crowdstrike makes news headlines, many Windows become blue screens
it is evident that many people around still use Windows
i wonder if linux is more reliable than Windows
according to some statistics linux has only 4% desktop market, 73%
for
MS, 15% for MacOS
why free OS hasn't gained more share even after 30 years of
development?
On Sat, 2024-07-20 at 11:54 +0800, hlyg wrote:
why free OS hasn't gained more share even after 30 years of
development?
Because people don't have it hammered into them via the educational
formats, it doesn't come preinstalled on almost every computer you buy: offered as the only option, Linux isn't advertised, and probably never
will be.
i wonder if linux is more reliable than Windows
according to some statistics linux has only 4% desktop market, 73% for MS, 15%
for MacOS
Thank David! market share is important though it isn't "reliable recommendation for quality": more users attract more programmers, who
develop more apps,
Thank David! market share is important though it isn't "reliable
recommendation for quality": more users attract more programmers, who
develop more apps,
The programmers who are attracted by market share are not necessarily
the ones who are interested in developing quality and/or innovative
software, though.
crowdstrike makes news headlines, many Windows become blue screens
it is evident that many people around still use Windows
i wonder if linux is more reliable than Windows
according to some statistics linux has only 4% desktop market, 73%for
MS, 15% for MacOS
why free OS hasn't gained more share even after 30 years ofdevelopment?
My opinions only...
1) MS Office (Word/Excel/PPT/etc) has never been available for Unix/Gnu-Linux. Word and Excel have long been 2 apps users require.
Not OpenOffice. While OpenOffice is quite featureful, it is not 100%
bug for bug compatible with real MS Office products. Similar for
Outlook vs say Thunderbird with respect to the way Outlook is integrated into the MS universe.
2) Windows vs Unix/Gnu-Linux, Windows is a single operating system.
Whereas on the Unix/Gnu-Linux side you have so many choices it's overwhelming. Different distros, you have several pure Unix variants, multiple Linux variants for the underlying OS and then you have
X-Windows with it's myriad of choices. There is no clear single choice.
And then there's the different packaging systems...
3) X-Windows, though as cool as it is to be able to run things remotely
and display them locally, this is rarely used--most individual users
will never use that functionality. Aside from that, X-windows is an unmitigated disaster from a UX perspective. X's original underlying programming interface left it up to the programmer to do everything.
This caused every early programs to look and work differently without
any consistency. To fix this, toolkits came along and along with the toolkits came the toolikit wars and then the window manager wars and
then the wars between Gnome and KDE and other desktops (desktop wars?).
Even multiple ways copypaste works. From a user point of view nothing
is consistent across all apps on Unix/Gnu-Linux and X-Windows. All of
this has kept Unix/Gnu-Linux and X in the "geek space".
4) I've not see a single X-windows based desktop that looked as slick
and as polished as modern Windows or MacOS. Everything seems to just
look and work more clunkily and a bit slower. This is very much my aesthetic opinion, I know. Things like consistent font sizes and icons
and their proportion and slickness. All very subjective I realize but
in my opinion, this too has made the difference. The "wow" factor just isn't there. There isn't even a single approximate "look and feel" to a graphical UI on top of all Unix/Gnu-Linux systems that one could point
to, though some are more popular than others.
There have been efforts to standardize things in the Unix space like
Posix and The Open Group but again, without a single consistent user paradigm. The people in this space have rallied around choice and not trying to get programmers to write to one standard but let programmers create. I have sat on Posix committees and the standards that got
written were to include everything rather than narrow it down to the
best thing to do. Many people have told me over the years that they
really appreciate the diversity of the way applications work under X windows, that each one has a different UX, some with scroll bars on
left, some on right by default, some square buttons, some rounded,
nothing the same from one to the next. This "wild wild west" approach
has kept Unix/Gnu-Linux from being more mainstream.
5) There is less main stream software available for Unix/Gnu-Linux. As mentioned above the MS tools suite. Most of the Adobe tools like
Photoshop. Financial tools like Quicken. Some of these things have
moved to online web-based tools. Web based MS Office tools are
definitely not the same as the real ones though. You can argue that
there's a replacement for almost every tool like Gimp for Photoshop but
it's not Photoshop. Most photographers have heard of or used Photoshop,
but not many know or know about Gimp. These are just a few examples,
there are many others. This effect has a knock-on effect of lower
uptake for Unix/Gnu-Linux.
6) Support. Who does the non-technical user go to for tech support?
Since the Unix/Gnu-Linux OS and windowing tools were developed all over
the place, not in some walled garden of Microsoft or Apple, this is why
all this competing and inconsistency has occurred. It's great that we
have Unix/Gnu-Linux don't get me wrong. I'm just giving you my opinion
of the history of why a single Unix or Gnu-Linux system has never had
the same uptake as Windows or MacOS has.
So some mainstream things ARE Unix/Gnu-Linux... MacOS is Unix based, or
at least Mach which has it's lineage from Unix, so there's a mainstream
Unix based OS. But you can't just run MacOS things on anything other
than MacOS (not easily anyway). Android is Linux based and you can get Android "chrome books". There is Ubuntu and a few other packaged Linux based OSes (Ubuntu mostly but probably also RedHat) that sometimes ship
on computers but they're never nearly as popular as Windows. Why?
Mostly see (1) above in my opinion. And also you have sheer momentum
behind Windows and MacOS which is hard to get traction foothold in. Unix/Gnu-Linux (mostly Gnu-Linux as far as I'm aware) is used behind the scene of many many hardware devices.
7) Once most people buy a computer and it's shipped with an OS, not very many will wipe it out and install a different OS. MS knows this and
they get hardware vendors to ship Windows.
I think Unix/Gnu-Linux with all it's diversity and openness is great! Without some unifying force, I just don't see an easy way a fully free
and open system is going to become a mainstream OS used on
desktops/laptops, though Google has managed to do this for phones,
tablets, and some "chrome books", so maybe that's the future, who
knows.....
These are my opinions of why we haven't historically see Unix or
Gnu-Linux running on more computers sitting on mainstream
laptops/desktops. I'm sure some people will disagree with me and will correct me if I've gotten some of my facts wrong above or forgotten something important, so feel free to add/correct.
Michael Grant
A lot of paid-for programmer time isn't necessarily for what the
individual programmer_wants_ to do. If one's employer dictates that
their products should support Mac OS and Windows, for example, then
there's usually little that a programmer, no matter how motivated, can
do to extend that support to include Linux; especially if the product
in question is heavily dependent on OS-specific APIs.
There are plenty of applications that run O/S agnostic.
On 20 Jul 2024 16:57 +0800, from [email protected] (hlyg):
statistics about market share might come from web servers and game servers, >> they know how many users use linux and Windows.
No. They at most can know what platform user agents report.
OpenOffice is quite featureful, it is not 100% bug for bug compatible with real MS Office products.
choices. There is no clear single choice. And then there's the different packaging systems...
4) I've not see a single X-windows based desktop that looked as slick and as polished as modern Windows or MacOS. Everything seems to just look and work more clunkily and a bit slower.
6) Support. Who does the non-technical user go to for tech support?
Hello,
well, the thing is: Do we really want to go to more market share?
Let's imagine, Debian becomes market relevant, what will happen? Sure, more developers get paid, what is very nice. But not all developers will.
Many good developers will not be paid and when the market will rule things, then many good developers will be pushed away or demoralied. Because it will become common, that people will no more cherish theire work.
The development of a few people will be cherished, those, who create programs,
the market wants.
I am using linux since more than 30 years and it is impressive, what people can do, when they can do, what they want and what they like.
And look at the quality, look, what has been created since the beginning. This
was only possible, because no market forced people, to do things the market wants, not what the developers want.
I think, we all can be happy, that we are not dependent from any market, the developers, because theire freedom and theire contentement is not been deminished, and the users, who get very good and high qulitative software to work with.
And if you really think, the more you spend, the better the software, you can
of course buy software only from the market.
Or, you can donate linux developers and/or distributors of your money.
Personally(!) I think, the second way is better, because I can speak directly
to developers, could (if I would be capable of) fix things myself together with the developers and maybe can even ask him, to implenent some functions especially for me.
All things, a market driven software will never offer.
So, I think, we can be happy, that linux (and debian) is not market relevant.
It will lose its freedom, its high quality and the joy of many people.
Sorry, if I did not always find the right expression, I am not native English.
Best regards
Hans
Which the current rules for such does not allow, by FCC edicts, only
sealed FCC approved blobs are allowed to play in the rf field.
So don't blame the coders, blame the regukatory agencies.
Regards,
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
hlyg (12024-07-20):
Thank David! market share is important though it isn't "reliable
recommendation for quality": more users attract more programmers, who
develop more apps,
The programmers who are attracted by market share are not necessarily
the ones who are interested in developing quality and/or innovative
software, though.
If they were, you'd have support for software-defined radio signal
processing in FFmpeg, for example.
Regards,
I’ve never owned a machine running windows in my life.I've owned one. I needed a lappy I could use with a gps for roadmap, had
If they were, you'd have support for software-defined radio signal processing in FFmpeg, for example.Which the current rules for such does not allow, by FCC edicts, only sealed FCC approved blobs are allowed to play in the rf field.
So don't blame the coders, blame the regukatory agencies.
Hello,
well, the thing is: Do we really want to go to more market share?
Let's imagine, Debian becomes market relevant, what will happen?
Sure, more developers get paid, what is very nice. But not all
developers will.
Many good developers will not be paid and when the market will rule
things, then many good developers will be pushed away or demoralied.
Because it will become common, that people will no more cherish
theire work.
The development of a few people will be cherished, those, who create programs, the market wants.
I am using linux since more than 30 years and it is impressive, what
people can do, when they can do, what they want and what they like.
And look at the quality, look, what has been created since the
beginning. This was only possible, because no market forced people,
to do things the market wants, not what the developers want.
I think, we all can be happy, that we are not dependent from any
market, the developers, because theire freedom and theire
contentement is not been deminished, and the users, who get very good
and high qulitative software to work with.
And if you really think, the more you spend, the better the software,
you can of course buy software only from the market.
Or, you can donate linux developers and/or distributors of your
money.
Personally(!) I think, the second way is better, because I can speak
directly to developers, could (if I would be capable of) fix things
myself together with the developers and maybe can even ask him, to
implenent some functions especially for me.
All things, a market driven software will never offer.
So, I think, we can be happy, that linux (and debian) is not market
relevant. It will lose its freedom, its high quality and the joy of
many people.
Sorry, if I did not always find the right expression, I am not native English.
Hello,
well, the thing is: Do we really want to go to more market share?
Let's imagine, Debian becomes market relevant, what will happen? Sure, more developers get paid, what is very nice. But not all developers will.
Many good developers will not be paid and when the market will rule things, then many good developers will be pushed away or demoralied. Because it will become common, that people will no more cherish theire work.
The development of a few people will be cherished, those, who create programs,
the market wants.
I am using linux since more than 30 years and it is impressive, what people can do, when they can do, what they want and what they like.
And look at the quality, look, what has been created since the beginning. This
was only possible, because no market forced people, to do things the market wants, not what the developers want.
I think, we all can be happy, that we are not dependent from any market, the developers, because theire freedom and theire contentement is not been deminished, and the users, who get very good and high qulitative software to work with.
And if you really think, the more you spend, the better the software, you can of course buy software only from the market.
Or, you can donate linux developers and/or distributors of your money.
Personally(!) I think, the second way is better, because I can speak directly to developers, could (if I would be capable of) fix things myself together with the developers and maybe can even ask him, to implenent some functions especially for me.
All things, a market driven software will never offer.
So, I think, we can be happy, that linux (and debian) is not market relevant. It will lose its freedom, its high quality and the joy of many people.
Sorry, if I did not always find the right expression, I am not native English.
Best regards
Hans
.
You missed one: Linux is virtually a virus-free environment, and a
large user base would mean many more people running as root, and it
would become worth the time of malware writers to target Linux. Linux
would become as virus-ridden as Windows.
It would also become a target for data harvesting, from which Debian,
at least, is refreshingly free. I have no doubt that MS makes more
money from user data sales than it does from sales of domestic versions
of Windows.
Hi,
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 11:54:06AM +0800, hlyg wrote:
crowdstrike makes news headlines, many Windows become blue screens
it is evident that many people around still use Windows
i wonder if linux is more reliable than Windows
For this specific issue, if Linux were used at the same scale and
for the same purposes as these affected Windows machines, then a
similar issue would affect Linux sooner or later.
The reason why this is the case is that the current motivation for
the use of Crowdstrike's software on those Windows machines would
be exactly the same if they were Linux machines, and so these
companies would do the same thing with the same end result.
In fact, Crowdstrike already made a similar mistake earlier this
year with one of their Linux solutions which resulted in end user
machines having a kernel panic. Debian stable end user machines. So
there is no practical difference between Crowdstrike+Windows and Crowdstrike+Linux.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41005936
So then you might assume that the problem here is Crowdstrike's
incompetence and a better vendor would solve all problems. You would
be wrong, because the world is full to the brim with inept software
vendors and there is no real consequence for software failures.
It seems clear to me that what's needed is a change in the law. At the
moment here in the UK we have national news services explaining that
airline passengers won't be able to get compensation because the
'event' was outside the airline's control. That's clearly nonsense
since some airlines weren't affected so perhaps sense will eventually
prevail and the companies that have had problems will be held liable
for damages to their customers.
crowdstrike makes news headlines, many Windows become blue screens
it is evident that many people around still use Windows
i wonder if linux is more reliable than Windows
I’ve never owned a machine running windows in my life.
And yes here in the UK where we allowed the Post Office to pay
billions to Fujitsu to develop the Horizon IT system that
incorrectly accused hundreds of postmasters of fraud, resulting in
criminal prosecutions and at least one case of suicide.
Andy Smith <[email protected]> wrote:That bit of legaleze should have been addressed about the time NT3.51
Hi,
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 11:54:06AM +0800, hlyg wrote:
crowdstrike makes news headlines, many Windows become blue screens
it is evident that many people around still use Windows
i wonder if linux is more reliable than Windows
For this specific issue, if Linux were used at the same scale and
for the same purposes as these affected Windows machines, then a
similar issue would affect Linux sooner or later.
The reason why this is the case is that the current motivation for
the use of Crowdstrike's software on those Windows machines would
be exactly the same if they were Linux machines, and so these
companies would do the same thing with the same end result.
In fact, Crowdstrike already made a similar mistake earlier this
year with one of their Linux solutions which resulted in end user
machines having a kernel panic. Debian stable end user machines. So
there is no practical difference between Crowdstrike+Windows and
Crowdstrike+Linux.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41005936
So then you might assume that the problem here is Crowdstrike's
incompetence and a better vendor would solve all problems. You would
be wrong, because the world is full to the brim with inept software
vendors and there is no real consequence for software failures.
It seems clear to me that what's needed is a change in the law. At the
moment here in the UK we have national news services explaining that
airline passengers won't be able to get compensation because the
'event' was outside the airline's control. That's clearly nonsense
since some airlines weren't affected so perhaps sense will eventually
prevail and the companies that have had problems will be held liable
for damages to their customers. But it would be better if they could
then sue Crowdstrike for installing the faulty update. (Perhaps they
can? I don't know, IANAL.) That might provide some incentive to improve
the systems and processes so problems like this don't occur again.
.
And even you Hans, leave out the major, all encompassing, reason for the
lack of market share, which is that most business that have a computerized system to run things also value what their MBA says. And since there is no one to sue to cover their personal butt in case the system goes south like cloudflare has in the last 3 days, M$ & cloudflare are a brick and morter legal target they can sic the legal team onto.
A plug for SELinux. It's been around for a long time. It was invented by the NSA for use by Government agencies but they kindly open sourced it and it's available on many Distros including Debian.
SELinux is a real pain to get right but when it finally works it's a tremendous security boost for internet facing systems.
is it possible to remap keyboard to�Dvorak in X Window?
does anyone use it
to speed up typing?
hlyg (12024-07-21):
is it possible to remap keyboard to Dvorak in X Window?
Yes, of course.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Debian+dvorak
does anyone use it
to speed up typing?
No, only to feel smug.
# Later experiments have shown that many keyboard designs, including some
# alphabetical ones, allow very similar typing speeds to QWERTY and Dvorak
# when typists have been trained for them, suggesting that Dvorak's
# careful design principles may have had little effect because keyboard
# layout is only a small part of the complicated physical activity of
# typing.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_keyboard_layout
Regards,
--
Nicolas George
And even you Hans, leave out the major, all encompassing, reason for
the lack of market share, which is that most business that have a computerized system to run things also value what their MBA says.
And since there is no one to sue to cover their personal butt in case
the system goes south like cloudflare has in the last 3 days, M$ &
cloudflare are a brick and morter legal target they can sic the legal
team onto.
Their is essentially no one in the linux arena to sue if things go
south, so it doesn't take more than an eighth grade education to see
why they won't ever recommend linux no matter how superior it may be
at the end of a P&L report. They have to have someone to sue. Bill Shakespear said it best when he wrote "first, we kill all the
lawyers." But MBA's had not yet crawled out of the slime schools yet,
so he can't be blamed for not including MBA's when he wrote that
famous phrase.
You missed one: Linux is virtually a virus-free environment, and a
large user base would mean many more people running as root, and it
would become worth the time of malware writers to target Linux.
Linux would become as virus-ridden as Windows.
It would also become a target for data harvesting, from which
Debian, at least, is refreshingly free. I have no doubt that MS
makes more money from user data sales than it does from sales of
domestic versions of Windows.
I do not agree. This is an argument, i am often get confronted with.
The more linux, the more malware? No, it isn't. See, linux is the
most used OS in the server world. All important companies rely on it.
EBay, Google, Amazon, and even Microsof. Its DNS running Linux.
Cloudflare and others, too.
So, these are really interesting targets, where you can really hurt
lots of people. If linux would bre so easy to crack like Windows, the attackers would do. But it isn't. It is (mostly) secure by design.
There are millions of "viruses" for Windows, but only a handfull of
viruses (or rootkits) for linux.
And think of OpenBSD: Only 2 security holes in more than 15 years.
How many security holes got Windows in th elast 10-15 years? With all
their money, which can buy any super, duper coder look at the result.
No, I see it else. It can be done (OpenBSD is showing it). It is the arrogance of Microsoft (and many other companies).
It is not the spread of Windows, it is theire bad quality what makes
crackers attack this system. Low fruits, you know?
And there is another thing, that makes linux better: The developers
want to write stable and secure software. It is theire joy and
happiness. They do not mourn, when someone is telling a bug or a
security hole. They are happy, to fix it. Making theire software,
theire "baby" better.
In market, the developers MUST do it, for them fixing software is
just annoying and more work (for the same money). That is the
differnce.
Note: I do not want to claim, linux developers are the better coders.
But they are coding with theire heart. That makes the difference.
It is not the spreading of software.
I accept what you say, the point I was making is that the more users,
and they will be less IT-competent users, the more will login as root.
And it does not matter, because on a personal computer the root account
is not what matters, what matters is the user account where you can
install a key logger and get banking credentials or encrypt all the data
and ask for a ransom.
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 2:09 PM Joe <[email protected]> wrote:
You missed one: Linux is virtually a virus-free environment, and a
large user base would mean many more people running as root, and it
would become worth the time of malware writers to target Linux.
Linux would become as virus-ridden as Windows.
There is no reason for "many more people running as root" so I don't
think that's a valid point. Ubuntu is derived from Debian and Ubuntu eliminated direct root login years ago. But you can do that easily
with your own Debian installation if you want to.
It would also become a target for data harvesting, from which Debian,
at least, is refreshingly free.
Again lacking data center experience? Every server in your data
center that is outward-facing will be contacted by intruders on its
open ports. That includes your Debian servers. If your apache server
or application server running on Debian is vulnerable and open to
outside, they will knock on your door. What happens _after_ that
determines how vulnerable you are.
I only needed root as it was for another user.
And the important phrase there is 'if you want to'. The point is that
many people, especially those accustomed to running with admin
privileges on their Windows computers, would continue to do that.
On Sat, 20 Jul 2024 15:27:17 -0400 gene heskett
<[email protected]> wrote:
And even you Hans, leave out the major, all encompassing, reason
for the lack of market share, which is that most business that have
a computerized system to run things also value what their MBA
says. And since there is no one to sue to cover their personal butt
in case the system goes south like cloudflare has in the last 3
days, M$ & cloudflare are a brick and morter legal target they can
sic the legal team onto.
Their is essentially no one in the linux arena to sue if things go
south, so it doesn't take more than an eighth grade education to
see why they won't ever recommend linux no matter how superior it
may be at the end of a P&L report. They have to have someone to
sue. Bill Shakespear said it best when he wrote "first, we kill
all the lawyers." But MBA's had not yet crawled out of the slime
schools yet, so he can't be blamed for not including MBA's when he
wrote that famous phrase.
It's a little bit more subtle than that. Debian offers exactly the
same software warranty as MS or CloudStrike i.e. zilch. Larger
businesses generally buy service contracts from middlemen, who are
the ones who get sued. And so they should be if they have not
provided, as part of their contract, quick and reliable recovery
systems, and immediate response to emergency calls.
Overnight full backups would have solved this problem,
and it would never have arisen if the system admins had disabled
automatic updates and waited the customary few days before applying
them manually, to see how many people screamed on the day of
release. Quite a few, in this case.
why free OS hasn't gained more share even after 30 years of development?
PS: i am aware that linux has more success in server market
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