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Windows Domination May End Next Year
Non-Newtonian Fluid writes "The Register has an interesting article which explains exactly how Linux could rise up and defeat M$ by taking advantage of the Easy PC specification and Micro$oft's own inability to keep pace with the demands of new hardware. " The article also mentions BeOS and other possible Windows competitors. A good "makes you think" piece.
Dude, if you can't see the difference between KDE and Gnome 1 year ago and KDE / Gnome today and then extrapolate that to 1 year from today, then you are a short-sighted nit picker.
Whats with the terminology "rogue Linux developers"? You are a fudding stupid sh*t. The well organized and highly productive team of KDE and Gnome have surpassed MacOS and Windows both in a number of areas and are rapidly catching up in others.
And because we have these highly competitive, productive forces, crap GUIs like MS consumer OS are quickly looking less attractive (they have always been less stable).
Uhhh... I guess you just haven't been keeping up. As far as GUIs and usuability are concerned, I suggest you check out some of the recent commercial distributions such as Caldera, Red Hat, etc., etc. And as far as motivations for creating open source software, doesn't the quantity and quality of existing open source software speak for itself? Check out "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond. And lastly, apparently you aren't aware that our army is bigger, more motivated, and more qualified than your army. Therefore, REVOLUTION!!!
I work in the computer center of my college, and we use macs campus wide, they have a few pcs. Everything is served off of VAX or unix, except this one NT box, which is a trial machine.
Not quite so full-featured as Quicken, but it can import/export Quicken files, does the basic account balancing and report generation and (best of all) it's free software (covered by the GNU GPL).
http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt/cbb/
try your middle finger.
Intuit developers have a rough enough time keeping up with the Win/Mac platform as it is. I've met some of Intuit's developers, they laughed when I mentioned Linux. In their eyes, Linux is a hobbyists OS, and has no place in the corporate(capitalistic) world we live in. As far as Intuit releasing source code for anything, I think we had best not hold our breath. The wheels grind very slowly in any corporate environment, and as shaky as Intuit can be with free alternatives to their software available( MSMoney), I don't see them doing anything potentially risky anytime soon. They are still unsure year to year whether or not they will continue releasing Mac stuff. Even if they did port to Linux, the chances of such a company considering Open Source would shake their stockholders to the core of their being. And at Intuit, the stockholders are really the ones in charge when it comes right down to it. If the stock is rising, we must be doing good seems to be the mentality. To add more to this pot 'o' soup, they have approximately 20 developers for Windows, and 3 for Mac. They do not have the time to finish what they code now, and do you really think they would hire developers to work on porting software without being able to guarantee the numbers beforehand ? To sum this up, in order for Intuit to consider Linux, the main control and motivation of the organiztion would have to move away from the idea that the bottom line is money. They would have to believe in writing good software that appeals to many people in the belief that the quality of their coding would sell itself. That is a far cry from living a a slave to the stocks.
Hi Valis, you have been very entertaining.
/.
i don't understand why more and more windows people and mac people are reading
The only thing you really need to get started is your ISP's info stuffs, and a copy of linux documentation project getting started guide and user's guide. maybe system admin guide, too.
read the getting started guide a few times before you do anything.
you have overseen the free documentation for linux, the linux documentation project, the key reason why linux got so popular.
my own first time was slackware, the so called hardest distro. i read the getting started guide, at that time only supported slack, and it says: you can either use adduser or useradd to add a new user. that's all i did and it works just fine. Me and my cusin even got her 486 with 4M Ram and 30 megs disk space installed just fine.
as of the rest, well, i spent about 6 months fixing things. on weekends i would say, hm, let me fix my printer driver today. or sound, or TV card, or install E, or whatever that has been broken or wanted. then i will go to linux documentation project and find a how-to doc and read. Now my entire computer is working, with everything i want.
oh, and, forget about those idiot's books. why pay when you get better books for free?
2.4.x is supposed to have full USB. anyway, USB is not a new spec as originally thought..intel introduced USB cause they still had fabs for making low speed chips and didnt want to waste them. it is being touted as the latest and greatest but it is cheaper, less flexible and has less performance than your 1980's SCSI.
blather blather blather
History will speak for itself.
if your mouse didn't work, how did you know anything about KDE and GNOME??
/. ?
why do windows people read
If linux won't run on any of your boxes, you don't know what you're doing.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I use:
Section "Pointer"
Protocol "MouseManPlusPS/2"
ZAxisMapping 4 5
Device "/dev/mouse"
EndSection
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
With EnergyStar, you don't need to turn off your PC...therefore leaving it readily available for use (no startup to wait for...not wear-and-tear on the HD, either). You don't unplug your clock radio once you know the time, do you? No, you leave it on so that, later, you can look again without having to plug it back in and reset the time and alarms (which I guess defeats the point, but you get the picture)...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
The thing with the floppy removal wasn't so much that they removed it, but that they didn't include a replacement of some sort (be it a Zip drive or whatever). And somehow, this is supposed to be a "feature". At least that's how I read the issue. It's not like anyone has a great love for floppies, it's just nice to have some sort of removable storage that pretty much any computer can read.
:)
:)
And besides, nobody in the PC industry really planned to support legacy hardware ad infinitum. It's gotta go at some point, after all. The industry was just waiting for the new technologies to be a little more mature (mainly for the hardware makers to make more USB devices for the USB-enabled PCs that have been around for years now) The difference between the PC OEMs and Apple being that Apple touted themselves as being revolutionary for doing what PC makers did two years ago - include USB
Apple did do a good job of timing their switch to USB to match when the USB hardware was becoming widely available, and as usual their marketing folks did an excellent job. But it was the people making devices for Wintel machines that are mostly responsible for USB and its growing popularity. So in this case, it is Apple following the industry, not vice versa
Apple does have the lead in incorporating FireWire, though I suppose that's to be expected since it is their technology.
Linus has expressed some opinions on replacing the old fashion VGA text modes on the x86 with Frame Buffered text console modes, like almost every non-x86 platform out there. The facts, are that frame buffered text mode is almost as fast as the old fashion VGA text modes, and how often do you really test the speed of hardware VGA text modes versus frame buffered modes in day to day work? Not much.
There are obvious benfits to using a frame buffered console, for one you can include graphics in it, such as when the system boots. Also if you are using a frame buffered console you can actually possibly run graphical programs without X11 (like Mac-on-linux or XF68_FBDev, a frame buffer based X server based on XFree86). This saves some of the bloat of X when you don't need it.
And yes, since kernel 2.2, x86 machine also support frame buffered consoles, but you have to spefically enable them when compiling your kernel.
Yea, and if that happens the people running the "servers" will be able to charge by the hour for app usage.
This would be a Bad Thing(TM).
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
If I understand correctly, there won't be any support for ISA Bus, serial ports, or parallel ports. USB and Firewire are, at least in theory, easier for the average user to deal with. This really isn't that much of a change for the OS to deal with. If the OS was designed in a reasonably modular fasion, you just leave a lot of legacy stuff out. I really don't understand why the Register thinks it will be a big deal for MS to support these PCs, especially when they are still a year away. Three years ago I was always hearing the computer media saying that Microsoft's design cycle was too fast, and people would prefer less change, now they're too slow. I doubt they'll be lacking an OS to run on these systems when they're available.
That's what Windows Update does for the most part now...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
It may be annoying, but for many USB is annoying. Linux is made by hackers(people who know computers). Everyone knows that USB is inferior. So less people are likely to be intersted in writing the drivers. It is slower(than SCSI). It puts a huge load on the computer. For things like a modem you don't need anything faster than Serial. That goes for Keyboard and mouse also. It's not annoying its just the way it is. The command line may be annoying but its still there. I would like to see USB suport(out of principle) but I would much rather better SMP support.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
If that's what they want, why get a PC. Get some sort of web appliance such as web TV.
err...here at BU we have mainly Macs, lots of unix boxes (think aix, solaris and irix) and a few PCs. some PCs run winNT, most 95 and a couple run linux (even the one in the faculty room!).
(1) It crashes very rarely: important for people who depend on their computers (NOT casual users)
Actually this is important for a casual user. They want a box that, to borrow a quote, "just works". They don't want to have to deal with the fallout from crashes all the time. Even if they don't depend on it, they simply don't want to have to wonder if it's crashed after having been left alone and untouched for a week.
(2) It's a tinkerer's dream -- if you don't like something, go and change it! Again, the casual users couldn't care less.
Again, they will care because of one thing: they don't care to tinker, but the guy who set it up for them does. If the box can be tweaked, I can sit down, tweak it to exactly what's needed, lock it down so they can't touch things and duplicate the result 200 times for 200 different people.
Later, when my nephew asked why sound didn't work when playing his game, it was all I could do to keep from swearing at him.
Conclusion: anyone who thinks Win95 is easier than Linux must have a hole in their head.
>Windows software usually has to be unzipped with winzip, then the setup run, then all kinds of retarted "Next" buttons.
:-).
really? perhaps you are using win3.11? retarded next buttons? perhaps the concept of understanding what the installation process is doing is too much for you.
>People just *think* windows is easier to use. I've had novices running Linux in no time. Do they know what the hell they are doing? Probably not. Did they in windows? Probably not, to the exact same degree as Linux.
right.. likewise, you can load nt in minutes also. difference being that i know i can get software to be productive that runs under windows.
>*YOU* just think its easy because you have to frikkin reinstall everyday, and you're so damned used to it
ahh, usual linux user resorting to pokes, jabs and inuendos. really linux users, try not to show your immaturity through your comments. present me with a real business case, without holes, of why i should switch my 1500 pcs to linux, and i will. until then, i'll deal with the occasional user getting a lock up.
Many Windows programs install with a double-click too. Also Windows 98 and NT come on bootable CDs, no boot disk needed. I install Linux and Windows several times a week on many different systems. Sorry but Windows is BY FAR easier to install. I love Linux but MS has got a better installation.
xml? sgml? document markup languages...
somebody should make a app to write docs in xml/sgml, and have one for every platform
cool
Agreed. Isn't it great that we're getting rid of all the legacy hardware like ISA and Super I/O (which free OSes support fairly well) and replacing them with hip plug-n-pray USB devices? What a coincidence that the central peripheral connection in EasyPC isn't well supported by Linux/*BSD.
I actually read somewhere that Intuit is porting quicken to linux
Man, don't be funny. :)
Revolution ???
We're talking average Joe kind of user here.
Not hackers or open source wizards.
I've been running Linux for 4 years now,
and though it's my home system by choice,
frankly, I think Windows is more mature, polished,
and user oriented than Linux.
Catch-up game with Microsoft will never end; so
what if after 2 years AbiWord will finally ship -
Microsoft will release MS word 3000 with a new
file format and 10,000 new, useless features.
Look at this:
1) X11 is slow. Did you try to run Corel
WordPerfect ?? Muuuuuch slower than MS Word.
Netscape - slow pig.
Games ? What games ?
2) Installation still sucks.
3) Where are applications ? you can spend hours
playing around with E and themes, but THIS IS NOT
what OS is about. Most of applications I saw,
is still less usable than Win apps.
4) Hardware support sucks. Most of users won't be
even able to install sound card driver.
PnP ??? USB ???
5) Perhaps KDE is kind of usable NOW, but it still
has a long way to go.
minek
They'd have to hire 3-5 more people for a full Linux port, but it would be worth it to them.
They'd probably sell 20-50K copies in a year or two. Much more down the road as Linux gains in popularity (and it will).
And supporting Linux would make all the sense in the world for them to do. Right now they're barely managing to stay ahead of M$ at its own game (Win and Mac software). It's highly unlikely that we'll see a M$ Money for Linux for a LONG time (we will, of course, when Linux achieves Domination(TM)), so Intuit could have a couple years' head start.
Suppose Windows dominion does end next year. Without the platform holding people back ....
Keep in mind that operating systems are no longer truly applications; they have descended into the realm of infrastructure.
Thus a great benefit of the dominance of the x86/Windows platform has been that it has provided a common infrastructure. It benefits the market if programmers don't have to spend precious resources porting the same program to every architecture under the sun (Mac, alpha, linux, Win9x, NT, BSD, BeOS, etc). Those same dollars are invested in a single product for a single platform, and the quality is higher because of it. Consumers benefit. (Of course, it often makes for cleaner *code* when one has to write it so that it compiles on Solaris, BeOS, linux, BSD, MacOS X, and all the other unices, but this is tangential to my point.)
So Microsoft has been greatly beneficial in providing a platform that almost all computers can be assumed to have. It has gone a long way in making Win32 (be it 95, 98, or NT) a required infrastructure. Where they have failed consumers is that their infrastructure is bad. The UI is currently unparalleled, but the internals are a mess!
So though your analysis of potential OS fragmentation may be accurate, I don't think it will be A Good Thing. The software market needs to be able to write for a common platform.
OTOH, the processor market can fragment and competition will actually be beneficial. Especially if Open Source applications become the norm, compiler writers will hide the processor differences from the software developers. One can even envision a self-compiling program, much like a MS setup.exe or an rpm that would be distributed in source form and would automatically unpack, configure, compile, and install itself for the host environment just by double-clicking. When we all have 10GHz machines on our desk, compile time will be negligible.
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
Try entering X and exitting (or swapping to a vt running X and back). X resets the mouse when you enter/leave it (and seems to do something magic so that gpm works too).
;-)
When I unplug my mouse I just Alt+F7, Alt+F1 and it's back to life in both lands (gpm and X).
As wrt keyboards, the kernel seems to reset it if it goes mad... Sometimes it happen here. The keyboard locks hard, then a minute later it timeouts, printk a warning, and restart working. Truly wierd
God the MacOS is a horendus peice of shit, even windows can do that. and windows dosn't crash every 1/2 hours (dispite what pure linux users seem to think)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
1)X11 slow
:)
I had a lot of problems with this when I was using vid cards with non-accelerated drivers (Rendition Verite 1000 / 2100 ). When I moved to a video card that had accelerated drivers, my linux ended up being as fast as windows. Actually I really think Netscape is faster in linux, but that might be an optical delusion.
2)Installation Sucks
To date - something like 30 windhuuhs installs
To date - something like a dozen Linux installs
Linux is always easier. Finding drivers and getting them to cooperate under windows can be a major hassle. I remember installing Slack 2.0, that was a pain. Modern linux installs are easier than windows IMHO.
3) Applications
Not a boatload of them, but they're getting there. I spend the majority of my time in Linux doing things, not futzing with my backgrounds. Gimping, programming, running newsbot programs, looking at pics, surfing, CivCTP, putzing. Your right that there is not a lot available for Linux currently, but it is changing, and rather quickly.
4) I don't have trouble generally with this, PNP is supported fairly well in Linux now, USB is starting to be supported, it's getting better.
5) KDE is not bad at all, what are you missing from windows? Blue screens? Actually I have those also thanks to jwz & xscreensaver
Basically, I like it, and so do 10-15 million other people. And it's growing, soon enough I will be able to play games and run the whiz-bangiest software available.
the VGA must never die!! it's the only thing you can count on *at all* to be on every machine. actualy it *should* be on most Macs to that use the ATI chipsets. almost all Graphics cards keep VGA silicon, to remain compatable. getting rid of the VGA would serve no purpose, break *a lot* of *software* backwards compatability (including windows safe mode)
:)
as far as hardware accelliration for text, it probably dosn't do much on pIIIs, but still
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Can you say "Linux for Windows"?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
pssst! Let me tell you a secret: Office 2000 writes and reads XML. It also writes and reads the .DOC and .XLS formats. But the new default is XML.
actualy, MS-DOS has supported framebufferd text for a *long* time, just put your video card in whatever weird mode you want, and DOS will put the text up for you :)
actualy, i'ts pretty slow, even in mode 13h(320x200x8) on my p200mmx
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
No NT workstation CD is bootable only NT server.
The LinuxPC would need these apps:
1. Personal finance software, eg.) Quicken for Linux
2. Word processing, w/ MS Word file compatibility
3. Net browser, e-mail client, etc.
#'s 2 and 3 are covered, anyone working on #1?
I don't know why, but I've always preferred external modems, and I REALLY like my USB modem. Consequently, I can't wait till the 2.4 kernel comes out. Hopefully, it will support my USRobotics(3com) USB modem. Meanwhile, I'll just have to keep surfing on Windoze. :(
I always wonder if certain companies promote these flamewars to scrounge for new ideas and insights into our thought processes. Oh well. Let the sun shine in.
(Yes I know this is off topic.)
local pr0n cach
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Does that mean that Intel is developing an entirely new CPU and chipset for it? Is this supposed to just be some kind of interenter appliance with little in the way of memory or storage?
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
> This would be a Bad Thing(TM).
Would it, really?
I'm sure that there would be more than one company running these "netserver-apps"... with competition like that, we could watch for the prices getting very low very fast.
You'd probably see stuff like:
Well... okay, maybe not quite, but you get the gist. Comapnies would make a killing off of stuff like that due to multiple clients, and yet when you get right down to it, the end-user would probably end up paying less than today (compare $5 per month to $500+ every couple of years to buy the software yourself (don't forget the upgrades!)). Simple economies of scale.
And given that the primary OS'es will be Open Sourced (in this hypothetical future), I see no reason why the Application Servers shouldn't be as well.
Hell, if you're really concerned about the cost, you can shell out a bit of money up-front and run your own.
*shrug*
Call me an idealist, but I actually see that situation as much preferable to what exists today.
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
Clue: those video drivers that were a major struggle before were still lurking in the shadows. Oftentimes you can go into the Control Spaniel "System" area and find that it's shoved your video card into the "other" category because it didn't know what to do with it (duh!) and you can "install drivers" for it.
First, while I'm sure consumers won't care if their "net-only" box runs Windows, I disagree that the Net-only box is going to be popular enough to dethrone Microsoft. There just aren't THAT MANY WebTV boxes out there right now for me to believe that this is the wave of the future. People will still want office apps (at the very least a word processor) that work as well and as easiliy as MS Office. As a long time user of Star Office, Applixware, KLyx and more recently Abi-Word, it's my opinion that we're not there yet. We're getting there...but we just aren't there.
Stop right there oh ye of the itchy flamethrower trigger finger
I'm not not not saying that Linux won't over throw MS in the near future (although "near" is up for debate). I'm merely saying that Internet-only boxes based on Intel's sketch "Easy PC" roadmap is not the way we're going to over through the giant.
To me, it all comes down the same stuff it's always come down to. Stability, Applications, GUI, Ease of Use. And we're already tackling those quite nicely I think.
Werd.
You may want to learn to spell before plunging head first into a flamewar.
For linux to make an inroad into the easy pc market, they need a company focused on customer service - Because the Easy PC spec is aimed at users who can barely operate their toaster, and who *will* call the company about 10 times a year for support for the lifecycle of the product.
.sig gone, oh where, oh where could it be?
So the company must build, load, and support these machines, while selling them at a low cost. While the software could be open(free) source, the hardware and support could not.
Any takers?
-Adam
Oh where, oh where has my little
What's the point in being a geek when you're not interested in leading edge technology? Linux is retro-computing.
I was thinking about this article and particularly his last sentence about Christmas 2000. Right now I'm doing all kinds of tech support for computer illiterate friends. It's always a pleasure/pain to tell them that because their computer is running Windows 9x and it has a problem, I really have no idea what to do. Microsoft's frequent errors seem to be uncurable. Than I had this picture of people asking me what OS to get on their new computer, and what all the differences were. I nearly had a heart attack thinking about it. I find it hard to believe that anything other than Microsoft Whatever 95 will be in widespread use a year and a half from now. College campuses especially will still be using Microsoft products, as the faculty will have a hissy fit being forced to learn all kinds of new stuff. Just some random thoughts that don't really flow together well... $0.015 (it rounds up to $0.02 at least)
Ugh. HPhUX. You could have chosen a more appetizing example. I wish I could stop being bitter about 10.00, 10.10, and the whole move over from the 9s, and the Y2K stuff, and the bloated piece of elaphantine bugware that is 11. I would rather go back to working on Xenix or Interactive than do HPhUX again.
Romen
Sam TH
AbiWord Developer
I agree. I'm sorry, but I've used several operating systems over the past 16 years. I truly appreciate the Linux OS for what it is. But you're deluding yourself if you really believe its as easy or _easier_ to install, configure and use then Win9X.
Yes there are those freak win9x installs where the sound card didn't work, etc.
Usually its a matter of dilapidated drivers... Or some obscure piece of garbage hardware that nobody has ever heard of.
Linux = Good Server OS with a lot of potential
Mac/Win9x/NT = Already good production machines. (As well as appropriate for the masses)
If you can't see that then obviously you rank a little too high in the Linux Nazi level.
I have to agree that Linux needs better game support. While it is not important to me, many people buy a PC primarily to play games. But of course, game developers won't start writing for Linux until it becomes more popular. And again, it won't become mainstream until it has more games that will run on it.
What have WinModems got to do with anything ? A box like this will either come with its modem on the motherboard, in which case the hardware manufacturer would have to be insane to tie it to a particular OS from a particular manufacturer, or it will plug in over USB, in some as-yet-unestablished manner. WinModems are PCI or ISA cards, usually.
What is experimental about the USB and PnP support in 2.2 ? PnP seems just fine (I don't mess with USB just now).
If you've been paying attention, there are already 2 major (free!) projects that are doing this. KOffice, which only running on *n*xes, uses XML for its documents. Unfortunately, the KWord docs I've looked at are terribly bloated with tons of extra stuff. For each paragraph there are about 20 lines of junk duplicated from the previous one.
AbiWord, the WP I'm using right now, runs on Win, Mac, *n*x, and BeOS. It uses XML, and its documents are much nicer to read - they're actually hand-editable.
Try out AbiWord - it's not finished, but it's quite usable if you don't need to do fancy formatting.
http://www.abisource.com
Yeah, linux is obsolet for the XXIV century...
But by then our decendants will make a better linux, i'm not worried.
Do you realize why M$ called their new O$ as Win2000? Because it left them enough time to make it work and be delivered in time....
WP for Linux Works absolutely fine, and comes on the RH6 CD. It may not be as huge as MS-Word, but it does what it has to do pretty well.
The Gnome/Enlighenment combo that comes with RH 6.0 is sufficiently easy to use that, if it's preconfigured with apps, any random windows user could use it.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
If it were pre-installed on a computer it would be usable out of the box just as quickly and easily as MS-Windows, and it would have more software avalible.
Eithor the Gnome+E or the KDE which is included on the RH6 CD is totaly usable by any random user who happens to feel like doing so.
Does Windows come with Corel WP? -- no -- you have to go pay $50 to $500 to get a good word processor.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
eally? perhaps you are using win3.11? retarded next buttons? perhaps the concept of understanding what the installation process is doing is too much for you.
I think a better question would be what version of windows *you're* using, certanly not the one I am, (windows 98), every once in a while you'll find a program that just "runs" without needing to do anything else. Next buttons are a pain in the ass, and after you're clicking them (witch isnt' really that hard) They've invariably put a bunch of obsolite crap in the windows\system directory, probably breaking other applications (I really *hate* that, I'd almost rather install the software by hand, and stick all the dll's in the same DIR as the app)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
All software is obsolete the moment its used :)
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
[not crashing] Actually this is important for a casual user. They want a box that, to borrow a quote, "just works". They don't want to have to deal with the fallout from crashes all the time. Even if they don't depend on it, they simply don't want to have to wonder if it's crashed after having been left alone and untouched for a week.
First, a casual user's understanding of "just works" mostly means "it does what I mean" and doesn't have much to do with crashes. Again, it's a question of the appropriate GUI and considerable underlying program intelligence which has to guess correctly what did the user mean. And anyway, crashes can be made relatively painless (fast reboot + session management) as I pointed out.
Besides casual users do not leave their computers running for a week and they don't care if it crashed while sitting untouched -- it's not like they are going to access their machine remotely...
Again, they will care because of one thing: they don't care to tinker, but the guy who set it up for them does.
You miss the point completely. The whole idea of those Easy-PCs is that nobody has to set them up. You bring it home, plug it into the outlet and the phone jack, and it works. That's it. Nothing to cofigure, nothing to select, nothing to tweak. I am not sure the actual machine will pull it off, but that is clearly the goal.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Don't get me wrong... it's crap, but... isn't that what they are working with, and not Win98?
Built-in pocket applications *work*, and provide the minimum functionality.
It seems like the right platform is closer to a souped-up WinCE than Linux, Palm OS, or Linux on a Palm. I still haven't seen a "good" browser for the Palm Pilot!
Anyway, hate to burst a bubble, but Linux still have a LONG way to go to point-and-drool interface!
Although your points are something that the mass user wants I don't think that it will draw the masses to Linux. The attention span of the TV viewer isn't very long, and it isn't getting any better anytime soon.
I was thinking more along the lines of showing people using Corel WordPerfect, GNUmric, Netscape, Quake *, all on a flashy desktop, flashing back and forth between a user on Windows getting BSODs, waiting for applications to pop up, Dr. Watson, having the autodetect find their serial port for the 800th time but not finding what ever it was that they just installed. With Linux, don't show the command prompt, and make desktop look similar enough to MS Windows to make people think that it wouldn't be hard to switch. I personally use Gnome on top of Enlightenment but I think KDE would be better suited for this task.
Just my 2 cents.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
block port 21, or whatever port telnet is on. it should be OK
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
1) $0/PC is STILL a lot cheaper than $10/PC
/X Mic*
2) I didn't say the existing AOLosers would get free PCs. However, the market that is saturated is the market of people that already know how to use a computer, surf the 'net, etc. The growth will come from selling to the 50% of a people that DON'T already know how to use a computer! AOL with their newbie focus is much better positioned to serve this market than is MICROS~1 with their "we really don't give a shit about you, just GIVE US YOUR MONEY!" focus.
3) By typing "Microsoft~1", you're obviously missing the point of MICROS~1, which is an allusion to the Windows filename kludge used for backwards compatibility to DOS filenames. If you create a file called "Microsoft", old DOS software can only open the file as "MICROS~1".
Try this on NT:
echo > Microsoft
dir
to see the 8.3 equivalent of "Microsoft".
I think the PC as we know it is going to become the serial port and ISA of the modern computer, some people will still use it and swear by it religiously, but they will eventually be forced to move on. We're seeing all incarnations of set top boxes for net access and some basic word processing, running all sorts of kernels, most noteably linux. Connections are getting faster for Joe User's home so the idea of network computers running remote applications is no longer something reserved for Bill Joy's wet dreams. Here's what I see happening in the next few years. 1. Sun buys Star Office-a cross platform, MS Office compatible, relatively small office suite-and rewrites the Java version to be smaller and much more efficient processor wise. Then they release NC's with microSPARC or JavaChip processors in them (both run Java natively and therefore much faster than say an x86 or PPC chip). With cable and xDSL available in many parts of the country, people find these NC's easy to use and good for what they need.
2. AOL releases their set top box, which with AOL's popularity deals a heavy blow against Micro$oft's WebTV. AOL offers cheap @home service to it's box owners which increases the set top box and AOL's user base. The AOl box runs an uber-hacked linux kernel.
3. Platforms like Nintendo's Dolphin and the PSX2 offer WebTV-like net access and multi player gaming over the internet.
4. Intel's 810 chipset becomes widely used in the sub-500$ PC market making PC's less and less upgradeable but drastically reducing their price while adding a little more *umph* to their multimedia capability.
5. SGI changes their logo yet again. Their campus is stormed by angry nerds who attack them with all forms of pointy metal objects. SGI changes their logo back to the cool infinity cube, the nerds rejoice.
6. Amiga never decides what to base their new kernel on and merely changes the version number to 4.0 and hope no one notices. 7. With the popularity of the iMac pretty undistputed, many other PC makers get the idea that your average user probably will never open up their computer to add anything so cute cuddly user friendly designs flood the market. Only techies and true believers build and use legacy systems and are never bothered with annoying questions like "How do I turn it on?" ever again.
8. Silicon Valley sinks into the ocean.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
All PS/2 mice are the same, it's not to surprizing that they worked, windows has built in drivers for them, same with linux.
video drivers are a *bitch* beacuse the computer can't really work right without them (it's the same with linux I belive...)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Windows will not be displaced on enterprise desktops, because to do so would require retraining all the desktop users, at an estimated cost of about $2000/user!
However, if all you're going to do is give people a browser, a Netscape/Linux solution is not only cheaper, but I suspect more people are already capable of running Netscape than any other browser. Add to this lower support costs, and a Linux "thin client" beats the pants off a Windows-based solution in terms of Total Cost of Ownership.
There is both a home market and a corporate for browser-only thin clients, but this is different from the desktop market, which MICROS~! owns and will continue to own.
> (not talking about simple webtv things here)
DUH! What the hell do you think these things are? The are just faster WebTV's with somewhat better resolution and the ability to do java.
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
HEY!
I like tapioca...
Ill be damed if im gonna let intel and microsoft ruin my tapioca!
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
You're confusing the OS with the user shell, a common mistake for people coming from a Microsoft-centric environment, since Microsoft marketing consistently calls the shell the OS. Consumers need a user-friendly shell; it is irrelevant what operating system that shell is running over!
Linux's biggest advantage is that it currently enjoys a rate of improvement much greater than that of any other OS. There are still somethings BeOS does better, and still some things (please don't flame me) Win98 and WinNT do better than Linux, but extrapolating current trends, Linux should match or exceed the features of both of these within a few years.
IMHO, KDE is user friendly; I must admit I haven't tried BeOS yet.
Wow... that took SOOOO much effort, I'm sure... you must have spent all of ten seconds doing that...
let's see...
banner -w 80 "Linux is obsolete."
I bow before your amazing h4x0r sk1llz.
NOT
You are both idiots. The word in question is spelled "antonym".
Of COURSE Linux is obsolete. So is Windows, MacOS, BSD, and the firmware in my VCR. What's your point? You show me an OS that isn't obsolete and I'll show you one that hasn't been released yet...
How many times did you have to tweak your vcr or tv set?
AbiWord also reads MS Word docs fairly well without taking over your whole screen the way StarOffice does. Nice!
Not 10% certainly. This is the most recent data we have, and it places his wealth at 191m. So selling 78m is a pretty substantial vote.
Considering that he's left Microsoft, I assume he has good reason to (i) diversify his portfolio, and (ii) move away from a company he may have lost confidence in.
http://www.forbes.com/asap/tech100/98/49.htm
D
----
works in all standard text entry feelds, for undo. you might want to keep that in mind :)
Actualy, in my opinion, installing OSs isn't really that hard at all. I got slack 2.0 working fine. I've played around with the redhat in stall, and it looks pretty simple. and windows, wasn't *that* hard....
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
i'm trying to get a linuxppc box to be my dhcp server. what a freaking nightmare -- linux forces me to master more than i should have to master to make things work easily.
that's beacuse youre a Mac using idiot. I bet you think win9x dies every 10 minutes, and PCs are a lot slower then macs to, right?
I read up on DHCP, it dosn't look that hard to use at all. or are all of these "commands" beyond you?
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
a) Moderator: non-biased, eh? I'm sure if he had said "Will somebody explain how this "Linux running suboptimally on an Intel platform" differs one iota from the situation today? ?" He would have been moderated out. I'm saying this comment should have, but please, show us a little consistancy.
some peoples scores start automaticaly at 2. I guess if *a lot* of there posts are high, or somthing
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well, I leave my VCR on all the time, There's no real reason to turn it off the moter spins down, so the only power needed is running the power light. I have my antenas hooked to the VCR beacuse I lost my TV remote *years* ago (like when I was 12), anyway the VCR never really turns off anyway, as far as the computer part of it, it keeps going, and always displays the time. I leave my computer on to, better for cracking RC64 :)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Oh yea, USB is great.. it's about as easy as Apple ADB. If I don't like using the trackpad on my PowerBook G3 laptop, I just plug a mouse in the back, the OS pauses for about 1/2 second, then the mouse works. I guess the Mac thinks "hmm, oh wow there's a new mouse plugged in, let's use it." Just like when I stick a CH GamePad into the port, it starts to work right when I plug it in. USB works about the same except sometimes it needs a driver for the specific device, whereas most ADB devices for the Mac just "work" right when they're plugged in because the MacOS is just smart enough to know what just got shoved into the box.
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
you know, those old 70s VCRs could be tweaked to recive scrambled channles... just somthing to think about :)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
After a few months of dual boot I zotzed my Windows partition; and to a large extent I am Jane Average user. There are a few things I miss but it's not really about having Quicken or some other productivity app. Things like having common cut and paste buffers would help. I've tried some solutions to this, but they're not ones Joe Average could really attempt.
Cost of maintaining Win boxes where I work: Plenty.. plus those guys who sit in the IS department need to get out in the sun sheesh they need tans!
We in the Creatives Services (graphics) department spend ZERO in support for our Macs, since we pretty much can troubleshoot our machines ourselves. Usually problems will occur but they're always just isolated to extension files installed by stupid shareware someone downloaded (toss it in the trash) or just download patches to programs recently released.
It's funny to hear the WinXX people (database and cataloging folks) across the partitions complain "Oh no, my computer crashed. Let's call tech support quick!"
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
i dont think that major software companies will accepted the linux philosophy.
free programms,open source
they will support windows anyway because windows supportes the rippoff
You must be one of the lucky people who has an OEM CD for your Win98 installs. The retail CDs are NOT bootable. I'm not positive, but I don't think the retail NT CDs are bootable either.
Remember there were those boards with a SCSI controller on board ? Gone, it is cheaper otherwise. The same goes for "Win" modems. The chipset is cheaper and the margins are so tiny already. Aside from that without a browser that supports ActiveX and all that other M$ crap no typical Easy PC customer is going to want one.
What if they do need new software? Have to open the cryptic Bash shell (DOS' shell is already too much for most people), untar the file (First time I tried to uncompress something in Linux, I had to look it up in a book. I couldn't figure it out), configure (including any necessary parameters), make, and then make install, and then maybe, if they are lucky, 30 minutes later it will finish making without problems. Then they will have to create a shortcut icon in GNOME. All that is 100x more than any of the users where I word could even begin to comprehend.
whats wrong with you???
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
To add a user log in as 'root' and type the following:
adduser [username]
passwd [username]
[enter password at prompt]
[confirm password]
To remove a user:
deluser [username]
(I haven't had to remove a user in a while, so that one might not be right, but if not someone will probably correct me.)
Hey, maybe your VCR does need to be "rebooted" after recording/playing tapes for a full week in a row. How would you know if it did -- have you ever used your VCR for that period of time nonstop without turning it off? Of course you haven't. (If you have, please put your white jacket with the straps back on...)
Actually it's run continuously for about 31 months now. The unit I have doesn't have a physical power switch, just an electronic one that sends it to a low-power idle mode. The CPU is still running the whole time.
Let's say for the sake of argument that he's right though, and Easy PC's with Linux take off and make a serious dent in Windows. Even then, we'll have a problem (I predict).
Ever notice how a new PC user starts by saying "All I need is word processing (or email, or whatever)..." but down the line a year or so, they end up wanting more functionality just because they now realize there's so much more it can do?
The same thing will happen here. Aunt Bertha will get her computer to do email and web surfing and then will see someone running the latest version of Micros~1 Outlook with God knows what new whiz bang feature she now wants. She'll want to run it and won't be able to, unless we want to write an app to do what she wants. And most of the kind of apps we value don't fit into the mold of what Aunt Bertha wants, so there's a high probability for conflict.
If this comes to pass, I bet it'll be followed by a "consumer backlash" against Linux or whatever OS ends up running on these boxes.
I know as well as anyone else that Slashdot is a page for Linux geeks more than anything (that's why I come here) but that -1 was uncalled for.
If the sentence had been "Again Micros~1 copying other's work, not innovation", nobody would've thought twice about it. Aren't moderators supposed to be unbiased about content? C'mon guys, read the moderator FAQ.
At least according to Andrew Tanenbaum and other leading OS researchers.
Actually, AbiSource claims that AbiWord does not run on the Macintosh.
marketing is the key, dare I say it. Right now we don't have the ability to truly market Linux to the masses. The product is here, there is great potential for marketing but the companies that should and can market Linux aren't. If Linux is going to overthrow MS we can't rely on word of mouth, there has to be some marketing effert thrown into it. Without it people will never know what Linux is. The average person uses what ever is the standard installation on their machine because either they don't know they have a choice, or don't understand the choices. What good does having choice do if you don't understand the choices. It is sort of like voting, people who don't keep up with the situation and go out and vote end up following party lines or choosing something that looks somewhat familier.
The funniest thing right now is that the letter X seems to have a huge appeal to the average consumer, X-games, eXtreme blah, the X-generation, etc... It would be fairly easy to market X-Windows and LinuX right now just by taking advantage of the market's fixation with the letter X.
RedHat, Caldera, SuSE, Penguin Computing, VA, Corel, Storm, etc... the list of companies who either sell Linux, or sell stuff that supports Linux. None have done much in the way of marketing, outside the net, to try and draw average people to become customers. The number of companies depending on Linux to make money is increasing very rapidly, and although the base of users is also growing at an astounding rate, there is no way that these companies will survive unless they push to draw the masses to Linux, which will require marketing.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
IMHO gnome and E alredy better tnan MS and Apple piled up together. There's bunch of MS losers handing around my office, you should see the awe
in their faces when i show'em enlightenment.
I still expect Linux will be displacing Windows on corporate desktops first, rather than home PC's, but we'll see. Certainly I won't object if Linux comes to consumer PCs ahead of schedule.
Windows runs more optimally in this market than anything else. The only thing close is the mac, and MacOS is if anything, even worse perhaps (tho many will argue the gui is 'better').
I don't know that linux or anything else (amiga?) is even close to how optimal doze is on the desktop.
Yeah, and you are right . . . its all about marketing, and m$ are past masters of that. Few come close (coke? . . . macdonalds?)
-- Reverend Vryl
This post should be moderated up.
The guy is right on - Microsoft is driving the hardware specs, and there's no way that Intel is going to release a platform that doesn't have MS backing. (Especially after the USB f-up, where they shipped hardware for a couple years without drivers.) The idea that Linux will ever have more hardware support than Windows (by next year!) on a commodity platform is silly.
These cut-down PC plans (PC99, EasyPC) might as well be called "WinPC". Dropping things like VGA text mode, BIOS support for non-PnP OSes, 'legacy' ports like serial and parallel, and forcing things like ACPI is bad news not only for Linux but also anyone who wants to run commercial OSes such as WinNT 4.0 or OS/2.
(In fact, the non-PnP Windows NT 4 is the *only* reason Microsoft isn't more aggressively pushing WinPCs rignt now. Once Windows 2000 is out, expect to see some very Linux unfriendly hardware. the Not that the Linux folks won't catch up, it just might take a while. And I fully expect the typical corporate purchasing department will try to save $100 and skip the 'OS-Independant' checkbox.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Hmm... isn't that interesting, I don't have a command line on my screen when I use linux. And I don't run a server either. Odd that my copy of linux doesn't fit either of the adjectives you use to describe all of them.
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END OF LINE
This was pretty funny... sounds a lot like MS's defense in the DoJ antitrust matter: "Yes, this archaic little UNIX clone is really a threat to our consumer OS monopoly"
>> (I really *hate* that, I'd almost rather install the software by hand, and stick all the dll's in the
same DIR as the app)
but that violates the concept of _all_ windows software: There Is Only One User.
Since there's only one user, Hey! put all the libraries in the system dirs! It's not like we have user and application contention on the system! woohoh!!
Why does microsoft software seem like it was written by hillbillies?? That's more than a joke, btw; any attempt to anthopomorphize windows inevitably leads to windows saying 'woohoo!!' a few times.
Exactly. PC gaming is dying and pretty much everybody knows it. That's why you keep seeing all this crap about how Linux needs games. Wrong. The PC game market/companies want the cash that linux users are spending on the PlayStation and other NON-PC based gaming systems.
We should start getting prepared for some kind of Windows fallout, considering the DOJ is already working on how to split up MS. MicroSlop is trying to turn its OS into something easier "for consumers" (geez I guess they figured out that WinXX was getting way overbloated and complicated).
It's my impression that the Amiga is WAY too late to stage a comeback and it doesn't have a major cash/marketing arm to reinvent itself in the major marketplace (no flames, I used an Amiga for 10 years and loved it although I didn't get any work done for lack of industry software).
Linux, although it packs a mighty punch, has a long way to go in terms of capturing desktop marketshare. It needs to somehow operate in modes that make it transparent to the user, especially in environments where production work is the use, not tweaking text variables from a CLI. However, since the code is constantly being worked on by external parties, I'm sure someone will program an update to make it something like MacOS X.
MacOS X is probably the first attempt at a UNIX variant that is in competition with WinXX. It combines the strengths of both UNIX and the MacOS while keeping the complexity away from the user (unless configured to allow it).
Intel/MS is corroding from the simple fact that they're infighting with technology, trying to backwards-compatibilize itself to its DOS roots and antiquated CISC technology. If it ever tried to break its ties to those old technologies to move on, MS would be forced to rewrite its entire OS to the new hardware and get thousands of software companies to port their warez over. WinXX is so pathetic that it actually needs to be reinstalled regularly (what the F? What kind of OS is that?) The only time I ever had to reinstall MacOS was three years ago when I actually accidentally screwed up the HD messing with a beta version of Norton. Other than disasters, most Mac users only install system software when updates are released. Linux people don't suffer like WinXX people, either, because their OS is just smart like that!
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
>A while ago I tried Linux with three different mice, all from >different manufacturers. XF86Setup couldn't get any of them to work >correctly, while Windows handled them all fine.
And just who makes these mice you are claiming Linux/XF86Setup wouldn't dectect. I personally think you are lying though your teeth especially since you refuse to name the maker of the mice. On the other hand I just replaced a 2-button PS/2 mouse with a 3-button Belkin PS/2-Serial mouse that I got from Wal-Mart for $7.95 on my system running RedHat 5.2 and didn't have to make any changes *WHATSOEVER*. Didn't have to switch or modify mouse drivers or change their config files or anything like that. I just unpluged the old mouse and plugged in the new one. In fact my XF86Setup is still configured to emulate a 3rd button with a two-button PS/2 mouse, haven't bothered changing it because X sees I now have a 3-button mouse.
No kidding. I took an AIX job instead of an HP-UX job for $10,000 less a year (although it has been more than made up for with only a year of raises) so I could actually go home at night. HP-UX sucks. HP used to be good, but times have changes (I still love the hardware, but the LI of HP-UX is so extreme that the OS must have its own event horizon ...).
/
userdel [username]
I followed the instructions at this link: http://linux.com/howto/mini/DHCP-4.html and I didn't have any trouble setting up a DHCP server on Redhat 6.0...
Second, you may have felt overwhelmed by all the HOWTOs available at the Linux Documentation Project, and you might have missed a few of the handier ones. Well, <FONT FACE="large, friendly letters">DON'T PANIC!</FONT> :-) As a former "dos junkie", you'd probably get the most initial mileage out of the From DOS/Windows to Linux HOWTO. I also recommend the Linux Gazette, which seems aimed at new Linux users and often contains a whole lot of handy tips and tricks that will sometimes make your life simpler.
As a former DOS junkie myself (who still occasionally amazes Win95 users with my knowledge of CONFIG.SYS and "DOS=HIGH,UMB" and so on) I'll predict that once you get used to Linux's quirks (and yes, it does have a few), you'll feel right at home. It may take a year or two (it did for me), but after a couple of years, you'll wonder how you could have used anything else.
Have fun, and feel free to E-mail me if you have any questions.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
This is close to the stuff that we have done internally, but with NPV analyses. I think that we will be making the move to Linux within a year.
One thing -- you need to include ssh licences.
The only rancor is that the WindowMaker guys are really being pests, and they have enlisted the Mac people to help. But I think that we will crush them all and go with CDE (unless the want to dedicate people to support it). Don't slam CDE until you have seen it work well, set up well. Like OS/2, it sucks out of the box and really shines when breathed on a little by a guru.
Because one of the VPs read about and misunderstood the rootshell fiasco. In the big picture, that isn't that much money compared to what we will be saving dropping Windows.
I'd like to throw something in here as the Linux newbie. I got Caldera OpenLinux 2.2, and yes, it's really graphical and friendly (though you can still get a regular text login screen by pressing ctrl-alt-F2), and it makes just about everything I do easier -- EXCEPT installing software.
/etc, because I can't do it without logging out and re-logging in as root because Caldera took out all the non-graphical text editors, except vim, which requires a half-hour tutorial to learn to use it.
.rpm files instead. But the only .rpm files that have EVER worked, instead of dying instantly, are the ones on the Caldera CD itself. And to install those I have to quit everything I'm doing and log in as root.
(Warning: rant ahead)
I tried to install a frontend to MPG123 because I'm sick of listening to my mp3's in alphabetical order. It told me there were two libraries I had to install first (of course, it didn't say that in configure; I had to look in the README). So I try to find these other libraries using the ftp addresses provided. One of the sites is down so I have to hunt around for it elsewhere. One of the libraries requires two MORE libraries. I get those. I install everything, mixing up the order a couple of times, sometimes being baffled before realizing I forgot to 'su root' before typing 'make install', and the last library ends up not being able to find the other one anyway. In other programs, even though I have all the libraries and it can find them, they still don't compile, telling me to edit the Makefile, most of which I don't understand, and God forbid that I should have to edit some file in
I thought I could get around this by downloading
Even if the inexperienced user moves to Linux and gets the package system working, I can bet you'll have most people using their root account to do everything, because it's too much of a pain to switch to it to install stuff. I know that this is not a good idea.
I know that all of this is more powerful than running setup.exe in Windows. But if the average user finds some nifty new software, having a Windows version with setup.exe and an 'everything else' version requiring a process resembling the above, they're going to stick with Windows.
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I am replying to the person who spoke of how linux is 100 times more than people can deal with. I thought the point of linux was the peeople, the new and old alike. I think more people should learn how to "use" their computers. Maybe then we will see the end of companies passing off bloated, over-priced, non-functional software in the name of "user-friendly"
-----
wltr@hbomb.net
More info can be found in README.DEATTACK in the ssh 1.2.27 distribution.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
Agreed. Look at say, YEARS ago (at least ten), when you just plugged an external HD into the back of a Mac and turned it on... a hard drive icon popped up on your desktop, ready for use. I guess M$ never caught on because they were looking for some catch-phrase that everyone could remember. When they finally release Win95/98 they started hollering about "Plug and Play" like it was the second-coming. What losers.. it doesn't even work as well as with Macs, more like plug-n-pray-- hope your DLLs and IRQs don't start fighting or you may have to reinstall the OS.
In a more frightening future, Microsoft may just scrap its WinXX strategy and write an OS based on UNIX, calling it Windows2001. Bill Gates will tout it as the greatest Microsoft invention of all time and then release Win-proprietary drivers for it, completely leaving out all Linux and Apple in software development.
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Windows does some of the dumbest things I've ever seen any OS do. One of my favorites is when it suddenly detects a device and asks for the Win/CD and or The Driver CD to be inserted, but then doesn't load the CD drivers...
Another thing I find windows likes to do is kick out drivers for no real reason. (One of my machines just loves to un-install the network card all the time, never figured out why)
98 Second Edition sucks even worse than ever...
It didn't recognized my network, sound or video card... Yet, BEOS 4.5 on the same machine installed/recognized everything just fine.... hmm.
A few weeks ago I bought a PS/2 mouse, I had always used a serial mouse up to this point. I have Win95 on a partition for my wife, and sometimes to play a few games. When Win95 booted, it "discovered my new hardware", and automatically removed my video driver for me!
;-) All I know is that both drivers are working now!
I broke out in a cold sweat, installing those video drivers had been a major struggle before.
I don't remember what happened after that, the human brain tends to block out traumatic memories.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Easy PC looks like a rehash of Intel's Connected PC thing a couple of years back. It was a reaction to the whole Network Computer craze. The non-Intel/MS approach was no local storage, and Intel countered with a low-cost box with a local hard drive, but it was sealed with the intention of just swapping it out with a new one if there were problems. Perhaps with this network computer hype behind us, Intel is putting their work to use elsewhere.
Nonetheless, good luck. The name of this initiative is inherently bad, even Grandma knows that PC's are NOT easy.
I didn't have to tweak it at all, other than to set the time and program it to record programs. The guys at the manufacturer did all the tweaking of the firmware, which was probably quite a lot, and then locked it down and shipped the results. One example: they worked out the carrier frequencies and modulation for the cable channels in all 3 different bands and programmed that in, then left me with just a 3-position toggle to select which band my cable company uses. The guys at the manufacturer probably appreciate firmware that lets them tweak right down at the individual channel level, because it lets them set it up so that I don't have to. This is as opposed to an older VCR I had that didn't have this ability in the firmware and made me set the carrier frequency for each channel by hand using what amounted to a small tuner dial. This older VCR is simpler and less tweakable internally, but a lot more of a pain for the end-user than the more complex, more internally-tweakable modern unit.
Because Linux doesn't crash makes it great for simple boxes and non-casual users. When was the last time your VCR crashed? Casual users won't by an appliance that doesn't work the way it should, this is for people who aren't buying PCs now, for that very reason.
A properly pre-configured and idiot proofed (by the manufacturer) Easy-PC with just about any window manager makes the PERFECT set top box. Microsoft doesn't have any advantage as far as GUIs go, there isn't much difference between modern GUIs at all. The most important factor, not paying a Micro$oft tax = cheaper boxes.
In addition, the point of the article wasn't to say that Linux is the perfect EasyPC right now, the point is, that it is a perfect platform to start developing an EasyPC that will be ready by next Christmas, and could be a better alternative to the product microsoft plans to have by then.
Spyky
Arrgh... I had 3 paragraphs about what a pain in the ass my linux experience has been and I hit 2 keys at once on this @#$!@#$ win95 box and it erased the entire thing... sigh... Guess that's what I get.... Well, the short of it was that I could get the thing to install, but nothing worked as documented. The bash shell didn't provide the same options that were listed, even after fiddling with it for an hour trying to create a new users I could create a user, but not login with it, and couldn't delete it... So I had 6 different variations of a name and no way to use them or get rid of them. Nothing else on the system worked right... I learned all of the basic navigation commands and then gave up.
My second attempt at a linux install was on a p2 350 that my parents got (They are big techies and wanted a chance to try linux out too). Well, same problem, the install was easy enough, only took me 3 tries to get one that I could login to and work with! Well, still can't create users that are usable... I purchase Linux for Dummies, which comes with Redhat 5.2, I follow the commands it sets down, EXACTLY, to the letter, still no go. Bash does NOTHING that the book says it should do, X-windows refuses to create users, complains about all kinds of things. Linux Appear to be buggier than win95. Even though I know it's just my own incompetence in not quite being able to figure out first try how all these bloody things are supposed to work. So, with that said, how did all of you start out with Linux?
I'd just LOVE to be able to run Linux on one of my older machines just to tinker with, I'm dos junkie, so I love CLI's. Guess I'll have to go buy 6.0 or whatever that claims it has an easier install, maybe the commands will work right this time.
Valis.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Amiga has decided to use Linux as their OS
It looks like the CPU design is going to by an X86
with TransMeta optimizations to run Linux and Java
The distributed object archtecture looks to be Jini
Gateway will make money
But I thought the PlayStation2 will eliminate that part of raving. 3 years later, you can't say you buy a cheap pc box for games anymore. (Please don't give me that Red Alerm, Age of Empire example I had enough of them.) The Japanese don't even play that kind of stratedy game, nor do PSX crowd either. The stradegy game they play is kind of like The Romance of three kindoms --the speed you move your mouse play no concern to the progress of the game, you just select and make desicion.
CY
the Easy PC spec is aimed at users who can barely operate their toaster
There is already one very well-established company already targetted at exactly this market (the techno-impaired): AOL, with 16 million users. Now imagine AOL giving away a Netscape PC with each new subscription. Now ask yourself, would AOL willing pay a $50 license fee to MICROS~1 for each of those millions of PCs?
Just to keep the camp flags waving-
When Apple did just thing over a year ago they were "crazy" and "clueless".
"A PC without a floppy? Never!"
But when WIntel does it a year from now it'll be "future-think" and "revolutionary".
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
Even if they don't depend on it, they simply don't want to have to wonder if it's crashed after having been left alone and untouched for a week.
The common user will never have this problem, because the common user doesn't leave the thing running for a week. They turn it off!
Hey, maybe your VCR does need to be "rebooted" after recording/playing tapes for a full week in a row. How would you know if it did -- have you ever used your VCR for that period of time nonstop without turning it off? Of course you haven't. (If you have, please put your white jacket with the straps back on...)
All the comments I see all the time about Windows being unstable make me wonder how many of you try to keep it up and running forever. Unlike most people, I guess, I turn my computers OFF at night. And I seem to have a lot less problems with them.
Sure, Linux is more stable than Windows, which is why it's fantastic for servers -- which DO have to be up and running all (or almost all) the time. For home users and most businesses, where people go home and go to sleep, Windows works okay. It's all the hackers that want to run the systems until they collapse from caffeine overdose that complain of crashes.
This, IMHO, is why Linux is so superior to NT, because Linux is great for servers. This is also why IMHO Win9x is so superior to Linux, because it's easier to use. I don't understand why Linux or Windows wants to run the same OS on servers AND home users' machines... it's totally stupid.
IMHO, of course.
Well, yes and no. A preinstalled, preconfigured Linux that never lets you out of the KDE or GNOME shell and comes with every application you could posiblly want already install WOULD be much easier than Windows, IMHO.
The optimism isn't wrong, that is, but the angle is way off. Which OS will take better advantage of this new EasyPC spec:
a) The OS whose company was deeply involved in writing the spec and which is coming out with a specific version just to support it (Millenium)
or
b) The OS that gets little, belated info about new hardware initiatives, can't run WinModems (which are surely a central part of EasyPC), and only has experimental PnP and USB support now?
The real future for Linux comes when more hardware vendors are willing to write drivers for the LinModems of the future. Oracle's $150 Linux NC will be a nice start. And if Corel gets good penetration, it will certainly help.
--JZ
Yeah, I deleted about three sentances and replaced it with that parentetical note, so I deserve the DUH.
What I meant is that a "WebTV" is only advertised to surf the web and get mail. Anyone can build one of these right now. My understanding is that an EasyPC falls in between a webbox and a real computer. You can surf the web, and use a (cut down?) version of Excel, and play non-accellerated Quake.
The problem comes when consumers figure out that only thing these boxes are real good at is web surfing, and it's difficult to run the hardware and software they need. (Kinda like the old Atari 8-bit machines - great at games, bad at word processing).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
"... it doesn't have to be Windows, and as Windows is expensive and overly-complicated, quite a lot of these boxes won't be Windows. They'll be Linux, BSD or BeOS, and the customers won't really care. "
I think that customers will care, but not for good reasons. Unfortunately, Windows has dominated the market for long enough that "PC" and "Windows" are linked together in most consumers' minds.
In the world the I (and probably a good number of Slashdot readers) live, surrounded by geeks, it's easy to forget that most people, most current computer owners even, haven't even heard of Linux. At best, they saw an article in a trade mag, but they aren't giving it a lot of thought. Plus, those magazine articles are often loaded with FUD, and they make the customer less likely to want a computer sans Windows.
This is why everyone needs to read the Advocacy HOWTO. Yes, most people will prefer Windows to an operating system they haven't heard of (even if it means waiting a few months...and I'm sure Microsoft won't let anyone think that it'll be more than a few months' delay), but we can work to make sure people have heard of Linux (as well as BeOS, BSD, etc.), and that they know that they have a choice right now. When these EasyPCs come out, and they only customers can have Windows is to wait, the choice will be clear.
I just tink you guys are talkin' from different point of view. Linux is really easier than Windows. you can UNDERSTAND linux while... i don't think u can Window$ ...
the difficulty in linux is: everybody is acomodated with win. Do you think Japanese is difficult? if you ask it for a japanese child, the answer will be NO. it's just a question of Point of view. someone that grew into linux and try to change to win, will get mad!
I don't understand why people believe that Linux is an easier to use and better experience for users than either the Windows or MacOS. Sure Linux is great running on a stereo component with fixed software, but as an operating system it leaves a lot to be desired. The hacker factor has not been taking out of Linux yet. Installing software is not easy yet, and the amount of consumer applications available for it is lacking as well. Those two limitations simply scratch the surface.
Linux might have an opportunity to capture the set top box market, but I don't see it moving into the home consumer PC space where the quality of the operating system's desktop metaphor is important.
What incentive is there for a company to spend literally millions of dollars in crafting a easy to use consumer interface that would rival forthcoming products by both Apple and Microsoft? Would a company really want its hard-earned R&D to show up in every distro?
I just don't see Linux surpassing the MacOS or Windows OS ever. Linux programmers have been able to create a mighty server OS, but these programmers are not going to be able to create an innovative GUI and Desktop that truly makes computers easier to use. This is what Microsoft is trying to do, and it requires an army of graphic designers, GUI designers, and programmers with years of working with a computer's "user experience." Rogue Linux developers working independently can't create the next generation UI. Maybe a year after version 1.0 of Microsoft's consumer OS, you'll see a cheap copy of it on Linux, but definitely not before.
Suppose Windows dominion does end next year. Without the platform holding people back, I think we can expect a few other changes.
...
First off, Linux-based systems will not be the only ones to benefit. The Macintosh will be right there, of course --- Apple's holding a comeback, and everyone's invited. The iMac has already done a bit to cut into Windows's market share, and we can expect the iBook to do likewise. Other OSes can also take their share, of course --- if Amiga ever gets its rear in gear, they can do nicely; so can Be, for that matter. Still, as there's little evidence Amiga or Be can get their rears in gear, I think we'll see Linux-based systems and the MacOS as the primary successors to Windows on the desktop.
Second off, x86 dominion will go away slowly. Macintoshes, of course, are non-x86 systems. So are Amigas. However, a good portion of the non-x86 market will be running Linux-based systems, not MacOS or the Amiga OE. Already there are the NetWinder and Qube which use non-x86 processors; there's also Linux for the PowerPC chip, though so far PPCs outside of Macintoshes are hard to come by. Non-x86 Linux systems will start as servers (like the Qube and NetWinder) and expand in the direction of the consumer desktop as demand materializes. The x86 isn't that great to begin with; it's been held on to largely because of binary compatibility, which isn't an issue in the world of free software.
Finally, the applications field will change. It's possible that Microsoft could lose Windows and yet keep the Office dominion by porting to Linux and other systems as they emerge. However, I suspect that in their hubris they will fail to do so in time. Thus, applications diversity will increase. This may mean a world of using translator applications all the time --- or it may mean a world of public standards for word processing documents, just as we now have public standards for images (JPEG, PNG) and sound (MP3). I for one would greatly prefer the latter
It's an exciting time to be in the field. Let's not blow it.
Have you ever tried running NT on a DEC Alpha, or a PPC for that matter? What about portables, how many people do you know actually run WinCE? Win runs really well with the intel architecture. Windows' shortcomings will be coming more apparant when we start moving off the current architectures- i.e. Merced, palm and set top devices, etc.
Right now, Palm is leading the market b/c they have something that is easy to use and cheap. All the other manufacturers out there, saw how good Palm was doing and wanted to get on that bandwagon, now. The only way to do that is to get WinCE, it'd take too long to write thier own palm OS. But now, there is Palm which is still commanding the market share, and a billion and one WinCE devices which are hardly selling. I know several people with PalmPilots, but noone with WinCE. Although you wouldn't know this by looking at the display at Best Buy. funny how that is.
Reid G. Ormseth, Esq.
Intel is putting together a platform that is suboptimal for Windows. Microsoft is not planning to optimize Windows for that platform, but they will offer something that will limp along on it. The conclusion: this is an opportunity for alternate OSs to beat Windows.
Will somebody explain how this "Windows running suboptimally on an Intel platform" differs one iota from the situation today? Windows running suboptimally appears to have little effect on their market share.
--The basis of all love is respect
Nope the default is still DOC and XLS. You can save as XML, but only if you select "Save as Web Page"
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
NT: Many known gaping security holes will be fixed "in the next release"; next release typically delayed a year or more.
The poster who coined "Balderdash" was right. This is pure FUD. Name one "known gaping security hole" in NT that MS has said won't be fixed until the next release. MS releases hot fixes for these things very quickly. If they're a few hours slower than Linux it's because they do the responsible thing and perform some regression testing before just throwing it out there.
Here's where the 'consumer electric' model falls down as far as "Easy PCs" go. If you are on a cable system that your TV/VCR doesn't support, you have go out and buy/rent a seperate cable box and daisy chain it through channel 3 or something. We're already beyond the comprehention of Joe Sixpack here. Thank god for cable installers.
The computer approach is to just add another software/hardware doohicky to make your computer do what it needs to. A computer (not talking about simple webtv things here) which can't do that is going to frustrate people pretty quickly, and people will get a clue and either buy a real computer or give up.
We've already been through this in the early 80s with $200 plug-n-play boxes like the C-64 and Atari 800. Not that they weren't great machines, but when many people figured out that they needed a $300 disk drive, $200 modem, and $200 printer to do anything other than video games with them, interest dropped off.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
As far as a replacement home user OS, the only thing Linux has over the BeOS is the publicity.
Linux is a hacker friendly OS. Consumers need a user friendly OS.
Heh... check out the babelfish translation of the first paragraph:
Microsoft founder sits down with 44 to the peace
Number three pulls itself from talking moon with some billions back | Maritz was director/conductor of the software development | Contradictory predicates around completeness of the retreat | A quarter of all persons employed dollar millionaires are round
really? perhaps you are using win3.11? retarded next buttons? perhaps the concept of understanding what the installation process is doing is too much for you.
Look everyone, Big Moose from Archie comments is posting on slashdot. Sorry bud, but you just pointed yourself to be a flaming troll. Win3.11 doesn't *H*A*V*E* next buttons. And I can see one hell of alot more when I install Linux. Linux has nothing to hide, Microsoft has all their secret api's to install.
right.. likewise, you can load nt in minutes also. difference being that i know i can get software to be productive that runs under windows.
That's funny. My Linux box at work (and all the HPUX servers in the server farm) have massive uptime. The only NT boxes which don't have a scheduled WEEKLY reboot are the ones with DAILY reboots!
ahh, usual linux user resorting to pokes, jabs and inuendos.
Ahh, usual Microsoft astroturfer who doesn't even know the diff between Win3.1 and 95/98/NT.
I have this dream in which the EU and the US GOV. mandate that all official docs submitted to them must be in XML. This would force MS to make Office read and write XML. But this will hurt their lock-in. A business office could mix Word, Wordperfect, and AbiWord, along with Macs and PPCs and as long as everyone spoke XML it wouldn't matter if people used different platforms. And MS Office 2000 users would not be forced to upgrade to MSO 2003 to read documents from that platform. This could cripple an important MS cash cow.
That is why MS is trying to get to a rental software situation. But the rental market depends on lock-in. A savvy company could simply mandate XML for all their documents and would be in position to either really negotiate price with a vendor, or simply switch to a free alternative.
Once again, what is wrong with stealing ideas? I want the best UI, not the newest one.
Also, MS doesn't claim anything like that. They claim to be "innovators", not to take the best parts from many places and combine them into one.
And UI developers for Linux don't just take everything from everywhere. They take the best ideas (in their opinion) and put them together, as you are claiming that MS does.
---
END OF LINE
No. Planned Easy PC flavors are: Tapioca, Cod Liver Oil, Liver and Onions, Tripe and the ever-popular Musli.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
My boss at work has a Mac at home, and he keeps complaining about MacOS's shortcomings. He would switch to Linux, except that he mainly uses his machine for email, web-browsing, word processing, and Quicken. Linux has #1, 2, and 3, but not Quicken.
Really, Linux won't become immensly popular to Joe Average User until it can boast the same number of applications and games as Windows. The reason that the IBM PC took off in the first place was because IBM developed relatively large selection of good software. The reason that Wintel clone machines managed to outcompete Apple's products is that the system was open to allow anybody to develop software for, while Apple didn't encourage such development. Should Linux replace Wintel, it will be because of a better selection of better software than Wintel.
Fight for strong cryto. distributed.netJust like to remember that the tinkerability and accessability of linux would also make it easy for a service provider to add/remove features at request just by sending packages (rpm, deb, tgz or what ever) via ftp to the box. This packages could be signed, making it secure. I think this would be a lot harder (but not impossible) to implement in a closed windows environment.
--
"take the red pill and you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabitt hole goes"
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Sorry, but it's you who are confused. There's a reason we have this term called "kernel". The kernel is just part of the OS, as is the user shell.
BTW, I think you're nuts about Linux's rate of improvement. Linux's greatest strength is that it mostly has limited itself to reimplementing known technology (propriatary Unix). I don't see fundamentally new stuff cropping up in Linux first.
You're right though about WinNT doing some things better than Linux. Personally, I think people have grossly underestimated how well Windows 2000 (the next NT release) will do.
Again, certain manufacturers getreamed by the trade press for machine configs that, a year later, are presented as a standard... And self-same manufacturer is also building a Unix variant with a modern GUI. I've got two of their machines at home. One runs its standard OS, plus Win98 under emulation (for games ok ?) and the other is running Linux.
Any questions ?
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
"legacy hardware is going to be ripped out. ...ISA, parallel, serial and floppy and substitute[d with] USB and Firewire..."
Now I don't know about you, but I can think of a hardware platform that has already done this. And it can run linux too. This platform got a lot of flak for going to USB only. (the pro models have firewire) And in particular, they got a lot of grief over the elimination of the floppy. And whats this? Is the rest of the PC industry following suit?
What is this mysterious platform?
Installing software is not easy yet, and the amount of consumer applications available for it is lacking as well. Those two limitations simply scratch the surface.
:-).
Let's see. Hm... running RH 5.2 at work & Gnome. Pull up my file manager, double-click an RPM, software installed. No questions, no bother, no fuss.
Windows software usually has to be unzipped with winzip, then the setup run, then all kinds of retarted "Next" buttons.
Or better yet, installing! Time to install my redhat linux. Hm. What shall I do. How about put the cd in my cdrom and let'er rip. Now let's do it with windows. Oh no, I don't have a boot disk, I guess I'm just fscked (And I *have* run into this problem!).
People just *think* windows is easier to use. I've had novices running Linux in no time. Do they know what the hell they are doing? Probably not. Did they in windows? Probably not, to the exact same degree as Linux.
Show me a newbie who can install Windows without a hitch, and I'll show you a guy who is lying about his skill level.
*YOU* just think its easy because you have to frikkin reinstall everyday, and you're so damned used to it
No its not. If the systems are configured out of the box a monkey can use them _productivly_
Amusingly, it's still better than on Intel. I wasn't able to crash my WinCE box...
--The basis of all love is respect
Really. Just because Windows isn't ready for the PC-as-the-Internet-appliance thingy doesn't mean that Linux is ready to jump into the fray.
The simpler-than-the-toaser-PC must, absolutely must have a user interface that's comfortable for people who are not able to find their ass with both hands and have problems dealing with their coffeemaker. These people do not really care about the stability of the OS: if there is a large clearly labeled button that will reboot the machine in 5-10 seconds with session management (reconnect to the 'net, open same documents, etc.), then these users will not have any problem with crashes.
Linux has two strengths:
(1) It crashes very rarely: important for people who depend on their computers (NOT casual users)
(2) It's a tinkerer's dream -- if you don't like something, go and change it! Again, the casual users couldn't care less.
The Easy-PC battle is going to be over user interface and nothing but user interface. This is not a strong point of Linux (though not a glaring weakness, either) and I don't see Linux developers going out of their way to develop a GUI for idiots -- and that's what's going to be needed. I am not even touching upon the scarcity of good user interface designers...
Easy-PC is pure point-and-drool -- not a good market for Linux.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
...but I'm not telling! ;-) But the question is: will the Easy PC come in 5 fruity flavours?
you said :
>the difficulty in linux is: everybody is >acomodated with win. Do you think Japanese is >difficult? if you ask it for a japanese child, >the answer will be NO. it's just a question of >Point of view. someone that grew into linux and >try to change to win, will get mad!
Actually, many Japanese children DO think Japanese is hard. Especially kanji. I meet people every day (I live in Japan) who can't remember how to pronounce a certian character or who can't remember how to write something using the correct strokes.
:) I'm just here to annoy!
Typical unsubstantiated and erroneous claim.
People are starting to lose focus in this thread. But at any rate. Linux as a home pc is just not up to the 'Average Joe' type of installation/support level yet. Key word is yet. Give the developers some time, and Linux will be as easy to install as dos was/is. Unfortunately, Joe Blow will always have a problem installing an o/s regardless if its Linux, NT, 98, 95 or heaven forbid, dos.
Bill Gates claimed/admitted that they did in fact took the best parts from OS/2 and MacOS for the Win95 GUI. He stated this in an interview at the time of the initial release. He had been questioned/accused of imitating other OS's.
'til dawn...
Part of the argument is that as the selling price of a computer or internet appliance goes down, either the OS charge per unit must go down or it becomes an unreasonably large part of the cost. As long as PCs cost $2500, no one is concerned about how much it costs to bundle MS software with it. When it costs $200, it looks really attractive to have a free OS in there.
-- mikem
greetings mond.
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Linux programmers have been able to create a mighty server OS, but these programmers are not going to be able to create an innovative GUI and Desktop that truly makes computers easier to use.
Absolutely. The coders who did the Linux kernel for the most part aren't cut from the same cloth as the types of programmers who do well with issues of ergonomics or user-interface.
However, those aren't the only types of coders that hang around in the Free Software community.
It's only now that the basic infrastructure has solidified, that the more UI-oriented developers can really start getting to work. I can certainly see this happening with the Berlin project.
Rogue Linux developers working independently can't create the next generation UI.
Rogue developers working independently can't produce a usable OS kernel, either. Fortunately, that's not the way Open Source projects work.
---
DNA just wants to be free...