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Sober IT truths from the island-state

by Michael Tan, Singapore

Finally a big-name backer for Linux

Oct 7, 2008 15:05

What can't I do on Linux today?

Three things:
1) Games
2) Microsoft Excel
3) SAP

For Microsoft Excel, it's just me. I tend to excel at Excel, and I use perhaps up to 85 percent of the power of Excel. For most people, a Web app does perfectly. As for SAP, well, as more and more stuff becomes Web-friendly, those who really use SAP for non-transactional stuff such as reading reports do not need a SAP-fat client on their machine.

So these guys can install Linux on their desktop or laptop.

The problem with Linux is that the backers of Linux distributions tend to be small little companies or at least not really famous ones. Funny names like Red Hat, Mandrake and Ubuntu don't help, either, not to mention "difficult to understand" business and profit models.

Now Google has thrown its full weight behind Linux doing the difficult stuff, squeezing Linux into the phone. And doing difficult stuff like Wi-Fi, touchscreen, 3G, syncing, small screen render browser, SMS handling, power savings, small footprint, tight memory usage, small device control paradigms, etc. Google is a big name, and it's doing the really difficult stuff.

And it seems to me easier to put an OS built for a mobile platform on a big fat laptop than to put a big fat laptop OS into a phone. So although Android's source code isn't completely released yet (e.g. Android applications source code is still under wraps) it's just a matter of time before it is. People have already cross-compiled Android for the X86 chip but can't run the apps. Not surprising since they can't port the ARM binaries of the applications to X86 without source code.

What can be made almost immediately are little boxes with ARM chips in them, those things we call DMAs (digital media adapters) whose sole purpose used to be playback of media content from your NAS or PC in your HDTV. Now, with Android, these things are full-fledged Internet boxes with email, messaging, chat, a top-notch browser, all displaying stuff in full glory on an HDTV. Much better browsing than the PS3 or Wii or an Xbox 360. YouTube and Vimeo playback, too, in full HD, boosted by a hardware accelerator chip inside these DMAs.

As for adoption, with a big name Linux OS, the first thing to adopt it are low-cost laptops. Since Google's Android is based on Linux, Linux drivers for almost everything can now be ported to it pretty easily. With laptops onboard, desktops can follow, and in an increasingly Web-centric world of Facebook, Gmail and Google, Android may just be a much better OS than Windows.

Let's see. I'm just waiting for somebody to give me binaries of Android to rejuvenate my old IBM X31 notebook to look pretty and work damn fast.

Chrome was just a decoy. Android will make androids of us.

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contrast

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contrast says...
You owe me a new keyboard - your headline made me spray soda all over my old one. IBM, DELL, HP, Intel, America's NSA? I guess those are "small-name backers," right?

As for the three things you mentioned:
1) Depends on what games you're talking about. Before switching to Linux, I had done all my gaming on consoles for ~10 years. Afterwards, I sold all my systems and do all my gaming on the computer - mostly native titles, a few through WINE as well.
2) Excel - WINE again. But from what I hear, OpenOffice.org's spreadsheet program can do at least 85% of what Excel does.
3) SAP - https:... - just an example.

Oct 08, 2008 00:40

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veatnik

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veatnik says...
In reply to your initial comments...
> What can't I do on Linux today?
>
> Three things:
> 1) Games
> 2) Microsoft Excel
> 3) SAP

I would have to say that number 1 and 2 are things you have chosen not to do rather than things you can't do.

Let's look at Excel first. While I agree that excel is probably the best Microsoft product and I like it. I occasionally use OpenOffice to look at or use Excel spread Sheets with great success. I prefer to use Gnumeric on Linux the numerical results are more accurate than Excel and it has every math function that Excel has plus more.(As well as excellent compatibility.) A number of University Math professors rave about it. It's only weakness is that the built in graphing is not as good as Excel. There are packages on Linux that will let you do a better job than Excel but they will take a little learning to use effectively. This is a trade of that is acceptable to me. For a quick graph Gnumeric is ok and for publication the external tools under Linux beat Excel as well but with extra work.

I do almost all my game playing on Linux. My favorite commercial games are Doom3, Unreal tournament 2004, Neverwinter Nights (first one only - number two was not released for Linux). Quake 4, Quake Enemy Territory. (The new Unreal is promised by the vendor but not available yet.) There are others but these are the ones I play. While true that not every game is available for Linux there are enough that I choose to play those. I also know people that play using W2k under a virtual machine to play windows games. (or they use Wine.) The Dos compatibility is better (using Dosemu) to play old Dos based games that will not work well under Windows. There are also many open source games that are very good.

I have more games on Linux than I have time to play. So not playing on Linux is just a choice. (Not every game is available on Windows or MacIntosh either. Play games that exist on the platform you use and/or use multiple platforms.)

On SAP. If you are already running SAP by all means stay on the platform you are on. If you are developing new web based apps you should be using AJAX or SOA as your approach. There are many free tools and many commercial tools that are available on Linux to do either. Welcome to the new century.

Last of all... Google may be a big backer today but look at the fact that they started very small, very recently, based their product on Linux (originally), and have grown to be very big today. I think that is an endorsement for Linux in either small or large situations and from either small or large companies or even websites.

Oct 08, 2008 01:04

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veatnik

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veatnik says...
I should have also responded to the core idea in your post.
Yes android looks neat and I am waiting with baited breath to see how it does. Also your idea of installing it on a laptop to check it out and as a programming platform is a great idea.

Thanks for the ideas. You've given me another project that I need to find time for. Set up an android! Boy that sound great.

Oct 08, 2008 01:11

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michaeltan

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michaeltan says...
contrast:

Fault is mine - backers is the wrong word. Google made the effort to make their own version of Linux OS for exclusive use in others' platforms, and marketed it, where IBM, DELL, HP, Intel, America's NSA are big names, but didn't.

Veatnik:

The look and feel of certain functions like PivotTable is very different in Excel compared to datapilot (oo calc) and gnumeric I tried before does not have it. Also, a lot of excel files get exchanged and I need it open native - the conversion of complex pivottables is not perfect in several times I tried, and to check a 50MB spreadsheet is difficult.

Games - I play WoW, and increasingly, more of my games are made by `Games for Windows'. Bioshock, Spore, Mass Effect - I don't even try them on Linux they have enough problems running in Windows. Suffice to say, the games we play are different.

And yes, Google made a big endorsement for linux in a way squirrels like me understand.

Overall I'm not a total linux virgin though I have installed Linux more times than Windows because every time I want to use it I get disappointed and uninstall it, only to install it again later.

Oct 08, 2008 10:12

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michaeltan

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michaeltan says...
There were comments elsewhere ridiculing this post, and I deserve it for a lack of clarity and care I put into writing this blogpost.

Small footprint linux systems, there are tons. Did they make them with as much fanfare, as much potential new apps, and with such care and visual candy as Android? Were the browsers any good? I helped run a company once to make the world's first MPEG4 DVD player. We used a basic HTML parser + JPG decoder to make the UI. It ran OK. BUT when we tried the same thing on a networked DVD player, we had hell with Javascript because these small Linux stuff had really bad JS performance, and it was not because of the CPU.

Android promises a complete SDK and tons of apps. Android is complete with best of class stuff for everything, most importantly the browser, and it will soon get a V8 upgrade too to be even better.

And some of the Linux guys should take a breather, and not think that linux is so fashionably underground that everything the mainstream webs say about it, it's written by an idiot (but true in this case though, I wrote the post like an idiot).

I betcha once Linux hits the mainstream some of these guys would go back to ... OS/2?

Oct 08, 2008 10:27

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montbkk

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montbkk says...
Don't worry about the Linux Fan Boys.....they forget that they are a very small minority. Linux just isn't easy enough, compatible enough, widespread enough, understandable enough, etc... for most users.

Google might just help solve these problems.

Feb 11, 2009 14:58

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About Michael Tan

Michael Tan is lucky enough not to have to choose between his job and his passion. He is the responsible for all aspects of developing new businesses and sourcing new productlines for a regional IT distribution company. He also oversees the company's legal affairs as General Counsel. In real life, he is a technology enthusiast, from both the fun and business viewpoint. The only choices he has to make are whether to play with his astro telescopes, his PC games, his Wii console, hit the track, tweak his car, or refine his biofilters, post his blogs, research for a new digicam, scour every forum to feed his habit further, play with his son… You can reach Michael at michaeltanyk@gmail.com ALL BLOGPOSTS ONLY REFLECT MICHAEL'S OPINIONS AND NOBODY ELSES'.