Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows 7

bigcitycat said:

See I think having to pay for software guarantees the product will have support and the natural competition for your money breeds a better product.

Of course to look at this a different way, with some of the free versions of the software you get support directly from the developer of the application via a web forum. And quite often this surpasses the support that you are likely to receive from a product from a commercial application. In addition, if you have programming skills, the code is open so you can look at it and see exactly what it is doing. And better yet, if you neeed it to do something else and you have some coding talent, you can make the change directly. This can often be a better environment than something like Microsoft Exchange...where it works "like this" and you can suggest to MS to make it do something else.

I don't believe that all software must be free....mostly because I have spent 12+ years working for commercial software companies. However, I wholeheartedly appreciate the time and effort put forth by the open source community to develop a product to meet a need or resolve a problem. Often times, the people working these products are very passionate about them and if they see or experience the same problem, it's in their best interest to correct the problem. Sometimes there is more incentive here than an employee who is simply collecting a paycheck from a commercial company. And if the person/people who were working on the app are no longer passionate, but there is a community need for the product..it's often times passed onto those who have time to tend to it. This differs greatly from the commercial world where when a product is put out to pasture...it's just done.

bigcitycat said:

Linux could be and will be a better product when you have to pay for it.

I don't think this is true at all. Some of the best software that I use on a daily basis is open source or provided for no cost (sendmail, apache, bind, squid, mysql, truecrypt, 7zip, firefox, etc).

Linux is a great open source OS, I love many different versions, and will have to download the latest ubuntu when it comes out.

LiNuX distros are free, so people will have no problem obtaining, windows obviously unless you utilize test or beta versions, or obtain illegally, must be purchased.

People buying windows generally speaking aren't going to be using linux, and if they are , knowing and using one os has not affected their view, or value of the other, with exceptions of course, and to the extent that they are willing to purchase windows.

Linux has some affect on MS Windows market shares, that is for certain, how much?
I don't know, you wouldd have to ask someone crunching numbers at MS, but I doubt you would get an "official" or accurate answer/figure.

Takes all kinds to make a world, you like windows cool, linux cool, mac os x cool, like all three, two or 1? sweetness.

MS controls a huge part of the retail computer industry as far as operating systems + software goes, especially in many (but certainly not all) business/corporate settings.

+ I just read an article that stated MS is opening retail stores, sometime in the future, (have to check on date to be certain) and in some cases going head on with apple stores (in proximity)...should be interesting!

Wow who would have known what can happen when you start a thread and then leave for the whole day.. This is a Windows 7 Forum, after all; I didn't think there were too many Linux enthusiasts around here....

You forgot to say it is safer than windows

That is to say, until Linux consolidates itself just a bit more... for the moment they are so fragmented it can be nothing BUT safe; no malware producer wants to put forth the effort to develop to over 600 different distros.

Ubuntu 9.04 was a major release for the Canonical team because of all the driver support they added to the distro. The biggest problem they still have to fix in that respect is the Restricted Drivers manager...

Having been designed by many professional trained developers and certified by a longstanding trusted company, Windows will always have the upper hand over something that does not get much media attention (at least in the U.S)

Developers are comfortable with Windows, and as such, most of that which you will see on the software market will not have support for any other operating systems, its just too much work to port software to three or more different platforms, although I very much respect those who do.

However, I can see the direction the software market could take with web access becoming the end-all factor in buying a computer, and netbooks offering this functionality getting cheaper and cheaper. Most of the apps and services that have come bundled with windows are getting ported to the Web.

Eventually we are not going to have any debates over preferred or superior OS's, just over best internet providers and best online services.

Linux has the capability of performing just as well on the net as Windows does, so what are people going to choose? To spend money or to save money? Especially in this bad economy, I can see Karmic stealing many of MS's potential Windows buyers..

I've played around with Ubuntu for a couple of years. In a pinch, I could probably get by with it for most ordinary everyday PC tasks. In some ways, it is faster and less buggy than Windows, although Windows 7 seems reliable. But, and its a big but, it just doesn't have the support facilities that Windows has. Every time I install a new piece of hardware, I have to go "under the hood" with terminal windows and dos-like commands. "Plug and play" seems non-existent. For example, I have a Hauppauge Win-TV 1600 video card that I have not been able to get working in Ubuntu. There is no documentation and the Ubuntu TV Tuning programs are very difficult to configure.

Admittedly, part of the problem is that hardware and software developers don't support Linux like they do Windows. Money walks and BS talks. But the Linux community, as committed to the open source idea as they are, persists in catering to the computer geek who likes to tinker (which sometimes describes me), but not to the mass public which likes simple reliable products that install out of the box with minimal effort. [I know that this is also not always true with Windows, but it is much more often correct than with Linux]. Ubuntu could increase its market share by improving the GUI interface and the software/hardware installations so that the final product is more idiot-proof.

There, that's my 2 cents.

I tried ubuntu 9.04 but it didn't work with my graphics card - mobility radeon x1400, so I will stick with 8.10 for now. Windows 7 actually had a driver for that card (ati weren't updating it for ages) so +1 for windows 7.

I like ubuntu for the scripting and being able to have full control over things. ie. i can pipe socat to a python script, and i can quickly edit my network settings with a few console commands.

I like windows because the software is more polished (eg the file manager), its prettier, programming in c# .NET is a joy, I'm much more familiar with it, and I don't have to break out the console to fix things.

mehh open suse
but yeah seriously speaking it wont effect each other at all.why should it?

I run Ubuntu 9.04 and OpenSuse 11.2 on VM Workstation, and enjoy working with them. Now the problem with linux IMHO is it will never be main stream because it is not user friendly to the every day user. The geeks like must of us here at SF get a kick out of making something do what we want, hence, linux will always have fellowers just as Mac does. But, it will never be a problem to Microsoft it doesn't meet the same standards, nor does it have the large software support given to Window by the large software companies (Adobe, Corel, etc.).