linux and unix, an untapped goldmine for home users, or just something for servers?

This question has been bugging me for some time now and i thought i'd throw this open to discussion at AO;

linux has its pro's and cons, lots of people see it as something new and really scary to start with, but then grow accustomed to having to actually set things up themselves to get their pc's to work, unlike windoze

it has stability in its favour, ive never had a linux box crash on me once at all, ive only ever messed mine up because i was messing around with it

it can run on almost any old pc if youre not concerned with a GUI or just can't afford a new one

some of the 'con's' are that nothing supports it, try finding an ISP that offers tech support for it in Oz, its pratically impossible, i was told today by the techies at my ISP that any problems are my own problems and not theirs... not very confidence inspiring at all

hardly any games will run on it straight out of the box, only some run with wine, which ive never managed to get set up properly still...


will there ever be the linux 'revolution' we all talk so much about, what it needs is something like directx to make games easier to make and solid support from isps and such, until this happens i dont think its going forward very fast, shame to see such a quality product turning out like this really...


opinions, views and linux friendly ISP's and stuff like that is welcome to add to this thread

thanks

Mrleachy

game companies are for profit, so games=money=>market share=>M$

I've been using Linux for years ( RedHat to be specific ) and it wasn't until 8.0 that it starting to become userfriendly enough that an advanced novice can use it for a desktop, but only people familiar with it were comfortable with it, and it still isn't quite ready for my mother.

Linux is still evolving. Linux will develop into a true desktop system if the market demands ( and it looks like it will ) but its roots are elsewhere; its up to the users to keep pressure on the manufactures to put out drivers when they release products.

As far as Unix: seen an Apple lately??

M$ worked the other way, they started with the desktop, had 3.1, 95, 98, then ME, all slowly moving the desktop user toward their business systems ( NT which came later, then Win2K ), and their idea of one operating system, which is XP ( no comment on success )

As far as the revolution, man, its been going on for a few years and you are part of it!

I.M.H.O.

I thought NT came out around the same time as 95...mabe a bit earlier

Windows time line
Windows 3X 1990
Windows NT 1993
Windows 95 1995
Win NTworkstation 1996
windows 98 1998
Windows 2000/Me 2000
Windows Xp 2001

Microsoft XENIX was out before all that. Microsoft actually had there own version of UNIX way back when (i know my OS history) XENIX was out a long ass time ago, then they went and bought DOS, there WAS a Windows 1.0 but theres not many copies in existence but iv seen them before from collectors.

Windows time line
Windows 3X 1990
Windows NT 1993
Windows 95 1995
Win NTworkstation 1996
windows 98 1998
Windows 2000/Me 2000
Windows Xp 2001


Hmmmm........ I do belive that a few were left out.

How about going back to 1983, when windows was publicly announced.
Windows 1.0 November 1985
Windows 2.0 April 1987
February of 1994 Windows for Workgroups 3.11
How about May of 1999 Windows 98 SE
How about August 2000 Windows 2000 Datacenter server

Don't mean to be a stickler here, but timeline, does mean timeline.

Didn't feel like typing them in

I am a personal believer that *nix has a future in the home user world, as I myself try to make help people see the benefits. I promote *nix everywhere I go, and people I know are beginning to catch on. I think the most important thing to remember is that people will need time to adjust. Not to mention that most people still don't see OSes in the Windows arena to be user friendly enough. People want computers to work like appliances. Most people never tap into more than 10% of their computer's full performance abilities. However I personally believe that *nix could have a home market to to it's free nature. One thing that converts most people I know is their need for a better cost-eonomic deal. I think the biggest problem with the home-user market for *nix is that most people still don't know that it exists. And until people see it on their TVs and in their newspapers/magazines, they won't be able to consider the option.

But do you think *nix will become more compatible for gaming? How big is the gaming group of people compared to the regular user ?

Regular user: Web surfing, email, writing and printing documents.

Me wonders o0O(What else do normal person do with computers)?

*altering perspective* :rolleyes:

sorry for the confusion, I was not trying to make a timeline, just indicating that the business systems in general came out after M$ was already embedded in the desktop.

I'l try to watch that next time. :p

Quote:

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But do you think *nix will become more compatible for gaming?

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It is the games that are not compatible!

And yes, I do ... When I started with Linux I had to compile the drivers for my ethernet cards, for the modem, for ident etc.; nothing was written by the manufactures but by the open source community. Soon they realized it was not going to go away and companies started writing drivers because the community demanded it.

I am not a gamer, but like my sons most of the young computer users are, and the more they bitch to the manufactures the more of the games will be compatible out of the box.

( Squeeky wheel gets the grease )

As an avid gamer and *nix user, I work on ports for games. Right now I keep only one windows box around for gaming, but I can only hope that more game developers will follow the suit of iD, who has made Linux versions of some of their Quake series. In the mean time, I work on mods, configs and ports that I hope to be releasing in the distant future. The only problem is, we need a way to run the games natively on a *nix platform. Maybe the Lindows concept can show us some insight as well.

Doom, Quake, and Unreal Tournament run on Linux, who cares about the rest?

If you guys are interested in open-source technologies, you should check out www.pureescape.net , it's always got news that concerns you, the direction of open-source products, file sharing and copy right news, as well as forums that talk about security and other fun stuff like games and servers. Check it out, it's really worth a look.


--PuRe

I dunno man, retailers such as Walmart tried to get LINDOWS www.lindows.com out for public acceptance and that went up in smoke. Anyone here who deals with end users knows that people are afraid of computers and especially change. I think it will be a while before you see end users with a *nix box on their desks at home.