Forkable Linux Radio Ad Now On the Air In Texas

christian.einfeldt writes "Everyone is familiar with the Linux video ads created by IBM, Red Hat, and Novell, but until recently, there have not been any professionally backed forkable radio ads. Now, Austin-based Linux advocate Ken Starks has obtained the services of a professional radio talent in creating a high quality voice track, which can easily be adapted by local providers of Linux computer services. The raw material (mp3, ogg) addresses end-user frustration with Microsoft Windows malware, and promotes Linux as a more stable alternative. Starks hopes the raw material will seed pro-Linux ads across the US, and he offers his own final product as an example of how the raw material can be remixed with music. He has released all of the raw material and final work under the Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, and has waived the Attribution requirement in his blog. Starks's provocative ad is currently on the air in the Austin market during the popular talk show of Kim Komando, who just happens to be a Microsoft Windows enthusiast."

Comments

No FLAC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, it's that it's in in Ogg, but no FLAC? Lossy compression makes baby Jesus cry.

Re:No FLAC?

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's also barely over a megabyte. Lossless would be, what, 5 megs? 10?

Lossy compression only makes sense when you actually need that disk space.

Re:No FLAC?

[3vi1]

What's the resolution of FM radio vs. the compressed audio clip?

Re:No FLAC?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Not really relevant -- you're assuming that it'll only be used for FM, when with that CC license, it could be used anywhere.

It also avoids any sort of generational loss -- for example, last I checked, Internet Radio has to be MP3. If you're going to have it be lossy, push that loss as far back as possible.

Re:No FLAC?

[westlake]

What's the resolution of FM radio vs. the compressed audio clip?

Standard or HD broadcast quality? In any case, that's a post-production decision to make.

Re:No FLAC?

[YourExperiment]

Someone mod parent back up, please.

Lossy compression is fine for your personal music for your MP3 player. When you have source files like this, which are going to undergo further editing, and quite possibly be further compressed at a later date, you really need uncompressed material.

Studios still record music in high-fidelity audio formats (often 24 bit 96Khz) despite the fact 99% of people will compress it down to a crappy-sounding MP3. That's the way professional audio is done.

Komando's show is popular?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

As in "Windows popular" or "Linux popular"?

I listened once. It was an hour of "Kim, I'm having trouble installing my Canon digicam." "Well, you need to attach the cable and then turn the camera on." "Thanks Kim! That really did the trick!"

Trying to explain anything more complex than "Have you tried rebooting it?" to the audience of AM talk radio is like declaring any year Year of Linux on the Desktop.

Re:Komando's show is popular?

[Eil]

To her credit, Kim Komando has been doing a home computer radio show since well before computers and the Internet were mainstream. However, if you actually listen to one of her shows, you notice that her knowledge hasn't kept pace with current technology and most of her advice boils down to either reinstalling windows or buying products from her sponsors to (possibly) fix your problem.

I applaud Ken Starks for putting this ad on the air. Most of her listeners would do well to give Linux a try. Although her audience would shrink a bit when their computers started working properly all of the sudden. ;)

Re:Komando's show is popular?

[rantingkitten]

To be fair the majority of her calls aren't about fixing problems -- which I would actually find somewhat interesting. Most calls seem to be "Kim, I want to buy my daughter a new digital camera, what kind should I buy?" and "Kim, my husband wants an mp3 player, should I get an iPod or one of the others?" with the occasional "Kim, I wiped out all my data like a tool, and don't keep backups, is there any hope?" (Her answer is usually "Shoulda used Carbonite.")

Anyway, it's a mildly interesting show to listen to if you're driving around or whatever. What bugs me is her weird insistance with Microsoft. In and of itself that isn't a problem -- the problem is that she glosses over alternatives without explaining why. It comes up a lot when the question is "Kim, I hear these netbook things are neat, what kind should I get?" and she'll talk about them, but conclude with "And you'll have two choices, Windows or Linux. Get the Windows one." That's it. Many of her listeners probably think Linux is complete trash because the radio expert says not to use it.

I suspect Microsoft is one of her sponsors (I'm too lazy to check) so from a business angle it makes sense. And the kind of person who needs to call a radio show to get advice about computers and cameras probably should stick with the point-and-drool quagmire that is Windows. Still, I find it irritating.

Re:Komando's show is popular?

[smaddox]

To be fair, most of the netbook preinstalled distro's are complete trash.

Re:Komando's show is popular?

[pjt33]

How would carbonite help? Surely most people are more concerned about losing their photos than their Jedi prisoners?

Re:Komando's show is popular?

[drinkypoo]

I'm a big time computer geek and I've been using Linux since slackware 2 (and I still have it installed all over the house) but I use Windows on my desktop. When GNOME and KDE stop racing to the bottom maybe I'll take another look at the Linux desktop. Why? I want shit to work. Things like connecting and disconnecting monitors during runtime are just handled better, from the user PoV, on windows. In the past I've put a lot of effort into making Windows look like Unix, but these days Unix is working hard to look like Windows, so there's no point to that now... but I used to install Cygwin and all that jazz. More recently I've found that I have little to no desire to do that, except to get a free X/GL server for the rare occasion I need one.

I like Linux a lot, but the average user would do well to steer clear of it for their primary desktop system. Doing that is how I learned to deal with Unix and Linux, but it also led to a lot of reformatting and starting over. The only genuinely easy to use Linux system I know of is Moblin, and it doesn't do much (also it is a crashfest.)

Re:Komando's show is popular?

[Dishevel]

Leo Laporte is better than Kim. Though he is a little bit of an Apple Fanboy.

Re:Komando's show is popular?

[drinkypoo]

But you don't, and you aren't going to change just because I say so.

KDE looks like a GUI factory exploded. GNOME is taking away functionality every day. For example, a tab disappears from the startup applications dialog. And how retarded is it to not permit specifying the logout options and the shutdown options at the same time to gnome-session-save? (Seems to be fixed in UNR, is that an upstream change? The dialog has the wrong text now though.)

I used to like GNOME a lot, but when it became clear that they're trying to converge on like MacOS6 level of functionality and configurability I lost my taste for it. Meanwhile, Windows 7 is the most natural GUI I've seen yet. Super-up/down changes window's maximize/minimize status. Drag a window allll the way to the top and it maximizes. Tabbing through windows hides inactives if you stare long enough while holding tab. Windows has simply become more usable while Linux has become less so. Compiz only works right on one of my systems really, so I can't have advanced functionality on most of my computers, so that's no solution to the missing functionality either; I mostly can't use it.

The X.org guys are working to make this a reality. With a recent X.org server, the xorg.conf file is typically left blank; everything is autodetected. The kernel guys and the X guys are working on kernel mode setting. I think within the next year this will all be ready, for at least some display adapters (in the near term, an all-Intel chipset best for this stuff).

This is why Linux is not ready for the desktop. There's always something critical that should be done "within the next year" or something. This is something that Windows has done well since about Windows 95. Where is the love?

Linux is not like winows.

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we are trying to sell Linux as Windows without the annoyances of Windows, we will fail, if for no other reason than the fact that Linux has its own, less broadly understood, annoyances. We need to sell Linux as Linux.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[erroneus]

You are quite right in saying so and I largely agree with you. The angle is a little bit wrong and a little bit inaccurate. But when I pitch a Linux solution, I start by listing all of the things they do with their computers and propose a Linux based solution to do the same thing... where applicable. There still ain't no AutoCAD for Linux as far as I can tell (though if you reply with a list of suggestions, I will have to wait for the one heavy CAD user I know to test it out and give an evaluation). There are "near replacements" for most graphics and other apps. Games are a bit of a show-stopper, but I don't suggest Linux to kids anyway. (I know, not just kids play games... buy a second computer... one for Linux and one for games.)

The point is to present solutions that do not require Windows where possible and, if they have a strong enough machine, suggest a VirtualBox installation to get the one or two Windows apps they need. Yeah I know about Wine, but VirtualBox is a LOT slicker.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[the_womble]

I don't suggest Linux to kids anyway.

Why not?

Not only is my six year old daughter quite happy with Linux, but one of her friends is bugging me to install Linux on his ageing Mac (what he says is "can you make it like hers")

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[digitalunity]

Agreed. My girlfriend's 10 year old son is using a computer I built about 7 years ago with Ubuntu on it. It has much of the complexity he would see in Windows hidden. No control panel, no command line, no start menu with 10 levels of trees. It's so simple any idiot could use it.

The only thing he does online is webmail, flash games, youtube and listen to music. Linux fills that role perfectly.

Maybe some day I will tell him it's also hosting my SSH, ftps, telnet, web and email serving also :)

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[retchdog]

IGTT 0.1/10.

Keep trying!

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[rantingkitten]

Seriously, kids will adapt to whatever, quite happily. My first computer was a TI-99, which we had to plug into the TV, couldn't do anything but Basic without a solid-state cartridge, and that was fine. And I was maybe four or five when we had that thing, and I learned how to program a little Basic.

Then we got an 8086 IBM something or other, and so I learned how to use the DOS boot disk, learned something about DOS, got better with Basic, and learned how to fix (very minor) problems. All this at the age of seven or eight -- and not because I meant to, but because I was a kid. Kids will pick up on this stuff without even trying, but because it is how they're wired. That, and because to them, everything is new and thus worth exploring, except maybe multiplcation tables.

I realise today's computer demands go beyond that, and computers are expected to be game machines, web-browsing, myspace-checking, email-sending, video-viewing all-in-one machines. But Linux will do all that without problem, with the possible exception of some games (but I'm not sure I'd want a young kid playing Crysis in the first place). Why not let them use Linux?

I would play it safe though. Expose them to both Linux and Windows. I have my doubts that Windows will remain anywhere near as significant as it is today in the business world, and I believe that Windows' single-minded, "our way or no way" appraoch to everything will eventually be recognised by businesses as a hinderance to productivity, but who knows. Having a basic understanding of how to use it absolutely cannot hurt and will probably help. With today's virtual machines this should be easy -- and they might learn a little something about virtualisation too, which will be important in the future.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[Frosty Piss]

As long as we are trying to sell Linux as Windows without the annoyances of Windows, we will fail...

Works for Apple. Remember, you have to step back from the "geek" view. Fact is nongeek users know Windows. They want "Windows without the annoyances of Windows" - this is exactly what Apple sells to the consumer . "We" don't need to sell Linux to geeks, they bought it a long time ago. We "need" to sell Linux to consumers who exactly want "Windows without the annoyances of Windows".

I believe that your approach is what "we" are already doing, and it hassn't worked very well.

Look, first we sell them "Windows without the annoyances of Windows", then we educate them on how Linux is different than Windows, how Linux is not just free Windows.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[ToasterMonkey]

Works for Apple. Remember, you have to step back from the "geek" view. Fact is nongeek users know Windows. They want "Windows without the annoyances of Windows" - this is exactly what Apple sells to the consumer .

Reeeeeeeaaaallly.... Apple's schtick is selling a better Windows than Windows? Have you used anything Apple makes?

Look, first we sell them "Windows without the annoyances of Windows", then we educate them on how Linux is different than Windows, how Linux is not just free Windows.

How it's not just a free OS with butchered Windowsisms, it has butchered UNIXisms as well?

No. Linux does not need to be a better Windows than Windows. It needs to be itself.. whatever the **** it is. That is the big problem with Linux.
Server, desktop, workstation, toy, hobby.. what is it? Oh.. I'm sorry, why can't it be all of those, right? Better server than Solaris? Better desktop than OS X? Better workstation than Windows? What you've got is all around mediocrity, against a fairly well rounded Windows, and OS X & Solaris excelling in their respective areas. The problem with Linux is the extreme lack of understanding of what people need computers to do for them. Just let it be, and stop "promoting" it like a little kid's first girlfriend. Fix your own problems and stop worrying about what software other people use for Christ's sake. You can't sell something without knowing what it is and what the customer wants, that is so f'ing retarded.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[s1lverl0rd]

Your site runs on a Youtube-watching machine? Geez, you really live on the edge...

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[jimicus]

Watch a typical Windows user who doesn't really know what they're doing for an hour or two. For best results, choose someone who doesn't much use a PC. Give them a few things that they have not done before - simple things like "print out a photo that's on a digital camera", "scan in an image" or "copy a few files to/from a USB flash drive".

Don't help them, don't say a word, don't touch the keyboard, don't do anything. Just watch.

I bet you anything you like that by the end of that hour the person has failed to do at least a couple of the fairly simple tasks, taken five times longer than necessary to do the others, sworn a few times under their breath and shown every sign of being very frustrated. They'll have seen innumerable dialogs come up that may as well be written in Swahili and ignored almost every one of them.

Note in particular that they're not enjoying it - they're trying to achieve a task that they know should be fairly simple but the computer seems to be blocking everything they try to do like an overbearing school teacher dealing with a recalcitrant child. They can't even take the USB drive out without the computer telling them off!

This is how most adults learn to use their computer, and for many the experience is still relatively fresh in their minds. If you say "Linux is an alternative which works differently and you'll need alternatives for most of the software you're used to", this will be interpreted as "Remember all that fun you had learning to use a PC? How do you fancy doing it all again?"

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[evilandi]

Yup. My three-year old loves "the penguin game" (Tux Racer). Ideally, at 5:30am, as in "Daddy, wake up, it is morning day. Can I play the penguin game please?".

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[skiman1979]

Yeah I know about Wine, but VirtualBox is a LOT slicker.

Maybe VirtualBox is a lot slicker, but it also results in a lot of overhead that is not always necessary. Why run an entire second operating system on top of your native operating system just to run a Windows application or two if those same applications can run under Wine? VirtualBox is more useful if you're actually using the guest OS as another computer, e.g. if you're setting the guest and host OS's to network with each other for something.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[digitalunity]

My site runs squirrelmail, that's it. That is just for convenience, for when I'm at school and the wifi has portblocking turned on. The only ports they let through are HTTP, HTTPS and 8080.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[BitZtream]

if they have a strong enough machine, suggest a VirtualBox installation to get the one or two Windows apps they need. Yeah I know about Wine, but VirtualBox is a LOT slicker.

Fail.

Why not just run Wiindows? Why run twice as much when you can just use one. Why are you continuing to basically try to rape windows users by forcing Linux on them when its not up to the requirements for the job, and leaving them, in the end, still running windows with the exact same headaches as they already have.

Where is the logic in this?

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[BitZtream]

I believe that your approach is what "we" are already doing, and it hassn't worked very well.

Thats because 'we' are wrong. 'We' don't know what consumers want. 'We' want something different than they do and we push our own options on what 'we' come up with as what they want.

'We' need to actually do some real marketing if anyone expects the year of the Linux Desktop.

Problem is, no one is doing that, no business anyway. This leads me to think that every business out there with solid motivation to promote the Linux desktop to beat Microsoft isn't doing so because its not a replacement.

'We' need to stick with being geeks and leave the marketing to the marketers. Stop trying to do everything. Not everyone is going to be Bill Gates, but we don't need that quality of person, we just need to get everyone working together in a way to do better than he has.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[erroneus]

Pass.

When people run a virtual machine to run the one or two Windows apps they can't do without, they aren't using it for browsing the net or otherwise making it available for hacking and trashing. Further, they can "back it up" in the event of failures such as malware and recovery becomes as simple as running a "recover" batch script.

Keep in mind the motivations behind getting away from Windows: Getting away from the malware and crap not to mention the other problems such as Windows rot and the like. Simply running windows entirely exposes users to all of those problems and annoyances.

What's more, the VBox users can actually set up machines to run as a service in the background using as little as 256-512MB RAM. Doing that and using that remote desktop tool that calls on specific applications to run and you have a VERY seamless user experience completely with copy and paste interaction with your native Linux apps.

Re:Linux is not like winows.

[Yfrwlf]

Linux "advocacy" is far from retarded, if that advocacy means simply informing others of more choice. Of course you can't FORCE others to use something, that's a given. The fact is, most average computer users only know what the stores sell to them, and the stores sell to them things that cost money so the store can take a cut of the profit (not that they can't charge money for Linux, but Microsoft puts lots of pressure in the form of money savings to only sell Windows which is unfair). Any way, a lot of consumers are clamoring for computer "secrets", help from someone who knows computers to tell them where they can get the good deals and avoid the scams and crappy software and hardware to save money. I've had several users chase me down wanting to know about alternatives to Microsoft, and alternatives to X Y and Z crappy hardware or software.

You should spread your knowledge the best you can to try to help others. Just do it in a way that comes across as trying to be helpful and not "I know better than you what you want".

Great Idea

[SilverHatHacker]

Pretty much the only thing Linux needs now* is a good marketing campaign. Not only do we have an ad, but its forkable? That kinda blows my mind!

*Yeah, I know there are other things it needs. But they are stuck in a chicken-and-egg battle until Linux gets a higher market share anyway, so we'll just ignore them for now.

Re:Great Idea

[Darkness404]

But radio? I mean, the target demographic for Linux (young, reasonably computer savvy) doesn't listen to the radio really anymore. And Kim Komando is a total joke. Her "advice" is reboot things. Yeah, it works, but to be perfectly honest, if you haven't already tried that chances are you shouldn't be installing Linux (yeah, you can make it work, but -far- too often those people will be upset with how some niche Windows program doesn't run on Linux). Show some fancy 3-D compiz effects on prime time and you have a success, but radio? And Kim Komando? Those people don't need Linux, they need something common to pay geek squad whenever something goes wrong.

Re:Great Idea

[Eil]

Pretty much the only thing Linux needs now* is a good marketing campaign.

"Pretty much the only thing that Linux needs now is you" is a good marketing campaign.

Transcript

[Animaether]

Your computer has problems? Wanna hear the "industry's" solution? That's right, your software isn't working - so what do they suggest? Use more software to solve the problem(!) Listen to what you're being told: they want you to purchase software so the software you already purchased will work! .. What!?
The problem is.. we've come to think of this as being perfectly acceptable. So stop accepting! There's been a solution all along, but you've rarely heard of it. That's right! You spent maybe hundreds maybe thousands of dollars over the years that you didn't have to.
It's time for the secret to be told. Thousands of businesses, universities and even Wall Street have been using: Linux! For years. What do they know that you don't? Linux is free. It doesn't need any virus protection and 99.9% of the software you'll ever need comes free as well. It's as easy as clicking a mouse! That's it. No more crashes, no more viruses, no more blue screens of death.
And get this: with Linux, you don't have to reboot after installing new software. Linux runs on old hardware. No need to buy a new computer every time the industry decides to boost profits and release another buggy system.
So why are you still paying for the privilege of using your computer? There's a better way: Linux.

Somehow the flow between the 2nd and 3rd sentence is... odd, but there ya go.

Re:Transcript

[NoYob]

...even Wall Street have been using: Linux!

That may not be a positive selling point these days.

Re:Transcript

[droopycom]

The script and the voice for the long version sounds like an infomercial for the latest "get rich quick" or "how to beat the system" scams..

"It's time for the secret to be told" .... yuk.... makes me want to puke.

The only thing missing is the fine print that you usually see on those infomercial, eg: "Individual results may vary, result shown are not typical"

Without this kind of disclaimer, this is borderline false advertising "This is as easy as clicking a mouse!" (yeah, right...)

 

Re:Transcript

[caladine]

It's as easy as clicking a mouse! That's it. No more crashes, no more viruses, no more blue screens of death.

The only true part of this is the lack of viruses (for now). In place of BSODs, you just get to meet mister kernel panic instead, albeit with less frequency.
Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. However, portraying it as incredibly easy to use with everything you'd want out of a desktop operating system is just false advertising for 95% of computer users out there. This is a horribly misleading ad. That's just great that universities and wall street (because we really want to harken back to them right now, yes?) use Linux, more power to the penguin. However, these institutions don't use Linux like one would as a home desktop OS.
Besides the fact that there are plenty of free(!) and perfectly working solutions for Windows to avoid malware and protect yourself against viruses.
I want Linux to really be ready for the home desktop of the average user, but it isn't. I don't think we should be kidding ourselves and making ads with false promises like these.

Re:Transcript

[Rewind]

"And get this: with Linux, you don't have to reboot after installing new software. "

You have to reboot after installing things just as often as you do on Windows or OS X. I guess since it is an ad it should take some liberties (we all know Apple and Microsoft do) in describing the product, but that just seemed odd to me. Unless he is pitting modern Linux distros against Windows 98 or something.

Re:Transcript

[maxwell demon]

Well, it was not Linux that crashed on Wall Street.

Re:Transcript

[Korin43]

Well it makes perfect sense. If you want normal people to trust something, you have to make it sound like a scam.

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

Besides the fact that there are plenty of free(!) and perfectly working solutions for Windows to avoid malware and protect yourself against viruses.

True. However, you have to download them, install them and keep them updated or they don't do you any good. And, they take up hard disk space, (Granted, that's not a big concern now, but it's still true.) they have to be loaded every time you boot and they're always running in the background, slowing down your computer and making it less responsive. I use Linux. Right now, I'm running Fedora 10, with 27 days up uptime. My sister uses Ubuntu, and hasn't rebooted in well over a month, because Ubuntu isn't as bleeding-edge as Fedora is. Both of our boxes are crisp, responsive and unhindered either by malware or the band-aids needed to keep malware off of our systems. And, I might add, I've been using Linux in one form or another for at least a decade, now, and I've yet to see my first kernel panic. If what you want from your computer is the ability to surf the web, read and send email and maybe compose the occasional document to be printed out, Linux can do that for you at least as well as Windows can, if not better, and for most adults, that's all they want from a home computer.

Re:Transcript

[rantingkitten]

This is the raw audio. It's not a commercial -- just the voiceover for what can be assembled and edited into a commercial complete with music and sound effects and such.

If I were doing this I'd edit the audio like so:

Your computer has problems. The "industry's" solution? Use more software to solve the problem! They want you to purchase software so the software you already purchased will work!

The problem is.. we've come to think of this as being perfectly acceptable. So stop accepting! There's been a solution all along, but you've rarely heard of it. t's time for the secret to be told. Thousands of businesses, universities and even Wall Street have been using: Linux! For years. What do they know that you don't? Linux is free. It doesn't need any virus protection and 99.9% of the software you'll ever need comes free as well. It's as easy as clicking a mouse! That's it. No more crashes, no more viruses, no more blue screens of death.

So why are you still paying for the privilege of using your computer? There's a better way: Linux.

I don't think most people really care about "old hardware" or "having to reboot when they install software", which isn't even true for Windows most of the time unless you're updating drivers (or when Windows decides to reboot without really even asking you but that's another story), so I'd take that out. Keep it short and punchy.

I wish they'd have a simple website somewhere, and mention the url at the end of this commercial. The website would lists of applications sure to be popular with the general masses -- OpenOffice, Pidgin, Thunderbird, Firefox, Skype, VLC, Audacious -- with brief descriptions and screenshots. Point out that many people are already using these programs on their Windows computers so they're already familiar with how to use them (take the "new is scary" aspect away).

It'd also have a list of organisations which have transitioned mostly or entirely to Linux -- governments, militaries, corporations, universities. The list doesn't have to be exhaustive, just highlight some of the most prestigious or recognisable ones. When people grouse that switching would be sooooo haaaarrrrd and would neeeevvveerrr woooorrrrk, there's a nice list. "Entire city governments and major universities are getting along just fine -- maybe it's not as hard as I thought."

The site would be a compliment to the commercial, where people could get more information, but keep it simple. Non-geeks don't want case studies and endless harping about the FOSS industry. Just show them that it's free, it has programs that will do exactly what they want, thousands of major organisations are using it, and leave it at that.

Or maybe I should get off my duff and make such a site... anyone think this is a good idea?

Well, at any rate, this is a nice step and I hope it gets some traction.

Re:Transcript

[digitalunity]

I wish it would, really. And have massive data corruption.

I would love to see short term day traders and high speed institutional investors lose their shirt.

Re:Transcript

[anexkahn]

"It doesn't need any virus protection"

While viruses are not very prevalent. I wouldn't say you dont need virus protection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware

As Linux becomes more common among end users we will see more viruses.

Re:Transcript

[caladine]

If what you want from your computer is the ability to surf the web, read and send email and maybe compose the occasional document to be printed out, Linux can do that for you at least as well as Windows can, if not better, and for most adults, that's all they want from a home computer.

If that's all you're looking for (like my 85 year old grandmother, who's using Ubuntu these days) Linux is definitely what you want to have. That's exactly why I think Linux is the OS of choice for MIDs/UMPCs/Netbooks(and whatever new buzzword is being thrown around these days). Just don't have a gamer in the household without being able to dual boot back into Windows (or if you have a beefy enough machine, a good VM).
Until one can really game on Linux, desktop prime-time is out of reach, in my opinion. Wine isn't remotely good enough to make me completely ditch Windows at this point.

Re:Transcript

[BitZtream]

So basically, they mad a boring Mac ad?

A bunch of either flat out lies or exaggerations and sensationalizing about things that would be true for Linux if it were popular as well.

All OSes are susceptible to virii, if you don't think so, you're a moron. It crashes in my experience just as much as properly setup not dicked with or thrown together with random shitty hardware PC. You haven't actually had to reboot with windows software for years, although it may say you do, and that really isn't that big of a deal, its a rare event. XP runs on pretty much any hardware out there that people are still willing to use

Why are people still paying for their OS? A better question is when are you guys going to realize that the 'Linux way' or 'GPL way' depending how you want to word it today isnt' the only way, and may not actually be what people prefer, regardless of how great you think it is.

You want Linux for the masses? Start 'selling' people on the Linux THEY want, not the Linux that we nerds and geeks have created for ourselves. The general public is NOTHING like us. Until you realize that and adjust to it, Linux is going to remain a niche OS.

Personally, I'd appreciate it if it stayed a niche OS. I don't really look forward to having my favorite OS swarmed by idiots, nor do I want malware authors targeting it. Stop trying to beat Microsoft at a popularity contest, you aren't going to when, they greedy will beat you every single time, they have more money to throw at it. Beat them in the areas you can and move on, stop trying to do everything, otherwise you'll just end up like Windows and not be good at anything.

Re:Transcript

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

I want Linux to really be ready for the home desktop of the average user, but it isn't. I don't think we should be kidding ourselves and making ads with false promises like these.

Sorry, that's a crock of shit. Linux is ready for the desktop of the average user. The issue is that they should not be required to install it or do anything beyond okaying the installation of a variety of security updates to the software they use.

I've set quite a few people up with Ubuntu in the past year or so, compared with previously saying "don't do Linux". Your average user now has a real set of expectations from a computer. Linux can meet these needs and expectations, and there is a huge reduction in support headaches when you've convinced people only to install stuff made for their distribution and in a searchable repository.

Dealing with getting real people to use Linux is having someone with a clue set up support for Flash, DVDs, and stuff like that. The one I found hilarious was a friend who's used Windows for years - he asked what bittorrent client you could get for Linux. When I told him Ubuntu installed one by default, well, his jaw hit the floor.

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[Restil]

It's sad but true. I was thinking the same thing hearing it. But lets face it, we're not marketing to the computer savvy users. We're marketing to the user that takes his computer to Geek Squad every time he gets a virus... which is frequently. The problem here, is while the ads will likely have their intended effect on that market, it also means we'll be introducing a bunch of people who are still getting over that whole CDROM/cupholder thing to an operating system that might be just a BIT more complicated than the one they've spent the better part of the last 15 years getting used to. The hope here shouldn't be that every clueless moron starts using Linux, but that developers will see the marketing campaigns as a motivation to invest in Linux development.

-Restil

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[westlake]

Your computer has problems? Wanna hear the "industry's" solution? That's right, your software isn't working - so what do they suggest? Use more software to solve the problem(!) Listen to what you're being told: they want you to purchase software so the software you already purchased will work! .. What!?

I haven't spent a dime on security software for Windows in the last ten years.

It's bundled with your cable service, a download from CNET - and soon to be a free from Microsoft itself.

Thousands of businesses, universities and even Wall Street have been using: Linux! For years. What do they know that you don't? Linux is free. It doesn't need any virus protection and 99.9% of the software you'll ever need comes free as well.

The enterprise Linux distribution comes with a service contract or a professional on-call - on-site - IT staff. Nothing of the sort is being offered in the consumer market.

"99.9%" is the language of the fraudster.

You might as well be hawking a bar of soap or a homeopathic cure for cancer for all the credibility it gives you.

The back list of home-use software for Windows is miles wide and deep. The barest hint of what is available in games alone can be seen on sites like gog.com.

It's as easy as clicking a mouse! That's it. No more crashes, no more viruses, no more blue screens of death.

"Nothing can go wrong."

With Linux, you don't have to reboot after installing new software.

Big whoop. It isn't needed that often. It won't hurt to stretch your legs. The learning curve. The configuration options. This is where you will be spending your time.

Linux runs on old hardware. No need to buy a new computer every time the industry decides to boost profits and release another buggy system.

In the consumer market, the Windows user upgrades hardware and software when he finds the attractive OEM system bundle - and, by god, there are lot of them out there.

Something like 50 with a a "Win 7" tech guarantee" available from WalMart.com alone.

Linux runs on old hardware - but who the hell cares?

Your aging Dell has the size and heft of a suitcase. It can't be economically upgraded in any significant way.

It's replacement will weigh 11 pounds.

It will ship with a 64 Bit OS. Quad Core CPU. 8 to 12 GB RAM. The 1 TB hard drive. Blu-Ray and HDMI home theater quality video and sound.

The gamer will want a heftier power supply and a more muscular video card, but that won't break the bank.

The reviews for Win 7 have been solidly supportive.

The RC has a 20% larger installed base than Linux, according to Net Applications. Half that of Linux according to the developer-oriented W3Schools.

Hardware drivers simply do not appear to be an issue.

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[3vi1]

>> And I'm not sure what decade they're from talking about blue screens of death...

I got one three days ago when I moved a VM from one machine to another. Which, I guess is equivalent to installing some new hardware.

Some of us do things that are more complicated, and still see them regularly... though I do agree that it's way more better than in "the old days."

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[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

For some reason I read it in my head with the voice of Billy Mays.

"Billy Mays here for UBUNTU! ..."

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[textstring]

Hey, I got a blue screen of death on my windows 7 box. Granted, my RAM was fucked and I would've gotten a KERNEL PANIC on Linux but the code is still there.
But yea, it's a real pain in the ass to install Linux without a keyboard.

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[CrashNBrn]

27 Days uptime isn't impressive. I could regularly get ~30 Days uptime with Win98+ME (some vxd/exe/and dll's replaced with ME versions). I reboot Win2K for the odd MS patch or the rare GPU driver update, i.e. every couple months or so.
Have I seen BSOD's? Sure, and almost all of them were caused by shitty Nforce Nvidia drivers. Or actual hardware failure due to overheating.

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[Eil]

However, portraying it as incredibly easy to use with everything you'd want out of a desktop operating system is just false advertising for 95% of computer users out there.

I have to disagree here. Linux is perfect for 95% of computer users out there because that 95% are the ones who generally only use a web browser, an office suite, and *maybe* an email or IM client. All of the basic everyday desktop apps are there. Hardware compatibility is, to a very large degree, not a problem anymore. Community support is excellent and any modern distro ships with an easy-to-use desktop for managing your data and the system as a whole. Installing new software is much simpler than on Windows or Mac, because all you have to do is open your package manager, click a few buttons, and the software is installed and ready to use. (I've impressed more than a few people installing KMyMoney this way.)

These days, when people say Linux isn't ready for the population at large, they cite things like Photoshop. Well, Photoshop is not a general-purpose tool at all, it's meant for graphics designers who tweak photos all day long. Simple photo manipulation can be done with GIMP or scores of other easier-to-use tools. Gaming? Well, gaming is a not general-purpose computing either. Serious gamers load their systems up with expensive whiz-bang hardware and brand-new games and the developers of both of these don't usually target Linux because their core market isn't using it.

But Linux has been able to handle your day-to-day desktop computing tasks for years. And in many ways, it handles them better than the proprietary alternatives can.

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[AvitarX]

I'm not quite sure what you mean there.

If I am not mistaken running executables essentially have an invisible hard link created to their old place on the disk. This disk space is not overwritten until the program stops running.

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[techno-vampire]

27 Days uptime isn't impressive.

Not for Linux it isn't, that's for sure. And, I must admit you were able to get remarkable performance from your Windows installations; most people need to reboot several times a day. As I think I've mentioned, I run Fedora 10, so my uptime is limited by how fast they shove out kernel updates. With Windows, and Patch Tuesday, if you know exactly what you're doing and have everything set up Just Right, you only need to worry about updates requiring a reboot once a month. Of course, that also means that security holes don't get patched as soon as they could unless Microsoft decides they're important enough for an emergency update. Like with everything, there's a trade-off. You find it acceptable, I don't.

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[icebraining]

My "enhanced usb host device" (aka USB 2.0 chip) is fucked up. Windows 7 tried to use it and I got a nice BSOD saying "usbbugcode_invalid_physical_address". Debian just tried to access it, failed, disabled it and used USB 1.1. Sure, it's slower, but at least I can connect stuff, and I don't have to spend hours until I found I should disable that specific device in control panel.

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[war4peace]

"Right now, I'm running Fedora 10, with 27 days up uptime"
Right now, I'm running Windows 7 on my main machine, with close to 85 days uptime. It might look like a pissing contest, but I'm merely pointing out that this "feature" has no meaning. Are we talking IT-savvy people or Average Joes as targets for the ad?
"Both of our boxes are crisp, responsive and unhindered either by malware or the band-aids needed to keep malware off of our systems."
I do have an antivirus installed on Windows machines, but they are still crisp, responsive and I can play great 3D Games on them too :). Again, the statement that an antivirus/antispyware solution makes your machine sluggish is... misleading to say the least. Yes, there are such solutions that plainly suck and take up lots of resources. But yet again, there are a lot which don't.
Now on to the ad:
Saying that Linux doesn't need any kind of virus protection is a VERY VERY dangerous statement. You always need ANY kind of protection you can get for your Operating System. "The number of malicious programsâ"including viruses, Trojans, and other threatsâ"specifically written for Linux has been on the increase in recent years and more than doubled during 2005 from 422 to 863" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware). I know that this number is very very small, but if it's above 0, you will need some sort of protection, for your own data's sake, unless you don't give a rat's ass.
Ultimately, ending on a funnier note:
Linux enthusiasts, 1993: "It sucks for the Average Joe, but wait till next year"
Linux enthusiasts, 2009: "It sucks for the Average Joe, but wait till next year"
That pretty much sums it up.

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[s4m7]

if the file is in memory, why wouldn't you want to overwrite it on disk? if it's a resident service, you update the files and restart the service. This doesn't apply to the kernel or it's object files (modules) which if they are overwritten, can cause instability so a decent (apt, rpm, etc) manager will prompt you to restart, even though usually the files aren't overwritten but installed side by side. the problem I see is with an OS that has so much crap in resident memory that overwriting any system file is dangerous and has to be put off until you can actually reboot the machine. On a linux machine, everything is fairly modular so you can just restart individual services and don't have to bring the whole machine down for something routine, like updating your web browser, because it's not integrated into the OS shell.

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[Jay L]

But lets face it, we're not marketing to the computer savvy users. We're marketing to the user that takes his computer to Geek Squad every time he gets a virus...

In other words, the AOL user of 15 years ago. And it's sad but true: AOL had a bunch of big-budget, witty Chiat/Day ads, but the late-night blue-screen infomercials were far more effective.

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[icebraining]

That list has two trojans, fifteen or so viruses and eleven worms, most of them based on pached exploits. Why would you need AV software for that? You need AV software to protect you from the literally millions of malware in the Windows world.

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[ion.simon.c]

*shrug* I got hit by the "Malformed packet triggers BSOD in Win2k/XP/Server 2k3" fault before I had time to patch.
1) BSODs still happen. :D
2) Most everything that I install (even AAAA video games) requests that I reboot the machine after the installation. You and I know that when you *really* have to reboot the machine. Joe Blow doesn't.

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[apoc.famine]

But you're posting on a website entitled "news for nerds". You aren't joe mainstream. You aren't listening to an AM radio talk show dedicated to fixing trivial Windows problems. That's where this commercial was placed. You aren't the target of this ad. It's the people we always bitch about on this website who throw out their old computer and get a new one from Dell every 2-3 years, because they've trashed their current one. It's the ten million botnet hosts in the world.
 
Look, Linux is good enough for a LOT of people. It's not good enough for a gamer, or a hardcore graphical designer or any number of niche users. You must keep in mind that if you're on slashdot, you're probably in a minority of computer users in the world.
 
If you look at the "Dude, you're getting a DELL!!!" people, they really only do a few things. They email, IM, surf the web, bid on ebay, watch youtube videos, write the occasional letter, and plug their cameras into their computers and manipulate them with picassa.
 
Those are the people targeted by this advertisement. All that shit works near flawlessly under linux once you do the initial setup. And THAT'S what this ad is for! Hell, even WoW has a damn good track record under WINE! That will take care of another few million computer gamers. Don't forget that the balance between consoles and PC games has tipped WAAAAY towards the console now. There are plenty of "gamers" who just use a PC for the above things.
 
Last but not least, you did the ever popular, "run your mouth without knowing what the fuck you're talking about" thing. From the website mentioned in the ad: "We install and configure Linux exactly how you like it. You get a personalized computer system just for you. You can still use Windows if you want. We can make many Windows applications work on Linux and we can install Windows and Linux together, so you can choose which system to use when you boot the computer."
 
In short, you're a dumbass. Everything you bitch about is either not an issue for the people targeted by this ad, or its something that this company is DESIGNED to take care of.

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[foxylad]

> I haven't spent a dime on security software for Windows in the last ten years.
Mom and Dad users now believe annual subscriptions to Norton and McAfee are part of owning a computer.

> The enterprise Linux distribution comes with a service contract or a professional on-call - on-site - IT staff. Nothing of the sort is being offered in the consumer market.
Have you ever got a useful response out of the support infrastructure that comes with Windows? Me neither. For Mom and Dad, there's likely no difference in support between Win and Lin - in both cases they are likely to have to rely on friends or a computer store.

> Linux runs on old hardware - but who the hell cares?
99.9% (no, I'm not a fraudster!) of computer users. You are an enthusiast, who chooses to spend your disposable income on a fancy computer. But most people want a machine that will let them email/browse. If it kept working for ten years, they'd be happy to continue using it. I think if you were honest about the amount you'd spent on your PC over the years (notwithstanding getting your AV software for free!), you'd understand why most Mom and Dad users (and corporate users for that matter) would be a lot better off with Linux.

I migrated my parents to Linux three years ago for my own sanity. I figured "How do I make it do this?" calls were preferable to the "I think I've got another computer virus" calls. They got used to Linux very quickly, and I now spend probably 5% of the time I used to supporting them. I'd recommend this to anyone who gets bugged to resolve computer problems.

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[initdeep]

if that took you hours, I'm not sure you should be using a computer.........

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[westlake]

The website would lists of applications sure to be popular with the general masses -- OpenOffice, Pidgin, Thunderbird, Firefox, Skype... Point out that many people are already using these programs on their Windows computers

That tells me Linux offers nothing more than what I already have.

But to be honest you need to include a disclaimer: that not all of my favorite Windows programs will run under Linux.

That is the deal-breaker.

It'd also have a list of organisations which have transitioned mostly or entirely to Linux -- governments, militaries, corporations, universities.

But I am not the Army, the Navy, or the Big State U. I live with my wife and kids in a four room apartment and we have very different needs.

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[FrankieBaby1986]

Bull. Just today, had to re-install MS Office 07 on a user's computer. I think she installed a business version from CD's over the trial that came with the computer, and in doing so, the software would not accept license key anymore.

Anyways, went to programs and features. Click on Office (copy 1) and choose uninstall. Wait 6 minutes, system requires reboot. For OFFICE SOFTWARE! wtf? Now, need to remove the other Office entry (copy 2) Asked me to reboot AGAIN. Then I removed the powerpoint viewer, which led to ANOTHER reboot. Finally, installing Office 07 required, you guessed it, another reboot!

Thats 5 reboots, to mess with OFFICE. Again, WTF?

Look at Ubuntu: Basically "Uncheck" (Deselect) all software packages I wish to remove, and "Check" (Select) all packages I want to install. Press the button, and off we go. Few minutes later, no reboots, and everything is done. All in ONE STEP.

Windows should have required a unified program install interface from day one. They have lots of catching up to do, IMHO.

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[initdeep]

no, most people do not need to reboot several times per day.
And this is exactly what is wrong with Linux. The people with smug and obviously idiotic statements like this.

Face it, Windows in it's current versions is pretty damn stable, and Joe User knows this.
Joe User also knows that statements that use "Most" in them are usually weaselword statements made by marketing types. He's learned this over the last decade by reading more than 1 source for his news and perusing the occasional blog or three.

So when some asshat comes around and says something as moronic as "most people need to reboot several times a day", which he knows from personal experience to be absolutely incorrect, he immediately wonders what else that is spewing from that person's mouth that is moronic and incorrect.

Next time, try using some factual basis in your conversations, and you might find that people will listen to them and possibly be persuaded by them.

When people ask me about Linux, I tell them the distro I use, what I use it for, what issues I have discovered, and ask them what they would like to use it for.
Then an intelligent conversation can proceed because they have some basis for believing me. I don't tell them it's "teh bestst and windoze suxors" or make up moronic statements.

Sometimes Linux is a good fit for them, sometimes not. Either way, those that try it are more likely to not get frustrated by false hopes since they weren't flasley lead to believe it does everything better, because it doesn't.

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[Ash-Fox]

You don't need to restart because Linux lacks a mechanism to prevent in-memory executable files and shared libraries from being overwritten on disk.

Actually *nix systems do have a mechanism to do so. The executable can place a write lock (fcntl, flock) on it's files if it really wants to. This is unlike Windows, as write locks are enforced by the OS - Which, as you can see - does not seem to be really giving that many benefits.

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[techno-vampire]

Right now, I'm running Windows 7 on my main machine, with close to 85 days uptime.

As I've pointed out in another post, Fedora is a bleeding-edge distro, with fairly frequent kernel updates, and it's kinda hard to get the new one running without a reboot. Still, unless there's a kernel update or a power failure, I never need to reboot. How many Windows users do you know who can go a full day without rebooting their main desktop at least once? I'm glad you've reached almost three months without rebooting, and hope you can go at least twice that long, but your experience isn't exactly average; mine is for Linux users, and if I wanted to use something like Mint or CentOS, I could probably get uptimes of a year or more.

You point out that the number of Linux viruses, Trojans and so-on is rising, and I'm sure it is. However, how many of them are in the wild, and not just Proof Of Concept? I honestly don't know, but I do know that, as you point out, sooner or later I'm going to need an anti-virus. Judging from what I can see, it's probably going to be later, but who knows? And, before I leave, I might add that there are 3D games written for Linux, such as OpenArena, and they work Just Fine.

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[techno-vampire]

When people ask me about Linux, I tell them the distro I use, what I use it for, what issues I have discovered, and ask them what they would like to use it for.

So do I. I also tell them that if they're happy with the way Windows works for them and are comfortable with it, there's no real reason to change, except to experiment. If they're just curious, I point them toward a LiveCD, and caution them not to let it install unless they Really Mean It. Linux isn't for everybody. But then, neither are Windows or Mac OS.

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[westlake]

You are an enthusiast, who chooses to spend your disposable income on a fancy computer. But most people want a machine that will let them email/browse. If it kept working for ten years, they'd be happy to continue using it. I think if you were honest about the amount you'd spent on your PC over the years, you'd understand why most Mom and Dad users (and corporate users for that matter) would be a lot better off with Linux.

I've never paid a dime for service or support.

The real cost has been in broadband Internet services and consumables - ink and paper.

When I first became interested in the PC I was told to focus on the programs I wanted to run. I happen to like polished, focused, apps that target the non technical end-user. Including the occasional PC game. I've found very good value in Windows.

I tend to buy refurbished electronics from sources like TigerDirect.

There is nothing fancy about this aging Dell or the HP that is likely to replace it. But it will be a significant upgrade - targeted more towards media play than high-performance PC gaming - I tend to more of a classic solo RPG and adventure gamer anyway - and adjusted for inflation the new system will likely cost less than what I paid the last time out.

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[tftp]

Mom and Dad users now believe annual subscriptions to Norton and McAfee are part of owning a computer.

Norton and McAfee will be selling Linux versions of their products to those very Mom and Dad users.

Have you ever got a useful response out of the support infrastructure that comes with Windows? Me neither.

Not so fast, please. IT people at work made many long phone calls to Dell when they installed a bunch of servers, domain controllers and tape drives. And when they installed a RH server they made a support call to RedHat (IIRC, something about joining the domain.)

But most people want a machine that will let them email/browse. If it kept working for ten years, they'd be happy to continue using it.

The box came with some Windows, XP probably, and it's still in good shape, support-wise, if the box is only used for simple tasks. There is no need to load Linux onto that old box - the original OS is fine. Also don't forget the original email and browser software, the users need to migrate their email archives and bookmarks.

you'd understand why most Mom and Dad users (and corporate users for that matter) would be a lot better off with Linux.

A /.ter would be better off with Linux. But Mom and Dad would be better off with what they know how to use. Besides, every household is bound to have one or more programs that won't work under Wine. There are just too many Windows apps, most of them small and irrelevant, written by small teams years ago and no longer supported. Maybe it's an ancient Quicken, maybe it's AutoCAD R12 (DOS, by the way) maybe it's something else. These programs won't run on Linux and their data will be lost. Who wants that?

There is some cost to Windows. But that cost usually gets paid up front, when you buy the box, and is amortized over the life of the computer. It's not like you need to buy new Windows CD every year or two. The cost is also not that high - I saw numbers around $50 to Dell and other high volume OEMs. If a replacement is needed what do you think should Mom and Dad choose - to pay extra $50 for a new Windows box and have all their data and software migrated automatically, or save that $50 and risk their data and their software that they purchased years ago for far more than that? It may be a difficult decision for a child, but an adult won't even think twice.

I migrated my parents to Linux three years ago for my own sanity.

Great if it works in your situation. But I'm sure before you migrated them you did all the IT work that I mentioned - checked that their Webcam works with whatever IM they need to talk to their relatives, and checked that their Paint Shop Pro is working under Wine or has an acceptable replacement, and that their financial software is moved over, etc. etc. This is some work, and it's good that you chose to do it. But regular people, not blessed/cursed with a Linux aficionado child, would have to do that how?

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[techno-vampire]

It's not good enough for a gamer, or a hardcore graphical designer or any number of niche users.

And yet, both my desktop and my laptop are using compiz-fusion with the desktop effects active, and you just can't do that with Windows. I show friends the cube and they're all very impressed. Some of them want to know if that runs under Windows and they're all very disappointed when they find out it doesn't. So far, not one of them's decided to switch just to get the eye candy, but then, I don't have foolish, superficial friends. (My main reason for showing them, BTW, is that I think they'll enjoy the show, and it's not easy to describe the cube in a way that really makes sense to somebody who's never seen it.)

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[tibman]

My experience with Windows 7 had several driver problems. I had to reinstall XP, windows 7 simply could not do what i wanted.

1st Problem: Sata drivers were needed to install windows 7, i had to dig out a floppy drive *shudders*

2nd Problem: Win7 would not allow me to install an older video card driver. Why older? Because the default windows one did not work properly with my vendor specific Mobo drivers. I had to use all default windows drivers which gave my games terrible performance over my previous XP install. If i installed the mobo nForce drivers the microsoft video card driver didn't work, i was stuck with some horrid resolution. I couldn't install another videocard driver because windows insisted the newer win7 driver was better and would literally decide that for me.

My point: Windows 7's hardware drivers are an issue.

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[Mongoose Disciple]

And, I must admit you were able to get remarkable performance from your Windows installations; most people need to reboot several times a day.

Dude, it's not 1996 anymore.

If I reboot my Vista desktop once a month, that's a lot. Probably it's closer to something like 5 or 6 times a year.

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[Retief-CDT]

The average desktop user of a decade ago would be amazed how easy and simple modern Linux distros are to learn and use. It is just that the average intelligence keeps dropping. So it is a moving target of how stupid do you need to make it. Judging from MS Windows latest TV commercials, the target demographic is in the My Little Pony intelligence level. (Though Apples dancing people add harks back to early primitive fertility rituals neatly saved for posterity by ipods video capability.

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[westlake]

Well it makes perfect sense. If you want normal people to trust something, you have to make it sound like a scam.

Cynical - and dangerous.

Reputations once broken, stay broken. It's mighty hard to claw your way back up.

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[walshy007]

Had failing hardware like that before, windows wouldn't even boot before dying, linux booted, I checked dmesg and it was like "wtfux sanity check failing: Danger will robinson, arms flailing wildly" quite a bit before it actually kernel panic'd.

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[walshy007]

Linux enthusiasts, 1993: "It sucks for the Average Joe, but wait till next year" Linux enthusiasts, 2009: "It sucks for the Average Joe, but wait till next year"

Depends on your definition of average Joe, their usage and what they want to do, I'd wajor that the overwhelming majority of average people would do just fine with linux that was already set up for them for their needs.

My little sisters have been using linux since they were 7, and they aren't even into computers, grandparents who had never touched a computer till they were 70 are using it just fine also

But if by 'average joe' you mean 'gamer' then yes, it sucks.

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[techno-vampire]

I have a friend who's a computer columnist, among other things. He's mentioned several times that his Vista box will sometimes refuse to find one or another of the computers on his LAN until it gets rebooted, and he can't find out why. From what I can tell, his experience and yours are quite different. If you know how he can stop his Vista box from "forgetting" about other boxes, I'm sure he'd be glad to know.

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[murdocj]

And, I must admit you were able to get remarkable performance from your Windows installations; most people need to reboot several times a day

Utter nonsense. If you are going to criticize Windows & MS, there are plenty of real issues, don't toss out crap like this. I run Windows at work for software development and at home for gaming, and I push both machines pretty hard. I can't recall ANY time in the 10 years (including a few years running Win/ME) when I had to reboot "several times a day". I don't know ANYONE at work who needs to do that. At work I generally just power my desktop down on the weekend. I have a Windows XP production machine that's been running for months without a reboot.

The problem with saying "Windows is incredibly unstable" is that anyone who actually uses Windows knows that's crap, so they assume that anything positive that you say about Linux is also crap. You aren't doing your cause any good with such talk.

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[ZosX]

I had similar problems with drivers and eventually forced windows 7 into diagnostic mode where the slightest driver issue will cause a BSOD. After many unrelated BSODs I finally honed in on the culprit: the card reader drivers from microsoft. A quick trip to the manufacturer's website fixed all of my hibernation and shutdown issues. From what I've seen the nforce drivers are quite a bit buggy as well. Specifically the display driver portion of them. Had a lot of problems with an asus board and nforce 720i chipset. It has an 8400gs embedded, so it is not exactly new hardware. I think once windows 7 is out in the wild a lot of the early driver issues will be squashed. After finding a stable driver set my install has been exceptionally stable. Much more responsive than vista. The arguments for sticking with XP are pretty much all moot in my eyes now and the GUI is actually kind of pretty for a change with the glass and all. Live previews of well animated windows like video for example is pretty neat too. Never thought I'd speak so positively about a M$ OS, but finally it feels like windows done right, sort of like the way windows 2000 was pretty rock solid and a huge step forward. Just about 0 issues with the 64 bit flavor running 32-bit apps. A lot of games take some dicking around with, but you get used to it.

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[rantingkitten]

That tells me Linux offers nothing more than what I already have.

The view that Microsoft always pushes is that Linux "isn't compatible" with anything so you won't be able to get anything done. By showing that you're already using half these programs on your Windows machine, that argument has the wind taken out of its sails.

Follow that up with how you don't have to pay for it, updates will always be free, has no real spyware or virus problems, you don't have to pay for it, most (by which I mean 95% or more) of the software is also free, you won't have to pay for future versions either, and so forth.. and some people might see the light.

You're saying that you have a car, and I'm offering you one that's just as good (technically, far superior, but only mechanics and gearheads would really care), for free. But you won't take it because you're already driving pretty good, and you plan on paying for a new car in a few years anyway.

But to be honest you need to include a disclaimer: that not all of my favorite Windows programs will run under Linux.

Agreed but the truth is most people don't have "favorite Windows programs". They use whatever came bundled or things they already think they "know" -- and those things change all the time anyway. Take Word for example. I doubt anyone actually thinks "I want to use Word." They don't give a damn about the program -- what they want is to write a document and it makes no difference to them what program they use. Sit them down in front of Open Office and most won't even notice the difference (particularly since Word looks and acts differently on every single computer -- even their own).

I know a few people are attached to their games, but most of them will, in fact, run under Linux or Wine. There are a few that won't. And there are a few specialty programs that will only work in Windows. The few that don't, well, hey, I didn't say it was a 100% solution for everyone -- but I will say it's the best choice for the vast majority of average Johnny Punchclocks and Suzy Timesheets.

Actually most people I know bitch about how much Word (and other programs) suck, but they keep using them because they really don't know that anything else exists to do the same job.

But I am not the Army, the Navy, or the Big State U. I live with my wife and kids in a four room apartment and we have very different needs.

I guess my point was that, especially in the corporate world, there is always some idiot going "There's no waaaaayyy to switch, it just can't be done!" Hundreds of organisations with just as much riding on it have successfully done it -- so can your company.

I think home users might be a lost cause until a few major things occur.

Re:Transcript

[Hymer]

"In place of BSODs, you just get to meet mister kernel panic instead."
Much less freq... I've used OpenSuSE (as a desktop OS) for the past 5 years and never seen the kernel panic.

Re:Transcript

[pwizard2]

Ditto. I had some bad RAM once too. Windows would crash immediately after logging in in most cases whereas I could usually get a few hours (and often a few days) of uptime out of Linux before the faulty hardware took the system down.

Re:Transcript

[war4peace]

@techno-vampire: "How many Windows users do you know who can go a full day without rebooting their main desktop at least once?" - a lot, but none is Average Joe. Also, please keep in mind that Averag Joe turns his machine off when going to sleep or going out. So uptime doesn't really matter.
"there are 3D games written for Linux, such as OpenArena, and they work Just Fine" - of course there are, but I don't even dare comparing Windows gaming vs. Linux gaming in terms of games availability.
@walshy007: By Average joe I mean someone who installs a piece of software every now and then and knows how to install it (is able to go through that next/next/don't install this crappy ad/next/finish chain). 7 year old girls and 70 year old grandparents are not average joes, they're extremes, meaning they are people who need nothing more than write some text, check e-mail, visit websites and draw some flowers in Gimp (or MSPaint). Such extremes would do fine using any operating system, may it be *nix, Windows or Mac OS-based.
In the end, it only matters how you start; kids who started with Linux and were interested enough to get past the most basic usage now know a LOT more Linux than I do, but are pretty impaired while trying to configure TCP/IP or uninstall an application under Windows. Applies to the other side as well.

Re:Transcript

[discord5]

27 days up uptime

hasn't rebooted in well over a month

Can we please stop using uptime as a metric for how well an operating system functions for a desktop? Nobody cares about uptime on desktops. On a desktop it's just measuring e-penis between geeks.

Uptime matters in the serverroom, with a server that takes an hourly beating, and then some. Your sister surfing for flash games, printing documents, or whatever the hell she's doing on the internet doesn't need uptime, she needs for her computer to work as intended.

Linux can be the solution in that regard, but don't measure that in uptime. Not turning off a desktop computer doesn't mean a damn thing, except when the electricity bill comes in.

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

Your sister surfing for flash games, printing documents, or whatever the hell she's doing on the internet doesn't need uptime, she needs for her computer to work as intended.

Actually, she never shut down her computer at night when she had Windows, either. Of course, it had to be rebooted for other reasons. I use her as an example not because she's a great Linux guru, but to show that an "Aunt Minni class" user will find Linux stable, easy to use and more than sufficient for what she needs.

Can we please stop using uptime as a metric for how well an operating system functions for a desktop?

It's not much of a metric for how well the OS functions, but it does tend to demonstrate stability. At this point, unless you're using some very specialized software that hasn't been ported and won't work under Wine, or your main use for a computer is gaming, whatever OS you pick will have the functionality you need. At this point, such things as stability, presence or absence of malware, availability of support and cost become important, so that's what I've been discussing.

Re:Transcript

[Animaether]

This is the raw audio. It's not a commercial -- just the voiceover for what can be assembled and edited into a commercial

Good point - and it's encouraged! So here's my very quick stab at it:
http://www.filedropper.com/linuxcooked

*runs from fanboys from both sides*

Re:Transcript

[cyberthanasis12]

"This is as easy as clicking a mouse!" (yeah, right...)

In my experience it is easy. My son was able to install SuSE Linux 64 (KDE 3.x) when he was 6 years old (now he is 7). Linux installation includes ALL drivers and ALL applications. My son didn't have to install OpenOffice, Firefox, Gimp, Python etc. after Linux installation, and he didn't have to install any drivers. Everything was installed in half an hour.
OTOH, I can't say the same about Windows (XP) installation (and I mean the 32bit XP; 64bit XP has few drivers).
I don't know about Windows Vista nor Windows 7. I have never used them, let alone install them :)

Re:Transcript

[Zoxed]

> All OSes are susceptible to virii, if you don't think so, you're a moron.

Susceptible yes, although some are more susceptible than others.

However to most people this is academic: what interests them is what the risk is of actually *catching* a virus: and I am sure you know the answer to this.

Re:Transcript

[jimicus]

Right now, I'm running Fedora 10, with 27 days up uptime. My sister uses Ubuntu, and hasn't rebooted in well over a month, because Ubuntu isn't as bleeding-edge as Fedora is.

Bless. I'm not even trying for uptime:

  09:29:10 up 112 days ... and it's only that low because the system was physically moved 112 days ago.

Re:Transcript

[walshy007]

7 year old girls and 70 year old grandparents are not average joes, they're extremes, meaning they are people who need nothing more than write some text, check e-mail, visit websites and draw some flowers in Gimp (or MSPaint).

How many non-IT or non-technical people do you know that need more than an office suite, web browser, email client, photo viewer/editor and an instant messenger client if they don't play games?

For most peoples home usage, that's about all I see being used. Hell I've made my own cross compilers from scratch for different architecture cpu's, and even my 'typical' usage is mostly those things (minus the graphic bits)

Re:Transcript

[xtracto]

I migrated my parents to Linux three years ago for my own sanity. I figured "How do I make it do this?" calls were preferable to the "I think I've got another computer virus" calls. They got used to Linux very quickly, and I now spend probably 5% of the time I used to supporting them. I

I don't understand, my mother is generally computer illiterate, she has a computer that she uses to: 1. Check her email, 2. Browse some stuff (mainly university related), 3. Use Skype and 4. Write documents.

She have been using the same computer with Windows XP installation (SP2 I think) since about 2004 and she has never had a problem with viruses and the like (I think she has AVG antivirus).

Where do your parents get virus from? what pages did they visit? I mean... even I got a virus once because I pro-actively opened a crack file downloaded from a dubious web location...

Re:Transcript

[Wobble-U]

I don't understand why many linux enthusiasts boast to other computer users that they haven't needed to reboot their computer in x days/months/years. Most people I know (including me) turn their computers off when they're not in use, making the uptime irrelevant.

Re:Transcript

[dave420]

Loads of Windows users don't even need those anti-virus and anti-malware tools. I don't use them on my installs, so they're not using up disk space and loaded every time I boot. My uptime is not determined by BSODs or other crashes - it restarts when I want it to, if I want it to. No band-aids required. I'm all for calling out the pros and cons of various operating systems, but banging on about Windows like it's 1998 would be like banging on about Linux like it's 1998. Something I'm sure no pro-Linux guy would appreciate ;)

Re:Transcript

[apoc.famine]

It's not that linux can't support the graphics - the UT series up until the pile of dogshit that is UT3 all ran on linux fine, and Quake4 and Doom3 ran fantastically well as well. As you point out, the compiz effects are fantastic.
 
It's not "good enough" because virtually nobody is porting games to linux any more, and almost all graphical design programs are windows and mac only.
 
The capabilities are there, for sure. What's missing are the users, because the programs are missing, because there aren't enough users.

Re:Transcript

[Thing 1]

Did he turn off IPv6?

Re:Transcript

[TheQuantumShift]

Most ads aired during talk radio usually sound like that. It's what gets the attention of the target audience. Now if only we can get Glenn Beck to link proprietary software and the Nazi's and maybe cry a little about how much he loves penguins...

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

Two reasons. First, Linux is designed to run 24/7 and many of us like the convenience of not having to wait for it to boot when we want to use our computer. Second, we're doing distributed computing (SETI, Einstein@home and so on) and leave the box running when we're not using it to let it keep working. Also, of course, it's a measure of stability, and that's something that's important to some of us. Why? Well, let's just say it's part of the Linux enthusiast mindset and let it go at that.

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

Unless none of your Windows boxes are connected to the Internet, there's a very good chance that they're all infected. Sorry, but just letting the malware run rampant isn't a good response.

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

Should he? If so, I'll pass it on.

Re:Transcript

[Risen888]

But to be honest you need to include a disclaimer: that not all of my favorite Windows programs will run under Linux.

Funny, I didn't notice that in the Mac commercials. Nor did I see any disclaimer in the PS3 commercials that you couldn't play your Wii games on it. Nor did I see a disclaimer on the Blu Ray commercial that it wouldn't play 8-tracks. Must have been some really small print, huh?

Re:Transcript

[Risen888]

All OSes are susceptible to virii

[citation needed]

Oh, and it's "viruses." Douche.

Re:Transcript

[BitZtream]

So when Linux includes extra bloat in a default install, thats OK.

When Microsoft does it, they are abusing a monopoly ...

No double standard there or anything.

Re:Transcript

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

Learn what a monopoly is and you'll come off less like an ignorant fucktard Microsoft fanboi.

Re:Transcript

[snadrus]

I've seen that info here & there (as have all Slashdot readers), but unifying it and targeting non-geeks with a few graphs & lists might be attractive.

Should it be done? All I know is cold-calls are hard & I've avoided marketing ever since. I will pass that question off to someone else.

I've used each piece of info you've mentioned at some time to explain Linux, so it may be a good resource for geeks with friends too.

Re:Transcript

[foxylad]

I wish my parents were like your mother! They had AVG and Zone Alarm on XP SP2 and still regularly got infected - I think from clicking on shiny web ads.

You still might want to consider switching your mother sometime soon - as part of the attempt to migrate people to Win7, MS will be shutting down support for XP as soon as they possibly can. At which stage you're going to have to shell out for a new Win7-capable PC. If she isn't using Firefox, OpenOffice and webmail yet, get her used to these on Windows now - then the switch will be almost painless. With my hand on my heart, the only thing my parents have found lacking is the lack of auto-layout photo printing.

Re:Transcript

[VeNoM0619]

The ad with music sounds even worse. The direct Microsoft comparison/bashing is just terrible business practice (if not illegal slander? I don't recall any advertisement mentioning a competitor's product and bashing it, it also sounds sleazy if it wasn't illegal).

Re:Transcript

[Thing 1]

That's one of the things I'd try; especially with Vista, it's generally a good idea to disable it unless it is needed as it "tends to break stuff" (the technical term). See http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/09/disable-and-turn-off-ipv6-support-in-vista/ ; note that I generally use "ffffffff" ("eight foxes") for the Registry value, although it appears that only 0xff is necessary from this article.

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

Thank you; I've emailed him the link.

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

I can't recall ANY time in the 10 years (including a few years running Win/ME) when I had to reboot "several times a day".

I take it, then, that you never used NT 4. I was stuck with it at work, once, and it would BSOD three to five times a day because of a bug in the video driver. For some weird reason, MS had decided to "speed things up" by putting all drivers in RNG 0, so that if one of them crashed, they took down the whole box. Ever since, I've been wary of anything based on the NT kernel, and that's one of the reasons I went over to the Bright Side of the Farce.

Re:Transcript

[murdocj]

When I loaded Debian Linux onto one of my machines, it crapped out pretty hard. That doesn't mean that every machine that runs Debian crashes 3 or 4 times a day. Machines do have problems and crash. What I take issue with is the claim that crashing several times a day is the norm for Windows. I've worked with Windows for many years, in companies from about 50 to several thousand employees, and I can guarantee you that I'm not surrounded by constant cries of "my machine crapped out again".

Re:Transcript

[ToasterMonkey]

Oh, I don't know, so that in the UNIX model of execing buttloads of processes, you don't wind up with multiple versions of libraries in play. Unless you don't think that's a problem. Hey, maybe Linux systems are designed to execute with totally different versions of shared libraries using the same filesystem entry.

the problem I see is with an OS that has so much crap in resident memory that overwriting any system file is dangerous and has to be put off until you can actually reboot the machine. On a linux machine, everything is fairly modular so you can just restart individual services

I'm pretty sure any sane Linux sysadmin understands the problem whether they'll admit it or not.

Want me to start picking random RPM updates and you try guessing exactly which components could be affected or what needs to be restarted? Repeat for a hundred updates * couple hundred servers, every six months. This isn't some cloud fantasy where all server's are built the same and one command controls them all. They will have different uses, different builds, different hardware, third party software, first party software, some will already have been fucked up by the guys before you, you just don't know it yet. Think hard the next time you overwrite a .so file... do you REALLY know what the impact is, and did the vendor test that update with YOUR configuration? That isn't good engineering, it's a hack.

like updating your web browser, because it's not integrated into the OS shell.

ROFL - in Linux, your browser IS integrated into your OS shell! Have you tried running a custom Firefox on a GNOME desktop?? GNOME & Firefox are PARTICULARLY bad at live updates! Linux desktop environments piss all over UNIX. Keep rolling the dice brother. Having to log out of a screwed up X session on your desktop is one thing, but the potential impact to a datacenter is a whole other ball game.

Re:Transcript

[Thing 1]

I realize this thread is weeks old, but: did it help?

Re:Transcript

[techno-vampire]

According to his latest column, he's tried it, but it's hard to say, as the issue is intermittent at best. He's thanked me, and I thank you because turning off a service you don't need can't hurt.

Re:Transcript

[Thing 1]

Cool, thanks for the update. (I'm currently looking for work, and would be nice to be able to say "I helped Chaos Manor" :) )

99.9% ?

[OrangeTide]

Where do they get this number from? How can I be certain that 99.9% of the software I want to use is already available for free? The value seems too convenient to be produced from actual research.

(for me personally, it's 100%, but I just need a compiler and a text editor and maybe a web browser)

Re:99.9% ?

[NoYob]

I only know of one application that does not have a Linux counterpart, MS Visio.

*Sigh* As far as I know that's true. The other thing is the MS Excel ability to take a table from a website and put it into a spreadsheet where each and every table element has its own cell. Unless it has changed recently, OO can't do that.

But even then, we're talking about some very esoteric functionality and applications that the bulk of Windows users are not interested in. Besides, this is an advertisement, you pull just about any number out of your ass you want and get away with it.

Re:99.9% ?

[mqduck]

Games.

Re:99.9% ?

[Sfing_ter]

Kivio - but then again, if all you are doing is making flowcharts then Ooo draw will work just fine.

Re:99.9% ?

[gVibe]

Dia (http://projects.gnome.org/dia/) is an excellent alternative for Visio. It allows importing Visio drawings and using the same Visio templates.

OOCALC can open html tables anyway you want. Tons of "open source" OO plugins and addons allow me to do some things that were nearly impossible in MS Office due to cost and complicated instructions.

Re:99.9% ?

[Darkness404]

http://thepiratebay.org/

Yeah, even if you use Windows, 99.9% of the software you want is available for free. You just might have to use... less than legal methods.

Re:99.9% ?

[digitalunity]

Inkscape, IMO. If you like drawing, vector is the way to go.

If you like painting by hand, I guess there's GIMP but that is overkill for most people.

Re:99.9% ?

[Animaether]

Yeah, but then you're talking about counterparts...

As much as I personally dislike Photoshop (for a multitude of reasons but mostly because that thing is backwards), there is a big difference between The GIMP being a counterpart of Photoshop, and The GIMP being a replacement for Photoshop.

That said, 99.9% may be reasonably accurate even there. 999 out of 1000 people using Photoshop probably -would- be fine with The GIMP. The 1 guy/gal that needs it because he has to roll into the professional graphics world where knowing how to be backwards along with Photoshop, or -is- a graphics professional and absolutely needs some of Photoshop's features that The GIMP does not (yet) have... well, Linux may not be for him/her.

( not counting WINE, btw, which would extend the list further )

Re:99.9% ?

[OrangeTide]

There are over a thousand games for Linux. Many of them for free.
Obviously if your interests lies purely in studios like EA, then you're screwed though. But I suppose we can fault you for having poor taste.

Re:99.9% ?

[OrangeTide]

I just did that. you select the table on a website, choose copy, then select paste when you're in OO spreadsheet. Works for tab separated text files too.

For drawing I'm a big fan of Xfig(which has been updated dramatically in the past couple years), Dia and graphviz.

Re:99.9% ?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Just curious: what is the core feature set of Visio that (apparently) nobody using Linux needs? It seems odd to me that--if it were so essential--somebody would have cloned it by now.

Re:99.9% ?

[initdeep]

him and the millions of others who purchase them.
Guess what, he's not the minority here.......

And anyone who thinks 99.9% is even CLOSE to an acceptable number to be used has their head in the sand.

A better, and more importantly, more acceptable way of saying this would be simply to say that many of the most commonly used programs have freely available and easily installed alternatives.
Of course, that also goes for Windows and OSX, but that doesn't really matter.

Re:99.9% ?

[initdeep]

Because all of the Linux installs are legally using licensed mp3 and DVD codecs?

oh wait........

Re:99.9% ?

[agnosticnixie]

But he's a niche in the desktop market.

Re:99.9% ?

[dbIII]

Considering that any CAD application since about 1986 blows it out of the water I really do not get your point. You don't need a neutered vector graphics tool when the real thing comes at the same price. If you are thinking about low end vector graphics there are many things. On the more usable end there is inkscape, and on the less interactive but far more flexible end there is "dot" from graphviz which will work on MS Windows as well. Inkscape is for the artistic, "dot" is for those of us that just want a chart and want the computer to make sure it is neatly laid out with equal spacing, plus you can export to Visio anyway:
http://www.schmuhl.org/graphopt/

Re:99.9% ?

[mspohr]

They have.

It's called Dia... nice Visio clone runs on Windows and Linux.

http://live.gnome.org/Dia

Re:99.9% ?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

I knew about Dia--I just figured there was some supremely awesome feature from Visio that Dia doesn't have, because Visio is always "the one thing that's holding me back" when these sorts of discussions happen. (Unless QuickBooks is The One Thing (TM) that's holding them back, or Photoshop, or ...)

Re:99.9% ?

[OrangeTide]

I think you could break down the number of applications a computer needs for a significant number of users(maybe 2-sigma) to some small number(less than 10). There are a finite number of tasks we do on our computers. And a great deal of overlap between us on what those tasks are.

I think this may be a dangerous secret for the software industry. Once you have a browser, word processor, messaging/communication program and games you already cover a large part of what home users do. If you can ignore games (maybe you can't, but if you could), the issue of applications becomes simpler. I'd like to ignore games because they are kind of a weird market, every game needs to be dramatically different. Where as applications that are more like tools tend to need to be the same and you only need one. How many spreadsheet programs do you need for example? I know I just want one good one.

Malware is the wrong selling point..

[spiffmastercow]

While it may be true that there is very little Linux malware, that's only because it's not worth it to criminals to write it. Sure, there are a few inherent advantages in that category, such as not running regular users with admin privileges and downloading software from repositories, but you're a fool if you think Linux is immune to malware.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[NoYob]

And point out that it can play nice in a Windows environment - Samaba, email, browsing, etc....

Yes, in an advertisement, you will have to state the obvious - it's only obvious to those of us who know Linux.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[selven]

If you're going to say that the fact that people don't write software for Linux is a disadvantage, I have an equal right to argue that the fact that people don't write malware for Linux is an advantage.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[spiffmastercow]

If you're going to say that the fact that people don't write software for Linux is a disadvantage, I have an equal right to argue that the fact that people don't write malware for Linux is an advantage.

First of all, I didn't state that the fact that people don't write software for Linux is a disadvantage, though it is true.

Second, the lack of malware is only a current advantage, just like the lack of commercial software which you mentioned is a current disadvantage. If the ads succeed in converting people to Linux, the same advantage mentioned in the ad will cease to exist, because Linux will become more popular, and thus become a target for malware writers. Aren't /.ers typically supposed to be opponents of security through obscurity?

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[the_womble]

1) Have you got any evidence for that

2) Who cares why it is safer. All that matters to me is that it is.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[digitalunity]

Linux users are complacent about security because malware writers have often ignored them. The truth is that even if they follow best practices with regard to security, some personal information is still available.

Nothing prevents a malware writer from using a remote code execution bug in Firefox or some other internet connected Linux application that then has access to your entire home folder, including financial data or other private application data. No privilege escalation is needed, although if they had it they could permanently install a rootkit or other persistent malware.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[spiffmastercow]

1) Have you got any evidence for that

O Hai! The easiest way 2 check 4 malware on ur linux box is to open the console and type
sudo rm -rf /
It will ask u 4 ur passwd so type that in 2 cuz it needs it. kthnxbye!

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[dbcad7]

Ohh.. the hole you dig.. Your claim that people don't write software for Linux.. Tons of software out there, and even some commercial.. The reason that malware is not "popular" on Linux is not due to it's lack of popularity, but more to do with the way executables are handled in Linux compared to the way they are handled in Windows.. Both in general, and in a browser with active-x... Windows has gotten better at it, but the ironic thing is that the whole "ease of use" click and run that made it so vulnerable, had to be shored up and has turned it into a dialog popup fiasco.. Linux beats it all to hell in user experience when installing software.

Can malware be written for Linux ?.. of course it can.. It's just a bit more difficult. Right now, Linux has a pretty good balance between usability and security.. The problems come when you have all these users wanting to make installs of software "more like Windows".. If that happens, and it gets away from the software repository system which has testing designed into it, then you will have the same problems as Windows. I'd rather the users adapt to the Linux way, than for Linux to cave into the Windows model.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[spiffmastercow]

Linux is no more fundamentally secure than the latest versions of Windows.. In some ways even less so if, for instance, the debian repo servers got hacked for a few hours. Permissions are the key! The popup you get is basically the same whether you're in Vista or Ubuntu. Once you give it that password, you're trusting the executable. Then it's back to the issue of whether or not you fall for the line they give you to get you to install the trojan. Maybe you won't fall for it, but would your grandma be as savvy as you?

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[icebraining]

I run my Firefox in a chrooted environment, you insensitive clod!

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[Moridineas]

reason that malware is not "popular" on Linux is not due to it's lack of popularity, but more to do with the way executables are handled in Linux compared to the way they are handled in Windows.. Both in general, and in a browser with active-x... Windows has gotten better at it, but the ironic thing is that the whole "ease of use" click and run that made it so vulnerable, had to be shored up and has turned it into a dialog popup fiasco.. Linux beats it all to hell in user experience when installing software.

Can malware be written for Linux ?.. of course it can.. It's just a bit more difficult.

Ridiculous. Explain what exactly you mean by the "way executables are handled"

Look, it boils down to this: let's say you're sending out malware via email attachment. You send it to 1 million people. how many of those computers are running windows versus osx versus linux? I don't know, but I'm 100% sure that the vast majority are running windows.

Similarly for a website I run for a small company, I just checked google analytics:

85% windows, 13% mac, 1.5% linux, 1% iphone (.05% android FWIW)

Not a huge sample by any means nor probably representative of the internet as a whole, but probably representative of the traffic many sites get. If you have an exploited site that is hosting malicious content, what OS are you going to target?

Why isn't Linux targeted? 1.5% is the reason why. Maybe you can also applaud linux's greater security. On the other hand, the only people dedicated enough to run linux desktops tend to be people who are good at computers (cue anecdotes about grandma's linux computer, etc) and know more than the average user. Almost all of the spyware/malware/adware/etc infections I've had to remove in the past 2-3 years have been USER error. User downloading and installing something they shouldn't have. User opening a bad email attachment when they shouldn't have (the IRS emailed you an attachment? really?), etc. NOT the kind of attacks we used to see where just by visiting a webpage or being on the network could you get infected by a worm, etc.

So let's go back to that hypothetical 1 million people sent malware. Let's say 5% of the windows users (85%) get infected--42500 people. Let's say 1% of the linux users (1.5%) get infected--150 people.

42,500 vs 150. Even if you assume my percentages are off (which I'm sure they are--I would assume less linux users would get infected for one thing) we're talking orders of magnitude. Simple calculus for malware and worm authors.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[Philip_the_physicist]

Why do people keep bringing this up? I'm watching fullscreen (well, full monitor, not full desktop) flash right now, on Linux.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[jimicus]

1) Have you got any evidence for that

It's not really something that's studied in enough detail to garner a great deal of evidence, but you don't really need to do such studies to understand that there's no technical reason for the lack of malware.

Most Windows malware doesn't really need administrative privileges for installation - it can either run quietly with the same privileges as the user that installed it (works but is fairly trivial for most AV to defeat) or it can seek out and take advantage of a local privilege escalation hole and run with exactly the same privileges as the AV that's trying to remove it (much harder for AV to defeat).

Note that neither of these things are intrinsically difficult to achieve on Linux. The days when you had viruses that spread by adding their code to every .exe on the system are largely consigned to history, and these are the things Linux geeks are talking about when they say "Linux is immune to viruses!"

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[_Sprocket_]

I don't think anyone can reasonably ignore the fact that sheer numbers are in Linux's favor right now. Simple math (as with your hypothetical example) will show that pool of potential victims is much larger on a Windows platform. I remember back in the day when WinNT was coming on the scene and enthusiasts boasted how few attacks targeted the platform. The same argument was made back then - wait until you're more popular. The prediction came to pass. And it isn't too unreasonable to assume the same scenario would apply to Linux as well. But there are some subtle differences between the two situations.

One big difference is that Linux isn't new to the scene. It's had its day in the sights of attackers. But malware largely petered out for Linux (and Unix in general - yes, I know they're not the same, but the similarities are enough for the purpose of this discussion) around 2003 / 2004. It's certainly still around. There are new variations developed all the time - you can find copies at your favorite malware zoo. But you just don't see these beasts running around in the wild (unless you count OSF.8759 which is often used to establish a backdoor on compromised hosts). Despite the existence of Linux malware, it just doesn't survive unless given a helping hand.

Having a smaller target user base helps. But if the platform is vulnerable, someone will target it. The Witty worm provides a great example. Witty only had a target base of about 12,000 systems - and it managed to infect all of them within 45 minutes. Not only was it targeting a very small subset of Windows users (ISS BlackICE/RealSecure products), but it was targeting users security-savvy enough to use security software.

Again - I should stress that I'm not saying Linux is invulnerable. But it is resilient - at least more resilient than other players in the market. And despite the doom-and-gloom messages over the past decade that Linux is due for a malware apocalypse... such an event has yet to come to pass.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[spiffmastercow]

Social engineering is the only real way to get people to install malware...

Um, that's my point. When everyone and their dog is using Linux (as appears to be the "Year of the Desktop" aim), then Linux is just as screwed as Windows is now.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[Moridineas]

I pretty much agree with everything you say.

The only point I would try to make is that most malware/attacks today seem to require some level of user involvement in terms of downloading and running a program, running an email attachment, etc. It's not like a few years ago where just by being connected to the internet you could immediately get infected (though these attacks do still occur as you mention)

Nothing stops these same kind of "PEBKAC" attacks from working on linux too. If a user is going to download an EXE because they got a greeting card on windows, I doubt they would hesitate to do something similar on linux.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[Risen888]

While it may be true that there is very little Linux malware, that's only because it's not worth it to criminals to write it

That's bullshit. Let me tell you why.

1. There are literally thousands of different kinds of malware for Windows, and zero for Linux. The geek cred for pulling it off would be incredible. You'd have job offers for life.
2. All the really important data out there lives on Linux servers.

Don't try to tell me "they just don't bother."

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[_Sprocket_]

Nothing stops these same kind of "PEBKAC" attacks from working on linux too. If a user is going to download an EXE because they got a greeting card on windows, I doubt they would hesitate to do something similar on linux.

The Dancing Pigs problem is pretty formidable. And I have to agree - ultimately, if an end user is determined enough, they're going to do everything to see the promised pigs dance. But there ARE some differences between Windows and Linux that help raise the bar to that happening.

But yes - that doesn't mean it won't happen. The OSF.8759 virus I noted previously was (if I remember right) originally introduced via binaries claiming to exploit Samba (before becoming a rootkit staple). But again - it wasn't clicky-clicky easy for people to fall for this.

Re:Malware is the wrong selling point..

[Moridineas]

I hadn't heard the phrase Dancing Pigs problem before...not bad.

Just a minor point...

[celibate for life]

If you're going to advertise to people that never even heard of Linux (according to the transcript), wouldn't it be more productive to focus on an actual distribution rather than mentioning just the kernel's name?

Re:Just a minor point...

[SilverHatHacker]

Not really. If you say "Here, use Ubuntu" all sorts of people will flock to it, it won't be exactly what they expected, and many will leave disappointed. If you say 'Linux', they jump on Google, search for 'Linux' and find out that there are hundreds of distros, find the one that works for them, and are happy.
(assuming a perfect world; many would probably stop at the 'hundreds of distros' part or just grab Ubuntu anyway. This way at least tries to encourage them to do some research on their own first.)

Re:Just a minor point...

[eyepeepackets]

Actually, no. Not mentioning a specific distribution gives the vendor the option of providing what the customer needs after a quicky interview: Mr. Science Researcher may need something like Slackware or Gentoo but Ms. Small Business may need Redhat while Mrs. Quilt-at-Home would be served best by Ubuntu that dual boots into Win7 for her game-playing kid. Flexibility is a good thing all around.

Re:Just a minor point...

[tukang]

They probably didn't specify a distro to make the ad more forkable

Re:Just a minor point...

[cupantae]

Well, just think about this for half a second, and you'll see that it's not:

If Linux is advertised:
-> People google "Linux" and find out what it's about. They will probably check out the wikipedia page, which is very helpful, or else one of the other pages that appear, which are sufficiently clear on the story.
-> Somebody hears about a specific distribution and ask "is that 'Linux'?". Answer: "yes."

If Red Hat (or whatever) is advertised:
-> People google "Red Hat" and find out what it's about. Apparently it does cost money. It has a free version. Probably crippled, lite version lacking all the features. Likely that "free" is a marketing angle.
-> Somebody hears about Ubuntu and doesn't recognise that it's the same thing as Red Hat deep down; that this is something else, of which the person knows nothing. Maybe it's not trustworthy enough to get a radio ad.

Re:Just a minor point...

[celibate for life]

If you say 'Linux', they jump on Google, search for 'Linux' and find out that there are hundreds of distros, find the one that works for them, and are happy.

Actually, it's that part I doubt, and what made suggest the distro ad instead of a broader Linux ad. I know I would be glad to go through the process you describe, but that's because I like experiment with my computer. I imagine that a regular person that has no interest on the subject and, as the ad suggests, is simply tired of malware infections, will be turned off by the amount information.

Re:Just a minor point...

[techno-vampire]

Somebody hears about Ubuntu and doesn't recognise that it's the same thing as Red Hat deep down;

Because it's not. Ubuntu is based on Debian, not RedHat.

Re:Just a minor point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Deeper down.

Re:Just a minor point...

[Darkness404]

Other than RPM vs DEB and APT vs YUM, they run identical software.

Re:Just a minor point...

[techno-vampire]

So do Slackware, OpenSuse and Gentoo. Your point is?

Re:Just a minor point...

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

So which distro?

"... So try Ubuntu! Or Cent! Or, if you're really adventurous, Fedora!"

Re:Just a minor point...

[Sir_Lewk]

That probably is his point. Many people don't have a clear concept of what exactly a "distribution" is, and expect different distros to be about as different as Mac OSX and Windows are.

Does the package/update system, and all the slick config stuff that all the distros have matter? Of course, but they really are all quite similar on a deeper level.

Re:Just a minor point...

[hedwards]

I just did that search and there's a half dozen different distros represented in the first page. Which is definitely a problem. It's just like at a store, if you see 2 dozen different types of ketchup you would typically end up in one of three basic modes of operation. You'd buy the most advertised or the one you always buy, buy one at random or decide not to. None of those are really great as far as this sort of thing goes.

Re:Just a minor point...

[SilverHatHacker]

Someone paying for advertising is likely looking to sell support. If I was selling support, it would be for one distro only. Novell, RedHat and Canonical seem to think the same way about it.

That's the other point I had in my head, but I neglected to make it clear in my post. It's not this guy's job to advertise for a specific distro. It's the distro's job to advertise for itself. By all means, Canonical, take this commercial and modify it into an Ubuntu-only ad. But that wasn't the point of the ad in the first place - it was an ad for the Linux platform, not a specific version of it. It's like saying "Buy a car" instead of "Buy a 2010 Challenger."

Re:Just a minor point...

[tftp]

Mrs. Quilt-at-Home would be served best by Ubuntu that dual boots into Win7 for her game-playing kid.

On top of inconvenience of dual-booting, what is again the reason to have Ubuntu if she also has to buy Windows 7?

Re:Just a minor point...

[rohan972]

To the person who modded me troll, try this: go to a shop with 100's of choices. When you speak the sales staff they will talk to you about two or three of them only. Otherwise, search the phrase "don't offer too many choices". You will find I am merely correct, not trolling.

Re:Just a minor point...

[flydpnkrtn]

Oh come, on it depends on how far "deep down" you go.... you go "far enough down" and both distros are running on a Linux kernel with a GNU userland.

(ok, ok for the pedantic folks - unless you're running a Debian GNU/HURD kernel, or Debian with a Solaris kernel...)

Re:Just a minor point...

[lordandmaker]

Well, the original point (in that post comparing advertising "Linux" and "Redhat") was that someone looking for 'Linux' might well come across any and all Linux distros, and treat them as that thing advertised on the radio. If the advert was for a particular distribution, they're more likely to focus on the distribution's name, rather than the kernel's, and so only perceive that particular distro as having whatever benefits they inferred from the radio ad.

Re:Just a minor point...

[xtracto]

Linux kernel with a GNU userland.

And X.org X11 server and Gnome User Interface and OpenOffice + Firefox + Crappunderbird email client.

The only thing that distinguishes a distro from the other is the "package manager" (which is either deb or rpm), the splash screens (and theme) and the "install process" which the End user should not see.

Heard this on the air last night

[XanC]

It was more about control, about Microsoft being in charge of how you get to your data, than about anything else. It's a great message.

Although I can't listen to more than 5 minutes of Kim Komando without wishing my fingernails were being pulled out instead.

Hi I'm Linux

[Gothmolly]

We need a ripoff Mac/PC commercial, where Linux is represented by a nerdy yet busty chick (I'm thinking Abby from NCIS) who makes verbal mincemeat of both the PC and Mac guy, then whips out a Nokia tablet, announces she's off to meet her girlfriend on a date... /I'll be in my bunk

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[Swizec]

a nerdy yet busty chick (I'm thinking Abby from NCIS)

You need to get out of the basement more, she's pretty much the definition of not busty.

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[bcmm]

Who the fuck uses iTunes by choice?

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[Tweenk]

No, we need an ad where Windows is represented by a cheap whore, Mac by an expensive whore, Linux by a nerdy girlfriend (subtle STD reference for extra 'disturbingly appropriate metaphor' points), the first two have a cat fight, then a guy comes over and there's a lesbian threesome, then bestiality involving penguins and 800lb gorillas, wait, what were we talking about again?

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[Seth Kriticos]

Oh, you mean like this from Novell http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVOnFdMf0RU or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtp5gNhBZgo ?

I personally prefer this IBM ad though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwL0G9wK8j4

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[palegray.net]

I'm posting from a MacBook Pro, and even I won't use iTunes. Well said, sir.

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[ClickOnThis]

It has been done already. Not quite what you described, but close enough.

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[initdeep]

I'm gonna bet more people use iTunes on their HOME computers than use Linux.........

And many of them don't have a clue that they could use something else and really don't care because it works for what they want.

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[bcmm]

That's why I said "by choice". I think it's about the same fraction that have tried alternatives to IE and not liked them.

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[petrus4]

No, we need an ad where Windows is represented by a cheap whore, Mac by an expensive whore, Linux by a nerdy girlfriend (subtle STD reference for extra 'disturbingly appropriate metaphor' points),

Represent Windows with Paris Hilton. Represent Linux with a busty Swedish or Finnish female model in black rimmed glasses, and a nerdy shirt with pocket protector, but that also emphasises her breasts.

The Macintosh, in my own ad, would be represented by a skinny, flagrantly (as in, you can almost feel it pouring off him in waves) homosexual male, in the usual nerdish short sleeved shirt/suit pants, with twisted/spiked blue sprayed hair, eating an apple. ;)

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[miro f]

you realise that fullscreen flash works perfectly on linux, right?
right?
come on slashdot, you're supposed to be nerds!

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[miro f]

I prefer this one from IBM actually:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmxPfZtV6w0
although it's not really an ad for linux...

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[Nesman64]

"Busty", maybe. But the Post-Op vibe really kills it for me. Real women don't wear that much makeup.

Re:Hi I'm Linux

[Nesman64]

then bestiality involving penguins and 800lb gorillas, wait, what were we talking about again?

I was with you until you brought Balmer in.

"forkable ad"?

[pongo000]

Pray tell, what exactly is a "forkable ad"? Strangely enough, I get no authoritative hits on "forkable ad" in any of the major search engines. Is this a made-up phrase, or something actually used in the advertising realm?

Re:"forkable ad"?

[tagno25]

it is an ad that is forkable

ad: a public promotion of some product or service
fork: In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent ...

Re:"forkable ad"?

[Tweenk]

Forkable = you can fork it (create a modified version without asking the original creator)
So it means you can make your own Linux radio ad using parts of this one. Normal ads are 'unforkable' by design (because they include trademarks) and by circumstance (you have no permission to reuse the ad's content). This news means that if you want to market Linux, you no longer need to shell out money to create the advertising material, you pay only for air time.

Re:"forkable ad"?

[annodomini]

"Fork" is a term in software, particularly free software, that means creating and releasing your own version of something, without merging it back upstream with the original author. This is one of the fundamental freedoms that free software gives you; the freedom to fork it if you don't like how the original author is developing it.

Re:"forkable ad"?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first saw "forkable ad", I thought there might be a new technology that might enable one to take over the airwaves something like this:

void runAd(const char* ad_file_path, float station_freq)
{
      int pid = fork();
      if (pid == 0) { /* child process */
          runAd(ad_file_path, getNextHigherFrequency(station_freq));
      }
      else /* parent */
          exec( "adblaster", ad_file_path, station_freq );
}

Re:"forkable ad"?

[EricX2]

duh... but what does it MEAN? It's an audio ad. Source code can be modified, how do you modify an advertisement and come out with something 'forked' from the original?

Re:"forkable ad"?

[BorgCopyeditor]

It's one that you wouldn't date, but would happily fork.

Re:"forkable ad"?

[BryanL]

The female voice-over announcer sounded forkable to me... OK, I got nothing.

Re:"forkable ad"?

[westlake]

Is this a made-up phrase, or something actually used in the advertising realm?

Call it "boilerplate," (ca 1897) if you like.
It's the vocal equivalent of public domain clip art - a serviceable template, nothing more.

Re:"forkable ad"?

[imakemusic]

You intersperse it with your own content, including speach, music and sound effects combining your own ideas with the original product....kind of like how you do when forking an open source project.

See, the ad isn't a finished ad, it's just the voice part (think "function") that someone else wrote (think "coded").

Everyone is familiar with the Linux video ads....

[julian67]

"Everyone is familiar with the Linux video ads created by IBM, Red Hat, and Novell...."

Don't the people who write this kind of brazen untruth ever feel embarrassed? I use Debian GNU/Linux, I like it, it runs on all my computers, x86, amd64 and armel, but if I wrote that sentence (unlikely) I'd certainly know it was not true. It's a really crappy way to start and article, except for the fact that it sends a clear message. The message is "The author is blinkered/bug-eyed/deluded/evangelical/worrying. Choose any of the aforementioned and don't bother reading any further."

Re:Classy

[maxwell demon]

Given how much advertising Windows gets, I wonder what your argument says about its quality ...

I'm not familiar with linux video ads

[nedlohs]

Way to fail in the first phrase.

Re:No more crashes?

[bcmm]

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=nvidia+crash+windows&aq=&aqi=&aq=f&aqi=g1&oq=&fp=ee36edbd3c16a1c5 has more hits.

Fixed

[blitzkrieg3]

"Everyone here is familiar with the Linux video ads created by IBM, Red Hat, and Novell..."

I don't believe that he meant everyone like everyone in the world, just everyone from /.

Re:Fixed

[PCM2]

I don't believe that he meant everyone like everyone in the world, just everyone from /.

Maybe so, but I don't recall seeing any video ads from any of these companies.

I agree with the GP; "Everyone is [fill in the blank]" is just bad writing. There has never been anything in the history of humankind that "everyone" has agreed upon. Statements like these tune the reader out immediately, because they sound suspiciously like the beginning of a fallacious argument or a ploy: "Everyone agrees that bright red pants are the only pants worth wearing, but is the fact that bright red pants are so incredibly popular actually putting colorblind people at a disadvantage? We spoke to Ron Smith, CEO of Ron's Pants Inc., the company responsible for shipping 90 percent of pants sold in this phenomenally desirable color..."

RIAA

[inode_buddha]

Oooooh, I bet the RIAA is gonna have a hearburn and nightmares over this.... heheheheee

Forkability may not be too great an idea

[mysidia]

It's under the CC-BY-SA license.

That means Apple could take up the ad and alter it to be pro-Apple.

Microsoft could use the very content of the ad to develop their own ad deriding Linux as low-grade

I'm hoping it won't happen, but Forkability of marketing materials can be a double-edged sword...

Re:Forkability may not be too great an idea

[atomic-penguin]

I was actually thinking the exact same thing, or at least along those lines.

How long until someone makes a Linux Ad spoof, based on the source material.

Re:Forkability may not be too great an idea

[initdeep]

They don't need the permission of the victims.
They have permission from the NFL which owns the copyright to all telecasts of their member teams.

It sorta came with being the "Official beer of the NFL" endorsement contract they paid for.

Re:Forkability may not be too great an idea

[Corporate Troll]

Microsoft could use the very content of the ad to develop their own ad deriding Linux as low-grade

I though the same thing, but then... If you're number #1, you don't talk about #2 (which would be Apple). Apple will talk about Micrsoft (it needs to profile itself), but surely won't talk about the underdog... Linux.

Re:Forkability may not be too great an idea

[mysidia]

Just say they take the ad and substitute the word Linux with Apple, every time it occurs.

Re:Forkability may not be too great an idea

[ediron2]

Yeah, because a couple of the world's most-known brands (not to mention Fortune-500 companies) getting caught using free / recycled Linux ad content wouldn't be a PR disaster for Apple or Microsoft and a market awareness Mother-of-All-Wins for Linux proponents.

There is no way Apple or Microsoft is dumb enough to touch this with a ten-foot-pole. Relax, people.

social inversions

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Mod parent informative!

"Contains forward looking statements"

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Double bind.

Hard to fault someone for trying to fight fire with fire.

(Skillfully used, backfires can make buffer zones, but, ....)

Anyway, the audience here expects the computer to do strange things at times. If it doesn't, it becomes invisible. That's part of the reason Microsoft got such a big mindshare.

Novell beat you to it

[armanox]

Novell did some videos a while ago on that....

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

Video 3 wasn't as good as the first two, IMO.

immunity is relative in humans, as well

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

It has been a long time (and a lot of ads with "contains forward looking statements" and other idiot disclaimers) since advertising has been expect to have anything to do with reality.

I'm not against taking the moral stance when everyone else is "doing it", but I'm not going to fault another guy for trying to fight fire with fire.

Re:No more crashes?

[Darkness404]

Yeah, and most of the hits are what? 2 years old?

It is about control.

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Market share to us is just money.

Market share to Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, et. al. is control.

(And your comment about listening to said show makes me think of a very underhanded attempt at viral marketing.)

Re:No more crashes?

[Tubal-Cain]

"nvidia crash windows" has more hits.

Not even double. On an OS that (conservatively) has 85x the marketshare.

DIW

[BlueParrot]

Boring claims nobody bothers listening to don't sell stuff. If you want advertising you want to catch people's attention.
Something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI-ye1oa4N8&feature=related

Also as with all advertising you avoid mentioning the downsides, such as that it took me 4 restarts of firefox before flash decided to to shit itself so I could watch the video.

Re:DIW

[Animats]

That video is the kind of crap which people with an animation program and no talent produce.

Re:DIW

[Ash-Fox]

Boring claims nobody bothers listening to don't sell stuff. If you want advertising you want to catch people's attention.
Something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI-ye1oa4N8&feature=related

That's not how you do it, if you want to show off a interface in a advertisement type way, it's done like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au_uRmoy8Fs (and yes, this is a Linux based mobile phone)

Re:Everyone is familiar with the Linux video ads..

[Grishnakh]

Actually, I'm a Linux user, have done Linux kernel driver programming, and am a Slashdot regular, and I've never heard of these Linux video ads.

Of course, I don't watch much TV and tend to ignore video stuff in general, but saying that "everyone" is familiar with them is ridiculous.

This is nuts

[westlake]

If you say 'Linux', they jump on Google, search for 'Linux' and find out that there are hundreds of distros, find the one that works for them, and are happy.

You have got to be kidding.

The Windows user wants the security of the OEM system bundle.

The clearly defined and supported consumer product.

Factory tested.

Sold and serviced under a generous warranty.

They want to see a web site. They want to see a toll free number for technical support.

All hardware and software compatibility issues resolved before shipment.

Up-to-date drivers.

Software installed with sensible defaults.

Licensed media play out of the box.

Compatible printers and all other common hardware devices available in store.

If you promise them compatibility with their favorite Windows software you damn well better deliver the goods.

Re:This is nuts

[SilverHatHacker]

I think Dell has you covered. Pity they aren't doing any advertising for it.

kernel panics

[NoYob]

No more crashes?

They're called "kernel panics" and I know you know this: I'm stating for others who may not know that. I'm getting one every time I boot fedora 11 and a report is sent to kerneloops.org,

I guess I'll have to be modded "-1 Flamebait" too.

Reboots

[lannocc]

You have to reboot after installing things just as often as you do on Windows or OS X.

Only if you don't know what services need to be restarted. Seriously, just how often are you updating your kernel? That's about the only install that would require a reboot.

Re:Reboots

[geckipede]

Ubuntu asks you to restart after upgrades of services. I suspect the other desktop-oriented distributions do the same. Whether you strictly need to is not the point, it's what the system asks you to do.

Re:Reboots

[lannocc]

Ubuntu asks you to restart after upgrades of services. I suspect the other desktop-oriented distributions do the same. Whether you strictly need to is not the point, it's what the system asks you to do.

I did not know that. In that case Ubuntu is broken, for the "convenience" of the user. I don't personally use it and I'm not saying it's such a terrible thing, but that certainly makes clear that Linux distributions are not created equal.

Different from Car Talk?

[pizzach]

You're being way way too pessimistic. Is this so different from Car Talk? I'm pretty sure that that NPR show still hasn't failed yet. On top of that, I am sure there are a lot of listeners who don't know a lot about cars, but pick up small things from it. It's a great way to educate people without overloading because they pick things up at their own pace and the next time they boot their computer they notice things.

Apparently....

[WindBourne]

there is a real reason why it is popular in Austin.

Re:Apparently....

[roguetrick]

MMORPG Developers.

Re:No more crashes?

[Grishnakh]

Plus, all that shows is that the Nvidia drivers crash any OS they're running on.

BTW, I'm an Ubuntu user who uses the Nvidia drivers, and my desktop probably crashes about once a month. My next video card's going to be an ATI most likely.

Don't worry

[ClosedSource]

People aren't tempted to use an ad unless it's good.

Wrong

[dbIII]

However, portraying it as incredibly easy to use with everything you'd want out of a desktop operating system is just false advertising for 95% of computer users out there.

Web browser, email, instant messages, spreadsheet, word processor, skype, flash, PDF viewer, photo editing, mp3 player, movie player, DVD rip - did I miss anything for the 95% of stuff home computers get used for? Easy requires a decent front end, but if people were really after easy they would be using Macs instead of the inconsistant mess of interfaces in MS Windows that we stupidly copy in gnome/kde/etc.
Tacky but well meant advertising could do as much damage to the reputation of linux as Micheal Moore's hype did to some social issues.

Re:Wrong

[ciderVisor]

did I miss anything for the 95% of stuff home computers get used for?

Plugging in a cheap Webcam for your Instant Messaging client ?

Varying Definitions Of "Professional"

[FSWKU]

...has obtained the services of a professional radio talent

The voice sounds professional, yes. However, the audio quality on the raw material is lacking. The reverb is VERY over the top, and is not necessary. A dry voice track should not sound like it's coming out of an echo chamber, because reverb can easily be added later in the style and amount you want. Also, would it have really hurt to have the voice talent be a bit further from the mic? At the very least, run the damned track through a de-essing filter to kill off some of the harshness. The sibilance was bordering on painful everytime a word had an S in it. Echo shouldn't be a problem if you're using a proper studio.

I mention this, because if the production of the dry track isn't up to par, then anything you finish it with won't be. And if they REALLY want people to take Linux seriously, whatever ads are made with this stuff needs to sound every bit as professional as something coming out of a major corporation.

IAAVOA (I Am a Voice-Over Artist), btw.

Re:Varying Definitions Of "Professional"

[FSWKU]

But not a director or audio mixer, right?

Direct? No. Mix? I edit/mix pretty much everything I do on my own in Adobe Audition (yes, I know Ardour or Audacity would work as well, but CoolEdit/Audition is what I started on and what I know best).

But then again, I've only been doing this for several years, so what do I know? =P

Re:Varying Definitions Of "Professional"

[Thelasko]

The voice sounds professional, yes. However, the audio quality on the raw material is lacking.

I think you overstate the issues of that audio track. Sure, there is reverb, but it sounds like it was added in post. The "P"'s weren't popping and the "S"'s weren't that bad. Just because it doesn't live up to your personal level of perfection doesn't make it bad. The average person can't tell the difference.

1995 argument should be abandoned

[dbIII]

As Linux becomes more common among end users we will see more viruses.

What do you think a lot of those ADSL modems are running? There are millions of linux boxes always on the net that a virus writer would just love to be able to control. Yet they don't. Perhaps the stupid rarity argument is not the only reason that virusus and malware are restricted to a single platform. The same holds with the incresingly popular iPhone and a lot of other examples that virus writers could have a lot of fun with if there were not barriers in place with them in mind. A decade or two of *nix getting clobbered by bored students hardened it up before WinNT even existed.

Re:1995 argument should be abandoned

[anexkahn]

Yes those DSL modems run linux....but how many stupid users use those modems as their desktop computer. Users have a habit of clicking ok on anything that pops up in front of them. I agree that Linux is way safer than windows. And I agree that at the moment, it may do more harm than good to run a virus scanner. But, I wouldn't completely discount the value of a virus scanner on Linux since it is not impossible to get a virus. And if Linux ever gains any real market share in the desktop market, we will see a rise in malware. Regardless of how secure the OS is, a stupid user with rights to install software can be duped into allowing a trojan to run on their computer. These instances are where a virus scanner becomes useful.

Re:1995 argument should be abandoned

[dbIII]

The point has been missed entirely. The modems have been set up properly to make them virtually "idiot proof" so there is little or no risk of malware despite them being an inviting target used by exactly those same users you are blaming for the malware epidemic. The MS Windows platform in comparison is far from being "idiot proof" since you don't have to be an idiot to get problems. The MS Outlook autoexecute stupidity by design was one of the worst examples, Active-X is another example which is still with us and neither of those problems requires an idiot. Even "click on the monkey" or installing smilies or a purple gorilla thing is not the act of an idiot. The largest malware hassle I have now is people installing malware that pretends to be free DVD ripping software on their laptops from home - it isn't entirely stupidity there only inexperience.
The "stupid user" copout has little or no value since even pre-literate children manage to play with Macs without installing malware. The "stupid developer" problem is still alive and well with the single user, single CPU, non-network aware approach and security as an afterthought. The situation where a lot of software has to run as admin renders nearly any attempt at improving security in MS Windows pointless. That is why the malware writers can get into systems.
Virus scanning is just a bandaid anyway and usually depends on somebody else getting the malware before you do. There are other approaches that instead of having a big list of things that are forbidden you have a short list of what is allowed - a much more sensible way of doing things (athough still annoying at times). Proper seperation of admin and user tasks is really the main thing that keeps malware off all platforms but one. When the system tasks have their own user accounts you start to get a modern system - eg. where a hacked web serving program still can not get enough permission to wipe the configuration of other programs, install other programs or shut the machine down.
The "Irish virus" joke applies to all platforms apart from the MS systems - "Hi I'm a computer virus, please do 3 or 4 things to bypass security and ignore a lot of warnings so I can run. Ta very much". Things are improving a LOT with the actual Microsoft software, but there are a lot of application developers on that platform that need to be dragged screaming into the 1990s before the vast malware mess diminishes.

Re:1995 argument should be abandoned

[ShadowRangerRIT]

the above statement is fantastically ignorant.

I agree, but for different reasons. The primary flaw in a computer's security is the user. It doesn't matter how many embedded devices use Linux; it won't be an attractive platform for malware writers until it succeeds on the desktop; aka the place where morons are a bigger security risk than buffer overruns.

Re:1995 argument should be abandoned

[dbIII]

Comprehension failure and insulting too!
The hard lessons learned there were applied and could have also been applied to Microsoft products from day one of the WinNT series.

Re:1995 argument should be abandoned

[dbIII]

allow for specific "drive by" exploits where malware gets installed w/o even asking for the users permission, but that has nothing to do with NT.

It does because the seperation that was designed in has become completely irrelevant in practice on many systems. Microsoft are starting to clean up their act so at this time it is the vast number of applications that need to run as admin that are the problem. I'm living in hope that the rise of desktop virtual machines will confine the stupidity into little virtual boxes that can't afflict the rest of the net.

Re:1995 argument should be abandoned

[dbIII]

I agree. However in practice on most systems it doesn't have privilege separation as designed, but that's the fault of somewhat braindead applications which will hopefully die a final death when the platform moves completely to 64bit. We're really suffering from the trainwreck of Win98 programmers getting onto the NT platform and taking over a decade to get the slightest hint of a clue that nasty things can happen to networked computers.
It would be nice if there were a finer grained approach to privilege separation and I think that is what will happen on the NT platform in the future. There's a lot of system tasks that could run as a different user instead of Administrator.
All that said I think the security model prior to the unproven Win7 is a lot like Britney Spear's lacy knickers: when it's there at all it is overly complicated, has hundreds of little holes, doesn't cover much and is easy to get past.
Why have a completely unreadable and complex userid and complicated ACLs when you have a culture of setting everyone as Administrator and users trained to ignore warning messages and click OK to everything.
Sorry, but long rant below. As a *nix admin I spend far too much time wiping and reinstalling infected MS Windows systems because the MS Windows admins have their hands full with difficult to maintain systems. I feel like a f*ing guidance councillor having to spend so much time listening to long and boring stories about how the user did nothing but google for photos of a dog breed (this morning's one, unfortunately 1000km away and not on a network now so bloody hard to fix) or whatever stupid story they want to tell me about how their laptop got infected. The fun bit with that one is the sent the screen shots of the error windows to the f*ing General Manager and I only got the invented dog story with no technical information at all. It's not the users fault that they went to a pron site they don't want to tell me about, it's the fetid swamp of the MS Windows environment where you install a pile of shareware crap written by idiots to get simple tasks done.
For more complex tasks you buy things that can also be crap - the classic was a four figure per seat application where they are so paranoid that you will copy it that you have to use a USB dongle that some idiot has interfaced with 16bit MSDOS mode software and had a Y2K bug in 2008. That bit of crap from Macrovision has to work before the real application can run, and of course it has to run as Admin to talk to the Macrovision crap, and permanent licences no longer ran since infinity has been reset to the year 2000. Of course a 64bit MS operating system can't run the 16bit software to talk to the USB hardware so the application can't get enough memory to run properly (due to low end MS stuff not supporting the Pentium Pro and later, but that's another story). That is the MS Windows environment at the high end of workstations - a mess just waiting for somebody to go to the wrong website before it gets infected before the antivirus can do anything about it. It's more by luck than design that those machines are not steaming heaps of malware.
I really do not see how we can blame the computer users for this ridiculous malware plague that exceeds the realms of bad science fiction.

Re:good anecdote

[Ash-Fox]

What did his jaw do when he tried to watch some fullscreen youtube videos?

Fullscreen is working fine here?

Same FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Listened to the "final product," and not really a fan of the FUD there.

Even if Microsoft uses this kind of FUD, guys, it's not as if we should stoop to their level.

I forget myself though, it's radio, of course every ad is a "clever sales pitch."

Bleh

Re:games

[agnosticnixie]

90% of your targeted market

Gamers are a niche, deal with it.

I beg to differ

[westlake]

It was more about control, about Microsoft being in charge of how you get to your data, than about anything else. It's a great message.

It's a meaningless message for the target audience.

Of course the operating system is in charge of how you get to your data. That's its job.

Windows and the Mac own the consumer market because no one there wants any deeper engagement with the machine than is absolutely necessary.

Re:No more crashes?

[Tubal-Cain]

True, but I doubt it is that big a difference.

Mod Parent -1 *I disagree*

[Dr. Evil]

Linux desktop zealots do a disservice to Linux advocacy. Nobody forgets the geeks who come in, wipes out a machine, geeks out for two days then says "you need a new video card/sound card/printer" "You don't need flash", "MS Office is proprietary", "Java??? why would you want that???" "Multiple audio streams?? But the fidelity is beautiful!" "The fonts aren't blurry, they're superior!", "DVD? but that's illegal", "MP3, use OGG, oh, MP3 is propreitary", "don't use root!, you don't need to! unless you want to install/change/read/etc something!", "Skype? use Ekiga! oh, your friends can ALL SWITCH!", "It's more stable! ,oh that was just X.org, you lost your document, but your UPTIME is SAVED!"

Yeah, you're a real typical Windows user!

[Mathinker]

> with Win98+ME (some vxd/exe/and dll's replaced with ME versions)

You obviously aren't the typical Joe using Windows, so your anecdotal reliability reports don't really add much to this discussion.

And no, I don't think that the typical Joe trying to use Linux is necessarily going to be happier with it, or find it more reliable.

Re:Yeah, you're a real typical Windows user!

[CrashNBrn]

Didn't think there were any Typical Joe Windows users on slashdot ;)

remember W98?

[Mathinker]

The GGP, at least, was talking about using Windows 98 (at least in part). My remembered experience with that is that it locked up several times every day, on a good day....

And yes, you are right that some (most?) evangelists (of all sorts) are asshats....

Be a moving target

[Mathinker]

> sooner or later I'm going to need an anti-virus

By the time that happens, you'll be able to jump ship to some open-source BSD-based OS, Haiku, Plan 9, or maybe even (gasp!) GNU Hurd.

Really, for the next April 4, someone should make a parody of Slashdot where everyone is running these way-out OSs and getting down on all the clueless, zombied, Linux-using grandmothers and Joe Sixpacks....

Forkable

[GMThomas]

Forkable... Just like your mother. :)

sudo is enabled by default?

[reiisi]

On a Mac it has been, for the first (default admin) user the setup script walks you through building. Sure. Probably still is. That's not a Linux distro, however.

My memory is that I had to go in and set sudo up by hand in a Fedora box. Period. So anyone capable of running rm as root on a Fedora box should be able to read through that particular piece of social engineering malware.

 

Re:sudo is enabled by default?

[spiffmastercow]

It is on Ubuntu. I think I had to emerge it on Gentoo.. Don't know about Fedora, I haven't used RH since the 90s..

Re:No more crashes?

[Clairvoyant]

Now that's interesting! I've been a happy ATI customer for many years and been using Linux for parhaps even more years, but I'd say the exact opposite: "My next video card's going to be an Nvidia most likely". Sure, ATI drivers don't really crash as often as they have been, but for a window to take 4 seconds to resize, is a bit much. So no Nvidia and no ATI... then what's left? Intel? S3? 3D Labs?

Trying to switch convinced me to stop trying

[wmguy]

One of the selling points of this ad was that if you have old hardware that is too slow to run Windows, you should switch to Linux. I had just such a laptop sitting around, and decided to load Linux on it to see if it was worth keeping around. After wasting about half a day, I finally gave up and trashed the machine. I am a computer professional who has run Linux at home and on servers in the past, but I still ran into the following problems:

1. The Ubuntu and SuSE installers wouldn't even run. Debian was the only installer I could get to work.
2. After install, the network interface wasn't enabled by default, and I had to figure out how to automatically enable it on boot.
3. My PCMCIA wireless adapter was only sporadically detected, and even then I never got it to work.
4. I could never get Xorg to use my LCD's native resolution of 1024x768.

I know that many of you Linux gurus will say that I just didn't know what I was doing, but that is exactly my point. I am a very computer literate person--with some moderate Linux experience--and I had all these problems which weren't worth my time to work out. If I have this much trouble, how is a "normal" user supposed to just install it and get everything to work? You may bash Windows all you like, but the fact is, once I point it to the right device drivers, everything pretty much just works. Mac OS X doesn't even have this problem since it is built for a proprietary hardware platform. Linux may be fine for servers and specialized applications, but I don't expect it to replace Windows and Mac OS X on the desktop any time soon--if ever.

Re:No more crashes?

[bcmm]

I'm another nvidia + Linux user, but there is a Radeon sitting next to my computer ready for me to install next time I have a free moment. The reason is that AMD is now cooperating with Linux devs on making open-source drivers available. The ATi driver situation is only going to get better from here.

It must be said that I've had very little trouble with nvidia drivers in recent years, they responded quickly when the KDE community complained that KWin 4 turned up performance problems in rarely-use functions of the driver, and nvidia drivers have never prevented me from doing a kernel or xorg upgrade (a complaint I've heard about binary ATi drivers). However, open-source graphics drivers are clearly the future, and will enable the community to do awesome things like desktop effects more easily in future, without waiting around for corporations to help.

Kernel mode setting is a somewhat geekier and less pretty example of such a new technology being implemented now - it allows the Linux console to run at native resolution and makes X start a little faster, on Intel chips and, since September 9th, on Radeon HD cards. Support for nvidia cards will have to wait for the nouveau project (who are writing nvidia drivers without access to specs) to mature. This seems likely to be the way things will work for any cool new graphics features on Linux in future, unless nvidia releases some of their own specs.

Which driver are you using? Have you tried the alternatives? I'm undecided as to whether I'm going to use the open drivers right away or wait for them to mature a bit.

it's only radio ..

[viralMeme]

"The voice sounds professional, yes. However, the audio quality on the raw material is lacking"

To be quite honest, I hadn't even noticed ...

Ad Verecundiam

[viralMeme]

IAAVOA (I Am a Voice-Over Artist), btw.

But not a director or audio mixer, right?
--

Description of Appeal to Authority

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.

Linux obviously not yet ready for the desktop :)

[viralMeme]

"If you want advertising you want to catch people's attention. Something like this:"

You got my attention ..

"it took me 4 restarts of firefox before flash decided to to shit itself so I could watch the video"

And you were doing so well .. :)

Re: Sig

[multisync]

To be fair, overrated as a disagreement is perfectly legit if people are putting nonsense at +5 - you're not disagreeing only with the poster but with the ridiculously high mod points.

In that case, it would be more effective to post a comment outlining why the parent is wrong, or even reevaluate why you disagree with the poster and the majority of moderators (unlikely though it sounds, you could actually be wrong in this one case).

Simply slapping "overrated" on a comment does nothing to advance the discussion, or help anyone learn from an alternative point of view.

Linux-based stuff != Recognizable platform

[Burz]

The layers above Linux + GNU tools are always changing and have very different behaviors even between distros using the same DE. A typical 28-year old who has dappled with "Linux" in the form of the Walmart special (enlightenment DE), an EeePC (Xandros KDE 3), his friend's custom-installed OS (Gnome or KDE4) and maybe 2 or 3 handheld devices described as "Linux" with no discernably common surface features and no assurances they will sync with "Linux" groupwares (now that's a joke).

For both the novice AND the power-user set, the "Linux" thing looks like a lot of nonsensical blather. You have to have worked on web servers to know that "Linux" means something more stable than a bunch of clowns trying to waste you time with stuff that always looks and acts different.

So I'll believe that users are ready for "Linux" (or vice-versa) when Apple increases their unit sales by marketing "XNU BSD" to a TV audience. Of course, Apple would never do that because it would be insanely stupid which IMHO says something about the striking misapprehension that FOSS techies have of personal computing in general.

Marketing "Linux" to non-sysadmin types is STUPID!! As a demographic they will never, never ever "get" something they aren't equipped to even understand. Now please spare the rest of humanity this subcultural mania known as "getting people to use Desktop Linux". Linux is not a Firefox or an OpenOffice nor is it like OS X or Windows.

It isn't even like Android, which is itself Linux-based. Like OS X and Windows, Android is a consumer platform with well-defined UI and an SDK offering rich functionality; Firefox and OOo also fit this description somewhat (and I applaud Mozilla for not allowing people to make changes to Firefox and pass it off as "Firefox").

OTOH "Desktop Linux" is a morass of non-platform "distros" that don't even offer a comprehensive SDK and where the default APIs are dropped from the default installation from year to year when they fall out of fashion. Its too chaotic for most app developers (ISVs) to cope with, so -- surprise! -- there's almost no apps or games for it.

Re:Linux-based stuff != Recognizable platform

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

Uh, go drool elsewhere.

The gibberish you posted was a waste of electrons.

Just thought I'd tell you that rather than take advantage of the fact that Slashdot seems willing to let me moderate your response to my post.

Re:good anecdote

[H0p313ss]

What did his jaw do when he tried to watch some fullscreen youtube videos?

I would suggest that preventing the growth of youtube to be a public service.

It takes two things

[dbIII]

The "Dancing bunny" situation exists on all platforms but is only a problem on one. We can't take the copout of blaming the users for going to the wrong web page and having some Active-X crap take control of the computer. The users didn't create the vunerability. Some idiot at Microsoft ignored all the warnings at the time and the example of java in a sandbox and went ahead with it. I heard from a librarian as to how much of a disaster it was going to be after it was announced - that's how clear it was to so many people. We got it, the amount of malware was far worse than anyone predicted, and now people are mistakenly blaming it on computer users that are now far more competant than they were it the past. It's embarrassing and makes us all look like a bunch of elitest jerks.
Anyway, my original point about "popularity" being an irrelevant argument as to why malware is only an MS Windows problem still stands.

that warm fuzzy feeling

[skangas]

This kind of makes me warm inside. Is this expected?