You contradict yourself. If they ordered a new PC with Vista, then they did order Vista. Just because they choose not to use it does not mean it doesn't count as a sale.
I can also explain the reasoning behind not upgrading. Many software applications do not run properly on Vista. Some require software upgrades. Schools have to roll out a lot of money to get new versions of software if they even exist. I am a sys admin for a computer science department. (labs + servers) We are 50/50 Mac/PC. We have no plans to upgrade to Vista, but plan on running XP for some time. The current plan this summer is to buy iMacs to replace our Dell optiplex systems and use boot camp. Actually, we are considering trying to triple boot Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Since they are Macs, they will not count in Microsoft's numbers.
I don't think Vista will be a disaster long term. Initially, after each Windows release I saw people complain and say this one is the one that will get another OS to take off, etc. When I upgraded to Windows 95, older geeks said I was stupid and it was not worth the upgrade. Likewise, Windows 98 was just a "rehash" of windows 95, Windows 2000 was just NT4 with graphical improvements (which is not true), and Windows XP wasn't any better than 2000. I've been discouraging users from upgrading to Vista for one reason. There aren't any drivers for sound cards or video cards worth a damn. My audigy actually drops out audio randomly and I have to reboot. This really sucks while watching a DVD or playing WoW. Industry doesn't want to pay for the interface changes Microsoft has made in Vista. Eventually, they'll have to. Until then, I can watch movies in MidnightBSD and try to use my wife's Mac to play games. (funny isn't it)
Interesting and terrible. Microsoft using Linux would not be the end of Linux, but it would sure send many people running for the hills. Well I suppose it could spark interest in BSD which would benefit me.
I doubt google will support all platforms. At best, maybe windows, mac os and linux. People forget about PDAs, BSDs, Solaris, ecomstation, cell phones, game consoles, etc. There are a lot of platforms in this world.
Windows, Mac OS and Linux are not the only platforms. Its really funny to hear people complain about software support on their platform. Windows users complain if it does work on every version of windows, or at least the one they like. Mac users complain about windows only software but tout their platform as superior if they happen to get a Mac only product. Linux users try to say Windows and Linux or Windows, Mac, Linux without remembering they are an open source platform. I remember when we were all in this together. Now that linux has commercial support from IBM and other firms its now OK to ignore every other open source OS on the planet. From my perspective, the only thing Linux is missing is games. You already have the video drivers to play them.
If google were smart, they'd take the approach Netscape did years ago and port to everything possible. Remember Netscape shipped for linux, solaris, irix, hp-ux, windows, mac os, and a slew of other platforms. There was even an OS/2 version. I can't think of a single company that is not open source that ships on that many platforms today.
Let me provide real numbers. Using my Audigy card, I saw a 10 fps increase in Enemy Territory on a Celeron 1.3 Ghz vs the onboard audio. Many onboard cards use a lot of software to complete their functionality. That competes for CPU time with your game. It does help a little to have a "hardware" card. Of course, you can't use any of the extra creative software or features as they would cause the same net result. On a dual core system or SMP box, the difference is much less. I had a dual xeon 2.0ghz after that celeron box. The same sound card only helped a little bit with performance. I think that was just a difference with the driver on SMP hardware. Creative did eventually release an SMP friendly driver for XP. I didn't get crashes with either driver and this was before dual core. I did lose sound because creative made their card a little thin which didn't stay in the precision PCI slots very well. I had to use electricians tape to hold the card in. (it was also dell's fault for using cheap plastic clips)
I'm currently using that same audigy card in a dual core pentium D 805 on vista. The drivers cut out the audio often and for that reason I would not buy creative cards right now. The card has always worked better in FreeBSD, MidnightBSD or Linux than any onboard piece of crap for me. My current motherboard supports 24bit audio, but it does not have the necessary ports to hook up my analog 5.1 speaker system. I can't compare the sound quality as a result.
I suppose it matters a bit less than it used to, but there are advantages to third party cards like extra ports and so on. The effects are less important. Consider that I had to get to a Dual core 2.6 Ghz CPU to make int unimportant. If I played newer games, I might still see a difference. Aside from Quake 4, I don't have much lying around to try to challenge this system. In vista x64, EAX doesn't work btw.
What is your point exactly? Hardware reliability does define experience. if its not working, there is no experience.
I also found the fact that you brought up Macs odd. I happen to have 4 Macs in my home along with many other types of systems. You don't have to be an MS fanboi to own an xbox. My original point was that people don't expect game consoles to break. They should just work. I've got a Nintendo that still works. I've got a sega genesis that still works. I've got a N64, Dreamcast, GBA, SNES, and Game Cube that still work. Why can't a 3 month old xbox 360 work? In all the years I've played video games, only two consoles have ever worn out and they were 8-10 years old at that point. My original xbox even works. Perhaps the conplexity of these new consoles makes them more fragile like a computer. Then again, I've got a working NeXT and Sun sparcstation built in the early 90s.
That is very true. There are games from some companies that I automatically buy just because I know it will be a good game. Blizzard games come to mind. id games up to Doom 3 are also in there. There are many in the console market as well.
For most people, the lack of a price drop is the most significant problem. I don't own a single sony console, but I'm not impressed with the xbox 360's poor quality*. I'd consider buying a PS3 as a second console after the wii I can't find. If nothing else, its a blueray player. I won't pay $600 for it.
*The xbox360 breaks often. Everytime I'm in a game store, someone wants to get theirs repaired. All of them have been hard drive models, but that is what I would buy.
Its not that OSX is that much better than say Vista. Its that open source people tend to duplicate Windows UI elements. Firefox and OpenOffice look like windows apps. Windows apps do look weird in OS X. KDE tries to look like Windows. Several other desktops, window managers, and toolkits do as well.
I do think OS X is a little more polished but its not night and day.
$500 seems a bit high. Maybe if you are talking about laptops, but you mention keyboards and monitors so I don't think you are. Not to mention, computer sales to third world countries are probably cheaper due to cost of living changes, etc. Its not retail at a best buy or dell.com in the US or even the prices in europe. I can build a PC for much less than $500 just using newegg.com and I can probably buy an OEM license of windows in that price. (much more than $3)
Also consider that $3 is a lot of money in some countries.
They are not always half empty. Sometimes they are physically smaller. Another trick is to only include a color cartridge. My last HP was $40 with color only. I mostly print black and that didn't last long.
As for buying HP, I find that its the only line that works in most OSes I use.
While you are mostly correct, Microsoft has been removing compatibility features in newer versions of Windows. OS/2 and POSIX subsystems present in Windows 2000 and Windows NT were removed for Vista. Actually, one of them was removed in XP SP2.
There is nothing wrong with offering compatibility. Microsoft's approach to compatibility needs to change a bit. Separating the legacy system from the modern system should be more exact like Classic support in OS X (pre intel). Really old apps ran in a sandboxed OS9 install. (non carbonized) Microsoft could even go a step farther by working on something with Virtual PC. They could provide a built in DOS/9x compatibility system with say directx 5 support. That would allow most really old stuff to run while they trim some of the fat from the current winapi.
If it is sony players, its not all sony players. Casino royale works on my 6 month old sony dvd/vcr combo. As I recall, I did have some problems playing it with xine or with windows media player in vista. Then again, that could be my NEC drive not liking their new protection scheme. Its hard to place blame without all the facts.
Quite a few bis are not in the kernel. Microsoft has a layered system. Many components including DRM are at different layers. Microsoft tried to seperate a great deal of code in Vista to improve stability and security.
Most people believe there is just too much compatibility cruft in Windows. However, OS/2 and POSIX modules were removed at XP SP2 or for Vista. Search the MS KB and you can find the relevant articles. 64bit Vista will not run 16bit code. Slowly some of it is moving out of the way.
Microsoft's problem now is that they ignore home users and focus on the enterprise market. Before when we had 9x, that tree was dedicated to consumers needs. Now, we just have one product which has some features disabled depending on your place in the market. Microsoft hasn't taken the customization far enough for each demographic. Windows is no longer good for gaming and it is very slow to use the GUI so productivity is down for business too. Navigating the new start menu feels much slower. Cancel/Allow is another slowdown.
You can pick many holes in windows, but the NT kernel is not one of them. Microsoft has a rather new kernel compared ot OS X, good portions of the BSD kernels, the linux kernel, etc.
There was a time when I would have said KDE had usability problems. It tried to be windows, but it was not. Now, I think KDE is easier to "upgrade to" than Vista for an XP or Windows 2000 user. Its sadly more similar to what they are used to. Of course, I'm making the same mistake that Microsoft, Apple and a whole slew of others have made with MidnightBSD. My OS is similar but different to what some users are used to. (NEXTSTEPish but not) Of course NEXTSTEP users have seen the apple butcher job with OS X so its not so shocking at this point. I like OS X, but its not NEXTSTEP anymore.
Microsoft needs to get back in touch with their customers before they do anything. An OS redesign may or may not be the answer. Certainly, they need to fix it or move on.
You can also get a Microsoft Technet subscription to get the OSes. I did that for Vista. The download only version is considerably less expensive. I already had Visual Studio 2005 standard which is all I need for the one.NET app I still work on. I'm now dual booting Vista Ultimate x64 and MidnightBSD/amd64 on my desktop.
As someone who worked at an ISP for close to three years, I can tell you that ISP logs are not reliable. Our logs were stored in an unpatched Microsoft SQL Server running on a Windows NT 4 SP4 server (after SP6a was out). The radius server logs were imported periodically into SQL Server. Considering our Linux boxes were hacked due to poor setup and outdated software, anyone could have altered the logs before the import or after the import.
That ISP had like 4000 customers so we're not talking big time. As I left, we were rolling out aDSL service.
I know some of you think hacking a Linux box is impossible, but consider an id10t who uses BIND 4 for DNS well after BIND 8 had been out, old versions of apache, Microsoft FrontPage extensions for Linux, and a slew of other misconfigured, old software. Almost everything ran as nobody or root. If you hacked one service, everything else was probably running as the same user anyway.
Our logs were deleted several times. I wore many hats, but one of them was Windows sys admin. I was not allowed to fix/patch the billing database server. At the time, my servers were never hacked and the linux machines were often hacked. It was like being in the mirror universe.
I understand. Soy it "hot" right now. While I mostly live off soy as a vegetarian, I can say that I understand how you feel. You wouldn't believe all the things people put meat in for no apparent reason.
Between the bees dying and Bush's plan for alternative fuels, I'm considered about even having a food source. I need crops.. the raise in corn prices will suck for me.
Everyone was so worried about genetically modified crops consumed by humans, we forgot to do real research on the effect on the environment including other creatures.
Ok. What OSes are up for sale then? Apple bought NeXT to make OS X. They spent most of the time modernizing it, slapping on a "Mac" gui, and adding classic support.
And someone else posted that Sony lost with blueray.
Neither one has won or lost. They are in the market and someone is buying them. Consumers have said they do not want to pick a format and now we see this. I personally would rather use blueray. I don't care about the video end of things, but I think more about backup media and other practical PC uses down the road.
I've never seen an argument about which one is better for open source use in the future.
PC vendors have not pushed either format like they did DVD. I remember early on that you could go into a store and see compaq's and other systems preconfigured to play movies. Getting DVD playback on a computer was one of the reasons many people could ignore the lack of recording and other problems with DVDs back then.
I'm waiting for the players to come down in price like most people. I bought a sony DVD player for $300 in 1999. I'm not afraid of picking up formats earlier, but sense I must first buy an overpriced tv to enjoy the new formats, the actual players must be dirt cheap. (or tvs must come down) We went from 20 inch tvs for $100 to 15 in tvs for $400... something has to give. I think these companies forget that consumers have less money to spend now than they did 5 years ago. We have higher gas prices which effect everything else, we must work for less money*, and we must rebuy our living room entertainment again.
* The combination of less raises, lower starting saleries, and competing in a global market.
1) Ogg was a bad example. I was trying to make a point which apparently was missed by some.
2) Linux distros eventually upgrade their kernel, and gui components. Things break. You may not see it, but there is a lot of differences between versions of your favorite open source software. Things move fast in OSS. Try maintaining a ports system sometime and you'll see what I mean. Hell just watch a popular linux distro's software update feature. Redhat used to have more updates than Microsoft back when I ran linux. Its not necessarily bad since I think more things were patched that were reported to OSS vendors. You picked two easy packages to support. Try something complex like a QT app that runs on QT2. For instance, earlier versions of konquerer-embeded do NOT run on QT3. signal/slot handling changed in gtk/gtkmm 2.x which changed or broke some apps. (again just examples)
Yes, their apps won't run. This is no different than someone relying on PHP 4.0.x and then finding out when they move to 5.x that many things were changed including how to access environment various, mysql and a slew of other things. So it does happen in OSS.
It is relevant about palm since its a platform just as linux is. You can argue the merits of open source all day long, but for some people (non-programmers) it does not matter. They can not port their own app over to the new crap. Say the palm app was open source.. that doesn't mean it can magically run on linux. Say they did use linux and wrote a kernel module for 2.2. That won't work on 2.6. Sure it could be *made* to work if the person was a programmer. Yes, they could hire someone to fix it, but they could also hire someone to write a palm emulator for linux too.
I am serious.
Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? Not Linux
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The End is Nigh for XP
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I agree with some of this, but many other operating systems and distros include an equivalent to windows update. Mac OS has software update. Redhat, Ubuntu and many other linux distros include a gui software update like product. Microsoft doesn't even use a website anymore in vista. Its all an app that connects to a server (using HTTP or some other protocol). With Redhat EL 3 I could even get driver updates for some binary blob drivers pushed down. I think Suse has this also.
There are downsides to Linux, but this is not one of them. I think a few of the BSDs are going this route too. FreeBSD has a freebsd-update tool in 6.2. It downloads binary "patch" files and applies them to the userland/kernel for you. Its a new feature and still needs work. Its also a command line app. I haven't checked, but PC-BSD may tie into this also.. if not they could use their PBI system for that I would think.
We are in the planning stages with MidnightBSD for a software update and ports system. Our security officer has written a new patch generator to make src patches. This will integrate with our new mports mport tool. (think portupgrade + portinstall + portversion + pkg_add...) Some of this is already prototyped in perl and we plan to rewrite most of it in C as a library with a CLI and GNUstep gui.
Open source can be this easy. It should be this easy.
I don't think Linux will get customers over Microsoft's mistake. The few that would leave over vista will probably go to Apple. I doubt its going to be that significant though. Most people will suck it up in two or three years and adopt vista or its successor. Most people skip a windows release anyway.
Most sites list that they will not sell units online until the "shortage" no longer exists. A few sites will sell you bundles online for as much as a PS3 or highend xbox360. I just want the Wii at retail price without bundling crap I may or may not want later.
Well not everybody that wants a wii is willing to pay the $$$ for a wii sooner. I'm waiting until I can walk in and pay RETAIL. I can afford a RETAIL priced unit, but I can't spend $400 on it. If I wanted to spend $400, I would be a Microsoft product.
What really pisses me off is the lack of units online. Stores could put 8 up at retail once in awhile. Instead we get these god awful bundles. I don't want a bundle, I just want the wii. To paraphrase one of the lethal weapon (4?) movies.. they fuck you with the wii! They fuck you!
Eventually I'd buy games for it, but upfront I only have so much to spend. Besides, I think the bundles sports game would keep me busy for awhile.
Everyone who has one stop buying them for ebay and craigslist!
As for the other consoles, I may buy an xbox360 when Microsoft figures out why all the hard drive models break so damn fast. Everytime I go into a game store looking for a Wii, there is someone bitching about their 3 month old broken xbox360. When they get the quote to fix it at $50 less than a new one, they always cave and buy again. So that means Microsoft's sales numbers in part are people rebuying a console they already had break. I'd consider a PS3 if they drop the price 200-300 dollars. Its a very expensive blue ray player to me.
Sony players do have trouble with legitimate DVDs at times. Older models also had the key combination to unlock region codes. You can google for that information with your model number. The newer DVD players from sony are less picky. I haven't checked if they still play CD-i though. (yeah i won't pony up to rebuy a few things on DVD.. maybe if combo players or one hd standard wins..)
Tell that to the UK. Some of their laws and actions after our 9/11 make me think we've got things good in the US. Well at least not as bad as the UK. At one time, England was one of the few places I wanted to go on vacation. Now, all I think about is the public cameras everywhere, the technology they were going to use to track motorists using RFID, etc. Its either fear or stupidity...
One thing I can say is that I miss my freedoms pre-9/11. The terrorists won, since most people gave up everything to be "safe". I'd rather take my chances on the attack they do one in 5-10 years than to give up everything. I'm in the minority here.
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You contradict yourself. If they ordered a new PC with Vista, then they did order Vista. Just because they choose not to use it does not mean it doesn't count as a sale.
I can also explain the reasoning behind not upgrading. Many software applications do not run properly on Vista. Some require software upgrades. Schools have to roll out a lot of money to get new versions of software if they even exist. I am a sys admin for a computer science department. (labs + servers) We are 50/50 Mac/PC. We have no plans to upgrade to Vista, but plan on running XP for some time. The current plan this summer is to buy iMacs to replace our Dell optiplex systems and use boot camp. Actually, we are considering trying to triple boot Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Since they are Macs, they will not count in Microsoft's numbers.
I don't think Vista will be a disaster long term. Initially, after each Windows release I saw people complain and say this one is the one that will get another OS to take off, etc. When I upgraded to Windows 95, older geeks said I was stupid and it was not worth the upgrade. Likewise, Windows 98 was just a "rehash" of windows 95, Windows 2000 was just NT4 with graphical improvements (which is not true), and Windows XP wasn't any better than 2000. I've been discouraging users from upgrading to Vista for one reason. There aren't any drivers for sound cards or video cards worth a damn. My audigy actually drops out audio randomly and I have to reboot. This really sucks while watching a DVD or playing WoW. Industry doesn't want to pay for the interface changes Microsoft has made in Vista. Eventually, they'll have to. Until then, I can watch movies in MidnightBSD and try to use my wife's Mac to play games. (funny isn't it)
Well you can always go with a blowfish (openbsd), dragonfly (duh..), or creepy cat eyes (midnightbsd).
Interesting and terrible. Microsoft using Linux would not be the end of Linux, but it would sure send many people running for the hills. Well I suppose it could spark interest in BSD which would benefit me.
I doubt google will support all platforms. At best, maybe windows, mac os and linux. People forget about PDAs, BSDs, Solaris, ecomstation, cell phones, game consoles, etc. There are a lot of platforms in this world.
Windows, Mac OS and Linux are not the only platforms. Its really funny to hear people complain about software support on their platform. Windows users complain if it does work on every version of windows, or at least the one they like. Mac users complain about windows only software but tout their platform as superior if they happen to get a Mac only product. Linux users try to say Windows and Linux or Windows, Mac, Linux without remembering they are an open source platform. I remember when we were all in this together. Now that linux has commercial support from IBM and other firms its now OK to ignore every other open source OS on the planet. From my perspective, the only thing Linux is missing is games. You already have the video drivers to play them.
If google were smart, they'd take the approach Netscape did years ago and port to everything possible. Remember Netscape shipped for linux, solaris, irix, hp-ux, windows, mac os, and a slew of other platforms. There was even an OS/2 version. I can't think of a single company that is not open source that ships on that many platforms today.
Let me provide real numbers. Using my Audigy card, I saw a 10 fps increase in Enemy Territory on a Celeron 1.3 Ghz vs the onboard audio. Many onboard cards use a lot of software to complete their functionality. That competes for CPU time with your game. It does help a little to have a "hardware" card. Of course, you can't use any of the extra creative software or features as they would cause the same net result. On a dual core system or SMP box, the difference is much less. I had a dual xeon 2.0ghz after that celeron box. The same sound card only helped a little bit with performance. I think that was just a difference with the driver on SMP hardware. Creative did eventually release an SMP friendly driver for XP. I didn't get crashes with either driver and this was before dual core. I did lose sound because creative made their card a little thin which didn't stay in the precision PCI slots very well. I had to use electricians tape to hold the card in. (it was also dell's fault for using cheap plastic clips)
I'm currently using that same audigy card in a dual core pentium D 805 on vista. The drivers cut out the audio often and for that reason I would not buy creative cards right now. The card has always worked better in FreeBSD, MidnightBSD or Linux than any onboard piece of crap for me. My current motherboard supports 24bit audio, but it does not have the necessary ports to hook up my analog 5.1 speaker system. I can't compare the sound quality as a result.
I suppose it matters a bit less than it used to, but there are advantages to third party cards like extra ports and so on. The effects are less important. Consider that I had to get to a Dual core 2.6 Ghz CPU to make int unimportant. If I played newer games, I might still see a difference. Aside from Quake 4, I don't have much lying around to try to challenge this system. In vista x64, EAX doesn't work btw.
What is your point exactly? Hardware reliability does define experience. if its not working, there is no experience.
I also found the fact that you brought up Macs odd. I happen to have 4 Macs in my home along with many other types of systems. You don't have to be an MS fanboi to own an xbox. My original point was that people don't expect game consoles to break. They should just work. I've got a Nintendo that still works. I've got a sega genesis that still works. I've got a N64, Dreamcast, GBA, SNES, and Game Cube that still work. Why can't a 3 month old xbox 360 work? In all the years I've played video games, only two consoles have ever worn out and they were 8-10 years old at that point. My original xbox even works. Perhaps the conplexity of these new consoles makes them more fragile like a computer. Then again, I've got a working NeXT and Sun sparcstation built in the early 90s.
That is very true. There are games from some companies that I automatically buy just because I know it will be a good game. Blizzard games come to mind. id games up to Doom 3 are also in there. There are many in the console market as well.
For most people, the lack of a price drop is the most significant problem. I don't own a single sony console, but I'm not impressed with the xbox 360's poor quality*. I'd consider buying a PS3 as a second console after the wii I can't find. If nothing else, its a blueray player. I won't pay $600 for it.
*The xbox360 breaks often. Everytime I'm in a game store, someone wants to get theirs repaired. All of them have been hard drive models, but that is what I would buy.
No, Windows ME had no cancel/allow boxes. Its clearly different.
Its not that OSX is that much better than say Vista. Its that open source people tend to duplicate Windows UI elements. Firefox and OpenOffice look like windows apps. Windows apps do look weird in OS X. KDE tries to look like Windows. Several other desktops, window managers, and toolkits do as well.
I do think OS X is a little more polished but its not night and day.
I don't actually like vista.
$500 seems a bit high. Maybe if you are talking about laptops, but you mention keyboards and monitors so I don't think you are. Not to mention, computer sales to third world countries are probably cheaper due to cost of living changes, etc. Its not retail at a best buy or dell.com in the US or even the prices in europe. I can build a PC for much less than $500 just using newegg.com and I can probably buy an OEM license of windows in that price. (much more than $3)
Also consider that $3 is a lot of money in some countries.
They are not always half empty. Sometimes they are physically smaller. Another trick is to only include a color cartridge. My last HP was $40 with color only. I mostly print black and that didn't last long.
As for buying HP, I find that its the only line that works in most OSes I use.
While you are mostly correct, Microsoft has been removing compatibility features in newer versions of Windows. OS/2 and POSIX subsystems present in Windows 2000 and Windows NT were removed for Vista. Actually, one of them was removed in XP SP2.
There is nothing wrong with offering compatibility. Microsoft's approach to compatibility needs to change a bit. Separating the legacy system from the modern system should be more exact like Classic support in OS X (pre intel). Really old apps ran in a sandboxed OS9 install. (non carbonized) Microsoft could even go a step farther by working on something with Virtual PC. They could provide a built in DOS/9x compatibility system with say directx 5 support. That would allow most really old stuff to run while they trim some of the fat from the current winapi.
If it is sony players, its not all sony players. Casino royale works on my 6 month old sony dvd/vcr combo. As I recall, I did have some problems playing it with xine or with windows media player in vista. Then again, that could be my NEC drive not liking their new protection scheme. Its hard to place blame without all the facts.
Quite a few bis are not in the kernel. Microsoft has a layered system. Many components including DRM are at different layers. Microsoft tried to seperate a great deal of code in Vista to improve stability and security.
Most people believe there is just too much compatibility cruft in Windows. However, OS/2 and POSIX modules were removed at XP SP2 or for Vista. Search the MS KB and you can find the relevant articles. 64bit Vista will not run 16bit code. Slowly some of it is moving out of the way.
Microsoft's problem now is that they ignore home users and focus on the enterprise market. Before when we had 9x, that tree was dedicated to consumers needs. Now, we just have one product which has some features disabled depending on your place in the market. Microsoft hasn't taken the customization far enough for each demographic. Windows is no longer good for gaming and it is very slow to use the GUI so productivity is down for business too. Navigating the new start menu feels much slower. Cancel/Allow is another slowdown.
You can pick many holes in windows, but the NT kernel is not one of them. Microsoft has a rather new kernel compared ot OS X, good portions of the BSD kernels, the linux kernel, etc.
There was a time when I would have said KDE had usability problems. It tried to be windows, but it was not. Now, I think KDE is easier to "upgrade to" than Vista for an XP or Windows 2000 user. Its sadly more similar to what they are used to. Of course, I'm making the same mistake that Microsoft, Apple and a whole slew of others have made with MidnightBSD. My OS is similar but different to what some users are used to. (NEXTSTEPish but not) Of course NEXTSTEP users have seen the apple butcher job with OS X so its not so shocking at this point. I like OS X, but its not NEXTSTEP anymore.
Microsoft needs to get back in touch with their customers before they do anything. An OS redesign may or may not be the answer. Certainly, they need to fix it or move on.
You can also get a Microsoft Technet subscription to get the OSes. I did that for Vista. The download only version is considerably less expensive. I already had Visual Studio 2005 standard which is all I need for the one .NET app I still work on. I'm now dual booting Vista Ultimate x64 and MidnightBSD/amd64 on my desktop.
As someone who worked at an ISP for close to three years, I can tell you that ISP logs are not reliable. Our logs were stored in an unpatched Microsoft SQL Server running on a Windows NT 4 SP4 server (after SP6a was out). The radius server logs were imported periodically into SQL Server. Considering our Linux boxes were hacked due to poor setup and outdated software, anyone could have altered the logs before the import or after the import.
That ISP had like 4000 customers so we're not talking big time. As I left, we were rolling out aDSL service.
I know some of you think hacking a Linux box is impossible, but consider an id10t who uses BIND 4 for DNS well after BIND 8 had been out, old versions of apache, Microsoft FrontPage extensions for Linux, and a slew of other misconfigured, old software. Almost everything ran as nobody or root. If you hacked one service, everything else was probably running as the same user anyway.
Our logs were deleted several times. I wore many hats, but one of them was Windows sys admin. I was not allowed to fix/patch the billing database server. At the time, my servers were never hacked and the linux machines were often hacked. It was like being in the mirror universe.
I understand. Soy it "hot" right now. While I mostly live off soy as a vegetarian, I can say that I understand how you feel. You wouldn't believe all the things people put meat in for no apparent reason.
Between the bees dying and Bush's plan for alternative fuels, I'm considered about even having a food source. I need crops.. the raise in corn prices will suck for me.
Everyone was so worried about genetically modified crops consumed by humans, we forgot to do real research on the effect on the environment including other creatures.
Ok. What OSes are up for sale then? Apple bought NeXT to make OS X. They spent most of the time modernizing it, slapping on a "Mac" gui, and adding classic support.
And someone else posted that Sony lost with blueray.
Neither one has won or lost. They are in the market and someone is buying them. Consumers have said they do not want to pick a format and now we see this. I personally would rather use blueray. I don't care about the video end of things, but I think more about backup media and other practical PC uses down the road.
I've never seen an argument about which one is better for open source use in the future.
PC vendors have not pushed either format like they did DVD. I remember early on that you could go into a store and see compaq's and other systems preconfigured to play movies. Getting DVD playback on a computer was one of the reasons many people could ignore the lack of recording and other problems with DVDs back then.
I'm waiting for the players to come down in price like most people. I bought a sony DVD player for $300 in 1999. I'm not afraid of picking up formats earlier, but sense I must first buy an overpriced tv to enjoy the new formats, the actual players must be dirt cheap. (or tvs must come down) We went from 20 inch tvs for $100 to 15 in tvs for $400... something has to give. I think these companies forget that consumers have less money to spend now than they did 5 years ago. We have higher gas prices which effect everything else, we must work for less money*, and we must rebuy our living room entertainment again.
* The combination of less raises, lower starting saleries, and competing in a global market.
1) Ogg was a bad example. I was trying to make a point which apparently was missed by some.
2) Linux distros eventually upgrade their kernel, and gui components. Things break. You may not see it, but there is a lot of differences between versions of your favorite open source software. Things move fast in OSS. Try maintaining a ports system sometime and you'll see what I mean. Hell just watch a popular linux distro's software update feature. Redhat used to have more updates than Microsoft back when I ran linux. Its not necessarily bad since I think more things were patched that were reported to OSS vendors. You picked two easy packages to support. Try something complex like a QT app that runs on QT2. For instance, earlier versions of konquerer-embeded do NOT run on QT3. signal/slot handling changed in gtk/gtkmm 2.x which changed or broke some apps. (again just examples)
Yes, their apps won't run. This is no different than someone relying on PHP 4.0.x and then finding out when they move to 5.x that many things were changed including how to access environment various, mysql and a slew of other things. So it does happen in OSS.
It is relevant about palm since its a platform just as linux is. You can argue the merits of open source all day long, but for some people (non-programmers) it does not matter. They can not port their own app over to the new crap. Say the palm app was open source.. that doesn't mean it can magically run on linux. Say they did use linux and wrote a kernel module for 2.2. That won't work on 2.6. Sure it could be *made* to work if the person was a programmer. Yes, they could hire someone to fix it, but they could also hire someone to write a palm emulator for linux too.
I am serious.
I agree with some of this, but many other operating systems and distros include an equivalent to windows update. Mac OS has software update. Redhat, Ubuntu and many other linux distros include a gui software update like product. Microsoft doesn't even use a website anymore in vista. Its all an app that connects to a server (using HTTP or some other protocol). With Redhat EL 3 I could even get driver updates for some binary blob drivers pushed down. I think Suse has this also.
There are downsides to Linux, but this is not one of them. I think a few of the BSDs are going this route too. FreeBSD has a freebsd-update tool in 6.2. It downloads binary "patch" files and applies them to the userland/kernel for you. Its a new feature and still needs work. Its also a command line app. I haven't checked, but PC-BSD may tie into this also.. if not they could use their PBI system for that I would think.
We are in the planning stages with MidnightBSD for a software update and ports system. Our security officer has written a new patch generator to make src patches. This will integrate with our new mports mport tool. (think portupgrade + portinstall + portversion + pkg_add...) Some of this is already prototyped in perl and we plan to rewrite most of it in C as a library with a CLI and GNUstep gui.
Open source can be this easy. It should be this easy.
I don't think Linux will get customers over Microsoft's mistake. The few that would leave over vista will probably go to Apple. I doubt its going to be that significant though. Most people will suck it up in two or three years and adopt vista or its successor. Most people skip a windows release anyway.
Most sites list that they will not sell units online until the "shortage" no longer exists. A few sites will sell you bundles online for as much as a PS3 or highend xbox360. I just want the Wii at retail price without bundling crap I may or may not want later.
Well not everybody that wants a wii is willing to pay the $$$ for a wii sooner. I'm waiting until I can walk in and pay RETAIL. I can afford a RETAIL priced unit, but I can't spend $400 on it. If I wanted to spend $400, I would be a Microsoft product.
What really pisses me off is the lack of units online. Stores could put 8 up at retail once in awhile. Instead we get these god awful bundles. I don't want a bundle, I just want the wii. To paraphrase one of the lethal weapon (4?) movies.. they fuck you with the wii! They fuck you!
Eventually I'd buy games for it, but upfront I only have so much to spend. Besides, I think the bundles sports game would keep me busy for awhile.
Everyone who has one stop buying them for ebay and craigslist!
As for the other consoles, I may buy an xbox360 when Microsoft figures out why all the hard drive models break so damn fast. Everytime I go into a game store looking for a Wii, there is someone bitching about their 3 month old broken xbox360. When they get the quote to fix it at $50 less than a new one, they always cave and buy again. So that means Microsoft's sales numbers in part are people rebuying a console they already had break. I'd consider a PS3 if they drop the price 200-300 dollars. Its a very expensive blue ray player to me.
Sony players do have trouble with legitimate DVDs at times. Older models also had the key combination to unlock region codes. You can google for that information with your model number. The newer DVD players from sony are less picky. I haven't checked if they still play CD-i though. (yeah i won't pony up to rebuy a few things on DVD.. maybe if combo players or one hd standard wins..)
Tell that to the UK. Some of their laws and actions after our 9/11 make me think we've got things good in the US. Well at least not as bad as the UK. At one time, England was one of the few places I wanted to go on vacation. Now, all I think about is the public cameras everywhere, the technology they were going to use to track motorists using RFID, etc. Its either fear or stupidity...
One thing I can say is that I miss my freedoms pre-9/11. The terrorists won, since most people gave up everything to be "safe". I'd rather take my chances on the attack they do one in 5-10 years than to give up everything. I'm in the minority here.