Linux Wars?

[Karnevil9]

A comment and a question. I've noticed that this has been a really good year for Linux usrs. Releases include Mandrake 10 , Fedora core 3, SuSe finally releases it's persoanl edition 9.1 as a free ISO download, Libranet releases it full 2.8.1 version as a free drownload, A Slackware based free eval version, Slax, is released, Knoppix releases it's new version (3.4 I believe). A good year for Linux users, but do you think there is competition for customers in the making or is it just coincidence? Maybe with Redhat virtually out of the home user market now, the other Linux makers are trying attract those users. Or are the Linux flavors detecting some frustration by M$ users and trying to win those folks over.

[Xayd]

I don't think Linux will ever be a popular desktop OS, personally. Not to say that it can't be used as one, it certainly can if you have the patience to learn how to use it, but the deer-in-headlights "how do I download the internet" types won't ever be Linux users .

But, on the other hand, the more Linux progresses with hardware support and especially in improved multimedia support, the more you will run into very cool things that Linux can do which a windows machine cannot. There are a good number of those things out there already, more I'm sure will come along in the future.

So will Linux be more widely used in the future? I think so, just not as a desktop. It will always do well as a server, and it will do increasingly well in things like standalone multimedia devices (see: tivos for instance) and other such things that require OS-level customization to be feasible.

[neouser99]

I have to disagree. From what I have noticed with all the ranting and raving, is that these distros listed above have made the right moves in one area that will attact almost everyone. For years, the debate over the GUI has been at the top of the list. And those distros are getting closer and closer to matching windows GUI. I think this is a good thing, they are moving towards copying windows because it works. Once it is copied, then it has somewhere to go and the big changes will begin, which will really bring in the users.

Not to mention, being Open Source, making it available to everyone in the world to modify, especially once all of todays script kiddies grow up and get over thinking virus writing is the awesome thing to do...oh well, just raving.

go linux!!

-neo

[piasabird]

I am still waiting to hear Microsoft announce its own flavor of Linux that plays all games designed for windows.

[piasabird]

That was kind of a joke.

I did download SUSE 9.1 Personal Edition and it practically installed itself on my Windows XP with NTFS partitions. It just uses some space and resizes and sets up a partition and goes to the install. Has a nice bootloader too. Very easy to use.

[neouser99]

yea, i am getting the suse iso right now, i have done every other distro possible, but with my new sata drive, I want to use something where I don't have to configure my own kernel

-neo

[Xayd]

The ability to configure your own kernel is a benefit, not a hindrance .

[piasabird]

I have been holding back buying SATA Drives because it is not the default drive technology yet. Perhaps in a generation or two of motherboards SATA will be the default and IDE the possible add-on technology. If I can not add a SATA Drive to my motherboard and have it automatically recognized without loading a special driver, then I am not interested in the technology. An SATA drive is not all that much faster with a few exceptions like the 10,000 rpm WD Raptor. However, I look at that as a drive that will just ware out faster.

[neouser99]

it isn't the mobos fault, they are recongnized by default, it is the different os kernels that were built before SATA was mainstream, so they are the ones that are the problem, not SATA technology.

i understand it is a benefit...never said it wasn't. I just said i didn't want to do it cause it can be a major pain sometimes

-neo

[LocoCoyote]

Linux is a very viable desktop OS. it has become one by becoming more Windows like. I understand this but I fear that linux users are being "dummed down" much as MS DOS users were with windows. Right now there are many people running *nix who have little clue what is going on behind the GUI. This is a continuing evolutionary process I think.