Slashdot Mirror
End of Win 98 Support May Boost Desktop Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft kills off support for Windows 98 and Windows ME today, and ZDNet is reporting that the move will boost demand for Linux on the desktop. Unlike two years ago — when support for Win98 was extended because Linux was seen as a serious competitor — this time it seems there is no turning back."
...and pigs might fly out of your butt. If god had intended linux to ever be on the desktop, he wouldn't have made it so god-damned shitty!
Maybe if linsux didn't suck fo FUCKING bad :)
While Linux may be ready for the desktop
Speaking as someone that ran Linux on the desktop from 2002 until this past Feb, I can say Linux is not ready for the desktop.
Good for you.
Would you like a cookie?
My sig can beat up your sig.
It is official; Netcraft confirms: Linux is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when IDC confirmed that Linux market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. As many of us are already aware, Linux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Ubuntu is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Ubuntu developers only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Ubuntu is dying.
All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.
Fact: Linux is dying
The average user cannot use Linux. End of story, end of game.
Losing their OS will not make people adopt Linux, only an accessable, brain dead easy, free version of Linux will make them adopt it, and even then it will be an uphill battle.
They don't care about how many megaflop pixelations per hertz, all they care about is "Can I see pictures of my grand kids without taking a college course?" They don't even really care about who gets their money.
I can get on the 'web with a new Mac, I can get on all of the internets with a new Windows PC, I can't get on the interweb without my Geek grandson's help with linux... The PC is cheaper. That is a pretty good "average user" summary of why the home user market has been like this for years.
"And, like I say, it doesn't take many to qualify as an increased demand for Linux at the moment."
Translation: We're so desperate we'll take any kind of increase.
Is this a troll????
... and been burn't and learn't)
If it isn't, it sounds like the blind leading the blind. Do you have any pesonal experience to back up the promises you've made to your friend?
Or were you simply repeating things you've heard in the press (and here on Slashdot) without having the ability to actually deliver?
Because - quite honestly - you sound like someone who's read a lot but has no actual experience or knowledge in the technology.
There *is* a certain minimum amount of knowledge and skill required to install and configure this stuff you know.
Maybe you should have sought help.
[Now just before everyone jumps on me and trys to point out that "windows is easier out-of-the-box". No it isn't. Have you tried installing windows on a bare machine lately? A work collegue recently purchased a barebones box a few months ago, thinking he could just stick XP on it from a retail shrinkwrap, and ended up spending about 3 days on it constantly before giving up and going back to the shop so they could put an OEM image on his hard drive.]
Back to my point.
If you don't have experience installing, integrating and configuring computing environments; start at the bottom with a simple install.
DONT start at the top with different "equivalent" functions and formats that you are actually personally unfamiliar with. While OpenOffice handles WinOffice formats, OGG is *not* the same as MP3 and it'll take about 30 seconds for your friend to find out. He's not going to like having to go through an extra step to convert the data so he can put it on his MP3 player (or even download it in the first place). Similarly, SVG is *not* WMV. And he's going to be mightly pissed off when you tell him he has yet another format to manage.
Take my advice. Ease him into it. Give him the same function on the existing de-facto (whether you like it or not) formats.
(Spoken as someone who has installed and configured a few Linux environments for his family