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Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin
jbrodkin writes "Two decades after Linus Torvalds developed his famous operating system kernel, the battle between Linux and Microsoft is over and Linux has won, says Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin. With the one glaring exception of the desktop computer, Linux has outpaced Microsoft in nearly every market, including server-side computing and mobile, Zemlin claims. 'I think we just don't care that much [about Microsoft] anymore,' Zemlin said. 'They used to be our big rival, but now it's kind of like kicking a puppy.' From Android and the Amazon Kindle to embedded devices, consumer electronics and the world's largest websites and supercomputers, 'Linux has come to dominate almost every category of computing, with the exception of the desktop,' Zemlin argues as Linux approaches its 20th anniversary."
Every time I power on or bring my Ubuntu-running laptop out of hibernation, I have to unmute it in software.
I have a dual boot Ubuntu with Windows 7. I really tried to get into Linux and I went through hell getting the graphics working, largely because it wouldn't automatically detect propriety graphics stuff for reasons that were explained to me only they sounded more like religious fundamentalism than actual usability. Then the clock died and feeds me errors on a regular basis and the sound went away with the exception of the start up sound that is the one sound I don't actually want. I have tried and failed to fix these issues and sadly now Ubuntu has become the horrible thing that happens to my computer when I power it up but am not quick enough to leap at the keyboard and select something else from the boot menu.
Like I said, I would love to have a nice clean working version of Linux, but it needs to 'just work' before it can seriously compete on the desktop market. Why would someone change from something that works to something that doesn't under the guise of the word 'free'. I cannot stress enough that to me, Linux is only free if you have no value on your own time or take pleasure out of fixing things which are broken.