Why I left Linux for Windows. 2155

George Peatty

Well it does if Linux is going to compete head on in the 'toy computer' market.

However, I suspect that Ipod like things will actually take over there.

Let's look at what computers do..

1-. Almost no user-oriented embedded apps. Here its roll your own, a proprietary OS, or Linux cut down. Things like car ignition systems, at one end and e.g. a router at the other..

2-. General purpose servers. Here I would say Linux has already achieved supremacy. Along with almost all other flavours of *nix. NT is a disaster...given the presence of a computer literate admin to set it up, Linux will be cheaper and work better as a server than anything else. Really I think Microsoft has given up here.

3-. Toy PC's..the home user ripping CD's, playing games, and the like. Microsoft has this space, and little can be done. HOWEVER IPODS and so on may extend this away from the PC anyway..the average very illiterate computer user now buys Microsoft, by my bet is that an embedded pre-configured system - like a playstation with a keyboard and a bit more IO would sweep the 'I don't know anything about computers, don't want to, I just want to chat online, play games, watch videos and listen to music'. Its likely it WOULD run Linux, simply because its there, but the user would never ever see it.

4-. Home workstations - things that do letters, send mail, web browse..the little home accounts package etc. Now I see these as becoming more and more like 3-. - that is once server based applications on the web are available to do all this stuff, little more than a java equipped browser is needed anyway. Rip out the MS rubbish and package the whole box up complete and ready to run...I suspect this is where Google is headed and what sends the biggest shiver up Bill Gates spine.

5-. Office workstations. What the IBM PC was originally designed to be..I have elsewhere mentioned the incredible COST and security issues buttociated with running PC windows desktops..and I suspect that in time Linux desktops of one flavour or another will come to dominate here - multi-user LINUX based clients.

6-. Power workstations. The sort of thing you run your development code on, or do heavy CAD CAM on..here local processing is still the way to go..these will be windows and linux according to the software designers. BUT as the mbutt market for windows like code evaporates, Linux will be all that is left....

In fact, what you see if you examine the above, is actually the rest of the PC as we know it. BIG applications go onto headless (Linux or Unix) machines connected by huge bandwidth to web or X software on the desktop on machines that are dedicated to that and very little else..maybe a little local video and sound... a DVD drive maybe with burner..these won't be 'running linux' the way the PC 'runs windows' they will be sold as complete units with all the software pre-loaded and upgraded on the fly by support companies.

In short Linux will never REPLACE windows..it will simply become a usable (but hidden) platform on which machines are built, as windows fades into history, and no one will WIN the 'OS wars' because in the end no one will even know *WHAT* OS they are running (or care), unless they happen to be a minority of technical people in charge of either running large computers or designing smaller ones.