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He says he favours tinkering. But then he says he believes "pre-installation" is the way forward. Am I the only one who sees a certain incompatibility here?
by goforit 14y ago
He says he favours tinkering. But then he says he believes "pre-installation" is the way forward. Am I the only one who sees a certain incompatibility here?
It is not rocket science to transfer an image to some media. Installation of an OS is not some black art. Non-technical consumers can do it. (I've tested this with some people and they caught on more quickly than I expected.) More advanced users can compile their own images from source.
At the same time, I suspect that replacing Linux when it is "pre-installed" will prove more and more difficult. Hopefully I'm wrong. But Linus himself fears bias. That fear should also apply to "Linux bias". Equal opportunity for all OS's.
Pre-installation is a Microsoft/Apple tactic. It is far too easy to abuse.
Consumers should have choice.
Make OS installation easy. Let consumers do it, not just OEM's and Apple.
- DeepDuh 14y agoOS installation has been easy for quite some time now. That doesn't make Linux catch on in the consumer desktop / notebook market. A typical windows user has no idea why he SHOULD install linux. Furthermore, even the ones that do try often get stuck with 3rd party driver support, especially on new hardware (and the time when a device is new is exactly the time when someone might be tempted to install linux). The only way to solve this, is preinstallation by the manufacturer. Windows 8 will be a big chance for the consumer brands besides Apple to distinguish themselves with their own preinstalled distro. Microsoft will again fight, like they did during the netbook boom (which I believe is one of the reasons why netbooks saturated / declined really fast - the 2nd generation with XP preinstalled just was not pleasant to use anymore). Only this time the core market of the PC industry will be affected, therefore a lot more will be on the line.