Posted on 10/15/2010 7:46:47 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Big business loves Linux for servers and they seem to like it more than you might expect for the desktop. That said, enterprises still have some concerns about Linux. Here's the top five as picked by people who responded to The Linux Foundation's recent corporate and government end-user survey: "Linux Adoption Trends: A Survey of Enterprise End Users."
Before diving into these problems, I'd like to point out something. These are the opinions of business people who, for the most part, are already Linux users. Questions like, whether KDE or GNOME is the better desktop interface or just how cool Ubuntu 10.10 is, matter a whole lot less to them then do to Linux fans or programmers. Instead, they care about how they can use Linux to advance their work. They don't love Linux for its own sake. They love it because of what it can do for them. So, let's get on with their list of concerns in the order they gave them in importance.
1. Drivers
Yes, its 2010 and almost any device you can name inside or outside a computer has a Linux driver, but 39.4% of business users still have concerns about Linux drivers. Sigh.
Greg Kroah-Hartman's, a Linux kernel developer and a Novell engineer, Linux Driver Project (LDP), has been creating Linux drivers for years for anything that any vendor brought to the project that needed one made for it for years now. Kroah-Hartman and his crew of open-source developers charge nothing to create Linux hardware drivers. Despite that, a handful of companies still won't release Linux drives. Other companies, like Wi-Fi chip vendor Broadcom, that have been slow to release Linux drivers has recently taken to making them. So what's the real problem?
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.computerworld.com ...
Windows updates are smooth, easy, and keep the computer running flawlessly. Microsoft Security Essentials keeps out the malware, unless you’re an idiot and deliberately click on porn links and invite it in. Windows security has improved tremendously since the late 90’s.
Windows has 90% of the market. Linux has 1%. Like I said, its a great hobby OS and lots of fun to play with.
“Windows updates are smooth, easy, and keep the computer running flawlessly.”
I really wish that was true, Mr. Balmer; my life would be so much simpler. A client of mine is running an older machine with XP Pro SP3. It cannot install critical updates that have already downloaded for Net Framework 2.0 or higher. A short cryptic message says the installation attempt failed, but gives no reason why. Nice, Microsoft, really nice. Smooth and easy, uh-huh. And that is not the only Windows PC I have troubles with installing updates.
Ooooooooh....it’s so beauuuutiful.
Linux is a fun OS for a hobbyist. Windows 7 Professional 64 bit is the best OS for real work.The London Stock Exchange would disagree with you.
Damn,...now I have seen everything....ROFL!
XP is 10 years old. Anyone still running OS X 10.0 from 2001? With all due respect, have a look at Windows 7. Its far beyond XP. You cant criticize Windows based on information thats out of date by a decade.
Last night I finally had it and decided to switch to Linux. I have a three year old PC that have a couple of 250 Gig hard drives. My plan is to reformat one of the drives and make my system boot one with Linux and the other with XP.
Where can I go to get my feet wet? Is this plan feasible? Suggestions
Download and burn to CD/DVD your choice of Linux distros.
I'm assuming you're planning on keeping your existing Windows install. Move that drive to be your slave drive. Insert your new Linux CD/DVD and reboot. Install to new master drive (one without the Windows install). Install GRUB to MBR when it asks.
When install finishes, reboot into Linux.
You can edit your grub file (/boot/grub/menu.lst) to add the required information to boot to your windows drive as described here.
This may be overly complicated. I haven't actually done this in quite a few years. Someone else may have an easier way of doing this.
I am going to try it over the weekend. When I am done, I will FReemail you my findings.
Thanks for the info and confidence.
D
I'll also recommend you do a search on dual booting Linux and Windows before the work. It may allow you to find something clearer than I was :)
Amazing, and here I've been using a genuine 64-bit OS (Fedora) for years now to do real work, while people keep complaining that the reason they can't switch to Linux is because it doesn't have games. So, while they are losing cycles to their virus and malware scanners, and cleaning requirements, I just keep on using my computer to do real work. When they are reloading because their computer has become slow as molasses, I've had to merely continue doing real work on my desktop, because it just works, 24/7.
I'm so glad you clued me in that I can finally expect my co-workers to be able to do some real work as well.
Sorry, brother bigbob, but I just can't let this pass. These days every modern distribution uses repositories of some kind that contain just about any software you might care to use. For those who can't handle typing 'sudo yum install foo' on a command line can use one of several gui package managers that let you point and click at software you want to install. You don't have to go searching around websites, looking for download links. You don't have to worry about making sure you have the most up-to-date version. You don't have to worry about keeping up with patches or bug fixes, because all of that will then be handled for you automatically.
I don't see how anyone could expect software to be easier to install.
Now, if you have some esoteric package for which there is no pre-packaged file available in the repository, you might have issues, but by and large, most things people want or need are in the repositories.
I would recommend putting Windows on the primary partition on the master drive. Windows doesn't like being on a slave drive, but Linux doesn't care where it lives (and will install equally well on any partition).
For best results, have Windows up and running on the PC first, on the master hard drive, then install Linux on the other one. The GRUB bootloader will let you choose which OS to boot to by default.
Thank you.
I doubt it. OTOH, there has been six major upgrades OS X since then, all of which were highly regarded improvements to the one they replaced.
MFST has two -- I'm not counting service packs -- one of which was definitely not highly regarded.
. And I still have an iMac in use running OS 9.2.2 from 2001.
You're very welcome. I used to run this PC as a dual-boot setup, and originally the Windows XP install would crash during bootup, maybe 1/3 of the time. It turned out that I'd accidentally set the jumper on the drive to "slave" rather than "master." Once I fixed it, it ran solidly ever after (until the drive itself physically quit, and I haven't reinstalled Windows since).
I don't know about newer releases (Vista/7), but Windows 95/98/XP never even gave the option to install on a partition other than the first one on the first drive. I always figured the folks at Microsoft assumed their users were going to run Windows exclusively.
Yep, you can choose other partitions/configurations (even in XP) but the wizard isn’t intuitive. I thought the same of the Ubuntu setup wizard the first time - now it’s second nature.
I gave up being a "hobbyist" some years ago. Linux went from residing on a "toy" machine to my only home OS about 3 years ago when I gave away my old Win98 box (refurbished) to a young mother of two trying to escape (with state help) from former hubby's gang situation. She had never had a computer before.
These days I don't bother with the OS. The shipped kernel+ (Ubuntu) works just fine without rebuilding, the desktop (XFCE) has a few configuration flaws, but... it just works.
"Fun"? It's a tool. And a reliable one for pretty much everything I need to do. (Okay, I've not yet installed a certain Windoze-only UML editor under Wine, but I suspect it will go.)
I don't recommend Xubuntu for total novices; system configuration is a messy weakness it hasn't yet overcome. But beyond that it is quite stable, fairly quick on old hardware (designed for Win98), and reliable.
And I suspect (I could be wrong) Win7 would bog it down in a flash.
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