Six Tech Companies Join Up to Boost Linux

[JMcEntegart]

There's been a ton of announcements at Computex this week, but the most surprising thing to come out of the entire show is a coalition formed by six of the industry's biggest names.

Six Tech Companies Join Up to Boost Linux : Read more

 

[lifelesspoet]

I was hoping for some new players on the linux front, but money for the advancement of open source can never be a bad thing.

 

[quillo]

Sweet! Linux in the last two years has grown more than in the past 20. One of the main reasons why proprietary software has fallen in price considerably.

 

[wing2010]

It reminds me of United Linux. Hope this one does make a difference and have a better luck...

 

[Guest]

wtf anti-linux troll is thubming down first three comments

 

[kyeana]

Oh this makes me very happy! More companies supporting linux = better linux support = more people trying linux = more companies supporting linux etc etc.

Good news indeed.

 

[lvlouro]

I gave linux a try once but my lack of knowledge of how it works and the not supporting a lot of games ended it for me...
But I'm looking forward to this and valve's linux support, it might get me back on the train!!!

 

[zerapio]

This looks like a reaction to MeeGo...

 

[Gin Fushicho]

Whenever powerful competing companies combine they're effort into one thing they have the ability to create god like technology.

Let's see how much more powerful mobile Linux becomes.

 

[hunter315]

Always nice to see some extra funding for open source projects. Should help out smart phones down the line.

 

[kronos_cornelius]

Yes, we are getting closers !

 

[Computerrock1]

Some of the greatest manufacturers have combined to defeat the evil forces that is Apple! JK, I love my iphone, but seing linux getting so much support is awesome!

 

[theubersmurf]

Here's to hoping. cheers.

 

[ta152h]

The interesting thing is, these companies still haven't figured out why Linux is a failure at taking any significant market share.

Unix has failed for 40 years to do this. So, let's keep pumping more money into a Unix derivative. It makes no sense, and what's even more surprising is they don't realize why they keep failing despite heroic efforts.

You can't slap lipstick on that pig. Sure, it puckers up good, but it still loves mud and oinks.

They need to create a real operating system from scratch, instead of taking that broken down horse to the races. It's been around 40 years, isn't that enough time to realize it's not the answer?

 

[Pyroflea]

This will either be amazing, or terrible. Let's hope for the former.

 

[zinabas]

@TA152H let me break down linux really simply for you...
• it runs on anything
• it can use any hardware
• it is entirely open source so anyone can fix a bug meaning you no longer have to wait for the "ONE" supporting company to fix something
• And with the right support it can run any game windows can... but MSFT isn't ever going to license out DirectX and no game company feels like rewriting their engines for "Open" libraries such OpenAL, OpenGL, and OpenCL so its not Linux's fault, MSFT hold the majority/monopoly so they tell the game companies what they will do.

 

[zinabas]

minor update: I forgot Valve finally got the balls to walk out on MSFT and let Apple have a little slice of the pie.

 

[CoryInJapan]

[citation][nom]lvlouro[/nom]I gave linux a try once but my lack of knowledge of how it works and the not supporting a lot of games ended it for me...But I'm looking forward to this and valve's linux support, it might get me back on the train!!![/citation]
You stole my same exact thoughts.

 

[Guest]

@TA152H
you have no idea what are you talking about. Calling *nix a failure only means you fail to do your homework.

Even though the *nix platform wasn't successful in the home PC market, but *nix based system powered most of today's high end workstation or servers especially webserver that majority run *nix OS. Also remember, Apple's OS X was a derivate from Unix.

 

[Guest]

TA152H: I'm guessing you're not a programmer, and don't understand how shit Windows is at a low level, but assume Linux fails because it's UNIX-like.

I just so happen to program Windows Forms apps for a living. The Windows API sucks, I mean, it really sucks. At it's lowest level, it's a bunch of REALLY POORLY WRITTEN dll files, that you're expected to make calls to, but you can't view their source code, which makes troubleshooting nearly impossible. The fact that you can't view the source isn't what makes it so bad, the fact that it's so buggy, ill-conceived, and so poorly documented is what makes it bad. The people who wrote it are just straight-up stupid... [dot]NET is OK, but it's just lipstick on a pig, because they're just encapsulating the shite Windows API into a higher level API that makes slightly more sense.... What is needed is a complete re-write of Windows, Windows IS the reason nobody can write multi-threaded apps, stability goes right out the door in multi-threaded apps.

But, you know what makes Windows so "great"? The fact that so many big players have put so much effort into making great software for Windows... Kind of like what's happening for Linux right now....

 

[guzz46]

TA152H Linux is a much better OS than windows, just because windows is more common doesn't mean its better, most hollywood movies are made on linux computers and most servers run on linux or unix.

 

[m-manla]

I'm mostly a Windows fan, but the Linux camp has some nice things going for them. I'm learing Ubuntu Server right now.

 

[abhifx]

i think we really needed this push since linux is not ready for finger friendly interface and applications that are tablet ready. i have a mix feeling for tablets, cant install a full fledged OS but i may sometime need to do more regular stuff. hence dual boot linux and whatever tablet OS and i am good to go. since Samsung is part of this, maybe enlightenment desktop will be the preferred DM. linux has come a long way and is ready for everything.. including tablets

 

[daggs]

[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]The interesting thing is, these companies still haven't figured out why Linux is a failure at taking any significant market share.Unix has failed for 40 years to do this.[/citation]
so you say windows is great due to her market share? the greatness of a system is measured by the number of users that choose her, nowadays is it still hard to find a brand computer without windows preinstalled. actually, customers rarely get the chance to select their os.

it reminds me that a few months ago, balmer has announced that windows 7 is the most selling os ever, but he have neglected to mention the percentage of retail purchases out of that number and oems buying the os isn't considered as satisfied costumer.

[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]So, let's keep pumping more money into a Unix derivative. It makes no sense, and what's even more surprising is they don't realize why they keep failing despite heroic efforts.You can't slap lipstick on that pig. Sure, it puckers up good, but it still loves mud and oinks.They need to create a real operating system from scratch, instead of taking that broken down horse to the races. It's been around 40 years, isn't that enough time to realize it's not the answer?[/citation]
ok, windows is a real os, if so, why every company that have servers and respects herself are using linux or unix? why more then 80% of the world's supercomputers are running linux?
if windows is a real os, why xo, vista and 7 still holds and uses command.com from the msdos days? (with some improvements)

do us a favor, don't talk about issues you don't understand.

 

[mitch074]

@TA152h: UNIX is a failure ever since it was created in 1970... Right.
A little history.

MSDOS was made as a dumbed down CPM - itself, a dumbed down UNIX. Remember, MSDOS was the OS MS sold for IBM, then added a GUI on top of it - up till Windows Millenium.

When that dumbed down OS stopped being manageable, MS switched to their VMS-like kernel: NT. That one uses protected memory space, preemptive multitasking, a hardware abstraction layer etc. Like UNIX (as a matter of fact, NT can run a POSIX system: even NT ACLs have an eerie similarity to the draft POSIX ACLs).

That so-called UNIX vendors failed to market it is one thing; that it failed is another. For one thing, most websites run on a UNIX or another. For another, OS X is a UNIX-like OS with a graphics layer that is not based on X11 - because remember, UNIX is not a graphical OS.

But here, this is hardly relevant: this coalition intends to make a better experience for GNU/Linux (yes, I do mean the whole OS, not the kernel alone) on ARM systems. The problems:
- the kernel isn't yet very optimized for SoC of the ARM type: eventhough Torvalds worked for Transmeta at one time, that part of the kernel still got less love than the x86, and would benefit a little from further development and testing.
- the rest of the OS (starting with the libc library) is little or not at all optimized to make use of advanced ARM instructions: glibc, for instance, sucks on ARM (forks were made - it would be nice to have one and be done)
- X11 has gotten modular, and can thus be kept, however, the multiple input driver is still stuck at the design stage, and it would be nice to have a unified one
- due to X11's lack of MI, toolkits (gtk+, Qt, etc.) don't really have much developed to make use of these technologies

So it's great to see big players working to make GNU/Linux more portable-friendly (and not merely more portable).