Posted on 10/03/2007 9:58:26 PM PDT by abt87
LINUX runs the Google servers that manage billions of searches each day. It also runs the TiVo digital video recorder, the Motorola Razr cellphone and countless other electronic devices.
But why would anyone want to use Linux, an open-source operating system, to run a PC? “For a lot of people,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, “Linux is a political idea — an idea of freedom. They don’t want to be tied to Microsoft or Apple. They want choice. To them it’s a greater cause.”
That’s not the most compelling reason for consumers. There is the price: Linux is free, or nearly so.
Unlike Windows from Microsoft and OS X from Apple, Linux is not owned, updated or controlled by a single company. Thousands of developers around the world work on Linux, making improvements and issuing new versions several times a year. Because the core Linux software is open source, these developers have the right — some would say responsibility — to borrow from one another’s work, constantly looking for enhancements.
But Linux has always had a reputation of being difficult to install and daunting to use. Most of the popular Windows and Macintosh programs cannot be used on it, and hand-holding — not that you get that much of it with Windows — is rare. But those reasons for rejecting Linux are disappearing.
Until recently, major PC makers shied away from Linux. Now the industry is watching as Dell is selling two Linux-equipped desktop models ($549 and $870, including a monitor) and a $774 notebook PC. (Hewlett-Packard offers Linux systems to businesses, and Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought I.B.M.’s PC division, sells Linux machines in China and says it will soon offer Linux-based computers in the United States.)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
After that last Microsoft stealth update that broke the Recovery Console I think I’ll be switching back to Linux in the future with perhaps a PC running Windows for just Office and games.
Free is great, but it still has a way to go to pass the granny test.
Computers are STILL too hard to use, for the most part. They need to function more like appliances such as a toaster rather than exotic boxes with levers, wheels and dials.
Linux is free so long as your time is worthless.
Although development and research are not a problem I don’t see the unsavvy in this country adopting Linux. People who open .exe from their inbox are not gonna wrap their head around the command line interface, ever.
“I don’t see the unsavvy in this country adopting Linux.”
I guess us poor savvy people will just have to save 10s of thousands of dollars. I’m soooo hurt.
Depends on whether or not Linux can get its act together within the next few years. Distros today are light-years ahead of their predecessors.
With Microsoft fumbling Vista, and with things like viruses and spyware (both unsolicited and Microsoft’s WGA crap) I can both Linux making inroads in the business world at least (Macs will do better with consumers).
My next desktop WILL be Linux.
I just bought a new Toshiba laptop for the road with vista and I’m not very impressed at all. same old problems with a new look.
If someone could get a push for Ubuntu running machines in schools in place of overpriced macs or just unreliable xp boxes that would expose people at a younger age and get more kids interested in open source.
You don't have to. There are plenty of linux windoz style gui's available for those who want that windoz style desktop.
The old command line "dos" like interface isn't very hard to learn, and makes it a lot easier to fix your PC should you have problems. If windoz crashes on you, you still need to know how to get your pc running again through the command line in many cases. Not that many people know how to these days. If they can't get windows to launch, they take it back to store these days, which to me is the last thing I'd do.
Anyone know whatever happened to "Bush2000"? He used to post to threads like this.
There is definitely a lack of senior and "idiot-friendly" computers.
However let's not turn our computers into PPV/On-Demand/WebTV boxes. Sure companies would love that - dumbing it all down for strict control over access and content.
Then there are those who think MySpace and Blogger are the height of web design... computing for cool people, without all the difficult learning required of actual web developers.
ping
I’m familiar with the distros, thanks. I started with Slackware in 1995 with the 1.1 kernel and have had systems running Red Hat, Suse, and Debian. I killed my last Linux machine a couple of years ago when I had to clean up a little clutter. I had an old Pentium II system running Red Hat for a firewall for about 10 years. It had two old 3 GB full height SCSI-2 drives that weighed about 10 lbs each and sounded like jet engines! The cooling system that I wired up was a work of art! But after being in the Navy and moving around the country so often, it was just a little too much dead weight.
Windows is expensive and it makes your valuable time worthless.
Most linux bundles that are now available load with no trouble and are trouble free, unlike windows which wants to crash or report errors, report errors and crash, or simply sit there and do nothing.
Learn linux here: http://www.linux.org/ You''l quickly learn the basics aren't hard to learn, then choose a bundle to your liking and install it on an old pc to play around with.
If it was an old windoz machine, you'll find it probably works better than it ever did with windows, and uses far less memory than windows memory hog programs.
You can download linux bundles for free (if you have a faast connection) or order them for cheap, anywhere from 10-20 bucks.
If anything you'll enjoy doing something different than windows, and relearning (or learning for the first time) some "dos style" basic computer operating system commands.
Many people don't even know what "dos" is (or was) these days.
{using shakey old man voice] Why in my day, we used to get a great big 5 1/2 floppy disk in 'computer class', sit down in front of some old Tandy x86 "computer" (they didn't even have hard drives back then, and the "x" in front of the 86 was a reserved spot for day far in the future where there would be perhaps a 1.) and practice dos shell commands and the simplest of "programs", like drawing a line, making a coin flip, etc.
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