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GNU Hands Out Trisquel At a Microsoft Store
alexanderb writes "Remember GNU's Windows 8 launch trick or treat in October, where Free Software Foundation activists handed out gratis copies of the free (as in freedom) system Trisquel GNU/Linux? Well, GNU returned for a Microsoft store's 'Tech for Tots' session on December 20th in Boston, MA. Like in October, the activists (accompanied by a gnu) handed out gratis copies of Trisquel GNU/Linux — a free alternative to Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 8."
Handing out an desktop operating system that only has a desktop user interface?
This is 20-damn-12, I'd expect a mimimum of at least one useless user interface!
I welcome these Gnus bearing free gifts! (valid to say "free gifts" in this context, with free as in software freedom. It's redundant to say "free gifts" with "free as in beer" as the word "gift" by itself implies "free as in beer"). [On Grimm, they mentioned that "gift" means "poison" in German, {'Geschenk' is the german word of the english word "gift"}so is it necessary to disavow that meaning? Free as is beer not as in poison?]
No, the problem is that they're trying to compete with windows 8.
The best way to compete with windows 8 is let people try it.
Ubuntu is a tough enough sale and that's with some proprietary stuff added on. Don't even want to know if Trisquel can play DVDs out of the box or not.
I never heard of that distro before?
What is it like?
Zero proprietary drivers and media files?
GNOME desktop?
PITA to install?
Curious
Thanks
Steve
True, but every new Linux user will start demanding either that the OEMs stop bundling Windows, find one more amenable to their requests, or they'll start building their own boxes.
It also means that each new Linux user isn't buying MS Office, using IE, or all the other bits and bobs that Microsoft also sells.
You gotta eat that elephant one bite at a time, yanno?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
To the average "dude or dudette on the street", it is just plain "Linux", and this "GNU/Linux" label just oozes righteous political correctness.
Nuh uh! Debian allows you install software that Richard Stalin disagrees with. You're more free by being denied this ability!
Every new computer at the store includes Windows, so you have to pay for it even if you don't want it.
That must suck for people buying Macs.
Face it, the demand isn't there. That's the problem that's being ignored. Big names like Dell have tried to market systems with alternative operating systems, but the sales don't justify it. I can't see how sending two guys and a furry to intercept shoppers is going to help either. If anything, having people see them getting hauled off by security is going to put a negative image in people's minds.
Why Trisquel?
Why not Linux Mint or Ubuntu or Debian or Redhat or one other distribution that is not only widely known, but has appropriate support, forums and users who can help?
I'm all for showing people what alternatives to Windows are out there, but surely it would be better to give them something else that - well - a decent number of people actually use?
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I'm a sole developer in my shop (in addition to being our Linux server admin). My workstations all run Debian and I'm about as pro-GNU as you can get. With that said, if it weren't for Active Directory keeping our end users from random acts of jackassery, our entire organization would have degraded to a Mad Max-esque wasteland where roving bands of IT geeks roam the cubicle ranges keeping everything in check manually.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
To beat any incumbent you need to offer better products. MS isn't just a Windows desktop, it's the server, terminal services, AD, DNS, DHCP, Exchange, SQL, IIS, .Net, Sharepoint and a whole hoard of other stuff that works, and works nicely together with very little effort. As much as the Linux fanbase would this not be true, there is no linux solution that even comes close to this. Sure you could cobble together a bit of this and a bit of that that sort does something similar, but it takes 10x as much effort, only has 1/2 as many features, and is a nightmare to support or troubleshoot when it breaks (or a new guy comes onboard and has to figure out your homebrew mess you created.
Were it not for GNU, Linux's userland would be based on that of BSD. USL v. BSDi finished about a year after Linux came out.
Exactly. Hell look at how Linux as an "OS" is managed, you got fifty billion little fiefdoms, NONE of which are ruled by one grouped or even really has to talk to one another on a regular basis, and then all these "little programs written by little groups with their own agendas" get slapped together and called an OS.
Now this works just great on a SERVER for several reasons. 1.- Removing the GUI and sound subsystems cuts out a LOT of complexity and overhead, 2.- You can "mix and match" to build a system that is right for the jobs your company is doing, 3.- MSFT prices itself very stupidly in that market, with Windows SBS costing $400 a pop, so 4.- Even after hiring an admin at 6 figures you are still gonna be ahead in a large org by the money you save not dealing with the mess that is Windows Server licensing.
But on the desktop this is exactly reversed, you HAVE to have a well built GUI and sound subsystem and frankly X-Server is a crashy mess, and Pulse is a bad joke, the users WILL NOT put up with CLI fiddling and "open up Bash and type" like a server admin would, and finally the cost for most users is practically zero because with trialware the OEMs end up getting windows Home and Basic for free, maybe even make a few bucks which they can use to lower the price.
So I'm sorry but Linux just isn't in the same league as OSX and Windows when it comes to ease of use, user friendliness, stability..its just not even in the same ballpark. I would argue that "free as in freedom" all volunteer doing your own thing nature that so many in the Linux community prizes so highly also insures that it never ever will be up to the task of standing in the same arena with OSX and Windows, because you just can't have the level of QA and QC with everybody doing their own thing. The X-Server guys don't listen to the DE guys who don't listen to the Pulse guys and so on so all it takes is ONE of these groups to change a pointer in the right spot and the whole thing falls down like a house of cards. Go look up the rant Thom that runs OSNews had when he tried to watch a video while chatting and the whole system crashed, its THAT kind of shit, probably caused by the video player team expecting something to be A when the X-Server team changed it to B, that gives Linux a bad rep.
I have said before and I'll say again not a single distro can pass the "Hairyfeet challenge" yet, not one. We take one of the user friendly distros like Ubuntu or PCLOS and install it side by side with Vista, along with a range of average software. We make sure ALL the drivers are working, then we update both to current. The vista machines WILL have 100% working drivers and software, the Linux system? Will be a mess. heck in just the last 5 years we've seen the devs gut both the DEs and the audio and wireless subsystems so good luck getting those systems to update without making a mess.
Until one can pass the Hairyfeet Challenge with flying colors, where every driver and every program still runs without a single forum hunt? Then I'm sorry but your product simply isn't in the same league, end of story.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You admit that Dell treats the server market differently. Why is that? It's not because Microsoft has surrendered in the server market. If anything, Windows Server 2012 shows a lot of effort to compete in that space. Dell handles multiple environments in the server market because that's where the demand is. Dell's number one job is to make money. Linux makes money in the server realm.
Why is the consumer market different? It's because Dell's consumer customers are balls-to-the-wall Microsoft, even if they don't realize it. They want a PC that works like those their peers have and is a natural migration from their last PC. PC manufacturers targeting the consumer mass market aren't going to want to spend a fortune to generate demand for another operating system. This makes me think back to when IBM went to great lengths to get OS/2 into homes. It didn't work, and they went at it "full-hearted". It's a high risk in a market where the margins are razor thin. The slightest misstep can cost big time.
The fact that I cringe even using the term "Linux" doesn't help. I'm sure there's a small army of geeks that are ready to say it's the wrong term to use. Consumers are going to walk away if you start battles like that. That's not even getting into issues such as KDE vs Gnome vs Unity or this distro versus that distro and so on.
They're getting desperate. This is like a church handing out pamphlets outside of a movie theater or arcade. It'll all go in the garbage, and end up being a waste of time and resources.
Really. Interesting that I haven't heard about those events on /. but do when it's against Microsoft.
Find me a windows system where every driver works without a single forum hunt... You're delusional. I use windows almost exclusively, mostly because I game a lot, and I have problems requiring forum hunting all the time.
Just today I've spent ages trying to get this stupid usb headset driver to work in 7x64. Apparently Rosewill still hasn't made it easy after however many years 7 has been out.
A normal user using Ubuntu or another well crafted distro will have a computer exactly as messed up as their windows computer would be.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
"Linux? Oh, you mean those idiots dressed as animals in the mall?"
Yes, this'll go well. If you're going to do something memorable make sure it's not something stupid.
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Ah, and the spewing of hate begins. These diverse distros don't really matter because all the "communication" happens in the projects that these distros are comprised of. But the only ones that really matter these days are Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, and Fedora. In the enterprise space, it's RHEL and SuSE. Your commentary here is toothless.
It's not there yet. So what. Say something insightful or original for once man, this certainly isn't. Of course, Canonical is trying hard to get there.
Which is why distros are so important.
Most vocal criticism from someone who apparently fails to understand development. Each of the independent projects does its own thing and stable versions are codified into a distro release. That release is then QA'd.
Actually they are, which is why Wayland is coming along. The DE guys aren't using much of the functionality that exists from the days of X11 yore, so Wayland omits it.
You think in a very set and staid "the world works only when it is done like Microsoft or Apple" mindset. And they succeed mostly either because of marketing or monopoly force.
Bullshit. But this is coming from the guy who thought that some developer in a core library would be able to undetectably target Steam and cause it and only it to crash out of some misguided hate.
I'd be curious as to what graphics drivers he was using. If they were closed source, then it's the vendor's fault most likely.
And I suspect once one gets close you'll move the goalposts. I suspect you never actually want to see Linux pass.
Are you hairyfeet's sockpuppet account?
There is demand. The problem is it is too complicated to mix and match. Apple's stuff sorta works because they have are not trying to sell Microsoft. Consumers get that. Consumers already are presented with too many decisions. Dell can't sell GNU/Linux. To the extent they offer it the solutions suck.
... I ordered a Dell laptop with Linux preinstalled on it this afternoon. $319 for a 15" laptop, and the same configuration with Windows 7 on it was $50 more. Dell does sell Linux on hardware that consumers would want, but they put it in the small/medium business section of their website. And to address another point you made, everything that laptop has in it is Intel reference hardware... given how well Intel is supporting/developping for Linux, I think that says Dell understands very well the importance of not relying on proprietary binary blobs for drivers.
Since when did RMS have anything to do w/ BSD, beside persuading them to make the OS free - which they did, while declining to make it copyleft as well?
And you are trolling in other ways as well. Microsoft built NT from scratch, using the guys who did VMS (Dave Cutler) and Mach 3.0 (Rick Rashid). That was in no way BSD, much less GNU. NEXTSTEP was built using Objective-C, which Apple too used in making Darwin and OS-X. Xenix came & went - never remained a long term part of Microsoft - it was more successful in SCO.
RMS' only software contributions were in Emacs and GCC, but he had long ceased to be involved in software development, and has solely focused on public trolling. Others, like Torvalds, Reynolds, Perens, de Raadt et al have had far more to contribute to software than he has.
You're not getting it. Debian provides both software that has source code w/ it, and separately, it offers software that doesn't include its source code to those who do not insist on that. In other words, Debian does the cleanest thing possible - it offers its users completely liberated software (I prefer using this to the term 'free' for obvious reasons), and since that may not be adequate for everyone, particularly the non techno-savvy, they offer the un-liberated software separately. The problem that RMS has w/ them is that they let their users know that that un-liberated software exists in the first place, rather than just clam up and pretend that it doesn't, so that everyone is forced to use only software that has been so liberated. That's the reason most of the better known distros are not endorsed by GNU - they don't have a clear policy banning the provision of un-liberated software.
The GP was being funny, but he's completely right - as per Stallman's perverted definition, users of GNU's endorsed distros are better off by being denied software that they can't modify. Never mind that most of them ain't programmers and wouldn't have a clue about how to modify it, given the sources.
The only times I've ever had X crash was due a faulty proprietary graphics driver (and honestly, there's no way an OS supplier can protect against that). My home PCs had no X crash for about a decade. My Laptop hasn't had an X crash ever.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I know all of the reasons why this wouldn't happen, but if they wanted to win people away from Microsoft they would have had better luck passing out copies of MINT with the KDE