World Domination 201

[Daveski]

As an interesting aside, System76 is selling their laptops and desktops with 64-bit Ubuntu now.
If only Dell would do the same...

Vote here http://www.ideastorm.com/article/sho...ters_from_Dell

[Daveski]

I have no experience of the 64 bit Windows desktop OSes, but here is a very good review which seems to indicate that Vista 64 is much better a year after release. I assume that the recent sevice pack will also address some of the remaining issues.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...ta_1yr_x64.asp

Microsoft is going to have to get this right to survive in the desktop market next year, and so is Linux.

[Daveski]

Dell are now offering consumer machines with 8.04 preinstalled:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=863421

and

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07...s_hardy_heron/

This gets better and better. Dell, HP, and ASUS are major OEMs providing a choice to the customer other than Microsoft. I'm counting this as a victory. http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Pre-installs of Linux have increased massively in the last year:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/81776,...-per-cent.aspx

[Daveski]

Wine 1.0 will help:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/6082/

[Daveski]

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-...ation-201.html

This raises interesting points about the current window of opportunity in the fight for 64bit desktop market share. According to this, the war will be won by the end of 2008, and Linux is in a prime position except for the lack of pre-installed machines, and out-of-the-box support for multimedia (DVD and iTunes, and perhaps HD video content).

Well as we near the end of 2008, I am thinking that the predictions of the requirement for more that 4Gb or RAM is fairly accurate - perhaps another few months or so, but Vista's poor performance is definitely making 4Gb pretty desirable for most users.

The only thing not predicted is the rise of the low-powered machine (the netbook) in which low powered CPU's / memory are not an issue. If you just want a Browser, email and a bit of IM, then surely you do not need 4 billion bytes?

I am fascinated that in the time since my original post, pre-installed Linux machines are around, and almost popular. Multimedia support is pretty good barring some patent issues, and out-of-the-box support for WiFi is excellent now. Many hardware vendors are starting to ease Linux use (even if they are not 'supporting' it yet). We have come a long way.