linux not recognised 3

[garwain]

The main reason that I've found for linux not being recognised is not a lack of publicity, but because M$ makes deals with computershops to provide ONLY M$ OS's. Living in the middle of nowhere there are very few computer shops, and if you ask at any one of them they do not support/distribute anything but m$. Some have contracts where M$ will provide them with lower-cost products that they can sell for the same price as other stores and other stores either don't realize there are alternatives or the don't see enough demand to change their way of buisness.

If computer stores started to promote Linux, MAC OS, OS X, BSD, BEOS, etc there would be more demand in the area for support and products for these systems and thus it would then become justified to have technicians and sales people experianced in these OSs. However the regular users will always take what is in front of them with support available, and it's in the end up to the computer stores to start the new trend by promoting alternatives to their customers.

 

[gunthnp]

all I can to that is yup thats it people to whats easy and bussness to what sells "no ever been fired for buying IBM"
remember that tag line for the 70's gunthnp
Have you ever woken up and realized you where not alive.

 

[oziweb]

the problem with Linux is the same with Unix and other variations - there is a limited amount of software available as far as company use goes. It is nice that x number of programmers aropund the globe have added to say star office however running a company I would have to bypass star office for the simple reason that the company may be the only one using it and if the fad turns programmers off star office I am then stuck up a creek without a paddle.


Open source software may be good in some situations however running open source on a company network is a problem as far as security goes.
John

 

[rycamor]

"Open source software may be good in some situations however running open source on a company network is a problem as far as security goes."

Your other statements make some sense but this one is completely against all logic and evidence. Just look around you. Where are all the companies who's Linux or FreeBSD networks are flooded by Code Red, the Klez worm, etc...etc... Yes, I know it is possible to make a Microsoft network somewhat secure, but you have to jump through hoops to do it, while FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc... and most Linux distributions ship secure by default. I defy you to find me ANY webserver product that has come anywhere close to having as many holes in it as IIS/ASP.

In fact, one of the things my business is doing now is selling FreeBSD firewalls to help secure Windows networks. I have placed Linux and FreeBSD Samba servers in various businesses (to serve Windows network shares), and not one of these machines has ever needed to be rebooted yet. The only time we reboot is when we change hardware, or physically move the computer to another office. The fact that it is a Unix serving a Windows network only provides another layer of security to the Windows network, since attackers would have to know Unix AND Windows.

And when you get to client (desktop) software it gets even more ridiculous. Show me the open source office suite that allows any document to execute code with full user permissions. Show me the open source email suite that allows malicious scripts to grab the address-book contents and propagate itself to everyone you know. And show me the open source graphical desktop system that allows any window to execute arbitrary code in any other window, including software running in trusted mode. (

http://security.tombom.co.uk/shatter.html

and

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-948931.html)

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"Now, this might cause some discomfort..."
(

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html)

 

[jfrost10]

Some have contracts where M$ will provide them with lower-cost products that they can sell for the same price as other stores and other stores either don't realize there are alternatives or the don't see enough demand to change their way of buisness.


Um..."lower cost products"? Last time I checked, Linux was FREE, so that argument is out of the water.

However, I dont' think that stores "promoting" mac or linux is going to help either. As IT people, we forget sometimes what its like to not be a geek. I have friends who get stuck doing things with their PC's that I dont' even give a second thought.

Thats what Linux has to overcome. The network security side of things (as rycamor pointed out) is a totally different ball game. But this thread was started discussing the COMERCIAL computing marketspace. Until Linux can be as user friendly as Windows has become, it won't catch on. They've done a great job getting GUI interfaces, and incorporating more programs. But its still not anywhere near Windows or Mac. Mac is getting better, but again: there needs to be more use of open standards (i.e. XML) between platforms so that files can be shared regardless of proprietary software used to access that data. And that IS a reality with new open standards being adopted by both Microsoft, Mac, and open source camps.

ok...my rant is done


jack

 

[venkman]

I think you may be relying on old news. To my knowledge one of the things Microsoft has agreed not to do since the anti trust case is not to have those type of non-compete clauses in their contracts that don't allow vendors to resell other software.

Also, maybe it's because I live in new york, but everyone has heard the term linux. It's been in the new york times several times this year... not counting the business section, it has probably been mentioned everytime microsoft has been. Few people have seen it and many don't know what the term "Operating System" means, but I think it's safe to say that considerable headway has been made as far as penetrating mainstream.

And the concept of not using star office because it may not be around much longer is absurd. Star office documents and spreadsheets can easily be converted to Microsoft office. The only problem you may run into is running macros, which is what Sun is trying to handle in Star Office as opposed to Open Office which has not tried to tackle that. However many businesses will need to be updating their macro code soon as newer versions of MS office break old functionality and completely change around the structure (just compare Excel 4 with Excel 97), so why not move to star office at 1/5th or less of the price last time I checked? This is regardless of using linux, since star office runs on Windows just fine.

-Venkman

 

[ocean14]

The issue here is not Linux is it? It’s the fact that there is no alternative operating system to Windows. It doesn't matter squat what techs like us think about the pros and cons of a better operating system is. What matters is those who will buy it! Microsoft isn’t and never has been a great technical product. It has always been a great marketed product. For the masses, computing is Windows, and this is not going to easily change no matter how much we whinge.
The only way it will change is to have a new alternative to the market place as a brand. In other word a complete launch of a new product worldwide. Forget Linux. To try associate this product with technology is hopeless. It has a silly name with a dumpy looking bird as its logo – hardly inspiring compared with the slick Xp logo, or the famous flying windows.
And this is what the millions of users who show the money want to see. A slick modern product with a technical feel that appeals to their limited knowledge. A decent OS can be put together in no time. After that it needs muscle of a couple of big tech houses to write the drivers themselves if they have too, until vendors consider it viable to do so themselves. They will aslo need to maintain the same knowledge/supprot base, with training, that Micosoft offers. The model is already is place.
We are are talking millions of dollars here to launch such a brand, and it will need resolve to carry it through. Sales people will need to have the confidence ot say "This operating system is a third of the price and as good as Microsoft Windows..."

It can be done - whos up for it then?

Mercedes? Sun micro?

 

[ocean14]

The issue here is not Linux is it? It’s the fact that there is no alternative operating system to Windows. It doesn't matter squat what techs like us think about the pros and cons of a better operating system is. What matters is those who will buy it! Microsoft isn’t and never has been a great technical product. It has always been a great marketed product. For the masses, computing is Windows, and this is not going to easily change no matter how much we whinge.
The only way it will change is to have a new alternative to the market place as a brand. In other word a complete launch of a new product worldwide. Forget Linux. To try associate this product with technology is hopeless. It has a silly name with a dumpy looking bird as its logo – hardly inspiring compared with the slick Xp logo, or the famous flying windows.
And this is what the millions of users who show the money want to see. A slick modern product with a technical feel that appeals to their limited knowledge. A decent OS can be put together in no time. After that it needs muscle of a couple of big tech houses to write the drivers themselves if they have too, until vendors consider it viable to do so themselves. They will aslo need to maintain the same knowledge/supprot base, with training, that Micosoft offers. The model is already is place.
We are are talking millions of dollars here to launch such a brand, and it will need resolve to carry it through. Sales people will need to have the confidence ot say "This operating system is a third of the price and as good as Microsoft Windows..."

It can be done - whos up for it then?

Mercedes? Sun micro?

 

[jrbarnett]

This can be summed up in one word: Marketing.

If you approached a complete stranger in the street and asked him/her to name 3 web browsers, email packages, operating systems, word processors, spreadsheets or whatever, 99.9% of the public may be able to name one in a particular category, but only those who follow or work in IT will come up with three - or more. If they use a computer, they will normally have and use what is supplied with it.
Some may ask "What's a web browser" or similar.

However, I think that the Microsoft has reached such a level of market penetration, through its own marketing efforts, that even established competitors have a hard time trying to persuade the general public to choose, say Lotus SmartSuite, StarOffice or OpenOffice over MS Office even if there is a significant cost saving to be made.

If other companies promoted their products as much as MS promoted their equivalents to the general public (rather than just in IT publications) then this situation may be reversed.

It is a sad situation where now if I go into a high street computer shop I am not offered a choice of operating system with computers for sale - be it MS Windows, Linux, Solaris or whatever, even if the packages are available as boxed items on another shelf, and until this situation changes, Microsoft will still be in a dominant position.

John

 

[BakeMan]

As someone who has sold computers and computer accessories over the years, I can tell you that jrbarnett is absolutely right. I can't tell you the number of times people have come in to buy a PC and told me "My friend has a PC and I want one just like his." When I ask what kind of PC it is they reply "It's a Windows PC." They don't know the brand of the PC. They don't know any specifications of the PC. They don't even know the age of the PC, but they know the name "Windows." They can tell me that they want Word, Excel, and Access even though they don't know what they do. All they know is that they are supposed to have MS based software in order to have the right PC. That is what marketing has done for MS. If I were to mention the words Unix or Star Office their eyes glaze over in a dull stare and after about 30 seconds of explaining some of the alternatives they are off to find another sales associate that will just sell them what they want. It doesn't take many missed sales to learn to just sell MS products. Unless you get the rare teckie in that doesn't want, or have time to, build their own system, it does not make since to even try to sell any other alternative. Until other OSs can get this kind of name recognition for them selves along with the applications that run on them, they won't have a snowball's chance against MS.

BAKEMAN

 

[venkman]

I think what you guys are talking about is the market for personal computers sold to individual consumers. This is very different than the market for PCs sold to corporate customers. If the individual consumers really drove the overall PC market, we'd all be using macintoshes right now.

I'm 24 now, and I remember my parents' first PC. It was an apple II compatible. The computer they purchased after that was an x386. Why did they switch to a PC? Because my father's office used PCs and he wanted to be able to bring stuff to and from his office without a problem.

My point is this, because the corporate sector determines the future, it is the decision makers in that arena who non-MS advocates must advertise and market towards. Who are these decision makers? IT specialists. For this reason, I disagree with Ocean14 who said "It doesn't matter squat what techs like us think ". Yes it does matter!

-Venkman

 

[BakeMan]

It really doesn't matter what techies like us think. It is those same people (i.e. managers) that come into the local PC shop to buy a home PC that make the decisions in the work place on what systems to buy. When was the last time you had anyone who actually knew what they were doing make a decision in your company?

BAKEMAN

 

[jrbarnett]

Bakeman,

Have you tried phoning up a well known PC dealer such as Dell or Compaq and ordering a Linux/BeOS/Solaris based PC - or even one with no OS at all? It is incredibly difficult.

A well known UK computer company tried this on close to state of the art equipment, with a £50 saving on the Windows OS price, but with the caveat that not all the supplied hardware would work on the Linux platform.
They stopped because of a lack of demand.

John

 

[BakeMan]

I actually worked for one of Dell's competitors (Gateway 2000) for a while and we had the same issues. I was in change of selling equipment to small to medium sized businesses in my area. No one there seemed to be the slightest bit interested in any alternatives to MS products and as I stated before, if I spent any time explaining some other alternatives they began to look for someone else to deal with. MS is what people know. It's not so much that they know how to use the software, it's the brand they know. And believe me, the people that were in change of making the decisions on what hardware and software that was going to be used in their company surely were not technically advanced individuals. They just know what they had worked with in the past and what the commercial on A&E last night told them they just had to buy in order to be successful. Other OSs need to get this kind of name recognition in order to succeed in the current market place.

BAKEMAN

 

[skiflyer]

And they need to lose the confusion. Linux is tough, and you can see RedHat battling it. Redhat is Redhat, it still says Redhat Linux, but they push in their market speak to just say Redhat... why? Because, it's the Linux Kernel 2.whatever, and (examples only) Mandrake Linux 12 has the possibility of being less up to date than Redhat 4, and what about adding in Debian Woody?

I want the newest windows... ok, professional or home edition?
I want the newest linux... well, stable or experimental or development? which distribution would you like, is this for desktop or server use?

Simplicity is a big hurdle, the choice and options surrounding linux are great for the technical aspect, but horrible for marketting.

-Rob

 

[rycamor]

Yes, there is a lot of confusion in the computing world anyway, and the consumer end of computing is where confusion is the heaviest.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think LindowsOS is probably the best chance the Linux world has to hit the consumer market. And that's because they don't call themselves Linux at all. Smart move really, even as corny as their name is...

The real tragedy of today's marked is that companies making truly good products (such as Sun or Apple) are overshadowed by the mediocrity of the Windows/Intel/Dell hegemony, where no one company produces the full product, and each one passes the buck whenever there are problems.

Some interesting articles:

http://theregister.co.uk/content/7/32219.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10639

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10924

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http://brainscraps.com/faq/pg_my.html

 

[wbg34]

The problems that I see with Linux's visability has everything to do with one thing Linux itself. In particular which distro of Linux. The Linux product group is to fractured in it's presentation. There is to much wrangling between Linux camps about which distro is the best.
If you browse enough Linux newsgroups and message boards, then you will see a common trend. When a person, usually a new user or potential user, asks a question about a distro the following generally happens. For each response that addresses the question there are one or two responses that put down the distro asked about and stress the high points of their favorite distro.
Until this changes I don't see Linux making major breaks outside of the tech crowd (which is a shame). I would like to see more responses from the Linux crowd that are along the lines of this. Any distro will get you where you want to go, but may I suggest that once you are comfortable with whatever distro you choose you may want to look at the features of -insert fav distro here-. Maybe if the Linux crowd would put up a unified front supporting any linux, then Linux itself may become more marketable.

 

[venkman]

If you browse enough Linux newsgroups and message boards, then you will see a common trend. When a person, usually a new user or potential user, asks a question about a distro the following generally happens. For each response that addresses the question there are one or two responses that put down the distro asked about and stress the high points of their favorite distro.

Bullshit!

I urge you to go the linux server forum on this site right now and count the number of threads containing arguments of this sort. I looked at the first 10 and found only one matching the description. That one exception was because the question was of the form "which distribution should I use?" . Of course, everyone has their favorite distribution and argued as such. However, this isn't a peculiarity with linux. I suggest you go to a forum devoted to automobiles and ask which car is the best, let me know if everyone sits around holds hands and all agrees on what the best one is. Last I checked the auto industry is alive and well despite the evils of competition and choice.

My point is that of course there are disagreements, as they are on other issues in the windows camp as well. What I disagree with you on is how often these disputes occur and when they occur. It has been my experience that they do not occur, for the most part, during routine questions and answers in various forum.

There are reasons linux has not been accepted as a desktop OS, but I do not believe choice of distributions is one of them.

-Venkman

 

[wbg34]

Just a few threads that I found real quick.

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=...=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=comp.os.linux

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=...=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=comp.os.linux

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=...=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=comp.os.linux.questions

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=...=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=comp.os.linux.questions

BTW you missed the most important part of my quote.

If you browse enough Linux newsgroups and message boards, then you will see a common trend. When a person, usually a new user or potential user, asks a question about a distro the following generally happens. For each response that addresses the question there are one or two responses that put down the distro asked about and stress the high points of their favorite distro.

 

[venkman]

You're right; I did misunderstand your post. I thought you had meant people who ask about a question speciffic to a distro (like "how do I use redhat's print utitlity?" or something).

However I reiterate: I don't think having choice is what scares people away from linux. I could sit here and type out examples of other industries for you, but I'm sure you can imagine my arguments. I don't feel you've really made your point, why is it that you think choice amongst operating systems is any different than choice in any other industry (cars, electronics...etc.)?

-Venkman