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Red Hat Linux - The End
[link=http://www.redhat.com/solutions/migration/rhl/]Red Hat[/link] officially announced the end of Red Hat Linux. The latest version, 9.0 will have the end of support seen in April 2004. They are telling their users to look to the Fedora project for open source linux solutions, or to migrate to Enterprise Linux 3.0, which starts at $179.
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Is Linux really the viable desktop OS replacement everyone thought it was?
Is RedHat still going to offer a "downloadable" RH Linux package for free? I'd rather pay $179.00 for Windows than for Linux... at least until Linux matures enough to be a viable day-to-day consumer desktop OS.
And I'll tell you exactly why it will:
1. No must have applications.
2. Superior competitor firmly entrenched in the primary role of providing the #1 product of the OS market.
3. No centralized driving force: There is no main push behind Linux, there is no cohesion, there is no primary platform of development. A product primarly hoping for success in a capitalist economy cannot survive with the excessive divisions of the Linux platform.
4. Linux simply defies the economies it is trying to operate in. A product without centralization, without large sums of development money, without a driving reason for ownership, with a steep learning curve and a severe lack of hardware support is doomed to failure.
Don't agree with me? Someone tell me what happened to IBM's massive Linux server push which dropped off the face of the earth in 18 month's time. Someone tell me why I interface with 32 multi-billion corporations on a regular basis through my IT program, and they're shedding Linux faster than you can say "Oh crap, Microsoft is winning."
Come on, I nuked my linux installs almost a dozen times on my old Ti4400 & P4 2.26 system before I could finally get the NVidia's Linux Detonator drivers installed. They have a long way to go before Linux could ever become a viable desktop replacement.
Wine is bridging the gap of being able to use a limited set of Windows applications on Linux, but not having native support for popular applications is definately a problem, not to mention too many damned choices for a user interface.
KDE? Gnome, etc. Choose 1 and standardize around it! Choice may be nice for certain things, but it makes for nothing but trouble for a software developer trying to design an application to run on all Linux distro's and on all visual setups.
As much as we all may hate Windows, you can't deny the fact that having the same interface since "Chicago" has made using the PC almost a universal fact. As others have stated, they can navigate the Windows OS even if the native language of the OS is different from what they speak (IE, when I installed and configued Russian Windows 98 First Edition for an exchange student). Try typing in a CD-KEY on a Russian Keyboard!
Isn't Red Hat sealing their own fate by selling only the higher priced version?
But everything looked familiar, and was right where I expected it to be. I had them going in under an hour and they all treated me like a genius. The whole time I was praying I wouldn't need to get into the registry...
Point being: Standardization in OS's is a good thing.
Wow, 2 distros have gone down the drain, oh no, what ever shall we do, oh, thats right, use a better one like one of the above.
Thrax: Linux isn't going anywhere, it may not be the shiney, easy to use desktop replacement that you seem to want to believe it is trying to be, but it is enough for a lot of people..
NS
I think the point is that 2 of the more mainstream distros are failing to remain "mainstream".
Will Linux die? No.
Will it ever really compete with Windows? I seriously doubt it.
Not for the mainstream, everyday, casual user.
No, I was just listing some popular distros, I didn't say they were all better, just some of them.
NS
Keep in mind Red Hat ISN'T Linux.
Mandrake ISN'T Linux.
Slackware ISN'T Linux.
Debian ISN'T Linux
Gentoo ISN'T Linux
Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, Debian, Gentoo are all Linux DISTRIBUTIONS.
Until Linux development ceases (which isn't likely to happen anytime in the forseeable future) then Linux will not die. Distributions will come and go, but Linux will stay.
Thrax confuses the issue because he's (seemingly) trying to think of Linux as a company and seems to think of Red Hat, Mandrake, IBM, etc. as licensees of the technology. But they don't "license" the technology because it is available for free. The companies can come and go and it doesn't affect the cash-flow to the Linux company at all because Linux isn't a company. Sure, money helps spur on development, but before there was millions/billions of dollars thrown at Linux there were people that just enjoyed hacking on the kernel and if all the money dries up there will still be those that enjoy hacking on the kernel.
I know very clearly what Linux is, and how it is produced, thank you. I would appreciate if NightShade and A2 did not state what I supposedly intended, when I did a very fine job of saying what I intended on my own.
An operating system needs to have a primary source of money, and it doesn't. It needs to have cohesion and <b>IT DOES NOT</b>.
Even if the operating system is reduced to a bunch of nerds hacking the kernel at the end of the day, a successful competitor it will not make. A viable alternative it will never be. A highly-compatible piece of software it...won't...ever...be.
The fact that the operating system is entirely open source <b>does...not...matter</b>. The elitist divisions between users of distros, and the mindset -- "I don't like that distro. Let's make a new one!" does nothing but divide valuable resources away from producing a primary, driving force for Linux as a platform which is the intended goal for a large portion of Linux <b>developers.</b>
Linux, as a platform has tried very hard to emulate windows in many regards; The development of windows-like interfaces, the development of windows emulation devices, the development of installation packages, etcetera. If Linux was not attempting to be a viable competitor to Microsoft's Windows, then these occurances would not have happened, or would have happened considerably later than they did. Linux walks in Microsoft's footsteps, and hides in its shadow.
When your troops are scattered, you have no army, and when you have no army, you aren't winning the war.
That's why I put seemingly inside parenthesis.
It still seems to me that you are confusing things because Linux isn't about "winning." Linux isn't about "competition" to Microsoft. Sure, Linus may want Linux to succeed and "beat" Microsoft, but Linux isn't going to do that and Linus knows this so it isn't like he keeps on because he thinks it will.
The fact that Linux has GUIs available and package managers isn't because it is trying to emulate Microsoft, it's because it makes sense. Besides, GUIs have been available for UNIX before Linux, so the GUI argument isn't much of an issue.
Linux is about choices . . . that's why it is so segmented. Sure, it's a disadvantage if you want a homogeneous environment to develop for such as Windows, but most of the Linux users aren't as concerned about that as they are about having the choice to do what they want.
Some people want GNOME to be THE DE. Some want KDE to be THE DE. Personally I prefer KDE and I don't care if GNOME ever has one more line of code written for it, but it's all about choice. Neither is going away and some people actually prefer GNOME.
As for no killer apps . . . you're right. But then again, Linux, even "desktop Linux" isn't truly competing with Microsoft. Maybe someday, but not today and I doubt before Microsoft launches Longhorn, if then.
Linux fills a niche. A niche that probably isn't going to fade into oblivion. It may shrink, it may grow, but I'm sure it won't die.
You won't see windows at a datacenter - you see mostly linux, a smattering of commercial unixes and a mainframe or two. It just doesn't happen. Windows is great on the desktop and for file/print/directory, but windows hasn't made but the smallest dent in the enterprise. SAP, R/3, Oracle, PeopleSoft, these things that run the world, these massive software programs that cost millions of dollars each, they aren't running on Windows, I'll tell you that.
To paraphrase and summarize the entire book:
Look what I did! YAY!
Once in awhile one of the back up servers will go down, and either they call us, or we call them and they try to reboot it remotely, or we have to reboot it manualy.
Then there are more servers in the electrical cage, that we aren't allowed to access. I would assume those run the cash register info, ect. ?
It did surprise me that they use Windows.
But everything that's scanned in or out, is done "real time", meaning they know at the H.O. what's being done and by whom.
I gotta tell you man, you don't know everything. your anti-linux rhetoric sounds like blind admiration for bill gates. Unfortunately Linux is not ready for prime time on the desktop for many many people. Even today, Red Hat's CEO says home users should stick with Windows.Servers however, is where Linux rules. As far as Ford is concerned, I'm sure money has something to do with it, but it's not true!!! They're looking at it.
It is when the other person refuses to see point through genuine reasoning :rolleyes2
NS
Pathetic.
This was all quite fine until Kanez and NS showed up. Way to contribute fellas.
I can't say the WM word.
All of our monitors show "Windows Server".
I know they used to use telnet to access remotely, but now use PC Anywhere (or at least they did the last time I talked to a remote tech).
They also have a couple Dell rack servers.
I'll do some further checking.
It's possible they use a couple different OS'es for different servers.