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Linux Five Years Away From Mainstream
wellington wrote to mention a ZDNet blurb about a Gartner group study. Gartner indicates that 'mainstream' use of open source in IT environments may be 5 years away. From the article: "Gartner's latest Linux 'hype cycle' report shows that open source is halfway to maturity but warns the biggest test will be whether it can demonstrate the necessary performance and security to function as a data centre server for mission-critical applications. Leading-edge businesses are generally still in the early stages of Linux deployments but Gartner expects increased commercialisation and improved storage and systems management for the operating system by the end of 2005, with Linux being used primarily for WebSphere and infrastructure applications on mainframes and web services on blades and racks."
Just another kooky prediction. Linux already performs just as well or better that Windows, and it does have better security, really. ...
Now all thet we need is to make it perform better and make it secure. What a crap.
As a matter of fact linux already mainstream in many areas, and for all we know, it may never replace Windows on a desktop.
But predictions are always true, right
Many people use them everyday, but they just don't know it. Maybe we should have a "The Internet: Powered by *nix" campaign.
When Linux supports the full range of hardware that is currently under NDA's and vendors that refuse to "support" Linux other than supplying tainted binary kernels; then and only then will Linux be ready.
I personally have moved to a mac because I couldnt wait any longer. Will revisit Linux on the desktop in maybe 3 - 5 years.
> Hasn't Linux for the desktop been 5 years away for the last 10 years?
It was only 3 years away 10 years ago.
(Horns Honking)
Randal: It's times like this it occurs to me that we were lied to by "The Jetsons".
Dante: What are you talking about?
Randal: According to that show we were suppose to be tooling around in flying cars by now. You see any flying cars lately? That's the problem with TV, it always lies to us.
Dante: Yeah, well most of us rational thinkers weren't banking on a cartoon to offer us a viable glimpse into the future of technological development.
Randal: You don't think anyone anywhere is working on the flying car.
Dante: I could care less.
Randal: I gotta believe that there is somebody else out there is thinking about the flying car besides me. Someone who is not afraid to throw their hats over the wall for the good of mankind.
Dante: What's that suppose to mean?
Randal: Throw their hats over the wall. It means committing to doing something. If more people threw their hats over the wall, we wouldn't be sitting here in this mess right now. We would be zooming over it in the flying car.
Dante: I see you have given this alot of thought.
Randal: Kennedy, all right JFK himself. When he was in office, he stood before the world and promised them a man on the moon within 10 years. Thing is nobody had started working on a space program at that point. JFK had no data to back up his claims, no inside into the practicality of space travel. But you know what he had?
Dante: Marilyn Monroe.
Randal: The man had sac. The man had the sac to stand before the world and say "Yo, yo get this we're going to the moon." Imagine, if you and I were the kind of guys who had the sac to stand before the world and say "Get this we'll all be in the flying car by the end of the year.
Dante: Do you know you have a one track mind.
Randal: Hey, what would you be willing to trade for the flying car?
Dante: What do you mean?
Randal: Say some German scientist comes up to you and he says "I have invented the flying car. I'll give it to you on one condition."
Dante: Well, what's the condition?
Randal: He's not going to tell you.
Dante: Then it's no deal.
Randal: The guy is offering you the flying car.
Dante: Yeah, but there is obviously a catch.
Randal: Who cares what the catch is, it's the flying car. You'll have the only one in the world.
Dante: And why is this... German scientist
Randal: Ya, vol.
Dante: Why is he offering it to me for free instead of the car companies instead?
Randal: What is this "Murder She Wrote"? Who cares what's behind the mystery. You going to look a gift horse in the mouth? Just take the car man.
Dante: Not until I know what the catch is.
Randal: Fine, the catch is you got to cut off a foot.
Dante: No way.
Randal: Are you saying you wouldn't cut off your foot for the flying car? You're that selfish.
Dante: It's my foot! How am I suppose to walk?
Randal: What walk? You'll have the flying car. Good God, you could sell the design and engineering secrets to the car companies and be a multibillionaire. After that you could buy like 50 prosthetic feet.
Dante: Which foot, right or left?
Randal: You're choice
Dante: Ok, I'll trade my left foot for the flying car.
Randal: Why your left foot?
Dante: Oh, it's got an ingrown toenail.
Randal: Listen to you. A guy offers you the Fire from Olympus that is the flying car and you trade him a bum foot.
Dante: You said I could pick.
Randal: So it's a deal then, your foot for the flying car. You're sure?
Dante: Yes, I'm sure.
Randal: You can't welch.
Dante: I won't welch.
Randal: Because the whole world is counting on you.
Dante: Why the whole world all of a sudden?
Randal: Because the German scientist held a press conference when he made you the offer. He told the world media once the trade is made. You can do whatever you want with the fl
that by 2005, Linux would occupy about 1-2 % of all web servers, and would not even make it in the enterprise. This study can only mean that Linux has made it in the mainstream.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've been using Linux for 13 years now (took me a week to download it on a 2400 baud modem!) and I first implemented it in a business setting 10 years ago to connect someone to the Internet.
How long has Windows or DOS or MacOS waited before becoming "mainstream"??? Certainly not 20 years!!!
Anonymous Coward said: At this point, after the install, most Windows users could use Linux.
Amen to that. I installed 64 bit FC3 on the computer of some very non-technical friends of mine (a cop and a housewife) months ago and the only problem they've had has been the lack of a Flash player for 64 bit firefox, which in nobody's fault but Macromedia's. My laptop has 64 bit Ubuntu w/ Gnome and the sixteen year old foreign exchange student living with my family that has never seen or used a Linux OS before didn't need any help figuring out how to use it.
researching, designing and implementing (smoothly, including migrating your data to your new environment with no impact to the business) a change to a new operating system *always* takes a long time. here, we're not moving to XP from 2000 as it's not worth it: we're moving to longhorn as and when it emerges. it'd take just as much planning (probably more, in fact) to shift to linux. think upgrade cycles. think win2k going off support as a driver to change. 5 years doesn't seem all that long to me...
Assuming that this has been reported correctly (there is no link to Gartner's actual report), it shows just how far out of touch Gartner is when it comes to technical matters such as this.
I won't disect what they've said because probably everyone else reading this knows the flaws in both their arguments and facts, but if an organisation can make money producing unsubstantiated and just plain incorrect claims like this then I am clearly in the wrong job.
So, here's the plan: we set up our own global organisation, just like Gartner, and we issue our own PR, which by contrast will contain no factual errors and will not only contain details of the present situation but also predict how much better the situation is becoming (and how quickly). These reports can be distributed within the community who can then go to their customers/partners/PHBs and say "Hey, there's this great new report out which says that Linux is running on 10 million desktops worldwide and this market share is set to treble in the next 12 months". That way, coming from an authoritative source, they will naturally acknowledge that it is true.
I'm not entirely joking here - who's up for it?
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
Mission Critical is basically saying "always on or we are screwed". Corporations pay big money for highly tuned and tested machines that are designed for this type of work. They do not just trust a run of the mill server with any operating system, be it Linux, Windows, or any UNIX variant.
See HP or IBM
The Executives here try to wave these "studies" in our faces here in IT/IS about how we should back off linux migration.
This one prompted a "see it's not ready to handle enterprise/critical applications.
Until we let the CTO know that we have been depending on Linux for 3 seperate ultra critical apps for over 5 years now. and that tiny companies like GOOGLE use it exclusively for it's servers/backend.
He did his typical "suprised" look and then left us alone once again. The key is to keep your Executives informed so they become immune to the FUD and lies these "professionals" like to spread about.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Honestly, I doubt Linux will ever go mainstream.
The biggest problem is the open nature of the OS. Too many variations on a theme, too many GUI interaces, distros, ways to install software (RPM packages and such). In the software industry, something isn't going to go mainstream if there are 20 variations.
If the Open Source Linux community comes together and decide to throw their efforts into ONE package with ONE standardized interface then they would be a real mainstream contender against Windows. But as long as everyone in this community thinks they can make a better version then others in the community Linux will never become a mainstream alternative, just a hobby/underground OS.
Think of it, you buy a new computer and you get Windows installed. Whats the alternative? 20 varations of Linux, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Ubuntuu, RedHat, YellowDog, Debian, Mandrake etc, etc, etc. Which do you install? Which one will be around for the next 5 years considering companies are shuffling their distros around and changing names/versions like toilette paper. Different distros all have different versions of the kernel and modules, not all use the latest and the greatest, some rely on stable older kernels, some use ones compiled yesterday. Finally after all that, what UI do you use, Gnome or KDE and variants of those themes?
Some say Linux's greatest strength is its flexibilty but this is its greatest weakness. There is no standardization and no uniform front for the mainstream consumers to see. Mainstream users are Ma and Pa, noobies, anyone that decides perhaps its time to find out what all the fuss with computers is about. These people do not want infinite choice in their OS and OS components, they want to walk into a store buy a computer and buy an OS to install on it. They don't to trial 20 different Linux distro until they find the one that is right for them, even if they are all free. Mainstream users don't want to waste the time or make an effort to find the best solution for their needs, which is why Windows IS Mainstream. It may be crap in so many ways, but its ONE choice for mainstream consumers.
The Linux community needs to stop this childish in-fighting and immature idea that there SHOULD be 20 version of Linux, and if any are serious about competing with Windows then its time to partner up and create a unified front, create ONE alternative to Windows, package it up and put it in the stores next to the Windows XP boxes and sell it for $20.
This will never happen and so Linux will be a business product and never a mainstream desktop OS!!!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I'm actually amazed you got modded up with that.
Software, in general, is complicated.
Even if you tell someone to "get XP Home" (Of which, I'd NEVER tell anyone to get- Home's got a bunch of crap turned on that actually destabilize the machine...) or to "get XP Professional", you still have to tell them to "get an Anti-Virus proram" (Which is best? Your guess is as good as any- and it's more off of personal preferences, cost, etc...) and to "get an Anti-Spyware program" (Again, which is best? And, it's the same story as the Anti-Virus stuff...). This doesn't even go into an Office Suite, IM, etc.
With a Linux distribution, there's pretty much all of that taken care of. And there's several different "go get the 'Home' version" of Linux to choose from- Mandriva, Ubuntu, Xandros, Linspire, and Knoppix come immediately to mind right out of the gate. For the slightly more advanced, Fedora Core or SuSE come to mind. And you don't need to buy a "server" version for someone if they need one- the same "home" version will work quite well for server use (Much moreso than Windows versions do...).
You're entitled to your opinions, of course, but they're merely that- opinions . The reality of things is a lot different from what you've espoused in your comments.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
they want the most efficient simple way
Or at least just the same way (as their neighbour, as at work, et cetera).
Even though one might laugh that one should access "Shut down" via "Start" in Windows, this is only an issue the first couple of times. People know how to shut down their computer by now. 10 years of shutdown placed at the same location has clarified that. This is only an concern the first time. The only people who claim they can't find "Shut down" are people who would like to make a point about intuitive UIs.
In that case it doesn't matter whether another OS has a more efficient way of finding the "Shut down" command. Another distribution could have an even more efficient way of shutting down the computer. But it wouldn't be the same way.
Your point about 13 ways of doing the same thing reminds me of a bunch of poor guides. "You can do this in eight different ways" - the obvious response would be "I don't want to do it in eight different ways! I just want to do it in one way" (and maybe afterwards learn about other ways). The issue is that people would often like to tell everything at once in fear of favoring a specific product.
- Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
"The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources."
Developers are only a small part of the community and are not ranking members over anyone else. It is a developers elitist attitude that makes you assume that, please refer to the definition listed above that clearly demonstrates that being elitist has nothing to do with making demands.
The elitism the GP is referring to is spread across the entire community. That means Linux users, testers, documentation writers, technical writers, and all the classes of developers and maintainers and comment cleanerupers. None of these individuals have a right to feel they rank higher than any of the others.
And the community has no right to believe their tech savyness across the board makes them superior to those who have to struggle to figure out how to operate a mouse.
Most Linux advocates don't just hand their grandma a copy of Linux From Scratch and leave them to it, you know...
.exe from random website, double click to install" mindset. Whilst I agree that a unified packaing system would be great, different distros are tuned for different usage models, so (to me at least) it makes sense that they'll handle things differently. Forcing Linux to adopt the windows method of software installation will create more problems than it'll solve.
My first ever experience with Linux was Mandrake 8.2 Beta. I found the installation of the OS much easier than (my first) windows install two weeks previously; It Just Worked. Once I'd gotten my head around how it handled installing things, it was easy.
These days it's brain-sputteringly simple. Every desktop distro worth its salt has a graphical package installation utility that explains exactly which packages are available, and what they are used for - usualy sorted into relevant categories. Heck, even installing things as complicated (in the Linux world) as kernel modules/drivers is usually simple.
Granted, some pre-alpha drivers require some confugling, but once they go stable and are added to the kernel, it becomes practically impossible not to set things up properly, thanks to the marvell of things like hotplug. Even relatively complicated pieces of software (that no Joe Schmoe would install anyway) such as Apache and MySQL have GUI configurators available. In the realm of pure desktop productivity/leisure software, I've not encountered a single package that didn't just install and give me a nice clickable button in my K/foot/whatever menu.
If there's anything wrong with the way modern desktop distros handle packaging, it's educating the users away from the "download arbitrary
FWIW, my girlfriend is entirely happy with the Gentoo/KDE box I've donated to her.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Reading this post and the thread that goes with it makes me wonder if anyone else out there bothers to RTFA... /. rather than hust the headline you'd see that the article is about linux being 5 years away from mainstream in IT environments. No mention of joe sixpack or your grandma not knowing how to use linux.
If you even read the summary here on
Hmmm.... What percentage of web servers run Linux?
What percentage of DMZ hosts run Linux?
What percentage of closed email relays run Linux?
THese are all mainstream IT environments and Linux is quite capable there.
Now, if you are talking large database managers, LDAP infrastructures, etc. there is still a little ways to go. But it is still possible today (just not as mature as the above examples).
Gardner makes one extremely serious error in this study: they underestimate the resources that IBM, SGI, and other traditional big-iron vendors are throwing at Linux. I would not be surprised of, in 5 years, IBM is retiring AIX in favor of Linux.
Just my $0.02
As for the corporate workstation, I think 6-8 years is a good estimate (not a question of whether Linux is ready for the desktop but a question of when people will decide to migrate and how long these migrations take).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
First of all, let me state that I tried Linux before everything else (VectorLinux if I'm recall it right). I have worked with Slackware for our Laptops (UMTS/G3-card didn't work with FreeBSD, it does nowadays) and I do remember that their pkg_install resembles FreeBSD's pkg_add quite a lot. I even did a kernel-recompile in order to get the card working, so I kinda figured it out.
I further tried Mandrake, SuSE, Debian and Ubuntu (and Knoppix and DSL, but these are not in question here).
I know all the goodies that is told about yum, rpm, apt-get etc... but I just can't find the right packages for the right distro at the right time without all the dependency hells. Further more, doing a recompile of any part of the system in FreeBSD is plain simple. I was horrified at how complex the whole thing was with Slackware.
btw, I was not asking a serious question, only posting my remarks. Linux is not linux quite often, which makes googling for problems quite a problem itself in my experience. FreeBSD is just plain FreeBSD. That I love: one system as a whole, not tens of dozes of systems that share more or less the same code-base.
That put aside, I can see the point in Linux as it is today. In my opinion, *BSD might be a tad closer to be embraced by the enterprises for several reasons (and this is not the topic for them), on their servers as well as on their desktops. But I do like all the efforts to get any OSS/OS there though.
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
desktop's are for normal users, those people who aren't realy interesting in wringing the last iota of performance out of a machine and typical know enough about one or two applications to get their basic job done even if they are doing things the hardway. Power user's want a Workstation, Desktop users don't fit Linux well, and Workstation users don't fit Windows well.
./ bottaboom battabing LaTeX is working on WinXP SP2, next do some googling and copy some research into the shared folder, next day I can't open thing in the shared folder, so I list the directory, the files I tried to open Have No Owner! I can't even open them logged in as admin. Next after research on MS's knowelge base, I try to fix it by turning off simple file sharing, and turning on network file sharing, I go through it step by step, click by click as per Microsoft and hit a dead-end, the tab I need isn't there! These windows people think I'm somekind of computer genius, but the truth is the thought that people who both think I'm a computer genius, and put up with the silly bullshit inherent in using windows just scares me; I'm much more comfortable to say to my Dad, "Larry and Bobbie are MSCE's, you should ask them" then try to deal with actualy making Windows work like a real OS. I'm more comforatble reding 3 HOWTOs 2 Magazine articles and a website FAQ to get something difficult working in Linux and eventualy sucede, than I am in Windows doing something that is supposed to be easy, but in reality is impossible.
I'm a LaTex junky, I'm helping the wife with a paper, so I install MiTek on her computer, permissions are screwed up so I just copy a couple files to
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
linux is not unusual anymore, it can be found anywhere you look and what is more, everybody knows the 'linux' word, ofcourse that doesn't mean they want to use it.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Well, duh, slackware has always been a '1337' distro, and some try to think that of gentoo, which is in fact very easy to use (as long as you don't have to install it yourself, that is). No dependency hell, unless you use certain closed source software that requires manual downloading (like some particular versions of java crap). So far I only ran into such a problem once, when I tried to run the IM client mercury (I don't like any IM client I've tried so far so I keep trying new ones). Suse, the distro I used previously, was a breeze. It's not a hog like fedora (at least, last time I tried), it's stable unlike Mandrake, and it's very user-friendly unlike debian (it's actually windows-users-friendly, lacking quirks particular to X which I like). I only recently tried Kubuntu and I liked it a lot, but it was only the live CD so I can't say much about it besides the fact that my windows-using mother seemed to like it (she's an accountant). FreeBSD is FreeBSD, just as it has the one way advantage over the multiple distros, it also has the lack of variety steming from the same. I have only seen it from a user perspective and it seemed rock solid, I would probably use it as a server over linux, if I had to make a choice. But as a desktop, linux is much superior.