Slashdot Mirror
Vista Launch Good for Desktop Linux?
Sensible Clod writes "XYZ Computing has an article hypothesizing that the arrival of Windows Vista may be a big opportunity for Linux to make headway on the desktop. Massive feature cutbacks for Vista as well as huge hardware requirements are cited as major factors. From the article: 'As the time gets closer and closer to the public debut of Vista the operating system seems to be constantly losing the luster which was associated with Longhorn...Whether it's the lack of a new file system or the Monad scripting shell, the absence of innovation in this operating system is giving it a black eye'. The article then shows the need for action to be taken to get Linux onto the computers in stores (display models!), and pinpoints a few important improvements Linux distros in general need to make. Very interesting read, and timely."
Vista is not going to decrease the amount of people purchasing new computers with whatever current version of windows is pre-loaded. This is the majority of windows purchases. As for those who are going to be holding onto their current computers and using them most of them will probably not upgrade to the newest (most expensive) operating system available and will probably stick with windows xp or 2000 until they get a new computer that does come with vista.
The same people who bought windows XP at full retail will probably go ahead and buy Vista at full retail while most of us that use linux now will just keep using linux whether or not some new version of windows comes along.
I think the whole impact will be negligible.
Out of all the features meant to be in vista some since 1992, almost all of them have been dropped. Microsoft a large gigantic corporation couldn't get them in their system working.
What's funny is that every one of those features is available today in a Linux distro near you. Yet still nobody listens and switches to linux in droves, but many wait for vista
I think sometimes everyone is a sheep
People don't care about Monad or new file systems - they want nice GUIs with RSS integrated - IE with tabs etc... Vista is everything the average user wants.
As for hardware requirements - most people will get vista with their shiny new hardware from dell or whatever. It will meet the requirements and look great with lots of eye-candy.
Linux doesn't just need to be better than Vista - it needs to be MUCH better to get an average user to switch.
This story was posted in 1995, 1998, 2000 and 2003. It is a dupe. Nothing to see here.
XYZ Computing has an article hypothesizing that the arrival of Windows Vista may be a big opportunity for Linux to make headway on the desktop.
.NET hysteria, the C#... Meanwhile, GNU/Linux is already on my desktop and I couldn't really care less what Micro$oft does. I just use it because it is the best tool for my job. Period.
A decade ago it was Windows 95 that was going to be a big opportunity for Linux to make headway on the desktop, then it was Windows 98, 2000, XP, the DRM in Media Player, Internet Explorer, the license of MS SQL Server, the flaws in ASP security model, the nonsense of
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
XP offered very little beyond Windows 2000 with a new skinning engine, especially as far as most people were concerned. So long as Longhorn looks a little prettier and the pressure eventually is pushed to corporations/people to upgrade for compatibility, people will move to it.
Linux will find a way to people's desktops eventually, when it's more ready and the market in general is more ready to support it. Linux won't make inroads because of anything Microsoft does, for better or worse.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
how many people earnestly think it is about usability and security that most people choose their software?
i agree, some of the more sophisticated desktop users might be willing to switch, but much more powerful forces for not switching are: a lot of people don't like serious changes. they know windows (though it might suck), not necessarily the OS, but the brand, so they stick with it.
a lot of companies are either bound by contracts or - more importantly - by internal applications that are broken enough only to work with windows (in that case, to be more specific, mostly word, excel and access).
these are, i think, compelling reasons why a large percentage - mark, percentage, not single individuals - will not want to switch to linux because of what the article states.
If you don't learn from history,
then you are an idiot by definition.
--- Vadim Yasinovsky
Unless you mean to say that the lower new feature count will make it easier to clone those features into the Linux GUIs. Or maybe you mean that people who upgrade to new PCs will then have their older PCs available to load Linux on. I'm not sure how the next release of Windows will help Linux in the least.
People buy Microsoft because that's what they expect when they buy a computer. Some people think they want more, so they buy a Mac. Other people are happy with Linux, and they don't even have to spend a dime to get the OS software.
When Microsoft releases their next version, I don't think it will have the massive uptake that Windows 95 did, or even Windows 2000 did. Even Windows XP had a slower takeup than the real quantum leaps in Windows history (Win95, Win2K). People are just satisfied with what they've got.
How are you going to convince satisfied people to run Linux? It doesn't really offer them anything that they don't already have or need. If it were that important to them, they would be running it already.
So why would Windows Vista help Linux?
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Well, I recently took a good long look at all three desktop operating systems for a personal shootout, and I must say that out of Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux with KDE or Gnome, and OSX Tiger, OSX was the only one that stood out from the crowd as being anywhere near innovative or 'new'. I didnt see anything in Linux that I havent enjoyed using elsewhere for years, although its security strengths are a positive, Windows had the games plus point, but its much of a muchness desktop wise, but OSX takes integration and ease of use to a new level, especially for developers.
What am I trying to say? Well, before you complain about Vista not being 'innovative', take a look at the alternatives first, they arent much different in many aspects.
What desktop am I posting this from? OSX of course!
I completely agree. Vista, which (as Longhorn in its initial announcement stages) looked actually quite good, has now become what is basically XP SP3. Features that would have made it worthwhile, such as WinFS, have all been stripped from the final product: while Linux continues to accelerate ahead in terms of stability, compatibility and features. The fact that it is becoming easier to use, more recognised and therefore attracts more coders, also is a great plus for Linux and means that it is increasing in value exponentially. As well, Vista's crazy system requirements are in stark contrast to those of many Linux distributions, despite the fact that these distributions have most if not all of Vista's featurs (and many more on top. And plus - the price difference.
Vista will implement DRM deep into the OS and when apps start "taking advantage" of that, you will notice that it's not negligible any more.
My reason for staying away from Vosta, hardware requirements aside, is DRM and DRM only. Because there are a few neat features under the hood I'd really like to have. For instance the vector-graphics GPU-accelerated desktop.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
There is no absence of innovation or new features. Avalon, the new graphics subsystem, and the developer tools that will allow you to develop for it, have leapfrogged everything I have ever seen. While Linux will still be using the 2D capabilities of a graphics card (sucks!) Microsoft Vista will be using all that tremendous 3D technology already present in our machines to render your desktop. 3rd party apps will be using it too. Yes, at first it feels like it will need ebtter equipment, but when you finally get that equipment and your pathetic X-Window or other Linux windowing system looks ridiculously passé when compared to Windows Vista, you'll realize Microsoft is no longer trying to catch up to OS X, which is already a much more polished OS than any Linux flavor.
Desktop linux will break out next year!
Just like the year before that and the year before that, hang on.. i'm noticing a trend.. next year is always the year of desktop linux..
The majority of people out there still haven't even heard of Linux. The people who just use their computers for email and think that AOL is the internet. Have there ever even been any TV ads for any of the commercial linux distros? What the linux community needs to do is make a real ad campain. I realize it costs money, but with all the people out there that love linux with a furvor, there shouldn't be that much of a problem raising funds.
Technoli
Am I the only one that thinks that article doesn't make too much sense?
I fail to see how vista, even if it weren't very convincing, will help linux getting on the desktop. All a bad windows release will lead to in the short tearm is not many people buying Vist, but staying with their curren OS, which is some kind of Windows in most cases.
And people who really care about monad not being included are people who would consider running linux anyway, but they only make a small percentage of the market.
Further, I'm convinced that Linux will not make large inroads into the private desktop in the near future, not because Linux isn't good enough, but simply because Windows is much to entrenched in this market.
Corporate and gouvernment desktops are an other story though and we'll see a lot of things happening there in the future, I'm sure.
"Year of the Linux desktop" or whatever. Isn't that a dupe and troll in itself? It's been repeated over and over again, and yet never happened.
Honestly, I don't think Linux (as it is now anyway) is ready for the desktop. Why? Sure, you got aptitude and lot of neat stuff. Gnome may be bloated as hell, but it looks good, and that's what most consumers want.
You got lots of good stuff, but when your average linux-distro starts to break down, when stuff doesn't work automagicly, when hardware detetction fails and so on... Most users (and by most users I also mean powerusers) will have a really hard time fixing stuff, if they even manage to fix it at all. Not all of us are geeks who grew up with a keyboard.
Plus, I don't really care if linux hits the mainstream or not. I use what works for me, I'll let others use what works for them. To me, open standards are a lot more important than whatever OS people are running to get their work done.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Quite a few people see the OS as ineluctably linked with the hardware.
I think using a seemingly less polished, cheaper (or free) operating system will take much of the enjoyment out of a new computer purchase - after all, most copies of Windows are bundled with the latest hardware, and the high specifications required for Vista aren't going to bother the majority of users who will overhaul their whole system when confronted by the marketing blitz.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
This reply has never been posted before. Check that out!
My company didn't use Windows 98 (or ME) at all. They stuck with 95 until the obvious benefits of Windows 2000 (and now XP) were mainstream. I haven't read about one feature in Vista that would compell them to upgrade a thousand or more PCs. They won't do it to give us more eye candy, or to raise the minimum system requirements.
Recompile the kernel to install a driver? Not likely. Most Linux drivers distributed outside the kernel are set up with a Makefile that builds a kernel module for just that driver. All you have to do is "./configure && make && su -c 'make install'", and then possibly insert the module. Unless you're using some incredibly screwy custom-built kernel, you shouldn't even need to reboot, let alone recompile the kernel. (You do, however, need the kernel source installed.)
I call BS. Even under Mandrake Linux, building and using a driver for my wireless card (ndiswrapper) was easy. Incidentally, is there any distro that doesn't automatically create desktop icons for CD-ROMs these days? Apart from Gentoo, though even that probably would if I set it up right...
Admittedly, I don't entirely trust the commercial distros not to try and extract mucho cash (which is part of the reason I use Gentoo), but still.
Your skepticism is misplaced.
What "starter" version of Linux are you talking about? I've been a RedHat and now Fedora user and have only paid for maybe two boxes... I wanted to get the stickers and stuff. I have only made ONE support call (mostly to see what it was like) only to be told they only support one NIC installation on a machine. Disappointing to say the least... it was years ago so maybe support has gotten better since then, I don't know, but I see almost no advantage to buying a support agreement. You're simply better off having a support PERSON on site or available on short notice and that goes for Linux or Windows or any OS.
Mozilla incorporating has nothing to do with making a version to be paid for. This is ALL open-source. The moment someone even thinks they will take it closed-source for profit, a fork will happen and someone else will drive the project as open source. There are many examples of this to cite... do I really need to?
"Good busines woman" or not, you don't know what you're talking about -- you're just unaccustomed to the way things work in the OS world. Salesmen are out to make money and I don't blame you for being suspicious of their intentions. But the OS community as a whole are more likely to do it for free just for the fun and challenge involved.
Open Source has too long a history to be a gimmick or a bait-n-switch. I still can't decide if you're a troll or not. If not, then I wonder what an experienced business woman would be doing here on Slashdot in the first place.
And finally, you need to re-think what computing does for your business. It's a tool, not a religion. Determine what tools you need to run your business and I heartily recommend you start with the applications you need to run and base your choice of OS secondarily. To make the choice of OS first would be a decision not on the OS as a tool, but for other reasons such as a bas experience with a BSA audit, or some reason that involves emotional drive of some sort. Think business tools and test a lot of stuff before settling on something. And if you select something that runs well under Linux, then consider your support options. (1) learn how to do it yourself (2) find someone who knows this stuff. I don't think it's any different under Windows really -- I have rarely had a support experience with Windows that was helpful.
P.S. Closed-minds and Open-source do not work well together.
The other thing Desktop Linux needs is good fonts. I am yet to find a desktop Linux installation that is beautiful out of the box. Often times, one has to download M$ fonts or could use the script found here: http://vigna.dsi.unimi.it/webFonts4Linux/webFonts. sh to get good fonts for the web.
Next thing is multimedia and multimedia applications. Totem in the GNOME world and Amarok in the KDE world will not play mp3s out of the box, yet there are no licensing restrictions on these formats! These are so many other examples in the multimedia field.
There is a bug/feature I found in Linux that needs attention in relation to how devices are mounted. Remember that we in the Linux world are aiming at domination. So we should attract as many users as we can. The bug is here: http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111173. I was surprised that there was a wontfix mentioned. So how are we to attract users if there will always be confusion in how devices are mounted?
Last but not least, we need publicity - good publicity. Right now, Linux is being touted as very good or good enough for the average user. What happens is that folks then have to understand that Linux is just a KERNEL and that there are many implementations associated with this kernel. To many, understanding this is a challenge. So one says "I use Linux at home, it's freely available on the net...try it out..." (and they leave it at that)! What follows is confusion as newbies find tons of distros and incompatible packages. Folks what do you think?
Legally downloaded audio/video file disclaimer - "Not Compatible with Freedom"
Windows Vista box sticker - "100% Freedom-free!"
*sigh...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Your shitting me right? spell it with me now S-P-O-T-L-I-G-H-T Windows Long---errrr uh Vista will have it too, oh wait a minute, no they dropped that feature too... not because they cant get it to work, but because some other company has released 3 OS's since windows released X-pee (on you, so you have to restart) and they keep naming them after predatory Cats, which keep eating XP for lunch, shit guys, axe some features, we better get this crap,,,,er uh.....OS released, were getting our butts kicked. Hows this for an innovation, I havent restarted my computer in 138 days....... in other words, it works, holy cow, thats innovative ......another happy OSX user.........
33. Your server has not had to reboot in over a year.
34. When you need to install a major piece of software, be it an office suite, a graphics tool, or a compiler, you do not have to drive to a store and shell out enormous amounts of money. Instead, you simply select the desired package from the package repository and it and its dependencies are installed automatically.35. You are able to read and write a vast array of file systems - not just a handful designed by a single company.
36. You realise that those who still have Windows on their computer "because it came with it" probably have picture frames with pictures of model families who they don't know "because it came with the frame"37. You are tired of hearing Windows users bitch about viruses and spyware as if they had not choice but to be afflicted with them.
It's posted more often than that. Every single time Microsoft does something even slightly stupid (even if it's not related to Windows itself), some idiot will come along and be like OH BOY TIHS IS LINIXS BIG CHANCE GUYS I CAN SEE IT NOW
... But Microsoft has done something stupid every day for the past decade (at least), and Linux still isn't popular on the desk-top.
If you like Linux and want it to succeed, that's awesome. Me too. But stop kidding yourself, you look like idiots. Don't pat yourself on the back every time Microsoft screws up, because it's going to take a GIGANTIC screw-up to ever put Linux anywhere near being a popular desk-top OS. In fact, chances are that it'll never happen, unless somebody really smart does with Linux what Apple did with BSD.
What the hell do 99.999999% of potential customers want with "monad" and "a new file system"
Hey, now. Without the new monad shell, they will be alienating all the Haskell users out there!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Vista is everything the average user wants.
Viruses
Insecurities
Spyware
Trojans
Adware
You'll be playing that before you'll see the type of linux destop your talking about here.
Cario is coming pretty soon, gnome 2.12 will include it even though it will just be to up 2D quality the first time around. Hardware accelleration isn't, ready yet.
XGL and luminocity is just testbeds, also they wont be done anytime soon (which was why one of the two main developers recently dropped out of the project, he felt it was too far from release). I saym, 3-4 years. We'll be where OSX is today, OSX (and windows) will ofcource have evolved then.
This stuff is prettycomplex, and like all type of complex development the OS model seem to have a hardtime competing against the commercial offerings(simply because they have more qualified people working full time that, for example XGL has it. Currently ONE guy does the bulk of the development. one!).
Breathe out, and realize if you want the "latest and greatest" desktop you shouldn't run linux.
OK, I've used Linux on Alphas, x86, x86-64, ia64, and mips processors.
I've used Linux from 1997 to 2004 as my primary desktop environment.
I see nothing special about Linux' desktop environment over what is available for FreeBSD, Solaris, etc, simply because they are all the same.
So how am I being a troll to say that the next version of Windows, that at worst will be no different than the current version of Windows will drive people to Linux which has no compelling end-user features over Windows?
38. You are easily trolled by a 4 year old copied-and-pasted snippet.
The problem I see with Linux on the desktop is that it's nonstandard. By that I mean that a programmer can't assume that any one installation resembles any other. From libraries to window managers to Xfree86 vs X.org or whatever it is now, there are no constants. I understand the benefits of such a scenario; it's great for people who love to pop the hood and do it themselves. But it's a nightmare for the average person who just wants to USE a system rather than build it themselves.
./configure, only to find 5 or 6 things you need to install just to get it to finish without error? And once you get an error you have to figure out if you're actually missing the requirement, or it's just an environment variable, or the wrong verson of the libraries, or permissions, or any other number of potential conflicts. SUSE, for example, doesn't even install gcc by default. I don't think it should need to install a compiler just to be a viable desktop solution, but the fact is that unless someone's already made a binary package, a compiler isn't optional, it's mandatory. The very essence of Linux, its constantly evolving nature, is also its weakness when it comes to getting a foothold in the desktop market.
Users don't want to (and shouldn't have to, in my opinion,) worry about things like dependancies, finding a binary package for their particular distribution and/or kernel, or compiling and configuring a program upon installation. The power of configurability is great, but it doesn't have to be an either/or conflict with usability. How many times have you found a program you were interested in, and you
Also the networking, while powerful, is anything but simple. In XP for example, if I right click on a network interface and select "Share this connection," Windows automatically starts DHCP on my second NIC, assigns my other computer(s) an IP, and everything just works. In Linux, I have to set up masquerading, routing tables, rules, etc. It's these sort of things that send most people running.
Standards DO have drawbacks, but they're generally outweighed by the benefits. Too many choices can be bad. One need look no further than the current battle between HD-DVD and BluRay for a perfect example.
Honestly, I don't ever see this happening, but unless the Linux community can rally around ONE distribution as the "standard", I don't think Linux will ever be an option for the masses.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I have been an MS Windows user for years and have alittle experience with GNU/Linux and Mac OS X. After seeing all the cool things stripped out of Vista (especially the new WinFS) what is left is basically Windows XP SP3. Boring.
Frankly, with the new Intel Macs hitting the street during that time, with its ease of use, long track record, etc., that is the system that can win big, and I think that Apple (especially with its monopolistic policies with hardware and software, such as leveraging Final Cut to get Avid/Adobe to give up on Mac and of course iTunes) may just be the next Microsoft.
Contrary to what the clueless and ill-informed think (j/k no offense ;) ), Windows Vista is a MAJOR upgrade. It should be similar to going from Win3.11 to Win 95 or, on the server side, from Windows NT to Windows 2000. The 3D-accelerated GUI alone will push the operating system into a new era.
A lot of you complaining about feature cut-backs don't realize that MS was aiming for the moon. Even after the cut-backs, it'll have more new DESKTOP features than what Linux has gained in the last 5 years.
I personally don't see linux overtaking Windows on the desktop side until the operating system market matures and MS stops innovating or releasing any new major versions (maybe 15 to 20 years from now). Linux has potential on the server (its market share growth over the last 5 years shows that) but the desktop side will be tough for Linux. As a desktop, linux just doesn't have enough applications, and isn't easy to use--two key features desktop users care about.
Even the server side will become more tough for Linux. For regular server use (eg. file server, web server, etc for a small to mid-sized company) Windows 2003 is pretty solid. Its market share growth (along with its first incarnation, Windows NT) from almost none to something large is worth nothing. Linux will faced a big challenge on the server side from the next version of Windows server. Linux's server market share has mostly been increasing due to it taking over Unix servers. But when it goes head to head against the next version of Windows server, it will be a tough battle...
Overall, I expect Windows Vista to grow at double digits on the desktop side for the next 5 years, while Linux likely won't exceed 5 percent for the desktop side.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
... until developers can get fired for having certain things not working correctly or good enough. KDE and Gnome are both very close to being good enough for every possible type of user. They just lack the finishing touch. And that stuff is hard to code... not because it's difficult but because it's boring and tedious. Developers working for Apple have to do this because they know that if they don't, they _will_ lose their jobs. Same goes for developers working for Microsoft. If they don't get it working the way they've been told it should be, they're in trouble.
In the OSS world it's different. A lot of these developers are volunteers, and are scratching an itch. They are gonna be working on stuff they actually enjoy working on because hey, it's their free time. And who could blame them? Why should they work on boring stuff in their free time? Of course there are also paid developers working on KDE and Gnome. But i have never heard of any of them getting fired for not putting on that finishing touch for their latest release. And that is the reason why every year it's the year of Linux On The Desktop, and it never actually is.
Apple is luring Windows users to OS X despite the Windows monopoly. Linux should've been able to do this as well.. they sure have had enough time to get it done (more than Apple has spent on OS X).
She knows already, it's been pointed out before. Like all trolls, she's probably doing it for the attention.
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
> A decade ago it was Windows 95 that was going to
> be a big opportunity for Linux to make headway on
> the desktop
Where did you hear that? Windows 95 was the OS I switched to moving *away* from Linux (see below). Also, back then Novell had a version of Windows 3.1 that ran on Linux and was going to create a Windows distribution based on Linux, not DOS. Win95 and Win32 pretty much killed those plans. Also, if you read Unix mags back in 95, you'd see that they were forcasting Unix's doom. Once WinNT had a VMS base and once NT 3.x got a Win95 interface, it would be the final nail in the coffin for Unix. (Of course, Microsoft seriously dropped the ball on that golden opportunity by not getting its server act together, but that is beside the point.)
And back in 1995, I was triple booting OS/2, Win3.1 and Linux. I came from an Amiga background so long file names and multitasking was a must. Win3.1 just wasn't up to sniff. I loved OS/2, but most programs ran for Win3.1 and it was lighter, so I booted Win3.1 more than OS/2. When Win95 came out, I gave OS/2 the boot. Win95 wasn't as good as OS/2, but it was "good enough" and I needed the extra hard disk space. Most of the apps I ran were Win32 based and most development tools were made from Borland. I spent less and less time in Linux. I got a Windows job in 1995, and I stayed almost completely on Win95 because it was "good enough" (thanks to Cygwin). I peaked back at Linux from time to time, but it was more for curiosity than anything else. I finally erased Linux in 1997. I also loved Windows 2000 when it came out.
As a double defector, I can say for a fact that Linux *has* been getting to be a better desktop with each release. Back in 2000, I started seeing more and more of the tools and apps that I liked on Linux. They weren't available on Windows so I began dual-boot between Win2000 and Linux. In 2002, I took the plunge and switched completely to RedHat (bye-bye Windows 2000). Thanks to VMware, I could even take a Windows job and not be disadvantaged. Fortunately, the rise of web programming meant that programs could be platform independent, so I could even work on Linux.
These days, Linux (Ubuntu) is more comfortable and problem free than Windows 2000 ever was (XP, IMO is a big step backwards in usability). I started Windows 2000 in VMware, exactly once (to use Audible.com and gave it the boot once I discoved how DRM-enabled it was). Linux is good enough for the educated user's desktop who is either a tech expert or has a friend who is. It's lower maintenance than Windows so the "guy who knows stuff about computers" doesn't have to put in a lot of effort to support the user.
But it's not yet ready for the average joe six pack. Those people need support from their local computer store or electronics store and need a few friends who know Linux. That informal and consumer support network doesn't quite exist yet. It takes a lot of time to form, but such networks tend to grow exponentially. You'll know when Linux is ready for prime time when you start seeing it regularly in "Prime Time TV", your barber starts talking about Linux, and "the foot" or "the gear" or the "fedora" start appearing in the menus of a a significant number of jobs you apply to.
Warning: This one comes across as a flame, but I'm to mad at this Win2k Server Bullcrap I have to deal with every odd week to contain my anger caused by parent post. Please excuse.
.Net Joke, have allready spent a fortune on MS IDEs and a Win2K licence and don't have anything mission critical your working on"? Or "Nice if you like a clean one-server-per-webapp policy to keep things in order?"
.Net Beta. The Windows experts were laughing their heads of on BG renaming .obj to .net and making a big marketing boohey about it and this guy was thinking he was cream of the crop cause he was following the MS call. I asked for 80k$ anual income, he said no (what I'd hoped for). Now he's the cook at my favourite lounge (good at cooking - just made me a nice ciabatta this noon) and the only thing they've managed to build is a hideously overpriced, under-performing Win2K-server-only content management system (http://www.q-affairs.de/index.htm) that doesn't even do HTML Umlaute correctly (despite being a german project). Due to it's Win2K-only restraint they can't even guarantee 99% uptime.
.obj recycled as .net is little more than an expensive hype. Nothing less. The nice Win-Only IDEs aside maybe. If it prevails then only because hardware vendors are happy to sell one box per server-app ("otherwise win2k crashes, you know") and MS is shelling out a few hundred million from their office-coffee-piggybank to push Win2k Server into the market against all sane reasoning. Money allways beats reason, y'know?
.Net zealots please cue flames below. Thank you.
For regular server use (eg. file server, web server, etc for a small to mid-sized company) Windows 2003 is pretty solid.
"Win2k is pretty solid?" As in "sort of stable"? Or "Kinda so-so not to totally viri and exploit ridden?" Or do you mean "Nice if you've been lured into this
Give me a f*ckin' break. And whatever you're smoking, don't offer anything of that to me, please.
Contrary to what the clueless and ill-"informed" think: The only reason professionals are still dealing with utter morons (read: Consultants) who still consider MS as a server alternative is because MS is spending massive amounts of money to push Win2k server into hosting providers and their kin.
Everywhere you can see "Now with special ultra professional Win2K Server option" and such. MS is paying hard cash for these adds to be presented on hosting homepages. That's why their all over the place.
Little Tidbit:
5 years ago a guy I knew wanted me to join a project on a content syndication system built in
Bottom line:
Win2K is a server-side joke. Just as
Yes, my friend, you're just outed yourself as someone who goes for the buzz and not the hard facts. Show me something with the power, flexebility and stability of Zope, RoR or even that PHP-mess called Typo3 in the Win2K server world and I'll make an opinial u-turn. Until then I recommend you check Linux/OSS out properly AND do a hard facts comparsion of both Linux* and Win2K before you get to close to bullshitting territory. Zope is a good start. It has both my dual-MS-certifed friends converted to the light side of the force. And it even runs on Win2K. With it's own Webserver and all.
* You may substitute Linux with BSD or even Mac OS X if you like.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You can't use OpenOffice in a business environment where you have to send and receive correctly formatted documents. OpenOffice always retains the text, but usually mangles some little details here and there. In a large document, with pictures and other embedded objects, you can't afford to hunt for such defects each time you get a file. Even worse, you can't ask your customers to do the same when they open your files. $500 paid for his MS Office was a good business decision.
Too late to get modded up, but what the hell. No, Vista will not be the spark that ignites Linux. Win98 was pretty unstable. Did Linux take over then? No. Win ME sucked ass. Did Linux take over then? No. Win2k was pretty nice but wasn't shipped on much consumer hardware. Did Linux take over then? No. WinXP is annoying as fuck, what with balloons popping up everywhere (Take a tour! This is the start menu! Wireless is here! Wireless is gone! Hey, wireless is back! No, wait, gone again!) and all the activation BS, not to mention spyware, viruses, self-spreading bad stuff, etc. Did Linux take over? No. Vista? Well, technically I can't see into the future, but I'm a pretty good guesser.
"Whether it's the lack of a new file system or the Monad scripting shell, the absence of innovation in this operating system is giving it a black eye." One second--you think customers care one fucking bit about innovation in an OS? What planet is this guy on that he thinks people care about a fucking FILESYSTEM or SHELL?!?!?* I'm gonna say this once really loud for the cheap seats: WINDOWS IS POPULAR BECAUSE IT'S THE OS ON THE CHEAPEST COMPUTERS OUT THERE!!!!!!!111oneoneone. The 5% of customers that do care about innovation already have a home: they're at the Apple store.
* note: Windows does ship with a shell. But no one needs it. (Because Windows also ships with a GUI, natch.) Before writing another article like this, do this simple test: walk up to 50 people and ask them about the shell in Windows.
- 46 will go "huh?"
- 2 will say "cmd.exe but I have no use for it." (You just stumbled across two people who work in IT or a computer store.)
- 1 will say "cmd.exe and I use it once in a while because I've been using PCs for 20 years and I still do things there 'cause I'm used to it."
- And exactly one will say "cmd.exe but I don't use it 'cause it's teh sux0rz! When I get a new comp the first thing I do is use IE to download Firefox and then I use Firefox to download Cygwin!" (Read that page, it's really funny. I love that story.)
Monad is very cool but even if MS would have shipped it in Vista, did you really think you were going to spend next thanksgiving teaching your mom how to use it? "Look, mom, here--I just pipe this through that, and what makes Monad even cooler than bash is that it isn't just text coming out, these are actual objects, so I can take these results and..." Uh-huh. Right.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Ok, I'll bite. If I buy anything online, be it music, videos or whatever, I buy it, it's mine. Mine as in mine to do whatever damned I please with it. As in making low-bitrate AACs out of high-bitrate WMAs for fitting more of them on my cellphone.
See, this is legal. Noone nowhere has any business telling me "you can't do that". That's equivalent to saying "So... we wont be seeing you purchasing our products ever again?"
Now, if I tried to pass these files on to others, now that would be copyright infringement, and thus illegal.
I don't want my computer, restricting me from doing stuff with my data because some executives somewhere are afraid I might violate their copyright. No way. No way in hell.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
But, without Monads it'll just be Eunuchs.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Here's a hint for you operating system obsessives*, you choose the operating system which runs your applications and hardware, ***NOT*** the other way round. I repeat: you use the OS which runs your software and hardware. If Linux doesn't support your software, you don't use it. If it doesn't support your hardware, you don't use it, no matter how stable it is, no matter how many ways you can configure transparency in KDE, no matter how easily you can reprogram is, all that is irrelevent.
The primary and only use of computers is to run applications, that's what they're there for. An operating system is a means to an end, nothing else.
If Open Office doesn't meet someone's needs, and they need MS Office, then preaching Linux all day is a waste of everyone's time. You can spend all day talking about how well Open Office opens Ms Office files, it doesn't change anything, it doesn't make it a better product. There's a reason people pay thousands of pounds for professional software: because it fits their needs in a way that free software doesn't. Do you think people who pay for Photoshop wouldn't rather use something that's free?
You don't pick your food depending on what cutlery you need to eat it, you pick your cutlery depending on what you're eating. If you're eating soup you don't use a fork, no matter how much you like forks and hate spoons.
* Of all the things to be religious about, a computer operating system seems the most insignificant and irrelevent. But then I think the same thing about car enthusiasts, they're just a means to an end for 99%, but the 1% can't understand that.