- 40 Million credit cards stolen. Crooks busted, finally. Worldwide-scheme.
- IBM pushing the “Microsoft-free” desktop. Nobody is biting.
- Delta to offer Wi-Fi across entire US fleet.
- Sony grabs Rocketboom for exclusive distribution rights.
- PayPal co-founders investing in Space-X venture.
- AT&T now into Cloud Computing.
- Lenovo growing too slowly.
- AMD versus Intel with new code words.
- Be careful if you are asked to upgrade your flash player. Hackers lurk.
Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.
I know it’s obvious to say but: Linux is a pretty decent desktop with no Microsoft products.
My main complaint is that Linux is just TOO DAMN HARD to fix or modify.
The Linux community is amazingly friendly and helpful but they can’t say anything in plain English.
What’s the deal with the Kind-A-Captcha here? It’s really slow. Potential commenters might be deterred when it appears that nothing is happening.
No shit. But can ya really blame the Kind-A-Captcha?
Enough! More lolcat
What do people plan on doing with a Linux box? If you are a Geek, or you simply want to access the Internet to check your email and read articles online, then a Linux machine has value. It is not THAT hard to use the browser or otherwise learn a new operating system.
Those that consider the eeePC would see it as either a child learning device or an IT Consultant super easy device to connect to the Cloud for virtual drive access. Those that want to perform graphic art work, would either have to buy a Linux machine with VMWare fusion or Parallels, OR buy a Mac.
In the past, it was simply hobbiest who used Linux. But the modern maturity of these distro’s, along with the maturity of online storage, cheap RAM, faster mobile dual core chips, a wide range of driver availability make Linux a true product. Check PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Suse, Puppy, etc.
Linux now has a place and disregarding it is short sighted. It has merit and value to many market segments.
@#1: “My main complaint is that Linux is just TOO DAMN HARD to fix or modify. “… Well, the operating system that comes in multiple distributions to suit many tastes, most of which by default have at least 4 different windowing/desktop managing systems and typically has detailed “Preferences” in the equivalent of the Windows “Start” menu is hard to be considered hard to modify. Particularly when most of the options are single click away and not locked in (you want KDE instead of Gnome for one session, just check the obvious check-box…). This if “modify” applied to personalization.
If “modify” meant more “fix/upgrade”, the statement fails again. Neither Windows or Mac have software installation managing system so integrated to the OS itself and so trivial to use (search for new software with automatic download/install and automatic OS upgrade that is actually intelligent…). Ex. can I search in “Add/Remove Programs” of Windows for NEW software and download/install it with all needed dependencies with one click? Does Windows automatic update automatically update ALL installed software?…
Problem might be that so many distributions did equally functional but slightly different implementations of all this. Still, the learning curve is so trivial that even that issue is not a real problem (proof of this: my 10 yr old nephew, non-technical, non-high-achiever,… Installed Fedora, learned to use it and installed fully functional MythTV system on it within a week only armed with the hand-full (4) of on-line instructional links provided by me…)
@#4: You missed one section where Linux actually rules beyond control: reuse of old systems for useful tasks. My home example: MythTV media center PC; Mass network storage and automated backup server PC; Telephony server (Asterisk) PC; … appliance-like reuse of several old machines where Linux ability to make great use of a little resources rules…
Sorry Linux dudes, you have a nice operating system but no one is going to go there. Office, iTunes, and other proprietary programs have got people hooked on commercial desktops.
Before you say “but we have ‘blah’ on our desktop” I would agree. Any thinking person would agree. However, you’re not competing with MS or Apple’s coders, you’re competing with their marketing departments.
And honestly no one cares about IBM’s desktop push or software (like I really want to use Lotus Notes) and server software (DB2 rocks) which is their business message. And no home buyer cares either. They make their money from services but that business has topped out so their pushing back into hardware/software sales again – hence the current hype.
Competition is tough in age of persuasion.
P.S. Linux really has a shot at going “stealth” in the wireless market. That’s where the opportunity to become a widely accepted OS can really happen. Once entrenched there it could possibly (slim but possible) jump the chasm back.
Well, at least you’re close to the mythical Silicon Valley. It seems like modern tech is far, far away from your state capitol.
Our bill…? For causing the deaths of tens of thousands of civlilians? Proper payment, presumably, would be a kick in the nuts…
If i was SA and i sold all my gas.. 19xx never
I’m curious.. How have times changed?!?
er… sorry, for the above… wrong post…
@#6: Sure, people are hooked on proprietary products, and they can’t switch their operating system, or even their computer as they would please. Which is why Linux-based operating systems has a steady users coming along. I think most people who come to Linux (or BSD) has felt trapped inside someone’s great business scheme for a long time. That’s what got me over to Linux.
It’s possible to make money on software/services with some good ole’ goodwill, and that’s the way of open source.
I have a Linux box here in my setup, but I only use it a couple of times a week. Linux has TOO MANY flavors and TOO MANY choices for most people to ever use it. I have tried to talk to people in my user group about some problems I had with the YUM repository config file, and they basically went cross-eyed and their (crossed) eyes glazed over. I might as well have been speaking Martian. There is one guy in the group who uses Linux on his job all day every day and he couldn’t help me. Linux is designed by and for people who sit typing into a command line interface all day every day, people who have memorized 150 commands and 4812 options for those commands and can recall any of them in an instant. #5 Dusan Maletic’s 10-year-old nephew is better suited to learning Linux with his young malleable brain than 99% of computer users. People would rather just run setup.exe to install new software/hardware than have to check sourceforge for the source, run gcc and make or even to know what those things are.
This stupid Windows box drives me nuts on a regular basis, but by Ghod, when I got a scanner all I had to do was put in a CD, click one icon and BOOM! I was scanning away. I didn’t have to fool with C, C++, QT, SANE driver dependencies for Gnome or KDE or any of 186 other window managers, each with its own quirks. And even those quirks vary depending on which sub-sub-sub-version number it is! (“Well, if you’re using version 0.01.256.3.12b, you’ll have to download the qrpnzxlt library version 16.18.ghzlpr. But if you have the 0.01.256._4_.16c, well you’ll have to wait for the maintainer of the code to get back from vacation in Novorossiysk.”) I didn’t have to remember anything. I didn’t have to learn anything.
Until some company finds a way to make bucketfuls of money by whittling the all but infinite choices down to two or three decisions in most cases, making it easy for people who want to use a computer without having to actually know how to program it, Linux will never be ready for prime time.
Apple has actually come closest to doing what I mean. BSD is both open-source and Unix-based, just as Linux is, but you don’t have to choose anything for it to run, it just runs, right out of the box. If you want to, you can change the backdrop, install widgets, update your software over the net, but you generally don’t need to keep a notebook of commands to do any of those things. I enjoy using my wife’s iMac and I’d probably use it more, but she’s usually using it.
Once some company comes up with something like that which will run on $200 worth of hardware (and sells for much less than that), maybe that has a chance of getting to more than a single digit percentage of market share.
Sorry for the length, but this has been driving me around the bend for YEARS.
In another bold move, IBM patents your paper-or-plastic preference.
#12 Again I’d agree. However I don’t think Linux is ever going to move beyond it’s <2% uptake among the general public.
It has nothing to do with being “hooked” on a particular system – it has to do with marketing. Apple has developed better products in the last 5 years but, man, can they market.
They’ve also cross product uptake to win new customers (iPod to Mac). Linux could do the same thing with wireless to desktop since 30-40% of new wireless devices will probably be Linux in few years.
On a side note, Microsofties tell me that it really burns Ballmers butt that he gets out-marketed by Apple. After all, Ballmer is a sales and marketing guy above all.
>> AriGold said,
>>If you are a Geek, or you simply want to access the Internet to check your email and read articles online, then a Linux machine has value.
I think you are spot-on with the demographics of Linux.
Hardcore Geeks love it. Three-program users also are happy with it. (My wife didn’t even realize it wasn’t Windows!)
But for semi-Geeks like me, it drives me crazy to have to “roll” programs and re-write insanely cryptic code.
It galls me to admit this — but Windows XP is the best OS for me.
>> dusan maletic said,
>> Well, the operating system that comes in multiple distributions to suit many tastes, most of which by default have at least 4 different windowing/desktop managing systems and typically has detailed “Preferences” in the equivalent of the Windows “Start” menu is hard to be considered hard to modify.
Even the way you describe it sounds complicated! 😉
I’m on my third distribution of Linux over about five years. Before then I never did a successful install even though I tried and failed with massive frustration.
Just like now, when I hit some incompatible hardware component or some driver wouldn’t run, I was SOL.
I’d go on some Linux forum and find several users very happy to help me but none of them could do so in plain English.
I really do like Ubuntu — but only for the set of programs they supply. It’s a good set, I have to say. But I just simply don’t install anything else.
For installing software, OS X is the best… just drag a single icon to the Applications folder. That’s fantastic. Too bad Mac doesn’t have several of the programs I want.
>> QB said, on August 5th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
>> Office, iTunes, and other proprietary programs have got people hooked on commercial desktops.
Office is actually the threatened one – and Microsoft knows it.
OpenOffice is a perfectly suitable replacement for the vast majority of people.
Google Docs is also great and has some advantages over Office. (namely, central management of the programs and user files)
I prefer OpenOffice for the modules I use. Word has bloated to the point of silliness.
As for iTunes, you are right. iTunes is fantastic and many people wouldn’t want a computer without it.
I THINK a port from OSX to Linux would be relatively easy, right? Easier than to Windows?
>> Uncle Patso said,
I have a Linux box here in my setup, but I only use it a couple of times a week. Linux has TOO MANY flavors and TOO MANY choices for most people to ever use it.
I think John D once wrote a column saying that’s what killed CP/M.
the gnome?!? have you tried GIMP?
Buy the IBM Linux machine
download XP drivers from IBM …free
install pirated version of XP…free
surgery on the registry codes…free
screwing Microsoft…………..priceless
not using Vista……………..even better