What is Linux and why is it so popular?

I disagree with the statement
"In general, Linux is harder to manage than something like Windows"
Linux is much easier that Vista and works cleaner than any Microsoft based operating systems.
It will run very well on older hardware, although wireless cards can be a pain, but we are fixing that. The only reason not go with Linux is if you want to make sure Bill Gates stays one of the richest people in the world.
Linux Rocks!!

John wrote:

I disagree with the statement
"In general, Linux is harder to manage than something like Windows"
Linux is much easier that Vista and works cleaner than any Microsoft based operating systems.
It will run very well on older hardware, although wireless cards can be a pain, but we are fixing that. The only reason not go with Linux is if you want to make sure Bill Gates stays one of the richest people in the world.
Linux Rocks!!

It depends on what you mean by "manage". In professional settings Linux can be managed by 1 "guru" or maybe a handful of people. Windows is often managed by a large team of people with diverse skills.

Linux is NOT "popular". It has a niche market for specialty use, however. There are a small sections of "fans" for various versions, but that's not mainstream Linux. But these fans are often "loud" about their pet OS. Linux has around 0.7% of the "internet usage" marketshare, but the professional deployments are probably much less and are mostly concentrated in the server sector. Both the Desktop and Server arena are ruled by Microsoft (with the former over 90% and the latter around 36%).

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx...

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp...

Correction. Make that 39% for Windows server market as of latest release.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp...

rasmasyean wrote:

Correction. Make that 39% for Windows server market as of latest release.
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp...

40.8

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp;jsessionid=A5C0...

It is, hands down, the best OS EVER invented!!
I oughta know!!

Linus Torvalds wrote:

It is, hands down, the best OS EVER invented!!
I oughta know!!

rofl! Well, if that is really you Linus, I agree that it's great accomplishment and was really good for it's time. Look at how Mac used the unix derivative to make a nice OS. The only problem is that you didn't capitalize on it and use the money to develop it into something bigger. You are a great programmer and techie...very bad business man. Bill Gates is decent techie, but a very shrewd business man. If you had the money to build on Linux, perhaps the world may be different? Now Bill is immortal and barely anyone but geeks know who Linus is.

rasmasyean wrote:

<quoted text>
rofl! Well, if that is really you Linus, I agree that it's great accomplishment and was really good for it's time. Look at how Mac used the unix derivative to make a nice OS. The only problem is that you didn't capitalize on it and use the money to develop it into something bigger. You are a great programmer and techie...very bad business man. Bill Gates is decent techie, but a very shrewd business man. If you had the money to build on Linux, perhaps the world may be different? Now Bill is immortal and barely anyone but geeks know who Linus is.

linux is coming of age (at least getting there for the average consumer). great products have a tendency to draw users and one should never underestimate the power of word of mouth. although i'm an os x user, it's on the terminal that i have to most fun. linux is a bit like an
undiscovered bottle of great wine for the average person. i for one will promote linux to anyone tired of microsoft's time robbing products.

I agree to a certain extent, but until Linux gets much more easy to use (including programming in), they will not make that much headway. For this to happen, I’m afraid there needs to be decent business models around it. If people can figure that out, then it has a chance (like Redhat server…yeah, I know they are in trouble but they had a decent run)…not to mention there is A LOT of catching up to do with both Windows and OSX in the desktop. Windows has a ton of more base technologies already developed and proven. And take for example, how many dev tools there are in Windows and a really big one incidentally is Microsoft Visual Studio which allows you to crank out really sophisticated apps faster than any other tool for many sectors of advanced apps. The reason why it’s so good is because MS has billions of dollars to hire many good people to make it.“Bloated” as a result maybe, but in many cases it doesn’t matter because hardware is cheap.

There is one hope for Linux that I can see however. Perhaps as the trend of cloud computing grows, the desktop platform becomes less significant for many situations. But again, this all depends on economics as well. Note that Microsoft has foreseen this possible outcome and has a cloud OS…Azure. Who really knows what the future holds but it still looks to me that open source has its limits. Perhaps it will just remain some vertical market niche where a few smart people like Redhat can capitalize on it.

Linux is neither more or less difficult to administer than Windows; the ability to successfully administer one or the other depends upon one's knowledge of the respective OS. Anyone alleging otherwise is typically a fanboy who knows more about the OS he is promoting/less about the OS he is bashing.

I administer Windows, Linux, AIX, and Unix servers, they all do the same things, they simply use different ones and zeros to do them.

i need some help withm my printer wont print out what i want for it to print out

i mean i need some help with my printer it wont print out what i want for it to print out

qwerty wrote:

Linux is neither more or less difficult to administer than Windows; the ability to successfully administer one or the other depends upon one's knowledge of the respective OS. Anyone alleging otherwise is typically a fanboy who knows more about the OS he is promoting/less about the OS he is bashing.
I administer Windows, Linux, AIX, and Unix servers, they all do the same things, they simply use different ones and zeros to do them.

some manage those ones and zeros a bit more reliably than others.

nevermind my printer is working again