AMD loosing money, uncertain free software development funding?

[Veerappan]

Look, dude, there is a huge difference between "pro Windows" and "realizes that Windows has clear and unarguable advantages over Linux to the average person." ... snip ...

Well said. The day that I can use a stock distro install to install/run any game/application I want to in Gnome/KDE/etc by popping in the CD, running the installer, and then going into my GUI menus to launch (and use it seamlessly) it will be the day that I switch completely.

Most of this, for me, is contingent upon Wine being perfectly supportive of Direct X 9/10/11/etc and having acceptable performance (within hardware limits) for all games, but the same goes for Office and other desktop applications. This would also depend upon my distribution of choice being able to accept native applications outside of its package management scheme.

Yes, you can download and install .deb/.rpm archives, but it puts the responsibility on the developer's shoulders to provide archives for all architectures/distributions. I guess it's part of the reason I like C#/Java as much as I do, since it negates a large amount of that issue. The fat binaries for *nix that were mentioned last week (from Ryan Gordon/icculus) are another nice addition where JIT isn't an option.

[highlandsun]

Look, dude, there is a huge difference between "pro Windows" and "realizes that Windows has clear and unarguable advantages over Linux to the average person." I know that can be a little hard to understand for people who define their life style based around freaking piece of software, but out here in Reality Land, getting defensive about an OS is just pathetic.

Wow. What a huge spew of blather in response to a simple 1 line question. Looks to me like you're the one who's defensive.

If you think Linux is any way a better OS for regular people than Windows, then you simply are totally disconnected from what regular people want out of a computer.

When I replaced WindowsXP with Ubuntu Jaunty on my fiancee's laptop, she was thrilled. Desktop responsiveness was faster and smoother, no more antivirus crap eating up resources, OpenOffice handled all her documents, all the things she needed her computer to do simply worked faster and better. Who's disconnected?

[yotambien]

Wow. What a huge spew of blather in response to a simple 1 line question. Looks to me like you're the one who's defensive.

When I replaced WindowsXP with Ubuntu Jaunty on my fiancee's laptop, she was thrilled. Desktop responsiveness was faster and smoother, no more antivirus crap eating up resources, OpenOffice handled all her documents, all the things she needed her computer to do simply worked faster and better. Who's disconnected?

Sine you don't seem to take very well long, argumented replies, I'll answer your last question in simple terms:

YOU.

[xiando]

If you think Linux is any way a better OS for regular people than Windows, then you simply are totally disconnected from what regular people want out of a computer. People like us get excited about the ability to modify core OS components. Regular people are terrified of anything close to the idea of having to modify core OS components. People like us want flexible, configurable environments. Regular people want an environment that never, ever changes because change is confusing and they don't even really understand the basic concept of what a GUI button is, they just learn to "click that rectangle thing to make it go." People like us get excited when we see a hobby Open Source game project running on Open Source video drivers. Regular people think those hobby games look and play like shit, and think people who pay $200 for a graphics card they can't use because of lacking drivers are retards. People like us follow development forums and mailing lists and git repos because seeing development happen and playing with the latest changes is exciting. Regular people are terrified of any update, usually ignore updates, and stick with ancient software like Windows XP because that way they don't have to deal with change. People like us get excited by the release of a new distribution. Regular people get excited about being able to run the newest games like the Left 4 Dead 2 demo.

Windows sucks hard at quite a few things of its own. Many of those are things people like us really, really care about. Unfortunately for people like you who want to live in unicorn-sunshine-Linux-everywhere land, the things that Windows sucks at aren't the things regular people care about, while the things that Linux sucks at are the things regular people get upset over.

I love using Linux, but only when I don't have to use it for regular people stuff. I literally can't use it for a number of things, most of which are due to the pathetic state of the graphics stack. My Vista laptop with an Intel 3100 IGP gets 5x the performance on a stupid-simple OpenGL app for school than what the Linux box with a freaking ATI HD4770 an do... and the Linux box renders things wrong, frequently locks up in X, or just gets random amounts of screen corruption.

Even if Linux had perfect graphics drivers, there's the issue with software installation -- namely, that it's near impossible for anybody who isn't a major mega nerd to do. Real people don't want to install the crap in the distro repositories. Little hint: Fallout 3 will never be in any distro's repository. Even in a hypothetical world where triple-A game titles were released completely as Free Software (and not 5 years after they are no longer relevant to the majority of people, like id's Quake code releases), no distro is going to include 4GB of data packages for a single application, much less 4GB of data packages each for thousands of applications. A real-person OS absolutely requires the ability to easily install third-party software, which the Linux distros go out of their way to make difficult, to the point where even fully Open Source apps have to be repackaged and redistributed not only for each distro but for each version of each distro. To think that the appliance model Linux is saddled with is acceptable is once again proof of a total disconnect with what real people want.

It seems apparent to me that what "real people" want very much depends on their age and their computer skills.

My mother bought a laptop about a year ago. She had never previously owned a computer. It came preinstalled with some Windows. I disinfected it and replaced it with Ubuntu. My mother is very happy with her computer and finds it very easy to use. She finds it easy to start Firefox and read the local newspapers. I gave a laptop with Ubuntu to the nice 60-something year old man across the hallway a few weeks ago. He had also never owned a computer before; yet he quickly got excited about being to read the local newspapers while eating his breakfast.

Most real people over 50 seem perfectly happy as long as their computer lets them suft the web and perhaps so a little IM, and most older people I know are very happy doing those things on the more user-friendly distros like Ubuntu.

I have no idea if this Windows thing sucks or not, but I have read rumors on the Internet that it's improved somewhat since Windows 98, but I do know that older people with no prior computer skills are generally very happy with Ubuntu as their OS. The situation is very different when it comes to people who are used to this Windows thing, they seem to get confused about the menu being on top of the screen and things like that. I generally recommend that they keep on using what they know IF they are happy with it.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) fell very nicely today. I still recommend being long-term short, but covering here and re-shorting at the first sign of unjust optimism could be profitable.

[highlandsun]

Sine you don't seem to take very well long, argumented replies, I'll answer your last question in simple terms:

And you're a moron. The original reply was far from well argumented.

His basic point seems to be that I and others around here don't represent the average userbase, and that the things that the average userbase cares about aren't well represented in Linux. But in fact, none of what he identifies as being "careabouts" reflect the average userbase.

The average PC user doesn't care about 3D games, only gaming zealots care. The average PC user doesn't buy $200 graphics cards. The average PC user doesn't write apps for OpenGL and doesn't care about 3rd party apps.

Look at any Linux distro and examine the list of software that the distro packagers have chosen to include - where did that software come from? It was written because somebody saw a need for it. Why is that software bundled in the distro? Because the distro packager saw that this need was a common need across their userbase. The fact is, Linux distros have grown to the size they are today because they contain what average users want and need. Gamers are only a tiny (lunatic) fringe of the computer using population. People who care about 3D graphics performance are only a tiny fringe. Everyone else just wants their word processor, spreadsheet, and movie and MP3 players to work, and for the most part, that's already a done deal.

[amphigory]

Ha! Iconoclasm and heresy! The Penguin will rule with an iron fist and evil Microsoft will be banished to the ninth circle of hell. All hail the Penguin!

Seriously, the "Linux is great for everyone" fans are neglecting one little detail. They are providing the technical support. Grandma is not installing her own software or configuring her system. There's the rub.

[energyman]

I think my mom is a regular user. She knows nothing about computer or OS.

She uses her laptop to: read a bit of wikipedia. Check email once in a while but mostly to look at pictures, playing mahjong or hearts and listen to the occasional mp3.

My sister uses her computer similarly, just add 'flash games' to the mix. And some sites like 'Studivz'.

These are typical users. Windows, Linux, Macos are all fine for them, because more than starting firefox or their favorite simple game is too much for them. They don't care about package managers or security or hardware support. Their stuff must work, end of story.

And all three can do that for them.

[xiando]

Ha! Iconoclasm and heresy! The Penguin will rule with an iron fist and evil Microsoft will be banished to the ninth circle of hell. All hail the Penguin!

Seriously, the "Linux is great for everyone" fans are neglecting one little detail. They are providing the technical support. Grandma is not installing her own software or configuring her system. There's the rub.

That "little detail" is irrelevant to "everyone" as in most real people. It is highly important to The Corporation but it means nothing to regular people. They call some friend or relative when they need help, they do not call some expensive support-line.

It must also be mentioned that the fact that some corporation provides support as long as you pay them to do so applies to all software, GNU/Linux distributions as well as Windows. It even applies to Mac OS. If you pay Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), who smoothly fell 3.15% today, for technical support then you get the technical support. If you sign a deal with a Linux Consultant corporation such as Redpill then you get support for any GNU/Linux distro and any GNU/Linux piece of software (they even have a "sendmail expert"). Corporations do sign such support deals. Private citizens do not. I am sure there are similar corporations who specialize on the Windows family, so there is no difference between Windows and GNU/Linux when it comes to support. If you are willing to pay for support then you get "professional" support, if you do not want to pay then you need to rely on your social network regardless of OS. If you do not have a social network then you probably do not need anyone to help you with your computer anyway.

[movieman]

Seriously, the "Linux is great for everyone" fans are neglecting one little detail. They are providing the technical support. Grandma is not installing her own software or configuring her system. There's the rub.

Grandma doesn't install Windows on her PC either... and if she does have Windows, her applications are probably six versions behind the current patch level and hence full of easily exploited security holes because she doesn't run six dozen random 'software updaters' for every little non-Microsoft app on the system.

IMHO the only reason why an 'average user' would need Windows over Linux is because they must run some weird or commercial Windows app with no equivalent for Linux, or because they want to play games. Otherwise a preinstalled Linux system with automated updates is about as easy as you can get; most average users want email, web browsing, word processing and a few other odds and ends that Linux can easily handle at a lower cost than Windows with substantially better security.

[RealNC]

Otherwise a preinstalled Linux system with automated updates is about as easy as you can get; most average users want email, web browsing, word processing and a few other odds and ends that Linux can easily handle at a lower cost than Windows with substantially better security.

Tell them that when support for their distro is dropped and they need to upgrade it.