Can Linux beat XP in homes yet or NOT?

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 13 July 2007, Gordon Keehn wrote:
[...]
>
>    It comes down to utility.  I'm sort of a semi-geek;  I've been
>running Linux on my n-1 box since RH 6.  I will never be free of
>Windows, though, because I have two critical apps which I cannot run
>under wine, and for which suitable replacements (according to MY
>requirements) do not exist.

And I would opine that those requirements are false, crutches if you will, 
that justify in your mind, the reason to stick with winderz.  File formats 
seem to be the biggest thing, and the last time I had trouble opening 
somebody's 'word' document was back in RH7.3 days.  OpenOffice Just 
Works(TM).

>As long as that situation exists Windows 
>will be the dominant desktop OS.  Will either of those apps be ported to
>Linux?  Probably not.  One is semi-orphaned, and the other is from a
>vendor who sees no advantage in committing resources to what they view
>as a marginal platform.  Add to that the fact that separate versions
>must be packaged for every supported distro and release, and the chances
>of a vendor who is, after all, in the business of making money, making a
>major commitment to Linux  approaches zero.

Or they have an attitude that makes running their app on any platform/version 
of linux other than their own downright impossible.  Remember Corel 
WordPerfect-8?  I have a copy here I paid $70 for way back when, which has 
never been successfully installed and able to run on any x86 machine I've 
ever stuck the cd in the drive of.  I don't think WP8 would have a quarter to 
call somebody that cares, but their installer will not install on anything 
but a specific version of Corel linux.

Needless to say, after that experience with Corel, I haven't touched anything 
else they ever did with MY credit card again.  I must not have been alone 
either, anybody else remember Corel?

>     I don't see this changing as long as each Linux vendor has its own
>architecture and packaging model.  It's great for providing geeks with a
>topic of conversation at Users Group meetings, but not so good for
>convincing the non-geeks among us that Linux is good for them, too.

That I have to violently agree with.  We, the users, and very occasionally 
contributors to the FOSS scene, are sick up to our tonsils in suffering from 
the efforts of the distro's to differentiate and prevent the intermarriage of 
the various featuresets in order to do exactly what we shower hate and 
discontent on M$ for doing, vendor lock-in.  rpm may have been the best 10 
years ago, but its only had one luving session since and is not only a 
difficult child to live with, but is a bit less than adequate in sorting 
dependencies as has been demo'd to me recently by the false dependencies on 
gimp-print TPTB have put in only as a method to force an update/install of f7 
in place of fc6.  That sort of thing spread on a cornfield, along with 20+" 
of rain, will grow 180 bushels to the acre.

>    Cheers,
>Gordon Keehn



-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.
		-- Dawkins