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Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

dvorak
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Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Apparently.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/524/1051524/linux-desktops-you-bonkers-
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artificer
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

wonder which planet he's living on?  linux is on my desktop and has been for years.  it's on lots of other people's desktops too.  perhaps he's had a brain bypass.
dvorak
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

For me the telling statement is....
Quote
Whitehurst said that he couldn't think how he would make money doing it.

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VileReynard
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

He said he couldn't see redhat making money at it Cheesy

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pierre_pierre
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

he also said everbody will be up in the cloud, is he Cuckoo
VileReynard
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Does he mean Cloud Cuckoo Land?

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jelv
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Has Linux got to the point where you can click on a link to an application on a website and it will download it, automatically install it and a few minutes later its up and running?
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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Waldo
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

If the application in question happens to be malware, I sincerely hope not; such frippery is best left to the great unwashed  Wink
But if that's the kinda thing that floats your boat there's always the likes of apt:foo or 1-Click Install
Waldo
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Quote
Whitehurst said that he couldn't think how he would make money doing it.

Perhaps he should ask Novell
jelv
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Quote from: Waldo
If the application in question happens to be malware, I sincerely hope not; such frippery is best left to the great unwashed  Wink
But if that's the kinda thing that floats your boat there's always the likes of apt:foo or 1-Click Install

So I could just click the links you have given and those applications would automatically install?
The problem Linux has is that it needs considerably more knowledge to set up and maintain - which is a shame as it is fundamentally better than anything M$ produce.
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artificer
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

open synaptic, click reload, mark all updates, apply - simple, easy, safe way to update to known good packages.
search for app in question and mark for install - not beyond the wit of windows users, of which i used to be one.
Waldo
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Quote from: jelv
So I could just click the links you have given and those applications would automatically install?

That's the theory (I've never tried using them), they're distribution specific - just another means of interacting with the distro's package management system.
Quote
The problem Linux has is that it needs considerably more knowledge to set up and maintain - which is a shame as it is fundamentally better than anything M$ produce.

That's the common perception. For most of us the knowledge we have of any OS comes from the time spent using it. That can be a barrier when faced with the prospect of trying something very different. Linux on the desktop has advanced considerably in recent years, I'm not sure that someone buying a PC for the first time with Linux pre-installed would find it so much more difficult than Windows when something goes awry.
Strat
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Quote from: Waldo
. Linux on the desktop has advanced considerably in recent years, I'm not sure that someone buying a PC for the first time with Linux pre-installed would find it so much more difficult than Windows when something goes awry.

Presumably that would depend on the distribution Waldo. I recently loaded Ubuntu onto a laptop and had problems with the Wi-Fi.
I took it off and loaded XP and the wireless worked faultlessly.
---------------------------------------
Just as an aside while typing this post I typed WiFi. Firefox's spell check underlined it and offered 'Wife' as a correction.
Firefox is obviously married. Cheesy
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HairyMcbiker
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

Well it was M$ that drove me to Linux a couple of years ago  Grin
I had vista 64 bit installed on one of my machines as a test bed, the default was (is?) to hibernate so every time it started up again the network wouldn't work till I rebooted  Angry
That and the fact I didn't have drivers available for my scanner (I used scanrn in the end great product that lets you share your scanner over the network) the printer was iffy, and the UAC drove me nutts. Up till then I had spent 10 years supporting M$ systems from NT4-xp-w2k3 server but I gave up on it then, d/led a copy of Ubuntu 6.10 and hey presto everything worked I could scan & print (Ok the printing was still an issue at high res on my canon ip4000)  and it resumed fine.
Now 2 years later I am running 8.10 64bit on this pc and Linux Mint 32bit on another, my laptop (an EEE) has a version of 8.04 on it. The only thing I use windows for these days is printing cd's  Grin (and even that is run inside a VM)
I rarely need to access it for anything and don't miss the continuous virus/malware scans that had to be done just to keep a working system, I don't miss the continual DRM issues with WMP, Totem or VLC work fine for most avi's.
I still run the same browser (Firefox) and the same mail client (Thunderbird) that I have been using for years and I was using Open Office before anyway, so most of my s/w is the same.
For the odd windows program I use Wine or Crossover to run it, or if I must I will install it in to the VM but I like to keep that quite lean.
At the moment I have Newsbin & utorrent running in the background (Other Desks) both under Wine.
I think Linux's biggest hurdle is the "assumption" that it is hard to use, and people trying to install windows s/w on it, i.e. buy a product and the driver will be M$ based and it will tell you to install the s/w BEFORE plugging in the item, when under Linux it will most likely just be recognised when it is plugged in and the drivers automatically installed. Of course there are issues with some hardware WiFi especially where the s/w will only allow WEP and not WPA etc but a bit of googling will usually find a solution.
OT: I personally will not be trying Windows 7, most of the "effects" are already available under Compiz and I can do with out the bloat that it will bring.
pierre_pierre
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Re: Linux on desktops? You must be bonkers...

the auto update also works on the Asus Eeepc 701 4g linux (sometimes)