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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!"
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.
"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.
... 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.
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. --
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.
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.
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 |
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?
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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
I think we'll have a big slaughter of Windows market share as they continue to not-get-Linux, and then things will REALLY get interesting. I don't believe for a second that MS is going to go down, down, down and just drop off the face of the planet.
A few years after longhorn is released, when the market is closer to 50/50 for linux/windows machines, and MS will be forced to actually do things better just to survive.
There's a lot in the way of human resources at microsoft, and that could create some dang good stuff - given the need to, when there's a giant penguin huffing down your neck.
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.
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.
I saw the headline and I slapped my forehead. I think we have a linux vs windows flamewar about 3 times a week here.
Just equate linux vs windows with car transmissions. Linux is like a manual, it's $300 cheaper, slightly longer learning curve, gives you more control, but the people who get it are unique because they like to drive.
Whatever you use your computer for, just be productive and the issue of operating system becomes irrelevant.
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
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.
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.
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.
Indeed. I was not joking, or to the extent I was it was a ha-ha-only-serious. I'm amused that the reporter thought I was joking.
>>esr>>
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.
Sure, there is the label of "hacker" that people want, that is... ESR's "hacker," and not Time-Life's "hacker," but there's more of a "you have your job, I have mine, we make this work together" feel instead of "I pay you for this, I pay you more for this specialized thing." The "capitalistic" approach is more of the MS way of doing things, where they promote severe competition even amongst their own employees.
I'm not really promoting communism as a governmental type, though. It's an ideal system that will never work in this un-ideal world.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
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