What is Digg?525 Comments
- corevette, on 10/10/2007, -7/+97CAN Linux replace Windows? Yes.
WILL Linux replace Windows? There's your question. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -14/+88"most users are apathetic dorks that will take whatever Best Buy has on sale that week"
It is this sort of unjustified superiority displayed by the average Linux user that contains the answer to the articles title.
Computer users who somehow think they know better just because they use different software sound ridiculous at best. I like to meet these people, to dismantle them in public, and see their faces become red as I point out the idiocy of their ideas. Of course, later at night, they come to digg and post these articles expecting everyone to clap at their new hero superstar who uses a different OS and therefore everyone else is dumb.
You people criticize the masses, but you don´t understand them. Users deserve respect. We were all once newbies, and we were once always making questions.
People on Digg talk about Microsoft spreading lies and doubt, but everyday on Digg we see articles posted by Linux users and they all spread lies and doubt about Microsoft, followed by comments that can be best described as immature.
But eventually you will grow to understand the world around you, and realize that it´s about choice. Linux is about choice. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -23/+80 Yes,many people are tired of Microsoft. I moved to Linux over a year ago and I'm staying with it.
- underdog5004, on 10/10/2007, -8/+51Linux probably can't replace Windows right away. There needs to be programs (like photoshop) that need to be ported to Linux. I know, I know, there's always wine, but there is a performance hit, and it's a hassle for a noobie to set up. I'm no Linux hater, I've got a desktop, server, and two laptops running various versions of linux, so Linux has replaced Windows for me (and my girlfriend); unfortunately, there are many, many programs that don't have linux substitutes, or that save their data to a proprietary format. It will take years for the complete conversion to take place, even if Microsoft went out of business right now.
PS - Yeah, I know. If Microsoft went out of business right now, many people would either keep using windows or go buy a Mac. - Dalrek, on 10/10/2007, -2/+30I honestly don't think that it will. Yes, linux will gain a lot of market share, but it will never completely dominate Windows. Ignoring the gaming part of the equation, Vista is still a capable OS. I have multiple friends who use Vista along with me, and none of us experience BSOD or lock-ups. Maybe it is because we're in a more tech-literate crowd, but Vista still doesn't present any of the problems for the seven of us that everyone else claims it does.
- random12345, on 11/16/2008, -3/+31Dugg down for mentioning blue screens in the Digg description, and saying its unstable in the article - Its 2007, not 1995.
BUT, don't get me wrong- I'm definitely an open source/linux supporter, but bringing up blue screens this day is pretty lame and just looking for the easy pandering digg-vote - stinger666, on 10/10/2007, -7/+30I would use Linux if I could play my games on it.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+22"Uses a lot of recycled code"??? Do you even know what you're talking about? Somehow I don't think so. *nix systems all use "recycled" code. New code has new bugs. "Recycled" code has been tested, debugged and used in the real world. Re-using existing code and libraries is a good thing.
- sauron256, on 10/10/2007, -6/+28I remember articles like this one when XP was released...
Same old, same old. - Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -6/+24Hint: It's just an industry standard program. Nothing much.
Jeezus, the people who think they know stuff... - mpn401, on 10/10/2007, -8/+25Not in its current state. It's not user-friendly enough. Even Ubuntu has its shortcomings.
- turnthepage, on 10/10/2007, -4/+20This is one of the top 5 best comments I have ever read on digg.
flamebot 08'? - Kragnerac, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19Can Linux replace Windows? It just depends on what your occupation is. If you are a web designer, there is a chance you may need Adobe Flash CS3, which unfortunately, Linux currently does not have. If you are a gamer, Linux may not be for you, as there is a very sparse commercial gaming market for Linux at the moment. However, if you are a general user (one who primarily does web browsing, email checking, etc.), a server administrator, or anyone whose required applications are already on Linux, it may be for you.
Linux, for many people, will not be a replacement for Windows. It would serve as an excellent second operating system for those, though. - bieber, on 10/10/2007, -1/+17Does it matter if Linux can replace Windows? I've been using exclusively free software for two years now, and it's been working out great for me: no Windows needed. Honestly, I couldn't care less if Windows is unseated; as long as my system of choice still works, what difference does it make how many people use it?
- mmeads, on 10/10/2007, -11/+27No.
_What?! you asked...._ - polyGone, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15hint: I do....and I use linux..........
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14I've NEVER had any issues connecting a Vista PC to an XP-centric LAN.
- darkphenox, on 10/10/2007, -4/+17Mostly not, until game companies release every game along side the windows release. Yes there is wine but as said before there is a performance hit, most gamers wouldn't want to touch any hit why waste money on hardware when you could have it running more smoothly on a native OS.
- somegeologist, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14Oh yea, remember "it's gonna phone home with all your personal data" and "none of you dos programs will work"
- subgeniusd, on 10/10/2007, -19/+31Unfortunately most users are apathetic dorks that will take whatever Best Buy has on sale that week. Which unfortunately is not Linux. They also don't peruse Digg so we won't read any of their responses here. This topic has gotten rather stale ......don't you think?
- misterjangles, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13Every bit of market share that Microsoft has, for those of us who remember, they snuck in and took it from some other company who created the market. Linux could do the same, but I think it's easy to underestimate how incredibly hard it is to do that. There was a time when Microsoft was kicking everyone's ass.
The one thing I remember clearly is when wordperfect was really popular and slowly MS Word took over. One of the major reasons that Microsoft was able to take over is because they always supported the format of the competitor. You could open up wordperfect documents in Word and that was a huge deal back then because if you use Word you could be compatible with everybody.
I think if OpenOffice can get 100% perfect compatibility with Word and Excel - and I do mean 100% with no glitches - then I think Linux has a chance of grabbing a lot more marketshare from Microsoft in the business world. Yes, i know it supports it now, but be honest, there are still conversion glitches and such. When you are on your own you can use whatever you want. When you have to send files back and forth and such - people don't have the energy to deal with formatting glitches and stuff. That is just the reality of people who work in offices. - pathy, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15I have a question that, sadly, I shouldn't have to ask - but do people actually try Vista when they come to write these articles?
Now, I know Vista had a rough launch. I didn't experience it, as I was waiting on building a new system at the time to using it, however, my experience has been nothing but great. Very few, infact I think there's only one game (Curse of Blackmoor Manor), that hasn't run. A few gave me a couple of problems, but nothing major. Regular programs, I've had no problem with.
Crashing and instability is very rar, and performance is pretty damn great across the board. The machine starts and shuts down very quickly, and sleep mode is fantastic.
Not all the hardware is officialy supported by Vista either, the main difficulty being a WiFi card, which I had to disable the driver security checks to be able to install. (Using x64)
So... I'm curious, do they try Vista out, or are they all basing their opinions a small amount of time spent with it out of the launch gates, if any at all? - MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -4/+14Then you're doing something horribly, horribly wrong.
Vista works beautifully on any network that isn't plagued with problems. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -17/+27i dont get why the ***** everyone is complaining about vista. i have it on my laptop and it works perfectly fine. what is the big deal?
anyway, i dont think linux will replace windows because u need to know how to use the command line sometimes and most people i know who use windows dont even know what control alt delete does. - stmiller, on 10/10/2007, -4/+13Yes OS X is nice, but you have to buy an entirely new computer to try it out. Linux runs on your current computer and is free.
- xrenjrvt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10I will completely disagree with you. You can do everything you need to in Ubuntu without the command line. The real problem is driver support, but that gets better all the time. Ubuntu and Edubuntu are way more user friendly than windows, next time you want to take photos off your digital camera try windows then Ubuntu, I guarantee Ubuntu is more user friendly, no software to install, plug in the usb, a dialog box comes up, press one button, you're done.
- digginamish, on 10/10/2007, -5/+14Is it ready to replace Windows? No.
When the "average" user runs into the command line they're going to wet themselves and start crying. I'm a big Ubuntu fan, but people are expecting a system that works like Windows and it's just not quite there yet. Open source software is really coming around; there are some great programs out there, but I think the Linux developers should try to get to the point where the power users can use the command line if they want to, but the sheep don't have to touch it.
PS I'm not sure why so many people like to talk about Vista like it's the red-headed stepchild (no offense to any of you redheads or stepchildren), but I've been using it since it came out without any problems. I've set up over 100 new PCs with it and the only problems I ever had were due to software and hardware vendors not keeping up. - pr1me4, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11you want me to run two operating systems? and what part of "REPLACE" is "IN ADDITION TO"?
- hartley, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12Yeah, and not a lot of people use MS Office in the workplace.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9"Linux needs to operate more and more like Windows." "Again, Linux is going to have to play by the rules set by Windows in order to take Windows down a notch." "get in there and do what Windows does the way Windows does it, then show people that they’re doing it without any Microsoft labels all over it."
No thanks, we're playing with OUR rules and we are, certainly going upstairs. Not in a winning position though but we're not losing at all. - bobmcsmith, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10"It is this sort of unjustified superiority displayed by the average Linux user that contains the answer to the articles title."
And the record for proving the OP's point in the shortest time goes to "coredump0x01" - gcnaddict, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Why the ***** is Sexton65 being dugg down? Digg must be a pile of rabid linux fanboys because they didn't catch the fact that Sexton65's comment was PRO LINUX too.
- scarper86, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9I couldn't agree with you more. I use OSX and XP and every time I hear someone go on about blue screens I'm wary of whatever else they have to say because it means they're more interested in an agenda rather than the truth. My Windows computer crashes just as much as my Mac which means never. Geez, if they're still talking about Windows 95 then talk about Apple's OS's from the 90's since those weren't exactly stellar examples of stability either.
- OneAndOnlySnob, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9I'm a Linux advocate. I hate to see people make fun of "The Year of the Linux Desktop." I hate it even more when advocates say 'This is it, this is going to be the Year of the Linux Desktop!" Very few Linux users think there will be a "Year of the Linux Desktop." If Linux takes off as a desktop, it will be an extremely gradual process, and I firmly believe we are in the middle of it. Desktop Linux usage is always rising. The floodgates will almost certainly not open up in the span of one year. It will be baby steps. Every time a Ubuntu or Mandrake or whatever's next comes out, a few more people will switch. That's how it's going with Mozilla/Firefox. That's how all Free software works. It's not about striking oil and getting a lot of people to use your product, it's about evolving good software. If it's not good enough for you now, maybe it will be in a few years.
Perhaps we'll eventually have 10% of the desktop, and people will still be mocking the "Year of the Linux Desktop". If it's not good enough for you then, maybe it will be in a few more years. - aluminumpork, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12I honestly cannot remember the last time I've had a blue screen, oh wait, I can, in Windows ME. Windows has come a long ways since then. XP has only crashed a handful of times for me, and only because of faulty hardware, where as Vista has -never- locked, -never- "blue screened", never anything. I love Linux because it's flexible, light-weight and very user supported. However, as comments above have stated, as long as there is ever, even the slightest chance of having to open the CLI, it will never be sold at Best Buy and never make it main stream. Once the average user doesn't ever have to Google how to get their hardware working, once the Linux installers detect and install -decent- drivers (drivers that at least support the basic functionality of the hardware) for 99% of the hardware on the market, then Linux may have a chance. When I'm talking average user, I'm talking about the guy that doesn't understand tabs in IE, doesn't know what an IP address is, doesn't understand hard-drives and partitions and pronounces Windows Vista as Windows Veesta. That is the true "average" user. Yeah, Linux has a long way to come.
- michaeldpotter, on 10/10/2007, -7/+15Linux is it's own worse enemy. I have seen many comments on digg about people making fun of how many versions of Windows Vista there are. How many different distributions of Linux are there? 25, 50, 100 ? That is very confusing to the average, hell, even above average consumer. The market is so scattered, it will never gain the critical mass it needs to be able to become a viable alternative to Windows on the desktop.
There are really only two basic things that are going to drive people to Linux, cost and features. Sure, if you go buy a full retail copy of Windows Vista/XP off the shelf, it is expensive. But in reality, how many people do that? PC's have become use and replace items; people rarely upgrade the PC, until they replace the whole thing, which will come with a new OS. When you buy a new PC with Windows, the cost of Windows is very negligible. #2 - Features. What is it that Linux does so much better than Windows? I'm sure there will be about fifty comments on how Windows crashes all the time, yada, yada. You are ignorant if you think every other OS every made doesn't crash at some point. Does Windows crash more than Linux? That is a very subjective question, and the factors that go into that are countless. Does Linux have some killer applications you can't get for Windows? In short, no. Does it perform better? Again subjective.
Only time will answer this question, but the answer for about the last ten years has been no, and I personally don't see anything changing again this year. - Renton, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10What about all those businesses that can save $80 per computer by installing linux instead of buying windows. You can get a lot more done in open office since it's compatible with most file formats. You don't know how many times I had to deal with the works/word compatibility issues.
- Zalyster, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Actually, Vista on my computer starts up loads faster than XP. Shuts down faster too. Add to that, I've had no driver issues, only had to download one new one and that was because I got a new gfx card, but otherwise everything is fine. Of course, I'm apparently in the minority here on Digg.
- Yokwe, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Photoshop is just one of many programs. Dumbledorito is right Photoshop is.. or nearly is an industry standard program.
- mooninite, on 10/10/2007, -8/+15Same here. I've converted my home and work computers to Fedora over a year ago and I haven't looked back.
- MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -4/+11And a lot of Vista is new code, as well. The network stack, for instance, a highly targetted system of Windows, has been completely rewritten, and IE, another big target, has gotten massive sweeping changes.
You can't deny that Vista's security track record so far is pretty damned good. - gcnaddict, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Smaller footprint my ass. I skinned DWM in Longhorn 4074 (and used that particular OS longer than anyone else on the face of this planet, I assure you) and can tell you now: DWM was a pain in the ass, as was WinFS. The longhorn reset was a very heavily needed reboot inside the Windows division.
- MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Ah, WinFS. The good old process that ate up hundreds of megs of memory and gave mediocre indexing performance. And people actually complain that they dropped it.
Yeah, dwm performance skyrocketted towards the end of the betas. In beta 2, it would eat up 200 megs of memory and a ton of CPU time without any windows open, 6 months later, 20 megs, 0% CPU. - Spr0k3t, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6That's odd, I find the installation of windows applications more painful than Linux. Find the application I need, then I have like five different methods to install the software. I can install from source, install from repos through the terminal, install through package downloads, install through the package manager, and install through the application manager. I can even add more ways if I wanted to. The simplest way I have ever seen to install software is through Debian based package management. The easiest method to install eclipse is just a checkbox after searching for "eclipse".
- wargod18, on 10/10/2007, -7/+13I am so sick of this argument. XP is a great OS, I have never had XP crash becuase of something Microsoft did. I have had it crash before but that was becuase of a faulty driver from some other company or say a virus. Vista is new they wanted to add a lot of new features while keeping old programs working. Its not easy older programs may use DLLs that Vista doesn't need or those DLLs are moved somewhere else and the programs can't find them. Programs do crash and its rare but if for some reason it crashes hard enough it can and will take out XP or any OS.
The whole argument about security is a waste of time also. Apple is always pushing out security updates, no OS is unhackable. The man reason OSX doesn't have as many Viruses as XP is becuase of Market share. People are in it for the money now not the fame, Macs just don't have the market share to make it worth it. Plus many hackers start off playing games and writing little bits of code that let them cheat. How many games do you see on the Mac platform compared to Windows. More Script kiddies start out on Windows then on Mac and they stick with know. One day the Mac will gain enough Market share to make it worth hacking or someone will decide the Mac fan boys have had enough time to gloat and they will rip the Mac a new one.
Digg me down all you want but you know I am right they said. They SAY the Mac is unhackable but they also said the Titanic was unsinkable where is it now.
/ignore spelling and grammar I suck at it. - RogerStrong, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9WordPerfect? Word took over not because of anything Microsoft did, it took over because of what WordPerfects's owners did. They didn't just shoot themselves in the foot - they used a machine gun on full auto, pausing only to change clips.
- They spent their resources developing for OS/2, ignoring Windows until it was too late.
- Then the first Windows version of WordPerfect was a crawling abomination from the deepest pits of hell.
- When when they got it right, they disappeared into Novell - one of the few companies who can make experienced system administrators get down on thier knees and thank God for Microsoft.
- Novell sold it to Corel for a tiny fraction of what they paid for it. Corel spent many months and many millions of dollars trying to create a Java version before giving up.
- Then they messed up the user interface on the Windows version beyond all recognition. (I think they changed it back on later versions.)
Microsoft would have had to pull Word off the market to stop people from switching over.
But yeah, if OpenOffice gets 100% compatibility, it'll own the market overnight. - MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Vista moved a great deal of graphics driver 'stuff' out of the kernel.
The end result has been that I haven't seen a graphics driver take down my computer, and a marginal hit in gaming performance. Fortunately, it's negligable in many cases (We're talking low single digit percentages most of the time with the more recent drivers) and with every graphics driver release, Vista closes in on XP, even surpassing it in one or two games.
Vista has done a lot to change how DirectX actually works in the system, it has better 'theoretical' graphics performance than XP, but the problem is that XDDM (XP) drivers have had the last 6 years to mature. The WDDM (Vista) spec was only finished last year. - mvent2, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9"Windows is a billion times more user friendly to the grandpa who hasn't used a computer before."
You couldn't be more wrong. Linux w/ a good DE like GNOME or KDE is much more user-friendly to someone not used to another OS. People who say things like that are talking about people who are too used to Windows to switch over. But for Grandpa who has never used a computer before, he can learn any interface because he's not accustomed to anything, and GNOME or KDE is an excellent starting point.
"You can get by in Linux to a degree without it, but you can't get that far."
Wrong again. Wow, two in a row! I'm using Linux, have done much more than in Windows, and how many times have I used the command line? 0. I'm not lying, I just use KDE. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -6/+12 Yes it has,and yes,you are correct...Until Linux starts showing itself at places like best buy, it will just be more of the same.
- pyrates, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8You find the CLI easier? you're not the typical computer user, you're the typical LINUX user. Get it now?
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