You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-)
http://www.dudalibre.com/gnulinuxcounter?lang=en
On Thu, October 7, 2010 14:05, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-)
I don't get it... I use Windows on the desktop and UNIX on many servers... how do they calculate % market share... there is no place to register that I use Windows on that site...
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Giles Coochey giles@coochey.net wrote:
On Thu, October 7, 2010 14:05, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-)
I don't get it... I use Windows on the desktop and UNIX on many servers... how do they calculate % market share... there is no place to register that I use Windows on that site...
that I don't know, maybe ask them?
On Thu, 2010-10-07 at 14:05 +0200, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-) http://www.dudalibre.com/gnulinuxcounter?lang=en
Ugh. web-site polls are meaningless, pointless, wrong, and best ignored.
See "self selected demographic".
On 10/07/2010 05:05 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-)
Argh. This is a lousy way to get that kind of stat. Completely worthless.
A much better approach (and one that doesn't require ten million people to voluntarily register on a site they are unlikely to even ever hear of) is just to look at web server logs on high traffic domains having nothing to do with computers or Linux per se. Checking my own logs for Google Analytics for the last couple of months, the percentage is around 0.3%.
I love Linux dearly (I've used it for my primary desktop and servers since 1995), but it really doesn't have much desktop penetration.
Benjamin Franz wrote:
On 10/07/2010 05:05 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-)
Argh. This is a lousy way to get that kind of stat. Completely worthless.
Yup. <snip>
I love Linux dearly (I've used it for my primary desktop and servers since 1995), but it really doesn't have much desktop penetration.
'98. But it's starting to have a visible presence, thanks to Vista.
mark "both hands on the gun, point at foot, fire!"
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Benjamin Franz wrote:
...
'98. But it's starting to have a visible presence, thanks to Vista.
mark "both hands on the gun, point at foot, fire!"
On the other hand, when I've attended events for developers such as a Plone bootcamp and Python day at the University of Washington, at least 75% of the laptops were Macbook [Pros].
I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
The vast majority of desktop users simply want to do things without having to worry about it.
We are using some Linux desktops today at clients where their only use is e-mail, web browsing, and running a database application in a terminal, but this is the exception rather than the rule. The clients here not doing general purpose desktop stuff so don't have to worry about putting the pieces together to do their jobs.
I would compare this to my experience with cars. Even though I built and raced formula cars for 13 years and have had a variety of stree cars ranging from hot rod Fords in the '50s, a Morgan Plus 4, and an Aston Martin DB-2 Drop Head Coupe, I drive a Subaru Legacy Wagon because it always works and goes pretty much anywhere. While I *CAN* deal with cars at a very low level (or could before they became controlled by on-board computer networks), I don't want to for every day use.
Linux on the desktop is great for people who like to get under the hood and tweak (or who have a tame Linux Geek to do it for them), but not so much for people who just want to drive it.
Bill
Bill Campbell wrote:
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Benjamin Franz wrote:
...
'98. But it's starting to have a visible presence, thanks to Vista.
mark "both hands on the gun, point at foot, fire!"
<snip>
I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my
development
is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
Of course, mo$t Mac $oftware comes with the Mac, and is all vetted by Apple. You might as well say the same for a plain vanilla Windows box. <snip> I run CentOS both at home and work, but I put Ubuntu on my netbook, just because they have a remix just for HP netbooks. *shrug* It mostly just works.
mark
On 10/7/2010 12:52 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Bill Campbell wrote:
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Benjamin Franz wrote:
...
'98. But it's starting to have a visible presence, thanks to Vista.
mark "both hands on the gun, point at foot, fire!"<snip> > I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 > or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development > is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be > constantly fiddling to get tools working.
Of course, mo$t Mac $oftware comes with the Mac, and is all vetted by Apple. You might as well say the same for a plain vanilla Windows box.
<snip>
Except that you couldn't reasonably say Windows 'just works' for anything before XP, SP2 - or for vista.
I run CentOS both at home and work, but I put Ubuntu on my netbook, just because they have a remix just for HP netbooks. *shrug* It mostly just works.
Current OS versions are 'good enough' for most purposes. What matters is specific application availability, particularly if you need to exchange data with someone else in non-standard formats. And now that computers don't cost $10,000 each anymore, a lot of people will have several.
At Thu, 7 Oct 2010 13:52:47 -0400 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
Bill Campbell wrote:
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Benjamin Franz wrote:
...
'98. But it's starting to have a visible presence, thanks to Vista.
mark "both hands on the gun, point at foot, fire!"<snip> > I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 > or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development > is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be > constantly fiddling to get tools working.
Of course, mo$t Mac $oftware comes with the Mac, and is all vetted by Apple. You might as well say the same for a plain vanilla Windows box.
<snip> I run CentOS both at home and work, but I put Ubuntu on my netbook, just because they have a remix just for HP netbooks. *shrug* It mostly just works.
I've *always* run Linux on my desktop (AMD Semperon on a KS Rock motherboard) AND laptop (IBM Thinkpad X31). And never ran *any* version of MS-Windows *ever* (at home or at work when I was working at UMass). Both my laptop and desktop run CentOS 5.
At the local library, all but two of the workstations run CentOS 5 (all but one are diskless). Library patrons and staff people have no problems using these machines. (I keep them up-to-date.)
mark
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 01:52:47PM -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Of course, mo$t Mac $oftware comes with the Mac, and is all vetted by Apple. You might as well say the same for a plain vanilla Windows box.
<snip>
Oh for shame Mark, I expect better from you than the $ stuff. I've always thought of that as the little dog barking at the larger one, though Alan, another whom I greatly admire, does it too. Sigh, I feel old sometimes, or perhaps just stodgy.
Anyway....
I run CentOS both at home and work, but I put Ubuntu on my netbook, just because they have a remix just for HP netbooks. *shrug* It mostly just works.
At work, I have a Fedora desktop to keep track of what stupidity will happen next with RH/CentOS. (I think that Alan if he's here, will attest that it was thanks to this cynicism that the GUI packagekit allowing any user to update any signed package without authentication was caught. ) At home, my main machine is CentOS as server (very light web/mail) cum workstation, mostly because that is my main responsibility at work--though our web developer team has requested and will be getting an Ubuntu server box.
My wife uses Mac, which she loves, however, when I gave her a netbook, I put Ubuntu on it. I showed her the netbook edition and normal, and she chose normal with the bottom panel removed. It's more than adequate for all her needs when not at home--some webmail, skype, web browsing, occasional video watching, and the like. (Her netbook is an Asus, not an HP, but still, she preferred the more typical Gnome format, saying that there is very little difference for her between using it and the Mac for these things.)
Am Thu, 7 Oct 2010 14:20:47 -0400 schrieb Scott Robbins scottro@nyc.rr.com:
At work, I have a Fedora desktop to keep track of what stupidity will happen next with RH/CentOS. (I think that Alan if he's here, will attest that it was thanks to this cynicism that the GUI packagekit allowing any user to update any signed package without authentication was caught. )
Great. When I tested Mint a few weeks ago over 100 MB of packets could't be verified at all via apt for the latest updates because of missing keys.
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Bill Campbell centos@celestial.com wrote: :
I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
The vast majority of desktop users simply want to do things without having to worry about it.
I've been using CentOS on my desktop continuously since January 2007 and on my laptops during the last 2-3 years, and they mostly "just work." The tinkering I have done with my system largely consists of stuff I do for fun or as an extension to my work (I've been developing software for UNIX and similar systems for over 23 years) and has little or nothing to do with "most" of what my experience of what the average user needs.
"Standard" installations come with an office suite, web and email facilities, some basic sound and video apps, graphics tools and accessories, not too unlike what comes with Windoow$ or O$-X/MAC$. A great many of those apps are cross-platform capable and many people use them on Win or Apple platforms as well (e.g., OO, Firefox, Thunderbird).
Having waited 8+ years to make the jump to a Linux that wasn't a royal battle to install and use, I have settled on CentOS mainly because I needed it for a job and it was trivially easy to work with even before I did any tinkering. From what I've seen, Ubuntu, Mint and a few other Linux distros are just as easy or maybe easier to use, but there's a myth that "Linux is difficult" and that stigma traumatizes anyone not willing to try anything new/different from the hyperinfiltration of M$ Window$ or the glamor of an Apple.
Them's my $0.04 (inflation, ya know...).
Mark Richter Software Developer http://www.linkedin.com/in/markhullrichter Registered Linux User #472807 - sign up at http://counter.li.org/
Am 07.10.2010 um 20:54 schrieb Mark:
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Bill Campbell centos@celestial.com wrote: :
I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
The vast majority of desktop users simply want to do things without having to worry about it.
I've been using CentOS on my desktop continuously since January 2007 and on my laptops during the last 2-3 years, and they mostly "just work."
Except for stuff like scanners. I doubt my mother would have been able to extract the firmware-binary blob for her scanner from some installer-cd (or even from a windows- installer).
Devs in the OSS-world seem too busy to invent yet another desktop, or sound-architecture or image-viewer (just count how many image-viewers there are on freshmeat - they're only beaten by half-assed GUIs for iptables).
Rainer
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 09:16:21PM +0200, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Am 07.10.2010 um 20:54 schrieb Mark:
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Bill Campbell centos@celestial.com wrote: :
Except for stuff like scanners. I doubt my mother would have been able to extract the firmware-binary blob for her scanner from some installer-cd (or even from a windows- installer).
Devs in the OSS-world seem too busy to invent yet another desktop, or sound-architecture or image-viewer (just count how many image-viewers there are on freshmeat - they're only beaten by half-assed GUIs for iptables).
heh, you've hit on one of my pet peeves. Take Anaconda, which works well enough, and you'll have a ton of developers "improving". (Just wait for the RH6 and CentOS followup--you will now have what RH calls a simplified and streamlined text installer--it's basically been crippled).
Or pulseaudio, which, as has been said, was a solution in search of a problem. The latest Fedora thing is systemd, which will help it boot faster--of course, once it boots, your scanner still won't work unless there's someone your mom can call.
They work on little GUIs and things to help the imaginary average user (whom most developers seem to consider i synonomous with moron) while ignoring all the things that should be done.
Or pulseaudio, which, as has been said, was a solution in search of a problem. The latest Fedora thing is systemd, which will help it boot faster--of course, once it boots, your scanner still won't work unless there's someone your mom can call.
alsa caught up...but whatever
They work on little GUIs and things to help the imaginary average user (whom most developers seem to consider i synonomous with moron) while ignoring all the things that should be done.
+1
At Thu, 7 Oct 2010 11:54:20 -0700 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Bill Campbell centos@celestial.com wrote: :
I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
The vast majority of desktop users simply want to do things without having to worry about it.
I've been using CentOS on my desktop continuously since January 2007 and on my laptops during the last 2-3 years, and they mostly "just work." The tinkering I have done with my system largely consists of stuff I do for fun or as an extension to my work (I've been developing software for UNIX and similar systems for over 23 years) and has little or nothing to do with "most" of what my experience of what the average user needs.
"Standard" installations come with an office suite, web and email facilities, some basic sound and video apps, graphics tools and accessories, not too unlike what comes with Windoow$ or O$-X/MAC$. A great many of those apps are cross-platform capable and many people use them on Win or Apple platforms as well (e.g., OO, Firefox, Thunderbird).
Having waited 8+ years to make the jump to a Linux that wasn't a royal battle to install and use, I have settled on CentOS mainly because I needed it for a job and it was trivially easy to work with even before I did any tinkering. From what I've seen, Ubuntu, Mint and a few other Linux distros are just as easy or maybe easier to use, but there's a myth that "Linux is difficult" and that stigma traumatizes anyone not willing to try anything new/different from the hyperinfiltration of M$ Window$ or the glamor of an Apple.
The main thing about Linux that is 'hard' is the fact that you have to use your brain and make choices: Which web browser? Which office suite? Which email client? Which desktop? Which Linux distro? For lots of people this is way too much work. I guess if these people looked at, say, cars or clothes the same way they looked at computers, they would ALL be driving boring black Chevys or would have a closet with 100 black suits, 100 black ties, 100 white shits, etc. (Well maybe 100 black T shirts and 100 pairs of jeans.)
Them's my $0.04 (inflation, ya know...).
Mark Richter Software Developer http://www.linkedin.com/in/markhullrichter Registered Linux User #472807
- sign up at http://counter.li.org/
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
The main thing about Linux that is 'hard' is the fact that you have to use your brain and make choices: Which web browser? Which office suite? Which email client? Which desktop? Which Linux distro? For lots of people this is way too much work. I guess if these people looked at,
I think that you raise an important point here, but I would rather relate it to a question of "education".
People simply don't know that there are alternatives, or that this alternatives are manageable. They are not "educated" to consider the OS and their software ecosystem as something that can be configured and tweaked (I don't say that everybody should hack the kernel).
I am always puzzled when I talk to non technical people that, while everybody knows what is an Excel spreadsheet, almost nobody knows precisely what is a database. Or what are the roles and relationships between CPU + memory + disk. Or how does a website work, etc. People now spend their lives dealing with a DB, a computer or a website, and it takes less than one hour to explain how they work! (I did it many times and people are always very eager to know it)
We spend years learning how to read and write, but we could not spend a few hours as kids learning what *is* a computer and what it can do? (I don't talk about learning how to open a browser, download from iTunes or fill a spreadsheet).
I really don't think that MS Windows or Mac or Ubuntu or CentOS are better or less good for desktop in general (CentOS better suits my personal needs). Same for iPhone vs. Blackberry vs. Android for mobile devices.
When I discuss this with other people, I therefore don't try to convince them, but I just want to make sure that they are aware of which tradeoffs they are doing: versatility vs. security, nice design vs. freeedom, works-out-of-the-box vs. works-not-out-of-the-box-but-after-this-has-been-properly-configured-will-always-work-perfectly (eh, eh, that's what I like with my CentOS desktop).
People are of course free to give up (some) freedom, I just wish they would do it consciously.
Mathieu you make a good point in your email.
People don't want to make a rational choice. I live in Brazil and I was thinking that in the USA and Europe things would be different. Here in Brazil we can buy a computer - cheap or not - as they say "configured", that is: with MS installed and all the things ready to use. Obsviously, withou any license. To me this is a cultural problem: if the mam in the shop say that I can have a computer - or laptop - ready and not pay so much, that's ok!
I am a teatcher of philosophy. I teach philosophy to IT courses in the university (private) every semester is the same thing: why did I have to think? My course is about computer and webcommerce. Linux?Oh, nobody use linux in a desktop!
I am using Linux since 2003. Actually I am using Fedora because I dont Know how to make a HP f4480 scanner works, only the printer. I use Centos and Scientificlinux for years, before I buy this HP thing. But I make my "rational" choice: scanner or insecurity? Well, as I am not a very important person and have no secrets, I can use some insecure OS.
Scuse for my rough english.
Best wishes
Arturo
Em Sex, 2010-10-08 às 09:46 +0200, Mathieu Baudier escreveu:
The main thing about Linux that is 'hard' is the fact that you have to use your brain and make choices: Which web browser? Which office suite? Which email client? Which desktop? Which Linux distro? For lots of people this is way too much work. I guess if these people looked at,
I think that you raise an important point here, but I would rather relate it to a question of "education".
People simply don't know that there are alternatives, or that this alternatives are manageable. They are not "educated" to consider the OS and their software ecosystem as something that can be configured and tweaked (I don't say that everybody should hack the kernel).
I am always puzzled when I talk to non technical people that, while everybody knows what is an Excel spreadsheet, almost nobody knows precisely what is a database. Or what are the roles and relationships between CPU + memory + disk. Or how does a website work, etc. People now spend their lives dealing with a DB, a computer or a website, and it takes less than one hour to explain how they work! (I did it many times and people are always very eager to know it)
We spend years learning how to read and write, but we could not spend a few hours as kids learning what *is* a computer and what it can do? (I don't talk about learning how to open a browser, download from iTunes or fill a spreadsheet).
I really don't think that MS Windows or Mac or Ubuntu or CentOS are better or less good for desktop in general (CentOS better suits my personal needs). Same for iPhone vs. Blackberry vs. Android for mobile devices.
When I discuss this with other people, I therefore don't try to convince them, but I just want to make sure that they are aware of which tradeoffs they are doing: versatility vs. security, nice design vs. freeedom, works-out-of-the-box vs. works-not-out-of-the-box-but-after-this-has-been-properly-configured-will-always-work-perfectly (eh, eh, that's what I like with my CentOS desktop).
People are of course free to give up (some) freedom, I just wish they would do it consciously. _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Too long, don't read. It's mostly YMMV (religious) anyways.
The main thing about Linux that is 'hard' is the fact that you have to use your brain and make choices: Which web browser?
We have this same question under Windows. My answer is "all of them, why not?" Some of the web sites I have need to visit only work on Internet Exploder (ms update), some only work on FireFox (my favorite game site), many are only tolerable in Opera because of *their* addiction to flash hits *my* allergy to flash. Opera's content blocking is a God-Send.
Which office suite?
Unfortunately all of them fail at full compatibility with MSWorks; that's the Gold Standard.
Which email client?
This is not trivial. Content compatibility with Office and other "of course you want embedded content in email" senders is a field of study in itself. My email client (Forte Agent) is horrible at handling embedded content. I'm also almost never bothered by trojans such as have clobbered my kids' and wife's systems (1 in 10 years, and that was when my son 'borrowed' my system).
Which desktop?
Which one is most like WinXP? This is the question that keeps Linux off of desktops. Retraining people to a different way to drive is non-trivial also.
Which Linux distro?
Why is there more than one? A Century ago there were ZILLIONS of things for chest colds/flu/pneumonia/bronchitis. In 1955 there were like 3... Sulfa, penicillin, and erythromycin. What happened to the others? They didn't work, so as soon as something came along that just worked, the others turned to dust of no more than historical value. Today there are a zillion flavors/distributions of Linux ... And one flavor of Windows. It tastes terrible until compared to the competition (speaking in behalf of everybody I personally know).
For lots of people this is way too much work.
Or it's too much work for their boss or their spouse (but I repeat myself) ... Many/most people don't play with computers for a hobby OR for a job, they want it to Just Work so they can get their work/play DONE. If I could find a version of Linux that Just Worked for my machine, my wife's machine, and our software suites, I'd jump.
I guess if these people looked at, say, cars or clothes the same way they looked at computers, they would ALL be driving boring black Chevys or would have a closet with 100 black suits, 100 black ties, 100 white shits, etc. (Well maybe 100 black T shirts and 100 pairs of jeans.)
NOT. They'd all be wearing something they pull off a hanger in a store, or drive off a lot, utterly dependent on some foreign manufacturer's sense of fashion and function. Oh, wait ...
If clothes were like Linux ... Think artfully/randomly placed patches of duct-tape on some home-made follow-the-pattern-and-hope-it-works abominations. YMMV.
I have CentOS 5.5 on my "other drive" which I (almost) never boot because "wine /path/to/WoW/installdir/Wow.exe -opengl" doesn't Just Work.
Wine didn't Just Work with Diablo, or Tetris either. Others got it working, I know; I've been odd man out for a decade. So's my wife, both my folks, most of my kids, and all my neighbors. We Linux desktop users are a small fringe because of what has been called "having to take thought".
<QUOTE=Akemi Yagi>The DKMS version of Nvidia driver at rpmforge is not being actively maintained and will be deprecated in favor of kmods.</QUOTE> Another reason Linux is on the fringe ... The drivers and interfaces change too much too often.
Them's my $0.04 (inflation, ya know...).
Got mole problems? Call Avogadro! 602-1023.
******************************************************************* This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses. www.Hubbell.com - Hubbell Incorporated**
On 08/10/10 21:50, Brunner, Brian T. wrote:
Too long, don't read. It's mostly YMMV (religious) anyways.
The main thing about Linux that is 'hard' is the fact that you have to use your brain and make choices: Which web browser?
We have this same question under Windows. My answer is "all of them, why not?" Some of the web sites I have need to visit only work on Internet Exploder (ms update), some only work on FireFox (my favorite game site), many are only tolerable in Opera because of *their* addiction to flash hits *my* allergy to flash. Opera's content blocking is a God-Send.
Which office suite?
Unfortunately all of them fail at full compatibility with MSWorks; that's the Gold Standard.
Which email client?
This is not trivial. Content compatibility with Office and other "of course you want embedded content in email" senders is a field of study in itself. My email client (Forte Agent) is horrible at handling embedded content. I'm also almost never bothered by trojans such as have clobbered my kids' and wife's systems (1 in 10 years, and that was when my son 'borrowed' my system).
Which desktop?
Which one is most like WinXP? This is the question that keeps Linux off of desktops. Retraining people to a different way to drive is non-trivial also.
Which Linux distro?
Why is there more than one? A Century ago there were ZILLIONS of things for chest colds/flu/pneumonia/bronchitis. In 1955 there were like 3... Sulfa, penicillin, and erythromycin. What happened to the others? They didn't work, so as soon as something came along that just worked, the others turned to dust of no more than historical value. Today there are a zillion flavors/distributions of Linux ... And one flavor of Windows. It tastes terrible until compared to the competition (speaking in behalf of everybody I personally know).
For lots of people this is way too much work.
Or it's too much work for their boss or their spouse (but I repeat myself) ... Many/most people don't play with computers for a hobby OR for a job, they want it to Just Work so they can get their work/play DONE. If I could find a version of Linux that Just Worked for my machine, my wife's machine, and our software suites, I'd jump.
I guess if these people looked at, say, cars or clothes the same way they looked at computers, they would ALL be driving boring black Chevys or would have a closet with 100 black suits, 100 black ties, 100 white shits, etc. (Well maybe 100 black T shirts and 100 pairs of jeans.)
NOT. They'd all be wearing something they pull off a hanger in a store, or drive off a lot, utterly dependent on some foreign manufacturer's sense of fashion and function. Oh, wait ...
If clothes were like Linux ... Think artfully/randomly placed patches of duct-tape on some home-made follow-the-pattern-and-hope-it-works abominations. YMMV.
I have CentOS 5.5 on my "other drive" which I (almost) never boot because "wine /path/to/WoW/installdir/Wow.exe -opengl" doesn't Just Work.
Wine didn't Just Work with Diablo, or Tetris either. Others got it working, I know; I've been odd man out for a decade. So's my wife, both my folks, most of my kids, and all my neighbors. We Linux desktop users are a small fringe because of what has been called "having to take thought".
<QUOTE=Akemi Yagi>The DKMS version of Nvidia driver at rpmforge is not being actively maintained and will be deprecated in favor of kmods.</QUOTE> Another reason Linux is on the fringe ... The drivers and interfaces change too much too often.
Them's my $0.04 (inflation, ya know...).
Got mole problems? Call Avogadro! 602-1023.
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses. www.Hubbell.com - Hubbell Incorporated**
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You do have some points there I'll admit. However, for a few things you've mentioned are actually slowly (but surely) being solved.
Lets take Wine for example (The application, not the drink).
For many years it's always essentially been "The Program will work... However, you may need to put on this dll override, disable alsa enable pulseaudio, make program run in a virtual desktop and apply a No-CD patch etc (Depending on the program)" now for many people this could be far to complicated and make them just say "You know what? stuff it I'll just go use Windows"
But we now have an application called "PlayOnLinux" which is handy for new users (or experienced, saved me a bunch of time.. lol) which essentially is the "click and go" what their used to, and for experienced users it still allows you to install anything and manually edit settings. However, wine still doesn't make all "Windows" programs work sadly.
But that leads to the other problem of installing applications.. most people don't (want to) know how to open up a terminal, and run commands to go install a package, or grab it from a URL import the gpg key of the repository etc. They want to just click it, click next a few times and be done with it (Like everything on Windows).
But, if you check out recent Fedora's that's almost possible, though still requested to enter password, but I think that's a *good* thing.
But (Jeez, I could call this the "But" email..) we have yet another problem as previously mentioned.. Choices Choices Choices, how do you make so many choices? As you said, most people just want it to "work" and be done with it. But technically a default install of a Linux distribution do "Just work" minus various codecs and sometimes hardware driver issues. But, you can't tell me, that on *every* windows machine, no ones ever had to go hunt down drivers for their hardware and install them (or use a provided CD) I know I have before (ever tried that with a machine with a Network adapter driver not detected, and no spare machine at the time? :| not fun)
Same thing with Linux sometimes, and on Windows not *all* programs are pre-installed and ready to go, for example, you can't go out, buy Windows 7, and start using office applications, you got to then go out and buy MS Office, and install it your self, essentially the same thing with Linux (Except you got to use OO.o, wine or whatever suits your preference)
Now, codecs is a common issue people find with Linux and the common question is "Why doesn't MP3 just work like on Windows?!" but contrary to popular belief, MP3 doesn't just "Always work" on Windows like they claim, I had a virtual machine, that had no Network connection what-so-ever, I put a MP3 on it to test, guess what? it had no MP3 codec, going through the settings I found an option "Download Codecs on first run" or something to that extent, which means they wasn't included with the OS (WinXP SP3) which isn't that different from Linux, except you got to add repository's and install a whole bunch of programs. That I do agree is a slight problem for new comers, maybe someday it will be fixed, but I doubt it.
As for things being updated "too often" this is where the "EL" class of OS's come in.. (albeit the EL series is quite old now and is missing quite a lot of new stuff, that is till EL6 gets here) but in a way I like my OS to be updated more often, as I like having the latest features and what not :-). Personal preference there though.
But personally, I don't think Linux is for everybody, nor will it ever be.
People aren't willing to learn, and this is where the problem lies when it comes to OS migration, that and the fact we tend to "get used" to things, and it becomes what we're used to, and we don't want it to change. Compared to a Linux from pre-2000 Linux is a *lot* more user friendly now also.
The other problem people have, is that when they try Linux they tend to go with an attitude of subconsciously wanting it not to work so they can say it's crap and go back to Windows..
But it's far from perfect. Give it another 5 years and I personally think Linux will be easy enough for "most" people to use.
After-all if my 75 year old Grandma is quite happily using a machine I set up for her with Fedora 12, it can't be THAT hard, as she doesn't know squat about computers (Mainly music, card games & email is all she uses) :-)
As for Market Share.. I threw in my vote.. I personally am not to worried about market shares of Linux. We are not a Corporation or Company.. so why should it matter? :-|
Anyhow, just my 2p :-) PS: Sorry for the short email, in a rush. :-)
At Fri, 8 Oct 2010 16:50:30 -0400 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
Too long, don't read. It's mostly YMMV (religious) anyways.
The main thing about Linux that is 'hard' is the fact that you have to use your brain and make choices: Which web browser?
We have this same question under Windows. My answer is "all of them, why not?"
Most MS-Windows users don't actually ask this question, they just use the one 'built in': IE.
Some of the web sites I have need to visit only work on Internet Exploder (ms update), some only work on FireFox (my favorite game site), many are only tolerable in Opera because of *their* addiction to flash hits *my* allergy to flash. Opera's content blocking is a God-Send.
Which office suite?
Unfortunately all of them fail at full compatibility with MSWorks; that's the Gold Standard.
Which email client?
This is not trivial. Content compatibility with Office and other "of course you want embedded content in email" senders is a field of study in itself. My email client (Forte Agent) is horrible at handling embedded content. I'm also almost never bothered by trojans such as have clobbered my kids' and wife's systems (1 in 10 years, and that was when my son 'borrowed' my system).
I have *never* use an HTML capable E-Mail client... 'nuff said.
Which desktop?
Which one is most like WinXP? This is the question that keeps Linux off of desktops. Retraining people to a different way to drive is non-trivial also.
Which Linux distro?
Why is there more than one?
Why is there more than one make/model of car? Why is there more than one style of shirt, pants, shoe? Why is there more than one genre of music? Why is there more than one style of house? Why is there more then one team sport?
A Century ago there were ZILLIONS of things for chest colds/flu/pneumonia/bronchitis. In 1955 there were like 3... Sulfa, penicillin, and erythromycin. What happened to the others? They didn't work, so as soon as something came along that just worked, the others turned to dust of no more than historical value. Today there are a zillion flavors/distributions of Linux ... And one flavor of Windows. It tastes terrible until compared to the competition (speaking in behalf of everybody I personally know).
For lots of people this is way too much work.
Or it's too much work for their boss or their spouse (but I repeat myself) ... Many/most people don't play with computers for a hobby OR for a job, they want it to Just Work so they can get their work/play DONE. If I could find a version of Linux that Just Worked for my machine, my wife's machine, and our software suites, I'd jump.
I guess if these people looked at, say, cars or clothes the same way they looked at computers, they would ALL be driving boring black Chevys or would have a closet with 100 black suits, 100 black ties, 100 white shits, etc. (Well maybe 100 black T shirts and 100 pairs of jeans.)
NOT. They'd all be wearing something they pull off a hanger in a store, or drive off a lot, utterly dependent on some foreign manufacturer's sense of fashion and function. Oh, wait ...
If clothes were like Linux ... Think artfully/randomly placed patches of duct-tape on some home-made follow-the-pattern-and-hope-it-works abominations. YMMV.
I have CentOS 5.5 on my "other drive" which I (almost) never boot because "wine /path/to/WoW/installdir/Wow.exe -opengl" doesn't Just Work.
Wine didn't Just Work with Diablo, or Tetris either. Others got it working, I know; I've been odd man out for a decade. So's my wife, both my folks, most of my kids, and all my neighbors. We Linux desktop users are a small fringe because of what has been called "having to take thought".
<QUOTE=Akemi Yagi>The DKMS version of Nvidia driver at rpmforge is not being actively maintained and will be deprecated in favor of kmods.</QUOTE> Another reason Linux is on the fringe ... The drivers and interfaces change too much too often.
Them's my $0.04 (inflation, ya know...).
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On Saturday, October 09, 2010 01:32:59 Robert Heller wrote:
At Fri, 8 Oct 2010 16:50:30 -0400 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org
wrote:
Which Linux distro?
Why is there more than one?
Why is there more than one make/model of car? Why is there more than one style of shirt, pants, shoe? Why is there more than one genre of music? Why is there more than one style of house? Why is there more then one team sport?
Why is there only one Windows? :-D
(sorry, couldn't resist... ;-) )
Best, :-) Marko
On Saturday, October 09, 2010 11:30:43 Ben McGinnes wrote:
On 9/10/10 9:06 PM, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
Why is there only one Windows? :-D
(sorry, couldn't resist... ;-) )
There isn't. The original consumer edition (i.e. Win 95/98/ME) became the XBox.
XBox is a gaming console, not an operating system. You cannot install it on a generic PC hardware.
Besides, AFAIK XBox's OS was based on WinNT and WinXP, not the 95/98/ME.
Best, :-) Marko
On 9/10/10 11:12 PM, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
XBox is a gaming console, not an operating system. You cannot install it on a generic PC hardware.
Besides, AFAIK XBox's OS was based on WinNT and WinXP, not the 95/98/ME.
It's been quite a few years since I looked at any of this so I might be wrong, but the changes between Win98 and WinME were building towards the project which eventually became the XBox. Things like improving the graphics support in ME, but stripping down (and generally messing up) the TCP/IP stack. Then that got folded into a fork of WinNT 5.x (Windows 2000 = NT 5.0 and XP = NT 5.1).
Not that I cared, I'd already been using Slackware for years before ME was released.
As for the XBox itself, yes the OS is customised for that kind of gaming platform, but it's still just a PC. It's not even a particularly powerful one. This page has the specs for the XBox:
http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Getting_Started#3
Regards, Ben
At Sat, 9 Oct 2010 11:06:20 +0100 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
On Saturday, October 09, 2010 01:32:59 Robert Heller wrote:
At Fri, 8 Oct 2010 16:50:30 -0400 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org
wrote:
Which Linux distro?
Why is there more than one?
Why is there more than one make/model of car? Why is there more than one style of shirt, pants, shoe? Why is there more than one genre of music? Why is there more than one style of house? Why is there more then one team sport?
Why is there only one Windows? :-D
(sorry, couldn't resist... ;-) )
Not a problem. It in fact makes my point: Linux is about *choice*, MS-Windows is NOT. Most computer users don't want to take the time and effort to make an *intellegent* choice.
Best, :-) Marko
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 10/9/10 5:50 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
Not a problem. It in fact makes my point: Linux is about *choice*, MS-Windows is NOT. Most computer users don't want to take the time and effort to make an *intellegent* choice.
But most of the bazillion choices you are forced to make to set up a Linux system don't have an intelligent solution - they are just arbitrary differences maintained by the distributions, perhaps in some vain attempt to keep people from being able to change easily. It's no more about intelligence than the flavor of ice cream you like best, but more complicated because there are so many more non-standard ingredients.
On Thu, 2010-10-07 at 10:33 -0700, Bill Campbell wrote:
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Benjamin Franz wrote:
...
'98. But it's starting to have a visible presence, thanks to Vista. mark "both hands on the gun, point at foot, fire!"
On the other hand, when I've attended events for developers such as a Plone bootcamp and Python day at the University of Washington, at least 75% of the laptops were Macbook [Pros]. I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
I here that occasionally; since you switched to OS X "shortly after it came out", which is like 5 years ago now, your experience with desktop LINUX is not current. It is far and away more user-friendly than it was five years ago. I'd say it has been about three years since I've had to fiddle to get tools working. Everything works.
I *use* LINUX on my HP Pavilion dv7 (HP DV-3085DX) all day five to six days a week. It is production and rock-solid. In installed openSUSE 11.2 w/GNOME and *all* the hardware *just worked*. All the applications *just worked*.
OpenOffice, Evolution, Nautilus, Tomboy, Banshee, Monodevelop, File-Roller, F-Spot, and Firefox is a killer suite of top-notch applications.
On 10/8/2010 6:14 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
I here that occasionally; since you switched to OS X "shortly after it came out", which is like 5 years ago now
OS X came out in Spring of 2001.
your experience with desktop LINUX is not current.
My experience with both platforms *is* current, and I agree with the GP.
Yes, Linux has come a long ways since 2001, but so has OS X. I continue to find usability differences between Linux and OS X, and almost always the advantage is to OS X.
OS X has broader software compatibility than Linux, simply because of the fact that OS X is UNIX (R). Almost all Linux programs can be built to run on OS X, while the reverse is most definitely not the case.
As for hardware compatibility, I'd say Linux can probably talk to more distinct device types, but there are enough choices on the OS X side. The reverse is often not true: I can think of several devices available on the OS X side which not only won't run under Linux, but which have no comparable alternative.
You might be tempted to bring up the fact that OS X won't run on generic PC hardware, but I think that's an unfair comparison. If you insist on making it, I have unfair comparisons to throw right back, like Final Cut Studio. See, both sides can build incompatible things. Now let's get back to the rational discussion. :)
I *use* LINUX on my HP Pavilion dv7 (HP DV-3085DX) all day five to six days a week. It is production and rock-solid. In installed openSUSE 11.2 w/GNOME and *all* the hardware *just worked*. All the applications *just worked*.
OpenOffice, Evolution, Nautilus, Tomboy, Banshee, Monodevelop, File-Roller, F-Spot, and Firefox is a killer suite of top-notch applications.
I don't find your experience surprising. You're installing on a generic box, and apparently your software needs are completely met by commodity applications. For those whose needs fit into that limited scope, Linux on the desktop can be the right solution.
Some of us have needs beyond that, however, which cannot be met on Linux. Photoshop, for example.
If you think Gimp is a suitable alternative to Photoshop, you either don't know Photoshop or your needs are simple enough that you shouldn't buy it even if you have the choice.
I think you should also ignore Wine and virtual machines for the purpose of this discussion. Both platforms have the same capabilities in this regard, and these technologies are limited cheats besides. You start sliding down that slope, and you end up dual-booting. That's a fine pragmatic solution to some problems, but it tells us nothing about native OS capabilities, and so fails to illuminate.
Warren Young wrote:
On 10/8/2010 6:14 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
I here that occasionally; since you switched to OS X "shortly after it came out", which is like 5 years ago now
<snip>
Yes, Linux has come a long ways since 2001, but so has OS X. I continue to find usability differences between Linux and OS X, and almost always the advantage is to OS X.
OS X has broader software compatibility than Linux, simply because of the fact that OS X is UNIX (R). Almost all Linux programs can be built to run on OS X, while the reverse is most definitely not the case.
<snip> But OS X can legally only run on Apple (tm$$$) systems, where Linux can run on *anything* and anybody's inexpensive hardware.
mark
On 10/8/2010 4:09 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
But OS X can legally only run on Apple (tm$$$) systems, where Linux can run on *anything* and anybody's inexpensive hardware.
Apple hardware is fairly priced when compared on quality. Yes, there are cheap POS PCs that compare favorably on features with Apple hardware at a lower cost. I've used many such. They often break more readily, or fail to satisfy on some other level. There's more to a PC than spec list.
If cheap commodity junk solves your problem, great. I, however, want a quality computer, and to get it, I'd pay about the same for one running Linux as for a Mac. Since I'd rather be running OS X on the desktop, my choice is clear.
I addressed this same point differently in my previous message. You can point to choice of scads of computer builders on the Linux side, but I can point at scads of different software packages on the Mac side that will never run on Linux. I specifically mentioned Final Cut Studio, and called it an unfair comparison because obviously Apple will resist any effort to make that run somehow on Linux.
But a fair comparison would be the Adobe Creative Suite, since Adobe presumably wants their software used everywhere. You can't blame Adobe for not porting it. They've dipped their toe in the water several times, and shied away each time. Most recently, it was with Flash Builder, which they ended up discontinuing for Linux. Farther back, there was a version of Photoshop for Solaris, which never did make it over to Linux, presumably because they couldn't sell enough copies to make it worth their while.
I'd rather let my buying choices be dictated by software than hardware. Playing with computers as computers is fun, but in the end, I'm more interested in running software on them. So, I pick the software first, then pick the hardware that will run that software.
On 10/08/2010 03:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
On 10/8/2010 4:09 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
But OS X can legally only run on Apple (tm$$$) systems, where Linux can run on *anything* and anybody's inexpensive hardware.
Apple hardware is fairly priced when compared on quality. Yes, there are cheap POS PCs that compare favorably on features with Apple hardware at a lower cost. I've used many such. They often break more readily, or fail to satisfy on some other level. There's more to a PC than spec list.
[snip]
Apple runs commodity hardware that is essentially identical to everyone else's - just priced 3X more.
Hardware quality **IS NOT** the difference between a Mac and everyone else.
On 10/8/2010 4:29 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:
On 10/08/2010 03:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
There's more to a PC than [a] spec list.
Apple runs commodity hardware that is essentially identical to everyone else's - just priced 3X more.
...says the guy comparing machines based only on the spec list.
We're just throwing blind assertions at each other, but since I don't want to go PC shopping just to pursue the argument, let's keep it theoretical. Which do you suppose is a harder task:
a) for you to show me a third-the-price PC that's truly an apples-to-apples comparison with some given Mac; or
b) for me to find a PC and configure it show it's actually worthy of being compared to some given Mac as an equal?
Tough jobs both, but I think my task would be easier. If nothing else, I have the reductive case: dual-boot a Mac.
On 10/08/2010 04:03 PM, Warren Young wrote:
On 10/8/2010 4:29 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:
On 10/08/2010 03:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
There's more to a PC than [a] spec list.
Apple runs commodity hardware that is essentially identical to everyone else's - just priced 3X more.
...says the guy comparing machines based only on the spec list.
We're just throwing blind assertions at each other, but since I don't want to go PC shopping just to pursue the argument, let's keep it theoretical. Which do you suppose is a harder task:
a) for you to show me a third-the-price PC that's truly an apples-to-apples comparison with some given Mac; or
Ok. Here is a fairly basic Mac Pro:
* One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” (8M cache, 2.8Ghz, 4.80 GT/s) * 6GB (PC3 1066, 3x2GB) (four memory slots, max RAM 16GB) * Two 1 Gbit ethernet interfaces * 2 x 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drives * ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB * One 18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) * Apple Magic Mouse * Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide * Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter * 4 x Firewire 800 ports * 5 x USB 2.0 ports * Front-panel headphone minijack * Optical digitial audio TOSLINK ports * Multichannel audio through Mini Display Port * 1 x 16x PCI-e, 2 x PCI-e 4x * 6 x 3Gb/s SATA II ports
for a "mere" $2973.
Here is what I'm running on my desk right now:
* Gigabyte EX58-Extreme motherboard ($328) * One 3.06GHz Quad-Core Intel i7 950 (8M cache, 3.06Ghz, 6.4 GT/s) ($294) * 6GB (PC3 1600, 3x2GB) (six memory slots, max RAM 24GB) ($189) * Two 1 Gbit ethernet interfaces * ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB ($150) * LiteOn DVD A DH24AYS (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW, DVD-RAM, Lightscribe, x24 speed) ($70) * 2 x 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive (2 x $80) * Microsoft Natural 4000 Ergonomic Keyboard ($41) * Microsoft 3 button mouse with scroll wheel ($15) * 7.1 surround sound, S/PDIF in/out, High Definition Audio * 2 x 16x PCI-e, 1 x 8x PCI-e, 1 x PCI-e 4x, 1 x PCI-e 1x and 2 x PCI slots * 10 x 3Gb/s SATA II ports * Onboard RAID 0,1, 5 and 10 support * 12 x USB 2.0 ports * 3 x Firewire 400 ports * 750W Corsair power supply ($170)
for a grand total of $1417
Which makes my machine 1/2 the price with *better* performance and features. The price ratios get really crazy once you get off the basic machine.
Want 12GB of memory instead of 6GB? Add another $1050 to the Mac Pro. Or $189 to my machine.
Want RAID support on the Mac Pro? Add another $700. RAID support is already included on my board, but even buying a card I would only spend $300 for a battery backed 8 port SATA II RAID card.
Want built in system backups and restores right from the BIOS? Tough. Macs can't do it.
Want Crossfire support for your video? Well, you're out of luck. Macs can't do Crossfire.
What is special about Macs *is not their hardware*. It's all about the software. And the only reason that software doesn't run on every desk out there is because Apple is fundamentally a *hardware* company: The OS is just there to sell the machines at a very healthy profit margin.
Don't take away that I'm slamming Macs. I'm not. They are very nice machines. I have no problem using one (in fact I've owned a couple over the decades). But they are substantially overpriced for what they actually are.
On Fri, Oct 08, 2010 at 06:53:04PM -0700, Benjamin Franz wrote:
Ok. Here is a fairly basic Mac Pro:
[snip]
Why are we talking about this? Isn't this the CentOS mailing list?
ObOnTopic: does anybody know if CentOS supports the MacBookPro7,1 model with the funky SATA controller? It's nontrivial to find any hard information about even kernel support, much less whether a given distro has included any of the relevant patches in its kernel. I don't mind OS X, but for some purposes I really prefer a linux-based desktop.
Here's the kernel bug report. It's not clear whether the bug fix reported is planned to be permanent or not:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15923
--keith
ObOnTopic: does anybody know if CentOS supports the MacBookPro7,1 model with the funky SATA controller? It's nontrivial to find any hard information about even kernel support, much less whether a given distro has included any of the relevant patches in its kernel. I don't mind OS X, but for some purposes I really prefer a linux-based desktop.
If you already have the computer, I would recommend you to give a try to RHEL 6 Beta 2 and report to Red Hat any problem you have while they are still polishing their release. I was surprised, but they have been pretty helpful and motivated with issues that I reported which are specific to Apple hardware.
As per my other mail, I would not recommend CentOS 5 on a Mac laptop anyhow (because of the touchpad), although this is still what I mostly do when traveling.
Otherwise, Ubuntu is probably your safest bet (but it is a pretty fast moving target).
In any case, I recommend you to partition your disk as soon as you get the computer and leave says 10 / 20 GB for a Linux. Even if it does not work today, it may (will) work in a few months, and it is more dangerous to repartition while you already have important data on your Mac OS. As long as you have the disk space reserved for it, it will be safe to try various Linux distributions over and over.
On Sat, Oct 09, 2010 at 09:24:53AM +0200, Mathieu Baudier wrote:
If you already have the computer, I would recommend you to give a try to RHEL 6 Beta 2 and report to Red Hat any problem you have while they are still polishing their release.
Ah, wonderful idea! I'm grabbing it now, and will try to find detailed release notes to see if it has anything about this controller.
As per my other mail, I would not recommend CentOS 5 on a Mac laptop anyhow (because of the touchpad), although this is still what I mostly do when traveling.
I know PPC linux releases could support command-click as right click, so I can only assume CentOS 5 could as well. (But I wouldn't know where to start looking for this information beyond a naive google search.)
In any case, I recommend you to partition your disk as soon as you get the computer and leave says 10 / 20 GB for a Linux.
Already done--I installed Bootcamp and rEFIt almost as soon as I booted the thing. ;-) At the time (about May-June or so) I tried three different distro installers before googling and realizing that no kernel at the time supported the MBP7,1. (So I'm cautiously optimistic about the RHEL6 beta.)
--keith
I know PPC linux releases could support command-click as right click, so I can only assume CentOS 5 could as well. (But I wouldn't know where to start looking for this information beyond a naive google search.)
Yes I used to do so on PPC, but I never got it working on the MacBook Pro + CentOS (and I really spent a lot of time trying). I found a workaround using accessibility features but it is a bit heavy and with a few side effects (I can put it if you want though).
In the end I end up doing the following: - I have a partition with shared data (documents, java source code, maven repository, etc.). - when I'm settled somewhere I use CentOS with a mouse - when I'm on the move I use Ubuntu (where the touchpad is working perfectly => the related driver was added around 2.6.27 if I'm not mistaken) - both OS link to the shared directories (I forced the Ubuntu user id to 500, in order to be compatible with CentOS) - dreaming of when RHEL/CentOS 6 is out and reporting bugs on RHEL 6 Beta 2
We're just throwing blind assertions at each other, but since I don't want to go PC shopping just to pursue the argument, let's keep it theoretical. Which do you suppose is a harder task:
Mac laptops have a big problem: they forgot to put the right mouse button... (and the keyboard layout is slightly non-standard)
I'm personally quadruple booting (CentOS 5 / Ubuntu 10.4 / Mac OS 10.6 / RHEL 6 Beta 2) on a Mac Book Pro when on the road.
This was the computer of my wife whose art academy only taught them Final Cut and Photoshop, so she's "hooked" to MacOS and thus Apple hardware (we are trying to ween her off, but she can't, no she can't... sad story, don't let your kids ever touch this...)
The other day I had to make a demo of FLOSS Geographical Information System (GIS) software (QGIS, GRASS, PostGIS, etc.). I had prepared it on Ubuntu (because "multi-touch" touchpad is not working on CentOS 5, and you actually do need a right-click). PostgreSQL broke one hour before the demo, I could not uninstall/reinstall it (sic!). Re-booted to CentOS, set up the stuff, everything went smoothly, no surprise, did the demo (with an USB mouse). Try to setup such a complex software suite in one hour without a package management system. Mac is not an option in such cases.
The harddrive broke after one year (minus two weeks: still under guarantee, pfeew...).
BUT, I look cool when I sit in Berlin cafes with my laptop (although it starts to look very old-fashioned, since it is two/three years old and without "unibody enclosure")
Is this beautifully designed computer utter crap because it just has one mouse button? Is Ubuntu "broken" because you cannot play around with partitions as robustly as with CentOS? (of course, I was responsible for breaking the PostgreSQL: what killed me is that I could not reset it) Is CentOS useless because people who really need (certainly for good reasons) to run proprietary software such as Adobe CS or MS Office, just can't?
That you found the right combination for yourself doesn't mean all others are worthless.
On 10/8/2010 5:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
But a fair comparison would be the Adobe Creative Suite, since Adobe presumably wants their software used everywhere. You can't blame Adobe for not porting it. They've dipped their toe in the water several times, and shied away each time.
I don't blame any software vendor for not porting to Linux, but the problem is self-inflicted by the Linux distributions refusing to standardize the available libraries and APIs so binary packages can work across them.
Probably the best we are going to see now will be javascript-framework applications that run portably inside browsers.
On 10/8/2010 4:40 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/8/2010 5:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
But a fair comparison would be the Adobe Creative Suite, since Adobe presumably wants their software used everywhere. You can't blame Adobe for not porting it. They've dipped their toe in the water several times, and shied away each time.
I don't blame any software vendor for not porting to Linux, but the problem is self-inflicted by the Linux distributions refusing to standardize the available libraries and APIs so binary packages can work across them.
Probably the best we are going to see now will be javascript-framework applications that run portably inside browsers.
Flash Builder is based on Eclipse, which runs on Java. That's about as close to your speculated environment as you can wish. And, it's not like Eclipse doesn't already run well on Linux.
I think the explanation is different: they tried for a few years to drum up support for FB on Linux, too few customers showed up, so they decided to refocus on the two platforms that do make them money.
Y'all may recall a different example: Word Perfect was also once offered on Linux for about a year, then pulled. OpenOffice wasn't even around at the time, so you can't blame competition. Corel had a near open field to play in, and still couldn't make a buck.
On Friday, October 08, 2010 23:55:07 Warren Young wrote:
I think the explanation is different: they tried for a few years to drum up support for FB on Linux, too few customers showed up, so they decided to refocus on the two platforms that do make them money.
Y'all may recall a different example: Word Perfect was also once offered on Linux for about a year, then pulled. OpenOffice wasn't even around at the time, so you can't blame competition. Corel had a near open field to play in, and still couldn't make a buck.
Well, I can add that Wolfram Mathematica has supported Linux since kernel 2.4 days, and still does it. I don't see it backing up because of profit shortage, on the contrary.
Another example are the graphics hardware vendors. Both ATI and nVidia do offer support for Linux platforms with their proprietary drivers. They certainly don't find the Linux market profitless.
Yet another example is skype, a typical desktop app. They also successfully offer a Linux version, and don't complain about lack of market.
The list goes on... :-)
I don't believe that profit is the reason why Adobe and others don't offer a Linux version of their products. I would rather say it is incompetence to maintain the code that is portable across OS's. And that says something about the quality of their products and skill level of their programmers, IMNSHO. I think Linux community is actually better off not using any of that crap software, if possible (I wonder why flash player comes to my mind right now...).
If their software had been designed and implemented in a way one would expect from a high-class professional commercial company, they would certainly have next to zero problems porting it to Linux and gaining additional market (no matter how slightly bigger, it's bigger nevertheless, and every buck counts). The fact they don't do it shows that they find it hard to maintain their code for a Linux platform. And that is a consequence of bad design and/or implementation of their software, not lack of market.
<rant> IOW, Adobe is a bunch of incompetent fools producing second grade low quality pos-software that cannot run correctly on Linux because it is coded so badly that even my grandma would code it better. And my grandma has no experience in programming at all. I'm actually quite baffled how they manage to produce working versions of their products for OS X. That is, _if_ they support Mac at all. </rant>
However, if you want/need to use their pos-software, I agree you are better off with a Mac than with a Windows PC. Pos-software running on a decent OS is still better than pos-software running on a pos-OS. :-)
Best, :-) Marko
On Sat, Oct 09, 2010, Marko Vojinovic wrote: ...
I don't believe that profit is the reason why Adobe and others don't offer a Linux version of their products. I would rather say it is incompetence to maintain the code that is portable across OS's. And that says something about the quality of their products and skill level of their programmers, IMNSHO. I think Linux community is actually better off not using any of that crap software, if possible (I wonder why flash player comes to my mind right now...).
I really came to doubt the competence of Adobe's programmers when I tried installing Photoshop Elements on a Mac, but it wouldn't even try to install because I OS X installed on a case-sensitive file system. When I see this, it leads me to believe that they can't even bother for consistency in file/directory names, much less more important things.
If their software had been designed and implemented in a way one would expect from a high-class professional commercial company, they would certainly have next to zero problems porting it to Linux and gaining additional market (no matter how slightly bigger, it's bigger nevertheless, and every buck counts). The fact they don't do it shows that they find it hard to maintain their code for a Linux platform. And that is a consequence of bad design and/or implementation of their software, not lack of market.
See above.
Bill
On 10/8/10 5:55 PM, Warren Young wrote:
On 10/8/2010 4:40 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/8/2010 5:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
But a fair comparison would be the Adobe Creative Suite, since Adobe presumably wants their software used everywhere. You can't blame Adobe for not porting it. They've dipped their toe in the water several times, and shied away each time.
I don't blame any software vendor for not porting to Linux, but the problem is self-inflicted by the Linux distributions refusing to standardize the available libraries and APIs so binary packages can work across them.
Probably the best we are going to see now will be javascript-framework applications that run portably inside browsers.
Flash Builder is based on Eclipse, which runs on Java. That's about as close to your speculated environment as you can wish. And, it's not like Eclipse doesn't already run well on Linux.
Umm, yeah... I've tried to find java on Centos for eons. It's only very recently that it is there at all and odds are that you'll still get something that won't work as your default.
I think the explanation is different: they tried for a few years to drum up support for FB on Linux, too few customers showed up, so they decided to refocus on the two platforms that do make them money.
Probably everyone using this tool will have Windows and Macs to test their output anyway. If you have that, why work on a platform where you have to fight against the kernel to get a working video driver and against the distribution to get a working java?
Y'all may recall a different example: Word Perfect was also once offered on Linux for about a year, then pulled. OpenOffice wasn't even around at the time, so you can't blame competition. Corel had a near open field to play in, and still couldn't make a buck.
Did you ever try that product? Even free it wouldn't have been a win against Word on Windows - which was getting bundled on most new PCs at the time anyway.
On Fri, 2010-10-08 at 19:21 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/8/10 5:55 PM, Warren Young wrote:
On 10/8/2010 4:40 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/8/2010 5:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
I think the explanation is different: they tried for a few years to drum up support for FB on Linux, too few customers showed up, so they decided to refocus on the two platforms that do make them money.
Probably everyone using this tool will have Windows and Macs to test their output anyway. If you have that, why work on a platform where you have to fight against the kernel to get a working video driver and against the distribution to get a working java?
I'm sorry your software stinks so bad; but I have no issues with video drivers and Java on LINUX is ubiquitous.
Y'all may recall a different example: Word Perfect was also once offered on Linux for about a year, then pulled. OpenOffice wasn't even around at the time, so you can't blame competition. Corel had a near open field to play in, and still couldn't make a buck.
Did you ever try that product?
Yes, I used it for years. It certainly wasn't awesome, but it was very serviceable.
Even free it wouldn't have been a win against Word on Windows - which was getting bundled on most new PCs at the time anyway.
On Fri, Oct 08, 2010, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/8/10 5:55 PM, Warren Young wrote:
...
Y'all may recall a different example: Word Perfect was also once offered on Linux for about a year, then pulled. OpenOffice wasn't even around at the time, so you can't blame competition. Corel had a near open field to play in, and still couldn't make a buck.
Did you ever try that product? Even free it wouldn't have been a win against Word on Windows - which was getting bundled on most new PCs at the time anyway.
Au contraire, In September 1997 when we installed our first Linux system in a mission-critical position, it was in a law office as a file and print server for a bunch of Windows machines. The office manager was bitching mightily that their productivity dropped by about 50% when they were forced to use MS-Word instead of WordPerfect. These were very good legal secretaries who hated having to reach for a mouse to do anything, and loved the ``Reveal Codes'' ability in WordPerfect.
I had to laugh one day when I got a phone call where the caller's first words were ``I want Reveal Codes''.
I do have one Linux system where I'm the resident Linux Geek where the user is a late '60s psychologist with few computer skills who loves it. When her Windows for Workgroups machine needed to be replaced, I offered to install Linux on a new machine with StarOffice (long before OpenOffice.org was around), etc. I told here that we could install Windows on the machine if she didn't like it. This was in mid-2001, and she's been happily using Linux since. She is very active politically, handling large numbers of Microsoft Office files through several election cycles without problems. The main software she uses now are OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, and Firefox.
On the other hand, when she wanted to do things with digital photos from here camera, she constantly had problems dealing with file transfers using a USB flash card reader, mostly properly unmounting and/or finding the proper data (she has a Psy.D. so is hardly a dummy). I suggested she get a Macbook when she needed a laptop, and I get far fewer calls for assistance on this than on the Linux box, and will probably replace the Linux system with an iMac when the Linux hardware goes south.
In this case, she comes to me when there's an issue with the Linux system, and doesn't try to install software, and pretty much leaves things alone on the desktop. I rarely get calls for assistance on this system, far fewer than her Windows-Using friends and associates who are constantly dealing with malware (a fact that she frequently relishes as she tells them how she doesn't have these problems with her Linux system :-).
That said, this woman is a friend of my wife's and gets my Geek services for free. I have tried to get my wife to use a Linux desktop to no avail, and had to give her a Mac Mini for her birthday to wean her away from her Windows system. I told her this was a present that was as much for me as for her, and she wouldn't have to listen to me curse every time I had to deal with her old Windows box (now I only curse when Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac hangs :-).
Bill
On 10/9/2010 2:33 PM, Bill Campbell wrote:
On Fri, Oct 08, 2010, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/8/10 5:55 PM, Warren Young wrote:
...
Y'all may recall a different example: Word Perfect was also once offered on Linux for about a year, then pulled. OpenOffice wasn't even around at the time, so you can't blame competition. Corel had a near open field to play in, and still couldn't make a buck.
Did you ever try that product? Even free it wouldn't have been a win against Word on Windows - which was getting bundled on most new PCs at the time anyway.
Au contraire, In September 1997 when we installed our first Linux system in a mission-critical position, it was in a law office as a file and print server for a bunch of Windows machines. The office manager was bitching mightily that their productivity dropped by about 50% when they were forced to use MS-Word instead of WordPerfect. These were very good legal secretaries who hated having to reach for a mouse to do anything, and loved the ``Reveal Codes'' ability in WordPerfect.
I had to laugh one day when I got a phone call where the caller's first words were ``I want Reveal Codes''.
Yes!!! Reveal Codes is one of the very best things in WordPerfect. (yes, I do have PerfectOffice installed, but I cannot rely on it as at any point in time a Windoze update might render it useless) As for Perfect Office, Quattro can run circles around Excel when it comes to huge data files. Quattro's formula builder is totally logical and 'easy' vs. the convoluted Excel counterpart. All you have to do is look at 'history'. WordPerfect and Netscape are two prime examples. WordPerfect was becoming the defacto standard. Anybody remember WordStar? Most colleges were using WP and from the schools, you leave using what you learned on. Suddenly, every new computer came with Microsoft Windows installed 'and' a free install of Microsoft Office. Slowly, everyone stopped 'paying for' WP. Duh.... Netscape, same deal... free MSIE.
Aside from this, Microsoft seems to love to make changes that break other vendor's software. I can't imagine the frustrations they must feel living in this world. WordPerfect, Adobe and just about everyone has had problems due to some 'upgrade' that broke something in their software. Adobe DW CS3 has a seriously broken browse to directory problem right now and they don't plan to fix it. This occurred during one of the service pack updates. Yet it seems Adobe has bowed to the might MS. If you click on email this in Acrobat, it opens Outlook in spite of it not being set as the default on the system. Need a spell checker in certain high end CAD programs, you have to install MSOffice?
Somehow, I get the feeling that everytime Microsoft chooses to do something, at the top of their list is this question. "How can this benefit more sales of Microsoft products and how can this negatively impact our perceived competition?" Anybody remember OS2? Yeah it worked for a while, then Microsoft made 'changes'. Even IBM couldn't devote the resources into chasing the moving target.
Sort of the same with WordPerfect and still is. We used to have a great working method for opening MSOffice docs in WP. Mostly gone at the moment, but supposedly back again in the latest release, but how long will that work and at what point will we lose the ability leaving us in 'broken state' in terms of doing business? Or, just give in and switch to MSO. It doesn't take much for business owners to switch... right or wrong.
And, the final most obvious point. In the real world of business, Perfect Office is pretty much dead. OpenOffice is not a viable solution any more than Perfect Office. Since Microsoft has won this war, what has happened? Has anybody looked at the new Microsoft Office 2010 Pro package, or for that matter all Office 2010 releases? There are no longer any 'Upgrade' packages. You are now forced to buy the full version package at full version pricing. So now MSO Pro 2010 is like $450. Yes, I do feel as though they have over the years slowly bent my back over to where they finally have me in 'the position'. Yes now I'm stuck with MSO 2007, which has the worst nav system ever created, but I had to have it to handle files coming in from customers if they were docx and so on. And now I suppose I'll be forced into 2010 for some reason I don't know yet, but to accommodate my clients who move to it. Meanwhile, I bet there is some 'new wonderful feature' that will prevent Perfect Office or Open Office from being able to open something created in some certain way in MSO 2010, although this is just my speculation.
Thanks to CentOS, I am not being forced into this position with regards to our servers and hope to never be forced into installing a Winders server ever, ever ever.... I do admire Microsoft's business philosophy, although I don't condone such and I could not sleep at night if I operated using those methods. I never feel good when I buy any of their products as I feel I am just supporting the immoral. But yes, I am stuck using Winders, as much of the software I must run is only written for Windows. All I can say is GO Google and Android! We might yet again have an alternative? Cloud computing is going to have serious impacts on bloatware. We may have a new corner to round in the next decade.
Did I ever mention I'm not really happy with Micro$oft?
John Hinton
On 10/9/10 2:41 PM, John Hinton wrote:
Aside from this, Microsoft seems to love to make changes that break other vendor's software. I can't imagine the frustrations they must feel living in this world. WordPerfect, Adobe and just about everyone has had problems due to some 'upgrade' that broke something in their software.
And how would you compare this to, say, the linux kernel regularly breaking every driver module that isn't distributed in source?
All I can say is GO Google and Android! We might yet again have an alternative?
But note that Android could have been java if google didn't want to impose their own controls. Once again it is arbitrary breakage just to prevent interoperability.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/9/10 2:41 PM, John Hinton wrote:
Aside from this, Microsoft seems to love to make changes that break other vendor's software. I can't imagine the frustrations they must feel living in this world. WordPerfect, Adobe and just about everyone has had problems due to some 'upgrade' that broke something in their software.
And how would you compare this to, say, the linux kernel regularly breaking every driver module that isn't distributed in source?
Go OpenSolaris then. Also OpenOffice and maybe LibreOffice can open docx files...not sure about those from MSO 2010 though...
So let's pitch in behind the OpenSolaris Desktop and enjoy binary drivers with an open source kernel/userland environment and upgrade to complaining only about GTK/GNOME and KDE and lack of good desktop applications.
Ben McGinnes wrote:
On 10/10/10 10:16 PM, Christopher Chan wrote:
Go OpenSolaris then. Also OpenOffice and maybe LibreOffice can open docx files...not sure about those from MSO 2010 though...
Except OpenSolaris has already been killed by Oracle. There is a fork called Illumos, though.
/me shrugs. Yeah, maybe I better start saying Illumos and yelling use OpenIndiana, a distro which uses Illumos. Sun is so dead.
If you want a desktop os without binary driver issues, this is it. Although I'd say a fair few use it for other purposes. If you have analog Thrustmaster FLCS, TQS, RCS gear and MIDI keyboards, just endure Linux for the time being. :-p
On 10/10/10 11:31 PM, Christopher Chan wrote:
/me shrugs. Yeah, maybe I better start saying Illumos and yelling use OpenIndiana, a distro which uses Illumos.
It'll only be an option for x86/x86-64 and with the move to using Fujitsu UltraSPARC chips that contain patented technology which can only be addressed using binary modules in the Solaris kernel. OpenBSD has already run into that wall and Theo was told where to go in no uncertain terms.
Sun is so dead.
I guess that makes Oracle a necrophiliac.
If you want a desktop os without binary driver issues, this is it. Although I'd say a fair few use it for other purposes. If you have analog Thrustmaster FLCS, TQS, RCS gear and MIDI keyboards, just endure Linux for the time being. :-p
Poke at these things long enough and you realise that *all* software sucks, some just sucks less than others. ;)
Regards, Ben
On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Bill Campbell centos@celestial.com wrote:
On the other hand, when she wanted to do things with digital photos from here camera, she constantly had problems dealing with file transfers using a USB flash card reader, mostly properly unmounting and/or finding the proper data (she has a Psy.D. so is hardly a dummy). I suggested she get a Macbook when she needed a laptop, and I get far fewer calls for assistance on this than on the Linux box, and will probably replace the Linux system with an iMac when the Linux hardware goes south.
Fun thread.
I'm a software developer with decent Linux chops going back 15 years or so. After leaving Windows, I used Linux as my main workstation for a couple of years before switching to OSX. It is simply a no-brainer. Almost everything on OSX just works, all the time, and when it doesn't, it's pretty easy to fix. Contrast that to Linux where my complex X config (multiple graphics drivers and big monitors) broke every time I did a distro upgrade, plus all the other random hardware crap that halfway worked or never worked, even after spending hours on it. I have to hack on things all day for my job, I want my tools - i.e. my workstation and OS - to Just Work. I COULD fix most stuff, but why stick myself in the eye with a fork if I don't have to? OSX has all the power of *nix, and none of the hassles; and decades of UI experience and focus from Apple make for an extremely usable and stable GUI.
Linux on servers is a no brainer, Linux on the desktop is only appropriate if you (or the geek who supports your desktop) loves to hack on Desktop Linux.
I will admit things are getting better all the time, and some pre-built linux desktops and laptops are pretty sweet, but still not as slick (and stable over long-term upgrades) as OSX.
Thanks, -- Chad
On 10/9/10 1:33 PM, Bill Campbell wrote:
On Fri, Oct 08, 2010, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 10/8/10 5:55 PM, Warren Young wrote:
...
Y'all may recall a different example: Word Perfect was also once offered on Linux for about a year, then pulled. OpenOffice wasn't even around at the time, so you can't blame competition. Corel had a near open field to play in, and still couldn't make a buck.
Did you ever try that product? Even free it wouldn't have been a win against Word on Windows - which was getting bundled on most new PCs at the time anyway.
Au contraire, In September 1997 when we installed our first Linux system in a mission-critical position, it was in a law office as a file and print server for a bunch of Windows machines. The office manager was bitching mightily that their productivity dropped by about 50% when they were forced to use MS-Word instead of WordPerfect. These were very good legal secretaries who hated having to reach for a mouse to do anything, and loved the ``Reveal Codes'' ability in WordPerfect.
I had to laugh one day when I got a phone call where the caller's first words were ``I want Reveal Codes''.
I didn't mean wordperfect in general, I meant the Linux version which had to run under X, which at the time had fairly horrible hardware support, making it fairly likely that the CPU would do all the work of screen updates. Something that still hasn't changed all that much compared to OS's that embrace vendor-written drivers.
On 10/08/2010 06:25 PM, Warren Young wrote:
On 10/8/2010 4:09 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
But OS X can legally only run on Apple (tm$$$) systems, where Linux can run on *anything* and anybody's inexpensive hardware.
Apple hardware is fairly priced when compared on quality. Yes, there are cheap POS PCs that compare favorably on features with Apple hardware at a lower cost. I've used many such. They often break more readily, or fail to satisfy on some other level. There's more to a PC than spec list.
Apple has not had a rigorous hardware quality control for several years now. At least since the G5 days.
On a commercial level, dealing with dozens or hundreds of them, the failure rate can be double that of Dell systems. At least from what I've seen. And Apple's hardware support is useless.
The high quality Apple that costs 3x as much is using the same components as the el-cheapo laptop next to it. Heck, they might be made in the same factory!
On Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:25:36 -0600 Warren Young wrote:
But a fair comparison would be the Adobe Creative Suite, since Adobe presumably wants their software used everywhere.
Er - not when pressured by Micro$oft. Consider Framemaker, which was actively working on an OS2 (the IBM operating system for PC's) version. Taken over by Adobe, and the OS2 port was vaporized.
This was back in the days when OS2 was still a contender (perhaps fading) in the desktop market.
On 10/7/2010 11:36 AM, Benjamin Franz wrote:
On 10/07/2010 05:05 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-)
Argh. This is a lousy way to get that kind of stat. Completely worthless.
A much better approach (and one that doesn't require ten million people to voluntarily register on a site they are unlikely to even ever hear of) is just to look at web server logs on high traffic domains having nothing to do with computers or Linux per se. Checking my own logs for Google Analytics for the last couple of months, the percentage is around 0.3%.
I love Linux dearly (I've used it for my primary desktop and servers since 1995), but it really doesn't have much desktop penetration.
This is probably the wrong place to talk about desktop usage. I'd expect Ubuntu to have most of that since they stay much more up to date. Maybe RHEL/Centos will get a boost when 6.x is released.
On 7 October 2010 13:05, Rudi Ahlers Rudi@softdux.com wrote:
You can register on this site if you use linux on your desktop, to prove that we have at least more than 1% market share today :-)
I'm not agreeing with this survey, *but*, there are several times more users already registered here? http://counter.li.org/
James Bensley wrote on 10/07/2010 01:08 PM:
I'm not agreeing with this survey, *but*, there are several times more users already registered here? http://counter.li.org/
I'm not either, but there is a major difference between Linux users and Linux desktop users. I have been both for many years, have converted my wife's desktop to Linux some years ago, and can even get the kids to use it for OOo and web browsing when they are not playing Windows video games. About 10% of the people at my workplace use Linux for the desktop despite sizable pressure to the contrary from the CIO.
Phil
James Bensley wrote on 10/07/2010 01:08 PM:
I'm not agreeing with this survey, *but*, there are several times more users already registered here? http://counter.li.org/
I'm not either, but there is a major difference between Linux users and Linux desktop users.
Agreed. I converted my mother in law from Winblowz Vista to Linux, so far a year has passed and she is happy with the move.
Would have converted my wife but shes a web designer needing the Adobe CS suite.
But yes, she is not Linux user.
- aurf
Ben McGinnes wrote:
On 8/10/10 8:27 AM, Phil Schaffner wrote:
About 10% of the people at my workplace use Linux for the desktop despite sizable pressure to the contrary from the CIO.
Is there a reason for the pressure or is it just a generic pro-M$ and anti-*nix attitude?
Or just plain corporate conformity...
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