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Linux 3.5 Released
diegocg writes "Linux 3.5 has been released. New features include support for metadata checksums in Ext4, userspace probes for performance profiling with systemtap/perf, a simple sandboxing mechanism that can filter syscalls, a new network queue management algorithm designed to fight bufferbloat, support for checkpointing and restoring TCP connections, support for TCP Early Retransmit (RFC 5827), support for android-style opportunistic suspend, btrfs I/O failure statistics, and SCSI over Firewire and USB. Here's the full changelog."
Desktops were locked down under the Microsoft Tax, Linux never had a chance. Along comes another platform, and it was Microsoft left flapping in the wind.
That is fundamentally what politics is about: getting people who want different things to act together in a useful way.
It's funny, I've got a generic Dell PC I got for $300 from their outlet (Athlon etc etc.) Not a powerhouse, but not a shrinking violet either. I used my Mac Mini to download Debian Squeeze... and in 2 hours, with less interaction than a Windows install... I had a completely functional Linux desktop PC without doing anything in your list, except pick Debian. Back in college, I never got my et4000 card settings right for X on Slackware 0.99 (on floppies no less), but with screen and a familiarity with Amiga's CLI and DOS... I didn't miss it. (Plus that is the first time I got hooked on Nethack...)
Now, in the dim past just about everything was more difficult, to be sure... Getting games to run in DOS was also a magic trick. Then there was the myriad of other things that the CLI (which is where the computer originated) made easier for some, harder for others. Hell, Windows had a devil of a time keeping stable with the myriad of 3rd party drivers out there for Video and Sound cards alone.... Let's not forget NICs and so forth... And let's not diminish the fact that Windows used to be a graphical shell over DOS... for many years it was "hiding" DOS from the user...
Linux is a tool not everyone should use. There are idiots who shouldn't use a computer too. The fact that Linux has thrived in spite of Windows and Macintosh speaks more about the users and developers than it does about the drones who buy iPads and iPods because they're "hip". Those people don't use computers... they use appliances.
Here's a tip, though... if you hide everything from the user (a 'la original MacOS and returning to that I might add) it doesn't make them better at using a computer... it just makes them think all computers are magic. Which, in some people's case... I think should remain that way. :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Sorry Linux guys Bill Gates and IBM beat you too it many decades ago and that is the bad news.
I wasn't aware there had to be winners and losers in the game. Computing thrived with diversity, heck if it wasn't for diversity, we'd all be using some pablum invented by Bill Gates in his dorm... Thank goodness he was chasing rather than innovating... I shudder to think of the alternate universe that would've made.
Linux didn't "lose"... it's free. Linux is doing fine and several companies make a good bit of coin off it. I see Microsoft's "victory" as nothing more than eating a bit more of the pie than the other guys. Apple's got a huge market cap and tons of cash in the bank, yet they aren't even 20% of the PCs sold worldwide... So in the realm of "winners and losers"... we have to be a bit more objective, or at the very least, define what "win" means. Market share? Revenue? Mind share? Brand Loyalty? Whatever you pick, you end up with a different "winner." :) But I applaud Microsoft and Apple for really bullying everyone else for so long.. it makes me feel good that giant corporations want to actively screw me over and sell me the tools to do it with. I'm talking about both Apple and Microsoft in this regard.
As long as there are people who like to do it themselves... there will be Linux. Computing trends come and go, but revolutions stick around...
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
There were and are plenty of consumers not endeared to the Apple ways and MS was never a contender.
Considering Nokia stopped official development of their Linux system around the time of their engagement with MS the N900 and N9 are even now still remarkably useful phones.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."