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HP Starts Pushing Desktop Linux
iswm writes "HP has supposedly been selling MandrakeSoft Linux on the desktop for a while but has been so quiet about it that for all intents and purposes it's been a stealth operation. That's all about to change, with two new Linux desktops ready for rolling out by HP to the North American SMB market, both boxes to be sold with Mandrake Linux."
The article briefly mentions the fact that Mandrake is going to emerge from bankruptcy and pay off a 3.3 million euro debt. It's made me curious how much Mandrake made from the HP move.
Did HP just take mandrake with a few modifications and put it on, or was a licence purchased?
I really think this is going to be the Year of Linux!
I question how much they've been selling cause Mandrake Soft surely wouldn't have had a close shave with bankruptcy if HP was throwing even a bit of its weight behind it.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Strange alliances indeed. This is prolly gonna scare the craap outta Microsoft.
Sig* sig = theOneSig();
Doesn't MS cut their deal with PC manufacturers (i.e., Dell) when they sell Windows-less machines?
HP has supposedly been selling MandrakeSoft Linux on the desktop for a while but it's been so quiet about it that for all intents and purposes it's been a stealth operation. Well, we read it 6 times before we got to the article, one more wont hurt...
...but every deployment of linux in a large scale like this makes me smile and go "up yours SCO. one more victim to sue to drain your warchest"
So I'm petty. sue me. There's lots like me
Wow, HP is really doing everything right so far. Signing deals with Apple, Starbucks, and now Mandrake. My respect for the company has shot up within the last few months.
What really surprises me is that companies seem to always introduce Linux to their low end computers (Walmart anyone?). A lot of high end Unix workstations are still being sold out there, why aren't more companies pushing a high end Linux workstation?
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
mandrake wasn't installed. they just included a mandrake disk.
there was some minimal linux install just so you could boot it.
While Mandrake may not be the best distro, it is probably the best for new users, and at least a better alternative than that FreeDOS Dell offers
Setec Astronomy
You haven't used Mandrake, have you?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Time for Microsoft to crank that brain-wash ray up to full power.
01100010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101
Does he like jiggering with his registry or looking for a 12-year old every time his Windows PC gets farked up?
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
I've found Mandrake to have the best visual user configuration programs out there. I do think it's the most user friendly. However, I also think it's less stable than some of the other distrobutions because of staying on the edge of new software releases. Obviously we don't want a Debian stable for the desktop user, but I think Mandrake is less stable than Windows XP.
The new users won't necessarily care how far the strides GNU/Linux has made, but realize that it's still not as easy to use as Windows and (IMO) not as stable as XP either!
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
This is the same hp the bought 70 Million in GS5's while laying off thousands.
This is the same hp that is forcing it's workforce to take vacation during Christmas 2004 because the company will close for a week to save money.
This is the same hp that, while bidding on large US goverment contracts, makes statements like 'American's have no God given rights to jobs'
Don't trust them, almost everything HP does is for the enrichment of the CEO and other highlevel execs. The workes and shareholders come last.
It's a shame that we keep going back to this. I think there is something here that we can all agree on. Linux - in order to reach true desktop user status - needs to be able to divorce itself in some virtual fashion from the command line. That is - what happens behind the scenes must stay there, and have a pretty GUI on top of every piece of Linux. Heck, my sister was even intimidated by the boot output on my Gentoo distro, simply because it was just lines and lines of text. (Yes, I am aware I can install a boot screen.)
Simply said, I cannot wait until linux has the ability to be a command-line only OS and at the same time, a GUI only OS. Mandrake comes damn close. So do some others. It's right around the corner now...
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
As much as I hate HP desktop machines ....... and believe me I HATE HP DESKTOPS........ this sounds like a really good thing. Maybe they decided that windows had a little too much overhead to run on their crapboxes so they switched to something that ran more efficiently. People will not have a problem with mandrake if they sit down and use it a little.
I have always found it funny when people, especially older people like my parents, shy away from non-windows systems because they think it is too hard to use, and then I have to show them how to use IE in windows and how to dial up (yeah, modem) to the internet.
I wonder if HP will start pushing the stuff coming out of their Cambridge Research Lab (i.e. Keith Packard's XServer).
Will Joe Six Pack looking for a cheap computer
Actually, a friend of mine installed mandrake 9.2 on his computer. He was asking me something over AIM, and I told him to open a terminal, and... He paused and said, "Uh, how do I get to a terminal?"
So see it is possible for an under average computer user to enjoy Linux on the desktop without needing a command line.
I really love Linux and all, but this changes nothing. I hate HP.
Yeah. HP: where technologies go to die.
That said, I don't like Mandrake much, either. I mean, their stuff works okay (other than a couple of fried cd drives, which I don't count against them) and it is, in a way, easy to use.
But they're determined to make commercial linux on the desktop look and feel as clunky and amateurish as possible: all the way from their 3rd-grade-girl logo through the spaghetti-codeish entanglement of the default menu setup on their KDE desktop. I think they deserve each other.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
Could somebody explain what an SMB market is? The first thing that popped into my mind was Super Mario Brothers market, but that can't be right. :)
The article says they're marketing to "SMB" which I take to mean "Small and Medium (sized) Businesses".
While this is true, don't forget that Windows 95 and Windows 98 weren't tremendously different in this regard. Although it is less so, even under Windows XP, there are some operation carried out more efficiently under the command line, especially things like mass-renaming of files.
While the mainstream versions of Linux should try to divorce themselves from the command line, they shouldn't get rid of it, either.
When Linux finally is available in a GUI only OS, I'll be right there to pick it up. Too many years of Windows has made me leery of anything I can't just click on to do.
Kids these days. They don't know the difference between classic, and just plain old.
Exactly.
/. or care to understand why their MS Works (*shudder*) won't install on their new machine.
The trouble is that the people who buy HPs (low-end, cheap machines--the desktops, at least.) are not the people who read
I'm afraid that, in an attempt to lower their bottomeline they're forgetting their current market, but who knows? Maybe, with this, they'll get a new market. At the very least, it should be really interesting to see how other companies respond and how succeessful HP is in this venture.
-Grym
At the moment, Linux is viewed as good enough for the desktop of people who only use their computers as a glorified communications device. We're talking Internet, Mail, and Office utilities. These users want to do these three things without viruses, spyware, hardware upgrades, and crufty Operating Systems that crash. As for users who want to use a PC for gaming, music, and multimedia... Linux is probably not the best choice. However, when it comes to getting work done without all the nonsense, Linux is where it's at.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
On the contrary, after I kicked Super Mario Bros. and Super Monkey Ball out of my head, I took "SMB users" to mean "users of Microsoft networking protocols formerly called Server Message Block". Does Mandrakelinux ship with the full Samba package?
A distro that constantly gives back to the commmunity, provides free isos for download, concentrates on the desktop, and manages to make a profit? Who'd have thought?
With this corporate support, you can go out and buy a -supported- HP/Mandrake desktop. Which means you have Linux supported hardware if you don't like Mandrake.
All sorts of good things in the future...
This guy is way out there
they aren't really selling this to joe sixpack. they are targeting the average "all i wan't to do is surf the internet and check email or maybe play the card games" crowd. unless your a gamer or need some high end graphics editor, you pretty much fall into this crowd. Even the office worker that needs to write a document or a spread sheet can efficiently use mandrake will little more distress then changing from windows 98 to windows xp.
now in a controled enviroment were the hardware is fixed and your not running every server availible, there is little need to hit the command line any more in mandrake. they have almost eliminitated the need for it in most every day taskor task the "joe sixpoack" would be trying to do.
Mod me down and bury your head in the sand if you can't take the truth, but...
Every time some manufacturer has linux somewhere and it makes the Slashdot news there are always the same comments, but the main hold back for wide adoption of Linux isn't getting manufacturers to sell PCs with it or public recognition. The main hold up is the mantra of any highschool composition class, "Who is your audience?" Who is the audience? Geeks? No, Geeks can and do already use linux. The audience that needs to be targeted is the average user, and no it is not 'joe six-pack', or at least not entirely. The primary audience for wide-adoption consists of your parents, your grand parents, your neighbors and friends who call you to fix their systems, children, etc. People who want to use their computer with a minimum of fuss, and who DO freak out when they get an unexpected pop-up, and DO run anything sent to them in an email, and DO use their first name as their password. Advances in Linux performance and functionality are great, but for wide adoption to ever succeed usability and intuitive design must take precedence. And as long as there is anything that requires a text file to be edited in linux, Windows will remain king.
It's right around the corner now...
So's AmigaOS4, Doom III and Duke Nuke'em Forever
(actually I think mandrake is doing well enough now as is to be a competitor to windows. Both have quirks that need fiddling from time to time, and mandrake is improving quicker than win)
see http://www.hp.com/workstations/itanium/zx6000/ and http://www.hp.com/workstations/ia32/index.html
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
How about Mandrake laptops? With wireless, ACPI, etc, already supported?
This guy is way out there
In this case, it's not Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., and it's not Sega's Super Monkey Ball either. SMB can mean either small-to-medium businesses or server message block.
Someday, someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% of the market. 'we' all lament what has happened to the Internet since 'they' finally found out about it (and thought it had just been invented). We pine about the good old days of the usenet, when it was like, useful.
I dread a scenario where, around 2005, everyone and their grandma is buying a Linux box (that new OS that just came out year or so ago). And it all goes to shit. You just know it will.
Everyone will run as root, open viruses, execute them. All our favorite apps will become add-filled feature-burdened piles of stinking filth rushed to market despite thousands of high severity bugs.
It willl suck hard and we'll all look back fondly on the good old days.
No - nor did I mean to make that point. But virtual divorce I meant hiding it to the full extent of the law while being completely available to you and I. Sort of like OSX...
Heck. Linux wouldn't exist without the command line. It isn't, at its core, visually based. But in order to get it mainstream, it needs to be able to remain hidden if people want it that way.
And yeah, Windows 95/98 were in the same position. But 8 years go.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Come on. Joe Six-Pack doesn't do much beyond surf for porn. I doubt he'll notice there's any difference between setting up Mandrake beyond themes and screen-savers.
I am setting up one of these boxes for someone. The Mandrake 9.1 distro that came with it seemed oddly different than other 9.1 installs I have done. The biggest difference was the lack of apache but as I roll my own this was not a big deal but I am curious to see other differences.
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
I just installed Mandrake 10 a couple days ago, using KDE.. There was an xserver for my video card, but its still really slow. (I put vnc on it and it runs faster over vnc than the monitor connected to the box)
Is it because the system is old? It's a p266mhz with 128mb ram.. just wondering if theres something I can do to speed it up a bit.. i'm not sure what services or bootup modules i can remove safely, i'm new to linux (ive tried it several times over the past 5 years but never for more than a few days)
Someday, someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% of the market.
More market share than, say, Mac OS X means more chance of getting manufacturers of newer peripherals to put effort into writing drivers or at least into providing free software developers with technical information sufficient to write and maintain a driver. Lack of drivers is the primary reason I'm still on Windows 2000, as the copy of Mandrake I tried a few months ago didn't work with my Radeon 9000 card (except in unaccelerated VESA mode), and Microtek denies the SANE developers any information about my scanner (a Scanmaker 4850).
Mandrake is SO two years ago. All the cool anti-MS hax0rz are now running Lindows on their $200 Wal-Mart boxes ;)
i bet that right now mr. doors has something evil within plans to fight back this HP insult, i wonder if this is why SCO is acting weird...oh the drama!
On the Mandrake subject, I just ordered Mandrake 10 to check out the awesomeness of Linus' latest offspring, plus KDE 3.2. If HP would ship that on a laptop, that would make my buying decision right there.
Hah!
Sadly, I tend to agree. I'll never forget the fury I felt when I opened up my HP Pavilion a few years ago to find that they had combined the soundcard and modem onto one PCI card. This wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put a fake PCI cover on the back of the computer to make them look like the two cards were separate, and THAT wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put the cover for the fake "modem" right in the way of my only advertised "free" PCI slot.
It was very deceptive. And the only reason was so they could say "one free PCI slot" on the box, knowing damn well that not only was that PCI slot unusable but nearly nobody is going to open it up in the store to figure it out. So the net effect of this ridiculous situation wass was that I had to buy a new soundcard and modem (for a modem issue) and from then on, I tell every person who asks (and that's a lot, since I'm in a tech support position) to avoid HP like he plague.
-Grym
Gaming yes, but that's not true anymore w.r.t. music and multimedia.
I watch videos (using Gentoo's win32 codecs ebuild) and play MP3s all the time in Linux. The only thing inferior I have to put up with is the gtk file selector that xmms uses.
high-end consumer comps are sold so users can do "media"... games mostly. traditionally, this is where linux has lacked the most.
Isn't it illegal to use Linux like that for a commerical purpose (Selling a PC) without licensing from the SCO Group... HP should do this legally.
I heard Mandrake was one of the easiest distros to use in terms of configuration and drivers. Sp I gave 9.2 a shot after getting the isos on FTP sites.
THE GOOD
1. Much prettier interface. Everything from the icons to the taskbar, to Konqueror was top notch
2. All my hardware worked right away; sound card, mouse, keyboard, video card, with exception of my Palm Pilot cradle. I had some monitor problems as you'll read about as well.
3. Speedy as hell. You'd run a program and it would actually run within a reasonable time.
4. Internet worked right off the bat. Awesome.
5. The video player played a lot of files easy-peasy and I didn't have to fight with codecs.
6. I could still access my Windows folders. Another great benefit.
THE BAD
1. My mouse was uncontrollable. XP has both a speed and acceleration option that is great for mouse control. The mouse options box in Mandrake didn't have these options and it was frustrating to use the mouse, even after twinking these settings for an hour.
2. By far the biggest problem: Installing programs. In XP it's as easy as double clicking an icon and picking a directory. Not so with Linux. You can read my post on the newbie forums
here.
I have no idea where anything installs to, nor the best way to uninstall things. Inevitably I have to use the command line. Even as an X-MSDOS user I found it very frustrating.
3. Despite claims of stability, Konqeror crashed repeatedly. I can not say why.
4. After installing a program, finding where it installed to would be like pulling teeth. Making a shortcut would be even worse.
5. Installing the correct driver for my soundcard was very complicated, even after reading the INSTALL file. I eventually gave up.
6. I got a sync out of range message when I first tried running Mandrake. I left the monitor settings on default during install. This took hours to discover and fix.
But above all installing programs is a pain. This means, once the desktop is setup, Mandrake is a dream. But configuring it requires far too much expertise, at least it seems like it. I found myself posting time and time again on the forums. They were very helpful people but their answers often left me more confused than I started.
I'm not trying to flame, just provide constructive criticism and ways to help make Mandrake better. I wish them the best.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
I use Mandrake as my main distro and it is very stable. The only issue with drake is the bugs. Little things like killing CD-ROM drives, screwed up menus, non bootable boot CDs...
Mandrake is very pretty to look at and can be user friendly but only when it works right. The 9.X and 10.X distros I've been afraid to show to newbies. 10.X been out a week or so and already 400MB of patches!
Now I just show a newbie the retail copy of SuSE. It is better, works with lots of hardware, and is very stable.
Mandrake is often more cutting edge. 2.6 Kernel and so forth but Cutting Edge often means you bleed.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
dx2000 Specs from HP:
- Linux - Mandrake 9.2
- Intel(R) Pentium(R)2.80A GHz/533MHz
- 256MB DDR 400MHz (2X128)
- Integrated Intel(R) Extreme graphics2 (64MB equivalent)
- 40GB PATA/100 5400RPM
- 16X/40X DVD-ROM Linux and audio cable for Linux
$627Choosing Linux instead of XP gets you an upgrade to a DVD player from a plain CD, and saves you $21. Hum.
--
$tar -xvf
One major reason to want free software to be adopted by the rest of the market is so that open standards dominate, and I don't have to choose between MSN and not talking to all my friends. So I don't have to pay for software to read office documents that are sent to me.
Re: viruses, your worst case sounds no worse than the current state. The favourite apps will not become ad-filled because the base is open. Someone puts an ad in, fork the last one.
...Microsoft would gladly take away your ability to obtain cheap, Linux compatible commodity hardware (all for the sake of security, of course). If there are lots and lots of companies building Linux boxes, MS will find it a lot harder to do that.
As for everyone running as root and viruses, how is that different from when they run Windows? As for our apps, I use free ones. I know better than to run some shmuck's pop up blocker when I've got Mozilla and Konqueror.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Does that mean we will see iTunes ported to Linux? Bundle that with Linux, and you might drive sales of the HP iPod......
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Plus every HP Mandrake PC comes with free indemnification against SCO lawsuits!
I should buy some cement.
Viruses, spyware, and instability are bad. But a computer that one cannot even use is even worse. And after my attempted Mandrake migration I have come grudgingly back to spyware. For better of for worse.
Someday, someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% of the market. 'we' all lament what has happened to the Internet since 'they' finally found out about it (and thought it had just been invented). We pine about the good old days of the usenet, when it was like, useful.
Usenet is a communications mechanism, not software. When Microsoft put the BSD FTP client on every desktop did that affect you at all? When Winzip became popular did that hurt people who use infozip? Ignore the consumer distributions of Linux and move on with your life.
I dread a scenario where, around 2005, everyone and their grandma is buying a Linux box (that new OS that just came out year or so ago). And it all goes to shit. You just know it will.
No it won't. They'll use Lycoris. You'll use Gentoo or Dragonfly or some other 'leet *nix distribution. There will be essentially no interaction between the two. Why do you care? You're like a high school student who is afraid that they won't be cool and unique if everyone else listens to the same music they do.
Everyone will run as root, open viruses, execute them.
So what? Why does it matter to you whether these viruses come from computers running Linux rather than Windows?
All our favorite apps will become add-filled feature-burdened piles of stinking filth rushed to market despite thousands of high severity bugs.
Sure. Grandma is going to ask for a graphical interface in VI and smilies in Berkley mail.
It willl suck hard and we'll all look back fondly on the good old days
The usual elitist blah blah.
I remember when I worked for HP, about 8 years ago, seeing an announcement that we and several other *NIX vendors were going to develop a single, standardized Unix... with SCO.
For the life of me I can't remember what the project was called. But it's clearly not happening any more. Instead, HP is selling Mandrake, and SCO is suing its way into oblivion.
I should buy some cement.
turn off supermount in fstab (just delete the option, if I remember right). It causes _way_ more problems than it's worth. Make sure you verify you're CD burns are good. I've heard 9.x's installer will cheerfully continue with the install even if it can't read vital packages off the CD. Sometimes you'll still get a bootable system because it finds an alternative. For one of my installs, I had no kernel rpm installed (and my source didn't match my kernel because of that).
If you know what you're doing, slackware's great. Otherwise I personally recommend Lindows. It's got the slickest interface I've seen yet, and a flash tutorial at the start. Unfortunately it's probably the slowest distro I've ever seen.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Like I would much rather jerk around editing config files in vi, right?
Now, with this HP development, I have to wonder if we're going to see more of the same, particularly since there's no mention that the Mandrake-equipped boxes will be any cheaper than their XP counterparts. Granted, there are some people who, for whatever reason, feel some dislike for Microsoft ;) And these people might be willing to have their computer ship without an XP license solely to deprive Microsoft of a few dollars.
But I have to think that most people, if they can't get a discount by going without Windows, would want to receive XP. After all, why turn down something that's free, and something you might decide to install later -- if only to make the machine more valuable for resale?
With this in mind, the option of ordering Linux boxes from major manufacturers just isn't all that exciting unless there's some kind of discount involved. Once you have the option to save thirty dollars by ordering your HP or Dell without XP, that will really be news.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
When that happens 'we' will move on the the next greatest thing. Maybe Amiga, maybe plan-9, maybe atheos or something.
It's like a city. In a city there are the slums, artists all move to the slums because they can't afford to live on the other side of the tracks. Eventually the artists section of town becomes fashionable because all the cool galleries, restaurants and clubs are there and the yuppies move in. Prices skyrocket the artists move the next slum and the whole cycle starts over again.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
New Calendars planned for 2006. Usenet retrospective on PBS at 11!
The tend to use good quality commodity hardware. You pay more (and you have to be careful you're not buying from one that's on it's last legs) but you get much better hardware. It's a know fact that large OEMs often use cheap or defective products to cut costs (there was a /. article about them using bad ram I'm too lazy to look up). But if you want trustworthiness, it'll cost you.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
you probably believe He's watching out for you. Especially if your life sucks (since you're turning to Him for hope). Taken from that perspective, you _do_ have a 'God given' right to a job.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Have to agree. Seems it's hard to dumb something down without making it stupid. Like talking paper clips.
But I have to think that most people, if they can't get a discount by going without Windows, would want to receive XP. After all, why turn down something that's free, and something you might decide to install later -- if only to make the machine more valuable for resale?
You have a good point, but I cannot resist noting that between dealing with spyware, a future SP2 release that may break who knows what software, and product activation worries that there is an old quote with a new twist that seems very applicable:
"Windows XP is only free if your time has no value".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Someday, someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% of the market. 'we' all lament what has happened to the Internet since 'they' finally found out about it (and thought it had just been invented). We pine about the good old days of the usenet, when it was like, useful.
Well, for one thing I'd sure like all those zombie spam/DDOS relays to be shut down - reducing Windows use to the more natural state of around 10% would be a great start to that end.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My boughten copy of mandrake didn't come with any C compiler, wheras the download version did. I eventually had to download gcc for Mandrake 9.1 (only because I didn't want to register my copy).
I sure hope they include a C compiler with this edition, otherwise people will be upset (like I was).
Sometimes, though, artists compromise their music to appeal to mainstream audiences. I used to buy Shakira's Spanish-language albums but her English records have been disappointing. Sell-out.
Now, some bands manage to get good coverage without losing their uniqueness.. people like the Black Heart Procession, which I heartily recommend to people who like dark, hauntingly melancholic music
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Since I am stooping to these references, lets add that running as root in linux will probably not mean more I-D-ten-T errors, since you will still have to mark a download as executable before it can bite you in the butt.
vi +
Just do what I do. Give up. An easy to use, powerful, stable, compatable desktop OS is, IMO impossible. Windows isn't easier to use as such, it's just less noisy in the intermediate stages of failure.
Be glad you know how to drop to the command line/edit the registry/whatever.
When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
Surely if there are more Linux desktops out there (Low-end or high-end) it raises the overall number of people using Linux, which in turn increases exposure and awareness. With awareness come insight and knowledge (I hope), so it'll just be a natural progression to high-end users WANTING Linux on their workstations.
Free Firefox news reader.
Anyone know how those compare to the same machines pre-loaded with a Microsoft operating system? Are HP's linux customers getting the same price, higher or lower for buying Mandrake instead of Windows?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Until Linux desktops adopt an installation/uninstallation standard beyond the simple RPM-alike crap that's around now, Linux will always be an experience like that.
An installation API needs to exist that allows for software makers to have a simple installer on their CDs, just like in Windows, that allows them to install binaries, create shortcuts on the menu, and allow for proper uninstallation.
Doesn't look like that's gonna happen any time soon, though.
Don't underestimate the power of the dark side.
There is a multi-trillion dollar economy out there that is currently ignoring Linux almost entirely. If that industry turns to Linux as it's bread-and-butter OS, all will change, forever.
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Just as the web became riddled with OBJECT tags and Flash menus, Linux distros will follow the money and be ruled by the desires of the PHBs that control that money. There will be ads. There will be godawful UI's. Talking paperclips. And....DRM!!!
Finally, we will find out that Linus is Bill Gates' son.
I did. Today. Mandrake 9.2. Now I am back to windows. My Apple Powerbook needs some servicing, so I am using a borrowed windows box.
..no comment.
Installed Mandrake with full KDE desktop. I wanted to have Firefox with Java support. After nstalling a load of some sort of stdlibc crap and other library stuff I got it running. Except for the applets, which were running absolutely unstable and were crashing quite often, flickering and unpredictable. My Wheelmouse did not scroll, although it did during the installation. For whatever I wanted to install I had to get a load of other libs. I do not want to care about what an app needs, I want to run it. Overall, after two hours of fighting with Linux I was back to Windows.
I do not think "Joe Sixpack" want's to go through this kind of shit. He wants to launch his browser and have all the necessary plugins already there. He wants to doubleklick on that stupid setup for his app and after it is finished, the app is running and the setup also created a cute icon in his start menu. Try that with Mandrake or any other "Desktop" Linux. It sucks. Did you try to create an icon in your kde-"start"-menu?
Get OS X and play around with it for a while, that's a Desktop OS.
On the other hand, Linux is fine as a server....
Finally, we will find out that Linus is Bill Gates' son.
That boy was our last hope.
"someone will explain to me why 'We' want linux to be adopted by the other 95% "
It increases my ability to service others computer needs for pay.
It decreases ANYONE'S ability to monopolize computer related enterprises.
The major reason we want Linux to become a popular OS is that more third-party software will be ported to Linux.
Windows, being the current popular OS, has thousands of independent yet commercial developers and companies investing time, effort and research making cool tools and apps for it.
As a developer, it's great to have tools like Emacs and Python for free. But let's face it: some top notch tools probably won't be replaced by OSS any time soon. It just requires too much effort, research, and knowledge (much of which is patented by Adobe) to create a graphic suite as powerful as Adobe CS.
So making Linux popular is the only way to lure all these powerful art and development tools to the Linux environment.
HP systems with some form of Linux pre-installed are nothing new.
They've been listed side by side with their XP loaded models in their publicly accessible, Education and Goverment website for quite a while now.
I am still trying to get my laptop's sound card, PCMCIA NIC card, and my USB pen drive to work with Mandrake 9.2.
I believe I will have to compile a new kernel to get these to work - 2.6.x, with support for these to work properly, but who knows until after I try? If not, I'm SOL and need to try another distro I guess...
I hope you're wrong; I suspect you're not. When it comes to human stupidity, both individual and collective, people continually strive to outdo one another.
I gotta go - I think a few pages of Also Sprack Zarathustra will cure this malaise.
Windows is a platform for running windows software, billions of dollars of windows software. The amount of savings to migrate to non-windows apps would have to astronomical for any CEO/CIO to take Linux seriously as a desktop replacement on the level you suggest.
MS Office isn't just software, its how businesses are run. Its a brand, a religion, and a cult all rolled into one. We all know it just consists of a word processor, spreadsheet, etc but to users its all they do - and ALL THEY KNOW. Heck, most users can barely use office, and its much easier to use and has a better help system than the alternatives.
My prediction: MS will be around for longer than we care to admit. Linux will continue to make inroads into the server room and will eventually be knocked back a bit when MS finally make a server anyone can administer and setup.
I'd like to think otherwise, but MS is like the IBM electric typewriter. Once its made x amount of inroads into corporate culture it may never leave.
On the bright side, there will be more technological revolutions and if these can help business then some other company might be able to replace MS (that is if MS doesnt buy the tech). Linux's eternal game of 'catch-up' isn't a revolution, its a cheap alternative that may not be worth buying into. Its like buying generic compared to a name brand.
I'd like to be an optimist and pretend there will be a healthy and free IT market, but the Justice Department let MS go. No multi-boot machines. Still the same old. Maybe the next administration and another lawsuit can change things, but right now MS is winning out loud. Hell, even their products are much better than they were three years ago and they are learning from their security mistakes.
Its been the year of the Linux desktop for years now. It seems it will always be 'right around the corner.' The only saving grace I see is nationalistic paranoia so that other countries' government agencies aren't neccessarily running windows in all departments in fear of CIA backdoors.
I'm sure this will be modded down the same way an atheist at a church gets shouted down.
Just a small correction to myself -- Mandrake Control Center 10 does have a module to configure the sound driver, but it's buried in the detailed Hardware section. Still, there should be a direct link to it in the main hardware section.
Elitist blah blah my butt.
And to put an answer to your rhetorical questions, it does matter, because it matters today. People running OS X and Linux are affected by the proliferation of Windows and their accompanying attacks. It brings down connectivity. Even though you can't get infected, you still get the crap hitting your IPs and in your inboxes. Which is why Linux adherents have long prootested against the situation.
It is not blah blah. It's very realistic. Open your eyes - and stop being elitist yourself.
Little things like killing CD-ROM drives
...
...
...
...
.0 release on a new kernel series is always problematic (do you remember 8.0?).
No drives were killed, their firmware was merely overwritten becuase the drive was non-compliant. Drives with never firmware didn't exhibit the problem (so, obviously LG was aware of the problem, they just didn't bother to inform *their* customers). LG provided a means to reflash the firmware on the drives (for those that had already had the firmware overwritten) and tools to update the firmware for those as-yet unaffected.
BTW, the patch that caused the problem originated with SuSE
And, Gentoo had the same problem, they just have so little market share no-one was bothered to fix the problem until Mandrakesoft found the cause
screwed up menus
Guess who didn't install updates for 9.2
non bootable boot CDs
On some hardware, only on the download version, and CD2 does boot and can be used to start installation (and all of this is covered in the errata).
10.X been out a week or so and already 400MB of patches!
10.0 Community has been out for a week. And, that's the whole point of the community release, to iron out all the really minor issues that end-users really care about, but some of us couldn't care less about.
You should really wait for 10.0 Official to give out to newbies
Mandrake is often more cutting edge. 2.6 Kernel and so forth but Cutting Edge often means you bleed.
So, install the 2.4 kernel available with the distro.
A
Are they charging for preinstalled Linux on their machines?
Will there be a "Linux Refund Day"?
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Just as the web became riddled with OBJECT tags and Flash menus, Linux distros will follow the money and be ruled by the desires of the PHBs that control that money. There will be ads. There will be godawful UI's. Talking paperclips. And....DRM!!!
... with the possibility of a trend in user education if the vendors will give a damn.
Sure, but you're talking commercial linux distros here. There will be always the side - Debian, Gentoo, Fedora and the people who care will just (e)merge the good (GPL) parts of the other side and leave the bad ones. I for one don't see Debian and DRM mixing too well >:)
It's not going to be much different from today - and the GP poster has a point. The "popular choice" will be something like Lindows or Lycoris for desktop users - and remember that Lindows already has those problems, default root and 'windows-type convenience' (hah!) So there will be 'secure Linux boxes' and 'insecure Linux boxes'
But the most important part is: if you're using a GPL distro you won't care about commercialized Linux! no, scratch that - you will probably get drivers due to commercial Linux distros, so it's not that bad.
Maybe CP/M. MS-DOS, Atari TOS, RiscOS, hell, what about the Sinclair QL? That had multitasking and structured BASIC, all in ROM!
Stick Men
I find much irony in the fact that the poster's handle is
/. user number is
Too Much Noise
And their
755847
You're right about one thing.
.... and guess how many people are going to do as instructed?
We'll see wave after wave of trojan programs that require the superuser password in order to work
Already there are loads of Linux apps that require Superuser intervention... take CD-Roast for example.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I'm all for forking when there are issues like this, but OEM packins will be the problem here. If HP is packing in crapware (like Dell and everyone else does), it'll become the de-facto standard and we'll be facing a new monoculture app-wise. Why do people use app X? Because it came with their computer. Same reason why everyone has used IE for the last 5 years, and Outlook/OE.
I just hope the vendors don't forget that linux is about choice, first and foremost. Some egghead at these big OEMs needs to come up with a 'sets' policy that has a default set of apps enabled but encourages you to explore and use other sets and other apps.
Man, you must live in Logan Square, Chicago. Lula > Wicker Park and it's KILLING US AGAIN.
sgi tried it a few years back, didn't work out for them. Although Linux has moved light years ahead of what it was back then, I don't know if the move would make too much sense even today.
The people who buy these machines are going to just wipe them clean and install an illegal copy of windows and spend their $40 on ice cream.
That's still a good thing for Linux folk. Less funds for Microsoft mean less funds used to attack Linux.
May we never see th
It willl suck hard and we'll all look back fondly on the good old days.
I already do.
I agree. What I would like to see is 9 different OSes each with 10% market share and all based on open standards, and the other 10% filled up by a pile of others that may or may not move up to the "big time" later.
Well, I can dream...
In the world of US defense department computing the major roadblock for Linux acceptance is accredidation. Linux is deployed in many places but frequently in typical roles as a server thus out of sight of many users. My work location is exceptional in that Linux desktop presence is increasing but we continually run into problems with sites refusing to run the OS because of lack of accredidation. This is an expensive process for companies such as Red Hat and SUSE but must be persued. The deep pocket companies continue to lead.
You're full of it. You are trying to say, with a straight face, that people expected Linux to take over the desktop in *'98*?
Most of the time in the past was people getting excited about the ability for *geeks* to use exclusively Linux -- Open Office, Samba, etc made it feasible to work with Windows users and still keep using Linux.
Red Hat's CEO said, what, six months ago that Linux isn't ready for the desktop war just yet?
This year and last year are big because there are a lot of major open source apps coming out and being *usable*, by *typical users*, at at least a basic level, as a substitute for Windows apps.
Finally, if you don't think Linux usability has improved massively since '98, you just plain don't remember 98. We had no GNOME or KDE apps. Preference dialogs didn't exist. Widget sets were Tk, and black-and-white Athena. Boxes required a serious sysadmin to secure out-of-box.
Last year, I agree that there were a lot of people on Slashdot that were predicting big gains on the desktop. And guess what? A bunch of governments and big companies starting transition processes, or at least made it much more easy to move a chunk at a time to Linux. If anything, I'm surprised that things are going this quickly.
My prediction is that Linux will break 10% desktop market share before the end of 2006. That is a *huge* number of users to move from one platform to another -- perhaps around 100 million users -- , but remember that there's a threshhold effect at which point application vendors, people doing file formats, etc cannot ignore Linux, and once that hump is over, it becomes much easier to move to Linux.
Web sites are already improving -- I don't see the number of "IE-only" sites that I did thanks to the spread of Mozilla, Linux, and Mac OS X running Safari.
That being said, I think that as Microsoft gets more worried, they will do whatever it takes to fight back effectively. That may be as far as moving to a Linux-based distribution and porting their products to it. Microsoft is unlikely to die, no matter what.
May we never see th
Depends on how you chose to set it up (or in the case of Joe Six-pack, how the packager does). It's not that hard to grant ordinary users write privs to the CD device.
May we never see th
Well, perhaps nobody else does, but I buy my video cards based on open source support (not Linux support alone).
For years, Matrox had the best support for Linux with open source drivers. I bought Matrox cards. Currently, ATI has the best open source support. Right now, I'm buying ATI. I'll keep doing so, as well. I use my cards under Linux exclusively, and binary drivers are a tremendous pain in the ass to deal with. I recognize that video card vendors have reasons for wanting to keep their drivers closed-source -- that's fine, but I happen to value open source.
May we never see th
Without HP, Keith Packard wouldn't be getting his paycheck and all of us wouldn't be looking at antialiased fonts.
May we never see th
Sure, but you're talking commercial linux distros here.
... they sell goods on their site, and Mandrake is:
...).
Surely "commercial" is the wrong adjective here.
Gentoo is just as commercial as Mandrake is
-totally GPL (the development tree, public stable tree, and download ISOs)
-more open than Debain and Fedora
I think you may prefer to use non-free or similar (yes, Debian has non-free software in contrib AFAIK
Kidding aside, the biggest reason more workstations are sold with Linux is that there aren't enough professional applications (design stuff like ProE, The pSPICE family (at least Cadence and Synopsys, etc) haven't all been ported to linux yet.
Pro\E *is* available on Linux, and in fact, on HP workstations.
Many other scientific applications are available on Linux, including Matlab, most CFD suites, most FEM suites, and more maths packages are coming.
You most likely have set it up with a generic X driver. Without details on your machine (specifically the display card), there's nothing we can do to help you ...
At least CLI apps and text-based config files are documented. You obviously haven't spent much time trying to fix windows machines used by clueless users; digging through the registry trying to figure out how to remove the spyware/adware/viruses/worms/backdoors that invariably end up on these machines. Fighting with programs that won't even let the admin kill them and/or remove the registry entries and files associated with them is not my idea of a user-friendly system.
and no, adaware and virus scanners don't take care of everything.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Hmmmm. With MandrakeSoft teaming up with HP, SuSE now owned by Novell, and Red Hat already being a publicly-traded corporation, I think we're seeing a new phase for companies with popular Linux distros being more tied to the corporate world and less to their "grass roots" origins. I guess it was only a matter of time.
Just as the web became riddled with OBJECT tags
<object> is an element type. It would also be a damn useful one if it was implemented correctly. It's also the only way of putting images into an XHTML 2 document, and is far better than <img>.
Next time, draw analogies with something you are more familiar with.
That reminds me of something I find very funny. In French, the name HP is pronunced something like "hash pee".
Perhaps I need to grow up.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
I am fairly sure that this is accurate. Linux has like 2.6% martket share and Apple has 2.4%.
Yea I can see it coming flamebait or troll. Oh well
I would like to have a new G5 I just dont have the money for one.
Until Linux is ready for Joe Sixpack. M$ will rule the desktop I suppose. Where we work we have some kind of Unix workstations that used to be on dumb terminals and now the are emulated through XP Pro.
We dont have an IT person it is so funny to watch the general managers and his peons trying to stay on top of the security on those M$ boxes.
Someone told them about Ad-Aware and they dont even know to update it.
One of the managers asked me how much of the memory my 40mb kernel dowload was taking up.LOL
I tried to explain that it would use 40mb of thier 40gig harddrive for about 2 minutes untill I transfered it to my USB stick. The jerk didnt believe me. These people dont even know the difference between RAM and harddrive storage.
One of these days I will have to embaress him and put the amount in perspective 40mb compared to 37.6 gig.
Joe Sixpack cant run windows much less Linux and if they wernt so tight they would probably use an Apple
I don't know of anyone alive who can rebuild the registry from scratch, Mirosoft does not even understand it well enough to be able to rebuild it.
That is not a good sign, when the people who make it, can not fix it.
vi +
After all, Walmart, started selling one striped down linux box for $200.00, an when Joe Sixpack saw it on their website and ordered it, they discovered it did not have windows on it and sent it back.
Oh! Wait a minute, after Walmart started selling that one system, they added several more linux bases systems, and they are still selling them over a year later.
I guess there is no chance of getting Joe sixpac of purchasing a linux system.
vi +
I'm all for forking when there are issues like this, but OEM packins will be the problem here. If HP is packing in crapware (like Dell and everyone else does), it'll become the de-facto standard and we'll be facing a new monoculture app-wise.
:)
Note that this only applies to the home and SOHO market. Any corporate user who buys several machines at once is likely to first wipe off anything a supplier installs. Maybe large OEM's will eventually get a clue here
There is another...
Of course I am guessing here since the site seems down but this kinda stuff is usually aimed at the business market. Ask you boss for a nice dvd player and widescreen monitor. Sure someone here could use your job :P
But yes playing certain media files on linux is only possible by breaking the law if you live in the wrong country. As in any democracy. Chinese are free to watch all the movies on linux they want. Funny world isn't it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Currently iTunes doesn't work in Linux. I guess they don't expect too much success.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
As a developer, it's great to have tools like Emacs and Python for free. But let's face it: some top notch tools probably won't be replaced by OSS any time soon. It just requires too much effort, research, and knowledge (much of which is patented by Adobe) to create a graphic suite as powerful as Adobe CS.
And what you think Adobe is going to start releasing a free, open-source version of CS? Please. This is the real reason Linux will never fly! Its business model is severely FLAWED! You can't expect people to work for free! End of story.
Nice way to quote out of context. If you want to convince people of Clinton's 'badness' at least let them make their judgment based on the whole quote. Unfortunately, all I can seem to find in Google are mostly pages with the inflammatory fragment you have. The most complete I can find is:
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles... that we are unable to think about reality."
I personally would like to know what is left out by the ellipses, but it is still a radically different statement from what you have.
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
No problem. We'll just switch to OpenBSD. I, for one, welcome our new Linux bundling OEM overlords.
All our favorite apps will become add-filled feature-burdened piles of stinking filth rushed to market despite thousands of high severity bugs.
you mean like Gnome,KDE,and many other apps that I see are on the "OHHH! shiny features" path instead of smaller faster stable path?
we are already headed that way. until the make KDE and Gnome run as fast as windows 95 on the same hardware they are add-filled feature-burdened piles. they dont stink yet, but within 24 months they will...
Madrake: Small to Medium Business.
The difference between the two, ironically, has been created by a company that ignores the difference. It is easy to say that hardware makers would have settled on more reasonable standards long ago if it were not for Microsoft's disruptive influence. Free software still has a hard time with cutting edge hardware used for entertainment. Through the greatest stupidity, Microsoft continues to push what ammounts to gamming systems at businesses of all sizes. Large and small companies are questioning the wisdom of using computers that can play the latest games but that are regularly broken by viruses written by 16 year olds. The business market also objects to all the spyware and Microsoft's unreasonable EULAs that essentialy grant them permission to use that spyware and install whatever they want whenever they want on "their" computers.
Eventually, this artificial distiction will fade but today, it makes sense to see the two markets as seperate and distinct. As Microsoft loses it's power to threaten hardware makers, we will see more of them releasing free software drivers and specs. Sooner or later, you will be able to play the latest games and not worry about some VB crap deleting all of your files. Today, it makes sense for business to chose free software that does what workers need it to do while home users fidget with little bitty DRM cripled music players. Me? I've got my music on ogg and play it on my Zaurus. You can see where things are going from there.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Good to know:
One should not trust that HP figures for sold linux desktops represents actual new linux users.
As there is no windows license fee with the machines, my organisation buys (last batch around 15000 units) these configurations and then use our select/corporate windows license on them. This cuts us a great deal of costs from the otherwise mandatory per. computer windows license.
Why bother? If you do things right, the end user knows their root password and has ssh turned on. Because they called you for support, they will trust you with that root password and you can just ssh into the box and fix it.
Of course, you might find yourself out of a job when 4 of 5 PC support technicians are suddenly not needed. That just means you will have to beat the street yourself and help all of these laggin legacy software users up to free software one business at a time.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Dude you are just making my point.
...
...
No drives were killed, their firmware was merely overwritten becuase the drive was non-compliant...
Yeah whatever. It is still dead meat and some poor Windows jockey/Liunx nOOb has to fix it. I'd heard that gentoo had the same problem. I had not heard that SuSE wrote the code. (That's funny.)
screwed up menus
Guess who didn't install updates for 9.2
My menus always screwed up AFTER the updates. Again you can fix it and again a newbie wouldn't know how.
10.0 Community has been out for a week. And, that's the whole point of the community release, to iron out all the really minor issues that end-users really care about, but some of us couldn't care less about.
Well I don't mind some instability but that many patches and changes? How is that any better then cooker? 10.X had both betas and RCs out before the community edition yet it feels and acts like it's still a RC. Perhaps I've misunderstood the purpose of the community edition but IMHO if you're going to stop calling it a beta or even an RC then you should have some level of stability to it that the beta/RCs don't have. Aren't they selling this as a packaged product? They expect me to PAY for a RC?
You should really wait for 10.0 Official to give out to newbies
Yes that is the intent but that also has yet to happen. Offical might be stable or just as prone to needed updates as community is. Time will tell if this plan of Mandrake works or not.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
There is something in it for 'us', too: once Linux has sufficient market share it's no longer possible for companies to decide e.g. that you need a Windows machine to play a DVD.
As far as the root-thing goes: you have a point there - however I have the impression that distributions are getting better at preventing this sort of thing. I recently installed SuSE on a test machine, the standard install first asked for a root password, then for the info to setup a user account - after the installation the KDM login appeared, root was not even listed among the users. With an install like that, the user might not even get the idea that he could login as root.
[1] I'm opposed to stealing music, I just don't want to accept restrictions on the music I already bought.
The ad claims a $389 base price. When you go to the HP website and run the configurator, the cheapest you can make it is $436 (Linux, CD, 128MB, 40GB, no monitor, no floppy). Still not a bad price for a new PC.
"More market share than, say, Mac OS X means more chance of getting manufacturers of newer peripherals to put effort into writing drivers or at least into providing free software developers with technical information sufficient to write and maintain a driver."
Ah wishful thinking. Anyway what would be the point of running a free OS on a proprietary closed-source driver bedrock? If you're not going to abhere to OSS principles, why will they? Anyway I think that Windows people (the one's "requesting" binary drivers) haven't learned their lessons about the downsides of binary drivers. As one of the earlier posters pointed out "popularity" will have it's price, and it will be a high one. The only way to counter it is for us to be more like Stallman (love him, hate him, at least no one says that he doesn't stick to his principles). That's more than a lot of the incoming crowd (yeah that's harsh, but then actions speak louder than words). Point: "Lack of drivers is the primary reason I'm still on Windows 2000, as the copy of Mandrake I tried a few months ago didn't work with my Radeon 9000 card (except in unaccelerated VESA mode), and Microtek denies the SANE developers any information about my scanner (a Scanmaker 4850)." So basically this Windows user wants the OSS community to abandon one of it's core principles, so that he can migrate from Windows to Linux, and it's not even the OSS communities fault (yeah, we're making Microtek not give us any info.).
What's going to happen if that happens? Let's look at history. Geeks get fed up with proprietary OS. Geeks made aware of this up and coming free OS based on open principles. The die hard geeks move over and contribute to the growth of this OS leaving their old OS behind. OS get's good enough that the less hard core geeks make the move, leaving their old os behind. The pool of competent geeks is shrinking elsewere (sort of like salt being left behind when water evaporates). [You are here]. Now this beloved OS becomes really, really easy because it's compromised all the principles that made the competent geeks first come to it.
Competent geeks move on to another OS or create another one, leaving a desolate wasteland behind, with the same problems we presently complain about. So in essense there's a "chasing of the geek" happening. for a demographic that gets short thrift, we seem to be awful necessary(1). Why else do people want to keep playing in our pool?
(1) We're necessary, as the garbageman and taxi driver is necessary. Someone has to build and maintain the infrastructure.
"But the most important part is: if you're using a GPL distro you won't care about commercialized Linux! no, scratch that - you will probably get drivers due to commercial Linux distros, so it's not that bad."
AND THEY WILL ALL BE BINARY AND DRM'ed!
Oh right, so much for "principles". A free OS isn't "free" if someone else controls your hardware. So really there will effectively be no difference between a GPL'ed Debian and a commercial Linux distro, except you get bragging rights when it comes to compiling your software. Are you certain you understand what this whole OSS things is about? Oh yes you can try to get in an arms race reverse-engineering binary drivers (were's the OSS Nvidia driver again?), all the while the pool of hardware that has free drivers shrinking every year, for various reasons. So you have a decision to make. Stick with the principles however difficult they may be, and possibly having a world that's truely "free". Or you can abandon them for the easy reach of a compromised kind of "free". Just remember you will have no recourse (not even a complaint on "/.") if things don't end up as you wish. At least you'll be in good company however.
"But whatever. Since you allways have to spend at least half a day installing the Radeon drivers while the Nvidia ones are up and running i 7 seconds, it's really not much of a choise anyway."
Wow! What a good commercial. I'm going to run out and buy a Nvidia card and run it with a 2.6 Kernel and the latest driver. Oh wait! I already have and IT DOESN"T WORK. Why don't you go over to Nvida's forum, and search on 2.6 kernel and the latest. Bet you'll find that it's more than the seven seconds you promised in your commercial. And if you look at bit harder in that forum and others, you'll find that this isn't the first time that Linux and Nvidia's drivers have had issues. So let's keep on pimping that Nvida commercial, and your check will be in the mail. Half a day indeed. Hmph!
this is your [OS].
... from the movie fight club.
good to the last drop, doesn't get any better than this.
this is your [regime], and it's ending one minute at a time.
this isn't a seminar and this isn't a weekend retreat.
where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like.
only after disaster can we be resurrected.
it's only after you have lost everything that you are free to do anything.
nothing is static, everything is appalling, everything is falling apart.
this is your life it doesn't get any better than this.
this is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.
[...]
you have to give up, you have to give up.
you have to realize that someday you will die, [and Linux will take over], until you know that you are useless.
[...]
this isn't a seminar.
this isn't a weekend retreat.
where you are now, you cant even imagine what the bottom will be like.
if you don't fall all the way, you cant be saved.
it's only after you've lost everything that you are free to do anything.
Nothing is static.
Everything is changing.
[Windows] is falling apart.
My other UID is 1337
" The major reason we want Linux to become a popular OS is that more third-party software will be ported to Linux."
Aside from the fact that this is not assured (this is like a geek putting out with the expectation he will get laid. Maybe, Maybe not), you need to think a bit harder about what popularity means. Let's assume you have all the apps you desire BUT every one of them is tied to a binary DRM'ed driver. You basically have a sandwich. Binary bread and a free OS inbetween. So now what advantages have you gained by having a free OS. Answer: Not a damn thing. Your "apps" are on someone elses terms, and your hardware isn't really yours. Gee I can't wait for our new proprietary overlords.
always always check support prior to purchase.
With Windows, I can look for the logo on the box to make sure Microsoft has certified the peripheral's compatibility. What do Linux distributors expect me to do? Print out the hardware compatibility list and bring it in with me to Best Buy? What if I'm trying to buy a first printer?
Microsoft, emboldened by their legal
success in Benelux over the use of
the trade name "Lindows", is now
suing "Anderson" and "Pella". States
MS boffin-in-chief Steve Ballmer "We
want these companies to acknowledge
their improper use of the term windows.
They will fall into compliance with the
use of the term "transparent adjustable
closure"."
I think that pointing to OS X is a great example.
I bought the laptop PC anyway because there were no decent laptops available with Linux then (but there are now). I never ran XP. I booted the Xandros Linux install CD and have been a very happy camper, even if I am a bit miffed about being forced to pay the Microsoft tax.
I'm optimistic about a major PC manufacturer offering Xandros Linux as an option. It's a great distro for users migrating from Windows. It's easy to use, without giving up any of the Linux security or stability. The deluxe version includes CrossOver, so it runs lots of Windows apps. It's based on Debian stable.
I'm still a bit concerned about HP CEO Carly Fiorina's announcement that HP products will be aggressively enforcing DRM. That seems to me to be a bad move that will only make their products harder to use. Hippy perspective: Like, who wants a piece of consumer electronics to, like, get up in your face and start hassling you? REALLY bad karma, man.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
I realize that people skills aren't geeks strong point, but...
1-As already mentioned, reasearch your hardware. If you see something that you desire but doesn't have free drivers then you write a professional letter explaining your desire to purchase, but here are the reasons you couldn't. Don't forget to enclose a copy of your reciept for the working hardware you did purchase.
2-Be professional, but be persistent, and be numerous. More people asking will draw more attention.
3-Be consistent, and firm. These are principles, not bargining chips.
4-If you do see something that you like that has free drivers? Write a letter, praising the company for it's stance, and encouraging it to continue. Silence doesn't work here.
Will any of the above give instant results? No, but then anything truely worthwhile will not. OSS wasn't built in a day, and neither was freedom. Stick with it and you'll be rewarded, and your future will be rewarding. Go for instant gratification and you'll have your reward, and the future will curse your name.
We won't get that straight-forward system until we get enough support for other manufacturers to support it.
I'm running XP on my laptop. I tried running Fedora but quickly came to a dead halt. My 802.11b card was not decently supported. I hacked around with suggested work-arounds for a while, but gave up eventually. Wider use will result in better vendor support. Somewhere along the line program installation will have to get easier.
I want wider support of Linux to make it easier for me to use Linux, not grandma. 10% of desktop use would be fine -- enough to get support, but not so ubiquitous to get the bad press.
"Usenet is a communications mechanism, not software. When Microsoft put the BSD FTP client on every desktop did that affect you at all? When Winzip became popular did that hurt people who use infozip? Ignore the consumer distributions of Linux and move on with your life."
We're not talking about "communications mediumn" but human behaviour, and the effect it has on its environment. Yes when MS built a FTP client into the browser, it did have an effect. When Winzip became popular it did have an effect. There wouldn't be much point to "business" if it didn't.
"No it won't. They'll use Lycoris. You'll use Gentoo or Dragonfly or some other 'leet *nix distribution. There will be essentially no interaction between the two. Why do you care? You're like a high school student who is afraid that they won't be cool and unique if everyone else listens to the same music they do."
Aside from the ad hominum. There is a point of contact that the free and the paid have in common, that's relevent to this discussion. That would be the drivers. If those aren't free then what distro your using will be irrelevent, as far as who controls the hardware you paid for.
"So what? Why does it matter to you whether these viruses come from computers running Linux rather than Windows?"
So, are you saying that it's OK for people not to practice safe computing? Has the recent rash of viruses, and trojans taught you nothing?
"Sure. Grandma is going to ask for a graphical interface in VI and smilies in Berkley mail."
Which is an irrelevent statement to the posters original statement. It's not an either/ or situation. One can have a grandma interface without all the associeted problems. However as I already said this is about human behaviour. Try learning from history for once.
"The usual elitist blah blah."
If desiring a future without all the associeted problems is "elitist" then you'll find the crowd is bigger than you and your "blah, blah" crowd put together. And lest you forget it's the "elitist" that are doing the hard work, while you handwave from the comfort of your chair.
I found it kind of ironic that the phrase 'just like Windows' used by Linux users a lot while at the same time disgusted with Windows' downfalls. Let assume that Linux won the desktop war and no more Windows, no more Microsoft. What do we have left? An open-source and free OS (and free software) that ANYBODY could customize to their heart content. Software companies would pretty much out of business since they wouldn't survive making money on distribution cost alone. Supporting cost would be the only piece of pie left beside hardware. Who would be in control of Linux's future development? Who would dictate what ever new features would be included in the next release and what not? Big boys like IBM, Sun, HP would not likely to let that remains in the hands of current group of developers (Like Sun's current iron grip on Java). Who would be willing to spend billions dollar in research for the next generation of user interface or what not and have it available for free to all? If you think all those different Unix OSes were bad enough, Linux's variations would exploded. Everybody would think their own modifications is better and think others should use theirs. Support cost would be sky-rocketted. As I see it, both Linux and Windows have their ups & downs. Microsoft may be the big bad boy that everybody loves to hate. But Microsoft also contributed a lot to the computing world while also making tons of money doing it. That is what Microsoft good at: making money. It reaches it hands into everything and leave nothing unturned. It is greedy and doesn't think highly of itself (which is the key difference between Apple and Windows). If there is something out there that it doesn't have, it is willing to buy, copy, or steal it. Because Windows is used almost everywhere, it is slower to adapt to changes in the computing environment. But it does change and improves everyday. What would happen to Linux if Microsoft manages to lock down Windows and makes it as secure as Linux while maintains its user-friendliness features? Sure it won't happen for a while but eventually, Microsoft will finish the job. Don't discount Microsoft. They will go down fighting. Just take a look at their previous battles: Apple/OS2 vs Windows, IE vs Netscape, Lotus123 vs Excel, Office war; and their current battles: Java vs .Net, Linux vs Windows.
I wouldn't be surprise if Micrsoft do a Linux distro and making tons of money of it!
The home and Soho markets are the critical markets when it comes to all the crapware/spyware/virii that's plaguing Windows these days. 5 million owned drones at people's homes on dsl and cable are the result.
Microtek USED to be one of the BEST at releasing docs for their scanners...
Either Microtek has changed it's policies 180 degrees, or their is something else going on.
Perhaps it's a relabeled Canon? They have always refused to release ANY info for their scanners.
(Conjecture)
I used to live in Chicago. I miss it. It's a great city.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
Either select "Configure Your Computer" from the menus, or in a shell run "drakx".
Adding,deleteing, listing file contents and locations of packages can all be done graphically using the "Manage Software" tools. Mandrake DOES get it right, and the command line tools are actually there, but but optional.
I tried MDK10-community, but contribs are not there yet, and I'm running some bleeding edge versions of sofware, needed current dev libraries (avidemux2-2.0.22 with mpegPS export, reads MythTV nuvs, etc)
I just used easy urpmi, changed the media, deselected the CDS and did a urpmi --auto --select and all my dependency woes disapeared, as I'm resync'd & running cooker again.
Mac OS X is a Unix-based consumer Operating System, and security on it doesn't suck, no one runs as root unless they REALLY know how to do it (It's disabled by default). Running any installer asks for an admin password or otherwise it can't access system areas.
I haven't seen many users mess it up very much so far. And it's been fairly secure with security updates coming in at a regular pace, often fixing widely-publicised open-source packages that are included in the OS within a week or so.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
a hewlitt packard computer with quality to it!
And to put an answer to your rhetorical questions, it does matter, because it matters today. People running OS X and Linux are affected by the proliferation of Windows and their accompanying attacks. It brings down connectivity. Even though you can't get infected, you still get the crap hitting your IPs and in your inboxes. Which is why Linux adherents have long prootested against the situation.
So your first point is that once Linux is popular, we will all wish for the "good old days." Now you undermine that point by saying that the problems you describe already exist. How are spam and viruses going to get worse if they are coming from EzMailLinux and Lindows rather than Outlook and Windows?
It's like a city. In a city there are the slums, artists all move to the slums because they can't afford to live on the other side of the tracks. Eventually the artists section of town becomes fashionable because all the cool galleries, restaurants and clubs are there and the yuppies move in. Prices skyrocket the artists move [to] the next slum and the whole cycle starts over again.
The yuppies move in. "Fix up" the joint. Raise the rents. The artists move out. After a period of time it becomes the slums again.
There is an economic solution. Discriminatory pricing.
The yuppie pays an exhorbitant rent for an inferior apartment compared to the artist. The yuppie is really paying for the privilege of living in the artist's space. It's a delicate arrangement, but if nobody gets greedy and grabby it can be very workable. You don't make money from the artists themselves. You can make a lot because they are there. If you have a goose that's laying golden eggs, you'll be ahead to feed it instead of killing it.
You're seeing some of that happening now.
IBM is dumping money into Linux. IBM claims that they're more than getting their money's worth. I'm sure they are, but have no idea how they figure it.
Red Hat splits into the expensive Red Hat Enterprise and the free (only?) Fedora Core, abandoning the profitable Red Hat Professional boxed set. This after training my boss to always buy the latest Red Hat Professional boxed set even when my stock answer is that what's in it is a better set of screen savers!
Ha ha. Oh this lie again. Oh it's not a lie in the sense that you don't have to do this. It's a lie in the sense that the reason Windows succeeded in the market because it eliminated editing of config files. For those of you who've been around since the DOS days, know that you had to edit config files more times than not (remember config.sys and sounblaster?). Yeah we get yucks out of it, but remember it's a lie.
I'm tired of people saying I shouldn't have to pay to read Word docs. A free viewer for Word files has been available for years.
I discovered this years ago during 95 to 97 upgrade fiasco, where the file formats were incompatible. Everyone else upgraded to 97 and I saw no reason to shell out the change for it.
In tinfoil hat mode: of course, it's probably intentional nobody has heard of it. How much would Word's sales be cut if OEMs (or even MS) installed the viewer on systems delivered without Word? I expect people get sent Word files and then automatically think, "hey, I need Word to see these", and then shell out the change to do so.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Which one?
Gentoo is just as commercial as Mandrake is
Oh really? Let's just compare TLDs.
http://www.mandrakesoft.com vs http://www.gentoo.org
Tell me again which one of them is more COMmercial?
The parent asks a fair and valid question. He's breaking down imagined barriers between people, barriers which are operating as "nations". He's fostering a global community. This is a GREAT point he's making, and he gets labelled a troll?
Guess I'm just another troll too. Trolling trolling trolling...grr!
If everyone has a right to a job, that's sort of a socialist/communist-ish system (and I don't mean that in a bad or foreboding way, I'm not scaremongering just observing).
What makes you think the Linux even has a business model? Or that your imagined business model must carry over into every piece of software used on a Linux system? If someone were willing to write the software to suit my needs and at a reasonable price point, I would buy it. If someone insists that their product which is equivalent to a free product is in fact worth hundreds of dollars I am not going to give them my money. I am going to go with the free product. This doesn't force Adobe or anyone else to give their product away for free. What it *does* do is forces them to compete on features and justify the high cost of their software. If I could pay a reasonable sum for a superior product, I would. Your definition of "a reasonable sum" or "superior product" may not be the same as mine, nor does it have to be. Some people will only "buy" Open Source. Some people will only buy proprietary. Some people will weigh technical merit versus economic necessity and decide what suits them. Or do you really think the Free Market economy is all bunk and we should have to pick from an approved list of proprietary vendors for everything technological?
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
I don't feel anything..
Nobody 'owns' gnu/linux, it's just source code residing on servers, cd's and other media, protected by the GPL, and growing in a darwinistic way. Ok, some distro's could add adware when they bundle the software, but I've changed distro's for less.. And do you really think a kernel patch that will change every image it receives into an add stands any chance to be incorporated? Even if it can be loaded as a module?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
$389??? At least they could humor a few people and sell it for $386 :-)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
They can't be selling very well at all, and I'll tell you why (because I tried to buy four PC's and a laptop from them last October):
1) They are *more* expensive than the XP machines.
2) They only come on certain models (the *more* expensive ones)
3) They don't offer Linux on their machines at Best Buy, etc.
4) Their salespeople are either clueless or anti-Linux or both.
I'm kind of being an ass and this is just my opinion, but realistically this is more of a *free publicity* move than anything else. I gave HP the benefit of the doubt wrt getting Linux (I don't even use Mandrake; I just want a warranty and *no* Windows) on a few boxes and they really weren't *pushing* Linux like they claim to be.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
that was the worst attempt at a Fight Club reference ever.
You still have to have Windows to use that, so you still have to pay.
the stupid mis people in my company, block other browser from accessing our intranet application, and put the IE-only, earlier it was working fine, both IE & Netscape(Mozilla) can access without any problem.
This seems like going backwards. I don't see any need of 'IE-only' for the(our) web application.
'we' all lament what has happened to the Internet since 'they' finally found out about it
I don't. Decent web browsers, HTML that finally seperates content from presentations, cheaper more readily available bandwidth, cheaper hardware, more people to connect to, more ways to connect to them, and less 31337 geeks ranting about the good old days of the internet.
Sure, the rpm update could't immediately fix the symptoms of the bug (if you read the summary of the problem in MandrakeUpdate you would see that), it fixed the cause of the problem. The symptoms are fixed by a number of different actions (logging out and back in, installing another package, running the menu editor and saving with no changes, running 'update-menus -v' etc etc).
... for one trivial fix ...
...
Well I don't mind some instability but that many patches and changes?
Does the number of changes have any relation to the impact of those changes?
If you read the changelogs, you will notice most of them are trivial fixes (like fixing a crash in knotes when run from inside kontact), not major issues.
An update of kdebase on it's own leads to about 75MB of updates
So, I don't think the size of updates is proportional to the magnitude of the problems being fixed
I'm running 10.0 community, and it's very stable (besides one issue with USB storage devices, which is a kernel-2.6.3 bug which is fixed by 2.6.4 - I checked - and should be good for final).
People seem to forget that this is the first release on a new kernel series, and there *will* be small teething problems, just like there were back with 8.0, but it's still a heck of a lot better than any other available distro (if you don't have hardware problems - in which case you should run the 2.4 kernel).
Outsource upper management to other countries and leave the skilled workers employed here.
If you add up the pay, performance ( HAH!) bonuses,
expenses, perks, golden parachutes and stock options of US bigwigs, the upper crust of a large company must easily cost as much as 15 workers for each high-level manager.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Don't be such a dork..............
So what's WUS (Windows Update Services) all about? Also, the dummies at COX did backdoor people's systems so they could remote into it and "fix" problems. It was a colosal failure because Windoze services were unreliable. Registry hacking is bullshit. The registry is a God-Awful, unspecified piece of mixed binary and text horror that is as easy to break as changing one wrong bit, and then your computer is hosed and won't boot. SSH is a proven and working tool, and the free software packaging tools, apt, yast, and rpm simply rock. The remote user can change out anything without too much concern. Microsoft would like to have this work, they just can't get it up. Their remote access relies of the highest level services, are bandwith intesive, noisy and tend to flake out. Worse, it's hard to fix a M$ machine even if you are sitting right next to it with a working machine, software and the whole WWW for reference because too much is hidden and undocumented.
Having the customer push the button instead of the tech provides that veil of denialbility
Nonsense. While I have no doubt that Microsoft denies all responsibility, there's no way for a tech to do that.
What maters is what the customer thinks. When you go out there, you have do get results or you're out! That's why vendors need to be dumping windoze left and right. It gets broken way too easily, it never worked very well in the first place and it's imposible to fix in a reasonable way.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.