Why Windows Lost The Battle for the Desktop

[John Bailo]

The war of the OSes was won a long time ago.

Unix has always been, and will continue to be, the Server OS in the form
of Linux.

Microsoft struggled mightily to win that battle -- creating a poor man's
DBMS, a broken email server and various other /application/ servers to
try and crack the Internet and IS markets.

In the case where they didn't spend their own money to get companies to
install servers, they failed miserably, and the 1 Billion per quarter
Linux market is testament to that.

But, what M$ didn't want you to know, is that the only reason they
wanted to dominate the server, is to protect their desktop and office
applications market.

Seal up the server, and the desktop is safe; cede the server, and the
desktop will fall.

And so it is...falling into the hands of Linux.

[The Ghost In The Machine]

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Scott M.
<s-***@nospam.nospam>
wrote
on Mon, 17 Jan 2005 15:35:46 GMT
<OK**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl>:

The figures are a little hard to come by, especially with dual-boots.
Actually, they are not. Read my other post on where the numbers come from.

OK, over 90%, probably as high as 95%, if not even higher.

But there is a problem. Opera is probably the best known browser
for its ability to impersonate Internet Explorer, but other
browsers should also have that ability as well, to combat
stupid websites. While the number of those who need to
make that adjustment is small, one has to wonder how many of
those user agents reporting Internet Explorer actually *are*
using Internet Explorer, or somebody else trying to hack around
a website that insists that Internet Explorer is the only
browser worth using on said website. (I suspect another
fraction of a percent, though I'd have to look.)

So how does one actually determine the number of desktops
actually *using* Linux?

I've seen 80%; I've seen 95%+. In my household it's 33%
(1 server system, 1 pure Linux game system, 1 dual-boot system
which might become SMP if anyone still has an 866 MHz PIII (not likely!),
and 1 dead dual-boot system which I may have to resurrect to
get my DOOM, Heretic, and Hexen off the Win95 disk there).

You do realize that you and others who have dual boots
make up less that .1 percent (that's < 1/10%) when we
are talking about world-wide numbers, right?

Wouldn't surprise me.

Standard Windows Starter Configuration:

[1] One (1) disk drive.
[2] One (1) partition on that drive.
[3] One (1) license to use Microsoft Windows on the system.

This is of course a crap configuration for many reasons (chiefly
because the user's data is on the same disk as the system is;
if one botches the system for some reason the data's gone too).

To do a dual-boot one has to do some work, unless one simply
slips in another disk and modifies the system disk to use GRUB,
which for Win98 is extremely simple. (I've not tried it with
WinNT.)

On Linux, it's actually pretty simple:

[1] Backup existing Linu xsystem somewhere. Ideally,
this would be done *after* rebooting to a spare
system or floppy, though it can be done "hot",
with some care.
[2] Repartition and reformat.
[3] Restore system.
[4] If necessary, adjust GRUB/LILO parameters and /etc/fstab
on the about-to-be-rebooted system. If LILO, rerun
LILO using the -r option. GRUB will read the
/boot/grub/grub.conf file upon startup.
[5] Reboot.

I don't know if Windows is quite that accommodating,
though I've not tried it lately. However, my Kayak
is being very annoying (the second drive wants to play
"spin down and die" after sitting idle for some time) and
I might have to shuffle things a bit, so it might become
a pure Windows system again for awhile. Feh.

[irrelevant stuff snipped]

--
#191, ew****@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.

[Jeff_Relf]

Hi Spooky, You mentioned: <<
It's not clear to me whether the header
Content-Type: text/plain; Format=Flowed
parameter is processed properly by SLRN.
( Does it need to be ? It would save me some work... :-) ) >>

I never auto-wrap anything,
Cola.TXT, generated by X.CPP, has no automatically wrapped lines.

Hand wrapping lines is just part of the reading process.

[Hamilcar Barca]

In article <OW**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl> (Mon, 17 Jan 2005
15:35:57 +0000), Scott M. wrote:

Just a tad sensitive about the name are we?

Not at all. Actually, I think you are making more out of this than anyone
else.

You've already posted three semi-literate corrections, so it's you who is
"making more out of this than anyone else". How hypocritical of you.

[Hamilcar Barca]

In article <cs**********@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net> (Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:00:47
+0200), Sean Hederman wrote:

Fair enough comment. An awful lot of Microsofts security woes have come
from the open security on install.

True. Another problem is Microsoft's seeming inability to repair defects
at an obvious point where security needs to be excellent: Internet Explorer.

--
"We are very much on track for a 2007 delivery [of 'Longhorn']."
-- Bob Muglia. Director, Windows Servers. Microsoft Corporation.
3 January 2004

[Hamilcar Barca]

In article <es**************@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl> (Mon, 17 Jan 2005
15:36:01 +0000), Scott M. wrote:

Microsoft is guilty of breaking *some* laws
*Yes*, *it* *certainly* *is*. *It* *has* *also* *been* *breaking*
*anti-trust* *laws* *for* *over* *15* *years* *and* *continues* *to* *do*
*so*.
but it got where it is mainly by doing what is perfectly legal.
It got where it is by criminal actions and it maintains its monopoly
illegally.
that you have somehow mistaken a single person with a company.

Those who participate knowingly, whether directly or indirectly, in
criminal activity are also guilty. This include Microsoft's executives,
employees, and customers.

--
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software.
It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because
we built it."
-- Steve Ballmer. CEO, Microsoft. 11/19/2004

[Hamilcar Barca]

In article <uo**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl> (Mon, 17 Jan 2005
15:35:55 +0000), Scott M. wrote:

Why would someone who see's you write "Micro-Soft" inherantly think to try

Why would someone who writes "see's" and "inherantly" criticize the
spelling of others? You're quite hypocritical.

[tab]

>Mainstream America. Mainstream OS: Linux.

Correction. The thing all these Companies you have named, have in
common, is a bunch of GEEKS working for them. Thus, the server market.
Not the Desktop Market. His is not mom and pop business, nor average
gaming joe, nor shopping sally, nor grandma sharing files.

And if you want a phone, hmmm, bad news., Microsoft is in that market
and sales are growning. You can get Windows on your cell phone.

But a phone talking to the web is very hard to TYPE into. Most people
may start, but soon give up. Takes to long.

[JEDIDIAH]

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.advocacy.]
On 2005-01-17, C-Services Holland b.v. <cs*@REMOVEcsh4u.nl> wrote:

John Bailo wrote:

The war of the OSes was won a long time ago.
<SNIP>

Why is it that people falling over themselves to badmouth microsoft

Intense hatred is usually formed from close personal experience.
always use Windows themselves :P
from the header of your post:

"User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913)"

--
....as if the ability to run Cubase ever made or broke a platform.
|||
/ | \

[Sean Hederman]

That's a bit unfair. IE is *much* more secure with SP2 than it was before
(admittedly off a pretty low base). That said, I still think it's insane
that the next release of IE will only come out with Longhorn. If anything
was an attack against integrating code with the OS, then IE should be.

"Hamilcar Barca" <ha******@tld.always.invalid> wrote in message
news:20*******************@news.newsreader.com...

In article <cs**********@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net> (Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:00:47
+0200), Sean Hederman wrote:

Fair enough comment. An awful lot of Microsofts security woes have come
from the open security on install.

True. Another problem is Microsoft's seeming inability to repair defects
at an obvious point where security needs to be excellent: Internet
Explorer.

--
"We are very much on track for a 2007 delivery [of 'Longhorn']."
-- Bob Muglia. Director, Windows Servers. Microsoft Corporation.
3 January 2004

[Jeff_Relf]

Hi T.A.B.,
You made me laugh when you mentioned: << Grandma sharing files. >>

Who's your grandma BlackBeard ? Arrrgh !
Does she have a parrot, a wooden leg and a hook for a hand ?

Re: Mobile keyboards,

I'd rather just use my desktop at home,
a notebook in a coffee house might be nice,
but a cell phone sized device wouldn't cut it for me.