Compatibility with VB macros. And if you think that's not a necessity in the business environment think again.
I worked in a business environment for a long, long time and this was in no way a necessity.
It comes about when people try to build ERP-like functionality out of desktop tools like Word and Excel, which are not the right tools for the job.
If you're a gamer you'll run Windows. That's clear. Does that speak to Linux as a viable desktop system? It depends what you want to get out of your desktop. If you want to do typical office work, Linux surely seems viable. On the other hand, if you absolutely require MS Office compatibility, maybe not.
However, I sometimes question two things. First, the necessity for absolute MS Office compatibility seems to apply only at the boundaries. Libre Office is "mostly" compatible, but the compatibility will fail at the boundaries, when more advanced features are "required."
Which brings me to my second point: I can accept that there are Excel users who really push the limits and must have all the features and functions. But I suspect that the count of people who really fall in this category is low.
And that brings up my third point (even though I only had two, but this third one is a little tangential).
At the sort of very advanced level we're talking about above, Excel can be evil. Finding a modeling error in a spreadsheet can be very hard; even knowing that it's there can be very hard. Build a complex spreadsheet that uses the most advanced functions and keep it error free? You'd better be really good, and more than a little lucky. (LibreOffice etc. are subject to the same thing, of course.)
Spreadsheets are abused. At the most complex levels they can be abused seriously. They are not a substitute for something like Octave, SciCalc, or SageMath, where at least all the formulae are out in the open and not inside cells.
"In an "real" corporate environment, Linux isn't free."
In a real corporate environment, nothing is free. I am a huge Linux fan and have been since the very early days, but we're back to the old argument about Linux competing on cost. That's not really the way to win. As has so often been said, software licenses simply aren't a big percentage of running the business (maybe some exceptions for really really expensive specialized software).
Which brings me back to the original argument somewhere up above in this thread. Windows 8 was a good thing for the competition. Apple benefits greatly. Linux can benefit too. For Linux it's about the freedom to do what you need or want to do with the software. (That is definitely not "free" in cost terms.)
The argument for Linux is freedom and functionality (the latter has been debated a lot, of course, but certainly many business people use it successfully).
DOSBox is really, really good but does not include printing support. That can be a problem with productivity apps; you have to print to file then print the file (not even possible with every app).
The newest version os Stardock Start 8 completely bypasses the Modern interface (in the old version, you could still see it flash on the screen during boot), disables hot corners, charms and everything that we hate about Win8.
It basically turns Win8 into Win7 with the new Win8 tweaks under the hood.
Best of all, it's only $5 bucks. If this Blue update doesn't bring me what I want, I'll definitely buy a legit version of Start8.
That's all well and good, but why should you have to go to that trouble to fix something that should have worked right in the first place?
(By the way, I have the same objection with Unity in Ubuntu, so it's not like I'm taking sides in this case.)
For professional users a subscription makes a lot of sense
Or at least the money involved probably isn't a major factor. If Photoshop etc. is your means of making a living, 50 per month for a subscription likely won't be your largest cost.
On the other hand if you don't use Photoshop etc. to generate revenue, 50 per month (600 per year, seems like equivalent to buying the product over again every 12 months) may be a show stopper. If you're able to use Gimp (yes, I know for some people it isn't adequate) you probably will.
The discussion is related to the phenomenon experienced by new consultants. After a successful technical career, someone launches his or her own consulting business and very soon comes to realize that 90% of the job is marketing. You might be the best tech person around but without contracts / engagements, you starve.
My attitude at one time was this: if I bought an appliance, say from a big box retailer, and they started to heavily push the extended warranty (as apparently the salespeople were trained to do), I would say, "What do you mean --- are you telling me it's going to break? If you are then I don't want to buy it at all." They had a lot of trouble responding to that one, but generally they dropped the hard sell pretty fast.
Today, though, I can see an extended warranty or insurance for people like my daughter who drop the phone in the toilet or throw up on it a little too often.
I am no techie, not a geek, and I must object when technical writers claim that Linux is not 'ready for the desktop.'
I think it depends what you mean by "not yet ready for the desktop."
Not yet ready for the average user to install, maintain, tweak to get everything working, etc.? Surely not, though I wonder if Windows is all that much easier in that regard, except for the important distinction that Windows requires less effort to get everything working... usually the hardware works out of the box.
Not yet ready for the average user to use? As I've posted elsewhere, lots of average users are running a Linux box set up by a friend or relative, probably not even knowing or caring that it's Linux, and doing web browsing, email, Facebook, etc., to their heart's content.
To me, "ready for the desktop" in the usage sense means the average user clicks on an icon and the expected result happens: a web browser starts up or what-have-you. Linux easily delivers this today.
But if your definition of "ready for the desktop" means the average user can singlehandedly install the system, install software, do updates, troubleshoot, etc., Linux is not ready for the desktop. But Windows, by that definition at least, isn't a whole lot more ready.
Since then I've come to appreciate this as the #1 reason for using linux - when you actually want to get something done, it just seems to get out the way. It's a shame that more recent distro versions seem to be moving away from this though.
Mint is pretty good in this regard; that's why I've switched from Ubuntu (and to avoid Unity of course).
As to the original article, though: yes, the product costs way more than I can spend on a laptop... I would have to buy a cheaper laptop and install Linux on my own. I don't at all mind doing this, but it does take time and patience.
The article's author saying that the average user will never be able to live with running Linux, though, strikes me as incorrect. Sure, installing and maintaining Linux may be out of reach, as would be doing all the tweaks necessary with sound cards, etc.
But running it? The average Jane or Joe that mostly needs a browser and little else? I set up a Mint box for my wife; she has no idea she's using a Linux system and doesn't care, as long as she can do email and Facebook and that sort of thing. I know of many such examples.
To be fair, a key thing is to have someone available to maintain the distribution. But there aren't virus issues and "safe browsing" is just about a given, which I think is A Very Big Deal for the typical user.
Kind of like IBM; they'll never go away either. Microsoft surely will be around for the long haul, but as happened with IBM, perhaps with less relevance and less dominance. It seems to happen to most companies when they get very large... they can't be agile enough to really keep up with the times. Google and Applie will not be immune, either, at least not in the long run.
I run the Droidwall firewall, with everything blacklisted by default. If an app won't run without net access, and I don't think it should get net access, it doesn't. This stops at least some exfiltration of data. Of course that wouldn't help with Facebook. But a lot of games claim to need net access for their 'leaderboard' or some such. It always makes me suspicious, especially if they totally refuse to run without being able to go out through the firewall.
Uh... maybe 90% or whatever % of desktops/laptops, but NOT of devices... Android and iOS are beating Microsoft... in the new upcoming world of computing and with the fading of the PC, Microsoft will indeed have to work to stay relevant.
Do most computer users know what Linux is? Have they even heard of it? And do they care?
I think "no" is the correct answer to all of these, especially about whether they care.
I've set up Linux systems for casual users (and I believe most users are casual users; that is not a slam, just an observation), people who just want to do Facebook and YouTube and some general browsing and email, maybe play a couple of on-line games. They run it and have little idea that they're running Linux. Half of them think they're running Windows because that's the only brand name they know. They're happy, they're getting everything they want.
So you hardly have to be an expert to use Linux. Maybe to set it up and maintain it--- then you need to know a little more. But to use it? Nah.
There are, of course, Linux fans who/want/ it to be difficult so they can claim elite status. I don't find that approach especially helpful. If you want to be a Linux hacker, cool, there's plenty to work with, way beyond Windows (because of source code). But Linux really can be for everyone, and it behooves the Linux community to drop the elite attitude, if that's what you have, and just help people set it up and use it. When they see what they all get for free, they may be convinced, as I have seen with quite a number of people.
When a guest only needs a boarding pass I offer to print it for them. If they insist on doing it themselves they get to use a Linux guest account. If they can't figure out how to print with that, I again offer to do it for them. I never let guests run Windows, I don't even run it myself very often.
I understand your point but the problem is that many, maybe most people don't know any better. They don't even know how to take responsibility.
I would never let a guest run Windows. I have guest accounts on a couple of Linux machines. All they get on the desktop is a browser icon or two (Firefox and Chrome). That's more than enough for anything a guest needs to do and I don't see how they can get confused.
If they have things to do like edit documents or write papers or whatever, they probably have already brought along a laptop and they can use my network with little chance of harm (other than blatantly illegal activity). Or they can use their Google Drive account.
I do like the Mint flavor. It's easy to install and doesn't have the Ubuntu attitude (innovation often done without sufficient thought) even though it's based on Ubuntu.
A simple option is Puppy Linux. Also easy to install/run, and little upkeep, even if somewhat limited in scope.
44.1hkz 16bit audio is completely transparent to the human ear. No one has ever been able to detect when a 16bit DAC ADC pair has been placed in a 24/96 audio path.
Your preference for 24/96 audio as a listener is entirely due to the placebo effect. There are good reasons to master audio in high res, but for listening 16 bit 44.1khz audio is as good as anything.
As a former audio professional (specialized in location recording of choirs and orchestras) I must agree. But even my aging ears can hear the difference between 44.1 (or 48)kHz 16 bit uncompressed and a typical MP3.
Side note: 24-bit has a few audible advantages for music with extremely wide dynamic range (from ppp to fff, say) where 16 bit will struggle a little at the very soft end.
They also are dropping iGoogle, which is one of their most useful things. But after also getting burned with Notebook and to a lesser extent with Wave, I'm staying with Evernote... which also works on my old Android 2.2 phone.
I second (third, fourth, whatever) the Pomodoro idea. Why? Because there's a built-in reward. You can go do all that goof-off stuff that brings you instant gratification, but you do it for limited, specific times. Building that kind of discipline is easier and more likely to succeed than trying to go cold turkey. 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off; longer breaks after longer periods.
Funny how it works. You start to see that you're making progress and you work longer or cut the breaks shorter. Definitely positive feedback in the loop.
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Compatibility with VB macros. And if you think that's not a necessity in the business environment think again.
I worked in a business environment for a long, long time and this was in no way a necessity. It comes about when people try to build ERP-like functionality out of desktop tools like Word and Excel, which are not the right tools for the job.
If you're a gamer you'll run Windows. That's clear. Does that speak to Linux as a viable desktop system? It depends what you want to get out of your desktop. If you want to do typical office work, Linux surely seems viable. On the other hand, if you absolutely require MS Office compatibility, maybe not.
However, I sometimes question two things. First, the necessity for absolute MS Office compatibility seems to apply only at the boundaries. Libre Office is "mostly" compatible, but the compatibility will fail at the boundaries, when more advanced features are "required."
Which brings me to my second point: I can accept that there are Excel users who really push the limits and must have all the features and functions. But I suspect that the count of people who really fall in this category is low.
And that brings up my third point (even though I only had two, but this third one is a little tangential).
At the sort of very advanced level we're talking about above, Excel can be evil. Finding a modeling error in a spreadsheet can be very hard; even knowing that it's there can be very hard. Build a complex spreadsheet that uses the most advanced functions and keep it error free? You'd better be really good, and more than a little lucky. (LibreOffice etc. are subject to the same thing, of course.)
Spreadsheets are abused. At the most complex levels they can be abused seriously. They are not a substitute for something like Octave, SciCalc, or SageMath, where at least all the formulae are out in the open and not inside cells.
"In an "real" corporate environment, Linux isn't free."
In a real corporate environment, nothing is free. I am a huge Linux fan and have been since the very early days, but we're back to the old argument about Linux competing on cost. That's not really the way to win. As has so often been said, software licenses simply aren't a big percentage of running the business (maybe some exceptions for really really expensive specialized software).
Which brings me back to the original argument somewhere up above in this thread. Windows 8 was a good thing for the competition. Apple benefits greatly. Linux can benefit too. For Linux it's about the freedom to do what you need or want to do with the software. (That is definitely not "free" in cost terms.)
The argument for Linux is freedom and functionality (the latter has been debated a lot, of course, but certainly many business people use it successfully).
DOSBox is really, really good but does not include printing support. That can be a problem with productivity apps; you have to print to file then print the file (not even possible with every app).
People Eating Tasty Animals
I switched from Ubuntu to Mint and like it a lot, but I'm thinking about going to CrunchBang given my usage patterns.
The newest version os Stardock Start 8 completely bypasses the Modern interface (in the old version, you could still see it flash on the screen during boot), disables hot corners, charms and everything that we hate about Win8.
It basically turns Win8 into Win7 with the new Win8 tweaks under the hood.
Best of all, it's only $5 bucks. If this Blue update doesn't bring me what I want, I'll definitely buy a legit version of Start8.
That's all well and good, but why should you have to go to that trouble to fix something that should have worked right in the first place? (By the way, I have the same objection with Unity in Ubuntu, so it's not like I'm taking sides in this case.)
For professional users a subscription makes a lot of sense
Or at least the money involved probably isn't a major factor. If Photoshop etc. is your means of making a living, 50 per month for a subscription likely won't be your largest cost. On the other hand if you don't use Photoshop etc. to generate revenue, 50 per month (600 per year, seems like equivalent to buying the product over again every 12 months) may be a show stopper. If you're able to use Gimp (yes, I know for some people it isn't adequate) you probably will.
The discussion is related to the phenomenon experienced by new consultants. After a successful technical career, someone launches his or her own consulting business and very soon comes to realize that 90% of the job is marketing. You might be the best tech person around but without contracts / engagements, you starve.
My attitude at one time was this: if I bought an appliance, say from a big box retailer, and they started to heavily push the extended warranty (as apparently the salespeople were trained to do), I would say, "What do you mean --- are you telling me it's going to break? If you are then I don't want to buy it at all." They had a lot of trouble responding to that one, but generally they dropped the hard sell pretty fast. Today, though, I can see an extended warranty or insurance for people like my daughter who drop the phone in the toilet or throw up on it a little too often.
I am no techie, not a geek, and I must object when technical writers claim that Linux is not 'ready for the desktop.'
I think it depends what you mean by "not yet ready for the desktop."
Not yet ready for the average user to install, maintain, tweak to get everything working, etc.? Surely not, though I wonder if Windows is all that much easier in that regard, except for the important distinction that Windows requires less effort to get everything working... usually the hardware works out of the box.
Not yet ready for the average user to use? As I've posted elsewhere, lots of average users are running a Linux box set up by a friend or relative, probably not even knowing or caring that it's Linux, and doing web browsing, email, Facebook, etc., to their heart's content.
To me, "ready for the desktop" in the usage sense means the average user clicks on an icon and the expected result happens: a web browser starts up or what-have-you. Linux easily delivers this today.
But if your definition of "ready for the desktop" means the average user can singlehandedly install the system, install software, do updates, troubleshoot, etc., Linux is not ready for the desktop. But Windows, by that definition at least, isn't a whole lot more ready.
Since then I've come to appreciate this as the #1 reason for using linux - when you actually want to get something done, it just seems to get out the way. It's a shame that more recent distro versions seem to be moving away from this though.
Mint is pretty good in this regard; that's why I've switched from Ubuntu (and to avoid Unity of course).
As to the original article, though: yes, the product costs way more than I can spend on a laptop... I would have to buy a cheaper laptop and install Linux on my own. I don't at all mind doing this, but it does take time and patience.
The article's author saying that the average user will never be able to live with running Linux, though, strikes me as incorrect. Sure, installing and maintaining Linux may be out of reach, as would be doing all the tweaks necessary with sound cards, etc.
But running it? The average Jane or Joe that mostly needs a browser and little else? I set up a Mint box for my wife; she has no idea she's using a Linux system and doesn't care, as long as she can do email and Facebook and that sort of thing. I know of many such examples.
To be fair, a key thing is to have someone available to maintain the distribution. But there aren't virus issues and "safe browsing" is just about a given, which I think is A Very Big Deal for the typical user.
Kind of like IBM; they'll never go away either. Microsoft surely will be around for the long haul, but as happened with IBM, perhaps with less relevance and less dominance. It seems to happen to most companies when they get very large ... they can't be agile enough to really keep up with the times. Google and Applie will not be immune, either, at least not in the long run.
I run the Droidwall firewall, with everything blacklisted by default. If an app won't run without net access, and I don't think it should get net access, it doesn't. This stops at least some exfiltration of data. Of course that wouldn't help with Facebook. But a lot of games claim to need net access for their 'leaderboard' or some such. It always makes me suspicious, especially if they totally refuse to run without being able to go out through the firewall.
proof that socialism is a failure.
Proof that people can in fact be decent, generous, and caring.
Yup, Microsoft is taking it in the chin on the washing machine front :)
I don't want either one. The same as another poster, I rarely use either Windoze or FaceThing.
Uh... maybe 90% or whatever % of desktops/laptops, but NOT of devices ... Android and iOS are beating Microsoft ... in the new upcoming world of computing and with the fading of the PC, Microsoft will indeed have to work to stay relevant.
I think "no" is the correct answer to all of these, especially about whether they care.
I've set up Linux systems for casual users (and I believe most users are casual users; that is not a slam, just an observation), people who just want to do Facebook and YouTube and some general browsing and email, maybe play a couple of on-line games. They run it and have little idea that they're running Linux. Half of them think they're running Windows because that's the only brand name they know. They're happy, they're getting everything they want.
So you hardly have to be an expert to use Linux. Maybe to set it up and maintain it--- then you need to know a little more. But to use it? Nah.
There are, of course, Linux fans who /want/ it to be difficult so they can claim elite status. I don't find that approach especially helpful. If you want to be a Linux hacker, cool, there's plenty to work with, way beyond Windows (because of source code). But Linux really can be for everyone, and it behooves the Linux community to drop the elite attitude, if that's what you have, and just help people set it up and use it. When they see what they all get for free, they may be convinced, as I have seen with quite a number of people.
When a guest only needs a boarding pass I offer to print it for them. If they insist on doing it themselves they get to use a Linux guest account. If they can't figure out how to print with that, I again offer to do it for them. I never let guests run Windows, I don't even run it myself very often.
I understand your point but the problem is that many, maybe most people don't know any better. They don't even know how to take responsibility.
I would never let a guest run Windows. I have guest accounts on a couple of Linux machines. All they get on the desktop is a browser icon or two (Firefox and Chrome). That's more than enough for anything a guest needs to do and I don't see how they can get confused.
If they have things to do like edit documents or write papers or whatever, they probably have already brought along a laptop and they can use my network with little chance of harm (other than blatantly illegal activity). Or they can use their Google Drive account.
I do like the Mint flavor. It's easy to install and doesn't have the Ubuntu attitude (innovation often done without sufficient thought) even though it's based on Ubuntu. A simple option is Puppy Linux. Also easy to install/run, and little upkeep, even if somewhat limited in scope.
44.1hkz 16bit audio is completely transparent to the human ear. No one has ever been able to detect when a 16bit DAC ADC pair has been placed in a 24/96 audio path.
Your preference for 24/96 audio as a listener is entirely due to the placebo effect. There are good reasons to master audio in high res, but for listening 16 bit 44.1khz audio is as good as anything.
As a former audio professional (specialized in location recording of choirs and orchestras) I must agree. But even my aging ears can hear the difference between 44.1 (or 48)kHz 16 bit uncompressed and a typical MP3. Side note: 24-bit has a few audible advantages for music with extremely wide dynamic range (from ppp to fff, say) where 16 bit will struggle a little at the very soft end.
They also are dropping iGoogle, which is one of their most useful things. But after also getting burned with Notebook and to a lesser extent with Wave, I'm staying with Evernote ... which also works on my old Android 2.2 phone.
I second (third, fourth, whatever) the Pomodoro idea. Why? Because there's a built-in reward. You can go do all that goof-off stuff that brings you instant gratification, but you do it for limited, specific times. Building that kind of discipline is easier and more likely to succeed than trying to go cold turkey. 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off; longer breaks after longer periods. Funny how it works. You start to see that you're making progress and you work longer or cut the breaks shorter. Definitely positive feedback in the loop.