Pooky, let’s be fair here. The whole Linux community would love to see Windows die. I know how you feel, however here’s some insider knowledge for you.
At Virgin, they’re systems run, like Sky & BT, Linux servers. Every not so super “Superhub” runs Linux, the problem is that if they were to get “trained” Linux tech support guys I would cost a ton to pay them, as we Linux guys don’t come cheaply, even if our foundation was built on freeware.
In this day and age, at only aged 18, I’ve come to realise that the world is just ran by a***holes and if you’ve got “deep pockets” then you’ve got the voice to have an opinion.
Believe me, there’s nothing more I want than for more support from co-operate companies but sadly that won’t happen due to Microsofts “affiliate” program.
You see, it wasn’t to long ago that the a**hole that is, Bill Gates (when he actually ran MS) paid companies to NOT use Linux. These were companies like, DELL, ISPs, even McDONALDS!!!
I believe to this day this day Microsoft knows we’re going to be keep our foot in their ass, and we won’t take it out. I remember watching videos on Youtube not to long ago, and it was an interview with Linus, the god that partially created Linux and was named after. In his interview he describes his thoughts on why Linux hasn’t took over the desktop yet and I’ll quote him word for word:
I think the biggest reason why we haven't been successful on the desktop is being it's the HARDEST market to break in to. It's partly because of technical reasons, the technical reasons are, that desktops are pretty much different every other market. They do many different things.
Like when you do a cell phone, or a tablet, even when you have an app store (like with apple)… There’s usually a fairly limited usage. I mean you may have thousands of applications, but you don’t for example, usually connect this thing to hundreds of different devices. I don’t think you can and the desktop space is completely different.
You have to support EVERY single printer that you can go to the store and buy, in the tablet space, no you don’t. In the super-computer space, no you don’t. You support one single printer and YOU TELL the people who’ve paid 10 million dollars for their machine that, “there’s one single printer that works”.
I’m using printers as a stupid example, but the desktop really is a different market where you HAVE TO support these crazy people and the things they do at universities. That literally, they may do some research that no-one else does. They will use the desktop as a kind of workstation. Whereas you have to use modern pop shops, that don’t actually know anything about computers and they’ll just go to a random store and buy hardware or software to do their thing.
The desktop is hard to support because it’s the ONE area, the same piece of hardware and the same operating system have to really support a lot of things. The other thing is, you have a lot of users who don’t necessarily don’t want to use computers at all. I mean, a lot of desktops are used for basically work, but people like using the computer because it makes their work easier but at the same time they’re not REALLY interested in the computer itself. They don’t… don’t… they don’t like me. I LIKE using the computer because it’s a big toy and I can do things with it. says with a cheesy big grin on his face
They just like using the computer to get their work done. So for that kind of person to decide, “Oh want to try another operating system than the one I’m used too.” That’s a big and hard decision.
So people want to do media encoding, and then you’ve got the DRM mess, and then you’ve got all the religion around that. Which just makes it a harder market to break in to.
The good news I think is, to some degree, the market is going down. A lot of people who used to, want to have a desktop, and a lot of people usually do all their work in a web browser. May they can’t use a timeline because they need a keyboard - nice dig a facebook lol - but the wild and varied market for “normal peoples” desktops is kind of going away. Some, not completely. But it’s frightening to the point where people are actually perfectly happy with, basically just a browser and some tools.
And I mean, Google is kind of going after that market with Chrome, and I don’t know if it’s going to succeed, and I don’t know if it’s got to the point just yet. It’s basically just the same thing as a tablet, with a keyboard and for certain usages that’s enough. Then there’s advantages of being single use, part of it is that hardware has to be so cheap that you could consider it a throw away, because you use this piece of hardware for just ONE thing and then if you need to do something else, you have another piece of hardware. That way you have your cell phone AND your tablet AND your Chrome book and that just simply didn’t used to be true before because you wanted to have just ONE computer because that was such a big investment it NEEDED to do everything and things changed.
That change, just means that the traditional desktop becomes less RELEVANT and that makes it really easy for us, before the traditional desktop that does everything is really hard.
