RSSLinux Growth Hits Windows Roadblock
By David Worthington | Published April 4, 2005, 6:22 PM
Windows is standing ground despite the growing popularity of Linux among small and medium sized businesses. The key findings in an independent study published by Yankee Group are that Linux is more likely to be run parallel with Windows rather than displace its installed base.
Although, the open source Windows alternative is gaining momentum.
Yankee surveyed over 500 companies throughout vertical markets and found that customers perceive the quality, performance and reliability of Windows to be equal to or greater than Linux. The survey entitled "Linux-Windows 2005 TCO Comparison" analyzes the cost of ownership and return on investment of both Linux and Windows.
Some of the items that were included in the TCO tally include deployment costs, the cost of downtime, as well as the time and human resources associated with internal and external security attacks.
In spite of widespread reports of holes in Windows security, respondents rated the security of Windows to be nearly on par with Linux. Yankee credits Microsoft's ongoing reformation of its security and patch management issues for this outcome.
Windows came out on top in the time that it takes for customers to recover from attacks, recovering 30 percent faster on average.
However, Linux downtime costs businesses less; Windows downtime was found to be three to four times more costly than Linux. Yankee notes that mission critical corporate information is often stored on Windows-based systems.
"This survey not only sheds important new light into the battle waged between Windows and Linux, but also into the evolution of the server market," said Laura DiDio, Yankee Group senior analyst.
"While researching the market traction for each vendor, we discovered that server operating systems are largely commoditized. Corporate users report a high degree of satisfaction with the baseline performance and reliability of all of the major server operating systems: Linux, Windows and UNIX. Today, applications and services are the primary drivers that positively or negatively influence TCO costs, advantages and risks."
DiDio told BetaNews that Yankee performed over two dozen customer interviews to get the "back story" of the surveys. Yankee also strived to make the surveys as "pristine as possible" by using tracking and authentication software to monitor the accuracy of results.
The number of questions doubled from last year and, according to Yankee Group, all questions concerning TCO were "granular and specific" to the organization.
What's more, a different survey house was used from last year's survey, given last year's criticism of hosting being provided by Sunbelt. Funding was totally independent, DiDio told BetaNews, with no money earmarked for the study from Microsoft or any open source advocates.
I use Linux myself, and LOVE it! I dont know what some of you guys are talking about, 50 passwords and such, unless you have 50 usernames for yourself. 1 password for ROOT (admin) and 1 password per user, makes sense, right?
Yes, Linux has less users than Windows, but I am pretty sure it is up there, maybe even past those that use Mac.
Those that want their software to be compatible with Linux, write the company and ask for it! Complaining here does little good for that purpose.
Hardware Support - Linux is usually the first to support NEW hardware. I bought a new system, 64 bit, serial drive, install went swell, even less of a fight than installing windows on it (as a test). Also, I tried hooking up a digital camera - It put an icon on my desktop that said something like "hard drive" and gave me access to the images.
The flavour of Linux I use is Mandrake, http://www.mandrakelinux.com
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"Hardware Support - Linux is usually the first to support NEW hardware."
Rubbish.
Where is the full support for the M-Audio Revolution line?
The Hercules Fortissimo IV?
The new Philips ENVY24-based card?
No, I'm not talking about reference driver support for the primary DSP behind a given card. I'm talking about FULL support for EVERY feature of a new piece of hardware.
Linux was, is and always will be LAST on the list to provide that.
Let's not get lost in FanboyFantasyLand (TM).
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What happened to that FreeBSD post?
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I use two computers side by side. I have a nice Windows XP Pro machine with a gig of XMS ram, 2 - 160 gig drives, dvd-burner, etc. The Linux box is a 450MHz PII with 320 megs of ram, running Mandrake 10.0 on two -3Gb drives
I've tried getting Linux to work on about 5 previous machines I've had, but for one peripheral or another, at least something didn't work. Everything works on this, even the 16-bit old ISA SoundBlaster I had in my closet of parts from way back.
It was a small effort to get Samba configured correctly with Linux's firewall (I use Shorewall), but now I use the Penguin to surf, and Windows for work. I use Kbear for ftp, and rarely have to get online with Windows.
One thing I've noticed ~ I used to complain about all the configuring one has to do in Linux (at first, anyway), and how much time that takes. Then I realized, when I get online with Windows, half the time is spent downloading the latest antivirus, antispyware, anti-everything. Quick short survey of file sites revealed about 40 to 50 % of the programs available are just to keep windows from dying.
I'm beginning to like Linux a lot more, especially now that I'm actually able to use it online.
It's like.... Windows is a Rolls Royce. Nice ride. Smooth. Pricey.
But if you're cruising the 'hood, you'd better have bullet proof 'windows' and tires, flame-retardant paint, etc. Whereas, if you're cruising the net with Linux, it's like running around in an armored personnel carrier.... with guns. ;0)
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This idea is untrue. These first three comments are crap and my intuition tells me this is a bought and paid for opinion made soley to stop people from trying the likes of Mepis.
http://www.mepis.com
Free, easy and totally shows the lie.
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The day somebody makes a Linux distro that works as intuitively as Windows, I'll start using it.
Most people don't have the time to try and understand how Linux works. It's obtuse to say the least. And what's with all this endiless logging in and 50,000 passwords and stuff? Forget it already. As far as I'm concerned Linux is as about as user friendly as a mad grizzly bear.
Can't wait to hear from the Linux crowd on how wrong I am.
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I personally would switch to linux if it would become more game and application friendly. There are just too many programs out there just written for windows. I hate windows, but am forced to use it because it's dominate in the software compatability world.
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I wouldn't necissarily say you are wrong, because I have been using Linux since I was about 15 years old, switching back to Windows always, because you're right, Windows is more user friendly. Recently though I tried out Fedora Core 3, and I was amazed of how easy it was to set up, I had complete access to my MP3 player using it, to my digital camera, and it found all of my hardware without a hitch (besides being able to use the power of my ATI video card.) I do believe Red Hat's RPM pack's have made Linux very user friendly, and Fedora Core 3 is a testimate of how much I can see it has progressed in the last five years.
I am now using Windows XP though, because it is more user friendly, but I believe in the next two years atleast, Linux will ultimately be comparable to Windows when it comes down to being "user-friendly."
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The day somebody makes a Linux distro that works as intuitively as Windows, I'll start using it.
Most people don't have the time to try and understand how Linux works. It's obtuse to say the least. And what's with all this endiless logging in and 50,000 passwords and stuff? Forget it already. As far as I'm concerned Linux is as about as user friendly as a mad grizzly bear.
Can't wait to hear from the Linux crowd on how wrong I am.
imafurby, I've gotta agree with you, Linux has a steep learning curve from the cuddly, warm world of Windows.
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As previously said, if not for the games, many would be using Linux, including me. Windows = intuitive? I think not. It is only intuitive for people that have been using it for years - try putting someone new to computers in front of it and see what happens.
I was surprised how quickly I picked up how to use Fedora 3 also - first time Linux user, and it was all very natural. Almost as good as a Mac, but not quite. If you want a lesson in user-friendly and intuitive - OS X is a great example, really. Just a shame Macs cost a fortune over here (Aus).
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imafurby, I've gotta agree with you, Linux has a steep learning curve from the cuddly, warm world of Windows. It's messy to say the least when you start learning how things work, how a computer actually works, and yeah, most people don't have the inclination to learn it.
I wouldn't however say it was completely unintuitive. Although it doesn't have a teddy bear walking you through everything, if you have a problem you don't have to trawl through thousands of registry keys (for example) to find one insignificant entry that is buggering up your application - the beauty of open source!
The endless logging in you refer to is called security, a feature lacking into the basic design of Windows. I have nothing against MS products in general, they have achieved a lot in increasing PC proliferation, but at the cost of a good, secure, defensive design. Most engineers will agree with me here, regardless of where you stand on the Windows vs Linux debate.
Linux distro's are improving for the desktop though, especially from the big boys (RedHat, SuSE) and are becoming more "user-friendly". Hardware support has also improved dramatically in recent years thanks to the brilliant community behind the OSS movement.
There are undeniable strengths from both camps, but I still have to give it to Linux; I run a single-boot Gentoo machine after all ;)
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I agree. I am Linux+ Certified and I used to use Linux for about 3 years. It still sucks. It still has to be expertly configured if you want everything to run right. Linux will continue to be a joke for the desktop. It has it's place as a server, but now that Apache will run on Windows why bother? Also, Linux has nothing like Volume Shadow copy and you just can't beat that for user shares and home folders.
Linux is in Lalaland. :)
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I love Linux myself and find it perfectly intuitive. Its only problem is compatability. It just needs more developers to start making their great stuff for Linux too. Like Blockhd, I would be running a sole Linux system if it wasn't for my games. But even that is coming along, with Wine getting better, and more games becoming compatible like Unreal Tournament, the users are going to grow. Especially in the computer savvy people that love the customization of Linux and all the tweakable features. In the not so distant future Linux will be considered on the same quality level of Windows (although many think its higher already, myself included).
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That's the whole point it is not and won't be for a long long time. Linux does have a place with the server community but it is no where near acceptable for the desktop Password haven yes there is security then there is ridulous. Why anyone would consider it for a desktop just has to hate microsoft so bad to want to put up with the crap linux is.
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Linux has a place, but currently that place is not on the desktop market.
Security : overly rigorous... sacrifices user friendliness for server level security - it is unneccesary for everyday use.
useability : installation asside (we can all agree this can be very painfull) the actual ability for a new user to use a linux system is limited without at least a reasonable amount of techincal knowledge - most users want to USE the operating system...NOT tweak/mod it. Most users do not want to have to do a day course on "adding and removing lniux packages".
Linux is great for techinically minded people that want to tweak and modify to OS to their own specifications but the vast majority of users DO NOT have this desire.
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A "Linux that works as intuitively as Windows"... it is called Linspire. I double-dog dare you to try a free Bootable CD version!
http://www.linspire.com
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Ok, I'm going to try and be fair now. In the last few days I've tried to set up. 1. Mephis, 2. Linspire, 3. Red Hat, and 4. Ubuntu.
1. had a lovely red screen,and lots of visually annoying crap moving around, 2. Refused to load at all on the machine I wanted to use. 3. I've tried before, but i thought what the heck, give it another go..In short no go, still as annoying as before. 4. Actually works!
In as much as I'm using it right now. It seems to be very user friendly in a Windows way (good move) without too much cutsey visual junk that the Linux folk seem to love.. Early days though, but this is a step in the right direction. I'm sure there are probably others that are ok as well. I just don't have the time to try them all.
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