Eldmannen Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" is expected to be released in October 30, 2008. Fedora 10 "Cambridge" is expected to be released October 28, 2008. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is expected in September 16, 2008. Lately subnotebooks (also called ultra-portable laptops) have became increasingly popular. Small cheap low-end laptops, such as the Asus EEE PC (which came pre-installed with Linux). Dell are coming out with similar computers, and MSI have their MSI Wind PC which is a ultra-portable laptop. These computers are usually cheap, like $300 or less. At these low prices, Windows adds a quite substantial price to that. This had led to that Linux is becoming increasingly popular on these small cheap laptops. Microsoft have had extend life time of Windows XP in order to prevent Linux from gaining market share. Linux is expected to continue grow in this market place. Linux on desktop computers have gotten some ground too, by coming pre-installed with some Dell computers. Though, the big market seems to be in cheap ultra-portable laptops where the price is cheap, not desktop computers which usually cost more. Adding the cost of Windows to a expensive computer doesn't make the price go up as much as if you add Windows to a cheap computer. Mac OS X has also gained market share, while Windows has lost market share. Microsoft better hope that Windows 7 won't be another Vista. Mobile phones Another interesting market is cellphones. Nokia has recently acquired Trolltech, the company which makes the Qt toolkit and the Qtopia mobile platform (which is Linux-based). Symbian OS is a proprietary operating system used on mobile phones with a very large market made by Symbian Ltd. Nokia is acquiring Symbian Ltd and is supposedly intending to open source it by 2010. It looks like mobile phones will be more open in the future. Google have their Android mobile platform (runs on top of Linux) which is developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) which is backed by many players, including HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Intel, Google, NTT, etc. It sounds promising, I heard you can do amazing things with it, and run third-party applications, and stuff. I look forward to Google Maps and stuff on phones. Then we have the LiMo Foundation (Linux Mobile) which is also backed by many players in the industry, such as Motorola, NEC, NTT, Panasonic, Samsung, Vodafone, LG, Verizon, etc. There is also the Linux Phone Standards Forum. Things are looking interesting. The Linux Foundation looks strong too is and heavily backed by industry leaders, such as IBM, Intel, AMD, Dell, HP, NEC, Google, Motorola, Hitachi, Oracle, Fujitsu, Novell, VMware, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Tarun Posted August 12, 2008 Administrator Share Posted August 12, 2008 Linux on laptops, keeping hard drive manufacturers in business. :gold: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Predator Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Cool idea. I look forward to really trying out Ubuntu wiht wireless, setting it up wired is a mega pain in the a**. For Linux-newbies like me, its something they should really concentrate on making easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTZ Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 I definitely feel your pain and DITTO THAT SENTIMENT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 Cool idea. I look forward to really trying out Ubuntu wiht wireless, setting it up wired is a mega pain in the a**. For Linux-newbies like me, its something they should really concentrate on making easier. Mark Shuttleworth said that a focus on 8.10 was on connectivity. 8.10 includes a new version of the network-manager with better support for Wi-Fi and VPN. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Tarun Posted August 12, 2008 Administrator Share Posted August 12, 2008 Wireless failed in Ubuntu 8.04. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTZ Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Some day I will be brave enough and try it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted August 13, 2008 Author Share Posted August 13, 2008 Wireless failed in Ubuntu 8.04. For some people it worked, for some it didn't. Depends some om manufacturer of Wi-Fi chipset. Atmel, Intel, Realtek, Broadcom, Ralink, etc... It didn't work out-of-box for all people, some people could get it work by installing stuff such as ndiswrapper, etc. But yeah, it could have been a lot better, it wasn't good enough. Hopefully that has improved some with the upcoming 8.10 release. Some day I will be brave enough and try it. You can use the Wubi installer, just by running it directly from Windows and install Ubuntu to a file, without have to modify disk partition or bootloaders. It is a very safe and simple way to install Ubuntu, takes just a few minutes. If you don't like it, you can uninstall it from 'Add/Remove Software' in the Windows control panel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTZ Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 I may give it a go, but not right now but yes Wubi would be the way to go that's for sure thanks, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted August 13, 2008 Author Share Posted August 13, 2008 Mandriva 2009 is coming October 9, 2008. Linux is doing good in England. Since the release of Vista, it has been going really good with a 28x increase of Linux adoption. In the end of the year specification for Linux Standard Base (LSB) 4.0 will be released. This will increase compatibility and make it easier for developers and ISVs. Samba 4 is on the way, and will be great for companies and their internal networks. Intel is pushing its Moblix (Mobile Linux) platform for MID (Mobile Internet Device). Yesterday the specification for OpenGL 3.0 got released. What technology is brewing in the Linux kernel? New file systems such as ext4 and btrfs. US Department of Homeland Security is sponsoring security code audits of open source software. Dell, HP, ASUS, MSI, Lenovo, etc offers computers with Linux preloaded. Lately AMD/ATI and VIA has been very helpful by releasing open source specifications. As Linux and open source keeps growing, governments around the world are beginning to realize the potential and value of open source software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Predator Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 Cool idea. I look forward to really trying out Ubuntu wiht wireless, setting it up wired is a mega pain in the a**. For Linux-newbies like me, its something they should really concentrate on making easier. Mark Shuttleworth said that a focus on 8.10 was on connectivity. 8.10 includes a new version of the network-manager with better support for Wi-Fi and VPN. I'll wait till that version comes out then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zxian Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 As Linux and open source keeps growing, governments around the world are beginning to realize the potential and value of open source software.It's one thing to say that "open source is good", but as a Linux sysadmin, I can't begin to count the number of times that something that's designed for "Linux" doesn't work on my CentOS machines. Developers are often all too quick to compile something on their local distro (Ubuntu, Slax, RedHat, w/e) and then call it "done". The fact of the matter is that different distros have different configurations. Config files are different, software is installed to different locations, etc etc etc. I don't think Linux will really take off until Linux distro creators group together and create one core Linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted August 20, 2008 Author Share Posted August 20, 2008 As Linux and open source keeps growing, governments around the world are beginning to realize the potential and value of open source software.It's one thing to say that "open source is good", but as a Linux sysadmin, I can't begin to count the number of times that something that's designed for "Linux" doesn't work on my CentOS machines. Developers are often all too quick to compile something on their local distro (Ubuntu, Slax, RedHat, w/e) and then call it "done". The fact of the matter is that different distros have different configurations. Config files are different, software is installed to different locations, etc etc etc. I don't think Linux will really take off until Linux distro creators group together and create one core Linux. Yeah, that is a bit of a problem for ISV (Independent software vendors). In popular distributions such as Ubuntu and Debian, most open source software can just be installed from the repository though. Linux Foundation is developing LSB (Linux Standard Base) 4 which will bring some standardization and hopefully make this better. It seems the biggest growth will be in embedded devices (cellphones, media centers, etc). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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