blind test. They'd protest if the had to buy the one and only monopoly brand though.
I'm sure that if Linux takes over and becomes a new desktop monopoly, and after their completely unpatched for months Linux boxes running as root 24/7 get rooted, they'll be looking for alternatives then too...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Did you run memtest and otherwise make sure your hardware was good? It could have been a bad driver. Your description makes it highly unlikely that you are experiencing a software problem.
Office Suite: OpenOffice
Star Office (OpenOffice+DataBase software @ $99)
Word Perfect Offcie Suite
Image Manipulation:
Gimp (Still not up the speed and power of Photoshop yet) Movie and Sound editing:?
Micosoft never sold its software on it working well internally (we all know the guts suck); they sold it on ease of use for the end user who only knows where the ON switch is (if they're lucky). If LINUX cannot offer a product that is as easy to use as it is stable then no one will use it.
In this day and age of the stupid computer user if they cannot figure out how to use it in ten seconds or less they'll stay with they're current program (for good or for ill).
Try taking a look at a MAXIS game (SimCity 4 being a good choice) for an example of a program that is easy to use for the first time user. I had never played SC4 (or SC in ten years) and was playing it with no trouble in 10 minutes (sure I had traffic snarls and a crime problems but I was playing happily).
This is the kernel of the problem (pardon my pun): Linux has to be willing and able to sell itself to the joe sixpack computer user as a simple, easy to use, crash free computer. Right now it has crash free, the other two are sporadic (or annoying for newbies who get told RTFM when the MAN pages are not written for newbies).
So I drifted a little bit. Is there a listing of decent linux products and sofware somewhere so someone can stock their Linux box with what they need? And is this software usable by mere mortals who can't code their way out a punch card reader?
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
These comments are being made by network jockey's they hardly represent corporate strategists; that applies for both pro- and anti- MS comments.
What's really shocking to me is that despite MS's huge cash cow, nobody is willing to seriously challenge them in the office suite world or OS world.
Instead everybody has Linux out there like a proxy that they can disavow if things don't look good, or embrace if things look better.
Will it take someone from the Far East to mount a serious challenge to MS?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"Wal-Mart employees kick puppies and laugh at old people"
The difference is that nobody is saying that Walmart is kicking puppies and laughing at old people, while people are really pissed off at MS for their software instability and problems.
It only seems like a loaded question to you because you, deep down, don't really see a problem with MS software.
Highlight what you want. Put the cursor where you want it. Middle click. Once you get the hang of it it's much easier and quicker than messing around than what you're used to.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I tried Mandrake 8.1 for a couple of weeks and it aimply toasted 98SE. It was stable. It was faster. It was geekier! I explored the OS, trying to figure out how to do everything I did before in Windows, and was mostly successful. Now all I needed was a way to run Half-Life, and my life would be complete.
Not.
I found a nice website with instructions on how to install Half-Life on Linux and proceeded through step-by-step. The surprising thing was, I hated 98SE enough to follow the incredibly long and painful process. Instead of simply popping in a cd or double-clicking an executable, I had to download the Wine source tree through the console, configure, compile, repeat because I screwed up, reinstall drivers, reconfigure, recompile, edit config files myself, etc until after four days I finally gave up.
Here's a couple hints to Linux programmers:
Have end users download, then run an executable that automatically configures/compiles/installs itself, and comes with its own libraries. Make it run in the GUI. If it's so hard, WHY CAN ALMOST EVERY WINDOWS PROGRAM DO IT?
How about letting me into my own system without root? It saves time. Either hackers erase my OS for fun or I erase it out of frustration.
Maybe my mouse should work every time instead of just moving in vertical lines. Maybe I should be able to plug and play my mouse, like in Windows. Perhaps Linux could not crash because of USB switching, like XP. I'm thinkin' that I should be able to reconfigure my mouse, that doesn't work, with a keyboard, that does, by tabbing through an interface.
Needless to say, I am now a happy Windows XP user. I stick in the CD, reformat some partitions, and away it goes. All I need to do is enter codes. How is that hard? Furthermore, I have been using a pirated German version of XP with almost no English in it. I don't know German. Yet it's STILL easier to use than Linux. Linux has given me a nasty taste in my mouth; I hope I never have to go back.
People which are satisfied with Microsft software are typically people that don't answer that kind of questions. Or even more, they don't visit that kind of site.
____
nico
Nico-Live
Yes! This question is wrong in so many ways. They could just as easily have asked: "SCO is going to charge $699 for every Linux installation. Many Linux users are afraid they might be sued for not paying for their kernel. Do you plan on making the safe choice of sticking with Microsoft Windows?"
In the name of science, please do not dignify these sort of polls with publicity. Not even with a slashdotting.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
The general user is not technical, almost by definition. Owning a computer, for the general user, is a frustrating and unsatisfactory experience. Why? Because to get the most from the computer, you have to be the sysadmin, not just a general user.
A computer is a technical beast which is not very friendly to the non-technical. Some OS's may be slightly less mysterious than others, but not by much. True for Windows, Mac and Linux. Don't let the click and point icons fool you.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
ok, in the same breath as saying macs are to damn expensive (which is a misconception) he says he wants a reliable powerful computer.
umm...with reliability, you get what you pay for. you buy cheap, you get cheap.
a reliable PC made by a name brand with midrange features will run you about 1000-1200 dollars....get a damn mac!!! that is the sweet spot!!
and if you are buying for corporate installation, the emac and iMac are perfect...open box, plop on the desk, done.
other than CAD and stuff like that which you should be getting IBM or Sun Workstations anyway, Macs will do everything a PC can do, and are much nicer to work on (I feel less stressed on my Mac than I do on my PC).
"No!! I need 3 GHz to write my reports and surf the intranet!!!"
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I used Red Hat 7.3 for along time and even back then it was a viable desktop replacement. RH9 is very suitable.
I understand the reasoning. If five people say "A" and one says "B" then "A" can be the only correct answer... unless the five that say "A" are ignorant, of course.
What else can we expect of a long-lived monopolistic situation?
That was fixed weeks ago, the solution is simply to upgrade your computer.
Hope it helps !
theefer
I think you meant towing.
Well you're wrong. In fact, I think he's the first person I've ever seen use the phrase properly in a Slashdot post.
~Philly
"I could always switch to MacOSX, I suppose. But given my limited resources, I'll probably switch to Linux within the year..."
You can do whatever you want, dude.
Sell the Intel box and -- BAM -- buy a Mac.
Don't make excuses unless you need them.
Microsoft users are getting fed up. They're battered by worms, viruses, security patches and increasing enterprise licensing costs. Aggravation has users talking about switching from Microsoft software to something else. We're trying to figure out how much of that talk is just talk, and how much is serious action. Do you seriously plan to dump Microsoft software?
This is a very loaded question. So if you switch from Microsoft you will reap the following benefits:
1. Not being battered by worms and viruses
2. Never having to patch your system
3. The cost of your non-Microsoft solution will never cost anything, or at least never increase in cost.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
in regards to the slashdot poll. I think it applies here.
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
So I personally will be migrating to Cowboy Neal 7 very soon.
SAILING MISHAP
I think you meant Mandrake 9.2 - I'm running 9.1 Also, just installed Suse 8.2 recently to try out the new Ximian Desktop 2. A Ximian guy came to our LUG to demo it, and it looked nice. OOo is looking sweet to. So, I thought, perhaps I'll be more Gnome oriented. Lo and behold, I can't specify page ranges when I'm printing. WTH??? Now, I *CAN* do so direct from OOo, but not from what appears to be the new gnome printer dialog box.
creation science book
...because of their return policy on software and DVDs. Now I get my games at EBX, even though it's a longer drive, because all I need is a receipt to return games, for any reason, *even after I've opened them.*
Comes in realy handy after a stinker like Master of Orion 3.
People can and do "switch" when there's a reason and an alternative, even if there's some extra effort involded.
I am the very model of a modern major general!
Sure you can, provided you have the latest and greatest hardware and take pains to keep it all up to date. But that begs the question: Is Internet Week's core reader base gamers? Somehow I doubt it. IW's tagline is: "Technology that Connects the Internet."
We're talking about doing work with your computer. So your comments about games are automagically irrelevant.
You mention video formats, but then use MP3 audio as an example. Curious. Anyway, if you've used QuickTime content creation tools, you know that QuickTime is more than just a playback mechanism. It's an extremely powerful, extremely flexible multimedia platform. Although not that many business users I know are interested in downloading bad P2P copies of movies, there are methods for watching xvid on a Mac.
So your arguments against Apple (your use of the term "Apple" rather than "Mac" in a conversation about operating systems is a dead giveaway that you're not really a Mac user) are invalid.
Let's talk about Linux and Windows, since you conveniently ignore how easy Macs are to set up. It takes you an hour to configure a new Windows system, but it takes you weeks or months to get a Linux system working. That's mighty strange, friend. Maybe you haven't set up a Linux system in a while. But you're missing the point anyway. We're talking about enterprise use here.
While I agree that Linux on the desktop might not be ready for prime-time in many respects, it's also a perfectly valid replacement for Windows in many enterprise situations. It runs servers and networks quite well. A well-configured Linux distro is perfect for many business users because it eliminates all kinds of increased support costs due to Outlook/Office security problems. Eliminating this one set of problems alone can save a large Windows-using organization big money.
To summarize:
1) You can play a lot of games on Windows if you are sure to keep your system up to date.
2) #1 is totally irrelevant to the topic at hand.
3) If you are really wasting time at work and want to play xvid on your Mac, you can.
4) Modern Linux distros are extremely easy to set up and can provide major cost savings for enterprise organizations that are tired of fighting with money-draining Outlook/Office security problems.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Case in point: Anyone who's ever gone through an employee survey, do you know anyone that checked the box saying "Actually, I think I'm overpaid?"
Or the one "Are you thinking of leaving?" The number of employees that respond affirmatively is way greater than the number who actually leave.
When the competition is hot, Microsoft is at it's best. Once they put their massive resources behind a project, that project will dominate the market (even if it takes several revisions). Basicly, users are beta-testers for the first few revisions. Example -- Pocket PC software.
Then, once the competition is crushed out of existance, Microsoft more or less drops interest, and the product stagnates. Example-- Internet Explorer.
The trouble for Microsoft is that the marketplace also changes; often rapidly. Microsoft will try to get a foothold if that market looks interesting and profitable, but sometimes big corporations move too slowly (even if they are 'compartmentalized'). Microsoft, in the future, won't have the luxury of using two revisions to get something right.
-----
There are alternatives to Microsoft, of course. The competition is fierce, as usual, and Microsoft will take any advantage it can (ethical or not, IMHO). That perception (whether correct or not) definately clouds Microsoft's image. Besides, after the federal anti-trust suit fiasco, it smells like Microsoft bought off each state, one by one. And it seems that Microsoft is thumbing their nose at the Federal government anyway.
-----
There is also the matter of cheering for the underdog. Microsoft was the underdog to IBM in it's beginning; now Linux is the underdog.
------
My money is on something like Sun's Java Desktop. It is well integrated, and it will be supported by a major player, SUN, unlike most of the other Linux distros. Say what you will about SUN, they are still standing and making a stand against Microsoft. Once that Desktop comes out, I think the corporate world will take a long hard look at it. Prepare for massive discounts from Microsoft in it's defense.
Besides, I like what the Sun spokesperson said about the Java Desktop: "We are trying to make a 30 billion dollar a year business (i.e. Microsoft) into a 5 billion dollar a year business."
Here's to the underdog! I'm going to take a look at it, for sure.
No, genius. I meant toeing.
blog |
The all-purpose Slashdot response to anyone who posts a defense of Mrcrosoft.
How bout those 30+ errors in IE? How bout that ActiveX exploit that allows your box to be rooted just by VISITING a site?
You can claim that by "keeping updated" you are protected, by what exactly does "keeping updated" do against a bug that MS hasn't gotten around to patching yet?
I want a Mac. But I'll need to save up for one. It's definitely worth the money, but I don't have it.
Migration to Apple/Linux etc. would be a low process that has to be done in phases. For example: taking all of your Windows servers and moving them over to Mac OS X Server on some XServes. Get everything running smoothly and just like it was before with winNT or whatever.
When it comes time to do a desktop upgrade and the higher-ups are evaluating their options suggest Apple. When they argue that the prices are outta the roof then rebut that by pointing out that the entire backend was migrated to X for lower TCO , higher uptime, and better prefomance.
Until we make the bean counters realize that Apple/Linux/et. al. are actually good systems that will free the company from MS BS then nothing will get done. Less green going into servers means more green possibly going over to new OS X desktops.
...what some of the not so clued up people who've posted their messages to that page fail to realise is that, yes, there are patches issued for various services on Linux, but by and large they are not in the same league as many Windows ones, as another /. commenter so eloquently put it in the thread about the last OpenSSH vulnerability (before I bastardised it by paraphrasing)...
"the OpenSSH vulnerabilities were fairly subtle in nature, not like leaving a port open by default that allows you to screw over the users PC or access their files"
I am NaN
Microsoft currently has complete market dominance over Office products, but excellent alternatives do exist. Tell your friends and coworkers about them!
- OpenOffice.org is completely free, and has the word processor, spreadsheet, draw, presentation etc. you'll need to get the same functionality as MS Office. It also loads MS files quite well, even PowerPoint. This is the only office product I use for all my educational and business needs.
- Corel WordPerfect Office is also a great product, and even has a downloadable trial version. I've always thought WordPerfect is one of the best word processors out there because of its reveal codes feature...
At my university, I've convinced several professors to mention OpenOffice on their web pages so students know that free office products do exist -- and OpenOffice can make PDFs, too. Now MS can be happy too because people no longer need to steal copies of their product!The mere fact that the startup feedback in KDE is not identical to what's used in Windows is enough to throw many users into fits of discomfort.
Remember, if you know enough about computers to read and post here on Slashdot, you're a couple of orders of magnitude beyond the computer skills of most users. That isn't to cast aspersions on their capabilities. I drive a car every day and if it starts doing something unexpected I'll take it to a mechanic, because my level of interest in what makes cars work is pretty low. Similarly, most people who use a computer every day in a corporate environment will pick up the phone and call tech support when their machine misbehaves. Why? Because they find computers to be about as interesting as typewriters. For them, computers are just tools they have to use to get their jobs done. Any changes are as unwelcome as someone rearranging the keys on a typewriter keyboard.
It's this kind of inertia that plays to Microsoft's advantage and plays against any OS that wants to play the alternative game. People don't necessarily want to change.
LInux or any other alternative OS needs to do something other than simply mimicing Windows. No one is going to be interested in going through the hassle of learning new software only to find out that it is pretty much the same as the Windows stuff it replaced.
Success in the corporate desktop environment requires adding capability that Windows lacks. Make them more productive on Linux than on Windows at the same time you make their jobs easier and, just maybe, their employers might make the switch.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Who, exactly would be corrupt in this situation? And what would prevent them from being usurped?
One of the big goals of the license Linux is released under is the difficulty of forcing consumer lock-in.
I'm glad that a $50K English degree got me some sort of recognition somewhere. :-D
blog |
...64% of readers surveyed agreed that the grass does appear to look greener on the other side of the fence.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Ok, in worst case this might be true.
But a decent retailer is going to have a return policy. A friend could have a Mac. There are users groups you could hookup with a new friend.... maybe someone who even switched and can focus on differences that relate to your needs.
And of course, much like a IBM or Toshiba laptop, macs have good resale value.
Not going to be out the full price unless you try.
Hello? The Macintosh has existed for a long time. How come we suddenly don't exist to certain people? We have Office and ALL major programs, so I see no problem what so sever to switch.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Well, you know the ancient proverb: "Give Microsoft what Microsoft is!"
/.'s to blurt out these kind of questions - after all, profit and the management of information are by all empiric standards a bloody mess! So in a way, that particular response is legit. If you ain't [paid], go ahead and tell the world, we won't bite ;)
At some point in the immediate future, M$-users should question their motives for using their, dare I say "chosen", operating system. Greed, money and ignorance have, as I see it, been in the wake of Microsoftian culture way too long now.
It's just second nature to
"The only clear view is from atop the mountain of our dead selves." - Peter Carroll
I use Linux myself. Put the parent is right. Completely right. When I still had cause to use Windows, as I was in a Lan Clan, I ran XP. I had no issues. I'm careful. I suffered no hacks, lost no data, caught no viruses, etc...
It's really quite acceptable. The only reason I use Linux is for the convenience of being able to script everything (I happen to know BASH okay), the need to run servers (I host my own website because I want to use PHP and have an FTP server), and the ability to hack on things (I'm not much of a programmer, but I do bug-testing and doc-writing for friends who are).
The only point where Windows suffers is on features, viruses, and speed. Where it wins is useability and common use. That means, a girlfriend can use my computer, and I don't need to spend time setting it up to be so. However, I still use Linux because XP vs Linux is like a race between two sprinters, one carrying a hundred-pound pack, as I run BlackBox and do half my stuff at the console.
You toe the line. You await with bated breath. If you have a hard time keeping track of your possessions, you lose them. Hopefully, you don't try to find them by committee. The Constitution is modified by amendments. If you like computers that work, you use a Mac. If you like writing compact, powerful, but hard-to-read code, you write in Perl.
;)
Okay, that covers the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The quoted survey recipient is right: There is not an alternative out there that provides everything Microsoft does. As a result, Microsoft can be lazy about certain things, which is certainly why some people are dissatisfied.
Once others figure out how to compete with Microsoft, there will be more competition and better quality software for everyone. Microsoft may still end up with very high market share and a lot of happy customers, but it will be nudged in that direction by competetors nipping at its heels.
Amazing magic tricks
The remark cited from some clueless person that they're waiting for a viable alternative to MS reminds me of ignorance standard set in the last presidential election. We got Bush and he'll get MS.
Mediocrity's success rides on the ignorance of the consumer.
Even if they have never heard of Linux, they have all heard of Apple. In spite of this, they do not switch. Why? Because they ARE satisfied with Microosft's products and if they aren't satisfied they still regard Microsoft's products as the best available.
Nonsense. They, like me, use microsoft because it runs on inexpensive hardware and most software out there is designed to work with it. This does not imply my or their satisfaction. It implies only acknowledging the facts.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
I am taking this flamebait and troll, because I have nothing else to do. ;-)
There is absolutely no need to boycott Debian. Why? You answered it yourself. To quote yourself:
and
Given all these, how many people would be using Debian, other than a special set of people (about whom I will talk shortly).
Now for that special set of people, Debian is what they want, so there is no point and no use in switching them to anything else.
For them, 'political flamewars', 'RTFM'ing, 'editing text files' etc. are part of the attractions of the Debian system/community. Again, since such a set of people is a very small group, it won't affect the image of GNU/Linux.
Now I have to point out something that you said that is patently wrong (pun intented). To quote yourself (I added [Debian] to clarify the context):
Actually, Debian guys take extra pains to make sure that stuff with different type of licences and stuff are kept separately. They also make sure that everything is done as per law in each country. Even bona-fide corporations that distribute GNU/Linux seems to slack on this part, so I think you misjudged them on this small part.
Yes, Debian community does encourage people to fight against patent laws (so does KDE, GIMP, and a whole lot of other projects and organizations), but never to break any existing laws. [True, you can always find some people who would advocate civil disobedience (ESR does it on his front page), but it is not unique to Debian, you will find them in all types of non-censored/not heavily censored communities such as Slashdot]
Furthermore, RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE are the dominant players in the GNU/Linux market and hence, logically, one would have to blame them for the bad image of GNU/Linux, for they have the most exposure. [No! Unlike the parent poster, I am not saying that RedHat, Mandrake or SuSE are to blame for the bad image of GNU/Linux]
GrimReality
2003-10-12 21:35:35 UTC (2003-10-12 17:35:35 EDT)
hmm must be a regional thing. I haven't ever had any problems with this. I stay signed in all the time.
I believe that most people who are 'fed up' with MS are probably annoyed at the applications more than the OS. Most of the viruses, trojans, etc. are due to vulnerabilities in Outlook, Explorer, etc. (Yes, the design of the Windows 9x OS exacerbates the situation.) Or perhaps they're annoyed at feature-creep in MS Office. So the first issue is, what is annoying?
Second, even if a person is completely dissatisfied with Windows the OS, switching to Linux means switching to a fundamentally different operating system; very little of their Windows knowledge will be useful. And after learning linux (no small feat), they'll still have to learn all new applications- IF a linux equivalent exists. That's a big hurdle, IMO.
In fact, I use Firebird (Phoenix, mainly nightlies) and Thunderbird, which I like a lot. Both Firebird and Opera crash more than IE, in my experience. But I have not used Opera for a while, and even Phoenix is doing better now than it used to a couple months back. Anyway, I just checked the Pivx vulnerabilities page and I notice that they've taken it down as a good faith move towards Microsoft. Wow. I should try submitting that to Slashdot.
Now, these weren't your regular crashes; oh no, these consistantly fubar'd the registry making the entire box unbootable. The only fix I've found is to use a seperate USB card in the system to avoid crashes.
No. He means toeing
See this link for more information.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Nothing better for you to do than read Slashdot either, huh? :)
Exactly. Linux won't be a viable alternative for most people until people come out with a distro that's as idiot-proof and easy to use as Windows or OS X. This means, among other things, making it so that you would never have to use the command line. Being able to use all of their Windows software on Linux wouldn't hurt either (and I know they're working on that.)
hey, like me, use microsoft because it runs on inexpensive hardware and most software out there is designed to work with it.
then it does what you need it to do. yeah, it does lots of things you don't want it to do, and it does lots of things it isn't supposed to, but until the combination comes along that can "meet your needs", then windows is it. i have been microsoft free for 4 years, with linux and os x. and happily too. but, my needs and wants are not everybody elses.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Hereabouts, any given moment, there will be at least three local high schools, a community college and a public library offering evening classes in Office, with additional free outreach programs for the elderly, the disabled and those on welfare. The message---heard loud and clearly from every potential employer---is that these skills are marketable.
dude, you need some help.
:)) ;-)
a) cscript and/or vbshell ? btw, we live now in a year 2003, which means that the fcking 30mb of ram for GUI is a peace of shit.
b) what ?
c) really ? so that must be another lousy programmer, not microsft's fault
d) do you even understand about what are you talking about dude ?
e) hey smartypants, tellme about this more. i see you like reading dotslash alot
I am dissatisfied with microsoft's products, however I have nowhere to go.
Will microsoft flinch at this article? It depends on which part of that sentence they are more concerned with.
And my favorite quote:
/. editors reached a new low in journalism? Is this even a news site or is no better than message board with links to discuss? And here I thought MS propagranda was bad but at least they have a financial motive. And before I felt proud I went to the same college. You guys should know better than to put this junk on your web page.
"The Reader Question is by no means scientific; we solicit responses on InternetWeek.com and in the newsletter and make no effort to qualify respondents. QuickPolls are the Internet journalism equivalent of man-in-the-street interviews and call-in talk radio."
Have
"I read that Linux has issued 25 patches so far this year, so what is to be gained by switching? "
Linux? as in the kernel?
I really think that the general public needs an education.
it would make more sense if one said 'X issued 25 patches this year' instead of Linux.
X being the name of the distro.
does it ever end? *grin*
They, like me, use microsoft because it runs on inexpensive hardware and most software out there is designed to work with it.
Not entirely true. Most people run Windows because thats what came on their computer when they bought it, and they have no desire and/or ability to switch. Sure, it's pain in the ass, but it works most of the time, so why fix what isn't broke?
As for Wintel VS Apple, most people know nothing about Macs, and have no desire to learn something new. I know Macs are easy to learn, but most people just want to get on the Internet, surf porn, send and receive emails, and not have to worry about whats the Mac icon that does X or Y.
The price issue isn't really a major factor either. Dell, Compaq, HP, etc have loads of sub $1000 PCs, but I have yet to see a Joe User type actually buy one. They spring for the $1500+ PC that they think is going to last them 2 years or more, even though a low end iMac will do the job and be more reliable.
Ok, I'll bite.
..." could be applied to just about any computer system created. Try applying this theory to a 486 system running DOS 5.0, however. Sure, it might be stable, and doesn't produce reboot/crashes, but can you run Photoshop on it? Can you play Quake 3, Diablo II, or any of the far reaching technologically driven products coming next year?
First, let me state that it doesn't matter -what- Operating System one uses. There will always be exploits, security holes, and just plain bugs that creep in over time.
The fact of the matter is, the computer landscape is evolutionary, changing over time in such a way that the "computer" has greater and more expansive expectations put upon it.
Your statement about "...since I keep it updated and firewalled,
The real issue here is not so much what the system is still capable of, simply because you update it.
The issue is what the system allows YOU to do, once you have asserted your right to choose. People seem to forget that one of the founding notions upon which our purchasing decision is based on is that the computer is an enabler for doing work we want to get done. It's also more than that. It's a device that allows oneself to escape the realities and pressures of our society from time to time.
It's been far too long now that the choices we've been given have been dictated by a company seemingly uninterested in the desires of their target market. I do not think that Microsoft products are necessarily evil, ill-produced or stagnate the market, insomuch as the company goals seem to be in line with only serving the bottom dollar mentality, and far from the desires of the customer.
It's time to give room for competition. Competition encourages growth, quality, and listening to customers' needs.
user@host$ diff
people would buy Linux and OpenOffice, because you save something like $500 for not buying Windows + Office XP. And yes, Linux/OO is easy to use, if you want only Web Browser and writer/spreadsheet. You have several icons that you click to start programs and that's it. I don't know how browsing from Mozilla is in any way more difficult than from IE or how Word is better than Writer for simple tasks.
And $500 is more of a difference, than the $200 - $300 between Mac and Dell you discuss.
I can tell you that Opera (on both Linux and XP) has no problems either.
Actually I have minor problems when using Opera. OTOH I have no problems when using Mozilla.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
From the article: "Whatever OS becomes the most widely used will be attacked with the same frequency."
Not with the same success rate.
you won't have linux applications until you have linux customers, and you won't have customers until you have users, and you won't have users until you have applications.
the users can break this cycle by getting out of the "either-or" mindset and using BOTH for awhile. they should just get a linux box, today, and start using it. keep the windows one around for stuff for which there is no alternative. or use lindows to even further minimize the amount of machine-switching you must do. by being present in the linux end-user marketplace, they will create the demand for applications.
IT departments should take the lead on this, but same goes for home users.
you can get a linux box for $199 at walmart, for christ's sake.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Here in Switzerland/Germany on TV tonight, a channel, SAT1, broadcast as one of it's subjects in the Planetopia current issues, a bit about the difficulty people have keepiing their Windows machines up to date with patches. One guy, who had a DSL line at his house complained that it took him almost the entire day to update his entire collection of MS software, from Windows through Explorer to Office. He wondered out loud how people with modems or ISDN connections (still popular in Germany) would be able to cope.
Another guy, who had just bought a Windows box, was caught by blaster as soon as he switched the thing on and took it back to the store (the German equivalent of CompUSA) where they were too dumb to help him. The piece also demonstrated how this could happen because the firewall wasn't turned on by default.
What was interesting is that when they asked some so called MS expert on how to get the patches all at once, he mentioned that MS only released 80 000 CD's with the latest patches all in one on it, and the interviewer immediately asked how all the millions of MS customers were supposed to be satisfied with only that amount of CDs.
Interesting.
Running Mandrake 9.1 + KDE and using Konqueror I had/have NO problems with Slashdot.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Seriously, now... People say that you have to patch Linux just as you have to patch Windows. But they don't realize something that is quite different between the two:
Under Linux, you have total control over the system. There is nothing hidden away, like it is under Microsoft. Therefore, when you apply a patch, you can know exactly where that patch goes and what that patch does. A sysadmin or two can put together a configuration (for 1 box, 100, or 10,000) that they like, and then when a patch comes out, write a small script that busts it into all the systems companywide.
Besides... Under Linux, it is not quite as critical to apply every single patch, as it is under Windows. Because sysadmins can control everything, they can prevent a lot of the stupidities that make Windows boxes vulnerable, like faulty configurations. And, because every company will likely have different Linux setups, viruses or cracks written for Linux will not have the same widespread effect as they do on Windows, where every Windows box is essentially the same, give or take a few variables.
I just show them all of the pictures I have of k-8 students running a mandrake desktop. I think they get the hint when I tell them they can be easily replaced by a sixth grader then.
Got Code?
it just 'happens' on some installs with some drivers..
and it's a bitch to look up why it happens, with which software, with which drivers, since the logging really isn't up there when necessary yet(in a way that's understandable). along that the 'closed' nature of the whole booting process and starting of programs and it can be quite a chore to dig up why some things happen(and quite often, this is one reason why reinstalling is so popular). "you got a problem? reinstall windows", this of course isn't that good a solution on a network connected machine when the problem is because of blaster(/equivalent) and the computer is penetrated immediately after reinstall(that magically fixes everything) and (again) fscked.
ok another story, i upgraded the mobo/cpu/mem/gfx for a friend and the win2k that was on the old hd wouldn't boot at all, in any way or mode(nor were there nothing wrong with the disc).
well, i then proceeded to install xp for it, obviously we wanted to install it on the spanking sata drive we had also bought for him. well, the sata interface needed drivers, that were provided on a cd, and the xp setup would take drivers only from a floppy(i guess there are _some_ ways around this, but at the moment it eluded me how). luckily the drivers cd was selfboot(with freedos, as i didnt't have a knoppix cd around either) and thus provided us with a way to copy those drivers to a floppy(what i got against this? the drivers were needed on a floppy yet they provided a cd, but whats more is that floppy was pretty much dead in most peoples use and certainly in hardware distribution when xp came out so logically they could have made it as option to load the drivers from, no?).
another story, i went to fix some other friends computer(partition the hd from the mess that it was, install 2k & etc). while checking the state of the machine i used knoppix on it, my friend then asked "eh, it seems to work, why we want to do that install again?" "-because you want to play gta3." "oh, yeah.".
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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm a Microsoft user and I don't have any problems with floods of worms and viruses attacking my machine.
I use the built-in ICF or free Kerio Personal Firewall, and have Automatic Updates configured to automatically download patches.
The worst I have to do is come in in the morning, sit there for 3 minutes while the patches install, and do a quick reboot. It's a hell of a lot easier than finding out there's a new OpenSSL exploit and having to recompile (or download RPM's) for everything that I think might use OpenSSL.
Where's the problem? Sounds like a user education issue to me. Or just FUD spread around by MS-bashers. I'd like to see someone in the Linux realm develop and actually deploy their OS to a hundred million users and see where they get. I'd bet they'd do worse than Microsoft, personally.
I wrote this once to a couple of friends and family:
I've been messing around with Linux again. I do this every now and then to see how the OS is coming along. However, I haven't had much reason until lately to check it out, because the distributions have been somewhat lacking. Then one day I check things out and notice how far the GNOME desktop front end has come. Now at version 2.4, GNOME is flat out gorgeous. I just had to give it a go.
After looking around, I found that only one distribution of Linux, Slackware, was available with GNOME 2.4. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, despite tales that Slackware was the more hardcore and complicated distro of Linux. I downloaded the ISOs (they're free) and installed.
I had some ups and downs; Linux is nothing like Windows, and it has been awhile since I have played around with it. I poked and prodded, read and re-read documentation, and had a few frustrations here and there. Pretty typical for a Linux newbie such as myself. I kept at it however. I really don't know why I kept at it, I just did. So anyway, some things start to sink in, and little by little I find myself having a twisted sort of geek-style fun. Then next thing I know, I find I rather like Slackware Linux, as far as distributions go. There's Redhat Linux and Mandrake Linux and Debian Linux and others, but I was rather turned off by them for various reasons. Slack is... well, Slack is everything those distros aren't: sleek and minimal. And I am all about minimal.
Why am I telling you this? I don't know. I just sort of wanted to talk about it. I like screwing around with things like this, and Slack really makes that kind of easy in its minimalist way. Incidentally, once I find a Linux email client and an HTML editor that I am comfortable with, I am likely going to be spending a lot of time within Linux. Why? Well, quite frankly I have become more and more frustrated by some of the aspects of the Windows world. Mind you, I am not talking specifically about Windows per se (XP and 2000 are decent enough operating systems). Rather, I am talking about everything that goes with being a Windows user: spyware, software activation, program-embedded advertising, viruses, exploits, dumbed-down featureless apps, ugly candy-coated themes... you name it. Frankly, I am just a little tired of it.
So here I am now, trying something new. I don't really know how long I will stick with Linux, but so far things are going well and I suspect I shall be with Linux for quite awhile. I am actually liking this. Besides, learning Linux has the benefit of being a valuable technical skill that I may one day be able to capitalize on. We'll see, I guess.
You haven't tried kuro5hin lately, have you?
The last time I went into an Apple shop, they weren't looking for customers: Customers - are boring.
Wow. Either you fail in a sarcastic attempt at humor or you are a classic example of what happens when you attempt to "correct" someone based on your own ignorance. Another poster already addressed the fact that "toeing the line" is actually the correct usage, but the fact that your additional statement is also wrong as well just made me smile and prompted a response. "Bated" is an abbreviated form of "abated" and is the proper form of this phrase. You can go check out a copy of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice if you don't believe me (the first recorded use of the phrase). Since I assume your preferred useage of the second phrase is "baited breath", I won't even ponder your idea of the proper use of fishing worms.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Try it, you'll be amazed. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
At work we are all Windows. At home I have a Windows laptop - but it is dying (hardware).
I have had enough annoyances with Windows, and Mac has made enough improvements that I'm giving Mac a shot because I have heard the PowerBook hardware is good.
If it doesn't work out, I can always put Linux on it.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
No, wait, that's not ture at all!
Add up incidence of misconfiguration, cleaning up viruses and trojans (etc), cost of additional security hardware and software, replacement hardware for the broken components (lower quality generally in white-box PCs), and general down time due to the OS. The price difference really does add up.
Windows is only cheaper if your time is a 0 cost item. If your time is valuable, you will use an operating system that will not have you spending time on the phone to tech support, or setting up a whole suite of software to deal with OS shortcomings.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
They said that, but there was no indication that it was more than an estimate as they did not (apparently) try to make the switch. It's also not clear whether only 5% could make the switch because they were "intelligent" or "technical" enough, or because the other 95% needed software (QuickBooks, Win devapps, etc.?) that simply don't exist on Linux so it's not possible--in their mind--to switch.
Mostly, people are used to Windows. They think if Office or QuickBooks doesn't run on it then they can't use it.
I recently installed RedHat9 on my HP ze1230 laptop. It worked as soon as I installed, automatically detecting the internal network card, the integrated mouse pad (with scroll function), the PCMCIA LinkSys wireless network card, and my connected USB Microsoft keyboard and USB Wingman Logitech mouse. It just worked. Period.
Still, I couldn't go cold-turkey on Windows. I bought Win4Lin so that I could run my legacy Windows apps. It works great. It runs everything I need--Quicken, QuickBooks, Microsoft Office, and MS DevStudio6 for the occasional Windows development I'm still hired to do. Of course, I seldom need to enter Win4Lin but it's there when I need it.
I had been meaning, for months, to try using OpenOffice but just hadn't gotten around to it. I still ran Win4Lin and then Word when I needed to do some word processing. Just Friday I finally used OpenOffice Write to open an existing, large (1.4MB) MS Office document that I plan on publishing in PDF format. All I needed to do was some minor pagination adjustments--the rest of the document (tables, paragraph, footers, table of contents, graphics, etc.) worked perfectly. I saved it in sxw format and the resulting file was 170k. 170k instead of 1.4MB? I actually exited OpenOffice and reloaded the saved document to make sure it was actually all there. It was, it just took 170k instead of Microsoft's 1.4MB. I then proceeded to print to PDF format with no "Destiller" add-on necessary. Flawless.
So... scratch Microsoft Office from my list of legacy apps that I still need to run. OpenOffice works fine.
We have a long way to get Linux on the desktop big-time. But it's more an issue of perception, not that Linux isn't ready for the desktop. We need to convince users to try Linux without getting "religious" on them and rediculing them. Linux can do what 95% of Windows users use Windows for if we can just them to try it. Once they're hooked, they won't go back. Neither will the companies that have to pay for the licensing or hardware; and in an enterprise, Linux is obviously easier to admin than Windows.
The orginal MACs (OS 9) were much more reliable then the current OS X
Something is seriously wrong with your hardware if you've had the experience of Mac OS 9 being more stable.
Fundamentally, Mac OS X protected memory spaces and modern frameworks/runtimes. Mac OS 9 is an antiquated architecture in which apps can write all over memory. There's no way this can result in a more stable system with all else being equal.
On the old MACs application would never crash with a hex dump and no indication where the problem lies
I think you've confused something somewhere.
Mac OS 9 gives you next to zero information about where the problem lies when an app crashes. About the best you can get is MacsBug spitting out raw memory contents. Under Mac OS X you have console and crash reporter, which contain some human-readable information.
I work in a large shop where MAC needed a lot of hand holding, let's now even talk about the issues with crashing when using FONTs on the MAC, Apple really blew it. Oh, but wait I can pay more money to check and organize my fonts in the hope that it will keep OSX from crashing!
What are you talking about here? Are you using the Classic emulation environment or something?
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Hmm... I thought it was just me and this sorry ass proxy software my ISP uses. I've been having these problems for about a week on MSIE, Opera, and Firebird on Win2K. It's been driving me nuts (not a long trip).
Only on
My favorite quote: 'At the end of the day, I still wish we had a viable alternative. There isn't one -- yet. We'll keep looking.' - Sure.
.NET, and Win32 will eventually be a relic of the past.
What do you mean, "sure?" It's the truth.
If Linux was a viable alternative, it would be the latest rage and everyone would switch. I remember when Windows 95 was the latest rage.
Linux desktops won't reach that level at their current rate because they're too busy reinventing the wheel, coming up with cute acronym project titles only programmers would find funny, and hacking on yet another extension or library to the incredibly old X11 protocol. Hell, even Microsoft is abandoning their current APIs and going all
I think the greatest thing holding back the Linux desktop is the inability for Linux users to accept change.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Push the Mac now, it's deficiencies are where Linux excels. What do I mean?
Well, the Mac is secure. Has Microsoft office. Has a comfortable interface for an Windows user. And has a nice set of commercial documentation, trainers, and administrators to sustain people from a grandmother to a reasonable sized business with modest IT staff.
At some point in the future, Linux will offer a competitive alternative (even if arguably they don't do so today). And it will be a much easier to argue for co-existence with Macs or even complete replacement of them with Linux boxes.
Whatever IT staff there is that have trained on the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X won't feel threatened by Linux. The Accounting department will smile that they can keep using the same hardware (with YellowDog Linux) and buy replacement x86 boxes as replacements.
When's the time to push for the transition from Mac to Linux? Basically, whenever one finds the needed tools (be it office suite or whatever) along with a usable interface. That could be today, the next budget cycle, or the next time Apple pushes for a major costly upgrade. In the meantime, keep users and administrators away from lotus eating* on the Windows platform and you'll have a much easier time coexisting or transitioning from Apple in the future.
(*a reference to the Oddessey rather than the software company acquired by IBM)
I am quite interested to see all of these people who are so gung-ho about switching out of Windows when they obviously havent taken the time to learn how to manage their networks.
... then your network is not well managed, and you need to do a better job.
Regardless of whether you are running Windows or Linux, you still have to learn how to do things like lock down the workstations & servers, how to do configuration management across your entire network at once, and you have to have some way to do automated patch management, and patch verification.
All of these things are fairly easy to do on Windows, and require nothing but free tools and a little bit of effort on the parts of the SysAdmins.
What is sad is that when they switch, they'll probably consult best practices manuals, and actually set up these processes on their linux systems, and then complain how everything works so much better, but they never set up good management processes on Windows.
Bottom line is that to do your job well as a SysAdmin you have to implement good network & system management practices & processes. If you're doing these, then there is zero marginal effort to deploy each additional patch, as your process does it for you, and only notifies you when something goes wrong!
You can do this quite reasonably on either platform, but you have to actually put the effort in, and do more than just run around like a chicken with your head cut off when the latest patch comes out.
If you have to put in ANY extra hours because of a vulnerability like the MS RPC one
No, sorry I don't think they use BSD. ;-)
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
And lately I've been getting "500 Internal Error" messages from Slashdot. That's definitely not a browser issue.
And it's been the alternative for almost 20 years strong now... The Macintosh.
That's how it was billed when IBM was the monopolistic enemy, and that's still how it's billed.
It works well, it's got a strong, happy, following... the only criticism is that it costs slightly more, but then that's a side effect of such a dominant monopoly as Microsoft.
GPL Deconstructed
what nonsense
There's the Java desktop
Finder issues you do you speak of? I'd be curious to know in what ways you dislike it, just for the sake of seeing directions it might be improved in.
what the hell are you doing with all those servers? 27? I would think you would have 1-3, not 27. That just seems ridiculous.
Good greif, you should never use an internet poll to determine how computer users feel about their computers. You might as well ask them something even less related like, "Do you like your ISP?" Who would think something dumb like computer users are on the inernet? Oh yeah, I would.
Still, you are right. Bill Gates is sure to have had his minions writing VB scripts to load up the results. I'd say more than 2/3 of computer users savy enough to be reading internet week are planning to dump M$. The poll said the same thing! What a co-incidence.
Go suck an egg!
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Hey, I've a nifty idea. Why doesn't apple release a version of OS X for Intel PCs? I'll bet nobody ever thought of that!
Microsoft's security is questionable, surely, but stability? Have you used a Microsoft product in the last three years? Win2k doesn't crash, unless you are running flaky hardware or bad drivers. Used as a desktop machine, it is every bit as stable as Linux. (And, yeah, I have Win2k, OSX, FreeBSD, and even Linux running on various boxes under my desk here.)
As much as I disagree with the elitism that high-end Linux users seem to be prone to, the fact remains that if this businessman can't see a viable solution in the sheer variety of Linux, he simply isn't doing his homework. To accuse a car of being too confusing simply because you haven't taken the time to research the simplicity of pressing the gas pedal is NOT the fault of the car.
Some people just need to look a little harder to find what they really need.
Users switching away from Windows?! I hope not!
I stopped using Windows about 3 years ago and switched to Linux. Although it took me awhile to get comfortable with things, I will never go back. But I depend on the rest of the gullible buying public to keep buying faster machines so I can have a steady supply of cheap parts. If people en-masse start using Linux, there won't be the need to have faster machines. Linux is "good enough" even on a slow system.
Please Joe User - don't switch away from Microsoft! Keep buying Windows.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
We need a sensible, low cost, open hardware archetecture that does not have the X86 Re-boot problem and other hardware legacy stuff to burden it down. Also, this platform should be easy to interface to/epand on, and also, easy to develop programs for using whatever language you choose. Perhaps this is a time to openly start developing a long-term solution (cpu/bus architectures) and make the whole design open and free of patent issues etc. Part of the problem with PC's and their ability to run linux can be traced back to all those years where MS and Intel dictated new PC buses and OS/hardware interfaces and future directions that then PC were to take both in hardware archetecture and software architecture. One of the reasons Intel and MS have been so successfull is that these companies locked people into these technologies and made them so complex that a lot of hardware/software porblems and issues needed generations of "experts" and "consultants" to solve peoples and business problems (if a computer OS was easy to use, then all these consultants/re-sellers of hardware and software services would have to find other lines of work. The fact that the current PC does not run Linux well is it has been constanlly pushed in it's gradual evolution (both chip & software) towwards supporting MS in its OS and all applications. MS has verified it by it's propoganda about open source being "not of capitalsm" and therefor unholy in their pargdime model of the universe of creators and us as consumers of the past and current and future IP technology and porduct lines.
i'm not rich enough to buy a mac in order to change my OS. a mac is clearly out of the question for that reason alone. however linux doesn't yet cut the mustard when it comes to hardware support. it's not entirely any of the linux programmer's faults either; it's hardware vendor support.
... but the linux drivers only go "down" as far as the 8500. another piss off, as i'm not buying another card when this one has nothing wrong with it.
i can't watch tv, or capture to mpeg2 using my ati card under linux. (yeah they claim it's possible but i don't think the "slower" cards like a 7200 vivo can do it under linux because of the inefficient way capture is implemented [only guessing here])
ati claims that they are a linux supporter with the catalyst series drivers. the windows drivers support all readeon from 9xxx to 7xxx
whatever the reason, i get fantastic captures in win95, 2000 & xp. (my hw: duron 1300, 1 gig pc133 ram, 3x80gig hdd with 8meg cache, ati 7200 vivo, sblive, intel 10/100 nic)
i've never been able to play many avi types or mpgs full screen (utilising the hardware overlay).
my webcam is not supported in the least with linux. the vendor claims linux support but has no documentation or drivers. it's a divio 802 based usb cam. it's not the end of the world on this one but it's simply annoying.
(not hardware, just something i'd like to see) there are no news readers that are usable to the extent where you can do truly industrial strength downloading from the newsgroups... multi server, multi download, intelligent auto resume that doesn't give up if one of your three feeds does.
on the software side, there are so many little utilities and widgets that i'd like to be able to use under linux (native support for the widgets' functionality is not included).. there's no easy way to limit the rate (bandwidth allocation to each app both in & out).. oh and how the hell does one associate file extensions to a particular application??
if anyone can reply with tips or urls to fix any of the above it would be taken seriously and appreciated. there are some really cool things about linux but (mainly) HW support is the show stopper for me.
oh well that's my bit
if you want people to think you know what you are talking about, just put ".com" at the end of everything you say.com
This survey only asks half of the question. How would the users feel after using Linux or OS 10 or BeOS for 6 months? You can flame me for this, I am rabidly pro-Linux, but honestly, think about it.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
WOO SATAN!
At this time, I just don't see how a non-Windows desktop is a viable solution for many enterprises. For certain users (developers, DBAs, admins, etc.), yes, is is a good idea. But, the users in Accounting, Legal, HR, etc. may be locked in.
Actually, if security is the *only* factor, consider switching to CD-based distributions, or using very lightweight distributions. Using RDesktop, you could run a Windows Terminal Server to provide the applications that the fools have to use. Also, keep in mind that stupidity is a company's #1 largest expense, and it's in every company's best interests to eliminate stupidity from their workforce. Once you've done that, you can eliminate the Windows expense quite easily. ;)
Like what I said? You might like my music
As I see it all alternatives will soon be history. The Big One is patenting everything it has, als will soon or later have technology patented used in Linux. So they can start suing everyone who uses linux for not paying their licenses. You wondered why the Software Patents were important to MIcrosoft?
Firstly, KDE3 is NOT an overblown file manager. Its a window manager and a software suite. There are thousands of programs written for it, both open source AND commercial.
Secondly, if you want to do design, there are many high-quality programs you can use, especially for CAD. LinuxCAD is superb. For publishing work you can use free packages like Scribus, or go to Adobe for commercial software.
You can get Mandrake pre-installed on PCs from Hewlett-Packard
In any case, shouldn't the patch CD be distributed with the PC?
The thing is that whilst German consumer protection isn't bad, XP is usually sold 'OEM' so the shop ends up supporting it (or not, in the case of Media-Markt). If the manufacturers kept their preloads updated, they might put some pressure on their supplier. With lean manufacturing most PCs are only built a month or two before shipping.
I sometimes fix friends' computers. Very few have been patched at all and the XP firewall is disabled. They often don't even bother to enable Windows Update (it takes too long).
It is interesting that a TV program, Planetopia, a fairly mainstream program is featuring this. Perhaps the consumer organisations might pressure to ensure that computers are reasonably up to date with patches when they leave the shop.
Before some Linux basher pops in with the amount of patches needed to bring a Linux distribution up to date (Like, say Linux 9.0), this is arguably the same. However, the system defaults to having the iptables firewall enabled and unwanted servers turned off. Linux is easier to patch, (None of this stupid "This patch must be installed independently of other patches" stuff) - and whether you use up2date or apt4rpm the patches are cached locally before installation so having to restart a download isn't so painful.
See my journal, I write things there
Actually, with over 20 boxed gaming titles in my bookcase, and quite a few more in my CD rack, I quite disagree with your view on Macintosh gaming. There simply aren't enough hours in a day to play them all, and they're almost all very good, high quality, major title games. The price point on Mac iBooks (my primary gaming platform), is the same or lower than for (what I consider) comparable non-Mac laptops.
What do I mean by 'owe it to yourselves'?
Consider that all of your Windows skills will apply to Linux gui apps. Consider that MS is now charging $700 for MS Office alone, and charging as much for the Pro version of the OS. So, if you have to buy a new computer, or upgrade the OS, if you do it on Linux, your cost for the OS and apps, max will be $80.
The difference is about $1300. Quite a bit more if you install anti-virus and other assorted applicaitons which you can get for free or at a much reduced cost on Linux. So, if you pay yourself $100 dollars / hour, you can certainly figure out the OS in 13 hours. If you more realistically don't make that much, then adjust the scale accordingly.
Finally, consider in the future, you will be able to avoid all MS licensing fees and schemas. In reality, your initial investment in time to learn Linux will have paid you thousands of dollars per hour.
So if you're unwilling to give it a try, is it because you're too lazy, too stupid, or too rich to learn Linux?
As for me, I think my time is worth millions, so the choice was clear.
exactly ... there is a great need for corporate education for any OS out there. I know my dad got angry about the change of the layout in Windows XP, and the compatibility problems between different office-packages (he has 97, 2000 and XP, running on various machines). For the first time I heard the word, which I normally only hear from my friends: "Bill Gates should be shot for what he does to us". Luckily he heard that small companies in the area switch to Linux instead, and he is about to consider. Now, if he only could get some lateschool-education or so, he would do the switch immidiately. One example is that the Danish government (used to) pay a lot of money for companies to educate Windows-users. I say it is about time they give people the knowledge of choices: Apple, Linux distros, *BSD distros, Hurd and so on. Only geeks and 3l33t knows about those alternatives, if you not already are a minority report (like Apple=designers).
(yes this can be compared with sex)
So don't go.
Oh no, it's the only store open past 10pm!! Panic!
Bullshit. There will be smaller stores and garages open, you just haven't found them yet.
Even if you live in the one part of the US where there aren't, just how often do you need to go shopping after 10pm? Has it ever occurred to you to either plan ahead, and get your shopping done before 10pm, or perhaps (gasp) wait until the next day?
Your lame excuses are exactly that. Lame. Get a clue.
~Cederic
There are alternatives, like Linux and OS X. But there are also big problems with them, from my position:
1) OS X support in North-East Europe is almost non-existent. You have to buy your software and hardware from one place that charges ridiculusly high prices. Things are ok in US, but not so good in Europe. I've considered switching to Macs lots of times, only to be disappointed by the high prices.
2) Linux has big issues with internationalization. Not everyone speaks English. In order to install my native language (Greek) I have to jump through hoops; thank God there is quite good free support (www.hellug.gr).
3) Linux still has many geek-isms. Of course I don't blame the developers, they do what they can do. But there are still usability issues. For example, last week a lost some source code because I was "deleting" it, not "moving it to trash" (why such a discrimination ? In Macs, deleting a file always moved it to the trash can).
It's a fact that people have never heard of Linux. Especially older people that happen to be high up in the corporate ladder. About 1 year ago, one of these guys came in the lab and said "wow!!! I've never heard of this Linux company before!!!".
There is still some way to consider Linux a viable alternative for the average Joe. But it will be in a few years time, I guess.
Gates should be hung
Interesting quote since he is screwing the people. People demand more satisfaction and with him being hung (not hanged) they should receive more satisfaction.
Mod me down for the blatant grammar nazi, but "hanged" is the word you are looking for.
This is the Internet. You can say "fuck" here. - AC
Mind you, the reports are confusing enough that anything's possible.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Perhaps they should have asked:
That would be a great poll. Go do it and let us all know how it came out.
As to passing out in the hot sun, well, no thanks. I'll take the bottle of wine, however. Take what it gives!
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I assume that since, six times recently, I have tried to post only to submit and be sent to the developers page or someone's journal. I regularly get incorrect pages from slashdot. I don't think that's a problem on my end.
Put identity in the browser.
But microsoft makes a usable operating system for the average person.
:)
Not even 1/2 geeks can make Linux take video shots, load java, run ide's, download programms- Linux is too hard for users and I like Linux for programming.
Until IDE's and GUI's exist for the simple stuff in Linux and Unix they will continue to be unknown to the general public.
Hey why not go make it?
You are obviously not a Windows only person.
Make it take 3 clicks to install any card or install any program- Linux is too hard for people not wanting to be low level.
Or be happy that most people are happy with Windows and paying Bill Gates.
I have only had two problems in the last two years- my main PC needed the OS reinstalled, because it is used for games, and installing/uninstalling programs all the time catches up to even the best machines after two years or so. The second problem is the internet connection keeps dropping, but that is because of the netgear broadband router. I hate consumer-level networking products.
So, either you messed up the computer yourself, installed something buggy, or are the victim of a manufacturer defect. None of which would be Microsoft's fault.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
You'd think that Microsoft would have better places than Slashdot to blow advertising bucks - I can't imagine their return on investment would be very high.
After all, this must be embarrassing.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
>Adobe Premiere is industry standard software -- the PC project will look just as good as the Mac project.
You wouldn't know a jkl if it bit you on the ass.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
You have my partial agreement. KDE and Gnome can't just match windows, they have to blow it out of the water. Not sure what the break through will be, but it will come sooner or later.
When I switched from Winders to Mac OS, it was because I felt that the Mac experience blew windows away. That was years ago, when System 7 really was that much better than Windows 3.1. I understand that MS caught up to Apple in many ways, but I was getting too deep into video work to really give Windows consideration. From what I understand, XP is a huge improvement, but OS X has leapfrogged it.
Personally, I think the greatest threat to OS X will come from KDE and Gnome as they mature, not from Longhorn.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Breakfast served all day!