Hi,

I learn in school that Linux has become popular in Asia, particularly in countries like India and China, why have they adopted Linux rather than Windows? (Other than Linux being cheaper)

Do you think Linux could ever replace Windows as the main OS in the US?

Thank you.

Joey

Sounds like a topic for a paper you're writing?

There are *hundreds* of threads on this all over the internet.

If you go to the General forum (where I have moved this post), you will see hundreds of opinions on just this subject.

Ok, thank you for moving the thread to the more appropriate section. From a business perspective, it just seems odd to me that the US government would favor a company that it ruled to be monopolistic over Linux, which from what I've read, seems not only to be cheaper than Microsoft, but also more reliable an OS than Microsoft.

PS, yes, this is for a paper. I am allowed to search for sources on the net, so I wanted to get some opinions here. I will look through the forum for additional thoughts.

Alright the first question that I would possess regarding what is your paper really going to be about?

One thing that you must understand is that different organizations possess different needs. Many different government organizations use Windows and others use a mix. It just depends on their need. The issue is switching from windows to linux really focuses of being able to complete the same taskes with a "nix" operating system and possessing an I.T. staff that could support a network of this nature.

The problem really stands with possessing an I.T. staff that could support the software and training users on applications. (If you are speaking of the desktop.) You would be surprised but a lot of organizations both public and private use a mix of windwos and nix operating systems. They always have since windows became a dominate player.

Now, speaking of overseas companies or governments is another issue. You need to understand that there are many countries overseas that do not possess the funds regarding legally purchasing the Windows operating system and deploying it. So they move towards a free solution. Meaning that only a hardware purchase is needed.

One of the biggest downfalls that a organization can make regards locking themselves into a vendor regarding contracts because this can present problems regarding building or maintaining a secure network. Secure networks usually consist of a mix regarding operating systems, firewalls, router/switches, ect.

I could go on presenting facts but you need to do some research.

Take a look in Europe and see what they are doing with the Windows operating system. A lot of organizations in Europe are getting rid of Windows. Munich expects to be Windows free un the years 2007 (I belive.) So nix operating system does present clear alternative regarding th windows operating system.

A lot of kernel programming comes out of Europe and Asia because these organizations or countries are currently in the process of adopting linux over the winodws based operating system.

You can't do justice to this topic without discussing the influence that Microsoft has on our elected leaders.
Do some Google searches using "Microsoft lobbying" and similar things.

MS is--IMHO--really vulnerable to a tidal shift based on three factors: Push towards document standards, Growing acceptance and visibility of Linux, and a new administration that recognizes the extent of their monopoly.

There is a lot of programs that are developed in other countries that we in the United States really never see because Windows is really the dominate operating system. Redhat has done a lot of the nix community regarding gaining more accpetance regarding the open source community.

There is an artcle posted within E-Week presenting the grading of the organizations within the United States regarding their security. I personally believe that too much reliance is placed upon the Windows operating system within the United States. Microsoft is just too slow posting bug fixes. Bug fixes should be posted as they are completed instead of once a month. I consider the once a month bug fixes completely ignorant of Microsoft. Sure pushing bug fixes across the network once a month is a lot easier for admins but it's just too risky considering what is at stake.

While nix based operating systems usually have bug fixes out within a couple of hours or a day or two.

Now the lobbying on capital hill is just a sick fact of the government considering that security is at stake. Admins should be able to use the right tool for the right job but all governments suffer from lobbying. Hell, MS lobbies just about every governemnt out there and have had more than their fair share of problems regarding trust from other countries. Look at all the anti-trust suites that have been filed against MS regarding Europe and Asia. Korea is the most recent government that is suing MS regarding their practices.

Finally, if the nix operating systems were to take the lead again regarding the most deployed operating systems within the United States/World. We would see a lot more worms, trojans, and viruses out there regarding those operating systems. Look at all ofthe problems that MAC has had recently regarding their OS.

There are a lot of avenues that you can take regarding this paper that you are writting. You have to pick a focus and remember not to be bias just because you might prefer the nix operating systems. That is the trick of writting papers. Which is presenting your point of view without possessing bias within your paper. Meaning that you do not take a single point of view and fail to see the other issues regarding the struggle of the different companies looking to obtian more market share regarding the OS market.

Papers...I can smell 'em a mile away

In VERY brief terms: not any time soon. Microsoft, as mentioned above, is a very strong lobby and uses some very strong bundling to get their products across. Now that Apple products use the Intel chipset, I think we can even expect to see Windows 2010 for Apple at some point (not that I expect that to catch on). Of course, with some tweaking, you can actually already boot XP on a Mac Mini IC, but I digress.

There would have to be a catastrophy (money, legal, board scandal, what not) in the Microsoft monopoly for Linux to dominate the home PC scene, at least in the coming decade.

I bet if there was a really bad bug where a LOT of people lost some serious data, people would start to thing about Linux. If that happened again shortly after, before most idiots forgot about the last time, then some would start looking big time.

My girlfriend had never heard of Linux before. She uses XP and it crashed. It would boot up but the mouse didn't work. She has digital pictures on there that there are no copies of. She thought they were gone for good. I just stuck her drive in my other server and copied it over. It was about 9 or 10GBs worth. She may not want to use Linux but she is glad I came along. If she had took it to the local PC shop, she would have lost her data.

It amazes me how much people complain about viruses and bugs but nobody wants to do something about it. I have never bought windoze or any other M$ product. I never will. It is simply not worth what they want. Honestly, if I could choose to re-install Gentoo or someone give me a copy of windoze, I would install Gentoo again. It isn't that hard and though it may take a while, it just works. Over three years of Linux and not one security problem yet. I'm even on broadband. If people started switching because of some of the reason in a previous post, M$ would be in trouble. Linux, even Gentoo, is not that bad.

I think other countries like China, Brazil and such are just the beginning. As long as people keep up the good work, Linux will fight off the viruses a LOT better than windoze could ever dream of. Linux is secured pretty well out of the box. Windoze makes you work to get part of the way there, most people can't do that.

Later

China and Brazil are hardcore into the nix operating systems and have been for years. China possesses its own linux based operating system. Mandrake (Whatever their name is now) bought the largest distro is South America to obtian the profits form South America. There is a lot of cash to be had in the nix operating systems. It just depends the interest regarding the region.

A lot of the kernel development is coming out of India regarding IIT which is India's best technical college. IIT leads the world regarding the output of leading IT professionals regarding their academics. I have seen reports that IIT looses the top seven percent of their graduates to the United States. Microsoft and SUn have been the biggest winners over time. Not to say that companies like Oracle and IBM have not tapped the IIT resource.

A lot of people in India that fail the IIT enterance exam attend the top US schools and crush the academics. Obtaining acceptance to IIT is insane though considering that only two percent of the applicants are actually able to attend. According to reports kids are that possibly possess the skills to attend IIT study an average of ten hours a day around the age of six or seven.


INSANE!!!

That happens every day well the first half at least.

Another important thing to note about Windows vs Linux (I can't belive I'm getting involved in this) is ease of use.

You ever tried to install a wifi card in a *nix box? Sure Windows can be a PITA but ndiswrapper, downloading drivers, downloading this, that, missing libs, libs of the wrong version... it's a huge headache for some people.

Sure there are distros out there that make it simple-ER but not that simple. Whether it works well or not, Windows looks simple to the end user.

I have a friend who can't tell the difference between an IE popup, themed to look like Windows but that's clearly not a real message, that says "Click here to update now" and then wonders why she's been redirected to a porn site. You're never going to get these people on Linux and autonomous.

Maybe I am just really lucky, but emerge <whatever> and it usually just works for me. Mandrake was a nightmare though. Don't get me started on the updates in Mandrake. That was why I switched to Gentoo.

Linux is all I have and it is all I want. I hate messing with windoze and only do it for friends and family.

Later

This is a blanket statement which, like most blanket statements or "glittering generalities" is patently false. Many branches of the US government, like governments and bureaucracies all over the world, are semi-autonomous. This includes their IT philosophy and deployment. The NSA runs Solaris and Linux and J2REE for their super-secret spy stuff. Government standards be damned - they're not going to have mission critical apps running on Windows, or any OS they can't get the source code for. Remember, SELinux was an NSA development. Think they might have had a reason for that?

There are legions of "beltway bandits" doing government contracts that develop entirely or almost entirely within the open source environment. Clients include the departments of Commerce, Interior, Transportation, Treasury, US AID, and - of course - Defense.