I people who think Linux will erode Microsoft Windows’ popularity on the desktop. On the otherhand, I know some who say No way, since few companies will scrap their huge investment in software for open source programs that run on Linux.
Who among you actually use Linux at home and or at work?
NO. Bill Gates is the king of the Earth.
correction… God-King
Not overall. Possibly in some geek segments, in a couple of years.
In the long-term, windows/linux might not even exist.
In the workplace, maybe, in many, many years. At home? Not until Linux gets the latest and greatest games and hardware support. And I don’t mean a new version of ‘Tux Racer’ or some crap.
I think it will, slowly. There are a few factors at work to Linux’s advantage.
As the price of computer hardware drops, the cost of the OS becomes a larger and larger piece of the pie. Already, companies like Dell are offering limited linux desktops. The savings is only about $30-50 because Windows is deeply discounted for OEM sale, but as computers get cheaper and cheaper, that $50 is going to start to look like a lot.
Also, as more businesses start switching over, people won’t be so afraid of a different operating system.
In addition, the rise of home computing in poorer countries will dramatically spur free open source software development and require more open standards. Open standards will lead to a dilution of Microsoft’s power because people won’t be tied to Microsoft products to use standard file types and interfaces.
Finally, I think Macs are rising in popularity. Because the modern MacOS is *nix based, many programs available for Linux can be very easily ported over. This gives more of a base to a software developer who wants to offer a cross-platform application.
I use Linux (Debian) and Windows at work, and Linux (Redhat, but not for long), Windows, and MacOS at home.
It depends on a couple of things. For buisnesses:
#1. Companies need to produce Linux buisness software. Companies are not going to go to Linux unless the software they need to run thier buisness is out there. Software companies aren’t going to make Linux versions of their software unless the market is there to buy it. So right now, AFAIK, there are buisnesses that might make the switch but can’t because of software requirements.*
#2. Frustration level. One of the big reasons to switch away from MS is stability. For too long MS products were crap. They broke a lot and cost $$$ to support. I don’t know what the support costs are these days but I do know that Windows has gotten WAY better. Since Windows is getting better the frustration level is (probably) going down for IT staff. If it ain’t broke, buisnesses aren’t going to fix it.
#3. IS people. The IS people in most buisnesses Know how to set up and run MS products. To convince IS directors to switch to a platfom that they (probably) do not know a great deal about is going to require a HUGE incentive. Since MS has made their products more stable the biggest incentive to change is quickly disappearing.
For Home Users:
#1. Not going to happen until companies produce Linux versions of their software. Once again software companies aren’t going to do that until there is a sufficent market for Linux products.
#2. Cost. I got a new Windows XP machine for $650. With a 3.2 gig P4, 512 RAM, 200 gig HD, DVD burner, CD, speakers, monitor, keyboard, mouse and printer. With the PC I bought there is absolutely no reason to switch to Linux except personal preference. Plus I play games which require Windows.
In short I do not see MS going away any time soon. In fact I am convinced that the only way MS will go away is if someone comes up with a new computer technology that everyone wants and locks MS out of the market. I dno’t see that happening any time soon.
Slee
Not anytime soon. I’m a big big Linux fan, and nothing beats it as a server. But on the desktop, it’s still got a long way to go.
What Bill H. said. Linux is a nice geek toy, but as a home computer OS, one that your mom can use without any fear, it’s got a long way to go.
The world’s largest purchaser of IT hardware and software is the US Government. Unless and until the Linux community can deliver a quality and stable office suite running on a standard desktop, the government as a whole is not interested. That is not to say that Linux servers and other specialty items are not making inroads within government, because they are. However, this is occurring more in the field than a coordinated effort being directed from Washington, DC. If the Linux community can break into the Beltway Bandits and lobby the government top echelon, they can beat Microsoft at its own game. Just by addressing licensing costs vs. open source can perk the ears of government bean counters and make Linux worthwhile.
In short, if Linux can make serious inroads with the standard office systems of Uncle Sam, MS Windows is doomed.
Yeah, Linux is great as a business desktop, but I’d never put a Linux machine in my mom’s house. Too much of a hassle, too much of a pain. She’s better off with a Mac (as, I believe, most consumers would be) than with Windows or Linux. The Mac gives her all the good things about Linux (the Unix core and its inherent stability and security model, basically), but with an actual end-user UI that’s more than just a copycat desktop.
Personally, I don’t think that Windows or Linux or Mac OS is the important part of the equation. It’s the file formats that matter. The fact that our government has documents in Word format, a close standard that we can’t be certain will be accessible in 40 years, is absolutely absurd. All the Western governments need to get on the ball and require software sold to public sector entities to be able to save in some sort of published, transferable, open format. OASIS is a good start.
I have Windows, OS X, and Red Hat Linux 9 at home. For the common home user in America, like my mother-in-law, I can’t foresee Linux seriously encroaching on Windows territory.
While a lot of Red Hat is intuitive to a geeky user like myself, my mother-in-law would become completely baffled by Linux beyond opening the browser and surfing the net. Even that, with its non IE environment, could be a difficult change for casual computer users. Opening the command line and installing new software isn’t going to happen readily. There are a lot of users out there who just want the computer to be easy. These folk will probably stick with Windows for the foreseeable future.
In a way, it is too bad. Linux can make a fine Desktop for certain kinds of users. The Open Office Suite is just as effective and easy as MS Office I think. I like it, but I’m on the geeky side of life, and naturally attracted different kinds of software.
Once OEMs get serious about shipping home systems with Linux pre-installed, I think a lot of the arguments about it being “too hard” will disappear. Ever tried to install Windows 2000 or XP without the motherboard manufacturer’s driver disc? Not fun. In my experience, any modern, desktop-oriented Linux distribution will have better native hardware support than a fresh install of XP.
There are some distributions, such as Ubuntu, that are pretty much there in terms of providing a user with a fast, full-featured, intuitive desktop with applications that fill just about every niche the home user can typically ask for. USB mass storage support is kinda flaky in the 2.6 kernel, but they’re working on it. And support for Windmodems, though much improved recently, is still a problem.
I understand that there are specific applications (and games) that power users may want to run for very specific purposes. I don’t think those people will be switching any time soon. But for the apocryphal grandma who wants to email pictures and type out recipes, a simple Linux distribution with decent hardware support is probably the better choice right now. I’ve got my parents running it, and they’re by no means computer experts. They burn DVDs, fuck around with photos, email, the web, listen to the NPR archives, and scan stuff with no problem, and I’m not over at their place every other weekend to unhose their Windows box.
As for installing other applications, I don’t see how using a package manager front end like, say, Synaptic, is any less intuitive than double-clicking on an exe file to install, then going maybe to the Control Panel or maybe separate uninstall application to uninstall, then figuring out if you need mzxcvb.dll because its used by another application but is not currently in use.
Personally, I think the major catalyst over the next few years is going to be developing countries, especially in Asia. Nobody in Thailand pays for Windows, anyway, and for the moment MS is content to let them get away with piracy on the theory that its only helping their future legitimate market share. But there are already rumblings from certain governments about developing home-grown distributions in the face of the possibility of what amounts to a global BSA raid. I’m not an expert in this area, though, so somebody else feel free to step in.
Just MHO.
I realize I partially addressed this in my previous post, but I think it needs to be restated:
I haven’t opened a command line to install software in at least two years. Maybe you should switch to Debian. 
Actually, I have, but that it was to install multi-homed gigabit NICs on a server running Woody, and installing NetBeans, which I doubt many home users will ever need to do.
There are very few applications I use on my workstation that aren’t in the default apt repositories for my distribution. I fire up Synaptic, search for the application I want, check the ‘install’ box, and it automagically downloads the package with all its dependancies, configures it, and installs it (along with all of the documentation) for me.
It will erode it. It has eroded it. Not much, but enough. There are now Linspire boxes being sold at Wal-Mart. As far as the functionality goes, The Australian Consumer’s Commission just put out a lovely review that says it’s about functional for daily use.
Is it any great goal? Not really. Remember, Linux isn’t a business. It’s a dream shared by people. Commercial success is a good side benefit, but not the original goal.
Is Bill scared? Yes. Is this going to change how he does things? Probably. All we can ask for, right?
I use Debian “unstable” at home. This runs my hardware faster than any version of windows I have ever used on it, and does so more reliably (“unstable” is a misnomer - it actually just means the latest development chain).
At work, I have to use XP Pro, but this is due to the company investment in windows specific special-purpose software. I would love to switch to Debian at work, but this would require free-of-charge crossgrades of every program we use - not likely to happen anytime soon.
Not quite sufficient – governments should require that all software they purchase shall save to a fully open format by default (I’ll somewhat grudgingly allow support for closed formats, but government documents generally need to be open-format).
I consider the OpenOffice suite to be far inferior to Office in terms of usability. Not only does it have weird text rendering issues, but it’s also ridden with geek-speak. The options dialogue is a disaster, asking about things no end user should ever need fuss about, like memory allotment for objects and the like. It’s generally a badly copied Microsoft interface done by folks who are too prone to technical nonsense.
And, of course, it is totally unusable on OS X.
One would think. But I couldn’t get Fedora Core 3 to properly recognize my 1280x800 screen resolution on my HP Pavillion laptop. I even had someone from Red Hat send me changes to make in my Xorg.conf file (gah, no system should require text-editor changes to config files, give me a damn GUI for everything), which he said would work and had worked on his identical system. They didn’t work. I gave up. The laptop now sits useless in the corner until I can put Windows back on it.
Things like that flat out should not happen.
That should be a configuration option in the software that users can employ to change the default save format. I, personally, want my programs to save in their native formats, not some open format that might not be compatible with all the program’s features.