Really, I mean it... Been reading a lot of the comments above, and all I feel like saying is, learning Arch isn't that hard yes it really is worth it. The Arch wikis will take you by the hand the whole time, and once you understand it, you'll feel like the true owner of your computer, no more such frustrations you guys are having with Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Suse, Fedora or whatever... Arch solves all the problems these distros have plus gives you extreme control over your machine.
I understand exactly what is the target audience for this. Let me give you a concrete example that happened to me recently. I am now working in China, and most Chinese IT guys I know here are MS-only guys who think the whole world revolves around MS products and nothing else exists, sadly it is a reality here (go try to find a Linux netbook in Shanghai - good luck). However, lately a sister school asked me to help their IT guys to install Moodle on their school's server (we run it on a Debian system), but THEY run everything on Microsoft/IIS and they have no intent whatsoever of trying anything Linux/Open Source. Therefore I found out (and the Chinese IT guys too) how inconvenient it is to install PHP stuff onto a Windows/IIS system. I showed these guys how easy it would've been to do the same installation under Linux through packages (sudo apt-get install moodle) and I think they were impressed but still are not interested in "learning" anything about Linux. Therefore I think they are EXACTLY the audience that MS are trying to reach at the moment. Solutions like Moodle are becoming more and more popular into the education sector and same goes for many CMS/PHP portals elsewhere, and many MS systems admins are now ASKED to install these programs but they have no idea how and have NEVER touched Linux... This would be exactly what they need, in order to please their boss with minimal effort.
Of course this is simply to facilitate lazy MS admin people to keep on using their Windows server instead of getting them attracted to a move over to Linux... Again MS is doing it to fight against the competition, nothing else.
I second this. They are also available in China, and have been for a long time. I have one myself, paid about that, 12$ in a Shanghai supermarket... I don't see what the MIT has to do with that...
Hey guys,
I live in Shanghai now, and this city keeps reminding me of the Los Angeles portrayed in Blade Runner... Especially if It rains! It even has talking screens on boats and zeppelins and stuff... Look at that picture and you might agree:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=537350642& size=l
Just thought I should share that...
Installing drivers, messing with/etc/* files? "Plug and Play" is a joke and buzzphrase on windos, on OSX it's reality. I still have to find a piece of hardware that doesn't simply work when I plug it in.
Yes, so what? Doesn't mean that Linux will NEVER get there. And even if you do have to edit some/etc/* files, so what? You're not a Grandma, are you? If you really were a Linux fanboy in 1995 then It shouldn't be such a big deal for you. Personally I would even say that I do enjoy messing with config files once in a while, gives me some sense of control, I guess. Sure, it's not for Grandma, but for you and me, we can cope with that, no? At least Linux is a 100% free OS and you're in total control of it, which is something that OSX will definitely NEVER be. Don't get me wrong, I love my Mac and there's nothing like it to create iMovies and iDVDs out of the box, but doesn't mean I can't love my Linux box too and see the potential it has, now.
I've been a fanatical Linux fanboy since about '95.
And since then you've become a fanatical Mac fanboy? Sorry but sounds like that to me... Before I say anything else you should note that I also own a Macbook and I do know what OS X is like and I do love it too!
But I just feel that you're hitting a bit hard on what Linux has become in the last 11 years. Perhaps you should install anything recent such as Ubuntu 6.10 and see where Linux is at now. I am not saying it's perfect but isn't it a bit pretentious to pretend knowing that Linux will NEVER be what OS X is? I think it's already much closer to it that you think it is!
Try it and get a clearer picture, and quit being a whatever fanboy. I'm tired of that whole Slashdot trend that the Mac is so fucking untouchable and that "now that I tried it I think Linux on the desktop sucks"... Geez come on guys I love Macs too but try to be objective and give some credit where it's deserved.
I have to agree with this. I'm a total nerd and my girlfriend's a sexy Asian chick.:D I do think CLI skills impress women:P As long, of course, as you don't look or act like Eric Raymond.:P
I would have tried to get a few for the school where I work. We wouldn't mind paying the extra 200$. The problem is I never heard about this pledge thing, and as much as I tried to find out how to get my hands on these laptops, all I could find everywhere on their website (and they made it CLEAR) is that the laptops will NOT be sold to individuals or directly to individual schools, but rather sold only to governments, who will then redistribute them to schools.
I think they also got this part all wrong. They would have much more success if they open up a little. A lot of schools would be ready to pay the money for it, but If they only rely on governments, It's not gonna happen. Governments don't even know or give a sh*t about it!!
Perhaps, but you better open up a socket for Chloe so that she upload the data to Edgar, who will then decrypt the kernel code. This way Jack might stand a chance!
Hey I've been living in China for more than 3 years now, and I know a bit about computer brands and stuff. It's a total misconception because Lenovo is BY FAR the best Chinese brand for computers and laptop here. It's considered by many of pretty good quality. My girlfriend has a Lenovo branded laptop, and It's good enough! Better than many HP/Toshiba I've seen before...
It's not like nothing good can come out of China...
About the Origami thing: Here in China I've already seen billions of these everywhere for a while, from all sort of different unknown brands and running different OSes... And they are cheap. I really don't see what's the big innovation there. They're not really selling that much, either. People still go for laptops mostly.
Being myself in China (Canadian working in Shanghai) I know a bit more on the story. At first I must say that I was really shocked with the news of Google following the footsteps of Yahoo and Microsoft with censoring their search results. So I went deeper and did some tests. Here is what I found out:
First of all, and many of you know this already, the only censored search is google.CN and NOT google.COM. Yes, If I do a search with google.CN the results will be filtered, but nobody stops me from using google.COM which is still not censored at all, even for people using it in China. I thought they might use some IP detection of some sort and filter people that are located in China, but no, they don't. So Chinese people can still use the normal english Google if they are not happy.
Secondly, and most important: My Chinese girlfriend showed me that when you search for something that should be filtered ("tiananmen", for example), it displays a very clear message in Chinese, repeated several times in the page, saying something like "Some results have been removed due to local laws". Now how does that make Google better? Well, think about it: they could have done just like Microsoft and Yahoo and simply hide the controversial entries. Nobody would even know they did as it is completely invisible. But their approach is interesting when you think about it. It means that Chinese people (who so far pretty much ignored that they are being lied to on a daily basis) will now notice that A LOT of what they search online is being censored! That will completely change their view of the government and break the general ignorance in the population right now. Who knows, maybe Chinese people will start to protest and perhaps things will eventually change? All I'm saying is that if you look at it that way it has indeed a positive effect. That's what everybody seems to completely fail to understand right now when they criticize Google. I think they (Google) know damn well what they are doing, they just hoped that us clever people would get it but it seems like most of us obviously don't!!
So anyway, look at it that way: Microsoft tells Chinese people what to write in their blogs (when my gf writes on her MSN spaces, she gets a message saying that she uses "inappropriate language" if she tries to write "freedom" or "democracy"), Yahoo sends people to jail for writing their opinion in an e-mail, and... Google INFORMS Chinese people that they are being lied to... So, who's really the big evil one here??
Well as a Canadian now living and working in China, I can tell you by experience that what you suggest might happen IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING right now!
China's getting real big and powerful, and living a life of luxury in cities like Shanghai is a reality. You are right to be scared!
Sounds great and the Rio Karma is actually the player I am thinking about getting, but I only have one question... Does it HAVE to go through some software like iTunes or can you just use it like a HD or usb key and copy-paste files to it? Does it needs drivers? I want to use it through linux...
Come one now, that's a pretty depressing description. Ok, perhaps outside of Beijing and Shanghai it can be a bit like that, but man, you make this look pretty shit and scary for anyone who never visited China. It's not ALL that bad and China definately has its share of nice and cool little things that can make life very enjoyable.
Anyways, I'm in Shanghai right now and as you said it's pretty different here from the rest of China... I really do enjoy life here in Shanghai and there's almost no websites I don't have access to... All that comes to my mind now is BBC news. With my really fast and cheap cable connection I can go to all the other sites I want, no problem. There's always anonymous proxy servers anyways that solves the problem if there's any.
China's cool people, I've been here for 2 years now and definately staying for a while... Not to mention the amazing number of gorgeous ladies in shanghai...;) Go take a look at the pics there and you'll see what I mean...;) http://www.smartshanghai.com/en/nightlife/gallerie s.php
"Mr. Schare of Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer. By the same reasoning, the security problems created by a car's broken door lock could be solved by buying an entirely new automobile. The analogy comes straight from Mr. Schare. "It's like buying a car," he said. "If you want to get the latest safety features, you have to buy the latest model."
In this case, the very latest model is not a 2001 Internet Explorer, but a 2004 Firefox."
I have a better analogy variation to this: If the door is the browser, then the car should be the OS, right? so...
In this case, the very latest model is not a 2001 Windows XP, but a 2004 Linux Distribution, geez!:P
Good point. Being now In China I can also confirm that Windows piracy definately, directly hurts adoption of Linux on Home users desktops... I was pretty disapointed when I moved to China because I was expecting to see mainstream use of Linux all around which is totally false and far from the actual reality.
Yes, I guess it is true that Chinese government adopted Linux and I did see it running on metro terminals for example.. But that's about it, most people here don't even have a clue as to what Linux is. There's A LOT of computer shops around here and I have NEVER seen any linux or OSS software ANYWHERE for general consumer/home user market. Everything is proprietary, pirated software.
I also work in a school now and the chinese IT managers there, although they are quite competent at administrating windows boxes, when I asked them why they don't run Linux, most of them looked at me totally clueless! They don't even have any knowledge whatsoever of stuff like Apache, PHP or MySQL!! There are also a LOT of computer related/programming magazines here and ALL I see is Windows/C#/ASP/.NET etc... NOTHING Linux/OSS related! The thing is, in China, anywhere, you can buy a copy of Windows (or anything, even something expensive like Photoshop or Maya!) for about 0.60$...
So I think It's just cheaper for chinese people to buy the Windows pirated CD (0.60$) than to bother getting a broadband connection (about 15$ a month) to download a couple of Linux CDs...
Sad and disapointing, I know... Perhaps if they could just sell "pirated" distros! Ironic you might say, but maybe some kind of "piracy" could actually have a positive effect towards general adoption of Linux! No? I think part of the problem might be that Chinese people in general, especially young people, just are tired of the old communist system and they don't see any value in "free things" anymore.. I think it's actually a bit of the same problem in capitalist countries... People tend not to believe something "cheap" or "free" can actually be good!
Im afraid you are wrong. Having been in China for over a year now I know quite a bit about how things work here regarding software (read: piracy). First of all It is MUCH easier here to find a pirate copy of any Windows versions for just 5 rmb (about 60 US cents) than the real thing. Pirate software is everywhere, everybody uses it, while the real software retailers are quite rare. Even when you buy a computer, the OEM will install the pirate version. So most people (not to say everybody) just go and buy pirate software in China.
So now tell me why the HELL would anyone bother to go and try to find a crippled version of Windows when they can get the real winXP for about 2% of the crippled version price?? Even if they can patch it, whats the point?
Now I have no idea what M$ strategy is all about with this marketing plan, but I really dont get it. I dont think they will sell much copies, at least not in China. The government? They are already using Linux in many areas, so I think its too late already. If somebody understand anything about this M$ marketing plan, please let me know, because I really dont get it!
Yeah well even if that is true (7 hours!) as I am a Canadian now living in China my definition of "oversea" flight is a bit different now... even if my laptop would last 7 jours it would still be far from enough to survive the 20 hours flight!:P
I am currently working in Shanghai, China... And considering the amount of mobile phones around here I really wonder how efficient this device would be here! I mean there's probably something like an average of 3 mobile phones every square meter... So I would imagine the device would just panic and blow up or something!!
I've gave myself XPDE a try for fun and honestly I really cannot see why this could be in any way positive to mass migration to Linux... Sure it is fun to see how similar to windows it looks and playing around with it for a day and show it to your friends for entertainment sure is amusing...
But let's face it... A new Linux user that has no clue about the power and advantages of Linux over Windows will just very quickly jump to the conclusion that "Linux sucks"! Why? Isn't it obvious? For example, one of the greatest things that Linux GUIs have to offer over windows is the virtual desktops. XPDE just dig deep down this feature by trying to "look" like Windows... So too bad cuz I think virtual desktops are a major feature that can help convince people the benefits of Linux (Personnaly that's one of the things I found most frustrating when I have to use Windows now, the whole windows all stuck in the same desktop, eww, awful!).. Anyways, that's just an example...
The main problem with this sort of GUI is that new users will try it, quickly find out that yes it's similar to Windows, but they cannot do half of what they can do under Windows. So they think "What's the point of using Linux? Windows looks just the same and I can do much, much more with it... Why would I switch to Linux? I tried it, I cannot see what more Linux can offer to me at all..."
To me XPDE is just bad news for Linux... The cool things about Linux are actually the differences, the choices, Gnome, KDE, Windowmaker, Enlightenment... Everybody has their favorite and that's what makes Linux fun and interesting! Personnaly I chose Gnome cuz it allows me to have the best of all worlds all-in-one... The virtual desktops, the windows style start menu, its intuitive drag-n-drop interface and last but not least the Mac OS 7-8-9 style "finder" ("Window Menu" in Gnome). I think that's a shame they dropped that feature in Mac OS X as I find it much more convienent than "Expose", which, imho, is sort of just a slow, eye-candy gadget that doesn'T really save that much time after all... I'm not a mac user but I do use macs sometimes and when I tried OS X although I thought its pretty nice I really missed the finder feature... it made it quite fast to find an "hiding" app..
Anyways, I think Linux has LOTS more to offer than Windows and it's not by hiding its power and differences under a limited copy of a Windows interface that we'll get new users to switch to Linux at all... There are a LOT of people that switch from Windows to Mac, and is it because the Mac looks like windows?? No, it is rather the opposite, it's more because of a totaly different and fresh approach that people just end up being seduced by after playing around with it! That's why I chose Linux anyway, because I just got seduced by its power and its differences, not because I felt like "I'm at home", in a stripped-down, lame copy of Windows!!
Slashdot Mirror
Really, I mean it... Been reading a lot of the comments above, and all I feel like saying is, learning Arch isn't that hard yes it really is worth it. The Arch wikis will take you by the hand the whole time, and once you understand it, you'll feel like the true owner of your computer, no more such frustrations you guys are having with Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Suse, Fedora or whatever... Arch solves all the problems these distros have plus gives you extreme control over your machine.
All they need is get rid of Mono once and for all and it would actually fit on a CD...
You must be using Ubuntu, cuz Gnome on my Arch desktop is damn fast (on Ubuntu it was getting slow as hell though)
Just asked the guy what he thinks via Twitter and posted about it here
Just sent two tweets to Miguel de Icaza about this:
@migueldeicaza So does it mean you will be somehow now working for Microsoft
@migueldeicaza Sorry meant to add a question mark... And how about IP rights for Mono? What does it mean copyrights-wise? Not worried?
And here's his answer:
@2green Dont know the answer to that.
Wow.
This sucks...
I understand exactly what is the target audience for this. Let me give you a concrete example that happened to me recently. I am now working in China, and most Chinese IT guys I know here are MS-only guys who think the whole world revolves around MS products and nothing else exists, sadly it is a reality here (go try to find a Linux netbook in Shanghai - good luck). However, lately a sister school asked me to help their IT guys to install Moodle on their school's server (we run it on a Debian system), but THEY run everything on Microsoft/IIS and they have no intent whatsoever of trying anything Linux/Open Source. Therefore I found out (and the Chinese IT guys too) how inconvenient it is to install PHP stuff onto a Windows/IIS system. I showed these guys how easy it would've been to do the same installation under Linux through packages (sudo apt-get install moodle) and I think they were impressed but still are not interested in "learning" anything about Linux. Therefore I think they are EXACTLY the audience that MS are trying to reach at the moment. Solutions like Moodle are becoming more and more popular into the education sector and same goes for many CMS/PHP portals elsewhere, and many MS systems admins are now ASKED to install these programs but they have no idea how and have NEVER touched Linux... This would be exactly what they need, in order to please their boss with minimal effort.
Of course this is simply to facilitate lazy MS admin people to keep on using their Windows server instead of getting them attracted to a move over to Linux... Again MS is doing it to fight against the competition, nothing else.
I second this. They are also available in China, and have been for a long time. I have one myself, paid about that, 12$ in a Shanghai supermarket... I don't see what the MIT has to do with that...
Hey guys, I live in Shanghai now, and this city keeps reminding me of the Los Angeles portrayed in Blade Runner... Especially if It rains! It even has talking screens on boats and zeppelins and stuff... Look at that picture and you might agree: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=537350642& size=l
Just thought I should share that...
Yes, so what? Doesn't mean that Linux will NEVER get there. And even if you do have to edit some
I've been a fanatical Linux fanboy since about '95.
And since then you've become a fanatical Mac fanboy? Sorry but sounds like that to me... Before I say anything else you should note that I also own a Macbook and I do know what OS X is like and I do love it too!
But I just feel that you're hitting a bit hard on what Linux has become in the last 11 years. Perhaps you should install anything recent such as Ubuntu 6.10 and see where Linux is at now. I am not saying it's perfect but isn't it a bit pretentious to pretend knowing that Linux will NEVER be what OS X is? I think it's already much closer to it that you think it is!
Try it and get a clearer picture, and quit being a whatever fanboy. I'm tired of that whole Slashdot trend that the Mac is so fucking untouchable and that "now that I tried it I think Linux on the desktop sucks"... Geez come on guys I love Macs too but try to be objective and give some credit where it's deserved.
I have to agree with this. I'm a total nerd and my girlfriend's a sexy Asian chick. :D I do think CLI skills impress women :P As long, of course, as you don't look or act like Eric Raymond. :P
I would have tried to get a few for the school where I work. We wouldn't mind paying the extra 200$. The problem is I never heard about this pledge thing, and as much as I tried to find out how to get my hands on these laptops, all I could find everywhere on their website (and they made it CLEAR) is that the laptops will NOT be sold to individuals or directly to individual schools, but rather sold only to governments, who will then redistribute them to schools. I think they also got this part all wrong. They would have much more success if they open up a little. A lot of schools would be ready to pay the money for it, but If they only rely on governments, It's not gonna happen. Governments don't even know or give a sh*t about it!!
Perhaps, but you better open up a socket for Chloe so that she upload the data to Edgar, who will then decrypt the kernel code. This way Jack might stand a chance!
Hey I've been living in China for more than 3 years now, and I know a bit about computer brands and stuff. It's a total misconception because Lenovo is BY FAR the best Chinese brand for computers and laptop here. It's considered by many of pretty good quality. My girlfriend has a Lenovo branded laptop, and It's good enough! Better than many HP/Toshiba I've seen before...
It's not like nothing good can come out of China...
About the Origami thing: Here in China I've already seen billions of these everywhere for a while, from all sort of different unknown brands and running different OSes... And they are cheap. I really don't see what's the big innovation there. They're not really selling that much, either. People still go for laptops mostly.
Being myself in China (Canadian working in Shanghai) I know a bit more on the story. At first I must say that I was really shocked with the news of Google following the footsteps of Yahoo and Microsoft with censoring their search results. So I went deeper and did some tests. Here is what I found out:
First of all, and many of you know this already, the only censored search is google.CN and NOT google.COM. Yes, If I do a search with google.CN the results will be filtered, but nobody stops me from using google.COM which is still not censored at all, even for people using it in China. I thought they might use some IP detection of some sort and filter people that are located in China, but no, they don't. So Chinese people can still use the normal english Google if they are not happy.
Secondly, and most important: My Chinese girlfriend showed me that when you search for something that should be filtered ("tiananmen", for example), it displays a very clear message in Chinese, repeated several times in the page, saying something like "Some results have been removed due to local laws". Now how does that make Google better? Well, think about it: they could have done just like Microsoft and Yahoo and simply hide the controversial entries. Nobody would even know they did as it is completely invisible. But their approach is interesting when you think about it. It means that Chinese people (who so far pretty much ignored that they are being lied to on a daily basis) will now notice that A LOT of what they search online is being censored! That will completely change their view of the government and break the general ignorance in the population right now. Who knows, maybe Chinese people will start to protest and perhaps things will eventually change? All I'm saying is that if you look at it that way it has indeed a positive effect. That's what everybody seems to completely fail to understand right now when they criticize Google. I think they (Google) know damn well what they are doing, they just hoped that us clever people would get it but it seems like most of us obviously don't!!
So anyway, look at it that way: Microsoft tells Chinese people what to write in their blogs (when my gf writes on her MSN spaces, she gets a message saying that she uses "inappropriate language" if she tries to write "freedom" or "democracy"), Yahoo sends people to jail for writing their opinion in an e-mail, and... Google INFORMS Chinese people that they are being lied to... So, who's really the big evil one here??
Just my 2 cents...
David
Well as a Canadian now living and working in China, I can tell you by experience that what you suggest might happen IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING right now! China's getting real big and powerful, and living a life of luxury in cities like Shanghai is a reality. You are right to be scared!
Sounds great and the Rio Karma is actually the player I am thinking about getting, but I only have one question... Does it HAVE to go through some software like iTunes or can you just use it like a HD or usb key and copy-paste files to it? Does it needs drivers? I want to use it through linux...
Anyways, I'm in Shanghai right now and as you said it's pretty different here from the rest of China... I really do enjoy life here in Shanghai and there's almost no websites I don't have access to... All that comes to my mind now is BBC news. With my really fast and cheap cable connection I can go to all the other sites I want, no problem. There's always anonymous proxy servers anyways that solves the problem if there's any.
China's cool people, I've been here for 2 years now and definately staying for a while... Not to mention the amazing number of gorgeous ladies in shanghai... ;) Go take a look at the pics there and you'll see what I mean... ;) http://www.smartshanghai.com/en/nightlife/gallerie s.php
"Mr. Schare of Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer. By the same reasoning, the security problems created by a car's broken door lock could be solved by buying an entirely new automobile. The analogy comes straight from Mr. Schare. "It's like buying a car," he said. "If you want to get the latest safety features, you have to buy the latest model."
:P
In this case, the very latest model is not a 2001 Internet Explorer, but a 2004 Firefox."
I have a better analogy variation to this: If the door is the browser, then the car should be the OS, right? so...
In this case, the very latest model is not a 2001 Windows XP, but a 2004 Linux Distribution, geez!
Good point. Being now In China I can also confirm that Windows piracy definately, directly hurts adoption of Linux on Home users desktops... I was pretty disapointed when I moved to China because I was expecting to see mainstream use of Linux all around which is totally false and far from the actual reality.
;)
Yes, I guess it is true that Chinese government adopted Linux and I did see it running on metro terminals for example.. But that's about it, most people here don't even have a clue as to what Linux is. There's A LOT of computer shops around here and I have NEVER seen any linux or OSS software ANYWHERE for general consumer/home user market. Everything is proprietary, pirated software.
I also work in a school now and the chinese IT managers there, although they are quite competent at administrating windows boxes, when I asked them why they don't run Linux, most of them looked at me totally clueless! They don't even have any knowledge whatsoever of stuff like Apache, PHP or MySQL!! There are also a LOT of computer related/programming magazines here and ALL I see is Windows/C#/ASP/.NET etc... NOTHING Linux/OSS related! The thing is, in China, anywhere, you can buy a copy of Windows (or anything, even something expensive like Photoshop or Maya!) for about 0.60$...
So I think It's just cheaper for chinese people to buy the Windows pirated CD (0.60$) than to bother getting a broadband connection (about 15$ a month) to download a couple of Linux CDs...
Sad and disapointing, I know... Perhaps if they could just sell "pirated" distros! Ironic you might say, but maybe some kind of "piracy" could actually have a positive effect towards general adoption of Linux! No? I think part of the problem might be that Chinese people in general, especially young people, just are tired of the old communist system and they don't see any value in "free things" anymore.. I think it's actually a bit of the same problem in capitalist countries... People tend not to believe something "cheap" or "free" can actually be good!
Anyone, that was my 0.60$
Im afraid you are wrong. Having been in China for over a year now I know quite a bit about how things work here regarding software (read: piracy). First of all It is MUCH easier here to find a pirate copy of any Windows versions for just 5 rmb (about 60 US cents) than the real thing. Pirate software is everywhere, everybody uses it, while the real software retailers are quite rare. Even when you buy a computer, the OEM will install the pirate version. So most people (not to say everybody) just go and buy pirate software in China.
So now tell me why the HELL would anyone bother to go and try to find a crippled version of Windows when they can get the real winXP for about 2% of the crippled version price?? Even if they can patch it, whats the point?
Now I have no idea what M$ strategy is all about with this marketing plan, but I really dont get it. I dont think they will sell much copies, at least not in China. The government? They are already using Linux in many areas, so I think its too late already. If somebody understand anything about this M$ marketing plan, please let me know, because I really dont get it!
Yeah well even if that is true (7 hours!) as I am a Canadian now living in China my definition of "oversea" flight is a bit different now... even if my laptop would last 7 jours it would still be far from enough to survive the 20 hours flight! :P
I am currently working in Shanghai, China... And considering the amount of mobile phones around here I really wonder how efficient this device would be here! I mean there's probably something like an average of 3 mobile phones every square meter... So I would imagine the device would just panic and blow up or something!!
I've gave myself XPDE a try for fun and honestly I really cannot see why this could be in any way positive to mass migration to Linux... Sure it is fun to see how similar to windows it looks and playing around with it for a day and show it to your friends for entertainment sure is amusing...
But let's face it... A new Linux user that has no clue about the power and advantages of Linux over Windows will just very quickly jump to the conclusion that "Linux sucks"! Why? Isn't it obvious? For example, one of the greatest things that Linux GUIs have to offer over windows is the virtual desktops. XPDE just dig deep down this feature by trying to "look" like Windows... So too bad cuz I think virtual desktops are a major feature that can help convince people the benefits of Linux (Personnaly that's one of the things I found most frustrating when I have to use Windows now, the whole windows all stuck in the same desktop, eww, awful!).. Anyways, that's just an example...
The main problem with this sort of GUI is that new users will try it, quickly find out that yes it's similar to Windows, but they cannot do half of what they can do under Windows. So they think "What's the point of using Linux? Windows looks just the same and I can do much, much more with it... Why would I switch to Linux? I tried it, I cannot see what more Linux can offer to me at all..."
To me XPDE is just bad news for Linux... The cool things about Linux are actually the differences, the choices, Gnome, KDE, Windowmaker, Enlightenment... Everybody has their favorite and that's what makes Linux fun and interesting! Personnaly I chose Gnome cuz it allows me to have the best of all worlds all-in-one... The virtual desktops, the windows style start menu, its intuitive drag-n-drop interface and last but not least the Mac OS 7-8-9 style "finder" ("Window Menu" in Gnome). I think that's a shame they dropped that feature in Mac OS X as I find it much more convienent than "Expose", which, imho, is sort of just a slow, eye-candy gadget that doesn'T really save that much time after all... I'm not a mac user but I do use macs sometimes and when I tried OS X although I thought its pretty nice I really missed the finder feature... it made it quite fast to find an "hiding" app..
Anyways, I think Linux has LOTS more to offer than Windows and it's not by hiding its power and differences under a limited copy of a Windows interface that we'll get new users to switch to Linux at all... There are a LOT of people that switch from Windows to Mac, and is it because the Mac looks like windows?? No, it is rather the opposite, it's more because of a totaly different and fresh approach that people just end up being seduced by after playing around with it! That's why I chose Linux anyway, because I just got seduced by its power and its differences, not because I felt like "I'm at home", in a stripped-down, lame copy of Windows!!
Alright, that was just my 2 cents...