Harvard study: Linux will not supplant Windows, May 28, 2009

For those waiting for a grand cataclysmic battle between Gog (Linux) and Magog (Windows), with one supreme victor, don't hold your breath, suggests a new study by Harvard Business School.

Eclipse has long been one of my favourite open source projects, despite, or maybe even because, it's not as widely appreciated as it should be – though more now than it was three years ago when I described it as Open Source's Best-Kept Secret.

My netbook came with SUSE Linux, but I want to use Ubuntu Linux. What’s the easiest way to change?

ASUS has effectively abandoned Linux and stated a power user would use Windows instead.

At today's ASUS product showcase in Sydney, a bunch of media representatives where given a taste of the company's latest and greatest notebooks, including the new range of Eee PC netbooks.

Invisible Linux would essentially do for Linux what Apple did with NeXTStep / BSD: take the open source core and wrap it in a layer that may not be open source but which is polished to a degree that makes it irresistible to end users.

There is such a wealth of great Free and Open Source software applications it's almost an embarrassment of riches.

I downloaded a pre-release version of Bayanihan 5, the upcoming version of the state-sponsored Linux distribution, hoping to put it through its paces.

An IBM-sponsored survey of 1,275 IT professionals around the world asked for feedback on their experiences making the switch to Linux in their organizations.

It's the law of unintended consequences. Microsoft's launch Vista was the best recruiter for Linux on the desktop according to a senior IBM executive.

When netbooks first hit the market, they were hailed by some as the grand coming-out party for Linux on the client. But then Microsoft slashed the price of Windows XP and put a sleeper hold on the netbook market.

New information about Nokia's Linux strategy has been exposed through a leak. The company is allegedly planning to bring its Linux-based Maemo platform to smartphone devices in 2010.

If managers take the time to prepare -- both themselves and their users -- changing the operating system need not be painful.

I'm not surprised that desktop Linux has hit the one percent milestone. I'm surprised that anyone takes these numbers seriously in the first place.

Microsoft's new entry-level server edition, Windows Server 2008 Foundation, is aimed squarely at Linux, and the software giant says its "simplicity" is expected to give it the edge over Linux as the choice server OS for the small business segment.

Half of the businesses that have deployed Linux on the desktop have rolled it out to less than 20% of their workers due to perceived and real obstacles, according to a survey by released by a U.K. analyst firm.

Window 7's XP Mode will get users used to the idea of desktop virtualisation - and make it easier for them to move to Linux or Mac OS.

The past couple of weeks saw a flurry or articles debating the future of Linux on netbooks. A report in the Taipei Times on May 9th was picked up by LinuxToday but largely ignored by the tech press and the blogosphere. Stephen Lim, the General Manager of Taiwan based Linpus Technologies, made the surprising prediction that Linux will regain 50% market share from Windows on netbooks by next year.

Pretty much every new product gets hyped as a potentially disruptive technology these days, and usually nobody outside of the company's marketing department actually believes it.

Windows and Mac users have been taking advantage of DisplayLink for the last couple of years. The technology allows users to connect multiple monitors--as well as docking stations and projectors--to a single system via USB only; no need for any fancy-pants graphics cards. Today, DisplayLink announced it is planning to bring its technology to Linux.

Someone is planning to buy a netbook. Should s/he go with Linux or Windows?

A follow-up to a previous story.

The East Rand Linux Users Group (Elug) and SA Linux have agreed to work together to jointly promote Linux and open source software in South Africa and increase collaboration between open source companies.

We are comparing the performance of the Linux and Sun OpenSolaris kernels.

You don’t have to settle for an OS that’s a bad fit for your netbook — there are numerous alternatives, some of which can provide a near-laptop experience.

Options for building and deploying Web-based applications to the "cloud" are abundant.

Does FOSS need a common packaging framework?

Over the last 10 days there has been a spate of reports all based on some surprising statistics titled "Operating System Market Share" put out by a company named Net Applications.

Before you pay another cent to Microsoft or another software publisher, read this article to discover whether you can use a free open source application instead. Just about every commercial app you use on a daily basis will have an open source alternative, whether you use Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.

While PowerPoint — the presentation program in the Microsoft Office suite — is not available for Linux, you have some options.

Dell is shipping Windows and Linux editions of the new Mini 10v notebook at the same time, with intentions to announce a wireless carrier for the fancier Mini 10.

It appears there will be a global Android explosion this year if the latest forecasts are true, as worldwide Android-based smartphone shipments will grow 900 percent in 2009, according to research from Strategy Analytics.

With Linux having gained traction in business, certifications of Linux expertise are becoming more popular, similar to how Novell or Microsoft systems certifications became important for those platforms.

So you’ve installed that shiny Ubuntu distro onto your PlayStation 3 and finagled a couple of cool applications to boot. And yet, there’s still a lot of empty real estate on that newly formatted hard drive, and you’re no doubt pondering what else you can load up on your now living room-friendly PC.

The author has talked his dad into ditching Vista and giving Ubuntu a try.

Many people have made much of the fact that for the first time, Linux use as measured by tracking firm Net Applications has crossed the 1% market-share barrier. As significant milestones go, this is about as meaningless as it gets. Linux will never be a big player in the desktop market, nor should it be.

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst says "Clouds are fundamentally new infrastructure. Why lock yourself into something proprietary?" He believes that open source technology is the perfect vehicle for innovating in the cloud computing era. And in its article, "Cloud computing with Linux thin clients", IBM spells out the reasons it believes there will be "penguins in the clouds."

OpenOffice.org 3.1 is now available, and one of the suite's most important changes involves big improvements to its handling of on-screen graphics.

Compared to its predecessors, OpenOffice 3.1 offers a whole range of new features. Instant eye catchers are the improved anti-aliasing for graphics, better chart functionality, and the new text highlighting in Writer. However, inconspicuous new features like custom document property fields and the OpenOffice User Feedback Program are just as interesting.

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst thinks so.

Despite the positive buzz generated by Windows 7, it is only a matter of time before Linux takes its rightful place at the top of the operating-system pile.

To migrate your business to Linux successfully, it's crucial that you catch and avoid problems that can doom the project before you install a single piece of software.

Windows' continuing loss of web share is primarily to the benefit of Mac OS X, though Linux and mobile platforms are also picking up share.

If you read enough blog posts, or more specifically, comments posted on blog posts, you might get the idea that there are specific structural, technological or systemic reasons why Linux has only a small slice of the desktop market.

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