Are You Ready to Ditch Windows?
Now Lenovo, the Chinese computer manufacturer that purchased IBM's popular Thinkpad division, is preparing to offer several of its laptops pre-loaded with Linux. Lenovo has partnered with Novell to offer the company's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED) distribution of Linux on Lenovo's T-series business notebooks.
The Lenovo announcement is hot on the heels of computer maker ASUS's recent statement that it was looking into introducing laptops with Linux pre-installed. And, of course, Dell, the world's biggest computer manufacturer, very recently began offering some of its PCs with Ubuntu Linux installed on them.
Could this finally be the year that Linux goes mainstream?
From BBC
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John Goldsmith @ Aug 9th 2007 9:16AM
I'd be very surprised.
You know when hi-def TV was ready to rollout? Try 25 years ago. Old habits are very hard to break, for many reasons. Heck, I'm typing this on a QWERTY keyboard developed just after the typewriter was invented to slow-down human fingers that were able to move faster than the mechanical parts could fly. It is still the standard. 99% of those tired of PC/Windows flaws will (as I have) migrate to Apple which (judging by the iphone) has all sorts of user-friendly products in the pipeline.
RumorBreaker @ Nov 13th 2007 7:15AM
Fine with most what you say but please don't propagate rumors/urban legends. The QWERTY lay out was not designed to slow typist down. It was designed so that letters which were normally typed together were spread out so they wouldn't bind and thus SPEED up typing.
BTW - Nippon developed HiDef in 1969
clear4takeoff73 @ Nov 13th 2007 9:38AM
Per Wikipedia...you're both right...The QWERTY keyboard layout was devised and created in the 1860s by the creator of the first modern typewriter, Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor who lived in Milwaukee. Originally, the characters on the typewriters he invented were arranged alphabetically, set on the end of a metal bar which struck the paper when its key was pressed. However, once an operator had learned to type at speed, the bars attached to letters that lay close together on the keyboard became entangled with one another, forcing the typist to manually unstick the typebars, and also frequently blotting the document.[1] A business associate of Sholes, James Densmore, suggested splitting up keys for letters commonly used together to speed up typing by preventing common pairs of typebars from striking the platen at the same time and sticking together. The effect this rearrangement of letters had on maximum typing speed is a disputed issue. Some sources assert that the QWERTY layout was designed to slow down typing speed to further reduce jamming.[2] Other sources assert the rearrangement worked by separating common sequences of letters in English. Ostensibly, the hammers that were likely to be used in quick succession were less likely to interfere with each other.
Greekie @ Feb 4th 2008 4:30PM
You won't believe this, but QWERTY keyboards are pretty much the standard because they are more efficient. I know that another type of keyboard is out there, and is mostly used to kill keylogging (hackers use it to track what you type and then steal your passwords) and to stand out from the crowd. I type at a 60+ wpm speed with QWERTY, and I can type mentally with a QWERTY. I simply can't switch without a little time, and that is what's happening now. I agree that we need to view every option, but most people will not come out of their "safe" shell where they know everything. Linux might become popular after Microsoft goes bankrupt or when it advertises. I've heard of Linux, but I don't know anything about it. I agree that we need to change keyboards and OS's and everything else. Did you know that the flying car was invented in the 50's and actually inspired the Jetson's car? Yeah, but nobody will fund it, so it's just a prototype. Also, that colony on the Moon could have happened before the Y2K generation was born, but NASA was cut from funding. Should we blame the government for these cuts from important materials? Well, think about this: Scientists have been able to genetically engineer DNA for a century, but what has stopped us from doing it?