[News] [Linux] Microsoft's Linux Obsession, Apple Anvy

Kelsey Bjarnason <kbjarnason.DeleteThis@gmail.com> writes:

> [snips]
>
> On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:27:38 -0500, DFS wrote:
>
>>> Users are voting with their feet, Lanci said, so that the Vista launch
>>> has had the smallest impact on PC sales of any version of Windows in
>>> the history of PC manufacturing.
>>> ...
>>
>> Yes, how about them:
>>
>> Dell recommends Windows Vista
>> Acer recommends Windows Vista
>>
>> Why don't they recommend Linux?
>
> Offhand, I can think of two reasons. One, advertising contracts which
> require them to actively promote the Great New Microsoft OS(tm). Two,
> purchasing contracts which require them to buy a certain volume of
> licenses for the Great New Microsoft OS(tm), meaning they have to eat the
> costs, risk losing any price breaks they would get on future and possibly
> more viable versions of Windows, by sending back said licenses, or to do
> what they are doing - promoting it, while offering the options people
> actually do want - XP and Linux.

You really think more people want Linux than Vista? Get a clue.

>
> At least, with the way they're doing it, if they do have to eat losses on
> the Vista licenses, they'll have sold some and not be out quite as much as
> they would otherwise... and, as noted, they may well be required to say
> they recommend it by their contracts.

Quiz time: Who said this? -

,----
| And zero percent of your postings are advocating Linux, meaning that
| you are in violation of the newsgroup charter virtually every time you
| post something.
`----

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Hadron
<hadronquark.DeleteThis@googlemail.com>
wrote
on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:34:30 +0200
<erd4xnxu1l.fsf.DeleteThis@homelinux.net>:
> Kelsey Bjarnason <kbjarnason.DeleteThis@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> [snips]
>>
>> On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:27:38 -0500, DFS wrote:
>>
>>>> Users are voting with their feet, Lanci said, so that the Vista launch
>>>> has had the smallest impact on PC sales of any version of Windows in
>>>> the history of PC manufacturing.
>>>> ...
>>>
>>> Yes, how about them:
>>>
>>> Dell recommends Windows Vista
>>> Acer recommends Windows Vista
>>>
>>> Why don't they recommend Linux?
>>
>> Offhand, I can think of two reasons. One, advertising contracts which
>> require them to actively promote the Great New Microsoft OS(tm). Two,
>> purchasing contracts which require them to buy a certain volume of
>> licenses for the Great New Microsoft OS(tm), meaning they have to eat the
>> costs, risk losing any price breaks they would get on future and possibly
>> more viable versions of Windows, by sending back said licenses, or to do
>> what they are doing - promoting it, while offering the options people
>> actually do want - XP and Linux.
>
> You really think more people want Linux than Vista? Get a clue.

People presumably want Windows because it's the devil they
know; it works with their applications, their computers,
their styles. (More or less.) Also, people don't *think*
at that level; "Oh, it's a computer and I need something on
it" is probably as good a way to put it as any, assuming
they get that far in their thinking. Maybe 5%-15% of a
utility (I dunno) actually does something; the rest is all
marketing fluffer, setup, etc., and waiting for someone
else (usually, the network or disk drive, but it could be
another application).

Consider the 'cp' utility, for example. Most of that is
parsing the argument list and setting up. The OS then
gets involved, and shuffles the blocks around as cp waits.
'find' parses its arguments, then combs through the disk
looking for stuff the arguments have deemed interesting.
Most windowing applications wait for user input, then
do something based on that input.

There are exceptions; POVRay in particular is mostly
CPU-bound, rendering raytraced images -- when it's
rendering. File loading or saving in general might
involve waiting (if the file's already in RAM, things
happen quickly) but might also involve CPU time for
decompression, reinterpretation, pigeonholing, etc.

I won't get into details regarding how a program such as
Konqueror or Nautilus translates a series of GUI actions --
mouse button press, motion drag, drop, menu picks, window
opens, etc. -- into OS actions, which are at the level
of open(), read(), close(), unlink(), rename(), etc. --
mostly because I don't know the details. Suffice it to
say that they're there, and what's conceptually simple at
the GUI level probably gets a little mucky lower down.

Under ideal circumstances one would get rid of a lot
of this fluffer, but this may not be possible in the
general case. (In Java, though, one can conceivably use
introspection, as opposed to requiring the fixed signature

int main(int argc, char **argv)

for all routines. However, this isn't the real entry
point anyway; that's part of a starting routine deep in
the C library, which takes the arguments and packages them
nicely, then calls main(). And Java still has the more
or less fixed signature

Object Method.invoke(Object, Object...) throws Exception

anyway.)

So it's a multilayer problem...from GUI to disk or network
I/O. The problem also allows for a number of solutions --
three of which include Unix, Linux, and Windows.

WinE (www.winehq.com) could be considered a translator.

[rest snipped]

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