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Where Linux Gained Ground in 2007
christian.einfeldt writes "Computer scientist and media maven Roy Schestowitz takes a look at platforms where GNU Linux gained the most ground in 2007. In a thorough review which is the first of a two-part series, Schestowitz looks at trends in supercomputers, mobile phones, desktops, low-end laptops and tablets, consoles, media players and set-top boxes. Schestowitz finds that GNU Linux solidified its dominant grip on supercomputers; made huge gains in low-end laptops and tablets; won major OEM and retail support on the desktop; gained new entries into game consoles; and also spawned new businesses in set-top boxes while holding its ground in pre-existing product lines. He sums it all up by saying that '2007 will be remembered as the year when GNU/Linux became not only available, but also properly preinstalled on desktops and laptops by the world's largest companies.'"
Linux can not be run on the Wii as the article suggests. It can be run on the Wii in Gamecube mode, but it has no Wii funtions.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
I dunno. It's hard to get figures, but given how small the market share is for Linux on the desktop anyway, doubling it would not be out of the question, at least in the geek community where the majority of its desktop use would be.
It got nowhere, depending on who you ask.
:>). Apple has the best of both worlds on their platform -- why can't, say, Canonical, or (dare I mention them) Novell? They had a few hundred million thrown at them by Microsoft, supposedly to increase interoperability with Windows and Linux...where are the results?
Where are the commercial game ports for Linux? No one wants to make them, obviously, save for the FPS crowd (and there's only an Unreal Tournament for Linux because Epic passes the buck to Icculus to get the job done, not because they have the in-house talent to do it themselves). There are a few commercial games for Linux, yes, but only a few, and there's very little variety between them. In the open source world we have a few good games (the majority of them being FPS's, what a surprise), Battle for Wesnoth if you like strategy games (turn based ones, that is). Then we have the unfortunate, ugly ripoffs like "Secret Maryo Chronicles," and other games that look like they were developed for a C64. Plenty of selection, not a lot of quality.
We have Parallels for Mac OS X, which seems to be quite capable at running Windows programs at a decent speed, with good compatibility. What do we have on Linux? Wine? Crossover Office? I think anyone who's actually tried to use either of these will probably tell you that if you really want to run Windows programs on your Linux machine, you're going to have to install Windows too...and the fact of the matter is that most of the commercial software out there is for Windows, whether you like it or not (being an Ubuntu user, I would have to say that I do not
Distributions are still a fragmented mess, it's incredibly difficult to produce a binary for Linux that will work across all distributions (especially with Gentoo and their whole CFLAGS fiasco...thank goodness that fad died off). As much as you'd like to complain about Windows and Apple, binary compatibility is not a problem. There's plenty of smart, dedicated people out there that could find a solution to this, particularly the people working on the kernel. Why isn't it a high priority to increase compatibility -between- Linux distributions, or to form some sort of a community-based standard...one that actually works (as opposed to the LSB)?
Professional audio? Don't even bother. ESounD, ARTS, JACKD, now PulseAudio seems to be the big name in useless sound daemons...but that doesn't mean everyone will standardize on it. As if we needed yet another sound daemon anyway. If the Linux kernel is supposedly so "flexible" that it can be used in any range of devices from computers to cell phones, then why is it that 18 years or more later after the first release, there -still- isn't an easy way to do very low-latency, high quality audio recording on Linux? Linux distributions could _EASILY_ supplant a lot of the Windows based environments for professional audio if the kernel was up to the task. And for those out there who think that Audacity and Ardour are adequate replacements for ProTools...wake up.
I haven't run Windows on my PC in over six years, so clearly Linux has been capable of meeting my desktop needs...but the fact of the matter is that there's _PLENTY_ of problems that just aren't being addressed, that could solidify Linux as a real desktop computer competitor.
While I too doubt the estimate that the number of users running Linux has doubled in 2007, I don't doubt it by much. I know that between 1/1 2007 and 12/31 2007 I have seen more new people install and run Linux than any other year in my memory, and I have not seen any of them abandon it after a few weeks or days. The very fact that user survey participation on Linux specific sites has more than doubled is a strong sign that, even if the actual number of users didn't double, at least the number of people interested in it has, and that's big. If only Dell would take their Ubuntu machines off of the separate page and let us install it on more than two models as a drop down alternative to Vista/XP (with a big warning dialog to scare clueless buyers away from a product they probably don't want) I think 2008 would definitely see the number of Linux desktops double.
Just as importantly, I've seen a massive move toward non-MS products even on Windows machines. My college has Firefox installed on virtually every machine, and I can't even remember the last time I saw an open IE window; I've even seen a few installs of OpenOffice next to Office 2007 on the least frozen machines. The more cross platform apps gain steam, the less reason anyone has to pay the Microsoft tax, and the less likely people are to actually do so.
So yes, doubled is probably an exaggeration, but it's definitely been a banner year for (GNU/)Linux and FOSS in general.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I agree with you in general. I've pretty much been Mac-only at home since 1988. However, as a Java developer the Mac is obviously very, very lacking. In addition, the hardware is frustrating-- no 2nd mouse button (why can't they do a Mighty Buttonbook?), no dock, no 2nd monitor out (which I get with a dock on my work Dell).
If I wasn't so tied to Macs, I'd be seriously thinking about a Dell right about now.
E pluribus unum
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Naw, I won't start a Java war :) Sufficed to say, I never touched ObjC before I met my Mac, and I gotta say it's wicked cool for development. Mix in some C++, Python and Ruby, all of which are well supported now, and it's shake and bake.
:)
But you're right, if you're a Java guy then you're somewhat hosed... but I'll never fault apple for that very fine decision
Hardware issues notwithstanding (yeah, you're tied to the hardware, unless you get a machine that runs OSX86 well) it's a great OS - turning back just doesn't seem like an option for me. BTW on the macbook pro (that's all I've ever used, so it may be on everything else as well), the touchpad has a second mouse button - just tap with two fingers. This a bloody godsend!
This sig used to be really funny...
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
The biggest drawback for Linux isn't the platform or OS, it's all those dumbass Klingon sounding names for the applications. Fix that - and for god sake don't make people use a perl script to install it - and you might be able to claim more inroads into general public market share. People don't WANT to use Linux, more people just don't want to use Windows because they've realized how treacherous it is. The iron is hot.
For that reason, your instincts are good for OS X because I've seen many people switch off the Windows platform in 2007 and never look back. They love their Macs mostly because the OS leaves them alone to work plus they've discovered all the software that comes with it. If you are the kind of person who can install any Linux flavor and be able to answer the question "ok, now what?" then Linux is for you. That excludes the vast majority of people who just want to use a computer.
Most of the stuff on
Article nor the summary says that.
Google is your friend... I'm being general.
Unix is not important to me, I also don't think the majority of people who use Linux, use it because they want something Unixy.
Wow... well, I think you just might be wrong there.
Tons of high quality third party applications and you are going to mention OS X? Can I have what you are smoking?
What do people do most of the time? Photo editing, surfing, word processing, spread sheets, movie watching, music playing, IM, email and gaming. Adobe Creative Suite, Omniweb (very nice app, by the way) - Firefox - Safari (not great), MS Office, Apple office suite (very very slick, IMO), Quicktime with codecs (quite nice, in fact), iTunes (not great, but not bad), Apple Mail (very nice app), various IM progs are all pretty decent, games... I don't play games, so I don't comment. You've got great interoperability in these apps, drag and drop is superb, man... it all just works.
But as well, how about artists? Incredible audio app support like no other. Most of the apps that windows has (and some it doesn't) but supported in an OS that understands how these things should be done - CoreAudio and CoreMidi - not bolted on by some third party guys after the fact. It's integrated and works extremely well. People are tossing out their synthesizers and studio gear for a powerful Mac and their favourite apps, and they're not afraid to take the gear on stage. Try this stuff with a linux box... I still have my wife using a linux box and she can't even get her email to work right because people send her attachments that are *still* a bitch to read on a Linux box, and I am not about to put in the effort to get it all working right... I've grown very tired of doing that stuff.
But! If I were to choose a system for Unix capability, I would choose windows over OS X...
For Unix compatibility, you would choose a non-Unix over a Unix... Thanks for playingThis sig used to be really funny...
That's a brilliant observation and it's one I tend to overlook, but you're totally right. People don't necessarily want to use Linux, OSX, freebsd, Joe's OS, but they simply are tired of using Windows and desperately need an alternative. OSX doesn't immediately run on their Windows hardware, so the next choice is Linux.
Thanks for the insight.
This sig used to be really funny...
How is OS X lacking in Java development? A part of my bread and butter is enterprise Java stuff, and I do it all on a MacBook. What am I missing exactly?
For years, it was impossible to develop with Java on Linux because all of the implementations sucked so badly. OS X made Java development on a Unix box bearable (note that I'm not a huge Java fan, but whatever, it pays the bills).
As for the mouse thing, the OS supports multiple buttons, so I just use my Microsoft mouse. I'm not sure if I've ever even used an Apple one, as this MacBook is my first Apple.
This F40PH?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_F40PH
You're right: learning and knowledge are completely overrated, and intellectual curiosity is merely some historical fiction.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I understand that there is "telling it like it is" and not pulling any punches, but if you've read http://boycottnovell.com/ for more than a day you might start to think that Roy Schestowitz is a little bit paranoid... there are several people in the open source world that have openly argued with him on his blog, because he has made baseless accusations without factual evidence.
See http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/25/gnome-foundation-ooxml-ecma/ for an example of this... Jeff Waugh (of the GNOME foundation) is one example of someone who has argued with him
Here's to the crazy ones
No 2nd monitor out? If you're using a MacBook or iBook, the 2nd output will only mirror the display but the PowerBooks and MacBook Pros will certainly drive a second independent monitor.
Most of the stuff on
Circumcision is child abuse.
I think you're close, but not fully there. If Dell gave users an option to install both with dual boot setup easily (which might require license haggling), it could be bigger. "No worries, if Linux isn't good for you, switch back to Windows by rebooting!" It's working for Mac, isn't it?
For context, click Parent.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Yes, but those of us that want a real ****ing button with a real tactile click are out of luck. Especially people like me who think the pad is for pointing, the buttons are for clicking.
Until Apple sells a laptop with at least two (preferably three) independently clickable buttons, I'll never get one.
Oh, and a USB/bluetooth mouse or trackball is not an option. The point of a laptop is to have everything you want built-in. Ever try using a mouse on a plane?
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
You picked a few names that showed SOME thought. Tell someone using Photoshop on a Mac that you're going to replace it with Gimp on Ubuntu and they'll give you a shot in the chops just for the names. GnuCash? Kopete? Pdftk? Xournal? nGhost? GnoTime? PyCoCuMa? Feisty Fawn? Gentoo? (ok, that's a breed of Penguin)... pyBackPack? Kdissert? Zune?.... oh wait.
Most of the stuff on
And yet, we're not "waiting on Linux". We're using it on our desktops today. What does that say?
I saw a NeXT cube when I was in college, and I thought it was the greatest computer ever
I realize that if you've been setting up hundreds of Linux boxes, you're probably just ranting, and want nothing more to do with something called "Linux" no matter how good it is. I could tell you that these days it's pretty much "insert Ubuntu installer CD, reboot, press return" (you don't even have to give away personal data like on the Mac), but you wouldn't hear me. That's OK. We'll still be here in 20 years if you ever decide to come back.
Apple and Microsoft both need to stick to hardware.
"Linux" is not a single operating system, it is just a kernel. The kernel can be run without GNU utils, without X11, etc.
Palm trees and 8
(I find it strange that you didn't suggest VLC as a media player, which is known to be very popular with OS X users).Except when it comes to x11 on OS X. Then drag and drop absolutely sucks
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Now imagine a Beowulf cluster ...
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
The key word here is "install."
That word - particularly when spoken on Slashdot - usually translates to "technical specialist or hobbyist." The Geek or would-be Geek.
or, to be less charitable, "my sister, my brother, my mom and dad."
Not necessarily absurd--just count the number of Dell and HP computers that came shipped with Linux. I've no idea what the numbers are, but it's going to ping the stats. Then add how many people "converted," even if it's on a secondary box....
One desktop at a time is all it needs.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Freedom is the main reason a lot of people use Linux.
How about this, then: for the first time in ten years of using Linux, I was asked by someone else to install it. In fact, two different people requested it. That' definitely different
Put identity in the browser.
the idea that the Linux on the desktop has doubled in 2007 is absurd.
Sure Linux on the desktop doubled, now there are two users!
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And then there are people like me, who don't really care about price. But use a OS because they feel it is technically superior for their needs.
In my case: OS X is too difficult - Getting things like applications in Darwin ports working is far more difficult than just using your average linux distribution. The GUI is simplified beyond my liking, I am a power user and I like to customize my desktop a little. Most OS X applications are geared towards the user who has never used the program before but don't hold applications for the more advanced users -- To explain this as simple as I can, a VIM user is likely going to be much faster with LaTeX from scratch to make a pdf document than a user that uses a GUI centric application like Pages and/or Microsoft Office to do so the same.
The reason is that the experienced user with VIM is capable of operating a lot faster with his aliases, tiny commands and so on than a user who has to rely on the mouse and various GUI menus popping up offering various options (yes, I am aware there are VIM ports on OS X). The problem is that OS X in this scenario doesn't really have many applications that even do a compromise by doing 50/50 in capabilities.
OS X doesn't handle x11 properly. I want to use a x11 application, that means I expect to be able to do simple things like drag and drop and copy/pasting properly.
I personally find OS X slower. I run Linux on the same hardware and I find general multi-tasking is just 'faster'.
I find OS X's bugs annoying. Can we please FTFF! (No, Leopard didn't) I am sick of stupid bugs that cause Finder to freeze up on silly things like file shares and even crashing on ungraceful events.
What is really sad is that OS X managed to get Unix certification, but still the BSD subsystem can't handle signals properly. Even Windows' POSIX subsystem does this correctly (that's right, Windows is capable of being more UNIX-like than OS X is in it's current state).
My Linux system does not have these limitations. I hope this was informative to you as to why at least I don't use OS X -- I don't particularly have any real philosophies when it comes to proprietary or opensource software.It is my belief that Linux has been ported to more architectures and platforms than NetBSD has. There are RTOS versions of the OS even that NetBSD does not have. Heck, take a look at the Linux on xbox, Nintendo DS and other random projects people have created. It seems to be running anywhere these days.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Your ideas intrigue me. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Java was pretty bad on Mac prior to OS X, though. Has always been bad on BSD, too. Not so great on Linux, either. So much for cross-platform development.
As for mice, I've got a wireless Mighty Mouse myself. The two-button interface is dodgy sometimes, and the scroll ball gets easily jammed up with dirt. I've yet to see a mouse from Apple that I liked.
Not a typewriter
If you lived and worked in areas of the world which I would call "developing," you would favor freedom more than you do now. For some of, forgetting about "it's got to be free, man" is like giving up on real democracy and just accepting the corruption that exists and destroys as inevitable. Free software may not mean much for the deleveloped nations of the west, but for the rest of the world, Free software equates to national freedom.
Put identity in the browser.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I like Linux as much as the next person (and use Ubuntu on 2 desktops), the the idea that the Linux on the desktop has doubled in 2007 is absurd.
An of those desktops, how many were you using in 2006? I had played with a couple distros before last year, but they simply were not a replacement for anything. Last year I converted my old PIII machine, an IMB Thinkpad, and put Ubuntu on my new homebuilt Core 2 Duo box. In the process, I have helped a bunch of people switch. There are many who abandoned old versions of Windows and upgraded to Linux last year. Last year is the first year Linux is my primary OS, not a toy.
The truth shall set you free!
You want Unix and a production quality desktop with tons of high quality third party apps with a buttload of real-world usage? Stop waiting on Linux and switch to OSX... What you want is here, now.
If I could run OSX on whatever hardware I wanted, I'd consider it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
With both of the above alternatives available, I can't see any reason for using Linux on the desktop at all.
Better device driver support.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yeah, I never used a Mac before OS X, but I believe you. Don't forget that the Java that gets shipped with OS X is Apple's, not the BSD one. And anyway, with the GPL'd Java, all those half-baked free alternatives (Blackdown, etc.) will hopefully bite the dust, and the cross-platform thing won't matter as much.
As far as the actual development goes, though, IDEA + vim + Quicksilver (which is unique to OS X) + Umbrello (soon to run natively, rather than under X) + iTerm + Parallels (for when I have to deploy to a Linux server, usually RHEL) = development nirvana.
These are the only things keeping me from switching all of my home computer over to Linux (Main box - Vista, Web Camera box - Xp , Home Automation box - Just switched to Ubuntu during the Christmas break, Poker Night Laptop - XP but really only needs Java, Wife's laptop - Vista, and Windows Home Server - Yes, I now know I can do all of the same things under Linux, but this was easier at the time)
:)
The Home Automation box (misterhouse) just got switched over...the laptop I use on poker nights is next, followed by the box running the web camera security system (I haven't looked for software, but I'm sure it will be out there
I have saved emails since 1998, always under Outlook pst files. I tried Linux 2 years ago, but there was no way to transfer over the emails...as far as I can tell, you still can't!
My wife won't care what OS she is running (I already deleted IE and installed Firefox on her laptop) but she would freak if she lost all of her email.
Truthfully, I don't even care about syncing my phone. But how do I get all the email stored in PST files?
I believe the GameCube has memory protection, so I'd imagine the Wii does.
+++ATH0
Colloquy.
+++ATH0
this is an interesting idea, especially with hard drive space so easy to come by. I haven't looked recently but I'm pretty sure a lot of Dells have 500gig drives in by default, so most users wouldn't notice nor care. meanwhile they have a dependable OS to switch to when Windows acts funny.
FYI: I don't know what you guys are talking about half the time.
I haven't seen a single person install Linux all year.
You should come out of the basement more often. Your mom installed Kubuntu upstairs 4 months ago.
The Farewell Tour II
my daughter has OSX, sure it's cool and I can do Unix admin tricks to manage it remotely from my GNU/Linux box, but the truth about Mac OSX is that it's slightly too bleeding edge and unstable. Fork out $120 for the latest version of Mac OSX and things bring in return. And MacOSX has issues with my favorite coding language.....
things break in return
It gives Dell something to do in the customization step, too. When I set up Ubuntu+XP for my parents, I added a shortcut/bookmark in Nautilus and the Places menu to the "My Documents" folder on the XP partition (rw access). So all their documents are available from both OSes, they don't need to learn much about user home directories, Dad has easy access to Excel, and Mom isn't plagued by the various anti-productivity measures built into Windows and Norton Antivirus For Home Victims.
This has been a good solution for them so far, and I think I'd recommend it for general use. It might be even better to symlink ~user/.mozilla to %ApplicationData%/Mozilla, to share extensions and bookmarks, but I haven't tried it.
Not sure if offering dual-boot out of the box is even the best option, really. I think the most effective thing Dell could do for Linux would be to list usable Ubuntu laptops on the same pages and in the same categories as the Windows Vista laptops for home and business users -- Vista isn't cheap, and home laptop prices are dropping quickly, so the comparison could be very compelling for customers.
These issues were resolved years ago on Linux distributions.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I agree with a lot of what you say (and I'm a Mac user), but for editing one of the things that keeps me on a Mac is that there is no Linux port of the wonderful TextMate. It's biased to Emacs keybindings, not vi, but it's much the best editor I have ever used. Keyboard short cuts for everything, easy automation, source control, syntax highlighting etc etc.
I took the hard disk out of my broken Packard Bell laptop (daughter had spilled cola over it and it refused to work again) and put it into my Sony VAIO laptop... started it up and it booted perfectly into KDE... absolutely no problems at all... and all the hardware was different... different mobo chipset, different processor, different graphics card.
We were able to rescue all her data and coursework that she'd been working on when the accident occurred...
Out of curiosity. when I tried to boot the windows XP on the other partition it blackscreened... with a cryptic FATAL error code...
Ubuntu Linux 1 : Microsoft XP 0
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
That's not the point. I understand people are using it... like I said, I was using it for over ten years, and I always said that if something better came up, I would switch. When I switched, I knew I made the right choice... by a mile. I still say the same thing, though... if something better comes up, I'll switch. You're right, if Linux turns out to pass OSX someday, I'll switch again. But for now, OSX has got Linux beat by a long shot...
This sig used to be really funny...
Congratulations :) I'm not sure that there was anything to "win", and I'm very sure that the concept of "sharing" code has nothing to do with the code itself. I can write a free "hello world" program and share it all over the place, but I don't think that that makes it better than Propellerheads Reason for handling audio. But hey... it's free, so it must be better. Interesting argument...
This sig used to be really funny...
I get it... seriously. I understand the wonder of FOSS and I was an enormous proponent of it for years (I used to be quite the Linux zealot) and still support it to a very high degree. However, you might want to consider that, because you're living and working in areas that you call "developing", that you might have lost a bit of objectivity here.
You're actually equating the idea of being able to see and modify source code to national democracy, and that if you take it away, somehow it affects national freedom. That's not the case. If all the code you had went closed source, but was still free (as in beer), what would really happen? So you couldn't modify the source code of all of the apps and the OS you run. Do you really do that now? Do you think the average Linux person does that now? Come on, be fair. Apple, in this case, is not what I would call "corrupt". They're not a pharmaceutical company raping the people of the third world, or a clothing manufacturer exploiting workers... they're Apple. They write software. Yes, they probably have some ties in with something bad when it comes to the hardware, but I highly doubt that the software is causing any *real* problem in that regard.
Richard Stallman is a freak, not out for free as in democracy, or national freedom. He simply hates companies, hates people and has some pretty wicked narcissistic tendencies (hell, he scours newsgroups he's not a part of to see if people are saying bad things about him). I've talked with him a few times and only after talking to him, did I stop following him - I used to follow him very strongly.
Software is the least of the developing nations' problems, and if you take the "free" (as in speech) out of it, people will notice, but it certainly won't bring the nation crashing down, and all told it probably won't do anything significant whatsoever. Ask yourself what the free (as in speech) aspect is actually *doing* right now and you might bring your viewpoint a bit more to centre.
This sig used to be really funny...
I'll move to OSX the second I don't have to throw away my perfectly usable hardware.
I'm not a follower of Stallman. I only know what I see as the result of OSS. The FOSS movement in Thailand when I lived there did real good for the country. OSS gave the country a way out of piracy, putting it back in the good graces of the WTO. The software offered real opportunities for localization so that young people who had never studied English could learn to use a computer without a dictionary. Before the Linux movement there, even adults with the standard, required education had real difficulty using MS Windows. The IT industry began creating software which made them (instead of MS) money. The government saw a way to stop sending the citizens' money overseas for basic operation.
This was all real. This was in stores. There were Linux desktops on sale in every hypermarket. There was local software for these desktops on the shelves.
Then MS came in, and in a back-room agreement with BCAA-style blackmail or who-knows-how-much money as palm grease, reversed the government policy so that it officially supported MS solutions, filled the school with half-asses localized copies for nothing, offered virtually free copies of MS for everyone, and killed the opportunity.
Yeah. I'm bitter about it. I don't put all the blame on MS. The Thai people carry at least half the guilt for selling themselves out for a few free copies of Win98, only to lose them six months later when it was EOLed. Thailand is now in exactly the same situation that it was it eight years ago, without a real IT industry of its own and a center for software piracy. Sure, the fabs are there. The little bit of outsourcing they get continues. That's it, though.
Still, for six months or a year, I saw what could happen. I saw the way it could be. I'll never forget it.
Put identity in the browser.
That might be today. Check out the OSx86 project. It might not work for you but it's worth a shot.
This sig used to be really funny...
I don't dispute a damn thing you have to say about corrupt governments and companies. We could enjoy many a beer talking about that, I'm sure.
But Thailand wasn't making use of the free speech aspect of Linux, which is what we were talking about. The free beer aspect was being used to a great result. It was functionally the same thing as piracy, in the sense that it was copies of software from one source all over the place, but in this case copying was OK because the OS was free beer. If MS made Windows, and all of the apps that people use, free beer to the Thai people, and continued that until such time as it was reasonable to change it to a pay scenario then they wouldn't be screwed. The fact that MS products are closed source makes no difference here. It's not closed source versus open source, it's free beer versus gougingly overpriced beer, and that's a totally different topic.
This sig used to be really funny...
We hosted three Christian youth workers from England in our home a few months ago. They all had laptops, of course, but to my surprise, the laptops ran Ubuntu. When I expressed surprise (because I usually see technical people running Linux rather than Christian youth workers), one of them looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, "Linux doesn't crash so much."
I guess he told me! :-)
But I, too, noticed a much broader cross-section of the "normal" population discussing and using Linux than before.
You're missing the point, actually. Sure, the lowered piracy and budget impact were important, but they weren't the interesting or useful long-term part. The freedom to modify, to localize, and to produce their own was the part of the equation which promised to create a thriving IT industry based on local demand, which was quite high.
In reality, your "If MS made Windows, and all of the apps that people use, free beer to the Thai people, and continued that until such time as it was reasonable to change it to a pay scenario" was pretty much exactly what happened, but the local industry was still screwed.
Put identity in the browser.
That said, if you have used kdevelop - I would like to hear your criticisms on it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I last used it several years ago, so, yes, I should give it another go.
I'm sure it would have been good, but let's face facts here... nothing was stopping people from doing that and creating their own businesses. Sure MS did some bad shit, but it doesn't stop things. One has to wonder why a country that had Linux on the desktop, and had all of these wonderful aspects that were available were pirating windows and switched to windows when win98 was free. There's something to that argument I think. I agree it wasn't as good as what could have been but clearly Linux was not delivering on some aspects that windows was. But I think we're arguing in circles now. I certainly concede that you know more about this than I do and that your points are quite valid. I simply can't accept the idea that Linux would be "the" solution for any large group. It can't interoperate with Windows very well, it's not as media rich, and it simply isn't as easily usable for the average joe. It's a great OS, but it's not a great desktop OS.
... was pretty much exactly what happenedNo it's not. They brought out Win98, which was a piece of crap and way outdated, and then EOLed it without giving away XP and friends for free, correct? That's not what I was suggesting at all... If there's a reason to put Win98 up for free then there's no reason not to do that with XP and friends... all MS did was bait and switch. That's crap.
This sig used to be really funny...
I think we understand each other. We disagree on some things, but that's OK. Cheers.
Put identity in the browser.
Seriously... power users aren't GUI users (and as you said earlier, you as a power user, want to customize your GUI desktop more flexibly, you know, like a power user would do :D), and they aren't Darwin ports users. I compile every non-closed app from source, and I use the command line for almost everything. That's where Unix power comes from... not from pre-made packages that aren't compiled the way you would like them (for example, take any distro and try to install a headless system that includes Python, and see if you don't have to install all of X11 with it along with a bunch of GUI widget libs that you'll never use... ack!).
Sorry man, you say you're a power user, but power users know you're not. You're out of your element, which is why people are calling you a troll. You make unsubstantiated remarks as though they're coming from a "power" user but the statements themselves negate the entire idea behind a power user. I have no doubt that you've been doing this for a long time but I think you haven't been exposed enough to what really makes Unix a power environment. Try installing base Slackware and then customizing the system through source apps instead. That's a great way to learn to become a power user. As well, learn to write scripts, use the command line more and read up on some shell books or something. Take a look at the kernel source, take a look at the source of some of your favourite apps, read some of the unix programming books from addison wesley, etc etc... You're missing out on a LOT of what power users have enjoyed for a *very* long time.
Oh, and power users always know that they don't know enough to be power users.
This sig used to be really funny...
I remember this guy, he has been a big Mac Pusher for at least the last two years. If you have not been using Linux during the last six months, you are out of date.
The other rebuttals will take care of your actual errors.
OTOH, I can say that switching from KDE to MacOS X is one of the worst mistakes I've ever made. From the feature levels of the default applications --- mail, audio, pretty much everything but the web browser --- it feels like moving back to Windows. The great thing about Linux is that the best applications come right out of the box. If you tell me iTunes is the best audio player for MacOS X, you're lying. Running Amarok in X11 is superior.
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
I don't disagree at all. But I'm not much of a GUI user so it's not a question of switching from KDE to OSX... I used to use ION as my window manager because, personally, KDE was brutal and ION gave me a buttload of great features and stayed the hell out of my way. Now, switching from THAT to OSX has been painful, but it's been totally worth it. I don't "fiddle" with things anymore ... hell, I don't even have printing working from my linux box because it requires me to screw around with a bunch of crap to get it going... what the hell is that? I plug it in to the network, and my Mac says "Bonjour!" and I print. It's stuff like that that I got tired of mucking around with. I want to code, I want to surf, I want to edit photos, read email, view attachments, watch movies, etc etc... I don't want to go and modify fstab to get my USB mounts working right, or futz with the printer subsystem to print a document, or install something that can play mp3's from the browser, etc etc... that's all just busy work that I shouldn't have to do. I could switch to Windows, but hey, that would be stoopid. So I switched to the Mac.
At the end of the day, if the UI let's me open terminal windows and surf the net then that's all I need. If your window manager is actually more important than the OS then, yeah, you probably want an X11 unix so that you can use any window manager you want. But I'm more concerned with my machine doing the right thing than how it presents my windows to me.
This sig used to be really funny...
Such racism is not appreciated here.
In this litigious country you could probably be convicted of a hate crime just for making such a statement.
But racism is nasty anyway.
Pls. excuse my obvious ignorance but why is it marked Offtopic ?
In 2007 I put my wifes computer and a friends computer on Ubuntu. Also a co-worker in tech support who wanted a system as tweaked as mine was for responding to support issues.
So in December 2006 there was one Linux desktop. Now in December 2007 there were 4 Linux desktops.
If 25% of the community introduce 3 or 4 people to using desktop Linux in year, it would double every year.
That may not be sustainable. But there are enough dedicated linux desktop folks at this point. I would believe that it could of happened in 2007.
vi +
Heh, cuz you have a choice of "flamebait", "troll" and "offtopic" and you can't pick all three, so a roll of 1 or 4 is flamebait, 2 or 5 is troll and 3 or 6 is offtopic. Somebody pulled out their die and rolled a 3 or 6. Personally, I was hoping for flamebait or troll cuz offtopic is really really boring, but hey... you can't have everything :)
Moderation points and karma, they're just bits in the ether. If it's got more than 3 responses, then it is de-facto on topic, <sarcasm>or the topic was wrong to begin with</sarcasm> :P
This sig used to be really funny...
Excuse me?
This "troll" is making DIRECT point for point rebuttals, staying on topic and providing background for his points. He shows a technical knowledge far superior to the parent.
If you don't agree with the points... prove him wrong. This is not like a fanboi who writes "I used product X for years, but product Y is better and everyone should switch" - now that may be trolling.
Well, I am glad Linux lost another "Linux zealot", the linux camp does not need people like that.
If you think "freedom" or restrictions on it can be segmented into parts of life you are mistaken. A society that accepts restrictions on freedom in one area is much more ready to give it up in another. Maybe that is why the U.S. is slipping into facism?
You realize what you write about Richard Stallman is LIBEL? If he is as bad as you say he is, you just caused yourself a lawsuit that will bankrupt you. I bet he is better than you think he is, and your not as good as you think you are.
The problem I have with OSX is that its a bad programmer platform for anything non mac or web.
Mono is not on OXS yet (I could be wrong) and Java under Leopard is really not support that well or at all anymore. Even a simple JOptionpane will not display the title of the applet or program.
ALso what about using KDE and gnome libraries and apis? Sure you can run X but its not that well support or integrated with aqua.
Linux is still ahead in these areas but OSX has the apps like Office and photoshop so it depends what you use.
http://saveie6.com/
OK, now I think the Linux distro's you installed were ALL a decade ago.
... etc.
Hey, even Corel Linux (remember that one) handled USB ports. Now, almost 10 years later I can tell you I have NEVER had to "modify fstab to get my USB mounts working right" or install something that can play mp3's
Man, the distros I try just work out of the box. In fact, if you want something that "just works", some of the Linux distro's come with every codec you can think of. Files that the average Windows and OS-X user can't play, just come up.
The only thing that the Linux user has to worry about is that a few devices don't work with Linux... but hey, us OS-X users know NOTHING about that, right?
So, it turns out that you are really comparing ION to OS-X not Linux to OS-X. You also seem to mirror the attitudes of the main(only?)ION developer, Valkonen. In fact, he has also recently started writing windows software just like you. By 2004 ION was considered a project to make Linux like a MAC, hmmmm, also Valkonen became really pissed off at the OSS community.... ARE YOU VALKONEN?
It's "fascism". Now, learn to spell or the Department of the Written Word will come and arrest your family.
(yes, I consider the rest of what you wrote to be nonsense... now don't sue me)
This sig used to be really funny...
The guy knows nothing about tech if he tried installing Red Hat on a home computer.
The guy knows very little if he decided to use Debian as a newbie.
A beginner like him should have bought a Linux compatible computer(try dell). That is what we do when we buy a MAC! THAT is why it just works(we overpay, and have few choices).
Maybe he could have even used a newbie friendly distro... say Mandriva or (cough cough) Linspire.
I wanted to say thanks, I have appreciated your well written posts.
BTW, You may not be responding to a mentally whole person when they start to "feel sick" from reading your rebuttals.
Dead on. You're absolutely right. I simply find programming for the Mac a buttload more fun. The support for coding what Apple has decided is better than anything I've seen. So, as long as you're willing to live inside ObjC/C++/C/Python/Ruby and Cocoa/Carbon then you're really very happy. If you can't live with that then, you're quite right, it's not a great place to be. I've simply found that, given a ton of choice, I've got to settle down to *something* (i.e. I don't code in ObjC/Java/Python/Ruby/C++/KDE/Gnome/wxWidgets/ALSA/OSS all on one project. I'd probably write all of my apps in C++/Python/KDE/OSS and stick with that.) Settling down to the choices that Apple has given, and the really great tools they've given to work with (the new interface builder is really quite nice), it's a very positive settlement.
This sig used to be really funny...
Ah yes. That's it. It was the distro. It's not that he used a recently made distro (which was something of great importance to you before), it was that he didn't use the *right* recently made distro - he did choose the three most popular flavours, I believe, but clearly those aren't right. Of course, he should have read the label: "Only for users that have installed the baby Linux distros in the past - sure this is one of the most heavily developed ones, and one of the most popular, but it's just not for you, kiddo". I guess he missed that one. What if he used one of those "good" distros six months ago? Would that have been shit too? Just a "good and easy distro for the kiddies" made in the last six months would have worked, huh? Wow... this is getting pretty specific and it sounds like you think it's near impossible to have a correct *installation* of the product. We haven't even discussed *using* it yet.
I think I have a much better opinion of Linux than you do... I actually like it - just not as much as OSX. I'm having a really tough time following this flip flopping logic there guy. And I think I have better things to do...
Cheers.
This sig used to be really funny...
How, exactly, are these names worse than "iPod", other than the fact that the "iPod" name is now familiar enough that its weirdness is no longer obvious?
(Apart from "Gimp", which is stupid and offensive. But Krita is a better program anyway for many purposes, and Photoshop - still the only option for professionals - runs fine with Wine.)
The name iPod wasn't unexpected because iMac, iMovie, iTunes etc were already out as marketable names. It was less alien than half the GNU, GNOME and KDE based names. Really, when Joe Consumer browses the software menu, something with an upbeat, descriptive name that costs money may look more attractive, competent and mature than some "I'd like to buy a vowel" named software.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what something is called. A great name won't save a shitty product and a good product will usually overcome most naming handicaps. So far, only a handful of Linux apps have done well on Joe Consumer's radar; Firefox... possibly Thunderbird... or not... maybe I'm being optimistic. Even "Windows" which had "Win" attached to half the products a decade ago looks like a loser now.
Most of the stuff on
"he did choose the three most popular flavours, I believe". This thread is about Linux on the desktop, so NO he did not pick the three most popular, let alone the three best suited.
But, if you really know what you claim to about Linux you ALREADY know REDHAT is a SERVER OS. You already KNOW that since Linux is the most diversified ecosystem you can find, ANYONE could find distro's that are not appropriate.
You KNOW that Apple supports VERY little hardware, and you HAVE to buy the hardware with the OS... but yet you blame Linux for not flawlessly supporting FAR more hardware than OS-X. It still stands that if you are willing to spend a fraction of the money on hardware that we already do on MAC's, Linux would just work as well!
Claiming I flipflopped is bull, You made up the scenario, or your friend is not informed. There is not Linux Newbie FAQ on the planet that would tell you to pick redhat or debian.(and there seems to be thousands)
If I bought Apple TV and could not do everything I want with it, do I claim OS-X is not ready for the desktop? (That is what it runs) Of course not, I am intelligent enough to know that not all implementations of OS-X are appropriate for me.
Yes, I'm sure you have better things to do than troll these posts, I thank you in advance for going and doing them!
Yer funny :)
This sig used to be really funny...
"You know where those numbers come from? Zealots."
/. about it. If you really think Linux is cooked and we're all so stupid, then why are you bothering with us at all? 8 years ago Linux was at least a decade from being ready to take the desktop market, apply your arithmetic skills and you'll see that it still has 2 to go before it is even feasible.
What numbers? What zealots? I dual boot Windows because as such as I like Linux it still doesn't have all the functionality I want (though it certainly has all I need; your needs may vary).
"I haven't seen a single person install Linux all year."
I'm sensing that "people" aren't really your thing... so that's probably for the best.
"You know what I see."
Your mom's basement?
"Big damn Blade servers running non-Linux OS's using Linux variants in a virtual machine setting."
On desktops... wow, you must really not be a "people person". Sarcasm aside, this obviously has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and there are plenty of non-VM Linux servers out there, many of which run non-Linux OSs in a virtual machine setting. What's your point again?
"1993-200* was the year of Linux. Nobody cares anymore. We all learned our lesson 8 years ago."
If by "nobody" you mean yourself, then you are shown for a liar by the fact that you care enough to troll on
"Fuck talking about 15 year old technology and move on. Watching a penguin slide down a hill with hard as shit controls and crappy graphics while calling it "Groundbreaking" does not make me believer. Nor does OpenOffice, or Fire "Give me memory...what, you only have 600gigs? I'll eat your pagefile then!!!!!!!" Fox or Mplayer with all the fucking plugins you have to install."
So TuxRacer (which is basically a demo), Firefox (in which I've still yet to experience this infamous memory leak after over three years of use) and MPlayer (which requires no more plugins than WMP) now comprise the best features of Linux? Please.
"Ubuntu = Vista Linux - I don't want to have to supply a password for every thing I want to do. Who thought that was a good idea?"
I do plenty of things in Ubuntu without supplying a password. Sudo is intended to make sure potentially risky operations are performed only by admin users and only intentionally; the only thing wrong with the Vista ripoff is that they just make you click a box that says OK, it would be much more solid if it required a password... and if it only asked on things that are non-trivial.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.