I've been using Linux since 1995, and love it. I'm currently using Fedora on my main machines, and Ubuntu on an old IBM Thinkpad which is a little too slow and weak for Fedora.
Happily for me, "Desktop" Linux and "Server" Linux are two aspects of the same thing, separated only by context. Choose one set of packages and you get a desktop workstation; choose another and you get a server O/S. Mix and match to suit your needs. Lovely, really.
People who say things like "Desktop Linux is Dead" are demonstrating their cluelessness. They think market share among noobs matters. It does not.
Linux is, was, and ever shall be a tool for technically sophisticated people to get real work done. It is an elite tool not unlike a scientific calculator: it requires a certain amount of knowledge to be used properly. Does every Tom, Dick, and Harry need a scientific calculator? Of course not. But you don't see articles on the web moaning about the imminent demise of scientific calculators, do you?
Tablets have traditionally been used in realms like manufacturing and maintenance, where they replace the clipboards technicians used to carry around. They're useful for activities in which you're running around collecting data (i.e. checking inventory in a warehouse) or going through checklists (i.e. doing maintenance checks on an aircraft's engines). But how useful are they as general-purpose computing devices?
We already have desktops and laptops, which are much better at general-purpose computing than tablets.
We already have smartphones for our mobile computing needs.
We have e-Book readers for carrying books around with us. They're getting programmable too.
Someone tell me: what do we need tablets FOR? What can they do that our other gear doesn't already do more effectively?
They don't seem that useful to me, compared to the alternatives.
I'd be reluctant to spend time developing an application that runs only on one platform and which could be unilaterally banned from running on that platform for arbitrary reasons that may not even be fully explained to me.
I much prefer an open distribution environment. Android, while not completely open, at least seems to be a lot more open than Apple.
And of course they support Java, which I already use at work.
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I've been using Linux since 1995, and love it. I'm currently using Fedora on my main machines, and Ubuntu on an old IBM Thinkpad which is a little too slow and weak for Fedora.
Happily for me, "Desktop" Linux and "Server" Linux are two aspects of the same thing, separated only by context. Choose one set of packages and you get a desktop workstation; choose another and you get a server O/S. Mix and match to suit your needs. Lovely, really.
People who say things like "Desktop Linux is Dead" are demonstrating their cluelessness. They think market share among noobs matters. It does not.
Linux is, was, and ever shall be a tool for technically sophisticated people to get real work done. It is an elite tool not unlike a scientific calculator: it requires a certain amount of knowledge to be used properly. Does every Tom, Dick, and Harry need a scientific calculator? Of course not. But you don't see articles on the web moaning about the imminent demise of scientific calculators, do you?
Same thing.
That poor guy! Although half of me wishes I could have witnessed this spectacle, the other half is saying "ouch".
Maybe the moral is, "computers were not meant to be carried around coffee shops".
I bet this is why the old industrial tablets always had hand straps...
Tablets have traditionally been used in realms like manufacturing and maintenance, where they replace the clipboards technicians used to carry around. They're useful for activities in which you're running around collecting data (i.e. checking inventory in a warehouse) or going through checklists (i.e. doing maintenance checks on an aircraft's engines). But how useful are they as general-purpose computing devices?
We already have desktops and laptops, which are much better at general-purpose computing than tablets.
We already have smartphones for our mobile computing needs.
We have e-Book readers for carrying books around with us. They're getting programmable too.
Someone tell me: what do we need tablets FOR? What can they do that our other gear doesn't already do more effectively?
They don't seem that useful to me, compared to the alternatives.
What I was told was that if you don't wear your seatbelt, all the airbag does is yank your head back out of the hole it made in the window.
Exactly.
I'd be reluctant to spend time developing an application that runs only on one platform and which could be unilaterally banned from running on that platform for arbitrary reasons that may not even be fully explained to me.
I much prefer an open distribution environment. Android, while not completely open, at least seems to be a lot more open than Apple.
And of course they support Java, which I already use at work.