Discussion on:

How Linux Can Finally Rise Above Microsoft

As you say there are not many technical issues standing in the way for main stream adoption. Personally I do not believe that there are ANY purely technical issues in the way. I really think that what most people do not know the difference between a brand and the technology that the brand uses.

Gaming is a big issue for most users. I love to play 3D games. The problem is that most of the big name games do not run on GNU+Linux. The marketing and branding issue raises it's ugly head and that is the end of the issue for me. id is the huge exception to that rule in many cases. How ever to take it any further is to confuse what I believe the issue to be. ie Branding and marketing in case you did not see it before.

Nettops: They maybe a back door to GNU+Linux desktop adoption. As they are marketed just for surfing the Internet and emailing. This topic portion of the topic needs further discussion as I see the online storage, cloud computing, and SAS to be a hindrance here. I personally would very much like a nettop like say a eeepc, that I can very soon put Mandriva on. Anyway if I had such a device it would be a componant to my desktop for storage and online apps would not be a factor. Used this way the Nettop like device would only have technical issues to deal with in backing up data on what ever distro I want to back it up to. As soon as you add win32 applications you are in a branding issue that is only disguised as technical. The proliferation of Nettop like devices will educate users to these issues. As long as their heads are not in the clouds.

I would be interrested to hear what others have to say.

There are too many applications still not Linux compatible. That said, I run Linux in VM's on my Windows machines all the time. Spend more time in Linus than on Windows. But at the end of the day, Windows is there when necessary.

If it's not a work machine that limits you to other platforms under VMs, you may want to consider a dualboot or complete reverse.

Dualboot:
You get your windows on the raw hardware when needed (games 3D support or other specialty hardware). You get your Mandriva or other distribution on the raw hardware for non-gaming needs. If licenses permit, you then build a Windows VM guest under the Mandriva host OS and that covers your Windows needs where specialty hardware access is not required.

Complete Reverse:
Same as above but without the Windows partition. If a Windows VM without direct 3D hardware access or similar will cover your needs then go Mandriva or similar on the hardware and load it up with VMs. Your existing VMs can be copied over easily leaving you to toss a Windows VM together and your golden.

My needs are running some favourite win32 apps like Cain and having a win32 platform to admin other Windows boxes from so a VM covers that off just fine. I have a win32 bootable partition tuned specifically for gaming at home though the work equivalent would be an install fine tuned for AutoCAD or some other specifically win32/win64 use.

In the end, your VMs will show an increase in efficiency. The *nix back end tends to run VMs a little better due to better resource management. My Windows hosted VMs always feel like remote desktops where with my *nix hosted VMs, you wouldn't realize you where on a guest OS until you hit crtl+alt and saw the host OS desktop behind it.

Either way, VMs are a great way to do your testing and learning. I find them indispensable now after having to get rid of all my spare hardware.

I find indispensable in the work environment, sort of the best of both worlds having Windows/Linux running at the same time.

But I have to agree that trying to use one for games is where the breakdown lies. Unfortunately, most games for the PC are only written for Windows. So either you dual boot or you don't play the game. And I've only met with annoyance and failure trying to play games through a VM (Parallels).

If there's an alternative that would allow me to virtualize my games successfully, stably, and without causing horrendous lag I'd love to hear them.

I hear it's under development but not available to the masses.. or at least us cheap VMware Server downloaders.

Sadly, my limitations with Crysis are due to a lack of DX10 in winXP and hardware. I baught against the benchmark of being able to run it with my GPU but I don't think that is going to mean "at full graphics". It's a shame that openGL suffered so much but it's hard to fight against the steamroller that is DirectX on win32/64 platforms. (love it or hate it, your going to have to get it)

DX10 is only a problem until enough game heads complain to the manufacturers that DirectX is the only thing holding them back from buying 'their' games. I'm sure the game manufacturers could work some kind of deal for better OpenGL support for the growing throngs of *nix users.

As it is now, the majority of pure gamers care more about being able to run Crysis than about the platform. I'd love to see OpenGL get some real support again though. There was a time not to long ago that all games supported OpenGL.. and then other interfaces.

Like I can't use it cause doesn't work on my programming machine, so I can never play in it, but why did it never take over from DX? I remember lots of my older games with OpenGL, it alway sruns better on OpenGL compared to DX.

If I could afford to track down the source code, buy rights for it and hire a developer to fix the crap that keeps it from running on modern hardware (128 meg of ram limit is but one); Jane's Longbow 2 would be that game. I can't tell you the hours I've put into trying every hack and tweak out there to make it run on winXP. I have yet to find a chopper flight sim that comes close to it's perfect balance of arcade-combat-sim/technical-flight-sim. I'm back to collecting historical computer parts to try and build a win98 box that will run it well.

Jane's won't be publishing any more sims thanks to the paranoia of a September years back but it was rumored that LB3 would include a comanche along with the Longbow and other choppers.

Anyhow, LB1 (dos?) and LB2 (win95) where some of the first OpenGL games I can remember. Wow what the Voodoo2 3D board did for games at that time.. OpenGL.

Luckily, MS marketing and business strategy has benefited MS shareholders immensely with the DirectX campaign. If only it benefited the end users as much.

I love the KDE desktop, but any desktop with bling needs 3D drivers. The community that wants to spread the Linux desktop needs to support the Nouveau, Radeon, and RadeonHD drivers being written.

Not until these FLOSS drivers work for 3D graphics out of the box is this (the bling) really approachable, since nearly any kernel change will require a reinstall of the closed drivers, which is just too much of a guessing game and headache.

while I agree with you in spirit, installing Nvidia drivers isn't really all that hard. Just stop X and run the script then startx. While not ideal, not impossible for even a newbie. And Ms's way isn't all that much easier (try upgrading your card and not your drivers, about a 50/50 chance of not getting a BSOD in my experience. Hence the need to boot to safe mode, run a cleaner, and boot back into Normal mode to install the driver.)
(of course I only know Nvidia's stuff. AMD may be different)

I have changed my video cards many many times, every time WIndows figures out its a different card. Ive even gone back a card and windows magically reloads it perfectly as if I never removed the card, it just reloads the drivers.

I dont know what your doing over there but... This has been working perfect for me since Windows 95.

ATI used to be very netorious for driver upgrades requiring; uninstall, reboot with generic vga driver, install new "upgrade" version.

.

I'm on my first nvidia currently but previous to that, ATI AIW was the standard selection; last being a mid generation Radeon.

My experience with the bundles tuner software has been disappointing at best in the later years but rock solid earlier on. With swapping video, it's generally picked up the card with a generic driver but required a visit to ATI's support site for full functionality and latest software versions.

I hear things are better with AMD now but they where bad enough that I went to another vendor in my last upgrade cycle.

Here it is again, the umpteenth discussion of video card problems. It wouldn't be an issue in a corporate environment with a technical staff and standardized systems that rarely upgrade the on-mobo video. In a home environment it remains the kiss of death.

Those old cards didn't seem to cause problems, when you changed cards, and system rebooted (win95) you would be back to the standard VGA drivers. First you would tell it to shut up about auto detecting hardware. Then You would insert the disc, go into display propertise, go to settings/adapter/{i forget}
Tell it you have the disk, point it to the inf file on the CD, click OK, and you were done, restart the computer. The ATI drivers generally had a help file that explained this step by step. Later on they added an automated installer for it.

I had the use of a shared family machine and with hard drives in swap boxes, it was a long time before a custom rig became a need. When I did finally put my own box together it was win98/NT era with the first generation ATI All In Wonder (after that they started specifying the GPU chip). having TV on my machine was mindblowing. Red Hat hadn't dropped .mp3 and other included codec support yet and updates where still free so that was one of my bootable OS.

I prefer to have a raw driver directory like most drivers today and ATI's drivers for win95. If I want the extra crap, I'll install it but give me a directory with the driver so I can just install that when needed. It seems ATI really has keep the decline going from doing it right for win95 to doing it ok to, well, they got baught out right?

so far nVidia is treating me well on all platforms so I'm happy. TV on my machine is less of an issue so I haven't put the time into the hauppauge board support yet. Been busy with BT4 Beta and DeICE disks.

These people in the Linux world just don't get what USER FRIENDLY means. It's what made Microsoft what it is today.
They look down their noses at people that don't understand or know how to write code, or even care about it at all. Most people couldn't be bothered about having to write a driver or even having to install one.
Pop a part in? Are you kidding me? They don't even do that.
Open a box and put the computer on the desk and turn it on and start surfing the web. If you can't get to that point, you are toast. End of discussion.
I used to get these same people to understand that the vast majority of people just had dialup and they didn't have drivers for the modems. I got a bunch of hate for it. Not constructive help.
I expect the same from replies to this post.
Linux enthusiasts are elitist jerks.

was a genious for business strategy that grew up in a family of lawyers spending family time playing boardgames and other activities that inadvertantly (or maybe on purpose) develop a strategic mind.

Don't fool yourself by saying it was all user friendliness; it ignores the business reasons for a market now oversaturated by one company.

You also seem to lump a pretty large group in with your "they look down there noses at people that don't understand or know how to write code" assumes a lot. For example, I have no issues with non-programmer types nor non-computer types.

Maybe your trying to demonstrate over-generalizations by over-generalizing.

"Why must those drivers be open source? Why does changing the kernel require closed source drivers to be reinstalled? How many consumer and corporate desktop users are going to change the kernel anyway?"

But then I'm a rabble-rousing trouble-maker just looking for another ant hill to stir up.

With nvidia, I use the closed binary because it currently seems to run better than the community projects. If the community driver provides full functionality or equal/better functionality than the binary from nvidia then I'd have no issue changing.

With ATI, the community driver provided a much higher frame rate than the binary blob of the time. With that one, I stuck to the non-closed even if it lacked the nifty advanced functions of the card.

In both cases, managing the driver is a non-issue; this seems to be a distribution specific thing. Mandriva asks during initial install "say, you have an nVidia.. want to use the closed or open driver? Here is the differences:..". I've never had to reinstall the GPU driver when upgrading my kernel. For a kernel upgrade, I normally download the latest and latest source then build a custom kernel as a prefered personal step.

Other distributions seem to manage it differently but with Mandriva, it's a non-issue.

Now, the kernel developers have there own reasons for abhoring closed source binaries in the kernel so you'd have to go over there own reasons for that. Being able to patch the GPU driver is a pretty big advantage though unless the vendor's small development team can really keep up to date with latest patching.

a lot of the kernel driver code that looks to be assembly, is actually a Binary Large OBject.
about 50% of the drivers to be more precise.

the issues about those are the dispute between Richard Stallman and Linux Torvalds. A matter of opinion / attitude. Stallman says no to blobs, Torvalds says anything to have the hardware working.

While hardware drivers are one thing that should be open source by default for many reasons, I also think it's more important for the hardware to work. And, while I don't agree with all ESR says, he also makes some very strong observations.

On the up side, Stallman also says "if the only choice is a closed source program, then use that until an open source one can replace it.".. I was sure he'd said such a thing anyhow.

Either way, I'm and end user and can't help but see the machine that way. If it does not benefit the end user then it is suspect.

You are comparing a specific product line to a an almost genre like grouping.

The problem is not Linux, we all know by now that the Linux OS options are a solid, if not better operating system. The problem is their is no one Linux distro to rise up and have the commercial viability Microsoft or even Apple has.

I myself was ready for the Apple take over, five years ago when Apple announced they were going to a Linux kernal. We all thought Apple would be the people to pull it all together and create a Linux OS under the Apple name that could topple Windows.

Well that didn't happen now did it..

The gaming companies will not design a game for a Linux distro because its not fiscally viable. They would have to many types of distrobutions to worry about. There are also to many home grown drivers for video cards, sound cards, etc that don't meet basic busines design requirements.

You can "dream-on" about Netlops opening up the way for Linux to topple Windows. Bottom line is if people are going to go by a portable netlop type device they will want to look and work like what they have in the office and in the home, which is Microsoft..

Until Linux on the desktop can make a mainstream business case against Microsoft?s desktops, they will remain a distant ?also ran? serving a niche market. The business desktop historically and currently drives the desktop OS market as a whole. Technology has little to do with it ? I point to history lessons of OS/2 and NeXT, arguably technically better than the OS leaders at the time. Who can make the best business case, which desktop OS will make my business the most money, provide the most value, and offer the lowest risk?

I loved OS/2 and OS/2 Warp!

As long as a user is required to use a command prompt for ANYTHING, Linux will not win. It needs a GUI interface to all tools, options and settings.

I'd kind of like it to win, but this is a show-stopper for most people I know.

Most hardcore Windows users I know, grew up on the C: prompt. Yes we are talking about converting Windows newbies in to GNU+Linux newbies but the fact that these same hardcore Windows users still are Windows users does not have to do with a bash prompt or any other kind.

Also the amount to which a user users the prompt can very well depend on the distro options now availible. There might be some more work to be done here but I do not beleive is to the extent which is implied.

Brotherred

i've been using linux for over 10 years. i think it's a safe bet to say there is a gui for every command line tool you will ever need on the linux desktop. and if you can find a command that doesn't have a gui, make it known and there will be a gui for it pretty quickly.

but i'm pretty certain there are gui tools for any command that you would need.

I use it in root sessions because I'm working toward a Linux+ cert, but that's the only reason. I've never had to use it in PCLinuxOS during a normal work session.

Linux+ is on my list though I can't decide if it's before or after Server+. Network+ is probably next simply because it will be more of a formality than a test to show up and write the examination.

Offtopic: I think it's a little funny being in a discussion about how the CLI is not required for regular use while looking at my other workstation with four CLI open (remote servera, remote serverb, local testing my wifi password, local updated the distro and waiting for my next need).

The big thing, as point out, is that having access to the CLI does not make it a required interface. Thanks to separating the program and graphic interface.. one can work either way except in the rarest cases.

Every time I sit down to work on it, there's another fire, either at work or in the family. It's hard to learn anything when you only get 15-minute blocks.

I'm almost tempted to take the Linux workstation and go to a hotel for a couple of weeks just so I can have some uninterrupted study time.

Personally, I prefer the CLI. I think it has to do with starting out on CP/M and DOS.

I used to have an hour in the morning and another in the afternoon with an older job commute. I really miss that time to read. I was consuming thick books like they where candy-floss. Right now, I'm banging against Deice0 and Deice1 with about the same outcome as yours; lots of interest but something keeps coming up.

I was too younge for cp/m but cut my teeth on cli Apples and Dos. It really is the better way to go if one can. Need to fix a friends machine? SSH gives you a cli and the fix is done.

I hear Linux+ is basically knowing a lot of cli command switches for specific needs. It's a book due to arrive on my shelf soon so we'll see how I do then.

Hope it goes well for you when you finally do get some time.

The only thing keeping me from a full time Linux desktop is the lack of quality photo editing/cataloging software. As soon as I see something comparable to Lightroom or Aperture, nothing else is standing in my way. I don't mind occasional use of a command line and both Gnome and KDE in my opinion are both much better than Windows Vista and good enough that I wouldn't mind giving up OS X for a free alternative. This is of course my opinion only but I've got a feeling there are a significant number of serious amateurs or even professional photographers who probably feel the same. Bibble Pro was promising but the new version 5 is late and not as promising as the hype led it to be. F-Stop and Digikam are decent but barely useful for serious work.

it's not specifically a photo editor like Lightroom but it does have the Photoshop like interface.

For example the command "whereis" - to find files, of course there is a GUI version but by the time you have opened up the GUI interface you can open a terminal window, type in the command and get a result.

When starting out with Linux using the GUI gets you started but if you have any sense you will put in a small amount of effort and make use of the CLI as it is always faster when you know how to use it for common tasks

On the Linux side, cli tasks are now pretty much restricted to things that are much easier to explain in that way -- sudo apt-get install [whatever], for example, which is way easier than all the pictures of doing the same thing through Package Manager. And I think that's a plus for Linux. In fact, users need "recipes" for doing unusual things anyway; what matters is making the recipe simple to follow when it's needed.

On the Windows side, I regularly have to use ipconfig /release, ipconfig /flushdns, ipconfig /renew to get my networking to recover after (shock horror) unplugging my laptop and plugging in to a different network. And no, the GUI tool on Vista never seems to work in untangling the mess. Most less-skilled users would reboot the PC to fix this, because the command line is so hidden that they don't realise it's an option!

So, there's one example in each direction to show that the command line argument is no longer a major issue.

dhclient - may give you a single command network fixer.

/etc/init.d/network restart - is also another option.

I like that there are options.

On the Windows side, I don't switch between networks as much so I haven't run into a need to use ipconfig. Mind you, I sometimes have to rightclick the network taskbar icon and hit "repair" which basically blows out all the networking and re initializes it. It being the GUI version of ipconfig after all.

And in my experience "repair" in Vista works less than half the time. I think perhaps it doesn't blow away the DNS cache, which is the usual cause of my problems.

Though I did miss the specific references to Vista rather than Windows platforms in general. I just included potential solutions for both platforms as I am on both daily and have fixed the same issue in both regularily.

Actually, yesterday I was doing a lot of "dhclient" when moving a notebook between network wires; it's a quick easy way to refresh your IP and such.

With winXP I actually find it normally refreshes automatically when sensing a dropped and then reconnected network wire as does my Mandriva installs.

I'd heard that network connectivity was a big step backwards in Vista though. I had to add a Vista machine to my home wireless two days ago and got to dig through to the network settings in Vista for the first time.

This isn't about the sort of people we get on this site, it's about the average home user with no understanding of what goes on under the hood and who has never had to use a command-prompt on their PC.

Most of these people aren't on a network, and probably less than 50% are even online. That's who has to be convinced if Linux is to "win", which I assume means "get more that 50% of the whole PC OS market".

I agree they'd be better off if they learnt to use it, but the simple fact is that they aren't going to do it unless they're dragged kicking and screaming to it!

Half the IT "professionals" I work with can't even use the Windows GUI worth a damn, let alone the home-users.

I wouldn't really say the command line is "hidden". It's sitting in a folder off Start, how much more "un-hidden" could it be?

Oh how I love win+r.. it's like having a command line right when I need it rather than touching that miserable mouse.

I want a rich interface that lets you use either. If my hand is already on the mouse, I click, if it's on the KB, I use keyboard shortcuts. It's why we have menus, toolbars/ribbons and shortcut keys. Use what suits at the time. What's so hard about that?

But I watch people who are called "IT Professionals" do the following when logging in.

They press ctr-alt-del on the keyboard, then click the username box and then type in their name. Then they go back to the mouse, and click the password box. Type in the password, then back to the mouse to click the Login button.

I fell like the painting "The Scream" inside every time I watch it. They're even worse in a dialog. Click a field, type a value, click the next field, type a value,....

I've spent a lot of time learning to use a mouse fast and accurately. This includes learning all the screens and menus I use so you're ready to click the item before it's even rendered. While KB is good for some things, I find the Mouse better for others.

Normally I have my right-hand on the mouse and my left on the KB over the ZXCV area for shortcuts. Drag to select, type ctrl-c to copy and while typing, be moving the mouse or scrolling to the destination, click and ctrl-v.

I'd be surprised if many could do this as fast using only the kb or only the rodent.

I guess I'm saying if we can't even get IT Pros to learn the shortcuts and tricks, there's no hope at all for the average user at home.

If I'm doing serious work, the mouse becomes more of a button I can position where needed; type, type, type, blindly reach and click the mouse for that one button on the screen that doesn't accept a key sequence command, type, type, type..

For some things the mouse is the right tool but anything that I can do by keyboard I'm all about. Less tendon strain, faster input..

My gaming position is left on keyboard, right on mouse but in games the mouse is pretty important and I can map the heck out of the rest of the commands for my left hand as needed.

I've met techs who are all about the mouse too though and cringed a little out of site when watching IT managers that type with two fingers and slowly stumble around with the mouse.

not at all.

with the right tool set, and time spend finding it, you do not need to use the command line at all.

though, the command line has a number of benefits for true power users with GNU-Linux, so getting rid of it will never happen.

edit to add:

give it a few hours, I'll have something that will demonstrate the type of tools I'm talking about.

the link is in this posting:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-13583-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=303805&messageID=3031210

NOW I know why I've seen in different places on the net that said KDE 4 wasn't a 'good' thing. LOL! It's not just ugly, it's F-ugly!

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, in some ways it's fine. Other things I just don't like as much as 3.x. BUT, that's where "being used to something" comes into view.