It's stabilising gradually, but there's a lot to be said for the "windows way" of maintaining backwards binary compatibility
I'm still playing with old UT, Quake binaries etc. We don't even get the sourcecode to them, so we couldn't recompile them if we wanted. So, yes, that exists.
and having a fixed API for drivers, etc.
Seems the same standard as Windows's really with the drivers API. Every new release of Windows breaks older things and brings new features. Pretty much like new releases of the Linux kernel.
QT? GTK? Which version? DRI? Which threading library? Mono? Java? Which version? Which sound library, OSS or ALSA? E sound daemon? Which package format? Which C library?
Honestly you have this issue on Windows too. Java? Mono? Microsoft.net? Which versions? Even with sound.. Do you use directsound? win32's native APIs for sound? OpenAL? Vista's new audio system? Which installer system? Install shield? NSIS? Vise Installer?
but the general problem of no fixed standard platform is still there.
And there isn't under Windows either.
certain apps (in particular, games for example - the "boring" sofware code-wise is another - eg, business accounting software, tax software) just aren't well catered to by Free software - the projects are bigger now-adays than some kid in his bedroom can manage. Until a company can write for a set platform and expect that his app will work pretty reliably on most machines out there, they'll be reluctant to spend too much time on it.
I have used a tonne of business applications from Novell, Codeweavers, Vmware for openource platforms and I have to say... I don't find them at all unreliable
As for games, they work really well for me. Unreal Tournament original/2k3/2k4, Quake I/II/III, Doom I/II/III, Uplink, Sauerbraten etc. all work reliably on opensource platforms just as well as they run under Windows. Wine lets me run pretty much all the source games for Steam without an issue as well as world of Warcraft and others.
One of the reasons I like FreeBSD is that FreeBSD = FreeBSD. It's less fragmented, documentation from 2-4 years ago still usually works (even if there's been code updates, most of the time the "interface" side of things remains consistent - I've no idea how many times i've gone through linux howtos over the years to find that they're a year old and everything has changed)
I'm not too keen on running outdated applications just to get the correct documentation - although I might add I haven't seen this issue in recent years on Linux.
and the base platform is a known quantity.
What is that supposed to mean?
Ubuntu has gone some way to help out, but there's still some way to go...
I had to open several configuration files and do some changes in wine's registry to make WoW work, and still have problems with sound (it stutters no matter what I try) and some effects (full screen glow, for example) have to be disabled.
I can say (just tested) I experience none of this on Wine version 0.9.47 (WineHQ's build) under Kubuntu Gutsy.
Okay, that is good. But how can we make it better than the status quo is the issue, though.
The problem in my opinion is that Microsoft products are free.
In a lot of cases, Linux distributions don't have 100% of what Windows can do. If someone has a choice between a Linux distribution that does 90% (and 20% of other stuff) verses 100% of what they're used to and likely want. They'll likely choose Windows -- Unless they had to shell out money to get Windows.
Usually when people have to shell out of money, they become more willing to live with compromises in certain areas that the alternative isn't good at.
Now, while you may say that "Windows isn't free". Everyone and I mean, everyone has a friend who has a friend which can get a copy of for free.
Additionally, because when you goto a computer shop and purchase a computer, you're not told "If you want Microsoft Windows, you'll need to pay 100USD extra (or whatever the price is)" verses the basic install of some free distribution.
If there was a lot less piracy a seven years ago, Linux seen as a option in stores. I would be pretty sure that Linux would of obtained a lot more development and would of passed Windows and OS X in functionality in all ways by now.
I think what is needed, is a better WGA anti-piracy technology.
I like the others you've presented, but the quoted line above ain't quite correct. "Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal" + "sudo su -"
You should use "sudo -i"
Toss in X11, Fink, the free OSX SDK, and a whole host of other goodies, and you get all the *nix love you'll ever need.
Honestly, I have issues with OS X's X11 server having very limited clipboard buffers which in some case prevents me from copy/pasting to only partial copy pastes. It can't even do drag and drop (which people keep declaring is one of the things that makes OS X great). The signaling support of OS X's kernel, XNU is atrocious and it's kind of sad that Windows's POSIX subsystem can do far better.
I also don't know why, but I have had random segfaults with Fink on various applications, despite having the latest upto date software on the system. Which doesn't make it very reliable for me.
For *nix usage, I don't agree that OS X is good enough. And while Windows' POSIX subsystem works correctly, a lot of things like IPC and forking are extremely expensive - so it ends up being really slow for certain tasks. I wouldn't recommend Windows either for this usage.
But the layman is not and will not have our technical ability, however simple the task may be.
In my experience with average Joe users, they complain (doesn't matter what OS), but there hasn't been a occasion where I have seen one screw up their preinstalled linux install
Since Linux does not have technical support often in the same way Apple and Microsoft do, users are driven away for fear of an inoperable computer.
I have used Microsoft and Apple's support, normal consumer support and corporate support - Sorry, they utterly fail compared to the support I have gotten from Novell.
They would rather have a computer that works 50% of the time than 25% of the time.
I can easily say that a preinstalled linux setup tends to work the majority of the time like Windows (although it doesn't appear to get as bogged down over time).
As far as business use for Linux, obviously they have the resources to be able to have any problems fixed and prevented, but personal users can not do that.
Eh? Most companies do not like pouring resources at all into these things.
As far as games, Tux Racer does not cut it.
All my games under Steam run under Wine just fine (for some reason I get better FPS than natively under Windows with the same hardware).
Honestly, game development seems to be in a bit of a catch 22 in the same way that driver support is a problem.
I haven't noticed driver issues since restricted-manager came out for Ubuntu. They seem really well supported. Games like Unreal Tournament Original/2k3/2k4, Quake I/II/III, Doom I/II/II, Defcon etc. all run natively under Linux just fine too.
Although there is a lot less incentive to develop games natively for Linux these days when Wine can run the source engine games (Half life 2, Counter Strike Source, Portal, Team Fortress 2 - blah blah blah), World of Warcraft, Eve online and quite a lot of other games (and some how manage to give me at least better performance under Linux than I do running the games natively Windows with the same hardware - no 'hacks' or 'tricks' to get the games working either, just open the installer, install, play).
I am however, constantly seeing better development on Linux. More companies are interested and develop new products constantly for the operating system. Major OEMs are selling it like IBM, Lenovo, Dell, HP etc. The major graphic card companies are producing drivers for it ATi/AMD, nVidia, Intel. ATi/AMD are working on developing new opensource drivers with the community, Intel opensourced their drivers with the community.
Let's be honest here; the majority of people here (and I count myself among them) expected Linux to be a hell of a lot more successful than it has been. After 15 years of development it still commands a tiny market share, even in the server market.
If MS wrote an amazing graphics app and packaged it with Windows, people would complain they were using their monopoly to squeeze Photoshop out of the market
I doubt the majority of people would complain. Also since when did complaining stop Microsoft?
I remember when the European Union forced Microsoft to sell a version of Windows XP without Windows Media Player. The version of Windows XP that came without WMP costs more and nobody buys it.
Wait a sec! If Linux and all kinds of apps fit in 50MB, why is Debian 3 freakin' DVDs?!?
Debian's FAQ explains that you don't need all the CDs, DVDs.
Additionally, you don't need to grab multiple DVDs/CD images if you just want a single rare package... Debian's package managers let you download the software directly from the internet.
Oh, probably for the same reason that a minimal XPe install is 40MB, but Vista is a whole damn DVD.
I didn't see much software included with Vista. Not even a office suite or even a decent text editor.
Wasn't that the old procedure? They waited for the court order to remove any content but now that it is automated do you really think that there will be a verification of the claim of copyright before the video is put offline?
Current system is that people claim content X is theirs under prejury and then say that content X at location Y is not a authorized copy. False information on this matter can open them up to huge fines in a court of law.
You have to imagine that you don't know how to use bash or edit/etc/foobar.conf.
Okay? Not that I actually configure anything in/etc on my Linux workstations...
Think like someone for whom "open a terminal and type 'apt-get install foo_bar'" reads like "remodulate the man deflector array and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow".
Yeah, I'd just use the obvious option in the menu, Add/Remove Programs if I needed a program. Much easier than having to search the Internet for a program manually for OS X or Windows.
Imagine that you don't know - and don't care - about the distinction between the kernel, the window manager, the X server etc.
I actually don't, I really care that it works right at the end of the day While I use many operating systems, my preferred system at the moment is Kubuntu and to be honest, I don't really care that much about the FOSS philosophy, I just find it superior to the other choices as my workstation OS.
...then I think you'll find that KDE and Gnome are perfectly fine ways of launching OpenOffice provided you have a pet Linux geek to set up your machine handle anything more complicated.
My HP XE4400 worked 100% out of the box with Kubuntu, I have nothing ever to configure when I install Kubuntu from scratch (I never liked doing a update for any OS, just install from scratch) beyond restoring my files.
I have had also very reasonable success getting the Kubuntu live cd working on other people's computers out of the box (only exception was a weird network card called 'Acnos' - couldn't even find the windows driver site). No technological knowledge was required to get the hardware working and in the only exception it did, it didn't seem possible anyway.
Software like Microsoft office XP runs for me out of the box in Kubuntu under Wine (Wine is preinstalled with Ubuntu) as have most of my game collection (this wasn't the case a few years ago mind you). But no, I don't really see the issue you're trying to point out.
My printer was dead easy to setup, things like tablets, bluetooth, wireless cards (although having read some of the issues people have had with wireless cards, I will research my next purchase to make sure) were even easier - I just plug them in. No driver CD required, no mumbojumbo commands and this is with off the shelf hardware I bought.
Now, this laptop I use, it's "Designed for Windows XP" according to the label. But the latest drivers do not work under SP2 (some partially work but end up crashing the system on stupid things). The Macs I use will do a kernel panic on my bluetooth dongle if I plug it in (yes I have reported it). So, yes, there is unsupported hardware under Linux, but this is as much the truth for OS X and Windows.
I acknowledge that there is unsupported hardware under Linux, however:
I don't really consider OS X superior in support for peripherals because I constantly find warning messages on boxes saying that the device is not compatible with a Mac. I don't really consider Windows superior with hardware either as with every release deprecates support for the majority of older hardware and new hardware that comes out appears to be barely functional at first with every new release of Windows until some large amount of time has passed. And with all operating systems, I have experienced certain updates that have broken hardware support.
My future workstation purchases are likely now going to be influenced by which vendors provide Linux out of the box solution since I'm overly pleased with Kubuntu.
Note: I'm not a Linux zealot, I will switch in a heartbeat to the better viable solution when it is there. I'll still likely use Linux though just as much as I use every other OS.
If that works for you; fine. Some of us, though, have grown tired of fucking around with flaky wireless drivers
Reminds me of how the wireless card stops working in the MBP when I updated to 10.4.9/10.4.10 - If I reinstall from scratch and use version 10.4.5 it works fine.
In the end I had todo some horrible, horrible hack of using the osx86 kernel just so I could use the wireless card and latest OS X software.
bad 3D support for new gfx cards etc
While it's nice the OS X version of OpenGL is properly multithreaded, there are many locking issues that Apple has ignored in fixing. Although I do recall issues with Apple supporting graphic cards too.
I haven't really gone into the issues I've had with OS X and Apple hardware, but to be honest for a company that is supposed to provide the hardware and software I really did expect superior hardware and software support and not more issues than what I get from "generic" x86 systems.
wow, so despite the previous poster saying that linux has "most of the features" of leopard, it seems FLASH PLAYBACK isnt one of them. yeah you linux geeks are way up there with tech!
Where have you been lately? Apples are not overpriced. Some similarly specified Macs and Windows PCs are generally similarly priced. In some cases the Mac is lower priced and in other it's higher priced.
I can at least upgrade the hardware on lower end generic x86 systems (despite having embedded sound, graphic cards etc - I can add much better ones later on). I can't do that on lower end Macs. No, I don't consider it similar enough for the price in cases such as those.
KDE/Gnome/X who have taken Linux and wrapped it in a usable but clunky and over-engineered GUI that is still suffering from its ancestry as a way of letting Unix geeks run 8 simultaneous instances of their favorite CLI shell in translucent windows.
As someone who uses KDE, OS X, Windows etc. a lot in his daily life, I don't know what you're talking about. More information please.
What happened to the old Google motto? "Don't be evil." Oh wait they gave that up long ago.
I don't understand how this makes Google evil.
Am I the only person who thinks Google's grown too large lately and should be split up.
I haven't seen any illegal monopoly practices by Google yet.
They're worse than Microsoft now. They have their fingers in everyone's pies. Search, online work collaboration, email, maps, digital video, and so on...
Sorry, Microsoft has far more and Google certainly does not power as many things that Microsoft does. Even if it did, how is that evil? Why does that warrant it being split up?
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As for games, they work really well for me. Unreal Tournament original/2k3/2k4, Quake I/II/III, Doom I/II/III, Uplink, Sauerbraten etc. all work reliably on opensource platforms just as well as they run under Windows. Wine lets me run pretty much all the source games for Steam without an issue as well as world of Warcraft and others.I'm not too keen on running outdated applications just to get the correct documentation - although I might add I haven't seen this issue in recent years on Linux.What is that supposed to mean?Based off your points - not really.
I'm curious. Were you using the WineHQ's repositories for Wine? Because I didn't see this issue on Edgy either (I was using WineHQ's repositories).
In a lot of cases, Linux distributions don't have 100% of what Windows can do. If someone has a choice between a Linux distribution that does 90% (and 20% of other stuff) verses 100% of what they're used to and likely want. They'll likely choose Windows -- Unless they had to shell out money to get Windows.
Usually when people have to shell out of money, they become more willing to live with compromises in certain areas that the alternative isn't good at.
Now, while you may say that "Windows isn't free". Everyone and I mean, everyone has a friend who has a friend which can get a copy of for free.
Additionally, because when you goto a computer shop and purchase a computer, you're not told "If you want Microsoft Windows, you'll need to pay 100USD extra (or whatever the price is)" verses the basic install of some free distribution.
If there was a lot less piracy a seven years ago, Linux seen as a option in stores. I would be pretty sure that Linux would of obtained a lot more development and would of passed Windows and OS X in functionality in all ways by now.
I think what is needed, is a better WGA anti-piracy technology.
I also don't know why, but I have had random segfaults with Fink on various applications, despite having the latest upto date software on the system. Which doesn't make it very reliable for me.
For *nix usage, I don't agree that OS X is good enough. And while Windows' POSIX subsystem works correctly, a lot of things like IPC and forking are extremely expensive - so it ends up being really slow for certain tasks. I wouldn't recommend Windows either for this usage.
Although there is a lot less incentive to develop games natively for Linux these days when Wine can run the source engine games (Half life 2, Counter Strike Source, Portal, Team Fortress 2 - blah blah blah), World of Warcraft, Eve online and quite a lot of other games (and some how manage to give me at least better performance under Linux than I do running the games natively Windows with the same hardware - no 'hacks' or 'tricks' to get the games working either, just open the installer, install, play).
I am however, constantly seeing better development on Linux. More companies are interested and develop new products constantly for the operating system. Major OEMs are selling it like IBM, Lenovo, Dell, HP etc. The major graphic card companies are producing drivers for it ATi/AMD, nVidia, Intel. ATi/AMD are working on developing new opensource drivers with the community, Intel opensourced their drivers with the community.
Hopefully WGA will put a stop to this.
I remember when the European Union forced Microsoft to sell a version of Windows XP without Windows Media Player. The version of Windows XP that came without WMP costs more and nobody buys it.
Additionally, you don't need to grab multiple DVDs/CD images if you just want a single rare package... Debian's package managers let you download the software directly from the internet.I didn't see much software included with Vista. Not even a office suite or even a decent text editor.
All Google is doing, is removing the need todo Y.
usenet.com is not small.
I have had also very reasonable success getting the Kubuntu live cd working on other people's computers out of the box (only exception was a weird network card called 'Acnos' - couldn't even find the windows driver site). No technological knowledge was required to get the hardware working and in the only exception it did, it didn't seem possible anyway.
Software like Microsoft office XP runs for me out of the box in Kubuntu under Wine (Wine is preinstalled with Ubuntu) as have most of my game collection (this wasn't the case a few years ago mind you). But no, I don't really see the issue you're trying to point out.
My printer was dead easy to setup, things like tablets, bluetooth, wireless cards (although having read some of the issues people have had with wireless cards, I will research my next purchase to make sure) were even easier - I just plug them in. No driver CD required, no mumbojumbo commands and this is with off the shelf hardware I bought.
Now, this laptop I use, it's "Designed for Windows XP" according to the label. But the latest drivers do not work under SP2 (some partially work but end up crashing the system on stupid things). The Macs I use will do a kernel panic on my bluetooth dongle if I plug it in (yes I have reported it). So, yes, there is unsupported hardware under Linux, but this is as much the truth for OS X and Windows.
I acknowledge that there is unsupported hardware under Linux, however:
I don't really consider OS X superior in support for peripherals because I constantly find warning messages on boxes saying that the device is not compatible with a Mac.
I don't really consider Windows superior with hardware either as with every release deprecates support for the majority of older hardware and new hardware that comes out appears to be barely functional at first with every new release of Windows until some large amount of time has passed.
And with all operating systems, I have experienced certain updates that have broken hardware support.
My future workstation purchases are likely now going to be influenced by which vendors provide Linux out of the box solution since I'm overly pleased with Kubuntu.
Note: I'm not a Linux zealot, I will switch in a heartbeat to the better viable solution when it is there. I'll still likely use Linux though just as much as I use every other OS.
In the end I had todo some horrible, horrible hack of using the osx86 kernel just so I could use the wireless card and latest OS X software.While it's nice the OS X version of OpenGL is properly multithreaded, there are many locking issues that Apple has ignored in fixing. Although I do recall issues with Apple supporting graphic cards too.
I haven't really gone into the issues I've had with OS X and Apple hardware, but to be honest for a company that is supposed to provide the hardware and software I really did expect superior hardware and software support and not more issues than what I get from "generic" x86 systems.
Happy now?
Not all x86 systems are built for Windows making them a "*Windows* PC" like you appear to be implying.
No, "It's too big" is not a valid reason.
Works fine on mine.