Sell or else!!!

[splat]

I remember that big MS stink about OEMs selling computers without OS's on them, but I thought it blew over and nothing came of it. On the other hand, maybe it didn't because even in the Dell linux section, you HAVE to get freedos preinstalled.

at any rate, it's just another tick on the "why I hate MS" list

 

[brakezone]

Do we truly need any more reasons to be aggravated with MS?

In my opinion, it has reached the point where the government does not understand that many of the technically inclined constituents of this country, whom work in information technology or computer science, feel that some sort action must be taken. MS was going to be split up back a few years ago but it was overturned by the supreme court. Why the supreme court would overturn this has no rational to me and is disturbing. When Bush was elected he promptly said that the government would not go after MS at all for anything, and everything went back to normal for MS. We all know bush could care less about Monopolies, in fact he probably likes them.

Lately i've been experimenting with both aero from vista and beryl in gentoo-linux with gnome. I have to say the beryl looks nicer and has more features than vista's aero. Transparency, blurring, shadowing, and bending effects are standard. There are so many cool effects plugins to choose from, I had my windows beaming out like transporters from star trek. It also works with AFR with SLI, allowing a SLI capable system to balance the GPU load; however, it requires so little out of the cards that they do not even heat up. The only issue is that it isn't installed out of the box; however, I would bet someday that it will be in some distro. Beryl can be switched off with a click and has low system overhead, making the linux box feature rich without sucking up all your resources. If you want to run a 3d game or app, you can switch beryl off and regain full power in an instant. I have to say i've never really liked gnome much, but with the addition of the beryl features, I am starting to dig it pretty quickly.

Also, things like UAC just make me laugh when you take into consideration that linux has accomplished the goal of UAC long ago, and then only to realize that UAC is annoying and does not offer anywhere near the same level of security that the linux user system offers. Besides, the acronym is ripped off from doom.

 

[hkgonra]

Do we truly need any more reasons to be aggravated with MS?

In my opinion, it has reached the point where the government does not understand that many of the technically inclined constituents of this country, whom work in information technology or computer science, feel that some sort action must be taken. MS was going to be split up back a few years ago but it was overturned by the supreme court. Why the supreme court would overturn this has no rational to me and is disturbing. When Bush was elected he promptly said that the government would not go after MS at all for anything, and everything went back to normal for MS. We all know bush could care less about Monopolies, in fact he probably likes them.

Lately i've been experimenting with both aero from vista and beryl in gentoo-linux with gnome. I have to say the beryl looks nicer and has more features than vista's aero. Transparency, blurring, shadowing, and bending effects are standard. There are so many cool effects plugins to choose from, I had my windows beaming out like transporters from star trek. It also works with AFR with SLI, allowing a SLI capable system to balance the GPU load; however, it requires so little out of the cards that they do not even heat up. The only issue is that it isn't installed out of the box; however, I would bet someday that it will be in some distro. Beryl can be switched off with a click and has low system overhead, making the linux box feature rich without sucking up all your resources. If you want to run a 3d game or app, you can switch beryl off and regain full power in an instant. I have to say i've never really liked gnome much, but with the addition of the beryl features, I am starting to dig it pretty quickly.

Also, things like UAC just make me laugh when you take into consideration that linux has accomplished the goal of UAC long ago, and then only to realize that UAC is annoying and does not offer anywhere near the same level of security that the linux user system offers. Besides, the acronym is ripped off from doom.

There is no doubt that Beryl looks AWESOME , unfortunately it is as buggy and unstable as it is cool looking.

 

[brakezone]

I haven't had any issues with it so far. Could it be even more buggy than vista :O

Well, it does require that it is properly setup. Hopefully there will be some good distros that make use of it out of the box soonish.

 

[CryptokiD]

for the most part theres no alternative to windows for the average user. i suppose one could buy some sort of mac, but they generally cost alot more than an ibm equivalent.

does anyone here actually believe linux is for the masses? haha . i would love see one of you guys try to teach my dad or sister how to use the terminal to do things. windows is entirely gui based. in windows you dont EVER have to look at a command prompt. its 100% point and click, no critical thinking involved.
where as in linux there is still a significant ammount of terminal use going on which is frusterating to most people. they think of terminals as being from the 80's and early 90's. think "ms-dos" people hate that.

i can tell you guys now the average joe 6 pack wouldnt be able to use linux. he would rather pay the $100-$200 for windows rather than look through support docs and try to figure out how to do something in linux. thats why windows is on almost every consumer desktop that is sold. its easy, point and click, and you dont need to think very hard or remember alot of things.

if linux could ever get to the point where it was close to equalling windows in being an easy to use point and click interface, you can bet that windows popularity would plummet and linux would skyrocket. people are generally cheap skates and the thought of a freedom operating system that also happens to be free is very appealing.
but as we have seen for more than a decade, there isnt an operating system out there that can match it.
they actually give linux away online, in pc mags, etc. and even though linux very low cost it still cant surpass windows.

now gont get me wrong i would love to see linux gain popularity but it is not going to happen untill it becomes as easy to use as windows. im actually typing this from my fedora core 6 box so i hope no one here thinks im just a linux basher. i havent booted into windows in a week or so.

 

[brakezone]

but as we have seen for more than a decade, there isnt an operating system out there that can match it.

Thats because there hasn't ever been any room for competition. You can't believe that vista is the best possible OS, better than what we could have gotten from a competitive software operating system market?

actually give linux away online, in pc mags, etc. and even though linux very low cost it still cant surpass windows.

Linux has to be given away free, its part of its license, its not because its bad. How is it going to surpass windows if it isn't even competing for the same market??? Newsflash, Linux is out there succeeding in the server market. Also, it hasn't yet been marketed to the average joe, it has been for more technical users like yourself.

windows is entirely gui based. in windows you dont EVER have to look at a command prompt. its 100% point and click, no critical thinking involved

Actually, in some distros, such as ubuntu, you can get around pretty well without having to use a terminal. As far as linux being given away for free, its part of its philosophy, not because it is not as good as windows.

does anyone here actually believe linux is for the masses?

How could it be when all the applications the masses need are only exclusively available on windows??

 

[hkgonra]

Newsflash, Linux is out there succeeding in the server market. Also, it hasn't yet been marketed to the average joe, it has been for more technical users like yourself.

It's success in the server market has nothing to do with average joe's.
It has been marketed to average joe's
Wal-Mart ( don't got much more average Joe than that ) has been selling pc's with Linux loaded on it for years.

 

[Kamel]

Are you sure that HP weren't bulls**tting you? There has been quite a lot of publicity recently of people getting refunds from Dell both in the UK and the US. They bought machines which came with windows pre-installed, and because they didn't want to use it they got their money back.

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/01/03/227237

I don't know how many have been successful in doing this.

pretty sure.. i've heard about this too, but the law that was stated to me was about pre-installing OS's, selling them with/without an OS etc. it didn't mention anything about selling an OS then having the person return it because they refused to agree to the TOS etc.

 

[David]

It's success in the server market has nothing to do with average joe's.
It has been marketed to average joe's
Wal-Mart ( don't got much more average Joe than that ) has been selling pc's with Linux loaded on it for years.

Average Joe isn't qualified to make the decision. Average Joe will buy a Vista PC because his previous PC had Windows XP, and the one before that had Windows 9x.

 

[brakezone]

It's success in the server market has nothing to do with average joe's.
It has been marketed to average joe's
Wal-Mart ( don't got much more average Joe than that ) has been selling pc's with Linux loaded on it for years.

Just because the product placement is out at wallmart doesn't mean that the product itself is marketed to the average user. Actually I think that they market it as a cheap, usable, alternative to windows, likely for power users or advanced users.

actually give linux away online, in pc mags, etc. and even though linux very low cost it still cant surpass windows.

When I refer to the server market, I was speaking to this statement, and it is relavent. Linux certainly can surpass windows in many areas, for example, I've seen quake 3 pump out over 1000 fps under linux where windows could only hit 700. The relevancy is related to the fact that the core of linux developers have not developed the product for the average joe, they were not competing in that market, they were not marketing towards the average joe. So what if they throw some linux copies in wallmart in order to make a few bucks, that doesn't mean that linux doesn't have the potential. On my system quake 4 runs faster in linux than windows currently. The state of the nvidia drivers have caught up to windows and SLI is now working well within Linux. It seems to surpass it in some server markets as well. Very few Linux developers are even attempting to aim the product at the average joe. IN marketing, product is just as important as placement. How is it going to surpass windows for the average joe when the vast majority of the product is never designed with the average joe in mind? This is my only point, that the vast majority of its development is not geared towards the average user, and just because a few developers try a product price and placement that will earn them a few dollars, the reason why it has not surpassed windows is not because there is no potential, it is because the development of the product was never meant for the average joe.

 

[hkgonra]

Just because the product placement is out at wallmart doesn't mean that the product itself is marketed to the average user. Actually I think that they market it as a cheap, usable, alternative to windows, likely for power users or advanced users.



When I refer to the server market, I was speaking to this statement, and it is relavent. Linux certainly can surpass windows in many areas, for example, I've seen quake 3 pump out over 1000 fps under linux where windows could only hit 700. On my system quake 4 runs faster in linux than windows currently. The state of the nvidia drivers have caught up to windows and SLI is now working well within Linux. It seems to surpass it in some server markets as well. Very few Linux developers are even attempting to aim the product at the average joe. IN marketing, product is just as important as placement. How is it going to surpass windows for the average joe when it is never marketed to surpass windows on all the points that the average joe cares about? Currently the only thing that it has going for it in that area is price.

I guess what I was getting at is that I know of two major linux distros that almost everything they do is geared towards linux for the masses, Linspire and Ubuntu.

 

[brakezone]

I agree with your point on that

Ubuntu has actually been pretty successful given that it is newish. but I also think that the failure of linux to succeed against windows in the windows market is because the core development is focused on the needs of servers and advanced users.

 

[Esteban]

pretty sure.. i've heard about this too, but the law that was stated to me was about pre-installing OS's, selling them with/without an OS etc. it didn't mention anything about selling an OS then having the person return it because they refused to agree to the TOS etc.

www.novatech.co.uk will sell you any of their systems without an OS. They are a big company, not a high-street PC shop.

Just as a small aside, I used Vista for the first time today, only for a few hours. I must have missed the "WOW" factor bit. Jeez, I wouldn't have wanted to pay people for six years to come up with this as a replacement for XP. Its just XP with buttons in different places and a new theme/skin.

 

[CryptokiD]

Thats because there hasn't ever been any room for competition. You can't believe that vista is the best possible OS, better than what we could have gotten from a competitive software operating system market?



Linux has to be given away free, its part of its license, its not because its bad. How is it going to surpass windows if it isn't even competing for the same market??? Newsflash, Linux is out there succeeding in the server market. Also, it hasn't yet been marketed to the average joe, it has been for more technical users like yourself.



Actually, in some distros, such as ubuntu, you can get around pretty well without having to use a terminal. As far as linux being given away for free, its part of its philosophy, not because it is not as good as windows.



How could it be when all the applications the masses need are only exclusively available on windows??

this is not entirely true although some is.

linus himself has stated on more than 1 occasion his goal is to get linux to the masses. he said something to the effect that "linux is doing well in the server area, but not in the desktop area, we need to fix this".

but untill linux becomes as point and click as windows, that wont happen.

thats why i had said that even though linux is basically free, its still not beating out windows for an average user. people would rather pay to have something easy to use.

 

[CryptokiD]

Just because the product placement is out at wallmart doesn't mean that the product itself is marketed to the average user. Actually I think that they market it as a cheap, usable, alternative to windows, likely for power users or advanced users.



When I refer to the server market, I was speaking to this statement, and it is relavent. Linux certainly can surpass windows in many areas, for example, I've seen quake 3 pump out over 1000 fps under linux where windows could only hit 700. The relevancy is related to the fact that the core of linux developers have not developed the product for the average joe, they were not competing in that market, they were not marketing towards the average joe. So what if they throw some linux copies in wallmart in order to make a few bucks, that doesn't mean that linux doesn't have the potential. On my system quake 4 runs faster in linux than windows currently. The state of the nvidia drivers have caught up to windows and SLI is now working well within Linux. It seems to surpass it in some server markets as well. Very few Linux developers are even attempting to aim the product at the average joe. IN marketing, product is just as important as placement. How is it going to surpass windows for the average joe when the vast majority of the product is never designed with the average joe in mind? This is my only point, that the vast majority of its development is not geared towards the average user, and just because a few developers try a product price and placement that will earn them a few dollars, the reason why it has not surpassed windows is not because there is no potential, it is because the development of the product was never meant for the average joe.

brakezone, you speak of servers but then quake 3's fps? quake 3 has no place on a server. i could give examples of games under linux vs windows, but ill make it easier than that. i cant get 3d games to play at more than 2fps under linux on this box i typing on right now.
but again, this doesnt have anything to do with server.

and linux IS meant for average joe, read my pervious statement concerning linus.

 

[brakezone]

lol linus can say whatever he wants, it's what he does that counts. Anyways, "desktop area" does not necessarily mean for average joes. Of course he *wants* to break into the desktop market but that certainly does not mean that user friendliness is his focus. Basically you are telling me that the creation of Linux was focused on the desktop and the average joe and it was given away for free but failed in comparison to windows. And now you just want me to believe that bit of spin. Thats the only reason why I persist, because the thought that linux was developed intentionally for the average joe is 100% ridiculous.

Just because I speak of servers does not mean that I say that all the development was towards servers anyways. No, actually I was showing you several instances where linux surpasses windows in areas where it was intended to by its developers. I thought I pointed out that I thought the development was aimed at servers and workstations for advanced users. In these areas it succeeds just fine and in my opinion can make a much better system than any windows.

I think efforts like Ubuntu are definitely in the direction of user friendliness but certainly not designed for the most inexperienced computer user that you could possibly conceive of, such as windows vista.

I really don't want to argue about it, so I do admit to see the things that your saying and acknowledge that things are somewhere between what i've been saying and what you've been saying, I just don't think that the focus on user friendliness was all that significant. In many of the distributions I've used, there is definitely resistance to change towards user friendliness.

 

[deathman20]

While I like Vista and would recommend it to anyone with a newer system. I wouldn't force this on people like that. I mean why ya they can sell it with there system but you can almost be sure someone will still sell XP or 2000 on the side for the people to buy up. If anything MS could say give this for free and if they want XP or 2k or something else they will pay extra for that and not get Vista at all. Hmm wonder if that would still get around what MS wants to happen.

Thats pretty bad of them doing it that way but hey thats how MS got to where it is today, cut-throught tactics.

 

[Soichiro]

but untill linux becomes as point and click as windows, that wont happen.

My grandparents are using Gentoo linux with no problems at all, and they like it even more than Windows. I happen to like it too because I don't have to go to their house every other weekend to format and reinstall Windows to get rid of all their spyware.
Of course, they couldn't have installed it on their own, but most Joe Sixpacks can't even install Windows. Take that, point and click interface!

 

[dropadrop]

for the most part theres no alternative to windows for the average user. i suppose one could buy some sort of mac, but they generally cost alot more than an ibm equivalent.

Sure, if all you want is an ugly beige box for as cheap as possible. If however you want something that does not look bad, is very silent you will notice mac's are not that expensive.

I think a Mac Mini is a bargain for the price, I mean you could not really build a pc as powerful, silent and small for less. If you want all those things is a different question all together.

I have not had a windows machine in quite a while now, and the longer it's been, the more amazed I feel whenever I use one (at how bad it sux).

 

[splat]

I agree that Mac OS X is a great alternative, but it's main problem is that it cannot legally be run on anything other than a Mac.