Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek) [LWN.net]

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 4:54 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
In reply to: Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek) by Zhohar
Parent article: Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Yeah, YMMV, as they say. I run F7 on two of my cheap Dell notebooks and that has been a pleasant experience for the most part. No major problems and the performance is OK.

As a different example, a co-worker upgraded his fancy and recent (i.e. Vista certified) Toshiba notebook to Vista a few months back. He's still wondering why the machine goes into a period of disk thrashing every so often, making the system completely unusable - something that never used to happen under XP. So, I guess it all depends on a particular hardware/software combo one runs...

BTW, I think the original quote: "To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just have to work on it." is not performance related, but more to do with how the software is managed within the OS. I haven't had direct in-depth experience with Windows for a long time now, but I see people at work lodging trouble tickets to the effect of "my system has become slow" regularly. The fix is normally a complete reinstall of the standard operating environment (i.e Windows + apps) on the box. I don't think many running Linux on their desktop do that kind of stuff (I certainly don't).

All that being said, I don't think Linux on the desktop is something that's going to be massively deployed around the place any time soon. There just isn't enough comparable Linux software for many corporate users to do what they've been doing with their Windows machines. There is always an app or two that will need Windows (some even developed in-house), so only the most dedicated (or perhaps the ones thinking long term TCO) will go the Linux route (for now).

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Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 6:55 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

That's why virtualization, wine, samba, Mono, and things like remote desktop are so important.

Out of any OS you have Linux has the highest compatibility with software. If you want something to run on Linux you can get it to work.

For example if I have some financial doo-dad that I need, but it's only aviable on windows, depending on the size of the company, there are a few things I could do. If I am major customer I could tell the ISVs that I want them to provide Linux binaries.. they can use Mono if it's a .NET application to accomplish this and often with only minor modifications a Windows application can compile to run on Linux quite well with the assistance of libwine.

If I can't do that then I can run remote desktop and get windows applications to appear on my user's Linux desktops in a rather seamless way. (that is they appear as windows on my desktop with files being equally accessable in either OS)

Sure it's not perfect, but as long as the majority of work that needs to be done can be done on Linux that last few applications that some workers require shouldn't be much of a burden one way or another.

Like everything it 'just depends' on what sort of environment your dealing with.

And especially if your setting up a new environment.. like a new office or growing a business, then going from nothing to Linux is going to be as easy or easier (and much cheaper) then going from nothing to Windows.

This is easier in places like Europe, Eastern Europe I suppose mostly, China, and lots of other places were they are just now starting to get into the whole 'information tech' level of sophistication. But it's still possible in U.S.

I've always figured that once Linux reaches 15-20% of market share of business desktops it will hit a critical mass were even very proprietary companies are not going to be able to avoid Linux compatibility. It will start to be more and more a hard requirement for ISVs to sell software/support to their corporate customers.

Remember that Microsoft didn't get were it is today by making superior software. Everything they made had superior competitors since the beginning. They are just better businessmen.

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 23, 2007 4:49 UTC (Thu) by roelofs (subscriber, #2599) [Link]

The fix is normally a complete reinstall of the standard operating environment (i.e Windows + apps) on the box. I don't think many running Linux on their desktop do that kind of stuff (I certainly don't).

Indeed not. On Linux you simply restart Firefox and maybe the odd GNOME app every month or two, and you're flying again. (Even Linux can't withstand 300 MB memory leaks without swapping...)

I have never understood why Windows users put up with that reboot/reinstall crap.

Greg