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Linux vs. Windows
An anonymous reader writes "Technology Review has a great article discussing how pretty, user-friendly Linux desktops, cheap machines sold at stores such as Wal-Mart, and the growth of useful free software like Open Office have made Linux a 'key business risk' for our friends in Redmond. The story notes that Linux's market share for desktop computers has already surpassed Apple's. Says the Open Source Initiative's Eric Raymond, 'The sinister plan for world domination is right on schedule.' All right!"
wow, what an original topic :o
Funny how Linux from Walmart which itself is a large corporation may help fight the software giant Microsoft is. How ironic where the revolution comes from.
Think about it: open systems will out grow closed systems. It might take a while, but that's what always happened. It happened with PC vs Mac hardware and it'll happen with software.
(w00t! first post!)
"Linux vs. Windows"? Now the editors are just getting lazy. That could be the title for ~50% of the articles ever posted on Slashdot. Geez.
Yeah, well, this wonderful service they provide (cheap GNU/Linux boxes) may be great for all you Americans - but it ain't gonna take off in the same way throughout the rest of the World without a similar rock-bottom outlet doing the same. ( /me mourns living in rip-off UK)
Isn't that what /. is really all about?
Begin flame war... NOW!
2004 is *definatly* the year of Linux on the desktop!
This again?
... the projected 6% desktop share is Linux helping new users reach out to computing, or if it is biting into Microsoft's market share. It will obviously be a little of both, but I wonder what the breakdown is.
The story notes that Linux's market share for desktop computers has already surpassed Apple's.
Oblig Simpson's quote:
"You've just been marginalized."
that humble little vmlinuz can run on tons of things. sure, desktops got everyones eyeballs and twitchy middle finger all wrapped up, but linux computers don't need an interface. at all. in order to do Real Work.
no, i'm not just talking about beouwulfs and the like, i mean things like vending machines, HVAC control, ticketing systems, etc...
(embedded linux is where microsoft is going to have fight our lead...)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Wal * Mart is the Devil's Own Store. That is until it sells Linux machines and it becomes a acceptable part of the Linux 'world domination'
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Is lindows (aka linspire) the real salvation of linux? A pretty graphical interface? High processor requirements? A prioritary installation process?
How is this better than windows again?
What is we really just teach people how to do unix correctly?
Davak
...finally an article asserting what many, many people have been saying for quite some time.
Now all that "we" need to do is to go through and find things that need to be improved upon. Don't get me wrong, I still configure most of my stuff at the command line, and I believe that everything should be configurable from the command line, but it might not be a good idea to get GUI configuration to work for all user-level functions (including hotplug USB and firewire) so that Joe Schmoe or Grandma doesn't have to try to use a command line to plug in and get pictures off of a digital camera, or access a USB memory device, or hook up the new printer.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"Preaching to the choir"
This article is basically just - pardon the expression - a circle jerk. Or, at best, inviting flamebait. What is there to discuss - that Linux is improving in the marketplace? Or that it's becoming more of a threat to Microsoft?
Mod the article -1, Redundant.
Uh, I've had my fill on Linux vs. Microsoft articles... can't someone the compile the millions of them into one lengthy book? I'll use it as a reference or kindling or something...
You're right, I gave him too much credit.
One paper that everyone mentions even though hardly anyone has actually read it, because if they had they would realize it doesn't make a damn bit of sense in a business context.
That better?
The sinister plan for world domination is right on schedule. --ESR
i knew it; ESR's support of open source was just a bid to allow the NRA to control the government.
Personally, I never trusted that gun-toting bastard.
When will this ever end! What's better? Apples or Oranges?
Selling ridiculously cheap machines that automagically do everything (connect to the internet, read pics from your digital camera, etc.) will capture a large share of newbies that do not yet own a computer. If these people never change their OS too, then we will see an increase in Linux desktops.
Easy is the key. Price is secondary but extremely important.
MS has no where to go but down. That's one of the disadvantages of having a monoply.
Sounds like the definition of "important" to me :H
I've been using Linux desktops for six years, and I still impress my boss with the applications available for it, the ease of use, and the compatibility.
Aside from our accounting package, there is nothing really holding us to Windows. E-mail, Web, DNS, and our main business programs run on some flavour of *nix, including the evil version, and with Mono/C#/.NET, we are starting to develop platform agnostic versions of most of our other apps.
All we need is a good platform-independant financials package, and we would be able to use any platform we wanted to.
"...but it might not be a good idea to get GUI configuration..."
My bad, thinking two expressions, "...might not be a bad idea..." and, "...might be a good idea..." which got turned into that. Oh well.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Here comes every geek spouting off what the joe sixpack wants and needs. even though they have zero clue who joe even is let alone how he ineracts with a computer.
Software giant! (a la Crocodile Dundee). As I have pointed out 21.6 times, Wal-Mart will kill any and all competitors because of their immense size, discount ability, and general acceptance by the population. Microsoft may be a big software company, but Wal-Mart is #1 on the Fortune 500 for a reason!
stuff |
So now that Linux has gone into the double digits in number of desktop systems installed, the world is our oyster.
Stop beating up on the special kid.
As much as the 'softies love to downplay the significance of the Linux desktop, and dismiss it publicly as insignificant, irrelevant, and unfeasible ... inside the walls of Redmond, they absolutely take it seriously. They know it is a serious long-term threat to their core sources of revenue, and being the financially wealthy but morally bankrupt bunch of criminals that they are, will stop at nothing to kill it.
And here's why. In 1998, anyone running a Linux desktop was a true geek. But every year brings changes, improvements, leaps in usability and application availability. Ask a marketing weasel what this means and they'll tell you that the value proposition of desktop Linux is slowly but continuously improving. Add in the economics and they'll tell you that eventually that value proposition will become too high to ignore.
Remember: there was a time when the PC itself was considered unfeasible. There was just too much momentum behind IBM's mainframes to ever unseat the venerable 3270 terminal from the business desktops of the world. How many of you are viewing Slashdot from a 3270 right now?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
AOL is marketing a $299 computer to those who don't currently have PCs. This market is mainly seniors, blacks, and hispanics.
Yes AOL is a royal pain, but it is in a unique position to market low cost internet access machines.
Properly configured Linux boxes would reduce the risk that many of their users already present the web and rest of us. It would also fill the needs of the majority of their users. Most never leave the AOL installed programs (my grandmother is a great example of that).
If not AOL then attempting bundling with an internet provider would still provide benefits. It could also be used as the basis to market to schools.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
To put it very shortly, i think interoperability with the windows world (e.g samba & wine) is still the key to gain more users especially in offices.
...
If i buy one of these PCs, and i put it in my win2k based office, i should be able to print and share files without any RTFM
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
Is there any software industry, where the lower-cost options did not eventually become most popular leaving more expensive options in niches? For example, UNIX vs. Mainframe, Windows vs. UNIX, Linux vs. Windows, Linux vs. UNIX, UNIX vs. UNIX, etc.
Also, with Windows at near saturation, where can they go but down?
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
That Rednecks and Trailer Park Trash would be the end of the Microsoft monopoly.
-- ac at work
I wish I could mod the editors. -1 redundant YES, we know Linux is the solution to world hunger. YES, Mircosoft is evil and expensive. YES, rednecks now have access to linux like the rest of the educated tech society. Move on and post the XBOX2 schematics. :)
Its not going to be ready for the home desktop until you can get usability, including installs, without having to type any command line stuff.
Thats what I am waiting for.
no
Will it always be a Microsoft Windows world?
The answer is: No - and Yes MS is like the 80s IBM - big kid on the block.
IBM gave up on DOS and had a pissing contest w/OS2 (and lost). But did not go away.
MS will eventually lose market share but will not go away
Testimonial: I have purchased a Walmart Microtel/JDS system (the cheapo). Only real problem was the winmodem which was not sensed from the factory or repeated re-installs. The RJ45 connection works fine.
Why the penguin in the picture has toes and nails?
I think MS should become really scared, because Linux is doing to MS what MS did to Netscape. As Paul Maritz of MS said "cut off Netscape's air supply", now Linux cuts off MS's air supply. It is a good day :)
Julian
I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.
Once again, rumours of Apple's demise are greatly exaggerated.
This story from Wired basically claims that the PCs that are sold with Linux that are driving up the percentage are immediately being wiped and reinstalled with a pirated version of Windows. According to Google's stats, only about 1% of searches are done from Linux machines, compared with about 3% for Macs.
Linux has gained an irreversible hold in behind-the-scenes corporate computing centers, where some 67 percent of corporate Web servers are Linux machines running open-source software.
Nothing is irreversible. If linux can, in the coming years, get a good grip on the desktop, what's to say that microsoft won't be able to get a good grip on the servers?
I'm not trying to troll here, but you could apply that to anything (well, most anything, pervert). Who really knows? Maybe Apple will be the desktop leader in a few years.
That wording tripped me up.
Are not all hard drives serviceable upto fdisk?
Maybe meaning, you can add onto for expansion unlike some of the older Compaq/HP and Dell models.
Anyway, WalMart will be competeing with all those retired computers sitting in the back benches of IT inventory.
But no doubt there will be a market of novelty buyers.
Maybe bundle Doom 3 on those puppies and watch them fly off the shelves.
Ok let the attacks begin. But about once a year for the last 6 or 7 yrs I give Linux a shot. I love the concept. But when it comes down to it I can get more work done on a Windows box. I don't know, maybe I just using the wrong distribution (usually Redhat).
So they're at 1.5% of installed desktops now?
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Rearding this:
... there is a bit of truth in every joke. He is not fully joking here.
Says the Open Source Initiative's Eric Raymond, 'The sinister plan for world domination is right on schedule.' All right!"
Simpy
This article touched on the merits of Linux for governments and some organizations, but sadly, it still fails to mention what I think could be the biggest niche for Linux today: charity. In most towns, there are learning centers such as the Boys' and Girls' Clubs, etc, that provide visitors with basic computer service and training. In my experience, these centers are either forking out big bucks to MS, relying on the computer-refurbishing programs of NASA, MS, and others, or simply using computers that are virtually obsolete. But with Linux, they could make their old computers run for less and buy new ones a friendly college-student/volunteer would build for them for considerably less than a store-bought computer. Even Walmart is apparently offering cheap computers. Unfortunately, if my experience in college was typical, charity managers are still afraid to venture into the unknown (or maybe just to trust the college-student volunteers who would be setting this up and administering it for them). It's sad, really, because of all the people who could learn Linux effectively and without concerns about "how I did X in Word," the poor (and children), who have never really had any experience with computer, would be the easiest to train and would stand to benefit most.
Live free or die
Truly and indeed, the very first experience a user has when booting up for the first time is the lasting impression that the user will have of the computer.
More emphasis should be placed on ease-of-use and the Out-of-Box Experience.
People keep saying that Linux isn't ready for the desktop, and they use examples of various ages of housebound women as examples of why.
Well, since Red Hat 8, the first distro where I called and encouraged all of the people (including women) in my life to try Linux, the following people have installed and begun to use Linux instead of Windows, and they all did it without my handholding, in all but one case surprising me with a "guess what I just installed!" phone call:
- My three sisters
- My mother
- My father
- My best friend
- His girlfriend
- My cousin
None of them are computer professionals. Most of them weren't even computer "geeks" at all and had just complained enough to me about Windows 95/98/ME/2000 (none of them had XP, it's true, AFAIK) that I thought they might like a change. The first time I had seen Red Hat 8, I pretty much decided it was time for Linux+desktop. A couple of them are still running Red Hat 8, but my mom and sisters have actually run the "upgrades" (i.e. downloading and burning the next version, then running the "upgrade" install on it).
Red Hat 8-9 and Fedora Core 1-2 have very nice, clean, graphical, "click Next a lot" installers/updaters and autodetect pretty much every piece of hardware. Nearly all of the system services can be configured using their desktop tools in the GNOME menu, including things like print queues, wireless cards, modems, and other things that desktop users might want. These aren't IBM or Compaq PCs for the most part either, they're just white box PCs (there is one thinkpad in the group). One of my sisters even uses her Olympus digital camera with gphoto or some such application (I'm not even familiar with gphoto, I just mount a CF card in a card reader, but she found something in the menu that said "Digital Camera" or something like that and away she went...) to sell stuff on eBay.
With the state of the Linux desktop right now, they can listen to and burn CDs without needing to read anything or even launch an application, they can browse the Web, use OpenOffice to write stuff (they all set up their own printers, with one exception). The couple that have installed software from RPMs haven't had any trouble, they just downloaded the software to their home directories and double-clicked on it.
Linux isn't ready for the desktop? Maybe for some values of desktop. But for peope who just want:
- Web/Email
- Word Processing/Spreadsheet/Presentations
- Printing
- Music
- Burning CDs
- Solitaire
it's there and it's been there for a long time already.
Oh, there has been one question, and it is a place where Red Hat's GNOME desktop falls over: every one of these people did end up calling me at some point and asking how to access their floppy. I don't know why Red Hat ships a KDE desktop that has a floppy drive icon, but doesn't do the same with their GNOME desktop?!
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Linux, despite all of its wonderful benefits still has a long way to go to be used by grandma and grandpa who have never touched a computer. Sure, I always hear how some linux guru has set one such setup up, but they are always forced to maintain it.
What i'd like to see is a comparison of sitting 1000 people down in front of a windows box and a linux box and see how easy it is to do simple common tasks:
Write a short 1 page summmary on your life and print it (no printer setup yet)
Listen to an mp3
Check the news on CNN
Rip a CDROM
Burn a CDROM
Change your wallpaper
Download and install a list of programs that people might commonly install (ie; gaim/aim, a game written for both windows and linux)
And then some more advanced tasks
Setup a website (IIS or apache preinstalled)
Change your screen resolution
Find a file somewhere on your computer
Then compare the success/failure ratio and the average time it takes to do each task between windows and linux.
I'd bet that at this point in time and probably for quite a while windows will be far ahead in this competition. Im not saying it will always but I think there is still a long way to go.
I don't see how this article offers anything new to the discussion. Linux is projected to have a 6% desktop market share by 2006. Is that really impressive?
Microsoft considers Linux and other Open/Free software a key business risk. We already knew that, hence the onslaught of FUD generated about Linux by Redmond (Linux is like cancer, the TCO of Linux/Free solutions is higher than MS solutions, etc. etc.)
As an OSS advocate, I enjoy hearing about people's success stories with Linux, but I hardly consider them news worthy. At best, this is preaching to the choir, at worst the article grants license to flame.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this margin is too small to contain.
The story notes that Linux's market share for desktop computers has already surpassed Apple's.
that's only because there are a magnitude more geeks than artists. what you'll find is that there are still magnitudes more end-users than geeks, and - as we all know - linux isn't ready for them, err, they aren't ready for linux. whatever.
Over the last three years, the fraction of home and office PCs powered by Linux has roughly doubled, to almost 3 percent, and it's set to double again before the end of 2005, according to market research firm IDC.
I don't think Linux can compete directly with Microsoft. Their mindshare and marketing is too powerful. Where I see the opportunity to win is through the second PC.
Many households are starting to buy more than one computer. If Linux came pre-installed and configured with Samba (to share and store files for the entire house) and streaming software to stream audio and video, then Joe Consumer could start relying on Linux to hold what's most important - their data.
Maybe consumers won't see Linux as a front-line PC for awhile, but the super-reliable machine in the background storing all their save game data, their music collections and their work files will sneak its way into homes just like Linux snuck in to the datacenter. When Jane Doe is pulling her hair out because Windows needs 14 hours of download time to get it OS updates, anti-virus and anti-Spam signatures after being rendered unusable from the latest virus, the realization that reliability is ultimately more important than compatibility will finally dawn. "Hey, this Linux computer is still working. I'll get my report done on that machine"
Of course once that happens, then more people will buy Linux machines. Then there will be a growing demand for native software. Linux compatibility will finally be addressed, because there will now be a market to sell games, applications and other stuff for Linux.
Hopefully Billy Gates and his cohorts have a good supply of Diphenhydramine Hydrochloride. They're going to be losing a lot of sleep in the next few years.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
So what sold the iMac? Was it the looks and people didn't care about the price? Or was it that you turned the iMac on and you had a working pc that you never touched the insides of and rarely installed new software on?
These walmart PC's are cheap and all and perhaps Linspire is good at providing a Mac like, no hazzles, experience. Linux can be hard when you are installing it on unknown hardware but that is not the case here, Walmart does the install and they decide the hardware.
Anyone wanting to do something "extra" like gaming with these PC's is going to be in for a rude suprise. Even the few commercial linux games that exist won't run to well on this. Then gain XP won't run on this. 128mb? HAHA. Linux can do that, windows? 3.1 maybe.
So is there a market for this kinda cheap PC? You can use it to download music and movies and watch them. Mplayer is far superior to anything MS ever developed (install mplayer and you will never even need to know about divx xvid or any codec) and properly installed users could have a very easy time. IF all they want is a working desktop for "light" work/entertainment.
This may be real inroad for linux. Don't sell linux. Sell a working internet PC.
Now all that remains is to find out sales figures AND more importantly update figures. How many machines remain linux and how many get a windows install on them?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
All those systems sold as linux machines are still running linux. I bet. No really. Honest.
I'd suspect a fair percentage of 'savvy' users are buying linux system to avoid paying for windows and then using dodgy knock off XP licences.
Of course, that'd be wrong.
That is exactly why linux will get scoffed at by any John Q Public who has at least been to Best Buy. Linux will always have a marred reputation if you guys (the Slashdot geeks) are to be it's harbingers.
I personally could care less what kind of lame comments you come up with, but if you keep at it like this... hate to break it to you - but the elitist-nerd way of thought has never and never will break the cusp of mainstream.
good luck with your plans...
How can any product compete with a social movement that uses a Penguin as a mascot !!
"No, I'd like to try that other thing, oh, darn, I can't remember the name,
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
Well, not debunked so much as it far overstated Linux's market share vs the Mac. They were counting sales, so many PCs are sold with Linux but a pirated version of Windows quickly replaces it, etc. Looking at Google Zeitgeist shows that the Mac is still well into the lead for desktop usage(for now). Yes, I'm wearing my flame-resistant suit. Yes, I know there are other important measures. Yes, many people have dual installations of Windows/Linux. But the best, most unbiased measure of desktop usage I can think of is Google Zeitgeist. Anyone have other suggestions?
I suggest you read the one true site for Mac news, As The Apple Turnsfor a more well-reasoned analysis of the article. Scroll to the 3rd story.
When Joe Average buys a Linux PC at Wal-Mart, he may be conned into it by a clerk who is happy to kill dead stock PCs, then back at home he notices it doesn't run MSN Messenger without hack and can't send message to his friends, so only goes back for refund. It won't propagate good impression of Linux, IMHO. Linux should aim at Mac status instead, by securing small but valuable market niche.
Does this mean we will see relabled Maxtor drives sporting the Sam's Choice lable on them?
If you listen to Microsoft (blah blah FUD blah blah stupidity blah FUD blah) they apparently envision a future where hardware is free, and people pay for their software. And then there's Free Software, free in more ways than one. I don't really consider this business model sane, but if they base any plans on this sort of stuff happening, then Linux+etc will really rain on their parade.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Once someone learns to use a computer with {Win/Mac/Linux OS}, they will likely never change.
...
If that was the case, I'd still be refusing to part with my good old ZX Spectrum
All I ever use for desktop work is GNU/Linux, but just because I love linux I'm not going to say that it's a great desktop platform. GNU/Linux still has a long way to go before it's ready for heavy desktop use (Not that that would even be a good thing), but it is catching up to the evil flightless bird-hating entity which we all like to call Microshaft for sure.
Got graphics cart performance or support problems, well you should be using SNAP....
startup problems, well used a desent SysVInit replecement that runs init's in parralle instead of serial.
Want to run windows games, well WineX (Cedera) runns shit loads, and out of the last 4 games I brought 2 had native Linux support 1 had Mac support (and I didn't check the box before hand).
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I don't understand the Open Source Sizzles graph. It looks to me like market penentration, if I can call it that, goes from 2.8% in 2002 to 3% in 2003, after nearly doubling in the prior year. Doesn't that mean that market penetration is levelling off? I would think the extrapolation would put it at something like 3.5% in 2006, not 6%.
Linus vs Bill - Winner take all!
Can Linus defend against Bill's Squatting Dragon? Can Bill avoid Linus' Cerebral Claw? Will both explode in a fury of light and sound like an anime?
These are the questions that will be answered in THE GALVANIZED STEEL CAGE! TONIGHT! ON PAY PER WATCH!
http://www.circuitcity.com/bundledetail.jsp?OID=95 328&bdlid=708
why would anyone buy that weak machine from walmart (the one in the article for $278 doesnt include a monitor or printer and the specs are way below the following) when they can have this--
for $449 this week
(as an aside a virtually identical machine to this is available every week or two by emachines for just $349)
Compaq Presario Desktop PC with Intel® Celeron® D 325 Processor CPQ SR1110NX
Samsung 17" Flat-Screen CRT Monitor
HP Deskjet Color Inkjet Printer HP DJ3650
that pc includes:
Specification
Compaq Presario Desktop PC with Intel® Celeron® D 325 Processor
Warranty:Months
Labor/Parts 12/12
Item Height in Inches 15.3
Item Width in Inches 7.2
Item Depth in Inches 16.5
Weight 30 lbs.
Processor Brand Intel®
Processor Type Celeron®
Processor Speed 2.53GHz
Frontside Bus Speed (MHz) 533
Level 2 Cache (KB) 256KB
RAM (MB) 256MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
System RAM Expandable To (MB): 2GB
Hard Drive Maximum Capacity 40GB Ultra DMA
CD-ROM Drive No
CD-RW Drive Yes
DVD-ROM Drive Shared with CD-RW drive
DVD-RW or DVD+RW Drive N/A
Maximum Optical Drive Speeds DVD-ROM 16x, CD-RW 48x write, 32x rewrite, 48x read
Drive Bays Available One 3.5'' (external), one 5.25'' (external)
Total Expansion Slots 3 PCI
Available Expansion Slots 2 PCI
Keyboard Compaq standard
Pointing Device Compaq scroller
USB Ports 6 USB 2.0 (2 front/4 rear)
IEEE 1394 Port 0
Parallel Port 0
Serial Port 0
Other Ports Mic/headphone/line-in
Video Memory Up to 64MB (shared)
3D Graphics Support Integrated Intel® Extreme Graphics
Modem V.92-ready data/fax
Network Interface Card (NIC) Yes
Audio Card Integrated audio
Speaker Type N/A
Speakers Included In Box? No
Operating System and Vendor Utility Software Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Productivity Software Included Microsoft® Works 7.0, Office 2003 Trial (60-day Student/Teacher), Norton Antivirus 2004 (60 days updates), Norton Personal Firewall 2003 (60 days updates), Money Standard 2004, Quicken New User Ed., Encarta Plus, Adobe Reader 6.0, InterMute Web Protection
Internet Software Included AOL® dial-up (trial)/Broadband trial, MSN dial-up (trial)/Premium (trial), Earthlink dial-up (trial), PeoplePC Online dial-up (trial)/MaxSpeed (trial)
Educational/Entertainment Software Included Apple iTunes for Windows®, InterVideo WinDVD SE player, Sonic RecordNow, RealPlayer, Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Ed., WildTangent GameChannel (10-game preview)
I'm an OSS fan in general. Linux, FreeBSD, OO, KOffice and all... but if Linux is so successful on the desktop, why do we keep reporting it? How come we never report on the mac desktop or windows desktops being successful?
Just playing devil's advocate.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
When is Linux going to get a unified driver architecture? I want binary compatibility. I can use WDM drivers from Windows 98SE upwards with Windows XP and 2003 - I can't use week old Linux drivers. The only drivers available for my hardware are for Linux 2.4.x :(
How ironic that the same people who preached that quantity != quality, and that linux was better despite less marketshare, are now hooting about how they've surpassed Apple's marketshare. Why does it matter? I thought it wasn't important...
How ironic that the same people who have moaned and bitched about monopolies are now making jokes about an ultimate goal of "world domination".
I don't want to live in a world where everyone uses Linux. I don't want to live in a world where everyone uses Macs. I don't want to live in a world where everyone uses Windows. I want to live in a world where people are not locked into one platform, and are free to choose the tool that suits them best. My only objection to MS, really, was their strong-arm tactics to keep Linux, BSD, etc from even getting their foot in the door with PC manufacturers. There has been quite a bit of progress in that department ("secure" PC collusion between MS and BIOS companies notwithstanding) which is why the Linux-specific server vendors are now struggling; there's no market for them, because you can buy a Gateway, Dell, HP, or IBM certified to run at least one distribution of Linux, complete with hardware tools for monitoring and whatnot.
Please help metamoderate.
Yup we always see and read Linux vs windowz... let's make it OpenSource vs Windowz :) as most of linux softwares runs well on BSD OS also.
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
Instead of windows.slashdot.org ?
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
booya!
Not to take anything away from the Linux camp, but celebrations may be premature in thinking that they exceed the Mac base in home or business.
This article claims that Linux marketshare has overtaken Apple's Mac OS marketshare, but without proof or source. Like the presidential campaigns, you should never simply take something as fact just because someone has stated it. Just because I say, "John Kerry secretly played Lurch in the 'Addams Family'" doesn't make it true (although the image is rather funny to me).
Frequently here and elsewhere pundits confuse marketshare (the percentage of a company's computers sold in relation to the total sum of all computers sold) with installed base (the percentage of a particular company's computers in use in comparison to their competition).
I do believe that Apple has as marketshare between 3% and 6% for its Macintosh line. (Let's not get into the iPods, where they enjoy a 75%+ marketshare--reminiscent of the company's similar marketshare in the late 70's computer heyday). However, the installed base of Macintosh systems must reside around 15 to 25%. In other words, 1 out of 6 or 1 out of 5 computers IN USE are likely Macintosh systems.
My proof? The Macintosh software industry. Do you think these companies, from Apple itself, to game distributors such as Aspyr, from Microsoft and their Office software, to graphic software companies like Adobe and Quark, could survive from the sales of software to only 3% of the total marketshare? No. Would they survive on the sales of a larger installed base? Likely.
My estimate is simplistic, of course, and does not fully account for systems that are older than 5 years and cannot run Mac OS X, of which most software made now requires to operate. Also, the 3% marketshare that Apple sells is stil a HUGE market of over 800,000 computers per quarter (their numbers).
Linux can't easily be compared in this instance. For one, Linux is a commodity, but not to any one company, so you cannot fix its sales or lack thereof to any one entity. Two, because of the lack of a single source of sales and the availability of the software to anyone who can download it, determining an installed base, much less a marketshare, is difficult.
In my couple of decades in working in businesses with Windows domains in the publishing and engineering worlds, I have counted a handful (I could count them on my fingers) of Linux systems in a business or professional environment. Hopefully there is a way to determine a true number of deployments, but I don't believe it from this article based on my personal experience of not seeing more boxen in the workplace.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Sweet lord, I just accidentally modded this up as "+1 Informative." Is it possible to have "Karma: Retarded?"
shh - YHBT - don't bite again
if I have to read one more post on the same old Linux and Windows crap.
- a floppy doesn't hold much
- Apple doesn't include floppy drives
- old floppy drives are full of dust
- modern floppy drives are unreliable decorations
- modern floppy disks are unreliable
- when the floppy door bends, it destroys your drive
- floppies are slow
- the computer detects CD insertion, not floppy insertion
There once was a time when you could rely on a floppy to hold your data. Now, you need to put copies on several disks while hoping that the drive used for writing won't have different head alignment than the drive used for reading.Once again, ESR's aggressive posturing makes the front headlines. A healthy system is a diverse system, and believe it or not, there is an appropriate niche for MS. We should not be seeking world domination (ESR be damned), but rather a balance within our current system. Those who need closed-source systems should be able to access those systems, and those who need OSS systems should have equally unfettered access. MS is an out of control parasite at the moment, but even parasites have their place in our mechanical ecology.
An all Linux world is not necessarily a Good Thing.
P.S. ESR, shut up you spoiled brat.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
Sweet lord, I just undid all my moderation by forgetting that you can't comment in a discussion you're moderating! Is it possible to have "Karma: *Seriously* Retarded?"
"elitist" nerds are the *only* reason you even have a home desktop computer and ANY operating system that joe average-the cusp of mainstream, who have adopted them- can use. Early adopters and innovators and inventors mostly tend to be elitist because they are usually significantly more intelligent than any median in a given population. It makes them not want to hangout or interact with a large segment of the people around them in meatspace, and vice versa-they are just...too different, and that leads to involved sociological happenstances.
I'm not saying this should be, just that it is.
I'm just wondering why does everyone want to fight Microsoft? I mean, yes, they make a ton of money, and yes they control everything. But hey, we live in a capitalistic society. If you dont like it, dont buy it. I presonally use Linux on daily basis. I also use Windows as often. No offense to Linux guys, but have you ever tried to hook up a new wireless network card on an old Dell laptop running Linux? I've tried it. I had to rebuild kernel, install a ton of rpm (running redhat9) and do many other things just to get a message that this type of configuration isn't supported yet. I got it configured after about a week, but I'm an IT professional. I do this stuff for a living and enjoy the struggle. I just don't see an accountant trying to get a wireless connection so he can get some work done while watching Survivor go through all this. I just don't understand why people physically hate a company that did a good job marketing their product ...
That's the real flame war you'll find here. The Apple folks will whine endlessly about how market share it not important. It is. Mozilla has turned the corner and Linux has surpassed Apple. If you want a real "circle jerk" , check out an "Apple Topic" thread.
"I just saved a lot of money by switching to Linux..."
The Penguin Producer
Just,
Thought of this one.
First MS argues that Linux has a higher TCO than Windows.
But, doesn't that by definition mean there is more money being spent on services, etc.
So therefore. how can they then argue that a business cannot make money selling Linux?
Caution: Contents under pressure
Walmart only cares that it can sell $300 computers and undercut other competitors who sell $500 computers with Windows on it. The fact that the $300 computer has Linux on it does not matter, as Walmart does not provide tech support, and Walmart figures the buyer will not be smart enough to notice that until they get it home and unpack it and set it up. Then the buyer goes back to Walmart and buys a copy of Windows XP for $300 and MS-Office Pro for $500, or they bootleg a copy from a friend or relative or their work or college. No matter what the buyer does with the system, Walmart wins. Also Walmart has a strict exchange policy on opened computer products.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
...older PCs that have had windows taken off and replaced with linux. I bet every guy here-and around the world- who has ever run linux has done that, yet, it appears in no market surveys. That number has to be vastly higher than people who have never used linux and bought a brand new blank machine just to install linux, or got one with windows and then replaced it. We are right now seeing the opening salvos of serious numbers of machines coming with linux installed right from the beginning, so I think it's too early to say how successful it will be, but given the momentum and the huge worldwide interewst, my loot will be on linux or a linux styled free operating system becoming very common and even dominant within ten years or so. The last holdouts will be gamers, because increasingly, that's about all windows is useful for given it's apparent inability to ever be secure. Business is tired of getting burned, and consumers are past getting tired of it, many of them have now dropped significant money going -with new machines every time- from win 95 to 98 then to XP and it's still broken. You've hit the magic pain threshold with consumers,3 strikes and you are out, it's psychological, brand recognition is such now that people think windows=bugs, and as soon as they physically see with their eyeballs something that works as least as good and for a cheaper price they will switch, FUD not with standing. The biggest problem right now,IMO, is not seeing linux in retail space on running demo machines. As soon as that is cracked with some of the big chains you'll see an avalanche of switching.
The rise of commodity hardware didn't eliminate the corporation. It did marginalize former gatekeepers. But it also spawned new corporations - and created new gatekeepers who discovered the new keys, as it were.
But the overall effect was positive. Commodity hardware created choice and fostered competition. It brought about a faster cycle for technology. It drove more competative prices. And it spawned a considerably larger marketplace. Good for business. Good for the consumer.
The rise of commodity operating systems will do the same thing. Former gatekeepers will find that their keys, while usefull, won't unlock the only paths available; their importance will lessen. New business oportunities will be available and new (and old) corporate interests will pursue them (and we'll very likely end up with a new gatekeepers). And again - the overall effect will be positive as the consumer gets additional choice and business gets additional oportunity.
A key point here is that the corporation does not end. By the very nature of the industry, we are dependant on them. When a gatekeeper talks about the end of business, they're really talking about the end of THEIR business.
The focus shouldn't be on corporations anyway. There's nothing wrong with corporate interest per se. However, by the nature of the beast, it should be kept in check. And the best tool to do that is choice. Business interests that wish to retain customers will have to curb activities that upset them... as long as the customer has a choice.
Choice is the real power of these commodity markets; the real opportunity and threat of Linux and it's like. Some will fight it. Others will embrace it. And it won't always be the entities you expect or approve of.
&nblthomer>
Woo-hoo! We're number 2! We're number 2!
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
The Open Source revolution is a complex economic revolution at least as much as it is a social phenominon. IBM doesn't care about the revolution either so much as it cares about its own bottom line too.
And the road to open source, like the road from feudalism or communism to capitalism is a one-way road. Once open source becomes established in a market, the trend cannot be reversed.
Stay tuned for more.
(also you might find my blog interesting: http://ossne.blogspot.com as this is right on topic)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
everyone will be forced to use CP/M with a 64K memory limitation and all other OSes will be outlawed! I'd bring Wordstar back into business as well as Visicalc. I'll force Mac, Linux, and Windows users to use CP/M. Then I'll laugh as they try to figure out what PIP does and why it was named that and not something user friendly like copy. Muahahahhaahahahahaahah! Plus the two offical languages will be FORTRAN and COBOL, everything else will be banned. Bwaahahaahahahahahahahha!
;)
Only then will CP/M have 100% marketshare and exist for every computer in existance! The CP/M user groups will thank me for this.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Thats what you get when you treat collectives as individuals.
The "same" people? What do you mean by that?
Linux fans? Yessirr! Two linux fans, one preaches quantity!=quality and one doesn't. Why do you think linux fans will agree about everything?
But even then you should see that although quality!=quantity its nice to see lots of people enjoying the quality at a fair price.
Those linux fans who gave for free hours of support to new linux users, and those who spenthours making software usable for OTHERS (yes, some do that, not the ones who whinge "it works for me" - at least not onthe same day) - THOSE linux fans, of course they arepleased with quality.
You don't want to live in a world where everyone uses Linux. Well, thats easy, just don't use linux. But it looks by that statement that you are again trying to constrain the "masses" into a nice well behaved singular that suites you.
Maybe I'm wrong, but thats how your irony looks to me.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
In my department with about 200+ computers there, are 3 computers running Linux. One of them is a webserver I set up, so that can't be counted as a desktop user. The other two Linux boxes are set up by the same graduate student (who claims Windows and Mac OSX is the same, then comes to me the next day asking how to set up his bashrc file correctly. I have no intention of getting into some OS religious arguement with some one who's made up their mind) . The rest of the computers are running Windows, Mac OSX (20+) , Sun Solaris, HP-UX, SGI Irix and finally Linux in desending order. As for most departments, I haven't seen an over whelming shift to Linux yet. One or two departments have been pushing Linux hard for this platform and have succeeded in their transistion but most of the computers on campus use Windows and then second Mac OSX. Perhaps in the future, I estimate in 3-4 years a sea change in Linux adoption may happen. But lack of solid equivalients to commercial software hurts the Linux platform for now (Office, Adobe, Macromedia ...etc). Most people would like a native application rather than using a Wine emulator
hack to run Windows applications on x86 Linux boxes. Until then, my recommendations for my users has been to use Mac OSX, to have the best of both worlds. If the application they need to run over 20% of the time only runs on Windows without a Mac OSX equivalent and Virtual PC performance won't cut it, I recommend they get a Windows XP computer.
For details Visit here, at least until that server gets Slashdotted. ;)
Linspire/Lindows is a good idea, but it markets towards the newbies who don't know what a Unix shell is or how to use it. I switched recently to HDInstall version of KNOPPIX and reformatted my Linspire partition. Linspire's CNR program got upset that I used rpm and apt-get to install libraries that it thought were bad, and it tried to remove them, yet it failed to do so. There was a picture of a guy hanging by his underware on a hook in the error dialog message. I just said frell it, download the KNOPPIX 3.4 ISO, and do a HDInstall, and use QPartD to reformat the drive.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I have three linux boxes and one Powerbook... The Linux boxes are for experimental purposes: how good is that desktop, what can I do on it, etc. And it IS good, really good. I could even use it for my daily homestuff.
... nice desktop too, but only accounting for 2% of my time.
However, I have to do my workrelated stuff at my Powerbook... and while I'm at it, I organise my pictures, my music, synchronise my smartphone, Ipod and more of those 'little' things.
After turning it off, I power up one of those Linux boxes. Nice operating systems
I don't care what other people run. I didn't start using Linux because that's what everyone else was running (obviously, because at the time I started Slackware just released their first CD-based distro).
Why do people insist on the Windows vs Linux comparisons. Some people can run Linux, some people can run MacOS X and others can run Windows. It's really up to me to decide what I want to run, not the rest of the world.
The important news is that we have a choice, not that Linux is becoming more popular. If you cared about popularity you would be running Windows, and obviously you are not because you're posting about Linux. And don't tell me that now that Linux is more popular it's becoming a choice for people, because that's not true at all. Some people have selected Windows purely because it is the most popular OS. If you're goal is to get those people to use Linux, well you have a very long way to go before people will choose Linux.
But the real question I have is why do you even care what other people do with their computers?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Each of those have already been done. Hell I haven't used a non-graphical tool to configure a printer in a couple of years. When I bought my digital camera I discovered the command line tools far after starting with the graphical tools.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
I think that as Linux really takes off, it will dominate the world, but probably not to the extent that Microsoft does today. Indeed, it may open up markets for other open source OS's such as the BSD's which are somewhat suppressed at the moment.
The BSD class of operating systems, although they have been very innovative, have been suppressed in market share because their code has often become the reference code in other operating systems. I think with the destruction of proprietary competition, businesses will be more willing to invest in BSD development.
Also, the whole notion of open source will allow many people to try many different open source environments with a minimum of effort. This will allow any open source environment which is self-sustaining to be better able to compete than they can today because the cultural aspects will be more deeply rooted.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
From the article: It had a respectable 1.6-gigahertz processor, a serviceable 40-gigabyte hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, an MP3 player, and enough other software to keep me occupied for life.
I've never seen a PC with an optional MP3 player. That's all built into the combination of OS, software, Sound card, and speakers/headphones.
Linux comes with many printer drivers. Windows
relys on vendor-provided driver disks, which tend
to get lost.
Sometimes Linux comes with a nice mp3 player in
the menus. Windows doesn't have this.
The news on CNN is just fine, excepting the video.
That would work fine too if it wasn't patented.
Windows can't rip a CD-ROM. In trying to install
something for this, the Windows user will usually
end up installing spyware, adware and a spamming
engine.
You'll have to pay extra to burn a CD from Windows. Also, see above: spyware, adware...
Wallpaper is easy to change, either way, except
that Windows won't support as many image formats.
Most any program you could download will already
come with the Linux box.
Depending on your Windows version, you might be
violating the EULA if you set up a web server.
You'll also get your site broken into in minutes.
Linux typically comes up in high-resolution by
default, while Windows is in 640x480. Why change?
Windows won't let you find every file. Many are
hidden by default. Some, like *.LNK files, are
totally impossible to find. Linux can do it.
Point 1: Apple's support lists the highest in the Consumer Report Index. Below are more example from PC Magazine survey
Desktop survey
Laptop survey
Please note PC Magazine Reader's choice
Point 2: Many companies are looking to Apple Xserve as a competive equivalent. Just as other goverments are looking at Linux as an alternative to Windows.
Apple sells supercomputer sequel
Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts
The "Big Mac" Supercomputer Biz
Your evaluation of Apple is clearly uninformed.
Browser identification is a BAD METHOD of determining what platform people are using. Look at Opera and Mozilla/Firefox - they default to "identify as MSIE6" for compatability.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
How Useless Steve Jobs and Apple is... Probably catch some slack on here for this one
I am not sure that it is Microsoft's profit margins which help us. Rather it is the fact that a proprietary development firm, such as Microsoft, has very little ability to spread the cost of development out as efficiently as a an open source project.
Take Internet Explorer for example. Its development is a cost center for Microsoft because it doesn;t directly make them any profit. However, Mozilla is better able to innovate because such innovation is more costly for Microsoft.
Cost and not profit are driving the open revolution.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Lots of people are stuck buying a useless copy
of Windows with a new PC. It goes both ways.
By sales figures, I must be running MacOS 9.
Nope, I run Linux.
Linux isn't just an operating system. At a minimum, it's the center-piece of a community/sub-culture. At the extreme end of the scale, it's the figure-head of a new software religion.
And like all religions, it will have its fanatical adherents. Fanatics aren't exactly known for a "live and let live" mentality. The problem is exacerbated by Microsoft's historically anti-competitive behavior. Because Microsoft was so aggressive, all the fanatics believe that they are entitled, no obligated, to exterminate Microsoft at any cost. So now, Microsoft isn't just the market leader to beat. In the eyes of those who feel Microsoft's influence and products are evil, they are to be exterminated at any cost.
If you want to be neutral in this debate, you'll just have to ignore all the inflammatory blathering on both sides. Those of us who know better will eat the lunch of those who cannot dispose of, or otherwise keep their technological religions on the back burner. I believe that the rising popularity of Open Source products of any kind keeps the spurs on companies like Microsoft, IBM, and others. The rising quality of proprietary products in turn keeps the spurs on the Open Source community to keep being better than they are. It's a complete symbiosis for now, and I hope it continues in this vein for a long time to come.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Customer: "What !, I don't have to worry about viruses and spyware, I don't need to pay ££££s for WinXP + OfficeXP !! ".
Me: "1 down, 99,999,999 to go !!".
Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
why do you even care what other people do with their computers?
I care because I dont like to see peoples trust abused, I dont like to think of people using a flawed product that they paid good money for. I dont like to see people suffering with viruses, pop-up advertising and spyware.
I would be happy to see my friends using a product that offered freedom from these things, and that I wouldnt be needed from time to time to make damn sure the keep their systems patched. Most people are not very religious at keeping up to speed on this.
I care because my Apache logs are routinely full of IIS worm/virus variants requesting non existant files and thats stealing my bandwidth.
I care because of spam, and self executing emails propogating through outlook express that end up in my email box.
The point that I am making is that there are many very real reasons for non-windows users to care what their friends are using, and they are not neccesarily just because of Microsoft hatred or Linux zealotry. Is due to a genuine desire to make their lifes and our lifes and the lives of others better, not just for now but for the future.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Do you see Wal-Mart advertising Linux systems in print, on tv? Nope. It is all Windows. In our metro Sunday papers, thick with back-to-school promotions, not a single add for Linux.
I meant this post as a response to this post. I'll repost it there.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sorry the deck isn't stacked against Walmart.
It is stacked against certain behaviours.
As long as everyone is under the same laws, it is a fair competative environment. Walmart just needs to create a new strategy.
And in other news, MS and NBC are about to break up.
Seems the 8-year partnership is doomed and Microsoft is "fuming" over having to pay huge licensing fees to General Electric as part of the deal. Looks like the shoe is now on the other foot. Hey Microsoft!!! How does it feel to be forced to take a bitter dose of your own medicine?
Sams and Walmart have different models. Anyone compare? I might just buy one soon. Or would Noppix be just as easy?
Linux isn't just an operating system. At a minimum, it's the center-piece of a community/sub-culture. At the extreme end of the scale, it's the figure-head of a new software religion.
And like all religions, it will have its fanatical adherents. Fanatics aren't exactly known for a "live and let live" mentality. The problem is exacerbated by Microsoft's historically anti-competitive behavior. Because Microsoft was so aggressive, all the fanatics believe that they are entitled, no obligated, to exterminate Microsoft at any cost. So now, Microsoft isn't just the market leader to beat. In the eyes of those who feel Microsoft's influence and products are evil, they are to be exterminated at any cost.
If you want to be neutral in this debate, you'll just have to ignore all the inflammatory blathering on both sides. Those of us who know better will eat the lunch of those who cannot dispose of, or otherwise keep their technological religions on the back burner. I believe that the rising popularity of Open Source products of any kind keeps the spurs on companies like Microsoft, IBM, and others. The rising quality of proprietary products in turn keeps the spurs on the Open Source community to keep being better than they are. It's a complete symbiosis for now, and I hope it continues in this vein for a long time to come.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Let me get one thing straight first. I'm a Linux user. I don't like Microsoft, in fact I just turned down a job offer from them. That said, let me continue.
Why is it that everytime anyone writes an article about how great Linux is compared to Windows we have to post it here on Slashdot? Are there really that few people who like Linux that we have to make a big deal out of every single random person who extols the benefits of Linux over Windows. Give me a break. This isn't news. Why post articles that establish opinions that practically everyone here already agrees with? All it does is result in a flamewar between the few Windows users here and the rest of us.
No more stupid Linux vs Windows posts please!
That article is not accurate , and is even downright incomplete.
:
... are not taken into account , and as I alluded Google is one search engine among many others , not everyone use it.
:Intel x86 / IA-32 ("i386"),Motorola 68k ("m68k"),Sun SPARC ("sparc"),Alpha ("alpha"),Motorola/IBM PowerPC ("powerpc"), ARM ("arm"), MIPS CPUs ("mips" and "mipsel"),HP PA-RISC ("hppa"),IA-64 ("ia64"), S/390 ("s390"),AMD64, etc ...
GNU/Linux desktop use is currently around 10% , how do I know , I take 100 milion + download every month of all the GNU/Linux distribution vs 20 000 thousand ( all Apple "desktop" type computer confonded , including powerbooks) Apple computer sold in a month.
What the Wired account is omiting is this
- Most Brand name Computer dont ship with GNU/Linux , it (GNU/Linux) as become the Dual Boot champion OS , People have Windows for game and GNU/Linux for the rest. They instal it after its shipped to them.
- Most of the computer sold worldwide are not from Brand Name but white Box ( 70% to 80% of the computer desktop market ), there is no way to realy account for what those computer have for OS.
- Gnu/Linux as PPC version , some of those Apple box sold are dual booting GNU/Linux , or just GNU/Linux.
The Google Stats is even more innacurate it show the type of browser used to connect to www.google.com , most people using Gnu/Linux and using Google ( they dont all use Google ) use http://www.google.com/linux , and its for the English users only. www.google.it , google.fr , google.nl , etc
And Also about the google observation , GNU/Linux users hide what they are using and there browser and OS show them as using IE and a type of Windows , because some site dont behave properly when you tell them your using GNU/linux.
Finaly Gnu/Linux is made to run on everything
And add to those fact that Worlwide Apple dont have retail store everywhere or even some localised version and that OS X dont even run on old Apple. Where GNU/Linux does.
And finally Marketshare is for company and people who like numbers , its irellevant in a Gnu/Linux world, where 2000 instalation done at an instalfest whont be taken into account. Frankly people instal Gnu/Linux for themself , and the Market as done absolutely nothing up until now to help the GNU/Linux desktop , its being built by the same volunteer/company who made it so popular on the server , there not going to stop improving it because you fasely think marketshare is of value to anyone.
I wonder just how many of these econo systems are being bought and have an illegal copy of Windows installed without Linux ever even being booted. Not that I'm saying this to get on the Linux crowds nerves but I wonder how many OS-less systems are sold without a copy of a retail OS like Windows. How many of these same systems never see a freeware OS?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Mine works perfectly every time I reboot!
You can burn those to a CD-R.
(the El Torito spec allows for bootable CDs)
PC hardware has supported booting from CD for
nearly a decade now. Get with the times!
Get your next PC without a floppy. You'll save
space in the case, get better airflow by eliminating
the cables, and save a dollar or two.
I've been hearing this tune since 1997.
That's 7 years now, and Linux is no closer today than it was in 1997... in fact it's actually quite further behind. Everybody I know who flirted with Linux back a few years ago has dumped it and is running Windows XP.
Honestly can't believe this post was rated insightful.
Fleekfff! Fleekfff! Fleekfff Fleekfff Fleekfff!
And what's your "street cred"? Sounds like you're the douchbag, douchbag. Eric S. Raymond has written over 50 essays, parodies, commentaries, and more. He is a well educated, well spoken individual (which is infinitely more than can be said for you...) who has helped about as much as anyone else who has made a huge impact or made great inroads toward widespread acceptance of OSS.
When you say one important paper - did you mean "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" or "The Art of Unix Programming" (or another work)? Both are great, but I just remembered - the latter is a book. So... what the hell have you ever done for anyone (besides insult them and make yourself look like a jackass) and, uh, who the hell are you?
PS you cornhole: He's still writing essays and commentaries that are more interesting than your trolling. Just because no one in real life ever wants to hear from you, doesn't mean slashdotters do want to hear from you. If I take a karma hit, it'll still be worth it to put trash like you in your place.
========
77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
How many "anonymous cowards" are here?
.....does WINE support bonzi buddy?
Spyware on my Windows box at home was the final straw - I don't know what the hell it was, but it managed to get through ZoneAlarm, past Spybot, past two antivirus packages and was taking pot shots at PestPatrol.
.ogg files, write letters to Grandma, and burn backup CDs straight out of the box.
So, last week, I said "enough is enough" and migrated to Mandrake 10.0.
So far, I've been pretty impressed. I had some teething problems setting up, but nothing too drastic - I just had to configure my video card manually during install.
I can browse the web, get email, play my
I have a win2k boot option too, in case there's something I *really* need to do under Windows, but I doubt I'll use it much at home. When I get around to it, I will be disabling its networking capability completely (so far, I just yank the cable before booting into Windows).
So count me in on the desktop revolution, boys'n'girls.
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
Also, I think you're "study" of Apple's market share is exteremly generalized, and seems to draw solely on your impression of Apple use. Claiming that their installed base MUST be anything is ridiculous. I'm sure IDC's numbers aren't exact, but I'll take their market research with a smaller grain of salt than your suppositions. If I took my impression and multiplied it out, Apple would have a
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
UnsaltedButterRules writes: "Somebody's-blog-somewhere-has-gotta have a great article discussing how plain, unsalted butter sold at stores such as Piggly-Wiggly, and the growth of unsalted butter consuption has made unsalted butter a 'key business risk' for our friends in the salted butter industry. The story notes that unsalted butter's market share for bread-buttering alone has already surpassed soy spread's. Says the Unsalted Butter Initiative's H.E. Pennypacker, 'The sinister plan for a buttery -- but all-together saltless! -- world is right on schedule.' All right!"
L et's-Jump-To-Some-Conclusions Article".
If nobody's written that article, could someone get on it please? It wouldn't be quite -- quite -- as interesting as this one, but at least it'd be NEW. I'd much rather read that article than "This Week's 2374th Some-People-Bought-Some-Linux-Stuff-Somewhere-So-
And don't ask why I used un/salted butter above. I'm really not sure... <scared>
There is no goddamn revolution. There is no longer a prospect of "revolutionary" ideals. The fact is, the bottom line is all anyone one this earth is looking for. Open Source should poop or get off the pot. The facts are that open source is not revolutiuonary - it's a reflex based on whos making money and who is jealous of it. It's more a protest MS-borg action than a future thinking utopia where everything is free. Did we learn nothing from the hippies?
Besides, MS is just as "open source" if you think about it's security system.
Anyone who cares more about what OS they are using and where it came from (walmart vs compusa) is simply uninformed and unexperienced in real world technology management.
It's the same basic biogotry based on an effort to reduce options and choice in the marketplace- which is exactly what the tactic open source puports to hate. What should be hated in this day and age is that 'revolution' itself has been redefined to mean 'more market share'. That is what is being fought for, market share. Certainly isn't being driven by some ideal utopian-ish revolution.
I've been in this game for ten years and nothing tires me more than this debate.
It is not even open source vs MS is (tm)logo vs (tm)logo and the real issues all revole around intellectual property in a digital age. If you are at all serious about open source, you should be writting your senator to change the laws in place, not flaunting your ego on some blog or another.
The article does not address my real concern, which is that MS "buys" new laws or "buys" DRM which eliminate Linux in the US (and then in Europe when the EU adopts "US rules" (on copyright, etc.)).
I feel inclined to send a link to the article to colleagues using MS. On the other hand, if you are using MS, how smart are you anyway? (Sigh)
What's amusing about your post, is that you depict the road to open source as being like the road from communism to capitalism. If you really look at the organization of the open source community, you'll see that it follows a more communal approach than a capitalistic one.
When I look at Soviet Communism, what I see is a monolithic culture where the state, in almost feudal fashion, ran everything. Communism, I think, *has* worked for limited times in limited places for the same reason that other dictatorial state-control based systems have worked, particularly for certain types of unpopular but necessary infrastructure development. However, at a certain point, state control breaks down. I think that this is to a large extent what Marx was talking about in the progression from Feudalism to Capitalism. So Soviet Communism is merely Feudalism backed by Marxist propaganda. Socialism is of course just capitalism with some additional wealth redistribution.
The move to capitalism from either of these state-controled systems involves the decentralization of control. This decentralization allows for greater economic agility, provided that the required infrastructure is available.
So to, when you move from corporate control to ad-hoc social network control (even if at the center is a corporation or foundation, the network as a whole is still the primary influence on the development of the project), we should see the same trend-- the movement from a concrete control structure toward one which is more abstract and agile.
This approach to production more closely resembles (Marxist) psychologist Wilhelm Reich's concept or "Work Democracy" than it does Soviet Communism. But what exists today to make this possible (but did not exist in Reich's day) is the existance of inexpensive, ripid worldwide communication. This is what fundamentally makes this possible.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
If it's a Microtel from less than 3 years ago, it should be an Intel winmodem. If so, the modem is Linux compatible. You need to contact Microtel, and they'll give you the driver info for windows (including the exact page buried deeply within the Intel site), as well as the specifics on the modem for Linux.
Or just try booting a Knoppix disk, and reading dmesg. And you can even install Debian with Knoppix if you get a disk to check the modem, but I'd recommend Mepis or the Sarge release instead of Knoppix, so you can avoid the experimental packages and the knoppix user.
JDS was a poor choice, but you probably didn't know that then, or you wouldn't have selected it. Should have gone with Suse if that was available, or Mandrake, or several other good choices. Most of these distros are available now as choices with the Microtel/Walmart/Tigerdirect, and have been for quite some time. Avoid the Lindows/Linspire, unless you like it and are prepared to make a lot of changes, as it runs everything as root.
Yes that is one interpretation, however not the actual point I wished to make.
More appropriate is if they law on writing was to use pen, and to write double spaced with blue ink. That would be 'fair'.
I think handness is similar to many other inheirant traits, that while applicable to people, don't correspond to similar traits in corporations.
I think corporations are a set of particular behaviours.
Anyway, I'm rambling, and from your post I gather you understand my point, whether you disagree or not.
The revolution isn't really about good and evil for most companies. It is about cost. Does this make it corrupt? Maybe by some definitions.
Look, I don't like Walmart anymore than anyone else, but each additional inroad that is made will begin to profoundly transform our economy. Walmart may or may not be even an ally. They are just a venue of attack. Do they care? Only if they can make a buck. Does it matter?
What is more significant, however, is that open source is making inroads into the desktop.
I do agree that the Linux vs Windows stuff is less than important. What is more important is how open source will make inroads into other areas of use. So for now, at least, it is relevant.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The other thing that makes this work is the fact that it is voluntary. If I don't want to write code for OSS, I don't have to. The code is written in a distributed manner by people who wish to write the code.
This can't really apply to a governmental system, because it would require the willingness to participate by all governed individuals. There is always going to be people who procrastinate, or those who just flat out refuse to participate.
De-centralized control only works amongst the willing, the ones who have made the choice to contribute.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Look at the chart showing Linux's market share. The highest percentage shown is 6% (its projected market share in 2006). If a chart of the full range of percentages were displayed at the same scale it couldn't be shown on a single page. You'd have to go to page 2 and scroll to the bottom to find Linux.
As for the projection of 6% in 2006, it doesn't seem to be supported by the trend in the actual data. It looks like growth slowed by about 90% in 2002-2003 as compared to 2001-2002.
This is what is the best part of Linux - it opens up the source and creates open standards. It keeps people away from one company lock in. I want to ge where I want to go not where some proprietary software company wants me to go. Look at the xp2 packages - it is almost 300 meg - and the original cd that xp came on was 700 meg that is roughly 40% of the original program. that is not a patch package that is a rewrite. gee - that isn't going to cause any problems is it? I upgraded my boxes using apt and yum one reboot and nothing broke - this is why I use open source. it is just better and it works so I get on with my work!!
Comparing Mandrake's latest with Microsoft's latest sounds fair to me. The fact that Microsoft's latest is as old as Debian is irrelevant.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
So it is alright to support a corporation that is far more evil that Microsoft just because they sell Linux PC's? Let us start with labor. Walmart just cut the times they give raises to a period that was 2-3 times longer than before and lessened the amount given per raise. Are they short on money? Not even, their profits are higher than ever. There is also a policy to hire, wait the three months, tell the employee to improve the next month and they will be permanent and get their grace period raise, and then fire them on the fourth month hiring date so they won't have to pay them their raise. It happened to me and about 50 others I have been able to find in the city I live in alone. This is company policy and Linux advocates support this? Walmart is not the answer, they are the most vile corporation on the planet.
I am not trying to start a flame here, just want to state issues that I have with Linux from a small business owner standpoint.
Keep in mind, there are a lot of small business owners out there running machines. It is a huge market.
Also, a small business owner has a business to run, and does not have time to mess with keeping computers operational.
Here are the issues:
1) Linux is no cheaper than Windows for my size of operation. I am not going to mess with building my OS, I want it off the shelf.
2) There are fewer Linux support folks out there. They cost me more. Simple economics.
3) When I want to buy new hardware, how the heck do I know if I can get driver support from Linux? Any hardware I look at tells me on the box if it will work with Windows or not. In all fairness, this is getting better with the large name vendors like HP and IBM.
4) Application software. Just about any accountant that I can find knows plenty of accounting packages that run on Windows. The Linux options are a lot fewer and far between. Finding a local accountant that knows them is even harder. Personally, I don't want to change accountants just to change accounting software.
5) The GOOD news is that applications like OpenOffice are good enough. I don't like them as much as Office, but they are good enough to get the job done. However, the temps you can hire usually know Office, they don't know OpenOffice. I am sure that time will fix this one.
In a nutshell, Linux handles the technical issues well. It has a LONG way to go on the usabilty and integration fronts.
I recently got a new printer and tried to install it on my dual-boot system under Windows. I kept getting "missing driver" errors. I rebooted to Mandrake 10 and it immedeately detected the new hardware and loaded the drivers off the Mandrake CD.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
This is another way in which the move to open source parallels the movement from feudalist communism to capitalism.
Open source offers many additional opportunities for people to contribute as they see fit, when compared to traditional corporate models of control.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
AOL was in the position of widespreading the use of Mozilla while they owned Netscape and most of the Mozilla coders where actually paid by AOL. What did they do ? They ditched Netscape and signed another agreement with Microsoft in order to continue to use IE.
If they did not have the guts to choose the free browser because of its few rendering discrepancies, I don't think they would go through the trouble of selling "cheap computers that don't even run MS office". Hell, they'd have to hire an entire additional support staff just to troubleshoot linux problems...
My claim to Apple's installed base MUST have basis because the third-parties that rely on being able to sell a target number of their product would never sell to a small market. This logic is the same business sense that prevents Macintosh users from seeing most new PC games until these games have easily exceeded their sales expectations in that market, and where a Mac port would be just gravy to them.
I could say that IDC has conducted a study about red-assed baboons and their use of Linux. Until someone points out the study name and where to read it, I remain skeptical that they are trying to blow smoke through their ass and into mine. Are you the type of person that believes the commercials where they "say" a nationwide study has proven they are the better product? I want to read the source itself, not this soundbyte of an article.
I used to work for an IDC company. I don't doubt their professionalism, just their data. If the article can point us to the actual study, with its sources and methodology, and when it was conducted, then the article could defend itself. Until then, it's an opinion.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
If you read my reply to the other reply I got, you will see that I am talking specifically about Soviet communism, which I don't think was what Marx was even talking about (Reich presents a convincing argument that the Lenninists severely misinterpreted Marx). My own analysis is that Soviet Communist was to Feudalism what Socialism is to Capitalism. Just a sort of theoretically humane version of the same.
Secondly, what I am talking about spefically is the move from state control to corporate control. And with open source from corporate control to communal control (NOT related to Soviet Communism!, probably closer to what Reich talked about in "Mass Psychology of Fascism" that he called "Work Democracy."
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Seriously, Who are your friends? From your intellectual writing it sounds like you might be working for MS directly, is that true? Come on now, be honest :)
7 years ago, did Linux have more of a market share than Apple
7 years ago, was redhat alone worth more than SUN and Apple put together?
7 years ago, did you even know about Linux, did you even try it on your desktop?
7 years ago was walmart (and now Dell) selling Linux PCs OEM?
7 years ago was it rumored that MS was going to attack the GPL
7 years ago did IBM start showing commercials during Prime Time and the SUPERBOWL advertising LINUX?
7 years ago, where you stll using Windows 95? how about 3.1?
The point is:
7 years is a drop in the bucket to some companies like IBM, AT&T, and Intel.
7 years is a long long time to companies like MS, Apple, SGI
You choose who you want to invest in.
It all comes down to the developers. Without better development tools software developers are going to steer clear of writing sophisticated GUI applications for Linux and are only going to continue writing console applications which have little or no appeal to the general public.
Why do you think there are so many user friendly Windows applications out there? Because Microsoft has invested a lot of time and money creating development environents that are easy to learn and powerful to use. There is a common misconception that when a developer writes a program, he or she shouldn't mind working with arcane and complex build systems. I don't know about you but I'll take Visual Studio any day over vi or emacs.
In my opinion (as a developer myself) programming is difficult enough and a good development environment is needed to keep the focus on developing the product at hand and not on worrying about which version of automake and autoconf is installed. This why there are so many third rate, unpolished apps in Linux.
Whats really funny, ironic, sad, whatever, is that on this topic, we're talking about how Linux has suppassed Apple, (yet who advertises constantly?)
but on the other story for thin clients, it is riddled with large numbers of people (mac users?) who are shouting at the Author to scrap the thin client idea and go for all Macs. (and the moderators are supporting it, as the Mac comments keep getting listed as "Insightful"
For crying out loud, the poor man wanted info on Thin Clients, (will ya shut up about selling macs to anybody and everbody for just one sec so someone can actually put in an informative response?)
The fourm is filled with people bonkin Linux, saying that eMacs is better than a linux terminal. Does that make any sense to anyone? anybody? (...in one corner we have a mac and in the other corner, a blank monitor and a keyboard...this will be a close fight)
But like I said, I appieciate the moderators for giving out high marks to these posts, so at least some of us can get a laugh (and maybe, this will help shed some light on why Apple is falling behind...perhaps its because 90% of their users don't even know what a Mac is good for (so they cover that up by telling people, "Its good for everything, its a true 100% "Cure-all")
Am I the only one who has a problem with shopping at WalMart? Sure, I could go buy a crap PC for a decent price, it has linux installed on it ... great. Your average linux user has no use for this, as the average linux user would prefer a better / more customized approach to hardware...
Then you have your average shmuck walks in, thinks that they are getting some awsome deal. Boots up, and says "What the fuck is this?"... not seeing their standard windows UI. Probobly can't tell the difference between a exe and a linux binary package.... and thinks that he needs nortan on it.
WHICH, after reading the manual and what not ... seeing "Linux", we either have people on linux message boards asking retarted questions .... or we just have more people pirating windows...
or trying to take their hardware back.
I even actually read Cathedral and the Bazaar and I still think ESR is a moronic clown.
The guy is like some kind of bizarre crypto-fascist.
the guy is so lame I actually felt a little embarrassed for him when Linus and the rest of the kernel peeps dissed his wack patch for kernel config.
You know if they accepted it his head would have exploded from self importance, but luckily Linus recongized it for the shit it was and ignored it.
Linus and RMS are real hackers, ESR is just a fucking nerd loser who helped some corporate suits milk investors during the boom days.
"Walmart is just as evil as Microsoft"
No, thats not true.
If walmart was just as evil as MS, we would expect to...
sign wavers everytime we walked in the store
Forced to only shop at Walmart for parts for anything that we already purchased there
Check in once a week to see if there is a new security update for our merchandise
All Sales FINAL
Product information can only be gotten from their website
Realize that every product will be obsolete in 2 years, in which we will have to upgrade to a product twice as expensive.
If we shop at a different store, our products won't be compatible to use Walmart's prodcts
Walmarts Music (Player) CDs will only be available to those who only shop at Walmart, make that, those who Xtra Premium customers, all other customers will have to wait an additional year to never.
Walmarts explorer carts will only be for Walmart Products, and if you try to use anyone else's carts, you will only be able to see half of whats availible.
Walmarts business stragey would be, "If another competitor is better than us, TOO BAD!"
Just some thoughts ^_^
If MS gets into all cars (like they are doing with fiat)...then we will be in real trouble..I bet MS's future will be to be installed into every cpu on the planet, and, you won't be able to install linux on it because of stupid DMCwhetever, made by boring lawyers!! Like, I really trust MS to make an OS for cars, face it, MS is less than compitent to be the worlds biggest OS manufacturer, (like somebody mentioned yesterday, OS theory is not rocket science any more!!), the really ironic twist is that they spend decades making/abandoning buggy software, to now insist that software now-a-days needs better training/liscensing/certification/antivirus/etc... excuse me, MS caused this mess, and they are the solution to it??. We need to tell the lawyers to stuff it, and mod/hack whatever we buy and we reserve the right to communicate that info to any other person we want too!!
There are lies, damned lies and statistics
Whilst I support the Linux cause Eric Raymond espouses, 3% of shipped PCs is hardly cause for celebration.
Funny - I'm the only one willing to post using a login.
;D
You cynical imbecile; where does it say anything about linux in my post? I can't stand some of the stuff about Raymond (e.g. guns), but I stand by what I said about his writing. The only reason for my first post was because some juvenile posted something a lot like yours - a pathetic hate post going nowhere. Read my first one again as if I'm writing to you, potty-mouth.
You may want to keep that tissue to wipe up your ego when you realize I don't give a flying fuck through a rolling donut what you think.
========
77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
Is anybody here advocating doing business with them? Really?
No. We are just commenting on their behavior. Walmart representes a venue in attack rather than an ally. Walmart's interest has nothing to do with alliances, and just a little to do with the few bucks they can make by being the venue.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
What we need is a special open source licence that excludes microsoft and it's subsidiaries, or any companies that have issued demonstratable public statements/actions against open source software (or its supporters) or demonstrated publicly, willingness to destroy the open source model?? Can this legally be done?
When Microsoft dominates desktops, it's like an iron fist with an iron grip that'll punch your lights out if you cross it.
When Linux dominates desktops, it's more like everybody's hanging onto it. If anybody doesn't like it, s/he can open up their hand and see what's inside and change it. If it is, finally, just not worth it anymore, everybody can just let go of it.
Yeah yeah, crappy analogy, but I hope you know what I mean.
Little off the subject but has anyone noticed msn.com looks a little off, ie missing most of the formatting? As for walmart selling open source... %3 is a nice start but to cut into those big profit margins your going to have to talk atleast 15% - 25%
Humm, let's see... Linux is UNIX, everything is a file. What is everything in Windows ? A mess maybe ?
I'd be more interested to know how many Windows users are using google for seraching Linux topics then how many Linux users are using Google.
... decision to undercut PC retialers by excluding the MS tax is that, if the idea works and many people purchase these systems, Walmart will start to turn a serious profit on this initiative.
As soon as Walmart starts to turn a serious profit, financial media will pick up and drive the success story home and in turn, everyday media will cover the story, putting the situation in the face of the consumer.
Walmart's competition picks up on the idea, and to compete, mimmicks the intiative and toughly markets the new initiative to everyday consumers as opposed to a random HP announcement that jumps out at us Slahdot readers and is forgotten by the general MS-using public.
If more vendors than Walmart start to push these low-end Linux systems, Linux adoption will begin to grow at a much faster rate.
When executives and other corporate decision-makers start buying these systems for their kids, and start asking questions of their IT staff when expensive budgets cross their desks, the rest is history.
- Have you ever noticed that the more you learn about technology, the more stupid you sound trying to explain it?
You sure? I always thought of socialism as the ideal, but communism is the logical implementation. What you call socialism is more like quasi-socialism, or in professional speak, it's referred to as a "mixed economy". Which is what every realworld economy is, it's just as question of the level of the mix.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
just FYI, in France the (major) chain "Carrefour" began recently to sell inexpensive linux PCs. And the machines sold much better than what they had predicted, so it's currently difficult to get one...
One of those Europeans...
"The sinister plan for world domination is right on schedule."
Sinister is right. Where do my career ambitions go when software becomes a free commodity?
Oh, and please don't give me BS about open-source not necessarily being free ($). For most applications, open-source most definitely can not seriously be thought of as profitable.
The problem is stated as "I need to use a floppy.",
but that statement includes part of an assumed
solution. The real problem is more like "I need
to transfer my files to a friend." or "I need to
make a backup." or "I need to have something I
can boot from.".
Helping this person would most likely involve
introducing USB keys, email attachments, and
the CD burner.
Well said!
Walmart has a horrible history for mistreating it employers and sqeezing all but the sweatshop manufacturers. Most people who shop there are only concerned about saving a few pennies on toothpaste and cheap junk. Electronics is a tough business, but they make it a dirty business.
A natural monopoly is total control over, for example, a specific herbal remedy. An unnatural monopoly is, for example, a headlock on spring-loaded flouro-blue double-ended dildoes.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
We need a new mod: -1 ASTROTURFING
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
"'For the user who spends 50 percent of the time in the Web browser and another 40 percent in the mail client, the Linux desktop is already there,' says Andy Hertzfeld..."
Sorry, chief, but 50 + 40 = 90.
This "getting user-friendly interfaces to do stuff" -thing is a good goal, but I just realized one problem, and it is nature of Linux itself.
/dev filesystem was a pretty bad idea, and now we have this devfs-thing"
.5 points of Karma.
Because Linux and its applications are done by thousands of computer enthusiasts, it is constantly changing. A few illustrations:
"great that the guy XXX developed this nice gui for configuring the soundcard to work on linux, too bad we no more like this OSS stuff, but use ALSA instead!"
"nice that you got your CD-R drive working in Linux too, but sorry to inform you that it won't work quite the same when you upgrade your kernel, see the
"devfs? yeah that is a good thing to have, but see, the concept was a bit flawed.. we now have this NEW device system, which goes like this..."
I could give a dozen more examples. The hackers who develop this stuff like to keep things up to date, and are constantly developing new applications to do everything better than the guy who got it almost right last time. It's not just sexy to improve the partially right solution, but a develop a better one, optimally with other programming language, other libraries and completely different user interface. As a hacker, that's what I'd rather do, make my vision come true, not to fix someone else's.
And it means that there is no learning curve for linux. You get comfortable with something, and when you check back a year later, all the "must-have" applications have changed, and you need to start from the bottom back again. Last time I encountered this was yesterday when installing CUPS, it was like a whole new world to me, with its applications, libraries, web-driven configuration interfaces..
This is where Windows outperforms Linux 10 to 0. Installing a printer isn't that different from installing a camera, graphics card, TV tuner or anything else. With linux, you have CUPS, graphics vendor kernel modules, V4L and mixed bunch of software ranging from xawtv to mythtv, and what else.
Just my
http://codeandlife.com
And the road to open source, like the road from feudalism or communism to capitalism is a one-way road. Once open source becomes established in a market, the trend cannot be reversed.
As I remember it, several of the communist countries were capitalist before becoming communist. Only a few started as feudal. So, yes, those trends can be reversed. Sometimes by gun, sometimes by the polling booth (Kerala and West Bengal in India both have had elected communist governments).
I don't think this has any implication for open source, but your analogy is broken.
Exactly. Linux is going to win for economic reasons. Microsoft's ridiculous profit margins are drawing competition like moths to a flame.
The only problem with that is that it is a long time since a gang of moths smothered the flame!
If you want to tie this back into the discussion, F/OSS projects by nature allow competition in a service economy. MS and some other closed, proprietary systems more closely resemble the dreadful Soviet style monoliths where the great Chairman (e.g. Chairman Bill) or the great poitburo (e.g. share holders or board of directors) steer with an iron hand.
Read some history and some newspapers, especially the older newspapers from last century -- they're on microfiche or online at your library.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Currently, at least in Sweden, you have an enormous burden on the state caused by the privatization of previously state run services. Look at what's happened in the last 10 years to the rail service, the post service, day care, and even medical care. All these cost more (rail now costs 5x what it did before privatization), yet provide poorer quality service and less of it. You can't provide the same level and quality of service for the same price *and* show a 40% profit margin at the same time, something has to give.
At the same time you had what amounts to a hostile take over and liquidation of the major private industries. The shipyards are closed, SAAB and Volvo sold overseas, Findus sold, Ericsson sold, etc. and many others.
Denmark, has had it's share of the above, too. But to add to the problem, there have been a few major incidents of extreme graft among some politicians and then the ongoing clean up from the graft.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Digital cameras
Smartmedia
Hot plug USB drives
Anything you throw at it, It just works. (except for lexmark printers, please use an HP brand 3in1)
It will take a few years before "those in the know" get it. Your boss will not get it because he goes by what Microsoft (Yankee Group, Forbes...etc) tells him about linux in their "Independent studies". Or he reads stuff that is a year or two old.
He hasn't installed Mandrake 10.0 or Knoppix 3.4.
Yes, linux is manual if thats what you want.
Yes, linux "just works" if thats what you want.
Just ask my quilt sewing, home cooking mom. When I gave her a Windows machine there was constant fiddling with AV, Zone alarm, Popups (blockers), spyware, adware, redirected searches taking over the browser. all microsoft SHIT. Constant headaches.
I gave her a Mandrake linux system and now:
:)
one click on KPPP/NetZero and she is dialed in. the browser launches automatically. NOTHING tries to intrude on her experience. "nothin but net".
Mom loves linux.
Perhaps this is the way to say it:
Yes, linux is manual if thats what you want.
Yes, linux is automatic if you want that too.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
> The other thing that makes this work is the ... The code is ... by people who wish to write ...
> fact that it is voluntary
> written
Probably one reason that GNU/Linux desktop versions suited for non-technical types took so long to arrive (did they really arrive?) is that it was not something any hacker really wanted to do, or felt the need to do. Whan the development model is that volunteers write whatever they think is useful' the result would be focused at the needs of developers, and not anyone else.
What you are saying may still be true about software. You are incorrect about Hardware. Microsoft has a hardware testing program for logo certification. Hardware manufacturers must run the Microsoft HCT suite against their hardware and turn the test logs in to Microsoft. If the logs pass Microsoft's criteria, Microsoft will allow the hardware vendor to put the logo on their box. It is now called the Catalog program. The large OEM's used to be able to ship the logs to MSFT, the smaller ones would send their hardware to MSFT for testing.
x
I ran a team that used to do this for one of the large server manufacturers, and I know this process well.
Novell and SCO have similar programs.
Here is the link for the Microsoft program: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/default.msp
Actually, I did install Mandrake 10.0 and I've used Knoppix 3.4. Mandrake was nice at first, but it's packaging system is horrible if you like to play around with your system. I moved away from mandrake and I'm a happier guy since. To say linux is automatic is making the assumption that someone can install and use it without ending up with some error message that will freak them out. I make that statement based on what I've seen from many people. I still think that for the dumbest of computer users, windows xp is the solution because even though it will work like shit, it will still print and detect their usb pen drive easily. But that's really the hardware manufactures' help, but those dumb users could care less.
I really like linux and how it can be customized, but I'd feel like a dick if I recommended it to someone to try without being their to help them out when some weird error pops up.