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Will Novell's Desktop Linux Catch On?
Laura writes "Novell says its newly released Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10(SLED) can replace Windows for the average office worker. But will enterprises embrace a widespread migration from Windows?" From the article: "The desktop market is a very mature market, and Microsoft has a very strong presence there, which makes it hard for customers to move off [...] However, Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Novell, said at the SLED 10 launch Thursday he is fairly confident that if enterprises have a chance to kick the tires of the new desktop OS, mass migration from Windows is soon to follow."
For the FOSS Means Business event, it was suggested that we get Microsoft to take part and make a big controversial event (since Perens and Stallman would be the other keynoters).
We decided against because MS have it too easy. They don't have to prove their offering is better, they just have to raise enough FUD so that transitions to free software are delayed for one more year. Just like last year, and probably like next year. So we decided against, and instead of controversy we'll concentrate on showing the business value of free software, and why it is sustainable.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
What with all the time we spend here proving P=NP and creating world peace, we've been neglecting idle speculation about Whether Linux Can Succeed On The Desktop!
If novell ships its Novell Client for Linux to all major distributions there are infact an incentive to use Suse Open Enterprise even in Linux only shops. It also makes OES an excellent gathering point for various desktop versions. Companies will always be off sync on some desktops and having server software that handles this in an easy way is worth much IRL.
If on the other hand Novell tries to tie SLED against OES they make a big enormous mistake. Even if SLED is nice i will not use it if its the only choice. Why would i want to lock myself in again coming from another lockin? Before i go SLED i want to see Novell supporting other client dists than SLED.
So basically its not how good product Novell ships but more about how good they interact with the rest of the Linux ecosystem that will doom or raise them to the sky.
HTTP/1.1 400
Bloomington North High School is piloting about 120 linux machines in their school running NLD, Linspire and Edubuntu. 700 students are using them. The Bloomington Linux Users Group is helping them by providing support.
Dell has no clean line of thought. There is no such thing as "one major distribution", and there won't be.
What he needs to do is to support one distribution, release modules, patches, etc, for it, and since compatible hardware is highly desirable in open source software these days, all other major distributions will join.
The distribution choosen could be Novell's SuSE, or Fedora, or Ubuntu, or almost anything.
find -name "*base*" -exec chown us {} \; ; ln -s
I don't know about you about I've mentioned the Ubuntu Breezy Badger Linux to a few of my co-workers, friends, and my fiance' and they all just laughed at me. Even if it's super duper awesome nobody is going to take it seriously until the name is changed.
-Dipster
I'll probably get modded down for this because I know Linux users don't like to hear this -- but Windows XP is a pretty good product.
It rarely needs rebooting, it lets even computer illiterate users be surprisingly productive, and it really doesn't cost very much. In fact, it effectively comes "for free" with a $500 Dell desktop PC.
For a Linux desktop to be preferred over Windows, the Linux desktop experience will have to provide something new and innovative that Windows does not, rather than just knocking off Windows features.
Hackers like me and you like Linux for many reasons -- but none of those reasons are particularly interesting to Joe Office Manager or Mom and Pop User.
Get innovative, people -- invent something new and useful that Windows *doesn't* have, and then they will come.
boxlight
Average office workers don't care about the distro.
We've been looking for the opportunity to get MS off our desktops for 5 years. If Novell has a product that can replace Windoze we will seriously consider it for 150 desktops. Disclosure: we are a Novell/Red Hat/Suse shop, which makes a Novell product far more interesting than Ubuntu, as one example.
is a good support mechanism and a good documentation that can help glitches people usually face while using linux. Asking someone to search on google or news groups can be very frustrating for anyone. Specially for applications which are targeted as windows replacements, which lack many things die to legal constraints.
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
I think that if any distribution had the right to claim being "Linux" it'd be Red Hat. I don't know if it still holds true, but they used to be the most popular distribution by far and thus, when someone made a commercial package that's what they (still) target. If it runs without any changes to your system on another distribution that's fine, but vendors will often only support Red Hat (and these days just specific versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux). Our RSA Authentication Manager for instance is supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 3 (not 4, not WS, but ES 3 ONLY. Their setup scripts check for this).
What's wrong with Ubuntu 5.10?
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Dell has started offering it on their website, maybe it will catch on. People need to be able to try before they buy, so they can see how it works, then it might catch on. There is a link to do this, but most people would rather not have to install it to try it.
I don't know where you can try Linux in a retail outlet, but it would help convince people to buy it if they could, IMHO.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
In fact, it effectively comes "for free" with a $500 Dell desktop PC.
What on earth do you mean by that?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Commercial:
1. Sell upper management on the idea
a. emphasize savings, lack of viruses, etc. (things that an MBA can understand)
b. repeat 1 about 10 times
c. repeat at least once again to the new management
2. Point out the overall savings in the corporate environment:
a. savings due to protected deskstops
b. savings due to no virus recovery issues
3. Do a really good job integrating with business processes
a. point of sale
b. factory control
c. management and financial
d. powerpoint compatability
4. Security, stability, reliability, data protection
5. Protection of the company's IP (plans, procedures, the formula for Coca Cola, etc.)
Government and Contractors:
1. Get the government to adopt it.
a. emphasize the security
b. emphasize the long-term savings
c. emphasize the requirement for non-proprietary data formats for long term archive
2. Get government contractors to follow the government.
3. Get the infrastructure that supports the contractors and the governement to do it.
At school:
1. Point out the cost savings of OSS
2. Repeat #1 about 10 times
3. Support eduation softwar and speling softwar on the dektop
4. Do pilot projects
5. Get your kids to use it for their projects (science fair, papers, etc.)
6. Beat the administrators over the head with the advantages of OSS
Same thing applies to almost universal availability of manufacturers' Linux drivers on the same CD with Windows drivers.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Dell can use that excuse forever. If he chose one distro to bundle and support, he could do that. No one expects an OEM to support stuff they don't sell.
Staples
Gah! Is that the new Clippy?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
if enterprises have a chance to kick the tires of the new desktop OS, mass migration from Windows is soon to follow.
Yeah, this has worked real well for Mac OS X. Seriously, what is the target market percentage that SLED10 is going to have in one year, two years? Will they be happy with 3.5%? Or must "success" be something much bigger? (maybe a video of Ballmer throwing a chair at a Novell booth?)
But it is a good sign that they refrained from calling call it SLEDX.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
It happened with WIN98 to 2000 and I've seen it with "interface issues" upgrading desktops from NT4 to XP.
Putting aside the REAL issues of a major migration, the answer to successful change is to not fight human nature.
Forget about pre-changeover sessions for enduser input and all that. Upgrades succeed in environments where
management doesn't let after-the-fact moaning and groaning be effective tools.
Everywhere else you selectively put shiny new computers (and OSes) on certain peoples desks and just wait.
One hour later when the inevitable jealousy and pettiness reach full force, the users are ready to realize they
can keep their old/slow/loud/ugly computers or be upgraded on schedule. Unfortunately, human nature rules.
Why would they want the state of the desktop to change? It works. Linux, in a lot of the same ways, doesn't for the average user. There's definitely a larger learning curve (yes even for Ubuntu). Most people are simply not willing to have to learn new stuff when the old way works fine and is cheap enough.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Novell no longer has the marketing might to make such a switch happen. They're in a significantly smaller share of the business market, and can't incentivize the switch.
I think that something along the lines of an OS platform switch will have to start with companies who outsource their entire IT infrastructure to a company like IBM Global Services, where all of the "figure it out" and "just make it work" bits are Someone Else's Problem.
I know that IBM has financial ties to Novell, and has an interest in keeping it alive. I just don't know that they'll be willing to make it Their Problem on thousands of desktops.
Also, I think the end user should not have to use the command line. (...here comes the flame...) As much as I think any self respecting geek should be able to survive without the everyday comforts of his GUI, it is unreasonable to expect everyone to be capable. Now, before I get a slew of 'everyone should be able to handle the terminal', consider this: Not everyone that should be able to drive can replace a hose on their engine. And the terminal is scary to many end users, especially ones that only mail and read a gossip rag online. Until you can really get everything automated, Linux will not be a viable alternative for everyone.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
I hate to poo-poo anything linux related, since I am a fan. I am a big fan of the penguin, but at the company where I work, it just won't happen.
Here's why: we resell cellular phone service for one of the BIG providers, and their web-based interface to activate phones ONLY works on Internet Explorer. Period. They actually check for other browsers and REJECT ALL OTHERS. They claim security reasons, but I think their web gurus are just morons.
Additionally, our point of sale requires Terminal Server Client (RDP), and we need to have printer support. It is also a windows only application. They also highly recommend Citrix Metaframe, but that's out of our price range (the terminal server licenses are costly enough).
As long as we are an authorized agent for this company, we are required to meet their software requirements. This 100% means Windows, and Internet Explorer. We have managed to cut our MS Office Installs by using OO.org, but this hasn't been without troubles [whining idiots that can't use a mouse reliably, let alone figure out a slightly different interface--good thing MS Office 12 is going to be even more radically different].
There are a lot of small businesses in a similar situation, and as long as this is the case, linux will be a limited use OS.
Now, if someone would release a terminal server client that supported ALL attached peripherals (at the client end), then I would use that (and we might be able to get rid of windows at several points).
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
This is an oft-quoted but totally unsubstantiated comment.
...
I can forward an X session from any Unix box to any Linux [or BSD] box. My cupsd in Gentoo speaks to the one in Redhat. My NFS in freebsd speaks Fedoraese [e.g. Fedora implements NFS properly], etc.
While it's true some [mostly C++] applications are not as binary portable as they should be the actual platforms themselves are stable. The programs I run in Gentoo are the same ones you can run in Fedora or SUSE or
If anything the Unix, Linux and BSD OSes provide greater platform portability. My CLI or even X11/Motif application which I built on an O2 box during college built and ran fine on my Gentoo Linux laptop. Without source changes.
Try saying that about Windows. Does your wince application build in Win3.11 or Vista without source changes? Does the binary run across platforms anyways?
Windows is portable across Windows. I've yet to see a Win32 application natively run on anything else.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Most companies already have thousands of dollars worth of Microsoft productivity tools that their employees don't need to be retrained to use.
The nail in the coffin will be a distro that can run all those applications, plus their own. Until then, I can't sell it to management. They won't even look at it. And I'm sorry, but OpenOffice is NOT a replacement for M$ Office, if it looks slightly different then what people are used too, they won't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
The same goes for Mac.
Granted Codeweavers have the tools, but the licensing will kill a project like this. I've tried to use their setup, but it's just not stable enough for the Admin environment.
Ubuntu may very well move to replace windows in the home. The big problem with replacing windows in the work place is the lack of competition for active directory. Novell is in a prime location to start replacing windows in the SMB market. If they release a Linux targeted version of E-Directory for free (preferably open source) they could start gaining market share. They should face the fact that Microsoft users are not going to migrate en-mass to E-Directory and concentrate on the Linux market and interoperability with AD and OD. Making one directory service for all computers is a pipe dream different systems have different requirements. Meeting all requirements for all systems makes for an incredibly complicated and convoluted platform. The learning curve for such a system is too great for power users. Considering power users manage most of the computer systems for small businesses; making a one size fits all directory does not make sense.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
Inviting MS has two potential advantages. First, it can make the event more controversial which helps spread the news into the mass media, and second it can allow the event to be a non-partisan event which shows both sides.
To make either of these possible values happen, MS need to be addes near then start of the organising. You should make sure they fund the event too since it will be you gathering the best audience possible and then handing MS the microphone. Finally, put them on early or mid-day and make sure the closing speaker can rebut an sooth the FUD that was spewed.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Linux will never get a large presence on the corporate desktop until the "big-brother" tools are there. Thanks to SOX and GLBA, we have auditors in our department twice a quarter. Due to the standardness of windows and active directory, we can be sure that we are in full compliance by implementing standard operating procedures. There are no such widely accepted procedures for the Linux world. By introducing Linux, you introduce audit and regulatory scrutiny. No one in business wants to draw unnecessary audit and regulatory attention to IT - it costs money, time, and causes headaches while distracting you from your business.
Ironically, I run many linux based tools to audit my windows machines for SOX and GLBA.
-ted
Not because of any windows functionality per se, but rather because our chosen mail client is Blotus Notes.
And, yes, some of my co-workers use WINE to run their mail client, but I'm not up for doing that at work (at home, use OpenSuSE 10 x86_64 and Solaris SPARC for all computing), but I can't afford to fight the good fight at work; I'm too busy trying to bring home the big evil!
Still, between efforts like this, Linspire and a whole bevy of others, I suspect that Microsoft's dominance of the desktop is becoming less of a carved-in-stone given and more of simply being the way it is now.
For the FOSS Means Business event, it was suggested that we get Microsoft to take part and make a big controversial event (since Perens and Stallman would be the other keynoters).
......
We decided against
I'm rather disappointed, If you could have gotten Steve Ballmer to attend on behalf of MS as well as Richard Stallman I would have be willing to pay for the privilege of watching the event. I'm convinced a debate between those two would end in a world class chairthrowing duel.......
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
IT people would love to see desktop Linux take root. I know I would; it could potentially solve a lot of support headaches.
Here's one thing that's holding the Linux desktop back...standards. Non-technical users know a superset of the following things about their computer:
- To log on in the morning, I press Ctrl+Alt+Del, enter my e-mail address and password, and click OK. To log off, I use Start -> Shut Down.
- To read my e-mail, I use {Outlook | Notes | GroupWise | something else}.
- Ctrl+O opens a file. Ctrl+S saves it. Alt+F4 closes a window. Alt+Tab switches apps, etc.
- To write a document, I use Word. I know 500 key combimations and tricks to get my work done.
- To use a spreadsheet, I open Excel. I also know 500 key combos and tricks.
- To write a presentation, I use PowerPoint. If I'm in sales, I could practically code the next version of PowerPoint. If I'm a normal user, I know a few tricks to get slides written.
- To browse the Internet, I use IE.
- To use my USB flash drive / iPod / scanner / printer, I plug it in and go. (Microsoft really works with vendors to make sure devices work as advertised in all but the screwiest of configurations.)
What people in IT don't realize is that users do not care what technology is new or cool. Users want to do the job they are hired for, go home and spend time with the family. Their computer is a tool, nothing more. It's like a phone or copier to them. They learned Windows and Office, and if a replacement doesn't work exactly as the old one did, they'll resist it.
If the Linux distributions put their strength behind one core set of applications, and also made Linux all but invisible to users who don't want the command line, then a real contender against Windows will emerge. Even Microsoft is worried about people adopting Vista at the corporate level because of the huge system requirements. A well-organized, standard Linux with no complexities exposed to the end-user would be a welcome change in some companies.
Dell might be saying that they want only one "major" distribution is horse hockey. In many, many conversations with IBM and HP, both those vendors want the opposite. They want two major distributions that have full enterprise support. Novell/SUSE as one (see IBM investment in Novell) and Red Hat as the other. Why do they want this? Because they don't want another Microsoft. They want to encourage standards, competition, and hardware upgrades. They can't do this if everyone runs the OS of the year from Microsoft. They can do this if everyone runs either SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, or Microsoft. Doing that creates lots of churn for them to take advantage of when trying to sell boxes equipped with the latest bells and whistles.
As far as Umbuntu... I don't know what to tell you. Most of my customers (anywhere from 100 users in a local township to 30,000 users at a Fortune 100 company) won't install software X on OS Y on hardware Z unless it's 100% supported and certified by both vendors. Problem with Umbuntu is, as far as I know, no major software or hardware companies are doing that. That alone will put the screws to Umbuntu. At Novell/SUSE, our biggest challenge (and our biggest success) has been getting third party companies like Intel, Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle, PeopleSoft, BEA, etc. to certify our OS as a platform that they will support. Check to see if the app you want is supported here http://developer.novell.com/yessearch/Search.jsp. Without a company behind Umbuntu, getting that kind of support is going to be impossible. And, as we all know, without supported software, no one will use your distro.
That's just my opinion... I certainly could be wrong.
See... and you thought your sig was boring - TT
Novell has a long history of not being able to get out of its own way. From the bumbling days of DR-DOS after they acquired it from Digital Research, to the "Univel SuperNOS" project (brilliant idea -- they were going to fuse together Netware and Unix -- and they simply abandoned the project and let Microsoft eat their market), to their latest move of letting Ximian take over SuSE (let's be realistic here, that's how it ended up happening), there just doesn't appear to be anyone over there who knows how to actually execute a plan and drive technology into marketable products.
So what's going to happen? My guess would be that the new technology like Xgl and its associated compositing managers etc. will find their way into the pool of open source software, and then someone like Ubuntu will drive it into a slick, easy to install, easy to use desktop that people will actually want to use.
And then when Novell's revenues continue to slide, even these technologies will lose their staffing, when the next round of layoffs will cut those who are not working on products and services that directly generate revenue. Seriously, the whole Novell organization ought to be divested and sold off as pieces to other companies who can work with the products and services that still have some value.
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I showed my co-worked the XGL demo the other day, and he thought it was really need. Then he asked me how to get it, and I said it only runs on Linux, and he completely lost interest.
I've had that experience too many times. If it can't run on Windows, they see it as off-limits. They feel safer thinking within their box. It's unfortunate.
And I'm talking about a lot of people I met. And quite a few are professional programmers.
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Wow, you weren't kidding there. Here are some things of which you should take note:
If they could get a few commonly used commercial application ported then they would have no problem becoming mainstream. For instance -- if Quicken ran on Linux I could have converted my sister's Doctor office. But alas she uses Quicken and even if there are Linux alternatives to it, she's used to using Quicken, so that makes all the difference.
Other key apps are QuickBooks and PhotoShop. I'm sure there are a number of others. Novell should really get after these companies to support them.
:T:R:A:N:S:
I used to think that Red Hat was Linux too (from a commercial/marketing perspective, that is). But now I'm starting to think that it's not someone like RedHat (or even Fedora) who are going to make Linux mainstream.
What's (arguably) the most popular and widely known open-source app out there? Firefox. Is that because of big corporate backing? Nope (well, corporate money, but not marketing or support).
Just yesterday I looked at Ubuntu seriously for the first time, and I'm amazed. It looks like the Firefox of linux distros. User-oriented, simple, and with no tech-speak on the web site. I actually had to hunt for information on what package manager it uses.
Two asides: 1) I think that the first distro that can be consumer-friendly like Ubuntu and capitalize on the exploding computer-lifestyle (social networking, blogs, messaging, photos, television/movies) craze will pull a whole lot of users. 2) The only thing that I think will hold Ubuntu back is the name. Despite its good intentions, "Ubuntu" is not an (American) consumer-friendly name.
Microsoft force upgrades on user about every four years anyway then four years after that they wont support the product before that. so over a 12 years all desktops will have to upgraded at least twice.
I dont think novell could seriously expect to take a lions share of the market anytime soon - linux adoption will always be a gradual process. I think a big problem is that a lot of windows admin would be out of a job if they had to use linux. there is a big learning curve for moving from windows to linux especially when something doesnt appear to work.
but there are plenty of places where linux on work desktop could start, especially when user have restricted functionality to a few apps anyway (e.g. call centres which genreraly restrict users severely) i would think these sorts of places would be a good place to start.
i had a friend that was working for a company which tried to roll out linux to company desktop but the user revloted because thopenoffice wouldnt run excel macros and they were a finance company. there are always going to be a plethora of issues doing a migration like this and most users will say linux doesnt work (simply cos they're used to windows and are too lazy to figue things out) - so there would have to be a deegree of training to offset this.
so, in summary, for a company generally there will be an increased cost in training/administering linux in the short term but i would say the TCO in the long term would have to work out in linux advantage in the long term as windows always forces upgrades of its products and as we all know is prone to all sorts of security holes/bugs.
2 wrongs dont make a right - but 3 lefts do
I don't think anyone has established that there is a market for an "enterprise desktop", whatever that is. Sounds like something cooked up in the marketing department. It would be interesting to know what Novell's sales figures for their "enterprise desktop" editions are so far. Just my 2 cents, but I wish Novell would drop this stuff and concentrate on a single, excellent distribution called SuSE Linux whose cost range from free (no support) on up, depending on the support wanted and the software actually used, etc. The kind of installation required should the choice of the user: the result of a granular installer and policy/lock-down tool. It should not be the result of the marketing folks trying it on which just leaves the user feeling powerless. Considering Novell's rather precarious financial situation they might not have much to lose by taking a few risks such as, gasp, not doing exactly the same as everyone else right down to the droidish marketing babble about "seamless integration", etc.
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tournoun pas maï
If SUSE, or anyone for that matter, wants to succeed in the business desktop market they need to replace the Office/Exchange/Cell Phone relationship with something better or cheaper. I have yet to meet a client that told me, "I don't like Linux". They say things like, "How can I tie that in with Exchange? Can I replace exchange with something? How can all of my users devices syncronize email and calenders."
The desktop has never been important in the workplace. Look at all of the shops that have Windows and Mac users. Getting work easily done through document, information, and financial exchange is the only thing that is important.
Novell has their groupware and SUSE has OpenXchange and Evolution. When they make it easily integrated with handhelds and desktops they will begin to win market share.
If they make something that is a "drop in" replacement I'll be there.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Hmm, you need better friends and a new fiance. Co-workers you'll just have to live with.
Microsoft has achieved the impossible.
Microsoft has pushed the cost of tech support for their products off to the OEM's selling the hardware.
Novell will not be able to do that. So, in order for Novell to match Microsoft's profit margin on the OS, Novell will have to charge MORE to pay for the Novell support techs to answer the phone calls that, for Microsoft, would have gone to Dell.
And there will be MORE tech calls to Novell because Dell pre-approves all the hardware they ship for Windows, but not for SLED.
Novell's only hope is to release and support a bootable floppy or CD/DVD that will identify the hardware installed and provide some way for the end user/installer to validate the availability of drivers (100% supported, not supported, partial support with these problems, etc).
There's more than just mail to be considered here. Databases, availability/scheduling. Our lockin is to Lotus Notes - not the Lotus Notes mail client.
Eat any good books lately?
If you want to get MS off your systems in a company environment you need to stop trying to convince your Co-Workers who don't even know what Linux is and don't care... You need to talk to the Bean Counters who manage the purse strings. Get the numbers for them and don't expect them to look anything up. Show them in a spread sheet. One column the cost for Windows XP or Vista, Office, and the other commercial software that you guys use... Then total that up and multiply by as many workstations and deduct any volume liscense discounts. Then in the other column you can just put a big fat ZERO for the cost of Ubuntu (or other distro like Fedora Core) and then list the open source alternatives to your software with those related (usually zero) prices. This will take the laugh factor out of the equations... Hit the bean counters with the numbers and let them do the rest of the math. Who cares if DELL doesn't offer anything you want... build your own systems with Fedora or Ubuntu or Slackware whatever you want. Show these numbers to the beanie and bowtie guy and he will listen.
MadOgre.com
in the context of an enterprise, it won't be non-tech savvy users trying to install Linux, and it won't be without distro vendor support. That said, i've NEVER have to contact RedHat or SuSE for the clusters and other server farms I've built, in 7 years of doing Linux distros. Search engines and IRC & forums has saved butt many times, though. My 18 years Unix experience helps a little too ;)
If it's out of Dell's box, you may have a point.
But if you mean out of Microsoft's box, then you're on crack. Out-of-the-box XP simply does not work. You might have a chance if you also have all of your out-of-the-box driver CDs for all your components. But if you're in my boat, and have to install XP on mom's bare PC that she bought from who knows where, and has no clue what a driver CD is or where they might be, then you're fucked.
Unless of course you have a Knoppix CD, which will recognize almost everything, tell you what the hardware is, allow you to download the drivers and burn them to CD, just so you can get XP to realize that it has a video card and NIC. Linux's out of the box hardware support is light-years' beyond Windows.