I was booting my Eee PC 701 this evening, and thinking about a “Bake Off” article I recently read in a trade magazine between Ubuntu 8.10 and Vista, and it occured to me…
My response to the article in question was that the author compard Linux to Vista, and determined that Ubuntu had the edge, but only by comparing Ubuntu to the gains it had achieved over *previous* Linux distros.
And if you’re *going* to cook the books that way, then, yeah, Linux, you’ve come a long way baby. If measured against growth from a previous point in time, then Linux has matured rapidly to the point of Ubuntu 8.10, where as the evolution of Win32 has been more… linear.
I run Ubuntu 8.10 on my Eee PC, and I do not have plans to run or install anything else on it. It works. It *just* works. It works in the sense that I don’t want to burn a Win32 license on this machine, and it does most everything I want to do on a Atom 1.6ghz processor based machine with a whopping 12gb of total memory and 2.5gb of RAM. And it does it, all importantly, for free. I can live with the oddball Linux behavior that I encounter. Applications that are a bit too rough around the edges for prime time, wireless that is intermittently flakey – and dude, the whole Compiz Cube thing is the BEST eye candy available on ANY OS, bar none. If the Eee PC had a multi-input touch screen and I could flip that cube around intuitively by touch… ooooh… geek O-gasm! And I have no doubt that it’ll get there. Compiz has the lead in desktop eye candy for sure. This is one area where Linux has jumped way ahead of Win32 and OS X. Forget Widgets and Gadgets and sidebars and Aero. Compiz 0wNZ!
… well, provided that your system doesn’t have an ATI chipset GPU, in which case, unless you’re a guru, you better either have Nvidia, or have Vista.
Speaking of Gurus, I sell myself short. I often defer in this industry to people who have more geek industry then I, or who are simply have a higher IQ in all things geeky than I do. But when I boil it all down, I *am* a Linux guru. Tech Republic has brought that home to me like no other pro-linux site. I’ve got experience with Solaris and CDE, from install to app config, even running a CitUX Internet BBS. I’ve got Redhat and Debian experience, including custom compiles of notebook kernels enabling wireless. Ubuntu is a walk in the ‘effin PARK for me. Especially compared to the relative N00B *nix fanbois here on Tech Republic who want to cop attitude and act like they OWN Linux when they don’t even remember the days when editing the Xfree86 config to enable your PS2 mouse was a major undertaking.
In short, I *am* a Linux Guru. I may not know the complete command set, or how to code my own custom C++ code to achive the goal I am after – there are degrees of *nix Guru far beyond where I am at, but for all modern intents and purposes, I’ve installed IE 5 on a Solaris box and configured the Microsoft TrueType package to support web browsers on Solaris… I’ve earned my *nix badge of honor.
And based on that, I can say safely, that Linux has made an evolutionary change. It isn’t just for the hardcore, basement dwelling, MUD (forget MMUD) playing UberNerd who still knows the Hayes Command Set by heart. (+++ ATH0, ~XooH~!! *CARRIER LOST*)
Nope, now Linux is accessible to the script kiddies, too.
And, the script kiddies, the amateurs, the weekend geek warriors, have adopted Ubuntu and claimed that Linux is ready for prime time, along with their over-optimistic, uber-geek brothers who drank the kool-aide before them.
But they’re *wrong*. The other thing I’ve done for the last 15 years or so, is worked with regular Joes and tried to get them to be useful and productive with these difficult machines. And in the process I learned some hard truths. Sure a DIY machine is more flexible, more powerful, and more upgradable for less money than a Dell, Gateway or other OEM box. But for typical home office business non-geek user, the Dell is the better buy.
And the same thing applies for Linux. It *is* a better bet if you’re a geek willing to screw with custom compiles of the broadcom WiFi source and NDISWrapper. It is the better deal if you might have to reboot and tweak a bit *every* time to get your Linux distro to connect to your WPA2 WiFi AP.
But if that last paragraph made no sense to you, and you *don’t* know someone who it DID make sense to that is willing to CONSTANTLY hold your hand on this, and a dozen other common Linux issues – then STAY away. It isn’t ready yet.
And personally, I don’t think it every will be.
Back in the day, during the Linux premiere on the OS scene, Linux was comparing itself with, and competing with, Win 95, and later, Win 98. And that was the bar Linux set for itself, and if it were still 1994, and SlackWare was Ubuntu 8.10 and Windows was still Win95/98, then Linux would be *kicking the arse royale* of Windows.
But, the rub is, Win has evolved into Win32 and Win64in the time that has passed, and the bar is a lot higher now. So Ubuntu certainly exceeds the level Microsoft Windows was at in 1994. But it simply can’t even compare with where Win32 is today, in 2009.
And all indications are that by the time Ubuntu reaches the level of Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 7 will be on the market raising the bar even farther.
And that… that is just how it is going to be.
If you have an ideological issue with Microsoft and their business tactics and you would like to see them fail, you may still have a white knight. Google and cloud computing as an “open source” (on Google’s terms as an evil empire), is probably the only potential threat to Microsoft dominance.
But Linux is never going to be anything more than it is today. You can take that opinion to the bank, for someone who uses and appreciates Linux on a daily basis.
And I know you pro Linux, Anti-MS haters are going to be all over it – but face it, this is all about rational thought, logic, and honest, fair argument. You can live in your ideological utopia world all you want, drink gallons of *nix Kool-Aide if you can stomach it, but that isn’t going to stop me from trying to tell the rest of the world the truth. You guys aren’t telling the whole truth – even if the call to prayer sounds so seductive.
Beware of false OS prophets pushing *nix. They lead you down a path of pain, misery, and the constant search for current HowTo: FAQs in order to make your machine do what it was designed to do naturally, with Win32.
