The Times of India, the world’s largest English newspaper in circulation (3 million) has an article promoting GNU/Linux on the desktop. India is one of the countries with a government promoting GNU/Linux. This article is an indication that GNU/Linux on desktops is gaining traction with the general population in India, a good thing, IMHO. When government, schools, businesses and individuals know they have a choice and exercise that choice good things happen: stimulation of local business, opportunities for young people in start-ups, interoperability between IT systems, less lock-in and greater competition in software of all kinds.
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Government in India only promotes Linux is because Linux is very very labor intensive. Cronies can make a good living off government contracts.
Is Linux ready for your PC?
No.
Chris Weig wrote that Linux is not ready for his PC. I find that strange because many millions of PCs run GNU/Linux and many hundreds of millions run Android/Linux. I think it’s more like that Chris Weig is not ready for GNU/Linux. I used GNU/Linux on all the PCs in my classroom in 2000 and now use it on all my PCs in my home except for one Android/Linux smart phone. */Linux is certainly ready for PCs.
The question was about “your PC”, meaning my PC. And I happen to share this view that Linux is not ready for my PC with the majority of computer users.
I used GNU/Linux on all the PCs in my classroom in 2000 and now use it on all my PCs in my home except for one Android/Linux smart phone. */Linux is certainly ready for PCs.
And if you turn a trash-can around, you can sit on it, yet it doesn’t magically turn into a chair.
Tar wrote:
“Cronies can make a good living off government contracts.”
Yes they certainly can. Too bad their living is drying up.
You are a sad case Tar. This is what Microsoft’s last days as a monopoly look like.
As the articles are largely just excuses for the comments, why not move to a forum system instead, with your post as comment #1 in each thread?
I’m sure there’s free as in speech (and free as in beer) forum software out there that can be used.
Re: Linux is very very labor intensive.
Perhaps if you have no clue on what your doing, however the same thing can be said about Windows.
Lets see….
The upgrade process for Windows PCs is labor-intensive. IT organizations upgrade operating systems only when Microsoft forces them to, so end users are frustrated. Nearly half of organizations are still on Windows XP 11 years after its release.
Windows 8 Start Screen seems less modifiable and more labour-intensive when it comes to accessing both files and apps, there are numerous videos demonstrating this.
Just recently an author for a Windows power-user guide, was asked to include the following items for Windows 8:
1) How to get rid of Metro
2) How to get rid of IE Metro mode
3) How to force links to open in browser you want to set default, not IE/Metro
4) How to get rid of UAC
5) How to access old-style Control Panel
6) How to get rid of SmartScreen
A CIO for a decent sized organization was asked about his thoughts on migrating to Windows 8, “Our organisation moved from Windows XP to Windows 7 two years ago. We were more aggressive than most companies our size, and many SMBs are still using XP today.
“Changing the operating system on your employees’ PCs is disruptive, inefficient, and labour-intensive. I see nothing in Windows 8 that would justify an upgrade for any company. That may change over time, of course, but as of now this upgrade would create far more problems than it would solve.”
Windows 8 Start Screen, while it does seem to be popular, there are notable setbacks which have arisen from Microsoft removing the tried and tested Start menu option that has been present in Windows for a long, long time. The removal of the Start menu makes it a more labor intensive task to shutdown, log off or restart the machine. So much so that one needs to install a script to add functionality back.
The script allows Shutdown, Logoff and Restart buttons to be added to the Windows 8 screen, which appear to look like any other tile and can even be dragged around and be placed in different locations on the Start screen. Once the script is downloaded, it is a simple case of double clicking it, which will in turn auto create the necessary buttons.
Oh and lets not forget, the need for additional software to make Windows work, namely anti-virus software.
..and I am just scratching the surface (pun).
The increasing amount of attention paid to Mr Pogson’s
little blog by non-linux users who are more than likely financially tied to the Windows platform
tells me Linux is ready for your PC.
Linux was ready for my PC 5 years ago.
India is one of the countries with a government promoting GNU/Linux.
Just another big nanny state imposing its will on its citizens. And this government not only imposes Linux, but also imposes forced abortions on millions of Indian women.
The increasing amount of attention paid to Mr Pogson’s little blog by non-linux users who are more than likely financially tied to the Windows platform
You are right here, we all financially tied to the Windows platform, we are paying for it! Or do you mean that Microsoft pays us?
Meanwhile, your dear Mr.Pogson is making his living with Linux. He is more than interested in its proliferation. More Linux in schools more work for him.
What a nice government India has!:
In India, for example, the ruling upper-caste Hindus have focused the population control effort on getting rid of lower-caste untouchables and Muslims.
iLia all goverments do something bad. USA and Australia cannot really speak against what India has done.
Lot of what the USA and Australia did to the natives was worse. Australia we did taking children away from there mothers and putting them into government run schools and mass murder of those who resisted the action.
Yes history has lot of bad things. Untouchables and Muslims have something in common they operate outside the main culture of the country and do not mix with others well.
Really those are the USA equal to trouble makers that disappear.
iLia you really cannot dispute the technical merits of what India is doing with Linux. So you have to attack the India government as some evil body that we cannot copy.
Really coping the USA or Australia historic solution to those that will not integrate what is a bullet India would not have a problem today. So you are most likely not in a country you can comment. A bullet is the max in population control. Its cheap as well you don’t have to keep on feeding the person.
So india does have some compassion.
Another piece of censorship, Mr.Pogson?
Why you don’t want people know about tmrepository.com?
iLia wrote, “More Linux in schools more work for him.”
Nope. I am retired. Neither do I have any financial investments in GNU/Linux. I am just a user these days.
iLia have you not read the tmrepository.com about page.
Basically they are a group who says they are to hunt down freetard with crap. In other words they are trolls. Using troll methods to fight trolls does not work. People who quote the Tmrepository normally don’t know facts and are normally incompetent.
So if you are wanting to place a link from the tmrepository think twice there are some quite classic clangers in there of stupidity. Like not understanding why a particular developer built the Worlds Slowest Linux computer. Dmitry Grinberg is a driver developer for lots of embedded stuff where performance is important.
If everything was logical we would not have art work. To everyone other than a person like Dmitry Grinbery the device is basically artwork that it is even possible.
Sometimes the most interesting question is why someone built something because what they built is not what you call a practical device for anyone else.
Tmrepository was not designed to dispose of zealots on either side. Yes Tmrepository with the Worlds Slowest Linux computer proved how much of pack of bigots they were. Insulting a developer who most of them would use a device somewhere containing his work just because he made something that was weird to most people.
More you go threw the Tmrepository the more errors you find and the more items that should be deleted because they are just Trolling. There might be some gems in there but with the crap and personal attacks on people its just a place for trolls.
iLia some groups are not worth being mixed up with.
No censorship! Sorry
think it’s more like that Chris Weig is not ready for GNU/Linux
As an an element of a larger macrocosm, Mr. Pogson, that is likely to be true. Virtually no one is ready for Linux because it is an unnecessary element for personal computing in general. “Too little, too late!” or even “A day late and a dollar short!” are apt descriptions of Linux as a desktop OS product.
If it had any uniqueness other than obscurity, it might stand a chance in the market, but the way that it is, particularly as a never-ending clone of whatever direction Windows takes, it will never be adopted outside of a small band of geeks who think it is somehow commendible to be audacious or those who are so impoverished that the cost factor is of high importance.
Clarence Moon wrote, of GNU/Linux, “it will never be adopted outside of a small band of geeks”.
You mean like IBM, Google, FaceBook, Governments of whole countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China, Malaysia, much of South America and Europe, large and small businesses like Peugeot, Ernie Ball Guitar Strings, and many government departments and educational organizations? Those don’t seem like geeks and they are not small.
Consider Saanich School Division in British Columbia, Canada. They migrated for a lot of good reasons and still saved a lot of money:
“By March 2012 the Saanch School District will have completed a very ambitious 3 year education technology project. Over 2500 aging Microsoft Windows-based workstations will have been replaced by diskless (thin) clients using Linux and primarily open source software. The reasons for this are many and can briefly be summarzied as follows:
“
They are not geeks, just ordinary people wanting the best from IT with as few negative consequences as possible.
iLia wrote:
“Or do you mean that Microsoft pays us?”
Or likewise, why would Microsoft throw poop at itself? Pay you? I think not.
You mean like…
You seem to have missed the “or” in my post, Mr. Pogson. Perhaps you would allow me to add the very small subset of companies that have a public tiff with Microsoft and/or find it necessary to be seen “eating their own dogfood”. Outside of that, yes.
Oh, and you take some poetic license to suggest that the entirety of IBM, Facebook, and the Asian countries you list are actually using Linux on their desktops in the universal manner that you suggest. That is simply not the case.