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I'm seeing some personal testimonies about what people do personally, themselves "for me, myself, I run every app I need to" blah blah. That has nothing to do with linux becoming mainstream. Stop thinking of yourself. No one cares. Thinking of yourself and what you personally need is irrelevant. Think of what linux does for other people vs what windows or macos does for other people. The huge majority of commercial apps run on MacOS and Windows, and not linux, and whether you're personally happy or not doesn't matter for the future of linux.
Actually neither do we care whether Linux becomes mainstream or not. It's you who started this topic and seem to have a problem with it.
Besides, Linux *is* becoming mainstream - even today somebody totally unrelated to IT asked me about a Linux problem, which never used to be the case 3-4 years ago when everybody stared when you mentioned Linux. You and I cannot stop Linux becoming mainstream. It's a natural process. And today people look up to me with respect when I say I know about Linux because they know it's a fast growing OS. So Linux doesn't need your personal certificate. So you can stop worrying so much because you're not a messiah who suddenly discovered that Linux is flawed... Hundreds of trolls on this forum have done it already before (not saying you're one, only YOU know your intentions).
Certainly people around me are certainly acknowledging Linux as a real alternative to Windows so it's happening regardless of whether you understand and acknowledge that fact.
It's just that you're stuck your head in mud and refuse to think of anything else besides Adobe. I can give you dozens of examples of Linux being useful on the desktop, but obviously you will call it "personal testimony" and dismiss it, which really isn't my problem and I need to prove nothing to you...
Last edited by vharishankar; 01-12-2007 at 08:55 AM.
i think what he was saying is that if free softwares apps(like gimp , scibus and oo) go commercial but cheaper and still open sourced ... people would definatetly buy them in-order to feed those "expensive" people doing expensive works ...
to think about it ... "gimp , scibus and oo" is an industry trickling down and fanning out to more technological(hardwares and softwares) and industries that in one way or another conforming to some certain standards ...
//probably you people dont need to lobby anybody actually ...
I think that Linux, or at least, non-Windows computers, will eventually at least become more known than they are. My old high school just got a grant to replace all Windows-based PCs in the school system with Apple Macintosh machines.
I think that Linux, or at least, non-Windows computers, will eventually at least become more known than they are. My old high school just got a grant to replace all Windows-based PCs in the school system with Apple Macintosh machines.
Yea but that's doesn't mean much when you consider that apple has a long relationship with education, since it began. For example, the reason it's called Apple.
I kind of agree. Linux does need to find a way to get the attention of commercial software developers. But how do we do that? I have an idea.
1) Linux needs to become more user friendly so more people will consider using it, and not run away when they do start using it. Better and more GUI front ends, documentation, and some tweaking with the package managers could help.
2) More Live CDs. Every distro should have a Live CD. Its a great way to try Linux without installing it.
If you can get more people using Linux, you can get more people asking for commercial software to be ported over. Commercial software developers only respond to demand.
The bottom line is linux users don't hurt companies. For instance, a good amount of people who come to this site duel boot windows! Why, to run games and photoshop and windows programs. This means that companies don't see a fluctuation in profits because people still use there programs regardless. Now take the 200,000+ people on this site and let them all drop windows and all forms of windows programs, guess what happens? Software companies start wondering where there consumers are going and shift focus a little. Thats the problem. If linux users want to use linux then don't duel boot!!! Let it cut into companies money and see how fast we see ports of software on linux. Until then it is going to be a slow uphill go.
This means that companies don't see a fluctuation in profits because people still use there programs regardless. Now take the 200,000+ people on this site and let them all drop windows and all forms of windows programs, guess what happens? Software companies start wondering where there consumers are going and shift focus a little.
Unfortunately the portion of that 200,000+ who are potential paying customers for a particular program and refuse to use another solution (ie vmware, dual boot) probably adds up to the proverbial piss in the ocean to these companies. fwiw I'm stubborn enough to do exactly as you've suggested and have been doing so for some time.
When computer-geeks, like you and me, rant and rave about how "Linux can do everything" and how much cooler and nicer and L33Ter it is to do it this way ... we tend to vastly overestimate the importance of the word "can." To folks like you and me, who understand implicitly how the whole thing works, "can" is good enough.
We like to raise the hood and monkey-around with our cars.
But the typical computer-user has utterly no idea "how" the whole thing works...
The typical computer-user doesn't even know how to open the hood.
Furthermore, s/he doesn't care. To him or her, "it either works or it doesn't."
This is the person who will ignorantly run a Windows machine as a full Administrator and pay the Geek Squad to resurrect the system every three months. And blame the deficiency upon Windows itself, which is actually not far from the truth. ([I don't care why] "it doesn't work.")
To this sort of person, a computer is a piece of consumer electronics, and it ought to be just as simple and stupid-proof as, say, a DVD player or a car stereo. "No matter what you do to it, and no matter how stupid you are, it plays music, which is what it was designed to do."
Give this person a $299 appliance that "plays music" and has nothing to do with computers, and you'll sell a million units of that appliance in no time.
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 01-16-2007 at 07:50 AM.
Stop thinking of yourself. No one cares. Thinking of yourself and what you personally need is irrelevant.
Actually, (I could be wrong here), I think thinking of ourselves has been top priority or near top priority, since the dawn of time. Seems pretty relevant. I suppose if I were the deep thinking sort, I would think of how things related to me rather than how I related to them, sometimes I do.. but thats completely different territory.
Suffice to say, when what I need becomes irrelevant, I am in a completely different state of mind. I don't think its the norm of things to disregards ones needs/want in an argument.
Im always sure that atleast I care when I think of myself. So much for no cares.
First off, I currently use both Windows and Linux. I use Windows for everyday desktop use, and my wife is more comfortable with it. Linux is in our spare room, running Apache, ssh, and is just there as a file repository and web server for now.
Linux is a pain in the bum. I have such a hard time trying to get things to work right, from Samba, to some wine apps like Warcraft 3. I gave up on Warcraft 3, and I didn't have the patience for Samba. One of these days maybe, but for now I'm just sticking with SSH.
On the other hand, I've been using my Windows machine for just about everything now. Eventually, it gets bogged down, and I have to restart because the wireless card is doing god knows what.
Almost half a year later, I've restarted my windows machine so many times, and had to "repair" the wireless connection. I completely forgot about my Linux box in the spare room, so I went over and flipped on the monitor to check and see what it was doing. Lo and behold, that cursor was still blinking, waiting for me to type something (I'm running Slackware 10 on it). I raced to my Windows machine, and tried to use SSH, and perfect. My Linux box hasn't skipped a beat, while Windows sputtered a few times.
So yea, Linux is definitely harder for me to do things, but the cool thing about it is once I figure it out and do it, I can forget about it for HALF A YEAR and rely on it still running perfectly, without a reboot, defrag, or even turning on the monitor to make sure something didn't miraculously cut off my internet connection.
I currently use both, because there's some things I can't do on Linux, but if I could do everything on it, Linux is definitely impressive to me.
Without really taking sides in this discussion, just a thought: If you'd leave a windows box alone for half a year, I'm pretty sure it would be running fine when you checked in on it again. If you would have used your linux computer daily, maybe you would need to reboot it eventually?
Without really taking sides in this discussion, just a thought: If you'd leave a windows box alone for half a year, I'm pretty sure it would be running fine when you checked in on it again. If you would have used your linux computer daily, maybe you would need to reboot it eventually?
I have ran my desktop system for as long as ten months without a reboot. Then it was because of a power failure. If windoze is not doing anything at all, it may can last six months, maybe. I wouldn't count on it. I would unhook the internet though. Linux, no problem at all. If the hardware can handle it, you're good to go.
I have ran my desktop system for as long as ten months without a reboot. Then it was because of a power failure. If windoze is not doing anything at all, it may can last six months, maybe. I wouldn't count on it. I would unhook the internet though. Linux, no problem at all. If the hardware can handle it, you're good to go.
My rig is in my sig below.
Not arguing with that. I used to run a game server on Gentoo and remember it had an uptime of ~400 days when I eventually shut it down (to move it, it didn't hang or anything). But, same thing there. There was pretty much no tampering with the system during those 400 days. My linux desktop machine (running Ubuntu 6.10) hangs occationally, maybe once every week or so...
Yea, I used to have trouble with my first computer. Turned out it was a hardware problem. I have a pretty solid system here and it has never hung up like that. Also keep in mind, memory is a big thing in Linux. Unlike windoze, Linux will eventually use every bit of ram you have. It may just be disk cache but it will use it somehow. If you have a bad stick of ram, Linux will find it for you.
Point being, Linux will run longer than windoze ever dreamed of. I have never actually seen a desktop that is used daily run that long with windoze. My desktop has lasted long than most windoze servers can. Keep in mind that most of them are run by serious gurus.
If you want to check out some uptimes, go to www.netcraft.com . Chech out some sites. See what the are running and how long they can last. BSD and Linux is usually way ahead of windoze. There used to be one that had ran for over 5 years with no reboot. It was a website server and was hit on a lot but kept chuggin away.
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