Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> Yup. Microsoft uses its paid-for analysts to bluntly lie to the press.
>
> Dell tests consumer preferences on Linux
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Company seeks opinions as it considers putting system on consumer PCs.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | "Linux was simply not designed for the desktop, neither as a product
> | nor given the economic model around it," said Rob Enderle, head of
> | ^^^^^^^^^^^
> | the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. "It will be hard for Dell to
> | make it work."
> |
> | Because Linux isn't compatible with most existing computers, what
> | it can do is somewhat limited, analysts said. For example, few
> | computer-based games run on Linux. Versions of Linux would work
> | better on an appliance-type desktop -- one that performs a smaller
> | set of specific functions, said Roger Kay, president of EndpointT
> | echnologies Associates Inc.
> `----
>
When is the last time anyone here had compatibility problems with their
Linux, irrespective of the distro you selected? I can't think of a document
I couldn't open and I am interacting with MS Win/Office users all through
my working day. I don't have access to a MS Win machine unless I go out of
my office and kick a user off their machine. There was a time I had to keep
an MS Win in my office, but that was quite a few years ago.
At home, when did anyone here last have a situation where they wanted to do
something but couldn't do it unless they load up MS Win? I haven't had MS
Win at home for far longer than I haven't had a MS Win in my office. There
simply is nothing on MS Win that I can not do on my Linux, but the other
way round is true, there are things I want to do on my Linux that I know MS
Win/office is less capable of. Shhs to my web space, I work with vi, ssh
mywebspace.com and to all intents and purposes that site is on my PC, so I
work in exactly the same way on the local copy of a site as I do on the
remote copy, in fact I have edited the wrong one before or updated in the
wrong direction *blush* , because they is no real difference working on
either. There are loads of things I do all the time that when I am faced
with a MS Win machine, I struggle with or I find I have to go through long
laborious repeated actions to atchive the same goal.
The one that always comes up in this sort of discussion is Games of cause. I
am not really a game player and maybe if I was I would want a MS Win dual
boot. But really, aren't the games consoles taking over that role anyway
and doing a better job? Do people really still sit for hours in front of
the PC playing games, unless it is the sort you get online with Yahoo. If
you go into Tescos and walk amongst the software shelves, the PS2 has a
huge shelf to itself, the Wii and psp share one about half the width of the
shelf for each though the Wii is slowly pushing psp into a smaller area,
and the PC software and games section is tiny, maybe half the width of the
psp shelves. The likes of Tescos give shelf space to those things that
sell, if they give less space to MS Win software then it is only because
more would be wasted space, it isn't selling.
So Roger is wrong, in the office Linux is ready and fully capable, same in
the home. For the games market I don't think we really need to worry about
that, though I still believe that Linux is an ideal platform for a games
engine simply because it puts the games programmer much closer to the
hardware than is possible on a Windows platform. I am told that the various
up coming Linux Games engines are very good, I can't say I know from
personal experience, but there really is only one reason why Linux could
not do an excellent job in that arena. The kernel, the final step for
super-games on Linux requires a kernel change of the sort most of us would
join the linch mob for if anyone dared try it.
MS Win98 did it, they moved more of the graphics system down to kernel, it
does give a large improvement in graphics speed and response speeds, but it
inherits high risk and there is very little you can do about that without
reducing that speed improvement (I mean crash risk as well as security
risk). That wouldn't be acceptable in Lunux world. But still, even without,
since graphics cards themselves can take on much more of their own work
that at one time had to be done by the CPU and the Linux programmer can
make use of the graphics cards capabilities directly, then there should be
no need at all for us to hack our kernel. Graphic card vendors would much
prefer it that way too, they come up with fantastic graphics cards that are
only really used to their full on expensive CAD or high end commercial
publishing software. Linux can use these cards.
So anyone reading Roger's words, there are no problems of the kind he
mentions. There might be other reasons for you to prefer MS Win, but don't
let those reasons that Roger mentioned be those that put you off Linux,
because it simply is not true.
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