Linux vs. Windows? And why?

My 2c here - prior to my career in IM,I was a Systems Architect, and I think sometimes these discussions can be a little unbalanced

In a business environment, Windows (generally) has a much lower TCO than Linux, there really is no competition here.

The reason? Staff training. Put your average person in front of gnome/kde/xfce... and they don't know what to do.

Not only that, but there is a huge lack of business software support on Linux too.

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, but in the business world, it doesn't really fit!

The other huge issue for linux adoption is the fragmentation of the community, and the sheer volume of options that can be used by users or distros (eg. selinux can waste ENORMOUS amounts of time)

IMO, The community should get behind _one_ distribution with multiple editions (eg. server, desktop, tablet.. whatever). One package management system, one desktop, one windowing system (WTF ubuntu?!)

Until that.. meh, I don't see Linux gaining much market share on desktops/laptops. It's needlessly complicated right now.

Kind Regards,
Michael

You ever see an OLD car, that had a crank? Something like corporate acceptance/use is like that! You see, a car really requires NO battery. The MAIN reason for the battery is to enable a special moter called the starter motor that effectively PRIMES the engine. The engine turns, which loads a bit of fuel, runs the alternator, which goes to the distributer, creates a spark, ignites the fuel, and BANG, PERPETUAL MOTION! You could disconnect the battery and it would keep running! Well, when they first created cars, they had cranks, and people even broke their arms trying to start them.

In corporations, they ABHORE down time, and switching O/Ss means downtime. Training people means DOWNTIME. So when Microsoft got a foothold in corporate America, it became what they call ENTRENCHED! HECK, I was at a customer only a few months ago, and had a "windows 7" computer. I mean it actually had one of those labels saying windows 7 was installed on it. Windows 7 sounds kind of old, right? WAIT FOR IT........

It had WINDOWS XP on it!!!!!!!!!! WHY? Because that was their CORPORATE STANDARD, I DID get the laptop after they switched to windows 7, but the company only had ONE loaner left, and didn't dare convert it until after I left. WHY? They didn't want downtime caused by an untested OS, so they downgraded to XP. They didn't want downtime caused by a midstream upgrade, so they waited. They didn't want downtime caused by an unsupported OS so they later upgraded!

IMAGINE the extra work for one as different as Linux.

Steve

Yeah, adobe was like the FIRST serious player out there. When I first got serious with computers there were only TWO serious players in that area. That's IT, ONLY TWO! I forget who the other one was, but the one that survived was ADOBE!

ADOBE started out as a type foundry, did the graphic software, like I said, and then hit a roadblock. Trying to get the stuff printed out was difficult, especially the way printers worked, so they moved some logic to the PRINTER, and came up with postscript. For a time, apple, who made a LOT of such printers, bragged that their most powerful computers were in their printers!

STILL, MOST stuff, perhaps ALL, that can be done with photoshop CAN be done with GIMP. Do they work the same way? NOPE! Does gimp have the scripting? I don't believe so. But most of the stuff is there, and it IS moving forward. There is even a postscript engine for Linux. And PDF is fully supported. Gimp was originally NOT made with adobe in mind. As for adobe experts and support, forget that. I had a MODERATELY difficult question and NOBODY could answer it. I had to search tirelessly through google to eventually find it MYSELF! I was SHOCKED that non of the "photoshop gurus" knew it.

I say MODERATELY difficult because it was obscure, but EVERY person using graphics with text should have known the answer! ESPECIALLY on a high end tool like PHOTOSHOP. It would be akin to my not knowing how to return all the rows in multiple subselects in a SQL 1999 query. I may not often do it. Maybe it wasn't too common in earlier dialects. I better DARN WELL know the answer though.

Steve

Improve your Linux experience with HP | HP® Official Site
I'm not sure anymore, but I know at one time you could get an HP computer with a Linux OS pre-installed.
I've been running Mint 14 on my HP Pavilion for a few years now. I can't upgrade to 17 because of an issue with the video card and Ubuntu. Good reason to get a new tower
I have found Mint a lot easier to use then Windows with far less problems.
Gimp is one of the top imaging editing softwares out there and I have been using it long before I started using Mint. I don't do a lot with it, but it works great for what I do.
There are also a couple of open source WYSIWYG editors that combined give you all the same functions as Dreamweaver.I know Kompozer is one of them and as a stand alone is as good as Dreamweaver. KompoZer - Easy web authoring
After experiencing a Linux OS for a few years now, you couldn't pay me to go back to Windows. In fact when I get a new tower the first thing I'll do is wipe it clean and install Mint 17.

I am not a programmer and I enjoy Linux much more than Windows. I use it for general use mostly.

Actually, Linux has long had a gui. It is simply that, until you had things like browsers, and a lot of open popularity, it wasn't often used. LINUX has tried to be like UNIX. It is, to understate it a LOT in popular terms, like M/S dos on STEROIDS! For the GUI, it uses a UNIX program called Xwindows. AGAIN, to understate that a lot in popular terms, it is like Windows 3.11 on STEROIDS. LINUX/UNIX has ALWAYS been far better than its M/S DOS/windows counterpart. M/S now integrates it with windows, supposedly, so that fact is obscured. As for Xwindows, I like it better in a lot of ways, and the fact that it is still detached is good. Still, it isn't fully M/S windows compatible. NOW, actually for several years, some are even trying to get the general M/S windows look and feel down.

The ironic thing is it sounds like LINUX is trying to copy windows. Look at the histories though:

WINDOWS
UNIX->CPM(Kind of a low end/power single user and unix like)->CPM86(moved to the chip family the IBMPC eventually used)->M/S DOS(Originally, at least, simply a RENAMED version of CPM86)
PARC(A XEROX project that created the first present day GUI, supposedly)->NEXT GUI->MAC GUI(Where bill gates first saw it)->M/S WINDOWS

LINUX
UNIX->LINUX
PARC->Xwindows

Of course, Linux has tried to keep up with things in windows. There is even a very usable ODBC. But even M/S ODBC used COM developed elsewhere.

Yeah, it is a shame that INTEL never did things right until the 80386, and that LINUS then started so late.

That's ANOTHER thing! M/S tried to jury rig a bunch of fancy routines into windows that were kind of doomed to failure. The 8088 family didn't have a flat memory model until the 80286, but it was broken. It didn't have a real usable flat memory model, that could even be switched to "real" when needed, until the 80386. Linus waited for the hardware, got the code to use it, and things pretty much fit.

Yeah, it is a shame that Kompozer is kind of dead. AOL died also. AOL used to have what some considered the BEST WYSIWIG HTML editor around. I don't think any product has tried to be like dreamweaver. I forget why I abandoned it, but I did. But, admittedly, dreamweaver was nice.

Steve

It's been about 4 years since I really used Komposer.
I have another Linus OS on a disk (Dynebolic) which I think has firebug on it. I just downloaded it recently for it's music editing capabilities but haven't played with it yet at all.
I was never into WYSIWYG editors even when I was designing sites and WP themes. I always used Acehtml.