Microsoft: Windows 8 Is 2 Years Away

[JohnOfSheffield]

Exactly what I swore a couple of years ago, before the Win7 Pro I'm on now.

Linux-for-prime-time has been a mirage, always ALMOST, but never QUITE there if you demand dead-sure interoperability with clients.

Someday we'll finally all be able to migrate, but over the recent several years, the story has always been, and still is, "almost, not quite, soon!"

Millions of people are running it prime time as a desktop solution so it does work, in fact, in many cases it works better because most devices around you are also running Linux, most servers you connect to are also running Linux and your old desktop will make a great server for your new laptop connected to your Linux based boxes that you have all over your house as well as the linux based android phone you have in your pocket. Remind me again, is NASA running Linux? Is Linux flexible enough to run a super cluster on as well as a router or a digital TV box or even a phone?

The truth is, apart from playing the latest computer games, Linux is ready for prime time.

 

[WildHorse]

``

 

[VinDSL]

It doesn't make Linux look good when something that worked 6 months previous breaks.[...]

Funny you should mention that!

A few minutes ago, I updated conkyForecast, and it quit working.

The problem turned out to be: Ubu 10.10 doesn't have a simlink for Python2.6->Python 2 in /usr/bin

The fix was simple...

$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python2.6 /usr/bin/python2

Playing the blame game... whose fault is that?

Me, for running unsupported 3rd party software? Ubu, for not linking Python2/Python2.6? Or, conkyForecast for not taking 3 years to anticipate every eventuality in the wild?

No one needs a new O/S every 6 months, and the people that do like testing, would like the newest available.[...]

Guilty, as charged! 😀

A new OS every 6 months is about right IMO. I'm easily bored.

EDIT

Actually, Linux is a kernel, NOT an OS, so...

Let's say, a new kernel every 6 months is about right... 😉

 

[Nothinman]

Playing the blame game... whose fault is that?

Me, for running unsupported 3rd party software? Ubu, for not linking Python2/Python2.6? Or, conkyForecast for not taking 3 years to anticipate every eventuality in the wild?

Ubuntu's. They should have a /usr/bin/python symlink for their current, default version of python.

 

[VinDSL]

Ubuntu's. They should have a /usr/bin/python symlink for their current, default version of python.

Yes, they should, but...

The 3rd party software I'm running depends on a /usr/bin/python2 symlink, which Debian has included in their major distros for years, but recently removed.

vindsl@Zuul:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/python*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       9 2010-10-10 04:44 /usr/bin/python -> python2.6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       9 2010-10-26 12:46 /usr/bin/python2 -> python2.6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2279976 2010-09-15 09:21 /usr/bin/python2.6

If you try this on Ubu 10.10 OOTB, the python2 symlink is missing.

It's either a Debian 'upstream thing' (likely intentional), or an Ubuntu bug (doubtful).

Anyway, the fix was easy: create a symlink, and change the hash in a .py file.

 

[Nothinman]

Yes, they should, but...

The 3rd party software I'm running depends on a /usr/bin/python2 symlink, which Debian has included in their major distros for years, but recently removed.

vindsl@Zuul:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/python*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       9 2010-10-10 04:44 /usr/bin/python -> python2.6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       9 2010-10-26 12:46 /usr/bin/python2 -> python2.6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2279976 2010-09-15 09:21 /usr/bin/python2.6

If you try this on Ubu 10.10 OOTB, the python2 symlink is missing.

It's either a Debian 'upstream thing' (likely intentional), or an Ubuntu bug (doubtful).

Anyway, the fix was easy: create a symlink, and change the hash in a .py file.

I've never noticed the python2 symlink before, I'm assuming it was left over from a 1.x->2.x transition so that would make it a conkyForecast bug.

 

[MGMorden]

Millions of people are running it prime time as a desktop solution so it does work,

...

The truth is, apart from playing the latest computer games, Linux is ready for prime time.

Indeed. I was a Linux "hobbyist' since around 1998. Being a budding programmer (at the time - well past a CS degree at this point 🙂), I was always interested in playing around with it. It was long at that stage were it was "almost" good enough to use daily. I even ran it off and on as a main OS for about a month on 2 or 3 occasions there.

HOWEVER, in the last 2 years or so, it, IMHO, finally jumped over that "almost there" hump. I think Ubuntu had a lot to do with that. They seem to be all about the polish - which for a long time was pretty much exactly what Linux was missing. About a year and a half ago I finally hit a realization: I'm spending more and more time switching over to my Linux machine to get something done after the Windows machine frustrated me too much. I was at the point where typically, if I wanted the quick no-muss-no-fuss path to getting a task done, I switched over to my Linux system. Oddball tasks that I was asked to do by other people I'd end up thinking "You know, I could script this in Linux in no time".

At that point, I decided to (for the most part), kill Windows from my home systems. My spiffiest system with all my storage space, best processor, etc, I put Ubuntu 9.04 on (that was the latest Ubuntu when I did my full-time switch). Wiped Vista off my laptop and installed Ubuntu on there too. The only machine I have that currently runs windows is a gaming machine - it's got a good video card and processor and a small hard drive for when I want to play games, but that's all I do on it. Heck as hectic as life as been lately I don't even think that machine has been powered on in almost two months.



It took at lot of things (maturation of Compiz, Nvidia VDAPU support, professional artwork, etc), but we finally jumped past the "almost ready" point. Linux, PARTICULARLY Ubuntu IMHO, is completely ready for primetime on the desktop.

As a matter of fact, I'll let you in on a secret that helped me a LOT. It's simple as pie, but I never realized it. The fonts and text on Linux apps always looked strange to me. Looked like an unsightly mess. After a while, I realized the problem: Windows XP's UI font, by default, is set to 8pt. Virtually all Linux distros, including Ubuntu, have a default UI font size of 10pt. Dropping that down to 8pt did miracles for me being able to feel at home while sitting in Linux, and with the release of Google's Droid fonts and Ubunut's new font released with 10.10, things look even better.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

JohnOfSheffield,

Which Linux distro do you recommend?

A couple of years ago I played around with OpenSUSE for awhile, but was never where the computer was for long enough between travels to really get into it.

There's a spare desktop computer here that has Windows 7 Pro, which I could dual boot with Linux. The usage is for business, mostly all the MS Office apps (OpenOffice will do fine) and MySQL, and sometimes various brands of MySQL front end GUIs, and other stuff.

OpenSUSE if you want it to work out of the box, Arch Linux if you don't mind fiddling to get it to perfection, check out the Arch Wiki, it's probably the most comprehensive piece of information on how to get things to work in a Linux distro there is on the net.

But yeah, in your case, OpenSUSE and while i like KDE, you might like Gnome better, you can install both if you'd like, it's just that... to me OpenSUSE is a KDE distro, the best tools for it are written in QT which is KDE so...

 

[Bateluer]

I may very well be done with Windows by that point. I'm sure I'll download the betas to get familiar with it, but I'll probably be running Linux full time by then.

Same for me. With PC gaming getting more and more consolized into mediocrity, I don't see the reason to drop a few hundred bucks on a Windows license. Won't get the educational discount again.

Mint to the rescue.

 

[RU482]

As somebody who has to support this stuff, I hope it takes five years.

OH MAN I'll second that

I just wish XP would die already

 

[Arkaign]

OH MAN I'll second that

I just wish XP would die already

Ditto. I was a longtime XP holdout, Vista was a PITA for a while but improved as everything caught up, and with Win7 there's not much reason for XP to exist anymore.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Millions of people are running it prime time as a desktop solution so it does work, in fact, in many cases it works better because most devices around you are also running Linux, most servers you connect to are also running Linux and your old desktop will make a great server for your new laptop connected to your Linux based boxes that you have all over your house as well as the linux based android phone you have in your pocket. Remind me again, is NASA running Linux? Is Linux flexible enough to run a super cluster on as well as a router or a digital TV box or even a phone?

The truth is, apart from playing the latest computer games, Linux is ready for prime time.

Thats simply not true. Especially not in the enterprise. I work for an extremely large company (One of the largest in the world). THOUSANDS of servers. Only a handful are Linux.

No doubt its certainly capable, I've been running linux for over a decade. But its simply not at the point yet where it going to replace Windows Server and Solaris. I think part of the problem is fragmentation, there are a ton of distros and each one has its own quirks. Hell, many web apps in the enterprise still require IE to be supported. Its going to be another decade before Linux is accepted as a viable alternative to Solaris or Windows, and even then, I'm not sure.

As for desktop use, I think it will grow rapidly in popularity but mostly in appliance type devices like Android tablets, smartphones, etc..

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Thats simply not true. Especially not in the enterprise. I work for an extremely large company (One of the largest in the world). THOUSANDS of servers. Only a handful are Linux.

No doubt its certainly capable, I've been running linux for over a decade. But its simply not at the point yet where it going to replace Windows Server and Solaris. I think part of the problem is fragmentation, there are a ton of distros and each one has its own quirks. Hell, many web apps in the enterprise still require IE to be supported. Its going to be another decade before Linux is accepted as a viable alternative to Solaris or Windows, and even then, I'm not sure.

As for desktop use, I think it will grow rapidly in popularity but mostly in appliance type devices like Android tablets, smartphones, etc..

The overwhelming majority of servers that are interconnected and that any desktop computer connects to are driven by Linux.

I'm not talking about some little companies little server, i'm talking about the worldwide internet backbone and local proxies, web servers and so one and so forth.

And seriously... Solaris? Oracle Solaris is as popular as syphilis, some have it, no one wants to have it. There is treatment for the problem and the problem has stopped in it's evolutionary path and will eventually become extinct.

 

[Nothinman]

Thats simply not true. Especially not in the enterprise. I work for an extremely large company (One of the largest in the world). THOUSANDS of servers. Only a handful are Linux.

No doubt its certainly capable, I've been running linux for over a decade. But its simply not at the point yet where it going to replace Windows Server and Solaris. I think part of the problem is fragmentation, there are a ton of distros and each one has its own quirks. Hell, many web apps in the enterprise still require IE to be supported. Its going to be another decade before Linux is accepted as a viable alternative to Solaris or Windows, and even then, I'm not sure.

As for desktop use, I think it will grow rapidly in popularity but mostly in appliance type devices like Android tablets, smartphones, etc..

In the enterprise, sadly, you're right. Windows is very entrenched because of AD and it's desktop support advantages. But Linux fragmentation is a non-issue, there's really only like 2 choices if you want supported Linux and that's RHEL and SuSE and RHEL is the usual winner by far. Oracle has a Linux distribution too, but it's really just rebranded RHEL and then you get stuck with Oracle's shitty support.

Thankfully, Windows is getting more complicated, not worse, so slowly but surely the wanna-be admins that could click-and-pray with previous versions of Windows are being pushed out because they just can't understand IIS7, Exchange 2K7/2K10, SQL 2008, etc enough to fool people into thinking they know what they're doing and the certs are getting more difficult to obtain too. And IE support with relation to Linux webservers is irrelevant. Linux web servers work with IE just fine. Now if you want to write a web app in ASP.Net, then you want IIS. But that has no bearing on the browser requirements to view the web app.

And Solaris is pretty much a zombie at this point. The only people really using it are the grey beards that are scared to move on and people that don't have the time/budget to transition to Linux. Linux has been eroding at it's marketshare for years now and with the Oracle acquisition I can only see that getting worse. Solaris will have it's niche, probably as Oracle's preferred database platform, but that's about it. Oracle will do everything in their power to fuck up any forks of Open Solaris and IMO ZFS just isn't worth it. Sure it's nice, but having to deal with Solaris and Oracle? No thanks.

 

[sourceninja]

For the record, where I work we have over 70 servers. Of those 70 servers, only 5 are running windows.

Anyone guess which service they provide? I'll give you a hint, they are being used to migrate from novell.

We have 5 solaris 10 servers. They run our core business logic and oracle DB. Every other server runs linux. That means, web, email, dns, ntp, databases, backups, app servers, print servers, etc are all linux. Not only that, they are all unsupported linux (Ubuntu servers we are not paying for support on). We have been running them for almost 6 years and we have made exactly zero calls for support.

We have investigated support from Ubuntu and will probably being purchasing it this year as those core business logic servers will be moving from Solaris to linux (Although they might end up going to Red Hat depending on the software vendors (Sungard and Oracle say they will support).

Linux is big business now, it has been for years and it's not going away any time soon. If you have the staff with the proper skills, linux can even safe you tons of money (Not saying it will in every case). I took this company from a huge windows/vendor locked in system and in just a few years moved us to a mostly open source company that has been able to take a huge ton of cash and use it to better the environment rather then pay the existing licensing fees each year.

That is not to say we don't have new layers of proprietary stuff and vendor lock-ins.

 

[Bateluer]

Thats simply not true. Especially not in the enterprise. I work for an extremely large company (One of the largest in the world). THOUSANDS of servers. Only a handful are Linux.

My current employer has thousands of servers, http, SQL, virtualized environments, etc. We're about a 50/50 split between Windows and Linux. Linux is mostly CentOS, though we've got some RHEL versions still floating around.

Our dedicated server product line has Windows 2003, 2008, Fedora, Ubuntu, and CentOS as OS choices. Not sure what the break down is.

 

[Nothinman]

For the record, where I work we have over 70 servers. Of those 70 servers, only 5 are running windows.

Anyone guess which service they provide? I'll give you a hint, they are being used to migrate from novell.

We have 5 solaris 10 servers. They run our core business logic and oracle DB. Every other server runs linux. That means, web, email, dns, ntp, databases, backups, app servers, print servers, etc are all linux. Not only that, they are all unsupported linux (Ubuntu servers we are not paying for support on). We have been running them for almost 6 years and we have made exactly zero calls for support.

We have investigated support from Ubuntu and will probably being purchasing it this year as those core business logic servers will be moving from Solaris to linux (Although they might end up going to Red Hat depending on the software vendors (Sungard and Oracle say they will support).

Linux is big business now, it has been for years and it's not going away any time soon. If you have the staff with the proper skills, linux can even safe you tons of money (Not saying it will in every case). I took this company from a huge windows/vendor locked in system and in just a few years moved us to a mostly open source company that has been able to take a huge ton of cash and use it to better the environment rather then pay the existing licensing fees each year.

That is not to say we don't have new layers of proprietary stuff and vendor lock-ins.

Exactly, just because Fear No Evil's company made poor decisions about their infrastructure doesn't mean all of them do. =)

 

[RebateMonger]

Wikipedia has numbers (hotly contested by both "sides", I'm sure) that show current market share of both desktops and servers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Windows_and_Linux

Wikidpedia, market research companies, and even "pro-Linux" sites show Windows as the predominant server except for web servers, where Linux holds the lead. Linux desktop market share continues to be small compared to Macintosh and Windows.

None of this has much to do with whether one is "better" than another. It's just the way that the market has developed at this time.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Exactly, just because Fear No Evil's company made poor decisions about their infrastructure doesn't mean all of them do. =)

When you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of employees, desktops, and thousands of servers.. let me know.. 🙂 Not to mention gobs of federal regulations.

 

[Nothinman]

When you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of employees, desktops, and thousands of servers.. let me know.. 🙂 Not to mention gobs of federal regulations.

I understand the usefulness of AD with regards to Windows desktops. But that really only means that you need 1 or 2 DCs per-site to manage them. =)

 

[ViviTheMage]

snip**

Funny, at my day job, we have 80~ Windows servers, and 1 linux server (my project, LOL).

At madgenius.com, we have hundreds of linux servers, and 1 windows 😀.

I prefer Windows though, you just can't beat it...

 

[Nothinman]

I prefer Windows though, you just can't beat it...

Actually you can, very easily. Especially with the crap that is IIS and Exchange. There's a few things MS did right, like SQL Server and NTFS but those were also the things they bought from someone else...