[Colchester] Linux or Windows

[Wayland Sothcott]

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Install party and the Linux market (Toby Whaymand)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:10:23 +0000
> From: Toby Whaymand <toby.whaymand at ntlworld.com>
> Subject: [Colchester] Install party and the Linux market
> To: colchester at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Message-ID: <1203376223.5769.48.camel at toby-desktop>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> Thanks I did not think about the type of person and your right. The
> people who will be attending the party are going to me more open minded.
>
> I know thing for sure, I am never going to own a computer with Windows
> on it, the history of Window (e.g DOS being a rip off of CP-M) and the
> way dominates the market is highly unethical.
>
> Not only that I think Linux is nicer to use more so Ubuntu.  It great
> how the source code is open to everyone and they (who ever the parent
> company of the distribution) still are able to make money despite the
> high competition.
>
> I still would support the Enterprise versions of Linux because not only
> does it support fairer competition they are also generally cheaper to
> purchase and run then the Windows counterparts.
>
> I personally prefer Star Office to MS Office but even Open Office is a
> fantastic alternative with very few limitations compared to MS Office.
>
> I have to disagree with the statement that Windows is better for games
> and lot of people try and tell me this but the web-site Linux Games
> Publishing as a huge amounts of fantastic games for Linux.  Most don't
> have the same kind of hype as say for example, Finale Fantasy but they
> are probably just as good.  Not only that a lot of top titles are moving
> towards Linux like the "X" series of games "X2" looks very good.
>
> The link for Linux Games Publishing is: 
>
> http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/index.php?
>
> I think it is important to remember that even Apple computer are an
> alternative to Windows and even know it might be to a lessor degree
> Apple users are going to face they some kind of compatibility issues as
> Linux users.
>
> People have asked me before where is the market for Linux?  From what I
> have read a market is being created in the following areas:
>
> * Government Authorities around the world 
>
> For example the French Government have moved there computers to Linux (I
> think they use Mandriva) 
>
> A few Council Authorities in Britain have moved towards Linux
>
> * Police Authorities - I know this can come under Government Authorities
> but there are a few forces that have moved toward Linux more noticeably
> SUSE Enterprise.  For example Kent Police moved to SUSE Enterprise about
> 2 years ago.
>
> *Hollywood!  Hollywood as discovered Linux and the application, Blender
> (and others) as been used in a number of movies....
>
> *Canonical have reported that Ubuntu is used in small businesses however
> they have not realised figures on how many small business have paid for
> support 
>
> * Africa - Linux is widely used in Africa but I don't think this is
> generally a market but it is highly used because of it generally free
> nature. Ubuntu tends to OS of choice in Africa.
>
> The above is just my view and understanding of the Linux market today.
>
> I would love to attend the install party if that is okay?
>
> Thanks
>
> Toby
>
>  
>   
Toby,

I am delighted that you feel you can defend Linux as a gaming platform. 
I am not really qualified to say too much about the subject because I 
think games should be played on Games Consoles. I would not want to pay 
the sort of money required to make a PC good at games. However there 
many types o9f games, the 'impressive' sort are amazing visually and 
usually require a great deal of hardware performance. I do feel these 
are likely to work best under Windows since the graphics hardware was 
developed for Windows. However there is more to a good game than cutting 
edge graphics hardware. As a simple example of what I am saying Tetrus 
is better than Tux racer but plays on very modest hardware because it's 
a very simple program.

I find I can make good money deploying Linux servers. I am very happy to 
help with Linux and make donations, especially when I am making money. I 
have got a customer to buy a Dell server with SUSE pre-installed. This 
means that Dell provide a warrentee for the whole server and don't get 
funny about it running Linux since they installed it. I have done the 
same thing with Buffalo routers running dd-wrt pre-installed, 2 year 
warrentee, rather than void warrentee. This is what's making Linux 
commercial and more mainstream.

I think that Vista has finally proved publicly that Windows is past it's 
best. With Vista, Windows manages to hide a lot of hard technial facts 
behind a  People wanting to buy the best computer systems now chose an 
Apple. Windows can carry on banking on it's compatibility for years to 
come and Vista will get better. Linux is proving to be a very versatile 
operating system going on to many more things than Windows. OK so Sat 
Navs use Windows Mobile or something, but Programmable Video Recorders, 
Network Attached Storage, Routers, VoIP phones run Linux. I think once 
laptop makers decide that they need their Laptops to be as good as Apple 
Laptops then they will be installing Linux and fine tuning their own 
distro to get the best possible results. Perhaps a problem might be the 
GPL. If they make their laptop really amazing by working on their 
distro, what's to stop me putting that disto on my laptop and making it 
just as good? People are now running OSX on ex-Windows machines. in fact 
that gives me an idea. We could do a distro specifically to make Linux 
look as good as it is, rather like Apple did with BSD? We might need to 
limit the hardware list just to make sure it works as expected (rather 
like Apple did).

Regards,
Wayland.