Will you go Linux in 2005?

sub-1000 liteweight, Nick ...they're getting close to the sweet spot

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000047024239/

What are the chances of these things getting to the UK? .. none I reckon, and most likely would be £500 or more (ie. at least 2x price).

Perhaps the angels of commerce may grant wishes though ;O)

Actually .. I am going to vancouver in feb, if they sell them over the border would the power supply work in the UK, 240v should work if I change plug right?

240v should work if I change plug right?

I know some Vikings that did that with a digital camera purchased in the US. They said it did fine, but I'd be happier if the charger was marked 120/240 input.

To borrow your elegant phrase, Nick, I'd sooner stick my hand in a mincer than buy anything from Walmart (evil evil company), but Linux has been my exclusive OS for over 18 months now.

Linspire is not inspiring either, but most of the mainline distros such as Red Hat, Mandrake, SUSE, etc. are all infinitely easier to install than Windows, and the software is simply superior. I have zero regrets, and I suffer every time I am forced to use a Windows machine: I mean, for starters they only have one desktop! How backward is that?!

I'm still looking for a UK distributor that sells PCs with Linux pre-installed - I'm pretty worried about installing Linux and finding a big issue with drivers connecting to the internet, because it would cripple my business. And there's no room for a second running machine here, either.

It's because Windows XP SP2 update almost crippled my business PC in the first place that my next PC will cannot run on a Microsoft OS. That and the massive security issues.

If a retail outlet sells me a PC with Linux, I have a consumer's guarantee of the drivers being sound. If not, I repack and return.

If I install Linux myself and there's an issue with modem drivers, I'd have to mess about with changing storage type and full reformat/reinstall all my business files to recover.

Last time I ran a dual boot I lost a big part of my harddrive to partitioning issues, so I don't go there again.

If anyone can point me to a respectable PC retailer, that will sell me a decent media-powered PC running any Linux flavours, feel free to recommend, PM, e-mail me. The sooner, the better - my monitor has been acting up - it keeps stretching out and resizing periodically. It's going to die very soon.

I wonder if there is a decent Unix for the Macintosh? I will be retiring my old G3 fairly soon, but I'd bet running some sort of unix on it would be speedy.

If you are running on DSL via DHCP then just put the cd in the tray and follow the instructions....

It will do it automatically with no need to configure unless you choose Gentoo of course which is a bit more 'hands on'

As far as I know, Mac OSX *is* Unix.

I'm with Brian_Turner; while I have been planning to move to Linux in the future, we absolutely cannot risk production slows; neither do I feel like using substitute programs for our production work and I don't particularly feel like replacing programs with Linux versions (many of which don't exist anyway). I tried SimplyMEPIS for a very short while; yes, it has The Gimp and all that, but I'd far rather use my state-of-the-art industry-standard programs.

However, my network person is going to bring over a Linux machine, and we'll load all the Adobe/Macromedia/whatever software and see how it works, *if* it works, etc.

I wont be changing to Linux unless offered money. Happy with XP, to many utils tied in with windows, to much of learning curve for no obvious benefit.

Was forced to use Linux at uni and the software seemed a step backward in gui design – this was a few years ago, but having to compile and follow a 10 page installation manual to run an app is not my idea of fun. The few app’s i bothered to use were buggier than the XP alternatives, the final straw was when it died after upgrading some hardware. Put me off switching for life. But you never know, i now use Firefox 90% of the time and only a few weeks ago i said i wouldn’t. :)

Check out Yellow Dog Linux, grnidone. Or you could install Darwin which is the underlying Unix that powers OS X without all the Apple stuff on top.

My main worry about going Linux desktop is the lack of decent Web Development apps with a GUI interface. Anyone who can solve this problem please point me in the right direction.

I also like XP. But I do try to remain independent of Windows mega-apps like Office and Outlook.

XP allows me to feed my appetite for cheap(-ish) plugin hardware and stand-alone apps.

I think that's a good point, rc. While many of us kvetch (complain) about Windows, it's also given a lot of benefit -- benefit that has to be met by any other OS before I'd switch over.

Additionally, for me, I'm not thrilled to use free software that is a copy of the industry standard: The Gimp is not Photoshop; and whatever I saw that looked just like HomeSite simply *isn't* HomeSite. I don't mind that people desire to issue an open source or free application, but be decent about it: design your own, don't just copy something that a company sweat blood and time to design, update and promote. That's just not cool in my book.

and the real world doesn't care what the techies think of linux and MS

The fact is that changing a normal 50 user network over from nice familiar windows to something that 'almost' does the same thing and looks a 'little' different from the stuff they all use at home isn't very viable at the moment.

Until Linux looks and works enough like standard MS Windows with all the functions to placate the average user MS will rule the offices and therefore most homes. Yep it has bugs and security issues, but I haven't seen one bit of commercial software yet which heavy use in any office can't find a problem with.

I also wonder if in fact part of the reason Linux rocks quite so much is that it's used almost exclusively by tech savvy people who have decent security, know what they're doing and are much less rewarding to try and annoy. Roll it out to every office across the UK and I think it might get less attractive quite quickly.

90% of security risk is between the keyboard and chair.. as linux grows in popularity so will the security alerts :O) Would still like to have a cheap linux laptop though, something almost disposable that I wouldnt mind getting sand, beer and stuff in :O)

You've got a point there. Those would be the same people who make using Windows a breeze.

absolutely not be going linux in 2005.

I'm pretty tech-savvy by anyone's definition, but linux tests my patience and is simply not up to par. I've installed fedora and debian on a laptop, to test the waters and frankly, they're both dire. They feel unresponsive, and pretty much everythng is a degree of difficulty beyond its needs -- the 'start' menu in Debian running gnome ran four levels deep, and absolutely naff all of it was anything I could see a need/want for.

Anyone who even suggests linux is ready for prime-time is, in my opinion, suffering from dementia -- its still years away from surpassing Windows, which is what it needs to do to 'win' the market share everyone suggests it ought to garner. Essentially, linux is plagued by the problem most open-source efforts have; programmers are the driving force. They're super technology aware, so they don't mind obfuscation in GUIs, they don't mind command lines, and they don't crave visual aesthetics the way the rest of the world do.

People like pretty things. The revived success of Apple can, in part, be attributed to this. The continued success of Microsoft can, in part, also be attributed to this (the other part being they're a huge anti-trust plagued monopoly). Simplicty + Pretty = winning formula. The popular linux distros are utterly rubbish at this.

Even their websites lack grace, with the exception of redhat (ie, enterprise grade software). If their websites were supposed to recommend the system (and indeed they are) then I'd never have even installed either

He said it, not me heh...

http://weblogs.asp.net/cgarrett/archive/2004/12/22/329703.aspx