apatheon, I'll agree with you about the stability of Linux and the increasing availability of applications, but I must differ about getting help.
On-line help via forums or newsgroups is okay but my own experience with them has been frequently unsatisfactory. Despite pre-searching the site for answers and giving as detailed a desription as I can, I often receive condescending replies even in a "Newbie" forum. I have the impression that a large portion of the Linux community still enjoys running in "High Priest" mode.
Don't ask a question on line about integrating Linux with Windows. It's guaranteed one of the first three replies will tell you to ditch the Windows system. That isn't always an option.
Just as bad is the reply "There are a number of apps / distros that will do what you want. Just keep trying them until you find one you like. See ." I frankly don't know how to measure satisfaction with an operating system, or what benchmarks to use to compare them. I suspect the average end user doesn't either. I don't think the small office / home office user wants to keep loading OS and apps. One of the advantages of the Windows / Office defacto standard is that it gives a user a firm starting point. Hopefully OpenOffice will reach that point in the next couple of years.
There's some fee-based support available for larger businesses running Suse or RH, but there's also third-party fee-based support for MS, so that's a wash.
My limited experience with local user groups was terribly disappointing, as documented elsewhere in this topic. I'm sure not all user groups are the same, but I get the impression if you aren't in a major metropolitan area with a population of several hundred thousand, you aren't going to get much help that way.
Books? The local Barnes and Noble, Book-A-Million, and Waldenbooks all stock over three times as many books for Windows OSs and apps than for Linux. Yes, there's more available on the web, but when I'm looking for a printed reference, I like to flip through several before making a decision. (Unlike an OS, I know what I like in a book.)
MAN pages? Info? New users don't want to have to take a tutorial on how to use a help system. Has anyone written a GUI-based help system (for the OS, not the apps)? One of the few flaws my ignorant self sees with the open source model is that nobody wants to write clear, consise, on-line documentation aimed at an end user with no previous Linux experience. Windows help may not be everything it could be, and maybe I've just learned how to navigate it over the years, but I feel it's easier than what's offered in the distros I've tried.
Have I missed any resources? The search for quality help out here in the sticks is one of the reasons my progress with Linux is so slow and my interest level waxes and wanes.
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Why is Windows the most widely used OS?
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A quick search of the local technical college's latest catalog shows classes on Windows, Office, Cisco, A+, various languages and web development platforms, and no Linux. The tech school system in South Carolina changes their offerings every few years, with input from local businesses one of the factors considered. Apparently there's no demand from the community at this time.
Formal education is a point of failure, often. It sucks. That's a failure of formal education systems, though. It boggles my mind that schools wouldn't be utterly enthusiastic about teaching principles of computer science with an operating system whose source code can be examined by students. Such is life, I suppose.
I think things are getting better in this area, though. Maybe we just need to give it time, and keep asking about it to show that the interest exists.
I think things are getting better in this area, though. Maybe we just need to give it time, and keep asking about it to show that the interest exists.
There are more Windows books than Linux books, true, but there's less for Windows than Linux that actually addresses complex issues in a useful manner. You can always find a book, for instance, called Microsoft Office for Dummies, but you'll have a harder time finding Windows Heterogenous Network Servers (as a hypothetical example). Meanwhile, there are several books at any given time in any credible bookstore chain dealing with Linux network servers that will include, among other things, information about setting up network services for heterogenous networks. It all depends on what you want to find.
For online help, I recommend LUG mailing lists. You don't have to be local to a mailing list, and if you join a couple and just watch for a little bit it should become rapidly clear what you can expect from each of them. Sure, you should expect the occasional "ha ha only serious" recommendation to ditch Windows entirely, since they are after all Linux User Groups and not Windows User Groups, but at the same time there are uncountable LUG mailing lists out there where help with homogenous network configuration using Samba is a trivial task, even if you're talking about Windows with people who hate it. As long as your post isn't entirely off-topic and only about Windows, you should be fine.
Meanwhile, Windows user groups tend to not only be hostile to Linux users, but the people in them are usually completely clueless about how to make Windows and Linux interoperate on a network. Even worse, try calling Windows tech support some time and asking them about homogenous networking services for Windows/Linux mixed environments. Good luck with that.
Besides, if one of the first three replies online to a question about integrating Linux with Windows just tells you to ditch Windows, the other two are likely to be helpful.
It's true that the Windows platform provides a certain amount of ease of use to beginners by removing the responsibility of making choices from the user, but ultimately that is itself a choice of the user. When you choose Windows, you're writing off everything else. The reasons you do so had better be good: doing so because it simply limits your options is not such a good reason, and it in no way ensures you're getting a good solution to your problem. Personally, I like options.
I'm not a huge fan of info pages, of course, but manpages are exceedingly easy to use. Once you open it, use the arrow keys to navigate. When you want to quit the manpage viewer, hit the Q key. Anything else is just bonus functionality, very useful but not necessary for basic use, and you can learn it at your leisure (by typing "man man" if need be). There are also GUI front-ends for manpages available, and most of the kitchen sink distributions out there provide such tools by default. These GUIs usually take the form of browser-based markup-processed manpages, so all you really need is your web browser and you'll be in business. The specific tool at your disposal will vary from distro to distro, but most often it will be something like man2html, which "just works" when you have a default httpd service on your machine (all you have to do is point your browser at the start page for the man2html system).
For online help, I recommend LUG mailing lists. You don't have to be local to a mailing list, and if you join a couple and just watch for a little bit it should become rapidly clear what you can expect from each of them. Sure, you should expect the occasional "ha ha only serious" recommendation to ditch Windows entirely, since they are after all Linux User Groups and not Windows User Groups, but at the same time there are uncountable LUG mailing lists out there where help with homogenous network configuration using Samba is a trivial task, even if you're talking about Windows with people who hate it. As long as your post isn't entirely off-topic and only about Windows, you should be fine.
Meanwhile, Windows user groups tend to not only be hostile to Linux users, but the people in them are usually completely clueless about how to make Windows and Linux interoperate on a network. Even worse, try calling Windows tech support some time and asking them about homogenous networking services for Windows/Linux mixed environments. Good luck with that.
Besides, if one of the first three replies online to a question about integrating Linux with Windows just tells you to ditch Windows, the other two are likely to be helpful.
It's true that the Windows platform provides a certain amount of ease of use to beginners by removing the responsibility of making choices from the user, but ultimately that is itself a choice of the user. When you choose Windows, you're writing off everything else. The reasons you do so had better be good: doing so because it simply limits your options is not such a good reason, and it in no way ensures you're getting a good solution to your problem. Personally, I like options.
I'm not a huge fan of info pages, of course, but manpages are exceedingly easy to use. Once you open it, use the arrow keys to navigate. When you want to quit the manpage viewer, hit the Q key. Anything else is just bonus functionality, very useful but not necessary for basic use, and you can learn it at your leisure (by typing "man man" if need be). There are also GUI front-ends for manpages available, and most of the kitchen sink distributions out there provide such tools by default. These GUIs usually take the form of browser-based markup-processed manpages, so all you really need is your web browser and you'll be in business. The specific tool at your disposal will vary from distro to distro, but most often it will be something like man2html, which "just works" when you have a default httpd service on your machine (all you have to do is point your browser at the start page for the man2html system).
It -never- occurred to me to subscribe to a LUG that wasn't local. I haven't yet completed the mindshift to the whole "on line community" concept.
Don't wait on me to defend Windows user groups.
Ever go to an ethnic restaurant for the first time and been overwhelmed by the menu? That's how I feel when trying to make choices between open source offerings. If none of your friends has eaten there yet, there's no review in the paper, the waiters that do speak English criticize you for ever eating somewhere else, how do you decide what to eat? Some would say pick anything: it's all new to you and you can try something else the next time. On the other hand, I'm just buying one meal at at time, not running the restaurant. Changing OS's and apps just to try things is like requiring the cook to move all the tools and food (apps and data) to temporary storage just to rearrange the kitchen again. That gets old in a hurry. Maybe a small number of application choices is one of the reasons Windows is popular, especially if those choices are "good enough".
Don't wait on me to defend Windows user groups.
Ever go to an ethnic restaurant for the first time and been overwhelmed by the menu? That's how I feel when trying to make choices between open source offerings. If none of your friends has eaten there yet, there's no review in the paper, the waiters that do speak English criticize you for ever eating somewhere else, how do you decide what to eat? Some would say pick anything: it's all new to you and you can try something else the next time. On the other hand, I'm just buying one meal at at time, not running the restaurant. Changing OS's and apps just to try things is like requiring the cook to move all the tools and food (apps and data) to temporary storage just to rearrange the kitchen again. That gets old in a hurry. Maybe a small number of application choices is one of the reasons Windows is popular, especially if those choices are "good enough".
The popularity of Windows doesn't benefit from fewer options so much as it benefits from the perception of there being easier options. Saying that there are fewer options with Windows than Linux is like saying that there are fewer options with Red Hat 9 than with *BSD. Of course, there are three primary BSD versions, plus several significant BSD versions on the side, to say nothing of distribution models for *BSD from LiveCD image download through retail installation CD or DVD set to full service contract installation and support for integrated *BSD solutions.
When you settle on Windows, you're not choosing the platform that provides a clear set of best choices: you're taking whatever is handed to you first and ignoring all following options. You're still making a choice, but doing so without examining the other options.
When you settle on Windows, you're not choosing the platform that provides a clear set of best choices: you're taking whatever is handed to you first and ignoring all following options. You're still making a choice, but doing so without examining the other options.
I have read through the entire column of responses. Some good some bad, but I believe it is simply this.
MS Windows was the first OS marketed efficiently to the masses.
It became the de facto desktop OS and therefore will remain so until beaten. To be beat Windows, Linux has to be able to replace the core services in businesses EASILY. MS Exchange and proprietary applications continue to rule. The main decision makers for accounting and sales are not easily swayed to half-ass replacements that may or may not move their data 100%. To win, Linux has to get everyone on board. This means convincing current app builders to build for linux not just try to create a free open source one to replace them. Linux needs a single standard with one marketing vessel. Now tell me if you see that happening anytime soon.
Tell me how long it will take Windows to compete in the server market where it isn't so dominate? Once they can get past the security implications they can compete.
Linux vs Windows is an interesting ride. Windows however, has the upper hand and it looks to me like it will continue to have it unless the linux community can combine to something solid.
I could go on for ever with this. I'll what for responses, though.
Finally, personally I have no preference on Windows vs Linux, I use what works best for my clients and as of now, 95%+ are MS shops.
MS Windows was the first OS marketed efficiently to the masses.
It became the de facto desktop OS and therefore will remain so until beaten. To be beat Windows, Linux has to be able to replace the core services in businesses EASILY. MS Exchange and proprietary applications continue to rule. The main decision makers for accounting and sales are not easily swayed to half-ass replacements that may or may not move their data 100%. To win, Linux has to get everyone on board. This means convincing current app builders to build for linux not just try to create a free open source one to replace them. Linux needs a single standard with one marketing vessel. Now tell me if you see that happening anytime soon.
Tell me how long it will take Windows to compete in the server market where it isn't so dominate? Once they can get past the security implications they can compete.
Linux vs Windows is an interesting ride. Windows however, has the upper hand and it looks to me like it will continue to have it unless the linux community can combine to something solid.
I could go on for ever with this. I'll what for responses, though.
Finally, personally I have no preference on Windows vs Linux, I use what works best for my clients and as of now, 95%+ are MS shops.
You're absolutely right about Microsoft being the first to effectively market OSes to the masses in a palatable form. Granted, Apple and a couple others also did much the same, but didn't have the advantage of the open architecture commodity hardware on which DOS ran, and as such they fell by the wayside.
Of course, it wasn't so much Windows that captured the masses as DOS. The reason Windows came to dominate parts of the market is that Windows provided a natural upgrade path from DOS, whereas other OSes did not. Now, it's the commonality of the Windows platform and its applications that keeps many businesses wedded to Windows.
There are now Exchange replacements and Exchange-compatible clients that run on Linux to ease the transition, but a transition is still required for many businesses. As a result, a lot of IT customer base is migrating to Linux from Windows, but at the same time there's a lot that isn't migrating.
The entirety of the Windows business functionality set is facing the same circumstances. There's a great deal of inertia that makes it difficult to migrate away, but at the same time it's getting easier to migrate every day, and as such more such migrations are occurring all the time. To paraphrase Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope, the tighter Windows tries to grasp the market the more of the customer base will slip through its fingers.
You seem to miss some important points of understanding of the open source development community, and the Linux community, however. Notice that Linux isn't a "product", it's a community: there's no need to "win", only to succeed. Programmers develop open source software like Linux because they want good software, not because they want to market it to the masses and close some "competitor" out of the market. Increasing frustration with the Windows platform is driving more development for and adoption of Linux platform solutions, and that will only increase with time.
Very little proprietary software, if any, need be developed for Linux. In fact, Linux is already a success, and has been for years: it's just becoming a more widely applicable success as time continues. More people are able to share in that success. Windows, meanwhile, relies upon Microsoft's market dominance: if that falters significantly, Windows (as a proprietary product) will simply cease to exist. With Windows, it's about "winning" and "losing", because Windows is a proprietarily controlled "product" of a competitive corporation. It's not just about success for Windows, it's about market share. Unfortunately, that places it at a long-term disadvantage because it must maintain market share against a "competitor" (Linux) that doesn't need market share, and as a result of that it can grow organically and evolve to suit the needs of the people who use it, rather than trying to trap them into using it.
Microsoft's fear of losing market share becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy against which it must continually struggle. Considering my distaste for market dominance business practices, this doesn't bother me one bit.
In any case, the moment enough people want a Linux-based replacement for a Windows application to warrant working on such a thing for a fair number of programmers in their off-time, the replacement will arise. It has happened before, and it will happen again. It's happening right now.
Nobody needs 100% adoption of Linux. Those of us who use Linux just want to maintain a critical mass of developers, which is easily achieved, and want to get a critical mass of developers involved with those applications we want to have available, which happens all the time. That's quite good enough for me. I don't need any centralized, cohesive marketing effort, because I don't care one whit for market share statistics, excepting their usefulness in disproving broken arguments like the usual "Windows is only more vulnerable because it's more popular!" triteness.
I currently work for an IT consultancy. Of our clients, about 20% are Windows-only shops. The rest are varying degrees of Windows/Linux mix. Some of them are looking at the potential uses of migrating desktops to Linux, wiping out "vertically integrated single-vendor solution" hostageware entirely, and one or two are pondering replacing Windows desktops with Macs. We're providing them the best analysis and advice we know how, and will support their hardware, software, and networking needs regardless of what decisions are made (within reason, of course). We'll use whatever works best for our clients as well.
We try to anticipate future directions, though, and familiarize ourselves with the technologies that might be required. As such, I'm the Linux expert at the consultancy, and a certain familiarity with the characteristics of Linux is a necessary part of anyone's job around here, and the same general familiarity with Windows is also important (where I'm also one of the experts, actually). Using what works for our clients doesn't consist of finding out what they have on-site and just supporting it. We make sure we know what to recommend to make things run more smoothly, and that often involves Linux.
Of course, it wasn't so much Windows that captured the masses as DOS. The reason Windows came to dominate parts of the market is that Windows provided a natural upgrade path from DOS, whereas other OSes did not. Now, it's the commonality of the Windows platform and its applications that keeps many businesses wedded to Windows.
There are now Exchange replacements and Exchange-compatible clients that run on Linux to ease the transition, but a transition is still required for many businesses. As a result, a lot of IT customer base is migrating to Linux from Windows, but at the same time there's a lot that isn't migrating.
The entirety of the Windows business functionality set is facing the same circumstances. There's a great deal of inertia that makes it difficult to migrate away, but at the same time it's getting easier to migrate every day, and as such more such migrations are occurring all the time. To paraphrase Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope, the tighter Windows tries to grasp the market the more of the customer base will slip through its fingers.
You seem to miss some important points of understanding of the open source development community, and the Linux community, however. Notice that Linux isn't a "product", it's a community: there's no need to "win", only to succeed. Programmers develop open source software like Linux because they want good software, not because they want to market it to the masses and close some "competitor" out of the market. Increasing frustration with the Windows platform is driving more development for and adoption of Linux platform solutions, and that will only increase with time.
Very little proprietary software, if any, need be developed for Linux. In fact, Linux is already a success, and has been for years: it's just becoming a more widely applicable success as time continues. More people are able to share in that success. Windows, meanwhile, relies upon Microsoft's market dominance: if that falters significantly, Windows (as a proprietary product) will simply cease to exist. With Windows, it's about "winning" and "losing", because Windows is a proprietarily controlled "product" of a competitive corporation. It's not just about success for Windows, it's about market share. Unfortunately, that places it at a long-term disadvantage because it must maintain market share against a "competitor" (Linux) that doesn't need market share, and as a result of that it can grow organically and evolve to suit the needs of the people who use it, rather than trying to trap them into using it.
Microsoft's fear of losing market share becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy against which it must continually struggle. Considering my distaste for market dominance business practices, this doesn't bother me one bit.
In any case, the moment enough people want a Linux-based replacement for a Windows application to warrant working on such a thing for a fair number of programmers in their off-time, the replacement will arise. It has happened before, and it will happen again. It's happening right now.
Nobody needs 100% adoption of Linux. Those of us who use Linux just want to maintain a critical mass of developers, which is easily achieved, and want to get a critical mass of developers involved with those applications we want to have available, which happens all the time. That's quite good enough for me. I don't need any centralized, cohesive marketing effort, because I don't care one whit for market share statistics, excepting their usefulness in disproving broken arguments like the usual "Windows is only more vulnerable because it's more popular!" triteness.
I currently work for an IT consultancy. Of our clients, about 20% are Windows-only shops. The rest are varying degrees of Windows/Linux mix. Some of them are looking at the potential uses of migrating desktops to Linux, wiping out "vertically integrated single-vendor solution" hostageware entirely, and one or two are pondering replacing Windows desktops with Macs. We're providing them the best analysis and advice we know how, and will support their hardware, software, and networking needs regardless of what decisions are made (within reason, of course). We'll use whatever works best for our clients as well.
We try to anticipate future directions, though, and familiarize ourselves with the technologies that might be required. As such, I'm the Linux expert at the consultancy, and a certain familiarity with the characteristics of Linux is a necessary part of anyone's job around here, and the same general familiarity with Windows is also important (where I'm also one of the experts, actually). Using what works for our clients doesn't consist of finding out what they have on-site and just supporting it. We make sure we know what to recommend to make things run more smoothly, and that often involves Linux.
Bengt does note that users care more about apps than operating system. Your mention of DOS reminded me that personal computers didn't really begin racking up corporate sales until Lotus 1-2-3 came out. (Anybody remember Lotus Symphony, one of the original suites?) The internet got a lot of academic and research use but didn't hit the public consciousness until the Mosaic and the graphical World Wide Web. Apple's market share is small but reasonably secure because they've become the standard for graphical development. Computing technologies increase in popularity much more rapidly when they offer a new killer app, not just equivilants to existing offerings.
Of course, unices are secure in their usefulness and longevity as well, including Linux. After all, unices are the corpus of the Internet. If unix disappeared tomorrow, the Internet would go with it, and Microsoft doesn't currently have anything that could fill the void. As the major open source example of unix, Linux too is secure, and is rapidly expanding to fill more and more roles, and to have a greater and greater presence within those roles it already fills.
Being both free and high-quality makes Linux very desirable.
In a very general sense, open source development essentially is the next killer app or, more to the point, the current killer app. It may be a couple years or so before a majority of the industry realizes it, but awareness of this fact on some level is growing like crazy. The more traditional "killer app" examples cropping up all over the place are just the end results of that parent killer app, the open source development model.
Look at Firefox, OpenOffice.org, MySQL, CVS and Subversion, the GIMP, BitTornado, Apache, VNC, and Perl for a few examples of "killer apps" that are open source development standards. Some have been around for years and become daily parts of the IT life, and some are reasonably fresh and new. Expect more of the same, and notice that Linux is among them.
Being both free and high-quality makes Linux very desirable.
In a very general sense, open source development essentially is the next killer app or, more to the point, the current killer app. It may be a couple years or so before a majority of the industry realizes it, but awareness of this fact on some level is growing like crazy. The more traditional "killer app" examples cropping up all over the place are just the end results of that parent killer app, the open source development model.
Look at Firefox, OpenOffice.org, MySQL, CVS and Subversion, the GIMP, BitTornado, Apache, VNC, and Perl for a few examples of "killer apps" that are open source development standards. Some have been around for years and become daily parts of the IT life, and some are reasonably fresh and new. Expect more of the same, and notice that Linux is among them.
Thanks for correcting my wording on Windows vs DOS. I unfortunatly fall into using Windows instead of Microsoft in many cases. I did mean that Microsoft won the desktop through marketing.
As for Linux being a community, i would have to say that is exactly why I believe it will fail. Until Linux is a business it will continue to be the app that people "work on the spare time". Which to me means not de facto. Linux is very popular right now and a lot of money is being funded in to it. However, as no money is made in return popularity and people working on it in the spare time will slow.
In any case, Novell is doing it right and so is Red Hat but unless the community becomes a single entity (business) I personally do not see it going anywhere.
Market share is what every OS is after. Do not let the community feel confuse you. Money is still what makes everything go round.
When you say 20% Windows then the rest Linux/Windows, how many clients are Windows only at the desktop? I thought this conversation was about desktops not servers. I would think Linux as a desktop is well below 10% anywhere. Linux is used very well as a server/security device in mnay of my clients, but as a desktop 95% compelte windows. Just clarifying my comment.
As for Linux being a community, i would have to say that is exactly why I believe it will fail. Until Linux is a business it will continue to be the app that people "work on the spare time". Which to me means not de facto. Linux is very popular right now and a lot of money is being funded in to it. However, as no money is made in return popularity and people working on it in the spare time will slow.
In any case, Novell is doing it right and so is Red Hat but unless the community becomes a single entity (business) I personally do not see it going anywhere.
Market share is what every OS is after. Do not let the community feel confuse you. Money is still what makes everything go round.
When you say 20% Windows then the rest Linux/Windows, how many clients are Windows only at the desktop? I thought this conversation was about desktops not servers. I would think Linux as a desktop is well below 10% anywhere. Linux is used very well as a server/security device in mnay of my clients, but as a desktop 95% compelte windows. Just clarifying my comment.
First, the original post did not specify whether it was discussing Windows on the desktop / laptop / client side, on the server side, or both. One day I'll learn to avoid these overly generic troll-bait topics, but this one has stayed more thoughtful than most (excluding joker64).
Second, I will neither agree nor disagree with your theory that Linux / open source will fail because it is a community. I've posted earlier that I don't understand why you would work for nothing when you could get paid. I will admit the term "community" and some of the rhetoric remind me of the late 60's flower children preaching how we'll all live together in peace and brotherhood once we move into the commune, start the farm, take turns raising each other's children, and stop working for The Man. Are you going to San Francisco? Be sure to wear some penguins in your hair.
Second, I will neither agree nor disagree with your theory that Linux / open source will fail because it is a community. I've posted earlier that I don't understand why you would work for nothing when you could get paid. I will admit the term "community" and some of the rhetoric remind me of the late 60's flower children preaching how we'll all live together in peace and brotherhood once we move into the commune, start the farm, take turns raising each other's children, and stop working for The Man. Are you going to San Francisco? Be sure to wear some penguins in your hair.
I defnitly do not want this to get out of hand. You are correct in the desktop vs whatever statement. I must have assumed it from reading all the other posts. Basically, the only issue Linux has is the desktop, so my posts were based on that. I can't think of anyone who would say Windows is a better server. Well maybe Bill Gates.
You seem to suffer the same problem the marketing hacks at Microsoft have: you aren't seeing past the current profit model.
Lots of money is being made on Linux. Linux is a value-addition prospect more than a product. IBM and HP make money by selling hardware with Linux installed, not by trying to sell Linux itself, and that's a good approach to take. Red Hat is making money by selling service/support contracts, which IBM also offers, which is a good approach to take. Just because Linux itself can be had for free, though, you assume there's no money to be made.
Furthermore, the beauty of the Linux community isn't some flower-child love-in. If you think it's that sort of fad, soon to pass, you haven't sat in on a "religious" war over distros or vi vs. emacs. The Linux community is full of people who want good software, and are willing to work to get it, and people who want Linux kernel development on their resumes, and people who want to be conversant in the way stuff works so they'll be better at their jobs, and people who simply use it as a vehicle for social interaction (yes, some people really do that). There isn't a whole lot of altruism in the Linux (and more general open source) community. Don't think that just because Linux is free (as in speech) that the people who work on it aren't getting anything out of it.
I've written open source code for entirely selfish reasons in the past, and I'll continue to do so in the future. I certainly don't do it (solely) for the good of humanity.
Lots of money is being made on Linux. Linux is a value-addition prospect more than a product. IBM and HP make money by selling hardware with Linux installed, not by trying to sell Linux itself, and that's a good approach to take. Red Hat is making money by selling service/support contracts, which IBM also offers, which is a good approach to take. Just because Linux itself can be had for free, though, you assume there's no money to be made.
Furthermore, the beauty of the Linux community isn't some flower-child love-in. If you think it's that sort of fad, soon to pass, you haven't sat in on a "religious" war over distros or vi vs. emacs. The Linux community is full of people who want good software, and are willing to work to get it, and people who want Linux kernel development on their resumes, and people who want to be conversant in the way stuff works so they'll be better at their jobs, and people who simply use it as a vehicle for social interaction (yes, some people really do that). There isn't a whole lot of altruism in the Linux (and more general open source) community. Don't think that just because Linux is free (as in speech) that the people who work on it aren't getting anything out of it.
I've written open source code for entirely selfish reasons in the past, and I'll continue to do so in the future. I certainly don't do it (solely) for the good of humanity.
I just got out of high school, and for the summer I'm working on the district network with five other tech people from my CISCO Networking Academy class. Over the summer we've been doing the most exciting thing I've ever seen on this network.
Six hundred of our thousand or so machines are now Linux Thinstations using Citrix to log on to our Windows server farm. Next summer the department will work on converting to OpenOffice instead of the Microsoft Office Suite. The only thing stopping us now is our dependence on Outlook (which is our biggest security risk, too, btw), but my boss says he'll have that worked out by next summer.
Buying Microsoft licenses for all our programs on just 18 servers instead of 600 workstations is saving our district hundreds of thousands of dollars, and centralizing activity is increasing security exponentially (examples: I lost count of how many times I had to run SpyBot at a workstation, and kids' - and teachers' - use of peer-to-peer downloading programs had been quickly increasing over the last five years). And for the few programs the schools use that cannot run from the servers, we still have several WinXP labs.
This setup works so well for this district because everything has been Microsoft from the beginning (except for a few Macs back in the day, but we don't like to talk about that disaster), so that's what the teachers are used to. All the arguments here that people like what they know are valid - I spent an hour each day for two years at the high school's help desk, so believe me, neither students nor teachers want to learn any more new stuff than they really have to, and I've discovered that a high school is a rather humorous expression of society as a whole...
Anyway, to the point - we've got a weird setup. The servers are Windows and the workstations are a stripped-down Linux. You just don't see that a lot. After implementing it, I don't see why it isn't done more often. Through this thread I saw but one mention of thinstations, and I lept at it, but it seemed that no one else did. I suppose most people are small biz/home office users and wouldn't need to think about hundreds of thousands of dollars and a thousand workstations, but the so-called "popularity" of Microsoft products (how about "abundance" anyone?) is most prevalent in corporate America and school districts, where this kind of a setup would make the most difference.
I'm off to University in a month, and at my new school they are also trying out Linux Thinstations to decrease their dependency on Microsoft. I anticipate having a great time learning more about this crazycool OS scheme.
Glad to see a civil discussion on this, everyone!
Abby
Six hundred of our thousand or so machines are now Linux Thinstations using Citrix to log on to our Windows server farm. Next summer the department will work on converting to OpenOffice instead of the Microsoft Office Suite. The only thing stopping us now is our dependence on Outlook (which is our biggest security risk, too, btw), but my boss says he'll have that worked out by next summer.
Buying Microsoft licenses for all our programs on just 18 servers instead of 600 workstations is saving our district hundreds of thousands of dollars, and centralizing activity is increasing security exponentially (examples: I lost count of how many times I had to run SpyBot at a workstation, and kids' - and teachers' - use of peer-to-peer downloading programs had been quickly increasing over the last five years). And for the few programs the schools use that cannot run from the servers, we still have several WinXP labs.
This setup works so well for this district because everything has been Microsoft from the beginning (except for a few Macs back in the day, but we don't like to talk about that disaster), so that's what the teachers are used to. All the arguments here that people like what they know are valid - I spent an hour each day for two years at the high school's help desk, so believe me, neither students nor teachers want to learn any more new stuff than they really have to, and I've discovered that a high school is a rather humorous expression of society as a whole...
Anyway, to the point - we've got a weird setup. The servers are Windows and the workstations are a stripped-down Linux. You just don't see that a lot. After implementing it, I don't see why it isn't done more often. Through this thread I saw but one mention of thinstations, and I lept at it, but it seemed that no one else did. I suppose most people are small biz/home office users and wouldn't need to think about hundreds of thousands of dollars and a thousand workstations, but the so-called "popularity" of Microsoft products (how about "abundance" anyone?) is most prevalent in corporate America and school districts, where this kind of a setup would make the most difference.
I'm off to University in a month, and at my new school they are also trying out Linux Thinstations to decrease their dependency on Microsoft. I anticipate having a great time learning more about this crazycool OS scheme.
Glad to see a civil discussion on this, everyone!
Abby
Congratulations on a very interesting contribution - without tiresome attacks right and left. That's professional! I wish you the very best of luck in your future studies!
We've talked for a couple of years about doing this where I work, and the idea may get more of a push after we complete an NT-to-AD upgrade this year (please, no anti-MS comments). We're already running Citrix for some apps that just don't function well as local clients across the WAN or VPN. One of the nice things about thin clients is it really cuts back on the end user's ability to screw up the configuration, load unauthorized software, etc.
Your use of the term "University" leads me to believe you aren't in the U.S. (most of us say "off to college"), but your profile doesn't say. Regardless, your school district has two things to be proud of: a great client-server setup, and a recent graduate who clearly and logically expresses her ideas in a professional forum. Best of luck!
Your use of the term "University" leads me to believe you aren't in the U.S. (most of us say "off to college"), but your profile doesn't say. Regardless, your school district has two things to be proud of: a great client-server setup, and a recent graduate who clearly and logically expresses her ideas in a professional forum. Best of luck!
Thank you for the kind comments. I updated my profile - I'm from South Dakota, but it appears I'm picking up phrases from chatting every day with some European friends...
And I have an update on my old school district: The state of South Dakota is sending down an IT and networking team, looking for ideas. They are very interested in how the tech department is bringing in new hardware and software upgrades and yet saving thousands of dollars on the budget by using thinstations.
It looks like there is hope for the government to reduce their dependence on Microsoft as well. Exciting!
Abby
And I have an update on my old school district: The state of South Dakota is sending down an IT and networking team, looking for ideas. They are very interested in how the tech department is bringing in new hardware and software upgrades and yet saving thousands of dollars on the budget by using thinstations.
It looks like there is hope for the government to reduce their dependence on Microsoft as well. Exciting!
Abby
I say bring back DOS! Once u knew how to use it it worked fine! The only reason they got rid of it is because of people so nieve of computers and saying I cant do that! Windows is based for the simple!(house wifes,kids ect) (no offence!) minded just click this and wha-la! Give me the roll my own system where i was in charge and did what i wanted! If i wanter a verson of windows on ther then so be it but i could use both system and games even flew faster in DOS with LESS HD space! Bring back DOS.......Joe
So boot Windows to the command prompt instead of the GUI. But I don't know where you're going to get applications ...
DOS was an OS. The Command prompt is not (anymore).
Why is DOS gone? Because you had to actually REMEMBER commands, and then type them in. This took a more time to do the same thing.
Also, the applications DO turn out better with a gui wyswig screen. Anyone remember making a WordPerfect document back in DOS?
The problem is to get people to buy the next version of Office, they NEED to add all kinds of bells and whistles that have little to no value to the majority of the users. Feature bloat.
That is a big part of the problem of windows and the bloatware that runs on it.
Make it clean, make it simple, make it work.
I shouldn't NEED 50 times the compter I had five years ago to do word processing, damnitallanyways!
I shouldn't NEED a few GIGS of diskspace to load an office product, damnitallanyways!
Why is DOS gone? Because you had to actually REMEMBER commands, and then type them in. This took a more time to do the same thing.
Also, the applications DO turn out better with a gui wyswig screen. Anyone remember making a WordPerfect document back in DOS?
The problem is to get people to buy the next version of Office, they NEED to add all kinds of bells and whistles that have little to no value to the majority of the users. Feature bloat.
That is a big part of the problem of windows and the bloatware that runs on it.
Make it clean, make it simple, make it work.
I shouldn't NEED 50 times the compter I had five years ago to do word processing, damnitallanyways!
I shouldn't NEED a few GIGS of diskspace to load an office product, damnitallanyways!
Nothing says you can't run DOS, WordPerfect, dBase, Lotus 1-2-3, and Harvard Graphics. Bill Gates has never held a gun to someone's head and forced them to buy a new version of Windows. Yes, Microsoft discontinues support for products, but that doesn't mean those products quit working. It means new hardware and software probably won't run your old OS, but if you're happy with your old apps, that shouldn't be an issue. Your skill set will get out of date, but that's also beside the point.
Don't buy the new bloatware; lots of companies haven't. Feature creep isn't unique to Windows software; it's basic marketing. How many people used their VCR to record 12 programs over 21 days, can adjust the timer on their sprinkler system, or use the "Reheat" setting on the microwave? "If you're happy with it, why upgrade?" asked the man who works where Office 97 is still the default suite.
Don't buy the new bloatware; lots of companies haven't. Feature creep isn't unique to Windows software; it's basic marketing. How many people used their VCR to record 12 programs over 21 days, can adjust the timer on their sprinkler system, or use the "Reheat" setting on the microwave? "If you're happy with it, why upgrade?" asked the man who works where Office 97 is still the default suite.
1. In the business world, you have to use something that can interoperate with others' systems. Given time, you'll find that Word documents from other businesses won't open in Word from Office 97. That's just the beginning. If you're standardizing on Windows 98 because you have it already, and your network grows, you'll have some interesting luck trying to buy new copies of Windows 98 for the new machines.
2. With the advent of "product activation", in time the end of support for an old OS will come to mean the end of the legal "right" to use it.
2. With the advent of "product activation", in time the end of support for an old OS will come to mean the end of the legal "right" to use it.
I'm also not the one wanting to "Bring back DOS".
1. I wasn't speaking from a business viewpoint. It appeared ka1cft and jdclyde were expressing personal preferences in hardware and software. There's no -technological- reason you can't still run the way they say they want. Incidentally, I'm told you can buy a new machine with the license for a current OS and still legally install an older version, although I've never had reason to confirm this.
2. Enlighten me. Is this educated speculation or have you seen evidence of this potential marketing strategy?
1. I wasn't speaking from a business viewpoint. It appeared ka1cft and jdclyde were expressing personal preferences in hardware and software. There's no -technological- reason you can't still run the way they say they want. Incidentally, I'm told you can buy a new machine with the license for a current OS and still legally install an older version, although I've never had reason to confirm this.
2. Enlighten me. Is this educated speculation or have you seen evidence of this potential marketing strategy?
>>Given time, you'll find that Word documents from other businesses won't open in Word from Office 97.
Do I understand you to say you think future versions of MS Word will create documents that cannot be opened in Word 97? Evidence, please, or is this just another one of your high-fallootin', rootin'-tootin' theories?
Do I understand you to say you think future versions of MS Word will create documents that cannot be opened in Word 97? Evidence, please, or is this just another one of your high-fallootin', rootin'-tootin' theories?
See http://techrepublic.com.com/2100-10877_11-5728536.html?tag=search
MS says the next version of Office will default to saving in XML format. They will have a "converter" available for installation on Office 2000 and 2003 so those users can open the new files. You can be sure they won't write one for good-ol'-but-unsupported O97.
MS says the next version of Office will default to saving in XML format. They will have a "converter" available for installation on Office 2000 and 2003 so those users can open the new files. You can be sure they won't write one for good-ol'-but-unsupported O97.
Your statement is actually false. MS Windows may be the most widely used OS "on the desktop", but if you prefer to count overall installed base or number of users, then the Japanese TRON is the most widely used OS in the world - it's just it's pressence isn't as obvious as MS Win's one, as it's an OS designed to be embedded into appliances such as cell-phones, hand held translators, electronic agendas, public phones, teller or vendor machines, etc.
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