There are many many posts saying why linux is failing. If I had a dollar for every post and article I’ve read or seen the title too I could probably buy a nce car or something like that. I will probably end up repeating what some one else has said, I just haven’t seen it yet.
First Linux is not failing, it is gaining ground , slowly but gaining ground none the less. Yes MS Windows has an extremely big foot in the door. It’s packages with every system sold as part of the package. But then again it is losing ground as well, I read more and more companys are switching to linux servers and work stations. Business wise, it just makes sense depending on the situation to switch to linux.
Where Linux is not doing well is in the home market. And I would imagine that most home users would be suprised to learn they actually had a linux box in the house, probably a couple of them, they just do not realize it.
I recently read and I wish I bookmarked the post to reference it here, that it is because Linux is free that no one will by it. Maybe so, maybe not I hear a lot of ‘I would like one but I can’t afford it’ , ect. I respond with ever think of using Linux? Linux what’s that they ask.
That’s is one of the biggest problems, linux get little or not advertising. Everyone knows about Microsoft, and they know about Apple, because of advertising. The general public knows very little or nothing at about another alternative to the high cost of Microsoft and Apple products. And everyone knows about all the problems with Windows Operating systems, especially Vista.
The other reason is that there is little knowlege of it in the stores and the so called ‘tech support’ departments. Generally you can’t take a pc loaded with Linux into a ISP or Computer Store and ask for help, except for maybe once in a while then they call the geek in from the back room. But then again Linux does not need much support, well least not now at anyrate, taking into account if your running Linux you know what’s to do with problems.
The third is the average consumer has not seen Linux run at all. And is not aware that you can indeed use MS programs for the most part, if you are running Wine or the what not. Linux is not failing, it’s gaining ground. Look at apple with OS X, it uses Darwin as it’s base.. And Darwin is derived, I think, from one of the bsd’s or least in part I don’t remember. And they proudly say ‘run thousands of free open source applications’ in OS X.
There a quite a few distro’s out there that are perfect for the first time user. openSuse for one, Ubuntu, Gento and many others.
So in my mind Linux is not losing anything.
Tags: Apple, Darwin, Linux, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, News and Media, Open source, Operating system
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