Move over OSX .... soon Linux will be #2
According to this article ...
<a href="http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2003/20030103.shtml"; target="_blank">http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2003/20030103.shtml</a>;
Well in line with my predictions though, the only reason Windows is so popular is because the vast majority need little more than a word processor and email.
<a href="http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2003/20030103.shtml"; target="_blank">http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2003/20030103.shtml</a>;
Well in line with my predictions though, the only reason Windows is so popular is because the vast majority need little more than a word processor and email.
Comments
Linux can be downloaded for free. So even the Mac user running OSX can also be a Linux user. God I'm sick of these stupid articles. You think Apple has a hard time getting recognition ...walk up to 10 Random people on the street and ask them what linux distro they're running and watch the blank stare. This is total hyperbole and bullshit geek wet dream.
Linux is so flucking behind in quality apps it's a joke. No photoshop no drivers no sway with the industry other than some server in the corner chugging away or some geek with a personal vendetta against Microsoft.
Yawn...come on man this is a two pony race...linux is still stuck back in the stable.
<strong>
Linux can be downloaded for free. So even the Mac user running OSX can also be a Linux user.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm running Mac OS 9.2 and Yellow Dog Linux 2.3 on a 20GB Hard Drive. My 40GB Hard Drive has Mac OS 10.1 and Windows XP running in Virtual PC.
Does that mean I tick all the boxes?
Barto
<strong>These articles are full of shiza.
Linux can be downloaded for free. So even the Mac user running OSX can also be a Linux user. God I'm sick of these stupid articles. You think Apple has a hard time getting recognition ...walk up to 10 Random people on the street and ask them what linux distro they're running and watch the blank stare. This is total hyperbole and bullshit geek wet dream.
Linux is so flucking behind in quality apps it's a joke. No photoshop no drivers no sway with the industry other than some server in the corner chugging away or some geek with a personal vendetta against Microsoft.
Yawn...come on man this is a two pony race...linux is still stuck back in the stable.</strong><hr></blockquote>
very well put hmurchison. These articles are a waste of time and yet another example of the crap I am getting sick of reading!
[QB]These articles are full of shiza. <hr></blockquote>
I don't think you could be more wrong.
A geek is someone who installs OSX in a working environment, with it's gaping holes in networking and printing. To install one of the latest versions of Redhat or Suse, one needs only be computer literate and budget minded.
Everyone from IT to railways, to government agencies are switching to Linux in droves. These implementations are not only on the server side, but the desktop, since that's where huge savings can can be realized there as well. I don't think business apps are weak at all, as a portion the money most companies save can be allocated to developing software.
Multimedia is know doubt Linux's weakness, but it will be in no way, Linux's undoing or an obstacle towards desktop domination. The only thing in it's way, would be leading edge technology developed into Windows. Again, Linux has nothing to worry about.
If 1.7% is even close to true, then they have already surpassed Apple, who doesn't even have a 50% acceptance rate of OSX among their 3% market. Once Linux hits 10 % or so, more commercial apps will be moving over, and if a company like adobe every moved over, the flood gates would open.
[ 01-06-2003: Message edited by: the cool gut ]</p>
Who cares? Anyone who's a Mac user certainly doesn't care about market share. They want a computer that gets out of the way while they get real work done.
<strong>
A geek is someone who installs OSX in a working environment, with it's gaping holes in networking and printing. To install one of the latest versions of Redhat or Suse, one needs only be computer literate and budget minded.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
HUH?
Barto
<strong>If 1.7% is even close to true, then they have already surpassed Apple, who doesn't even have a 50% acceptance rate of OSX among their 3% market.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Okay now...let's be clear about something. When the 3% number is quoted...it is refering to CURRENT SALES SHARE. There is another number which is often ignored and confused with this "current sales share", and that is "installed base share". This would be the percentage of total machines purchased to date. Apple's share of the market when measured this way looks more like 7-10%.
<strong>
I don't think you could be more wrong.
A geek is someone who installs OSX in a working environment, with it's gaping holes in networking and printing. To install one of the latest versions of Redhat or Suse, one needs only be computer literate and budget minded. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
Erm.
Amorya
<strong>According to this article ...
<a href="http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2003/20030103.shtml"; target="_blank">http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2003/20030103.shtml</a>;
Well in line with my predictions though, the only reason Windows is so popular is because the vast majority need little more than a word processor and email.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, it is probably accurate, but not for the reasons you might expect.
China and India -- the world's two most populous nations -- are adopting Linux in a big way, because it is free, and because they get out from under the thumb of restrictions posed by an OS they have no control over (Windows/Mac OS X)
So in terms of raw numbers, it wouldn't surprise me actually... but the real question is whether there will be a market, despite the numbers. For consultants, certainly, but probably not for traditional developers.
In any event, you can bet that western countries that have already embraced higher quality operating systems will be unlikely to be using Linux nearly as much as Mac OS X (yes, folks, from an end user point of view, Linux on the desktop is still a joke).
<strong>If 1.7% is even close to true, then they have already surpassed Apple, who doesn't even have a 50% acceptance rate of OSX among their 3% market. Once Linux hits 10 % or so, more commercial apps will be moving over, and if a company like adobe every moved over, the flood gates would open.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately, this is a bit of a pipe dream. The vast majority of people who adopt Linux on the desktop do so for one of three reasons:
1) They have time on their hands, are technically knowledgable, and like to tinker. Remember, Linux is only free if your time has no value
2) Cost. They have old computers they want to use, or they don't have the money for a traditional OS
3) They are admins, and want to use the same OS they maintain for servers
There has been no evidence at all that there is a market for selling products on Linux (and no, distro's don't count -- they make most of their money from other people's work, and service contracts).
There is a world of difference between marketshare, and an active commercially viable market. Do you really think that all of these "droves" who are adopting Linux to save money are going to be in the market for a $500 copy of Photoshop?
Let alone countries like China and India -- it just isn't going to happen.
<strong>I don't think you could be more wrong.
A geek is someone who installs OSX in a working environment, with it's gaping holes in networking and printing. To install one of the latest versions of Redhat or Suse, one needs only be computer literate and budget minded.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
What planet are you living on? I just installed the latest RedHat Linux 8 and sure it installed nice, it even configured fairly easy. As for networking being simple... Not. It took me 15-20 minutes of putzing around to get it to hook to a share on my corperate network, and even then I could not do it from the GUI I had to do it from the CLI. Then I had to use FTP commands to move files back and forth. Not easy in the slightest. And that does not even get into trying to install applications and such. What a jumbled mess! OS X is light years ahead. Just on networking alone OS X is better. When you get into GUI ease of use and application quality, plus you can run most of those geeky linux apps under X11 if you really wanna get your geek on OS X leaves nothing to be desired when compared to Linux. Wake up...
<strong>These articles are full of shiza.
Linux can be downloaded for free. So even the Mac user running OSX can also be a Linux user. God I'm sick of these stupid articles. You think Apple has a hard time getting recognition ...walk up to 10 Random people on the street and ask them what linux distro they're running and watch the blank stare. This is total hyperbole and bullshit geek wet dream.
Linux is so flucking behind in quality apps it's a joke. No photoshop no drivers no sway with the industry other than some server in the corner chugging away or some geek with a personal vendetta against Microsoft.
Yawn...come on man this is a two pony race...linux is still stuck back in the stable.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with you totally. I moved to Linux from Windows a few months back. I found myself spending more time trying to get things to work than actually doing anything useful.
Simply put, using Linux is a headache for the end user. Like when I tried Mandrake 8.2 last summer, the first thing that happened was that my modem wasn't recognised by the OS because it was a "software modem". I spend DAYS trying to find out if my modem was supported, and then trying to get it to work. And then palm pilot support wasn't up to scratch. In fact, my m515 wasn't compatible with the pilot-link in the distro (the entire m-series was not supported), nor any of the palm-pilot tools for KDE or GNOME at that point in time. So I could not rely on rpm's, I had to go and get the latest bug-ridden source code.
I don't want to spend 80% trying to get a program to compile because I don't have a particular library or a specific symlink in my /usr/lib (why doesn't the installer take care of all this?). So I then go and download the required library and try to compile it, only to discover that it -too- requires yet further libraries to compile. Or doesn't work with my hardware.
And just please don't get me started on hardware drivers...
It took me three months to figure out that Mac OS X was what my ideal Linux distro looked like.
So I bought a Mac and here I am with no regrets. Linux has a seriously long way to go on the user front. There is so much wrong with it I don't have the patience to begin the list...
[ 01-11-2003: Message edited by: meta4 ]</p>
mom:"Right just have to recompile the kernel with sound support then my celine dion cd will play"
hmm yes thats gonna happen
<strong>linux is quite laughable when it comes to end user experience, its just a geek toy and a great server really cant get anywhere on the desktop no matter how many slashdotters think it can.
mom:"Right just have to recompile the kernel with sound support then my celine dion cd will play"
hmm yes thats gonna happen</strong><hr></blockquote>
Better not let your mom use a tivo then.
<a href="http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html"; target="_blank">http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html</a>;
Or, even worse, an operating system from the BSD family.
The willful, and sadly it is exactly that, ignorance of the Mac crowd when it comes to open source operating systems is shocking to behold.
<hr></blockquote>
Not "ignorance" but rather indifference. Why should we pine(no pun) after Linux when we have damn near everything Linux has and more with OSX. The only warchant I hear for Linux is "it's free" or it helps feed a geek ego. To quote an unamed sourece "Linux is free...if your time is"
Working for an ISP was interesting. On OS is only as secure as it's administrators skill level. I can't tell you how many Redhat based machines where compromised on a daily basis. Remember Code Red?? I certainly do and RH was a HUGE target.
No thanks. My Mother is NOT going to run linux on a 'puter anytime soon. She does have a Tivo though
<strong>
Better not let your mom use a tivo then.
<a href="http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html"; target="_blank">http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html</a>;
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Linux can be prettied up for what amounts to embedded use - anything can. That has nothing to do with its capabilities as an end user OS running on essentially arbitrary hardware.
[quote]<strong>Or, even worse, an operating system from the BSD family.</strong><hr></blockquote>
There are people who use BSD as a desktop OS. I think most of them lurk in alt.sysadmin.recovery.
[quote]<strong>The willful, and sadly it is exactly that, ignorance of the Mac crowd when it comes to open source operating systems is shocking to behold.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Open Source operating systems have their charms - OS X is built on one, after all, and synchronized with another (FreeBSD). Most of them, however, run servers, desktops owned by people who run servers, or some sort of embedded application.
If Linux achieves #2 status, more power to it. I suspect, though, that it will do so chiefly as a drop-in replacement for small to medium-size Windows servers (e.g., for workgroups, small web servers, etc.). If it's set up for the hardware and configured sensibly, it's great for the job (I maintain that BSD is better, though
As a general-purpose desktop OS the open-source efforts all suffer from the same philosophy that has kept UNIX off desktops for two decades: An aversion to centralized standards and limited options, because they "limit the freedom and creativity of the developer." That's why they keep serving up everything-and-the-kitchen-sink conglomerate UIs like Motif and Gnome. It's an attitude that served UNIX well enough from a systems point of view, but unfortunately it cannot produce a good graphical user interface. Even the CLI suffers, since there are wildly inconsistent implementations of parameter syntax, and all kinds of different flags to represent common arguments (help, version, etc.).
All that said, the entirely open source operating systems work well where they're most commonly used, and provide usable (and improving) options for the poor, and so I wish them all good luck and godspeed. I am heartened especially that government agencies are looking at open source technologies, since the idea of the government (especially the military, and other crucial aspects) depending on code and on document formats that it can't control and can't even look at is appalling to me. I hope that the phenomenon extends to business as well, and also to Apple (even more than it has).
[ 01-11-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>