Comments on: Why is the penguin is crawling?

By: Aparna

Aparna — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:10:39 +0000

I love LINUX. I use Fedora in my Lappy and for my server as well as all the clients. I have almost forgotten wat is windows and virus.

By: TuxFriend

TuxFriend — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:42:51 +0000

ok I feel obligated to respond.
I appreciate the desire to spread linux and comment on its growth but…

LINUX has already WON. MS lost.

Dont believe me? look at the stats above again 12.5% of XP users have UPGRADED to Vista, with its subsidizing and almost singular availability on new high end products. .3% of users switched. I feel pretty safe in saying no one switches from linux to windows, XP is practically unusable once you have had a friendly OS.

more fun stats for further research
MSN Travel –> Linux powered (hahahahahah,no seriously if thats not an admission what is?)
top 500 supercomputers
netbooks (well the usable ones, and majority)
Mac OS (yes I know it is BSD based and not Linux, but we are still talking UNIX derivatives)
every successful business that did not start before 1994, google, wikipedia, myspace, facebook, amazon, ebay, etc, etc, etc

and last but not least the list of people in my life using a linux distro (I recommend Ubuntu for new users, single desktop, no compiz, yes it is cool, keep it simple and upgradeable, let them figure the rest out)
My Dad (Ubuntu)
My Sister (Ubuntu)
My Sisters BF (Ubuntu)
MY GF (Ubuntu)
MY GF’s Sister (Ubuntu)
My GF’s Mom (Ubuntu)
6 random people at the Starbucks around the corner who were originally planning on getting a new comp
All my geek friends (Fedora/Centos, geek in the nicest way guys)
Every admin I know, even straight windows admins…hell its what rdesktop and vmware are for. (Various)

2 additional comments here:
In response to yeah but you support them. “No, No I dont, I dont have to come over to there house and clean viruses, fix dll errors, reinstall windows, maintain backups, or participate in illegal software installations, Linux just works”
In response to you installed it for them. “Yeah most of the top group, but then again my sister did it on her own drunk on tequila”

In summary Cost of Windows ($100), Office ($200), Photoshop (lets face it your copy is illegal), VirusScan ($50/year and you get them anyway), Nero ($60)

Cost of Ubuntu Linux (30 minutes for broadband download and installation) which includes OpenOffice, Gimp, Brasero
**Note virus scan skipped as a BullS*** scan is NO replacement for fixing the code

Do I expect windows to just die? No, but I expect it will go faster than DOS 1981-2000 R.I.P.

By: diesel

diesel — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:38:43 +0000

@K
It wont ruin your hard disk for sure.
And as far as Photoshop is concerned gimp is the closest and free alternative. As is Inkscape for Illustrator. Both may not fully replace them but you can pull of almost 90 of things if not 100%. But still you can try Gimp in windows and try to work on it. And as far professional use is concerned there is no such label as “professional use”.

By: K

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:54:55 +0000

I was ready to install Linux and decided for PC Linux OS. I guess that with a little research i can get used to it, but the main thing i’m using the computer for are programs for painting and graphics. Although i understood that there is Wine, that makes Windows applications run on Linux, from what i’ve read on forums, it seems that Corel Painter doesn’t work at all and Photoshop CS2 actually works badly. Wherever i look for info, i get the same answer: there is Gimp to replace them. But Gimp and similar programs aren’t an alternative because they are not for professional use.
Is there any hope that this could be fixed soon? I’m stuck with Windows only for this reason.
And another thing, i’ve heard that a failed Linux install can ruin a harddisk..i think it’s probably not true, but i wouldn’t want to try before knowing if it’s a possibility.
(sorry for my english)

By: Rishi

Rishi — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:35:07 +0000

Yes, i see reason #4 and #5 most crucial. Lack of standards and less contribution to one another causes major setbacks to each distros. PC manufacturers should also give other options to consumers. But most of them are tied to Windows and so the fellow consumers.

In such situations no one would like to use Linux, except handful of computer nerds and it makes bad impression of Linux as geeky.

By: diesel

diesel — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:54:41 +0000

nice thoughts there Quem, i also think they unify there resources and head in one way or may be 2-3.

By: Quem

Quem — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:14:27 +0000

Linux is a nice OS, I’m a fan myself. It’s free, it’s open, it’s customizable, it’s extensible. It’s used on servers, cell phones, embedded systems, supercomputers and what not. You want to know the real reason why it’s a failure on the desktop? It’s because it sucks there. It’s chaos, it’a complete mess. It needs to become a platform. No desktop platform, no chance of success EVER. I wish something could be done about it, but I don’t see it happening. Too many people, so few agreements about anything. Sad.

By: diesel

diesel — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:05:19 +0000

Games is an issue not as big issue with wine and cedega. Many games comes for native linux these days (but only a few). Games- i would say buy a console (instead of buying hardware to run it windows).

By: jason

jason — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:00:59 +0000

Games. You still have to have a windows box to play most games.

By: Bhatti

Bhatti — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:01:26 +0000

ya dude…u have some very valid points there…i have to say except the forum for ubuntu (those tht i have tried)…i totally agree wid u, ppl tend to ignore newbies…this is the main factor y the popularity of linux is decreasing. As it is linux requires a slight technical knowledge, so many ppl r dropped here…and those who r brave enough to try linux (newbies) dont get the appropriate support which i think is necessary bcoz once u get a basic idea linux isnt tht hard also…and since they dont get any help they loose interest and switch back to their original OS.