The Ultimate Linux vs. Windows Competition

[Godofdestrcution]

Well it must stay with competing.

And linux users, and the linux fanbase, must decide to compete as well.

Not to destroy Windows, as I've said time and time again, but to survive.

You don't compete, you don't survive. It's a dog eat dog world.

One scary thought you haven't thought of: Every day more noobs who have never used a computer get new pcs.

By keeping linux to the hardcore, every single day you are actually losing marketshare.

Even if you were to stay the same, you'd lose marketshare.

In a few years, the scenario I talked about could happen.

 

[eeyrjmr]

And is there any evidence to say that the linux movement is slowing down in competing?

Also who says that linux is staying "hardcore"
Ubuntu was created to make linux simple and they are doing a FANTASTIC job!!!, supplying and support a core set of applications to cut down on the choice&confusion WHILE still allowing people to get other apps when they want

 

[jimmyb]

So what exactly happened to netscape?

Netscape created the Mozilla Foundation which is obviously still developing browsers.

 

[Catweazle]

Who says it isn't competing?
it is getting adopted by gov'n all over the world
GNOME & KDE are advancing in usability
it is holding onto the server market

Oh for goodness sake! It's no wonder people get up in arms about some of the disinformation which gets spouted as if it were truth. When you examine research studies rather than less reputable sources it's pretty hard to support a conclusion that Linux is 'competing' in any meaningful way whatsoever.

In the server market, which is unarguably the 'mainstay' of Linux, that OS doesn't even hold market dominance. According to IDC Linux servers are now generating about 12% of the factory revenue for new servers. Windows servers generate about 35% of factory revenue and Unix servers 33.5% of that market. Nobody could argue that Linux isn't 'important' in the server area, because that'd be a misdirection. But people shouldn't frame their comments in such a way as to suggest that it's the altar before which all pay homage either.


In the desktop market the situation for Linux is grim rather than heartening. Lump all of the numerous distros together and their usage level still doesn't get beyond 'novelty' status! Follow the more reliable web analysis reports and you'd find that the market share for Linux desktop usage has actually fallen over the past few years, rather than risen. For goodness sake, despite the slow uptake of Windows Vista the market share for that particular Windows version for March, 2007 is still about 4 times the size of the Linux market share!

it is getting adopted by gov'n all over the world

Well, we've all heard the reports in the "geek media" about some government departments in various places adopting Linux for new machines, but for goodness sake don't succumb to the sensationalised headlines and assume that these decisions have any meaningful impact on overall OS usage patterns. The writers of those articles want to create intrigue. That's what attracts readers and advertising revenue.


In recent times the usage share of MacOS has risen. Windows, in all it's desktop versions, has an overall market share of around 93%, which is a slight drop from previous usage levels. But it's Mac rather than Linux which has created the slight erosion. Linux usage levels have steadily fallen.

 

[zacdl]

Simple fact is that the "contest" doesn't really exist. If there ever was such a "contest" conducted then Windows won it long, long ago

I agree. Each OS fills its own hole.
IMO:
OS X has the folks that like shiny interfaces with good design
Linux has the more server-driven and web server portion of the web, along with a few desktop environments for the people that can stand it.
Windows has the population that just wants the least bit of configuration possible, with the ability to work with just about everything else out there.

None of them are in competition with one another. I really just threw OS X in there because it was brought up earlier- but it is in the least competition than either Windows or Linux. It simply is not competing with either.

Windows and Linux do not directly compete, either. As already stated, if Linux were to become more like Windows- why wouldn't you just use Windows in the first place?

That said- I think Linux growth is slowed by its own competition.
It is stunting it's own growth.

Pretty good illustration here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/Linuxdistrotimeline-7.2.png

Don't get be wrong, I think Linux is great in some situations, and I even use it and recommend it from time to time. I just see too many people say "Linux is going to take Windows down!" comments. It is not in large competition with Windows, and people that wish Linux to grow large and overtake Windows fail to realize its main competition is itself.

I don't think I've ever come across somebody responsible for administering a server who didn't prefer to use a command line interface wherever possible, for its power, flexibility and speed of operation.

I actually have to agree with mark to some extent.
I prefer command-line to some operations, and GUI to others.

For example, I was looking at the possibility of having Ubuntu serve as a PDC for Windows clients. In Windows, you can generally look around at the options and figure a problem out. Linux just lacks. It requires you to know commands and syntax just to get some things accomplished. Windows, you can generally just look in a couple places until you find it.

I'm not questioning it's ability to function (before some of you try to put words in my mouth, yet again), I'm simply stating why command-line is a drawback.

Look at it this way- In Windows, you get both a GUI and command-line. You have the option of choice. Linux GUI is limited, and you must resort to command-line often- not much choice.

It's the same way Nintendo fans acted during the N64 and Gamecube days, when Nintendo nearly died.
What happened to Nintendo? Was their niche infallible? Their 'niche' was cut in half every gen, and would've disappeared had they nt competed and come out with the Wii.

You failed to mention the DS... in case you haven't noticed- Nintendo has remained huge throughout the portable "console" market.

Its the same way Apple users acted when Apple didn't compete.
What happened to Apple? Was their niche infallible? They were nearly dead if they didn't start competing with the Ipod, and the Imac.

You need a history lesson... Apple didn't "come back" because they started competing.
Apple "came back" because Microsoft bailed them out of the hole.

 

[duby229]

You already have bad drivers, because companies don't feel that linux is profitable.

That is something entirely new... I have only ever had problems with WiFi, and nothing else. And those WiFi drivers were all closed source...

Everything else has worked out of the box for the past 4 years....

 

[As I Lay Dying]

That is something entirely new... I have only ever had problems with WiFi, and nothing else. And those WiFi drivers were all closed source...

Everything else has worked out of the box for the past 4 years....

lucky you....... granted this was about 5-6 yrs ago, the nic and sound on my nforce2 board did not work.....which really soured my experience.........

And right now the only thing that does not work is my matrix orbital, I know the drivers are there but I am lazy....ok thats prolly my fault, and really just do not care enough to fix it....and lastly the blue tooth on my logitech mx5000 does not work, though the keyboard and mouse works fine.

 

[Godofdestrcution]

You failed to mention the DS... in case you haven't noticed- Nintendo has remained huge throughout the portable "console" market.


You need a history lesson... Apple didn't "come back" because they started competing.
Apple "came back" because Microsoft bailed them out of the hole.

Notice Nintendo had also competed in the portable market?

And so what if Microsoft bought Apple shares? If Apple had not competed and brought on the Ipod, they'd be back in the hole again.

More excuses.

 

[odoe]

This isn't the games forum, so leave those comparisons out of this discussion.

 

[Catweazle]

Agree with that, and I'd extend it to the 'embedded OS' scenario in general. What the 'embedded OS' is might be of interest to developers, but it's not something which concerns users. Users of devices which have embedded OS's couldn't give a shit what it is - they are too busy being concerned with what happens when the power button is pressed, and which button to press afterwards to make the thing work!

 

[jimmyb]

@Godofdestrcution:
If Linux "dies" out, it will be because the community has moved on to an OS which better suits its needs. This really isn't a problem for us. I don't think most of us have any particular commitment to Linux per se, just the features it provides us. If something comes along and provides a more attractive set of features, I will happily switch to it.

To that end, I would probably be just as happy running Solaris or a major BSD variant.

I suppose if you have a business which profits from Linux in one way or another you might say that Linux "has" to compete, but I certainly don't. I have no inherent interest in Linux's long term survival. I only care about having an OS that suits my needs. The fact that I'm apart of reasonably large market (~2% without getting into a huge debate) which demands a free unix-type OS (for lack of a better description) almost guarantees that we will always have one.

I hope my thoughts have been accurately communicated. Getting them verbalized was quite a difficult process for me, and I'm not sure I've done it very well.

 

[duby229]

@Godofdestrcution:
If Linux "dies" out, it will be because the community has moved on to an OS which better suits its needs. This really isn't a problem for us. I don't think most of us have any particular commitment to Linux per se, just the features it provides us. If something comes along and provides a more attractive set of features, I will happily switch to it.

To that end, I would probably be just as happy running Solaris or a major BSD variant.

I suppose if you have a business which profits from Linux in one way or another you might say that Linux "has" to compete, but I certainly don't. I have no inherent interest in Linux's long term survival. I only care about having an OS that suits my needs. The fact that I'm apart of reasonably large market (~2% without getting into a huge debate) which demands a free unix-type OS (for lack of a better description) almost guarantees that we will always have one.

I hope my thoughts have been accurately communicated. Getting them verbalized was quite a difficult process for me, and I'm not sure I've done it very well.

You are a freaking genius man...

I couldnt have put it into better words if I tried for two years. Non confrontational, and accurate. Awesome. Just awesome.

 

[Godofdestrcution]

I give up. You're hopeless.

Don't get discourged in a few years when no more drivers are made and you gotta make your own, k?

And 2% is not a large market at all BTW, your only getting drivers because of servers. That ever goes south... Kiss your drivers goodbye.

I'll I'm gonna say is this little bit and I'm gome, but obviouslly your too hardhead to listen. Your just gonna hafta learn the hard way.

All that Microsoft or Apple has to do is blow Linux out of the water with a better server, like Microsoft did with Netscape, and all your drivers, all the stuff you have now, is gone.

You'd better compete and get marketshare, or you WILL be another OS/2. I'm telling you this now.

2% is a joke of a marketshare. If you honestly think that is alot, your out of your mind.

It's painfully obvious that Linux users and distro owners, with the exeption of ubuntu, have gotten complacent, and seem proud and content with their OS of choice.

But a OS is never perfect, something they don't realize.

Nothing is.

This is exactly what happened to Netscape. If Linux users and distros weren't so complacent they'd see this coming, but alas... all Microsoft has to do is sneak up, and BAM, another Netscape/OS/2.

This honestly doesn't have to happen. But according to these posts, you seem to hardheaded to figure out that it WILL.

Microsoft is after one thing. A Monopoly. Linux owns 25% of the servers, so does Unix. You think they like that?

I doubt that Microsoft likes it too much:

http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1615
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/20/microsoft_claims_linux_code/

 

[general]

"The problem here is not that the OS is broken; the problem is that the person is using the wrong OS. As I said earlier, I see no reason in altering something that works perfectly well for me when there are already alternatives which serve that demographic quite well."

I'm sure those people that work on Gnome, KDE or any of the desktop oriented distros would disagree with you. Why alter something? Hmm, to make it better? Are you still running a 286 processor or are you still hunting and gathering to get by in your daily life? How is cave life treating you. There are options that serve that demographic, but none of them are open source or free software now are they? Basically, you want to have linux stay a backwoods ancient OS because you know how to use it and seemlingly you like that others don't. I'm not sure what you think you'd lose by not having to type so damn much. The whole linux community is incredibly wasteful. It competes against itself and is constantly reinventing the wheel. How anyone who is intelligent would think that any of this is useful is beyond me.

"If I'm reading your posts correctly, you think that the end goal of Linux should be acquiring as much overall OS market share as possible. This is where I disagree. I am quite content with a 2% market share. In fact I couldn't care less about what the market share is. I think the end goal should be serving its already established (and admittedly niche) market, which as far as I'm concerned is being accomplished reasonably well."

The goal of the community should be to pull its head out of it's ass (and yes it's firmly stuck up there), get organized and improve things. Is there really a benefit to having different command syntaxes across different distros? Please, tell me how that enhances the community. Is it really too much to ask after all of these years to have system folder names like opt, proc and dev have their names updated to something meaningful? Does it really make sense to have Gnome and KDE developers waste their time reinventing the wheel?

You might want the linux community to just serve the uber techno geeks, but in the end that won't get you better application support, driver support or advanced functionality. Then again, given that you only want to see a command line, those things probably don't matter. How does one browse the web only in ASCii anyways?


"This honestly doesn't have to happen. But according to these posts, you seem to hardheaded to figure out that it WILL."

If you haven't figured it out already, those most into linux are the exact reason why it will always be a failure. That community is fragmented because the people who are most involved are techno geeks who don't have foresight, marketing savvy or any desire to take what they love beyond a 1980's level operating system. Were there any guiding body or central organization to lay out a guided strategy for linux, it would quickly become worlds more competitive. Until then, just stick with the catch phrase, "Linux - so shitty we can't even give it away".

 

[eeyrjmr]

Oh for goodness sake! It's no wonder people get up in arms about some of the disinformation which gets spouted as if it were truth. When you examine research studies rather than less reputable sources it's pretty hard to support a conclusion that Linux is 'competing' in any meaningful way whatsoever.

In the server market, which is unarguably the 'mainstay' of Linux, that OS doesn't even hold market dominance. According to IDC Linux servers are now generating about 12% of the factory revenue for new servers. Windows servers generate about 35% of factory revenue and Unix servers 33.5% of that market. Nobody could argue that Linux isn't 'important' in the server area, because that'd be a misdirection. But people shouldn't frame their comments in such a way as to suggest that it's the altar before which all pay homage either.


In the desktop market the situation for Linux is grim rather than heartening. Lump all of the numerous distros together and their usage level still doesn't get beyond 'novelty' status! Follow the more reliable web analysis reports and you'd find that the market share for Linux desktop usage has actually fallen over the past few years, rather than risen. For goodness sake, despite the slow uptake of Windows Vista the market share for that particular Windows version for March, 2007 is still about 4 times the size of the Linux market share!

When linux came onto the scene Windows has a lot higher install based and support from hardware vendors. In the last 10years both MS's market share has dropped as well as hardware vendors supporting linux, so how can you say that it aint competing?

Anyway I keep having number throuwn around (2%, 0.5%) for linux's market share BUT no cridible backing for them .
The fact is there is no reliable metrix for Linux use anywhere so it is completly pointless to pull number out of a hat.
How would you count usage anyway? esp in the dual-boot
Per-user? At home I dual-boot two machine and have a machine 100% linux (will be another on wednesday). SO do you class me as part of the windows statistics or the linux statistics? you cant count me twice

So how about per-machine then? So I have 3 machines... one way you could say 3machines run linux, another 2machines run windows. What is it? you can't count a machine twice.

There is no way to say

Well, we've all heard the reports in the "geek media" about some government departments in various places adopting Linux for new machines, but for goodness sake don't succumb to the sensationalised headlines and assume that these decisions have any meaningful impact on overall OS usage patterns. The writers of those articles want to create intrigue. That's what attracts readers and advertising revenue.

A few dept? the French gov'n going over towards the end of 07, Brazil, India changing... its not just a few dept.
The point is the reason that MS was able to take over the home was because it got a foothold in business. There was a time where noone needed or cared about PC's. They entered the workspace and were used so when they became more accesible to the public they slowly started to buy them since they saw the merits of them and were already use to Windows3.1 (or whatever...)

With linux getting into business people will get use to the interface and thus not so intimiated by it.


You seem to think linux has gone noowhere or has shrunk yet provide no measure for it. You shay shrunk but you measure that in market-share, that doesn't prove shrinkage at all without any numbers. A market share can shrink if the competitions grows faster then you grow (but you have still grown). So how about proving some credible stats for linux usage!
Did you even try the likes of GNOME back in the 1.# days? who brough a full 3D desktop to the masses first? Who is implementing virtualisation at kernel level? who is providing variable ticks?

In recent times the usage share of MacOS has risen. Windows, in all it's desktop versions, has an overall market share of around 93%, which is a slight drop from previous usage levels. But it's Mac rather than Linux which has created the slight erosion. Linux usage levels have steadily fallen.

again any reliable accurate measure/source for this cause they are just numbers

I can just as easily say that Linux is on 100% of PC's!!!! and that wouldn't be a lie



Lets see some numbers since they seem to be the backbone of your anti-linux stance

 

[duby229]

I'm not going to try to answer your whole post. It is clear that nothing any of us say is going to sway you. However I think it is important for folks to understand why we choose what we do.

Linux fills a need that Windows cant. Whether that be a web server, or a PDA, or PVR, or a router or even a desktop. Linux fills a need that windows either cant, or doesnt fill adequately.

Syntax is pretty much identical across most distro's simply becouse most distro's use bash for the shell. Some use csh, and others use zsh. But most use bash. As such syntax is exactly the same for most distro's. There are some differences in the toolsets used. But if your using a Gentoo based distro it will have its particular toolset. If your using an RPM based distro it will have its particular toolset. If your using a Debian based distro it will have its particular toolset. They each have strong points and weak points.... As such they each fill different needs better or worse then the other. One might be adequate for a router, while the others arent. One might be better for a desktop while the others arent. If the toolset was standardized, the needs that could be filled would be --greatly-- reduced.

The same thing holds true for Gnome and KDE. Gnome fills some needs that KDE cant and KDE fills some needs that Gnome cant... It is largely a model of preference in todays desktops, but for many situations KDE just does a better job, and is the smarter choice... And in other situations Gnome does the better job and is the smarter choice If we standardized the desktop we would be effectively killing off many potential advantages that are currently enjoyed between the two of them.

Whether you see Linux as being a failure really doesnt matter. It ills every single need that I have, and has been a total success in every role that I have deployed. I have Familiar Linux running on my PDA. I have GCube running on my Game Cube. I have Gentoo running on my router, and my desktop, and my PVR. In my experience it has done everything that I needed it to do with no drawbacks. It has been a success for me. And it has been for many other folks as well.

 

[Catweazle]

- stuff specifically directly aimed at Catweazle, which suggests that the figures he mentioned are "pulled out of a hat", and which thus suggests that Catweazle is deliberately inventing argument for the purpose of misleading a discussion. -

Oh goodness! Not the tired old "Where are your links or it doesn't exist!" line? Go google a bit yourself before throwing out such accusations, and be sure not to fall prey to the temptation to read only the results which support your own beliefs. Instead, focus in on the links where claims are based upon genuine market research. There's plenty enough of it out there.


The studies conducted regularly draw upon data such as sales profiles, web usage and other such variables, and the reports/results obtained from the research is plenty good enough to be used by corporate executives to inform decision-making processes. No study can ever portray s scenario with 100% accuracy, but market research strategies, especially when implemented by the more reputable research organisations, leads to as accurate a depiction as is possible to construct.

Plenty enough info readily available to a search, although it tends to be a bit dated. The most up to date info can't usually be presented as a 'link' anyway, as those reports are usually quite expensive 'pay to view' access or else available only to paid subscribers to relevent websites.

I don't 'make stuff up'. There's plenty enough info available to a search to present a reasonably accurate scenario over time. Not everybody has the skills to be able to read it and take meaning from it, is all. If somebody doesn't have the skills to locate and understand what's available, and for some reason or other doubts my integrity to the extent that they don't want to take my word for what I've presented as summary, then fine.

But don't call me a liar, eh? No fair!




Anyways, this topic is going round and round in circles!

 

[eeyrjmr]

Originally Posted by eeyrjmr View Post
- stuff specifically directly aimed at Catweazle, which suggests that the figures he mentioned are "pulled out of a hat", and which thus suggests that Catweazle is deliberately inventing argument for the purpose of misleading a discussion. -

Oh goodness! Not the tired old "Where are your links or it doesn't exist!" line? Go google a bit yourself before throwing out such accusations, and be sure not to fall prey to the temptation to read only the results which support your own beliefs. Instead, focus in on the links where claims are based upon genuine market research. There's plenty enough of it out there.

It was you that stated those figures, there is no requirement for me to find a source for figures that YOU posted.
if you can't back up such claim's then don't post such outragious statements (and until they are backup they are outragious)
Likewise in your own words you have admitted that there are sources that may provide a higher market-share figure so that results in two
conclusions

1) noone knows and thus no figures should EVER be mentions
2) no proof that you didn't pick a figure to match your beliefs, since you say that figures exist that don't meet yours (assuming my beliefs != your belief).

The fact is if the survey was done on MS's campus there would be closing in on 100% windows use. Do the same at RedHat camp and you would find the usage closing in on 100% for linux. Goto some universities and some may have higher linux usage and other higher windows usage.
Then making it more specific to your justification: Take stats on the MS website and you will get one bias, take states on the Gentoo forums (the #1 listed forum by google search btw) and you will see another usage stats.
Likewise there have been claims stating that MS are more secure based upon statistics drawn up by Symantec (??cit) and yet their conclusions for stating MS is more secure and patch quicker are flawed.
Likewise the metrix used to claim that BluRay has won the nextGen format wars are again flawed! statistics can be interpreted a million and one ways, all depending on the one doing the interpreting resulting in not a single independent statictical being un-biased (with the only exception possibly being population census at the 10year refresh)
Likewise a study to show the TCO of windows is less then linux is also flawed

The studies conducted regularly draw upon data such as sales profiles, web usage and other such variables, and the reports/results obtained from the research is plenty good enough to be used by corporate executives to inform decision-making processes. No study can ever portray s scenario with 100% accuracy, but market research strategies, especially when implemented by the more reputable research organisations, leads to as accurate a depiction as is possible to construct.

and there we have my issue with ALL staticical guestimates for anything (from use of shampoo to use of linux). They are just that. Unless
a complete operating-system census is undertaken then any number stated is pointless. Metrix can be used to try to extrapolate usage but they are always flawed, miss datapoints, to narrow a scope.
A study a while back tried to estimate how many people have died in Iraq, they came up with a figure ~10,000 and that was attained from interviewing ~2000people (I can get the link... need to grep the gentoo archives), Such claims were ridiculed yet they used some of the most thourough methods available.
Someone once said
Statistics don't lie, but those compiling statistics do
(actually I think it was my University maths lecturer that first said that to me)
So how about we just don't mention figures at all hey? since they are not really relevant to the use of linux anyway

Plenty enough info readily available to a search,although it tends to be a bit dated. The most up to date info can't usually be presented as a 'link' anyway, as those reports are usually quite expensive 'pay to view' access or else available only to paid subscribers to relevent websites.

So in your own words the data that "may" be available is dated and won't reflect the present usage and yet you hang on to this 0.5% with no backing up of it. So you can't then is the only logical conclusion.

But don't call me a liar, eh? No fair!

Quote me, quote me calling you a liar! I challenge you since you have said that I did then you must have hard proof of that word being used!, show me!

 

[Whatsisname]

You don't understand. There is one thing GNU/Linux has that Microsoft and Apple will never have: freedom. And for some of us, that is more important than anything else.

You think we will be discouraged when we have to write our own drivers? Thats how it has been done for the past 17 years, since the very beginning. When GNU/Linux was begun, it started with nothing. No kernel, no utilities, no compilers, nothing. Look what we have now. If in a few years we have no wireless internet or fancy 3d graphics, that will hardly slow anything down.

I give up. You're hopeless.

Don't get discourged in a few years when no more drivers are made and you gotta make your own, k?

And 2% is not a large market at all BTW, your only getting drivers because of servers. That ever goes south... Kiss your drivers goodbye.

I'll I'm gonna say is this little bit and I'm gome, but obviouslly your too hardhead to listen. Your just gonna hafta learn the hard way.

All that Microsoft or Apple has to do is blow Linux out of the water with a better server, like Microsoft did with Netscape, and all your drivers, all the stuff you have now, is gone.

You'd better compete and get marketshare, or you WILL be another OS/2. I'm telling you this now.

2% is a joke of a marketshare. If you honestly think that is alot, your out of your mind.

It's painfully obvious that Linux users and distro owners, with the exeption of ubuntu, have gotten complacent, and seem proud and content with their OS of choice.

But a OS is never perfect, something they don't realize.

Nothing is.

This is exactly what happened to Netscape. If Linux users and distros weren't so complacent they'd see this coming, but alas... all Microsoft has to do is sneak up, and BAM, another Netscape/OS/2.

This honestly doesn't have to happen. But according to these posts, you seem to hardheaded to figure out that it WILL.

Microsoft is after one thing. A Monopoly. Linux owns 25% of the servers, so does Unix. You think they like that?

I doubt that Microsoft likes it too much:

http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1615
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/20/microsoft_claims_linux_code/

 

[Whatsisname]

and here we have a false comparison. If you are going to include the time it takes to do those minor duties the time spent learning how to do them, then you should include the time it took you to learn windows like the back of your hand in the comparison.

exactly why i said what i said. having a gui makes it easier to get things done plain and simple. its kinda stupid to tell me i don't know what i'm talking about as well. gui happens to be easier to use for me. a CLI might be easier to use for the ppl you know catweazle. good for them...but for me, its a pain in the ass. it sure as hell made my job easier considering i had to do minor server admin duties while doing a majority of desktop support for a school district. if i had to use a CLI, i would have been there all day, considering i knew nothing at the time about being a server admin at the time. but since i knew windows like the back of my hand, i could do everything a lot faster. if i didn't know something, i could just let one of the other techs handle it, but otherwise i could do it on my own.

 

[Whatsisname]

The keyboard is vastly faster than a mouse, and having a powerful command line and powerful programming languages at your fingertips means more time getting work done rather than searching around the internet trying to find something to click to do your work.

As for wasting time reinventing the wheel, the interconnecting use of shared libraries is widespread in a gnu/linux system, far more than in commercial software. The sharing is to such an extent people whine about dependency problems because of it, even though those were solved years ago.

"The problem here is not that the OS is broken; the problem is that the person is using the wrong OS. As I said earlier, I see no reason in altering something that works perfectly well for me when there are already alternatives which serve that demographic quite well."

I'm sure those people that work on Gnome, KDE or any of the desktop oriented distros would disagree with you. Why alter something? Hmm, to make it better? Are you still running a 286 processor or are you still hunting and gathering to get by in your daily life? How is cave life treating you. There are options that serve that demographic, but none of them are open source or free software now are they? Basically, you want to have linux stay a backwoods ancient OS because you know how to use it and seemlingly you like that others don't. I'm not sure what you think you'd lose by not having to type so damn much. The whole linux community is incredibly wasteful. It competes against itself and is constantly reinventing the wheel. How anyone who is intelligent would think that any of this is useful is beyond me.

There are not different syntaxes across different distros. There are different syntaxes across different programs however, although when a large amount of softwares are written by a single group they are very consistent. For example look at all the gnu coreutils. While it would be nice if everything used the same method of configuration files and whatnot, it should be easy to see why they are different if you'd actually spend more than 5 seconds thinking rather than complaining because something isn't windows.

Why do GNOME and KDE keep 'reinventing the wheel'? Because the wheel isn't built. Both groups are trying to solve a problem, and they obviously don't see the other as a proper solution to the problem.

Yes, it is too much to ask to change the root folder names like opt proc and dev, because they are perfectly functional and there is no reason to change hundreds or thousands of softwares because someone is too lazy to do about 2 minutes of reading. And the names are meaningful.

The goal of the community should be to pull its head out of it's ass (and yes it's firmly stuck up there), get organized and improve things. Is there really a benefit to having different command syntaxes across different distros? Please, tell me how that enhances the community. Is it really too much to ask after all of these years to have system folder names like opt, proc and dev have their names updated to something meaningful? Does it really make sense to have Gnome and KDE developers waste their time reinventing the wheel?

 

[Theli]

I'm sure those people that work on Gnome, KDE or any of the desktop oriented distros would disagree with you. Why alter something? Hmm...

Let me just sum up general's entire argument for you...

1. Linux developers are assholes who hates everyone!

[insert sarcastic remark]

2. Linux users are [insert nerd-stereotype]!

[predict doom]

3. Linux is... eh... I haven't used it for about 10 years, but I'm sure it's crap!

Look at all those distros!!!!

Oh goodness! Not the tired old "Where are your links or it doesn't exist!" line? Go google a bit yourself before throwing out such accusations, and be sure not to fall prey to the temptation to read only the results which support your own beliefs.

If you are the one making claims, then you are the one who will have to provide evidence. If you are the one providing numbers, then you are the one who will have to cite sources. Remember, you cannot rely on anyone to help you to convince them to change their beliefs. If you want to convince them, then you will have to do all the work.

 

[kill4killin]

Ok, here goes the "flaming"

I have to agree with you that linux isn't for everybody...but back when it was just starting out computers were not for "everybody" either. Microsoft IMO has done a great injustice for computers in the world by making them so user friendly. All Microsoft ever gets is bad press because they cater to the people who know jack about computers and theirfore instead of blaming their stupidity for their problems, they claim that it is all Microsoft's fault for designing shitty software. In reality, Microsoft products, while in my opinion are inferior to Unix based operating systems, are very good and very well made. If half of it's users had more then half a brain and actually took the time to educate themselves there wouldn't be half as many problems with computers as their are today.

But back to Linux, I have been a Linux user know for about 5 years and yes, when I started off I was still mainly using Windows for a long time and had to dual boot and play with Linux when I started off in order to get used to it. I will tell you one thing for sure though. A lot less people would have problems with windows if they had to explore their computers like they do to learn Linux as they did to learn Windows. After exploring and learning how Linux worked it is very straightforward to keep learning when you need to know how to do a new thing in it. Almost everything builds on things you learned when you were setting up or initially working on the system.

Also, in Linux's defense, if software developers developed more software to work on it (IE your precious games) then there wouldn't be half the problems with software compatibility that there are. In order to get more recognition from these software companies there needs to be an expressed interest from the users of that software for development. It is also a known fact that windows games will not work on Linux without some tinkering, so I'm still baffled as to why you installed Linux expecting to be able to just run an .exe file on it from the start...

Ok, I'm done...for now

 

[markt435]

and here we have a false comparison. If you are going to include the time it takes to do those minor duties the time spent learning how to do them, then you should include the time it took you to learn windows like the back of your hand in the comparison.

years and years of free time? i started using windows when i was, i dunno...7 or 8? i turn 22 this year.

 

[odoe]

Ok, that's it.
This thread has gone way out of line. I can't even comment.