Now that the support for Windows XP has been shut down, we have all reasons to believe in a future dominated by Linux!
Except for games and some stupid applications, Linux WILL take the lead in the following years. It is stable, secure and sound!
Proud to be a humble Linux user!
Great to hear someone being optimistic, but i don’t think XP lack of support will cause a great surge in linux users. i hope it does, but i don’t think it will.
Anyway, we use it, we like, and hope there will be more people joining us soon!
From an energy perspective, the old boxes and laptops which could only run XP need to be tossed. I don’t see the point in trying to milk these old cows.
Hmm… You are right. In the way of consuming energy. On the other hand why trow away functionally HW? The environment track to produce new HW takes many years to get return of investment. And who will pay? The high energy price in my part of the word is caused by taxes.
Same thing about cars for an ex. There is no way that we can change/force into “modern” technology whiteout to close out a large part of people in the word.
Regards
On 2014-04-12 16:06, BSDuser wrote:
>
> From an energy perspective, the old boxes and laptops which could only
> run XP need to be tossed. I don’t see the point in trying to milk these
> old cows.
Producing new, energy efficient, boxes, consumes more energy that the
savings in running them.
And often the boxes you dump on the first world end up running again in
the third world.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
On 2014-04-12 13:16, holden87 wrote:
>
> Great to hear someone being optimistic, but i don’t think XP lack of
> support will cause a great surge in linux users. i hope it does, but i
> don’t think it will.
No “great surge”. But a fair amount of them have indeed migrated to
Linux. It is not only XP. You have to migrate to new hardware, with a
new operating system (W7 or 8 is soo different), and new set of paid for
applications, often expensive. And retraining. All those cost adds… so
much so that switching to Linux can enter the equation.
The problem is for those businesses that run special applications, maybe
developed in house, that would have to be recreated, regardless of where
they migrate to. Some of those are very expensive.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
From an energy perspective the cost of producing a new computer, transporting it to your place of resident, disposing of the old one and recycling it outweigh any savings made by switching to a new one.
That’s not even taking into account the HUGE environmental footprint of electronic waste. “Milking the old cows” is almost always the most sensible proposition.
Keeping on topic: I wish the XPocalypse would really contribute to the popularisation of Linux for the average user. But it won’t happen overnight and it will be a trickle, not a landslide. Because most computer illiterate people don’t even know the XPocalypse has happened nor what does it mean for them. Even semi-literate people are unaware of the consequences. Or they are so institutionalised in the “can’t run the latest Windows on my PC so I’ll buy a new one” mindset that they don’t think there’s life left in their old XP boxes.
Anyway the lack of a huge business with excellent lawyers and marketers to be the face of Linux in public consciousness hinders somewhat the switch. On the other hand it guarantees that anyone who switches does so because of a genuine interest and will likely stick around longer as a Linux user.
holden87 wrote:
> Great to hear someone being optimistic, but i don’t think XP lack of
> support will cause a great surge in linux users. i hope it does, but i
> don’t think it will.
>
One large segment of users is being overlooked: the older folks with old
hardware incapable of running anything more modern than XP. Arguably the
population segment which can least afford the cost of new equipment is
likely the largest group of holdouts (after government bureaucracies) this
older segment of society should be considered when trying to do ANYTHING
new!
I know this all too well - being 73 and apparently the neighborhood tech
support.
–
Will Honea
+1
73! Keep going and do not give a sh-t to people explaining that you are to old:P. If you have the time&can manage.
Regards
Personally, I junked XP almost a year ago. I needed the disk space to expand “/boot” for the multi-version kernel support.
Actually I think older folks, having an average lower computer knowledge, are less prejudiced to “jump off the Windows ship”. Having no need for concrete business applications developed for Windows only, they can enjoy the software bundled with any Linux distro. Which is what they tend to need: web browsing, email, word processors and the like.
I think we can turn the end of XP to more than one advantage; I have persuaded an 80 year old to swap to Xfce which he understands about as well as XP and I have persuaded another one who is going to buy a new Windows computer to donate his XP one to me to pass on, with Linux installed, to someone who cannot afford to buy a computer but - because they are starting without any knowledge - don’t have any expectations of a particular way of working.