Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Ubullish

The bullish press comment about Ubuntu Linux continues, this time from Ziff Davis/UPI:

With companies and individuals everywhere failing to find the wow in Windows Vista, Apple's OS X riding iPod sales and snarky commercials to steady growth, and long-time Microsoft partner Dell announcing plans to market a Linux desktop to the mainstream, it seems certain that the days of Microsoft's desktop monopoly are numbered.

Granted, that number is probably a large one, but as evidenced by eWEEK Labs' tests of Ubuntu Linux 7.04, the state of the Linux desktop - not to mention that of other Windows alternatives - is too strong to hold off heterogeneity forever.

Ubuntu Linux 7.04, which Dell has chosen to headline its desktop Linux foray, has made impressive strides toward claiming a spot on mainstream desktop and server machines, both by piling up advances made across the Linux and open source community, and by building in advances of its own.

3 comments:

Scott Freeman said...

Ubuntu may be the best desktop version of Linux, but it's still pants. Run a server? Get Linux. Work or play on a PC? Get XP, Vista or OS X.

Just my opinion.

Peter Risdon said...

That was true maybe five years ago, for all but hard core geeks. Not any longer. I think you're out of date. There isn't anything I could do on Windows I can't do on Linux.

Mind you, I'm not a gamer.

Anonymous said...

I've run Linux exclusively at home for a number of years. I do game a little and both Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament play quite happily on Linux.

But as my day job is with Solaris and other Unix-type machines I suppose I'm not typical.

My parents happily use an Ubuntu based machine which I set up for them because that way I don't have to worry about constant problems like those from my wife's Aunt's Windows laptop which is a virus/trojan/worm infested nightmare.

And my kids have used a Linux machine since the eldest was around 5 and it doesn't seem to bother them either.

So in my opinion at least, Linux is now ready for ordinary end-users.