Future for Vista looks bleak, but where
Linc
OwnerDetroit Icrontian
With Microsoft taking a beating because of Vista's problems and delays, XYZ thinks it is time for desktop Linux to step up and experience some considerable growth.
Source: XYZ ComputingRight now, with Vista and Microsoft garnering very low approval ratings, desktop Linux providers need to be more aggressive about their marketing and get their message to concerned consumers. This should not be thought of as kicking Microsoft when it's down, but the fact remains that a lot of people, even dedicated MS fans, are disappointed with what they know about Vista and what they have been hearing about the company in general. This means it is an ideal time to present people with a viable option.
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That wont happen though. The whole reason there are lots of distros is because they are all VERY different to suit different peoples tastes. Most of what you recommend would also... "lameify" Linux, removing the "hardcore" part of it, which is what most the people that use it like it for.
So maybe that means Linux isn't for the average consumer desktop?
Trust me, when Linux attains the ease of setup and use, and the flexibility of Windows, word will spread like wildfire. Look at AMD, most of their success in the last three years has been through word of mouth, the reputation for quality and performance. The marketing has been minimalist and generally inept.
I respect all you desktop Linux pioneers. I really do. Some day the fruits of your labors will be enjoyed by millions of people like me.
Hmm, if there ever is a serious challenge to Windows from desktop Linux, you'll probably see Microsoft Linux distribution.
You've just read the opposite of what I said. I said it already WAS hardcore and that lots of people use it for that reason. "Noobifying" it would lose those users, and most of those users ARE the developers.
Lol... sorry, nothing more to say to that.
Most distro's aren't, but some are trying.
Same as what I said above, some distros are trying and making it easier, but are still... refining their methods.
No, sorry, typed to fast, meant to say keeping it hardcore. Because really, there are a lot of distros, out, why not make 1 that is noobified in order to gain a bigger userbase. The userbase of linux can not be elitist if they wish to gain a wider userbase.
And about the illegal part. at least in america it is a very real posibilty if they start this trusted platform bs. It would be very possible, through certain legislation for an program that isnt "trusted" or signed by certain orginazations to be illegal to run/develop/compile. most likely those people in charge of signing, would charge such an ammount that linux and other open source developers coudnt afford, or the signers just wouldnt sign. That could very well mean the end of open source. Not to mention that the trusted platform would introduce certain code that would have to be included, which would be illegal to share, thus making it illegal to share the source, killing open source another way.:sad2:
Well the advantage is that drivers are generic, so regardless weather you're using a distro that looks and feels like Windows or weather you're using one of the hardcore distros, they all use the same drivers.
There are. Ubuntu is trying and there are any of the distros with "Win" in the name (but there's got to be give, Linux isn't for retards).
The userbase of Linux couldn't really give a rats about a wider userbase for the most part as it normally means "dumbing down" everything (regardless of how simple a distro is made). The userbase themselves also don't really have much of an influence of what everything is going to be like anyway.
Luckily the rest of the world doesn't keep introducing such rediculous rules as the US.
I don't think the Trusted Platform bs works in the way you think it does. There's nothing at all to stop Linux running on a system with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) in fact the most popular TPMs are supported by current Linux Kernels. There's an interesting article about the issue here:
linky
You should also read the comments, in particular the one Posted Aug 17, 2005 18:33 UTC (Wed) by guest dmag.
Basically there's nothing in the Trusted Platform that would stop you installing linux on it, even a version of linux that didn't support the TPM. The only thing the TPM does is provide cryptographic and other security services to the system. If your system (OS) doesn't use them than the module just sits idle.
In the computer business, the end user wants simplicity and ease of use. 75-80% of end users don't want to have to use the manpages to learn how to do a simple file copy or move. Until Linux can dumb it down for the complete audience, get some track record time in the noobtastic mode, and prove to manufacturers that the large majority of customers would prefer it over Windows, your not going to see it mass produced if produced at all in Dell, HP, or Gateway machines. I'm willing to bet that 9 out of 10 average people have never even heard of or know what Linux is.
Anyhow, thats my my standpoint as a small manufacturer. I'm in no way busting on the Linux OS at all. I'm familiar enough with Fedora to make my way around the OS, and I do enjoy working with Linux.
If that happened, Windows XP would be gone so fast that your head would spin. No doubt. I'm waiting for a tangible mainstream replacement for xp. I'm surprised they havent found a way to run OSX on a pc yet anyway. I'm no coder, but I know that anything is possible with computers. Apple must have gone to some good lengths to prevent it.
Let's keep in mind that the most publicized incident of a computer company being sued by the USDOJ was the Microsoft anti-trust case.
When I start my car in the morning, I don't want to use a hand crank, and I don't want to have to reset the distributer points once a week, even if the car were free and less vulnerable to malware and less liable for bugs.
Normally lots of stuff is command line in Linux as once you're used to it it is considerably faster and more powerful to use, although some things are command line that don't really need to be. There's also the fact that you can then use the program on a machine with no X server installed.
That's the problem with Linux though, it's very powerful, very fast and secure but some things still need to be done through the command line. I work in tech support and I can tell you the majority of users literally fear the command line. They'd rather eat bees than do something via the command line. And even when there's a GUI alternative to the command line, you can tell that GUI has been designed with the knowledge that the command line is there as an alternative. That's the mindset that needs to be changed if Linux is to succeed. Someone should make a distro with no terminal at all, no access to any kind of command line and see if they can make it work.
I went to Linux as my primary OS mainly for three reasons:
1) I don't have a very strong desire to pay money for functionality that is provided legally for free elsewhere. This is especially true in light of my limited cashflow. There is a lot of really neat software available for Linux, many of which are very user-friendly and designed for X. With the exception of gaming, there is not a single feature Windows can offer me that can't be had here.
2) TCPA scares me. Really. Yes, I am aware that some crypto Linux kernels and distros support the TPM but only in a benign sense (very secure SSL certificate storage and public/private key generation among others) akin to the way other hardware crypto devices are supported. None of the more controversial features like remote attestation and DRM are implemented. As such, I retain control of my computer whereas Microsoft wants to take it away.
3) Linux runs on all the hardware I own which is quite varied and runs the full gamut from 68k Macintoshes to dual Opteron PCs. It is tremendously versatile and can be customized for any use. Take for example three machines I have running Gentoo Linux right now: the first is a dual Athlon MP desktop PC with hardware-accelerated ATI graphics that I'm using to post this; the second is a console-only dual Pentium 3 rackmount server with SCSI hard drives and multiple ethernet interfaces providing network routing and diskless booting for other machines; and the third boots disklessly from the second and runs a stripped down installation for Folding.
A common misconception about Linux is trying to measure the "Linux OS" by the same benchmarks or milestones used to measure Windows. Linux is NOT an OS in the same sense as Windows is. Technically, Linux refers only to the GNU/Linux kernel which forms the foundation for many operating systems otherwise known as Linux distributions. A distribution packages the Linux kernel along with the basic system utilities and other software as the distro authors see fit. However, a distribution typically offers very little "original" software and is mostly a collection of software written by developers with no relation to the distro authors. As a result, distro authors have little to no control over the development progress, policies, or philosophies of the package authors leading to great difficulty in package integration and interopterability. These problems are derived from the nature of free software development and will be evident in any distro you care to use. The unified front you mention practically cannot exist.
However, distributions in general are getting more user-friendly every day. The progress is but a snail's pace though it's quite respectable for volunteer organizations. Gentoo ships with a graphical installer now making portage, in my opinion the best package manager in existence, available to the masses. RedHat's RPM package manager system has gone from terrible to usable making distros that use it viable options. OpenOffice.org v2.0 is easy and intuitive to use after nearly a decade of MS Office.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: OS choice is largely based by what software you plan to use balanced against how much trouble you're willing to put up with from your OS. It's a decision you have to make for yourself but I and others have made the choice to use a Linux distro and found it to be superior to Windows for our usage.
-drasnor
Although to be perfectly honest if I didn't play games quite often I'd likely used it exclusively.