I tried that there linix and it sux. It's not user friendle and it has bugs. None of my warez work on it. Oh yeah, and it's made by communists. OK, I did it. Now gimme my twenty bucks. |
Posted on 12/16/2002 1:25:59 PM PST by knighthawk
Could a wily little penguin disrupt Microsoft's desktop empire? The Linux operating system has made impressive gains on corporate servers, but so far has failed to crack the desktop market.
More than 90 per cent of the world's personal computers run on Windows. And Linux is still considered too technically complex for the average computer user.
But that is changing, especially outside the United States.
Government agencies in Europe, China, India and South America have started to encourage Linux over proprietary software because it provides cost savings, freedom from reliance on a single software vendor, and flexibility.
Linux is Open Source software, which offers the global community of programmers the ability to access and modify source code.
"Outside North America is where you have both Microsoft environments being threatened. Governments are evaluating alternatives for both the operating system and applications," said Stacey Quandt, an analyst who tracks open source and Linux for Giga Information Group.
Overseas, systems pre-installed with Linux are selling. Hewlett-Packard offers PCs bundled with Turbolinux at stores in China. It also sells PCs pre-installed with Linux in stores in German-speaking parts of Europe.
"All of the momentum really started on the server side two years ago, and on the desktop only this year," said Judy Chavis, worldwide Linux director at HP. "It's almost like you had to prove on the server side this thing was real."
Sun Microsystems plans to sell PCs running Linux for limited use in places like banks, schools, government offices and call centres.
Also in China, Sun Microsystems' StarOffice Office Suite, which runs on Windows and Linux, is gaining in popularity. In Brazil, some banks have moved away from Microsoft Office on the desktop toward open source productivity software.
Companies including Red Hat, SuSE, Lycoris and Lindows have started offering more user-friendly desktop versions of Linux or plan to do so next year.
Red Hat, the largest Linux provider, is attempting to reach more mainstream computer users with its latest version of Linux, Red Hat 8.0.
"We will introduce Linux to a user population that we have historically been unable to reach," including home and school users, chief executive Matthew Szulik told investors in September.
SuSE, a 10-year-old German company with US headquarters in Oakland, California, will begin to offer products aimed at consumers next year, said Holger Dyroff, SuSE's general manager for the Americas.
The company began selling its product pre-installed on laptops in Germany earlier this year, and hopes to convince PC manufacturers in the US to do the same. In a partnership with CodeWeavers, which makes products to bridge the gap between Windows and Linux, SuSE will offer a desktop operating system that runs Windows applications.
Lindows.com, based in San Diego, and Lycoris, of Redmond, Washington, sell versions of Linux on Microtel PCs through Wal-Mart's Web site. Another version, called ThizLinux, is made by Hong Kong-based ThizLinux Laboratories and sold on generic PCs at Fry's electronics stores.
So far, though, Linux vendors haven't convinced many brand-name hardware makers to ship desktop computers with Linux.
IDC analyst Dan Kusnetsky remains sceptical that they will change anytime soon. Linux accounted for only 1.7 per cent of worldwide desktop operating systems last year, he said.
PC makers, who operate on thin margins, look for products they can sell in high volume. That means computers with an operating system that novice users can count on to run their favourite applications smoothly, with customer support to back them up.
But there are other factors at play that could help Linux.
An unpopular licensing scheme which Microsoft introduced to its enterprise customers in July caused some of them to pursue less expensive options such as Linux with StarOffice or the free OpenOffice.org.
And the Microsoft antitrust settlement may create a small opening for Linux. The agreement prohibits Microsoft from restricting computer makers' ability to "offer users the option of launching other operating systems."
"Now we have the flexibility to ship with Linux, if we choose, without any financial impact to our business," said Gary Elsasser, vice president of technology at eMachines, an Irvine, California, company that makes low priced computers.
But Elsasser thinks Linux is just not ready for the consumer market. "A lot of work will have to be done to sway our opinion," he said.
Indeed, Linux vendors have an uphill battle ahead. For one thing, they can't match the advertising and marketing dollars Microsoft provides to PC makers for shipping their systems with Windows.
"Hardware makers say they'd love to help us but they are still afraid of Microsoft, and in this economy, they don't want to jeopardise their positions," said Jason Spisak, marketing director for Lycoris.
Michael Robertson, founder and chief executive of Lindows.com, echoed that frustration. "Microsoft is not allowed to retaliate," he said. "Well, what do you call market development funds that you only get if you don't work with Linux?"
Bruce Perens, co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, thinks Linux will enter the mass market in a different way. More companies looking to save money are using open source versions of applications like word processing, Web browsing and email. And as consumers move from PCs to smart internet appliances and other mobile devices, manufacturers can boost their margins by using embedded Linux, he said.
"The progress has been totally unbelievable," he said. "But we've still got a few years to go."
Lately, or a few years ago?
It does not work very well compared to Windows, mainly due to hardware incompatibilities with every component imaginable (except floppy drives).
That doesn't match my experience. The latest version of Redhat autodetects and installs everything (even on my laptop) and even sets up the network for you with simply prompts.
That said - if you want to run it as a server, whether hosting a web server, an email server, an application server, or a database server, it is quit effective -- I have found no problems in any of those areas.
I backed up all my data by cutting a CD that contained my home directories, then installed a fresh distro that wiped out the box and loaded everything up for me. (I chose the Laptop configuration on install).
Once everything was done, everything worked, from my monitor, lan cards, USB cardreader I use in conjunction with my camera, and my wife's handspring palm-type device.
Actually, that is not completely true. The modem doesn't work because it is one of those brain-damaged winmodems. This is not a big deal for me as I use ethernet for connectivity, but the thing just refuses to be recognised. Such is life. I hate dialup anyway.
No problems here on my home box with dual ethernet, accelerated AGP graphics card, dual hard disks, cdburner and other various toys attached either. Perhaps your problems lie elsewhere.
BTW: when I copied the contents of the home directories back to my harddisk, everything I had in my configuration options, as far as icon placement, desktop background, browser preferences and booksmarks were all regained. Sounds like a lot more fun than the typical windows post-installation tweaking session.
Boo hoo, the free market is being mean to me.
If a gauntlet falls
and nobody's in the room
does it make a noise?
Ironically, Linux actually supports many devices that Windows does not, particularly when it comes to higher-end hardware. Where it sometimes comes up short is in the super-cheap "not quite right" Chinese knock-off hardware that neither implements some standard properly nor provides a Linux driver i.e. the manufacturer patched faulty hardware in software that doesn't work as advertised without their driver.
In practice, Linux works seamlessly on virtually all hardware. I don't know anyone who has the type of problems you are refering to. Especially in the last year or two when many hardware manufacturers have been explicitly supporting Linux.
I tried that there linix and it sux. It's not user friendle and it has bugs. None of my warez work on it. Oh yeah, and it's made by communists. OK, I did it. Now gimme my twenty bucks. |
Needed repeatin'
It is my caution to any business. If you get into anything proprietary then you are at the mercy of the vendor.
I've tried five different distributions, with very lackluster results in every case. None of the distros dealt properly with my plain vanilla 1024 X 768 laptop LCD. All of them made Windows look positively zippy in performance.
For desktop use, it's really a GUI grafted on to a clone of a 40 year old mainframe OS.
I'm not into the whole "log in" thing on a PC that only I operate. I tolerate it with NT, but for what you get with Linux it's silly. And I'm surely not into the glacial performance.
It's a great idea, just not ready for prime time. It's MORE demanding of system resources, and needs a very interested user with lots of time to tune, tweak and troubleshoot.
I have not only tried linux but I use it on my other HD. Its not that it has hardware incompatabilities, its just that many times you have to manually configure drivers for Linux to commnicate effectively with the hardware. I havent had any problems with Linux and it certainly doesnt crash all the time like windows does. Nor does it contain all the microsoft spyware. Its stable and reliable but not an OS for the average beginner.
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Hi, I'm Joe User and I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just here to say that I think Microsoft is a wonderful company and their pr0ducts are really super.