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End of Win 98 Support May Boost Desktop Linux

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the not-sure-about-the-demographic-overlap dept.

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."

17 of 581 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah sure... by jawtheshark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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)
    1. Re:Yeah sure... by jagossel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would have to agree. Seems like in a Microsoft-driven world, people will go out and buy Windows XP or Windows Vista. Even with the WGA in place, people would still buy Windows. I'm all pro-Linux myself, but I still use a Microsoft OS at home. I would like to see Linux take their fair share in the desktop market, but I don't think it will happen with Microsoft dominating the market. Plus, users are too familiar with Windows and are a little hesitant to switch to Linux.

      --
      jagossel
    2. Re:Yeah sure... by kripkenstein · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From TFA:

      "School PCs are likely more at risk. Win9x PCs used regularly on the Internet need up to date security software. Some of these users -- companies, schools and governments -- may switch to Linux or Mac[.]" (emphasis mine)

      The article doesn't focus on old PCs in people's kitchen that only run Word. It specifically mentions schools, companies and governments - places that might have lots of old computers that still do something, and that need to know that those machines aren't going to be botted (those places DO have people who worry about such things, as opposed to the "average home user" that you seem to refer to). For such places, installing Linux might be a nice option instead of just throwing the hardware out.

    3. Re:Yeah sure... by Xtifr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > Increased demand for Linux on the desktop? Highly unlikely.

      Um, you realize that it doesn't take much to qualify as increased demand for Linux on the desktop! :)

      > While Linux may be ready for the desktop, the people that stick to Win98/ME are the most unlikely to switch to Linux.

      True, with one notable excemption you may be overlooking. Companies that still use Win98 may well consider support to be an important factor, and may well be willing to consider an alternative like Linux. I agree that Gramma's Win98 machine is unlikely to change to Linux, but the small company with less-than-a-dozen aging machines might actually consider switching. Most of them will probably bite the bullet and upgrade to XP or something, but a few might actually make the leap. And, like I say, it doesn't take many to qualify as an increased demand for Linux at the moment.

    4. Re:Yeah sure... by Haeleth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the end of support for Win98 will boost *anything* it's the purchases of Macs.

      You have got to be joking. There are only three possible reasons not to upgrade from Windows 98:

      1. Cannot justify the expense when Windows 98 works fine.
      2. Need to run programs that don't work in newer versions of Windows.
      3. Too lazy to care.

      People in category (1) are hardly going to pay the extortionate premium for an Apple: they'll keep on using their old computer until it breaks, and then they'll buy the cheapest Dell they can get.

      People in category (2) are hardly going to switch to a totally incompatible operating system that doesn't run any of their software: they'll keep on using their old computer until it breaks, and then they'll buy the cheapest Dell they can get and put Windows 98 on that. Sure, you could theoretically buy a Mac and run Win98 on it in Virtual PC. But why bother, when you can get a Dell for a fraction of the price?

      People in category (3) don't care about the end of support, so they'll keep on using their old computer until it breaks, and then they'll... you guessed it, they'll buy the cheapest Dell they can get and not care about that either.

      Oh, they won't switch to Linux either, but they certainly won't be interested in Apple hardware. For all its advantages, it does not have anything whatsoever to offer the kind of person who is still using Windows 98 in 2006.

    5. Re:Yeah sure... by Zyprexia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ever heard of the phrase 'If it ain't broken, don't fix it'. I worked for some industrial companies that never going to take the risk of shutting down their factory line just to do an update. If it's working correctly now, it will also work correctly over 3 years. Most of the industrial companies don't have the resources to write (or maintain) the specialized software. Because of that they paid a lot of money for the software to interact with the factory plant. They are not going to invest millions of Euros to update their software just because Microsoft stops support for W98...

    6. Re:Yeah sure... by Pxtl · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, XUbuntu (a new xfce desktop for Ubuntu) should solve the problem of high processor needs, but RAM is still a worry for getting a legacy box into Linux world. XUbuntu still needs 128 megs just to install using the default (n00b-friendly) installer. A lot of these old win98 boxes have only 32 or 64 megs of RAM in them. Yes, old PC100 ram is cheap on eBay, but that's a substantial difference from just downloading and running a piece of software.

    7. Re:Yeah sure... by g2devi · · Score: 5, Informative

      I ran Linux in a much more constrained environment back in 1993 (4MB RAM with ample swap, 40MB Disk, 386, laptop) and it ran at a decent speed with a decent set of applications (yes, even back then).

      I'd be *really* surprised if Linux today couldn't fit in your environment. But you'll likely have to forget KDE/GNOME. They're *nice* but not necessary. My old system used FVWM which is still perfectly capable (I was used it last year on Solaris -- there's even a Win95-like config), although now there are slicker alternatives like XFCE and IceWM which are also available and better supported by default on many distros.

      Here are a few alternatives to consider which are more targetted to your needs. You might want to them all out and see which one you like best:
      https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu
      http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_i d=1
      http://www.vectorlinux.com/
      http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

  2. Useless by John+Betonschaar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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'??

  3. In A Related Announcement ... by amelith · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft confirmed that they would begin supporting Windows XP sometime during Q3 this year.

    Ame

  4. not really. by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  5. Undoubtedly by samael · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  6. Unlikely by linvir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First, a rewrite. Changes are highlighted in bold:

    An anonymous reader writes
    "Microsoft kills off support for Windows 98 and Windows ME today, and nobody is reporting that the move will boost demand for Windows 2000 on bittorrent . Unlike two years ago -- when support for Win98 was extended because so many people complained about the early cutoff -- this time it seems there is no turning back."

    Seriously, 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:

    "I suspect that Microsoft's original extension of the Windows 98 support date a couple of years ago was, in part, to make sure Linux was not brought in to replace these systems."

    Words cannot express just how much of a non-story this is.

  7. I agree by transporter_ii · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  8. Re:Seems unlikely by xtracto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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'
  9. Cost of Training by shaneh0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Cost of Training by swillden · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can't possibly imagine ANY SMALL BIZ owner following Scenario 1.

      Certainly not the version of it you describe. Modify your scenario with this, though: Assume the small business has an IT guy who provides support on an as-needed, contract basis, and that guy already knows Linux, knows the distros and knows the applications. So here's how the scenario plays out:

      • Owner sees news article about Win98 end-of-life, gets mildly concerned.
      • Next time owner speaks with IT guy, he mentions that he's worried that his Win98 boxes are no longer getting security updates. Alternatively, it could be the IT guy -- who really hates his periodic trips to clean out viruses and spyware -- that brings it up.
      • IT guy mentions that Linux might fit the bill, and it's free, receives regular security updates and doesn't suffer from virus and spyware problems anyway.
      • Owner asks how hard it would be to switch, and IT guy offers to inventory the applications used by the business, evaluate the hardware and make a recommendation.
      • Owner agrees, IT guy does the inventory and finds that all the machines can run Linux just fine, using a lightweight window manager that looks a lot like Win98, and that there are F/LOSS equivalents to all of the applications being used, with a couple of exceptions which prove to run fine under WINE.
      • Owner has IT guy install and configure Linux on one computer. The user likes a few things better about the new system, complains about several changes, but overall doesn't see all that much difference and adapts quickly (mainly because the IT guy set the new system up to look and feel as close as possible to the old one).
      • Owner has IT guy spend a day and install Linux on all of the machines, plus another to show the employees how to use the new system. It's an up-front cost, but the IT guy assures him that it will pay for itself in reduced downtime and reduced IT support costs due to the lack of malware.

      Can you really say that any of that is unlikely?

      --
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