Getting Our Beans In A Row To Fight Vista Circa Q4 2006

[Markbnj]

[Most users don't know what OS they're using, they just use whatever came on the thing. ]

Sheesh, I couldn't give it up after all. I agree with that, actually, but the vision is a looong way from reality. Maybe in the future people say "Hi" to a speaker on the wall and do everything they need to without any idea what's running behind the gypsum. We'll have a universal standard interpreted language and everything will just work. But we're talking about the here and now and the current desktop/device-oriented packaging metaphor. That will change (is already with PDAs) but only slowly.

Maybe Linux users ought to forget about competing with current desktop/laptop operating systems, and focus on smart home and mini-PDA technology. Anyone ever read "Age of the Pussyfoot?"

 

[Nothinman]

I agree with that, actually, but the vision is a looong way from reality.

No, it's not. It is reality. Otherwise all of those people running Win95, Win98, WinME, etc would have upgraded to XP by now. Most people don't give 2 sh!ts about what OS is on the machine as long as they can do what they need to do with the machine.

Maybe Linux users ought to forget about competing with current desktop/laptop operating systems, and focus on smart home and mini-PDA technology. Anyone ever read "Age of the Pussyfoot?"

The community is extremely large, we have people working on both.

 

[Markbnj]

[No, it's not. It is reality]

You think the vision of people not caring about their operating system (because by extension it doesn't matter) is reality?

doo doo doodoo doo doo doodoo

I hear Rod Serling.

 

[Nothinman]

You think the vision of people not caring about their operating system (because by extension it doesn't matter) is reality?

Yes, if for no other reason than that they have no idea what they're running. I can't even count the number of times I've heard people tell me that they're running "Microsoft 2000" and they get all confused when I say "Windows or Office?".

 

[Markbnj]

They'd have an idea what they're running if they woke up tomorrow and Linux was on there. You could say they have no idea what version of Windows they're on, but they don't think it's BestBuyOS or something.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
They'd have an idea what they're running if they woke up tomorrow and Linux was on there. You could say they have no idea what version of Windows they're on, but they don't think it's BestBuyOS or something.

I'd notice if my neighbor decided to paint his garage door hot pink. It doesn't mean that I'd care though.

Of course they will notice. der... All the apps will be different, colors will be different, the icons will be different, and there will be different locations for different things.

And the primary reason they know it's not 'BestBuyOS' is because everytime they have to reboot the stupid thing it pops up that Windows logo screen. When I worked tech support I could of convinced 90% of them that it was BestBuyOS though if I felt like it.

 

[Nothinman]

They'd have an idea what they're running if they woke up tomorrow and Linux was on there. You could say they have no idea what version of Windows they're on, but they don't think it's BestBuyOS or something.

Sure, if you just rip the carpet out from under them they'll cry. But if you give them a new machine with Ubuntu on it they'd be able to find the web browser, email, etc icons pretty easily. I'm not saying it would be 100% transparent, but it wouldn't be nearly as difficult as people would like to think.

 

[silent tone]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

They'd have an idea what they're running if they woke up tomorrow and Linux was on there. You could say they have no idea what version of Windows they're on, but they don't think it's BestBuyOS or something.

Sure, if you just rip the carpet out from under them they'll cry. But if you give them a new machine with Ubuntu on it they'd be able to find the web browser, email, etc icons pretty easily. I'm not saying it would be 100% transparent, but it wouldn't be nearly as difficult as people would like to think.

Right, it would be quite easy for many tasks. There would be some problems though. Online banking, or some other website could kick up compatibility problems. My roommate just bought Excel to do work at home. It wasn't worth saving the $200, if there would be any incompatibilities in OpenOffice. For whatever reasons, some things won't work like they do in windows and it's just not worth the trouble for some people.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: istallion

Originally posted by: Nothinman

They'd have an idea what they're running if they woke up tomorrow and Linux was on there. You could say they have no idea what version of Windows they're on, but they don't think it's BestBuyOS or something.

Sure, if you just rip the carpet out from under them they'll cry. But if you give them a new machine with Ubuntu on it they'd be able to find the web browser, email, etc icons pretty easily. I'm not saying it would be 100% transparent, but it wouldn't be nearly as difficult as people would like to think.

Right, it would be quite easy for many tasks. There would be some problems though. Online banking, or some other website could kick up compatibility problems. My roommate just bought Excel to do work at home. It wasn't worth saving the $200, if there would be any incompatibilities in OpenOffice. For whatever reasons, some things won't work like they do in windows and it's just not worth the trouble for some people.

It would be dead easy for most tasks. And for many reasons many things just won't work in Windows.

I can't use gnome or KDE in Windows. I can't use Koffice suite in Windows. I can't use most my favorite apps in Windows, or they would be a pain in the rear to setup.

For people looking for a replacement for Windows in Linux-based operating systems.. they would be badly mistaken. Linux distros are alternatives to Windows.

They provide different sets of applications, different approaches to solving problems in operating system design.

There are trade offs.

In Windows it's easier to buy a peice of software from Wallmart and have it run. In Linux that's difficult sometimes, but it's much easier to keep the system up to date and install programs offered by your distros in it's online package repositories.

For instance if you take the average long time Linux user and take them to Windows you'll have people whining about having to install cygwin to compile everything in order to install their applications, and how much of a pain that is compared to just clicking 'install' in a Synaptic package management application like they do in Ubuntu. There isn't even any sane way to manage dependancies in Windows for good greif! The idea of having to troll thru website after website looking for shareware or trying out applications by having to download individual installers and dealing with activation scemes and cdkeys and such is a huge pain in the rear. And then having no way to automaticly update any of these apps is a bad thing, too.

so on and so forth.

Everybody knows about Office and how it won't work in Linux. If your a unfortunate person that is forced to deal with that crap then that's just how it goes.

Just think about this:

In Windows there is no way to edit and create Excell files by default. To do that MS expects you to run down the store and fork over 200-300 bucks.

In Suse/Mandrake/Fedora/Ubuntu... all these distros have that ability by default.

If your friend has to use MS Office and he has to spend 200 dollars of his own money to be able to do work at home.. to bad for him. That's life. I'd hate it personally.

 

[Nothinman]

There would be some problems though. Online banking, or some other website could kick up compatibility problem

I do my online banking in Linux without any problems. The number of sites that don't work in Linux is extremely low because Gecko is Gecko, whether it's on Windows or Linux.

My roommate just bought Excel to do work at home. It wasn't worth saving the $200, if there would be any incompatibilities in OpenOffice. For whatever reasons, some things won't work like they do in windows and it's just not worth the trouble for some people.

Word, I can understand because of the way it embeds graphics and tables. But unless you're doing a lot of graphing I don't see why O or Gnumeric wouldn't work.

 

[R3MF]

linux software standards due in spring 06:
http://www.silicon.com/research/special...pensource/0,3800004943,39153423,00.htm
should be certified linux software standard apps out there by autumn 06.

looks good for suse et-al.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: R3MF
linux software standards due in spring 06:
http://www.silicon.com/research/special...pensource/0,3800004943,39153423,00.htm
should be certified linux software standard apps out there by autumn 06.

looks good for suse et-al.

maybe.

People have been trying to do crap like this for a long time. Lots of times it just ends up making application developers fight to get standards compliant rather then actually getting the software to be portable and actually running on different software platforms and distros. It's for closed source software and such mostly.

There are enough differences between something like Redhat and Debian for them to be considured almost different OSes completely nowadays, even though they use 98% the same code and most everything works on both systems with a recompile. Having 'universal' linux support at the source code level is more important then at the binary level. At least that's the way it looks to me.

Still though. It could end up being something good. Only the future will tell.

 

[Nothinman]

linux software standards due in spring 06:
http://www.silicon.com/research/special...pensource/0,3800004943,39153423,00.htm
should be certified linux software standard apps out there by autumn 06.

looks good for suse et-al.

I doubt it'll do much, just like the current LSB and FHS. They're there and people respect their efforts but they're more suggestions than requirements. And if that standards group decides to make GTK the standard (just as LSB chose RPM) what does that do to KDE? Would it really be a good idea to alienate a large portion of the current userbase to try and expand the ones that you didn't piss off?

 

[R3MF]

lol, as a KDE fan i would have to agree that would suck!

 

[Nothinman]

lol, as a KDE fan i would have to agree that would suck!

And the thing is that GTK would probably be chosen since libgtk is licensed for free under the LGPL which means closed source apps can be linked against it without requiring the source to be released under the GPL. QT, which is what KDE uses, is only released under the GPL so anything linked against it must also be under the GPL unless you buy a commercial license from TrollTech.

 

[Shamrock]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Anyway, good luck putting a dent in Microsoft's machine. I may get around to trying some Linux someday, thanks to positive examples by people like drag and Nothinman and n0c, but frankly it doesn't bug me to be shelling out $250 for a product that will be supported for ten years, either.

I cant believe you said that! 10 years of support? ppphhhtttt. Win2k had discontinued support in July of this year! and even then they had extended the support a year, they originally DC'ed support in 2004, but so many people complained they extended it a year. What about Win ME support, and Win98 support? where are they? They arent 10 yrs old yet.

 

[Nothinman]

I cant believe you said that! 10 years of support?

Yes, it's true. http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/se...ion/news/bulletins/extendedsupport.asp

What about Win ME support, and Win98 support? where are they? They arent 10 yrs old yet.

No, they're consumer level which apparently doesn't get the same lengthy support plans. But even so, Win98 will be supported into 2006.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=LifeWinExtndFAQ

 

[drag]

The only people that I know that would support a OS for ten years would be stuff like AIX, OS/370, OS/400 and the like from IBM and maybe SCO Uniware and Openserver.

I sincerly doubt that SCO will be around in ten years. The people that are left using SCO stuff are right now are probably going to use the forced retirement of 5.0.6 and earlier OSes and the big transition to Openserver 6 as a excuse to stop supporting it and make the full transition to Linux and BSD. (plus nowadays the latest Redhat Linux has surpassed SCO Unix stuff in most possible ways. All that is left now is AIX and Solaris.) SCO OpenServer 5 series has been around since at least 1995, maybe earlier.

So much for very long term OS support.

If you want a support contract for your OS the best one that I've seen is for Redhat WS. There are 2 pricing models. One is for a $179 the other is for $299

The $299 dollar version will entitle you to 1 year of:
24/7 web support with 2 day response time.
9am to 9pm eastern time zone, Monday thru Friday phone support with 4 hour response time in North America. For global support it's 9-5 GMT monday thru friday.

That's roundabout 1 year of coverage for close to the same price as Windows XP retail which allows one free phone call, I beleive, and then the ability to file bugreports dealing with security issues for free. (of course access to Redhat bugreport stuff is open)

Of course to maintain support for the OS you have to renew the support contract each year though. (I expect there are more long term contracts you could enter into) Each paticular version, the latest is WS 4, I beleive, has a product lifespan of 5 years. That's how long Redhat will support it officially. Of course that doesn't stop you from upgrading to new releases when they come out.

The FedoraLegacy project may end up supporting Redhat proper releases when they are EOL'd for a number of years after that. Note that this is only for security fixes though, and since it's not official it won't cost you anything. FedoraLegacy recently dropped support for Redhat 7.1 and 8.0.. (they recommend you upgrade to 7.3 and 9.0 respectively for those) (which is also kinda cool since Redhat 7.1 was the first ever Linux distro that I used... even though it sucked very badly. Redhat 6.0 was much better)

So if you start using Redhat WS today you'll probably be able to maintain at least security bug fixes for 7-8 years for that specific version you installed.

Then again if you don't want to pay anything and are a cheap bastard you can use no-cost versions of Redhat like Whitebox (it's one of several) that maintain compatable versions to official Redhat releases by downloading and using Redhat's own source code. Debian has been very responsable for maintaining long-term support for it's stable releases. Of course it's a community project so that it will vary with release to release on the actual time the security team drops support.

 

[earthman]

I shouldn't have to own a Ford car to drive on certain roads, just like I shouldn't have to run a MS OS to work with certain documents or visit certain websites.

You don't have to. If there are documents or websites that seem to require that, it's a decision of the author, nothing to do with MS, other than their looming presence in the computer world.

The only people that I know that would support a OS for ten years would be stuff like AIX, OS/370, OS/400 and the like from IBM and maybe SCO Uniware and Openserver.

Not really true. MS supported NT for about that long because people were so attached to it the company was force to change their plans. It's still widely used.

The people that are left using SCO stuff are right now are probably going to use the forced retirement of 5.0.6 and earlier OSes and the big transition to Openserver 6 as a excuse to stop supporting it and make the full transition to Linux and BSD.

If SCO folds, their intellectual property will be purchased by someone that will still support it, maybe one of their big resellers. There's still alot of people using it that are willing to pay for support.

 

[Nothinman]

You don't have to. If there are documents or websites that seem to require that, it's a decision of the author, nothing to do with MS, other than their looming presence in the computer world.

Of course it has to do with MS, standards are created to avoid things like this but MS doesn't want to participate because it makes it easier for people to migrate away from their software. It's one of the main reasons that Mass has begun their project to store all of their documentation in the Oasis Open Document format.

 

[drag]

The only people that I know that would support a OS for ten years would be stuff like AIX, OS/370, OS/400 and the like from IBM and maybe SCO Uniware and Openserver.

Not really true. MS supported NT for about that long because people were so attached to it the company was force to change their plans. It's still widely used.

The people that are left using SCO stuff are right now are probably going to use the forced retirement of 5.0.6 and earlier OSes and the big transition to Openserver 6 as a excuse to stop supporting it and make the full transition to Linux and BSD.

If SCO folds, their intellectual property will be purchased by someone that will still support it, maybe one of their big resellers. There's still alot of people using it that are willing to pay for support.[/quote]

By the time SCO folds there may be no big resellers. (which is why pretty much they would fold) The resellers are the ones that are using the big transition to jump ship and at this moment there are practically nobody using 6 right now. They depend on very intimate knowledge of the OS for their business and switching to SCO 6 seems at the moment to be as big and painfull as switching to Linux or BSD.

Anyways there are alternatives to SCO for support. Many many support old contractors and retailers are still around and would be more then happy to get hired to help businesses transfer from old SCO systems to new Linux or BSD systems. These transitions can take years, so SCO users have perfectly happy future for the time being.

The software is mostly compatable anyways. Linux has the ability to run SCO binaries for instance. The main objection is the 'chaotic' nature of Linux.