Slashdot Mirror
IDC Proclaims Linux Is Now Mainstream
robyannetta writes "Eweek has an
interesting article
quoting IDC analyst Al Gillen saying "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream." He made that observation because IDC's research predicts that Linux's overall revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008."
Now that Linux is mainstream I'll have to turn my back on it and find another cause to fight for. Has Netcraft confirmed the BSD rumours?
Trolling is a art,
Excuse me, wtf? Shouldnt it be based on usage? It's FREE.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
until Netcraft confirms it.
So...doesn't that mean it'll be mainstream in 2008?
Assuming the prediction is right.
Hell. I predict I will be a stud by 2008, because I predict I will be having sex CONSTANTLY.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
are you saying you can do that with M$
Tell me something I don't klnow
Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!
Thank you captain obvious. I'm sure nobody would have figured that out on their own. Sometimes I really wonder why people keep paying analysts at all. All they appear to do is churn out totally baseless and unrealistic estimates and statistics or state the obvious.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
So does this mean linux is not cool any more?
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
Grandma can't figure out how to print?
Installing printers in Linux is pretty simple. Configuring our main workgroup printer was as simple as giving the machine name on the network and saying it's an HP whatever.
Trolling is a art,
Except that grandma will have an equally or almost equally hard time figuring out a Windows box for an indefinite period of time, or even to a lesser degree a Mac box.
The grandma test largely fails since not all grandmas are equal (my grandma and grandpa taught me how to program FORTRAN when I was 8!) and since not all Linux boxes are equal (compare Lyrcoris to Debian).
Bullshit. Grandma can't figure out how to print in Windows if the driver breaks. See a print button? It's in Windows and Linux. See the driver breakage? Grandma's calling tech support regardless of the OS. The "Grandma Test" no longer holds water for mature apps.
If that's your definition of mainstream then I don't think even Windows is ready.
Leaving a Windows box with your grandmother is "fine" as long as she never turns it on or never connects to the internet... Linux may not be userfriendly, but considerably more "fine" than Windows.
Free? No... the term 'free software' is misleading... it isn't really Free... there is all sorts of revenue tied to products that either use said free software, or support for said free software... heck even the hardware that runs the free software is tied in... so it shouldn't be on usage, but rather revenue... since the software generates a lot of revenue... think of how much revenue iTunes generates Apple... and they don't charge a dime for iTunes... same sorta idea...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Mainstream what?
Last company I worked for shifted all sun->linux + Intel, potentially most of the web pages your granny accesses will be running Apache on Linux, what about grannies DVD player, or phone or settop box or PVR, don't they run linux too?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
It's already there. I did that for my father more than a year ago. No problems.
This is way too soon to say it's mainstream.
Hell, people don't even think netscape/mozilla/firefox is mainstream and it have 20% or more of the market.
... right above the article, declaring how Windows is cheaprer, less error prone, and more cost effective than Linux.
These same ironic banners are on Slashdot all the time. It's hilarious.
Darn, guess I'm going to have to use something less mainstream like SkyOS.
How is it an "observation" that Linux is mainstream when "research has predicted" that revenue will increase a lot? Not that Linux will be at some point, or is getting there, but that it IS mainsteam.
To me it's not really an observation, just a...what's the word... oh yeah, prediction.
Maybe I just don't get it.
I used to see Linux play in basements and living rooms. Now they have gone mainstream. They signed that $35 billion record deal. Damn sellouts.
but now I suspect we'll get a ton of "My grandma wouldn't be able to run Linux, so it's not mainstream" when on a server level, it's ready to play; given a fully level playing field. Problem is Winders is too entrenched, and IBM and Solaris are trying to appear to be on Linux's side, while still hawking their own *nix solutions. Still, it won't be long before that breaks down, I give it a few years, so I think the 2008 comment is fair.
And setup right, I could make a Gentoo box that a grandma could use; it's all in the preparation.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I am glad they think so since I just turned up 250 thin client desktops this week running SAP R3, hate to think I am running on a non mainstream os. But wait the os did not cost any money so I hope they are talking about hardware.
The plug and play facet of windows has come a long way over the years. Far more useful than what /. will probably give it credit for.
I guess I can finally start using it now...
first define your Grandma/Grandpa... considering it's perfectly possible to become a grandparent at the sprightly age of only 33.5 (assuming legal age of consent being 16) and that I assumed the status of grandpa only 18 months ago at the age of 45, most grandparents are perfectly capable of using Linux...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Right, just like windows.
You seem to live in a magical land where pixies frolic and windows doesn't have to be reinstalled every six months like fucking clockwork.
Hrm. I installed Fedora on my system (no harder than installing windows), launched OO Writer (just like launching Word, except it was included in the OS install). Hit the print button. The document comes out on my USB connected LJ1200.
Welcome to the 21st century. We've been waiting for you.
-Peter
Never set up a Redhat 9 box then, I guess. Has all the things you mention... And, since "grandma" is prob. not going to be wanting to play the latest video games, but rather use email and Internet, Redhat should do just fine (if they still made a consumer version).
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Well, I recently converted my mother's badly ailing Windows box to Fedora, and she hasn't looked back. Sure, I tended to all the nuts-and-bolts details of the installation, and very occasionally I still field a tech support call, but for the most part it all finally Just Works. For her needs it's perfect: email, web browsing, and word processing. And no more random boots into safe mode, no more virus and spyware infections, no more random lockups.
Your grandmother may not be able to figure out how to configure printing in Linux, but once it's been set up, the same print button and File menu option to print exists in Linux apps as it does in Windows, and it works the same way. For a truly fair comparison, I challenge your grandmother to install and configure Windows on a bare metal machine.
Loading...
Be quiet we hope our manufacturing competitors read that banner and believe it, let them spend the money on a buggy os while we cut our prices to drive them out of the market.
Got Code?
Wow, this is the first first post that I actually agree should have been moderated Redundant.
Everyone always talks about how Linux needs a unified, simple interface, which is really just code for saying it needs a Windows-like (or Mac-like, depending on the speaker) interface. While I agree that most things in Linux need interface work, I don't think all interfaces need to look exactly the same to be effective. In fact, trying to shoehorn an application into an interface that doesn't really fit it can cause actually reduce ease of use.
It's simple to code interfaces in Windows, because everyone just uses the same widgets to make their interfaces. The result is a homogenous, bland experience, where everything looks exactly the same. In this environment, nothing is super simple to use, but everything is at least equally difficult to figure out.
As for things like printing, Windows is easy to use if you are using one of a couple of popular scenarios, but once you break out of those, it can be nearly impossible to get things to work right. Some of this is because the interface for setting up non-traditional printer setups is obtuse, but most of it is because the help documentation on the topic is absolutely worthless. Microsoft Help is the most astounding collection of utterly worthless "troubleshooting tips" I have ever seen. I have never once had a problem that that thing came anywhere near helping me solve.
Interface work needs to be done. We do not need a single unified simple interface, we need several continually evolving interfaces, which will over time result in every application having the easiest and most intuitive interface for whatever it does.
All the cool antisocial elitist nerds will be using Hurd, man! Any time now...
On the other hand, Fedora Core 2 was really good when it comes to user experience, and I'm still planning to take on Fedora Core 3 (mostly lack of time, too much /. ;-> )
One script language for writing simple UI:s is TCL/Tk. (OK, there are others too...)
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
From personal observations of customers and business people I can attest that, yes, Linux (and OSS in general) is widely known and most people take it seriously.
However, I guess many slashdotters (myself included) are already thinking about desktop. And that's still a long way to go. Even Firefox has still a long way ahead of itself, and I consider it to be one of the most well-known OSS applications out there. It will be a long time until non-geek people start using OSS seriously on the desktop.
Then again, I live in Germany, the clocks work differently here - maybe it's different elsewhere?
"revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008"
...
By 2008 , Hum no , or it would mean that whe lost market share.
Last year Gnu/Linux took 7.5% of the Desktop market share. Apple with its 3% is worth 135 billion ( apple software + the company graviting around )
Thats not all Gnu/Linux is also used more on the server side and is becoming the uncontested king of the Clusters OS ( 95% of the new super cluster will or use it as it OS ).
Another segment they kindly forget is electronics ( TV , video , dvd , Radio , etc ) where Gnu/Linux is more and more used in embeded systems.
And also my favorite the Cellular sector where everyone beside RIM ( blackberry ) is starting to be using a GNU/Linux base.
Gnu/Linux passed the 38 Billion profit line about 2 years ago
I am a REAL American from Canada , not a wanna-be from the country , self called "last remaining superpower" "of America
My mother (of grandmother age but I'm not budging on the 'no kids' thing) uses Linux (Gentoo with KDE Desktop) with no problems.
OK, so I set it all up for her (the way a vendor would pre-install Windoze) but once set up it runs smoothly and stays configured the way it was when set up. I simplified everything for her as she is not a power-user, removed lots of menu options and extraneous buttons and it's now so much easier for her to find her way around and actually do stuff than it was with Windows.
And that's on a hacked-together PII-300 running Gentoo, if she'd bought a pre-installed state-of-the-art Linux box it would be even smoother.
She has gone from calling me twice a day for tech support to once a fortnight since the switch from Windoze to Linux. I can fix any problem that does occur remotely. So now instead of talking exclusively about Blue Screens of Death, anti-virus software and automated updates we talk about me not providing any grandchildren.
~ Better a freak than a sheep. ~
You've just pointed out the most important thing, everyone needs their own personal sys admin.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's free speach, not free beer.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
someone shoud tell these guys mainstream is not how much money you make...
did you forget to take your meds?
Linux won't be mainstream until I can set up a Linux box for my grandmother and leave it knowing she'll be fine with it for an indefinite period of time.
By that measure, Microsoft Windows can't be mainstream either.
Having switched to Ubuntu, I feel that it is very user friendly except for tasks that are unlikely to concern Grandma, such as setting up apache+mysql so she can do web development. Just uncomment universe in her /etc/apt/sources.list and she'll have point and click access to all the major free software in the world.
I believe you hit the nail on the head. I think Linux will become largely successful as more and more kids/younger computer users, grow up using it as their everyday system.
I grew up using Dos/Win3.1/95..etc, and now, NT in my business. I'm extremely comfortable coding/managing NT systems, because it is what I've used for the longest period of time (last few years of Linux).
I can only imagine the different perspective I would have had, using Linux in High school and College only, and then being responsible for the IT in a business.
Another factor is the amazing user progress that distributions have made in the past few years. I remember putzing around with Red Hat 6.22 and really digging around with the shell...Comparing that to a recent version of anything running KDE/Gnome, and its astonishing.
Sig it.
It was mainstream when it made it on the Chapelle Show:
"If they give you a Windows disk, tell them we only run Mac. If they give you a Mac disk, tell them we only run windows. IF they give you both, tell them we use linux. And if they give you all three, tell them the computers are down."
He says linux is mainstream but then the rest of the article is about open source software.
Linux is NOT mainstream. Open source software is.
this feels good, though.. linux is real..
now the redmond-cretins will incorporate it, bastardize it and try to fuck-up everything inbetween..
i'll use whatever is in front of me to get what i want and need done.. i don't care what it is.. VMS, OSX, Linux, XP, OS/2, DOS..
information is the drug, and the OS is just the syringe..
happiness is a full spike..
i hate microsoft.
IDC analyst Al Gillen [said] "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream."
/Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
Gillen went on to chortle, "But Linux geeks are not mainstream, and while they will continue to belong to the fringe, then will never ever be players with the laaadies!
On hearing this, the assembled contingent of bearded, pasty, pot-bellied Linux geeks hung their heads in shame, silently acknowledging the truth of Gillen's words, while wishing they could, like the 7th level Magic-Users they aspired to be, quietly teleport back to their mother's basements and their collections of what they pretentiously refer to as "graphic novels".
I keed!, I keed! Truly I love you all!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Do they just redo these estimates and adjust for inflation every year? These were the guys who said online pet product sales would be a $2 billion market by 2002.
sulli
RTFJ.
Linux won't be mainstream until I can set up a Linux box for my grandmother and leave it knowing she'll be fine with it for an indefinite period of time.
So you're saying that Linux went mainstream in 2001?
I know this is Slashdot and a lot of us haven't known "the ways of a woman", but you do know that the age of consent isn't actually relevant for your calculation, right?
But man pages are the ultimate bitch and TLDP is usually outdated and useless.
Which is true *regardless* of OS
they have a long history of predicting that Linux growth will be lower than what one would reasonably expect given the previous quarters at various free software companies. Remember back when Linux was doubling in a year or less, and they were predicting 27% growth?
They get a lot of press, and by pretending to be extolling Linux, and aided by naive free software advocates who go around giving publicity to their numbers, they actually succeed in making it look a lot smaller than it is.
Microsoft is notorious for spending money on dishonest pr flacks.
I wish there were real numbers on Linux usage growth over the last year. Surely it isn't doubling anymore, but I bet it is still gaining market share.
Hans
www.namesys.com
Well, 1/4 isn't bad, right?
Shouldn't somebody tell them that's "Gnu-slash-Linux" ?
God bless you, Toph.
Does this mean we'll finally start seeing direct ports of the most popular gaming titles? Leisure Suit Larry for teh win.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
Linux won't be mainstream until... your gran gets linux pre-installed with her new PC; bought from any highstreet store.
...how much money it takes to train Linux users to use Windows...
They also leave out the financial impact of left-handed, one-eye squirrels who infiltrate offices using Windows to surreptitiously delete random files... because this is a similarly small number.
Dumbass.
How is that a fair comparison? Your grandmother didn't install and configure Linux, nor did the OP say his grandmother would have to. Apples to apples, you could probably teach your grandmother to install Windows easier than most Linux distros, with exceptions.
If the Microsoft monopoly were really broken up by forcing software companies to port their code/drivers to another OS or standard for working on all operating systems then I would think Linux would get a big boost but so would other operating systems. Before eveyone jumps on me , think about this, Microsoft owns the monopoly but software(and Hardware) companies are co-conspirators. They don't give any other operating system a chance. The DOJ(dep. of justice) didn't do the job, period ! The verdict was a joke.
Now, I'll admit that you can run windows without having a personal sysadmin. Even so far as things will work when you do it all by yourself. But, there's this little problem... the difference between what works, and what works right. Working right will lend itself to future reliability, and as a windows system admin I can state that virtually no user can accomplish such a feat. Most enterprise windows software needs to run as local administrator, making it virtually impossible for even I to to things right. Now you'll probably argue that a lot of useful linux utilities like root permissions... but it is not _never_ entirely nessicary. Sudo and SETUID properly applied will enable such badly written binaries to function and remain secure. (Alas there is not functional equivalant in windows, don't bother mentioning runasEveryone needs to either be a sysadmin, or needs to know one... otherwise things may work, but not work right.
The Geek in Black
I know my BCD's (when I'm Sober)
I just finished an email with a co-worker from three jobs ago, when I was a consultant doing systems and network stuff for small-medium companies in Mass., RI and Conn. Back then I was all-linux, but I worked on IBMs AS/400s and NT/2k, and rarely got any Unix work on the job. I eventually left because my boss wasn't pushing linux hard enough for my liking.
Anyways, I just finished an email in which my co-worker proclaimed this year to be the year of linux. Coming from him, I am forced to take a step back from my daily linux work-life and look at it from his perspective.
To those who don't find MS to be an abomination of all that is good and holy, and simply use what technology is best for the times, this year is the equivalent 96(or 97) for NT. This was a year or so before I got into the business(high school and all), but from what I make of the timeline, NT was _IT_ back then. It was a server, it was somewhat stable(compared to Windows), it was user-friendly(compared to Unix/AS400), it was fully 32-bit. It ran on Alphas for christ's sake.
What high hopes it held.
Now, though, I am worried about what comes next. It took 8 years for what I knew to be the next big thing to become the next big thing. Am I now so deep into linux that I won't be able to see what's set to surpass it until it's here? I'm worried I will turn into those 'NT guys' from 96 or so who saw linux as a handicapped os and summarily dismissed it. Of course, it didn't even support 2-gigabyte files back then, so maybe they had a point.
Time will have to tell. I saw one computing mini-revolution coming years ahead of the mainstream; I hope to be able to see the next also.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
When does the movie starring Ben Afflec come out?
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Revenue and net worth are not the same thing.
Linux can be considered mainstream once printer, scanner and digital camera manufacturers include Linux troubleshooting in the manuals that come with the hardware, and actively support Linux on their support phone numbers.
Right now only a select few barely include Linux drivers. Nevermind the bundled applications that many "grandmas" use under Windows or MacOS.
How about SuSe, my dad ACCIDENTALLY installed Suse on his laptop on day... Ok, how's that for an easy install. He friggin ACCIDENTALLY installed it.
Best part about it was that after about a day he decided that he didn't want me to put Windows back on it, and he has been using Linux for about 3 months just fine.
He can even use his wireless card which took more than an hour to install in MS. He just plugged it into the pcmcia slot and it beeped at him with Linux.
--Forest C. Adcock--
That's "Free as in speech" not "free as in beer", or do you think that RedHat give away RHEL AS and support contracts for nothing?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I take it you haven't used ubuntu. by far the most user friendly and well compiled distro I've seen.
You seem to live in a magical land where pixies frolic and windows doesn't have to be reinstalled every six months like fucking clockwork.
I must, because i've had Win XP Pro on my system for 2.5 years and counting so far, without a single reinstall. I'll make sure to greet the pixies for you.
Hrm. I installed Fedora on my system (no harder than installing windows)
Speak for yourself. Including all the configuration and after-the-fact tweaking to get everything working right and updated, it took probably twice as long when I tried it about 6 months ago.
One would think you'd at least tout something like Mandrake, being that it's actually made with a focus on ease-of-use and newbie-friendliness.
(just like launching Word, except it was included in the OS install).
A very insignificant advantage for a lot of mainstream users, considering that Office is included by default or choice with a huge number of new computers these days.
We aren't talking about me (I don't run windows) and we aren't talking about you. We're talking about grandma. Grandma like clicking on shit and then calling you about the porn pop-ups.
Anyway, if you're so fucking clever, why can't you figure out how to log on to slashdot?
-Peter
I would agree printing on Fedora worked flawlessly... I didn't have to install drivers or anything. Being the first time I used linux, I was pretty impressed.
Personally I'd rather a bland homogenous interface than something completely different for every single application. In case you hadn't noticed products that have attempted to make their UI "more interesting" have often come up with something worse.
In 1995 I suffered with UNIX applications that have different locations of load/save, different shortcut keys for cut, copy and paste, different results when you clicked on a button (does it open a window or pull a dropdown or toggle a tickbox) and so on. Learning shortcut keys was next to impossible unless you remembered that each on only worked with some applications and on others didn't something completely different.
The last thing I want to do is return to a world like that (which is what you are advocating). When I'm using an unfamiliar application, I like the fact that I know rougly what is in the "File" and "Edit" menus and I know that Ctrl-Z will undo my mistake - rather than actually do something completely different because some smartass deleveloper tried to be different.
Those people who proclaim you need a single unified user interface do so for a very good reason.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
In business terms it is. If you're not making money off of it then it's just a free commodity like air. Eventually it gets taken for granted and ignored.
Then it's all about the monnneh
...that this comes before the first '2005 is the year of Linux on the desktop!!111' prediction. They've been predicting it every single year, and the year when it is declared to be true (whether or not it is), they are beaten to the punch ;).
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
But, if Bill Gates wanted to do something could he really do right now to help Microsoft combat this problem?
"We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose." "Perceptions rule the universe." --Bene Gesserit Sayings
This really bothers me. To me, "mainstream" means something that the majority of people not only can enjoy but also want to enjoy of their own volition - acceptance by and demand from the general populous. The dictionary defines "mainstream" as Representing the prevalent attitudes, values, and practices of a society or group.In that regard, how is "mainstream" possibly close to describing Linux?
He seems to be talking exclusively about "mainstream" in the IT world. I don't see how even in 2008 Linux will be "mainstream" in the home desktop world. Shouldn't the term "mainstream" be applied across the board before it's used in such a broad fashion?
The prevalent attitudes towards computers, especially on the desktop, is that anything other than Windows != effective or easy to use. Put a number of Linux computers on sale at Best Buy (or your country's equivalent) with all things being equal with respect to hardware and price and everything necessary to run Windows on the Linux system, and see how they fare compared to Windows system. The general populous will purchase Windows in droves while those of us in the know (and we ARE a minority, folks) might purchase the Linux system.
If some PC manufacturer will actually put out a system for sale on retail stores that sells comparable numbers to Windows PCs, then I'll be more accepting of the "mainstream" moniker. (Not that anybody's individual acceptance really means anything...)
I also question why he perceives the migration to Linux in the IT world to be "mainstream". Look at the two primary alternatives:
* Windows - bloated, slow, expensive TCO, closed, not well scaleable
* Sun - aewsome operating system, unbelievable scaling capabilities, unbearably arrogant and short-sighted CEO, f**king EXPENSIVE hardware
Now comes Linux - can use existing hardware, scales fairly well, free, tons of software for free, tech support is available at a reasonable price... Hmmmm!
I'd like to see a study done on how "mainstream" Linux really is and why. Was it accepted in IT because of its strengths or was it accepted in IT because of the excessive weaknesses of its competitors? They're not the same, but I think that the reasons are important. YMMV.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Viruses? Hah, that's why I run Linux!!
Republicans are stupid? So are Democrats? Hah! I'm a Libertarian!
Popular music is lame? Hah! That's why I only listen to my next door neighbor's garage band who NOBODY knows!
The day I can configure a printer in Linux and can access this printer with all the applications, is the day I will call Linux ready for the desktop. Right now, I have three different printer managers, with the same printer, so that my 8-9 apps can print. Granted, this is getting a lot better, but still, you need to make it easier. I think that Xandros is a perfect example of what Linux can do on the desktop. The problem with Xandros is that they make it very hard to install non-Xandros approved apps. I know you can install most Debian apps, but that usually involves some hacks, etc.
I don't think that was his point.
On Mandrake I get lots of sexyish configuration tools.
On Gentoo I get portage.
Why the hell didn't gentoo just reuse Mandrakes configuration tools so I would have portage and sexy config out the box?
It would be nice if 'ubuntu' Knoppix, Gnopix and debian got together one day and came up with a UKGDeb distro that solved everyones problems.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Well let's see.. your calculations are correct in terms of raw numbers, but in my case this was a few decades ago and the grandparents were in their late 70's pushing close to 80.
It may be a long time before Linux is mainstream on Joe Average's home computer, but in the server world, Linux has been mainstream for years. My first SLIP account was being run through a Linux box, and that was ten or eleven years ago.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
.. watch your Embedded there, though. Linux rules in this domain right now, and there is a big storm coming in this front..
..
The way Linux will win the Desktop is through Embedded, but thats the way it'll rule everything in the end, anyway
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
It's a fluff piece but it has been sorely needed for a while.
It has long been said that before Linux will be the order of the day, CEOs and their underlings need to read about Linux more and more before they'll start to ask "what is this thing and why aren't we running it?" It had brief exposure on CNN and some other sources, but it still needs more lip service.
It has long been felt "no one has ever been fired for going with Microsoft..." and that might change too when reliability is compared. I was tickled when I first noticed the RedHat8 server we use at my site has an uptime of greater than a year. No kernel updates or anything else has required a reboot and we've got a damned nice UPS in place. It serves its functions and does it nicely. I just can't get that from a Microsoft server...especially when every security update requires a reboot... especially when end of life means no more security updates and forces an upgrade. Most people have been droned into thinking that's just 'normal' but I just can't see it that way.
The more Fluff we get, the more the uneducated starts asking about it and making it happen.
I like where I work though... we're already on a roadmap that dumps Microsoft entirely... my condolences to those who are still stuck in MS-land.
Well, my thinking was that his grandmother couldn't figure out how to print on this hypothetical Linux system because printing had not yet been configured. If, on the other hand, printing had been configured and his grandmother could not figure out that File->Print the or button with the printer icon on it in a desktop app did the same thing that it did in Windows, well then I'm amazed that she's able to print (or do much of anything else) in Windows.
Loading...
You are a sys admin. Grandma, would never use the word "workgroup"
As you say, depends on the grandparent.
I expect I'll become one around the same age you did (my oldest will be 23 when I reach 45), and I don't think I'll have gone senile just yet at that point.
On the other hand, my Grandmother is 87 and has trouble with ANYTHING remotely technological, including her digital alarm clock that only has 4 buttons.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Having a $35B market doesn't mean that something is mainstream then, beforehand, or whatever. On the other hand, research which would lead an IDC analyst to think that Linux will be a $35B market in 3 years also implies that it is mainstream now. IDC is looking at stuff like long-term corporate purchasing plans. This tells them that a lot of money is likely to be spent on Linux in 2008, and that a lot of long-term plans today include Linux as a future direction.
They may not give away support contract, but you can download all the SRPMS for RHAS.
ftp.redhat.com
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
From the article:
What I do see happening is that open-source desktop applications are going to be appearing on practically every Windows desktop in the next three years.
What _I_ want to see happening is cross-platform RAD tools appearing on practically every developer's Windows and Linux desktops in the next year. _THEN_ we'll see open-source desktop apps appearing on practically every Windows and Linux desktop in the next three to five years.
O RAD suit developer, where art thou?
Do you, like grandma, click on every link in sight and then call me about the porn popups?
It seems like you are comparing installing Windows to installing a complete GNU/Linux system. Are you including installing office. Oh, and WinZip, and photoshop and an image viewer (so either grandma or you can browse your collection of kitty pictures) and flash and acrobat and getting the god damned webcam to work and etc, etc, etc?
I'm not really touting anything. I use Fedora. If you like Madrake better, god bless you. If you like windows better, god help you. I don't really care what your preference is, but I will do my best to deflate any FUD.
I'll grant you that it's easiest to eat whatever's in the trough. That didn't seem to be at issue, though.
-Peter
It's time to rejoice again! This is a milestone for all open source projects! You can change the world! Thank you for your hard work! Each and every one of you who have something to do with open source project.
When I turn on my linux PC, it says "Hello User". Now who says linux isnt user friendly?
Grandma, would never use the word "workgroup"
What did Grandma enter in the "Workgroup" field in her Network Settings (assuming Windows)?
Trolling is a art,
The meaning isn't clear. Is server hardware being intertwined with sales of software and services? Is this an estimate of annual revenues in 2008 or simply an estimate of the total for 1998-2008? What are the numbers for Windows?
Pardon me, could you describe a "printing scenario" that was a "breakout" from a configuration that Windows could not handle? As a domain admin for 8 years I have never seen such a thing. You would also presumably be able to describe how Linsux easily handled this troublesome "printing scenario"?
I'm absolutely shure that if you buy a computer from any retail store that offers pc-repair/install such as Best Buy, CompUSA they will install one of the boxes of Suse sitting on the shelf. I still order my OpenBSD cds from Canada, and buy hardware from newegg though.
OK, let's compare Lycoris to Debian Sarge/Sid. (I now have this on my "daily drive" computer.)
1.)Debian: immaculate code base, no ugly weirdnesses.
Lycoris: a direct descendant of Caldera/SCO Linux. 'Nuff said.
2.)Debian: apt-get utilities of all stripes, from console to GTK+-based GUI. The latter is Synaptic, which is an awful lot like the Mandrake friendly GUI front end, except unlike urpmi apt-get works and never gets lost in RPM Hell.
Lycoris: IRIS, a proprietary system that is Caldera-flavor RPM based. Prone to RPM Hell.
I'd trust a grandma to keep her Debian system up to date with Synaptic (two clicks for "smart update!") more than I'd trust her to keep it up to date with IRIS.
Basically the only "hard part" of Debian is the install. Once you get the install tweaked just so, it's safe to turn over to grandma. Barring catastrophe, it will be solid for life. And even on those rare occasions when an update borks on you, all you need to do is keep the SSH port open so you can SSH in and fix things.
Mepis and Ubuntu and Xandros and even Linspire (yeah I know, ugh!) are click-and-drool easy to install as well, and give you a reasonably easy path to Debian GNU/Linux (their insistance, not mine) bliss. If you want to get rid of Linspire's cretinosity #apt-get dist-upgrade will do it for you happily. Ubuntu is alright if you like GNOME, because that's the only desktop environment you get with it.
I used to be a supporter of Lycoris as a distro for newbies. No more. The SCO mess has something to do with it but not everything. The Debian way of package management has got to be the easiest, most bulletproof (it's not entirely bulletproof but close) way of managing a machine.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Grandma probably called tech support. aka you.
Then, using your understading of mainstream no existing system is.
Whether or not a system will be fine for your average non-expert user for indefinite period of time has more to do with knowing what your user will need to do and leaving the system configured for it.
Past that point (configuration), stability and security (features in which a well-configured linux machine beats windoze, and this is out of the question) would be the only issues that might make your user call you for expert help.
the age of consent is relevant just to show what the legal minimum age for a grandparent can be...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Exactly!
I wouldn't dream of turning over a Windows PC to my 75 year old parents. Hell, my dad calls me to help talk him through the TV/VCR and recently DVD useage issues.
However, I've been thinking of getting them a notebook PC and installing Xandros Linux so they can get email, surf "the interweb", and download digital pictures from the camera. Xandros is easier than any version of Windows I've used, and I've suffered since Windows 3.1. Printers? Xandros knows my Lexmark Z52 inkjet and my big mutha Lexmark Optra T614 network laser printer. The drivers are already there, and installation couldn't be easier. No Plug-N-Pray (TM), no installation CD needed, and no need to reboot for changes to take effect.
I've been running Xandros exclusively for over two years for my engineering business. It runs 24/7 and I use lots of complex applications including mechanical CAD, electrical CAD & PCB layout, accounting, programming, etc. I'd NEVER go back to being a Windows luser and I'd certainly never subject my parents to the insane hassles of Outlook worm de jour and the weekly security exploits in Windows and IE.
There are other easy to use distros as well, and there is the Mac, so there is plenty of choice. If you want a computer, there is no need to play monopoly.
It's counter intuitive, but power users have a harder time migrating from Windows because of that one obscure application they just have to have. The average PC user who wants hassle-free internet, email, and office applications is best served by Linux, Firefox/Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
Help files may be useless, but at least there is a Microsoft Help interface.
Unix used man pages, GNU stuff uses that info crap and other projects only supply PDF or HTML docs
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
7.5%? Wtf are you smoking? Try 0.75%, if that.
Honestly, now that Firefox is out, there really isn't much reason to use GNU-plus-Linux....
what the hell do you mean, legal?
a grandparent could easily be as young as 24, and they'd still be "legally" a grandparent.
... hi bingo
I find it intesting how everyone is so quick to dismiss Linux in the grandma test.
Here is my reality:
Grandma is 2500 miles away. What OS do I want to give her? Wells its definitely not Windows. She wants to get on the Internet and lets face it, my grandma is not very tech savvy and would probably load up that machine with so much spyware and viruses it would crumble.
My thoughts? Knoppix. Build a custom knoppix that includes browser, email, a few games, etc and presto she is set. Every boot is clean. It meets her computing needs without the worry of viruses/spyware/etc.. every few months, I could create a new Knoppix CD and send it to her.. boot off the new CD, and she has the latest software.
I could be a little bit creative, have her settings/documents stored on the hard drive and have Knoppix on boot run a script that would determine the last backup and prompt her to pop in a CD-RW to keep a backup of her data.
Since she is booting off the CD, I can boot my copy of the CD to know exactly what she is looking at on-screen if she has questions.
I dunno.. it seems like the right choice to me. Perhaps it could even go a step further where the hard drive is partitioned and when the Knoppix CD is booted up, it would prompt if she wants to update her computer (auto-install to hard drive) or boot from the CD. Keep the docs/settings on their own partition so it doesn't get removed.
I know grandma can pop in a CD and turn on the computer. Seems like this would pass the test.
It's only misleading if you choose not to understand it. The term is actually quite clear and well-defined.
Because mandrake users don't care about compiling thier own code and would rather use the quicker, just as functional portage inspired urpmi. And gentoo users would rather edit the config files themselves rather than relly on sexy config tools, or at least thats how all the gentoo fanboys make it sound.
That's funny, because 33.5 is almost exactly the age my brother was when he became a grandfather last year. One legal point your missing is that two minors are not constrained by 'legal age of consent' in most US states.
But then again, he can't even figure out how to work his windows box, so I guess the point is moot.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Jesus loves you, I think you suck
I do not understand why the parent is modded "Troll." He's absolutely correct--"Insightful" even.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Wait until you get a girl/boy'friend'. Then write to us about the studs in your wall...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I busted out laughing when I read that because I can't count the times sitting in front of busted Windows box thinking the exact same thing about the help files. They are absolutely the most useless, bloated piece of an already bloated, barely functional operating system.
I have never once had a problem that that thing came anywhere near helping me solve.
So true. Why bother including them at all? The help files are so divorced from reality they could easily be for a different operating system. If you're going to go to all the trouble and cost to include them, at least make them somewhat functional.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It won't be mainstream till 2008, so that means it will really start to be popular in late 2007. So you have 2.5 years to jump on the BSD/AthenaOS/ReactOS/OS-9/........ bandwagons. You even have time to start your own. Good Luck!
BTW I wonder what the status of BeOS. That might be fun.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Yup, We've seen this before. It's not the same article exactly, but both had obviously been haplessly scraped out of the same press release. Same numbers, same quotes. Nothing to see here...
Do you, like grandma, click on every link in sight and then call me about the porn popups?
No, I use Firefox and run a full Ad-Aware and virus scan once a month. Certainly something that could be put into practice for our hypothetical grandma - both the virus/adware scans can be scheduled and automatically run, and Firefox on Windows even has an easy-to-use installer now.
If you or someone else can get at her computer for a couple minutes, you could delete or hide any way for her to easily start IE, as well.
It seems like you are comparing installing Windows to installing a complete GNU/Linux system.
Fine, let's go through what you mention then.
Are you including installing office
Only if it hasn't been pre-installed, and chances are good that it has been, especially on the system options available to our non-power-user possible grandmother. Even if you do have to install it, you stick the first CD, enter the product key, and click "Next" a few times, possibly swapping CDs. Might take 30-45 mins.
Oh, and WinZip
winzip.com, download the installer, run it. The full install might take 5 minutes at the most, more or less depending on imaginary grandma's internet connection speed. I just tried doing an install here, and it took 65 seconds from the time I started downloading the file to the time it was installed ready for use.
photoshop
Also a pretty trivial install, assuming bizzaro-grandma has the CD key handy. It's been a while since I installed it myself, I don't remember it taking more than 15 minutes or so though.
and an image viewer (so either grandma or you can browse your collection of kitty pictures)
AFAIK, there's an image viewer built right into XP, that will let you view all pictures in a folder with a sort of slideshow interface.
and flash
www.shockwave.com or search for "Flash Player" in Google, go the first result, and download the installer.
I forget if there's a reboot involved with the install, but it shouldn't take more than 5 or 10 minutes unless her system is unusually slow.
and acrobat
Same thing. adobe.com, click the "Get Adobe Reader" link, answer a couple questions, download the installer. 5-10 minutes if you have broadband.
getting the god damned webcam to work and etc, etc, etc?
Depending on the maker, this could be either massively easier or harder than under Linux. Not really relevant here, I think, as it could be a pain on both sides.
I'm not really touting anything. I use Fedora. If you like Madrake better, god bless you. If you like windows better, god help you. I don't really care what your preference is, but I will do my best to deflate any FUD.
You claimed installing Fedora was no harder than installing Windows. I believe that is not true. Hence my comments.
If you're not touting anything, and meant to compare a Windows install to a GNU/Linux install in general, then perhaps you should have left a specific distro name out of it.
I'll grant you that it's easiest to eat whatever's in the trough. That didn't seem to be at issue, though.
I've tried the various OpenOffice components, Staroffice, and Abiword. None of them worked better than MS Office for me, unfortunately - varying degrees of slowness, bad UI design, and crashes. I've seen many comments from others reporting the same sorts of experiences.
That's all I can say, really. There's a reason so many people continue to use MS Office, and it might not be what you think.
Don't get me wrong, i'd have nothing but good-will towards an actual free rival, but none of the products i've seen are at that level yet.
Are You serious? I'm sorry but if you think that Grandma will have even close to the amount of trouble using windows than using any linux distro you are nuts. Absolutly trucking nuts. It's been too long since you've used windows. Grandma (not your grandma) will not be able to constructively use linux until you honestly never ever need to see a command line. Period. If linux ever gets close to being able to be used by the general public, it probably won't be used by me. Linux should not be like windows, that's the thing with it. Either learn how to use it and harness it's power, or use another freaking OS. Want a *nix thats easy for grandma to use? It's called OSX.
Or rather, Plan-9
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
yup, looks like the democrats will win,... the exit poll statistics prove it!
The result is a homogenous, bland experience, where everything looks exactly the same.
... windows has turned into a skinning DISASTER area. And it's something that really pisses me off about windows since right around 2000 everything was nice and clean and fairly consistent. Then come the skinning apps, and comes Windows XP itself - just give me my regular widgets back!
Pfft, I don't know what sort of apps you use, but I've seen assloads of windows apps that all look and respond differently. Nero, EZ CD creator, that crap program to read pictures from my camera, PowerDVD
In this environment, nothing is super simple to use, but everything is at least equally difficult to figure out.
That's very true and I think you hit the nail on the head there. I don't need stuff like photoshop filters that produce windows that look like spaceships, I need things that clearly point to what I'm trying to do.
It's been done.
MacOS X
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
So, the tables have turned for me, and now I'm *not* telling them to switch to linux, becuase THEY WOULD!
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
This is why I always use the term libre software. It makes things more clear. You're going to have to explain the term anways. You might as well start out with something more unambiguous.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That wasn't the GP's point. You and I can run 'immortal' XP or 2K installs, but in my experience the people who can are usually the ones who can install Gentoo as well. Windows boxes used by ordinary people without admin support usually do need frequent reinstalls.
Printing still seems to be pretty much a crapshoot under Linux. I only buy HP's, and I've still found that they either instally effortlessly and flawlessly or just plain suck.
Haha, what if the ghostscript driver it chooses for you isn't quite the right one? What if only the second printer port is free on the back of your computer? The shit can hit the fan pretty quick when it doesn't work right off the bat.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get married, because when you're married, you can have sex every night.
;-)
:)
cLive
(+1 insightful if you're single, +1 funny if you're married - take your pick
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
If you can move over the Calendar appointments I think businesses would be willing to change that app.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
This person makes a valid point and it gets modded down to -1 (Troll) because it speaks the truth. Why? Linux is definitely far from user-friendly. Now financially it might be hitting the mainstream hallmark but as far as usability and the "getting grandma on the internet" factor it has a LONG way to go.
The next "last straw" for some people may be this prediction from Microsoft-Watch:
Microsoft's biggest announcement of the year won't be Yukon (SQL Server 2005) or Whidbey (Visual Studio 2005). Instead, it will be an as-yet-unannounced anti-virus/anti-spyware subscription service for which Microsoft will charge.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3sht4
More likely MSFT will quietly offer this to their bigger customers to keep them from switching to OSS while the great sea of consumer users will have to pay. Or maybe they'll be smart and give it away, but that's a little like hoping dubya will really be a uniter and not a divider.
I think IDC's estimates are conservative. Now that the ball is rolling down hill it will only continue to accelerate. Aided by MSFT's almost uncanny ability to treat their customers like criminals.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Fedora I installed for a "Grandma" about six months ago is still working for her. First thing, she made a beeline for the free spyware. When I explained why it wasn't for her and the trade-off in benefits, she understood.
I followed a Slashdot article to SimplyMEPIS the other month and put it on my recreational machine. It's Debian but the desktop continues to grow on me and I recommend it.
He wasn't trying to write "know". He was referring to a new program that's going to be shipped with KDE called KLnow. Looks like crap on Gnome though so another program called GLnow is in the works.
And no, I don't klnow what it does. I just know that it kicks ass because it's free!
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I've ACCIDENTALLY had the same thing happen to me at work. I tripped over an ethernet cable in the lab and Bang, SuSE got installed. Lost two W2000 servers this way :)
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
OTOH, Windows have several killer apps, like Photoshop & other Adobe apps, Macromedias apps, Microsoft apps (and my own personal favourite, Directory Opus) etc. Sure, you can run some of them through Wine, but that's not something a lot of people will want to do.
Linux...
Yeah! What??? OKAY....
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
If I could run it on hardware I own, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
However...
*sigh* back to work...
interested in helping your family so much as being a selfish S.O.B. and a know it all prick
well done.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Benix
or
Lafflec?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Net utility value (utility value - cost) would probably be the best metric. It is the metric that is used [ideally] in communism to decide what and how much gets produced. It does not require prices or currency to work. In fact, to work optimally, the benefits and costs should be kept in their raw form, and the exchange rates between various outputs, raw materials, and labor calculated dynamically.
It is hard to calculate, but maximising net utility value gives both the ideal production scenario for communism (to all according to need) and for capitalism (marginal price = marginal cost).
For two examples, let us take creating a new movie and downloading a movie from P2P, burning it, and watching it 3 times.
Creating a new movie (the actual genre and movie to be made is left up to the sum of personal tastes and demands):
inputs:
- 800,000 human-hours time
- data from the public domain (this is a wash with the output, but listing this acknowledges that no movie is made in a vacuum).
- various other consumables, capital, and other raw materials.
outputs:
- 1 new movie -> increases diversity of movies available, incresing utility of all existing movie entertainment services and equipment. The amount can be estimated empiracally.
- new data for public domain (restricting this output by having copyright would be economic waste, so I'm ignoring that reality).
Downloading, burning, and watching a movie 3 times:
inputs:
- 1 copy of the movie (infinite supply available, but not infinite selection - the quality of this input is very important)
- 7 hours time (1 hour to download and burn, 6 hours to watch it three times).
- 150g oil (50g for plastic, 100g for manufacturing, packaging, and shipping - assuming you get a spindle of discs and don't waste resources on individually packaged discs)
- 2kWh electricity (computers, internet, manufacturing equipment)
- 1,400 MB one-way bandwidth (P2P requires 1 uploaded bit for 1 downloaded bit, so 700 MB gets doubled).
- Capital equipment (computer, TV, etc).
Outputs:
- 1 hard copy (useful for the operation of P2P networks, and can always be used should centralized libraries ever lose or destroy their copies).
- 6 hours of entertainment, the quality of which is dependant on the quality of the inputs (A good movie that matches the viewer's tastes shown on a good display device with top notch speakers will be better than Gigli seen on a 3" black and white TV using the internal PC speaker for sound output).
Each input is either labor (provided by workers), virgin raw materials (provided by nature), or the output of another process (recycled materials along with almost all goods and services).
We only care about the end products (those that directly serve human needs, wants, and wishes) and we can maximize the end products without assigning values to the intermediaries. We get a huge multivariate equation which describes our production possibilities curve and another set of single and multivariate equations that link the production of particular end products and services to 'utility'. Maximize for utility and you have now found the ideal production mix for the economy. In an ideal communist economy, this data would be used by the central planning board to set production targets, which will be exactly met since they are at the edge of the production possibilities curve.
Even under other systems (like capitalism) where this information could not be acted on because there is no central planning board, it can be used to give a far more detailed and accurate accounting of economic activity than a crude metric like GDP.
You code your own NT system?
*DrugCheese rants*
1: You don't have to compile anything with gentoo, most standard packages are avaiable as binaries. /. poll to back you up on the 'gentoo users would rather edit the config files themselves'
2: Is there even a
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Having read this post I feel like I just sat through another office meeting. :/
By any chance, are you in Marketing or Sales ?
My sister is in Marketing and she sounds like this every once in a while.
__________________________________
Free your mind - Flush your toilet
Crank Yankers had a "linux inside" poster in the backround. It was the one with special Ed yelling
I GOT MAIL....yayyyy
Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!
Check these three names: Symbian, Palm, PocketPC.
These devices will get 3GB harddisks and 500MHz processors soon...
The house where I rent a room (in El Paso) is owned by the grandparents of my housemate. His grandmother's computer was pretty much infected with Windows spyware, to the point that it was unusable. Bootup took forever, lots of error messages, millions of spyware / adware pustules errupting everywhere ...
a) I used Mepis to rescue her documents
b) I showed her the machine working with Linux (Mepis and Ubuntu, both of which work fine with her hardware), and *didn't* take forever like Windows does for her. [Old Windows - ME, oldish hardware by current standards] She likes it, and except that I'm out of town until next month, I would install it (her request) on her machine. That's still the plan.
Partly, Linux has gotten better, Partly Windows is just a big pain in the butt. (Some people say otherwise, and more power to 'em. YMMV, etc.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Was it just me or did everyone else notice that IDC wants to charge $2,000 to read their 20 page document on how linux is mainstream?? http://www.idc.com/research/viewtoc.jsp?containerI d=32424
Obama = Socialism.
How can you say something is mainstream based solely on your prediction that it will be so three years from now? Doesn't make much sense to me.
What I can say to your comment is...
Oh, god. Some people really have too much time.
You claimed installing Fedora was no harder than installing Windows. I believe that is not true. Hence my comments.
You believe wrong.
That's all I can say, really. There's a reason so many people continue to use MS Office, and it might not be what you think.
Yeah, OO.o can't import some files. And that would be enough for some people. Instead of using native format.
Don't get me wrong, i'd have nothing but good-will towards an actual free rival, but none of the products i've seen are at that level yet.
What you're describing windows as is gods gift.
Last time I checked XP, they were far from that too.
Not really friendly,
no HIG whatsoever (XP and Office 2003???? wtf????),
virus prone,
spyware prone.
Start menu without any sense. (why the fuck does every software have to make his submenu, can't M$ just make some restrictions base on software type?)
Control panels that mess up configuration to level of insanity (things can be done simpler you know).
Ultra friendly network browser that never displays what I wuold like, only what I wouldn't like.) You obviously don't know how network neighborhood looks when you enter into 50-100 computer network - yeah, I like those quadzillion shares and zillion printers that windows automount)
Oh yes. Getting slower with time.
And most of all my dear dorothy. Why the fuck there's no simple way to stop desktop notifications? (don't offer registry key or tweakit, you were talking about grandma)
You said you use antivirus, ad-aware and firefox. Does typical grandma install these?? Or she just uses what system offers?
p.s. I bet you buy software you use:)
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Figuring out the next trend is always very easy.
I figured it out with Linux in 95, and then I told managment that SCO was going to die and Linux was going to take over the marketplace - I was effectively humiliated and laughed out of the company.
The long term market always gravitates to the least proprietary technogy, while the short term market always creates intense pressure to use the most proprietary technology. This is why so many people always get suckered in and killed and left to sorrow and wallow in dead end careers.
I REPEAT! Not the prettiest technology (eg. Apple vs MS and Intel), not the fastest technology (eg. Cray, SGI), not the most financed technology (eg. Microsoft and OS2 before it), not the most elloquent design (eg. Motorolla chips vs Intel, also I renember Amigas rulled in that area), not the most efficient (renember token-ring), not the first to market (eg. UNIX). Not ones that seem free or "open" (eg. Java which could have grown faster than Linux if it was under the GPL but didn't, the same with BSD whose license gives forks the power to restrict other peoples freedom to downstream copy making it more proprietary than it could have been). Not even the ones that ride on non-porprietary trends (eg. Sun rode the internet wave, and Oracle is riding on Linux today). No, overall the market always favors the LEAST proprietary technology.
Free markets are about freedoms, especially from proprietary controll, because with freedoms come the flexability to grow outside the confines of one company, or consortium - none of wich can even touch the 10's and trillions produced anually by the gloabl economy and all the branches and directions that wealth can grow.
Moral, freedom matters. Tough it out and go against the grain as much as you can with the proprietary bullshit and things in the long run will be ok. It will be tough, and numb minds may make you sorry for it in the short term, but in the long term you will be so on top.
Right. We can download a bunch of packaged source code and roll *something* up out of it. Yeah.
I remember a bunch of years back showing up at a Red Hat 'road show' event held at a rented hotel meeting room. This was back in the era of Red Hat 5.0. I asked the Red Hat marketing lady if I could make copies of my Red Hat 5.0 CD and give them to my friends. (actually, at the time, I only had 5.0 in the form of a copy from my brother in law).
Boy, she had an uncomfortable look on her face after that...
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
The person I was replying to assumed RedHat didn't make RHAS and RHES available for free. They do. Whether they make it easy or not is debatable.
Do you remember the days before RedHat 5.0 et al? Installing Linux was far from trivial, and you didn't hear anyone complaining that it wasn't made freely available. Back then men were men, and geeks lived in their parents basements!
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Have there ever been a IDC prediction that turned out to be correct? In the 15 years I have been involved in the the industry, I don't remember a single one to be correct, or even close. I remember a lot of the other kind of predictions, such as the expected dominating role of OS/2 and Unix (at one point, IDC bascially predicted these two would divide the market between them), and how PC's, DOS and MS Windows would stay niche products. Of course, there has also been IDC predictions about the later would dominate the market, but these were all after Wintel boxes already dominated the market.
Statistically, IDC ought to be right sometimes. But as it is now, they may actually have a value because the negative corrolation between their predictions and reality.
Haha, what if the ghostscript driver it chooses for you isn't quite the right one?
What if the printer driver that WinXP chooses for you isn't quite the right one? Both problems are about as hard to solve, and roughly as common (i.e. they only happen if you have a very unusual model of printer).
What if only the second printer port is free on the back of your computer?
Huh? It's been a _long_ time since I saw a computer with two printer ports, and most people who aren't power users only have one printer. Besides, just about everyone's using USB these days.
You're bringing up problems here that only power users will see.
I tripped over an ethernet cable in the lab and Bang, SuSE got installed.
I've never had a SuSE installation as the result of a bang before, although I did "have a lot of fun".
Perhaps you forgot to terminate your network cable?
The ones that install effortlessly are hardware PostScript printers. The ones that suck use one of HP's many versions of PCL.
A real PostScript printer is worth every penny.
-Peter
it's BOTH free speech and free as in free beer. Fire was mainstream before people were selling central heating. It's usage, not how much is sold, that makes something mainstream. People use free linux because it is cheap to do so. Huge corporations pay for linux because it is reliable to do so. (you can turn on free linux and leave it on forever, no problems, but if you want to be secure, etc, it helps to have support)
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Oh, god. Some people really have too much time.
Because I actually replied and tried to address everything, I have too much time? Whatever.
You believe wrong.
Amazing logic! Truly, I have been humbled by your razor-sharp intellect.
Yeah, OO.o can't import some files. And that would be enough for some people. Instead of using native format.
Pretty much.
What you're describing windows as is gods gift.
Ah, yes. The wonderful Linux/OSS zealot reaction to anyone that claims Windows might actually be fairly usable.
Yes, I do think Windows is usable.
No, I do not think Windows is god's gift to mankind.
Yes, I think Windows has quite a few issues.
No, I do not think Linux is worthless.
That about covers it.
no HIG whatsoever (XP and Office 2003???? wtf????),
I don't recall mentioning anything about HIG in general, just specific programs.
Office 2003 may have flaws in the UI, but I still think it's better than what OO.org or Staroffice have achieved so far - and i've seen many other people voicing the same opinion. I'm sorry that you feel so upset by that.
virus prone,
Only, frankly, if you're an idiot, deliberately letting things get screwed up, or just generally not using common sense. If anything, Microsoft should share the blame with the users on this one.
If you actually use a slight bit of protection, don't open strange attachments in your email, and use some common sense about visiting the seedier parts of the Internet, it's pathetically easy to avoid getting a virus of any kind.
spyware prone.
See above.
Start menu without any sense. (why the fuck does every software have to make his submenu, can't M$ just make some restrictions base on software type?)
What makes no sense to you makes perfect sense to someone else.
Control panels that mess up configuration to level of insanity (things can be done simpler you know).
Maybe they can, but it sure as hell isn't under most flavors of Linux either. For anything non-trivial you still have to dive into text config files half the time, or deal with configuration tools that make absolutely no effort to explain what the setting you're changing actually does.
Ultra friendly network browser that never displays what I wuold like, only what I wouldn't like.)
Ahah! It doesn't work how you personally want it, so of course it must be total crap! Genius!
You obviously don't know how network neighborhood looks when you enter into 50-100 computer network
Actually, I do. And I also know how it looks with a network of about 2000 or so computers and printers. If you know where you're looking, and the admins don't have a completely nonsensical naming scheme, it's actually not too hard to find things.
If the admins/users have named all the devices with random arbitrary names...Well, who's fault is that?
Oh yes. Getting slower with time.
Mmmhmm. Have any actual benchmarks for that, or are you just spouting your personal opinion like fact again?
And most of all my dear dorothy. Why the fuck there's no simple way to stop desktop notifications? (don't offer registry key or tweakit, you were talking about grandma)
Why should there be a simple way to do that? If you're advanced and/or knowledgable enough to want all the notifications turned off, then you can do it the slightly harder way. Try here, tip #012. Only takes adding one value on one key in the registry.
You said you use antivirus, ad-aware and firefox. Does typical grandma install these?? Or she just uses what system offers?
Antivirus: If she bought a pre-made system, chances are very good that one was already installed. If she had someone build
I still live in 'the days before RedHat 5.0. RH 4.3 was the last Red Hat distro I could/would tolerate. I went back to Slackware after trying 5.0.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
Because I actually replied and tried to address everything, I have too much time? Whatever.
...., or if you preffer selecting it in synaptic). Everything else is base Ubuntu install (you can't choose anything but setup, write who you are and set internet connection). Is ubuntu now defined as usable? Not yet. It will when I won't need to install computer for my father. Everything should just work. (not like OSX, that one is even worster than Windows, and before you reply. I have two OSX macs. And I have to use them on regular base)
No, all the things you described you have to do with your Windows. Download this, install this. Download this, install this....
sarcasm: I can imagine every decent grandma does that between making breakfast.
another sarcasm: It's a DVD for me 1.5 minute of clicking if I don't wan't to select defaults (I always partition my disks as I wish and select packages I want), wait 10 more and installed.
Ahah! It doesn't work how you personally want it, so of course it must be total crap! Genius!
(snip - my comment)...
Actually, I do. And I also know how it looks with a network of about 2000 or so computers and printers. If you know where you're looking, and the admins don't have a completely nonsensical naming scheme, it's actually not too hard to find things.
If the admins/users have named all the devices with random arbitrary names...Well, who's fault is that?
Not talking about computers. Talking about share points that are found. And as such you soon get zillion example:"C on xxx" or "shared on YYYY" and such. Yeah I can imagine this admin:)
no HIG whatsoever
Yes, but OS without HIG is harder to comprehend for not techie people. Every keyboard shortcut different from software to software. Non-standard toolbar icons. Sometimes software doesn't even support basic theme (aka. draws non-standard shaped buttons, uses non-theme colors...)
What makes no sense to you makes perfect sense to someone else.
Yeah, grandma knows that her burning software is under Programs - Ahead - Nero
virus, spyware
Yeah, that's why Outlook and IE are unadvised as unsecure:) Because MS counts that everybody will install FF and TB. Grandma doesn;;t know what security hole is.
Mmmhmm. Have any actual benchmarks for that, or are you just spouting your personal opinion like fact again?
You don't need them. First of the reasons why this happens is registry. More you install more registry gets stuffed. And bigger registry gets, longer searches are taking to find keys. Uninstall doesn't delete keys mostly. Sometimes they don't delete even files. Remember no Cleansweep. It's grandma we're talking. You could say that grandma wouldn't install anything. Wrong. Explorer does that for her while she's browsing internet.
Why should there be a simple way to do that? If you're advanced and/or knowledgable enough to want all the notifications turned off, then you can do it the slightly harder way. Try here, tip #012. Only takes adding one value on one key in the registry.
I know that, I know! I guess you're not talking about grandma anymore. Grandma won't edit registry or play with TweakUI.
No doubt you think there's something horribly wrong with the fact that I (or other people) don't use completely free software.
???? Here you got something wrong. I don't have anything against proprietary software. Hell I've got for over $20000 of software in my own company
REMEBER! WE TALK ABOUT GRANDMA and basic system usability for her
p.s. Once any system is tweaked for user, everything gets simpler. Hell I set up RH7.2 for my father and he had no problems. Was RH7.2 user friendly??? No way. Why he had no problem? Because I made sure everything is as it should be.
Now he's got Ubuntu. And everything just works, I don't think that I installed him anything but java for browser and gstreamer plugins (that means one apt-get install
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
p.s. to clear up some things.
I'm not bashing Windows. They just don't work as they should.
My rule is:
There are three major computer systems now.
One that is not there, - Linux
One that looks and works like crap, - Windows
and one that never works (even though they say Just Works) - OSX
Personally I preffer Linux because it is at least moving in the right direction.
Windows do work and look like crap, but at least they do its job as they should.
OSX is a personal hatred of mine, slow and everything is always breaking. From update to update, it always surprises you with new bugs.
Is any of those usable for grandma? No. By idea OSX is the nearest, but implementation is completely different story.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition