Ballmer Admits Google Apps Are Biting Into MS Office

twitter points out coverage of a discussion between Steve Ballmer and two Gartner analysts in which the Microsoft CEO admits that Google Apps is enjoying an advantage over Office by users who want to share their documents. He points to Office Live as their response to Google, and adds, "Google has the lead, but, if we're good at advertising, we'll compete with them in the consumer business." Whether or not they're good at advertising is still in question, if their recent attempts are any indication. Ballmer also made statements indicating some sort of arrangement with Yahoo! could still be in the works, but Microsoft was quick to step on that idea. Regarding Windows Vista, he said Microsoft was prepared for people to skip it altogether, and that Microsoft would be "ready" when it was time to deploy Windows 7.

Comments

twitter?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean this guy?

Re:twitter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give Soulskill a break, he's new. They all get burned by twitter at least once.

Well, here we go

[morgan_greywolf]

Regarding Windows Vista, he said Microsoft was prepared for people to skip it altogether, and that Microsoft would be "ready" when it was time to deploy Windows 7.

If you ask me, Windows 7 looks a lot like a response to Linux on the desktop. Now's the time for OSS developers to step up to plate and deliver a solution that will make Windows 7 look like child's play. I'm game.

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

If you ask me, Windows 7 looks a lot like a response to Linux on the desktop. Now's the time for OSS developers to step up to plate and deliver a solution that will make Windows 7 look like child's play. I'm game.

Technologically, Linux and OS X are light years ahead of Windows, and will be by Windows 7. The problem is, some people will never use Linux unless it has a uniform UI (which, have you ever seen Windows?, Linux's UI is more uniform than even all of MS's products.) and other will not move to Linux unless *insert specialty application or game* is available on Linux. Still, the vast majority of users will use whatever is on their computer, be it Linux, Vista, XP, OS X, BSD, etc.

Re:Well, here we go

[emailandthings]

Linux is like the electric car... how so? Not a chance...

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

...But the problems with the electric car are:

A) They cost a lot more in the short term than buying a new or used gas powered car
B) You can't go out to a dealership and buy one
C) The reliability just isn't there yet (and that could be said for any emerging technology)

The electric car would succeed if it was cheaper or just as cheap as a gas powered car (and no, in the current economic times, the fact that it might be cheaper 5-10 years from now, isn't going to persuade anyone to buy it). Or if you could walk into a dealership and most of the cars were electric and the stigma of it being unreliable were over.

Linux already is cheaper than any other OS out there, and is close to, or the most reliable OS (especially when compared to Vista). The problem is you can't walk into a store and get a computer with Linux on it, unless you want to go for a netbook. Once the last hurdle is crossed, you can say good bye to Windows.

Re:Well, here we go

[JackieBrown]

That's interesting.

To me KDE 5 looks more responsive than Windows 7.

Of course, I haven't tried either one since they are not out (or made?) yet.

Re:Well, here we go

[grub]

Linux's UI is more uniform than even all of MS's products

Unless you're referring to the uniformity of a nice 80x24 text console, you're way off. Unix/Linux have oodles of different window managers.

Re:Well, here we go

[ColdWetDog]

Once the last hurdle is crossed, you can say good bye to Windows.

Two concepts (not mutually exclusive):

1. Enterprise space - along with whatever mission critical application you care to name that isn't available on Linux
2. Photoshop - and no, we aren't talking about GIMP. It has to be the genuine locked down Adobe product (for all of those big commercial shops).

Yes, you can run Photoshop on OS X but there are many (perhaps most) LARGE 'artistic' groups in advertising and publishing that run on Windows.

So Linux may well make inroads in the individual user space, perhaps even in the SOHO space, but until application developers embrace Linux (or OS X or anybody else), it's gonna be Windows all the way down.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux and OS X are light years ahead of Windows

Like what? And why should customers care about it? Your responses will show if you're a troll, or if you have anything technical reasoning behind it.

Pre-emptive response:

* Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem. I could create a .sh file that deleted .config files or something equally evil and tell your grandma to run it and she will. (You get the point... ) (SELinux? Apparmour? Who configures profiles for each app? In anycase this wont stop 'all' evil apps. You can access the phonebook,calender to either display and insert new entries or to delete it. The 'intent' is whats the issue here, not permissions per se.)

* Malware - Again not specific to Windows.

* Crashes - Yeah, comeback with real proof. Prove conclusively, once and for all that X percentage of crashes are because of MS code, Vs. X percentage of crashes on Linux. If you want to blame poor design, again proove conclusively with real proof - Papers, OS research(Maybe a bit much to ask, but then you're claiming a 'bit much' too). How many System admins look at crash dumps and just blame the OS?

* Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel? So the manufacturers of devices have to wait till the kernel maintainer decides on his own sweet time when to integrate patches. AND THEN wait till picks them up downstream. Nice solution. Doesnt scale, buddy.

* Applications - All the software in the world at a single spot. i.e. Google for applications. Who addresses commercial software? Who handles payments for this? Who will handle updates? Do users want to download Multi GB Games/Applications? Who pays for the massive bandwidth? What if you're not connected online,etc ,etc. Again. Doesnt scale, buddy.

I'll wait for some real responses now...

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

Yes, tons of window managers, but the average user only has to pick one of 2 (or three if you count in XFCE) but if you stick with all the apps with a G as the first letter you can be assured a standard UI if you are using Gnome, likewise if K is the first letter you can be assured that it uses a standard UI for KDE, compare that with MS who has tons of different icons, etc. for different products which are all in the same time frame and first-party applications, see http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.media/vista.png for an example of what I'm talking about.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

What really matters to most people hasn't changed. Since 1995 there has been a bar with a start button on it, which just recently changed to a circle. The X has always been in the top left. File, edit, help have always been in the same spot.

I fail to how this is not easier for the average user.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Enterprise space - along with whatever mission critical application you care to name that isn't available on Linux

You mean like all those things keeping people from leaving Netware?
If people with money migrate to Linux, people wanting money will follow. Shit, it's already happening.

Re:Well, here we go

[The Bungi]

Technologically, Linux and OS X are light years ahead of Windows

Are they? I can't really comment about OS X since I don't use it (my brother swears by it tho) but being well versed in both Windows and Linux, I suppose I tend to disagree. Would you list some of the things that you consider Linux to be light years ahead of Windows on? I'm curious.

Re:Well, here we go

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Linux and OS X are light years ahead of Windows...

Like what? And why should customers care about it?

Well, OS X has drag and drop system services so users and applications can provide universal functionality, like grammar checking in all applications. Linux has more cleanly implemented network services and both have better standards compliance so you don't end up using as many redundant services in mixed OS environments (eg, UPNP and ZeroConf to discover other network services, like when you run Adobe CS on Windows). Both have better and more granular and usable ACLs for userspace applications. I could go on, but I'm not investing a lot of time, especially responding to an AC. Register an account already.

* Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem. I could create a .sh file that deleted .config files or something equally evil and tell your grandma to run it and she will... * Malware - Again not specific to Windows.

Let's be clear. Trojans, viruses and worms are all distinct and all problems, but of the three worms are the largest problem and Windows is the most vulnerable due to a variety of design decisions, even if there were no install base disparity. Malware is a theoretical threat on Linux and OS X, but a practical, day-to-day problem on Windows and theories that if market share were to become more balanced are simply that, theories and not applicable to making practical decisions today.

* Applications - All the software in the world at a single spot. i.e. Google for applications. Who addresses commercial software? Who handles payments for this? Who will handle updates? Do users want to download Multi GB Games/Applications? Who pays for the massive bandwidth? What if you're not connected online,etc ,etc. Again. Doesnt scale, buddy.

Don't even understand what you're trying to argue here. Please be more clear.

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

* Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem.

* Malware - Again not specific to Windows.

Oh, right. I forgot, your browser is clearly supposed to install all kinds of random crap that messes with settings and toolbars without prompts. Oh wait, other browsers don't do that? Other browsers prompt you before they do things like that? Yes, MS managed to fix a lot of that with IE7, but its still not an excuse for them doing that for the ~2-3 years of IE6.

* Applications - All the software in the world at a single spot. i.e. Google for applications. Who addresses commercial software? Who handles payments for this? Who will handle updates? Do users want to download Multi GB Games/Applications? Who pays for the massive bandwidth? What if you're not connected online,etc ,etc. Again. Doesnt scale, buddy.

Lets see... On an average Windows install, the only software that isn't usually pirated, is made by Microsoft in the form of Office/Works/etc., An anti-virus/spyware application but the rest is all freeware/shareware/OSS. Most people's software is downloaded. You make a good point about games, but it honestly wouldn't be hard for a game maker to include a binary to run for Linux, same with commercial software. The thing is, boxed commercial software is a really, really, really small part of the average user's computer even on Windows. The "massive bandwidth" would be provided in the same way it always has, via mirrors and the official site. Today, most computers that are not in specialty use are connected online. If they aren't, it isn't that hard to go to a library or a friends house, or buy a CD with some .deb files in them, double click and type in your password.

Linux also has the advantage of customization. For example, its a pain to create a customized XP/Vista install disk, its trivial for someone to create a modified Ubuntu or other distro with the applications you need.

Re:Well, here we go

[mrsteveman1]

There are some things that used to be architectural flaws with Windows services that caused security problems but they are supposed to be fixed in Vista now.

Crashes, I have seen a blue screen reference MS-provided code, but upon digging deeper i found conclusively that it was a third party driver responsible for the crash, and removing that driver fixed the problem.

Drivers on Linux i agree, the Linux driver model is flawed as you noted. The effects of this flawed plan are evident, some things work (months after the release of the hardware in many cases, if ever), some don't work at all, and some things sort of work but with caveats. Distros make up for some of the problems by including drivers ahead of their upstream scheduled inclusion, and including closed source drivers, though they get blasted for it by fanatics.

Re:Well, here we go

[sloanster]

> Enterprise space - along with whatever mission critical application you care to name that isn't available on Linux

LOL, ever heard of Oracle, IBM or Novell? The enterprise isn't a problem for linux, but the home market has large legacy install of peecee software that will take time to replace.

Re:Well, here we go

[rcallan]

Do you have a source for pure electric cars being more unreliable? I'd agree that hybrids are, but I think that's because they have both systems...

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

The problem is you can't walk into a store and get a computer with Linux on it, unless you want to go for a netbook.

You can in a free country. My next computer purchase will be a Linux preinstall from Octagon. Or a competitor a few stores down. You can buy Linux preinstalls from anywhere in Manila.

Re:Well, here we go

[akoltz]

Technologically, Linux and OS X are light years ahead of Windows...

This is just wrong. Regardless of how you feel about Windows as a whole, the NT kernel is easily among the best, if not the best on the market.

Re:Well, here we go

[3p1ph4ny]

This is coming from a developer perspective, but I think two of these apply (maybe moreso) to your average user:

1. Packages. Specifically, aptitude. It is unbelievably easy to find software to open weird file formats, play simple games, or speak some weird protocol. This is the single #1 feature Linux (BSDs too, possibly) has going for it. Packages are awesome for experienced users and newbies. If you say otherwise, you really haven't tried a well maintained distribution yet.

Now, if a package doesn't do what you want (this is what a lot of power users complain about), compile it yourself. /usr/local exists, use it. Again, grandma isn't going to need a custom compiled version of Wine, but I do. It's therefore not an issue that she is forced to use the one in the repo.

2. $SHELL shell, and the associated core utils. I use bash, but that's probably because it's what I learned first. I know my grandmother, my mother, and my girlfriend don't want to use the CLI, so it's not a major feature for most. I don't care. The Windows shell and core utils suck, and bash, csh, ksh, *sh are better.

3. UI consistency. ZOMFG WUT? Yes; I use KDE, and it kicks ass. There is consistency between the file browser, the archive utility, the media player, etc. You'd be hard pressed to argue that explorer, Windows Media Player (or winamp, or foobar, or whatever), and winrar or winzip all have the same interface.

However, their KDE counterparts Dolphin, Ark, and Amarok all look the same. If I want to change a setting, I know where to look instead of having to try "Edit -> Preferences" then "Tools -> Options" then "Options -> Settings" then... Also, similar settings are grouped under similar headings.

Those are just three things off of the top of my head.

Re:Well, here we go

[wisty]

Anyone who says that Linux is technologically light years ahead of Windows is ... wrong. Stuff like OLE, the Com interface, the Jet database (which does the job of SQLite, not the other ones), data sharing API's and so on are much better in Windows that Linux. Yes, I have heard of Wine, and Mono. They are not the main point of of the open source software ecosystem, which has different goals to Microsoft; both technologically and from a business point of view..

Of course, you could say that Linux (and OSX) has a better design, or that more free software works better on Linux, both of which are clear advantages. No argument there.

Or that consumers (non-programmers) need more killer apps to show them the power of plain text (which is the underlying point of Linux), as opposed to embedded applications and 'rich' (ugly) API and data formats.

Re:Well, here we go

[lysergic.acid]

electric motors have fewer moving parts than ICEs, so electric vehicles are fundamentally more reliable. but there's a lot of unsubstantiated FUD floating out there because of the strong anti-environmentalist sentiments which exist in our society. but if people can be convinced to take a rational approach and actually look at the facts rather than resorting to knee-jerk reactions they'd see that their negative assumptions and associations about electric vehicles are incorrect.

but most consumer make purchase decisions based on illogical emotional associations. that's why American auto makers invest so heavily on marketing and advertising. so "big" = "safe," and "gas-powered" = "better performance," and "eco cars" = "shitty." but these false associations are quickly dispelled once one actually makes an effort to research the costs & benefits of electric vehicles. and with the internet it should be easier than ever for individuals to access a wide variety of news sources and get a balanced perspective on the issue.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

Unless you're referring to the uniformity of a nice 80x24 text console, you're way off. Unix/Linux have oodles of different window managers.

Yeah, so what? When Microsoft Windows was capturing its critical market share, there was a similar amount of variety there too.

Choice is Good. Specialization is for insects.

If it is strict interface uniformity you want, there is only one choice - Mac OS X. Amazing that it still looks similar to Macs in the 80s and also amazing that they've transitioned to a real O/S over that time.[1]

(Macs are very cool for playing World of Warcraft, but for getting real work done, give me any decent Linux distro with KDE and XEmacs).

[1] And for me, I can change the mislabeled big key to the left of the `A' key to what God Intended It To Be, a control key, in less time on Mac OS X than I can on a brand new Linux install with KDE.

Re:Well, here we go

[lysergic.acid]

easier for the average user to do what?

someone who's used KDE or Gnome since 1995 would find it easier to use KDE/Gnome than !KDE or !Gnome. what does that prove? unless you're trying to argue that people should stick with the same operating system that they've used in the past because users are too stupid to deal with change, i don't really see your point. that has nothing to do with UI uniformity or the usability of a particular OS.

there's more to software user-friendliness/usability than just resistance to change.

Re:Well, here we go

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

1. Packages. Specifically, aptitude. It is unbelievably easy to find software to open weird file formats, play simple games, or speak some weird protocol. This is the single #1 feature Linux (BSDs too, possibly) has going for it. Packages are awesome for experienced users and newbies. If you say otherwise, you really haven't tried a well maintained distribution yet.

In theory I acknowledge that packages and package managers are a superior technology. In practice, package managers and formats in use provide a significant advantage for installation and updates if you're only using OSS and are only using packages that are in the right format for your manager. In practice, they're a problem as implemented for install from a Web page, run from removable media or network, portability to new hardware, incompatibility among package formats, and consistency of installation usability.

They are certainly a big win for upgrading software, but for installation can be a real usability downfall for a significant number of current users, although they are getting better. My ideal OS has a package manager, but significantly improved from what is in use today and with a much more flexible package format.

2. $SHELL shell, and the associated core utils. I use bash, but that's probably because it's what I learned first. I know my grandmother, my mother, and my girlfriend don't want to use the CLI, so it's not a major feature for most.

Amen! Powershell just isn't there.

3. UI consistency. ZOMFG WUT? Yes; I use KDE, and it kicks ass.

I always end up with a mix of Gnome and KDE apps and never know quite what the capabilities and UI is going to be. Not that Windows is a lot better, but from a design perspective it is more consistent, if the larger design base has resulted in a less consistent result.

Re:Well, here we go

[gallwapa]

Most people's software is downloaded?

Not to quote Sarah Palin, but "Joe Sixpack" and Grandma have a lot of legit software. I think it is a stretch to say most software is pirated. Do you know how many people are STILL buying WinZip? Or those little "Reg cleaners"? Games?

C'mon...

Re:Well, here we go

[Nursie]

The enterpirse space is embracing linux. It's a major player in the server space and enterprise desktops are getting more linux friendly all the time (it's an option at our enterprise).

Re:Well, here we go

[techno-vampire]

You ask some good questions and make some good points. However, I can tell you one place where Linux (and, AFAIK FreeBSD) are light years ahead of anything from Microsoft and have been for years: Linux partitions don't need regular defragging. They can go for years without needing one and, unless they're over 80% full or so and have large files that are constantly changing they probably never will. This isn't because the file system itself is better, but because Linux doesn't jam the files one right next to the other like Windows does; it leaves room between them for growth. If MS really wanted to "embrace and extend," they'd rewrite the part of the OS that decides where files go to be more like the Linux model and do away with defrag altogether.

Re:Well, here we go

[rcallan]

I mostly agree, though I was speculating that most hybrid designs are more unreliable since they require both system to be functional. I would guess the exception is the design with an electric drive and a small gas generator used to charge the batteries (chevy volt for instance). In my opinion all the other hybrid designs are of less value because 1) they are more complicated to design and build, 2) they don't motivate people towards getting a larger percentage of the energy from the electric grid.

They make, and people buy, hybrid suvs for example. As far as I'm concerned this is even worse than buying the gas powered suv because people assume they're "doing their part" because it's a hybrid, and so they'll keep buying this design as long as they're available. I don't think making them plug-in is going to help because they're so heavy that they'd require a huge battery stack and a larger electric motor to make that work, to the point where there's no gain in efficiency.

I think the plug-in vehicles with an electric drivetrain and small gas generator is vastly superior because it makes people aware of how far they can go on just the batteries before they start burning gas, while still giving them the assurance that they'll never get stuck anywhere. If the owners of one of these realize they haven't bought any gas in 2 years, it's highly likely they'll look for a model without a generator for their next purchase.

I don't think consumers are making illogical emotional associations, I think they're just using an incorrect information in making decision. For instance, if they think there's nothing wrong with burning fossil fuels and the cost of fuel is low, why would they ever buy a more expensive electric vehicle or a hybrid?

The problem is that a lot of people associate 0 benefit to protecting the environment, and 0 penalty to any consequences more than 20 years in the future. Under these assumptions, why would they ever go out of their way to pay more for designs that address these issues they don't care about?

Re:Well, here we go

[tibman]

why yes, redmond Themes and Skins are very easy to use in Gnome and KDE, oh wait.. i didn't read your comment correctly : /

Re:Well, here we go

[node 3]

If you ask me, Windows 7 looks a lot like a response to Linux on the desktop.

Windows 7 is a response to Linux the same way Coke Zero is a response to Tab.

Windows 7 is a response to Vista. People turned down the bloated system that is Vista, so Microsoft has made promises to fix all the issues and release a new system in two years' time. But as is always the case, the promises will be forgotten and the release date will slip again and again. But Windows 8, now that's going to really rock...

Re:Well, here we go

[HangingChad]

Choice is Good. Specialization is for insects.

Microsoft Dung Beetle. Now that's a catchy product name!

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

I hate to give a long response to an AC ...

Like what? And why should customers care about it? Your responses will show if you're a troll, or if you have anything technical reasoning behind it.

Linux, like Mac OS X and really all modern Unix-derived systems do not crash. I've only run production quality Linux systems since the late 1990s and I cannot remember the last time I've had the system crash. That equates X Server crashes with system crashes by the way. The last reliable X server crash I had was in the late 1990s when XEmacs was trying to display the Mule hello page. I got patches into XEmacs to fix that side and patches into the X server to fix that side and Life Moved On.

* Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem. I could create a .sh file that deleted .config files or something equally evil and tell your grandma to run it and she will.

True, but deceptive. Before Microsoft Windows 95 vulgarized the internet, it was long known that running arbitrary executable code coming across the wire was A Very Bad Idea. The decision by Microsoft to jump into internet support *and* provide default unprompted execute support for that poisoned enough minds to make it an industry standard.

* Malware - Again not specific to Windows.

No, but it was Microsoft Windows that popularized the idea of execute any old thing including malware by default.

* Crashes - Yeah, comeback with real proof.

It's your reputation, not ours. My best anecdotal evidence was something that crossed an internal corporate email group where I wrote something like "Microsoft Windows XP is the most stable O/S they've ever released because it only crashes 1 or 2 times a week." and among the responses I got back were "I wish it were that few ...".

In my opinion, it doesn't really matter where the blame actually lies (perhaps it does lie on enterprise crapware that the Microsoft Windows users are forced to use, but whatever). It's the fact that the platform does crash and people are conditioned to it. The last supposedly all intranet web meeting I had to attend at work, was delayed due to software issues on Microsoft Windows XP. Money was lost while a bunch of highly paid engineers were looking at a blank screen. Says a lot about True Cost of Ownership too...

In the meantime, my desktop machine (running RHEL) has only ever been rebooted on power failure or moving the equipment since it was deployed.

* Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel? So the manufacturers of devices have to wait till the kernel maintainer decides on his own sweet time when to integrate patches. AND THEN wait till picks them up downstream. Nice solution. Doesnt scale, buddy.

Greg KH has gotten into the latest Linux kernel a staging area where half-worked drivers can get wider code distribution and more eyes and hands to fix them up. It remains to be seen how well this work, but they are trying.

I used to think the amount of code changes that is currently going on in the Linux was unsustainable with control of the final tree in a single person's hands. Linus proved me wrong.

The amount of code that goes into the Linux kernel every day (on average) is astonishing.

* Applications - All the software in the world at a single spot. i.e. Google for applications. Who addresses commercial software? Who handles payments for this? Who will handle updates?

While I have no problem with proprietary software, like games, on something like Linux or OpenBSD/Mac OS X, I do have a problem with the Software As A Service model. It sucks and I agree with you on this point.

The one and only thing I thank Microsoft for is that at the time it was strangling the PC market, it also killed X terminals, which were cheap, but an abomination to use, in my opinion. I thank them for that.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. The kiddies getting everything on TPB assume that not everyone is willing to pay for software. They are wrong. I for one do not hesitate to buy a piece of software (yes, even though I can pirate it) if I find it useful and I can afford it.

Re:Well, here we go

[BrokenHalo]

File, edit, help have always been in the same spot.

Unless, of course, you count Office 2007. Confused the hell out of me for a while when I first saw that.

Re:Well, here we go

[microhard_googler]

* Crashes - Yeah, comeback with real proof.

It's your reputation, not ours. My best anecdotal evidence was something that crossed an internal corporate email group where I wrote something like "Microsoft Windows XP is the most stable O/S they've ever released because it only crashes 1 or 2 times a week." and among the responses I got back were "I wish it were that few ...".

In my opinion, it doesn't really matter where the blame actually lies (perhaps it does lie on enterprise crapware that the Microsoft Windows users are forced to use, but whatever). It's the fact that the platform does crash and people are conditioned to it. The last supposedly all intranet web meeting I had to attend at work, was delayed due to software issues on Microsoft Windows XP. Money was lost while a bunch of highly paid engineers were looking at a blank screen. Says a lot about True Cost of Ownership too...

In the meantime, my desktop machine (running RHEL) has only ever been rebooted on power failure or moving the equipment since it was deployed.

I havent seen a single bsod in xp or vista since last 4 years which is time when i first started using xp. they were frequent in win98 though. its a different matter that i havent seen any linux crashes either in the same time, but i must add that applications crash more frequently on linux than on windows. quanta, gedit etc just crash suddenly and *boom* all my unsaved work is gone -- no recovery whatsoever. another thing i hate about linux desktop apps is that they dont save the preferences from operations performed last time. eg - i have to browse the entire path once again starting from the app's default directory even on accessing the same file a second time using the file browser launched from within the app.

Re:Well, here we go

[SanityInAnarchy]

And you're free to pick one. On KDE, I can also pick one theme, and have it automatically applied to the two major widget sets.

It ends up being quite a lot more uniform, for the apps I actually use, than Windows ever was.

Re:Well, here we go

[BrokenHalo]

Macs are very cool for playing World of Warcraft, but for getting real work done, give me any decent Linux distro with KDE and XEmacs

I won't take issue with your point about KDE - different strokes and all that - but I always find it a bit hard to comprehend the attraction of XEmacs. I am a big fan of (the basic GNU) Emacs, because it's so easy to edit with a nice blank screen rather than all having those superfluous menubars and whatnot cluttering up the workspace. (My perspective is of one who remembers when Emacs was a bunch of macros for TECO, so I never got into the habit of using a menubar.) And now that GNU Emacs can render fonts nicely in X11, XEmacs has become even more otiose.

Re:Well, here we go

[BrokenHalo]

Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem.

If Windows can be infected with viruses or malware within hours of installation, with almost no user input, that is an OS problem. Lame excuses not accepted.

Crashes - Yeah, comeback with real proof.

Having just spent the last few hours rescuing a friend's computer when Microsoft had advised her to re-format and reinstall (which would have blown away her PhD thesis in the process) after a crash from which it wouldn't reboot, I think I'm in a good position to answer that. This lady was only running MS Word at the time, and last time I looked, that was MS code.

I have been using Linux on all of my desktop machines since 1995, and I have never had a kernel crash. No, NOT EVEN ONCE. Sure, I have had the occasional panic on bootup when I've done something stupid like forgetting to build in support for my root filesystem type, but I don't think that counts.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

I havent seen a single bsod in xp or vista since last 4 years ...

I'm very happy for you. Perhaps you should be reassuring my coworkers whose Microsoft Windows XP machines are crashing every day or so instead of me.

Re:Well, here we go

[SanityInAnarchy]

Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem.... Malware - Again not specific to Windows.

Granted.

But I'll take an OS any day that works with me on this problem, not against me. Yes, Windows is trying to improve with Vista -- too little, too late. Too many programs that won't scale to limited user accounts, no unified system-wide updates.

Prove conclusively, once and for all that X percentage of crashes are because of MS code, Vs. X percentage of crashes on Linux.

Doesn't matter. If the crashes were because of a driver (that is, the manufacturer's fault), and Linux has a more solid driver for that (but it's in-kernel, and therefore unofficial), then Linux wins that argument.

Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel? So the manufacturers of devices have to wait till the kernel maintainer decides on his own sweet time when to integrate patches. AND THEN wait till picks them up downstream.

This assumes several things:

- That all drivers must be in the kernel source. There are drivers which are separately maintained, just like on Windows.
- That all drivers are even in-kernel. The bulk of printer drivers, for example, are PPDs, used by CUPS -- entirely userspace.
- That the kernel maintainer is the one integrating. Nope, that's up to you. The kernel maintainer just decides if your patch makes it into the kernel. Nothing stopping you from maintaining it as a separate module, or letting distros merge it into their own kernel forks.
- That the kernel maintainer is a different person than the manufacturer.
- That the manufacturer is even involved in the process, beyond publishing specs.
- That any of this is remotely an issue for OS X. Apple pretty much gets to pick and choose what hardware will be supported, and how.

All the software in the world at a single spot. i.e. Google for applications.

Or search your package manager.

Who addresses commercial software? Who handles payments for this? Who will handle updates?

If you're on Ubuntu, the answer to all of the above is "Canonical". I can buy Parallels directly from Canonical, add an official repository, and install it (and get updates) through the same channels I install all my other software.

Or you could ask Dell how they handle the Fluendo codecs. I'm betting it's the same mechanism, though.

Do users want to download Multi GB Games/Applications?

I don't know that I've seen a multi-GB downloadable game or application for Linux. Sure, the whole distro is huge, but individual apps aren't, even when you factor in needed libraries.

Note: That was "downloadable". Most games for Linux come in a small-ish demo form through the repositories. If you buy the full game (for Windows, presumably), you can copy the game files off the disc, type in the CD key, and you've now got the full game -- but the patches still come through the package manager. Honestly, the binaries are small enough.

Who pays for the massive bandwidth?

Again, Canonical.

Are you not aware of how existing package managers work, for existing apps?

What if you're not connected online

Then, presumably, you get a disc which has the files on it. Granted, no one's built a disc that is specifically a compilation of all the demo versions of various games -- but it could be done.

I'll wait for some real responses now...

I actually like the UI.

And I like the fact that if I didn't like the UI, there are dozens (hundreds?) of window managers, all compatible enough that I can run any Linux app on them -- or write my own.

I like the fact that I can have both a rock-solid OS (and one which doesn't nag me all the time) and better desktop effects than Vi

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

Almost missed this:

but i must add that applications crash more frequently on linux than on windows. quanta, gedit etc just crash suddenly and *boom* all my unsaved work is gone

I have no idea what quanta is, but ... use something reliable like XEmacs for editing. I haven't ever lost anything more than a keystroke or two, even working on bleeding edge XEmacsen *while* debugging problems where our autosave feature wasn't working exactly right with certain charsets.

Sheesh. Oh and please learn the use of English grammar and punctuation while you're throwing mindless flames around.

Re:Well, here we go

[hairyfeet]

Hell,I'll probably get flamed to negative 1000 for this,but what the hey,I've got Karma to burn. If you want to know how to get Joe and Jane home user(along with Sam SMB) I'll be happy to tell you. As someone who has been working in PC repair more years than I care to count,as well as someone who tried to sell Linux boxes and watched them rot on the shelves,I can happily tell you the problems that need fixing. Here they are-

1.-Make an ndiswrapper for those damned Lexmark all in one printers! Surely it can't be anymore difficult than those funky wireless "cards" which are nothing but a firmware chip and Windows. Those Lexmarks ain't changed in ages and are calling Windows GDI for everything so surely someone who can code ought to be able to figure that one out. But WAY too many of the home users(probably 85-95% here) have one of those damned printers. They are cheap,make good pictures,and do what they want it to do,so they WON'T go buy a $150 printer just to use a new and strange OS.
2.-Games. Even those girls that say "Eeew,games are stupid and I can't see why you waste you time with those!" actually have at least one game they play(for some reason it is almost always AoE ! or II. I swear it is like catnip to females). While Wine is nice in theory,it is just too damned complex for Joe and Jane. It needs to work when you stick a disc in,ala "clicky clicky,next next next". If they can stick their Windows game disc and go Clicky Clicky,then they are happy campers. Which brings me to number three-
3.-WalMart and Best Buy. Joe and Jane don't want to find their software by looking through some repo and trying to figure out what they want by some description that may be over their heads,they want to look at pretty pictures with simple descriptions so it is easy to choose. So maybe someone can talk Shuttleworth into either packaging similar Linux programs(games pack,office pack,school pack,etc) into a nice set of CD or DVDs that can sit on a shelf,or perhaps have the repos have nice little screenshots of the apps with very simple descriptions and a "learn more" button that would give a more in depth explanation.
4.-Finally for the SMBs. MSFT may hate it and just wish it would die,but there is a damned good reason why VB6 is still the number three business language. It is because VB is the engine that runs many a SMB. I can't count the number of times I've walked into a place and their mission critical app,be it a POS,a billing app,customer database,etc, was a VB app.For SMBs VB just works and works well for those little "one of a kind" personalized apps that all SMBs seem to have a need for. An easy to use VB plugin would go a long way to converting your SMBs. Sadly though you'll never be able to convert around 25% thanks to those damned IE Intranet ActiveX laden "apps".

So there you have it,my suggestions for switching Joe and Jane and Sam without having them go running back to Windows at the first sign of trouble. While some would probably be easiest to fix by helping out the ReactOS guys(and I'm sure they'd like the help) others like the repo idea could be implemented by any major distro with some work. But these are the ones that have been deal breakers when I have tried to convert users to Linux. Maybe if Win7 turns into a giant pile of super suck like Vista it will be easier to get them to switch. Or maybe they'll just do like most of my current customers and hang onto XP for dear life,I just don't know. But having even just 1 and 3 would go a LONG way to helping guys like me switch the customers I see walk through my door.

Re:Well, here we go

[Neoprofin]

To elaborate, why do I have to access the command to install certain things?

"Oh please! Executing Tar.ball.gzs is easy!"

Well it's not double clicking. If the software I want isn't in the repo it might as well be on mars. I can either go through config files to enable other repositories and hope they have what I want, or drudge through a readme about how to install simple software.

That, is where Linux is failing. Not power users, not novices, the middle ground of people who know exactly what they want but don't want to have to compile from source to get it. People who know that something or other can be edited or that X hardware should work and don't want to spend their day on wikis and help forums to figure out how.

Re:Well, here we go

[Fri13]

* Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem. I could create a .sh file that deleted .config files or something equally evil and tell your grandma to run it and she will. (You get the point... ) (SELinux? Apparmour? Who configures profiles for each app? In anycase this wont stop 'all' evil apps. You can access the phonebook,calender to either display and insert new entries or to delete it. The 'intent' is whats the issue here, not permissions per se.)

First, Virus is a Malware, (but it does not stop you to be more specific) and AppArmor can stop virus infections. Like I cant open document files from other places than one specific directory (and it's subdirectories) on network server, because AppArmor does not allow OpenOffice.org to open any other files. A application or file what has got Virus infection, can not open the calender or phonebook unless AppArmor allows that application/file to get touch to them. And AppArmor prevents in first place other applications/files getting infected if it is configured right... in the first place. You are right that it is user problem, but you can prevents things if you are smart enough.

* Malware - Again not specific to Windows.

At least it was specific to Windows XP on 2001-2006. All what you needed to do was open an email or browse to wanted website and your OS got infected because on XP, the OS was not protected from tampering by other applications like Outlook. And it was very stupid move by Microsoft in first place to integrate the IE browser to OS so when IE got a hit... OS got hit too. Now they are smarted by sandboxing the IE from OS and actually removing the IE from OS to own normal process. So when the IE gots hit, it does not spread damage to OS. While it still can spread damage to other applications if OS or any other application (or applications own protection systems) can not prevent such thing happening.

* Crashes - Yeah, comeback with real proof. Prove conclusively, once and for all that X percentage of crashes are because of MS code, Vs. X percentage of crashes on Linux. If you want to blame poor design, again proove conclusively with real proof - Papers, OS research(Maybe a bit much to ask, but then you're claiming a 'bit much' too). How many System admins look at crash dumps and just blame the OS?

OS does not crash so easily. Linux is very stable, if just drivers and all other parts of OS what are all in monolith kernel, are stable. (All eggs in one basket).
If application like Xorg, Mozilla Firefox or any other userland application crash when using Linux OS. it is not OS's fault, because none of userland applications are part of OS. Only Linux crash can be counted to be a OS crash and I have not got crashed OS long time on servers. Only a few times sometimes when Nvidia drivers crashed so the Linux went down same time! Not good! There is problem what is that people believe that OS is same as the software system product like XP or Vista. That Notepad or Calculators are part of OS and not applications what needs a OS to run. Same misbelieve has spreaded to Linux world where people gives OS fault that Mozilla Firefox, Xorg or OpenOffice crash... just very stupid believeing! On Windows it seems that OS can crash only if the drivers are bad or applications what are integrated to OS, like IE, crash and takes the OS with them!

* Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel? So the manufacturers of devices have to wait till the kernel maintainer decides on his own sweet time when to integrate patches. AND THEN wait till picks them up downstream. Nice solution. Doesnt scale, buddy.

I agree with this you, in one way. In monolith kernel (the OS) it is one kind stupid to compile drivers to specific kernel version. If the kernel changes, you need to compile drivers again to get working OS. But we have DKMS from Dell since 2003 what helps us to compile drivers as modules fr

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

One word (maybe two): VirtualBox.

Re:Well, here we go

[init100]

Don't even understand what you're trying to argue here. Please be more clear.

He is arguing against the package management systems used in many if not most Linux distributions.

Re:Well, here we go

[hdparm]

Yet another car analogy that doesn't work on anything related to computers.

If you said "Linux desktop is like the Formula 1 compared to Windows", you could have been close to the first such analogy that actually might work.

Re:Well, here we go

[drsquare]

but if you stick with all the apps with a G as the first letter you can be assured a standard UI if you are using Gnome, likewise if K is the first letter you can be assured that it uses a standard UI for KDE,

Well, that makes sense. The problem with Linux, is that each app has its own widgets, its own theme, its own file selector etc. And when some programs install they don't even get into the menus so you can't open them. And some apps don't have packages for your distribution. And some apps only come as source. Etc.

Re:Well, here we go

[init100]

I can either go through config files to enable other repositories

Not necessarily. New repos can also be added by installing a package. Download the repository package in your web browser and open it, which causes the software installer to open and install it (after you type your password or the root password). Then you can just use the package manager with the new repository.

Re:Well, here we go

[Wowsers]

Serious point and not a troll, I'd hope that by the time Windows 7 arrived, KDE4 is fixed (and stop using end users as beta testers - it's not Windows). For now I'm sticking with KDE3, there's just too much missing from KDE4 to justify moving to it.

Re:Well, here we go

[remmelt]

From my experience, you don't have to access the "command" any more, or at least a lot less then before.

Debian/Ubuntu has apt, and has loads of stuff in their repositories. Ubuntu even enables multiverse by default, as far as I know. If not, it's a click away. If it's not in the repositories, it can be packaged as a .deb by the package maintainer, and yes you can double click those, fill in your password and it installs, without any need for the "command."
Software developers for Windows now make elaborate installers, making a deb and an rpm won't cost them any more time.

I understand why people get directed to the command line a lot though. Linux is still a power user OS, and power users often use the command line, because it gets things done faster and more efficiently in a lot of cases. So, this is what they know. They know how to set up X by editing xorg.conf. They'd rather use apt-get than synaptic. So, if you have a problem with your Linux install and ask the average user, you're likely to get a power user answer and it involves opening up the command prompt.
I do feel that Ubuntu is a step in the right direction. A lot of the howtos on their wiki and forum are focused on the GUI.

Re:Well, here we go

[David Gerard]

Wine is already a better Windows (98/2000/XP) than Vista. I wonder if Windows 7 will actually enhance compatibility. XP in a VM, like Classic in Mac OS X?

Re:Well, here we go

[David Gerard]

That's why Wine is targeting those. Its perfect place is running that piece of abandonware you can't even find the developer for any more, let alone ask them to free it, but which just happens to be essential and keeps your last crusty old Pentium in service running Windows 98.

(This is exactly what we use it for at work. Anyone who says Wine isn't enterprise-ready is talking out their hat.)

Re:Well, here we go

[Godji]

I don't agree with your last point. People will go out of their way to get Windows even on a computer that came with something else, depite those still being the exception rather than the norm.

For example, almost every Eee PC purchased by people around me gets its GNU/Linux removed and replaced by XP first thing in the morning. And that thing won't be running games or speciality apps.

Most people will not bother to go through the 60 minutes of learning (less if one has above average intelligence) required to get comfortable with a new UI, not only because they resist change, but also because they do not percieve any advantage.

The ones that have considered switching are the ones that have been bitten by viruses one too many times. In those cases, they've heard some Linux hype and they wonder what that might be like. Consequently, I think GNU/Linux needs a lot more hype. Hype is a great thing as long as one can deliver on it, which GNU/Linux certainly can.

Re:Well, here we go

[Godji]

I forgot: The reason why I use the GNU/Linux name (before I get bashed for it) is that I recently played a lot with Solaris. Believe me when I tell you - UNIX without the GNU tools is a bitch.

Re:Well, here we go

[Bert64]

Viruses/malware - You could indeed create a .sh file and deliver it via a browser onto grandma's machine, but you would also have to socially engineer her into setting it with execute permissions and executing it, the poor design of windows is that it makes it much easier to download and execute a malicious program since it decides if a program is executable or not based on it's filename, it also encourages you to run with greater privileges so the scope of damage is greater.. it's possible and trivially easy to make it impossible for linux users to execute anything that wasn't installed by the root user btw, windows requires extra third party apps for that. Also, windows users are conditioned to downloading and executing binaries, linux users are more likely to select software from their package manager.

Crashes - complexity is the issue, the underlying system in windows is far more complex than linux and therefore harder to maintain, plus you have a lot of third party driver code in the kernel on virtually every system and no guarantee that your mix of driver versions has been tested together.

Drivers - yes, add all the drivers to the kernel, that way every distro supports every device out of the box, and you know that your device will continue to be supported out of the box by linux, you don't have to hunt around for the latest drivers since updating the kernel updates the drivers too, and the drivers come as a single package thats been tested to work together properly. Drivers and hardware are not developed over night, if the hardware vendor started the driver development process early and in the open they could quite easily have working drivers filtered down by the time the hardware is made available, and they could still supply standalone drivers as a temporary hack (i've never had anything but problems with out of kernel drivers).

Applications - With a decent package manager you can have multiple repositories, and you can also install from physical media while using the package manager as an update system. The only problem with this system is the number of different package managers... It scales perfectly well, what doesn't scale is every individual application providing their own background daemon that checks for updates and clogs your machine up, or each app only checking for updates when it's started - you don't want the app to update itself when you're trying to use it... Is this what you propose for handling multi vendor applications and updating them, or can you think of a better system than a package manager?

Re:Well, here we go

[Catil]

I don't think it's that certain speciality app or games that keep people on Windows and Apple, Ubuntu and Asus are doing a rather good job informing people that Windows != Computer and that there are alternatives.

People are aware of Linux. The main problem is that there is no demand created. If you surf the web and come across interesting stuff to download and try out, it almost seems to be a physical law that it's for Windows, but there are enough apps for Linux. There is an OSS alternative good enough for home use to any Windows application but you only find those way too centralized on very few sites like sourceforge and freshmeat.
There has to be a Linux section on every big website, like download.com et al, to have a real impact. People have to click on something interesting, think "hey, cool" and then once again find out that it's for Linux, and best, for Linux only.

Re:Well, here we go

[Bert64]

The issue here is that for linux bleeding edge apps are often easily obtainable, and have higher version numbers than the stable versions making users want them.

Re:Well, here we go

[eclw]

The fact is that th OS industry is reaching maturity, where early entrants to a market enjoy fewer and fewer advantages and the bars to entry are lower:
- web apps mean that MS experiences fewer network advantages (the number of apps which can only be run in Windows and therefore tie consumers in)
- consumers continue to develop their own maturity - confident enough to try other things, to have an increasingly analytical view of the products available
- as a market matures standards mature too - fewer barriers to entry for new firms, who can benefit from being able to sell to the whole market if their product is compliant
There are lots of other things that a maturing market brings, so it's worth remembering that the market for personal computing is only just coming to maturity. Few firms dominate any industry for more than, say, thirty years. Get in there.

Re:Well, here we go

[sveard]

And the ribbon seems the way to go for Windows, google "Windows Scenic"

( http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080917/windows-scenic-new-ribbon-based-ui-platform/ )

Re:Well, here we go

[TheRaven64]

Well, OS X has drag and drop system services so users and applications can provide universal functionality, like grammar checking in all applications

OS X got this from OPENSTEP - NeXT had these pervasive services almost two decades ago, and GNUstep has had a cross-platform implementation of them for quite a while. We use them in Etoile for quite a few things. My favourite is probably the script services that lets you run the selected text through a shell script, so I can just type some arithmetic in to a text field, hit a key combination and have the result from a script that uses bc.

Both have better and more granular and usable ACLs for userspace applications

Windows NT has had fine-grained ACLs from its creation, and exposes something like the old UNIX permission model to the GUI. Modern UNIX systems implement either NFSv4 or POSIX ACLs, which are roughly equivalent to NTFS ACLs.

Re:Well, here we go

[Bert64]

Windows 7 will be no better than vista, but by then the hardware will be even more powerful so it won't seem so bloated.

Re:Well, here we go

[solkimera]

I run xubuntu, a few days ago i downloaded the new opera deb package. I click on the file, i see a window "Package installer - Opera". Tells me this package is The opera web browser. tells me I have an older version. An shows me an install. button. click. done. Whats the big deal?

Re:Well, here we go

[dotancohen]

...and other will not move to Linux unless *insert specialty application or game* is available on Linux...

Mine is Solidworks. I use Kubuntu, but I have to run SOlidworks in a VM, with all it's overhead, just to work.

However, there is a flipside: I could not run a pure Windows until KDE works reasonably well on Windows. Apps like Kate have me married to that DE.

No matter which OS you prefer, if there is a killer app that you need for it, don't be shy about contacting the developers and letting them know. I have written to Solidworks, and to my local distributor, requesting a Linux version. Do the same for your 'killer apps'.

Re:Well, here we go

[AndGodSed]

To elaborate, why do I have to access the command to install certain things?

Read this:

http://blog.g33q.co.za/?p=72

You need the command line on more than just linux. I "need" the command line in Windows on a daily basis.

The "need the command line" argument is an old meme.

Find something better to use against Linux when you want to carry on about how desktop ready Linux is.

(apologies for whoring my own blog but I am not in the mood to thrash this old donkey of an argument all over again...)

Re:Well, here we go

[grumbel]

The real problem with the Linux GUIs isn't the window manager or where the buttons are, but that a lot of stuff is still only configurable via the console or just not very good in GUI form (X11 configuration is horribly limited in Ubuntu, until you go 'vi xorg.conf'). Its has gotten slowly better in that area, but still quite a bit away from Windows, where you can 'fix' most stuff by clicking some setup.exe.

Re:Well, here we go

[Monkey-some]

I already kicked off Windows from the home computer for many reasons...I don't really care about windows 7, 7 new era, 7007 or whatever any other flavor it may come bundled with.

Re:Well, here we go

[ceoyoyo]

1. Packages. Specifically, aptitude. It is unbelievably easy to find software to open weird file formats, play simple games, or speak some weird protocol. This is the single #1 feature Linux (BSDs too, possibly) has going for it. Packages are awesome for experienced users and newbies. If you say otherwise, you really haven't tried a well maintained distribution yet.

Yes, but Linux needs some OTHER way of distributing software. When a central package repository is the only good way for grandma to get software she's at the mercy of the repository maintainer. Not in there? Too bad. Too much crap in there? Too bad.

One you install Fink or Darwin Ports on OS X you've got the best of both worlds: a central package repository where you can grab random little stuff, and a powerful, pretty app installation system for developers who want to distribute directly to their end users.

If Linux is going to truly achieve it's potential that problem has to be solved. gunzip; ./configure; make install is NOT the solution.

Re:Well, here we go

[betterunixthanunix]

"Like what? And why should customers care about it?"

Well, let's see...there is the ability to set a window as "always on top" (did they add this to Vista yet?), the ability to have window focus follow the mouse cursor, X forwarding, multiple workspaces, and for customers with a higher degree of technical sophistication, there is the entire SUS userland, which is superior to the Windows shell by leaps and bounds. Before you go and try to claim that these features may be added to Windows by downloading other packages, may I remind you that only those users with a very good understanding of what they are doing could be expected to do that without mucking up the entire system.

"* Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel?"

Kernel modules? I have seen manufacturers destribute their drivers as separate kernel modules, to get around the GPL or to simplify the task of distribution.

"* Applications - All the software in the world at a single spot. i.e. Google for applications. Who addresses commercial software?"

First of all, there is no requirement that you only install software from the repositories. It is more secure to do so, since there is a team of people somewhere whose job it is to review all that software and ensure that it will not do something nasty to your system, but you do not actually need to do this. I can think of many software packages that are not distributed via repositories -- Xilinx ISE, Matlab, HSPICE, etc.

Basically, what your post demonstrates is an utter failure to understand how people are using their Linux systems in the real world. It sounds like you played with Linux for 10 minutes, noticed a few things that you thought were odd but did not bother to research any of them, and then threw your hands in the air and ran back to Windows, where you are more comfortable. I could be wrong, but that is what it sounds like.

Re:Well, here we go

[rhsanborn]

Yes that is a perfect analogy. If the standard user hopped into an F1 car as opposed to their normal sedan, they'd have a hell of a time even figuring out how to put on their steering wheel, much less learning how to shift and how to drive around without killing himself.

Linux has made really huge strides with regards to a cleaner easier to navigate UI that is consistent (as long as you stick with just one). And driver support has been getting better all the time. But there are two issues that I've seen personally that will hold this up.

1) Driver support for new hardware. This isn't eally the fault of the people working on Linux drivers, people are still getting hardware from manufacturers for which there aren't, or aren't yet Linux drivers that just work. We're talking about average users here, so buying open hardware isn't an issue. They don't care. They want the really good deal that was advertised last month, and they're going to buy that one.

2) People are still trying to downplay software support and point to Linux alternatives. Again, people don't care. They have their favorite copy of game/finance/whatever software sitting around and they want to be able to install that.

I think we can hope that people in this community are a little more open to buying hardware that is OSS friendly, and likewise figure out how to use alternative software or get things working under Wine, etc. But there really is nothing wrong with people expecting to use their computer as an appliance. Right now, aside from people who want to use it simply as a web/email machine, or even have someone set it up with several apps and then never change anything, I don't think it's there yet. And it's definitely a catch 22 of whether user adoption brings more manufacturers/developers in line or manufacturers/devs bring users in line.

Re:Well, here we go

[rhsanborn]

But that's it. People are resistant to change. Not because change is scary. But because change is difficult. They don't want to put effort into relearning how to use their computer. Much the same way that they don't want to put effort into using their TV or their toaster. The computer is an appliance and they want it to just work, and they don't want to think about it. Really, there isn't anything wrong with that either.

Re:Well, here we go

[rhsanborn]

AFAIK it isn't trivial for publishers to put out a Linux binary. A great many games are still made using DirectX. Something Microsoft has been very smart in hording on their OS.

I also think you'd be surprised by the number of people who own legitimate software. TurboTax, quicken, their kids jump start type games, etc.

Re:Well, here we go

[dotancohen]

Make an ndiswrapper for those damned Lexmark all in one printers!...

[snip]

MSFT may hate it and just wish it would die,but there is a damned good reason why VB6 is still the number three business language. It is because VB is the engine that runs many a SMB.

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/printerdriverautodownload

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/14529/

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

I forgot, your browser is clearly supposed to install all kinds of random crap that messes with settings and toolbars without prompts. Oh wait, other browsers don't do that? Other browsers prompt you before they do things like that? Yes, MS managed to fix a lot of that with IE7, but its still not an excuse for them doing that for the ~2-3 years of IE6.

What, exactly, are you talking about? When I ran IE6 I never had malware install itself. Most malware results from people explicitly installing stuff. The same thing could happen with Firefox.

Re:Well, here we go

[james_shoemaker]

Unless you're referring to the uniformity of a nice 80x24 text console, you're way off. Unix/Linux have oodles of different window managers.

    Ever install office 2007 on XP? You end up with an application that looks like nothing else on the box and no way to make it even resemble anything else. It ignores window's theming and only supplies 3 bad themes of it's own.

James Shoemaker

Re:Well, here we go

[jonaskoelker]

If Windows can be infected with viruses or malware within hours of installation, with almost no user input, that is an OS problem. Lame excuses not accepted.

Try s/hours/seconds/. Happened to me. I can't tell you how much I hated everything MS at that point.

Re:Well, here we go

[jonaskoelker]

and their mission critical app,be it a POS,a billing app,customer database,etc, was a VB app.

All VB apps are a POS.

</over-the-top-sarcasm>

Re:Well, here we go

[Just Some Guy]

Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem.

I used to think that to, but really, it's a Windows problem. Viruses could hypothetically infect other systems, just like I could hypothetically spontaneously quantum-tunnel my way through the wall - there's no technical reason why it couldn't happen but it never has. On modern OSes, only Windows has a malware problem. Don't start with that BS about market share either because there's enormous infamy to be gained by being the first virus author to hit Linux or OS X.

Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel? So the manufacturers of devices have to wait till the kernel maintainer decides on his own sweet time when to integrate patches. AND THEN wait till picks them up downstream. Nice solution. Doesnt scale, buddy.

Linux has much better hardware support than Windows and this has been true for several years. Let's reverse your argument: I bought a Microsoft Wi-Fi card for an old laptop, but unsurprisingly it didn't come with drivers for OpenBSD. The card was based on a common chipset with a well-supported driver, but no one had told the driver that it should work for that card. So I told it to, submitted the patch upstream, and now everyone using *BSD (or Linux, which I think uses the same driver) now has working support for it out of the box. I'm certainly not a driver expert, but I was able to do the little tweak that fixed the problem once and for all.

Contrast with Windows, where I've had a capable driver installed on a machine but no way to get it to speak to a piece of hardware without invoking a disassembler. You're sitting at the whim of the manufacturers, and until they decide to let you use your hardware, you're stuck. I won't even go into the joy of trying to use older printers on Vista.

Re:Well, here we go

[Martin Soto]

The problem with Linux, is that each app has its own widgets, its own theme, its own file selector etc. And when some programs install they don't even get into the menus so you can't open them. And some apps don't have packages for your distribution. And some apps only come as source. Etc.

When was the last time you saw a (desktop) Linux system in operation? 1998? Try installing a recent version of Ubuntu, for example. You will have a hard time to find a single application in the default install that doesn't fit the basic GNOME look-and-feel; and that includes using the same theme and file selector. Some applications, such as Firefox and OpenOffice, have their own widget sets (also under Windows, by the way), but they have been carefully adapted to the GNOME style and integrate quite well.

I'm a programmer and use Ubuntu as my only desktop system. Since years ago, the only interactive program I run regularly that doesn't fit the look-and-feel is emacs, and that's because I'm already addicted to emacs beyond recovery. But notice that if a wanted to have a 100% consistent environment, all I'd have to do would be switching to Eclipse, which adapts to the GNOME look-and-feel pretty well.

The 90s are long gone. Welcome to the future!

Re:Well, here we go

[Martin Soto]

LinuxHater, is that you?

Re:Well, here we go

[AvitarX]

People are fighting K/G naming schemes; claiming it is stupid or childish.

Guess with of these are gnome and which are kde based on name:
GIMP
F-Spot
gThumb
Gwenview

Kde is fairly consistent with the K though, it just could be better. Gnome seams to be heading full steam away from the G.

Re:Well, here we go

[Tisha_AH]

Again, the point is completely missed. Using Google Apps, users can collaborate on works irrespective of the platform in use. (Windowz, OSX, Linux, phone or gaming platform)

Microsoft is going to roll an exclusively Windows solution for the Windows OS. If it bears any semblance to their previous efforts in collaborative groupware it will be irrelevant.

Re:Well, here we go

[Damnshock]

You should come and see by yourself to Spain. Buying any kind of software here is... well, nobody does that :S

Re:Well, here we go

[crenshawsgc]

I'm very happy for you. Perhaps you should be reassuring my coworkers whose Microsoft Windows XP machines are crashing every day or so instead of me. You're doing it wrong. Seriously, every time a flame war comes up between Windows and Linux, you get the guy who has 458 day uptime with his whatever.linux box but claims not to be able to keep a Windows box running for more than 20 minutes. Hi, my name is crenshawsgc, I'm a salesman by trade, and my Windows XP Pro machine has a 3 month uptime. If I can make it this long, surely you neato tech people can.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, and I just bought an AcerAspireOne with linux preloaded, off the shelf, from CanadaComputers on College Street in Toronto! :-)

http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=018911&cid=896.862

In fact, I'm posting right now, using it, in a Tim Hortons, of course! :-)

Re:Well, here we go

[Risen888]

You're right, but it doesn't really matter. Let me tell you why.

You say that "they don't want to put effort into relearning..." and you are correct, with regards to that scenario. But there are still more people who aren't familiar with computers than people who are. And I'm not even talking worldwide here, I mean here in America, especially in very rural areas and among the urban poor. Now, that's going to change really quick here, as hardware prices plummet, netbooks gain in popularity, and older P4-era machines are being put out to pasture by corporate America and resurfacing in all kinds of weird places where computers weren't very prevalent before.

Which means the time to really move is right about now, because in five years it'll be the same problem you describe all over again. Gotta get there first. I think it's more doable than folks realize.

Re:Well, here we go

[electrosoccertux]

So what that means, is my harddrive does more seeking for data on my linux partition than my ntfs partition? I don't buy it.
I've been told by a coworker, whose opinion on software is quite informed, that Linux does need defragging just like Windows. I haven't looked into it myself yet. Can anyone post more about this?

Re:Well, here we go

[davidphogan74]

I really haven't found a Linux distro that's ready for the desktop. Ubuntu, running on a common Dell Dimension, has a lot more trouble than Windows did with my VGA out to a 37" LCD. It can't run in full resolution, is letterboxed (on a widescreen TV), and this is the closest any Linux guru's I've asked can get me without buying a new video card.

Video playback is choppier, and most important for most home users: Most installers don't have a simple "Setup.exe" equivalent. You're stuck using a command line most of the time.

Yes, I'm just picking on Ubuntu because it's the only distro I've tried just throwing on a generic PC lately, and I know some of these problems have been solved in other distro's, but I haven't seen one that post-installation requires as little work as Vista did on a clean install on the same 3 year old hardware.

Re:Well, here we go

[techno-vampire]

No, it does less seeking, because it doesn't have to go from one part of the partition to another just to read the rest of the file. And, I've been told (but can't cite sources) that Linux keeps the read/write head halfway up the disk instead of at the edge so that the average seek time is lower. Check out the section on disk defragging on Why Linux is better for more details. Also, next time you're talking to that friend of yours, ask why, if Linux does need defragging, no distro includes a defragger. (I gather that some did at one point but dropped it because nobody ever needed it.)

Re:Well, here we go

[Risen888]

Well, you sure made yourself sound like an asshole, didn't you? Other folks have covered other parts of this, but I'll focus on...

Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel? So the manufacturers of devices have to wait till the kernel maintainer decides on his own sweet time when to integrate patches. AND THEN wait till picks them up downstream. Nice solution. Doesnt scale, buddy.

Linux supports more devices than any other operating system ever has. And once a driver is in the kernel, it's never going away. It's scaled well for fifteen years. Let's talk about something that doesn't scale well. Expecting every hardware vendor in the world to remain in business forever, and update their own drivers forever. Massive fail.

Re:Well, here we go

[davidphogan74]

It's the fact that the platform does crash and people are conditioned to it.

Vista has never crashed on my laptop since I installed it. Neither has Ubuntu on my media center box. Neither has XP on my home system (same install) in about 5 years. I replaced some bad RAM, it hasn't happened since.

People have bad hardware and software. It causes crashes. If more used Linux, they'd probably make it crash just as much.

What's your point?

Re:Well, here we go

[davidphogan74]

If Windows can be infected with viruses or malware within hours of installation, with almost no user input, that is an OS problem. Lame excuses not accepted.

XP can, and Vista can, yes. If I installed a 1.5 or 7 year old version of Linux you're telling me it wouldn't be able to be hacked? Or is it that MS has such a large installation base that hackers and worm writers target them, knowing it will infect more people?

Having just spent the last few hours rescuing a friend's computer when Microsoft had advised her to re-format and reinstall (which would have blown away her PhD thesis in the process) after a crash from which it wouldn't reboot, I think I'm in a good position to answer that. This lady was only running MS Word at the time, and last time I looked, that was MS code.

I'm sure she had nothing loaded from a third party, like drivers, or some shit she clicked on to whack-a-mole. Sure.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that's so easy I can't imagine why I hadn't tried it yet!

Re:Well, here we go

[BrokenHalo]

If I installed a 1.5 or 7 year old version of Linux you're telling me it wouldn't be able to be hacked?

Very unlikely. The Linux kernel devs don't just abandon earlier trees. The 2.4 tree, started in 2001, was last updated on the 7th September 2008.

I'm sure she had nothing loaded from a third party, like drivers, or some shit she clicked on to whack-a-mole. Sure.

You might be stupid enough to do that, but that doesn't mean she is. As for 3rd party drivers, no. The machine is generic enough not to need them.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

Not really. He was talking about editors losing data in a crash and that is absolutely unacceptable, no matter what.

The most vitriolic email I ever received while being the top XEmacs guy was in the period when we were still debugging and fixing the Mule stuffs and once in awhile we would write out corrupted autosave files.

Really, bleeding edge or no, there is absolutely no excuse for losing the user's data in an editor. This is part of the reason why I despise this Ajax crap. Why am I not editing this message in something reliable like XEmacs as versus a text box in Opera? (Google gets it, kinda sorta. At least in gmail your message gets autosaved periodically).

Re:Well, here we go

[rhsanborn]

Acknowledged, but I wonder if there is a question of who will be training/helping these people. i.e. people who traditionally use Windows. And not necessarily at a community computer lab or library, but family/friends who try to help from their experience at work or school. And when they get these machines are they going to be frustrated because they don't have that "Start Menu" thing that the program they downloaded off the internet told them they need to click.

I think this requires more than just a clean UI and broad range of available programs. There needs to be easy to get information for non-technical users about the difference between a linux computer and a windows computer, and likely there needs to be an acknowledgment from distributors of software that their application does/doesn't work on Linux/Windows/Mac etc.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

What's your point?

Your experiences are the exception, not the rule.

Let me put it another way. When I wrote the "only crashes 1 to 2 times per week" comment to the internal corporate group, it was deliberate flame bait, as my own experiences (I played the Microsoft Windows XP appreciation game for about 8 months) indicated that it needed rebooting maybe once every week or two. Of course, I was never doing any real work on it, nor was I using the "enterprise" crapware everyone else in the group is being forced to use. I was rather surprised that folks thought I was being generous.

Microsoft Windows, even XP, has a very bad reputation (for stability) in general and XP (at SP2 or SP3) only has a "good" reputation when you compare it to previous versions of Microsoft Windows. Recall also, that Microsoft Windows XP and XP/SP1 are still being used and comprise the overwhelming majority of zombies in botnets (that article was posted here some time ago).

Microsoft Vista is about the same. We had 'turfers here proclaiming it to be the best O/S Microsoft had ever put out. The same 'turfers (or people who sounded exactly the same) were saying after Vista/SP1, "of course Vista was crap and crashed a lot, but SP1 fixed all the issues". I expect to hear the same sort of thing when Microsoft Vista/SP2 is released.

At any rate, you are arguing with the wrong person. I am a Unix guy. I have been with Unix and Unix-derived systems at school, home and work for almost 3 decades now. I am most pleased with how my platform has progressed over the years. I am also pleased with KDE 3 as a GUI, when KDE 4 (which was released a bit early in distros like Fedora 9) grows up, I'll learn to like that as well.

(Oh and judging from the comments from the hardest core 'turfers, Microsoft Windows XP/SP2 has approximately the same stability as Unix System V/R2 had in the mid 1980's. Some day, you'll catch up ...)

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

You're doing it wrong.

Eh?

I'm a salesman by trade, and my Windows XP Pro machine has a 3 month uptime.

I'm very happy for you. My Unix System V/R[12] hybrid box at home had that kind of uptime in 1985.

I would go outside into the parking lot and shoot off fireworks and burn all my Fedora CDs in a big bonfire, except that it's fire season in California and I'd probably get arrested, so I won't. But hey, good job, man!

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

What, exactly, are you talking about? When I ran IE6 I never had malware install itself. Most malware results from people explicitly installing stuff. The same thing could happen with Firefox.

Well, back when I still ran Windows XP (even fully patched) I ran into at least two instances when I was surfing using IE 6 and got random malware on my computer, one made popups happen all the time, and the other it put explicit icons on my desktop. In neither case did I have pre-existing malware, (confirmed by doing a virus check on the most recent backup which I restored to), nor did I run any binary by user interaction (such as clicking on a file).

Re:Well, here we go

[Risen888]

Agreed. Education is a must-have, and it's where the battle will be won or lost. Microsoft's damn smart to put so much investment into it. You are also right in splitting that up into two broad areas, technical (stuff like the UI, the available documentation, et cetera) and social (Joe next door who "knows computers").

On the technical side, there's a lot of great, inspired work going on out there, from wiki.ubuntu.com to the Gnome Documentation Project and on and on. The challenge here lies in making sure users can access that wealth of knowledge without necessarily knowing beforehand how to find it. Little things like a well laid out "front page" of the Help system or the "Ubuntu and Free Software Links" menu in the Firefox bookmarks are huge here, and we need more stuff like that. The documentation is out there, we just need to hook the users up to it. To add to the challenge, users that are coming from a Windows background are accustomed to thinking that the internal help is always worthless, and that's a fallacy in free software. Lots of people just aren't going to click on help because they don't think it will help. When I set up systems for people, I make a huge icon for help in the middle of the desktop and verbally hammer home the point that they are to use that thing if they get stuck.

On the social side we face a much bigger challenge, and there aren't as many "magic bullet" answers. It's just gonna take hard, hard, hard work, and it's gonna people making it a priority, and it's gonna take years. But it can be done.

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

That's a vague anecdote and could have been caused by any number of things. IE6 doesn't allow malware by design, which seemed to be the gist of your post. Surely there have been bugs and security flaws, but even Firefox has had those. Firefox is no more secure than IE.

Re:Well, here we go

[EastCoastSurfer]

1. Enterprise space - along with whatever mission critical application you care to name that isn't available on Linux

The enterprise space is actually one of the places where linux is strong. It's one thing to save $100 on a windows license, it's another to save $1000s on windows licenses and other licenses when using the MS software stack.

OS X but there are many (perhaps most) LARGE 'artistic' groups in advertising and publishing

I don't know of the current stats, but macs have typically dominated these groups in the past. Until the whole switcher thing started in masse, the main users of macs were the artistic types.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox is no more secure than IE.

[citation needed]

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

"If Windows can be infected with viruses or malware within hours of installation, with almost no user input, that is an OS problem." - by BrokenHalo (565198) on Saturday October 18, @02:14AM (#25422353)

OK:

Let me ask YOU a question:

Does Linux & other *NIX based OS have webbrowsers, email, & even Adobe products running on them? Do they have a DOM model?? Does Javascript, IFrames, & plugins run on (some or all of) those programs/tools???

(After all, the past 1-4 yrs. now, the attacks you see reported on (as well as security vulnerabilities out there today) happen via those mechanisms, from bad code on websites, injected or intentional, & all the way into adbanners even lately!)

My point?

They can hit ANY OS platform out there today, via those mechanisms (webbrowsers, email, & Adobe .pdf files even, while using javascript (& iframes + plugins as well))

If so - are you trying to tell us that LINUX (or, really ANY *NIX) is "invulnerable" to said malware-based/malscripted attacks & that Linux has NO viruses????

So - you probably are going to try to say "there are no viruses for LINUX" next... &, so sorry, but I am going to disappoint you on that regard, if you believe so (which is the typical *NIX "F.U.D." you see get spread around here on /. especially!)

See this:

A RESPECTED WEBSITE (AS REGARDS LINUX VIRUSES), in SECURITYFOCUS.COM, & their statements on this issue:

http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/188

SALIENT QUOTE:

"There are about 60,000 viruses known for Windows, 40 or so for the Macintosh, about 5 for commercial Unix versions, and perhaps 40 for Linux"

(Hell, IF I were to guess who is writing up most of these attacks for Windows????? I'd say *NIX users in fact, & mainly because of the type of "anti-microsoft/anti-Windows" sentiment & FUD spreading I see here around /., for instance!)

----

"Lame excuses not accepted." - by BrokenHalo (565198) on Saturday October 18, @02:14AM (#25422353)

To put it bluntly?

You're FULL of it!

( & the proof's right there + will be moreso, once you answer my initial question, especially)...

----

Want to try to tell us that LINUX is "invulnerable" next (or that it has no security vulnerabilies, or never has, next? Go for it!)

Take a read of THIS, first though, below next!

Red Hat, Fedora Servers Compromised:

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/22/1341247

APK

P.S.=> The ONLY reason Windows IS so attacked (& probably by stupid botmasters who control botnets from *NIX based rigs, most likely Linux no doubt), IS because it is the MOST USED OS THERE IS!

(95% of the world's machines run it (how many are on Linux for example by way of comparison? Not many, device driver support is inferior, as well as the software available (of which *NIX has far less of no less)))

Thus, botmasters & their like attack it - "biggest bang for the buck/most wide surface attack area possible" is in windows & its userbase (from home end users, to departmental LAN end point workstation nodes, up thru departmental servers, & into the "mission-critical/enterprise class" Server range of OS use), w/ mostly "end users" types using Windows... &, I strongly suspect that MOST of the 'attackers' of Windows machine, are again, *NIX users as well (just speculation though, but it makes some sense what w/ all the "anti-MS" crap I see going on @ this very website, for instance, almost daily... too bad much of it is FUD spreading garbage though!)

(I.E.-> Windows users usually are just plain-folks who are not computer security experts in other words, where on a 'geek OS' like *NIX & its vari

Re:Well, here we go

[nsheppar]

downloaded != pirated

Open source software is free to download and not pirated.

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

That's a vague anecdote and could have been caused by any number of things.

Such as? I had the Windows firewall running, I have a firewall built into my router, I was running no other programs, Windows was kept up-to-date with patches, etc. So what else could it be? That the magical virus faerie came onto my computer and ran some .exe files?

Re:Well, here we go

[The Bungi]

Packages

The package system is impressive (and one of the few things that Linux didn't just jack from Unix), but the current model where the repositories are controlled by a single entity is never going to work once Linux hits the mainstream. And I think it will be a huge vector for compromising machines when Joe Windows gets an email with instructions on how to add a URL using the Yum UI... once you entered the root password, it'll be game over. However, the system will be a great advantage at the corporate level (not that corporations don't already have something like that for their desktop Windows, but still). None of that detracts from the technical value of the package model, though.

$SHELL shell

That was absolutely true. No question about it. Until Powershell.

UI consistency

That's true... except that it assumes you are using the K* or G* versions of apps for everything, which in my experience is hardly ever the case. And all those companies that start writing cook software for Linux are going to have a hard time figuring out whether to use Qt or GTK to write them. I've never thought this was an advantage, honestly. Besides, the UI consistency that really matters are ultimately major UI locations and metaphors, and window decorations. Those are not KDE or GNOME-specific.

Since you're a developer I was hoping for some more developer-specific things. COM+/IIS/MSMQ for example. Unified shell. Namespaces. Common UI widget model. Locking primitives. Threading. Profiling. The service control manager. Network pipes. ACLs. ActiveDirectory. The sort of thing where (IMO) Windows blows Linux out of the water. And areas where Windows tends to suck, areas where Linux is superior, of course (IPC is a *huge* advantage in Linux and it's so easy, or the level of control over how the kernel works, etc), and things about Linux that also suck. There are enough of all those.

The GPs point that Linux is "light years ahead" of Windows is, frankly, bullshit. It's easy to throw that into a post because it will play well with the peanut gallery. Quite another to actually defend it.

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

You could have installed something without remembering. You say you ran a virus check after restoration. Did you do a check before restoring to see what got you? Did you search the net to see what it was? Without details like that, your anecdote is meaningless when it comes to your assertion about the security of IE6.

There are, however, plenty of documented cases of malware on the net. Could you link to one that shows a fundamental design flaw of IE6 that isn't in Firefox, one that lets you "install all kinds of random crap that messes with settings and toolbars without prompts"?

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

You could have installed something without remembering. You say you ran a virus check after restoration. Did you do a check before restoring to see what got you? Did you search the net to see what it was? Without details like that, your anecdote is meaningless when it comes to your assertion about the security of IE6.

Back then I only had like 5 programs on my computer. So, yes, I would have remembered if I had installed something. And yes, I checked before restoring and it was some random generic malware thing, I don't remember the name of it anymore.

There are, however, plenty of documented cases of malware on the net. Could you link to one that shows a fundamental design flaw of IE6 that isn't in Firefox, one that lets you "install all kinds of random crap that messes with settings and toolbars without prompts"?

Well, even though this didn't really cause mine, it is a one-click stop to malware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActiveX .

The other is more obvious which is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software which means that the critical vulnerabilities of IE don't get patched until MS decides to.

And while this isn't 100% IE related, remember the Safari carpetbombing attack? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2092 , it wasn't Apple's part that caused the flaw of automatically executing the files, it was MS's fault (yes Safari shares part of the blame)

Re:Well, here we go

[A12m0v]

The computer is an appliance and they want it to just work

then they shouldn't be using Windows

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

"Try s/hours/seconds/. Happened to me. I can't tell you how much I hated everything MS at that point." - by jonaskoelker (922170) on Saturday October 18, @10:41AM (#25423837) Homepage

Apply what is noted in the URL below?

It WON'T happen again (as long as you can obey some simple rules & adhere to them) via using a simple security auditing tool + some points that layer ontop of its advisements:

HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, & even VISTA, + make it "fun-to-do", via CIS Tool Guidance (& beyond):

http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=ad237c5fce1ee1aed169f7eac9f189f0&showtopic=2662

It really works, & if you do NOT know this stuff (which per your statement, you evidently do NOT) Take a read, so it does not happen to you again.

APK

P.S.=> By the by - CIS Tool & other points in that guide, such as how to use a HOSTS file for BOTH added speed & security online, are NOT RESIRICTED TO JUST WINDOWS (evidence thereof is in the very 1st post there, from a member here named Bert64, on SuSE Linux, an SeLinux bearing distro (which he had to do work using that no less to get a far better score than the default mind you, which is the SAME on Windows as it is on Linux (46/100 ranges, & then BOTH scored into the 90++/100 ranges afterwards)))...

I.E.-> Neither Windows, nor Linux (OR, other *NIX variants either) are absolutely as "secure as can be" outta the box/oem stock! apk

Re:Well, here we go

[ConceptJunkie]

You're right. If what Windows 7 is supposed to be were possible from Microsoft we would already have it. They started with a fundamentally good system with XP took five years and came up with a train-wreck that adds nothing useful but requires 5 times the hardware to run. Does anything things in only two years they can turn that mess into something people would want.

Microsoft is done. They are irrelevant as a source of anything new. They will remain for many years by sheer dint of the tens of billions of dollars and a group of sons-of-bitches at the top with no morals or scruples, but they will never be relevant again in terms of technology, only in terms of the damage they can cause. We have entered the phase were Microsoft's sole raison d'etre is the damage the rest of the industry as much as possible in order to keep their pathetic state-of-the-art. Much like the socialist government the U.S. is about to elect, they will maintain the status quo by dragging everyone down to the same level.

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

Well, even though this didn't really cause mine, it is a one-click stop to malware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActiveX .

I don't run IE6 anymore, but as I remember it ActiveX required permission to install something capable of malware. Firefox is extensible and lets you install malware capable software too.

As to what actually happened in your situation, if you didn't install something, then you probably got your malware from a new bug that wasn't patched or you hadn't patched yet.

The other is more obvious which is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software which means that the critical vulnerabilities of IE don't get patched until MS decides to.

Microsoft has been responsive when it comes to fixing security holes.

In conclusion, IE6 didn't let you install malware by design, and Firefox essentially shares the same design. Both browsers have had security bugs. Both let you install malware. The problem with the IE/Firefox security mythology is that it fools users into thinking Firefox is somehow magically secure. It isn't, and users need to stay patched and be security conscious.

Re:Well, here we go

[emailandthings]

hence why Linux wont get a chance...

Re:Well, here we go

[davidphogan74]

Very unlikely. The Linux kernel devs don't just abandon earlier trees. The 2.4 tree, started in 2001, was last updated on the 7th September 2008.

XP is still updated as well, so why do people install old versions and blame the vendor for their mistake?

You might be stupid enough to do that, but that doesn't mean she is. As for 3rd party drivers, no. The machine is generic enough not to need them.

She might want to get decent hardware then. I don't believe you that XP/Vista and Office 2003/2007 spontaneously crashed a system to that point without outside help.

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

When I used XP it was rock solid. These days I use Linux, and no problems crashing, but it leaks memory. I also cringe every time I update, because every 6 months or so there's a critical bug in some app I need. I'm running Debian "testing".

Re:Well, here we go

[davidphogan74]

At any rate, you are arguing with the wrong person. I am a Unix guy.

That I can tell, as well as I assumed you must be spouting flame bait with your claim that XP crashes 1 to 2 times a week.

I'm not an MS fan-boy. It you didn't notice in my previous post, I have Ubuntu running on one system, and I appreciate that Linux & BSD have their place. They are great systems, to a point. My point is that the user is the cause of most crashes.

If you moved half the Windows installation base to Linux overnight you'd probably see Linux facing the same complaints Windows does. You'd see a lot more viruses and malware happening, as well as the same crappy hardware causing crashes. Or do you believe Linux is immune to bad memory?

Linux right now is used almost exclusively used by nerds. If XP had the same user base, instead of every high school student, grandma, and hockey mom it would likely not have a reputation for crashing.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about "never". This sounds suspiciously close to being an anti-defrag apologist. (Don't feel bad. I used to be one, too. :-)

Ext4 is adding support for online defragging, and an 'e4defrag' program to do just this. Redhat claims performance gains of 25% for a single 1GB file, and 29% for accessing all files in the Linux source.

I suppose I don't technically *need* that, but if my hard drives can get a 25% speed boost for a kernel upgrade, I'll sure take it.

Couldn't this be a case where *both* sides are partially right? Microsoft filesystems could be better designed. Linux filesystems could use a defragger. I'm certainly not too proud to admit defragging is a good idea!

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Office 2007 completely demolishes your argument.

Re:Well, here we go

[Darkness404]

I don't run IE6 anymore, but as I remember it ActiveX required permission to install something capable of malware. Firefox is extensible and lets you install malware capable software too.

Yes, but A) The active X thing only required a single click B) It was hard to determine what was legitimately needed and what wasn't C) Active X could basically screw with the entire OS. The worst thing that Firefox might do is totally trash Firefox. Nothing more, nothing less. Back in the days of IE 6, IE == Windows Explorer which in essence meant that the entire operating system was toast if IE got infected. Compare that with Firefox where you only need to uninstall it, and remove the Windows equivalent to the .mozilla directory and be malware free. Also, by default, Firefox will only download adons from Mozilla's domains, IE lets you install Active X from wherever.

Microsoft has been responsive when it comes to fixing security holes.

You're joking right? There are still bugs in IE that have been there for years, compare that to Firefox which has very quick releases that fix most bugs.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

These days I use Linux, and no problems crashing, but it leaks memory. ... I'm running Debian "testing".

Suggest you run Debian stable. It's the kind of distro I was referring to when I used the qualification "production".

Re:Well, here we go

[techno-vampire]

Couldn't this be a case where *both* sides are partially right? Microsoft filesystems could be better designed. Linux filesystems could use a defragger. I'm certainly not too proud to admit defragging is a good idea!

There actually are defraggers for Linux, I'm told, but it's rare to need one. And, because they shove everything down to one end of the drive, they spoil the advantage in seek time that comes from keeping the heads halfway up. I've seen it claimed that it's better to back everything up, reformat and restore so that you end up with everything well spread out again but I'd not argue the point.

And, while I'm thinking about it, it's not that the Microsoft filesystems are badly designed, it's that Windows is programmed to put files one right after the other so that there's no room for growth and files quickly fragment. Microsoft doesn't need to rework NTFS, they need to rework their file location algorithm.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

If you moved half the Windows installation base to Linux overnight you'd probably see Linux facing the same complaints Windows does. You'd see a lot more viruses and malware happening, as well as the same crappy hardware causing crashes.

My mother was able to browse the web and do email with Linux in 1999 (I left her one of my Linux boxes when I went to Japan that year). The autoexecute stuff coming across the wire is of uniquely Microsoft origins. The computing community had already decided that was a Very Bad Idea.

Or do you believe Linux is immune to bad memory?

I know it isn't. I recall vividly the "signal 11" FAQ. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1996/04/msg00210.html Earlier in the same year, Linus personally helped me debug a system with a Cyrix CPU that ultimately proved to have a bad L1 cache chip.

The BSDs of the time (mid 1990s) were even more sensitive to bad RAM. On the basis of the machine that had a bad L1 cache chip (it always crashed quickly in BSD, but did not crash in Linux 1.2), the company I was working for decided to use Linux instead of BSD (my original recommendation) in its migration away from SCO Unix.

Linux right now is used almost exclusively used by nerds. If XP had the same user base, instead of every high school student, grandma, and hockey mom it would likely not have a reputation for crashing.

It does have a reputation of crashing with the people I work with, all of whom could be described by the pejorative "nerd". I dispute that assertion. And just to be clear, I am referring to Microsoft Windows XP/SP2, enterprise license.

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

Running stable wouldn't help with my leaking memory, since it's been leaking since Etch was testing and that has become stable. Besides that, stable runs too far behind for desktop use.

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

A) The active X thing only required a single click

How many clicks does a Firefox plugin or extension require?

B) It was hard to determine what was legitimately needed and what wasn't

How can a Firefox user determine this? Any web page can provide a malware link and say "you need to install CoolViewer to view the dancing monkey".

C) Active X could basically screw with the entire OS. The worst thing that Firefox might do is totally trash Firefox. Nothing more,

It can do anything the account it's running under has permission to do. That includes wiping out all your personal files, running as part of a botnet, and spying on your online banking.

Anyways, we've gotten off the main point: IE6 did not silently allow the installation of toolbars or other malware. This is what I replied to, and the least you can do is acknowledge that you were wrong.

You're joking right? There are still bugs in IE that have been there for years, compare that to Firefox which has very quick releases that fix most bugs.

What security holes have been left in IE for years? Every time I heard about some security bug in IE it was patched shortly as a hotfix.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

Running stable wouldn't help with my leaking memory, since it's been leaking since Etch was testing and that has become stable.

Have you reported the problem? Memory leakage tends to be one of the easiest bugs to fix.

My personal experience with the Debian guys tends to be that they take kind of a proactive stance on changing things they want to "fix" without consulting upstream. So, if they had a proper bug report, they would have fixed it with or without the hands of the actual maintainer involved.

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

Have you reported the problem? Memory leakage tends to be one of the easiest bugs to fix.

No, I've been lazy. It's one of those things I've been meaning to get to. I know, it's a bit hypocritical to complain about free software if I don't take the time to report the issue, but then again a comparison was being made with the quality of paid for software.

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

Have you reported the problem? Memory leakage tends to be one of the easiest bugs to fix.

No, I've been lazy.

We are not going to tend to fix unreported bugs, especially ones triggered by conditions that we do not experience.

We do not provide an SLA, but unreported bugs are the most likely to never get looked at or worked on.

I know, it's a bit hypocritical to complain about free software if I don't take the time to report the issue

No, it's a lot hypocritical. Especially in the case of something appearing in a Debian stable release.

You are not being fair at all.

Whatever my personal feeling towards the Debian guys are, if you report the bug to them and work with them, it will get fixed.

Disclaimer: I work for a very big company doing internal support for their bug tracking system.

Re:Well, here we go

[Phil Urich]

If that ever became a problem, one could just have multiple repositories; after all, that's what they did for the Adobe software that ships with the Aspire One (it's a separate repo), and hey, Ubuntu already has things separated into categories (main, universe, multiverse, partner, backports...) so it'd hardly be much of a change if push came to shove. And hey, who pays for all the massive bandwidth for Microsoft updates or the massive paper-and-plastic use of physical software? ;)

Re:Well, here we go

[Raenex]

You are not being fair at all.

Is that so? Does Joe Blow user, when being told how awful Windows is, and how wonderful Linux is, want to know about problems that he'll run into, or not? Does the average Joe Blow user know how to diagnose and report a memory problem to Debian?

I do, but I'm not an average user, but even for me it takes time and so far I've been willing to reboot every so often instead of tracking it down. I have reported bugs in the past, and I have also tracked down bugs only to find that they've already been reported, and have been stuck in unstable or not addressed.

Re:Well, here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I'm not going to mod this down, but please don't post like that again.

First, use the quote tag correctly.

Secondly, "You're doing it wrong" is generally an asshole thing to say to someone. It's best used in a funny/ironic sense, or when you're really really really sure of your position.

Third, you are way off in what you are saying. Any current version of Windows will require restarting after major updates. Generally Linux machines do not have this issue, especially when we start looking at mainframes/enterprise servers. The most reliable computers, as a rule of thumb, run some form of unix and run for decades without a hitch.

Fourth, you are piling wood on the flame war by adding an incendiary unsupported anecdote. Consider next time pulling up some evidence to support your claim---people do keep track of uptime statistics, especially people who run large servers.

Fifth, we know who you are (if we care to), it's right at the top of your post, and you actually don't need to state your credentials. This might be termed a meritocracy; it rarely matters who is saying what, it matters much more the tone and quality of what they write. Many people here cannot actually tell the difference between facts and bullshit that sounds good (as a salesman, you may already know that :) ) so if you write well, you're likely to be modded up no matter what you say.

Sixth, the slashdot community responds as most individuals do: well to praise and poorly to criticism. There's no need to be hostile or sarcastic to us, and it's a poor way to gain respect.

Lastly, welcome to slashdot. I know it may be a funny thing to say after all this criticism, but few enough people get the chance to hear either the criticism or the welcome; most come as you do, get modded down into oblivion, and go away thinking we're a bunch of elitist pricks. But we the collective are always looking for new people who want to be an elitist prick!

I kid, I kid. But seriously, welcome. I hope that you'll stay awhile, and have a long and glorious career here, exchanging barbs and witticisms, participating in erudite debate, learning about fascinating new technology, and reusing our stupid in-jokes over and over and over again. I'll keep an eye out for you, as I'm moderating, and will not hesitate in the future to mod you up or down as you deserve. I really do hope that you become part of the community here. See you around...

Re:Well, here we go

[the_B0fh]

Yet another fucking moron repeating crap. Find out why kde4 was released, and go read the part where it says "don't use it, not for end users" ya?

Re:Well, here we go

[the_B0fh]

Unfortunately you can't buy a winnt kernel only option - it always comes bundled with the win32 subsystem.

OK, it may be possible to split it out under the embedded versions of windows, but how many people actually get to use those versions?

Re:Well, here we go

[ConceptJunkie]

Troll?! Troll?! But I didn't even make any disparaging remarks about Steve Ballmer's species or Bill Gates' concave chest! If I'm gonna get modded troll I want to really be trolling!

Re:Well, here we go

[ergean]

Thanks! Good link. :)

This is why I read slashdot from time to time there is a gem, there is allot of digging and some time is worth it. :)

Re:Well, here we go

[QuietObserver]

Regardless, I've never seen gedit crash, not that I use it particularly often, though it does get used on occasion; I'm not a programmer and I prefer a Word Processor for any serious writing (I use WordPerfect).

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

I prefer a Word Processor for any serious writing (I use WordPerfect).

Let me take a wild guess at the amount of work you have lost to crashes in WordPerfect over the years ... 0 (or a reasonable approximation thereof)?

(Just by saying you prefer WordPerfect suggests to me that its gratuitous data lossage is nil).

Re:Well, here we go

[QuietObserver]

I've had WordPerfect crash, and I've lost information because of it, even several hundred pages once (though I think that may have been, in part, XPs fault; the version of WordPerfect I'm using is the 2000 version and XP doesn't seem to get along very well with it). None of what I lost was all that important, though, so, though I was disappointed at the time, I wasn't too unhappy.

The most important reason I use WordPerfect, however is that it's feature rich unlike any other word processor I've ever used; I can do dozens of things easily without much hassle, including multiple things that no other word processor is capable of (such as change the format of the entire document simply by putting the cursor at the top and applying changes, no selection necessary), and the editing features (the biggest is Reveal Codes) make document composition easy and efficient.

I really wish Corel would stop pandering to Microsoft and make a real Linux or Mac OS version, or sell it to someone who would turn it back into a top contender for Word (the only reason WordPerfect fell behind Word in the first place was the first Windows port (after Novell bought the product, if I remember right) was absolutely atrocious).

Re:Well, here we go

[SL Baur]

I've had WordPerfect crash, and I've lost information because of it, even several hundred pages once

OMFG!

Re:Well, here we go

[QuietObserver]

As I said, those several hundred pages weren't really worth anything. Easily replaced with something far better.

Re:Well, here we go

[BrokenHalo]

She might want to get decent hardware then. I don't believe you that XP/Vista and Office 2003/2007 spontaneously crashed a system to that point without outside help.

...Which brings us right back to the point I was making in the first place. There is nothing more lame than a my-word-versus-yours argument.

Re:Well, here we go

[CodeBuster]

Another stumbling block to wider Linux adoption is the excellent support that Microsoft gives to developers on its platform with Visual Studio and all of the Microsoft Developer Network resources (extensive documentation, excellent articles, expert commentary, etc...). In fact, I would bet that Visual Studio and the development tools make up the smallest market, in terms of sales volume, in which Microsoft is directly involved. If it were not for .NET Microsoft would have already lost and they know that which is why they continue to put so many resources into developer support, even though Visual Studio makes no money directly (it probably looses money actually), (think developers, developers, developers, deve....) because they know that as the developers go with platform support the regular users will follow. If the Linux community really wants to gain ground on Windows then they have to start competing more effectively against Microsoft in the developer tools and support markets (and Eclipse is not as good as Visual Studio, but it could be better and compete better if the OSS community was serious about competing with Visual Studio instead of trying to convert everyone to eMacs or VIM with gcc on the command line) which is a source of strength for Microsoft and the Windows platform.

Version 6.1

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I gather, 7 is basically a remixed version of Vista, somewhat similar to XP being a remixed version of 2K. When are they going to rebuild the damn thing?

Re:Version 6.1

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget that! Vista was a rehash of XP. MS isn't a one-trick pony, but damn they like to play the part.

Google Apps is pretty useful

[yppiz]

I started a company last year, and I could have chosen to either: a) set up a Windows Server and buy multiple Office licenses, or b) sign up for Google Docs.

Docs has worked out really well for us.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Darkness404]

Or, set up a Linux server and use OOo and configure it to do a few backups or set up a RAID.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Anpheus]

Your solution is the most complicated to implement, even if it's the least expensive.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Firehed]

Google Apps has the MAJOR advantage of having live document collaboration, which AFAIK isn't even close to available in MS Office or OpenOffice.org. For some people/companies this doesn't matter at all, but for others it'll make it the obvious choice. You can think of it like the collaborative features offered by Sharepoint and the like, but implemented in a way that is actually usable.

On the flip side, you're going to need a lot of love from Gears if a hosted solution scares you. While Docs is fine for what I do most of the time (and the rest of the time I really need more of a layout tool, like Apple's Pages), I envision them seeing a lot more adoption if there were a desktop app that synced up with the cloud (whether Google's, or your own internal setup which could be as simple as a network share). And of course, pretty much anything that's not MS Office tends to have compatibility issues with the MS Office-using rest of the world, whether you like it or not. You can whine all you want about the lack of truly open standards for document exchange (besides plain text) and I'd agree with you all day long, but that doesn't fix the problem.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[zmjjmz]

Or just install OpenGoo on a Linux server and have everyone work from there. This way you own the documents you upload.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[mrsteveman1]

I don't want goo on my server, i keep my porn elsewhere for a reason.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Bazouel]

Exactly. Same here :) It's not just university students that do it, as the article implies.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[stephanruby]

Or just install OpenGoo on a Linux server and have everyone work from there. This way you own the documents you upload.

What do you mean by saying "you own the documents you upload"? Are you talking about legal ownership or physical ownership?

There is nothing in the ToS of Google Apps that implies you don't own your own documents. And also, if you want physical local ownership, all of you have to do is enable Google Gears, and that will maintain local copies of your documents on your desktop/laptop -- so that you can keep on working completely disconnected from the internet -- should you ever need to.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Anonymous Coward]

You can whine all you want about the lack of truly open standards for document exchange (besides plain text) and I'd agree with you all day long, but that doesn't fix the problem.

No, but moving away from MS Office does.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Frosty Piss]

Your solution is the most complicated to implement, even if it's the least expensive.

Maybe so, but honestly, Google Apps are not a particularly satisfying solution. Open Office is much much more suitable. Gmail maybe, but spreadsheets, word processing, and presentations? Google Apps just don't cut it.

In my opinion...

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[SL Baur]

Your solution is the most complicated to implement, even if it's the least expensive.

Perhaps, but how much are your company's documents worth to you?

I also would argue that Darkness404's idea would be the safest, regardless of cost.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Daengbo]

Do you have geographically diverse employees? I'm really interested in your experience because I've proposed moving to Google Apps for a certain set of contractors in my area which work at a couple hundred different locations. Please read the full background in my journal. I need opinions and hurdles I'm likely to hit.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[Lemmy Caution]

Google Docs is useful as a collaborative text editor. Almost everything else about it - particularly formatting - gets broken much too often. I've been trying, earnestly, to use it for academic writing, and the results have been ridiculous: as in, depending on what browser I use, wordwrap may not work; internal links don't work; fonts change from time to time, etc.

Ballmer is correct in noting (which, since noone RTFA, I should note contradicts the badly written summary) that Google Apps is not something that is worrying them: Open Office is. I would love Google Docs to step up, but it definitely has not, and seems to be trapped in the Google perpetual beta limbo.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[yppiz]

You're right, we could set up a Linux server for this. The main savings is not Windows vs Linux, it's not having to set up an internal server for document sharing. Our time and effort can instead go into our external servers.

A larger company, with more tolerance for overhead, might reasonably make a different choice.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[remmelt]

Can we stop calling it the cloud? Somehow, that makes me all itchy.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[TheRaven64]

Did you buy an appliance from Google, or are you using their servers? If it's the latter, how do you handle backups? Security auditing? Compliance with data protection laws?

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[danudwary]

I've been using Google Docs for academic collaboration too. Formatting is an issue, but probably something that can easily be improved. Of course, you shouldn't waste time formatting until the doc is done anyway. More pressing, since it doesn't interface with anything like Endnote, I tend to just get everybody to get the text in there and edited, then, when it's 99% complete, open it up in Word or OO, and do my formatting and references in an afternoon.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[yppiz]

I trust Google to run their service well. You may not trust them as much as I do, and I understand that. Really, I turned from skeptic to believer after using gmail for a few years with no problems. Google knows how to run servers, and they've earned my trust.

For my situation, Google Docs works well, and lets me spend more time on building things for customers.

You may of course be comfortable with something else, and that's fine.

Re:Google Apps is pretty useful

[TheRaven64]

Okay, so you've answered my question about backups - you don't do them. Fine, presumably you've looked at the value of your data and the probability of Google losing it and decided that backing up would be more expensive. Now, what about security auditing and compliance with data protection laws? It's not just your data you're storing there, it's your customer's data and they have either moral or legal rights over it, depending on your jurisdiction.

Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . but trusting one's data to the "cloud" is just plain foolhardy. I'll keep local applications and local control, thankyouverymuch.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[Darkness404]

The thing about the cloud is, it has more uptime than the average user can ever hope to have. For example, the average user makes no backups except perhaps on a yearly basis, even if one of Google's servers literally caught on fire, most of the data could easily be recovered. The average person doesn't have a RAID, so when one disk crashes the entire system crashes, and they don't have backups. Yes, for us geeks and our 1 TB external HDs, local fileservers, 8 GB flash drives and rsync we might be able to have marginally better uptime than the cloud, but honestly, the normal user is going to have better reliability with the cloud.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[rtb61]

Unless of course the network goes down, then zero access. It happens all the time, a ship drops and anchor in the wrong spot, somebody somewhere in the routing path configures the hardware wrong, power brownouts anywhere in that route and of course it is only in beta and the warranties are completely and absolutely less than worthless. Cloud computing is really all about data being distributed everywhere and not being locked into a limited number of locations where you have to pay rent to access it. Let's just call a spade a spade, rented access to your own data, ain't cloud computing it is greed computing.

The future in computer software is FOSS and service and support. So yes the typical end user can not really set and up maintain a stable, secure and reliable system and that is why they pay for service and support, when they do need high reliability and uptime and for the majority of businesses in certainly is cheap enough to achieve, they just need reliable access to people who can provide it for them.

As for the end user, easy simple access to most of their stuff, whether they are connected to the net or not is the most important, computers are not their life, they are just a means by which they can share photos, send a letter, browse the net, play a few games and maybe do a bit of shopping and bill paying.

The cloud computing that ballmer et all keep waffling on about only exists because it is the only model they can envisage where they can maintain inflated profit margins, the service and support and fully distributed computing is a much more competitive, high performance and low profit margin market. The performance aspect, is all about companies providing services must be seen to perform, must continually demonstrate high skill and reliability and any failures will soon be reported through their potential and existing client base. This is where M$ is most behind the eight ball, with a reputation for poor service and support, lying to customers, ignoring and denying customer feedback and, routinely distributing unreliable and faulty products.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[Firehed]

It's not just about uptime though. While I'll usually make the same arguments for the cloud, if something knocks out my internet connection I'm screwed regardless of whether it's available to everyone else or not. Yes, your data is on the whole a lot safer (at least with a company like Google that's not going away any time soon) in 99% of the cases, but the idea still scares a lot of companies.

When Google implements something where you can configure the Apps For Your Domain content to sync down to a server you're physically in control of, it will scare businesses and nervous geeks a LOT less. When they make some sort of OpenOffice plugin (where you log in to your google/apps for your domain account) or a Google Docs desktop suite as step 2, Ballmer will shit himself. When they make it have complete computability with MS Office documents, MS Office will die, and die VERY quickly.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[jamesh]

Most of the time the problem is not 'the cloud' itself, but reachability. The cloud can have all the 9's it wants, but (at least for some parts of the world) the sort of SLA's with enough 9's to match the uptime of the cloud cost more $$$ than hosting the solution on site.

And no matter what SLA's you have with your ISP, a backhoe operator can take you out for hours, or even days. You can back it up with wireless for email and stuff but I don't believe that wireless can cope with the sort of bandwidth requirements of a hosted solution like Google Apps, especially if said backhoe operator takes out all internet access in a local area, and _everyone_ switches over to their wireless backup.

Still... at least you can leave the office for the day and go bowling :)

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[multisync]

trusting one's data to the "cloud" is just plain foolhardy

Not to troll, but is it more so than trusting your data to proprietary software?

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[at_slashdot]

"Unless of course the network goes down, then zero access."

That's why there's such thing as Gears: http://gears.google.com/

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[ppanon]

When Gears support 64-bit Linux, I may give it a shot. Until then...

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[houghi]

If there only would be a third option.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[RiotingPacifist]

whats wrong with this ? It runs on 64bit linux and office applications do not need 64bit.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[ceoyoyo]

"The Cloud" might be better in the event of a catastrophe, but between Google's all-too-frequent outages and your local ISPs uptime, in day to day use I doubt it is better. Hard drives don't crash that often.

If my computer is down then I can't use Google's stuff OR local stuff. If my network is down, I can't use Google's stuff but I can quite happily type away locally. If Google is down, ditto.

Both Google and my ISP have had lots of outages in the last year. I don't remember the last time I was unable to open a word processor on my notebook.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[ceoyoyo]

Depends on what format your proprietary software spits out. Even though some of them have been dragged kicking and screaming, there are very few formats that can ONLY be read by one proprietary program these days, and can't be converted into something else.

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[francium de neobie]

True. But you have to keep in mind that their uptime is controlled by them, not you. And there's really no reason to expect they'll keep their current level of service quality once their service has turned from a growth business to a cash cow.

And... when was the last time you really took time to read the service agreement?

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[at_slashdot]

Take a look then, it's not that far away...
http://code.google.com/p/gears/issues/detail?id=335

Re:Microsoft is evil an all . . .

[rtb61]

So gears allows you to continue to share work even with your internet connection down, hmm, digital telepathy perhaps ;).

Misquote.

[base3]

Ballmer actually said "Google and their apps can bite me."

Would you believe him if he SPOKE the truth ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not, so he puts out that line. baloney! The day it takes a noticeable bite out of Office is the day Balmer quits throwing chairs. Ain't gonna happen!

Let's get this out of the way

[Todd Fisher]

Ballmer...adds, "Google has the lead, but, if we're good at advertising, we'll compete with them in the consumer business."

He then started yelling "Developers, developers, developers!" Then he threw a chair.

prediction

[larry bagina]

The advertising campaign for Office Live will be done in ... Google Docs.

Compete with them in the consumer business???

[Peter Simpson]

When OpenOffice is free?

Good luck, Steve. I think you have lost touch with your intended customers.

I don't believe it

[garett_spencley]

Ballmer was supposed to fucking kill Google. He's like Chuck Norris and stuff ... only with chairs. No way is this happening. I won't believe it. Slashdot is all lies.

Re:I don't believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? The chair and Chuck Norris joke in the same comment? Could you please take humor to an even lower level please?

Re:I don't believe it

[garett_spencley]

Thank-you. I was wondering for the life of me, regardless of how unsuccessful the attempt at humour may have been, how anyone could possibly flame me over it (thus deserving the -1 flamebait). Now I know.

Re:I don't believe it

[dark42]

Chuck Norris doesn't need chairs, if he needs to sit down, he just grabs the nearest person and shapes their backbone into a chair.

Re:I don't believe it

[dark42]

I just needed to post to remove the overrated, i wanted to mod funny. (THey're right next to each other)

The cloud is way better for many companies

[EmbeddedJanitor]

but it isn't for everyone.

If you're a smaller organisation that has not got IT skills or dedicated IT staff, then the cloud can be very appealing. You don't need to worry about doing backups and data sharing with associates or traveling salespeople etc is a lot easier.

In theory the cloud providers could go broke, with your data getting lost but that's a lot less likely than losing data due to a local server getting screwed.

There is no single recipe that will will work well for all organisations. Some are served best by in-house IT and some served best by the cloud.

"Good at advertising"

[Anonymous Coward]

This, from the company that shouts "let us innovate!" The quality of their products has been surplanted by the quality of their advertising.

In twenty years Econ 101 classes will use the history of Microsoft Corp. as an example of how to destroy a company, even one that had a legal monopoly.

This is a not true

[tkrotchko]

I was there at the talk. What Ballmer said (and I'm paraphrasing) is that Google Apps have no audience; user growth plateaued months ago and that in their (MS's) own studies almost all college students buy MS Office and use it. He said the only time students are using Google Apps is when they need to collaborate on projects but he talked about how MS is working to beef up their own collaboration tools in Office 2007/08.

Really guys, this is reaching.

Ballmer is a good entertaining speaker, and Gartner analysts are not going to outfox the guy.

Re:This is a not true

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. MS == Sucks, that's all we care about.

Re:This is a not true

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's misleading and not what was said at all. Look at who submitted the story...

You must be new here. Basically, anything that twitter or the 14 other twitter sockpuppets says only has about a 1% chance of having a shred of truth to it.

Re:This is a not true

[_ivy_ivy_]

...in their (MS's) own studies almost all college students buy MS Office and use it.

Perhaps this is true because MS sells Office on college campuses for a fair price, something like $99.

Re:This is a not true

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it funny that they think that college students buy Office.
Number of people i go to university with: many.
Number of them that i know who have paid for office: 0.

Re:This is a not true

[ion.simon.c]

You think that *that* is a fair price?

I'd be willing to be that governments who are "considering Linux" get a *much* sweeter per-seat deal.

Re:This is a not true

[ion.simon.c]

Please pardon the lazyness.

Is there a video of this talk somewhere? I would like to see it.

Cheers!

Re:This is a not true

[ceoyoyo]

That's because MS Office is about $30 for students and faculty (mine was free - university has a site license).

How many people pay the $500 or whatever it is for the non-academic copy?

Re:This is a not true

[Trelane]

It costs $30/semester in licensing fees as well. People never seem to know that they're paying those, tho.

BSD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least we were mentioned before etc.

quick comparison

[British]

Google Office-like apps: Netbook
MS Office: bloated pig laptop that cost $3K.

I'm just fine with the Google Apps. All the extra features that the latest revision of MS Office has that Google doesn't don't ever get any usage from me anyways.

Re:quick comparison

[techno-vampire]

MS Office: bloated pig laptop that cost $3K.

And now, if TFA can be believed, Ballmer is going to put lipstick on it.

One word

[germansausage]

AutoCad

Or whatever app it is that your industry uses that doesn't run on Linux, will keep the need for Windows for a very long time.

Re:One word

[Nursie]

Not necessarily.

Some sectors, sure, but many are already running on various unix machines. Also things like Lotus Notes (which I hate but acknowledge many enterprises use extensively) are moving to more platform agnostic positions.

Re:One word

[badkarmadayaccount]

Still, I'd kill to have AutoCAD, or a improved FOSS version on linux/*BSD/whatever. Seriously, as an aspiring physicist/engineer I need this stuff, and AutoCAD makes GIMP look like something off OS X.

Ugh

[jav1231]

As much as I am loath to say this, I seriously doubt Microsoft has to worry about Google-apps. Corp-America is not going to go Google-apps. But mind you, they WILL worry. Because Microsoft is so fucking egotistical as a company they can't envision anyone having something successful besides them. It pisses them off, esp. Balmer. They just can't accept that they should stick to what they're good at (were good?). If they put as much effort into making Windows better it WOULD be. They chased the search market in vain and the mp3 player in vain. They're a spoiled company that thinks they should have it because they want it. Microsoft never innovates. They copy or buy. They usually fail at copying. The XBox is a noted example of something they copied and succeeded at gaining market. Keep at it, MS! Pursue! The more money you waste on shit like online apps the more that won't go into Windows! Which is fine. The world would be better off if more people would move on to another OS.

Re:Ugh

[im_thatoneguy]

Microsoft copycat with the Xbox?

That's why they were the first to put in a Hard Drive.
The first to offer streaming downloads for movies.
The first to offer downloadable games.
The first to include a network adapter.
The first to have a social gaming network for matchmaking and messaging built into the service.
The first to implement a system wide achievement/trophy system.

Yeah it's likea direct clone of... nothing... and that's why it's succeeding. It's not just ripping off anyone else. Everyone else is trying to rip them off.

---

Back to the topic at hand. We use both Microsoft Office and GoogleDocs. We like Office because it has really really great spreadsheet tools and formatting for sophisticated data tracking. But we can't share it with other companies. (We work in advertising). We use Google Docs too because we can create a document with a shotlist or schedule and the agency can access it from anywhere and make changes to it and everybody always has the latest version.

If we could have an online Office. We would prefer it because Google Docs is like a gimped wordpad. But for many applications we've found it to be the best solution to our needs.

Re:Ugh

[Lemmy Caution]

Google Docs is like a gimped wordpad

Excellent summary. Wish it weren't true, but it is. It's another victim of Google's horrible attention span. They get a clever idea, and then ask the rest of us to imagine it working well, because they can't be bothered to actually get it to work.

(If I were a fanboy about anything - and for me, that's like saying "if I were a necrophile about any species...") I might pass as something of a Google fan, so this is tough-love on my part. They spread themselves way too thin. They need to focus as much on making their products truly competitive, rather than simply interesting.

Re:Ugh

[ion.simon.c]

Microsoft copycat with the Xbox?

Yeah it's likea direct clone of... nothing...

I beg to differ.
It's like a direct clone of a PC.

Have you ever looked inside one of them?
It's PC hardware all the way.

Also, IIRC, the PS2 had a HDD before the XBOX, no?
(Please do correct me if I'm wrong here... Wikipedia backs me up, but we all know exactly how much that is worth.)

Re:Ugh

[dontmakemethink]

MSFT's biggest problem is that they have nothing to attract talented innovative staff except money. That's why they try to thwart everyone that stands to offer their target talent pool a better offer than they can. Nobody with any natural leadership and matching insight will ever sit on the M$ executive without either drawing gunfire from the rest of the board or jumping out the nearest window long before they can affect some substantial change.

Re:Ugh

[jimicus]

It's PC hardware all the way.

Also, IIRC, the PS2 had a HDD before the XBOX, no?
(Please do correct me if I'm wrong here... Wikipedia backs me up, but we all know exactly how much that is worth.)

Not sure, but if it was it was an optional extra. And most optional extras for consoles tend not to sell very well.

Re:Ugh

[jav1231]

Microsoft copycat with the Xbox?

In terms of following a market.

Re:Ugh

[remmelt]

All the Xbox stuff you mention has been done before... on the PC. I won't argue with the fact that MS offered it first on their console, but it can hardly be called revolutionary. In fact, it's rather fairly obvious.

MS are doing it right on the 360 (so I hear) so that's good, and that's why they're succeeding. I think that what is most important of all, they have a great library of games. For each PS3 game, there are 10 360 games of equal quality.

Re:Ugh

[rbanffy]

They feel threatened because so much of their value proposition comes from network economics. The value of running Sharepoint drops drastically with a slight drop in the Office usage. One of the main drivers of Office sales is that other people send you Office documents and Office is the obvious choice for opening them. If people start sending documents as links to Google Documents, the incentive is removed and people would be just fine with a browser. The more people rely on browsers, the less reason there is to buy a computer without Windows and go for one of the Linux distros being installed in them.

They have every reason to feel threatened by anything with a measurable market share.

Re:Ugh

[Bert64]

Yeah, Google Docs needs some improvement for sure...
But MS's online office attempts are not truly web based, you still need their client to tie into it, Google's can be viewed from anywhere by anyone with a browser.

Re:Ugh

[the_B0fh]

Shit, my SuperNintendo had an external (3rd party) "disk backup system" that allowed you to backup your cartridges to a floppy. And play from the floppy. This is different from a hard disk to store your games how?

Re:Ugh

[ion.simon.c]

A "stock" XBOX doesn't permit you to copy your game disc to the HDD. (Seeing as how the HDDs were ~8GB, I'm not sure that it would have mattered *too* much if it had been permitted.)

OTOH my modified xbox has no problems with this. *Vastly* decreased load times FTW.

Re:Ugh

[ion.simon.c]

Aye. It, along with the ethernet add-on, was an optional extra. Most folks ended up using the HDD to install Linux. : /

Re:Ugh

[Blakey Rat]

The HD for the PS2 didn't come out until long after the Xbox was already out. It was initially offered bundled with Final Fantasy 11.) My information comes from the US of A, Sony might have different schedules in different countries.)

BTW, Final Fantasy 11 was then ported to Xbox 360, where is has a relatively popular following. (It's always in the top 10 Xbox Live game list.) Which I think goes to show Microsoft must be doing something right with their game console business.

Re:Ugh

[Blakey Rat]

Well, for one thing, it was an unlicensed third-party hack for pirating games, while the Xbox HD came factory-standard.

For another, the Xbox HD was used to support Xbox Live Arcade downloadable games, to act as virtual memory for the current game, to allow the user to rip CDs.

Re:Ugh

[ozzmosis]

What about Sega in the 1990's?

Re:Ugh

[the_B0fh]

Doesn't matter. The point I was making was to the original person who said Microsoft was the innovative one, by being the first to include a hard disk in the XBox.

As for playing movies, my original PS 1 had a little dongle that allowed it to play VCDs.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

MS Office file formats are becoming the odd ones

[gelfling]

In my firm, which is a Fortune 50 company, we're actively abandoning MS Office for our own modification of Open Office. In fact OO3 does everything better - it handles all the problems of earlier versions like embedded OLE objects, it handles all our all 'legacy' junk AND it handles all of the various MS Office 2007 file formats which, as everyone knows were invented JUST to force people to lock in and upgrade. In fact all those Office 2007 formats are becoming the weird occasional exception for us as we move to ODF and such. Mostly we use MS Office 2007 formats as a required translation step from DOC to ODF since OO3 handles it that way by default: DOC > DOCX > ODF for instance.

So being weird and unique, Balmer, we don't care. Soon MS Office will be just another legacy format we keep around for archival purposes like Lotus Wordpro, 123, AmiPro and the like. Good luck with that, Steve.

Re: "... if we're good at adververtising ... "

[Saffaya]

Advertising worked so well for sony and the PS2. Impeding sales of the best console of the time that had an incredible line-up (the DreamCast) by using only shallow promises of "Real time Toy Story graphics" and "connected to high speed networks" when in reality it took the PS2 two years to get any valuable game and it didn't ship with any online interface.

Microsoft are the other masters of the marketng hype. If they start pushing Windows 7 now, they will at least sell as many as Vista did, regardless of the product's qualities.

Sorry twitter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything you say must be considered a lie. You lost your credibility a long time ago. The only reason this story made it to the front page after your well-deserved yearlong blacklisting is because you had to misrepresent what the article said, and the /. editor happens to be relatively new, so he doesn't know about you.

Why don't you get a blog or something? You can use all those things you learned from the FUDster in Chief Roy like "SweatyB" and "Silverblight", and you won't have to put up with the collective derision and ridicule of the largest free software community in the world.

Really, think about it.

Re:Sorry twitter.

[harry666t]

Seriously, you're an idiot for taking part in his game. Don't you see he's having a great time trolling here? His goals are not spreading anti-"M$", "pro-OSS" BS, his goal is having fun of people like you -- people who think they will be so cool when they'll point out how stupid they think he is. You are feeding the troll. Damnit, just ignore him, it's *that* easy!

Really, think about it.

Re:Sorry twitter.

[u38cg]

I have to say, as a long time /. reader, until I saw these two posts modded to +5, I had no idea that this nonsense was going on. Seriously, people, have you nothing better to do?

Re:Sorry twitter.

[badkarmadayaccount]

*checks address bar* Hmmm, what do you think?

Way to go MS

[mysidia]

Admission that they have a problem is the first step to recovery. But the road is long, and they have 11 steps left.

1. Admitting they have a problem (CHECK)
2. Come to believe in a greater power that can set things right for them (Linux community)
3. Turn their existence over to the greater power
4. Reflect on their past actions
5. Admit their past errors
6. Prepare to seek assistance of the greater power
7. Beg the greater power (Linux/OOo Community) for forgiveness
8. Make a list of those harmed by their actions
9. Make direct amends and reparations wherever possible
10. Continue to examine and rectify any wrongs
11. Seek further enlightenment from the greater power (Linux/OOo Community)
12. Help others that suffered the same problems...(such as by buying out said patent-holding-companies and open sourcing their product and withdrawing their shills from standards bodies)

...

Re:Way to go MS

[Anonymous Coward]

12. Help others that suffered the same problems...(such as by buying out said patent-holding-companies and open sourcing their product and withdrawing their shills from standards bodies)

13. Profit

I always wondered what the 13th step was

The Windows phenomenon

[pembo13]

I find the Windows phenomenon to be quite interesting, almost depressing. There are very few things that Microsoft Windows clearly does better than Mac/Linux. There are a few things it simply does differently, and there are a lot of things it plane sucks at. Yet somehow, it manages to be "the" operating system. One of it's competitors is available both commercially and for free, another is available commercially. It doesn't even seem (in my experiences) to be easier to develop for Windows any more.

The only thing Windows seems to do well is be Windows, and while that's tough to compete with, it's not impossible.

Re:The Windows phenomenon

[aaron.axvig]

It's because a bunch of people that piddle their time posting on ./ aren't very good at marketing Linux to OEMs. Microsoft is very good at this.

Re:The Windows phenomenon

[Overzeetop]

Windows does very little well, but is has some very good, built in features (offline files is a good example - it's not perfect, but for road warriors it is indispensable).

What windows does well has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft, but rather with momentum. The major, established, and - dare I say - standard applications are written for Windows. While it's all well and good to say that there are alternatives out there, the cost is absolutely astronomical. The cost of the OS software and all the applications combined are a minuscule fraction of the cost of software usage. The bulk of the cost is in training. Most workers know MS software enough to get around, that means no re-training. Start talking about alternatives, like Photoshop or AutoCAD, or Word (yes, Word), and you have not just the retraining costs and temporary productivity loss of thousands upon thousands of dollars per employee but the cost of converting your entire legacy files to the new format or risk incompatibility. When I talk legacy files, I mean templates - macros, custom scripts, actual file templates, etc. In my office alone, discounting the cost of retraining, I probably have $25-50k in files that would have to be converted just to operate. I could easily spend half of my business' annual gross receipts in transition.

So it has very little to do with how well MS does. They can absolutely suck, and they're still cheaper than switching.

Termination

[bozojoe]

With all the bad press Ballmer delivers for Microsoft, I'm surprised the board hasn't fired him.

Microsoft Dung Beetle?

[ppanon]

We Gotcha!

Wait, wasn't that DataSoft? It's close admittedly.

Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[hansg]

How is that more complicated than setting up a Windows server and MS Office?

Sure setting up backups and raid is "complicated" but, is there something magical with Windows and MS Office that makes that unnecessary?

/Hans

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[yppiz]

Letting Google run the server means we don't have to, decreasing our overhead.

In a small shop, that's a big savings.

And we get collaborative editing, which is a huge win.

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[jimicus]

How is that more complicated than setting up a Windows server and MS Office?

Sure setting up backups and raid is "complicated" but, is there something magical with Windows and MS Office that makes that unnecessary?

/Hans

Two words for you:

Active Directory.

Not particularly important if you're just starting up and you're a small business with only a handful of staff, but if your business grows dramatically, the centralised administration provided by AD is a lifesaver. The closest Linux has is the building blocks (which are just that - building blocks which require a lot of work) like cfengine (if you want something semi-cooked) or shell scripting and SSH (if you want to roll your own).

Samba isn't bad, and the NT 4-type domain it can simulate solves many of the problems, but AD is still streets ahead.

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[the_B0fh]

What the fuck does AD have to do with installing windows and office?

If you're talking about user administration, you're changing the subject, but even there UNIX does have centralized and decentralized user administration. And most apps can understand ldap now. Setting up kerberos is just a bit harder in UNIX land compared to running dcpromo, but it has been simplified quite a lot compared to the past.

If you think cfengine is your answer to access administration, you don't understand UNIX.

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[jimicus]

I knew there would be an answer like this.

I actually administer a whole bunch of Linux systems, most of which authenticate centrally against LDAP but what a lot of Unix people don't know is that Active Directory does a lot more than just user auth.

Amongst other things, it stores a whole bunch of configuration details which member workstations apply.

By and large these are fairly small things like "Outlook is configured to use email.domain.com as the mail server; it's an Exchange server and Outlook should attempt to login with the same credentials that the current user is logged in with", "Internet Explorer uses http://intranet.example.com/ as its homepage", "The following packages are to be installed on the following workstations....".

Judiciously configured, you never need to deal with user questions like "How do I set up email?" or "What's the address of the company intranet?" - and if the answer to questions like that changes, the necessary configuration changes can be carried out centrally.

Most of these aren't a big problem if your company is full of reasonably technically-literate people. However, sooner or later you're likely to want to employ people for whom "understanding how to configure every aspect of a PC" is fairly low in the priorities list.

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[DarkOx]

Yes there is something magic about, Windows allows you to be a total ass-hat today and set it all up with some wizards. It will all work great to right away with now troubles at all. Then a year or two later when something blows up you are still an ass-hat who as learned nothing with a set of backups your don't know how to restore from.

Of course you could learn something about Windows adminstration and do it correct and never find yourself in a situation remotely like the above but there is nothing forceing that on you. Windows Server leaves you completely free to enjoy a false sense of security for as long as you would like until disaster strikes. Oh and that always happens sooner or later, no matter what OS you are using. My advice no matter what platform you chose LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT IT before you deploy.

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[DarkOx]

You might want to look into NIS+/YP, DNS and LDAP. 90% of what AD does is covered their an UNIX has been doing it longer then Windows. The other 10% or so you might have to roll your own but chances are pretty good you would have had to install some software which would have extened your AD schema anyway in a Windows domain.

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[jimicus]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=999923&cid=25423895

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[hansg]

Um.

The choices were
a) set up a windows server
b) use google docs

Someone came along and suggested linux and openoffice.

Someone else said that that was the most complicated choice.

I merely (tried?) to say that maybe a) and linux isn't that different?

Sure, Google apps is probably easier than linux or windows, but is the linux and openoffice choice really "the most complicated to implement"

/Hans

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[hansg]

Aren't we talking about a small business?

Wasn't that the point of setting this thing up?

Sure if you have a multinational company, everything is different, but that was not what we were talking about, or was it?

AD is great if you need it, but for a small shop I believe it is overkill.

/Hans

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[hansg]

Oh yes, one more thing.

How does AD make backups and RAID unnecessary?

Sorry, couldn't resist, but you really did answer a whole other question than the one I asked...

/Hans

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[the_B0fh]

You're talking about GPO and preconfigured packages. Both of which are possible in UNIX. OK, I'll give you that you'll have to do a little bit more work on preconfiguring packages - maybe. But things like standard configs get pushed down to users pretty easily. There are multiple ways to do it. If you use deadrat or ubuntu or any linux with a packaging system, you can have a custom package for your company and install that at the end. If you're doing user level configs, push it out via /etc/skel/.

If you have users who will mess with their settings, well, change the permissions on it.

I still can't see why any newbie users will have questions like "How do I set up email?" or "What's the address of the company intranet".

Re:Windows is not more complicated than Linux

[Anpheus]

AD, and in fact, Windows Server, lets you use distributed file storage, or allows you to pretty easily script calls to ntbackup/wbadmin.

It's also not hard to make, via AD, a mapped network storage location with offline use by default. Then the documents always appear to be stored on a user's computer, but they can rely on a personal fileshare that can be on a SAN/NAS with RAID or backups or whatever.

Windows administration is a lot more complex, and a lot easier, than you think it is.

Stop complaining and do something

[Twillerror]

Sharepoint is a decent at storing word documents and making them searchable. Many companies are using it.

So why don't we write something simliar for Open Office that does the same thing as google apps. Yah it sucks to have to setup a server, but if it's open and runs on linux then it won't be.

I think this represents a major issue with open source...it's for developers. We need developers to stop caring about themselves and think about avergage business uers...a hard boring thing to do I know.

Re:Stop complaining and do something

[Trelane]

http://www.alfresco.com/ http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/ I'm sure there are more.

Alternate Universe?

[DavidD_CA]

Apparently the submitter is in an alternate universe and read a completely different article than the one submitted.

In the quote where Microsoft "concedes" that Google is doing better, the quote is referring to online advertising and NOT any form of productivity software. Read the article yourself. About halfway down.

The rest of the article is Ballmer boasting, and rightfully so, that no one uses Google Apps. Not even poor college students, except for occasional collaboration, and even then it's minimal. (The article doesn't mention that Microsoft practically gave away MS Office to students for about $50 each.) Then it talks about how Microsoft is planning to up the ante on collaboration with free online services like Office Live.

There's stretching it, and then there's taking a quote so far out of context you're disrupting the space-time continuum.

Emacs -vs- Emacs

[SL Baur]

I am a big fan of (the basic GNU) Emacs, because it's so easy to edit with a nice blank screen rather than all having those superfluous menubars and whatnot cluttering up the workspace.

There is no doubt about it, the Emacs architecture has won the day. Microsoft uses a poorly reimplemented model for everything nowadays. The ability to modify behavior of an application with a full-fledged computer language was truly innovative. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html

(My perspective is of one who remembers when Emacs was a bunch of macros for TECO, so I never got into the habit of using a menubar.) And now that GNU Emacs can render fonts nicely in X11, XEmacs has become even more otiose.

I happen to like menubars, scrollbars and GUI and that's why I was attracted to XEmacs in order to fix the deficiencies in 19.14.

You can always turn off that sort of stuff in XEmacs. My first commercial use of XEmacs was as an embedded editor in a Process Control System that only had access to PC console tty.

But ... if it bothers you, no problem. At least you're not using something loathesome like VIM. (nvi is nice though).

And XEmacs has as much right to be called "GNU Emacs" as the one sitting on gnu.org, but that is an argument for a different day.

Re:Emacs -vs- Emacs

[BrokenHalo]

I happen to like menubars, scrollbars and GUI and that's why I was attracted to XEmacs in order to fix the deficiencies in 19.14.

Fair enough. I just never learned how to use all those things, since the hotkeys are so quick. I only make the distinction with GNU Emacs because it is exactly the same program regardless of whether I'm at a tty or in an X session.

The time for desktop linux

[shaitand]

That means microsoft hasn't released a decent operating system with updated technology since 2002. That is six years already and now they are saying they don't intend to release anything decent until 2010 (and based on Microsoft's previous timelines that really means 2012 at the earliest).

If by the release of windows 7 Linux hasn't made a real dent into the desktop market share then I will change platform. Dear god, don't make me use windows.

Re:The time for desktop linux

[Hann1bal]

The year of linux on the desktop started long long ago

Re:The time for desktop linux

[ceoyoyo]

Ouch. Sorry about that. Don't go Windows though. Maybe FreeBSD or a Mac?

Re:The time for desktop linux

[greerga]

Last week I switched my work laptop from running Windows XP to Fedora. I left the original Windows partition there but had the Fedora installer resize it, so now I can run VirtualBox or boot it natively.

RDP? Works great (rdesktop).
VPN? Better than the Cisco client ever was.
ActiveX-based ticket system? Wine and IE6 is as fast or faster than it ever was in Windows.
Documents? OpenOffice works well.

The only thing I haven't figured out how to run in Wine is the SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager (.msc). Since those SQL servers are being decommissioned anyway, I can run the client in VirtualBox or just RDP to the servers and run it there.

The motivation for switching the laptop was because I was running Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, PuTTY, and sometimes GIMP already, so might as well do it all natively.

(And I used Fedora instead of Ubuntu because a lot of the servers at work are CentOS.)

Hey twitter!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to pay your $699 licensing fee you cock smoking teabagger!

I can imagine the scene

[David Gerard]

"Your evil is weak, old man! If you destroy me, I will ... What am I saying, you can't destroy lunch."

"DEVELOPERS! Nobody sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Weâ(TM)ve worked hard on our evil! Our Zuneâ(TM)s as evil as an iPod any day! I wonâ(TM)t let my kids use a lesser evil!"

"Ah, but we're working on a new approach. We're not evil."

"Just creepy."

"But in a totally not evil way."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Misrepresentation

[mark99]

The summary is a pretty drastic misrepresentation of the article. Balmer was nowhere near as positive about Google Apps as the summary indicates.

Ok, I guess it is news when someone says anything positive about a competitors product. But Google Apps has a long way to go still before they have a measurable impact on any competitor, let alone Microsoft's Office Juggernaut.

Re:Hello!

[IainCartwright]

no, i'm twitter!

Re:Hello!

[RiotingPacifist]

We're all fucking twitter, well some of the 4 digits were around before me/us but the rest of us are.
m$ sucks0r, linux pwns, etc

Google Docs is a pile of crap

[hattig]

Seriously, this software is dire for use as an office replacement.

However Google Apps (does anyone else get confused that Apps isn't Docs, but email and stuff) does provide a decent Exchange replacement, functionally (and with built-in IM). In fact GMail is far nicer to use than Outlook!

Anyone seen Outlook 2007's HTML viewer. 1996 called, they want their renderer back.

RTFA and THEN post

[renegadesx]

twitter points out coverage of a discussion between Steve Ballmer and two Gartner analysts in which the Microsoft CEO admits that Google Apps is enjoying an advantage over Office by users who want to share their document

The first word should alarm you to that

Re:MS Office file formats are becoming the odd one

[gregorio]

In my firm, which is a Fortune 50 company, we're actively abandoning MS Office for our own modification of Open Office.

Sorry, but... No.

Of all "I work at a Fortune XYZ company" B/S histories that people spout around here, yours is the worst one. Never, I repeat, NEVER, any company in the universe would depend on a customized product for an interop-heavy application such as word/spreadsheet processing.

Even if the modifications are just related to UI and other elements, this kind of initiative would not be accepted by the mindset of a company who values its assets. If the four or five employees who can ACTUALLY modify this kind of source code leave the company, what is your IT dept going to do? Abandon the project? Pay for expensive consulting?

Unless you work for a software company (doubt it, this kind of initiative would have hit the news), this is also not possible because most companies would not depend on technology-heavy initiatives that fall outside their core business. Now they must also excel at software development, not only at their core business, otherwise their billions of dollars worth of annual salaries (it's a fortune 50 company!) will suffer from lost productivity.

So being weird and unique, Balmer, we don't care. Soon MS Office will be just another legacy format we keep around for archival purposes like Lotus Wordpro, 123, AmiPro and the like. Good luck with that, Steve.

Sorry, but this is just basement-dweller wishful thinking. Microsoft Office still holds more than 90% of the market. Sure, YOU might not care, but the rest of the planet actually DOES.

Other Office packs must compete on quality and compatibility to surpass MS Office. Price isn't just that interesting, considering that a US$ 200 volume-licensed office license will determine the productivity of a US$ 80 000 - US$ 120 000 (this is not the salary, it inclused the full cost) employee. The price factor diminishes if you consider that the said license is used for 2 to 4 years.

Re:MS Office file formats are becoming the odd one

[gelfling]

Yours is the worst MS sponsored trolling I've heard this month.

Why the discussion about desktop Linux?

[walterbyrd]

I thought this was supposed to be a discussion about Google Apps, which does not necessarily have anything to do with desktop Linux.

netmeeting is an example of why MS is loosing

[Dan667]

Netmeeting is an excellent example of why Google is doing better. Microsoft had an easy way to share desktops, integrating netmeeting into a chat client. I used it for years and it was great. Well, guess what? They did away with that for some service called live meeting. Live meeting does not work and has a bunch of features no-one I work with needs. We gave up on trying to use it and have been using third party shareware apps. They don't work as well, but Microsoft has driven us away. If Microsoft was smart, they would not have looked at Netmeeting as a marketing opportunity to sell a license for every seat and tried to extend Netmeeting to other platforms. But they didn't, and it is yet another app they loose in their hedge against the competition. Dumb on their part, but it has been their mode of operation for the last several years.

How are you trusting your data to the "cloud"

[walterbyrd]

I can download my docs to my PC if I want to. I can have me email stored locally, if I want to.

Anyway, what about when you put your apps on sharepoint? What if that server goes down or becomes corrupted?

In my experience, a local PC is more likely to be become corrupted than google's servers.

Huh?

[LibertineR]

"We like Office because it has really really great spreadsheet tools and formatting for sophisticated data tracking. But we can't share it with other companies."

Dude, have you heard of SharePoint? Using Excel Services for SharePoint, you can share your spreadsheets, indeed let other companies update your files via a SharePoint Extranet. Check it out here:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101054761033.aspx

Anyone you choose can access your Excel files, update them, download or distribute them, with full security and tracking. Yeah, I am a SharePoint consultant, but I cant see why anyone would give up the power of Excel for Google docs, when a solution actually exists.

Re:Huh?

[jasontn]

Google spreadsheet is horrendous - rudimentary and slow response. But, one can use http://www.editgrid.com/ which is almost similar to Excel but completely web based.

What about exchange or sharepoint?

[walterbyrd]

There have been a lot of success stories where people have used gmail instead of exchange - including some large installations. I expect there will be many more. Gmail now works with outlook, thunderbird, and blackberry. Gmail integrates with google calendar.

Google docs allows me to share documents in much the same way as sharepoint.

I suppose there may be some cases where msft is the better solution. But, I think there are many cases when google apps is perfectly adequate - and a lot cheaper. And that could take a bite out of msft's business.

Why not use Google Docs?

[walterbyrd]

It's free, and you store about 5000 documents.

Re:Why not use Google Docs?

[Anonymous Coward]

You chose #2. As expected.

MS Advertisement is brilliant!

[AlgorithMan]

Whether or not they're good at advertising is still in question, if their recent attempts are any indication

wtf are you talking about!?
haven't you seen Microsofts newest, BRILLIANT ad!?
http://algorithman.de/storage/new_vista_ad.jpg
there you go!

All right...

[FreshKarma]

Where is the real Steve Ballmer, and what have you done with him? And no, we don't want him back, we just want to make sure you have him secured somewhere without chairs.

Open Source is for Trainees eg Linux

[B_SharpC]

Smart people avoid Linux because Open Source is for Trainees.
People who can not succeed in formal education of science or software, use open source as a means to get a foot in the career door. Smart people have been so burned by open source because trainees write poor software. They use it but only as a last resort.
Giving enough time and man-years and 'free' labor, the software will be functional, but still poor.
People who cannot do, go into open source. It is a short cut to applying oneself and the quality reflects that.

Sadly, the flip side is that Silicon Valley has become a slave market, you are 3/5th person, so formal Computer Science education is not the best answer anymore, the payoff is low, the risks are high. That's Congress's doing.
"Joe the Plumber" is a better career choice.

Re:MS Office file formats are becoming the odd one

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the OO spreadsheet graphing ready for prime-time yet? I was just trying to do data entry on a MS-saved expense report, and it kept freezing up on me.

Letter to Steve Ballmer

[hardeep1singh]

Dear Mr. Ballmer, I am a customer of Microsoft who purchased Windows Vista from you an year back. In case you plan to dump Vista so early in its lifetime and go for Windows 7, can you please give me FREE copy of Windows 7 in leiu of my Vista so that I get the value I deserve to get for my hard earned money? Regards, Hardeep Singh

good at advertising....!

[guynorton]

"Google has the lead, but, if we're good at advertising, we'll compete with them in the consumer business."
Surely he means 'good at developing', or 'good at designing', but advertising!

Re:good at advertising....!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are good at advertising. If they were good at developing or designing they would have a superior technology instead of being paid shitloads by the suits who have been swallowing their marketing speal all these years.

Re:Hello!

[cp.tar]

I make lists!

I don't think twitter knows LISP.

What does it matter? By 7, developers will...

[ibsteve2u]

If the current approach to programming in things Microsoft is any example, by Windows 7 Microsoft will have insisted that all Windows developers transition to their latest attempt to obfuscate and prolong the Windows programming experience, .fish.n.NET, and we remaining Windows programmers will have begun a mass migration to Linux.

Re:Well, here we go - GLAD YOU LIKED IT: It works!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Thanks! Good link. :) This is why I read slashdot from time to time there is a gem, there is allot of digging and some time is worth it. :)" - by ergean (582285) on Sunday October 19, @12:49PM (#25431965)

I am glad you enjoyed it!

I think that once you go thru CIS Tool's audit, & patch your system (via vendor patches you may have missed (which tools that thread shows can show you how to determine that much for your OS and your apps), OR, the ones to your OS of choice's config files) according to what it states?

Then, your going beyond that only (i.e.-> into the points past noting using CIS Tool)??

You'll find you not only are FAR MORE SECURE ONLINE than you were before, but, also faster (as a NICE bonus!)...

APK

P.S.=> E.G.-> I've had users apply it, or, I have done it for them (for clients I have & family + friends also) & they have yet to be reinfected again... this is for more than 1.5++ yrs. now in fact! I point to others sites in that thread & other users who have done so also, & they too, are experiencing the same infection free & F A S T E R online performance too!

And, that result just makes some sense (as to security, it's obvious why, see SECUNIA.COM &/or SECURITYFOCUS.COM for validation of that much... but also for speed - that guide's points on how to use a HOSTS file for both speed & security + not processing unnecessary scripts boosts speed online as well, & quite massively):

Once folks online learn to keep javascript/iframes/plugins usage to a MINIMUM & only on sites that ABSOLUTELY DEMAND they keep it on, they're FAR safer on the web as it stands, today/nowadays.

(I only use javascript/iframes/plugins for full function, not just "eye candy" type/level stuff, & on websites that I cannot do without it on in other words!)

Also, by "full function" (meaning I can't use a certain feature of a site WITHOUT javascript turned on in my webbrowser, for instance)?

I generally mean so that a website user can use some form of databased access, which you cannot get w/ out turning on javascript!

I.E./E.G.-> Like you see in use on online shopping &/or banking sites for example!

Doing THIS simple little measure alone keeps the potential of danger to a minimum of sites & lessens overall attack surface area for the end user/websurfer, & MOST of the attacks online today & the past 1-4 yrs. now? Javascript driven, nearly every time for 95% or more of them, & just looking over at SECUNIA.COM &/or SECURITYFOCUS.COM can show anyone that much is fact, easily... apk