"Linux ​Generation&​quot;?

When Coca Cola first started there were many imitators. Worrisome as they were – all fell away but one – Pepsi.  Coke had – at that time – an un-assailable marketing image: Coca cola as god incumbent x America x edgy ( even after removal of cocaine from product).

But Pepsi continued trying again and again – until they finally hit the brand niche they needed “Pepsi Generation”

This made everything old = uncool and made a meme of Young / New as the defacto beverage impulse / standard.
(Apples 1984 ad attempted the same type of angle)

Could the same happen with Windows/Microsoft?

MS used to be the Pepsi to IBM’s Coke in my day..  but now OSS seems to be one marketing slogan away from this sort of public consciousness / realization.

I read recently Linux has surpassed MacOS usage ( non-reliable source though) – but still this (may)  put a non-company as the number 2 to one of the worlds largest corporations.

OK OK the point…  What has MS Marketing got up it’s sleeve to circumvent this somewhat possible Scenario?  

How do they intend to make MS cool = YOUNG again?**

And lastly – SP2 – will be a very “big brother” download/install for most users. Some of my friends machines i loaded it on – they are complaining about “all the questions” and they want to no how to “turn it off”

Even though I know MS is trying it’s best to address all concerns across the board with this release – im worried there will be a “mean ol’ Microsoft” consumer backlash – if all the above items are not addressed and clearly explained – as to what this download is and does.

So to end this:

Linux =  cool and fringe and young and "punk"

Windows = old and the same and established and – now with sp2 – heavy handed

So…  How do you reverse the above thinking?

I wish ms marketing shared in the great event that is – Channel 9



** apart from the "MS House of teens" test run that yeilded the weird MSN Messenger (forget the name) with the bizzare interface for students/kids - or whatever the heck that was

** 3° (3 degrees)

VERY interesting points!

Your apple vs linux market share information is correct. While I don't recall what issue it was in EWEEK and I believe the register web site.

As far as Microsoft trying to be younger - I don't believe they really care that much, they're just happy being the biggest and with now with sp2 perhaps the meanest leanest dog in the junk yard.

Linux still isn't really all that "cool" in the sense of young. If your talking high school age a small percent (lets say 3%) use it to...lets say "think diffrent"!

With new games like Doom3 and Half Life2 coming out I believe Windows PC's will still "be cool". If apple wanted to divide and conquer they should make a linux itunes and offer some good reason to switch, like release the newest versons on linux a few months before windows.

I have used Linux as a dual boot for years but I still find myself booting to the windows side 97% of the time.

It would be exciting to see Windows take it as a serious threat and release new and exciting UI a few times a year.

miamijjs wrote:

With new games like Doom3 and Half Life2 coming out I believe Windows PC's will still "be cool".

*Side note* Doom 3 is coming for Linux and Mac too.

IMHO I see Linux as being not a generation type fad, but more of a mindset type fad.

For the true geeks, we equally appreciate the good work...

In my experience, I see LOTS of wannabee geeks getting into linux and going the whole "Microsoft is evil" route, only because of Hype and it makes them look like they know something...

I have a friend who said he installed RH 9 on his laptop. I said .. "It has Anaconda to help install, you want a cookie? Explain to me what "top" does"

needless to say he quickly became quiet.

Point: Its a generation thing, but not based on age, but based on hype, posers, and perception of knowledge.

Jake

ohh here's a good one...

ask someone who thinks they know linux ... about what a fork bomb is, how to do it, and how to stop it...

Jake

WHile "some" games do make it to Mac and Linux the whole point it where it comes out first.

Its not that diffrent from GTA 3 being released for xbox about the time vice city is on ps2. It makes Ps2 look cutting edge and still makes extra money on the older GTA3 on xbox.

Everyone is happy, xbox gets gta3 sales, Rockstar games gives PS2 first dibs via contract and keeps sony happy and Rockstar makes money on GTA3 coming (released on ps2) and going (full price xbox title upon release months later)

Why wouldn't ID games want to release Doom3 as much as they can? BUT the poitn is Windows may seem cooler to the gamer kids as Windows had it first.

Be careful about market share numbers. There's a difference between computers that are being used by people and computers that are being stuck in some server farm somewhere.

Remember, Google alone has something like 80,000 machines running Linux.

I fly in planes every couple of weeks or so and in the past 10 trips I've been looking at every computer being used in the terminal or in the plane. Out of hundreds of computers I haven't seen one Linux computer being used. I've seen dozens of Macs, though.

Your experience may vary, but just wanted to give my view of what's going on out there.

what makes you say OK server for Windows and Good Server for Linux?

I am not going to try and compare Linux to Windows but instead will point out why Windows doesn't disserve a 'good' rating.

Windows, although it can be easy to configure for some things you quickly find if you’re not trying to do the norm you have to play around in the registry or some very obscure configuration panels. You don't have raw configuration files anywhere but instead have one big configuration file or one big jumble of mess (registry).

You also don't have a centralised configuration tool. I mean none that can complete all tasks and has limitless expandability based on the niche task you might be completing at that time.

Windows is a resource hungry monster that will eat your server's CPU and RAM if you don't attend to it. Windows servers often need a restart just to clear up the mess and worse still will crash/freeze for no real reason except it has been running a while.

You are also forced to have a high spec graphics capability on your server just to configure the thing and can't even shut down the graphics capabilities when you've finished thus wasting even more of your CPU/RAM.

The server only has limited auto-update or auto maintenance capabilities and could never be considered a hands-off machine.

Without the use of third party software it is almost impossible to configure and maintain the server from a non-Windows operating system. 

Actually I'm going to argue each of your points in the opposite direction.

The registry is not a configuration file, it's a damned good transactional hierarchical configuration database, meaning that changes made are guaranteed to be either present or absent if the system fails for whatever reason. This allows relatively fast updates and very fast reads - imagine Explorer trying to generate context menus from a text configuration file!

Very occasionally you have to drop into Regedit to change something that you can't do through some other UI, but it's usually rare and for configuring some extremely obscure setting.

The centralised configuration tool is the Microsoft Management Console. Most of the system, as opposed to user, settings are configured through an MMC snap-in. If you run MMC directly, rather than picking a tool from Administrative Tools, you can create your own customised console with the snap-ins and extensions you want. (Note to self: must get round to creating a console with both Active Directory Users & Computers and Exchange System Manager in). The 'Computer Management' console shows a number of extensions that could be added into your own console.

I've never noticed a problem with CPU or RAM being eaten up on our servers. We had a Windows 2000 SP2 Advanced Server box running for about a year or so with no reboots, barring the occasional power outage long enough to drain the UPS. It was running DHCP and WINS services, plus acting as a file and print server. These services have now all been moved to a new system running Server 2003.

If your system crashes or freezes, suspect bad RAM, overheating or power brownouts. If you care about your server, ensure that you use good quality parts, place it in a location with decent ventilation and/or air conditioning, make sure there's enough cooling for the expected workload, and use a UPS.

'High-spec graphics capability' - hardly. The 2000 box I mentioned previously has a 2MB graphics card, IIRC. A new 64MB GeForce 2 MX400, way beyond the requirements for Server 2003, costs less than GBP 20 at the moment. Like most things in Windows, if you're not using a capability, Windows will swap out all the components it can if the memory would be more useful for something else. I've observed Windows servers swapping in the login dialog. All it amounts to is a little more usage of a page file for the areas of RAM that have been written to - read-only data is read back in from the original files.

Limited auto-update: a friend of mine is using Server 2003 to host his website and has it set to automatically download updates from Windows Update and install on a schedule. He periodically checks that it has done so. No failures so far in about a year. There's very little scheduled maintenance you have to do, I find.

Why would you want to manage a Windows server from a non-Windows system?  My only gripe for managing Windows servers from Windows workstations is that the servers and workstations must be members of domains in the same forest, and that you can only manage IIS 6.0 from a Windows Server 2003 system - the IIS snap-in for XP doesn't work. That's one of the few times I now use Terminal Services to manage our new server.

I don't think that Microsoft has to worry about reversing a Linux trend at this point.  Linux is a small, small part of the market, and it would seem that the people interested in Linux were never particuarily interested in Microsoft.  Or perhaps the people interested in Microsoft are still interested in Microsoft.

Manip wrote:

Windows is a resource hungry monster that will eat your server's CPU and RAM if you don't attend to it. Windows servers often need a restart just to clear up the mess and worse still will crash/freeze for no real reason except it has been running a while.

The server only has limited auto-update or auto maintenance capabilities and could never be considered a hands-off machine.

I've never had to reboot a 2000/2003 server "just because it's been running for a while". If you have, then you probably ought to buy decent hardware because that is certainly not normal.

AutoUpdate is just as effective on the server as it is on the desktop, I've not heard of any failures. The amount of auto-maintenance you can do with WMI and VBScript is truly awesome.

My servers are quite definately "hands-off", in fact most don't even have keyboard/mouse/monitor attached. Remote Desktop suffices for pretty much every scenario and the on-board Emergency Management Console can cut in if the OS does crash (though I've never used that feature in anger, I've not needed to!)

Manip wrote:

Without the use of third party software it is almost impossible to configure and maintain the server from a non-Windows operating system. 

Microsoft provide a Remote Desktop client for Mac OS, which works just peachy for administering Windows. Unfortunately Apple don't provide a similar tool, so remotely managing my XServe is a pain in the butt.

When you are the biggest and the best, a small percentage shouldn't bother you. Linux is not cool at all, it is a 30-40 year old technology. Many early adaptors used it along with Windows, and most of the time it was about having Unix on Intel. You usually see how big Linux is when you read a Linux fanatic talking about it, not when you use it, or when others use it, because it is a very bad operating system for desktop use. For server stuff, it is getting there and that's how many use it actually.

scobleizer wrote:

Be careful about market share numbers. There's a difference between computers that are being used by people and computers that are being stuck in some server farm somewhere.

Remember, Google alone has something like 80,000 machines running Linux.

I fly in planes every couple of weeks or so and in the past 10 trips I've been looking at every computer being used in the terminal or in the plane. Out of hundreds of computers I haven't seen one Linux computer being used. I've seen dozens of Macs, though.

Your experience may vary, but just wanted to give my view of what's going on out there.

Google most probably has far more than 80,000 machines. I agree, the numbers are pretty much unreliable.

Keskos wrote:

Linux is not cool at all, it is a 30-40 year old technology.

lol, you are comparing Linux to a 40y/o super-computer?

Fact is Linux was started *about* 1991~ and is a fairly modern operating system with all the advanced features you would expect. The desktop might be poor but it is technically incorrect to poke fun at the kernel because there is simply nothing bad you can accurately say about its technological sophistication.

Mike Dimmick wrote:

The registry is not a configuration file, it's a damned good transactional hierarchical configuration database, meaning that changes made are guaranteed to be either present or absent if the system fails for whatever reason. This allows relatively fast updates and very fast reads - imagine Explorer trying to generate context menus from a text configuration file!

 

What’s your point? It is used INSTEAD of configuration files for most Windows services so it is doing the job of configuration files.

 

Mike Dimmick wrote:

The centralised configuration tool is the Microsoft Management Console. Most of the system, as opposed to user, settings are configured through an MMC snap-in. If you run MMC directly, rather than picking a tool from Administrative Tools, you can create your own customised console with the snap-ins and extensions you want. (Note to self: must get round to creating a console with both Active Directory Users & Computers and Exchange System Manager in). The 'Computer Management' console shows a number of extensions that could be added into your own console.

 

I know what the MMC is and how to use it. But it is essentially just a list; just like Control Panel is a list of components you can configure. I guess you could call it a centralised access point, but I mean even more so than that; something that doesn't require me to load and unload components. And at minimal had a structure to it. Look at how Netware did a central control point.

 

Mike Dimmick wrote:

'High-spec graphics capability' - hardly. The 2000 box I mentioned previously has a 2MB graphics card, IIRC. A new 64MB GeForce 2 MX400, ...

 

Compared to some other systems where you don't need ANY graphics card and or a monitor. Windows 95/98 could do this kind of thing but the server editions never could. I want to be able to run a server on the minimal of hardware that consumes the least power.

 

Mike Dimmick wrote:

Why would you want to manage a Windows server from a non-Windows system? My only gripe for managing Windows servers from Windows workstations is that the servers and workstations must be members of domains in the same forest, and that you can only manage IIS 6.0 from a Windows Server 2003 system - the IIS snap-in for XP doesn't work. That's one of the few times I now use Terminal Services to manage our new server.

 

That is a silly question. It is like me asking, why manage a Windows server from ANY remote workstation. My point is that with Netware, UNIX, Linux and BSD you can fully and completely administer the server from virtually any operating system (Windows, Linux, and Mac etc) but with Windows you have to have a Windows workstation to do it.