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25 Years After DOS - Lessons for Linux?
E IS mC(Square) writes "Microsoft is planning to celebrate 25 years of DOS. An article at ReallyLinux discusses what lessons Linux can learn from the history of DOS. The article begins with 'What can the Linux world learn from Microsoft's past 25 years of unique experiences and domination?', and ends with 'Only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?'" From the article: "First, we must admit openly once and for all that the 'best solution' is not always the 'most used solution.' There are few who would be foolish enough to argue that back in 1981 PC-DOS was the best solution. There were obviously a number of choices. PC-DOS was the least robust, the most temperamental, and arguably not very compatible with the IBM hardware and BIOS it was sold to work on. Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show."
I'm sure Linux could learn a lot by including a DOS utility... preferably pointed at Microsoft's servers?
My UID is prime... is yours?
Whoever has the most capital and the best marketability owns the market.
This topic has been covered millions of times. "It's not if, it's when Linux will..." and finish the quote with some audacious goal. If Linux can solve the problems, let it. If it can't, then fine. Do we really need to regurgitate this same idea over and over again?
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
This is the attitude that is going to prevent that from ever happening. I wish the movers and shakers in the Linux world would decide to focus on a subset of the OS market, and do it well, instead of trying to do everything and losing focus of good engineering practices...
"Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show."
It was easy for DOS to "steal the show". The purchase of every PC basically required a license of this "cheap OS" by order of Mighty Microsoft. And of course that money went straight to them.
As a poster in the HP/Linux story wrote today, to this day some hardware vendors have contracts with MS that require them to sell a Windows license with every system, even if they're going to run Linux. Maybe THAT is what Microsoft is really celebrating. 25 years and going...
In other news the bacteria E.Coli is celebrating a glorious million year aniversary as the intestinal parasite of choice when it comes to sudden, explosive diarrhea.
Seriously, the only, and I mean ONLY good thing about dos was when you programmed for it, it got the hell out of the way and let you at the hardware. Software got full control of the machine at execution, giving great performance (which mattered at the time) and more reliable software. The only downside was a complete lack of library infrastructure for functionality sharing beyond simple io. Well that and the whole "ssh! pretend its a 8Mhz 8088" real-mode limitation.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
... best solution' is not always the 'most used solution.'...
I'm wondering if this couldn't be explained by evolution theory where the best adapted to environment survive, not the "best"
. . .because the ad told you it was the best selling, don't you?
Come on, admit it. "Most used" isn't a criteria for Open Source development. MS has very, very little to teach OSS, because they are innately in different worlds. Stop with the "market think" already.
If, and when, Linux takes over as the most used OS it will be as a side effect. If it does not take over, well, then at least it's a better alternative freely available to anyone.
Mercedes doesn't feel any obligation to make Escort knockoffs just because more of them are sold, and they are market driven.
KFG
There's nothing odd about the dominance of vhs over beta. Vhs had porn, beta did not.
There were obviously a number of choices. PC-DOS was the least robust, the most temperamental, and arguably not very compatible with the IBM hardware and BIOS it was sold to work on. Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show.
A more apt comparison I have not seen. In the end, both were about marketing---the inferior product had better marketing strategies pushing them. Both were championed by groups whose main selling point was that it was "good enough" to do what you wanted, but without you having to pay out the nose for more proprietary solutions.
While I am sure that there are lessons to be learned from the history of DOS, I think that the biggest one that has shone itself since then is that it really doesn't matter. What I mean by that is that I do not believe that the future will hold as much singular dominance as it once did. What linux and other OSS projects have taught me is that there are other choices, other solutions for a particular problem. It may be OSS, it may be proprietary. It really doesn't matter. Also what I believe to be tantamount to that is that linux and the OSS community as a whole needs to learn is that users are not going to use difficult products. That is why the GUI came into existence. Most users shunned computers until they had a way of interacting with them that had some intuitiveness to it. Although I am a big linux and OSS supporter, I am constantly amazed at the horrible or non-existant documentation that comes with OSS. Don't even get me started about installation procedures and dependancies. What linux needs to learn if they want a larger market penetration is that no one, other than those willing to devote lots of time to learning how it all works at a low level will adopt it. Make it easy for the masses. Make things work without having to dig around the internet for libraries and other dependancies. Give good documentation - not geek speak.
My
When distro makers license custom 3D drivers to go in their distributions as standard.
For example, ATI's 9800 driver installation process may suck (I still can't get them to work in any distro I've tried -- I am not a Linux expert by any stretch of the imagination), but if the distro makers want gamers and games developers to join them they're going to have to tackle this problem, even if it means coughing up cold hard cash.
William Gates was waiting in the wings, and he signed a deal to give IBM an operating system. Then, Gates bought PC-DOS from Seattle Computer Products. An engineer, Tim Paterson, at that company had stolen the ideas of CPM/86 and created a cheap clone of it. PC-DOS was that clone.
The rest is history. Kildall faded into oblivion, and most people have no idea that he is, in fact, the original inventor of the PC operating system. Meanwhile, billions of people instantly recognize Bill Gates as the "inventor" of the PC operating system. Gates got both the profits and the undeserved fame. Kildall got nothing and drowned in his own bitterness. In the later years of his life, he drank himself into alcoholism and eventually died in a bar.
The greatest insult was, ultimately, assigning the name "William H. Gates" to the Stanford Computer Science building. It should have been called the "Kildall Memorial Building".
I have the utmost respect for the volunteers in the open-source movement. I know that they will give credit where credit is due.
Quote from TFA:
"A friend of mine told me he thinks that if Microsoft released just 10% of the roughly $2 BILLION in CASH (does not include other assets) to help curb diseases and help starvation, many people could be helped."
Wow, his friend is a deep thinker. Money can be used to help stuff... a quality contribution from a quality author.
Why must Linux conquer in the end? Microsoft has billions in the warchest, countless corporate alliances, patents, and whatnot. The Beta and VHS discussion was not really about price or technological superiority. It was more about market clout. Sony didn't have wide market support for its format, other companies joined Matsushita to produce VHS systems, which eventually leveled the prices.
Microsoft continues to dominate with its ties to big OEMs, and on volume sales that these OEMs deal with, Microsoft remains a pretty competitive option for providing support, brand recognition, etc. Plus it doesn't hurt companies and customers that nearly every app written has a version for M$.
People have been claiming Microsoft dead for years now, just like Apple should have been dead a few years ago. It isn't going to happen. If anything, Microsoft will figure out how to buy Linux and jigger with it.
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
Strange, Linux seems to be rock solid.
And it runs on everything from a wristwatch to a mainframe.
It seems as if they have the engineering practices under control.
As for focusing on "a subset", why?
Won't the stability needed for a server be a good feature in a workstation?
Won't the plethora of devices on a workstation give you more flexibility in choosing a server (ATA, SATA, SCSI, etc).
Won't the real-time features necessary for certain segments be nice with workstation audio playback?
There are a couple of very simple lessons to be learned about DOS that should be heard by everyone (I think):
LESSON: Easier may not be better, but more people buy it. Windows was easier for grandma to use than command line interfaces, and thus made DOS obsolete.
LESSON: A product that is targeted to hardware and to a userbase will get market share. DOS was a derivitave work aimed at the microcomputer of the day. This allowed the average company or person to buy that hardware and use it effectively. Its target users were anyone that wanted stand alone computing resources, free of mainframes.
LESSON: Control is not the answer, simplicity is. Because DOS could be installed by anyone on almost any compatible machine, buying it made sense, and money was spent for the version of DOS that had the features required for the job. For this very reason, Microsoft has garnered a long list of detractors.
For the *nix world, what should be learned is that if you want to do something right, make it simple and easy to use by anyone. Make it portable: that is to say, yourLinux should work on many or any hardware platform that would be used by your target userbase. If you are targeting people who want to build their HTPC then by all means, make your own version of Linux if you find benefit to this, otherwise, use some other stable distribution and package it with the software you need to give the end user a sleek and easy installation and maintenance of their HTPC system. If you feel the need to innovate, remember that simple is when you take a good idea and make it usable on any *nix distro, and compatible with other OSs. It is the ease of use that creates marketshare.
While *nix developers struggle with competing with entrenched software vendors, it is time to remember that to beat them you have to be better, not simply a good-enough alternative if you want to get grandma and aunt velda using your code.
Just some thoughts...
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IBM saw the PC as a low priced computer. They released three different OS's for it during the early days. But the other OS's were expensive, one was a Unix. If somebody was going to spend the extra money to get the Unix OS why not spring for a real Unix workstation from IBM, HP, Digital or one of the other powers at the time. Microsoft was smart making DOS cheap on a cheap architecture, it allowed them to get the most initial customers on the PC thus setting themselves up for a successful future.
Lesson for Linux: make a deal with the PC maker controlling the market that forces them to use Linux exclusively, but lets you sell Linux to anyone you want. On the condition that you become so necessary to that PC maker's "successor OS" (the one copying Apple's user-friendly OS) that you can destroy the project. Then copy Apple's OS yourself, and sell it to all the PC-making competitors you've enabled by selling to them, under the compatibility spec.
Then do everything you can to abuse your monopoly position in bundled OS, apps, development and content - too numerous to list here. Then, if a new OS, unburdened with decades of backwards-compatibility baggage and shortsighted design decisions, becomes so popular as to threaten your entire business model, not just your OS product, you can continue to win based on lock-in and political manipulations. Don't worry if you're found to legally abuse your monopoly; you'll be so important that no one can touch you, even the US government. Especially if you just do what all the other popular, important, and big-spending monopolies do: bribe^Wcontribute to important campaigns, and create a "millionaires" cult that fills people with dreams of cheating their own way to the top.
BTW, if you can manage to be supported in your early years by a couple of the country's top corporate lawyers, their son (your CEO) can even drop out of college, looking like everyman while his PR team keeps his trustfund quiet.
--
make install -not war
I remember reading something on /. about a year ago, regarding some linux conference .... anyways some guy from Suse said "Just because an OS holds 90% of the market doesn't mean it's superior. Remember 90% of all animals are insects."
I'm not sure if you can qualify insects as animals, but you get the picture.
Here's the pic from the article
Ultimately, nobody gives a damn what OS is running. Looking at the historical ups and downs of DOS in and of itself is a useless exercise in intellectual masturbation.
People buy computers because of applications, not operating systems. Although Microsoft has managed to turn the OS into the application, the best, most solid systems respect the separation of OS and application. The only thing worthy of analysis relative to all this is the fact that MS's bloating up of DOS with a GUI and bundled apps ended up delivering them market share. But ultimately nobody ever chose a PC based on the OS... never, ever. They may have chosen a PC/OS based on the applications available for the OS, but with the exception of just a few, most computer users don't care what's under the hood as long as it gets them from point A to point B.
That's the way it was, is, and always will be. This holds true for everything from cell phones to console gaming. The system with the most versatility and functionality will win out in the absence of any domineering marketing campaign (which has a tendency of nullifying objectivity).
1. DOS was stable.
2. Because DOS was stable, developers were more comfortable developing applications for it.
3. Because there were more applications available for DOS, it garnered market share.
#2 is the key to it all... Had the first IBM PC been more closed like the Macintosh, the whole industry may have evolved differently. Had the TRS-80 been easier to hack and upgrade, we'd all probably be using TRSDOS v900. Had Apple not decided to turn their backs on the great original idea of embracing third party development when they went the route of Mac/Lisa, we'd all probably be using Apples. It's all about the applications, and how those who develop systems pander to the widest array of appdev talent.
What's funny is what's happened to the software development industry. I'd bet even today, 10+ years after the demise of DOS as a viable platform, there are still more DOS apps than Windows apps. So MS's pie-in-the-sky-OS idea has hurt the industry as a whole by crippling independent software development. That's what we can learn from this whole mess.
You can't freaking run old Dos programs on windows anymore.
Au contraire, and I am constantly amazed at the plethora of 16-bit programs that continue to run on kernels as recent as Windows 2000 - which is a real testament to M$FT & Intel/AMD's devotion to backwards compatibility [and which is also the lesson that FOSS types should take away from this].
However, I hear that Win64/AMD64 does NOT support 16-bit binaries.
For those who are not aware, the genesis of DOS began in deceipt and treachery.
...most people have no idea that he is, in fact, the original inventor of the PC operating system.
You list no such deceit or treachery. All you list is Gary Kildall giving IBM the brushoff. Give credit where credit is due, the fault for CPM/86's failure in the mass market needs to be given to Mr. Kildall.
Then, Gates bought PC-DOS from Seattle Computer Products.
Nothing treacherous or deceitful about that.
An engineer, Tim Paterson, at that company had stolen the ideas of CPM/86 and created a cheap clone of it.
Thank you, Darl MacBride. Was there a patent on CPM/86? No, there wasn't, so no ideas where "stolen", because no ideas were sold. The implementation for CPM/86 itself (copyright) was not copied, modified or distributed. Hence, no "stolen" operating system.
He created a clone of CPM/86, in EXACTLY the same way Linus Torvalds created a clone of Minix/Unix. Why is Tim the thief but not Linus? Oh that's right, in your Darl MacBride world, Linus "stole" Unix. Sigh.
Inventor? What a load of crap! Next you'll be telling me that AT&T/USL/Caldera/SCO were the orginal inventors of Linux!
The greatest insult was, ultimately, assigning the name "William H. Gates" to the Stanford Computer Science building.
It was William H. Gates who donated money to Stanford, not Gary Kildall. Which is why Gar Kildall doesn't have a Stanford campus building named after him. This is so bloody obvious that only a total moron would question it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Objectivity is like hens' teeth in the Linux community, so I suggest that most non-zealots are currently rolling their eyes.
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Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
As it is this article is a factless, pointless rant about Microsoft. It doesn't answer the question it purports to ask ("What can the Linux world learn from Microsoft's past 25 years of unique experiences and domination?") at all. It does however spew every bit of geek lore that makes geeks feel all fuzzy inside knowing how 'superior' they are, regardless of the facts or relevance.
If it were posted on /., it would be modded right up to the stratosphere. As an example of Linux journalism - it's pretty sad.
I find it hard to take seriously any article which takes on capitalist bashing tendencies while at the same time offering zero evidence that PC-DOS was "as the least robust, the most temperamental, and arguably not very compatible with the IBM hardware and BIOS it was sold to work on" or that better alternatives for the IBM PC would have been available. People become wealthy through commerce, at which point they can divert a chosen sum of their own choosing to philanthropic ends. Whining that corporation X doesn't give as much of its shareholder's value away as you'd like is rather undemocratic, as I doubt you'd be a majority shareholder. I'd be very curious if anyone has evidence that backs up the 3 major shortcomings he asserts in PC-DOS though.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
My only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?
Sometime after Mr. Koenning learns to write an editorial that reads less like a bad high school essay.
Hnm...I worked at Digital Research for three summers while I was in high school and college. I don't think what you're saying really holds water. CP/M was a nice enough OS in some ways, but it was painfully primitive by modern standards. Rumor had it that Kildall wrote the original CP/M over a weekend on a handy machine he had access to at the Naval Postgraduate School. It was a very basic, bare-bones OS, and it was by no means a state-of-the-art OS compared to, say, Unix; but that's not surprising, because it had to run in a 64k address space.
I also don't think it's accurate to portray Gary Kildall as a naive engineer who didn't know business. Digital Research was quite a successful business by the standards of a time when "microcomputer" users were mostly hobbyists. The story about his being out flying his plane when IBM showed up for the meeting is memorable, but probably untrue. A more believable version that I've heard is that IBM wanted Kildall and his wife to sign NDA's, and they refused. That wasn't as crazy as it might seem today. IBM had never even entered the microcomputer market. In the world of microcomputers, DRI was the big, established, dominant company, and IBM was trying to break in.
Actually, TFA isn't referring to CP/M at all:
- Look I say this with caution but sincerity since I began using DOS around the same time I had used UNIX and its variants, VMS, Stratus VOS and others.
VMS and Unix were indeed much more sophisticated than PC-DOS (or CP/M), but, uh, you couldn't run them in a 64k address space. People had made various trimmed-down 8-bit versions of Unix (proprietary, of course), but they weren't as sophiaticated as real Unix.From the article:
- My only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?
Sorry, but this is really dopey. The historical stuff he's talking about isn't parallel to the modern situation at all. Some crucial differences:Find free books.
DOS was learned by me because it ran games. And it gave me more speed than booting into Windows did, for most things, and thus the DOS file system and commands are burned into my brain, before UNIX ones were.
Linux has to take this fact - people learn something one way, and don't like to learn how to do it a different way unless they are forced to or are very curious. Linux has to force people to move, by providing killer aps, that every kid wants. They need GAMES, and INSTANT MESSENGERS that blow the pants off of anything on a Windows box, and then we'll see mainstream Linux on the Desktops in 10 years when these kids are buying their own computers for University.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
"Socially, the vacuum was created by greed.
...
A friend of mine told me he thinks that if Microsoft released just 10% of the roughly $2 BILLION in CASH (does not include other assets) to help curb diseases and help starvation, many people could be helped."
I was uneasy reading this OP/Ed piece. But once I got to the "social" problem, I stopped reading. So, what charitable organization has the one of the largest endowments in the world? That would be the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that has an endowment of roughly $29 billion. And what do they focus on? Global health problems like HIV/AIDS in Africa and education.
So only Microsoft should be held to this lofty standard of donating 10% of its cash to help the needy? Why not every company? Why shouldn't Ford donate 10% of its cash hoard (~$10 billion). What about Apple's $6 billion cash hoard? Or what about ordinary people? Why don't we require everyone to donate 10% of their savings account? Because Micro$oft is evil and should give back? As soon as I read this I knew this op/ed piece was a waste.
'Only question now is not if but when will Linux become the number one OS on earth?'"
Sorry but it is not going to happen. Linux needs to grow away from MS and stop comparing itself to it. The more I read about how Linux can compare to MS (let alone 25 years ago) just leads me to believe more and more that Linux will keep copying Windows until Microsoft goes out of business. What happens then?
If Linux is to come out on top it needs to be more innovative and less whiny about Microsoft. Seriously. The entire "whine" (TM) factor needs to go the way of the dodo. It is a great turnoff to those of us that are considering Linux but are reluctant to leave MS.
Posting opinions on Slashdot is the geek equivalent of talking about politics in a bar. Neither actually change anything unless your a fascist dictator looking for easily lead goons.
I'm not just a troll, I'm a drunken troll.
Linux is really boring from an os standpoint. Now Plan 9......
Yes my UID is prime, thank you. I'm very proud of it.
Aside from running specific apps that haven't been ported to Linux yet, name anything that Windows can do that Linux cannot.
Linux is quickly taking over the server market segment so SOMEONE has to like the Linux approach.
I'm typeing this on Ubuntu and Windows is behind on ease of use.
Surprise! Linux both technically better AND easier to use now.
Remember, it's easier to make a stable and secure platform easy to use than it is to make an unstable/insecure platform stable and secure, no matter how easy it is for the end user to use.
Linux will take the server market first.
Then it will take the corporate/government desktop.
Only then will it take the home user desktop (if such still exists then).
No, the IBM PC took over the market within 2 years, DOS hitched along for the ride.
The reason that the IBM PC took over the market was because it was the right computer (business oriented, super number crunching, fast hi-res text display), at the right time, from the right people.
The IBM PC would still have stormed the market if it was running CP/M.
MS-DOS played an insignificant role in the early success of the PC, if anything it hindered developers and owners of businesses already running on CP/M machines from moving to the PC until they were convinced that it was going to be a roaring success.
Everything you described is perfectly legit business.
Buying a company and its IP for a song is perfectly justifiable if that company can't sell its product. Having a good product and lacking the ability to sell it makes a company almost as worthless as having no product at all. Having technology or resources but not the capital or expertise to bring them to market is a very common problem with small companies in all industries.
Gates had the expertise necessary to market the product he fairly purchased. Having his company's name and logo on the product is completely reasonable.
Linux will not kill Windows.
Game consoles will kill Windows.
That's where the volume is, and where the bleeding edge tech is headed, because dollars from games drive graphics and cpu development.
In 10 years, SOME device decended from a game console (I won't try to predict which) will unseat the PC.
IBM's $39.95 DOS while CP/M was $450 and UCSD p-System was $550. http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/1908p133id52503. htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
Why does it have to be Linux? Why Windows? I would bet good money that the "number one OS on Earth" will be neither of the two.
Unix and its early variants, around for about 30 years, are quickly losing share to Linux. DOS only had a 20-year shelf-life. Windows, around now in various forms for about 15 years, is probably going to give-way soon to another major evolution in OS. Linux, too, probably will go away to be replaced by something better. It's just a matter of time.
But to say that "Linux will become the number one OS on Earth" is a bit like a mother claiming her child is the best actress of all time, just undiscovered at the moment.
OSS zealots need to be less focused on smashing Microsoft and their self-claimed superiority, and more focused on solving the problems that are limiting their market-share.
Either that, or - as someone earlier stated - focus on a niche that Linux can properly serve and stick with that.
-David
Linux based OS's are only as powerful as the people using them. If you don't know what you are doing then its not going to do a whole lot for you.
It was not just simple, but darn simple and made it possible for the genius and the technophobe to achieve the same results: operating a PC. That's sort of exactly the problem. An ideal OS should allow a genius and a technophobe to achieve different results (even if it does allow the technophobe to operate a PC)...
Telltale Games: Bone, Sam and Max
Unfortunately for your example, customers have many, many definitions of "in their own interest".
One may, for example, assume a "smart" customer would choose a superior OS like... OS X. Or Linix. Or whatever.
However, they also consider other questions like... How much it is? Is it already installed so I don't have to mess with it? Do I have to relearn everything? While it run my existing software? Will it work on my computer? Is Half-Life 2 available for it? And so on.
Thus what you might consider to be a "stupid" choice may make sense to those who make it, because that choice best reflected their needs, their budget, their skill level, and/or their ability to change.
Sum up the majority of those decisions, and you have the dominant market force.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Gary Kildall had created CPM/86, and it was an outstanding product that incorporated modern techniques of operating systems.
Quite possibly it is better-engineered than PC-DOS was, but CP/M-86 does NOT 'incorporate modern techniques of operating systems.'
I've installed CP/M-86 on one of the old Kaypros in my collection of Old hardware. It's functionally about as 'powerful' as PC-DOS, though there are darn few binaries to run on it. It doesn't have subdirectories, and hard drive partitions are limited to 6 MB. Which is better than PC-DOS 1.0 which didn't have default support for a hard drive at ALL.
But where do you get this 'incorproated modern techniques of operating systems' notion from? Neither were very leading-edge in that regard. Remember, Xenix was already on the market. I even have an 8086 Xenix machine in my collection that's from the same era. Now *that* system incorporated modern techniques for the time...
I guess your right. Linux OS's just weren't meant to be run by computer illiterate people. I hope thats not the future of computer using world.
First, while IBM had a full licence deal to use Windows 3.1 (a bit remaining from the whole OS2/NT partnership), they made no real effort to make it work well inside their fancy 32bit OS (starting Windows programs resulted in a copy of Windows 3.1 actually being booted up just for that program).
This isn't correct, or rather, it's not an accurate representation of the effort IBM made with Windows for their WinOS2 subsystem.
IBM had access to the Windows source from Microsoft as part of the deal they cut during the breakup. In order to get it to run properly, they made some changes to the WinOS2 subsystem to allow it to run as a DPMI client under their new MVDM (Multiple Virtual DOS Machine) subsystem,they recompiled the code with Watcom's C compiler to improve performance, and they also redesigned the Windows video driver layer to allow a WinOS2 session to poke a hole in OS/2's native PM (Presentation Manager) desktop and display that WinOS2 session alongside the rest of the screen (which was controlled by PM).
The end result was called Seamless Windows, and was both fascinating in its flexibity and disconcerting in its mixing of two window APIs and two sets of Window frames and mouse cursors on the same desktop.
Not only did IBM tweak the video subsystem, but networking, sound, and other elements of the virtualized Windows environment were allowed to use the OS/2 networking, sound, and mouse services, resulting in a hybrid that ran Windows software quite nicely without having to have direct access to any of that hardware (or to use any Windows or DOS drivers).
The WinOS2 subsystem in OS/2 2.0 only supported Windows 3.0 programs (note that Windows 3.1 had been released in APril 1992, roughly the same time that OS/2 2.0 was finally released as a General Availability product), but OS/2 2.1 corrected that in May of 1993, and the so-called emulation of Windows 3.1 was so good between the 2.1 release and the release of Windows 95 that many software vendors saw no real point in supporting OS/2's own native API, and Microsoft chose to respond to this threat by creating over a dozen different "Win32S.dll" additions to the Windows 3.1 API to make Windows a moving target that IBM couldn't possibly keep up with.
The care taken for supporting old DOS programs (which they didn't need Microsoft's help for) was even worse - while Windows 95 needed tweaking options too, OS/2 presented users with a huge checklist that had to have been literally copied straight from the constant names in the C header file (the option names even included the underscore). The options where so badly labeled that even an expert had a hard time figuring out what each option did, let alone what option should be used to get a program to run.
This is total nonsense. The options presented for a VDM were numerous, that is true, but that's simply a reflection of the tremendous amount of flexibility that IBM designed into their MVDM subsystem (a subsystem which has survived almost unchanged though Warp 4 to eComStation today). The options were (and are) clearly labelled, had fairly extensive online help, and were quite clear to anyone familiar with the terminology and options that were present in a copy of actual DOS.
Think of a Windows 3.1 PIF file on steroids.
I'm saying this as a DOS user from 1988 through 1992 who switched to OS/2 2.0 in 1992 from a combination MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 environment for the main reason of running multiple virtual DOS machines for using my DOS software collection. I know the OS/2 VDM subsystem inside and out from a user perspective, and it was *trivial* for a knowledgable DOS user to master quickly.
DOS machines under OS/2, by default, used a virtual DOS kernel, not a real DOS kernel. That means they used an interface which looked like the real DOS interrupt interface, but which actually provided a link to OS/2's own system services. Because of this, a DOS program could usually use things like the mouse, soundcard, and networkin
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
OS/2 Warp 3.0 was released initially with two dialers -- one for IBM's internet service, and the other (called Dial Other Internet Providers, or DOIP) to connect with any other ISP who was using either SLIP or PPP for serial TCP/IP connections.
(Technically speaking, the original red-spine Warp 3.0 boxes were only shiopped with only SLIP support, but PPP support was a free download from IBM and could also be obtained on diskette).
At that point in time, very few home users had any need for network card support (home LANs were almost unheard of), and of course Windows 95 wasn't released until ten months later.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Nope, Windows 3.1 uses VCPI which is incompatible with virtual 8086 mode (what Windows 9x/2k/xp use for DOS). IBM modified their copy of Win-OS/2 to use DPMI instead and either included the full modified version (blue spine) or just the modified files (red spine) with OS/2. Making VCPI programs work in Windows or Dosemu is as impossible as making 32 bit real mode (see Ultima 7) programs work. For those smart alecks who bring up u7win9x and u7xp, those replace the 32 bit real mode code with Windows compatible code much like the red spine OS/2 modified an existing Windows 3.1 install.
Let's see.... Apache is a fairly unique web server. The only thing that really compares is IIS, which is still entirely different except for the fact that they both talk HTTP. Apache has been ported, but it's better with Linux.
Firefox. Pop-up-blocking -- never done by MS, only by third-parties. Tabbed browsing -- I'm not sure if Mozilla invented this, but MS certainly didn't. Firefox is ported to Windows, but I like it better with Linux.
Also, Windows on Dos vs. X Windows on Linux suggests that you REALLY haven't dug under the hood a lot. I can actually do 90% of the things I need to do on this computer without a single instance of X running. I choose not to, because I like some of the graphical programs, but it's a hell of a lot different than "rebooting to DOS" on a Win98 box. For one, I can get back into X in less than 10 seconds; I'm lucky to get back into Win98 in less than 10 minutes.
Now, the kicker -- something Linux has, that's only been weakly imitated on other platforms and not at all widely used anywhere but Linux: virtual desktops/workspaces. Windows people buy multiple monitors; Linux people hit ctrl+alt+rightarrow. AFAIK, Nvidia implements this fairly weakly, and there's some strange-looking implementation on a Mac.
Oh, and let's not forget the nice little tweaks like middle-click to paste the hilight. Windows' copy-and-paste is much slower.
These are two things that I absolutely can't live without these days, but even once I got my parents on Linux, they haven't wrapped their minds around the concept -- or else they haven't found a good use for it yet. Not surprisingly, my 14-year-old brother is catching on much faster.
So, Linux is already really cool. For a feature like that to be really cool and also significantly impact market share, you have to already have people dual-booting. What we really need is to make Linux a good enough Windows replacement that one day, Dell will silently replace all copies of XP (or Longhorn, or whatever's next) on their new computers with a copy of Dell Linux, and people will think of it as a simple upgrade -- just like going from 2K to XP.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
More seriously, as a so-called MS Partner (heck, they gave me that one day, I still don't know why folks!) I'm a bit mystified. I've looked high and low in my XP and Server 2003 systems, even those bits of Longhorn they let me play with and I don't see any DOS. Something of a DOS emulator, but nothing on point. Oh well.
Not that I want DOS anyway. Given my druthers, I'd shoot this machine if someone would give me mi Amigas back!
DOS, blech!
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Converting a userbase of idio...err... average users to linux will almost certainly introduce viruses. No amount of technology will prevent fools from being ingenious.
On the other hand, greater amounts of users would also make the linux market profitable, bringing in more drivers, applications, games(!) and commercial support.
Before that ever happens, however, you'd need to have the Linux dumbed down to something that treats you like a drooling, brain-damaged four-year-old before the mainstream would switch from windows xp.
And of course, the average drooling, brain-damaged four-year old can't compile from source, now can (s)he? And too many options are just confusing for the user, only a small percentage of people use more than the top-3 options. Differences between boxen? Complicated. We need to standardise everything to the average needs! Etcetcetc, you know where this goes.
The bottom line is that we, slashdot readers, probably make up for a large part of that "small percentage".
I *want* Linux to provide options that would confuse a luser.
I *want* terminals that look scary to lusers.
I *want* an editor a luser can't possibly use.
I *want* to edit the kernel source, fine-tune it and then compile it myself.
Almost everything we love about Linux, leaves the average user puzzled and confused and is thus incompatible with a large user base.
Whenever intelligent, but otherwise computer-illiterate, friends are over here and seem puzzled by my computer, I avoid talking about computers and Linux. It's impossible to make them understand and even if I could *make* them understand (obligatory cattle prod reference omitted), is it worth the trouble? Converting them would only make me their tech-support slaves.
It's in my interest to keep the mainstream away from Linux.
VHS was better for a number of reasons, the most important being that you could actually fit a movie on one tape.
Really, I wish people would stop using it as an example of something it's not.
Know why DOS succeeded, and then Windows? Because it was professional. Professionalism breeds trust. Imagine some pundit trying to sell tax cuts using this guy's writing style. You'd think he was a nut who wasn't prepared to sell his ideas.
And that my friends, as much as I like open source software, is the story of why open source software gets beaten by Microsoft and Apple -- they're great at ideas in places where Microsoft is blindsided, but have no clue how to present themselves to the mass market.
There's a reason why icons like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are icons -- they've honed their craft and are master salesmen. Open source makes no effort to sell themselves like established companies.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
The problem with your plan is that is sounds fairly Anti-US, and as you give it, it comes from a US company. Pitching Linux soley as a way to "reduce dependency on the US" is selling it short.
I understand that many non US citizens have a great deal of anger or frustration over Microsoft and other US companies, but a sales pitch that is anti-US isn't going to gain the trust or participation of regular Joes here in the US. While Linux doesn't NEED the participation of American's to be successful (look at how many contributors are not American, most), it certainly is helpful. Even Linus lives here now, after all.
There are plenty of Americans like myself that are fed up with Microsoft's licensing plans and predatory methods. I would think you are better off by devising a plan that includes us, rather than isolates us by simply selling Linux as a way to get away from those bad old American companies.
Your suggestions is exactly what MS is hoping for: Pitching Linux not as a superior product at a better price, but as a knee jerk reaction to frustration about the US.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
does this look like windows 98? this is the baghira theme of kde.
i think kde looks a hell of a lot better than 98 or xp.
there's far more functionality in kde than windows 98 too - ever heard of the kio slaves? i took a screenshot, then saved it to my ftp server, as though it was on my local hard disk. you can use kio slaves for many different protocols, including ssh and ftp.
The success of the Microsoft Operating Systems really didn't have much to do with their quality or power. As I recall PC-DOS didn't even have nested directories. It wasn't just marketing either -- Microsoft marketed the hell out of "Bob" and "OS/2 Warp", but those Operating Systems were not successes. In those early days of PCs, what sold PCs and with them MS-DOS, were the applications: WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, and DBASE. What the Linux folks should learn is one simple lesson: Most people couldn't care less about the operating system, they just want to run applications that do what they want to do. An operating system should strive to be "invisible". The most disconcerting thing that people used to MS-DOS found when they wanted to try Linux was that the OS was too "visible". "What do you mean I have to mount my disks before I can use them!!? -- I don't have to do that in Windows or DOS." The best lesson that Linux can learn from the Microsoft crowd is "don't assume that the user knows anythhing about computing". When I say I think I'll use the MAC OS because it has a UNIX kernel, my friends don't know what I'm talking about. But if tell some musicians I'm switching to the MAC because of the Music Studio Software, they relate to me immediately. I can be showing of all the neat features of Fedora to my friends, but all they care about is the applications. I don't try anymore to sell "Linux" -- I sell Firefox, Open Office, Evolution etc... To become the munber one Operating System, Linux needs better applications and an Operating System that gets out of the way of the applications. I think Microsoft actually turns a lot of people off with always having a new Operating System to upgrade to. People who have the applications they use running on Windows 2000, Windows 98 or Windows 95(!!?), don't really care about the operating system.
I know people will bring up the issues of security , scalability, etc... but most computer users don't care. They don't care what encryption you're using, just stop viruses from getting on their computers! So that's the key: mold the operating system so that the user doesn't even know it's there and provide some new essential applications that don't run on Windows. There really haven't been any real breakthrough applications on ANY platform in the last decade. Programmers are still creating Word Processors, Databases and Spreadsheets... The OS that supports the next breakthrough App will be able to "catch" Microsoft.