RetroRomper wrote:Tdarcos wrote:Microsoft Windows has something like 85%+ of all computer usage of Intel-based machines. The other 15% is shared by non-Intel (which is the Power-PC, e.g. older Macintosh) or MacOS-based Intel boxes, servers running Linux, Unix or BSD and the occasional desktop machine running Linux or something else.
The market share not being dominated by Windows, is being shared by
EVERY OTHER OS. Shocker... And non-intel? You mean anything that isn't x86? If your going to throw RISC / PowerPC based processors in there, 80% of the market is dominated by ARM (based on volume) / MIPS or whatever.
I'm not referring to tablet PCs or things like the iPad or phones, I'm only referring to desktop boxes. If you look inside a GPS in someone's car it's probably running Mobile Linux or one of the other mobile OS', and it probably is an ARM processor because of the better characteristics it has for mobile computing. I don't know if WinCE is very popular or not, but I tell you; the day I hear that any automobile's hardware is run using anything from Microsoft is the day I use every power I have to communicate as widely as possible to STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THAT CAR BECAUSE THE SOFTWARE WILL EVENTUALLY CRASH AND IT WILL KILL YOU, SOONER OR LATER!
And why are you including servers? Why.... Are... You.... Including.... A... Completely.... Different.... Market.... Segment.... In your half ass analysis and dumbing down of the statistics of an entire industry?
Why do I care? I really don't...
Because Windows still has a important server penetration but Linux is equal there except perhaps for mail and calendaring. Most places running mail are probably running Exchange Server; for Database servers they may, depending on how they are set up, still be using Microsoft's SQL Server as opposed to Sun's MySQL, IBM's DB2, or Oracle's eponymous product (all three of which are available either for Windows or Linux).
Tdarcos wrote:There are two types of Linux; boxes used for servers that don't have to work as desktops, and the few that do.
Is there anyone in the audience who doesn't have some smattering of background in IT? Anyone? Why the heck is this guy explaining to me what a server is?
I'm clarifying how I am establishing the estimates I am using.
Tdarcos wrote:Now, machines that either run Linux as the primary desktop or in dual boot with Windows have an interesting problem: being able to provide the necessary tools the person needs to do whatever tasks they want to do.
Proof read your posts? I guess you mean "Linux doesn't support some off brand, POS device I bought for $9 from a white van parked behind a gutted Circuit City." Please just say that "Linux sucks because some Chinese manufacturer decided to only support the OS that 90% of the world uses." Or I.E. "Obviously its the fault of the OS for not working with my cheap, half ass device."
You might want to check your facts and you might want to read what I said rather than make up something and assume it's what you thought I said. Tenda is a Chinese wireless manufacturer whose products I purchased inside of Micro Center, a major national electronics chain that I personally have done business with for over 20 years. Micro Center routinely has hundreds of Tenda adapters in their stores. They always work on every computer I've tried them on that will run a USB wireless adapter, mine and other people's and I've found their performance comparable to wireless adapters costing three times as much.
They work, they're inexpensive, and as I said, repeatedly in more than one post, IN AT LEAST ONE RELEASE OF LINUX THE TENDA ADAPTER WORKED ON THE "OUT OF THE BOX" LINUX INSTALLATION WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO INSTALL A DRIVER, SOMETHING THAT WASN'T EVEN POSSIBLE WITH WINDOWS.
This is not some "cheap device bought from a van behind a gutted Circuit City." Also, where exactly do you know of
any gutted Circuit City store? Every one I've seen in this area have been snapped up and re-opened by some other retailer because the places are typically prime retail real estate. Maybe where you live the recession is a lot worse.
(mmm... I found rape seeds in my Apple Turnover)
Uh, for several years, because 'rapeseed' has such a bad connotation, the new name for them are "canola" seeds. That's why people buy "canola" oil instead of "rapeseed" oil.
Tdarcos wrote:I had one distro that recognized my cheap $9 Tenda wireless card out of the box, I was able to use Firefox and I think I might have even posted a message here.
Good for you!
So much for your bothering to read what I said after you stated how it's a "POS off-brand bought from a white van behind a gutted Circuit city" adapter that Linux doesn't support, after I just said that it did.
Tdarcos wrote:With the cracking of the NTFS file system, now a running Linux can read and write to a NTFS-formatted drive on the same machine so it can access the user's existing files as needed.
Cracked? It wasn't cracked, it was at best
reverse engineered. Please don't try to paint Linux as a Pirate OS or "viral infection."
I meant "cracked" in the sense that they cracked Microsoft's monopoly on the means to access NTFS both for read and write. Please excuse me if my phrasing was incorrect, I meant it in the sense that you were referring to, that the people reverse engineering the NTFS method had finally cracked the problem.
And a stable NTFS driver has been available for the last EIGHT YEARS. I loaded experimental NTFS patches onto Linux soon after Windows XP was released and Debian has been shipping with NTFS support for the last five.
NTFS write support on Linux took a long time; NTFS read support was out a lot sooner.
Tdarcos wrote:I had found before this that the easiest way to transfer files back-and-forth was either to use a floppy disc or a USB thumb drive, because Linux can handle both DOS and DOS-LFN drives (the version of the DOS file system that supports long file names.)
Note to the audience: the sane approach would have been to use FAT32, instead of employing a solution that is more to satisfy self gloating that consists of "Erp derp, I found a clever solution to a problem I created."
That was what I was referring to, I just couldn't remember the common name of "FAT32" at the time and I was referring to it as "DOS-LFN". Exactly what do you think jump drives are formatted for, Macintosh? They're formatted FAT32.
I didn't create any problem, Microsoft did, or rather, the manufacturers of very large hard drives did. NTFS is the default format for XP drives and above a certain size (I got the numbers straight off Microsoft's website) for Windows 2000, the maximum partition size for FAT32 is 32 GB; if it's Windows 98, the maximum size is 127½ GB, so if you have a drive at or above 128 GB you have to use NTFS if you want it as a single volume. So that means that before the problem was solved, either you had to have a separate FAT32 partition or use an external device that is FAT32 formatted (like a jump drive). Once they reverse engineered how to read
and write NTFS partitions on Linux that form of sneakernet was no longer needed.
Tdarcos wrote:So they're getting there, and it keeps getting better all the time, but Linux still has problems with being transparently usable the way Windows routinely is.
Your right: Where are my multiple 3D work spaces in Linux? Oh wait...
Lets also completely ignore Gnome 2, Gnome 3, KDE, Unity, Ion, etc. as "baby OSes, that I'm obviously qualified to completely discard out of hand."
And you might try learning to use the correct terms and know what you are talking about.
None of those are operating systems. They are
all desktop environments for X. (I originally thought they were window managers; they are not.)
Or rather, since you lumped them together I'm presuming Unity and ION are also desktop environments although one of the websites I visited which lists desktops and window managers for X doesn't list Unity or Ion. They are application programs that operate the user's desktop on X Windowing System and run with X, which itself is an application program that runs on an operating system.
What exactly are you smoking? Do you have a medical license for it?
And another incompetent who can't think shows his true stripes by hauling out the old and tired ad-hominem treatment because he knows he's incapable of honest conversation.
Tdarcos wrote:Of course, the reason being the billions of dollars spent on Windows and the relatively minor amounts of money in comparison available for Linux.
Urgh?
Again, it's a chicken-and-egg problem, there aren't that many things available for ordinary desktop users to do the things they want (there isn't a lot of money available to release Linux ports of PC games, so almost all of them are Windows only), plus most of the development effort in desktop applications goes toward Windows, plus Microsoft makes money selling Windows - which it can thus offer incentives to manufacturers to continue to offer it on their machines - and it's pre-loaded on machines (and Microsoft pulls every stunt it can think of - legal or otherwise - to try to keep manufacturers from putting Linux on their boxes). Thus there's a big pile of resources to support Windows. Linux, not so much.