Thoughts on Vista

Mxsmanic wrote:
Matt writes:


Please name the 1960's apps that run in 4KB and do what future apps
can't do in 4GB.


The list is quite long. I wrote a terminal emulator myself that was
only 3 KB in size, and that was a lot more recent than the 1960s.
Ironically, I wrote it specifically to disprove the assertions of
someone very much like yourself who insisted that it was impossible to
write a terminal emulator that could support 38,400 bps on a 386.

I've never made any such claim.

Most terminal emulators today require ten thousand times as much
memory. They only require it because they are so poorly written.

I made another interesting discovery not long ago. My standard FTP
program, SecureFX, is a Windows-based program, and when I transfer
large files between two machines on my LAN via 100 Mbps Ethernet, it
consumes about 80% of the processor time available on the machine.
One day I noticed that even though SecureFX was chewing through 80% of
a processor, the other machine in the transfer, a UNIX server with a
nearly identical hardware configuration, was using barely two percent
of a processor. I decided to stop using SecureFX and run the same
transfer with the simple command-based FTP client packaged with
Windows. The resulting transfer ran even faster, and instead of using
80% of the Windows machine, it used only about 3%.

Can you say "bloated"?


Yes, but I am still waiting for you to name one or a few from the long list.

Matt wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

Let's see the bullet points for Ubuntu.

"Ubuntu will always be free of charge."

That's a good point. People like free things, usually. I mean, if it
doesn't create other problems.

" Ubuntu includes the very best in translations and accessibility
infrastructure... to make Ubuntu usable by as many people as possible."

That's good. Not really so important to the user once he's got
something in his language though. I mean, very few people brag that
someone in Outer Mongolia can get a copy in his language too. They're
usually more concerned with whether it works and does it play DVDs? Or
run their favorite game, or whatever they intend to *use* it for.


It implies an expanding base for Ubuntu and Linux,

Well, it implies they'd *like* to expand anyway but little else unless you
think being able to read it is the only criteria for O.S. success.

and a shrinking one
for Microsoft.

That conclusion is just as irrational as suggesting that since Windows is
available in lots of languages that Linux's market is shrinking.

It indicates that it won't be just large concerns such
as Brazil and Munich and Bergen, Norway that will switch away from
Microsoft.

It doesn't 'indicate' that even *one* 'concern' will 'switch', merely that
they hope so and are taking at least one measure to improve the odds.

In one particular, it implies better hardware support in all
Linuxes.

How in the world do you come up with translating text from English to
Ukranian as "better hardware support?"

It is an attack on Gates's economy of scale.

Perhaps but a product must first have sellable features before volume
'scale' has any impact and just planning to sell a lot, and making plans
(like languages) to sell a lot, doesn't automatically, pardon the pun,
translate into selling a lot. Or, in their case, giving away a lot.

It is important
in showing the user that Ubuntu and Linux have a future.

Hope is not success and the business world is littered with the left over
flotsam of products that were all ready to 'have a future', but didn't.


" Ubuntu is released regularly and predictably; a new release is made
every six months. You can use the current stable release or the
current development release. Each release is supported for at least 18
months."

Now THAT one is fascinating. If it's so good and 'stable' what's the
point of a new release every 6 months? Sounds a lot like a 'regular'
service pack schedule.


And folks doing serious work don't want 'development releases'.


People doing serious work will be reassured when they see development
releases, knowing that development is continuous and collaborative, even
though they won't need to use those releases.

People doing serious work are reassured by a product that works and is
stable, not in knowing they face a new bug cycle every 6 months.


And the 'support for at least 18 months'... My goodness, some folks in
here went positively berserk with MS saying they'd support XP for at
least two years after Vista comes out (about a year off), and that's
for an O.S. that's already been in service since 2002. That's what? 7
years? So users are going to fall all over themselves seeking 18 month
support vs 7 years?


Why are people upset at having to switch to Vista?

I don't know of anyone who 'has' to switch.

I suppose switching
from W98SE to XP meant that you needed to buy new apps (Office?),

Besides no one 'having' to switch your supposition is incorrect.

and XP
itself is expensive unless you buy it with new hardware. So they
remember having to buy new hardware and new apps when 98 support
stopped?

For one, Windows98 support just ended mid this year. That's 8 years after
introduction vs the Ubuntu 18 month 'guarantee'.

Secondly, you're complaining Windows users 'must upgrade' after some number
of years when you 'must upgrade' Ubuntu at least every 18 months, to stay
in 'support'.

Lastly, I've got Windows98 systems that will remain Windows98 systems
because they do what they were intended to do.

They know they shouldn't run a network-connected unsupported
XP for fear of chronic security problems. If MS keeps that two-year
deadline, everybody buying low-end hardware today will have to replace
it (and their apps?) three years from now if they want to stay with MS.
Those buying XP now will get three years use out of it

Twice the maximum Ubuntu 'support' schedule.

whereas those
buying in 2001 will get eight years' use.

Five times the maximum Ubuntu 'support' schedule.

And if all of this is true,
still Vista won't do much more than XP. All this argues for 2009 being
a good year for Linux.

There is no need to 'upgrade' a working O.S. and at the time Vista comes
out the user has the choice of either with XP still offering a 2 year
support schedule, 6 months longer than Ubuntu.


Ubuntu 6.0.6 (released June 1, '06) is to be supported for three years
for desktop versions and five years for server versions.

Maybe they're beginning to realize that bragging about 18 month support
when Windows is hitting 8 year support time frames isn't a terrific selling
point.

Which is a good place to mention that Ubuntu support, past self help
techniques, isn't 'free'.


I have
switched to new RedHat and Fedora distros several times in the past few
years, and I can't say it is too tough.

That's the kind of mindset I expected from a Linux advocate and one of the
biggest impediments to Linux 'taking over the desktop' as most users want
to get on with whatever tasks they got the computer for, not perpetually
upgrade, patch, and tinker with the O.S.... even to the point of
complaining if an automatically downloaded and automatically installed
security patch takes so much as 3 minutes out of their time for a reboot.
Yet you think switching and installing different distros 'several times',
with the attendant risk/turmoil', is routine.


What's notably missing is any commitment to 'user friendly' or any
philosophy of the O.S. itself, again I mean in user terms.


I hope you keep a spare machine or disk or partition where you can play
with different OSes. You would find that Ubuntu is easy. For instance,
I was able to use a Mustek scanner with Ubuntu easily whereas I couldn't
get it to work with XP.

My old Mustek scanner works on XP.

At any rate, the issue isn't whether I, or you, think Ubuntu is 'easy' it's
whether it's easy for the average user and unless Ubuntu is so different
from Linux as to no longer be Linux it isn't.

David Maynard wrote:

Matt wrote:


I have
switched to new RedHat and Fedora distros several times in the
past few years, and I can't say it is too tough.

That's the kind of mindset I expected from a Linux advocate and
one of the biggest impediments to Linux 'taking over the desktop'
as most users want to get on with whatever tasks they got the
computer for, not perpetually upgrade, patch, and tinker with the
O.S....

The biggest impediment to Linux taking over the desktop is the
applications barrier to entry that gives Microsoft monopoly power
over the desktop operating system market. Programmers write for
Windows because consumers buy it. Consumers buy Windows because
programmers write for it. It's called a "positive feedback loop" and
that's what keeps Windows the only viable personal computer
operating system.

John Doe writes:

The biggest impediment to Linux taking over the desktop is the
applications barrier to entry that gives Microsoft monopoly power
over the desktop operating system market.

No, the biggest impediment is the Linux community itself, which
stubbornly insists on following its own, warped agenda in the puerile
beliefs that somehow ignoring the rest of the world is okay and
eventually the rest of the world will spontaneously adopt the Linux
mindset. That hasn't happened yet, and it isn't going to happen, so
Linux is dead in the water unless some major changes occur.

This is further complicated by the fact that Linux is a very poor
choice for the desktop to begin with. It's a clone of a 40-year-old
timesharing OS ... hardly the first architecture one would choose for
a desktop.

Programmers write for Windows because consumers buy it.

Yes.

Consumers buy Windows because programmers write for it.

Yes.

It's called a "positive feedback loop" and
that's what keeps Windows the only viable personal computer
operating system.

Yes. But even if this did not exist, Linux will still have tough
going, and it's the fault of the Linux community itself, as I have
explained. If Windows disappeared tomorrow, the Mac would take its
place, not Linux.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Windows 9x weren't good PC operating systems either. I wouldn't
argue whether Linux would be a good PC operating system because it
isn't a PC operating system. Linux is a server operating system and
the Linux community are server operators. The argument whether Linux
or Apple would be a good PC operating system is moot because they
are not going to have a chance in the foreseeable future.


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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 04:05:57 -0500
From: Mxsmanic mxsmanic gmail.com
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Subject: Thoughts on Vista
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:05:56 +0200
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John Doe writes:

The biggest impediment to Linux taking over the desktop is the
applications barrier to entry that gives Microsoft monopoly power
over the desktop operating system market.

No, the biggest impediment is the Linux community itself, which
stubbornly insists on following its own, warped agenda in the puerile
beliefs that somehow ignoring the rest of the world is okay and
eventually the rest of the world will spontaneously adopt the Linux
mindset. That hasn't happened yet, and it isn't going to happen, so
Linux is dead in the water unless some major changes occur.

This is further complicated by the fact that Linux is a very poor
choice for the desktop to begin with. It's a clone of a 40-year-old
timesharing OS ... hardly the first architecture one would choose for
a desktop.

Programmers write for Windows because consumers buy it.

Yes.

Consumers buy Windows because programmers write for it.

Yes.

It's called a "positive feedback loop" and
that's what keeps Windows the only viable personal computer
operating system.

Yes. But even if this did not exist, Linux will still have tough
going, and it's the fault of the Linux community itself, as I have
explained. If Windows disappeared tomorrow, the Mac would take its
place, not Linux.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

John Doe writes:

Windows 9x weren't good PC operating systems either.

True. I went directly from Windows 3.1 to Windows NT, as there was no
advantage to running Windows 95 for me (I didn't play games, and my
machine was large enough to run NT).

I wouldn't
argue whether Linux would be a good PC operating system because it
isn't a PC operating system. Linux is a server operating system and
the Linux community are server operators.

A lot of people in the Linux community wouldn't recognize a server if
it fell on them. I agree that Linux is best as a server OS, but a lot
of Linux fans don't know that, or refuse to accept it. They want a
Windows clone, period.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

I wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

" Ubuntu includes the very best in translations and accessibility infrastructure... to make Ubuntu usable by as many people as possible."

That's good. Not really so important to the user once he's got something in his language though. I mean, very few people brag that someone in Outer Mongolia can get a copy in his language too. They're usually more concerned with whether it works and does it play DVDs? Or run their favorite game, or whatever they intend to *use* it for.


It implies an expanding base for Ubuntu and Linux, and a shrinking one for Microsoft. It indicates that it won't be just large concerns such as Brazil and Munich and Bergen, Norway that will switch away from Microsoft. In one particular, it implies better hardware support in all Linuxes. It is an attack on Gates's economy of scale. It is important in showing the user that Ubuntu and Linux have a future.

David Maynard wrote:

In one particular, it implies better hardware support in all Linuxes.


How in the world do you come up with translating text from English to
Ukranian as "better hardware support?"

I don't believe that you are that dense.

/-----/

Pretty disappointed in your reply.

If you read what is happening with Linux and other free software and
Microsoft worldwide, you begin to see a trend ...

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 08:53:53 GMT, John Doe
wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

Matt wrote:


I have
switched to new RedHat and Fedora distros several times in the
past few years, and I can't say it is too tough.

That's the kind of mindset I expected from a Linux advocate and
one of the biggest impediments to Linux 'taking over the desktop'
as most users want to get on with whatever tasks they got the
computer for, not perpetually upgrade, patch, and tinker with the
O.S....

The biggest impediment to Linux taking over the desktop is the
applications barrier to entry that gives Microsoft monopoly power
over the desktop operating system market. Programmers write for
Windows because consumers buy it. Consumers buy Windows because
programmers write for it. It's called a "positive feedback loop" and
that's what keeps Windows the only viable personal computer
operating system.

I don't agree. I have installed various flavors of Linux on quite a
few machines. I run into problems most of the time, as basic as the
installer not being able to drive a normal CD-ROM drive. Then I find
a lot of bugs in the UI. Linux isn't ready for the mass market. It's
usable, however, and it's getting better all the time. From what I
understand, Vista is loaded with serious problems, and I think Linux
will get some wind from that situation at Microsoft's expense.

Charlie

Matt writes:

If you read what is happening with Linux and other free software and
Microsoft worldwide, you begin to see a trend ...

All I see is the status quo. What do you see?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Matt wrote:

I wrote:

David Maynard wrote:


" Ubuntu includes the very best in translations and accessibility
infrastructure... to make Ubuntu usable by as many people as possible."

That's good. Not really so important to the user once he's got
something in his language though. I mean, very few people brag that
someone in Outer Mongolia can get a copy in his language too. They're
usually more concerned with whether it works and does it play DVDs?
Or run their favorite game, or whatever they intend to *use* it for.



It implies an expanding base for Ubuntu and Linux, and a shrinking one
for Microsoft. It indicates that it won't be just large concerns such
as Brazil and Munich and Bergen, Norway that will switch away from
Microsoft. In one particular, it implies better hardware support in
all Linuxes. It is an attack on Gates's economy of scale. It is
important in showing the user that Ubuntu and Linux have a future.


David Maynard wrote:

In one particular, it implies better hardware support in all Linuxes.



How in the world do you come up with translating text from English to
Ukranian as "better hardware support?"


I don't believe that you are that dense.

That's the kind of answer someone with no answer gives.

"Ubuntu includes the very best in translations and accessibility
infrastructure"

"it implies better hardware support"

By what logic do you get the 'implication'?

/-----/

Pretty disappointed in your reply.

If you read what is happening with Linux and other free software and
Microsoft worldwide, you begin to see a trend ...

Perhaps but Linux, in it's current form, 'taking over the desktop' isn't
one of them.