🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:57:25 -0600
DevilsPGD <spam_narf_spam@crazyhat.net> wrote:

> In message <20080703152156.3be21d10@realh.co.uk> Tony Houghton
> <h@realh.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> >On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:28:13 -0600
> >DevilsPGD <spam_narf_spam@crazyhat.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I don't buy hardware that bundles an OS I don't want.
> >
> >But a lot of people do. They may not be capable of building their own
> >PC, or so they think, 
> 
> Having watched a number of very technical people fail when assembling
> their own hardware, I'd suggest that they think correctly.
> 
> Random end users can't usually manage to check the system requirements
> on the back of the box, they definitely won't have the time or
> understanding to research their components.

That is the difficult bit, but they also don't have the time or
understanding to choose a good off-the-shelf system.

> >but many mainstream magazines are telling them
> >to avoid Vista, which is what they'll be forced to have if they buy
> >an off-the-shelf PC.
> 
> Okay.  So how would bundling a random distribution help?

It wouldn't, but your argument against it seemed to be that you don't
want anybody to be force-fed an OS they don't want, so I pointed out
that most people already are.

> >> >I prefer to download the driver using a system that is net-capable
> >> >and either copy it onto the Windows drive/partition if it's Linux
> >> >on the same PC, or use a USB key if it isn't.
> >> 
> >> Good theory, but manufacturers need to be able to sell hardware
> >> that works without an existing system to get it working.
> >
> >Bundling Linux is a way of achieving that.
> 
> In what sense?  It might give you something to play with before you
> install your primary OS, but unless you happen to plan on sticking
> with the distro being distributed (LiveCD or otherwise), the result
> is the same, you still need to get your primary OS up and then
> install whatever you need to access the latest drivers, then install
> those.

No, you install Windows with the network drivers missing and use the
Live CD to download the missing drivers onto your Windows drive, then
reboot Windows to complete the installation.

> >> Personally, I can't say I'm even willing to do tech work without an
> >> internet connection available anymore except in exceptional
> >> circumstances.
> >> 
> >> I really like how my EVDO card works, when you first insert it, if
> >> no driver connects to the EVDO portion of the card it switched to
> >> CD mode (emulating a CDROM) with drivers onboard.  Once you
> >> install the drivers, the CD disappears and you don't see it again
> >> unless you disable/uninstall the EVDO card.
> >> 
> >> I'd love to see motherboards offer similar, and adding 64MB of
> >> flash would probably be cheaper then distributing CDs due to the
> >> fact that the flash can be updated trivially whereas CDs cannot be
> >> updated once they're pressed.
> >
> >I've seen a similar idea backfire. My mother's digital camera came
> >with a driver which my father dutifully installed for her. The
> >driver was to use it in webcam mode, and with it installed the
> >camera failed to appear as a storage device to get the photos off!
> 
> How is that even remotely related? -- Broken drivers can happen
> anywhere, my suggestion was a way of eliminating the need for outdated
> physical media to be distributed at all.

I suppose I put that bit after the wrong paragraph. Or can't you see any
connection between a driver that disables USB mass storage and a driver
that disables USB mass storage? It has potential to go wrong.

> >> Nobody around here actually uses Linux for anything other then
> >> servers, there simply isn't a market.  Even my Linux geek friends
> >> at best manage a couple Linux servers in otherwise nearly
> >> homogeneous Windows shops.
> >> 
> >> In all my consulting and local IT contacts, I've yet to hear of any
> >> company actually using anything other then Windows on the desktops.
> >
> >That isn't really because Linux is "garbage", it's all to do with
> >Microsoft's monopoly and the availability of certain software. 
> 
> And yet, the result is the same.
> 
> People still pirate Windows when they can get Linux free.  They still
> pirate Office when they can get OpenOffice free.

There's a famous anecdote of someone that wanted to get rid of some old,
but still just about serviceable tyres. When they were still on his
drive after being there for a week with a sign saying, "Free, help
yourself," he changed the sign to "£10" and they disappeared the
following night.

> >> Don't get me wrong, I would really love to see some real
> >> competition out there.  A dozen years since I started hearing
> >> "Linux is ready for the desktop" and how long with OSX out there,
> >> and the combination of the two is still fighting over 10% of the
> >> desktop marketplace.
> >
> >I thought the figure was supposed to be more like 1%. Maybe Vista
> >caused the extra 9% ;-). 
> 
> Maybe, but Vista's adoption rates in the first year beat out Linux and
> OSX combined, so that says a lot.

Not really, you'd expect that when MS are already so dominant. They've
already proven that marketing and "the latest thing" are more important
to sales than a technically good product.

> >Also, you can't get accurate usage figures for Linux
> >because hardly anyone buys it, they download it.
> 
> There are other stats available then looking at sales stats.  Web
> stats and user surveys tell you a lot.

If web stats are getting anywhere near reliable it's only because
Firefox has made serious inroads against IE and many companies have seen
fit to stop their wesbites gratuitously turning away anything that isn't
IE. I can't remember the last time I had to fake the user agent string.

> Wandering around any public place looking at all the MacBooks people
> are using, go find one that isn't running Windows (Either in bootcamp
> or parallels, or something similar) -- About 40% of my friends and
> family circles who own a laptop own a Macbook, every single one, bar
> none, has Windows.  A little over 50% use Windows as their primary
> OS, with a small percentage running Linux, the rest on OSX.

Is that really typical? I'm surprised. I blame iTunes:- Apple don't need
to care whether people use their OS any more.

> In OSX' defense, there is some malware out there for OSX, both proving
> how insecure OSX is, but also showing that it's a big enough target to
> be worth attacking -- That's a huge step forward for Apple.

It shows that OSX is fairly homogenous and has the same "user-friendly"
ethos as MS: users are better off having malware on their machines than
having to enter passwords or use confirmation dialogs when doing
something that might compromise them.

If you believe that the lack of Linux malware is only because it's not
worth attacking, what about Internet servers? Linux has the majority market
share in that market and surely all those machines with fast connections
and high capacity mail software already set up would make a very
attractive target for spambots.

-- 
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk