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329 Comments
- niallabrown, on 12/08/2007, -6/+70Very nicely put. And even with all the great points you made you didnt even mention the fact that most cellphones, PDA's, Portible Media Devices as well as the inexpencive notebooks will run Linux. And those devices will have wordprocessors like Open Office and Lotus Symphony.... not MS office, making it harder for Micorosoft to keep it's suite and other products inconpatible.
- WiseWeasel, on 12/08/2007, -6/+61Woohoo, it's here guys; it's the tipping point! Now that the 'standard' OS is shifting to a GPL project, 3rd parties will finally have a chance at competing on equal footing. Anyone can come out with their own distro that can run all the software the others can. We're headed for some serious innovation in the PC space in the following years, and no matter what OS we personally use, we all win as they're forced to truly compete for their survival.
- baalzebub, on 12/08/2007, -10/+54i would rather have lightweight FOSS software on lowend hardware than have some terribly HUGE & bloated piece of crap resource hogging OS from some corporate elite who's only motive is to dominate the market with half-assed kludge...
- atdigg, on 12/08/2007, -8/+42I challenge anybody to run Vista on old computers.
- betacmag4u, on 12/09/2007, -5/+33I am neither a Linux nor Microsoft fanboy more a "whatever gets the job done at the lowest cost best performance ratio guy" ....that said I installed the newest version of Wine on my new Ubuntu install and all I can say is WOW. So far everything has worked perfect from older windows games to newer apps. So I dont really care what OS I run since I can run most software for Windows on my Nix box and I stopped using MS Office long ago. With the advent of Wine Windows is not relevant. At least for me :)
- albi123, on 12/08/2007, -8/+36My local library's computer's all run fedora they droped windows.
- scrumpy, on 12/08/2007, -7/+33This will become the moment when we look back 3 years from now and say- "This is where the tide changed." As more typical users become familiar with this OS; and their typical use is boiled down- their everyday task will become streamlined. Those who never wrote a line of code will begin adding to the great open source revolution called - LINUX.
- chingy1788, on 12/09/2007, -2/+26Vista just wont run on 256MB of ram...
I had it running on a 1.8GHz Sempron with 512MB of RAM, 128MB Shared to the video card
It was useable
Vista shows its colours when you get like 2GB of RAM - inactive, on 12/09/2007, -1/+23Adblock. Use it.
- screwattackthis, on 12/09/2007, -0/+22Yeah, cause Ubuntu and Debian are SOOO different.
- niallabrown, on 12/09/2007, -3/+24Why would you want a cripped Windows install? Windows is limited enough as it is.
- inactive, on 12/08/2007, -2/+22 You sure got that right...I have to agree.
This is very exciting news for the future of Linux...I knew it was going to find it's nitch,and it has!!!! - m0tbaillie, on 12/09/2007, -1/+19Damn Small Linux is less than 50MB installed.
- Myztry, on 12/09/2007, -1/+17Why do all the Windows users (in particular) get upset? More choice is a good thing, even if you don't exercise that choice.
What do you think keeps prices low? Spurs companies to compete? Prevents computing becoming generic and stagnant! - winmywii, on 12/09/2007, -6/+22These ads on digg are pissing me off. The first one says I am the 10,000th visitor and I won a prize. The second one says I am the 999,999th visitor and I won a prize. To top it off they have a sweet flashing red border.
- edzilla, on 12/09/2007, -2/+18So a simple sign saying "windows only" or "linux only" confuses you?
You know, mac users are not confused by different executables. Do you mean you are more stupid than the average mac user?
"soon I will miss the great days of MS Domination, and the simplicity of buying or dling a program and double clicking to install it"
--
Yes, because selecting a program in a list, and clicking just once to download it, install it and configure it for your ocmputer is hard? - screwattackthis, on 12/09/2007, -1/+15I didn't even know Digg has ads....
Go get adblock. - niallabrown, on 12/09/2007, -0/+14You will see more and more as people start to realize that there will be no clear tipping point. This is not an overnight process.... it has taken years coming and will take a few more to really start to provide heavy competition.
- radio1mike, on 12/09/2007, -2/+15I think the real question is just about traction.
If these low-end PCs equipped with Linux gain traction and some market share- it could the in Linux needs.
Let's face it anyone who's in the market for a sub-$500 desktop is:
1) Looking for a glorified internet appliance
or
2) Looking for the framework for a cheap file-server or gaming PC (with the addition of a good video card)
For surfing porn, IM, email and simple office duties- the OS does not really matter. - inactive, on 12/09/2007, -5/+18I dual boot both Win XP and Ubuntu on my laptop. Whenever I boot into Windows its takes forever for all the startup ***** to load, the anti virus to update and so on and so on. Ubuntu boots in 1/2 the time and works just as well if not better.
- Eska, on 12/09/2007, -1/+14I agree completely that there are some issues with linux, but you overlooked a crucial characteristic of the linux community. The linux community is improving their product at an incredible rate. Just in 2004 was the first official release of ubuntu, everyone will agree, that release did not compare to windows. Only 3 years later they have a fully functional operating system that competes with windows very well. So where do you think ubuntu will be in three more years, 6 distributions later? Do you think vista sp2 will be out by then?
- WiseWeasel, on 12/08/2007, -4/+16niche
/nitpick - MarkKezner, on 12/09/2007, -1/+12"get a real distro"? Linux is about choice, keep your elitist ***** to yourself.
Not everyone has the time or know-how to set up their OS by hand. - dacheetah, on 12/09/2007, -0/+10OOo is bloatware? The entire suite is under 100MB and can run off a USB stick while still doing most of what MS Office's ~1GB will do from a full install.
(Granted there are things that MS Office, particularly 2007, will do that OOo doesn't, and despite the similarities, it does take some getting used to OOo, but I'd hardly call it bloatware given the competition.) - ropers, on 12/09/2007, -5/+15That's right.
Linux is "missing" all the DRM-CRAP "features" that make Vista such a hog.
Cf. here: http://www.the-fifth-hope.org/mp3/drm.mp3 - skywake, on 12/09/2007, -2/+112.4GHz celeries with 256-512MB RAM isn't exactly what I would call "old". Find something sub 1GHz with less then 256MB RAM and then I will be slightly impressed. (running SUSE on a 1.3 Celery M 724MB RAM)
- joshuaer, on 12/09/2007, -4/+12I like your article and i currently run OSX, XP, and Ubuntu not a fan boy of any of them.
your price for the Linux boxes came in at $57,000
your price for Vista boxes can it at $114,923.
I am wondering why you think that Vista people need to run office and windows server this is not a must it is an option if you really wanted to show a true comparison with both you should have had the windows people running Open Office and a Linux server. Just because a company uses 1 Microsoft product does not mean that they will only use MS products. so really it comes down to $20,000 in price difference but your employees now have better computers and an OS that they are used to.
I am far from a supporter of MS but just like polls when you compare to different things you should keep them as even as possible, your goal was to make Linux the clear winner not show both sides equal and let the lowest price win. - niallabrown, on 12/09/2007, -1/+9Actaully demand brings products to desktops. As the shift starts to happen they will see this is good for them.
- ropers, on 12/09/2007, -5/+13He forgot to mention WGA (Windows Genuine Annoyance), DRM-CRAP and WWW-literacy.
Up to now, MS has profited from private copyright infringement for personal use: Sure, they didn't get a sale out of every bootlegged copy of Windows and Office, but because everybody had Windows and Office (mostly either OEM bundled or bootlegged), everybody was familiar with the System. This led to a talent pool and helped buttress MS' unassailable position in the workplace. MS made money out of this via business software license sales and their accreditation programs (MCP, MCSA, MCSE, etc., etc. all of these tests cost money to take, nevemind the training material sales). MS used to crack down on commercial bootlegging and unofficially ignore home bootlegging for personal use. This was wise. Now with WGA, MS is making home bootlegging harder, at the exact time that a different talent pool (WWW-literacy) is replacing the Windows OS/Office talent pool, and at the same time that MS is alienating users with anally retentive DRM-CRAP, which is also what uses up all these processing cycles and makes it impossible for Vista to run fast on older hardware. (A dated, but very good introduction to DRM-CRAP in Vista is here (8 silent secs at the beginning of the MP3): http://www.the-fifth-hope.org/mp3/drm.mp3 )
So Vista is carrying the DRM-CRAP performance penalty, losing average Joes who will be happy to stop bootlegging MS software once that becomes the easier option, and consequentially shrinking the talent pool just as WWW-usage skills become more relevant than OS/Application usage skills. - secleinteer, on 12/09/2007, -0/+7"soon I will miss the great days of MS Domination"
Wow, that's the most retarded thing I've heard in a long time. - niallabrown, on 12/09/2007, -1/+8Another crutial thing to add to this (because of all the people who are posing very old arguments against Linux) is that Linux has only had the infrastruture due to broadband internet and new ways of communcating such as the wiki and so on for a few years. This has allowed for huge strides in Linux in a short time that show no signs of slowing, infact it seems to be speeding up. Linux is not comprible to what it was even two years ago.
- dacheetah, on 12/09/2007, -0/+7As much as I hate to defend Macs, when it comes to resource hogging bloat, Vista takes the cake. Infact it takes the whole damn bakery.
- niallabrown, on 12/09/2007, -2/+9Poor you. Now, with Linux, you will only have to single click to install one of thousands of free software packages. I can see why your upset..... seriously however, when Linux dominates everything will cater to it as they did to Microsoft so ALL of these problems (real or imagined) that you have mentioned will cease to exist.
- riah, on 12/09/2007, -0/+7Trezdoll... I checked your comment history. You seem to really dispise anything open source. Not a slight disfavor, but a it-stole-my-lunch-money-as-a-kid kind of grudge. Is this pure brand loyalty for Microsoft or do you have legitimate grievances?
- mjworthey, on 12/09/2007, -0/+7If they were text ads, or even static banner ads, I wouldn't mind. But those flashing, moving ads are *really* annoying. Like eye-bleed annoying.
- joelito, on 12/09/2007, -0/+6So when the time comes, you'll punch the monkey?
- aaabatteries, on 12/09/2007, -1/+7You can get WoW running fairly well in Wine. It's not hard at all, the only thing is you can only use the hardware cursor. That's...basically the only issue with it.
- Breepee, on 12/09/2007, -0/+5The price of these things is what matters. Apple rumored small laptop will be as expensive as a MacBook Pro from what I read.
- MWeather, on 12/09/2007, -0/+5No emulation? That's easy. Just use WINE.
- edzilla, on 12/09/2007, -1/+6First of all: never heard of wine, virtualbox, vmware, have you?
Second: most people don't care what system they use, if they have their AIM, MSN, email and browser. Tell them they won't get virus or adware problems, and they jump right in.
I even get client asking me for linux, now... (I used to be a repair tech) - edzilla, on 12/09/2007, -3/+8I just love your arguments.
- KyjL, on 12/09/2007, -2/+7So you're throwing your Mac out the window?
- Atomic1fire, on 12/09/2007, -2/+7crippled?
if anything linux is the opposite
sure you may be able to run windows software but activex is falling in use and flash is availible for linux so there is not a big issue as far as net compatibillity goes
and the software availible for linux is as good in some cases and much cheaper then the windows equivelent - m0tbaillie, on 12/09/2007, -1/+6You can run Starcraft very reliably in Wine now, as well. I've been doing it for a year or two.
- edzilla, on 12/09/2007, -1/+6Oh, and you've never used a recent version of a newbie friendly distribution, have you?(or never used linux at all, probably.
The latest version of ubuntu, mandriva or fedora doesn't make you type a single command line.
But they don't hide it, in case you decide to take your head out of your ass, and realize that many things(although not all) are faster and more efficient on the command line... - oreja, on 12/09/2007, -1/+6I actually spent 4 days trying to get ubuntu working on my neighbours 8 year old PIII. Live CD was fine, install went fine, but it would hang everytime on the first boot after install. It would keep insisting that her IDE drive was a SCSI and appeared to get stuck in a loop saying ata1 was frozen. Was actually embarrassing after I had spent days telling her how much better it would run than windows on such old hardware.
- screwattackthis, on 12/09/2007, -2/+6You're basically saying "I don't know what I'm doing, so Linux sucks."
- Ludnix, on 12/08/2007, -17/+21This is the third "linux is taking over" article this week. I'm using ubuntu linux, but that doesn't stop me from being annoyed.
- MarkKezner, on 12/09/2007, -1/+5You're a tool
- djGentoo, on 12/09/2007, -0/+4And besides, Damn Small already has a copy of Firefox, not to mention an entire office suite. Plus, we can recompile those programs to reduce their size- they ARE open-source, aren't they? This is why proprietary software is so overrated.
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