The S used to be SCSI and normal discs would be named HDx. Now with all the SATA discs it would be easier with SDx.

opensuse, fedora, ubuntu and many others seem to be churning out distributions every year, which we think is unnecessary. take a look at Windows XP, its been going strong for more than six years !

you need to take a single operating system and work on it thoroughly with bug fixes, hardware support, software support etc. this is what the linux community has to learn. developers think that endusers are fascinated by a new version of a particular distribution every year; but thats not true…we want just one operating system that runs smooth, something that is perfectly supported with necessary patches, so that we dont have to download a livecd/dvd every year !

Ok, with that out of the way… It appears to me that Linux is at a “chicken and the egg” scenario. The biggest problem, IMO, preventing large and wide adoption of Linux in the home is hardware support. To be more specific, it would be native support of video adapters and wireless network adapters. The entire topic is riddled with things that don’t make sense to me.

I am guessing that ATI (AMD) and nVidia have not completely opened up their specs because it would somehow jeopardize “trade secrets”. The problems I have with that premise are that PC based gaming seems to have been dying a slow death for years now, in fact I’ve completely given up on computer gaming in favor of consoles. So why are these powerful 3D cards running the video scene? Another issue is why don’t they open up the specs on old products? I would think that opening up all of your specs to adapters which are say two generations removed from your current products should keep you a little insulated from tech thievery. I have a few older machines as work with Matrox G400 cards. Those cards are like 10 years old! Open it up already.

The other big issue is that hardware doesn’t seem to be nearly as profitable now as it was years back. So when a manufacturer is coming out with their newest and best, all of the development for the drivers will go toward Windows. Which makes sense from their perspective I suppose, but it’s just one more contributor to this cycle of “not a large enough installed based to matter” vs. “the installed base isn’t growing due to lack of hardware support”.

The reason for that is because majority people use windows. As i said before if windows is no more then it is obivious that hackers will turn to macs and linux.

Security:
I guess this has several reasons. While I would deny every single statistic about “this one’s better than that one” right from the start, the felt relation is indeed that Linux is more secure. Why? A few years ago, only hardcores used Linux, and they usually know what they are doing. So there goes the biggest factor for errors and attacks called “User”. Then, due to the relatively small group of *NIX systems compared to Microsoft, it wasn’t as lucrative for malware-authors to concentrate on Linux instead of Windows. It was more difficult to exploit, much smaller target group, more experienced users. Why bother?
But with Linux gaining more market share, it certainly is more interesting for them now.
Also, please do not confuse malware with full-time-hackers.
The third one, which is just undeniable, is that one of the biggest liabilities on windows-systems (we’re btw. talking end-user here – not corporate) is the fact that you got administrator-rights from the start. That’s just not true in Linux, so there’s a no-brainer.

But don’t get me confused. With the right knowledge – which is necessary for a secure Linux as well – Windows is easily as secure as Linux, palming off the blame to the application level, but without that knowledge? Mom’s out-of-the-box home ‘puter? Nope. Not a chance. Not in the world.

Support:
Yeah, try to raise the support for Windows-software if you got a serious problem. Or – if things go down real hard – try to get them to take responsibility for their software. If you take freeware, it’s community support, if you pay for it, it’s ‘professional’ support. No OS involved whatsoever.

Well as you say linux is more secure than windows right now, I agree with you. But bear in mind if windows looses out on other os it will not be long when hackers turn to this operating system.

As far as i know you have been told to write stuff about linux but if i read your posting i see half of it as windows.

Do something new !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a software hobbyist, I don’t subscribe to this point of view. Try to look into Ubuntu repository and then try to find all the similar apps for Windows. And some programs are free for Linux and commercial for Windows.

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As for hardware support – yes, there are some pitfalls (and in Windows there are too – once I tried to install a Bluetooth device not certified by MS – and after that I cursed all the Bluetooth at all). But Linux out-of-the-box system works better than Windows out-of-the box before drivers installing.

And then after installing Windows I should waste my time killing annoying things built in it (run XP-AntiSpy if you don’t understand what I’m talking about), I have to install Firefox because I don’t trust MS Explorer, I have to install Media Player Classic because I hate buggy dinosaur WMP, I had to hack registry to avoid “Link to” addition to name of links… and so on. When I installed my first Linux, I was shocked by the ease and speed of its installation. And I don’t want even think about Vista…

The biggest difference, on my opinion, is style of work in system. You need to read some book about it – like those “Linux for non-geeks” I’m reading now.

The pleasant experience: repositories with thousands of apps, automatically categorizing itself into menu after installation.
The tricky things: file permissions, new system of terminal commands, another folder system…

But it’s interesting and fun to learn. I like my experience in Linux so far, even I’m still at newbie level :)

So far, this would imply alot in case of responsibilities of software producers. Let’s say I have a shop (whatever activity implies money and security) and I get a bankrupcy due to an OS’es bug and hackers blah blah blah… at least I have someone to refer to and bring them in tribunal.

But what you do if you use a system given under GNU license “As is”?

Anyway, Linux zealots often speaks about their OS much more better than it is in fact. I use Linux for handling my web-game. I’m a programmer since 1992 and never had such problems in DOS, then Windows with programming, like in Linux. Some task that I know how to easy do in Windows in Linux are so complicated, that I cant do them, and my Linux-master friend can’t do them too.

I am confused first you say “drives will be labeled /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc.” then later its “In a Linux system only one drive will hold the root directory. If other drives are mounted on that same system they will be mounted in /media/.”. Also for my sake what does “dev” stand for and I assume the “d” in “sda” is drive so what’s the “s”. Thank you for the article I have been considering linux for a while but the naming conventions have always been less than intuitive.”

i can see how it is confusing. let me give a shot at explaining. notice that both sda and sdb are in the /dev directory. and also notice that /dev is under the / directory. so both sda and sdb would be housed within the system’s root directory.

dev is a directory. you can think of it as the “device” directory.
sda can be considered an acronym for “special device a”.

Then again, is hardware support that perfect on windows? PLEASE, I hope to God nobody will have the nerver to answer yes. If you build or have built windowz PCs you should have a big smile on your face right now and agree with me….yellow triangle with a “!” in the middle…just because you installed the drivers in the wrong order or plugged the USB device before installing the drivers (that does not respect the USB standard btw).

The biggest difference between the system is the zealots. Linux would be much better off without all the religious fanatics pushing it down our throats. Note that I’ve been using nothing but Linux for over three years now.