"Five things Desktop Linux has to do to beat Windows 8"
 

Hi,

Five things Desktop Linux has to do to beat Windows 8
Unified Gnu/Linux could be the way but how do you do it? Good article with food for thought!


Other useful links in Links for Helpful Linux articles & books

Honestly, I think that stories like this are based on a flawed proposition: that, in users' eyes, "all operating systems are created equal," such that users have no problem switching from "the devil they know, which by-the-way works," and they would feel a positive incentive to do so.

"Only a geek would feel that way." :)

People buy computers, bundled with whatever operating-system environment may be running on them, in order to do something with those computers. "The thing that is driving the bus here" is not the operating-system ... it's the purpose, whatever it may be, that they have for it.

Millions of portable phones have been sold with the Android Linux operating-system on it ... to people who "frankly, don't know and certainly don't give a damm" how it works. They merely care that it does, and, having established that, they have no incentive to go any further.

1) Not suck.
Done.

2) Be able to browse pron without massive malware infection.
Done.

3) Not be windows.
Done.

4) Not suck.
Done.

5) Did I mention pron?
Done.

Debian Sid ftw.

How about bwing able to play paid-for video content?
Being able to run the obscure program necessary for their hobby or interest?
Being able to run Google Earth (sorry, stab at Sid there)?
Allowing synch with their iPhone, or just letting them get photo's off their phone easily?
Not requiring hoops to be jumped through to play a DVD?
Playing Bul-Ray [or however they spel it] video? Ad,itedly a litle niche, but still something that doeasn't work on Linux.

Never paid for content. Hell I haven't bought a DVD since 2000.

Google Earth works just fine.

Open dvd drive, insert dvd, dvds plays, That was hard.

Anyone with an Ianything deserves the pain it brings. My Android phone and my Kindle Fire mount when plugged in, simple drag and drop. Google Music syncs my music.

Typical zdnet article. No interesting points are made.

Android may be a Linux distro, but it is full of malware and the devices are locked-in. I don't really consider it Linux or at least not in the spirit of FLOSS.

TexMex, Can you give an example of base Android having malware, please?

If you haven't paid for content then I take it you've not watched a movie on your computer sonce 2000? Some people like to do that on their PCs.
As for Google Earth -- either you're using 32 bit Sid or I've been lied to by the Debian community. Neither of which bodes well.
DVDs -- yes, of course, install Ubuntu or Debian then insert a DVD and it plays? Or, perhaps, it doesn't and you're forced to google to find help.
Android phones may mount, in some way at least, but synching software does not run on Linux and it's not just iPhones that don't work.
We may sacrifice some interoperability because we like to use Linux but "the man on the street" may be more difficult to sway.
I notice google music only deals with lossy formats and just happens to be backed by the biggest spyware outfit out there (Google).

I know there is plenty of malware in the android apps, just search it:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...d_malware.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-200...as-google-app/

EDIT:
Unsubscribing from useless thread. Linux has beaten Window$ 8 before it was ever conceived.

to add to "craigevil"

5A ) do not use Metro
-- DONE

-- guessing the " online " like the silverlight ONLY for the 4 years ago Olympics

-- or NBC's royal mess that even windows had problems with

will not happen until MPAA and Hollywood are NUKED a 1.5 Megaton will do
see above, but libdvdcss is EASY to install
and so is Mplayer and the "all-20110131.tar.bz2" codec package
and all major distros that did NOT pay the racketeering fee to the Mpeg-la have instructions that are
clear and easy to fallow

and installing VLC solves all issues with store bought DVD's

but the one MAJOR thing that the " linux community" dose have a BIG problem is in that there are
" too many cooks in the kitchen "
But that is a whole different story

True, but it doesn't help Linux's adoption to tell people that. "Oh, don't buy a Mac use Linux -- you can't play paid for content but that's not Linux's fault.".
Easy to follow if you know what it is you are installing and why. I can do it easily, you can do it easily, most people reading this post can, perhaps, do it easily -- but then we wouldn't be talking about this if we couldn't. There are enough posts on this site about missing CODECs to lead me to believe that it's still a problem. Oh, and installing many CODECs could be illegal in the US and other jurisdictions -- that's a fun fact to tell people when you suggest Linux "Oh, it's OK to break the law, everybody is doing it.".
Admittedly, Windows has had CODEC issues too, so perhaps more people ought to realise what the problem is.

if you are paranoid about the codec issues there are commercial dvd apps just like windows.
same for mp3s and other codecs. Fluendo is one company that has a free mp3 gstreamer package and a commercial dvd app that comes with the codecs to play commercial dvds. They even have a complete codecs package.

Debian includes the gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 package in its normal repos.

libdvdcss can be installed from the vlc repo or deb-multimedia.

It is easy enough to install a media player along with the necessary codecs/plugins using Software-Center or Synaptic. Most distro have directions on their wiki for complete Multimedia playback/encoding.

So playing DVDs or any other media is not difficult in Linux.

As for paid media like iTunes, Amazon, netflix, blame DRM and the companies that insist on using it.

sundialsvcs is on the right track.

Linux actually only has to do one thing to beat Windows.

Be available for the customer to bring home from the store, with the customer's full knowledge that it's not Windows, so the customer is not surprised when he finds out it's not Windows. Most computer users have never and will never install a computer OS.

Actually here's what needs to be done to get Linux out there strong enough to not just beat Windows 8 but to make it the most forgetable OS of all time.

1. Distributions like Ubuntu or any of it's flavors need to be marketable.

2. Tell PC vendors "Nvidia or Intel, not both!" for laptops.

3. Tell AMD/ATI, "support all your graphics cards with your drivers not just a few".

4. Get Steam Linux Client completed.

5. Get developers of games to port DirectX games over to SDL.

I saw a similar thread (based on the same source article) on a different forum, and I'll ask the same question here as I did there.

"When did Linux get into the business of trying to beat Windows?".

Granted, MS sees/saw/may see Linux as a threat. That's their problem. The Linux foundation and FSF have never said that they were in the race with MS, though.