You are indeed one of the lucky ones who have the hardware that is linux supported.But for me who use a Toshiba laptop that is not the case.There are parts of the laptop that only works in windows such as the presentation button and hyperterminal which I use in my line of work.
Now some will say that it is the "fault of the manufacturer" that it is not linux compatible? How can it be their "fault". They just want to market the product.
I am from a place in the world(Middle East) that hardly knows linux let alone use it.Unix perhaps which is used in the server side but not linux itself. So how can you convince Toshiba and others to support linux when there is no market for it?
Another point-I work in a hospital as a Medical Equipment Specialist.I have yet to encounter a medical equipment that uses Linux for desktop or embedded into the unit itself. So how can you convince doctors and medical personnel to use Linux when there is no use for it? As an "alternative" to windows? I don't understand the term.In medicine there is such a thing as "alternative" medicine. Patients try these medicines because the conventional medicine are not effective for them. Is this the case for linux?
Do I use Linux?Yes I dual boot my laptop but just as a hobby. There still isn't enough reason for me to switch completely.
Am I saying linux is bad? No Linux is actually very good.First thing I noticed when I installed Kanotix is that it consumes less battery power from my laptop.Basic things like using Open Office and browsing the web can be done just as in xp.(Had to install and compile the winmodem myself though).As I stated earlier I cannot use it in my line of work(should I add "yet"?).

Toshiba doesn't supply computers to only the Middle East. It's in their best interest to not turn potential customers away. If you, as a company, had a choice between appealing to 85% of the computer-buying public or 90% of the computer-buying public, wouldn't you want to appeal to 90%?

Also, oftentimes a lack of support isn't because the hardware manufacturer has to do more work to support Linux. It's often because they don't make the drivers open source, so Linux developers cannot develop their own drivers for the hardware. So, yes, it is their fault. Mac, for example, doesn't make it easy for Linux developers to enable wireless on Mac's PowerPC laptops.

You can't compare medicine to operating systems. Medicine is science--the antibiotic treats the ailment... or it doesn't. For operating systems, it's a matter of preference and tasks. It's not that Windows treats the "ailment," so the other operating systems do not. Mac is perfect for my wife because she likes the slick interface, and she's a graphic designer by trade. Linux is perfect for me because I like easy customization of the OS. Windows is perfect for many friends of ours because they like buying whatever commercial software they want and knowing it'll install on their OS easily. I don't want to debate the merits of "alternative" medicine, but operating systems are not a one-size-fits-all, regardless of what Microsoft would have you think.

The hyperterminal program is a Windows serial connection program. There are plenty of equivalents in Linux for this. I'm not sure what you mean by 'presentation button' but it sounds like your laptop is working really well - most people who have trouble with laptops have non-working wireless or something like that.

Umm.. because the manufacturer makes the drivers for their product. If they choose to only make drivers for one OS (usually Windows) and not support Linux then it very much is their fault. Also many manufacturers go to great lengths to hide any kind of technical documentation or information on the function of their products (despite pleas from the open source community) which makes it very difficult for people to write drivers for Linux for their products.

Toshiba sells laptops all over the world.


There are many products which use embedded Linux and many deployments of desktop Linux in opertation. I doubt many of your medical devices would use embedded Windows either - most would use one of the many specialised real-time OSes. I don't think many hospitals would tolerate life-support machines that blue-screen every other week or whatever.

What a ridiculous statement. Who said there was no use for Linux? What makes you think it can't do anything Windows can and more.

No, that's a very bad analogy. Alternative medicine is criticised for not being as scientifically rigorous and proven as conventional medicine. Linux isn't some far-out upstart OS that's only used by hippies. Its a full competitor OS that's a fairly close clone of the commercial Unix OSes that have been used by big business, universities and government since the 1960s. If anything Windows is the new unproven 'alternative' OS, especially in the server arena.

Actually, the man's right.

I started with Mandrake 9.0 ( a good while ago), i've tried Fedora 3, Slackware 10 and Suse 9.0 and i only now have a system which completely replaces Windoze.
I now use Ubuntu + KDE which picked up the internet + my onboard sound straight away but failed on the old problem of 3D acceleration and multimedia codecs, and playing encryted DVDs, (not Linux's fault i know but that is Icehot's point). I sorted these problems with the MrBass Unofficial add-on CD (codecs+DVD) and the Ubuntu docs and i enjoyed learning how to solve these difficulties but (and this is my point), when i tried to explain spending loads of time on the PC to the wife she just said "why don't you just use Windows", and that's what everyone who doesn't enjoy sitting in front of the PC will say.
Now i have mentioned the no virus argument , "she's got a program to stop them", err, it doesn't crash like Windows, she's never had a problem with Windows crashing", ok then, it's free, " is that why things don't work then" (try getting out of the last one).

As i said, i now have a Linux system which does it all but the fact is i had to spend a lot of time reading docs and then fiddling on the command line (just mention a command line to a typical computer user and marvel at the utterly blank expression they'll give you), for example:- after installing the add-on program i found that i could actually play my Lord of the Rings DVD but it was jerky, after getting online again it turned out that i had to enable the DMA, after more reading i found that i had to get in the shell and edit the (i think this was it) /etc/modules file and edit these lines and type these in instead ( i may be confusing this with the 3D fix but you get my point. There is no way my example standard user (the wife) would ever, ever, EVER have a clue how to do this. She'd have re-installed Windows the moment something didn't work as expected.

As for using my Linux now, i told her that OPenOffice was completely compatible with Word (whic she uses all day at work), as a test she loaded her CV into it and OpenOffice messed up the formatting! not badly, just a bit of tweaking to correct it, but believe me it was enough to get me 'THE LOOK'.

I love my Linux, i never use Windoze, but i have a Windoze partition because my wife is a 'standard' user and, for now, that means she uses Windoze because Windoze works, without editing config files.

Flame me if you wish but you'll never find a more devoted advocate of Linux, thing is, the only people i try to get into Linux are the ones who i know can cope with having to get their hands dirty. You can't give a Linux CD to the average person on the street and say install that, you'll have no problems. Your phone will be ringing off the hook.

Linux is a better system (in my opinion), when you've sorted it. It's sorting it that causes the problems.

Ah well, better not pick up my e-mail for a week or two i guess!

This is not a 'problem' or fault. Windows doesn't install multimedia codecs either (eg. Divx) and before Windows XP it couldn't play DVDs without the download of expensive 3rd party DVD playing software. On most distros its simply a matter of installing the 'win32codecs' and 'libdvdcss' packages - it certainly was on Mandrake. This may not be intuitive or obvious to the new user but neither is the knowledge that you have to and find something called 'Divx' and 'realplayer' and 'quicktime' in Windows. So again the problem comes back to familiarity, not Linux being more difficult.

The 3D drivers are a little more problematic. However most distros will provide packages for them (eg. if you buy club membership or boxed sets of Mandrake) that make them trivially easy to install. Also with the use of DKMS there's no need to reinstall every time a kernel update comes out. So this difficulty has been solved too - it'll just take its time to filter through the various distributions release cycles.

On my system Mandrake setup DMA on the DVD player automatically. Crap DVD playback is a common problem reported by Windows users too. I don't think following instructions from some help forum or site to edit a text file is really that harder for the normal user than following instructions from some help forum or site to edit the registry for things like this. Again its all about familiarity.

Nor can you do that with a Windows CD either, your phone would probably melt.

Yeah - hopefully this will be a thing of the past in openoffice 2. Again this is something that's in the pipeline, its being worked on but it takes time to filter through release cycles and all that.

HP (now Philips)patient monitoring system in our ICU/CCU uses Windows NT 4. Grass telefractor EEG monitoring system uses windows xp. 12 hp ECG recorders use embedded windows.Our Kodak xray readers use windows.Siemens radiology equipment use windows.And I can go on and on
Am I stating that Linux is not good for medical equipment?NO.NO NO!I only said that in my experience I have not encountered a medical equipment which runs on linux. Only windows.so medical practitioners are so accustomed to windows.

No use for linux IN THE HOSPITAL.You are missing the point.I also mentioned that we use UNIX on our server.
so it's not a windows exclusive hospital.I also use linux but as a hobby.And I know that linux can "see" a windows partition contents but windows cannot "see" a linux partition contents like linux does.The hyperterminal equivalent in linux might also work but I would not dare experiment on a medical equipment just to probe linux works for me.


I pay attention to the word "fault".Fault is associated with "mistake". Is it a mistake if the manufacturer does not make things for linux NOW? Perhaps when it has a market then that is the time they will make things for linux.
And by extension also it is MY FAULT that I have a laptop that is not linux compatible?

But I can also call the resident computer engineer and he will be able to sort out the windows problem. I am willing to bet a million that there is NOBODY in our computer department that knows linux the way they know windows!

So why then is it only used by a very small percentage of PC users? there must be some reason other than the usual "it is microsoft's fault " or "the manufacturers fault" blah blah blah.

Recall the move by the Thailand government and the Philippine government to market linux laptops and pcs respectively.Did it prosper inspite of the low cost? It did not prosper.Why? Because the users just purchased the pc/laptop and format the drives and installed Windows xp(probably pirated ones!)!Why do people choose pirated software which is not free against a practically free legal linux software?

Now is this the fault of windows/microsoft? Is this the fault of linux? The fault of the governments concerned? You tell me please!

OR let me rephrase the subject of this thread:

WHY IS LINUX NOT UP TO THE JOB OF DESKTOP AND HOME USERS?OR IS IT?

There's nothing wrong with Linux that it can't be used in hospitals in place of Windows. It may be hobby for you but it is also a serious competitor to Windows in the OS market, not a hobby OS.

I didn't say anything about this

Well in a way yes. If you ask why PC hardware device X doesn't work on Linux the answer is not that there's some legal or technical barrier in Linux stopping them - its just that the manufacturer has neglected to support Linux in favour of Windows (whatever the reasons behind that might be). So saying 'it's the manufacturer's fault' is quite accurate.

Yes well that would be because your's is a Windows only company is it not? Linux has been quite successful in the server market and you'll find that most large companies and many smaller companies have people with Linux skills. Also most university grads (in the West at least) have at least some Linux skills or qualifications.

Linux is pretty successful in the server market but it hasn't made inroads into the desktop because of the chicken-and-egg problem. Most people won't go to the effort of switching to an OS that doesn't support all the hardware and software that they can go and buy or find on the net, and of course many hardware manufacturers won't write drivers for it or commercial companies write software for it until there is a large market of users.

Add to that the fact that almost every desktop PC comes with Windows pre-installed, often due to the way Microsoft bullies OEMs who include options to install another OS by default, and the huge inertia that people are simply familiar with Windows. No matter how user friendly Linux gets there will still be an effort to switch to a different OS and many people just don't care enough to do that.

which is the catch 22 situation I mentioned in my original post.


yes but how come there are more linux pcs that get erased in favor of windows than windows pc that are switched to linux at least in Thailand and the Philippines?(refer to my edited post above)

How motivated are those users to actually prefer one system over the other? The simple answer might be that, for them, either one is as good as the other and they "stick with the devil they know," which is whatever was installed on the machine when they bought it -- a configuration that they never change, except to the extent that Microsoft's update-mechanism does it for them.

If a user is somehow motivated to use Linux, be it a particular piece of software they want to use or simply technical curiosity, then they'd go through some amount of trouble to do it, and they'd go through a learning curve. Or, they might simply choose a box where Linux is "what's on the machine when they bought it."

Plenty of Apple users run OS/X .. a variant of BSD Unix .. and "it's what they know." Several of my more-enlightened relatives are among them, and they happen to know next-to-nothing about Windows except what my less-enlightened relatives tell them. (My favorite actual, swear-to-god quote: "what's a virus?")

Windows covers a huge market segment .. big in volume, low in profit, low in technical requirements. It can't touch Linux when Linux flexes its muscles... But not everyone needs to go there. And not everyone, who might benefit from it, is motivated to do so. "Desktop and home users" might well be among the least motivated of all -- they just want to read their e-mail, plink around on the internet, pick up the latest viruses ...

I can only speculate, but I'd guess it's because Windows is what people are most comfortable with. There are many advantages or perceived advantages to using Windows. For one thing, people are used to doing things "the Windows way." For example, if I want to install software in Windows, I hunt down an .exe file, download it, and click through some wizard and then reboot. If I want to install software in Linux, I open up Synaptic, search for the software I want, mark it for installation, and then click "Apply." It's not that software is easier to install in Windows (in fact, I'd argue that Synaptic is a far easier tool to use), but that's what people are used to. Any time you learn something new, it's an investment of time and energy.

Along those lines, when it comes to software, some people like commercial software. For example, I was in an arts and crafts store the other day, and I saw a sewing machine that came with a program wherein you could design a pattern and the sewing machine would sew the pattern. Do you think there's a Linux version for that? No. I was in a toy shop, and they had some basic language-learning software for kids. Do you think there was a Linux version for that? No. My church uses a program called MediaShout for managing its movie clips, lyrics projection, background music, etc. There's no Linux port for it. The company that produces it is now working on a Mac OS X port.

And what if they run into a problem with their computers? Everyone else has Windows, so they can ask anybody, "Did you have this problem? What did you do about it?" I can count on one hand the number of Linux users I know.

There's a comfort and safety to using what everyone else is using. All commercial software will have a Windows version. No one will ever fault you (say, in a job interview) for having worked with only Windows.

Notice that nothing I've mentioned so far as an advantage to using Windows is inherent in the design of the operating system or the quality of its function. They're all social benefits. But they are benefits.

So when you say, "How come they didn't adopt Linux more widely in Asia even though Linux is free?" Well, cost isn't the only factor. And software piracy is rampant in Asia... so really, for all practical purposes, Windows is free. So the choice is free-software-we-already-use versus free-software-we-don't-already-use. Hm. Tough choice.

I get angry when people say there's no good reason to use Windows. As I outlined above, there are plenty of good reasons to use Windows. That doesn't mean it's any better than Linux operating systems, though.

Actually Toshiba doesn't manufacture laptops - there is only a small handful of laptop manufacturers in the world, and even fewer laptop motherboard manufacturers. Chances are, Toshiba beat Mitac or Asus or Compal (or one of a handful of others) to death on price (of course, sacrificing quality, and all too often, compatibility) and sold the resulting heap of garbage to you, caring only for the lowest-common-denominator of the market (Windows XP Home edition) and not giving a rat's ass about Linux. BSD, or any other OS you might want to run on it.

Asus and Compal tend to be more compatible with Linux/X than Mitac notebooks (and with much higher build quality I might add) but even with those lines when an OEM specs certain items to cut the price down, again, compatibility and quality are often second to price.

Want to run Linux? Go with one of the whitebox brands - they tend to use the more standard Asus, Compal, Foxconn, etc. motherboards and not the drivel that the big names (Toshiba, HP, Dell, etc.) beat them to death on, and tend to be more compatible. That's not to say they're perfect; I am having trouble with an Asus notebook at the moment - I got EVERY component except one working, so I am currently waiting on Asus for an answer to get the disk image completed. I know what the problem is, I just need to get the solution we need from them.

Notebooks and Linux can be frustrating at times. More so on "Toshibas" and the like.

so EVERYBODY agrees on the topic? I have yet to read a reply that disproves it.

KimVette,

I use Kanotix and there are shortcuts on the Control Center to configure Thinkpad and Vaio notebooks to make them work on linux.
Should I dump my Toshiba in favor of those?NO ! and I don't even think of the likes of Asus,etc which don't have any support in my country.
Like I've said lucky are those who have a hardware compatible to linux.Me I am satisfied with mine-never had any windows problem with it.Nor had I encountered any problem with linux either.
I personally like distros which come with a live cd that I can test on my pc or laptop before installing(knoppix,slax,kanotix,pclinuxos,ubuntu)-but this is entirely different topic.

Disproves what--that Linux isn't preloaded on Dell home users' desktops? I don't understand what you think people are trying to disprove.

the topic is "Why linux is still not up to the job for desktop and home users".Linux is still not up to the job?

It really depends on how you define "up to the job" and "desktop and home users." As I said before, if you're into buying random commercial software and getting helpful tips from friends on how to use your computer, then Linux is not for you. If all you do is check email, manage digital photos, organize your music, surf the internet, and occasionally word process, then Linux is more than "up to the job" for you. In fact, for the vast majority of users I know, Linux is better suited for them than Windows is. The vast majority of users I know don't know how to protect themselves from viruses and spyware, and they never update their computers or install Windows' service packs. They find the little "helper" applications (paper clip, doggy, etc.) annoying, but they don't bother to learn how to turn these applications off.

There's also the added complication of installation v. use. With Windows you almost never have to install the OS. In Linux you almost always have to install it. A lot of the perceived difficult with Linux is in the installation, not the use. I set up my Ubuntu perfectly, and I've had three non-Linux users (i.e., they've never used Linux in their entire lives) walk up to the computer, surf the internet and even shut the computer down without having to ask me a single question.

And what are most of the questions on these forums? They're mostly about installation and set up (installing codecs and drivers, partitioning drives, etc.).

I suggest you read my signature's article about Linux's desktop readiness. In fact, there are several articles I've written that you should read. I'm tired of typing these rebuttals. If you don't like Linux, don't use it. It's a great OS for many people. It's not a great OS for many people. It's about as dumb as arguing about whether or not Marmite is ready for the kitchen table...

No OS... I repeat no OS, including Windows, can claim that it will install perfectly on any hardware and not need configuring or driver installation in any case. Unfortunately, in Linux, almost every user must install the OS. And unfortunately again, almost every Windows users has never installed Windows (and doesn't really need to).