Philoking.com

There has been a flurry of posts going around Twitter today about an Adobe Engineering asking Linux users to place requests for Creative Suite apps for Linux. While the geek in me thinks “Cool, they totally should!” The businessman in me says that this has no chance of ever getting of the ground.

Of course this sentiment is well challenged, but I just don’t believe that the Linux desktop community at large is willing to pay for software, especially software that costs between $1,300 and $2,600. Of course this is speaking from a sweeping generalization of Linux users, a broad stereotype, but one I think is well deserved and relatively accurate. Of course it’s not without exception, but come on…

Quick, hurry, name a company that has made big money selling desktop applications for Linux! What? You can’t think of one? Me either.

There is a reason for that, the market is as big as the audience is willing to spend and outside of big ticket apps like Massive or Maya (that benefit from big ass clusters that are just cost prohibitive to do with Windows or OS X), creative types live in paid OSes.

There are of course many many reasons:

• Adobe apps aren’t the only apps they need
• Support is important
• You use what the people you work with/for use
• The general population just doesn’t trust or “get” Linux.

I could rattle reasons off all day. The reality is that Linux as a desktop operating system is just not taken seriously. Sure if you rattle the cages of the most vocal 2% of the web you will get thousands of thousands of responses, but that doesn’t make any sort of statistically significant sample of the users that are willing to plunk down their plastic and pay $2,600 for an application.

That’s the thing with a lot of these guys, if you ask a loaded question like “Should Adobe release the Creative Suite for Linux?” you are going to get every Linux gearhead on the planet saying “Hell yea!” But if you were to ask for pre-orders, you’d probably get 100 if that.

I work for a big software company and the hard reality is that developing software is incredibly expensive. Adobe is not going to even consider something like this until there is a proven market for it.

You can talk all you want about being a leader or pioneer, but nobody wants to lead their company into the red.

I have current paid license for Adobe’s Creative Suite, Lightroom, ProTools, Logic Studio, Final Cut, Office, Windows, OS X, iWork… I pay for software. The honest to God truth is that if I could get ALL of that software at half price on Linux, I still wouldn’t do it. I regularly use Fedora, I have used Ubuntu, Debian and a dozen other Linux OSes over the years and they just don’t “feel” right.

I am a firm believer in “you get what you pay for.” As much as I love to play with Linux, and wouldn’t look anywhere outside of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) for my Web Development projects, I wouldn’t even consider it on any of my machines as a desktop OS. I keep the latest flavors of Fedora and Ubuntu on a VM so I can see what they are up to and what’s new, but I’d never use it for real work.

Editor’s Note: As much as this probably seems like flame bait, I want Linux to improve and compete, and I think in time it can. The problem that it faces (and one that Ubuntu is uniquely positioned to solve) is that group development can only take you so far. You need a leader, you need to make changes that are for the good of the user, and you need to test against people who aren’t hardcore Linux users to see if you are succeeding or not. They are taking a great step in dumping Gnome. I would start to look even harder at taking out some of the cheesy apps that come bundled, and spend a whole release on polish. The core is there, it just doesn’t feel right.

Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate. Just because your “users” aren’t paying, doesn’t mean they aren’t customers. They are absolutely customers and if you want their attention, you are going to have to woo them with the same intensity as the big dogs.

Ok, that being said, an interesting conversation with a new Linux friend on Twitter, (@explodingwalrus) led me to write what I think is a very important statement. I truly believe that if half of this message got through, Linux could actually make some real ground in the Operating System Ménage à trois that is Windows, OS X and Linux.

Who is the customer?

We have a mantra at Microsoft. More than a dozen times a day it seems, I hear the phrase “You are not the customer.” You might think that if it’s that important, we wouldn’t have to say it so much. The reality is that it’s vitally important and also so incredibly simple to forget.

In my conversation with my Walrus buddy, we were talking about an experiment I pulled a few years ago. I switched my son’s computer over to the Edubuntu flavor of Ubuntu in order to see how he fared with Linux at 9. Andy had a honeymoon period in which he really liked it, but soon he realized he couldn’t play the same games his friends were playing, and he couldn’t use his iPod.

Walrus quickly responded, “But we have solved the iPod thing now.” And that’s where I realized I was not going to get my point across. I told a quick story about how we deal with software ideas at work, the scenario. You see, for Walrus, the key was that you can plug an iPod to a Linux computer, and with a software tool like Amarok, you can copy music to it. Technically it IS support, but here is where it falls part. I explained how we write user scenarios, and an iPod scenario might look something like this:

John goes to a retailer and buys an iPod. He comes home, installs iTunes, and after supplying some personal information, is able to browse and purchase millions of songs, movies, TV Shows and podcasts. His purchases are automatically updated on his device and he is able to enjoy his media anywhere on his iPod.

Notice that he never had to figure out what software to use, find a place to get the music (hopefully legally) and figure out how to configure or set up anything. The beauty of the iPod, and the key to it’s success in my opinion, is that it is an entirely flushed out ecosystem. Something that we at Microsoft also managed with the Zune devices. The magic is that the user (read customer) never has to think about what to use, how it works, or if it will work.

That’s about the time the standard Linux preamble started to stir up, it always begins with “The user needs to learn…”

That’s when you’ve lost. This is not an insult to any person at all. This is just a realization of how consumerism works. If your mentality begins with changing the customer, you are probably doomed to fail. Unless your customer has some incredible desire to change, they aren’t going to.

When put in the context of Windows I said “For them to switch, it either has to be A) so much better that they want to, or B) so similar that there is no reason to pay for Windows.” Being different, but not clearly better, is a losing position. People don’t want change, and they don’t accept it well without serious benefits.

What does it all mean? It means the customer is the embodiment of what appeals to the audience you really want to attract. If you want to attract Servers, embedded systems and nerds, you are clearly doing it exactly right. If you want to attract soccer moms and Joe Everyman, maybe it’s not so dumb to take a peek at how the two companies that are selling their products to literally 99% of the world and see what they are doing differently. It seems painfully obvious to me, but it really is this gaping hole in the mentality.

So what is the point?

There are a few things that the Linux community brags about that it’s about time we just pulled the rug out from under.

“We support that printer you dug up in an archeological dig in Egypt”

Nobody cares that you support computers and devices that someone left at Goodwill. Technology is about progress. Progress happened. First let me say that I am willing to bet that you cannot find a single device that was EVER sold in a store anywhere, that wasn’t supported on Windows first. Now sure, it may not be supported now, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Hardware is cheap, people aren’t really upset that the printer their parents bought them in the 8th grade doesn’t work anymore because that printer sucked and a new one that prints 1,000 times better costs less than the ink you put in it. That’s just reality.

It’s time to stop hanging your hats on device support. OS X supports a tiny, infinitesimal amount of devices that Windows supports and it’s totally kicking your ass.

“Stop paying the Windows tax, Linux is free”*

I am using the asterisk because I am talking about free as in no cost, which is what everyone else in the world but you think free means. Nobody cares about “software freedom” and they sure as hell don’t want to monkey around in the source code when the registry alone breaks them into hives and causes them nightmares. Last year, when they accidently deleted their printer driver, they swear it was a virus sent to them by a personal email from Glen Beck.

Let’s face it, computers are stupid cheap. People are getting seriously powerful desktops for literally 20% of what they cost 5 years ago. Laptops under $300. That’s with Windows buddy. To the public at large, Windows is free too. It came on their computer, it was there. They paid for the COMPUTER, not Windows. You are fighting a battle you can’t win, you might as well be an engine manufacturer bitching about Toyota’s “Engine tax.”

“I can use the same OS on my phone and my computer.”

Dude. You didn’t install your OS on your phone and you aren’t going to. I am pretty sure there isn’t one person on EARTH that said, “God I am so mad I can’t install Windows 7 on my RAZR.” It’s just a ridiculous argument. Nobody is installing Ubuntu on phones, phones need specialized OSes. Sure the Kernel might be kind of the same, but it’s not like that actually matters to anyone but you. You aren’t going to be caught in a fire sale and need to connect your smart phone to Skynet and save the world from the legions of hackers of doom, this isn’t a movie, it’s life. You need to know when to get milk and check your email.

“I can use different Window managers and customize it to look any way I want.”

News flash: While you were making your custom LOLCats themed desktop and making sure that a whole bunch of meaningless terminal nonsense was constantly flashing by on your desktop so your non-technical friends think you are Neo from the Matrix, the rest of the world was actually doing shit with their computers.

I get you might want to change your wallpaper, maybe theme it with some color, etc., But I don’t think that anyone ever chose their operating system by this criteria. That’s why Windows and OS X neither offer much in this department.

“There is an amazing community of support. There are forums and they can answer any question you have.”

If you have a friend or relative who has used a computer. You know very well that they won’t use Google. If they aren’t going to try to solve their problem by searching the internet in the most simple way at all, they sure aren’t going to visit Linuxgeeks.com and try to sort through a sea of “sudo to blah blah and root to some text monkey God while you juggle three terminal windows that are bashing something.”

They are going to call the smartest computer person they know, probably one that has a job in computers, and I am going to take a safe bet that that guy (or super smart girl) is using Windows or OS X.

I am Snarky, I get it

I am sure the tongue was a bit sharp on some of these. But as I told Walrus earlier, I sincerely wish I could get some Linux boys in a usability lab for a few weeks and let them watch everyday users use Linux, install Linux and troubleshoot problems with Linux. The reality is that problems are going to be things they never considered. Things like “I am trying to install this photo program that came with my digital camera and when I stick the CD in nothing happens.”

The bottom line is, if you want to make progress, go to where the people are, stop trying to drag them to you.

I don’t want to, but I have to. I have to debate these ridiculous points, one by freaking one. I feel like I am doing my damned taxes…

1. It works its available today. Its not a vaporware and is available today.See some of the reasons below. Are you really saying that Windows is vaporware? 90%+ of the world’s computers are running Vaporware?!??! I am typing this for real, on Windows.
2. Linux doesn’t have the virus problems: Even Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer couldn’t clean Windows Viruses. Still not convinced? Read more on Why Linux isn’t affected by Viruses. Its not that there aren’t any viruses for Linux but Linux is more secure and less virus prone. No, it IS that there aren’t viruses for Linux, and with good reason. Someone with the intent of taking over as many computer systems as possible, isn’t going to attack the smallest possible population. Sure there are tons of Linux servers, but those have pretty much all of the vulnerabilities like browsers stripped out.
3. No Spyware: Not just spyware but none of those funny applications that keep doing things in the background. Yea, those silly things that run in the background to notify you about things you care about, or perform a desired action when you do something. They are called services, you know, like the mail, water or ambulances???
4. Linux Doesn’t need defragging: The Linux file systems work very efficiently such that it arranges data in a way that it doesn’t require defragging. to know more, read earlier post. Yea, and unless you delete stuff over and over, Windows PCs don’t either. I can’t remember the last time I defragmented a hard drive, Maybe Windows 98?
5. Linux doesn’t crash without any apparent reasons.In Linux the core operating system (kernel) is separate from the GUl (X-Window) from the applications (Open Office.org, etc). So even if the application crashes, the core operating system is not affected. In Windows (Microsoft prefers to call this tight integration) if the Browser crashes, it can take down the entire operating system. Bull shit. I have used at least a dozen versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, Corel Linux, Red Hat, etc… Software crashes, quit pretending it doesn’t.
6. Linux doesn’t crash if you accidently pulled out your USB key/pen drive. Try this a 100 times if you don’t believe me but don’t blame me if your pen drive data gets corrupt. Funny, I have never had that happen to me. EVER.
7. Linux doesn’t require frequent re-installation: In Windows if the OS crashes, there is no easy way to recover this. Many IT support staff don’t know what to do and all they can do is re-install Windows. Which means that users applications and preferences are lost, and again needs to be installed. I haven’t seen anyone using Linux, requiring to re-install unless there is a hard drive failure. Most things in Linux can be fixed without requiring re-installation. The benefit of this is all the users preferences can be preserved even if the OS needs to be re-installed. This can be handled by creating a separate partition for the home directory. I’ll agree this one is an Achilles heel, I rebuild my machines regularly but more out of trying new things. You have one point ceded. But can we also agree that frequent means a YEAR or two?
8. Linux also doesn’t require rebooting when a new hardware device is added configured. Hmmm, I install devices all the time without rebooting, NICs, hard drives, any manner of USB devices, what are you talking about, stuff you actually have to take the computer apart for? Besides, I might have to reboot, it’s much better than “now you need to kill x-windows to restart the window manager and restart it from the command line.” Rebooting seems much either than rebooting half the computer. Who cares.
9. Most importantly Linux doesn’t reboot on its own! I have had a situation where Windows updated the system and then rebooted on its own, without my knowledge. There is a funny little reasoning behind this. We reboot you for security patches, things that fix vulnerabilities. The reason? Most people, when optional DO NOT APPLY PATCHES. The security of the system is considered paramount and with plenty of warning, it will restart a machine occasionally. Think about people other than yourself, there is a logical reason.
10. Linux doesn’t require frequent rebooting. Linux runs extremely stable, even if an application crashes, there is no need to reboot the whole system, just restart that application or service. How frequent are these reboots? I have to reboot my machines once every month? Maybe a few weeks?
11. No licensing headaches: Yes Linux is free and you don’t know need to bother about the complexing licensing of per user/per PC/per server/etc.  Blah, blady blah blah. You most likely got Windows on your PC, your only licensing headache is “which trash can did I throw my EULA in when I got this thing?”
12. Linux can read over a 100 different types of file systems. Windows is limited to its own two file systems. Well most general users may not care about this but its extremely useful is you are working in a mixed environment or you need to extract some data from a hard drive formatted on another computer. And this is a problem that more than 1% of the population runs into? We read what everything most people use. We don’t read/write MacOS, but they read and write ours.
13. You have the source code and the right to modify or fix things if you are a programmer. Many end users think this is not necessary but they will realize how important this is when their application vendor decides to discontinue support on a older version to promote a newer one. Do you really think consumers care? Consumers don’t program. Source code is gibberish. Same for Information Workers. For developers, Microsoft offers the most robust development tools on this planet. This boils down to money, Microsoft is a business, giving away the source, takes away the money. The money pays for all the R&D to create the cool things that the open source community copies poorly. On the support front, Microsoft supports operating systems for 10+ years.
14. Linux can install in logical partition or a second (slave hard drive as well)Windows can only be installed in a primary partition. Read this on some suggestions for partitioning. Again, who cares, this is not even a point.
15. Linux is scalable right from the PDA/Cell phones to super computers. That’s awesome if you need to run the same OS kernel on your treadmill and your computer. In reality, it doesn’t mean much. The OS is likely using a proprietary UI that isn’t open source (see smart phones, tablets, etc) it’s not like you are crafting new features into your little devices.
16. Linux is running mission critical applications including powering an Aircraft. Neato. But it’s not the same version you are downloading, it’s highly controlled, not open source, and being managed and fine toothed combed by an army of developers dedicated to that single task.
17. Linux has less bugs than commercial software, this is one of the main reasons for its stability. Read more. This is another one of those FUD things. Quantify that, show me proof, don’t say things you can’t prove.
18. You can also share the software with your friends and its completely legal to do so. Didn’t your teacher tell you in kindergarten that you should share things with your friends? Linux and Open Source actually encourage that while if you do that in Windows its not only considered illegal but they will call you a pirate! yea yea, back to money, it’s better cause it’s free. Tell that to the people standing in line at the soup kitchen while you drive out of PF Chang’s. On no planet does free = better.
19. Linux costs less, cause not only the OS is free but the applications are also free. Plus since Linux doesn’t have a virus problem, you also save on the recurring cost of Anti-Virus software. Note: You may still have to pay for support/training but the over all running cost is low. This is a rehash of several of your earlier points, how does it get counted as one?
20. Both Linux and Windows has shell environment Windows (know as command prompt). The shell environments in Linux (such as bash) are more powerful and you can write entire programs using the scripting language. This is extremely useful to automate repetitive tasks such as backup. two words, power shell.
21. Linux can run from a CD or can be installed on the hard drive. Windows by default doesn’t have any such option. Using live CDs such as Ubuntu/Knoppix, users can try out Linux by booting from the CD, without the need to install the operating system. Do you really want to run it from a CD? You can’t save anything and it runs like crap. That’s like Chevrolet pushing test drives as a feature of the car.
22. Linux is also extremely portable, it can also run off usb pen drives/portable hardrives/thumb drives and more. That’s really neat, I actually have a thumb drive set up to do that. You have two.
23. Did you know that in Windows, there is built in back-door entry so US government can see you data as and when they like? Yes the US NSA has the key build into every copy of Windows. In Linux there is no such thing possible as the operating system is open source and can easily be detected and disabled. Read how this was done. FUD FUD FUD FUD.
24. Linux has built in virtualization(XEN/KVM/VirtualBox/etc.) so you can run multiple copies of Linux or other operating systems simultaneously. Windows has VirtualPC for free and server versions ship with HyperV by default. Anything you can do I can do better!
25. The Linux kernel comes shipped with large number of hardware drivers. 3000 Printers, 1000 Digital Cameras and 200 webcams were supported by Ubuntu. On Windows, a lot of hardware doesn’t work until you install the driver, this problem is worse with Vista as Microsoft doesn’t allow drivers to be drivers to be installed which are not supported by Microsoft. On Linux, a huge percentage of today’s common hardware works perfectly out-of-the-box. There is not a device you can name that wasn’t supported on Windows FIRST. Most likely if it’s not supported now it’s because it is ancient.
26. Vendor independence: With proprietary operating system, you are dependent on the vendor who developed the operating system. With Linux you have a choice of vendors, so even if the vendor fails to give you support, you can always move to another vendor. Choice of vendors also means more competition, which means better value for money for the customer. There are plenty of avenues for Windows support other than Microsoft, commonly Microsoft is the LAST company contacted for OS support.
27. It won’t die or get killed like what happened with other fantastic but proprietary operating system such as OS/2, BeOS. Reason being, its open source and someone will maintain in and today there are many big companies behind and have bet huge money on Linux. That’s great for all those people out there that refuse to come into the future with the rest of us.
28. Unlike Windows, Linux doesn’t use registry. Most of the configuration is stored in plain text files, which are easy to manage/backup and transfer between systems. Registry is a pain to manage, very complex and your system configuration is stored in a proprietary format which needs special tools to open. The biggest pain with registry is when it gets corrupted, this problem is eliminated in Linux because it doesn’t use registry. The registry is a bit hairy, that’s 3.
29. Linux is the most documented operating systems and most of these documentations are available for free. These documents are well written and explain computing concepts too. It’s also the most documented because there are quite literally THOUSANDS of flavors of it. I would be very afraid to be a common user that’s trying to figure out what kernel I have, what version it is, what flavor the distribution is, which window manager am I using???
30. Linux has more wider support from online forums, articles and most importantly the community. There are Linux Users groups is almost every country, city and small towns as well. Hmmmm, I am willing to bet, by pure volume, there are more people trying to sort out Windows issues than Linux issues, but this could also be spun another way, maybe there are more forums because it’s MUCH harder to understand?
31. Linux community is cool they provide unconditional support and help you get started. Once you get involved into it, its like one huge family. Yea, cool support like “GET OUT OF THIS IRC CHANNEL YOU FUCKIN NEWB!”
32. Linux runs on older hardware too, you don’t need to the latest and the greatest hardware. Even if you can’t run all the latest applications on your old hardware, using Linux, you can always put it to some good use. You already said that, again, it’s called the future, join us won’t you?
33. No more hardware upgrades: Linux runs happily on older hardware and the hardware requirements don’t increase with every new version.  If you have really old computers like Pentium I/III, you can still convert them to thin clients using LTSP and still use them. What is this, the 4th time you have made this point? Why does it keep getting new numbers? 1990 called, it wants it’s Packard Bell back.
34. Completely localized: As there is a strong community and the source code is available, Linux is localized into almost every language in the world. You can further customize it for your needs, you can easily do that. Windows is used the world wide, localized in nearly every language. Try again.
35. Excellent package management: Linux has excellent package management tools which makes it easy to install and upgrade applications. Windows Update. If it was called Windows Package Update would you finally get what it does?
36. Easy upgrade: Most Linux distributions makes it very easy to upgrade from one version to another. With the exception of MAJOR technology changes and beta versions, Microsoft always offers an upgrade path. Did I miss something?
37. Excellent Development platform: If you are a developer, you will like Linux. Linux has all the development tools, libraries and compilers built in. If you are Java developer or a Web developer using PHP/Perl/Rub or doing C,C++ development, you will feel at home. Visual Studio and .net, read about it. There is nothing like it in the world. Free versions are available.
38. Linux gives you the Freedom: Linux follows the Free Software philosophy and hence gives its users the Freedom to modify, copy and share Linux. Repeat, quit trying to reuse your material.
39. Easy to upgrade: Most distributions can easily be upgraded from one version to another in just a few clicks. And most importantly you don’t need to spend a fortune to buy the upgrade. Yet another duplicate, you already said this!
40. No Hidden APIs. Windows many hidden or undocumented APIs which is used for unfair advantage to Microsoft. In Linux all APIs are completely open and documented. For example Microsoft specifies that everyone writing Internet application should use the Winsock API while Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn’t use the Winsock API, it uses an undocumented API allowing Internet Explorer to run faster than other browsers. Hidden sounds so nefarious, try undocumented.
41. Faster patches: Linux is more secure because its patches in hours not days. Microsoft took 200 days to provide a critical patch. That happens on some occasions, but usually response is very fast. Besides, the patch that you get in hours is TOTALLY UNTESTED and you hope it works on something other than the few systems the person who fixed it tried it on. The time is validation to literally hundreds of millions of customers, not hesitation.

    Desktop Features:

42. You are in total control. You don’t have applications that suddenly and start updating without your permission! You already tried this one.
43. While both Linux and Windows have a GUI, Windows has only one default GUI. Linux is all about choice and has a option to use different type of GUIs or Window Managers as they are know as in Linux. Users can choose from something that looks like their favorite Operating System or they can choose something that’s simple and fast. Popular ones are Gnome and KDE. That’s great and all, but then I have to try to explain to my mom why this application won’t work because it was written for Gnome and not KDE, yet another layer of confusion for the end user, what version is my OS? The Kernel? XWindows? My Window Manager? How many different things do you have to keep up with to determine compatibility?
44. Most Linux distributions come bundled with whole lot of applications such as Office Suite, Photo Editing, etc. You not only get the OS for free but you also don’t have to pay for the applications. Yes many of these open source applications such as Open Office.org also run on Windows but you need to find, download and install them where as there are available in most Linux distros by default. Yea, you get a bunch of free apps that are about as good as what you pay for them. Gimp is not Photoshop, Amarok is not iTunes, Open Office is not Microsoft Office. You get what you pay for. Isn’t it also interesting that you don’t get ANY apps that aren’t direct copies of some Windows software, interesting……
45. Expanding on the previous point, many Linux distributions bundle thousands of applications (Upto 22,000 depending on which one you choose) where as Windows doesn’t bundle basic applications such a decent text editor, oh yeah there is Notepad if you consider that decent . Point is spend the time in finding them, downloading them, installing them and then trying them out on Windows or just get them along with your Linux CD/DVD. Um, WordPad has been in Windows since Windows 95. Not to mention it includes an email app, instant messaging, blog writing, antivirus, photo management, faxing, movie making, DVD making, full media center capabilities, media player, a whole bunch of games, pretty much all consumer productivity, free.
46. Linux bundles OpenOffice.org as the office suite which has built in capabilities to write documents/presentations as PDFs and Flash. Windows requires purchasing/downloading additional software. Can’t we call a spade a spade? Microsoft doesn’t include flash and PDF creating because they don’t want their asses sued off.
47. Mozilla Firefox browser bundled with Linux has excellent features such as blocking of unwanted ads/pop up and supports tab browsing which makes it easy to open another browser windows. Read the 101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot. IE supports both of those.
48. Faster Browsing: Browsing is not only better but faster too! The networking on Linux is faster and the browser has an option to block all the unwanted ads/pop up, there by saving on bandwidth considerably. Read this to block all the ads. How exactly do you get by applauding Linux for Mozilla’s features? Firefox works on Windows too dolt. Matter of fact, it worked on Windows FIRST.
49. Linux saves bandwidth cost. The volume of Updates that Windows, Antivirus and similar applications do, is much more as compared the updated in Linux. So if you are paying for every MB that you download, its a big consideration. ha, haha, ha ha ha ha, RIIIGHT. Who pays by the MB? I haven’t since 1995.
50. No automatic updates: Windows Vista it setup to automatically update your system by default. In Linux by default it will alert you for an update but you have to choice to click and apply the update. You can setup to automatic update if you like. Talk about beating a dead horse. You can disable automatic updates in Windows too, do some research.
51. Linux has games too! there are some really nice games which many of the Linux distributions bundle. You may not have all the games in the world but you definitely have a huge collection of free games. Here is a list of top 100 games. Linux has sucky games or hacky ways to run decent ones, at least be honest.
52. Gaim/Kopete popular IM clients on Linux are single clients that can connect to all the protocols – Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, ICQ, AOL and more. Gaim is also available for Windows for people who are still using Windows.
53. Cut and paste is simpler, just select and middle click on the target window and your data gets pasted. Its far quicker and easier than the way Windows does Cut and Paste. Ofcourse the Windows CTRL-C/CTRL-V still works on Linux for people who are new to Linux. Wow, reaching aren’t you? Windows has easier lots of things do you want to get into petty stuff? Like until a couple years ago you couldn’t change your screen resolution without a text editor?
54. Easy to setup a Media Center like PC. You don’t need to purchase additional software or re-install a different operating system. Read this on how to convert your existing Linux into a Media Center like PC. Windows comes with Media Center, what are you purchasing extra?
55. Linux already has a usable 3D Desktop – XGL + Compiz Fusion. This makes it easy to switch and view multiple desktops simultaneously. It also add a nice eye candy to Linux. If you still believe Linux is only for geeks, this feature will definitely change your mind.  This doesn’t require you to purchase new hardware, it very comfortably works with less amount of hardware. Usable, debatable, pointless, absolutely. I installed Beryl, set up the works, I had flaming windows, 3d desktop cubes, raindrops. Neato factor +10, add to productivity, zero.
56. Multiple cut and pastes: Klipper application (default under KDE) maintains a history of your clipboard and you can use it to paste text/etc which you had cut/copied earlier. Office does this by default.
57. Graphic view of how much space your data is using. In Konqueror File Manager tool bar, there is an option to get file size view which gives you a graphical view of how much space your directories and the files within are consuming. This is an excellent way to know where all your disk space has disappeared and makes cleanup easy.
58. No annoying messages like Vista keeps telling you that xyz application is trying to access your system. Either the user will always click allow or will confused.
59. Easy to dual boot: Linux makes it easy for it to exist with any other operating system. If you install Linux on a system which already has Windows, Linux will not mess your Windows. Windows on the other hand messes up your Linux partition, if it finds one. This is true, that’s 4.
60. Works fine if you  multiple partitions, operating systems and devices.Windows gets confused with ‘extraneous’ partitions used by other operating systems and allocate drive letters to them which cannot be freed. If you have, say, 8 partitions in your hard drive, Windows will associate 8 drive letters to these partitions, reducing the number of drive letter you can use for associating networked drives (DOS command: net use) or substituted drives (DOS command: subst). It’s possible to change association of drive letters, but you will always have 8 drive letters allocated, always reducing the number of total network resources you can associate. Isn’t that the same as #59 really?
61. Customise your shortcut: On Linux you can associate applications to whatever shortcut you choose. On Windows, you cannot associate your beloved Firefox to key combination Win+F, for instance, because it is already associated to ‘Find’ functionality provided by Windows Explorer. eh, ok, but who does that really? You can customize most things, just not OS reserved ones.
62. Linux is more accessible: Most distributions such as Ubuntu include Orca, which is a screen reader. This can be enabled before installation. With this a visually challenged person can install Linux and also use Linux. In Windows, the accessibility support is limited and screen reader software has to be purchased separately costing over US$1000. Microsoft goes out of it’s way to adhere to strict government regulations on accessibility in every product shipped.
63. Cool integration between Calendar application and Desktop calendar. For example if you add an appointment into Evolution, it will show up in your Desktop Calendar in Gnome as well when you click on time. Again, there are plenty of 3rd party apps to do that on Windows too, this isn’t a Linux feature, it’s an application. 

    Server Side features:

64. Linux has bundled Databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL which are extremely powerful and used in production environments. Customer doesn’t need to purchase expensive databases. Sql Server Express is free.
65. Linux is been used for super computing cluster, most of top super computers in the World use Linux. Windows just can’t scale to that level. That’s because it makes no sense for a company like Microsoft to write an operating system that will sell a few hundred copies. It would be a dismal failure and lose a tremendous amount of money. Think logically. Yes almost all super computers run Linux, but they run a heavily customized version, nothing stock.
66. File system scalability: while NTFS file system can scale upto 16TB, XFS on Linux can scale upto a million TB! yes that bigger than what you would ever need. yes, a 16TB volume, single volume. Nobody does that. Multiple drives in arrays of multiple volumes is how real people store data.
67. Processor scalability: Linux can scale to 1024 processors on a single computer! Windows can’t even claim to come anywhere near that number. yea, 64, still a pretty hefty #.
68. You have commands to check the systems Serial Number and other hardware information. to get serial number type:
    dmidecode | grep “Serial Number” | head -n1 | sed -e ’s/tSerial Number: //g’
    or type dmidecode for all hardware info Read More
    You can easily use this feature to extract data quickly and even write some scripts to do that.That’s a feature? lol.

I know I know, I am snarky and sarcastic, but sheesh. Some of these are silly. Let me also qualify this by saying although I work for Microsoft, these opinions and inflammatory statements are my own and in no way represent Microsoft.

Enjoy.

Anandtech was nice enough to put out an article giving you the latest on running Major Release Windows games in Linux. The article goes into great detail about the various software packages you can use to run Windows games. It pits a monster Intel i7 overclocked to 3.97Ghz, 6GB of PC3 12800 ram, two 74GB Raptor hard drives in RAID and a NVIDIA 280GTX 1GB video card. Now I don’t want to split hairs here, but aren’t we running Linux for these games because Windows is so “expensive?” That’s a ridiculous machine even by today’s standards. An $800 PC from Best Buy is capable of playing the latest Major Release games very very well. But let’s move on.

So What’s My Beef?

Game selection for one. The writer chose Eve Online, Team Fortress 2, Trackmania, Unreal Tournament 3 and 3D Mark06. This article was written in December 2009. Some of these may have been major release games, but not in years.

That means the most recent one is three years old which is AGES by PC gaming standards.

The Results?

Windows decimated linux by a huge margin in all but one game. So now you are paying less of course, but for less performance. But let’s get real for a second.

Core i7-920 $288.99
6GB OCZ Ram $149.99
Motherboard ~$289.99 (They didn’t specify which board they used)
EVGA 280 GTX 1GB $349.99
Raptor Drive $185 x2

That’s $1500 with no case, power supply, optical drive, monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, fans, cooling, etc.

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit for System Builders $104.99

Really?

I am not claiming to know the guy who built this system, or his motivations, but it seems pretty obvious the intent here was to play some games. So I am supposed to buy that someone would spend $2,000+ on a computer, and then run Linux on it to save $100?

I just don’t buy it, not for a minute. We are talking the guys that spend money water cooling cases to squeek out 5 more frames per second. These guys are enthusiasts here. They are really going to go all out on hardware to run an operating system that sucks 60% of their frame rate not to mention the hassle of keeping this fragile mess running?

Do you want to deal with sorting this out?

The problem with attempting that task was that each Wine project has different functionality with different games. For example where we could get a game to work in Wine, the game then in turn didn’t work with Cedega and vice versa. We were able to get newer releases like Dragon Age Origins and Far Cry 2 to work in some of the different Wine projects, but none of the new releases would work in all projects. This lead us to regress to some older but still actively used releases in order to provide a more detailed report across the three projects.

I sure don’t.

I totally get why a business would look at Linux servers for tasks like MySQL and Apache, and I even get why some big business like Oracle are using it as an alternative for Windows Server. Linux makes a super stable server, usually in an all command line environment.

What I will never understand, is why people will go out of their way, and spend the greatest asset they have, their time, to make something barely kinda maybe run a little bit. Is that sticking it to the man? That seems like sticking it to myself.

I am going to try something new. I have some Buckethead music glaring, a whole season of My Name is Earl just came in on DVD, and I have some spare cycles to burn. What does that mean for you? It means I am going to go through these instructions and try to install Chrome OS and give it a look see.

I have decided to do this as a quasi-live blog and give all of the appropriate comments and growing pains inline as I discover them. Enjoy!

Getting Started

4:00PM, Thursday, November 19th

My test platform is my trusty 17” Unibody Macbook Pro. It’s got a 2.8Ghz Core2Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, 500GB Hard drive, Snow Leopard OS, and most importantly for this exercise, VMware Fusion 3.0.

The first part of the adventure is getting a platform to install it on. If you read my blog you are aware that I am a Fedora man when it comes to Linux. Unfortunately for me, Google seems to have a thing for Ubuntu, so I am downloading Ubuntu 9.10 from Ubuntu.com as my build platform. I’ll be installing it into a Virtual Machine on the Mac. (Unless there is something I don’t know about, I should be able to host the VM and share it when I am done, I’ll check on that.)

4:16PM, Thursday, November 19th

Ubuntu may be slow downloading (70%), but Buckethead is wailing. If you like guitar music and haven’t heard him, check out the album Giant Robot, right now the song “Want some Slaw?” This guy is too good, a shame he’s absolutely nuts. Oh, and even though we are talking about Google and Apple so far, you should get ZunePass from Microsoft and get your own Buckethead fix going!

4:26PM, Thursday, November 19th

Ubuntu is downloaded, I started the new Virtual Machine wizard, increased the default RAM from 512MB to 1.5GB, and started the install.

4:35PM, Thursday, November 19th

Ok, Ubuntu is installed. Let’s check all the prerequisites and make sure we can build this sucker. On a related note, that’s only 9 minutes to install. Considering that it’s a completely functional OS with productivity software, communication software and all the basic tools you need to function on the internet, that’s not too shabby. Once it reboots we’ll set a root password and update everything.

The list is pretty long, lucky for us they have a simple apt command that has all of them in one batch, run:

$ sudo apt-get install subversion pkg-config python perl g++ g++-multilib \
 bison flex gperf libnss3-dev libgtk2.0-dev libnspr4-0d libasound2-dev \
 libnspr4-dev msttcorefonts libgconf2-dev libcairo2-dev libdbus-1-dev

That’s a lot of junk getting installed at once, but it only took about 5 minutes to complete.

Let’s Get Some Source Code!

4:49PM, Thursday, November 19th

Ok, Ubuntu is happy, now we need to download some code. I am choosing not to go the git route as I have no intention to change or check in code. I am downloading the tarball of the code and it clocks in at 232MB.

Started the compile, let’s see how long this thing takes to build.

5:31PM, Thursday, November 19th

Still building. It’s been going for almost an hour. I still have more building to do when this script finishes. Woohah..

5:46PM, Thursday, November 19th

Build finished, can’t seem to get the system to enter chroot so I can start the next part of the build process. Taking a break for some TERYAKI!!!

8:30PM, Thursday, November 19th

Well, I am chroot blocked. I can’t get this sucker to finish building. I am calling it a night on this front, but I’ll give it another shot tomorrow. Please leave suggestions in the comments if you have seen this symptom:

When I run the enter_chroot.sh script, it says it mounted chroot, then immediately unmounted chroot. Thoughts?

Stay tuned for more adventures installing Google Chrome OS