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2004: Year of the Penguin?
houseofmore writes "The Toronto star suggests that things are looking good for the Linux desktop this year as more heavy weight commercial vendors get behind it, including HP, Novell, IBM, Sun and... Walmart. It also mentions Red Hat's plan to offer a new corporate desktop edition of their enterprise desktop sometime this year. The article states that more and more companies are considering (and) switching to Linux for their desktop due to expensive Windows licensing fees and high-profile security vulnerabilities."
- one of the big vendors decide to publicly ship a consumer desktop machine with a GNU/Linux install (or even a dual install), will I start to think that the challenge is on.
Don't we hear this every year?
"The power of innovation in the open-source community is unparalleled," says Chris Pratt, manager of IBM Canada's Internet server business. "You've got thousands of people working on this thing for no other reason than to produce the best quality product. If you look at what they've been able to produce up until now, imagine how it's going to go forward."
This guy couldn't have put it any better. It's the reason Linux will continue to grow and have deeper market pennetration over the next few years.
It's good to see that more and more people are recognizing the power of Linux, especially when it comes to a server OS. It's very powerful, modular, and best of all... it's free.
Wireless News www.DailyWireless
Other small companies can do this and do it now.
One of the things few Linux desktop advocates consider is the cost of retraining users to use the new software and any loss of productivity that would result from incompatibilities between OSS Office packages (OpenOffice,StarOffice,etc.) and Microsoft's offering. If 90% of business users create their documents in word then even subtle incompatibilities or limitations of the import functionality could make it very difficult to share information across and between organizations.
It is the chicken and the egg problem. The value in MS Software is certainly not any features of the packages, themselves; it is the network effect of being able to easily share data with all other users of the software.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
...please no more of these, Slashdot! It seems you post two a month now. They're always the same, everyone makes fun of them, and they don't offer anything new or insightful other than "things are looking good."
Stop!
And then all those ex-windows users, some how magically learn how to use linux (not that it is hard, but it still has to be learnt, just as they did learn (?) to use windows)., I don't see this happening. Same holds for all the corporate desktops
I am tired of people claiming "This is the year of linux", year after year after year. There is never going to be one single year of linux, It will have to slowly and steadly erode in to M$ territory. But it will take a much longer time than a mear year, or even a decade, unless ofcourse M$ decides to do something very stupid, like I don't know, Make the wallpaper with setve ballmer and make it unchangable.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Drop a few hints to your local MS vendor that you're thinking about switching to Linux to make them drop their costs on licensing fees.
Trust me, it's so wonderful to take an MS vendor to lunch, sing the praises of Linux the whole time, then take them to a room near your computer room and point out the two shiny new mailservers that are blank and say you're debating about the TCO of Linux versus Exchange.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Another month, another prediction. And yet, most people on Slashdot run IE (and hence Windows).
Linux womble 2.6.4 #1 Tue Mar 16 10:52:42 GMT 2004 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
Get your own free personal location tracker
Seriously. Every year major stuff happens that no one thought we'd ever see.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
If IBM is doing so much for Linux (inc. their ad campagin with the little dude a while back) why can't you buy one of their laptops with Linux preinstalled?
For me because evry year I look back and say ...wow look how much progress was made this year...i mean it just grows and there is no stopping it no matter what anyone says.
From what I've seen so far, there are only two possible desktops for the average user:
1. SuSE
2. Java Desktop System (SuSE based)
I haven't had a chance to try Xandros, so that may be a competitor as well. The biggest problem is that the Linux developers have to get off their high horse and make binary distribution as easy as source distribution. SuSE, RedHat, Mandrake, etc. are all Linux, but all need different RPM files. And then some RPMs may not match the version of libc/glibc you use.
What's the standard solution? "Just recompile it."
That is *not* acceptable for the average end user. Take a look at Mac OS X. They got it right. You download the DMG, it mounts as a folder, you copy the "program" (really a folder that the OS makes look like a file) to your Applications directory. Done.
Linux OTOH, goes like this: Find the RPM you want. Try to install and get a list of dependencies. Go track down every dependency you need (because you should already have libart_gpl and libtheora, right?!) and then install the dependencies. After spending and hour or two just to install one piece of software, log out and log back in so the menus update. Then try to run the software and hope that you didn't accidently install an incompatible binary. ARRRGGGHHH!!!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'm waiting for a huge backing for a laptop that Linux supports fully, including things like wifi support, full driver support, etc. When I can get a fairly affordable laptop with Linux installed, or a base driver system maybe built for IBM or HP parts, then I'll begin to think Linux starting to make heavy inrows.
Personally, having tried Xandros/1.0 and now using Xandros/2.0 it's clear that Windows has real competition.
No doubt this comment will be targetted by the increasing number of moderators who appear to be Windows admirers, but I have enough karma for a whole barbeque, so here goes with a list of the ten reasons why Linux is destined to overtake Windows in 2004 (or 2005, or 2006, etc.)
- Windows is expensive, Linux is free
- Distros like Xandros "just work"
- Linux is secure from worms, trojans, viruses
- Linux runs on modest hardware
- Linux is less complex and thus more stable
- Linux has a "cool" factor missing from Windows
- The IT world's view of Microsoft as "evil" is percolating down to the general public
- Linux now comes with a sufficient set of applications for most common purposes
- Linux applications are more stable and simpler than Windows' ones
And lastly: more and more institutions will choose Linux as they discover the advantages of it, leading to consumer uptake as people "stay compatible" with their work PCs.
From a 3% marketshare this seems unbelievable. And yet this is how markets work: the "tipping" often happens way before the 20% mark, but once it starts, it's unstoppable.
At the very least, 2004 was the year in which people seriously started to wonder "when" and not "whether" Linux would become the de-facto OS standard for all computing, including the desktop.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Disable the kernel emu10k1 module; download the souurce and compile from scratch at http://sourceforge.net/projects/emu10k1. Possibly in a recent 2.4 or 2.6 the builtin emu10k1 driver works with audigy and audigy 2, not sure.
GNU/Linux is in it for the long haul. MS Windows flashes on the media's screen with a new release and fades away. GNU/Linux is growing bigger and stronger everyday. As that happens more and more companies will port their wares, more hardware venders will supply GNU/Linux instead of MS Windows, more users will leave MS Windows (most likely because they're tired of the upgrade costs for both hard and software related to the upgrade), and someday MS Windows will be a "niche" OS.
Think about it like Apple. They make an excellent OS which includes some great apps, overall better than average desktop and small server hardware, is clearly better than MS Windows but still isn't "number one". Is this a bad thing: no. Apple will be around for a long time building their stuff reguardless of their marketshare. IMO this is the fate for MS Windows (except for the quality part of course).
Forget about this "Year of the Penguin" stuff because no one year will be it's "year". GNU/Linux is here to stay, grow and get better.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
The article states "Fortune 1000 companies are already dabbling." While this may be true, Linux becoming dominant on the home desktop is still unlikely, IMHO. There are still too many usability issues for the average computer user to perform configuration in Linux (e.g. installation of programs). Once KDE is up and running, I suppose everyone will be okay until the purchase of a new printer, etc., but until system changes are as simple to handle in Linux as they are in Windows, there is not much chance of Aunt Tillie feeling comforatable with Linux.
In a corporate environment, where configuration is taken care of by IT, this is a completely different issue, and I can see that Linux is liable to make some important inroads here in the next few years. Perhaps once Linux becomes more widespread in corporate America (and has polished up some of the persistant usability issues), it will begin to make more of an impact on the home desktop market.
... at least for a number of years to come. Why? Easy: While MS OSes have reached a state of saturation of the market, Linux is only just entering the exponential part of the growth function -- with many factors playing in favour of Linux.
I like my spaghetti with source.
Linux on the desktop won't succeed until the applications can be installed and run by Joe User. I'm a Linux newbie with RH 9 on a home server. If I didn't remember a little UNIX from mumbledy-mumble years ago I'd be completely lost.
It's running great as a server, but as a desktop it's not there. I've downloaded plenty of software and getting any of it running has been a struggle. Documentation is terrible, if it's there at all it says high level things like "run the makefile", which doesn't work half the time anyhow. How is Joe User supposed to know how to do that? Frequently applications don't even say how to RUN the freaking thing after it's installed. With no desktop icon and no uninstall program how is a user supposed to use Linux?
With XP calling home to register itself, word about the holes that come with the XP firewall, etc. I can see where Linux looks much more attractive ( hell, some home users might have to BUY it ;) ).
Similarly, the increasing cost of XP/Office XP with little or no percieved increase in value *cough*software assurance*cough* has got to be grating the nerves of even a few PHB's.
Either way, it's good to see Linux making some inroads into corporate desktops.
A Human Right
But the average person doesn't tinker under the hood of their car much, or at all. (Heck, most people don't even change their own oil these days.) They just want a product that works with little to no detailed knowledge of what's actually going on, and rely on support (mechanics, JiffyLube, whatever) for keeping the thing working properly.
Same for operating systems -- most users aren't going to want to spend the time or energy learning how to maintain their own system. Linux "for the masses" will require a system that can be maintained with a minimum amount of effort from the end user. In a corporate setting, this is less important because those machines would be administered by IT specialists, but in a personal/home setting, self-maintaining systems are a must.
I can just see the rollouts now. Linux on every local desktop, local passwd, group, apps, complexity rising exponentially, security, performance and reliability decreasing in response.
While Windows can be an insecure mess, it's nothing compared to just how messy Unix systems can become.
With Unix, the least efficient use of the hardware is to put a single instance of many different applications on to lots of different machines.
Say a Unix app consumes 20Mb of RAM, 80% -> 90% of that memory is shareable; shared libraries, program text and the like. So *conservatively* 2 people can run the application on a machine and it only takes 24Mb of RAM, not 40Mb of RAM, 3 people it uses 28Mb, not 60Mb and so on. On top of this, the application is already loaded, it doesn't have to be read from disk again each time it's started. The filesystem buffers are already pre-loaded, the CPU caches have a significantly better hit rate than if there are a dozen different apps running.
Unix(and Linux) is *not* Windows, there's an entirely different system architecture which should really be considered before just wiping Windows on each desktop and replacing it with Linux.
Of course there's a great opportunity for people who know.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
One of the issues with "new" technology is that there is a learning AND testing curve for the faint of heart. Just about every CIO fits in the faint of heart category, as they typically pick what others run, so that they can hide in "nobody go fired for using X".
Back in the 80's,early 90's X was IBM. But even in early 90's, Windows was good enough to replace much of the character screens. The issue was CIO's were afraid so they would allow bean counters and others to slowly bring them in before they stuck their neck out.
We have been in the learning phase for the last year. Now, it is moving to testing for these folks. In early 2005 (one year before Windows big one), we will see mass replacements as part of the 2005 budget.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The entire Linux desktop movement blindly follows the Windows paradigm for desktops like a happy little dog. Why not DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT?! Get that taskbar the hell out of there--they don't facilate spacial navigation and are horrible. Get that Start menu-ripoff out of there--Start menus are extremely poor program launchers. That integrated browser doesn't belong--it has absolutely no reason for existing and adds seconds to my loading of the Home folder (and you guys call Windows XP slow).
The only "innovation" KDE and GNOME can profess is having tons more pointless applets running on their panels, and running a lot slower than Windows on the same hardware. That's absolutely it and nothing more. Other than that, they offer nothing more than what Windows offers, and they don't even have a chance of eating OS X's dust.
You asked, I answered. Linux needs something completely new with its OWN IDENTITY--something that sits alongside Windows and OS X in having its own identity. KDE and GNOME are awful, horrible, and very, very bad. Personally, I'm looking forward to Y-Windows, which plans to replace the failed experiment that is X with something modern and better, while retaining the advantages that X had like network-transparency. No more endless "extensions" that conflict with each other! No more non-integrated desktops, where you're having to install TWO desktop environments just to be able to run each other's apps.
The Linux desktop is the perfect example of fragmentation run amok, holding back progress and adoption. Hell, very basic things still don't exist. The day you finally implement a binary installation/uninstallation routine so that someone can stick in a CD and run an autoplay installer that properly creates its shortcut icons and so on will be the day more apps will start coming out for Linux. Not to mention using just ONE library instead of multiple "toolkits" doing the widget work that should be done by the desktop anyway. Man, like I said, I could go on and on for pages...
It's more secure in some ways. We know. But let's put that aside.
As I see it, there's no clear reason why anyone should bother switching to Linux. Seriously. It's open, yes, but that doesn't matter except to very small minority of people (remember, Windows software can also be Open Source, even though the kernel is closed). Other than that...not much. Both Linux and Windows are equally complex and confusing. People who argue that Linux is a beautiful gem either (a) don't really know what they're talking about, or (b) are talking about the raw kernel and not the 10x more stuff that needs to stack on top of it to make a Windows-equivalent system.
If an alternative operating system had some huge and obvious benefits to the user, then I'd be all over it. Linux and Windows are more similar than different.
I think this is flame bait or something. I mean this sounds impossible. I have never had a Linux Distro not pick up a sound card, except for Gentoo which is for system admins. I have used Mandrake, SuSE and Red hat.
Well, I've had three different ones NOT pick up a soundcard. That doesn't make my post "flamebait". Did you ever think that just because it worked for you running on your hardware that it might not work for someone else on different hardware? Is this your line of thought - "It must be flamebait because it says something non-flattering about a product I like"?
Mod's really need to learn that "flambait" and "troll" aren't the same as "Disagree with" or "don't want to hear about".
Why would I make something like that up? Do you think I find joy in the fact that my soundcards are bastard children that linux ignores? Do you think I get off on linux not being compatable with my hardware so Bill Gates can fuck me up the ass while Steve Ballmer sodomizes my mother for another year or two? (I don't).
Well, normally you have to use an installer even though the method you describe (copy .app folder to Applications) was the way Apple intended it to work.
.app file. That's why I'm able to download something like ToastCD or LAME GUI (both based on Open Source) and never have to install any dependencies.
I'm typing on a Mac right now, and I can assure you that most programs come in DMG files *without* installers. The only programs with installers are ones that need to insert system components of some sort. Even Office X is as simple as drag and drop.
However, this is beside the point. To install a typical Free/Open Source program on Mac OS X, you normally have to recompile it! And sometimes even that doesn't work, because the coders used linux-only features that are not available on the BSD-based Mac OS X.
I use tons of Open Source on my Mac, and I have never needed to compile anything. I usually get them from OpenDarwin via WebDAV.
If you install software made (packaged) for Mac OS X, it's easy. But if you use Fedora and install software made (packaged) for Fedora, that's easy too. Or if you use Debian and install software made (packaged) for Debian.
Sorry, the packages themselves tend to be easy, but almost no one is helpful enough to give you all the dependencies that you need before installing. Mac software comes with all the dependencies inside the
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
switching to Linux for their desktop due to expensive Windows licensing fees and high-profile security vulnerabilities.
It's a good question how much Linux desktop deployment will occur before the first pre-installed Microsoft OS's on PCs with built-in hardware-level DRM (TCPA, etc.) begin to appear.
That OS will be trumpeted as being "more secure" and "lets you watch videos, listen to music", which will help to sell it to the virus-weary public and to the content paranoid **AA members.
And it's questionable whether people will even care if their PC is not "free" as in freedom as long as they're getting enough perceived benefit for not too much perceived cost.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You missed the original point.
Sure it's doable. Did you bother to look at the Subject to which you replied? Rewriting macros (they don't call them scripts in Office) is time-consuming, not to mention just plain different than what users are used to. That clearly has a cost associated with it in a real work environment.
The big thing that I would like to see:
Improve Wine so that if you have a win98 license, they'll make more use of the Microsoft DLL's--and improve the installation and documentation to that installing into a situation in which Win98 already exists is _seemless_.
What I'd ideally want here:
Take _nothing_ away from folks that already have a Windows license on their machine(particularly if
this is an older license)
Add Linux functionality.
Here at the district, we have some fokls that know that Windows networking and security is rather lacking--but they are a bit intimidated by the Linux learning curve. The fact that Novell is moving towards Linux is a big draw here. The next biggest draw IMHO would be to make the win98 machines work better so that the life of these machines can be extended--and the software can be update at lower cost than the microsoft route.
When you are talking a cash-strapped customer with thousands of machines, those sort of things really do add up. I don't think it is just school districts-cost savings is going to be more of an issue for a lot of organizations over time--if the Linux community can simply make it clear that Linux is the logical, low cost upgrade path then in time Microsoft will feel the heat.
Many 5 years from now. Gnome and the distros themselves have to make things a lot easier for Windows users who don't know BASH shell.
I install Windows clicking "Next" in one hour. I install Gentoo with bash language + Gentoo specific language in 3 days.
Many years of intensive work still to come before the average user who bought his computer and his windows license switches to a new OS without the M$ toys he has on Windows, the sweet smileys of Messenger vs the dull GAIM smileys, and so forth. People love Micro$oft, Office and Messenger. Only us geeks don't like Microsoft.
That's life.