A while back, M$ trumpeted the news that the London Stock Exchange was using Lose 2003. Here is the result. They crashed and were off the air for over 6 hours. Makes my little problems with a memory leak in a print server by M$ seem tame. I can predict my crashes and reboot… The LSE has a pool of IT talent and they took hours to get things running. Rebooting 100 servers does take time…
The fact is that if you rely on computers (Who does not these days?) you should not rely on M$ to provide the software. It is too complex, bloated and impossible to debug in a finite length of time.
I am system administrator of a tiny system with 7 servers. In four weeks we have had 2 system-wide failures to share files, three failures to print and several wierd incidents involving “profiles”. Instead of having the whole system run smoothly on one or two servers, it has evolved into a monster which no one can fix. I could replace all its functions in a weekend but users are afraid of change. Better the devil you know than a new OS… Instead of typing passwords a few times a day, I am typing ctrl-alt-delete and passwords all day long and all I can do is watch it fail. My latest estimate is 72 hours to failure. Should I reboot tonight or gather more data?
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Dude. Wake up. There is little doubt that Linux is a failure on the desktop. This is seen by how the consumers as a whole have completely rejected Linux and it now enjoys 0.83% market share. Let put things in perspective :
XP has around ~70% and Vista has ~18% market share – 3x as much as OSX. (PPC & Intel combined) The next closest competitor is Windows 2000 (1.9%) and then Linux at 0.83%. Windows 2000 is about 10 years old now and people have stopped buying it for quite a while. Just to underline what I’m trying to say, NT4 has 0.72% market share and the IPhone has 0.30%.
The common excuse from the FOSS camp for the dismal failure is.
1. Microsoft is forcing vendors to ship with Vista. The truth is this hasnt been true for about a decade or so. Due to the antitrust rulings MS is forbidden to have lock-in deals with OEMs or even ship **ANYTHING** of value with windows. You get tons free software installed by default with any popular Linux distro. Also keep in mind that linux has a higher market share in servers (~25-30%) where Microsoft also operates. One would think if MS wanted to stop linux from shipping, it could easily have. Now IIS is poised to overtake linux/apache soon in the webserver market. Dont believe me, do your own research.
2. No Major OEM support. This is false again. Dell, IBM, HP, Asus etc have for quite a while now offered Linux desktops / laptops. Lenovo has recently decided to stop offering desktop linux citing lack of interest.
Now, keep in mind that a TON of money (almost 1 billion) has been pumped into Linux by IBM, Novell, Redhat, etc. This is not a small amount.
Also keep in mind that a lot of linux users are strongly anti-microsoft and are famous in spreading FUD or half-truths and in some cases flat out lies about MS products. Compared to the number of microsoft users, only about 5% even visit forums.
Linux has enjoyed fairly positive press but MS in recent times has been criticized a heck of a lot. Whether that is valid or not is not important now.
When you know all these facts, the logical conclusion is that users have rejected the linux OS. The reason – Linux sucks
Dude, let us assume your numbers for that other OS are correct, about 90%. Apple’s own figures show they own abut 3% of PC production. That leaves 7% for GNU/Linux.
I question the 90% number. It is probably correct in North America/Europe where M$ has established a monopoly but it is not true for the rest of the world where there are still folks who have never used a PC before buying their first machine. They are not locked-in. They do not have expensive M$-only apps or databases they can only access from M$. They largely choose on price and all the big OEMs are selling GNU/Linux pre-installed on PCs to those folks. That is where the growth in PC and GNU/Linux use is.
ASUS and others are having a hard time keeping up with production of the new netbooks with GNU/Linux because Intel and other suppliers did not build sufficient capacity. By the end of this year, those problems should be gone and GNU/Linux will really ramp up.
In your own figures from NetApplications, GNU/Linux is growing more than 50% per year. In the rest of the world it is near 100% per annum. Get the facts, dude. NetApplications does not cover the world well, and is heavily weighted on North America/Europe.
It does frustrate me that in North America, many see no problem with M$ even though they pay more than they should for software, security, upgrading, etc. I do not like paying taxes and can pay less by using GNU/Linux. Everyone I have shown GNU/Linux likes it. I used to go to places where no one knew about GNU/Linux. Now, wherever I go I find people already using it. People have not rejected GNU/Linux. Those not using it have largely been unaware of the choice. Now that retailers have started selling GNU/Linux that will change.
>Everyone I have shown GNU/Linux likes it.
Why not let them use it and find out for themselves? Looking at the chaos on linux forums, Your anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.
>People have not rejected GNU/Linux. Those not using it have largely been unaware of the choice. Now that retailers have started selling GNU/Linux that will change.
So after pumping in $1 billion into Linux, you’re saying nobody has even heard of it? I mean, wow. If that’s not failure I don’t know what is. It has been possible for quite a while to get a linux desktop from online retailers.
I dont know why its so hard for you to see that people *want* windows. They want to go to the store and buy quality software :photoshop, pagemaker, exchange, word, powerpoint, maya, visual studio. Not to mention .. games. By and large GPL-ed software is unintuitive and doesn’t have the same polish as commercial software. Linux software is often “work in progress”. The users are used as guinea pigs for testing (a horrible idea) there is no real sense of direction because there is not management. Developers aren’t the best people to come up with design ideas, documents, ui guidelines. In most cases they will make software that only other developers will appreciate.
Business stay away from linux because there are no standards anywhere in play. Whats funny is the entire linux community keeps making it harder and harder for commercial software vendors to ship anything on linux. There is no guarantee of one piece of software that works on 1 distribution to work on another. The lsb is pretty much a joke at this point and the shared library system is borked beyond repair. This was fine when HDD space was a premium, but right now it doesn’t make sense at all. Then there is the unstable kernel abi/api. Some of the design choices made in the kernel were completely stupid. like the idea to move drivers into kernel code. i mean forcing users to upgrade critical system components just because they bought a new soundcard or video card is absurd.
After all that the lies on this site is astounding. It looks like you dont like NT only because microsoft made it. while thats a fair position to take, Its hard to believe youre an educator. It could be that you have no clue about the NT kernel. I’m a software developer working with both linux and windows and while the NT design has some quirks, its one of the best hybrid kernel designs. You might be interested in reading the kernel whitepapers about the reasoning behind the NT kernel design. you would be amazed and the modularity and simplicity of the NT kernel. windows is just a subsystem in the kernel, NT can run both a full UNIX subsystem a win32 subsystem at the same time. NT can support two completely different driver models at the same time. (XPDM, WDDM) I mean, criticize MS all you want, but NT is a brilliant piece of engineering coming from some of the best known OS theories of the 90′s.
IBM spent a billion dollars not to spread desktop GNU/Linux but to make money largely supplying business services. They have recouped their investment several times over and are using GNU/Linux widely internally. They do not advertise to the guy in the street. The only GNU/Linux TV ads you will find are about servers and, in the beginning, about GNU/Linux as a new thing. Businesses know about GNU/Linux and most businesses use it somewhere in the organization.
The brilliance in that other OS is not about quality. People have known how to make good software for many years. Good software does not crash on its own or admit malware/unauthorized hackers. Look at IE. US-CERT actually recommended people not use it because it was so full of holes at one point. Why did M$ need US-CERT to tell it to improve the product? Because most people associate the blue “e” with the Internet and did not bother to switch. When FireFox took off M$ did its best to catch up.
Brilliant? I have a 2003 file/print server that crashes weekly. The only clue M$ gives me is when it is too late to do anything but cycle the power. I have to check the PF usage daily to prevent unplanned crashes. Brilliant, eh? BTW, the crash happens when the PF still has 700 MB free. M$ squanders resources. How brilliant is that and why does the print server have 400 MB of PF usage on boot-up? M$ squanders resources. Why does a file/print server even have a GUI? M$ squanders resources. We need our machines to share files and print, not crash.
The system I administer at work was set up by a M$-whiz who is on sabbatical leave. He had to work 15 hours a week to keep it running. He has 7 servers idling to do the job. I could do it with 1 running GNU/Linux or maybe 2 for more redundancy. Brilliant, eh? One needs three times as many servers to do the job with that other OS as GNU/Linux.
Then, we get to the desktop. This system has the desktop wound up so tight nothing can go wrong, or right, either. It takes 2 minutes to boot some machines because there is so much stuff preloaded so that M$ can claim the machines are quick. So the machines were left running 24 hours so they never had to boot and power is diesel generated and oil prices are sky-high. Brilliant, eh? I took an 8 year old 450 MHz doorstop and using it as a thin client of a newer GNU/Linux terminal server can get folks to log in or start OpenOffice.org in 2s. That is the right way to use old machines, not running XP on 2003.
The world had figured out how to keep XP running and the brilliant folks at M$ decided to completely change the game, scrap everything and produced Vista, a dog. Brilliant, eh? Only if the marketing department controls engineering.
I prefer an OS not run by marketing. I get an OS in GNU/Linux that works for me not against me.
Yesterday, I had a student misbehaving in the lab. I disabled his account and he was able to keep running XP until the end of class. Brilliant, eh? With GNU/Linux, I can log him out in an instant and disable login. See how useless XP is for a teacher? No control of students, no control of resources, just tons of menus to poke through. I do not have the time. GNU/Linux works for me.
BTW, at work, my desktop machine runs XP and has needed to reboot twice in one month. Brilliant, eh? My old GNU/Linux terminal server can run months with many simultaneous users. That is brilliant. Shared libraries allow a GNU/Linux terminal server to run two or three times as many processes as M$’s terminal server. That is brilliant. I can install an application used on a hundred terminals in seconds with one command. That is brilliant. I can run the same command on a hundred machines if I want instantly. That is brilliant.
That some people feel they need M$ is not a figure of merit of the software. It is a product of social engineering at which M$ is brilliant. However, that does not work for the emerging markets who demand lowest cost computing to enter the market. By the time M$ comes out with VIsta II, the world of IT will be a quite different place. US companies who use M$ may well find themselves at a competitive disadvantage to off-shore firms running GNU/Linux more economically. If the US wishes to compete in IT they had better diversify soon or they will lose the lead they won by being brilliant. Leads are not maintained by monopoly, only kept longer. The monopoly is gone. The lead will go soon now unless the US adopts GNU/Linux and other free software.
If GNU/Linux cannot make it on the desktop, why are ASUS and the other netbook makers not able to keep up with demand? Why are the top sellers on amazon.com running GNU/Linux?
Come out of your cave. See the light.
MAN. There is so much misinformation in your comment that you truly need a history lesson. I don’t have time to hold your hand.
Anyway if you’re incapable of administering windows machines, just come out and say that. There is no need to lie. Every day hundreds of thousands of corporate desktops are being managed by windows servers. Without any crashes. I wonder why.
Every day people millions of people work with windows technologies, and they don’t suck. If you cant see that, I guess you’re the one in the cave.
I know of several businesses who tried to get their users to use Linux, but were rudely shocked when they couldn’t even get simple things like double sided printing to work. Linux has huge, huge problems. I’m not going to list all of them. You should probably know that.
I have administered many XP/2003 systems and had few problems except when SP2 clobbered lots of apps.
How then do you cure a memory leak in 2003? I do not have the time to monitor process lists/memory usages all day long. I take a peek several times a day and the PF usages climbs predictably day by day as the system is used and I have seen no particular process that triggers it. I restarted “service” and saw a temporary drop in PF usage but I have a working system. I cannot test each component without annoying users. I did not create the system and my instructions are to keep it going and not to change it so I expect this behaviour to continue. Fun, eh?
I have shown many people GNU/Linux over the year and the vast majority like it just fine. They found no huge problems. I took care of anything at the installation which is what pre-installation does at the retail level.
For example, a new student came in today and said he did not want to be in my class because he did not like computers. When pressured as to why, he said they were slow. I took him over to an 8 year old PC used as a thin client to my 4 year old terminal server. It rocked. He was sold. He was poking around the menu of OpenOffice.org in minutes and having never seen a spreadsheet before was doing useful stuff. I see things like that every year but this was an especially good experience I had to share. I have introduced GNU/Linux to Grade 1-12 students and they all enjoyed the experience.
Last year I converted a lab to dual boot (XP from the hard drive and Debian Etch via X from a Xeon server). This year, a new teacher took over. I got an e-mail today. Elementary students showed the teacher how to access XP or Debian and the students went from one to the other as needed. The new teacher knows nothing about GNU/Linux except the instructions I left in the desk. The system is usable by ordinary folks doing extraordinary things. It just works. The terminal server gives better performance for everything compared to XP except full-screen video and IE-only websites. That’s from side by side tests on identical client PCs. Kids love it. I love it.
Look. You have to make a choice here.
1> Continue talking about *your* problems with windows, *your” issues with microsoft, *your* opinions about windows or microsoft.
2> Talk about the big picture, talk objectively about linux design, or the _fact_ that just because people can see the source that automatically the quality is going to improve. or about OSS’ deeply flawed business model. or so many other things.
If you choose 1, This entire thread is stupid, and I’m gone. I don’t care about your problems at all. Besides it looks like you’re arguing skills are stuck at 2nd grade level. Everyone criticizing linux is not an employee of microsoft or even cares about ms, they may not even like ms. Maybe you’re so paranoid that everytime someone criticises your beloved OS, the primitive us vs them mentality comes out.
…interesting to read of your teaching career…I didn’t realize you were so well-travelled. Maura and I have surfaced in Pauingassi this year… they are presently planning to hire a ‘substitute’ teacher for the gr. 8/9 classroom [apparently the teacher who was / is [?] hired had car trouble in late August in N. ON. … go figure. The school, and teacherages are 3 years old and are the best we’ve been in for maintenance / cleanliness. There is no graffiti inside, and precious little outside. We got here on Aug. 28, and have yet to hear a student swear. The staff seems relatively normal… the principal upfront and reasonable. But… on the other hand we found the principal you give good marks to, to be a lazy, incompetent liar… so, who’s to say ??? You were brought back to mind because on our few short walks in and near the community I’ve seen many mushrooms… ‘way more than in Shamattawa. Regards, Owen Wilson.
@xenon155
The big picture is that lots of people have problems with M$. I am not alone in that. I estimated last year that 7% of desktops ran GNU/Linux. With a year of netbooks almost past, it could be about 10%. The original idea of that other OS is that it would be ubiquitous and easy to use. It has evolved into a monster that squanders resources and exposes all who use it to malware/upgrading costs/sluggish performance. I choose GNU/Linux because it works for me and 100 million others. ‘Bye.
Unlike @xenon155, I’m one of the 100 million others.
My experience with Linux started about ten years ago when I needed to “can” my company website to put on a computer in a booth at a convention (where there was no internet access). I installed Apache on a W98 computer — and found none of the security on the website worked. So I went down to my local MicroCenter, and picked up a copy of Red Hat 6.0. I had it running the website on the same computer in half a day.
Today, I use Windows as little as possible. At home I have a computer running Ubuntu 8.04; at work I have one running Gentoo, one running OpenSuse, and one running RHEL (some software only runs on specific distros). My laptop dual boots Gentoo and Windows XP, but I only use XP for doing my taxes once a year. I haven’t yet found tax software that runs reliably under Wine.
Recently, Microsoft converted my daughter (a librarian) to using Linux, by automatically updating her AMD laptop with Intel drivers. She brought it to me to diagnose the problem. After checking the hardware thoroughly with Linux-based diagnostic software, I reconfigured it to dual boot XP and Ubuntu 8.04, doing the best I could to get XP functioning in a usable fashion. Now she only uses Ubuntu, and complains about the Windows computers she has to use at the library.
Yes, that other OS is a fragile house-of-cards. It is a pity so many people are trapped into using it.