Study Finds Linux 'Ready For Prime-time'

An anonymous reader tipped us to a Techworld article proclaiming Linux as the next big thing ... again. A study of IT directors, VPs and CIOs has concluded that within five years the open-source OS will be running more than half of all important business applications. From the article: "In short, open source, especially Linux, is being legitimized by the major enterprise vendors, and user executives are more than happy to believe them ... Microsoft's thawing toward Linux is now easier to understand when faced with such data - even as Windows continues to grow as the other main server platform of choice."

Comments

Lol

[Klaidas]

If they mean servers - maybe... But desktops? No.
No, wait, maybe the next five years will be THE YEARS OF LINUX DESKTOPZ?!

I wonder.

[the_REAL_sam]

Does that mean installing/uninstalling software under linux is now standardized, logical and quick, even for people who never used it before? Have you ever watched a new linux user try to install all their software onto a linux box without any help? Linux will not get any mainstream adoption until THAT need is addressed, and that's a promise.

Back to the original claim. Does mainstream adoption mean CompUSA will begin stocking Linux? I tried to get a Linux installation CD's from comp USA in emeryville CA, and they didnt even carry it in stock.

If you want the OS to be adopted it seems that making it visible, accessible, usable and available are the first steps.

This is my experience with starting as a Linux user, 5 years ago: To install or uninstall software mainly seemed like a collosal task. With earlier versions I had to manually mount the friggin hard drive, AND couldn't do jack with the OS. RH 7.0 shipped with sun RPC open to the world, and it got hacked within 2 days (by the ramen worm). "hackers LOOOVE noodles!" The bottom line is, my Red Hat Linux 7.0/7.1 CD's came with a manual that told how to install and how to uninstall, and that's all I ever did, since the rest of it just seemed like a big hassle and windows was the OS that I could rely on, install things in, and that worked without getting a headache looking for information on the web.

Anyhow, perhaps I should just shut my mouth, and I wonder if I'll get mocked just for admitting that I had trouble using linux, but the linux of 5 years ago was attrocious. If you disagree with that, just try INSTALLING an application in RH 7.0. (i know, it's very old OS, but I'm saying unless getting RPM's to go to the right place and install the right way has gotten any simpler than needing a pc6 decoder, gunzip, tar, untar, rpm, the other equiv of rpm (whose name i don't recall at the moment), and whatever else is involved. If you're a veteran linux user then ask a user from another OS to install software while you watch them. Oh yea, cross your arms and provide no help to them if you really want to see the learning curve in action. Then be nice and help. :)

It would (i believe) quickly become evident how Linux still needs to be made more user friendly, and that all the nonstandardized behavior for basic OS functions (like installing software) is not all that helpful to the users you wish would get onto your bandwagon.

Again, I probably should just have kept my mouth shut about Linux, but those are the reasons I put Mandrake 6.x, RH 7.0,7.1 and 7.2, suse x.x into a box and put the box under my bed and hardly bothered with them for the last 5 years. I use the operating system to get things done, and I don't want to wrestle with it, I want it to do things intuitively.

Calling rpm with half a dosen switches (after reading a manual for 3 hours) just to get it
working is not an example of inuitive installation.

Long story short, I just wanted to get a basic functional web server together, and I said to myself: "well, they just can't say enough good things about linux, so I'll use it." And guess what. I just told you what.

OK, for those of you who began using linux within the past year or two, I guess I must ask: Has the experience of new linux users improved at all, since that time? Do YOU people see it catching on, or is it still more or less the same bag of obstacles for you as it was for me 5-6 years ago?

Re:I wonder.

[morboIV]

Agreed. I remember recently ('06) having a .deb package in Ubuntu I needed to install. Can you double click on it? Nope, you have know about the CLI and about the magic word dpkg. How the hell was a new Linux user going to deal with that!? It's just utter madness that this kind of basic GUI functionality is still missing. Linux developers need to seriously pay attention to these kinds of oversights before they can gain market share amongst home users.

The real secret to getting mass Linux adoption is to minimise the opportunity costs to new converts, because let's face it; the opportunity cost of Linux is still a real killer. If Linux had lower opportunity costs to combine with it's $0 price tag, it could outcompete Microsoft in many desktop markets. As long as the opportunity costs continue to be comparable to the price tag of Windows, Windows will win. That means compatablity and ease of use (including basic administration) should be first and foremost on any Linux developer's mind if they want to speed the adoption of Linux.

It's all about drivers and apps

[walterbyrd]

Windows has them, Linux doesn't. You don't have a computer just to run the OS. If a computer won't run the apps and hardware that you need to run, then it's useless, no matter how good the OS may be.

Linux developers don't get this, and probably never will. Linux developers think we need hundreds of different Linux distros, instead of one distro that actually runs the hw/sw that the people demand.