Anybody here use Linux?

on Mon January 26 2004 5:45 pm, Sally decided to enlighten us with:

No, of course not but I don't see why it would affect your choice of
distro. I'm British and our forces were/are there as well you know. It
wouldnt make one bit of difference to the distro I choose, the make of
car I drive etc...

I try to boycott, in particular, French products. They way the tried to
stonewall our efforts, only for us to find out the corruption involved and
the deal making despite UN embargo's agains Iraq turns my stomach. I'm not
here to start a political debate about it all, but I'm a staunch Bush
supporter and French products of any kind are not allowed in my house.
German products I'm a little lighter on because they didn't go the extreme
distance France did, but I won't be buying a Mercedes, BMW, or VW anytime
soon either.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
6:22pm up 8:58, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 1.57, 1.88

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

Ruel Smith (Big Daddy) wrote:

Lastly, I do agree that for Linux to really hit the mainstream it needs to
solve the latest/greatest hardware problem. OEM's need to step up to the
plate. I think the corporate desktop boom that'll probably happen the next
2 to 3 years will certainly help, but I think mainstream Linux is at least
5 years away in getting really good OEM driver support for hardware.

When linux reaches a certain market share (5% ?), hardware makers will
not be able to ignore it. They will hire linux hackers for peanuts to
write good drivers (Nvidia is already grabbing about all of the linux
video card market by building a good linux driver). By then the Open
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

Anon wrote:
"JAD" wrote in message
ink.net...

hardware setup and knowing what hardware will work with what distro is

still a big problem for an avg. user.


Well, maybe if you shop the gateways and dells, you've got a problem. If
you built your own, it's highly likely that linux will like it. -Dave

True if you build using a motherboard that was very popular a year and a
half ago and you choose your video card and printer carefully. Obsolete
hardware is cheaper anyway.

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:25:33 -0500, "Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)"
wrote:

on Mon January 26 2004 5:45 pm, Sally decided to enlighten us with:

No, of course not but I don't see why it would affect your choice of
distro. I'm British and our forces were/are there as well you know. It
wouldnt make one bit of difference to the distro I choose, the make of
car I drive etc...

I try to boycott, in particular, French products. They way the tried to
stonewall our efforts, only for us to find out the corruption involved and
the deal making despite UN embargo's agains Iraq turns my stomach. I'm not
here to start a political debate about it all, but I'm a staunch Bush
supporter and French products of any kind are not allowed in my house.
German products I'm a little lighter on because they didn't go the extreme
distance France did, but I won't be buying a Mercedes, BMW, or VW anytime
soon either.

JEEZUUS! Another Bu****e.

gothika wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:25:33 -0500, "Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)"
wrote:


on Mon January 26 2004 5:45 pm, Sally decided to enlighten us with:


No, of course not but I don't see why it would affect your choice of
distro. I'm British and our forces were/are there as well you know. It
wouldnt make one bit of difference to the distro I choose, the make of
car I drive etc...

I try to boycott, in particular, French products. They way the tried to
stonewall our efforts, only for us to find out the corruption involved and
the deal making despite UN embargo's agains Iraq turns my stomach. I'm not
here to start a political debate about it all, but I'm a staunch Bush
supporter and French products of any kind are not allowed in my house.
German products I'm a little lighter on because they didn't go the extreme
distance France did, but I won't be buying a Mercedes, BMW, or VW anytime
soon either.


JEEZUUS! Another Bu****e.

And one with a Sesame Street level grasp of politics. Schroder actually
won an election on an anti-US platform and she thinks France was more
against the US! The US just decided that it could afford a fall out with
France more than it could with Germany or Russia and so painted France
as the main opponent. Anyone who takes this 'I boycott French products
but not German/Russian' might as well just buy an 'IQ80' hat and be
done with it.

Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

5 years and windows will be buried? matt you are the optimist


"Matt" wrote in message ...
Ruel Smith (Big Daddy) wrote:

Lastly, I do agree that for Linux to really hit the mainstream it needs to
solve the latest/greatest hardware problem. OEM's need to step up to the
plate. I think the corporate desktop boom that'll probably happen the next
2 to 3 years will certainly help, but I think mainstream Linux is at least
5 years away in getting really good OEM driver support for hardware.

When linux reaches a certain market share (5% ?), hardware makers will
not be able to ignore it. They will hire linux hackers for peanuts to
write good drivers (Nvidia is already grabbing about all of the linux
video card market by building a good linux driver). By then the Open
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

Obsolete
hardware is cheaper anyway.

This is a positive for moving to nux?

"Matt" wrote in message ...
Anon wrote:
"JAD" wrote in message
ink.net...

hardware setup and knowing what hardware will work with what distro is

still a big problem for an avg. user.


Well, maybe if you shop the gateways and dells, you've got a problem. If
you built your own, it's highly likely that linux will like it. -Dave

True if you build using a motherboard that was very popular a year and a
half ago and you choose your video card and printer carefully.

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 21:53:20 GMT, "Anon" wrote:

In other words, pay a hundred bucks for a sixty buck drive, mail in the
rebate, do EVERYTHING RIGHT, get the rebate rejected, end up paying
forty
bucks more than you should. No thanks. -Dave

What is this whole rebate thing? I live in the UK, I'm guessing its a US
thing right?

Steve

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____ "after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away for
the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is that
you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming rebates.
These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

I've never had any problem getting a rebate. Yes, it's kinds a scam,
as they are counting on a large percentage of people to not bother
mailing it in.

Stores (such as Best Buy, Compusa, etc) will print up a seperate
receipt for rebatable (?!?) items.

Yeah, it's kinds a scam, but I have yet to have a rebate refused.

BTW, where can I see where you got that 50% number you quoted.

DYM

True if you build using a motherboard that was very popular a year and a
half ago and you choose your video card and printer carefully. Obsolete
hardware is cheaper anyway.



I don't build obsolete hardware. I've never had a problem installing linux
on any machine I've tried, including various notebooks that were brand new,
and not last year's model. I think you are confused. What linux has a
problem with is not obsolete but rather "cheap". For example, for a long
time linux would not work with winmodems. So if you paid less than a
certain amount of money for a brand new, current model modem, linux would
probably not recognize it. But even that is no longer true. -Dave

JAD wrote:
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

5 years and windows will be buried? matt you are the optimist


"Matt" wrote in message ...

Ruel Smith (Big Daddy) wrote:


Lastly, I do agree that for Linux to really hit the mainstream it needs to
solve the latest/greatest hardware problem. OEM's need to step up to the
plate. I think the corporate desktop boom that'll probably happen the next
2 to 3 years will certainly help, but I think mainstream Linux is at least
5 years away in getting really good OEM driver support for hardware.

When linux reaches a certain market share (5% ?), hardware makers will
not be able to ignore it. They will hire linux hackers for peanuts to
write good drivers (Nvidia is already grabbing about all of the linux
video card market by building a good linux driver). By then the Open
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.


I don't think it's unrealistic to expect something like a steep sigmoid
curve for linux market share. Maybe 25% of computers are replaced each
year. If half of those buyers switch from Windows to Linux, that is
about a 10% annual gain. My crystal ball indicates something like:

2007 5%
2008 8%
2009 12%
2010 20%
2011 30%
2012 40%
2013 49%
2014 57%
2015 64%
2016 70%
2017 74%
2018 77%
2019 79%

These numbers are extremely speculative. Can somebody point to some
reliable statistics on the the growth of linux?