Beer's The year of the desktop linux has arrived

I thought people on here would be interested in this

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15177/1023/

While Windows advocates may smirk and say here we go again, as 2007 draws to a close I get the strong feeling that we may look back upon this year and recognize it with hindsight as the year that the Linux desktop finally arrived. There are a number of events that point to 2007 as being the turning point for Linux and it all started in January with the release of Windows Vista . . .

mcampbell wrote:



brian.shapiro wrote: I thought people on here would be interested in this http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15177/1023/ While Windows advocates may smirk and say here we go again, as 2007 draws to a close I get the strong feeling that we may look back upon this year and recognize it with hindsight as the year that the Linux desktop finally arrived. There are a number of events that point to 2007 as being the turning point for Linux and it all started in January with the release of Windows Vista . . .

Didn't they say this last year?

+ the link is bad.

i fixed it. actually the src reference was just bad but the url is correct

brian.shapiro wrote:

I thought people on here would be interested in this

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15177/1023/

While Windows advocates may smirk and say here we go again, as 2007 draws to a close I get the strong feeling that we may look back upon this year and recognize it with hindsight as the year that the Linux desktop finally arrived. There are a number of events that point to 2007 as being the turning point for Linux and it all started in January with the release of Windows Vista . . .

Didn't they say this last year?

+ the link is bad.

Well Linux had better get on the desktop, its been steadily losing market share in servers, pretty soon it won't be on anything.

People who want to use Linux as a desktop OS can comfortably do so. However it still has problems that prevent it from being a mass market OS; and I don't know if it can address all of these problems.

For the Enterprise I work for, next year will be the year of Windows XP again.

Why migrate from something that works and is still under support for sometime to come?

And what adds weight to this arguement is that all our PC are on a 3-5 year replacement cycle so we have a good few years before all of them are capable of running Vista.
 
As for going to Linux instead, whats is the business benefit? Lower licence cost is not a strong enough case if the conversion cost works out to exceed the money you've saved.

We're aren't anti-Linux it's just the migration would leave us out of pocket and Microsoft haven't done anything bad to us so this hasn't made a killer reason to move away, plus no one died or is really seriously disadvantaged from using closed source so perhaps not a strong enough ethical case?

Sabot wrote:

As for going to Linux instead, whats is the business benefit?

You answered this question yourself, but you used Vista as an example.

In what context is Linux ready for the desktop?

Linux is ready for the desktop as long as:

A) Your hardware is ready for Linux. Simply scanning over HCLs and searching for supported hardware via Google prior to installation can save lots of frustration if something goes wrong.

B) You're willing to try wine/cedega/crossover, virtualization, and/or remote desktop to run existing Windows applications.

C) You're willing to embrace and "like" open source software.

DigitalDud wrote:

Well Linux had better get on the desktop, its been steadily losing market share in servers, pretty soon it won't be on anything.

It doesn't really matter because Linux works just fine for me and millions others with 0% marketshare. The real problem is patents and how they threaten the platform and infrastructure.

I guess owning 0% marketshare means that you still have to know Windows to ever land an IT position but no worries--been using Windows for 15 years. Virtually everyone who uses alternative OSes know how to use the "big daddy".

I don't mind linux - I think it's cool, but these doomsday messages are getting ridiculous!

It's almost time for the Linux pundits to announce 2008 as the "year of the Linux desktop", isn't it?

I wont say "It's the year of the desktop"...however I will say that the gOS makes a good showing....so adding a few things...

1. Ubuntu shipped by Dell
2. gOS showing up in Walmart (True Linspire was there also, but Linspire is a bad showing of a Linux desktop).
3. Microsoft preasuring Linux Distros

I think it's something that is eventually getting there, it raises questions though, Apple took awhile and they're inching up....Linux may as well.

This is all good because competition drives creativity, but I wont brand a certain year to be of a certain OS.

creditcard wrote:

- Adobe finally releases Flash 9 for Linux

Not for x64

Another interesting screed regarding Linux on the desktop here. In brief, the likelihood of seeing Duke Nukem Forever is greater than the arrival of Linux on the desktop.