[Leroy S. Mort]

Not to worry. This just leaves the retail door open for

- coming soon to a big-box retailer near you.

[TSgt]

"I think it is wait and see," he said. "It might not affect the community at all. From a consumer standpoint, I think you will still see SuSE Linux in CompUSA."

People still shop there?

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Calling out the Penguins!

[brbethke]

Red Hat Recommends Windows for Consumers

news.zdnet.co.uk

Red Hat's chief executive has said that Linux needs to mature further before home users will get a positive experience from the operating system, saying they should choose Windows instead.

Linux is seen by Microsoft as its most dangerous competitor for desktop operating systems, and after a number of high-profile cases where government departments have switched from Windows to Linux-based systems, the OS has been making some progress. However, Red Hat said that the hype around desktop Linux is still mostly unfounded at the moment.

Matthew Szulik, chief executive of Linux vendor Red Hat, said on Monday that although Linux is capable of exceeding expectations for corporate users, home users should stick with Windows: "I would say that for the consumer market place, Windows probably continues to be the right product line," he said. "I would argue that from the device-driver standpoint and perhaps some of the other traditional functionality, for that classic consumer purchaser, it is my view that (Linux) technology needs to mature a little bit more."

Szulik gave an example of his 90-year-old father going to a local retailer in order to purchase a computer with Linux: "We know painfully well what happens. He will try to get it installed and either doesn't have a positive experience or puts a lot of pressure on your support systems," he said.

However, Szulik expects Linux to be ready in a couple of years after it has had time to mature. In the mean time, he is adamant that corporate users would be surprised by how much the operating system has to offer. "Consumers want USB drivers and digital camera support; but for the enterprise desktop, that is a little bit different -- that area is ripe," he said. "We think that the enterprise desktop market place is much more strategic and has buyers whose needs we can exceed."

[glorgau]

Consumers are getting everything they've paid for...

Oooops, it's free!

[1L]

Can anyone explain to me why Apple can turn BSD into OSX but nobody seems to be able to do something similar with Linux on intel?

[mikegi]

I saw this the other day but resisted the temptation to post it (especially the Windows recommendation) just to torque the penguinheads on FR. The PHs are so blinded by their hatred of Microsoft that they don't realize how difficult it is to produce a mass market consumer operating system.

[A CA Guy]

There's always Dos 5.0 and Windows 3.1...

[Prime Choice]

I never liked RedHat Linux anyway. I prefer Slackware Linux. It's far less bloated than RedHat, in both the workstation and server implementation.

I've been able to get it working on every piece of hardware I've ever owned: laptops, desktops, parallel & USB printers, USB drives (solid state drives and external disk drives), digital cameras, even Winmodems.

[Myrddin]

I'm running RH 8.0 on one of my computers. It was a Windows 2000 machine before a win32 PE virus burrowed into the firmware on one of the cards in the machine. Once that happened, the virus would re-appear even after low level format of the hard disk, zero of the CMOS memory and re-flash of the motherboard BIOS. Very irritating. I put RH 8.0 on the machine so it wouldn't be a total loss.

The RH 8.0 is less likely to get nailed by a Windows virus floating around. It also gives me a UNIX like OS to host stuff like CVS. My python code runs portably between Windows 2000 and Linux, so it is fine either way. The loss of support for RH 8.0 will probably cause me to migrate the box to be a dedicated QNX 6.2.1 development system. I won't miss the goofy Ximian e-mail reader. It is damn irritating when I'm trying to clear the daily spew of SPAM.

[Cacique]

This might interest you ping.

[mpreston]

SuSE 9.0 for the desktop. Installed the Pro version last night. Very easy, no problems, very few clicks. Installed it along side Win2K. Now have a dual boot system. Plus 9.0 resizes and reads NTFS partitions. Makes migration easy.

As for long term implications I think the Novell/SuSE is positive. Novell brings channel, SuSE and complete Linux product. This is a IBM / Novell+Ximian+SuSE partnership.

From Yahoo http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=74&e=2&u=/cmp/20031105/tc_cmp/16000245

"One mid-Atlantic Microsoft certified partner, who asked not to be named, said he was stunned by the news. "I'm desperately worried about Novell's acquisition. This gives them a Linux server story in a spot where Microsoft has been struggling to compete. If Novell can bridge its still-large installed base of NetWare and this new Linux stuff, and integrate with Active Directory--which they can via Samba--they have a story," he noted. "The fact that you can now connect Linux and Windows environments without the CAL [client access license] implications is, or should be, frightening to Redmond. This is Microsoft's worst nightmare: a dedicated competitor that hates their guts and has the resources to fight."

[RogueIsland]

While Red Hat Linux won't be available at retail, the company is supporting a community project, Fedora, to create distributions based on cutting-edge Linux technology.

Everyone seems to be overlooking this. From what I've been reading, Fedora is pretty darn good, and the support for it is community based.

[MrConfettiMan]

LOL

[dyed_in_the_wool]

There are still plenty to choose from.

[Liberal Classic]

Interesting news, and in other interesting news, Novell just bought SuSE Linux following closely on the heels of their purchase of the Ximian commercial Linux desktop company in August. Novell is now a Linux company, and it appears they are gunning for the vacuum left by RedHat's retreat.

It's always amazing how quickly market conditions had change. Anyone remember when the joke was that OSF stood for "Oppose Sun Forever?"

[tortoise]

Who gives a crap about the Linux desktop? What it has is plenty good for engineers, developers, and the like (and much better than most other Unix variants), and I don't see a particular need to pander to the home market. Let Apple or someone like that take care of it.

Where Linux really kicks ass is on the server-side, and for that you don't need or really want a shiny drooler-friendly GUI anyway. Much ado about nothing says I.