The future OS

Shlouski

Shlouski

VIP Member
Of course the most popular OS at the moment is Window, by far, but wat about in the future?

I personally have never used linux or Mac and ive never knowingly met anyone that uses them. All ive been told is (plz correct me if im wrong) that linux is free, very stable and simple to use, but has problems with high end computing. Mac is on a similar par with windows, but easier to use and more stable, but lacks driver support for a lot of amps. Windows is more complicated, suffers from lots of viruses, not as stable as the others, but its the most powerful OS. (i personally have never had a problem with viruses)

If wat ive been told is true then maybe the occasional users will adopt linux. More average users may start to use Mac, as they seem to b aimed as media solutions and windows will b 4 the high end pc users.

For me anyway, I think windows will always b the leading OS for many reasons.

It has a huge following already, people r usually lazy and cant b bothered tryin to understand a different OS and keep with wat they know.Windows is getting easier to use for occasional users. It supports more or less everything u could ever need etc...

What r your opinions?
 
What do you mean by "high end computing"?

Obviously Windows will continue being extremely popular, but I feel that Linux will pick up some steam pretty soon, I highly doubt it'll catch up with Windows, but anyway...

And as far as Mac is concerned, I doubt there's going to be a ton of people switching to it unless Apple legalizes using retail Mac DVDs on PCs (and makes the process a bit easier than it is now.) Mac hardware is just too expensive for a lot of people.
 
There are a tone of software for linux these days and it is starting to support many of people favorite devices. In fact With the 3 computers Dell offers ubuntu with 1 out 3 of them sell with ubuntu over windows.
 
Irishwhistle said:
No, Linux is capable of all that, it's just that there's not much software of that sort that exists for it yet.
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I could be naive on this one - but I've been hearing from techies < as a non-technical person > that Linux will be coming into mainstream for years. As of yet - it still seems to be a techie's format. IIRC - it's because it's so flexible for the O/S owner to tweak.

Most non-tech people don't want to tweak and tune their computers - they just want them to be plug and play - which is how Windows has maintained it's dominance over the years in the business world and home PC. Being more mainstream directed - you can build a network of people to support these applicaitions and build an industry on.

With Linux - there isn't enough of a market b/c of the nature of the O/S that keeps it from going mainstream. I have a friend who's company got sold on a Linux based system - and he tells me - there are like no choices of people to service their network. It's Person no 1 - or nobody at all. If it were a PC based system - and you didn' tlike your Admin - you could fire them and get somebody else tomorrow to do the job.

Anyway - that's how I see it as an outsider in the tech world. I could be naively way off the mark - but it's how it seems to me at this moment in time.
 
I really thkn that linux will not die off but onlyt get stronger. They are a free os and no one would ever pass up free. and the linux OS is simpple and easy to get used to.

Yes windows will always be there fighting for number 1 with mac but watch linux who has the chance to surpass all
 
Actually, Linux and Unix run the high end computing already. They run DNS and DHCP for pretty much the whole Internet. They also use high end Unix servers to run things like Google Earth. Windows is not built for that sort of stuff, and if you want to talk about distributed computing Linux and Unix win there too. OS X Server does have a distributed computing client called XGRID, which will run on both Windows and OS X client boxes, but I have yet to really play with it.

I know that Universities use it for sure.

The problem holding Linux back is a few things. Developers do not develop software for Linux. Quickbooks, photoshop, so on and so forth. While there may be open source alternatives to such programs for Linux, people want to use what they already use and already prefer. It is really that simple. Also, developing for Linux is a bit harder because developers have to stand by POSIX and things like that. Where as a windows developer gets access to the Windows kernel via kernel hooks, which allows the developer to be lazy. Though I read that is not really any longer the case with Vista, which is why most drivers and such had such a hard time being compatible with Vista when it first came out.

Then you have the small learning curve with Linux. I have been using Linux for over 10 years now and I still learn something new and I still have problems reading through the manual pages at times. Some commands just have really crappy written manual pages or their syntax is just plain weird.

Then you have a lack of standards. There is no across the board standards. No standard package managers, no standard file hierarchy - some distros have a /opt and some don't, some use /etc/sudoers and some don't. So on and so forth. Then you have different shells, does it use /bin/bash, /bin/sh, /bin/zsch, /bin/tsch, or what shell does it use?

The one thing I have to tip my hat to Apple is, they took a BSD based Unix system and turned it into a streamlined easy to use end user OS. You can know zlich about Unix and pick it right up and use their OS. Not really possible with Linux or Unix.

Also, some developers plain refuse to release specifications to the Linux community out of being scared hackers will use them for bad things. Take for example, say about 4 or 5 years ago where you had to pull your hair and teeth out to get a wifi card to work in Linux. That is because companies would not release specifications or open source APIs or anything to allow developers to write Linux drivers. They figured hackers would get a hold of such things and use Linux to do nasty malicioius things. After all, Linux is the engineer's OS. It is built for such robust applications and is so robust in itself that you can write scripts, or apps that can use the wifi driver for things like packet injection, brute force attacks, etc. So, Linux was like fine, we will just wrap the windows driver up in our own built API and use it that way. Hence the NWDS wrapper or whatever it was called.

Microsoft does do somethings very well. For one they release patches and security updates faster than any other OS out there, but that is also because they have had lots of practices doing so. They also make Windows pretty easy to use, but I have to admit being a very long Windows user (over 15 years) I find Vista very hard to navigate around in. I also lost interest in learning all the ins and outs with Vista. I am a niche user though, and anything I do doesn't really apply to the average user. I prefer keyboard short cuts to everything and a dock to launch commonly used apps.

I don't like start menus, or menus in general. I prefer to use keyboard short cuts or indexed searching for things, it is so much faster and more efficient. I use the mouse inside applications, but in the OS I prefer to use keyboard short cuts. Once inside an application I use the mouse for sure since that is the best way to use it.

Until Linux does some work on making it an easy to use end user OS and gets support from major third parties, it will remain secondary. I would say Microsofts biggest competitor is Apple.
 
Windows is popular because of games mostly and applications that only run on it. But as that changes, users change their operating system. More and more people are doing dual boots with linux and windows, they keep windows just for games.

I hope that more games for linux will appear, because that's when there will be more users for it, and applications like After Effects, Photoshop that have the power and interface of these applications.

I hope there will be more games for linux so I won't be stuck with crappy windows.
 
It is the Linux community itself that hinders the growth of Linux. They are so commited in free software thing that commercial developers won't write for it. Until that changes, Linux will be a hobbyist operating system.
 
I only use windows for a few programmes, such as dreamweaver. If Linux would support such programmes, such as dreamweaver, more games, photoshop i think there would be a significant increase in the people using Linux.
 
fmw said:
It is the Linux community itself that hinders the growth of Linux. They are so commited in free software thing that commercial developers won't write for it. Until that changes, Linux will be a hobbyist operating system.
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You know open source software is a 500 million dollar per a year business right?
 
I ask this because i want to start a small computer buisness from home. I know how to build and repair computers and i know my way around windows very well. I just anticipate someone comin 2 me with a different OS every so often and if so im not goin to have a clue how to fix problems. How different r these OS's to windows? I know things will b in different places, but would i b able to use the same sort of pricipals to fix problems?
 
I have been using Ubuntu for about two months and I see it taking off in the future. It has programs for everything from video to photo to music editing, media players and quiet a few games these days. It supports ipod, creative and the sony Iriver portable devices, and even supports multiple web browsers. And with the synaptic package manager it is easier to download and install apps then windows and the programs are free. What it needs is more companies to offer it on there laptops cause the issue is with laptops not all the drivers work with linux.
 
vinnie107 said:
I only use windows for a few programmes, such as dreamweaver. If Linux would support such programmes, such as dreamweaver, more games, photoshop i think there would be a significant increase in the people using Linux.
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NVU = open source dream weaver like app

Gimp = open source photoshop like app

There are plenty of alternatives you will just have to learn them, also if you are into web development I would strongly suggest you learn about CMSes as well as coding everything by hand.
 
I can code everything by hand, but to create professional looking pages in a decent amount of time you need to use CMS, and dreamweaver is the industry standard.

Shlouski said:
I ask this because i want to start a small computer buisness from home. I know how to build and repair computers and i know my way around windows very well. I just anticipate someone comin 2 me with a different OS every so often and if so im not goin to have a clue how to fix problems. How different r these OS's to windows? I know things will b in different places, but would i b able to use the same sort of pricipals to fix problems?
Click to expand...

Why dont you try out other OS's... Start with Ubuntu.
 
tlarkin said:
You know open source software is a 500 million dollar per a year business right?
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That is pennies. Linux users want it to be a hobbyist O/S and it will stay that way as long as they want it to be that way. Don't mistake me, I use Linux also and even distribute O/S discs. But what is obvious is obvious.
 
tlarkin said:
NVU = open source dream weaver like app

Gimp = open source photoshop like app

There are plenty of alternatives you will just have to learn them, also if you are into web development I would strongly suggest you learn about CMSes as well as coding everything by hand.
Click to expand...

This is where the problem occurs. The problem with Linux is not the O/S, it is the application software. I'm a Linux user myself and I still use Dreamweaver and Photoshop (on Windows, of course.) I have to use Windows for UPS Worldship, the software I use to process UPS shipments every day.

The applications Larkin suggests are not as powerful or complete as the ones avalilable commercially for Windows. The differences between Gimp and Photoshop are immense. NVU doesn't exist any more. Some people have tried to carrry it forward with a thing called CompoZer but it is a far cry from what Adobe publishes.

Even Linux mainstay Open Office is like the Microsoft Office of 10 years ago. Compare it to the Microsoft Office 2007. You'll see what I mean. I'm not suggesting that Open Office isn't useful or stable. It is. It just isn't as powerful as MS Office. The applications software for Windows is many times better. It should be. It is expensive.

I'm only one Linux user. If I were the entire community I would be encouraging commercial software developers to develop for Linux. I would be recommending that users get past the open source bugaboo and do that as a hobby. Embrace the commercial software developers. When that can happen, Linux can grow.

As we know, Linux is a better O/S than Windows because it isn't saddled with all that DOS stuff that Microsoft has had to deal with. It started off as a stable multiuser O/S and continues to be one. But it won't ever grow meaningfully until it has commercial software support. It simply can't.
 
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