Linux on the Tipping Point

Reader stormcoder wrote to mention an article on Enterprise Linux I.T. in which the author posits that even though Linux is built on a legend, the reality of Linux outstrips even the myth. From the article: "..the fact that Linux has traditionally been compared to Microsoft's Windows brand products and not the other Unix variants will most likely lead the general public to perceive all this as Linux sailing on to new horizons while Microsoft stalls out. This perceptual shift should totally reverse the previous mainstream view that Microsoft and Intel were somehow at the forefront of high technology computing -- thereby pushing Linux over the magic edge of a social tipping point."

Comments

Huh?

[Adam Avangelist]

Linux is well ahead of the latest Microsoft products and so shines in such comparisons. It is not, however, remotely a leading edge system in the same class with the BSD family of Unix products and Sun's Solaris.

The BSD family of Unix is very large some may say it also includes HP-UX. Though if you include the open-source BSD's: Free, Open, and Net BSD. I would disagree that it is not even in the same class as them; as Linux has far more commercial support and technical features.

Also some may consider Windows NT based systems to be part of the BSD family, or atleast its TCP/IP stack.

As with all things....

[Anonymous Coward]

Jenna Jameson will show us the way.

I converted one of my workstations over to linux as a means to broaden my horizions. Not too long after that I got a call to finx one of my friends computers. After 3 hours of cleaning up malware of all kinds I learned that 1) He had a fetish for hot asian teens, and 2) I would only get this call again, since he didn't want to learn to use a newsreader.

So I floated the idea of him getting a mobile rack and putting linux on a cheap 40 GB HD. I selected Mandrake since I had grown to loath Redhat.

6 months or so later he uses linux almost exclusively. I don't have to say why. And he's bragging to his friends as work how awesome it is to surf for porn on linux, and how him computer isn't crippled by shit.

But the masses, they don't hear the kind of cloistered evangelism taking place on Slashdot. It doesn't even exist in their world. But the dream of malware free porn does. It might not be the high road, but the way is there. And it has nothing to do with the rambeling delusions offered up in groupthinkgeek pieces.

Critical mass at the doorstep in germany

[Qbertino]

Linux will reach critical mass in germany within the next 12 months. Everybody with more than 2 braincells and some IT knowledge has predicted this for years. For more and more partners I work with it isn't a question of wether or not one should use Linux, but how to apply it. It's actually a thing I bet my business on two years ago and to date I haven't regreted it.
MS Windows is done with. People allways call me insane when I say this, but even the most notorious Windows users here say they will migrate to Linux when Win2K support ceases.
It could very well be that MS will pull a publicity stunt and start releasing their own Linux Distro, with DX9, NTFS and all. They'd have to admit having done a big mistake, they'd be 3 years late, but I guess with 40 billion on the bank it's not such a big problem taking hold of the 15% growth FOSS IT services market in something like 6 months flat.
Anyway you look at it, the next years are going to be interessting and probably lot's of fun aswell. :-)

Re:May be Mac Mini instead

[zpok]

What ho, I'm not so sure (well, you're obviously right about baby Jesus and the one button mouse)...

For years Fnac (French pan-european books music and electronics store) offers macs but with salespitches indeed basically going "Macs suck, look at this Compaq here..."

But recently this has changed completely, I now hear them sell the thingies pretty balanced: "No, it doesn't run Windows, maybe that's a problem for you, but maybe not? What do you want your computer to do?"

And other intelligent noises like that. And indeed sell a good number of iMacs, portables and mini's. I gather pro's don't buy their G5 powertowers there...

Sort of like Hell froze over. Must be because they also sell a gazillion iPods every day...