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Poll: When will Linux in general become a major OS contender?
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When will Linux in general become a major OS contender?

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Venemo is offline Venemo
2010-05-06 , 22:19
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#11
Originally Posted by xomm View Post
1. Do you think Linux will ever become a major contender in the OS market?
It's hard to tell. Perhaps in the next 10 or 20 years if Microsoft fails to deliver good OSs.

Originally Posted by xomm View Post
i.e. People in general will seriously consider whether to buy a PC with Windows or Linux?
Those with expertise with computers will, as they do nowadays.

Average people won't, because there is no such thing as "Linux", there are 100s of distributions, all of them claiming to be the right one, and all of them containing different set of bugs.

Originally Posted by xomm View Post
2. If so, when do you think it will?
As soon as it won't require any more effort to install than Windows, and will have compatible alternatives for most of the properitary file formats,
AND it will have a decent development platorm.

Originally Posted by xomm View Post
4. (Purely theoretical) What distribution (from the current set) do you think will come out on top, if any?
No idea. Most of the distributions I tried looked exactly the same, and contained mostly the same applications.
BTW, on launching Firefox, it gave me a kernel panic. No, thanks.
I'll wait and see.

Originally Posted by xomm View Post
I just want to expand on maemo-freak.com's poll, and see what the mindset of this community is. You're encouraged to answer no matter what your computer experience is.
My computer experience is mostly with .NET and web development, but I always try to keep up with most other alternatives as well.



Well, I think this is the part really worth discussing:
Originally Posted by xomm View Post
3. What are the main obstacles?
1) Lack of cooperation, and willingness to help and understand each other.
Most of the Linux people hate the competing distributions more than they hate Windows, for no real reason.

1/a) There is no "Linux" operating system, just hundreds of "distributions", none of which are complete, and all of them claims that is is the best.
It is hard to choose, and after trying out 2 of them (Ubuntu and Fedora) which were equally as buggy, I just didn't bother.

1/b) One of the most important people behind it keeps on arguing about the name of the OS, which is understandable from a personal viewpoint, but it just confuses the average people.

2) Almost complete lack of top-of-the-line development environments and platform.
Most people who develop for Linux still argue about whether to use C or C++ (or some weird interpreted scripting language), while development is WAY easier on Windows.

2/a) While actually, anyone can create a stunning UI for WPF in no time, Linux developers usually assemble their UI with tools similar to (but less functional than) VB6's form editor from 10 years ago. Or WORSE, they create the UI from code.
(Although Qt's QML looks very promising.)

2/b) Most people consider Java and .NET properitary crap not worth caring about, any of the two offers faster, easier and friendlier development experience than native code.
Not to mention that I can run the same code (without recompiling) on any architecture, with the promise of being optimized for that, too.
(Fortunately, Mono is going to change that one day.)


That's it.
All of the above is my personal opinion, and I don't intend to offend and flame anyone with it. If you disagree or think I'm uninformed, I'll be glad if you correct me.

And BTW, I love the freedom that Linux promises (this is why I bought the N900, after all), but I can't use it for any work on my PC.
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Last edited by Venemo; 2010-05-06 at 22:25.
 
AlMehdi is offline AlMehdi
2010-05-06 , 22:22
Posts: 1,751 | Thanked: 844 times | Joined on Feb 2010 @ Sweden
#12
1. By the year 2015 a lot of people will have heard of Linux and are opting to try it out.

2. within 5 years...

3. Conservatism... you know what you have but not what you get. I think it will mainly be a generation thingy. So personalization is important.

4. Ubuntu.. no one els is as stable and complete. And it's easier than Windows. Got my brother to try it out when his Vista died for the second time. I put up a dual boot with Ubuntu and Win7. I showed him the basic stuff.. Now he want me to uninstall win7. Just haven't had time to do it.

Windows will be free of charge eventually and so the office package.. but in the long run it will fail. The browser war is a good example of that. Freedom, extendability and personalization is the winner there.
Last edited by AlMehdi; 2010-05-06 at 22:29.
 
Texrat's Avatar
Texrat is offline Texrat
2010-05-06 , 22:26
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#13
Thread moved. Linux technology is relevant to Maemo so this is topical.

Feel free to start thanking each other.
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ZShakespeare is offline ZShakespeare
2010-05-06 , 22:26
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#14
If you are talking about desktop operating systems the answer is never. In the server room and on embedded devices it's already there.

Edit: I shouldn't say never. If someone takes a Unix system, stops the design by comittee, and manages to solve all the bugs that normal people (grandma) would run into and be unable to solve, while developing grandma usable software that can compete with the offerings available on windows it's possible. See MacOS X as an example of how to do this correctly. Until then it will remain the tool or server admins, developers and hobbyists, and never see mainstream acceptance.
Last edited by ZShakespeare; 2010-05-06 at 22:35.
 
Texrat's Avatar
Texrat is offline Texrat
2010-05-06 , 22:31
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#15
Originally Posted by ZShakespeare View Post
If you are talking about desktop operating systems the answer is never. In the server room and on embedded devices it's already there.
And for mobile: very soon.
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Crashdamage is offline Crashdamage
2010-05-06 , 22:33
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#16
Originally Posted by roundyz View Post
The biggest problem linux faces is business.
What I said. Agree completely. Ordinary people would change, eventually, for something better. Business not just won't - it can't.

Most businesses wont touch free software because of the lack of liability associated with it.
Disagree, mostly. They would be more open to OSS, but ya gotta have standardization.

In business, everyone often needs to use the same software in order to have interoperability or just simply communicate. Try to run a business sending documents in anything but Word or Excel. Ain't happenin'. And that's just simple documents.

Software packages deployed over many locations and many businesses have to be written for a single OS or companies have huge support headaches. That's why even OS-X has near zero support in business software.

...people...over estimate the scale that it's deployment is at. If you then compare this to the reality; many many more machines have windows versions on. Its hard to admit this for a geek...its harder to realise that its entirely likely this won't change.
Exactly.
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AlMehdi is offline AlMehdi
2010-05-06 , 22:38
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#17
Originally Posted by roundyz View Post
The biggest problem linux faces is business. Most businesses wont touch free software because of the lack of liability associated with it. And this is important as businesses need to report the failures. Sure you can get support packages from vendors, but the linux thing is too small to contend. The other issue is that people that use it are caught up in it and over estimate the scale that it's deployment is at. If you then compare this to the reality; many many more machines have windows versions on. Its hard to admit this for a geek (I have used linux for around 10 years now, and I love it to bits...), its harder to realise that its entirely likely this won't change.
This is not entirely true.. Most big businesses develop their own programs so here it would not be a problem. The nasdaq stock exchange moved to linux because of it's stability and so are other businesses.

Small companies will take longer but they will get there too. Too much money to save here. I know a couple of companies who are opting for it but haven't decided yet. Next time they need to upgrade.
 
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mrojas is offline mrojas
2010-05-06 , 22:41
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#18
Originally Posted by Crashdamage View Post
What I said. Agree completely. Ordinary people would change, eventually, for something better. Business not just won't - it can't.


Disagree, mostly. They would be more open to OSS, but ya gotta have standardization.

In business, everyone often needs to use the same software in order to have interoperability or just simply communicate. Try to run a business sending documents in anything but Word or Excel. Ain't happenin'. And that's just simple documents.

Software packages deployed over many locations and many businesses have to be written for a single OS or companies have huge support headaches. That's why even OS-X has near zero support in business software.


Exactly.
On another note, that is why Apple will never see wide-spread deployment in the enterprise. They have some tools, there is people that will bring their Macs to the office and will get to work there, but supporting enterprises is a massive undertaking, one that Apple has nor the infrastructure or the wish to go in (they have enough with the consumer market I think).
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AlMehdi is offline AlMehdi
2010-05-06 , 22:43
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#19
Originally Posted by ZShakespeare View Post
If you are talking about desktop operating systems the answer is never. In the server room and on embedded devices it's already there.

Edit: I shouldn't say never. If someone takes a Unix system, stops the design by comittee, and manages to solve all the bugs that normal people (grandma) would run into and be unable to solve, while developing grandma usable software that can compete with the offerings available on windows it's possible. See MacOS X as an example of how to do this correctly. Until then it will remain the tool or server admins, developers and hobbyists, and never see mainstream acceptance.
My father are running Ubuntu without problems and he do not understand anything about computers. He just use internet and email. My mother was against it at first but doesn't say much about it now. My brother have changed as his Vista machine died on him. So linux is not only for tech savvy ppl.

Edit: ohh.. but my wife is still a windows user. Have not been able to convince her to try yet
Last edited by AlMehdi; 2010-05-06 at 22:49.
 
roundyz is offline roundyz
2010-05-06 , 23:01
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#20
Originally Posted by Venemo View Post
AND it will have a decent development platorm.
Like what? Decent is relevent only to preference. Do you mean tools? (if so, there are lots...)

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post
2) Almost complete lack of top-of-the-line development environments and platform.
Most people who develop for Linux still argue about whether to use C or C++ (or some weird interpreted scripting language), while development is WAY easier on Windows.

2/a) While actually, anyone can create a stunning UI for WPF in no time, Linux developers usually assemble their UI with tools similar to (but less functional than) VB6's form editor from 10 years ago. Or WORSE, they create the UI from code.
(Although Qt's QML looks very promising.)

2/b) Most people consider Java and .NET properitary crap not worth caring about, any of the two offers faster, easier and friendlier development experience than native code.
Not to mention that I can run the same code (without recompiling) on any architecture, with the promise of being optimized for that, too.
[I](Fortunately, Mono is going to change that one day.)
Yerh, just like when it creeped into debian a while back;changed the world then....

People who program for operating systems including Microsoft use c and c++. Its the right speed for the job. And at OS level you see no .net crap. Thats ms not eating thier own dog food.

However Java has other merits and shouldn't be tared with the same brush, they are both languages normally used for business apps.

What would you consider top of the line development environments? Mine is vim, web browser, compiler and a build tool:make or ant.
 
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