Red Hat: Stick with Windows at home

[Scarpozzi]

Red Hat's chief executive has said that Linux needs to mature further before home users will get a positive experience from the operating system, saying they should choose Windows instead.

Link

Is he trying to shoot himself in the foot or what? Maybe he's just trying to keep people from switching there and back while they work out bugs on getting more user-friendly installers for everything and getting more of an application base? Who knows. I certainly wouldn't make bad press for myself....

 

[JustMike]

I think that now RedHat has announced that they're getting rid of their desktop environment, he wants to make sure that no other Linux dist gets the business that was once RedHat's. Very poor taste, IMHO.

 

[earthman]

BWAAAAHAAAHAAAAHAAA! That's the stupidest thing I ever heard! Can you imaging Bill Gates saying that Windows isn't ready for the enterprise so you better use Unix for your server? LOL! Amazing. The Linux community is its own worst enemy. They must be rolling in the aisles over at MS. First the SCO lawsuits and now this.

 

[ITJunkie]

This didn't make sense to me either. They sent me an email stating that they will no longer support Redhat v8 and prior versions after 12/31/03. They will end support for v9 at the end of April 2004. Opting instead to focus on the Enterprise.

Whatever...:disgust:

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: JustMike
I think that now RedHat has announced that they're getting rid of their desktop environment, he wants to make sure that no other Linux dist gets the business that was once RedHat's. Very poor taste, IMHO.

I doubt it, even if every Linux desktop out there ran Debian, that would still be great news to RedHat, as long as Linux masketshare increases.

As for why...hell if I know, maybe he's just being honest? Admirable in that case.

 

[Nothinman]

They probably got too many support calls from people calling and asking how to install Quicken on Linux and decided it wasn't worth it. after paying X amount of dollars for RedHat and finding out something doesn't work they probably got pretty pissed.

The Linux community has faired extremely well so far and I really doubt RedHat's bowing out of the desktop light will hurt much in the long run. And with Novell's recent investment in SuSe you never know, there might be a new desktop with more corporate support soon to take their place.

 

[earthman]

Let's hope so.

 

[cleverhandle]

And this is a surprise why? Apart from sunny marketing, nobody important in the business has ever made a real case that Linux is suitable for the average home desktop and home desktop user. There's too much software and too many devices where support is flaky, nonexistant, or technically challenging. Usable for corporate deployments? Sure. For the technical crowd? Absolutely. For Grandma? Well, maybe if you can stop by every now and then to set things up.

But anybody who claims that Linux doesn't require knowledgeable management is a empty-headed zealot. Szulik is just stating the facts.

 

[Spyro]

He is actually quite right about this. Without support for a sickening number of peripherals and complete idiot-friendliness Linux isn't quite ready for the millions of Joe/Jill Bloe computer users out there. Actually when you put it like that windows isn't perfect either. I can't even count the number of times that I've seen windows boxes infested with viruses, cluttered with junk, and in serious need of general maintenance. IMHO, Macs are as foolproof as the computing world gets right now.

 

[Nothinman]

Macs are worse because they have just about the same lacking hardware and software support as Windows and they hide so much from you it's a pain to fix things when you do know what your'e doing.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Macs are worse because they have just about the same lacking hardware and software support as Windows and they hide so much from you it's a pain to fix things when you do know what your'e doing.

For most ATers that's probably the case in some form or another, but Joe/Jill Bloe will probably just call tech support, right?

Of course there are probably a million holes that can be poked in that way of thinking, but I'm trying to play the daemon's advocate right now and I don't think that I'm doing a very good job of it....

 

[civad]

For a change not only did I RTFA, but I RTFA'd twice. And I agree with the guy.
Simple thing: how many users want to play Age of Empires (the only computer game I every play) in the office? So would they care if they would not be able to do so if they used linux?

 

[Nothinman]

Simple thing: how many users want to play Age of Empires (the only computer game I every play) in the office? So would they care if they would not be able to do so if they used linux?

I would, especially when things slow down around the holiday season, we play something every year =) Most of our machines won't even run Q3 very well though so we'll probably end up playing Worms World Party again, now that's a good time heh.

 

[drag]

Linus Torvolds in a intervew said pretty much the same thing. That linux realy isn't ready for the average home user.

It's just the way to look at it in the harshest light possible, althought the Redhat guy could of been a bit more diplomatic about it.


Probably the company have been getting flack and flames about dropping the desktop and moving it to Fedora for a long time now and just got fed up with the whole home-desktop thing right now.


But then again this comes to mind when people say: "Well, would your Grandma be able to use Linux?" or something along the lines.

Along as they know that one icon takes them to the "internet", another one takes them to the "e-mail", and another one takes my Grandpa to the "stock market". Anything beyond that is more then they could handle. So no linux vs windows wouldn't make much of a difference.

 

[chorner]

quite funny; but I think he was just being honest -Red Hat's Cheif- which is credit to him; no that its not painfully obvious Linux doesn't really have a place in the home desktop market in the first place.

I mean, what can you do on Linux that you can't on Windows? Maybe that should be the other way around, as I can think of a million more things I can do in Windows then in Linux -albeit not for free-. If you play more than the Quake series and a couple other OpenGl games or basic Flash games etc. theres no use with Linux except just the fun in getting Linux working fully as Windows is so darn easy. Honestly though, once you install Linux as you're home desktop you're left wondering "ok, well I've got the OS working 100% now ... what the hell can I do with it? .... and what can I do with it that I can't already do in Windows, faster and better?" haha I always end up at that question, then delete it after I become curious again a few distro versions later

Nothing beats Photoshop, Flash MX series, and a game of F12002 CS, DOD, MOHAA then a bit of Worms 3D haha ... shesh, if you went to install those on linux it would take you 2 hours before you got around to loading the bloody thing ... .if you COULD run those on Linux

Linux is pretty useless unless used as a server in a specific config. Linux as a web server is great; Apache, PHP etc. oh wait you can do that in Windows in half the time hehe.

 

[drag]

oh ya. We all know how hard it is to get apache working. And have it patched and up to date, too.

apt-get update
apt-get install apache

Damn that took me 2 hours to type out.

Hmm.. need to edit some photos.

apt-get install gimp

Wow all that effort.

Oh no, I need to install the newest OS, with all the patches and programs aviable! How am I going to do that!?

apt-get upgrade

Oh, whew, glad thats over. At least I didn't have to reboot at any time, since you know the boot times for linux are a killer.

Windows is easy to do stuff that windows makes easy. What ever the designers thought that you'd find important they made easy. Of course your milage may vary. I find windows very slow and awkward to use, but that's just me. Windows is a good gaming platform as far as my uses go, but thats pretty much it.

 

[chorner]

Photoshop, design the latest web layout, and work in Flash bringing in 3DsMax models and converting it to vector graphics ... software for Windows is just so much better. Its so painfully obvious .... there is a reason its not free

Installing apache is easy sure; but its even faster in Windows. Gimp, what the heck kind of junk is that thing? Windows paint with a facelift *belch* and no you don't need to reboot; you just have to sit and wait for the kernel to re-compile ... by the time thats done on my Athlon 3200+ barton, with a gig of RAM I could have booted Windows up atleast 5 times =)

Windows is plain easy for everything .. name one thing thats hard to get up and running reliably on Windows?

Btw, how do you find Windows slow and awkward? The Windows GUI is MUCH faster than your KDE or Gnome GUI's ... also, for the beginner how would you rate Linux on security? Its more vulnerable than a rookie install of Windows without a doubt; its just you hardly hear of Linux being hacked because nobody runs the piece of junk!

Going to the store to pick up a Linux distro must be like "I want the cheapest software I can find ..." take that statement and apply it to anything else in this world, and what do you get? A junk product. You get what you pay for, you really do.

Its about useability, performance, polish and support. Neither of those are Linux's strong points.

Its especially misunderstood that Linux is a good performer; as soon as you slap on your GUI, load up all your drivers and start your programs its actually more sluggish than Windows on the equivalent machine -now use your brain here, and obviously if you're running a good system already you won't notice REALLY the difference in GUI performance between Windows and Linux; now take your average myth that Linux can be run on just about anything; P3 350 with a shitter vid card, load up your GUI and whats the first thing you do? take off all the eye candy, and strip it to bare minimum; even then its still sluggish -. For server use, you don't need a GUI and the command line use will do; so in that respect you get away with less overhead. The only bonus point over Windows.

Linux .... I have always said, its for unempowered geeks who take to the glorified world of theatrical "hackers" and feel empowered by having to use a command prompt; giving them a sense of actually doing something and taking pride in doing such. Granted I will admit running Linux is fun for the first week just because its new, and you get the feeling of "doing more for less"; but past its ego boost Linux smells worse than a rotten fish

If Linux became better than Windows in every way, and it was free .... you can be darned sure I would move over to Linux. Until that day; you have to pay for Windows for a reason. Microsoft isn't rich because they sell crappy software; otherwise Linux, Mac OS, or some other form of OS would be at the top. It makes me laugh how much people are willing to fend for the underdog Fending for the underdog just helps prolong the inherit crappiness of the underdog without doing any good whatsoever; but showing it has user support for being crappy

 

[chorner]

p.s- its pretty sad when Linux users have to "show off" how they can do things just like they can in Windows hahahaha

 

[Nothinman]

Installing apache is easy sure; but its even faster in Windows

If you mean apache performs better in Windows you're delusional. 1.3.x uses fork() which is mind-numbingly slow on Windows compared to unix, 2.0.x uses real threads but it's still too young IMO and AFAIK a lot of things don't work with it yet.

Gimp, what the heck kind of junk is that thing? Windows paint with a facelift *belch*

Hardly, the only thing it's really missing is CMYK editing for publishing and I believe that's being considered for the next development version.

Windows is plain easy for everything .. name one thing thats hard to get up and running reliably on Windows?

IIS, that is if you consider security a part of reliability.

Btw, how do you find Windows slow and awkward? The Windows GUI is MUCH faster than your KDE or Gnome GUI's ...

The responsiveness may be a little quicker but GUIs in general are slower for a lot of things and the milliseconds faster Window's GUI may be doesn't make up for it by a long shot. Maybe I've been tainted because I've been using Linux for so long but I really don't see the speed difference with X so many Windows users cry about.

also, for the beginner how would you rate Linux on security? Its more vulnerable than a rookie install of Windows without a doubt; its just you hardly hear of Linux being hacked because nobody runs the piece of junk!

Hardly. You can't put an unpatched Windows install on the Internet for more than 2min without getting infected with blaster or some other RPC worm, I know multiple people who got infected before they could get a single patch installed. Install a copy of RedHat (or Fedora once it's released) and you'll notice that A) the firewall is on by default with no incoming ports open (something MS decided would be a good idea in XP SP2 which isn't out yet) and B) unless you pick a bunch of server software you don't have any daemons listening to be exploited but with Windows you don't have a choice about the SMB and RPC servers.

You get what you pay for, you really do.

With hardware maybe, because there's physical parts to degrade or be put together poorly but with software it's completely untrue otherwise 2/3 of the Internet's websites wouldn't be running on free Apache. And the best part is that even when you buy something like Windows there's no liability, if a BSOD costs your company millions you can't do anything but reboot and weep because Microsoft's licensing says they're not responsible for any problems the software may cause. You'd think if the software was actually reliable they'd back you a bit for the cash you threw their way, right?

Its about useability, performance, polish and support. Neither of those are Linux's strong points.

And after having to support Windows for many years I can honestly say Windows isn't any better.

now take your average myth that Linux can be run on just about anything; P3 350 with a shitter vid card, load up your GUI and whats the first thing you do? take off all the eye candy, and strip it to bare minimum; even then its still sluggish

Take your average Windows and put it on the same box and what do you do? Nothing, you complain about bootup times and wait for windows to draw because you can't strip it down to anything except what MS decided is best for you.

Linux .... I have always said, its for unempowered geeks who take to the glorified world of theatrical "hackers" and feel empowered by having to use a command prompt;

You mean like all those people working at IBM and Oracle?

Until that day; you have to pay for Windows for a reason. Microsoft isn't rich because they sell crappy software;

No they're rich because they got there first and companies like IBM didn't think consumer level computers would be big. They were wrong and I'm sure they're angry, but not even MS is a great predictor because they were about the last big company to have any real Internet presence, hell they didn't even have their own TCP/IP stack until 1995. If IBM had actually pushed OS/2 against Win311 it would have crushed it because Win311 was terrible, but they didn't and here we are now enduring the sh!t MS pushes out ever year. And Apple never gains market share because their sh!t is too expensive, noone wants to pay $3K for a PC even though it has all around better software.

It's obvious you've got no real experience with Linux other than probably b0rking your MBR installing it a few years ago and now you hold angst towards it. I feel sorry for you, you're missing out on a lot of great free software that IMO works a lot better than anything commercially available. Given a choice between running Windows and all the commercial software you can name and running Linux I'll always choose Linux and the free software that runs on it, it's a no brainer for me and if you'd actually learn the software you'd probably feel the same way.

p.s- its pretty sad when Linux users have to "show off" how they can do things just like they can in Windows hahahaha

What's even sadder than that is people like you running around spewing misinformation about things they obviously know nothing about.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: chorner
p.s- its pretty sad when Linux users have to "show off" how they can do things just like they can in Windows hahahaha

Your not realy that bright, are you?

Linux is much faster for me then Windows. I suppose if you want to try to make linux into a free version of windows, then it will be pretty crappy.

When I talk about how I can do stuff in linux just like windows it is just to show that you are not going to lose out in anything by switching. I can do lots of stuff in Linux that would be a huge pain in the ass or cost hundreds of dollars in Windows.

I use the command line not because I want to be 1337 but because it's much faster and easier to use for me. I am what is known as a touch typist and in the same time that it would take me to left click here and right click there to start file transfers (for instance) I would already be done if I was using the command line. Plus it makes it much easier to replicate commands and automate things since the commands I type can later just be copied and pasted into a bash script.

I could do the same in windows I suppose that would involve buying and install visual basic or scripting or whatever, learning how that works and then learning the scripting functions of the various programs. I just don't care that much about it.

Sure you can try to replicate the functionality of Linux in Windows by going out and spending a couple thousand dollars and buying the advanced server version of w2k, a bunch of visual basic-stuff, spending hours to find a stolen version of photoshop or some more hundreds of dollars to buy it, download and install Mozilla and a bunch of other stuff I use everyday, but that's hardly usefull for me, isn't it?

Of course I do loose out on some major benifits of windows by using linux. Like: blue screens, viruses, worms, spam, annoying pop-ups, insecurities, constant patching, and spy/adware among others.

 

[chsh1ca]

Damn guys, my "Please don't feed the trolls sign" never seems to get any dust on it here in the OS forums...

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: chsh1ca
Damn guys, my "Please don't feed the trolls sign" never seems to get any dust on it here in the OS forums...

I know, but it's kinda fun non-the-less.

 

[xSauronx]

some of you people have too much time to argue with people you dont know....i dont even spend that much time trying to make a point to my wife

on second thought, that may just be because shes a woman...

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: earthman
BWAAAAHAAAHAAAAHAAA! That's the stupidest thing I ever heard! Can you imaging Bill Gates saying that Windows isn't ready for the enterprise so you better use Unix for your server? LOL! Amazing. The Linux community is its own worst enemy. They must be rolling in the aisles over at MS. First the SCO lawsuits and now this.

Hehe, actually they're only snickering at that one. This is what they're rolling in the aisles over.

 

[Nothinman]

Atleast they havn't started a 'software assurance program' then didn't release any new software heh.