Dvorak on How Microsoft Can Kill Linux

gewg_ writes "John C. Dvorak thinks he knows the way Redmond can kill Linux. Basing his premise on the relative dearth of device drivers available for Linux (compared to what is available for Windows), he sees an opportunity for the Borg to embrace and extinguish." From the article: "The immediate usefulness of Linux running under Windows is obvious. You can use all the Windows drivers for all the peripherals that don't run under Linux. Drivers have always been an issue with Linux as PC users have gotten spoiled with Windows driver support. Today's user wants to grab just about anything and not worry about installing it and making it work."

Comments

vmware

[codepunk]

Sounds like vmware to me....nope did not kill linux and likely never will...

What would MS-linux have I can't get from

[georgeha]

Cygwin or MS Services for Unix?

Plus, there are quite a few hardware devices that work in Linux and not all versions of Windows, for instance my Kensington SVGA webcam, fine in Linux, not available in Win2k.

RTFA - nothing to see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, BFOTO (blinding flash of the obvious):
If MS developed an "MS Linux" as described, it would be one of many distributions. Even if it became "the dominant" one (the only good use for which would be to use the Windows drivers for devices Linux lacks driver support for), then stops supporting drivers for their own flavor of Linux... ummm... hmmm... what would happen? Oh -
Dvorak suggests that this somehow magically kills *all* of the different flavors of Linux. (Not *nix, he mentions only Linux).
He also alludes to some heretofore unknown, undiscovered-but-for-M$-lawyers hole in the GPL that would somehow allow M$ to pry Linux from the hands of the community into its control.
I RTFA'd twice, but John, you lost me on this. I can only guess you were looking for more hits to your column website from ./. I got suckered... Ad revenue whore, anyone...

A little tale for you

[HogynCymraeg]

I had a new hard disk a while back and I installed XP and Suse 9.2 on it.
Windows XP took around 15 mins to install, with a couple of reboots. I then installed my nvidia drivers. Rebooted. I then installed my firewall. Rebooted. I then installed the drivers for the cisco aironet card. Rebooted. I then installed the drivers for my Delta-Audio 1010LT soundcard. Rebooted. I spent over an hour installing all the drivers I needed to make my system *functional*.
Suse took ~20-25 mins to install with all the software I wanted. When I logged in, everything just worked...

People say they use windows because it just works. Bull. It's just that people have been conditioned to accept that installing drivers is not part of the installation process.

There may be more drivers available for windows, but I'll stick with the linux way of doing things and buy cautiously.

Re:They're using the wrong OS to begin with

[Albanach]

You made me think of a recent experience installing an iPod.

Under FC3 I plug it in, the computer automatically recognises an Ipod has been plugged in and makes the folder /media/iPod I type yum install gtkpod and I have a working iPod in under 2 minutes.

Over on Windows - and I'm not sure if this is the same on an Apple - it took about fifteen minutes of copying software from CD, signing up online, agreeing to several licenses, entering the serial number at least two times in different places...

I've had similar experiences with a Samsung laser printer that 'just worked' on linux but took an age to install on windows.

While I'll admit not everything is supported under Linux, of the stuff that is it seems a heck of a lot easier o get it running than with Windows.

Re:Jesus, What a MORON!

[joeljkp]

I blogged an idea similar to this. Text below:

Today OSNews was talking about a Dvorak article in which he proclaims that if Microsoft created a Linux-Windows hybrid with the Windows driver layer, you would have instant compatibility with every device under the sun, and MS would take the Linux world by storm.

It's an interesting thought, and it brings up something I've been tossing around in my head for a while.

What if there existed an open standard for an operating system driver API? Such a standard would cover things like how the driver communicated with the kernel, how it was seen by the rest of the operating system, etc. If successful (and sufficiently free of restriction), it might be possible that many different operating systems would support it.

This would truly be one of the holy grails of computing: the device manufacturer would only need to write and maintain a single driver, and everything from Windows to BeOS would be able to use it.

Re:WHAT!?

[tbone1]

Dvorak's not a credible source.

The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a "mouse". There is no evidence that people want to use these things.
- John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984.