This is standard corporate procedure. You work with a company, they reveal trade secrets, you sign a clause saying that you won't work in the same industry or with a direct competitor for a year. This guy was treated more than fairly. They didn't kick him to the curb, they offered him a years paid salary to sit out, and he still left the company. When you take into consideration that Apple recently dumped IBM's processors, and some lingering animosity from that, it's no wonder why IBM is being aggressive in it's approach. While I'm no fan of corporate overlords, you don't just let some high level shirt walk off with all of the trade information about your current and future plans to a competitor and sit idly by. This guy knew exactly what he was doing and decided to roll the dice.

Key thing right now: Unified installers. There is a serious problem with installers in linux. While .deb has taken it a long way, there are still numerous packages out there that need to be compiled. While I enjoy the research that goes into that, all of the dependent packages, etc. creates quite a mess quickly, and most people give up. Having a single, unified installer package would help tremendously to a user finding OSS they want, downloading it, clicking on it, and then running it.

Unfortunately, that's a very narrow argument. For power users -- yes. Having a command line is awesome. As I've said in other posts, I quite enjoy tinkering with linux and doing the research, it's fun for me. But for 98% of the population, they don't *want* to touch that. They want their OS to work. They want it to install smoothly, have the drivers, have easy to install programs (which even ubuntu struggles with), and work. They don't want to have to get into the guts of the OS. Since the discussion is about taking linux 'mainstream' -- that is what I'm talking about. Most people are monkeys who like pre-fab machines.

sure! :) That sound about right.

Mac's would be an option (as would Ubuntu) if it weren't for proprietary software that he has to run for his business. But again... the issue for me isn't whether he could run it while I'm there. The issue is whether HE could run it. Without any other help. As hideous as it is, he can buy a desktop from Dell or HP, install his own software and run it on windows. Ubuntu is not so easy.

I'll have to look into that. My point was less about that though -- I quite enjoy Ubuntu and the tinkering. It's something that *I* like. But as for getting regular pc users to tinker, good luck. The distro has a long way to go before it's ready for prime-time. Ubuntu has taken some momentous steps forward in this direction, but it has a lot further to go. The strength of the Linux community is that it is user-driven. There is always as solution to the problem. But that is also it's detriment... there is no single place to bring these solutions together into a fluid package.

Totally understand that. My father sees a black screen, and he freaks out. It's actually pretty funny for a guy with a master's degree. But especially when I need to compile software to get similar functionality (I'm looking at you, aMSN), that's just too much. Point being, he's used to GUI. Getting him to type in a web address is interesting enough somedays. While linux is not yet designed for people like that (I understand), without that kind of support, how can you expect a company like Dell or HP to push the OS as it's primary without doubling their support staff?

iirc, there was still a bit of configuration in X that I had to do manually. Which I know has improved drastically in the last 6 months. Configuration of display settings, the muddle between open source and restricted drivers. Wireless packages, etc. It was about 8 months ago to a year to get it setup, and there was quite a bit of googling, which turned up most of my answers in the forums. One kernel revision broke my ATI Mobility card, and I had to use an old kernel until the latest revision, which has now rectified the problem. While it wasn't a huge issue for me, getting someone who isn't literate to walk through it would have been a nightmare.

Honestly, being a casual Linux user, sound card support is not the defining factor holding back Linux adoption. While Ubuntu goes a long way to improving the user experience with Linux, even to get it to a 'standard' setup, I needed to use the console no less than 5 times. That's *needed* to, there was no GUI way to do what I was trying to do. While I personally have no problem doing that, I shudder at the idea of talking someone like my father through it. The day that I can combine Linux stability with ease of use... that will be the year of the Linux desktop. Driver integration and support goes a long way to doing that, and a flushed out menu system will put it over the top.