Vista Launch Good for Desktop Linux?

Sensible Clod writes "XYZ Computing has an article hypothesizing that the arrival of Windows Vista may be a big opportunity for Linux to make headway on the desktop. Massive feature cutbacks for Vista as well as huge hardware requirements are cited as major factors. From the article: 'As the time gets closer and closer to the public debut of Vista the operating system seems to be constantly losing the luster which was associated with Longhorn...Whether it's the lack of a new file system or the Monad scripting shell, the absence of innovation in this operating system is giving it a black eye'. The article then shows the need for action to be taken to get Linux onto the computers in stores (display models!), and pinpoints a few important improvements Linux distros in general need to make. Very interesting read, and timely."

I'm not sure why you would think that

[ReformedExCon]

Unless you mean to say that the lower new feature count will make it easier to clone those features into the Linux GUIs. Or maybe you mean that people who upgrade to new PCs will then have their older PCs available to load Linux on. I'm not sure how the next release of Windows will help Linux in the least.

People buy Microsoft because that's what they expect when they buy a computer. Some people think they want more, so they buy a Mac. Other people are happy with Linux, and they don't even have to spend a dime to get the OS software.

When Microsoft releases their next version, I don't think it will have the massive uptake that Windows 95 did, or even Windows 2000 did. Even Windows XP had a slower takeup than the real quantum leaps in Windows history (Win95, Win2K). People are just satisfied with what they've got.

How are you going to convince satisfied people to run Linux? It doesn't really offer them anything that they don't already have or need. If it were that important to them, they would be running it already.

So why would Windows Vista help Linux?

Lack of innovation in this OS..

[Richard_at_work]

Well, I recently took a good long look at all three desktop operating systems for a personal shootout, and I must say that out of Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux with KDE or Gnome, and OSX Tiger, OSX was the only one that stood out from the crowd as being anywhere near innovative or 'new'. I didnt see anything in Linux that I havent enjoyed using elsewhere for years, although its security strengths are a positive, Windows had the games plus point, but its much of a muchness desktop wise, but OSX takes integration and ease of use to a new level, especially for developers.

What am I trying to say? Well, before you complain about Vista not being 'innovative', take a look at the alternatives first, they arent much different in many aspects.

What desktop am I posting this from? OSX of course!

Linux' big chance

[treff89]

I completely agree. Vista, which (as Longhorn in its initial announcement stages) looked actually quite good, has now become what is basically XP SP3. Features that would have made it worthwhile, such as WinFS, have all been stripped from the final product: while Linux continues to accelerate ahead in terms of stability, compatibility and features. The fact that it is becoming easier to use, more recognised and therefore attracts more coders, also is a great plus for Linux and means that it is increasing in value exponentially. As well, Vista's crazy system requirements are in stark contrast to those of many Linux distributions, despite the fact that these distributions have most if not all of Vista's featurs (and many more on top. And plus - the price difference.

I think the exact opposite

[Frash]

Microsoft has enough money to "perfectionize" Windows. Just look at the GUI investments they did. Almost EVERY Linux GUI is copying the Windows GUI and layout. If the Linux community will not show some more innovation I am sure Linux will be slaughtered. People will buy new PCs, it's getting as hyped as the cell phone hype. The online hardwareshops have never been so busy.

TV Commercials?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

The majority of people out there still haven't even heard of Linux. The people who just use their computers for email and think that AOL is the internet. Have there ever even been any TV ads for any of the commercial linux distros? What the linux community needs to do is make a real ad campain. I realize it costs money, but with all the people out there that love linux with a furvor, there shouldn't be that much of a problem raising funds.

Re:Both ways anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't sledge MS for taking longer than expected to release Vista, then in the next comment complain about the lack of features.

That fact that it's taken so long to release Vista is the very reason we can about the lack of features... What exactly have they been doing for the last four and a half years>

Re:Lack of features won't make a difference...

[cnettel]

The fascinating story is also that a lot of stuff was cut back from Windows 2000. In beta 2, Office files with different data streams could actually be persisted to disk as several NTFS streams in one file, with the intent to expand this. Indexing was also implemented and at some point it was expected to be much better than the current service.

Still, Windows 2000 was a huge step over NT4. And, still, XP improved several APIs, both in kernel and user mode. Auto-growing stacks was introduced (news in the Windows world), which of course can simplify development of recursive stuff in some scenarios. It's not much, and if you want to keep compatible with 2000, it's irrelevant, but they continued tweaking.

Vista can still, from what I know, be a huge enough step to warrant a 6.0 version number. It won't be a "new" product, but (just about) nobody ever said it would. If NT4 => 2000 was an upgrade worth mentioning, I would think that this will be, too.

(And, hey, on a laptop/TFT desktop, Cleartype is enough for me to want XP if I run Windows)

Re:Not trolling, but...

[swillden]

Most users (and by most users I also mean powerusers) will have a really hard time fixing stuff, if they even manage to fix it at all.

Complete nonsense. Windows power users can fix a broken Windows all right... by reinstalling it. Regular Windows users are just lost. If you consider reinstallation as the primary repair option, most modern Linux distributions are much easier to repair becaue their install process is faster and easier than Windows XPs.

And, of course, extremely sophisticated users of both OSes can fix a broken install without having to blow it away.

Re:This is what amazes me

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's funny is that every one of those features is available today in a Linux distro near you." - by Saven Marek (739395) on Saturday August 27, @07:58AM

Kind of like how threaduse was copied to kernel mode by Linux folks where it was always there in NT-based Os'?

(OR, kind of like how process scheduling methods used in Linux now tend to mimic NT-based OS' use of completion ports??)

The KDE desktop (as much as I like it and the Linux 2.6x OS core now, which I respect also) is A LOT like that of the many years present Win9x/ME &/or Win2000/XP/Server 2003 desktop shell as well!

Need I go on???

WinFS is nothing new really - IBM has been doing that with DB/2 based filesystem engines on their zOS & before it on As/400's OS400 for a years now...

& MONAD?

Well, Windows Scripting Host in combination with batchfiles are excellent as is, & there are LOADS of commandline add-on freeware tools as well to extend it even moreso (see places like jsiinc.com & search freeware there, as that place caters to the crowd that actually uses scripts: Network administrators/techs/engineers)...

Worst comes to worst? You build a console mode app to do what it is you need to do... VERY easy to build & create those with tools like Borland Delphi for example, mind you! I do it all the time...

I don't know what they plan to add to MONAD, but most likely something to match featuresets presetn in UNIX commandlines shells... esoteric ones.

Truly, on MONAD? Unless someone can show or tell me more directly??

I cannot see how it is going to be "world's better" than the current system scripting tools available to Windows users, which MOST of them do not ever really need!

They want & use prebuilt GUI programs, & here?

Here is where Windows "wins", as they have the greatest wealth of them here period (vs. all of the other OS' combined imo!)

APK

P.S.=> Sure, Ms did something that was copied from Linux too - that's moving IIS' http.sys into kernel mode/RPL0/Ring 0 operation, since it is faster for server-side webpage data caching... this whole field? Imitate & IMPROVE UPON and imo? Very little original thought exists out there anymore in it @ this point in time... apk

Re:2005 is the year of Linux on the Desktop!

[makomk]

Recompile the kernel to install a driver? Not likely. Most Linux drivers distributed outside the kernel are set up with a Makefile that builds a kernel module for just that driver. All you have to do is "./configure && make && su -c 'make install'", and then possibly insert the module. Unless you're using some incredibly screwy custom-built kernel, you shouldn't even need to reboot, let alone recompile the kernel. (You do, however, need the kernel source installed.)

I call BS. Even under Mandrake Linux, building and using a driver for my wireless card (ndiswrapper) was easy. Incidentally, is there any distro that doesn't automatically create desktop icons for CD-ROMs these days? Apart from Gentoo, though even that probably would if I set it up right...

Admittedly, I don't entirely trust the commercial distros not to try and extract mucho cash (which is part of the reason I use Gentoo), but still.

Re:For example

[Icicle509]

Your shitting me right? spell it with me now S-P-O-T-L-I-G-H-T Windows Long---errrr uh Vista will have it too, oh wait a minute, no they dropped that feature too... not because they cant get it to work, but because some other company has released 3 OS's since windows released X-pee (on you, so you have to restart) and they keep naming them after predatory Cats, which keep eating XP for lunch, shit guys, axe some features, we better get this crap,,,,er uh.....OS released, were getting our butts kicked. Hows this for an innovation, I havent restarted my computer in 138 days....... in other words, it works, holy cow, thats innovative ......another happy OSX user.........

Re:How to tell if you are a linux fanatic.

[hungrygrue]

33. Your server has not had to reboot in over a year.

34. When you need to install a major piece of software, be it an office suite, a graphics tool, or a compiler, you do not have to drive to a store and shell out enormous amounts of money. Instead, you simply select the desired package from the package repository and it and its dependencies are installed automatically.

35. You are able to read and write a vast array of file systems - not just a handful designed by a single company.

36. You realise that those who still have Windows on their computer "because it came with it" probably have picture frames with pictures of model families who they don't know "because it came with the frame"

37. You are tired of hearing Windows users bitch about viruses and spyware as if they had not choice but to be afflicted with them.

Re:People don't care

[RAMMS+EIN]

``Linux doesn't just need to be better than Vista - it needs to be MUCH better to get an average user to switch.''

That's what I always say when the (n+1)th Linux ready for the desktop discussion comes up.

Linux (with GUI and all that) is already a better desktop OS for the average luser than Windows is. That doesn't mean they will or even should all switch. Switching is hard. If you get your work done on Windows, and can't be bothered to do the re-learning that goes with the switch to Linux, than don't switch. But by all means, if you're just starting out with a fresh mind, or do have the energy to invest in learning a new system, do yourself a favor and learn to work on a better OS (be it Linux, one of the *BSDs, or OS X).

Re:Almost negligible

[Randall311]

Their will be a hack to break the DRM the day after it is implemented. This is windowz wer're talking about here. Heck, even iTunes music store DRM was hacked with Jhymn. Same deal here. There are legal and moral issues associated with DRM. If you paid for a song legally, then you should legally be allowed to listen to it anywhere you want. I know the ToS says otherwise, but that is crap. This is America, and when you buy something for your own use, you are allowed to personally do whatever you want with it.

Re:Not trolling, but...

[Knuckles]

Well, I dont know about you, but I believe most people are able to download drivers from the vendor, run setup.exe and reboot.

And that fixes random breakage in, say, WMI? I don't think so. The reality is that Windows gets "fixed" by being reinstalled by a somewhat knowledgeable friend (1). The more savvy Windows home users I know reimage habitually every 6 months.

Even if this practice is not needed with GNU/Linux, it will continue to exist and I think it would be beneficial to somewhat cater to it and make it much easier and cooler than Windows. What I'd like to see in the Ubuntu release after Breezy is a simple app that lets you

• Create a CD/DVD image of your finished setup, and a live CD of -your- PC. This should be able to recreate your complete setup from CD/DVD.
  
• Back up /home and /etc, and other (non-standard/changed) directories to external disk, CD/DVD, etc. The non-standard directories could be picked automatically - if /usr/local contains stuff, or the user has created a dir in / that is not there by default, back it up. This should be able to recreate your complete setup from the backup media if you boot from an installer CD, and it should be able to just recover your data if the system itself has not been damaged.
  
• Migrate to a new PC. This would package up all it needs from your old PC on CD/DVD so that you can boot the new PC from the installer CD, and then be prompted to feed it the data from your old PC, to seamlessly recreate your old environment and data on the new PC.
  It would also be cool if the installer on the new PC could simply pull all this from the old PC over the network.
  You should be prompted to reinsert the installer CD (or something bootable) into the old PC and choose the option "Remove all my data to protect my privacy". This would wipe/shred the old HD so that you can safely give it away.
  

(1) And don't get me started on these "knowledgeable" friends. I am so sick debugging my mom's pc over the phone after her "knowledgeable" friend has done something inconceivably stupid in an attempt to fix something

Re:Any benefit for corporations?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I'm willing to wager they *will* upgrade when MS stops supplying security patches.

Lovely method of turning a lemon into lemonade, don't you think? Their OSs' security flaws are thusly made into this handy-dandy little cattle prod....

Re:TV Commercials?

[Ashtead]

Add a 5th, and very big reason: People will continue to buy Windows because it comes with their new machine.

Even as easy as pre-installed Windows is to get running on a brand-new machine, I still get occasional phone calls from people whose newly purchased machine gives them trouble accessing the Internet, since the supplied modem cable was plugged into one of the sockets on the switch in the LAN...

Furthermore, the awareness of alternate operating systems or applications varies, many of them only know what Linux is based on what I have been telling them. These are not IT professionals, they see the computer as some kind of information-appliance, somewhat similar in function and purpose to some other well-known appliances such as typewriters, TV, filing cabinet and to some extent CD players. Like these, it can break (and they tend to be afraid of doing anything that could make that happen), and need to be fixed or replaced.

Got standards?

[StikyPad]

The problem I see with Linux on the desktop is that it's nonstandard. By that I mean that a programmer can't assume that any one installation resembles any other. From libraries to window managers to Xfree86 vs X.org or whatever it is now, there are no constants. I understand the benefits of such a scenario; it's great for people who love to pop the hood and do it themselves. But it's a nightmare for the average person who just wants to USE a system rather than build it themselves.

Users don't want to (and shouldn't have to, in my opinion,) worry about things like dependancies, finding a binary package for their particular distribution and/or kernel, or compiling and configuring a program upon installation. The power of configurability is great, but it doesn't have to be an either/or conflict with usability. How many times have you found a program you were interested in, and you ./configure, only to find 5 or 6 things you need to install just to get it to finish without error? And once you get an error you have to figure out if you're actually missing the requirement, or it's just an environment variable, or the wrong verson of the libraries, or permissions, or any other number of potential conflicts. SUSE, for example, doesn't even install gcc by default. I don't think it should need to install a compiler just to be a viable desktop solution, but the fact is that unless someone's already made a binary package, a compiler isn't optional, it's mandatory. The very essence of Linux, its constantly evolving nature, is also its weakness when it comes to getting a foothold in the desktop market.

Also the networking, while powerful, is anything but simple. In XP for example, if I right click on a network interface and select "Share this connection," Windows automatically starts DHCP on my second NIC, assigns my other computer(s) an IP, and everything just works. In Linux, I have to set up masquerading, routing tables, rules, etc. It's these sort of things that send most people running.

Standards DO have drawbacks, but they're generally outweighed by the benefits. Too many choices can be bad. One need look no further than the current battle between HD-DVD and BluRay for a perfect example.

Honestly, I don't ever see this happening, but unless the Linux community can rally around ONE distribution as the "standard", I don't think Linux will ever be an option for the masses.

Linux... no, Mac increase... YES

[stilleon]

I have been an MS Windows user for years and have alittle experience with GNU/Linux and Mac OS X. After seeing all the cool things stripped out of Vista (especially the new WinFS) what is left is basically Windows XP SP3. Boring.

Frankly, with the new Intel Macs hitting the street during that time, with its ease of use, long track record, etc., that is the system that can win big, and I think that Apple (especially with its monopolistic policies with hardware and software, such as leveraging Final Cut to get Avid/Adobe to give up on Mac and of course iTunes) may just be the next Microsoft.

Re:Finally!

[Felinoid]

A decade ago it was Windows 95 that was going to be a big opportunity for Linux to make headway on the desktop,

Not even close.
Windows 95 was Microsofts big chance to solidify it's hold on the market and brush aside all compeditors.

Linux however was only just then being used on a few low load servers and a few desktops.

When IE came out it was the death of Netscape. Linux didn't even have a TCPIP stack and couldn't actually go on the Internet.

Windows 98 was Windows 98. Linux advocates used it to raise awareness of Linux with much success.
But awareness dose not mean converts.

Windows 2000 was Microsofts big chance to blow Linux off the face of the earth. They failed.

Windows XP was Microsoft ditching the old 9X codebase and going with NT. A win for Microsoft.
DRM is DRM. It pisses people off. It's not anything to do with Linux other than DRM dosen't exist in Linux.

The licens of Ms SQL is a win for other SQL servers.
The flaws in ASP security model ... Thats server side and Microsoft as pritty much lost that market. .Net and C# were threats to Linux. There was no way for Linux to Win on that.

I don't think this is a Win for Linux eather but your trying to say this is a clame that is made every time Microsoft farts. It's actually the first time someone sereous made this sort of clame and Linux advocates make a more limited version of this clame when they make it at all (this being rare).

However that being said we've had more than enough Microsoft and Linux death productions to realise this sort of thing is just hype.

Re:Finally!

[Elektroschock]

Yes, and also consider that this article of the "XYZ"(!) experts is largely an advertisement for Linspire.

Now, there are cheaper and better distributions. As a German citizen Linspire is of little use for me. I need native language support.

Note that Wine 0.9 is close and I think we will see a boost in Wine compatibility soon. And then we have a free .NET implementation. KDE 4. OO 2.x

I do not think Windows VISTA, a non-Vista Vista will be much better than Longporn.

Re:Finally!

[Tim C]

Meanwhile, GNU/Linux is already on my desktop and I couldn't really care less what Micro$oft does. I just use it because it is the best tool for my job. Period.

Your use of the term "Micro$oft" would appear to give the lie to your claim of using the best tool for the job. Or are your overtly anti-MS tendencies coincidental?

I mean, I may have abandoned Linux (specifically Mandrake 9) for XP, as that's the right tool for *my* job, but I don't feel the need to make reference to "open sores software".

Linux won't be ready for the desktop until...

[ralinx]

... until developers can get fired for having certain things not working correctly or good enough. KDE and Gnome are both very close to being good enough for every possible type of user. They just lack the finishing touch. And that stuff is hard to code... not because it's difficult but because it's boring and tedious. Developers working for Apple have to do this because they know that if they don't, they _will_ lose their jobs. Same goes for developers working for Microsoft. If they don't get it working the way they've been told it should be, they're in trouble.

In the OSS world it's different. A lot of these developers are volunteers, and are scratching an itch. They are gonna be working on stuff they actually enjoy working on because hey, it's their free time. And who could blame them? Why should they work on boring stuff in their free time? Of course there are also paid developers working on KDE and Gnome. But i have never heard of any of them getting fired for not putting on that finishing touch for their latest release. And that is the reason why every year it's the year of Linux On The Desktop, and it never actually is.

Apple is luring Windows users to OS X despite the Windows monopoly. Linux should've been able to do this as well.. they sure have had enough time to get it done (more than Apple has spent on OS X).

You got it backwards. Win95 "killed" Linux

[g2devi]

> A decade ago it was Windows 95 that was going to
> be a big opportunity for Linux to make headway on
> the desktop

Where did you hear that? Windows 95 was the OS I switched to moving *away* from Linux (see below). Also, back then Novell had a version of Windows 3.1 that ran on Linux and was going to create a Windows distribution based on Linux, not DOS. Win95 and Win32 pretty much killed those plans. Also, if you read Unix mags back in 95, you'd see that they were forcasting Unix's doom. Once WinNT had a VMS base and once NT 3.x got a Win95 interface, it would be the final nail in the coffin for Unix. (Of course, Microsoft seriously dropped the ball on that golden opportunity by not getting its server act together, but that is beside the point.)

And back in 1995, I was triple booting OS/2, Win3.1 and Linux. I came from an Amiga background so long file names and multitasking was a must. Win3.1 just wasn't up to sniff. I loved OS/2, but most programs ran for Win3.1 and it was lighter, so I booted Win3.1 more than OS/2. When Win95 came out, I gave OS/2 the boot. Win95 wasn't as good as OS/2, but it was "good enough" and I needed the extra hard disk space. Most of the apps I ran were Win32 based and most development tools were made from Borland. I spent less and less time in Linux. I got a Windows job in 1995, and I stayed almost completely on Win95 because it was "good enough" (thanks to Cygwin). I peaked back at Linux from time to time, but it was more for curiosity than anything else. I finally erased Linux in 1997. I also loved Windows 2000 when it came out.

As a double defector, I can say for a fact that Linux *has* been getting to be a better desktop with each release. Back in 2000, I started seeing more and more of the tools and apps that I liked on Linux. They weren't available on Windows so I began dual-boot between Win2000 and Linux. In 2002, I took the plunge and switched completely to RedHat (bye-bye Windows 2000). Thanks to VMware, I could even take a Windows job and not be disadvantaged. Fortunately, the rise of web programming meant that programs could be platform independent, so I could even work on Linux.

These days, Linux (Ubuntu) is more comfortable and problem free than Windows 2000 ever was (XP, IMO is a big step backwards in usability). I started Windows 2000 in VMware, exactly once (to use Audible.com and gave it the boot once I discoved how DRM-enabled it was). Linux is good enough for the educated user's desktop who is either a tech expert or has a friend who is. It's lower maintenance than Windows so the "guy who knows stuff about computers" doesn't have to put in a lot of effort to support the user.

But it's not yet ready for the average joe six pack. Those people need support from their local computer store or electronics store and need a few friends who know Linux. That informal and consumer support network doesn't quite exist yet. It takes a lot of time to form, but such networks tend to grow exponentially. You'll know when Linux is ready for prime time when you start seeing it regularly in "Prime Time TV", your barber starts talking about Linux, and "the foot" or "the gear" or the "fedora" start appearing in the menus of a a significant number of jobs you apply to.

Jeebus Cickey.

[Qbertino]

Warning: This one comes across as a flame, but I'm to mad at this Win2k Server Bullcrap I have to deal with every odd week to contain my anger caused by parent post. Please excuse.

For regular server use (eg. file server, web server, etc for a small to mid-sized company) Windows 2003 is pretty solid.

"Win2k is pretty solid?" As in "sort of stable"? Or "Kinda so-so not to totally viri and exploit ridden?" Or do you mean "Nice if you've been lured into this .Net Joke, have allready spent a fortune on MS IDEs and a Win2K licence and don't have anything mission critical your working on"? Or "Nice if you like a clean one-server-per-webapp policy to keep things in order?"
Give me a f*ckin' break. And whatever you're smoking, don't offer anything of that to me, please.
Contrary to what the clueless and ill-"informed" think: The only reason professionals are still dealing with utter morons (read: Consultants) who still consider MS as a server alternative is because MS is spending massive amounts of money to push Win2k server into hosting providers and their kin.
Everywhere you can see "Now with special ultra professional Win2K Server option" and such. MS is paying hard cash for these adds to be presented on hosting homepages. That's why their all over the place.

Little Tidbit:
5 years ago a guy I knew wanted me to join a project on a content syndication system built in .Net Beta. The Windows experts were laughing their heads of on BG renaming .obj to .net and making a big marketing boohey about it and this guy was thinking he was cream of the crop cause he was following the MS call. I asked for 80k$ anual income, he said no (what I'd hoped for). Now he's the cook at my favourite lounge (good at cooking - just made me a nice ciabatta this noon) and the only thing they've managed to build is a hideously overpriced, under-performing Win2K-server-only content management system (http://www.q-affairs.de/index.htm [q-affairs.de]) that doesn't even do HTML Umlaute correctly (despite being a german project). Due to it's Win2K-only restraint they can't even guarantee 99% uptime.

Bottom line:
Win2K is a server-side joke. Just as .obj recycled as .net is little more than an expensive hype. Nothing less. The nice Win-Only IDEs aside maybe. If it prevails then only because hardware vendors are happy to sell one box per server-app ("otherwise win2k crashes, you know") and MS is shelling out a few hundred million from their office-coffee-piggybank to push Win2k Server into the market against all sane reasoning. Money allways beats reason, y'know?

Yes, my friend, you're just outed yourself as someone who goes for the buzz and not the hard facts. Show me something with the power, flexebility and stability of Zope, RoR or even that PHP-mess called Typo3 in the Win2K server world and I'll make an opinial u-turn. Until then I recommend you check Linux/OSS out properly AND do a hard facts comparsion of both Linux* and Win2K before you get to close to bullshitting territory. Zope is a good start. It has both my dual-MS-certifed friends converted to the light side of the force. And it even runs on Win2K. With it's own Webserver and all.

.Net zealots please cue flames below. Thank you.

* You may substitute Linux with BSD or even Mac OS X if you like.

Re:This is what amazes me

[narfbot]

Can you switch the license for free, or do you have to purchase an upgrade or something?

Re:Got standards?

[Jorgensen]

We HAVE standards. The most important if which is to give users choice: keep them free.

If giving users choice conflict with your development, then you're doing something wrong because they are not contradictory.

What is this dependency problem you talk about? If you want to distribute software that does not take advantage of the underlying packaging system then you're obviously going to have to sort the dependencies out in some other way. Or leave it to the users and handle the complaints somehow.

Users should not need to know anything about ./configure! They should have no need to compile things themselves. Use that packaging system!

Re:Guess you never heard of duke nuke'em forever?

[Jesus_666]

Given the fact that modern CPUs usually are capable of handling a GUI and actually useful work I think that most Linux users will be able to live without hardware accelerated graphics for now. And come on: This won't attract Win users that much. Support from sotware companies is much more needed than glitzy graphics or superior operating system quality.
If we want the masses to even consider Linux we must have full or near-full support from the gaming industry and companies like Adobe. Polishing won't get us nearly as much attention.

Re:Almost negligible

[sumdumass]

It isn't that thewy will sell out thier freeedom. It is that they will see it as a feaqture and not understand they are giving up thier freedoms.

I recently had a customer who droped her laptop and crashed the hardrive. I was able to recover most of here file but the boot sector and partition sections of the drive was toast. It wil nevfer be bootable again. All her music was protected with the xp media players DRM and we didn't get the DRM licenses before the drive went out totaly. Now we have to crack all these WMA files in order to allow here ot use them again. (they were mostley verbal notes from meetings)

When asked why she used it, she said that windows told her it was the only way to protect them from being stolen. She didn't even Now What DRM was because thew switch said Protect content. This is a normal user and a sticker saying DRM compatable would look like a wanted feature. This is alot like the designed for windows XP sticker making people think they have to upgrade to XP to run the newest version of some program they've ran for 10 years. They just don't know and microsoft (as wel as other companies) play on this.

Recently i had a call from someone who said thier new tech support claimed somthign wouldn't run on a novel server when it was running fine for 5 years. Had him thinking he needed to instal a dell power edge running win 2003 server and a domain for a company with 3 computers plus a file server. Turned out nothign "ran" on the server, it just used a network files share for data. But illistrates that even Somewhat experienced users can be duped into the same things. It is alla planned stunt. caculated to trick a consumer out of the most money possible.