I just installed 10.04 on an HP mini (using it now). Is the server edition that far behind the curve or are you just being conservative?
BTW, I frikkin love Ubuntu. It's going to seep into the market quietly over the next couple/few years. I'm so glad to see Gates and Jobs having some of their market taken away, even if it's only a couple of percentage points.
If you use Ubuntu as a notebook/desktop, check out Guake if you're unfamiliar with it:
If you use Ubuntu as a notebook/desktop, check out Guake if you're unfamiliar with it:
http://guake.org
Meh. Guake doesn't look that special to me. I can't see anything there that Snow Leopard's terminal doesn't do. Not that SL's terminal is so special either.
But this reminds me of a complaint I have had for years about Linux: they use repulsive and nonsensical names that absolutely repel those who might switch to Linux. Guake sounds like the lizard people from Planet X. Or a gay version of Quake.
Linux will never go anywhere until it adopts common descriptive names for its basic utilities. Like "Notepad", "Terminal", etc. Grandma and Cousin Jed are never ever going to run a program with a name like Guake.
The Linux folk are nerds and think these obscure names are wonderful. Well, maybe for nerds. But I'm pretty nerdy and I don't like these names either. They're just flat-out annoying. This is a major reason for the failure of Linux on the desktop, along with the ongoing rivalry and issues surrounding the Gnome versus KDE desktops and libraries (hey, Linux guys, pick ONE!).
The only thing I like about Guake (and I couldn't care less about app names, as long as they suit my purpose) is that f12 is easier to hit than alt-tab. As Larry Wall said, laziness is a trait of a potentially good coder. I'm a crummy coder but a fairly decent situational hacker so I like the plethora of solutions that Linux offers. Windows leaves one limited and OS X has more options but still leaves one stuck in Jobsland when push comes to shove.
Grandma and Cousin Jed are never ever going to run a program with a name like Guake.
If Grandma and Jed ever got on the command line, I'd be shocked and stoked.
Linux will never go anywhere until it adopts common descriptive names for its basic utilities.
Linux is already going somewhere. Plus, you're free to change one line of code in a package, or none, and repackage it with another name and no one will sue you.
The only thing I like about Guake (and I couldn't care less about app names, as long as they suit my purpose) is that f12 is easier to hit than alt-tab.
Oh, well, that is certainly a major feature. This kind of pettiness is exactly what I was talking about. It doesn't justify endless duplication of effort.
There are times when forking projects makes sense and works well. There are at least as many other (or more) times where it is counterproductive and redundant and that doesn't help Linux adoption at all. That is a bug not a feature, no mater what the Richard Stallman purists say about it.
If Grandma and Jed ever got on the command line, I'd be shocked and stoked.
Or Gimp, a name no one can really love. Labels are very important, branding is important. To deny this is to deny the nature of the human thought process where recognition/labeling is the basis of what we flatteringly call intelligence in the human race. One of the reasons I lean toward KDE is that the KDE team seems to grasp this concept of standardization and how to succeed on the desktop. I also like their suite of educational software and I'm still waiting to see if they can finally make the KDE 4 libarries work for OSX and Windows so that Linux's best programs can run transparently without recompiling on all three major platforms; this would be terrific and avoid the need for virtualization. Virtualizing is fine but is too much trouble for a lot of users; you need something that works more easily.
Linux is already going somewhere. Plus, you're free to change one line of code in a package, or none, and repackage it with another name and no one will sue you.
Yet, very few of the Linux tribe ever actually do it. Probably less than 10% ever compile anything and the other 90% just glom onto the work of the 10% who are programmers. They spend much more of their time figuring out endless package dependencies and such.
And Linux is declining already, both in the server space and on the desktop. I think they missed their real opportunity to become players in the desktop market around the time the Mac switcher campaign was going full steam. Lots of people like me were looking to escape the wilderness of Windows. We looked and ended up picking Mac very overwhelmingly. For most, I would bet that, like me, they had already run Linux and realized they didn't want to spend all their time updating packages. I know the reason I left Windows was that I found most days when I fired up my computer, I'd spend as much time updating the OS and the antivirus/antispyware stuff as actually doing anything I enjoyed. No fun. And Linux just looked like more of the same endless updating crap I wanted to get away from. And I have been pretty happy with the choice. Also, the Mac Pro was (and still is) the cheapest workstation around, about 50% cheaper than any comparable Dell Xeon. And my Mac Pro is as beautifully constructed a computer as I've ever seen. The solid aluminum frame, the hard drive sleds, the tool-less access, it is all very slick, a machine you're proud to own because the build quality is so readily evident. Even the circuit boards looks higher quality, such a serene and royal blue. Before the Mac Pro, I had a Mac Mini and was a "switcher". It did win me over to the Mac which I'd avoided like the plague since I got rid of my Apple II back in 1986, going to the Amiga and then to Windows for Win95/98/XP. I still don't mind XP that much except for the fact that it is so insecure I don't trust it at all. I hated the old Mac (OS 6/7/8/9) with a passion and would never touch one but OS X has been a delight. I like that it comes with a standard Ruby on Rails install, a nice modern Perl (Python, etc.), a standard Apache config, and even the new Wiki stuff, all built-in and standard on every Mac. There are still some annoyances in Mac, like how they keep "improving" their command-line utilities and how some of them are a bit non-standard to the Unix/Linux world but they aren't any more non-standard than any other proprietary manufacturer has made; we often forget the wilderness that Linux was before Redhat and the others made a few things pretty standard.
Puh-leeze. If you count 2-fer-1 pricing, you can get to some interesting sales numbers.
As many non-Apple sites like PCWorld have pointed out, these numbers aren't all that meaningful for several reasons. First, Windows Mobile is dying out and the WinMobile folk are buying Android in their current upgrade cycle. 90% of iPad buyers are new to the Apple platform and nearly all of them are expected to buy iPhones in their next phone upgrade. And Symbian phones are still very strong in Asia, giving Android limited potential there until Symbian's market power is finally crushed, probably 3 years out. And iPhone still holds a strong lead in total apps, having a two year headstart on everyone else. Add in the entire iTunes ecology of music/movies/apps and Android isn't any threat to Apple. They're just the also-rans.
Many people misunderstand Jobs and his vision for Apple. Jobs doesn't want to be Gates, doesn't want to put a Mac on every desktop in the world. He wants the high-end profitable segment of the market. For instance, Apple sells 90% of the laptops that retail over $1000. And that is where the real profits are, not in the Dells selling for $500 at WallyCommieMart. So Microsoft and friends may sell a lot more computers but Apple is far more profitable, having passed Microsoft in total market capitalization earlier this year. Jobs doesn't want to make a Chevy or a Ford, he wants to be Jaguar or BMW.
We had the same Android-vs-iPhone debate at TOS today. Over there, Goldie was the big Android fan. So there. LOL.
If Jobs ever finds a way to crush M$ Office (the way Gates crushed WordPerfect), then Windows is a goner. It is Office that is Microsoft's real product; Windows is just the vehicle for it.