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."
Increased demand for Linux on the desktop? Highly unlikely. The machines still running Win98/ME are probably all older machines that keep on chugging. The users didn't bother to upgrade to Windows 2000 or Windows XP in the first place, and will just keep running Win98/ME until the machine dies. When that happens, the users will simply buy a new system and then get the latest OS that comes with it. Probably XP or Vista, depending on time when the old machine dies.
While Linux may be ready for the desktop, the people that stick to Win98/ME are the most unlikely to switch to Linux.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
What a useless article, the only section that actually mentioned Linux at all was
Silver still believes that some users may decide to switch to Linux instead of upgrading to XP but he said existing applications that require Windows are likely to stop a mass migration.
So how exactly is MS killing '98 support going to 'help linux migration'??
Microsoft confirmed that they would begin supporting Windows XP sometime during Q3 this year.
Ame
Unless the end of support means that all copies will explode and stop working. I know people that still run windows 95 and they dont care that it is "unsupported" the masses dont care if something is supported anyways, they dont call microsoft, they typically dont go patching or updating.
This means absolutely nothing, windows 98 installed bast sill remain the same and slowly dwindle as the poor upgrade their pc's and use what comes on that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The kind of people who are still running Windows 98 are exactly the same people who will happily run Linux. And these same people really care about whether it's supported by Microsoft or not.
My Journal
First, a rewrite. Changes are highlighted in bold:
An anonymous reader writesSeriously, my PIII laptop has 'Designed for Windows 98' on it, and can run Windows 2000 and Windows XP just fine, but the mainstream Linux distros are too bloaty to even install: the Ubuntu and Fedora installers literally hang, and SUSE and Mandriva are too slow even on my other machine in the +2GHz range.
Linux can't pick up the slack when MS turns off support for old OSes, because the top Linux distros stopped catering for that level of hardware years ago. And with KDE/GNOME being so indispensable for everyday desktop usage, their near-elitist disregard for anything below mid-high range hardware is infuriating.
In fact, here is the quote ZDNet is using to support their claim:
Words cannot express just how much of a non-story this is.
I work in a 2-way radio business radio shop. All of our programming computers use Windows 98 SE because everything after that had trouble with using the serial ports of out DOS (Now, on Win98, almost everything works. On anything past that, 90% of the software works, but you will run into something here or there that refuses to read or write to a radio).
I would love nothing more to swap each Win98 computer over to Linux, but you know how much of the radio programming software - Kenwood, Motorola, Icom, etc. -- will run on Linux? None.
I would bet that a fair amount of Win98 users still use it because they are in a situation similar to us, too. And you know how many of their critical apps run on Linux? Probably none, too.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Those '50 to 70 million' users of Windows 98 or Windows ME are probably running on older hardware and are unlikely to upgrade to Windows XP due to its increased hardware requirements and slower system response. A normal competitive business with that many users of one of its product would find some way to sell them something such as security fixes, patches, or whatever. Microsoft just kisses them off.
I'm one of those who tried to switch to Linux. Even though Win98 is blazing fast on my machine, Xubuntu (light-weight Ubuntu with XFCE) has been as sluggish as Win95 on my other computer, a 486-66MHz. I really appreciated how helpfull the Ubuntu forum members were, but after a while they all determined that XFCE would not run any faster on my computer than it did, and so I switched back to Win98SE.
I know this will sound as the same old troll but there is, at least with Ubuntu, a long way to go for the Linux desktop mass "takeover".
I just installed Ubuntu in a Pentium 3 400mhz that I found in the trash (I love UK) which had Windows 2000. Unfortunately I do not have an internet connection with that machine.
I configured an account for my flatmate, he is a decent computer literate guy, biologist but he likes technology (he is something like 36 yrold and used to make small BASIC programs in the past).
I am doing an experiment, the first thing he ased when he started using the machine was "but, does it plays MP3"?, I explained him all the situation (he is a "freedom" [in a broad sense, not in libre software as a lot of people is here] activist so, he understands about copyrights and all that shit) and told him about OGG, and showed him that there was support for OGG out of the box.
Of course, I also told him I would install the MP3 support, here is where te problems began, I went to the UBUNTU site, and looked for what was necessary to provide MP3 support, then I downloaded the specified software and tried to installed via USB. None of it installed as every program needed some other program (aka unsatisfied dependency). Even the mp321 needed the id3tag-whatever library. As I didnt wanted to bother I just installed realplayer, and this is what he is using NOW to play mp3 (unfortunatley it does not have a playlist functionality so my friend has to open each file, and there is no way to configure the gnome file manager to make realplayer the default player when you dobule click, it keeps opening in Totem who says that the mp3 is not a multimedia format).
Then, he opened OpenOffice (I told him about how it would be the equivalent for Microsoft Office for his needs). After he opened I went to do something else, and when I returned, he had OO.org in full screen mode and the program was kind of paralyzed. After looking a bit he told me he tried to customize the FullScreen Toolbar (the one that has the "FullScreen" button in it), I just pressed ALT-f4 and then tried again, it seems, the Fullscreen mode in OpenOffice gets "always on top" mode, and then when you try to open the customize screen the window sits under the document window WITH focus, the document window wont get focus unless you close that other window that is behind it. Bad program.
Ok, then I told him about OpenOffice Draw, I use it a lot (it exports to EPS which I use with LaTex). I told him about the Vector graphics format and explained about the SVG and WMF (told him that SVG is the open and standard equivalent to the windows WMF). I made a fast drawing, selected all the elements and exported as SVG. Then I tried to import that image in a DOCUMENT (Open Office Writer Inert/Image/FromFile) and to my surprise THERE IS NO SUPPORT FOR IMPORTING SVG. There is SGV which is I believe a staroffice format, but it is another thing. I tried chaning the extension to whatever (SGV) without success. it was funny that just two minutes before I had told my friend that Linux was cool because it "recognizes the format from the file content and not from the extension", but then it seems OpenOffice.org expects the files to have a specific extension. Bad bad program.
Then I exported the same drawing to WMF (THE WINDOWS PROPIETARY FORMAT) and to my surprise I could import it to OpenOffice Writer without problem (WTF).
Another annoyance, that is of course a RealPlayer problem is that, there is no way to select which soundcard to use. The motherboard has an integraded soundcard and a Soundblaster live (darn Britons, I cant believe I found it in the trash in a rainy day =o). I configured the SoundBlaster live as the default device (in the Ubuntu menu) but the REalPlayer ignored that. What I had to do is connect the speakers to the integraded soundcard jack and then just selected it as the default sound card.
O
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
What a coincidence! I would like to see Barack Obama as President, but I don't think it will happen with George Bush in office.
I was always fascinated with rock 'n' roll, or girls, or something like that when I was a kid. - Gary Sinise
An example of Windows 98 is at my gym where the barcode check in/check out system churns along happily day after day on a Windows 98 box (not connected to the Internet, or I'm sure it would be unusable by now). Here's an example of an old box, probably better made than half the crap churned out today (decent power supplies, hard drives that were throroughly Q/A'd, memory modules with matching chips, etc.), that will continue being used until it implodes upon ifself. The application does not need the eye candy of XP/Gnome/KDE, nor does it need access to infinite amounts of virtual RAM, etc. It needs to start quickly (which Windows 98 does) and go.
This may be a perfect opportunity to set up a simple Linux application that runs under X (not using KDE/Gnome), but who is going to spend the money to fund the development? It's not a "sexy" project that it going to be picked up on by some hacker for fun, and the kind of guys who write boring database apps like this are mostly busy in the US these days working 10 hour days trying to keep their jobs.
It's not Microsoft Office that keeps these Windows 98 boxes alive; but the small, VB apps that do not die but continue doing useful work day in and day out. Could these be built on Linux? Absolutely. Would they be better? Sure they could. Could they be built as quickly and easily as their VB 6 counterparts? Not that I have seen so far, and that includes Gnome, KDE/Qt, Tk and wxPython (I know there are many more). That's where Windows picked up so much momentum; it was the ability to toss together small, useful, ugly RAD apps that were not things of Computer Science beauty, but they could be built by people who didn't know C++ but knew what they needed.
IMO, this is a big reason why Linux hasn't caught on the way it ought to have on the Desktop. There is no easy way for the non-computer scientist to put together quick, useful applications. This is something IBM never got with OS/2, and why it died a stagnant death, because while it could run Windows 3.1 apps better than Windows itself, to do anything in native you pretty much had to do it in C++.
Most Linux users like the idea of their apps being constructed by committees of uber-hackers in Europe who really know their stuff. However, until your average hobbiest or business professional can put together useful applications as easily as they could in VB (and to a lesser extent VB.NET), and distribute it, legacy operating systems like Windows 98 and XP will still be floating around for many years to come.
Take a look at your scenario: If YOU were that small business owner, with 10-15 employees and 10 older '98 machines, which do you think is more likely?
Scenario 1
- Sees slashdot headline in RSS reader about '98 support being discontinued and a mention of Linux, which is free software that you've heard discussed every now and then
- Ignores all matters critical to running his business--normally a 60hr/wk job--and learns about Linux and the different distros and which companies offer support
- Calls Red Hat, or a Red Hat provider, and discusses the software, gets a demo, installs, tests, and orders the software and support contract
- Tries to find software to replace all of the titles used in Windows
- Trains employees or hires someone to train employees
Scenario 2
- Calls Dell and orders 10 of their cheapest XP PC's shipped to their door at $500 machine.
Scenario 3
- Does nothing, crosses fingers, replaces PC's one at a time as they break
I can't possibly imagine ANY SMALL BIZ owner following Scenario 1. I don't understand why linux zealots try to push linux down everyones throat, even where it doesn't belong.
The people that WANT to use linux are already using it. It's not as if a critical mass of people are JUST ABOUT to use Linux if only X would happen or Y would happen to nudge it along. Like it or not, linux is positioned as a Server OS.
Currently, OSX isn't enough to convert users. So when Linux is better then OSX, come back and tell me and I'll help you evangalize.
How hesitant users are to switch depends on the demographics. Mostly it is the older users who are stuck in the Windows cycle, alot of younger people who are comfortable around computers are much more mobile in this respect and willing to try new things. I have seen enough people switch to OS.X from Windows to know that. Of course the OS.X switchers are not exacty a mass exodus but alot of them are not exactly powerusers either and Mac sales have been picking up recently. There is no real reason why Linux as a desktop OS for regular users shouldn't also be able to achieve similar growth and thus help to gnaw away at Microsoft's market share. What keeps regular users (not nerds) away from Linux as a desktop OS is among other things:
- The still user unfriendly and sometimes buggy nature of many Linux distributions, especially when it comes to laptop support.
- The fact that major PC manufacturers don't offer Linux as an OS option complete with a support package and sell it aggressively.
- The sheer flora of desktop environments that are available for Linux since alot of normal users associate the desktop strongly with the operating system however illogical that may appear to a nerd.
I'd like to see some major PC maker offer a Linux line of Destop and Laptop PC's, a hardware/software package similar in concept to Apple's offerings and with the same effort being put into support, development, making the OS easy and consistent to use and that users can easily get ahold of applications to replace the ones they miss from Windows. The components for this already exists, somebody just needs to get off his/her ass and use them to shake up the computer world like Ryanair and the likes managed to shake up the airline business. One thing is for sure, as long as people keep using Windows as they do nothing and wait for Microsoft to shoot it self in the foot and screw up it's monopoly nothing will change.Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow