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The rise of Linux (finally)?

jpost.com — One day - soon, possibly, maybe - you might find yourself using a form of Linux, even if you're a diehard Windows user. It's the next big thing.

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 11, 2007

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  • deuceswilde, on 10/12/2007, -4/+65@ M4v3R

    Hear me out before you bury me. Honestly one of the big things holding Linux back is the current generation of Linuphiles. The best and worst things about Linux today is that it's full of extremely tech savvy individuals who develop the software and constantly work to make the entire Linux experience more robust. However, it's exactly these types of people that seem to have no ability to grasp what the average computer user sees when they deal with Linux. Saying things like sudo apt-get are likely to put about three quarters of them in the fetal position, and almost the entire remainder would drop out after iwconfig. The biggest thing for Linux to do right now is to work on a consistent user experience across distros, and greater emphasis on GUI based applications because that's what will matter for most people. People need things in plain English and they need the OS to hold their hand when setting it up for the first time, once a distro can accomplish that then I think Linux will start accelerating in popularity much more than we've seen yet.
  • GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -7/+65- generalization among Linux users (eliteists, thinking all Windows users are stupid)
  • exoendo, on 10/12/2007, -9/+54....

    Is there some tension between you two?
  • rmxz, on 10/12/2007, -12/+49Linux seems like it has its best chance yet to win Windows users. Apparently Wine compatibility has improved greatly; and Vista compatibility has been so spotty that you can make the argument that Linux is just as Windows-2000 compatible as Vista is. It's certainly true for hardware - where far more Win2000 era hardware has Linux drivers than Vista drivers; and depending on the software you use, might be true there as well. A few more Vista DRM misfeatures and a couple more Wine improvements and Linux may be more XP-compatible than Vista is in the end.

    But in many ways, everyone already does use Linux - just using a browser as an interface rather than Gnome or KDE..
    Google search today? You used Linux.
    Download Vista from MSDN? That was done on Linux servers at Akamai.


  • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -16/+50Things holding Linux back:

    - too many distros
    - complicated installs
    - compatibility issues
    - intuitiveness (i.e. how easily can a typical Windows user grasp the OS?)
  • lifeandtimes, on 10/12/2007, -17/+441. Until hardware manufactures produce drivers with the same quality as Windows their drivers, don't expect Linux to compete with Windows.

    2. Until Linux is like Windows in the fact that it "just works" on install, don't expect Linux to compete with Windows.

    3. Until Linux develops auto install programs for EVERYTHING, don't expect Linux to compete with Windows.

    4. Until software companies, i.e. game producers produce their software so that it works with Linux as good as it works with Windows, don't expect Linux to compete with Windows.

    Sorry guys, I would love to see Linux have just as much market share as Windows, but it just is not going to happen in the near future. As far as the article goes, there are a couple of gross exaggerations and/or misleading information:

    1. Large parts of Vista are disabled if you don't activate after reinstalling Vista on your computer.
    You /30/ days to do this. If you wait that long and than Vista disables part of itself because you didn't activate, that's your own fault. I had to reinstall Vista after a motherboard failure, and I had Vista revalidated within 5 minutes. The same thing happened with XP, but was fixed very quickly.

    2. Vista takes tweaking to work at peak performance, the same thing happens with Linux, so that can't be why Linux isn't popular.
    Vista worked out of the box with my 8800 GTS, Ubuntu will not. I can't stop/restart/start gnome without having to do a reboot of my system. At least Vista works, not well, but it works, while Ubuntu will not. I realize Ubuntu is not the only distro, but it happens to be one of the most popular distros ATM.
  • Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30Apple is just ripping off Amiga's Video Toaster. :)
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28Too bad it's only expandable via a proprietary 'iToast' system
  • Switch625, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25@mroo: but non-techie people just don't install stuff that way.

    In my experience, a non-techie user will think "I need a program to play MP3s". So they go to Google and type "mp3 player". Google tells them "Winamp", so they go there, look at all the marketing razzamataz and screen shots on the site, think "this is the player for me", click "download" and then run the file that they get. Like magic, Winamp is installed.

    Or if they are a mac user, they go through a similar process, and end up with a file they drag into their "applications" folder, or whatever.

    What they *don't* do is say "I need to find out the name of a program that plays MP3s, so I'll google it, jot down the name, then go to 'Start Button' -> Package Manager and pick the package that corresponds to that name, plus all the codecs I need to play MP3s, then click Install".

    Yes, the last method is better for people who know the program they need to install, and yes from a technical standpoint it's better that you can install trusted software from a vetted source. But the average desktop user doesn't give a monkey's about that. They want to download a *thing* from the web, then install that thing by clicking on it. They don't even know or care what a package is, or why it needs to be managed.
  • EndersGame, on 10/12/2007, -10/+27It may be the desktop OS of choice one day, but the market would have to be very different. Right now Windows works fine, in fact XP works great for me, and I don't see anything that Linux does better that would benefit me or the average user. We surf the web, we check our email, we talk on msn, we download corrupted music files off of kazaa and morpheus...some of us chat on mIRC occasionally. We are all used to that crap, and windows does it all perfectly. Linux doesn't do it any better and it ultimately makes it a little harder. I consider myself consider savvy and for the past 5 years I have had one hell of a time getting Linux to work right. Sure I could fool around with it for a while and eventually get there but I am impatient and Windows just works :)

    The number of people that have switched to Linux is impressive though, and its good news because I am a Linux advocate. I hope that some day Linux will conform to standards and just work without the hassle. And once it gains market share and gets more support from major software developers I will make the switch. I mean sure there are a lot of people that like to work on their own cars rather then taking them to a shop. Its cheaper, in some ways more reliable, and you feel good about yourself for accomplishing something, but you would never expect everybody that owns a car to do their own mechanical work just because you got something out of it.
  • GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -9/+26I use none of those things. Plus, don't beat around the bush. This article is talking about COMPUTERS. That is a cop-out, like saying, "you use Linux every day because lots of websites are hosted on them".
  • schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22Many, many mistakes in the article, but the bottom line leaves the reader pleased. Someone ought to contact the author and have things corrected.
  • exoendo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20welcome to ten years ago, when the 'welcome to 5 years ago' stab was mildly amusing...
  • mroo, on 10/12/2007, -13/+29@dueseswild:

    "Start Button" -> Package Manager

    Linux is simple.

    The hardest part about the switch for the average user is "what do i use instead of my favorite application X?"

  • vario, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19Welcome to 5 years ago, when they said the same thing.
  • POPULATIONPASTE, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20Linux isn't cohesive enough to take control of the desktop market. Until one distro rises above the rest as the true consumer standard linux, it won't happen.
  • roxya, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20I have tomtom... it runs on my Windows Mobile PDA.
  • dtrask, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Don't worry...Ubuntu will be there soon.
  • kaczus, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19I use linux every day and, when people see it, most of them are amazed by the speed of it. I'd say it's twice as responsive as WinXP which I have on second partition for gaming. But I use Arch Linux which doesn't come with the bloat of more "user-friendly" distributions. I always thought that linux was built around the "Make each program do one thing well." philosophy, but guess what? Until recently there wasn't even a decent app to access SMB (Windows network) shares that would follow this philosophy. You were forced to use bloated file managers such as Nautilus or Konqueror. Now things have changed (fuse + smbnetfs) but Nautilus still has built in smb support and I don't see it going away. I guess what I wanted to say was: if all developers would follow the aforementioned philosophy we'd have a lot more desktop linux users by now.
  • llemirtrauts, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17Lets face it, most of us love Linux because it makes us feel cleaver and superior. The effort expended to beat its idiosyncrasies into submission gives us a pleasant glow of self gratification when we finally grok it. Most people can't be arsed with all that bollocks, and neither should they be. Linux will never be the mainstream desktop OS.
  • mroo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11@phat:

    I think you mean MacOSX is UNIX that "just works" ;)

    Underneath you have all the BSD / GNU goodness.. eg a nice BASH shell etc..
  • arup, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11OS X is _not_ Linux, it is an Unix Derivative.
  • Grimdotdotdot, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16Scooper: Get some Capital letters.
  • Yoshi39, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10According to the article
    "The story on servers is somewhat different, with Windows running about two-thirds of servers and Linux about 20%."
    Which supprised me as I thought the roles where reversed...
  • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@stuntant
    "Why would choice stop something good from coming to the market?"

    Choice can be a good thing ... but so can consistency and compatibility.

    Aside from gaming, business use drives the software market. Most businesses operate more like a military dictatorship than a democracy. In a military or business environment, too much choice can cause problems. Much more value is placed on consistency and compatibility.

    By always emphasizing choice, Open Source has in effect mis-read the business market and given MS just the opening they needed to maintain a dominant position.
  • Julikaefer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It's funny how people are looking for reasons that Linux is not widely used and post them to a webserver that uses the most widely used webserver operating system -- Linux.
  • msgyrd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Actually endersgame: Linux usually does conform to standards, just not always Microsoft's fictional ones. Microsoft is known for breaking compatibility with industry standards, older revisions of their own made-up formats and architectures, and for purposefully changing their standards to hurt competitors.

    @kaczus:
    I doubt it. Most Windows users don't care about bloated software.
  • chingy1788, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11I gave Ubuntu and Linux MCE a chance to be my media centre, replacing Medio and Windows XP
    after days of installing, configuring, I still couldn't get it to work
    File Sharing with other comps, mounting HDDs, you have to do everything for it

    So
    I gave up on that and got Vista Home Premium Upgrade
    Installed it
    Installed DivX, updated graphics drivers
    Started MCE
    It scanned for all my media files
    then I was watching my videos and listening to my music in little over 2 hours

    On a Mac, Maybe less than an Hour
    but then I would have to buy another computer...
  • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Linux already is mainstream. The question is whether it will be mainstream on the Desktop.
  • Nightfall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8You forgot gaming in your list as well. PC Gaming is a 2 billion dollar a year industry, which is small compared to console gaming, but still its there.

    I use both Linux and Windows and to be honest, they are both good quality operating systems with tools that do the job. Some are more suited to some jobs than others. If I need a hammer for instance, why pull out a screwdriver? Sure, a screwdriver will do the trick, but a hammer would do it better.

    The only thing these articles do is pull out the fanboys on both sides.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Also no videos could play from divx, wmv, .h264. Mp3 did not work."

    Welcome to "ideology before functionality" theory of distro design.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@Schpariel:

    "Ubuntu is easier to install than Windows, also - the Linux kernel supports more hardware out of the box than XP. Hardware support also improves with every kernel version"
    Installing Ubuntu is easier than having Windows installed on the machine purchased? Really? Wow. I find it funny that Linux zealots bring up "Linux kernel supports more hardware out of the box than XP". I remember a time not to long ago that they used to say "It doesn't matter how much hardware support there is in Linux, just get hardware that is supported."

    "Linux has just a few compatibility problems with ATi Cards (bad official drivers) and broadcom wireless adapters (AFAIK, some of them are supported in kernel 2.6.20"
    Last I checked ieee1394 was still in alpha in linux and mostly didn't work on multi-processor systems.

    "I was a 'typical Windows user' - I downloaded the Ubuntu LiveCD, took a look around - and then installed it after tinkering a bit with it. In fact, the UI is much more appealing to me than Windows."
    You were? "Typical Windows users have barely heard of Linux or Ubuntu and don't know what a LiveCD is. Typical Window users treat a computer like an appliance, not a hobby.
  • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@yoshi39

    I think that figure is inaccurate. Windows does hold greater market share than Linux but not by much. Currently it's split something like
    35% Windows
    35% Other *nix (Corporate Unix, BSD etc)
    20% Linux

    The Windows category is growing slightly but the major change is Linux eating the Other *nix category (mainly killing the Corporate Unices, why do you think Solaris went open). IBM reckons that 80%+ of new servers this year will be Linux servers.

    Right now on the web server Windows holds about 20% with Linux holding about 30%-40%. Apache is dominant with 70%+ of the market share.

    //edit - as for active directory. Yes we have LDAP and have so for a long time.//
  • exoendo, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15Apples toaster is better
  • zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Woah, I just got chills of deja vu, like I had heard this in 2006. And 2005. 2004, 3, 2, 1 etc.
  • furude, on 10/12/2007, -10/+15Windows "just works" on install? I guess that's if you consider grabbing a service pack or two and a boatload of critical updates, plus various drivers that were outdated or not included with the operating system, part of the install process.
  • Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Isn't this is coming from the guy who swore the PS3 was going to be the "next best thing" before launch?
  • vario, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9That doesn't make my statement any less true. ;)
  • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think on the hardware front we will eventually see a company 'Do an Apple' and build machines specifically with Linux in mind (I know this already exists to an extent but not to a large enough scale yet).

    As with the games people shouldn't expect Windows software to run on Linux. In the end Linux is an investment in which you will eventually leave something behind, you better damn well make sure you gain something in the process. Running Linux to 'stick it to the man' is not a sensible way to go about things.

    Linux is also not really targeted at anyone. It is an open base of code with a fantastically flexible kernel that can be turned towards many tasks. The MythTV guys believe the point of their Linux is to run a PVR, the GP2X guys think it is for gaming, the Zaurus people love Linux for PDAs, the Apache guys run a web server, the KDE guys want a generic and configurable desktop environment, the Ubuntu guys target new users...

    Essentially most Linux users and devs aren't targeting desktop domination though some are. Also it's worth noting that grandma doesn't install software anyway, she uses what she is given by the OEM or her grandson. For this use case Linux is perfectly applicable. It has long been said but the people who have problems with Linux are the middle ground people, the so called power user. People who really don't understand how their OS or the computer works but can achieve a fair amount in a generic way because somebody has written an application for it. Linux has similar tools but we don't hide functionality and the HIG (if such a thing existed) for Linux would tell people to target the period after ignorance rather than the ignorance period itself. Better to make people's life more difficult for a day or two then give them absolute power over their machine, rather than make it easy to start but cripple their performance for life.
  • davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9I have my desktop and HTPC running Windows MCE, my laptop on Linux, and I have a copy of Vista Ultimate (that I got for free from the RC2 install fair) just sitting on the shelf, not wanting to be installed. I want to migrate my desktop and HTPC to Feisty as soon as it's out of beta. But I have to agree with the reluctance to install Vista because of all the anti-piracy stuff. I can only install it on one machine ever, and that one won't be able to dual boot with Linux, for now. So Vista stays on the shelf.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Things holding Linux back:

    - too many distros....Maybe.But the cream will rise to the top.
    - complicated installs...Nope. Generally takes about 10 minutes with next,next and next.
    - compatibility issues ...You mean with Windows?
    - intuitiveness (i.e. how easily can a typical Windows user grasp the OS?)..Very easy.
  • legendxx, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12once again this just proves that everyone who uses some form of *nix can't shut the ***** up about it. You don't see windows people spending 99% of their time telling everyone how great their OS experience has been.
  • UKsHaDoW, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8its free...
  • arbulus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4mroo hit it right:

    If you're looking for Windows, then just use Windows. If you want a Linux distro to perform and behave and feel just like Windows, then what really is the point? Linux didn't come about to become a Windows clone. The only reason people want it to be more like Windows is that they a familiar with it. Linux takes a different approach to the desktop than Windows and Mac OS X. Seriously, if you're changing your OS and want your new OS to perform exactly like your old one, then what really is the point of changing at all?

    People have different needs and different hardware. One OS may work better for one than the other. Use what works best for you.

    Linux is not Windows.
    Linux is not OS X.
    If you go to it not prepared to understand those basic facts, then you're really wasting your time.
  • stuntant, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Why would choice stop something good from coming to the market? In fact I would think it would help by allowing people to pick the product that best fits their needs. I know there is only one car company out there, one digital camera maker, one.... It is just a silly argument. Only with computers do we expect there to be only one player.
  • jono10, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I agree. They can't even get everyone to install Firefox, a complete OS ain't gonna happen. Plus the Linux crowd say "all you have to do is type this, or install that, or tweak this." hand cranking a car is easy, but it's even easier to just turn the key. Not everyone is a car enthusiast, likewise not everyone is a computer enthusiast.
  • lifeandtimes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7@pytis

    No, I haven't. I've tried Red Hat, Mandrake, and now Ubuntu. The first two were awhile ago, but I'll give Suse a go tomorrow. To be honest, I've never done much research into the different distros of Linux.
  • h2gofast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4For every gnu zealot on digg there are ten more linux users who have grown up and realized that linux is not for everyone, yet. Ubuntu (an ancient african word for he who cannot configure debian) has changed much but not enough to make linux ubiquitous. I sat in a literary theory classroom yesterday staring at a projector screen because the professor ( a brilliant guy in his field ) could not figure out how to update quicktime to play a video clip. He is your average user. He just wants to put the key in turn it and go. You can argue that ubuntu with an automatix install would fix all that, I know it would, but that guy is at the mercy of the University IT department, and they don't have it together in a windows world.
    So my point is that linux is not at the magic box phase yet, the user still needs to configure stuff, and people are not going to do that in linux if they can't even do it in windows. It doesn't matter who you blame, it's not the OS at fault or the user, its just that there is a gap between what most people can do and what the OS can do for them. Closing that gap == widespread adoption of an OS. At ubuntu's current rate, I'm guessing four more ubuntu releases and a few application gaps that need to be filled, personal accounting, easy home media editing, something to replace/work with microsoft exchange/outlook, and something to sync with pda/cellphone data. I'm sure there's a few more or folks that think these apps are covered, and that's fine, but my point that there are application and usability gaps for the average user remains valid.

    As a disclaimer I run ubuntu, debian, and dual boot a laptop with ubuntu/winxp (for streets and trips).
    Cheers,
    h2.
  • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@stuntant
    "Most of the compatibility, usability issues with linux are almost gone."

    Compatibility is not the same as usability.

    Compatibility is the idea that a core set of functionality that was available in the past will be supported now and in the future. It's what allows software written for Win95 to still run effectively under Vista. This is very attractive to in-house and commercial developers. It's what allows software to be obtained and installed from multiple sources rather than being tied to one central repository. Where's the choice with a central repository?

    Consistency is more related to usability. It's about meeting user expectations; interface and control wise. For example, software should be installed in a consistent manner and should offer an easy, consistent uninstall procedure as well. Sound, keyboard and mouse sensitivity should be set in a consistent manner. Names should be consistent; Firefox shouldn't be renamed to IceWeasel.
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