I've never seen X run nearly as fast as Windows or Mac OS X
I can't comment on the Mac (never used one) but please explain what you mean by "fast" when comparing Windows to X?
X is just the graphics subsystem, Windows is a complete desktop operating system - you are therefore not comparing like-for-like.
If you took, say, a Pentium II 450PC with 128MB of memory, the chances are that if you ran Windows 98 on it anc compared it to Linux with Gnome 2.x or KDE 3.x, then Windows would run faster - but that's because you're comparing a 7 year old OS with Linux desktop environments that have only come out in the last couple of years.
You can't make generic statements like this because you are comparing two different entities. Added to this, what about the fact that you might be using the proper graphics driver in Windows but a generic (not so good) graphics driver in X?
Simply looking at two systems side-by-side is not a fair comparison. I can guarantee that on the same PC, RedHat 6.0 will run a alot faster than Windows XP Service Pack 2 but it's a pointless test because one's 5 years older than the other.
Newer Linux distros using KDE or Gnome -- Fedora, Ubuntu, and even Vector -- crawl to the point where the computer is almost unusable.
This is an unfair comparison.
If you're going for a fair comparison then around the time Windows 2000 was a new OS, you would be looking at RedHat 5.2 or SuSE 6.0 - both of these would have been equipped with older {=lighter) versions of KDE or Gnome which would run much faster than their modern counterpart versions.
For a school, non-profit, or church, you know the answer is "no."
And why is the answer "no"? Because you're not confident installing a lighter window manager? I've not used recent SuSE or RedHat versions but I seem to recall both of these had granular enough installation programs that allowed you to skip installing Gnome or KDE and install a lighter desktop.
I do agree that some applications might have a reliance on big Gnome or KDE libraries but then if you need older applications, you can always look at earlier versions of them - like Applixware if you want word processing, etc.
I think you're imposing your own standards on everyone else - purely because something is "old" does not make it unusable to everyone.
Take the UNIX editor vi - a console based text editor that has been there just about as long as UNIX has yet is still the most popular editor despite many more modern editors, especially those with GUIs. Yet I and many other people can edit faster using keyboard-only vi than mouse and keyboard alternatives.
I still enjoy playing Duke Nukem 3D, original Doom and original Civilization - keeping a copy of MS-DOS to hand is great for that reason alone, whatever you may think.
For a PC that's not constantly running, a tweaked version of Windows 98 SE works really well.
Plus if you mess about with memory management in config.sys and autoexec.bat, you get a machine that supports older DOS programs and games pretty well also.
Sure, if you leave it running for weeks on end, it slows to a crawl due to the poor memory management but it's nothing a reboot doesn't cure.
Even XP is a horrific bloated mess out of the box but once you turn off all the pretty rubbish and effects, you get an OS that looks a lot more like Windows 2000 and that runs pretty fast.
People that assume an operating system is just fine out of the box simply have no idea what they are missing - any OS, Linux included, can slow any PC to a crawl if not tweaked properly.
This is likely aimed at preventing Linux from gaining market share where MS is currently alienating their customers.
Presumably if Joe Bloke has an old PC running Windows 98 then he's probably never going to upgrade to Linux anyway. The only reason he might want to install Linux would be to run maybe a web or mail server, something that he probably would not want to do on Windows 98 anyway.
Otherwise, if he has older hardware, he doesn't need the additional driver support (say for USB 2.0) that comes with Windows XP and today's games that only run on Windows 2000 or XP are probably too hefty to run on his hardware anyway.
Sure, Microsoft would love to get Joe to spend more money on a new OS, that's just plain business, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Linux.
IANACE (I Am Not A Cisco Expert) but I'm told by a Cisco Expert that a 6500 is a layer 3 switch with routing capabilities - so I'll agree to a stalemate!
However, I'd still stick it on Ebay as a router because nobody tells the truth on Ebay.
Lest I remind everyone that if it werent for Gates and Baller , and ultimately all the developers at MS , that we wouldnt have malware, adware, and a large bevy of the numbers of viruses that exist.
I'm not defending MS by any means but I think that's an overly simplistic comment.
Malware exists because enough machines can be made to run it to justify writing it in the first place. Those machines that can run it are invariably Windows machines owned by users who are too stupid to defend against malware or check for it.
I have a Windows machine that never gets malware because I don't run IE or Outlook on it and stay away from dodgy Internet sites.
But as primarily a Linux user, I'm quite happy for Joe Public to mess up his Windows PC with malware and never go near Linux.
If Linux was the only choice for Joe Public, then there would be a helluva lot of compromised Linux machines out there running scripts and contributing to DDOS attacks - not because of Linux being insecure but because of Joe Public being too stupid to secure his Linux box properly.
Remember that people who are stupid enough to run Windows with Administrator priveliges are stupid enough to run Linux as root...
Does the "malware a thing of the past statement" imply that DRM will stop malware running in Longhorn?
The whole DRM thing seems to have died down from MS recently and I'm wondering if this has meant a strategy change on their part or just keeping quiet about it and sneaking it in anyway.
If MS are stopping malware in Longhorn then that's a good thing on their part for the Longhorn users but DRM is like "nuking your back garden to get rid of an ants nest" - it'll stop any "non-MS approved" product running which is a completely different thing altogether.
It's not so much "attacks" on numerous fronts but "immovable boulders".
Is X-Box going to displace Sony in the console space?
Are the (current) minority of Linux servers and desktops going to be running Windows anytime soon?
Is MS Office going to be able to compete when applications move even more web-based and Adobe/Macromedia are sat there waiting?
Is MS going to be able to displace Apple iPod and iTunes from the music player market?
On the "gadget" front, no-one can decide yet whether they want Pocket PCs with or without cameras and mobile phones. Symbian is there already, some embedded Linux is there also, Windows Mobile is a player but this market hasn't settled yet.
Add to that, OSS apps are making small bites into the Windows desktop - Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.
Historically, Microsoft has survived through constant expansion but the areas it's now trying to expand into have those "immovable boulders" already sat there.
MS won't die through shrinkage, it'll die through lack of expansion because the moment that happens, the shareholders and investors will leave in their droves.
They could give away everything they make for free for 20-50 years before going bankrupt.
This is a popular misconception.
Long before their bank-balance reached zero, investors would be dumping MS shares on the market in order to get rid of them. The prices of the shares would drop, the value of the company would drop and, in turn, so would that bank balance even more.
We needed their marketing power to jumpstart the PC market
I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. The PC was very much a business-only platform until Microsoft came out with Windows - this meant that home use became practical, more PCs could be built at cheaper cost.
Certainly, at the time of the 386 CPU, Commodore had the home market pretty much sewn up with the Amiga, at least in Europe, and Atari with the ST to a lesser extent. The fact is that Commodore made a few stupid blunders and couldn't ultimately compete with cheaper PC hardware.
Microsoft were simply in "the right place at the right time" and with clever marketing were able to make the PC look like a viable home platform - despite the better graphics & sound capabilities of the Amiga and ST.
School systems can switch platforms, but hardest part is the children who are at home with MS products and crossing platforms with high number of families on the the other platform is a recipe for confusion.
Why should low income parents be forced to pay vast sums of money to have MS Office at home purely because it is used in school when OpenOffice is free?
Or are we saying that they be allowed to continue using pirated copies of MS Office (in most cases) in which case we are telling our children that software theft is acceptable?
As far as I know they teach programming in schools on Windows because it's an easy environment (VisualBasic and so on) to introduce kids to it.
Why do kids need to program in Visual Basic? In my experience, IT classes in schools teach kids basic computer use and it's probably only when they get to pre-university A-level work that they start to think about programming languages if that's what they plan to study at university.
Surely every kid needs to learn how to use a word processor for job applications, etc, spreadsheet for managing home accounts, etc. and perhaps sit in maths classes that teach them binary and hex.
At that level, it doesn't matter what OS or office application they use.
How about you go and take a "straw poll" on this yourself?
Go find a group of MS users and ask them how many of them can also work with Linux.
Then go find a group of Linux users and ask how many of them also work with Windows.
You'll find the latter is a much higher proportion.
Open Source teaches a much greater degree of personal resposibility and, resultantly, requires greater knowledge as a result.
I almost exclusively use Linux these days but I am also the person friends and family come to when they have problems with their Windows machines because I can fix problems equally well in both - I just prefer not to use MS products.
I have always found it disgusting that some of the taxes I pay for public services find their way into the pockets of private enterprise, financing the huge salaries of CEOs and paying out to shareholders.
I recognise that sometimes this is unavoidable - for example, hospitals need computers and those computers need to be bought from a PC supplier like, say, Dell. But I would alaways hope that in such a curcumstance, the best deal possible has been negotiated.
In the case of software in schools, I do not understand why commercial software is purchased when viable free alternatives exist at the level at which they are used in schools - for example, if a schoolkid is being taught how to use a word processor or how to create a spreadsheet, why do they need MS Office when OpenOffice has more than enough functionality for the level they need?
What's more heartbreaking is the fact that companies like Microsoft suck money out of the system which can instead be put to better use training and paying teachers more, on books, etc.
No, I'm not blaming Microsoft alone or directly, they're just a business trying to make money after all, but Open Source software can also serve as an example to kids to show them what can be achieved when people put pure financial gain to one side and just work together for the purpose of making something good.
Microsoft have a large facility in my home town - in fact, it would take me 5 minutes to drive there from home down one junction of the motorway, as opposed to the hour it takes me getting to and from my current job.
I recently put my CV out to employment agencies. One agency person called me back to get more detailed information as to the types of employer I would and wouldn't work for. I said I would never work for Microsoft, no matter what job they offered or what salary they offered. The agency person actually said "You'll be surprised how many people say that."
Let's be under no illusions here - it's nothing to do with jealousy, more to do with personal pride.
Let's make no bones about it, the Internet and the Web have allowed us all to become a lot better informed about any products that we buy - this means that before we buy DVDs, CDs, etc., it's usually not that difficult to find a review of the product first.
Go back 10 years and I myself was buying many more CDs and (then) VHS videos purely because the type of stuff I was buying wasn't necessarily reviewed in a magazine somewhere and I took a lot of chances by just buying many of these products - most of the time I was severely disappointed.
Nowadays, I can just fire up Google and read a review...
The fact is that both the music & movie industry now sell a higher proportion of low quality sub-standard products that they push through advertising & hype. However, with a much more informed consumer base, it's more difficult to sell those products successfully.
So let's be clear about this, the issue is not about "fair use", it's actually about the MPAA and RIAA stopping the flow of information across consumers because bad "word of mouth" reviews do more harm to sales than anything else.
This place is full of anti-Sun bigotry, hatred and lies.
And who can blame us?
Scott McNealy was full of anti-Linux bigotry, hatred and lies... until he had to commit to this massive u-turn of open sourcing Solaris.
McNealy's a fool to himself - rather than embracing the open source community as an ally instead of an enemy five years ago, Solaris might well have been taken seriously as an OS on non-Sun hardware.
Let's face it, would Sun even consider making Solaris open source if Linux didn't exist?
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I can't comment on the Mac (never used one) but please explain what you mean by "fast" when comparing Windows to X?
X is just the graphics subsystem, Windows is a complete desktop operating system - you are therefore not comparing like-for-like.
If you took, say, a Pentium II 450PC with 128MB of memory, the chances are that if you ran Windows 98 on it anc compared it to Linux with Gnome 2.x or KDE 3.x, then Windows would run faster - but that's because you're comparing a 7 year old OS with Linux desktop environments that have only come out in the last couple of years.
You can't make generic statements like this because you are comparing two different entities. Added to this, what about the fact that you might be using the proper graphics driver in Windows but a generic (not so good) graphics driver in X?
Simply looking at two systems side-by-side is not a fair comparison. I can guarantee that on the same PC, RedHat 6.0 will run a alot faster than Windows XP Service Pack 2 but it's a pointless test because one's 5 years older than the other.
This is an unfair comparison.
If you're going for a fair comparison then around the time Windows 2000 was a new OS, you would be looking at RedHat 5.2 or SuSE 6.0 - both of these would have been equipped with older {=lighter) versions of KDE or Gnome which would run much faster than their modern counterpart versions.
For a school, non-profit, or church, you know the answer is "no."
And why is the answer "no"? Because you're not confident installing a lighter window manager? I've not used recent SuSE or RedHat versions but I seem to recall both of these had granular enough installation programs that allowed you to skip installing Gnome or KDE and install a lighter desktop.
I do agree that some applications might have a reliance on big Gnome or KDE libraries but then if you need older applications, you can always look at earlier versions of them - like Applixware if you want word processing, etc.
On the downside, it'll take a while to compile on an older CPU but you can optimise the compilation to get the best possible speed out of it.
Then throw on a lightweight window manager like FVWM or Fluxbox and it should run pretty reasonably.
I think you're imposing your own standards on everyone else - purely because something is "old" does not make it unusable to everyone.
Take the UNIX editor vi - a console based text editor that has been there just about as long as UNIX has yet is still the most popular editor despite many more modern editors, especially those with GUIs. Yet I and many other people can edit faster using keyboard-only vi than mouse and keyboard alternatives.
I still enjoy playing Duke Nukem 3D, original Doom and original Civilization - keeping a copy of MS-DOS to hand is great for that reason alone, whatever you may think.
For a PC that's not constantly running, a tweaked version of Windows 98 SE works really well.
Plus if you mess about with memory management in config.sys and autoexec.bat, you get a machine that supports older DOS programs and games pretty well also.
Sure, if you leave it running for weeks on end, it slows to a crawl due to the poor memory management but it's nothing a reboot doesn't cure.
Even XP is a horrific bloated mess out of the box but once you turn off all the pretty rubbish and effects, you get an OS that looks a lot more like Windows 2000 and that runs pretty fast.
People that assume an operating system is just fine out of the box simply have no idea what they are missing - any OS, Linux included, can slow any PC to a crawl if not tweaked properly.
Presumably if Joe Bloke has an old PC running Windows 98 then he's probably never going to upgrade to Linux anyway. The only reason he might want to install Linux would be to run maybe a web or mail server, something that he probably would not want to do on Windows 98 anyway.
Otherwise, if he has older hardware, he doesn't need the additional driver support (say for USB 2.0) that comes with Windows XP and today's games that only run on Windows 2000 or XP are probably too hefty to run on his hardware anyway.
Sure, Microsoft would love to get Joe to spend more money on a new OS, that's just plain business, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Linux.
640K definitely is more than enough memory anyone would ever need.
"Moi name's Slasher, I'm doin' time for armed robbery. This 'ere's Pistols, 'e killed his parents. Whas yer name, sonny, and whachoo in 'ere for?"
"I am being Hans, I am Svedish, I took code from Cisco."
"Well, 'Ans, drop yer trousers, grab yer ankles and let's see where yoov 'idden it then.."
However, I'd still stick it on Ebay as a router because nobody tells the truth on Ebay.
I'm not defending MS by any means but I think that's an overly simplistic comment.
Malware exists because enough machines can be made to run it to justify writing it in the first place. Those machines that can run it are invariably Windows machines owned by users who are too stupid to defend against malware or check for it.
I have a Windows machine that never gets malware because I don't run IE or Outlook on it and stay away from dodgy Internet sites.
But as primarily a Linux user, I'm quite happy for Joe Public to mess up his Windows PC with malware and never go near Linux.
If Linux was the only choice for Joe Public, then there would be a helluva lot of compromised Linux machines out there running scripts and contributing to DDOS attacks - not because of Linux being insecure but because of Joe Public being too stupid to secure his Linux box properly.
Remember that people who are stupid enough to run Windows with Administrator priveliges are stupid enough to run Linux as root...
...if you're trying to meet up with a forgetful friend who always forgets to take his mobile out with him?
...at least walk out with a 6500 router under your coat that you can flog on Ebay!
The whole DRM thing seems to have died down from MS recently and I'm wondering if this has meant a strategy change on their part or just keeping quiet about it and sneaking it in anyway.
If MS are stopping malware in Longhorn then that's a good thing on their part for the Longhorn users but DRM is like "nuking your back garden to get rid of an ants nest" - it'll stop any "non-MS approved" product running which is a completely different thing altogether.
Is X-Box going to displace Sony in the console space?
Are the (current) minority of Linux servers and desktops going to be running Windows anytime soon?
Is MS Office going to be able to compete when applications move even more web-based and Adobe/Macromedia are sat there waiting?
Is MS going to be able to displace Apple iPod and iTunes from the music player market?
On the "gadget" front, no-one can decide yet whether they want Pocket PCs with or without cameras and mobile phones. Symbian is there already, some embedded Linux is there also, Windows Mobile is a player but this market hasn't settled yet.
Add to that, OSS apps are making small bites into the Windows desktop - Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.
Historically, Microsoft has survived through constant expansion but the areas it's now trying to expand into have those "immovable boulders" already sat there.
MS won't die through shrinkage, it'll die through lack of expansion because the moment that happens, the shareholders and investors will leave in their droves.
Like many Windows users, you seem to forget that OSS != Linux.
You can run Windows and happily install Firefox, GAIM, OpenOffice, The Gimp and a host of other OSS applications on Windows.
So buy an X-Box and still have access to most games released on the PC whilst not having to re-install the whole thing every few months.
This is a popular misconception.
Long before their bank-balance reached zero, investors would be dumping MS shares on the market in order to get rid of them. The prices of the shares would drop, the value of the company would drop and, in turn, so would that bank balance even more.
I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. The PC was very much a business-only platform until Microsoft came out with Windows - this meant that home use became practical, more PCs could be built at cheaper cost.
Certainly, at the time of the 386 CPU, Commodore had the home market pretty much sewn up with the Amiga, at least in Europe, and Atari with the ST to a lesser extent. The fact is that Commodore made a few stupid blunders and couldn't ultimately compete with cheaper PC hardware.
Microsoft were simply in "the right place at the right time" and with clever marketing were able to make the PC look like a viable home platform - despite the better graphics & sound capabilities of the Amiga and ST.
Why should low income parents be forced to pay vast sums of money to have MS Office at home purely because it is used in school when OpenOffice is free?
Or are we saying that they be allowed to continue using pirated copies of MS Office (in most cases) in which case we are telling our children that software theft is acceptable?
Why do kids need to program in Visual Basic? In my experience, IT classes in schools teach kids basic computer use and it's probably only when they get to pre-university A-level work that they start to think about programming languages if that's what they plan to study at university.
Surely every kid needs to learn how to use a word processor for job applications, etc, spreadsheet for managing home accounts, etc. and perhaps sit in maths classes that teach them binary and hex.
At that level, it doesn't matter what OS or office application they use.
Go find a group of MS users and ask them how many of them can also work with Linux.
Then go find a group of Linux users and ask how many of them also work with Windows.
You'll find the latter is a much higher proportion.
Open Source teaches a much greater degree of personal resposibility and, resultantly, requires greater knowledge as a result.
I almost exclusively use Linux these days but I am also the person friends and family come to when they have problems with their Windows machines because I can fix problems equally well in both - I just prefer not to use MS products.
I recognise that sometimes this is unavoidable - for example, hospitals need computers and those computers need to be bought from a PC supplier like, say, Dell. But I would alaways hope that in such a curcumstance, the best deal possible has been negotiated.
In the case of software in schools, I do not understand why commercial software is purchased when viable free alternatives exist at the level at which they are used in schools - for example, if a schoolkid is being taught how to use a word processor or how to create a spreadsheet, why do they need MS Office when OpenOffice has more than enough functionality for the level they need?
What's more heartbreaking is the fact that companies like Microsoft suck money out of the system which can instead be put to better use training and paying teachers more, on books, etc.
No, I'm not blaming Microsoft alone or directly, they're just a business trying to make money after all, but Open Source software can also serve as an example to kids to show them what can be achieved when people put pure financial gain to one side and just work together for the purpose of making something good.
I recently put my CV out to employment agencies. One agency person called me back to get more detailed information as to the types of employer I would and wouldn't work for. I said I would never work for Microsoft, no matter what job they offered or what salary they offered. The agency person actually said "You'll be surprised how many people say that."
Let's be under no illusions here - it's nothing to do with jealousy, more to do with personal pride.
Some things transcend monetary gain.
Go back 10 years and I myself was buying many more CDs and (then) VHS videos purely because the type of stuff I was buying wasn't necessarily reviewed in a magazine somewhere and I took a lot of chances by just buying many of these products - most of the time I was severely disappointed.
Nowadays, I can just fire up Google and read a review...
The fact is that both the music & movie industry now sell a higher proportion of low quality sub-standard products that they push through advertising & hype. However, with a much more informed consumer base, it's more difficult to sell those products successfully.
So let's be clear about this, the issue is not about "fair use", it's actually about the MPAA and RIAA stopping the flow of information across consumers because bad "word of mouth" reviews do more harm to sales than anything else.
And who can blame us?
Scott McNealy was full of anti-Linux bigotry, hatred and lies... until he had to commit to this massive u-turn of open sourcing Solaris.
McNealy's a fool to himself - rather than embracing the open source community as an ally instead of an enemy five years ago, Solaris might well have been taken seriously as an OS on non-Sun hardware.
Let's face it, would Sun even consider making Solaris open source if Linux didn't exist?