Linspire Chairman Frustrated By Futility Of Desktop Linux, Rebuts Carmony (sold to Xandros)

InformationWeek ^ | Jul 3, 2008 | Charles Babcock

[decimon]

Michael Robertson, chairman of Linspire, said the assets of his company were sold to Xandros after "years of frustration in trying to achieve the goal of desktop Linux."

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"Trying to compete with Microsoft on the desktop has been a futile effort. What the last 20 years has shown is that the Microsoft ecosystem goes far beyond Windows" into thousands of drivers for PC devices and applications to run on end-user machines. For Linux to match that may be impossible, he said.

[decimon]

Competition is futile!

[Ratblaster]

All your desktops are belong to us.

[brivette]

I had a close friend (now dead) that bet me that Linux would overtake Windows.

[goldstategop]

Really? PCLOS has no problems running on both of my laptops. To say Linux is not ready for the desktop market is the understatement of the decade.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[HAL9000]

Linux is great for servers, but not very good for desktop computers. It is not an adequate replacement for Windows.

The problem is that Linux software development is pure chaos. There are no standards for a consistent, high-quality look-and-feel for desktop applications.

[decimon]

I had a close friend (now dead) that bet me that Linux would overtake Windows.

Well, it ain't over till it's over.

[goldstategop]

It hasn't overtaken Windows yet. But its beginning to make itself felt in the low-priced end of the market, where Microsoft's memory hog Vista can't compete.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[unixfox]

It’s hard to compete in a free market when your product is free.

[goldstategop]

Linspire was a commercial Linux distro. Xandros is another one. Linspire had an open source version called Freespire. And Michael Robertson is wrong - the hottest Linux distro in the world today is Ubuntu.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[ex-NFO]

Really? On my desktop, I’m running CentOS for OS, Open Office for word processing and spreadsheets, KMail for email, Firefox for browsing, Money Dance for my checking account, etc.

I haven’t had a lick of trouble at all with any of it, it runs faster on older hardware with less memory than is recommended for MS applications, and I think I spent $40 for the whole thing.

[dbacks]

[It’s hard to compete in a free market when your product is free.]

And incompatible with 80% of usable S/W!

[goldstategop]

Linux is free and that isn't its only advantage over Microsoft. It gets updated very frequently and the top distros have excellent community forums.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[goldstategop]

Huh? I can run Internet Explorer and Safari in Linux with no compatibility issues under WINE.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Fichori]

"Linux is great for servers, but not very good for desktop computers. It is not an adequate replacement for Windows." [excerpt]

I am replying from a Linux desktop that is running a webserver(Apache) and a caching proxy(Squid).

It has an uptime of 34 days, the last reboot being necessary because I changed the timer resolution in the Kernel.

This computer runs the openGL programs Flightgear(flight sim) and Racer(racing sim) quite nicely.

I also run Linux on both my laptops(166Mhz and 1.33Ghz) and find it to be very 'good'.
(Slackware 11 on this desktop and the 1.33Ghz laptop, Slackware 10 on the 166Mhz laptop)


If Linux is really not very good on a desktop, somebody forgot to tell me.

[Liberty 275]

Every time I’ve tried using linux as a desktop, it has been an abject failure. It takes an act of god to get dual monitors working with linux (fedora). It works right out of the box with XP.

Notice to linux desktop companies: Americans would rather pay to eat in a restaurant than eat for free from a dumpster.

[decimon]

...the hottest Linux distro in the world today is Ubuntu.

That kernel snafu revealed a few weeks ago...have they addressed that?

[B Knotts]

I’m typing this on a Vostro 1700 running Debian. Everything works fine.

I think the right approach for a Linux vendor may be a all-in-one hardware/software approach like Apple does.

[goldstategop]

You haven't tried PCLOS. It correctly identified and installed drivers for all my laptop hardware. I was impressed. If you like Gnome, its version is pretty good too.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[goldstategop]

There'll be an update soon. Ubuntu is good with updates of its security patches.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Fichori]

There is a 500Mhz desktop around here that has Ubuntu+Emc2 installed on it.

As soon as I finish setting up the hardware, it will be able to do CNC control of a Sherline mill.