Why Linux stands out amongst other OSes

Tech Republic ^ | 24 April 2019 | Jack Wallen

[Garth Tater]

Daniel inadvertently explained why it was a bad idea. Putting money into building a structure to support dozens of distros, all the while knowing that if your program is worthwhile it will eventually be recreated by the open-source community and distributed (and supported) for free, is not generally a part of a profit making plan.

Just because someone wrote a piece of for-profit software doesn't mean they made a profit on it. Of the tons of for-profit software you mentioned, what percentage of them would you estimate actually made a profit?

[ShadowAce]

All of them--Cisco, Steam games (well over 1000 now), tons of HPC software, Oracle database, Firefox (makes of profit from advertisers, etc--not from users which are basically its product), VMware (ESX is Linux-based).

Red Hat is a billion-dollar company, profiting from Linux.

Trend Software charges a pretty penny for its anti-malware software.

BRU Backup software charges between $499 and $4,999.

Here's a list of proprietary software--all from companies making a profit.

That profit may not necessarily be a cost-to-the-user purchase price, but they are still making a profit from Linux. The business model is just a little different than you may want. A lot of the above software do charge for copies of their product. Some don't.

[Garth Tater]

All of them? Well, okay, I guess if you just want to count the ones that are making a profit and not the failed attempts like Daniels...

The open-source community provides free development and free support. High barriers to overcome for a for-profit operation.


"The business model is just a little different than you may want."

Pays me no nevermind. I made my money in the for-profit world and the open-source community. Now I just enjoy watching the tech titans (and the little fools like Daniel) try to fight back the inevitable. Good times all around!

[ShadowAce]

All of them? Well, okay, I guess if you just want to count the ones that are making a profit and not the failed attempts like Daniels...

Well, you did ask me this:

Of the tons of for-profit software you mentioned, what percentage of them would you estimate actually made a profit?

So that does limit the field a bit.

[Bob434]

linux makes it easy now to have image level backups- at least linux mint does- it includes a program to pretty much do backups in a few clicks-

[Bob434]

using a program like rollbackRX for windows is super super easy- it takes snapshots of the hwoel system, and incase computer won’t boot into windows- rollbackRX runs before windows even loads- and will restore the os to a previous state- you can set it to backup a snapshot every night if you like- the only issue is if hard-drive fails- but then you should have a macrium reflect backup on a separate drive for restoration to new HD if that should happen-

[steve86]

That’s utter garbage and false and outdated and would have been even 15+ years ago.

[fireman15]

It is obvious that the person who wrote the post in a forum that is much more technically oriented than this one was using hyperbole to make a point. Apparently there are some forums where people who are Linux aficionados are not as sensitive as they are here. So sorry to have gotten you guys so worked up.

[Billthedrill]

Agree completely - I’m running Mint on my Linux box and I love it. With a tool like that available, getting skunked on a major upgrade because you didn’t use it is...embarrassing...

[Openurmind]

And that’s the thing. Almost all newer Linux distro packages automatically create two partitions during install. One for the OS and one for data.

[Openurmind]

Not just back up but Mint also comes with “timeshift” which takes images to restore back to if ever needed. You can go tell it how often you would like it done.

[Bob434]

yeah that was the one for mint- i couldn’t remember the name of it- thnaks

[Openurmind]

Yep, It’s cool and I am glad you mentioned it. The mint install now sets it up for you as you install it. But I went in and adjusted it as I like to be more often than it was. :)

[ducttape45]

I am going to make the switch, eventually, to Linux but there is still too much that I use in Windows that I cannot do without, such as Photoshop, that there is not a viable Linux alternate for.

So I'm going to have to access programs like this:

1. via a virtual desktop (which I am experimenting with via VirtualBox 6.0), or

2. by continuing to use Windows 7 via another hard drive (I have a removable hard drive tray in my tower).

The thing about virtual software is figuring out if you can print from that software, which right now I cannot, especially since my current printer is not supported by any Linux distros, if audio works, video capability (those last two I have figured out), stuff like that.

There's a lot more hoops to jump through to get Linux to work for people than there is for Windows, and it takes a lot more digging and experimentation to get to a viable working state.