Cheap PCs give Linux more market?
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With a few machines having Windows licenses expire, forced me to take another look at Linux for cost reasons. From what I have seen so far, cost is relative as I have not found a Linux distro that really comes close to the richness of Windows. Some look closer to Windows but none seem to come close to the level of completeness you will find in the later versions of Windows. ( Fan boy waving the MS Flag back and forth with a slight jump of excitement ) But (yep there is one there), does the price of the OS justify that richness in every situation? Nope! I have an old laptop I purchased off of ebay which came with a pirated version of XP (as a large number of them do) and so it is an old 800 mhz machine with 256 MB RAM and a 10 GB HD. What can you use it for other than a boat anchor? Well, it works quite well for surfing the web, email and a few basic games running under Ubuntu, including handling my E-Sword bible software run under WINE. This is a case were the added cost of Windows is just not worth it. While I am currently using Windows 7 to run development under (and hopefully they will fix that huge array of bugs by release), I have no major plans of Linux other than a replacement for Windows when the added cost does not fit the need. Another example (and the point of the post) is with a "free" OS, virtualization really takes off since there is no licensing for each instance as there is with Windows. You can play around with many different VMs and not think about licensing issues and added fees. Beyond the VM's though is RM's.. That would be Real Machines. With the cost of a good functioning desktop box sub $100 on ebay, it sure can mean for a lot of computer power for the home. With those sub $100 PCs you have a free OS to hook them all together and with VNC, you are running headless machines for all kinds of tasks. You can have PC's in your workshop, garden house, by the pool, virtually all over your property to use as web browsers, audio/video streamming, or just playing multiplayer games with family members. They even work great with cheap web cames and cheap monitors for video intercoms around the house. I am not sure that the beginning of the potential of PCs around the home have even begun to be tapped for most people. What do you all think?
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight?
Rocky Moore wrote:
as I have not found a Linux distro that really comes close to the richness of Windows
Ubuntu 9.04 is getting pretty close, especially in the eye-candy department.
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 beta 3 - out now!
((lambda (x) `((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) '`((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) -
With a few machines having Windows licenses expire, forced me to take another look at Linux for cost reasons. From what I have seen so far, cost is relative as I have not found a Linux distro that really comes close to the richness of Windows. Some look closer to Windows but none seem to come close to the level of completeness you will find in the later versions of Windows. ( Fan boy waving the MS Flag back and forth with a slight jump of excitement ) But (yep there is one there), does the price of the OS justify that richness in every situation? Nope! I have an old laptop I purchased off of ebay which came with a pirated version of XP (as a large number of them do) and so it is an old 800 mhz machine with 256 MB RAM and a 10 GB HD. What can you use it for other than a boat anchor? Well, it works quite well for surfing the web, email and a few basic games running under Ubuntu, including handling my E-Sword bible software run under WINE. This is a case were the added cost of Windows is just not worth it. While I am currently using Windows 7 to run development under (and hopefully they will fix that huge array of bugs by release), I have no major plans of Linux other than a replacement for Windows when the added cost does not fit the need. Another example (and the point of the post) is with a "free" OS, virtualization really takes off since there is no licensing for each instance as there is with Windows. You can play around with many different VMs and not think about licensing issues and added fees. Beyond the VM's though is RM's.. That would be Real Machines. With the cost of a good functioning desktop box sub $100 on ebay, it sure can mean for a lot of computer power for the home. With those sub $100 PCs you have a free OS to hook them all together and with VNC, you are running headless machines for all kinds of tasks. You can have PC's in your workshop, garden house, by the pool, virtually all over your property to use as web browsers, audio/video streamming, or just playing multiplayer games with family members. They even work great with cheap web cames and cheap monitors for video intercoms around the house. I am not sure that the beginning of the potential of PCs around the home have even begun to be tapped for most people. What do you all think?
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight?
Rocky Moore wrote:
With a few machines having Windows licenses expire
Huh? Windows is a perpetual licence...
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Rocky Moore wrote:
With a few machines having Windows licenses expire
Huh? Windows is a perpetual licence...
Electron Shepherd wrote:
Windows is a perpetual licence...
Well, sort of. OEM licenses are only perpetual as long as the machine they come on is.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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My main desktop at home is my master backend.
Number of shows:
183
Number of episodes:
2354
First recording:
Sunday May 30th, 2004
Last recording:
Thursday June 25th, 2009
Total Running Time:
5 years 26 days 4 hrs 52 mins
Total Recorded:
3 months 19 days 16 hrs 37 mins
Percent of time spent recording:
5%John
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With a few machines having Windows licenses expire, forced me to take another look at Linux for cost reasons. From what I have seen so far, cost is relative as I have not found a Linux distro that really comes close to the richness of Windows. Some look closer to Windows but none seem to come close to the level of completeness you will find in the later versions of Windows. ( Fan boy waving the MS Flag back and forth with a slight jump of excitement ) But (yep there is one there), does the price of the OS justify that richness in every situation? Nope! I have an old laptop I purchased off of ebay which came with a pirated version of XP (as a large number of them do) and so it is an old 800 mhz machine with 256 MB RAM and a 10 GB HD. What can you use it for other than a boat anchor? Well, it works quite well for surfing the web, email and a few basic games running under Ubuntu, including handling my E-Sword bible software run under WINE. This is a case were the added cost of Windows is just not worth it. While I am currently using Windows 7 to run development under (and hopefully they will fix that huge array of bugs by release), I have no major plans of Linux other than a replacement for Windows when the added cost does not fit the need. Another example (and the point of the post) is with a "free" OS, virtualization really takes off since there is no licensing for each instance as there is with Windows. You can play around with many different VMs and not think about licensing issues and added fees. Beyond the VM's though is RM's.. That would be Real Machines. With the cost of a good functioning desktop box sub $100 on ebay, it sure can mean for a lot of computer power for the home. With those sub $100 PCs you have a free OS to hook them all together and with VNC, you are running headless machines for all kinds of tasks. You can have PC's in your workshop, garden house, by the pool, virtually all over your property to use as web browsers, audio/video streamming, or just playing multiplayer games with family members. They even work great with cheap web cames and cheap monitors for video intercoms around the house. I am not sure that the beginning of the potential of PCs around the home have even begun to be tapped for most people. What do you all think?
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight?
In reply to the subject, the answer is apparently no. Linux has been losing market share overall.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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In reply to the subject, the answer is apparently no. Linux has been losing market share overall.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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citation?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Don't have that one at hand (should have since it surprised me. One speculation was that the Mac was taking market share largely at the expense of Linux.) A quick search found this, but I'm skeptical this is reflective of the market as a whole since other numbers I've seen has the overall Mac market share at half listed here (though that in itself is interesting; it suggests that people who buy Macs really like going online.) This does show Linux climbed to over 1% and then dipped in May. Again, I've seen other numbers that contradict this--especially on the server side. (I've also found that the Linux crowd is really pissed off and defensive about even these numbers.) http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8&qpmr=100&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qptimeframe=Y&qpsp=2009&qpnp=1[^] Then there's this: http://blogs.computerworld.com/study_windows_clobbers_linux_on_netbooks_with_over_90_share[^]
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Don't have that one at hand (should have since it surprised me. One speculation was that the Mac was taking market share largely at the expense of Linux.) A quick search found this, but I'm skeptical this is reflective of the market as a whole since other numbers I've seen has the overall Mac market share at half listed here (though that in itself is interesting; it suggests that people who buy Macs really like going online.) This does show Linux climbed to over 1% and then dipped in May. Again, I've seen other numbers that contradict this--especially on the server side. (I've also found that the Linux crowd is really pissed off and defensive about even these numbers.) http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8&qpmr=100&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qptimeframe=Y&qpsp=2009&qpnp=1[^] Then there's this: http://blogs.computerworld.com/study_windows_clobbers_linux_on_netbooks_with_over_90_share[^]
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Does hitslink provide any way to graph multiple platforms on a time axis? I saw the linux routing from the netbook market article when it first came out, but didn't consider it indicative since the original situation made it impossible for a non geek to get windows on a netbook, and because current config options make it mostly impossible to get a better netbook config without win.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
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Does hitslink provide any way to graph multiple platforms on a time axis? I saw the linux routing from the netbook market article when it first came out, but didn't consider it indicative since the original situation made it impossible for a non geek to get windows on a netbook, and because current config options make it mostly impossible to get a better netbook config without win.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
dan neely wrote:
Does hitslink provide any way to graph multiple platforms on a time axis?
Don't know. I wanted to do the same thing, but didn't have the time or patience to keep trying.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Rocky Moore wrote:
as I have not found a Linux distro that really comes close to the richness of Windows
Ubuntu 9.04 is getting pretty close, especially in the eye-candy department.
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 beta 3 - out now!
((lambda (x) `((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) '`((lambda (x) ,x) ',x))Still really quite primative in its user interface. While it all looks okay, it is like Windows 95 without some features. (I am setting up E-Sword bible software under WINE on Ubuntu 9 via VCN -- their remote desktop -- really primative compared to terminal services). They are heading the right direction but the still have years ahead to get up-to-date with Windows. Still for a lot of people who do not really need to run Windows software, Linux can work for them.
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
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Rocky Moore wrote:
With a few machines having Windows licenses expire
Huh? Windows is a perpetual licence...
THere are other programs in the Microsoft partner program which are annual.
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Backup or Move Mozilla settings and data easily! Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com