As if we are watching an episode of The Scary Door, Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth has praised Windows 7, and welcomed Microsoft’s latest operating system into the fight. Shuttleworth made his remarks in a short interview with The Register.
Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and the Ubuntu Linux distribution, says he tried and loved the Windows 7 beta. “I’ve kicked the tires on the [Windows 7] beta for a few hours and it was good,” Shuttleworth explained, “They’ve put concerted attention on the user experience with the shell. I think it’s going to be a great product, and every indication is we will see it in the market sooner rather than later.”
Don’t think that Shuttleworth praises Microsoft just to be nice, though; there’s more to it than that. He hopes that Windows 7 will end the “phoney war” between Windows and Linux in the fast-growing netbook market. He explains that right now, OEMs are buying cheap copies of Windows XP, instead of the full version of Vista, which is more expensive. “We are in an awkward situation now because they are giving away XP in the netbook market – they are literally giving it way to OEMs,” Shuttleworth claimed, “You can make the argument Linux is more expensive than Windows XP because Microsoft has been very aggressive in licensing.”
Shuttleworth makes a good point. Microsoft doesn’t really need to make any money any more on XP licenses; the operating system has been a massive, unrivalled success, and has already returned the investment massively. As a consequence, Microsoft can offer dump prices; with Windows 7, which, as many reports indicate, runs fine on netbooks, Microsoft can do nothing but charge the full price, increasing the price difference between Windows and Linux. This should give Linux a more even chance at successfully competing with Windows in the netbook space.
As a consequence, Microsoft can offer dump prices; with Windows 7, which, as many reports indicate, runs fine on netbooks, Microsoft can do nothing but charge the full price, increasing the price difference between Windows and Linux. This should give Linux a more even chance at successfully competing with Windows in the netbook space.
Or they could just stick with bundling XP?
Not forever they can’t. Not if they want to eventually EOL XP and keep in mind as well that while all applications are XP compatible at the moment, how long this will remain the case is unknown. If the final release of 7 is as nice as the beta is, we might actually see a lot of app developers shift away from XP and start using a lot of new APIs and functionality provided in 7. They will eventually come to depend on this extended functionality and that will most likely break a lot of XP compatibility. This didn’t happen with Vista because Vista was a disaster for the most part, especially before sp1, and there are many who still won’t move to it. With 7 it might just be different.
As far as Shuttleworth goes… well, good to see he doesn’t engage in the elitism that is so common among the Linux fanboys at the moment.
64 bit will be the big switch.
Just as IE wasn’t upgraded for years because Microsoft saw no need or competition, we wouldn’t see its frantic efforts to get 7 to market in order to (1) kill off XP, which drains revenue from Vista, and (2) to desperately get as far away from the whole Vista disaster as soon as possible.
But since Linux already stomps Win7 on both performance and security (on any machine you choose), there won’t be a single Linux user switching to Win7, I guarantee that.
I won’t comment on the performance figures, but can you elaborate when it comes to security?
I can’t really recall the last time Vista (and thus, 7) were massively infested. That last one that was all over the news doesn’t count, as it only affected machines that weren’t up-to-date.
Security is no longer a reason to switch to Linux or Mac OS X. Windows Vista and 7 are very secure operating systems.
Well .. it all depends on your definition of security.
Not regarding updates there are more infected Vista desktops with virii and malware than there are Mac or Linux desktops ( even in % ).
That is real world security. IMNSHO that is only one that counts.
Edited 2009-01-22 10:49 UTC
Conficker seems to be doing a fair job. Estimated at 9m infections and counting.
Read the rest of my comment. That attack only affects machine that are NOT up-to-date. Therefore, it doesn’t count. Windows is not vulnerable to this attack – machines that are not up-to-date are.
According to your logic Linux is unbreakable because with the right SELinux rules/policies you can defend yourself against every attack.
IMNSHO that is a stupid theoretical world view not founded in reality.
The problem with this thinking is that Microsoft sometimes “pushes” undesirable code along with its updates. The fact that there are things like Conficker out there, in great number (where none exist for Linux or Mac OSX), means that with a Windows OS one must keep it precisely up to date (which in turn means automatically accepting updates from Microsoft without any opportunity to review if you want them or not), and it also mandates that additional security software, other than the OS, must also be purchased and run all the time.
This in turn has a dual effect … security scanner databases must be kept up to date, which will cost you for a subscription, and security scanners must be running, which will cost you performance.
So you have a choice with Windows … you can arguably achieve security at a financial and performance cost, or you can have the performance and avoid the financial imposts at the cost of your system’s security.
Regardless whether or not this is a “fair” comparison, it is still the one that counts … it is still the reality. Things like Conficker count alright in real-world usage of an OS.
Out of the box Windows 7 might have equivalent performance, but it costs more at the outset and has inadequate security on its own (because of things like Conficker). Secured by additional security programs, Windows will have additional and ongoing costs, and it will suffer performance degradation.
On a netbook, this adds up to a significant disadvantage for running Windows. By “significant”, I mean significant compared with the total cost of purchasing and running the alternative.
Edited 2009-01-22 13:25 UTC
…? Sorry, I don’t do black helicopters.
This is a problem on ALL platforms. Updates can always break existing functionality on all operating systems. You can’t claim, with a straight face, that Linux and OS X systems never receive security updates that break other things or introduce regressions.
This applies to every operating system. If you run a mission critical environment, you’ll need tools that constantly monitor the operating system for potential threats, and yes, those come at a performance penalty.
I’m sorry, but if you fail to keep your operating system up-to-date, then you’re on your own. The patch was issues on OCtober 15th 2008 – that’s three months ago, before any serious infection was spotted in the wild. I’m sorry, but if you still haven’t applied such an old patch, you basically deserve to be infected.
But that is exactly the point here Thom. Most people don’t know and don’t care about security updates, don’t know when to click OK on a UAC dialog, don’t understand what a virus, trojan or other malware is. And they don’t care. For them, when their machine isn’t working properly it is “broken”. I know as I fix them by the hundreds.
While in theory these people “deserve” to be infected, they also represent the vast majority of users. Your average OSAlert reader will never have this problem, but common people will be almost constantly infected. And the fact is the OS does not help. It is the target of most (if not all) viruses, and it has the largest (and more uneducated) user base. Combine it with remnants from the past (read: all users are admins) that still haven’t vanished and you have the perfect recipe for disaster.
So yes, it is not exactly the OS’s fault (although it does have some roots there) but that won’t change the fact: Chances of getting an infection on a Linux machine is very remote, even if you are careless. Not so on Windows.
> This is a problem on ALL platforms. Updates can always break existing functionality on all operating systems. You can’t claim, with a straight face, that Linux and OS X systems never receive security updates that break other things or introduce regressions.
Actually I can, with Debian I can see the 3 line patch and I can actually understand what it’s trying to fix and how it’s doing this. That combined with the knowledge of what other software is installed pretty much means security updates don’t break anything in Linux.
While I can see your points and agree with you on some of them, I heartily disagree that Windows users are forced to buy expensive security software in fear of having their security breached. Software such as the full-fledged McAffee and Norton suites are pieces of garbage– what I’d call viruses themselves, crippling the system, slowing it down, and popping up annoyingly and constantly; they’re absolute wastes of money, system resources, and ultimately time (waiting for it to load, clicking confirmations perpetually that are ten times worse than Vista’s UAC, etc.) I’ve lived quite happily and virus-free for some years having only little security on my computers, and at no cost to me. There are plenty of free antivirus and antispyware programs out there that, in my opinion, do the job well enough– and even some full-fledged ones that do everything Norton or McAffee does all for free unless you’re a business. I trust Microsoft enough to keep the updates flowing at a good pace as well as the companies publishing respective antivirus and what-have-you programs. In my opinion, for what it’s worth, I say most individuals are quite safe with a simple, easy, watered down security program to take care of any nasty atrocities that may come up, especially if these individuals are smart and don’t go (unknowingly) looking for it. Perhaps it’s unwise to trust in these updates to be current enough, but it hasn’t proved any problems for me yet.
Edited 2009-01-23 02:39 UTC
Whenever someone asks me to set up a Windows system for them, I have in the past used AVG, but nowadays I use this:
http://moonsecure.com/
Despite being very light, this is still an on-access scanner, and hence (like all others) it necessarily adds a performance overhead. It is otherwise without cost. It carries the primary benefit that people can see what is in it and what it does … which is a useful attribute to have for a piece of software that you are trusting to scan all of your files.
Even if you adopt such an approach, however … there is still no point to using Windows 7 on a netbook. If you use commercial software for Windows it will cost you many times the cost of the netbook. If you use open source solutions like this one to avoid the cost (and other hazards) of commercial proprietary software … then you may as well have used the faster and more secure Linux OS in the first place.
Edited 2009-01-23 02:57 UTC
That is the daftest justification regarding security I have ever seen, and that’s going some. Just because an update has been posted it ‘doesn’t count’ and Windows isn’t susceptible to this?
That’s the biggest sweeping reclassification of security issues I have ever seen and unfortunately it ‘doesn’t count’ because thankfully most people who track security issues for a living at least have a couple of brain cells to rub together. No one can claim that any Linux distribution isn’t vulnerable to an issue and it can be struck off the list just because there is an update – just in case you’re claiming favouritism ;-).
Of course! That’s not daft – that’s common sense. If there’s a patch, the hole is gone. As simple as that. The patch was there before the worm actually got out in the wild, THREE MONTHS AGO, so there is NO excuse for not having your system up-to-date. If you’ve been bitten by this worm, it’s your own fault for not having your system up-to-date.
To drag out the car analogy, kicking and screaming – if due to circumstances beyond my control, my car spins out of control and crashes into a wall… Is the car/car maker responsible for me not wearing the seat belt and dying? Or am I responsible?
Edited 2009-01-22 16:35 UTC
9m infections count, weather they’re patched or not. It also suggests that the current Windows Update process is not working as well as it could.
It’s also pretty niave to assume that just because this one has been patched that there isn’t an equally large security hole that will be found next week. The track record says that it exists and that it will be found.
I REALLY wanted to mod up this post… Sigh!
Edited 2009-01-22 20:55 UTC
Google before you post Thom :p
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7842013.stm
If you read that article, it is clear that the worm changes daily, so updates are impossible currently.
At the bottom there is a link to a Microsoft update, but, like it says it will only mitigate it, not eradicate it.
Edited 2009-01-22 14:14 UTC
Read the entire thread before you comment, raver21.
We covered this one already in this debate. It doesn’t count, an update has been out since before the worm was even known.
Saying that it “doesn’t count” just because there’s a patch issued for one of the attack vectors is a bit silly.
The worm has other attack vectors, such as infecting removable storage devices (USB flash drives, cameras, MP3 players), and tricking the user into clicking the wrong option in the autorun dialog box.
I’d class that as an unpatched security vulnerability – untrusted applications on removable media should not be able to spoof OS dialogs so easily. Similar issues in web browsers are treated as security vulnerabilities, and I see no reason the OS should be treated any differently. Same goes for hiding file extensions.
It also tries to infect other machines on the local network, by installing itself to network shares, and then scheduling a task remotely (and I have no idea why Windows allows this by default on home machines).
There’s probably little the OS could do about this, short of taking steps to prevent password guessing. Other OSes would be similarly vulnerable if they had SSH or similar installed (although, crucially, neither Mac OS X nor most Linux distributions include SSH by default).
It’s not really that Windows is insecure – security is just really hard to get right, especially if you want the machine to still be useful.
For example, I think some old versions of KDE used to allow you to create a .desktop file that contained an embedded shellscript, which was automatically run when you open the .desktop file, and could be made to look exactly like an innocuous file, like a PDF or an MP3. Same problem applies there.
Still, you have to stay up-to-date. Which obviously a big amount of users fail to do.
Windows is very good security wise only compared to its predecessors. In the current “real world” scenario, it is far from being on par with Linux. I would also like to point out that not everybody out there likes to run crappy or expensive antivirus and other software in the background just to feel save enough to browse the web.
Thom, HAH, you are funny man. Does anyone else thinks he is funny?
Is “very very secure”? can you try to not sound so n00bish?
Yeah, it is more secure than XP, but that doesn’t make it “very very secure”.
What people don’t get here is the main point, Mark Shuttleworth doesn’t feel the need to bash Windows 7 for him to gain any benefit, Ubuntu is doing well, with less than half the advertisement, Microsoft invest in every year. Linux is going strong in the servers, and will be expected that it continues to do so, as many IT people are dusting off old machines and turning them into Linux servers, given the economic recession we are in. I myself think Windows 7 is looking good, I will keep using Linux though.
Anyways, thanks for the laughs.
kensai LAWL’d…
/me raises hand.
Unfortunately modding someone as ‘funny’ is a +1 mod so I have to avoid it in cases like this….I suppose Thom would consider that a feature not a bug though.
–bornagainpenguin
A whole lot of bullshit there. I’ve been running Vista for a long time now. Of course it’s not perfect but nevertheless the best operating system we have available at the moment. Why else would I use it daily?
Unfortunately for you I have also been using Linux for about ten years. I keep using it for a lot of reasons but desktop performance is certainly not one of them. “Stomps Win7” is quite a false claim. I’m no security expert but I’m sure that neither Win7 or Linux stomps on the other in that area.
But since Linux already stomps Win7 on both performance and security
I use Linux on my desktop full time, after years with Windows. I switched for security reasons. I don’t know if Windows 7 is measurably less secure than my Linux distro now, but for me Linux still has an aura of security and peace of mind that Windows does not provide.
As for performance, well, let’s just say that I did not switch to Linux for performance reasons. Boot time is about twice as long with Linux. Login to the desktop takes longer on Linux. The Nautilus file manager, which is comfortable for me to use, is inexcusably slow on directories containing more than about 25 files. I could go on. I’m fairly content with my Linux distro at the moment, but if you’re looking for a “snappy” but familiar desktop, keep on looking.
Edited 2009-01-22 13:28 UTC
Not to mention your *desktop* Linux apps suck royal ass.
Linux is for servers.
“Linux is for servers.”
Having some experience here, I can tell you this: Linux *sucks* on servers. Unix is for servers.
I don’t agree and many ISP’s run Debian on there webservers which proves my point exactly.
Rockwell, what’s with the obvious trolling?
Anyway, Linux isn’t “for” any specific purpose; it exists still as a project for students and enthusiasts to learn from. You would have been more correct to say that Linux is meant for multiple users, which is very true. It just so happens to also be pretty damn good at nearly any task it’s thrown at, whether serving web pages and databases, or powering a home desktop, or making possible a powerful, open cellphone platform. It’s the swiss army knife of the OS world, malleable into nearly any conceivable use, and ported to almost as many platforms as NetBSD (maybe more by now, I haven’t kept up).
Some would say the only better UNIX than Linux is BSD, and even that is debatable on several different fronts. Myself, I prefer OS X for its speed, power and simplicity — and the fact that it doesn’t use X11 as the UI server.
My Linux install boots in less than half a minute on my desktop… not too bad, I think.
…and Vista cheats with the boot process.
I only consider it fully booted up after it finishes it’s thrashing of the hard drive after the desktop appears…. it’s unusable before that.
Edited 2009-01-22 16:34 UTC
If your comfortable with it, I suggest looking at your what services are starting at boot up. I’m sure you can trim down your boot up time if you did a small audit
.
atari05 pointed out…
THIS! Also if your particular machine supports it concurrent booting can make a big difference in boot up performance.
Just like in Windows, Linux can and must be tweaked to your hardware if you want to get the best performance from it. Most good Windows OEMs do this for you, but unfortunately many OEMs ‘supporting’ Linux expect you to do this on your own. To be fair, many Linux users would prefer to do their own optimizing…
–bornagainpenguin
I beg to differ. Vista booting takes aeons. On netbooks, Linux boots faster than XP.
Especially with Ubuntu Jaunty, due to come out in April, where the boot time is considerably reduced again, Windows 7 has a very difficult target to catch up with Linux.
http://www.techbreak.net/ubuntu-904-jaunty-jackalope-can-boot-in-21…
Really? 32bit WinXP runs like lightning on my AMD64+2Gb+GeForce 6600GT while Ubuntu runs like a dog. huge difference in performance. Your claim is ridiculous.
And in my case 32bit WinXP runs like a dog on my AMD64X2+2Gb+GeForce 5700GT while Ubuntu runs like lightning with a huge difference in performance.
He may be rediculous, but evidently from my experiences you are wrong. Flat out. Just like I am to someone else with different experiences.
Weeeeee! Isn’t software fun???!!
Edited 2009-01-22 20:58 UTC
Really? Because testing with an 8-core box with 64-bit versions of each OS shows Linux getting it’s butt handed to it. What are you using to derive your results? I’m using CFD modeling, as well as Geekbench.
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/32/os
Windows apologists have been publishing skewed studies purporting to show Windows as performing better for ages and ages.
This is an old trick. Try it again by comparing an optimal version of Linux, tuned for performance on a given system, just as the Windows version you are using is.
Edited 2009-01-22 23:14 UTC
If I were you, I’d be careful about making absolute statements like that; they tend to make one look quite stupid down the road.
I’ve been playing with the Beta on my Mac mini for a few days now, and security concerns aside, I think it will pull away a lot of fringe Linux users. The GUI seems to have taken a whole bunch of cues from KDE and Enlightenment, and the overall system performance is pretty amazing compared to Vista on the same machine. As for security, it can’t be any worse than Vista, which is miles ahead of XP.
Granted, I won’t be switching from OS X myself as it still outperforms all versions of Windows as well as Linux, and it meets my needs better than either (though Linux only by a very small margin). Still, I think Microsoft is headed in the right direction for once; if they can muster the courage to drop legacy support as Apple did with the transition to OS X on Intel, they will start seeing growth once again.
I’m not holding my breath, though.
“But since Linux already stomps Win7 on both performance and security (on any machine you choose), there won’t be a single Linux user switching to Win7, I guarantee that.”
When it comes to performance and security a lot of users are happy if it is “good enough”, and often don’t understand either.
They do however care *alot* about ease of use, and maybe even more importantly: familiarity. Linux is scary to a lot of people. I remember we had Linux at school. Everybody hated it, the only thing they hated more was OpenOffice.
But of course, people who have what they need on Linux *and* are familiar with it probably won’t switch.
As ive probably said before, a quote from the talk with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had was Steve Jobs saying that for either company to succeed the other doesn’t have to lose. I think this can be applied to the whole of the computing industry. Im platform agonistic and i find uses for all three major OS’s MacOSX, Windows and Linux.
Strong compeition is a win win for the market, Windows 7 is being engineered well due to compeition from both MacOSX and Linux, which in turn compete with each other.
After years of medicore the computing OS market is becoming interesting again.
Amen.
A lot of good different OS’s going on right now.
From the article:
“While Microsoft isn’t exactly be subsidizing Windows on netbooks, the existence of Windows XP is undercutting the flag-ship product.”
WTF? not true
Why are netbooks so important? It’s a market tipped to grow, recent economic woes aside, and it’s a market not yet dominated by Windows to the exclusion of all other operation systems.
WTF: maybe it won’t ever be dominated…
etc. full of shit not worth your time.
Edited 2009-01-22 10:42 UTC
“”Why are netbooks so important? It’s a market tipped to grow, recent economic woes aside, and it’s a market not yet dominated by Windows to the exclusion of all other operation systems. “”
Try buying a Linux netbook in Australia that ISN’T the 7 inch EeePC. I managed to get an Acer Aspire One with Linux, but I hear that the new Aspire One revision doesn’t have a Linux option. They all come with Windows now, and I’m sure this probably isn’t too far from the truth in other countries too.
If that point is sinking in, well and good (it’s a Reg line in the interview, not from MS himself). Folks want to concentrate on doing their stuff on the computer rather than doing the work of the computer. Editing config files or messing with a CLI are prime examples of the second.
I guess Shuttleworth is being realistic. Dissing Windows isn’t going to get a single extra copy of Ubuntu installed. Building a better distro might just do it instead.
Even so there is a potential trap here. You don’t want to become so hardcore on netbooks that the market is then given the impression that Linux is only good for netbooks and that you need a “real” OS, like, er, Windows 7, for a full PC. Microsoft would be the beneficiaries of that misapprehension.
I don’t think your appraisal is true. Even if Windows is viewed as the “real OS,” getting strong (even just 10%) Linux adoption in the mainstream netbook market will do great things for overall Linux acceptability. It’s good to focus on one thing at a time when you’re still trying to hit the big time in the consumer market. The Linux movement can then try growing from a strong position in one market once they are established.
No, I’d say the risk is real. It would be crazy for the world’s most flexible and adaptable OS to settle for second best by becoming tarred in Joe Public’s mind with “It’s OK if you like netbooks”. And of course it’s not what, say, SuSE or Red Hat are about, nor Ubuntu if they aim to generate revenues from server and full-PC or laptop OEM stuff.
I think Linux must make it clear that Linux is about an awful lot more. Microsoft’s aim is never to eradicate competition completely – they’d get whacked with another investigation. It’s to confine the competition to small areas where it can be kept under control and thrown a pathetic tidbit every now and then.
What a sensible comment. I’d like to apologise to you now for any comments in the past that have questioned your impartiality (given you work for The Empire
).
I think the cross-fertilisation between all OSes is healthy. I know Microsoft’s ‘new religion’ on working with others is partly based on avoiding antitrust hassles (and a new US administration), but I think it will work out better for Windows (and Linux, MacOS, Solaris etc) in the long term.
Hear! hear! for those in the Windows team who are working to play nicely with others.
I’m not sure you can go that far. Who said that I’m willing to play with others?
So is mucking around with the Registry to get things to work or sorting out which updates will protect from worms and which ones will break the applications your company relies on. In real life, Windows is not any easier just different.
Hate to say it, but that’s rather wide of the mark. How many Joe Public users muck about with the Registry or know enough to pick and choose between updates? You are talking from the POV of an experienced, computer-savvy user or sysadmin (in which case fair enough of course). Much of the article was about why assuming your users are computer-savvy sysadmins isn’t going to get Linux to where it needs to be. In fact, as a way of putting Linux on more machines – and especially on netbooks – it’s a complete non-starter.
Umm, what I was trying to say that Windows isn’t so user-friendly/secure etc by default that you can keep running it safely without knowing a bit about how to do updates etc. Sure, Linux has different usability issues (which is your point), but Windows has a bunch of its own (my point).
All OSes have work to do on usability. I just happen to think that Linux is slightly head on the security side of things – it is safer to let non-Admin types run ‘Net-connected Linux rather than Windows (although the might have issues with more mundane things like setting up printers etc).
Just a note here: recent versions of Linux set up local printers automatically. After installing a decent user-friendly Linux from a live CD (say Mandriva or Ubuntu), just turn on the local printer. If it is a USB printer, these Linux distributions detect it and enable it for you.
If you have a networked printer … this is OK too as long as you have used CUPs to “publish” the printer on the network. The local CUPs client on a Linux desktop will see it and connect it in a few clicks for you. Easy peasy.
If you use CUPs to “publish” a USB printer connected to your server, CUPs will effectively even turn it into a pseudo-postscript networked printer for you, and also make it just as easy for desktop clients to connect to it.
There is even a generic postscript printer driver for Windows, available from Adobe, that will happily connect Windows client machines to networked CUPs printers.
If you are going to pick on usability issues with Linux … setting up most printers is (no longer) one to pick on. Try something else.
Edited 2009-01-22 23:10 UTC
The bigger the smile.
The larger the knife.
*prepares the popcorn* I love those quiet moments before the storm.
See I be the type to always beat you to the punch faster
I keep a smile on my face but carry the Bushmaster.
With apologies to Busta, this seems to be the way Microsoft operates nowadays.
If the only chance you have to stay in the game is to hope that the price of your competitor becomes really high then to me it looks as if you really need to improve the quality and attractiveness of your own offering.
That’s not how it came across to me. All I got out of what Shuttleworth said was that, if Microsoft does go in this direction with 7 on netbooks, it could be an advantageous position for Linux and other operating systems. That’s just marketing, if one competitor prices their offerings too high another might move in to seize the opportunity and undercut them.
A fair price for the OS on a netbook is probably around 30 dollars. Now Microsoft cannot really separate the netbook market from the notebook/pc market so perhaps this will force them to lower their prices.
On the other hand, perhaps Microsoft has an unwritten understanding with vendors like Dell. It goes something like this.
Dell pushes Microsoft products.
Microsoft prices Windows upgrades high enough that most users would rather just buy a new system (including OEM windows) when the time comes.
There will be a Windows 7 netbook edition:
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49300490,00.htm
And I bet the OEMs will pay very little for it.
Te fact that OEMs will have to pay little for it is only part of the story.
The rest of the story is … how much will netbook owners have to pay, in terms of extra security packages, threat database update subscriptions and machine performance degradation, in order to run Windows 7 netbook edition.
The after-market costs of running Windows 7 would be considerably more than the cost of the netbook, probably two or three times more. The after-market costs of running the alternative OS are zero.
… of his true opinion – he only uses this as a pre-text to make those hackers work on Linux 24/7
Pretty mean, pretty smart !
It really is kinda fun in the OS world right now.
Kind of a big free for all in that from my personal opinion everyone is putting out a great product for once.
BSD, Linux, Solaris, OSX, Windows 7 beta, I like them all!
Now all we have to do is wait for someone at Microsoft or Apple to come up with some useless proprietary media idea to screw it all up for all those people who insist on iPods and Windows Media Player.
I myself am an iRiver and VLC person.
But above everything, have fun with whatever you use!
Amen to that with VLC and IRiver. As for OS’s, I’m happy with Win 7 Beta ATM. Runs everything I’ve thrown at it so far and is nicer than Vista x64 as well as snappier.
Still waiting for an beta of Haiki OS but only due to nostalgia for once of the most pleasurable OS’s user experiences I had with BeOS in the day.
Indeed. I still say Haiku will make the very best netbook OS if they can get it out in time to be viable in that market. I base that on my experience with BeOS R5 on a Dell Latitude CPi Pentium II laptop, a “low end” computer for its era; it was faster than even Windows 98, and more functional as well.
As an aside, I gave that laptop to my sister who is still using it today, writing her first novel on it.
Morgan intuited…
THIS!
I know there is a build of Haiku that will run on my ASUS EeePC 901, with all hardware working–the only problem is to get a chance to try it out (and see if enough of my apps work on Haiku to justify the move) I’d have to build it from source myself.
Why? What better way to evangelize the OS than to get it out and available to one of the fastest growing markets there is? How better to inspire than to be able to show off the awesome boot speed in the local cybercafe?
–bornagainpenguin
Windows 7 comes with pretty much the same DRM as Vista if I understand it correctly. That’s a very good reason not to let people buy Windows Vista or 7.
I hate to say it but Windows 7 is shaping up to be a truly exceptional operating system. It runs blazingly fast on my old p4 with 1gb of ram and an old nvidia card. I’m pretty damn impressed with the beta so far. I usually don’t have anything good to say about Microsoft but they might just redeem them selves with Windows 7. As much as I love open source and linux in general there isn’t any real competition to Windows when it comes to the desktop. Windows is a product and a brand that sticks in peoples minds for good or bad. You can’t really say the same for Linux. You’ve either heard of it or use it or have no clue what it is. On top of that those that use Linux are split up between different distributions and different desktop environments. I’m all for choice but alot of people outside the tech world care less about what kernel they are running and what window manager to use. They care more about things other than computers. To them a computer is more of an appliance like a tv or cell phone. To most the computer is a Windows computer and the only other choice is a Mac computer. I wish Shuttleworth the best of luck but he has a long road ahead if he wants to compete with Windows on any consumer platform. I know he’s working hard and pushing pc vendors to ship linux preinstalled but that brand image just isn’t there yet. On to of that Microsoft will always undercut, undermine, and outright strong arm vendors to keep it’s product on top and in the public eye.
None of these is a problem with Linux itself, or any reason not to use it.
I know about Linux, I know what software is available for it, I know what it can do and what it lacks … and it is far and away a better-for-me solution than any version of Windows.
Linux is written by people who want to use it for themselves.
Windows is written by Microsoft who want to use it to make pots of money from people.
Which group is more likely to have MY best interests at heart?
Edited 2009-01-23 05:58 UTC
Perhaps the people who want pots of money will be more likely to give the majority of users something desirable.
As Adam Smith wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.“
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? This is the theory of free enterprise, after all.
Unfortunately, there is this concept in the hyper-greed-driven corporate world of “branding”. The ideal is, you flood the market with advertising your “brand”, and you can get to charge people perhaps ten times (or more if you are lucky) what it is actually worth.
There are a lot of brands like this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_good#Luxury_brands
Armani. Gucci. Windows.
Many of them are the precise opposite of value-for-money.
PS: Why do you imagine that the one written by OS users wouldn’t be likely to be something desirable for the majority of OS users?
Edited 2009-01-24 11:51 UTC
BTW: I think the fiasco discussed in the thread linked below is a good example of how “the people who want pots of money” have become totally disconnected with what the majority of users would see as desirable.
The contemporary big-corporate thinking seems to be that users will accept any rubbish deal at all, and just be blindly loyal to a brand.
http://www.osnews.com/story/20838/Microsoft_UK_Launches_DRM-Riddled…
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090123-microsoft-misses-memo…
Edited 2009-01-24 13:57 UTC
PlatformAgnostic pontificated…
Unfortunately you miss the real point–we are not the customer to those people who want big bags of money; we are the product, it is thieves* like Hollywood, the RIAA, and governmental powers who are their customers.
Once you realize this fact, the behavior in question suddenly makes perfect sense and is once again in agreement with Adam Smith’s quoted statement.
Where your analysis fails with regard to FLOSS is that by programming for fun or to scratch an itch FLOSS people are acting entirely in their self-interest, and you can count on them to create programs and environments like the ones they themselves would wish to use.
Where commercial programming is concerned, it only seeks to find the most return for the least amount of work. Money creates it, money compels it, the most amount of money controls it.
Ask yourself if your pittance for a Windows License is enough to compete with the bags of money offered by the RIAA, MPAA, and various other alphabet groups to upsurp your ownership of your computer? Remember, the one with the most money wins….
–bornagainpenguin
*You want control over my PC, which you did not pay me for and intend to use in ways I did not authorize? You’re a thief then. Simple enough?
Hear Hear.
Well worth repeating.
I’ve been there done it. I to used to be a fanboy both MS and Linux. I got everyone to run Windows 95 back in the day. The older I got, the more I realised the OS is just a tool. Tools either work or they don’t. Right now, Linux is working for me, better that XP. So I run a Linux desktop with Vm’s and dual boot when I need to. My wife runs the same way – and she not a tech person. I couldn’t switch her back to Windows, she’s kill me. That me – not you. So for the Windows fanboys, grow up. Quit living in a fantasy world. While you have some cool technology, you are not Gods gift. And for the Linux fanboy/elitist, you might want to go to whylinuxsucks.org once in a while. My 2c.
I’m not a Linux elitist, but I’m just nog a fan of Microsoft and their practises. *cough* Monopoly Abuse *cough* *cough* DRM *cough*