They'll get me away from linux when they pry it from my cold dead fingers... Seriously though, from what I've seen and heard windows 7 is essentially windows vista with a coat of paint slapped on it. With the marketing fiasco vista turned out to be (I've heard if you call MS tech support they don't even refer to vista by name anymore) they're mostly making certain people have positive prejudices rather then any real changes. All the changes I have seen so far are things that could be put in a service pack for vista rather then in a new OS. Will it 'kill' desktop linux? Never, due to it's open source nature linux can't die unless *everyone* in the world stops using it. Although many people don't care about DRM, giving up civil liberties, and being spied upon (they see the computer as just an appliance like the microwave) there are many people in the world who *do* care about such things. It's possible that people will get smart and realize windows 7 isn't worth the money but more people will buy it because (just like vista) thats what was on the computer when they took it out of the box.
Michael Robinson wrote: > Googling around to try and educate myself about this Windows 7 > thing, I'm running into a lot of claims that Windows 7 will kill > Linux on the Desktop. Based on what exactly? > > I'll admit that Linux has difficulty supporting certain software. > Maybe GCC isn't the most optimal compiler in the world. Perhaps > package dependencies have gotten out of control in some Linux > distributions. And yes, certain distros like CentOS are especially > limited because they don't support the latest OpenGL release nor is > there an obvious way to upgrade OpenGL because of dependency hell. > > Still, I have Rick Rocket and Dirk Dashing and there is a lot that > even CentOS can support if you add Vmware workstation and Crossover > Linux to it. > > I'd love to get Secret Maryo Chronicles working on CentOS 5.2, > but that requires updating OpenGL which I can't figure out how > to do. > > It's not just CentOS that is limited these days. There are hundreds > of Linux distros in existence and the Eee PC by Asus uses Xandros > which is out of the box using an old version of firefox. > > I am glad that companies like http://mygamecompany.com are challenging > the notion that noone produces commercial software for Linux. Still, > there is a great deal of room for improvement. > > I'm not sure I buy the notion that we are all going to give up our Linux > systems for Windows 7. First off, I doubt that Microsoft will abandon > the annoying and abusive habit of requiring it's customers to activate > their Microsoft software. A product key isn't enough anymore. I doubt > that Windows 7 will be free of digital rights management. I seriously > doubt that it will run on a 32 bit single core computer. I'll be > surprised if it is significantly faster than Vista. If ReactOS ever > becomes stable, and it seems to be moving in that direction, I'll be > surprised if people even feel a need anymore to buy Microsoft's latest > version of Windows. > > I'm sure Windows 7 won't cost $400 for a single user license. Oh I'm > sorry, that was sarcastic. > > I wonder what other people's thoughts are. > > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > -- Do not be afraid to joust a giant just because some people insist on believing in windmills. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
