RHP Studios
January 4th, 2006, 04:37 PM
Chuck said in a recent post that linux wasn't that popular, and I refuted his claims with some off the top of my head facts.....then I was thinking about it...and reminded me of something I did at the college.
When I taught Linux at the college, one of the very first questions I would ask my new linux students is do they run linux. Everyone usually said no, with a few who had maybe tried it, maybe continued to use it, maybe found it a little too much to digest in the little time they had.
Followed by that question would be that nights homework - I would have my new students identify at least 3 things they have in their home (or their parents homes) that run on Linux. I have never had a student not be able to turn in at least 3 things. So, what do you have in your home that runs linux????
1 - do you own a cell phone?
2 - do you have a firewall/router like a linksys or some other brand? (almost all of them do)
3 - do you own a coffee maker?
4 - what about a microwave or refrigerator? A clothes dryer??
5 - How about a dvd player or vhs tape player?
6 - what about some of those really cool mp3 players that have internal storage on them?
7 - a telephone?
8 - high end audio / video equipment??
9 - robots???
10- tablet pcs??
11 - home / security video cameras??
12 - gps devices????
13 - both ford and gm use various linux driven things in their cars now
Let me ask you a question - out of the first 12 items listed above, how often do they break down compared to your windows computer?? (I have to leave out 13, cause the vehicles will break down but more than likely its not due to linux)
How many times have you had to reboot your coffee maker or dvd player? These are the reasons they dont run windows to begin with.....well, plus, it would take a hard drive big enough to fit the operating system in, plus you would have to have things like a virus scanner for your coffee pot. Picture this - what if your cell phone ran on Windows. Where would they hide the 1GB drive at?? Even if they used one of the usb/thumbdrives....imagine how huge and bulky it would be. Imagine being in a conversation and the thing just blue-screening on you.....or even worse.....just lock up and become unresponsive.
By the way, you could run 1,000 different linux micro-distributions on that same 1GB thumbdrive and I actually run 2 linux distributions on a 128MB usb drive, plus I run a security based distribution on a 512 mb usb drive....cause I cant stand windows and I take them everywhere with me.
Have a look at a lot of things that run on linux.....how many of these do you own? http://www.linuxdevices.com
When I taught Linux at the college, one of the very first questions I would ask my new linux students is do they run linux. Everyone usually said no, with a few who had maybe tried it, maybe continued to use it, maybe found it a little too much to digest in the little time they had.
Followed by that question would be that nights homework - I would have my new students identify at least 3 things they have in their home (or their parents homes) that run on Linux. I have never had a student not be able to turn in at least 3 things. So, what do you have in your home that runs linux????
1 - do you own a cell phone?
2 - do you have a firewall/router like a linksys or some other brand? (almost all of them do)
3 - do you own a coffee maker?
4 - what about a microwave or refrigerator? A clothes dryer??
5 - How about a dvd player or vhs tape player?
6 - what about some of those really cool mp3 players that have internal storage on them?
7 - a telephone?
8 - high end audio / video equipment??
9 - robots???
10- tablet pcs??
11 - home / security video cameras??
12 - gps devices????
13 - both ford and gm use various linux driven things in their cars now
Let me ask you a question - out of the first 12 items listed above, how often do they break down compared to your windows computer?? (I have to leave out 13, cause the vehicles will break down but more than likely its not due to linux)
How many times have you had to reboot your coffee maker or dvd player? These are the reasons they dont run windows to begin with.....well, plus, it would take a hard drive big enough to fit the operating system in, plus you would have to have things like a virus scanner for your coffee pot. Picture this - what if your cell phone ran on Windows. Where would they hide the 1GB drive at?? Even if they used one of the usb/thumbdrives....imagine how huge and bulky it would be. Imagine being in a conversation and the thing just blue-screening on you.....or even worse.....just lock up and become unresponsive.
By the way, you could run 1,000 different linux micro-distributions on that same 1GB thumbdrive and I actually run 2 linux distributions on a 128MB usb drive, plus I run a security based distribution on a 512 mb usb drive....cause I cant stand windows and I take them everywhere with me.
Have a look at a lot of things that run on linux.....how many of these do you own? http://www.linuxdevices.com