Linus Torvalds Wins Millennium Technology Prize

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Linus Torvalds was named joint winner of the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize. Torvalds will take home over $750,000 as his part of the prize money.

"Hey, I've had job offers, but I've really tried to make it very clear to everybody that what I appreciate most is my neutral status, and it really turns out that I think all the companies involved with Linux really do prefer things that way too," he said. "I seriously believe that even though the Linux kernel has become a big thing for a number of large companies, people really do appreciate how nice it is that I don't work for any of them."
Click to expand...
 
Good for him :)

I'm not a Linux DT OS Fan, but without Linux there is no question that the Routers, Media Boxes, Phones, etc... we all use would cost a lot more due to the proprietary OS's they would otherwise contain.
 
TechLarry said:
Good for him :)

I'm not a Linux DT OS Fan, but without Linux there is no question that the Routers, Media Boxes, Phones, etc... we all use would cost a lot more due to the proprietary OS's they would otherwise contain.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

I recall about 10 years back a company I worked for was looking into developing a POS thin client terminal.
I was hardware the other guy on the team was software. He wanted to use Linux for the project (no brainer in today's world) but back then the owner's knee-jerk reaction was linux was completely unknown; have to license an OS of some kind. He didn't want to be perceived as a something built by "hackers".
We looked at QNX and then windows CE. The decision was made purchasing the development kits and the licensing issues were very cost prohibitive. Project cancelled. :rolleyes:
 
Good for him, he deserves it :).


Hamish Campbell said:
And yet linux still isn't ready for the desktop.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that. Linux isn't meant for the average mindless user :p. It isn't meant to work out of the box if that's what you mean by not being ready for desktops. It's not really meant for the more tech savvy gaming crowd either. Linux does some things windows does poorly, and windows does some things linux does poorly, that's all. If you want a secure and stable workstation however, linux will beat windows any day. Just to note I use both.
 
thewooster said:
I wouldn't say that. Linux isn't meant for the average mindless user :p. It isn't meant to work out of the box if that's what you mean by not being ready for desktops. It's not really meant for the more tech savvy gaming crowd either. Linux does some things windows does poorly, and windows does some things linux does poorly, that's all. If you want a secure and stable workstation however, linux will beat windows any day. Just to note I use both.
Click to expand...

It's mostly because Linux doesn't have standards really. Each distro is different, and therefore each distro is handled differently. Even though most distros nowadays are based on Ubuntu, and further more based on Debian.

It won't be long before you'll have no reason to switch over to a Linux distro.

#1 Needs much better graphics driver support. Both Nvidia and AMD fail terribly at this.
#2 Better sound support. It's a mess on Linux at the moment.
#3 Better Windows compatibility through WINE. Can't expect people to switch over to Linux without bringing over some Windows programs.

Fix these issues and Desktop Linux will be ready.
 
I always found ubuntu worked very well out of the box I don't recall ever really having to input terminal commands with it... In fact in many many ways it is easier than windows. However the lack of gaming and netflix support killed it for me (netflix wasn't their fault). There is some really great software on linux too.
 
I don't recall ever really having to input terminal commands with it
Click to expand...

As a person who has used both windows and linux daily. I believe you are missing a great deal of the power of linux and advantage linux has over windows by not using the terminal. Oh well..
 
drescherjm said:
As a person who has used both windows and linux daily. I believe you are missing a great deal of the power of linux and advantage linux has over windows by not using the terminal. Oh well..
Click to expand...

Not sure why I can't edit so quoting myself to fix. Anyways I meant to say used linux and windows daily for over a decade.
 
Ashbringer said:
It's mostly because Linux doesn't have standards really. Each distro is different, and therefore each distro is handled differently. Even though most distros nowadays are based on Ubuntu, and further more based on Debian.

It won't be long before you'll have no reason to switch over to a Linux distro.

#1 Needs much better graphics driver support. Both Nvidia and AMD fail terribly at this.
#2 Better sound support. It's a mess on Linux at the moment.
#3 Better Windows compatibility through WINE. Can't expect people to switch over to Linux without bringing over some Windows programs.

Fix these issues and Desktop Linux will be ready.
Click to expand...

I can see what you're saying there. It's true there are a lot of differences between distros, but if you spend some time with them you will see that each distro does have it's own standards. Which, to me, is kind of the point. Each version of linux has it's own purpose.

I'm not sure there is any less reason to or not to switch to linux than in the past. Some linux distro's have always had poor hardware support for newer hardware, but that is really only an issue if you plan on gaming (in which case I would say use windows anyway).

Personally I'm multibooting, and most of my actual work is done in linux without any problems with the things you mentioned, but I suppose that does depend on what you are doing. Yes, wine is not that great in reality, but I don't see that improving much. You can always use something like virtualbox of course, but that comes with certain performance issues.

It seems like most of the the things you mentioned are the same issues that have always been around. I think linux just has some purposes while windows has others. For instance, pen-testing from windows would just be stupid, but so would be trying to play Battlefield 3 with Quad-Sli on a linux workstation XD.
 
I do not think program support is a problem with linux. I mean it is, but not that big. Lets look at macs which had all the same program issues. Most games dont work, most of well everything did not work. But the iPod made macs popular and the fact is even to this day apple does not have nearly the applications available that windows does but people still buy them up at alarming rates. Fact is at TON of people do not think much about program support when they purchase.

Linux has alot of issues they all add up to kill it on the desktop. The core issue though is the developers and community who have certain beliefs and cannot overcome those to overcome problems with linux.
 
drescherjm said:
As a person who has used both windows and linux daily. I believe you are missing a great deal of the power of linux and advantage linux has over windows by not using the terminal. Oh well..
Click to expand...

I never used it for that long, my point is the average person doesn't need to use the terminal on Ubuntu, something that might be confusing for some people... That makes it a good alternative to windows for a great many things.
 
And the question is, why is Linux any better than Free BSD? It isn't. It just took off because it has a bigger community behind it although most if not all programs and window managers that run on Linux will run just fine on top of Free BSD.
 
The terminal in Linux is awesome. Shell scripting by itself is nice enough, but having Perl already built in is even better. When your dealing with data exclusively the terminal is fantastic and Linux's terminal is the best. Solaris terminal is not as user friendly and DOS is just blah.

Windows finally got mklink which is a great feature when you need it, but many times I wish Windows had Command equivalents to chmod and sudu.
 
westrock2000 said:
The terminal in Linux is awesome. Shell scripting by itself is nice enough, but having Perl already built in is even better. When your dealing with data exclusively the terminal is fantastic and Linux's terminal is the best. Solaris terminal is not as user friendly and DOS is just blah.

Windows finally got mklink which is a great feature when you need it, but many times I wish Windows had Command equivalents to chmod and sudu.
Click to expand...

You using powershell yet? Getting there. Ditch the "DOS" NT prompt already.
 
Staples said:
And the question is, why is Linux any better than Free BSD? It isn't. It just took off because it has a bigger community behind it although most if not all programs and window managers that run on Linux will run just fine on top of Free BSD.
Click to expand...

A few things why Linux took off;

- GPL
- BSD went through a lawsuit that stagnated them
- Binary package management
- Better community
 
schizrade said:
You using powershell yet? Getting there. Ditch the "DOS" NT prompt already.
Click to expand...

PowerShell is an abomination of an environment which steals from both sh syntax and C# syntax and winds up more verbose than the former and worse than both. In addition to this it is stupidly heavy for a shell, slow, and is built on top of a platform that Microsoft is all but abandoning on the desktop.

No thank you.
 
PowerShell misses the point of a shell: to run other programs, and make they interact, with minimal boilerplate.
If it becomes advanced, it's just another scripting language — which is fine, but not why people use sh-like shells.
 
Ashbringer said:
#1 Needs much better graphics driver support. Both Nvidia and AMD fail terribly at this.
#2 Better sound support. It's a mess on Linux at the moment.
#3 Better Windows compatibility through WINE. Can't expect people to switch over to Linux without bringing over some Windows programs.

Fix these issues and Desktop Linux will be ready.
Click to expand...
By that standards, Mac OS X isn't desktop ready. (I would not disagree.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top