GNU/Linux, good though it is, is nowhere near ready to take on microsoft for home users. The simple reason being that in spite of its wealth of applications, it has shitbar games when compared to windows.
First, most computer users don't care about games in the way that you care about games; second, Linux has the games that a vast majority of users care about; third, even if Linux had the sort of games that you care about, it won't see widespread adoption on home desktops in rich countries.
Most computer users don't care about big budget games. They're too complex. They take too long to learn. They're too expensive. I know multitudes of computer users. None of them play big budget games like Half Life, Neverwinter Nights, WoW, or even the Sims. I don't play any of them either.
When eliminating the big budget games that appeal to a small subset of users, Linux has great games. KDE and GNOME both come with the sorts of little puzzle games that people whittle away at for a few minutes each day. They are the analog to Solitare, probably the most popular Windows app of all time. My dad had never used Linux before in his life, but he sat down at my Gentoo box and within minutes had discovered one of the GNOME games on his own. Furthermore, lots of people pass the time at online games at places like Yahoo Games. These run just fine on Linux right inside Firefox.
But, let's set aside the fact that Linux is an excellent gaming platform for the majority of people who just like a simple game every now and again. Even if Linux had a perfect port of every single bloated, big-budget, proprietary computer game out there, we still won't see widespread desktop Linux adoption on home desktops in rich countries. People in rich countries can afford Windows, and they see no compelling reason to switch away. Linux won't provide a compelling reason for most users to switch. They'll switch to Mac before they switch to Linux.
In short, the lack of Linux desktop adoption has absolutely nothing to do with game availability.
As someone in a first world country, why should I buy this when I can buy a REAL laptop for $400 or under thanks to sales, rebates, the used/refurbished/surplus market, etc?
Yeah, I can get a luggable for $400. Big screen, no battery life, delicate. Don't mention the hassle of rebates, which is so bad I don't even factor them into prices when I'm making purchase decisions. A truly portable laptop costs at least a grand. I'd like a OLPC-like device myself. Very rugged, and powerful enough to run vim on (perfect for taking notes in meetings.)
it seems like the promise of always-availble telephones is bound to disappear eventually.
Good point. One reason I keep the landline is because I don't want all my telecom riding on my cable modem service. My cell is unreliable in my home, so if I relied exclusively on VoIP and the cable went dead, I'd be without a phone.
As Verizon rolls out FTTP, some are speculating that they will eventually let the copper system rot. Why maintain them both? Problem is that fiber doesn't provide power, and the ONTs at the customer's home require power. The customer must supply power herself. The ONTs have battery backups in them, but I don't know how long they last. As we become more and more reliant on electrical gadgets for even basic communication, I wouldn't be surprised if we see wider proliferation of backup home generators.
The article didn't mention that some of today's most successful products have not taken this plastic bubble route. Most notably, the iPod has always come in elegant, easy-to-open boxes--none of this plastic bubble crap. Apple even claims that the new nano box was designed to save packaging and be more earth-friendly--I find that an odd claim, with its non-biodegradable acrylic box, but interesting nonetheless. Even Microsoft with the Zune followed Apple's lead.
Of course, Apple stores keep their products under lock and key, so maybe they don't have to worry about people cracking open packages and stealing the goods. However, Apple also relies on resellers--they typically keep the iPods under lock and key too. An argument for the plastic bubbles is that consumers are more likely to buy merchandise if they can take it off the shelves themselves and take it to the registers, and that the bubbles allow this while deterring theft. I do agree that in large chain stores with their typically lousy service, it is better if I can grab the product myself and go pay for it. But (of all places) Best Buy seems to have a good solution to this: put boxes on the shelf, but encase them in clear plastic boxes or strange contraptions with plastic strings that may be removed by the cashier. I've also seen Microsoft software boxed up in this manner and, of course, CDs have been sold this way for years. Problem solved.
Manufacturers will have to pay more attention to this, especially as the population greys and gets arthritic. Besides, Apple shows that good packaging matters.
The funny thing is that the politicians (Republicans especially) will talk about how wonderful small business is and how it's the bedrock of the economy, yet healthcare costs are strangling small business. I'd think long and hard about even starting a small business, just because of the health care. Yet the politicians aren't even talking about the reforms we need.
Beating competitors is what Microsoft is all about. It's not "we'll have the best search engine," it's "we'll be better than Google". I guess we see the results: years of no browser updates, few significant OS updates and, now, a crappy music player...
Zune is garbage. The hardware is middling at best. The PC software sucks. The music store sucks.
If any other company released this thing, nobody would have noticed. It would be another piece of made in China electronic garbage. MS releases it and it gets loads of free publicity. Still a dud.
"oooh, but the 3rd gen MS product is when it really gets good," people say. Yeah right. Bob, forgotten. MSNBC, irrelevant. Microsoft Money, still irrelevant compared to Quicken. MS will send Zune to the trash heap with Bob. If Zune is lucky, bits of it will survive, just like Clippy survived from Bob. Wow, some innovation that was.
Even all the free publicity cannot overcome the Zune's absolute crappiness.
I was waiting for the same bogus "Cyber Monday" stories we got last year. It's the same myth it was last year. See Business Week. "Contrary to what the recent blitz of media coverage implies, Cyber Monday isn't nearly the biggest online shopping or spending day of the year. It ranks only as the 12th-biggest day historically, according to market researcher comScore Networks. It's not even the first big day of the season." This story ran *last year*.
From the perspective of a patient, at least, "health care" IT is in the stone age. Can't set appointments over the Internet. Providers don't use email. Billing involves multiple pieces of paper. Getting a prescription filled involves shuttling a piece of paper with scribbles on it. Records retrieval depends of pieces of paper not getting lost. At first glance the KP system is promising and could ulimately lead to untold cost savings. Unfortunately, at least to an ignorant observer like me, it seems that only the big, integrated systems like Kaiser, the VA, and the military have any hope of ever getting some modern IT, at least as long as the US politicians keep their heads up their asses and refuse to do anything about this country's absolutely dysfunctional and outrageously expensive "health care system".
many of the DRM technologies were forced upon Vista by the entertainment industry,
Absolutely not. There is no way that the entertainment industry is dictating terms to a company with 90% of the market for desktop operating systems. What is this line supposed to do, make me say "oh boo hoo, poor Microsoft, being dictated to by the entertainment industry"? Ridiculous.
MS wants DRM. MS likes DRM. If content can only be played on Windows, that's another reason to buy Windows and not Mac or Linux. MS is reaping license fees on many of its DRM schemes--Yahoo is not using MS DRM for free when it locks up its music downloads. MS and the entertainment industry are in a symbiotic relationship: DRM gives them both a way to make more money and to control their respective markets.
Anyone who things DRM has been "forced" on MS is falling for MS propoganda.
Arguing that Apple should open source their operating system is like arguing that one of the car manufacturers should open up their engine-control software - it removes a core advantage of their hardware and makes you less likely to buy it.
I thought the argument was just the opposite. That is, if Apple is a hardware company, then software is merely a cost center. By this theory, you open source the software to drive down the cost of development so that you can focus on the hardware that differentiates your product. That's what Bruce Perens said anyway.
That wouldn't mean Apple would open source all its software. Some of its software--like the OS X GUI--do differentiate Apple's products, so Apple would keep that proprietary. But it seems much less likely that the Darwin kernel would be viewed as a differentiating feature of OS X. Perhaps it would make more sense to open source the kernel then.
My ISP and may others are out there port blocking so that I can't share any files on my Windows boxes across the Internet with normal Windows file sharing techniques,
I think it's far more likely that your ISP is blocking ports 135 to 139 to protect users from their own poorly secured operating system. Using normal Windows file sharing techniques across a hostile network is a bad idea anyway.
Therefore, by your logic, all punishing of criminals is hypocritical.
I agree. I think all punishing of criminals is hypocritical.
It is not society's role to punish. It is society's role to protect the innocent. Imprisonment should only be used if the inmate is a danger to the safety of others in society. Instead it is typically used as a vengeful measure.
The article is a troll, through and through. It says:
Let's face it, for your average home PC user, gaming is pretty important aspect of PC ownership. That's not true in my experience. Most users I know do not spend much time playing PC games that are incompatible with Linux. They may play Minesweeper or Solitare, and plenty of games of those caliber come with KDE and GNOME. They may also play Web-based games, which work in Firefox. But mostly they go on the Internet and couldn't care less about $50 boxed games. $50 boxed games do matter to many users, but that doesn't mean they matter to the "average home PC user."
Walk around any store selling software and see how much Linux-compatible software you can find. Not much. Do the same for the Mac. Not much. Oh, I have a better trick. Open up your Windows package manager and see how much Windows-compatible software you find. Oh wait, Windows doesn't have a package manager.
Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert Who is doing that?
there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support. Hunh? I installed Ubuntu and Suse on my desktop and I didn't have to know a thing about my hardware. I reinstalled Windows and I had to get drivers from all over the Web.
No, I don't think Linux will ever achieve "world dominance" in rich countries. But the reason is inertia, not the FUD spewed out in this troll.
How about the Encrypting File System that's already available in Windows XP Pro? Just wondering how the BitLocker is something worth eagery awaiting...
"Why did IE7 take such a long time to release after IE6?" Aww come on, what a throwaway question. His answer is ridiculous--Microsoft with its untold billions couldn't hire some devs to work on MSIE while other devs worked on the oh-so-essential and useful MSN Explorer? Everybody knows the real reason: MS didn't give a damn about IE because it had no competition. I suppose I might have actually respected the guy if he had gave a decent answer, but instead, this bullshit.
Let me say that if I could go into a store right now and buy a reasonably priced copy of OX X that would run on a plain PC, I would be running OS X at the moment
The problem is that if you could run OS X on a plain PC, you wouldn't have OS X anymore. You'd have something else.
Part of what makes Mac good is its limited universe of hardware. That's one of the reasons I stay away from Mac--I can't buy any old remote control, TV tuner card, or CD-ROM drive and plug it in and expect to get it to work. Apple can focus on getting a small universe of hardware working correctly, and that hardware works very well. But you're chained to that universe.
If you want ease of use and an integrated experience, get the Mac. If you want an OS that works with huge amounts of hardware, get Windows or Linux. But I'm afraid you can't have an OS that both works perfectly and works with a huge amount of hardware.
It seemed to me XROST was simply a front for allofmp3.com so that they could take credit cards. Have you seen any other merchant that actually takes XROST? I remember that every other retailer listed on their site was "coming soon."
Yes, but you also have to have a lot of other 32 bit libraries installed just for the browser to run. I think that one of them is glibc.
My understanding is that there are libraries that emulate the 32-bit stuff, so you don't have to install all of it.
Ladislav Bodnar of DistroWatch was quite happy with 64-bit Mandriva and, like many, he noted a substantial speed boost. Try getting the latest Mandriva.
I'm confused. A Washington Post story says that the 300 millionth American may have just walked across the Mexico border. Umm, doesn't American mean a citizen? Sure, illegal immigrants have children in the U.S. who are citizens, but last time I looked, newborns aren't walking across the border.
I love KDE, but my biggest complaint is the time to start KDE. It's fast enough when it's running, but man, you have to get it started up first...add KDE startup on top of a live CD (like KNOPPIX) and then you're talking intolerably slow. Startup time alone keeps me using GNOME on my laptop, though I use the K on my desktop.
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GNU/Linux, good though it is, is nowhere near ready to take on microsoft for home users. The simple reason being that in spite of its wealth of applications, it has shitbar games when compared to windows.
First, most computer users don't care about games in the way that you care about games; second, Linux has the games that a vast majority of users care about; third, even if Linux had the sort of games that you care about, it won't see widespread adoption on home desktops in rich countries.
Most computer users don't care about big budget games. They're too complex. They take too long to learn. They're too expensive. I know multitudes of computer users. None of them play big budget games like Half Life, Neverwinter Nights, WoW, or even the Sims. I don't play any of them either.
When eliminating the big budget games that appeal to a small subset of users, Linux has great games. KDE and GNOME both come with the sorts of little puzzle games that people whittle away at for a few minutes each day. They are the analog to Solitare, probably the most popular Windows app of all time. My dad had never used Linux before in his life, but he sat down at my Gentoo box and within minutes had discovered one of the GNOME games on his own. Furthermore, lots of people pass the time at online games at places like Yahoo Games. These run just fine on Linux right inside Firefox.
But, let's set aside the fact that Linux is an excellent gaming platform for the majority of people who just like a simple game every now and again. Even if Linux had a perfect port of every single bloated, big-budget, proprietary computer game out there, we still won't see widespread desktop Linux adoption on home desktops in rich countries. People in rich countries can afford Windows, and they see no compelling reason to switch away. Linux won't provide a compelling reason for most users to switch. They'll switch to Mac before they switch to Linux.
In short, the lack of Linux desktop adoption has absolutely nothing to do with game availability.
As someone in a first world country, why should I buy this when I can buy a REAL laptop for $400 or under thanks to sales, rebates, the used/refurbished/surplus market, etc?
Yeah, I can get a luggable for $400. Big screen, no battery life, delicate. Don't mention the hassle of rebates, which is so bad I don't even factor them into prices when I'm making purchase decisions. A truly portable laptop costs at least a grand. I'd like a OLPC-like device myself. Very rugged, and powerful enough to run vim on (perfect for taking notes in meetings.)
it seems like the promise of always-availble telephones is bound to disappear eventually.
Good point. One reason I keep the landline is because I don't want all my telecom riding on my cable modem service. My cell is unreliable in my home, so if I relied exclusively on VoIP and the cable went dead, I'd be without a phone.
As Verizon rolls out FTTP, some are speculating that they will eventually let the copper system rot. Why maintain them both? Problem is that fiber doesn't provide power, and the ONTs at the customer's home require power. The customer must supply power herself. The ONTs have battery backups in them, but I don't know how long they last. As we become more and more reliant on electrical gadgets for even basic communication, I wouldn't be surprised if we see wider proliferation of backup home generators.
The article didn't mention that some of today's most successful products have not taken this plastic bubble route. Most notably, the iPod has always come in elegant, easy-to-open boxes--none of this plastic bubble crap. Apple even claims that the new nano box was designed to save packaging and be more earth-friendly--I find that an odd claim, with its non-biodegradable acrylic box, but interesting nonetheless. Even Microsoft with the Zune followed Apple's lead.
Of course, Apple stores keep their products under lock and key, so maybe they don't have to worry about people cracking open packages and stealing the goods. However, Apple also relies on resellers--they typically keep the iPods under lock and key too. An argument for the plastic bubbles is that consumers are more likely to buy merchandise if they can take it off the shelves themselves and take it to the registers, and that the bubbles allow this while deterring theft. I do agree that in large chain stores with their typically lousy service, it is better if I can grab the product myself and go pay for it. But (of all places) Best Buy seems to have a good solution to this: put boxes on the shelf, but encase them in clear plastic boxes or strange contraptions with plastic strings that may be removed by the cashier. I've also seen Microsoft software boxed up in this manner and, of course, CDs have been sold this way for years. Problem solved.
Manufacturers will have to pay more attention to this, especially as the population greys and gets arthritic. Besides, Apple shows that good packaging matters.
The funny thing is that the politicians (Republicans especially) will talk about how wonderful small business is and how it's the bedrock of the economy, yet healthcare costs are strangling small business. I'd think long and hard about even starting a small business, just because of the health care. Yet the politicians aren't even talking about the reforms we need.
TFA calls MS "world's largest technology company." What is it saying, IBM is not a technology company?
MS: $44 billion revenue, $12 billion net income, 71k employees
IBM: $91 billion revenue, $7.9 billion net income, 329k employees
Most profitable, maybe, but largest? Come on, what is the point of having professional journalists if they won't even check their facts?
Beating competitors is what Microsoft is all about. It's not "we'll have the best search engine," it's "we'll be better than Google". I guess we see the results: years of no browser updates, few significant OS updates and, now, a crappy music player...
Zune is garbage. The hardware is middling at best. The PC software sucks. The music store sucks.
If any other company released this thing, nobody would have noticed. It would be another piece of made in China electronic garbage. MS releases it and it gets loads of free publicity. Still a dud.
"oooh, but the 3rd gen MS product is when it really gets good," people say. Yeah right. Bob, forgotten. MSNBC, irrelevant. Microsoft Money, still irrelevant compared to Quicken. MS will send Zune to the trash heap with Bob. If Zune is lucky, bits of it will survive, just like Clippy survived from Bob. Wow, some innovation that was.
Even all the free publicity cannot overcome the Zune's absolute crappiness.
I was waiting for the same bogus "Cyber Monday" stories we got last year. It's the same myth it was last year. See Business Week. "Contrary to what the recent blitz of media coverage implies, Cyber Monday isn't nearly the biggest online shopping or spending day of the year. It ranks only as the 12th-biggest day historically, according to market researcher comScore Networks. It's not even the first big day of the season." This story ran *last year*.
Museum? I'd call this a theme park, or a show, or an attraction.
From the perspective of a patient, at least, "health care" IT is in the stone age. Can't set appointments over the Internet. Providers don't use email. Billing involves multiple pieces of paper. Getting a prescription filled involves shuttling a piece of paper with scribbles on it. Records retrieval depends of pieces of paper not getting lost. At first glance the KP system is promising and could ulimately lead to untold cost savings. Unfortunately, at least to an ignorant observer like me, it seems that only the big, integrated systems like Kaiser, the VA, and the military have any hope of ever getting some modern IT, at least as long as the US politicians keep their heads up their asses and refuse to do anything about this country's absolutely dysfunctional and outrageously expensive "health care system".
many of the DRM technologies were forced upon Vista by the entertainment industry,
Absolutely not. There is no way that the entertainment industry is dictating terms to a company with 90% of the market for desktop operating systems. What is this line supposed to do, make me say "oh boo hoo, poor Microsoft, being dictated to by the entertainment industry"? Ridiculous.
MS wants DRM. MS likes DRM. If content can only be played on Windows, that's another reason to buy Windows and not Mac or Linux. MS is reaping license fees on many of its DRM schemes--Yahoo is not using MS DRM for free when it locks up its music downloads. MS and the entertainment industry are in a symbiotic relationship: DRM gives them both a way to make more money and to control their respective markets.
Anyone who things DRM has been "forced" on MS is falling for MS propoganda.
Arguing that Apple should open source their operating system is like arguing that one of the car manufacturers should open up their engine-control software - it removes a core advantage of their hardware and makes you less likely to buy it.
I thought the argument was just the opposite. That is, if Apple is a hardware company, then software is merely a cost center. By this theory, you open source the software to drive down the cost of development so that you can focus on the hardware that differentiates your product. That's what Bruce Perens said anyway.
That wouldn't mean Apple would open source all its software. Some of its software--like the OS X GUI--do differentiate Apple's products, so Apple would keep that proprietary. But it seems much less likely that the Darwin kernel would be viewed as a differentiating feature of OS X. Perhaps it would make more sense to open source the kernel then.
My ISP and may others are out there port blocking so that I can't share any files on my Windows boxes across the Internet with normal Windows file sharing techniques,
I think it's far more likely that your ISP is blocking ports 135 to 139 to protect users from their own poorly secured operating system. Using normal Windows file sharing techniques across a hostile network is a bad idea anyway.
Therefore, by your logic, all punishing of criminals is hypocritical.
I agree. I think all punishing of criminals is hypocritical.
It is not society's role to punish. It is society's role to protect the innocent. Imprisonment should only be used if the inmate is a danger to the safety of others in society. Instead it is typically used as a vengeful measure.
The article is a troll, through and through. It says:
Let's face it, for your average home PC user, gaming is pretty important aspect of PC ownership. That's not true in my experience. Most users I know do not spend much time playing PC games that are incompatible with Linux. They may play Minesweeper or Solitare, and plenty of games of those caliber come with KDE and GNOME. They may also play Web-based games, which work in Firefox. But mostly they go on the Internet and couldn't care less about $50 boxed games. $50 boxed games do matter to many users, but that doesn't mean they matter to the "average home PC user."
Walk around any store selling software and see how much Linux-compatible software you can find. Not much. Do the same for the Mac. Not much. Oh, I have a better trick. Open up your Windows package manager and see how much Windows-compatible software you find. Oh wait, Windows doesn't have a package manager.
Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert Who is doing that?
there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support. Hunh? I installed Ubuntu and Suse on my desktop and I didn't have to know a thing about my hardware. I reinstalled Windows and I had to get drivers from all over the Web.
No, I don't think Linux will ever achieve "world dominance" in rich countries. But the reason is inertia, not the FUD spewed out in this troll.
Hey, JustA SlashDotGuy,
How about the Encrypting File System that's already available in Windows XP Pro? Just wondering how the BitLocker is something worth eagery awaiting...
"Why did IE7 take such a long time to release after IE6?" Aww come on, what a throwaway question. His answer is ridiculous--Microsoft with its untold billions couldn't hire some devs to work on MSIE while other devs worked on the oh-so-essential and useful MSN Explorer? Everybody knows the real reason: MS didn't give a damn about IE because it had no competition. I suppose I might have actually respected the guy if he had gave a decent answer, but instead, this bullshit.
hard to see how they'll ever really compete with MS Windows. I guess from Apple's perspective, even if their share rises from 2% to 4%,
One CEO once said "US Steel is not in the business of making steel. We're in the business of making profits."
Mac's market share is not the most important number. Mac's profitability is much more important.
GM's got huge market share but is losing money. You don't see people saying "BMW will never really compete with GM."
Just because MS' self-imposed measure of success is dominating every market with 90% share doesn't mean that this is the only metric of success.
Let me say that if I could go into a store right now and buy a reasonably priced copy of OX X that would run on a plain PC, I would be running OS X at the moment
The problem is that if you could run OS X on a plain PC, you wouldn't have OS X anymore. You'd have something else.
Part of what makes Mac good is its limited universe of hardware. That's one of the reasons I stay away from Mac--I can't buy any old remote control, TV tuner card, or CD-ROM drive and plug it in and expect to get it to work. Apple can focus on getting a small universe of hardware working correctly, and that hardware works very well. But you're chained to that universe.
If you want ease of use and an integrated experience, get the Mac. If you want an OS that works with huge amounts of hardware, get Windows or Linux. But I'm afraid you can't have an OS that both works perfectly and works with a huge amount of hardware.
It seemed to me XROST was simply a front for allofmp3.com so that they could take credit cards. Have you seen any other merchant that actually takes XROST? I remember that every other retailer listed on their site was "coming soon."
Yes, but you also have to have a lot of other 32 bit libraries installed just for the browser to run. I think that one of them is glibc.
My understanding is that there are libraries that emulate the 32-bit stuff, so you don't have to install all of it.
Ladislav Bodnar of DistroWatch was quite happy with 64-bit Mandriva and, like many, he noted a substantial speed boost. Try getting the latest Mandriva.
Which is a huge nuisance, why should adobe be able to hold people back from moving to 64bit architectures?
Was it a gun, or a knife?
I'm confused. A Washington Post story says that the 300 millionth American may have just walked across the Mexico border. Umm, doesn't American mean a citizen? Sure, illegal immigrants have children in the U.S. who are citizens, but last time I looked, newborns aren't walking across the border.
I love KDE, but my biggest complaint is the time to start KDE. It's fast enough when it's running, but man, you have to get it started up first...add KDE startup on top of a live CD (like KNOPPIX) and then you're talking intolerably slow. Startup time alone keeps me using GNOME on my laptop, though I use the K on my desktop.