The reason why linux isnt mainstream

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reisio · Post by **reisio** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 3:14 pm

powerpoint and openoffice are both useless if you know html

steel300 · Post by **steel300** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:54 pm

Pwnz3r wrote:Just don't troll around here months after returning to Windows like steel300. lol

What do you mean I've been trolling? And why is it funny? I don't think the lol is really warranted here.

placeholder · Post by **placeholder** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 11:01 pm

steel300 wrote:
Pwnz3r wrote:Just don't troll around here months after returning to Windows like steel300. lol
What do you mean I've been trolling? And why is it funny? I don't think the lol is really warranted here.

To keep it simple, you parade around the forums with a Win2k avatar and pop in "Windows 2000 is good" in about every topic where someone says anything remotely negative about Windows, even if it's indeed true. That along with you no longer using Linux is what I consider trolling.

Arker · Post by **Arker** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 11:30 pm

The day Linux becomes mainstream is the day it begins to suck.

~djc

Boris27 · Post by **Boris27** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 7:54 am

Arker wrote:The day Linux becomes mainstream is the day it begins to suck.

~djc

I am afraid you will be right. I think that if/when we get up to 10-15% of the home desktops, that linux will reach it's climax.

But who am I to judge

Archangel1 · Post by **Archangel1** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 9:26 am

Boris27 wrote: I am afraid you will be right. I think that if/when we get up to 10-15% of the home desktops, that linux will reach it's climax.

But who am I to judge

Weeeeell...... I think the advantage there is that that 10-15% would be taken by Mandrake, SuSE and Red Hat. Gentoo's user base would grow, but not to the same degree - so hopefully it will remain more or less untarnished.
Fingers crossed anyway...

placeholder · Post by **placeholder** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 10:38 am

If in the future Linux can become a choice in which people can choose freely without having to dual-boot because of people who want to depend on PowerPoint making other people have to use it, then I will be happy. All I ask is that people stop hugging Windows so much even if Linux only keeps that 3% of the market.

c0balt · Post by **c0balt** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 11:05 am

sorry havent read the whole thread, but:

Does Linux, and especially gentoo, aim to be mainstream?

I dont think so, besides I use "mainstream" as a cuss^^

placeholder · Post by **placeholder** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 12:04 pm

c0balt wrote:I dont think so, besides I use "mainstream" as a cuss^^

Mainstream things usually annoy me too(I'm schizotypal), but Linux gaining a bit of popularity to where MS isn't so highly relied on would be great IMO. Then people wouldn't have to dual boot because of people who like to hug Microsoft.

steel300 · Post by **steel300** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 9:20 pm

Pwnz3r wrote:
steel300 wrote:
Pwnz3r wrote:Just don't troll around here months after returning to Windows like steel300. lol
What do you mean I've been trolling? And why is it funny? I don't think the lol is really warranted here.
To keep it simple, you parade around the forums with a Win2k avatar and pop in "Windows 2000 is good" in about every topic where someone says anything remotely negative about Windows, even if it's indeed true. That along with you no longer using Linux is what I consider trolling.

So, becuase I use Windows, my facts are null and void, even though it's the truth? And my opinion on everything is the same as it's always been. BUt now, becuase I use Windows, I'm considered a troll?

millenium_psyrax · Post by **millenium_psyrax** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 3:57 am

Just my two cents worth after using Linux since 1996. (Not pulling rank or anything, I could've used Linux for this long and still be dumb as bat shit). But as a computer scientist I don't believe that Linux will revolutionize the world of computing, I believe that Linux will become the dominant Unix. And then there will be a distro that becomes the dominant distro.

The reason I say Linux won't revolutionise the computing world is because GNU/Linux is a project with the stated purpose of creating a FREE UNIX Operating System. Unix is, mmm, how old, well, it was around before I was born, before Microsoft started, and before any PC was about. You cannot revolutionise shit if you are making a clone of an Operating System this old. I believe that Unix has a place in the world, and heck, it is beaut in terms of philosophy (I don't mean the whole open source thing, I mean the fact that programs are designed to be small, work with text (the universal file format), and do one thing well).

But an operating system hacked in C using a monolithic kernel (full credit to Linus, he has achieved what plenty of academics - including Andy Tanenbaum, even though he has put shit on Linux for being monolithic in a day and age where microkernels are the norm and exokernels are no longer vaporware - have only written papers, books and quite frankly talked shit about) is going to have about as much impact in 30 years time as Win XP, which is none, it will be an historical artifact that only comes up in the anecdotes of lecturers, you know the story "Back when I started computing, we only had 16K of RAM and we had to program using ed and assembler".

Sometimes I think that if Linus were five years younger and he got a later version of Minix to hack, Linux would be architecturally more advanced than it is today. (Later versions of Minix utilise a message-passing microkernel).

At this point, I cannot see any operating system that is truly evolutionary. Unix when made at AT&T was kinda revolutionary, but I think that no "change the way we use computers" development has happened since the Xerox guys invented the mouse, GUI, Smalltalk and ethernet. Those guys innovated, they were scientists, but more than that, they were scientists who put pen to paper and fingers to keyboard. The reason why we ain't all using Xerox derived systems is because Xerox was ran by business men and not scientists, they pulled the plug on the most advanced computers of their time (and some would say, our time), because they were a photocopy manufacturing company.

I don't know why folk argue the pros and cons of Linux vs. Windows. They almost do the same shit with a different smell, look at GNOME and KDE "let's emulate that windows look and feel". Tell me one thing I can do in Linux that I can't do in Windows. I can use LaTeX in both, make slideshow presentations in both, look at porn in both, play neverwinter nights in both, read fascinating MIT exokernel research papers on both, play solitaire, rip Oggz, burn CD's, you name it I can do it.

The one thing I can't do in Windows is get access to the code, and change stuff if I don't like it the way it is, or merge stuff into the kernel. Linux has distributed processing via MOSIX. Windows doesn't, why? because some computer scientist can't hack the Windows kernel and merge his fantastic code.

I think the most impact Linux will have is by either proving or disproving that the open source model can allow programmers to develop powerful and competitive products.

millenium_psyrax · Post by **millenium_psyrax** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:58 am

Plus for all those folk that believe their L33Tism will be diminished by ordinary folk using Linux to get their boring droll work done. (Not being mean, but I kinda think that some folk use Linux not because it is better, but because it lets them delude themselves into thinking they are more intelligent than others). There is always GNU Hurd to muck around with, heaven knows, by the time my girlfriend is using Linux, GNUHurd will be the haven of the L33T.

In computing your intellect isn't judged by the operating system you type or move your mouse in, it is judged by the abstract ideas and the code you create, want to be real smart, do what Linus did, get some small OS and hack it. Linus could use Windows all day long for all we cared, but we would still know he was a genius programmer.

BTW I expect the flames to come my way. Might make for some interesting discussion.

djm · Post by **djm** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 9:05 pm

The reason why why linux isn't mainstream is because some harvard dropout sold an OS he didn't have to IBM, which however many years of good marketing and dubious business tactics later means that an overwhelming majority of home computers come with an MS OS installed on them. Simple as that, if you ask me...