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Stopping Linux Desktop Adoption Sabotage
Mark Brunelli, News Editor writes "Outspoken IT consultant John H. Terpstra believes that Microsoft and electronics manufacturers are working together to hinder the adoption of Linux on the desktop. In a three part series, he tells a story about how two guys trying to buy Linux desktops found they were overpriced, and lacked certain tools. He then describes how Microsoft uses its considerable resources and the law to create such roadblocks. (Part 2, Part 3)"
Theres only so much you can push people. Windows XP did not deliver what people thought it would and Vista won't achieve what it set out to do, and updates take too long coming. Many people I know are or will switch to Linux in the near future because it makes more sense in the long run. Keep pushing people and they will try something else, look at Firefox or Opera. All it takes is a little piece of information to hit the public and people will begin to learn more about it, and adopt it.
Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.
/tmp or the installer will dump core. After the installer is done, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and add a section called "GL" and put "driver nv" in it. Make sure you have the latest version of X and Linux kernel 2.6 or else X will segfault when you start. OK, run the Quake 3 installer and make sure you set the proper group and setuid permissions on quake3.bin. If you want sound, look here [link to another obscure web site], which is a short HOWTO on how to get sound in Quake 3. That's all there is to it!"
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Windows?"
Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
I guess he can apply it to the rest of the world
did you forget to take your meds?
Then it must've been some time since you last checked... check out this rather glowing Ubuntu review in the Inquirer, for example. Yeah, I know, not exactly the greatest news outlet in the world, but they're probably as non-geeky as you get, so the fact that they found Ubuntu so easy and comfortable to use says a lot, IMO. :)
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
1. Forced sale of MS stuff still exists. Wow, what a surprise.
2. Before buying hardware, especially laptops, spend an hour googling or otherwise studying what IS supported. The morons in the story buy stuff and then find out compatibility. Fuckin' DUH!
Oh, and buy a system without ANY operating system, if it still is costing you more find someone with a 3 digit IQ to find a cheaper computer for you. Besides this is mostly Microsoft's fault because they won't give special discounts to dealers that sell computers with no OS/Linux.
The guy running SuSE 9.3 sounded like he tried Linux for a grand total of 10 minutes, of course you aren't going to know how everything works in that time frame. Sheesh.
I'm agneglectic, too lazy to care if there is a God.
Yet you can't prove it.
The doj tried that and no pc manufactor dared go up agaisnt MS out of fears they would be priced out of windows and office. The only thing they could go on was an email from balmer talking about cutting off netscapes air supply.
This is just business as usual.
http://saveie6.com/
"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity"
The article was sensationalist and attributed to malice and conspiracy what is best explained by profit motive.
The major electronic retailers function as gatekeepers. There are thousands of products out there that they don't put on their shelves, so much so that simply getting a product on the shelf at Best Buy is a huge accomplishment for a small hardware or software vendor.
The primary issue is one of space and inventory turns. Best Buy expects that every foot of shelf space bring in some amount of revenue, and they stock products that will maximize that revenue. A product that only moves 5 copies a month will always lose out to one that moves 5 a day.
Computers with preloaded software take up a lot of space. I suspect that most models don't even give you a choice of XP Home or XP Pro, and XP Pro is far more popular than Linux. But every different SKU to stock means additional inventory headaches, so only the most popular choices are going to be in stock.
Now consider some of the secondary factors. People buying a PC with Linux are going to be less likely to buy additional software. They arguably don't need things like Spyware or Virus products, and much of what they want is OSS and available for free anyway. So the chances for upsell are greatly reduced, and follow on sales are going to be less.
Retailers will offer Linux boxes if the numbers justify it. Show them a way to make a buck and they will be all over it. But at the moment they don't feel it is profitable to do so. No grand conspiracy, just economics.
Easier on Linux than Windows? What crack pipe are you hitting?
Software installation on Linux is often times a long, painstaking arduous task that seems to go on forever, and then - nothing happens. When it goes right, it's not too bad, but when it goes bad it goes bad in a big way. Nothing like spending hours trying to resolve dependencies, versioning, etc to get something to install - and then to find out that updating existing packages has now broken existing programs.
I'm sure it's all quite simple for the experienced Linux jockeys, but don't expect J6P to be able to jump through all those hoops and command-line gyrations just to get a program to install.
Linux's biggest problem is that it requires any "package management" at all. Because of the scattered directory structure, files are littered all over the place, so you have to run a program to install the program, and run a program to remove the program.
.app bundles that allows you to install a program simply by copying to your programs folder. Remove it by deleting it.
.NET, which cover everything from installation/uninstallation to networking to sound to graphics) with instead a reliance on QT on top of KDE on top of X11, are what hold desktop Linux back.
If people were really serious about desktop Linux, they would have long ago standardized a bundled package format like NeXTStep's
These kinds of things, along with the lack of true standardized API foundations (see Cocoa,
The mantra of "choice" that people use to justify the incredible fragmentation in the OSS world doesn't justify the lack of a standardized, vertical solution--there should be a desktop environment with its own sound and graphics engine and APIs (built using OpenGL and OpenAL), not relying on X11 and various extensions after the fact. It should provide its own APIs that tie into its internal engines. And most importantly, it should be designed with actual aesthetics and creativity in mind--no more of this amateurish K-this and K-that crap.
Just my opinion. I think many people gave up hope for desktop Linux and moved to OS X. Seriously, some of us have been waiting for almost ten years. Windows is more dominant than ever.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"Is it perhaps because the most likely answer, that retail stores would lose money selling Linux systems due to higher difficulty of making the sale, higher support costs, higher return rates, and lower volume?"
Not to get all empirical on you or anything, but if history is any guide, it's likely because their OEM sales and partnership agreements require that they push MS into a place of such prominence that all other alternatives remain hopelessly unattractive.
Don't feel compelled to pay any attention to this hugely speculative hypothesis; it's only backed by legal investigators from the DoJ and signficant anecdotal evidence from commentary all over the media. Feel free to hold tight to your faith in the invisible hand as it works its wonders on the flock, sparing us from excellence at every turn.
HTH, HAND
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
It comes down to development and support. In order to ship a PC, Dell has to package and certify a boat load of drivers and asssorted software. It has to be more cost-effective to do this and cater to Windows -- the OS that 95% of the world uses. More to the point -- Dell -- and other vendors -- have to do the best they can to make drivers reliable, easy to re-install, configure and troubleshoot in order to maintain their reputations and keep support costs down.
Now consider support. If you are a Windows user -- preferably an XP user -- and you call Dell or HP for support, theoretically all of the drivers have been tested, most issues have been noted and posted to a knowledge base and chances are good that the tech at the other end of the line will have reasonable experience in helping you solve the problem.
Conversely, if you buy a barebones systems and run into problems, Dell will have fewer Linux techs who can help, these techs will be more expensive to retain and _your_ level of competency will have a huge impact on the length and outcome of the support call than if you were a lowly Windows user.
Perhaps if you could purchase with an iron-clad zero-support option, then Dell could justify dropping the price. But probably not. Dell is probably just as greedy and unwilling to pass the savings on to the customer (if they don't have to) as most other companies. This is also true of many open source vendors. Whether it's Dell, RedHat or IBM, they'll work hard to extract money out of us one way or another.
Is this sig nificant?
I just happen to know the manager of a big-box retailer in a near-by major city (I live in the sticks). This retailer thinks they offer the Best prices to Buy things at (hint hint). Up until a couple of years ago, this retailer stocked a selection of Linux software, mainly Suse, RedHat, and Mandrake. It wasn't a lot (5 shelves on one display section about 6 feet wide), but hey, at least it was there.
Every time a new release of Mandrake (now Madriva...at least this week) came out, I went and bought the pro package, even though I could download it for free. I figured it was necessary to show support so they would maybe expand the selection.
Then it slowly disappeared. It has now been replaced by racks of more Windows stuff.
Not long after it disappeared, I asked him why. The basic answer was because aside from me and 4 or 5 other geeks, no one else was buying it. In fact, many people straight-up asked him "why should I buy this from you when I can get it legally and still for free on the internet?"
Stores are in business for one thing, and one thing only...to make their owners (stock holders) money. Any product that doesn't turn a certain level of sales disappears. Quickly.
To get the big box retailers to carry Linux, they are going to have to be shown there is a market there AND THEY CAN MAKE MONEY DOING IT. Thousands of people can talk the talk about wanting Linux, but in the grand scheme of actually spending money on it, its a very tiny segment of us that does so.
The moral of this story is that if you want more retailers to carry more Linux, then people need to step up with their wallets and actually buy some of the stuff that is already out there.
I still get every new release of Mandriva, but now I do it via the Mandriva Club since I can't find a retailer that carries it locally. And my club membership costs me almost as much yearly as a Windows XP Home license (and I don't have to have a new license every year). So Linux does cost me money, but I want to show support so that's okay. More people need to be showing their support with pictures of dead presidents (or what ever is on the currency in your country for non-US readers). Only then will Linux offerings and support increase.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
OK so 98% of my userbase uses Windows.
2 % use Linux.
I can write Windows drivers for my device and keep 98% of my userbase happy.
I can write Linux drivers for my device, and keep 2% of my userbase happy.
If the cost of writing that Linux driver is more than I would make back in profits, why would I ever do it?
Business decisions......
"He then describes how Microsoft uses its considerable resources and the law to create such roadblocks."
/. summary alleging 3 without evidence.
Where? I couldn't find that anywhere in the article.
Generally, support for Linux sucks in hardware retailing. There are at least three possible reasons for this:
1 There are good commercial reasons why it isn't profitable to support Linux.
2 It would be profitable, but companies lack the vision to see this
3 Big bad Microsoft is conspiring to keep it this way.
I was hoping to see evidence for number 3, but all I saw was the article questioning whether 1 could be true (but without in-depth analysis - how much would Linux support cost, and how many sales would it gain?), and the
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
The GPL is just basic copyright law. If it is not allowed, then other copyrights aren't either. Imagine Microsoft and the RIAA butting heads on that!
It's hard enough making a choice of laptop these days based purely on the numeric stats of the innards. The way they play merry-go-round with their suppliers can really screw up your chances -- basically they play the game of "who's selling the cheapest wireless this week."
Even if you find stable laptop distributors, it's practically IMPOSSIBLE to determine whether you can run Linux on it because they usually won't tell you what's actually inside. Like, is that a Broadcom or a Atheros 802.11 wireless in there? It makes a *huge* difference.
If you don't know what kind of chipsets a laptop has in it, you can't do the research. Easy as that. You have to wait for someone to buy the thing, try installing a flavor of Linux on it, and report back what their successes and failures were.
Even if HP or whoever doesn't support the hardware directly, it'd be nice to know what kind of hardware is in there to begin with. I don't need them to hold my hand. I just want to know what I'm buying.
Today it's easier on linux than it's ever been on Windows.
Sorry, but that's bullshit. I can't remember the last time I installed something on Windows that wasn't as easy as clicking "next" a few times. I'm not saying that installing stuff on Linux is hard, I'm just saying that in my experience it's not "easier than it's ever been on Windows".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
By ultimately giving your money to HP anyway, you truly showed them how much it matters whether they offer custom build options for power users like yourself.
Not at all.
With a Linux install (at least through my experiences with Fedora and RedHat), they ask you all the pertinent questions up front.
Pertinent questions like "Which of these 10,000 applications do you want", "what are the specific models and specs for every single component and piece of hardware you own", and "what permissions, groups, files, folders, and applications do you want each user to have". Sorry, but the linux install process is the most intimidating part of linux in it's entirety, even for experienced users.
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
1. Don't use Fedora. It's not a 'working-out-of-the-box' distribution. Use SuSE. All your updates are automagic, and stuff like 'Quake run with sound in less than an hour' archaic.
I can't believe anyone still goes through that kind of hell. There's a reason that SuSE doesn't update KDE between versions, and its to avoid that kind of inter-version breakage you experience. The full upgrade of the next SuSE revision incldues the next KDE, and it'll upgrade smoothly, too, assuming you have not tried to self-upgrade KDE in the middle.
2. Less expensive Windows Desktops: The article author is talking about preloaded linux machines. At Dell, or HP, a preloaded Linux machine costs more than a machine with exactly the same specs preloaded with Windows. Or, they'll both cost the same, and the Windows machine will come with a free monitor.
That's unreasonable, given that Dell doesn't have to pay anything to license Linux. On the other hand, what it does mean is that your MS-free system includes an MS-tax anyways.
You have to understand, from Joe Q. Public, or Mike A. Purchaser, when they want a system, they want it preloaded. Period. Preloaded Windows systems from the same vendor as exactly the same configured preloaded Linux systems are cheaper, therefore, Windows=cheaper.
Not that I agree with the viewpoint, but that's what he is refering too.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Hate to rain on your parade but your just way off base with that. It is not at all impossible to support at the desktop. If you can customize it to the point that tech support can't fix it then you don't need the kind of tech support you call in for.
The kind of user who buys linux on the desktop at a bestbuy isn't going to be installing a custom kernel or modifying their X-Windows config file. So yes you can support it. That's like saying if Mom and Pop buy a preinstalled linux computer then they will be instantly smart enough to find all the ways to mess it up thoroughly. I don't think so.
If you see spelling or grammatical errors don't blame me. I tried to preview but IE here at work borked the CSS
Sorry Tim C but I call bullshit on you. I just updated my version of Ubuntu to the newest version. Although I know how to use the CLI, for the heck of it I tried it through the GUI (using Synaptic).
Point, Click to open Synaptic. Edit the word "Hoary" to replace it with the word "Breezy" in the nice GUI edit page. Point and click a couple of more times, Wait for download and install, and poof - done! A perfect upgrade. The entire operating system, and every single application on my Linux system, all upgraded simply by pointing and clicking.
You simply CANNOT do that on Windows. There is no way in Windows you can simultaneously upgrade the OS (say, move from Windows 2000 to Windows XP) and upgrade EVERY application you are using all at the same time.
You need to refamiliarize yourself with Linux. For a long time now, Linux has been better than Windows on the desktop in the following areas: (a) more control afforded to the user; and (b) much easier to install Linux from scratch on a computer than it is to install Windows from scratch.
With Ubuntu, it is time to add a THIRD area where desktop Linux has no become better - way better: program installation and upgrades. No offense, man, but you are out of touch, and you are the one spouting the bullshit, as you call it.
Terpstra's articles are nothing more than propaganda based upon exaggeration and half-truths. I couldn't even read the entire set. I gave up about halfway through part two when I came accross the following:
"If companies really seek to attract the largest number of potential consumers, why are their practices so restrictive? What commercial arrangements have been made behind closed doors so as to keep Linux out of the public eye?"
Companies aren't looking to attract the largest number of potential customers, they're looking to attract the largest number of PROFITABLE customers. Customers cost money, plain and simple. Therefore it is wise to seek out customers that are going to give a return on the company's investment. There just aren't enough people looking to buy systems with Linux pre-installed right now to justify the opportunity cost associated with catering to them.
There are other problems with this article as well. A non-technical person reading it would assume that there were massive incompatibility problems with Linux, whereas in truth the problems are few and generally very minor. His first example points out that one of the users in his story had a hard time getting various wireless interfaces working. If someone didn't know any better, they might assume that this was indicative of a much larger pattern of difficulty with computers and components in general. The truth is that support for wireless cards is the biggest compatability hurdle right now, but it is an anomaly. No other catagory of device is anywhere near as plagued with problems. Laptops are also more difficult to grapple with than desktop systems. My job is to support Linux and unix for the college of engineering at the 5th largest university in the country. I do Linux installs day in and day out, and I can tell you that I'm not often faced with hardware support problems on desktop systems. Laptops can be more tricky, but even then it is usually the wireless interface and/or the video that represents the sole difficulty. In both cases there is a lot of documentation online that details how to get both working for most systems. There have been a few cases where I couldn't get Linux working, but they are very few and far between.
If I were to read these articles on a message board, I would assume that he was a troll due to the way in which he abuses language. He likes to use the term "compatible" in places where "supported" would be much more appropriate. There are not very many vendors who actually officially support Linux with their devices, but that doesn't mean those devices are necessarily incompatible with Linux. In fact I would argue that of all the myriad hardware devices that Linux supports, virtually none are officially "supported" under Linux by the vendor. I neither care nor worry about whether a device is officially "supported." The only thing that matters to me is whether it will work or not. If the drivers are there and they work then that is all the matters to me, and I support Linux for a living.
In general vendors are very willing to work with the Linux community, at least as far as the creation of drivers are concerned. Providing info on a device to someone who wants to create a driver costs these vendors nothing and may even increase their sales. Official support costs money, which is why it is so uncommon, at least on desktop systems. In the server arena things are much different. Most major server vendors both sell systems with Linux pre-installed, and support Linux on these systems. It is only a matter of time before this trickles down onto the desktop.
In all he paints a very distorted picture of where Linux is on the desktop and utilizes 'tin foil hat' logic to do it. There is no vast conspiracy. I do believe that Microsoft does work to try and prevent Linux from succeeding as a desktop OS, but Microsoft alone does not a conspiracy make.
One thing that I don't think he probably mentions is the fact that Best Buy, Circuit City, and Fry's all s
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The vast majority of Windows software doesn't come with *any* printed manual, let along a thick one; the OS doesn't come with a manual at all now. If you really like having the CD, and you don't want to burn one yourself, then buy a copy of your favorite OSS on CD.
There is an immense library of UNIX software, too. The difference is that Windows software is available in brick and mortar stores, and UNIX software largely isn't. It is a chicken-and-egg problem. Stores won't stock and developers won't develop until there is market, and there can't be market if nobody is selling.