[cumbria_lug] New distro advice

[Schwuk]

Michael Saunders said:
> Right, so if Microsoft won't make an OS to run on it, there's no point
in improving Linux so it WILL work on it?

You said "But that's my point. You can't put a Linux distro on that
machine that rivals Longhorn in featureset and capability!" - my point was
that you couldn't put Longhorn (or any Win32 OS execpt 95) on that machine
anyway, so it was a redundant point to make in the first place.

> More 'moving parts' tends to lead to more trouble and failures, both in
software and mechanical devices. Companies will have to support this
mess of bloated code, and we'll be up there with Microsoft in terms of
bugs and exploits. Wow, it's open source! But all the
> developers will be working on GNOME 25.0, very few people will be
working on the old code (how many people are reading/auditing the source
for KDE 1 source?), and 'Linux' will develop a dire reputation.

Yes, but realistically how many people are going to be using the old code?
There's a reason products are EOL'd - that's one of the downsides of OSS:
you can't kill something once it's been released.

> If they feel particularly threatened by the takeup of Linux, they will
identify our weak points and improve on them (marketing the hell out of
them in the process). On launch, many people were surprised by how
stable Win2k and XP were (well, relatively). They could surprise us
again, with significant performance gains, and we'll be stuck with an OS
that takes three times as long to boot and runs much slower.

Only so far as it suits them - Microsoft (and other vendors) are notorious
for requiring bigger hardware to power new software, and I have no doubt
Longhorn will be the same. The requirements are as follows (taken from
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Longhorn/Longhorn/LonghornIntroduction.asp ):

  "At the time of beta 1, Longhorn requires 2.0 GHz processor and 1 GB
RAM, in addition to ton of GB of hard drive space."

Ouch. Can you imagine what it will be like when it's actually released? If
MS support anything less than that for the _minimum_ spec when it's
release, I'll  be amazed.

> Do you believe that if a modern desktop Linux ran at the speed of, say,
BeOS, it wouldn't accelerate takeup enormously?

No. One word - compatibility. Why do you think BeOS failed?

> But that's like saying: until someone takes Windows and does an 'OS X'
on it, it's always going to be a square peg/round hole scenario using
Windows on the desktop too.

Hardly the same, is it? Anyway, don't you mean "Windows on the server"?
Windows was always as a desktop OS that's been shoehorned onto servers.

> Gumdrop widgets and snazzy transparency effects do not a productive
working environment make.

No, but integration does, and Windows (currently) has the edge on
integration, and that is the direction Gnome and KDE are heading in.

> Besides, nobody can do an 'OS X' on Linux. The fundamental
> user-friendliness of Apple systems stems from them being single vendor
and single platform; Linux targets eighty-five trazillion platforms and
devices, and as a result it can never be integrated so tightly.

But a 'desktop' linux doesn't have to target "eighty-five trazillion
platforms and devices" - just one: the PC. Admittedly it will have to
support more hardware than a Mac, but that could be construed as a selling
point.

> There's no point in imitating OS X's design and interface paradigms as
it's an entirely different market and userbase.

Who said anything about imitation - I meant do what Apple did: take a
stripped down UNIX core and build on it. Why does Linux on the desktop
have to work in exactly the same was as Linux on a server, or Linux on a
handheld. By trying to do everything the same on every device, it is
limiting itself.

How is it a "different market and userbase" anyway? Do people who use Macs
use their computers in completely different ways to PC users? Do they do
*none* of the same tasks? or are you simply referring to Apple's 'artsy'
image?

> But finally, to return to my original point, unless we start looking at
proper, elegant design and careful coding, we're going to be in BIG
trouble later. Not only could Linux be significantly slower than
Windows, but all the bloat in this code is going to cause security
problems. Entire subsystems and components can't be fixed overnight.

Very true, but don't hold your breath. A company or project can change
direction - a community the size of Linux can't.

Cheers,
-- 
Schwuk