lets make a linux better than vista

[John Jay Smith]

I will call this Vinux or Versitle Linux.

this is how its gonna be done:

1) take the best of gnome and kde and make a unified GUI called Kgnome
2) make it easy for people to install propriety applications for media
playing- viewing
3) Make networking with windows automatic
4) Make all tasks extremely easy to accomplish
5) Make it beautiful and themeable (more than it is I mean).
6) A new kind of Linux developer must emerge. The online developer.. that
will
make the online counterpart (site) of this version as good as possible.
7) Make it a powerful p2p OS.
8) hide the horrible shell and scripts. All tasks must be done by GUI, and
the other
more ancient ways must be available only on request.
9) It must be modern and attractive...
10) Another group of Linux people must be formed that will PROMOTE it,
just like firefox had good promotion, nice banners and icons and catchy
promotion lines.
11) Create a new technology that can load the same partition as a Virtual
machine from within
windows or OSX, or of course load normally.

The expansion of such an OS will bring 2 things.
1) Drivers will be written for this OS
2) Applications will be ported to this OS.

 

[William]

I think this guy is the Lord Haw Haw of this group.

William

 

[Kerry Brown]

I will call this Vinux or Versitle Linux.

this is how its gonna be done:

1) take the best of gnome and kde and make a unified GUI called Kgnome
2) make it easy for people to install propriety applications for media
playing- viewing
3) Make networking with windows automatic
4) Make all tasks extremely easy to accomplish
5) Make it beautiful and themeable (more than it is I mean).
6) A new kind of Linux developer must emerge. The online developer..
that will
make the online counterpart (site) of this version as good as
possible. 7) Make it a powerful p2p OS.
8) hide the horrible shell and scripts. All tasks must be done by
GUI, and the other
more ancient ways must be available only on request.
9) It must be modern and attractive...
10) Another group of Linux people must be formed that will PROMOTE it,
just like firefox had good promotion, nice banners and icons and
catchy promotion lines.
11) Create a new technology that can load the same partition as a
Virtual machine from within
windows or OSX, or of course load normally.

The expansion of such an OS will bring 2 things.
1) Drivers will be written for this OS
2) Applications will be ported to this OS.

There are already distros that equal or better Windows at most things. Some
of them even have easy to use GUI management and the rest of your goals.
What none of them have is Microsoft's market share or market clout. The
reason Linux hasn't become popular isn't because of any technical, security,
ease of use, eye candy, what ever reasons. It comes down marketing. No one
has deep enough pockets to take on Microsoft. Even if they did the Open
Source license stands in the way. Who would lay out the money and resources
to take on Microsoft with an OS that anybody could copy for free if it
became wildly popular. Unless someone figures out how to make the same kinds
of profits with Open Source as Microsoft makes with Windows there is no
incentive to spend a lot of money.

 

[Lang Murphy]

To hear some folks tell it... wouldn't that be Mac OS X?

Lang

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

More like Baron Munchausen.

I think this guy is the Lord Haw Haw of this group.

William

 

[John Jay Smith]

if you are saying that it already exist you did not understand the nature of
what I posted.

 

[John Jay Smith]

Yes... it is MacOSX, but with a big difference.
MacOSx is NOT free.... and is not opensource.

 

[John Jay Smith]

Baron Munchausen

That guy was full of baloney, drifting in a world of lies and imagination.

I on the other hand stand firmly on the ground.

I did not say that I would make this Linux....

I said what SHOULD be done. I see nothing in what I posted that
cannot be done if people wanted to.
The history of computers shows us that technology has accomplished
miracles far beyond any person can imagine.

Most of these things happened because people wanted to do things
in a better way that things used to be done. Just like me.

You can call me a visionary but not baron munchausen....

 

[Kerry Brown]

Although all of your goals don't exist in any one distro they do exist in
Linux with the possible exception of #6.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

OK. Ground baloney.

That guy was full of baloney, drifting in a world of lies and imagination.

I on the other hand stand firmly on the ground.

I did not say that I would make this Linux....

I said what SHOULD be done. I see nothing in what I posted that
cannot be done if people wanted to.
The history of computers shows us that technology has accomplished
miracles far beyond any person can imagine.

Most of these things happened because people wanted to do things
in a better way that things used to be done. Just like me.

You can call me a visionary but not baron munchausen....

 

[John Jay Smith]

they are not "my" goals. I am not a linux developer...
this is just a post...

Although all of your goals don't exist in any one distro they do exist in
Linux with the possible exception of #6.

The only unixoid OS that comes close to what I discribe is Mac OSx.
They took the structure of BSD and built a very good IU on top of it.

There is no linux that is easy to use in the manner I state. Some of the
attributes I state exist in Linspire- freespire, but CNR the web counterpart
of
Linspire is not free, and linspire costs around $50. CNR has an annual fee
of 20$.
Because of this fee Linspire has been turned down from the linux community.

But this takes away the biggest asset that linux has. That it is free.
(with freespire the OS itself is free, but you have to pay CNR if you want
the goodies online)

If you have seen # 11 please tell me where. I just came up with the idea
when I
was writting this post.

What I am talking about is in the level of ease of use of a Mac... that is
very distant from
what linux distros exist now... and I have tested lots of them...

You statment shows that either you do not know too much about linux, or you
know too much about linux.
Meaning, that either you have not really used many versions of linux to see
the problems,
or you are a so advanced user of linux that you can no longer see the
problems.

Sorry but this is a pile of it! You dont have to "take on microsoft" with an
aggressive
stategy. All you have to do is make an OS good enoough, easy enough, fun
enough,
that people will want it. Then everything else will be done automatically.

You seem to know nothing about marketing... in the world of the modern
internet.
If something is good, the news spreads by its own in a viral way, with very
little promotion.

Many products and services on the internet now thrive because they were
tremendusly good...
and because they emerged at the right time.
Not because of "marketing".
And if you ask the people who created these, they say.. I did not promote it
at all, it just took off
by its own, and in a few months I had more traffic - customers than I could
handle.
In fact all you have to do to start this avalanch is to make a distro good
enough to be number one on
the list of DistroWatch.com (as ubuntu is now). That would put everything
into motion.

Do you think that flash technology took off (and now is replacing other
streaming media formats
that have pumped billions into promotion) because Macromedia and now Adobe
marketed flash
heavily? Nope... the developers themselves created sites etc, saw how useful
it was and with time
it took over the internet. Once a plugin some developers lauged at, now the
same people
think you are a fool if you dont take advantage of this technology. And how
many things
have been promoted with vasts amounts of money and then flopped?

By the way flash started out from a very small company before it was bought
by macromedia.
As a corel draw user and animator, before flash existed I was thinking..
wouldnt it be nice to have animated
vectors? They would be fast loading and great... a few years later flash
came out.

 

[Alan Simpson]

The "free" part is the tough part. Let's take it to the extreme where you
don't even have to get people to write drivers and apps for it. Suppose it
just runs everything out there - all 200,000 or so Windows products and all
Mac products. And it has a better UI than OS X. So you've basically blown
both of those products out of the water because you've matched and bettered
the big draw of each.

So the next question is, how do you get the big box makers to start selling
machines with that OS pre-installed? It seems like that would be the key
ingredient to success, and also the key obstacle.



I don't have a solution, and I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just
musing...

 

[John Jay Smith]

Our present day pcs started off as simple cheap powerless machines,
computer geek kids made in their basment.

The linux that can replace windows will not be something mainstream with
a lot of money pushed into it. It will be a group of geeks that just want
to make something spectacular that will start this, and it will catch on
because it will be good. This will pull everyone to start making
apps, drivers for this.
In otherwords it will come in from the back door.
This PCs wont be perhaps preinstalled with this for a long time,
but people will start ordering their computers without OS to save some money
and install the free one... The computer sellers will start offering such
non OS
PCs. This already exists.. but linux is still crap... (for desktop use that
is)

for example an office aksed for a price for a box, the total box cost 450
euros,
110 of that went to XP home OEM.

Free does not mean that people will stop making money with this platform...
there will be lots of payed software still around.

 

[Kerry Brown]

If you have seen # 11 please tell me where. I just came up with the
idea when I
was writting this post.

If I understand correctly what you want with #11 then VMWare and Virtual
Server both do what you want. If this isn't the case then you need to expand
on it a bit.

Sorry but this is a pile of it! You dont have to "take on microsoft"
with an aggressive
stategy. All you have to do is make an OS good enoough, easy enough,
fun enough,
that people will want it. Then everything else will be done
automatically.
You seem to know nothing about marketing... in the world of the modern
internet.
If something is good, the news spreads by its own in a viral way,
with very little promotion.

I have owned and/or managed several retail businesses. I have been a small
OEM system builder for many years. I understand marketing. I don't think
that you do. For someone to challenge Microsoft's position they would have
to have an OEM program that was at least as cheap and easy as Microsoft's.
For an OEM to install a "free" OS like Linux their costs would rise
astronomically. Microsoft has tools for all levels of system builders to
deploy Windows to multiple computers and hardware configurations relatively
easily. They have a stable distribution network. You can count on several
years of stability. In other words you can create a business plan that will
work for at least a couple of years. You can invest in a manufacturing
facility and have time to pay for the investment before more capital is
needed. This applies to small builders like myself right up to the Dells and
HPs. There is also the cost of providing after sales support. This would
rise dramatically with a switch to Linux just because it is different. This
is from the manufacturer's point of view. From the retailers point of view
you give customers what they want. Most consumers want what they know or
what their friend/relative/neighbour told them to get. This is one place
where the Internet can make a difference - with consumer opinion. Now we
come to where the real problem is, the corporate world. This is still where
most of the profits in selling software are. The cost of switching an OS in
a large corporation is huge. Why do you think so many are still using
Windows 2000? All this inertia is very hard to overcome and would take a lot
of money. Even Microsoft has a very hard time convincing corporations to
switch to a new version of Windows and they spend a lot of money on this.
Over many years if consumers started using Linux at home then possibly
corporations would gradually change as the cost of supporting Windows would
rise if their employees weren't familiar with it. The corporate world lags
behind consumers as they get the benefits of employees teaching themselves
on their home computers. I don't see this happening with Linux as the Linux
world is too fragmented. Each distro has it's own peculiarities. Perhaps if
as you say one distro became dominant this might change.

You have been skirting the question so I'll ask it again. With an Open
Source OS where would the profits come from?

Sooner or later there will be a new OS that will challenge Windows. It may
even come from 'Nix. I don't believe that the change when it comes will be
an Open Source licensed product unless someone figures out a way to make
large profits marketing an Open Source product. There is a niche that
companies like Red Hat, Novell, etc are currently trying to exploit but so
far they are not having a significant impact and are struggling with the
concepts of Open Source licensing and high profit margins.

 

[John Jay Smith]

It seems you did not read my reply correctly. I care less about the
businesses or
the OEM computers that come with preinstalled OS.

The change will come from the teenage kids that will install the free-nice
OS
, then some people will start taking more serious advantage over it.
After some years of this it will have been wide spread enough that it will
insert itself to OEM and businesses. The same thing happened with the PC.
Sorry you seem to me like the people
who said that the car would never replace the horse...

You cannot see how these changes can happen because you see the
establishment. History shows that nothing is stable however.

I can see beyond what is in front of me and see what is possible
based on study of how innovations evolve and spread in history.

There is one other thing that is possible to happen. China, and
computers like the 100 dollar laptop for kids of the third world
will be using Linux... the sheer mass of these people will
change the computing world forever...

 

[Andyistic]

This is what I want to see:

Anyone who is in charge of operating a computer system (i.e. home user,
administrator, etc.) should be required to learn how to program in C++ and
Intel-AMD assembly.
(Please note: "x86" is no longer being used as a CPU identifier as Intel
dropped it when they came out with the Core 2 series. AMD hasn't used "x86"
in ages. Where is Cyrix?)

Having this programming ability, they should have access to the specs and
algorithms needed to code any drivers which may be needed by the hardware
their computers use.
They need to be able to compile a skeleton OS from a do-it-yourself kit
(i.e. Linux From Scratch) and add the required drivers and modules without
having to rely on code packages from any other source.
Of course, such packages, like shells, would still be available if the
programmer didn't have time to create his/her own.

What I'm really saying is that we should choose the hardware we want to use,
then create an OS with our chosen features to accomodate such hardware.
We shouldn't have to choose the OS first, then hope the hardware we have
works with it.
What would it take to get hardware manufacturers to release the device specs
to the public without fear of infringement?

-- Andy

 

[Kerry Brown]

It seems you did not read my reply correctly. I care less about the
businesses or
the OEM computers that come with preinstalled OS.

The change will come from the teenage kids that will install the
free-nice OS
, then some people will start taking more serious advantage over it.
After some years of this it will have been wide spread enough that it
will insert itself to OEM and businesses. The same thing happened
with the PC. Sorry you seem to me like the people
who said that the car would never replace the horse...

You cannot see how these changes can happen because you see the
establishment. History shows that nothing is stable however.

I can see beyond what is in front of me and see what is possible
based on study of how innovations evolve and spread in history.

There is one other thing that is possible to happen. China, and
computers like the 100 dollar laptop for kids of the third world
will be using Linux... the sheer mass of these people will
change the computing world forever...

It seems you misread or misunderstood my post

I said:

"Sooner or later there will be a new OS that will challenge Windows. It may
even come from 'Nix."

I agree with you that things will change. I have seen many OS changes over
the years. The first computer I used was a PDP 11. I am not naive enough to
believe that a change won't happen again. Where we disagree is what the
change will be to and what will bring about the change.

Personal computers became popular for one reason - VisiCalc. Until VisiCalc
they were a hobby. VisiCalc opened the eyes of the business world. IBM
exploited this and introduced the IBM PC which initially failed in the
home/hobbyist market but was a huge success in the business world. You have
things backwards. The success of personal computers in the business world
brought the cost down to where they became cheap enough for the home user.
In the end home use may outnumber business use and drive the market but that
is not the case yet.

As far as the car replacing the horse I wasn't around then so I have no idea
how I would have thought. I am a very early adopter of new technology so I
like to think that if I could have afforded it I would have been an early
purchaser of an automobile when they first came out.

You may be right about the China driving the market by sheer numbers. If it
happens I don't believe it will be with Open Source software. Even China has
abandoned the socialist philosophy and now has an economy mostly based on
profits.

If you had truly studied history you would see that innovation for
innovations sake is rarely the case. Profit is almost always involved in
some fashion. The people discovering the innovation may be altruistic. The
people popularising/marketing the innovation have almost always done it for
profit.

You still haven't answered my question. Where is the profit for someone
marketing an Open Source OS?

 

[Bernie]

I think both of you guys make valid points. I'm currently working with
Freespire. It has a long way to go but it is most certainly a step in
the right direction. It is very early days for it but I expect some very
cool enhancements within weeks.

I'm personally looking at it from several viewpoints; as Windows
developer looking to develop cross platform, as a user for Office type
applications and the regular user type apps like media players and chat
clients, and I'm also attempting to evaluate it as a typical Windows
user. On the first point I want to develop applications for the most
common platforms as that is where the market is but I also want to be
free of the whims of MS that can sometimes be highly destructive to non
MS developers (the VB community for instance). As a regular user who
isn't afraid to go under the hood I love it. As a typical Windows user
I'm interested but wouldn't have it on my machine yet without a very
knowledgeable friend or two.

John is certainly right as to how the right distro could become the
"next big thing" and Kerry is also right about the problems to be
overcome for OEMs and corporate users. I think people who understand
these issues working with those who might put together the right distro
will go a long way to cracking those issues.

 

[Bernie]

The "free" part is the tough part. Let's take it to the extreme where you
don't even have to get people to write drivers and apps for it. Suppose it
just runs everything out there - all 200,000 or so Windows products and all
Mac products. And it has a better UI than OS X. So you've basically blown
both of those products out of the water because you've matched and bettered
the big draw of each.

So the next question is, how do you get the big box makers to start selling
machines with that OS pre-installed? It seems like that would be the key
ingredient to success, and also the key obstacle.



I don't have a solution, and I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just
musing...

I don't think that is a big problem. Those businesses only make money by
selling what their buyers want. If there is a big enough groundswell of
buyers demanding an OO O/S (Hey let's call it Ooze) they will figure out
a way to offer it. The people behind the distro are able to take this
kind of thing into account. It is more of a mentality than a technical
problem. If they want to make it easy for the vast majority of computer
users to have and use it they will do what is necessary.

I do a lot of tech support work and even sell the odd machine and it
will be a great thing for sales to be able to offer a complete machine
with all kinds of applications ready to run for £100 - £150 less than
what buyers are currently paying.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I think both of you guys make valid points. I'm currently working with
Freespire. It has a long way to go but it is most certainly a step in
the right direction. It is very early days for it but I expect some
very cool enhancements within weeks.

I'm personally looking at it from several viewpoints; as Windows
developer looking to develop cross platform, as a user for Office type
applications and the regular user type apps like media players and
chat clients, and I'm also attempting to evaluate it as a typical
Windows user. On the first point I want to develop applications for
the most common platforms as that is where the market is but I also
want to be free of the whims of MS that can sometimes be highly
destructive to non MS developers (the VB community for instance). As
a regular user who isn't afraid to go under the hood I love it. As a
typical Windows user I'm interested but wouldn't have it on my
machine yet without a very knowledgeable friend or two.

John is certainly right as to how the right distro could become the
"next big thing" and Kerry is also right about the problems to be
overcome for OEMs and corporate users. I think people who understand
these issues working with those who might put together the right
distro will go a long way to cracking those issues.

Well said. Personally I would like to see more competition in the market
place. I see Microsoft currently stifling innovation in their attempt to
please everyone.