Why Martin is all giddy about Ubuntu (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Martin
- Start date
Well ya Ubuntu is Linux. As well as Fedora, Suse, Gentoo...and 100's others. They are just different flavors of Linux. Think of it as XP home and XP professional. Or the 4 (are they 4?) flavors of Vista....
As for your apps, some apps would work on Linux (Firefox, VLC Player and other stuff), while other apps would have a substitute that would replace your current one, and probably do the job better anyways
. And if both fails you could either emulate (Cedega and/or Wine) or use virtualization. Plus, you would probably find other apps that you wouldn't find on Windows, that would make your life so much easier
As for your apps, some apps would work on Linux (Firefox, VLC Player and other stuff), while other apps would have a substitute that would replace your current one, and probably do the job better anyways
. And if both fails you could either emulate (Cedega and/or Wine) or use virtualization. Plus, you would probably find other apps that you wouldn't find on Windows, that would make your life so much easier
Oh, and I dont mind dual booting...unless Linux takes about 500gb of my space...
Mostly because it's still a new product which has just over a decade of mass public use under its belt. There are still a big number of people that are completelly computer illetairate. Because of them it's completelly different than some products that people have been using for decades, and pretty much everyone is familiar with them. That makes a whole world of difference when you want to promote something new and that's where Windows hit the jackpot as we all know. Only know after so many years people have been starting to recognize there are other good thing out there.
You simply can't compair selling cars to selling software, that's all. At least not in this point in time.
You simply can't compair selling cars to selling software, that's all. At least not in this point in time.
Methinks you're running round in circles. Once there is a commodity that is tangible enough to be sold, it is a product, whether it's been around for 6000 years (bread) or whether it's been around since 'yesterday' (cryogenics).
Software is a product.
And as with any product, it is the marketing method that matters. Quick example of the top of my head. In military terms it is an accepted fact that the Kalashnikov is a better weapon than the M16. But most standard armies go for the latter because it is a better marketed product.
Same applied to *nix and Windows. *nix is superior, but Windows was better marketed, while *nix remained largely with intellectuals who fortunately or unfortunately were too arrogant to let more people into their 'exclusive club'. The trend continued with Linux as for a very long time you had Linux users who revelled in the fact that they understood how computers work while the rest of humanity was ignorant. That attitude put people off Linux for a long time. Canonical has changed all that, and for that I am grateful.
Software is a product.
And as with any product, it is the marketing method that matters. Quick example of the top of my head. In military terms it is an accepted fact that the Kalashnikov is a better weapon than the M16. But most standard armies go for the latter because it is a better marketed product.
Same applied to *nix and Windows. *nix is superior, but Windows was better marketed, while *nix remained largely with intellectuals who fortunately or unfortunately were too arrogant to let more people into their 'exclusive club'. The trend continued with Linux as for a very long time you had Linux users who revelled in the fact that they understood how computers work while the rest of humanity was ignorant. That attitude put people off Linux for a long time. Canonical has changed all that, and for that I am grateful.
Wine, Cedega, Vmware, Virtualbox...are all different forms of "emulation". Don't worry about them, they are not essential to Linux.
However, about the different versions (Use distros, short for distributions, sounds much cooler), yes you have 100's of versions. But essentially you have 4 or 5 main ones, and the rest are just different variants of the main 5. You have basically Red Hat, Debian, Suse, and Gentoo. There some major differences between all these, especially when it comes to how you install programs.
Lets take Debian for example, Ubuntu is a Debian "child". When you install Debian you get a base system, perhaps nothing more than a command line and some essential programs, then you can add other stuff on it. You can add from 5 or 6 user interfaces (after all an interface is just a "plugin" over a base system), add your own browser, word processor..etc. However in Ubuntu you get a whole package with everything you need. The interface, the browser...etc. So Ubuntu is essentially a Debian built up in a specific set of apps to get it, the same goes for other different Debian variants (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint...etc). Each built with different preferences in mind.
Ubuntu is more streamlined and user friendly because of this....I hope this explains to you "some" of the reasons of different distros.
Of course different preferences result in different performance. Gentoo is fast and stable because the "preference" of installing from source, on the expense of being hard and very not user friendly. With Ubuntu everything more or less "just works" but at the expense of having everything preconfigured to appeal to the masses.
Yes you could install linux on less than 50 Mb if you wanted to, but with Ubuntu, 10G's is more than enough as a starting point.
This will def change in the long run. I mean most people think computer=Windows, actually they don't know that there is a difference, its one item thats it! But within the next 20 or 30 years our generation which is much more computer literate will essentially rule the world, business-wise and consumer-wise. Our generation will call the shots in companies, and our pockets will create the demand.
I am not saying Linux will dominate. But the revolting equation of Computer=Windows will end.
I am not saying Linux will dominate. But the revolting equation of Computer=Windows will end.
