Windows 8 on four computers

On 2/2/2013 6:21 PM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Ken Springer typed:
On 12/24/12 11:23 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
"BillW50" wrote:

On 12/24/2012 10:54 AM, ray wrote:
On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 10:30:17 -0600, Gordon wrote:

Our household computer/network setup has three desktops, one
laptop and one Kindle. One of the desktop comptuers is a new HP
Pavilion that came with Windows 8 preinstalled.

I would like to install Windows 8 on the other computer but can't
find a store copy that will let me install it on more than one
computer. Why? Gordon

MS licensing. Most Linux distributions, on the other hand, are
free to install on as many machines as you want.

Yeah... but what good is it? Even if I installed Linux on a million
machines, it still isn't as useful to me as one Windows machine. ;-)

As is typical with Linux proselytizers, they don't address the issue.
Use whatever OS fits your purpose, not the other way around. If you
have LPs then you get a record player. If you have DVDs then you get
that player. If you have Blueray then you need that type of player.
Figure out what you want to do and then find out what lets you do it.
Determine the tasks, find the apps (across any OS) that let you do
those tasks, and then decide on the OS. You might find one that
does them all or you might even decide on a couple different
operating systems utilizing the best of class functionality in each.
The other way around means you buy the player but don't know if
there's anything yet to play on it. Dumb. Use the best tool for
the job. Don't focus on the OS. Focus on what apps will do best what
you want
and that'll decide the OS. For example, if you're a gamer and want
the largest selection available, are you really going to suffer the
slowdown of virtualizing Windows on Linux providing that all those
games don't require direct access to the real hardware? If you have
a mission critical business app that only runs on MS-DOS or Windows
98, are you really going to trash your business by moving to an
NT-based version of Windows? If you want a super-reliable and
robust file server that runs on a platform with far less hardware
requirements than demanded by Windows, you sure you don't want to
use Linux? It's pretty clear the OP isn't asking for OS
recommendations. He
already knows what he wants. A Linux proselytizer proffering an
irrelevant solution makes them look stupid and just as pathetic as a
Windows proselytizer flaming in the Linux newsgroups.

+2

Very, very well said. You're approach is exactly how any project
should be approached. Determine the result you want, then determine
what needs to be done to accomplish the result. A man named Stephen
Covey made millions doing seminars to tell people just that.

When it comes to Linux solutions, I wish places like Best Buy would
set up a few popular Linux machines, I think low power low price
solutions, so people can have a better chance to make a decision.

Unfortunately, I don't think most consumers/shoppers have the
knowledge or interest is learning what they need to know to follow
your example/system. But with the current economy, having the low
priced Linux systems in stores might attract some sales that
otherwise would not happen.

Oh man! You know how many times this has been tried? It has been tried
over and over again and it always ends up with the same result. Linux
PCs just doesn't sell. Sure you can sell one here or there, but you
always end up losing money because you can't move your stockpile.

The largest attempt at selling Linux machines that I know of was when
Asus created the first netbook with their EeePC 700 series line back in
2007. While they were XP compatible and came with XP drivers and all,
but they all came preinstalled with Xandros Linux. They were selling
these things in the millions. This is the only success story of Linux
machines that I know of.

Microsoft got scared and came up with a new netbook OEM pricing that
made Windows more affordable with the lower prices of netbooks. Now Asus
started to offer either Linux or XP on their machines. And if you wanted
one with Windows, it costs about 50 bucks more. And the XP ones nobody
could keep in stock and the Linux ones just wasn't moving anymore. It
got so bad that Asus stopped configuring anymore with Linux
preinstalled.

And it isn't just Linux with this problem. IBM back in around 1990
stopped shipping machines with Windows and replaced it with OS/2. Then
the sales of IBM machines plummeted. Another computer manufacture in
Austria also stopped selling machines with Windows. Although they didn't
back off of their decision and they went bankrupt in about 6 months.


You're right, the typical home user would prefer Windows or Apple.
Universities and governments, OTOH, use Linux widely.

--
Alias

On 2/2/13 10:21 AM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Ken Springer typed:
On 12/24/12 11:23 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
"BillW50" wrote:

On 12/24/2012 10:54 AM, ray wrote:
On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 10:30:17 -0600, Gordon wrote:


snip


Oh man! You know how many times this has been tried? It has been tried
over and over again and it always ends up with the same result. Linux
PCs just doesn't sell. Sure you can sell one here or there, but you
always end up losing money because you can't move your stockpile.

The largest attempt at selling Linux machines that I know of was when
Asus created the first netbook with their EeePC 700 series line back in
2007. While they were XP compatible and came with XP drivers and all,
but they all came preinstalled with Xandros Linux. They were selling
these things in the millions. This is the only success story of Linux
machines that I know of.

Microsoft got scared and came up with a new netbook OEM pricing that
made Windows more affordable with the lower prices of netbooks. Now Asus
started to offer either Linux or XP on their machines. And if you wanted
one with Windows, it costs about 50 bucks more. And the XP ones nobody
could keep in stock and the Linux ones just wasn't moving anymore. It
got so bad that Asus stopped configuring anymore with Linux
preinstalled.

And it isn't just Linux with this problem. IBM back in around 1990
stopped shipping machines with Windows and replaced it with OS/2. Then
the sales of IBM machines plummeted. Another computer manufacture in
Austria also stopped selling machines with Windows. Although they didn't
back off of their decision and they went bankrupt in about 6 months.

Like most things, I'd bet it's more marketing and presentation than
anything else.

So, MS changed pricing so there was a $50 difference. Did Asus and/or
the retailers put up a sign saying Free Software? Then, if Open Office
or something was installed, also saying it was MS Office compatible?
Thus letting people know that while there was only a $50 difference,
they wouldn't have to buy software?

How about pointing out little to no malware out there for the Linux unit?

Speed differences that can be independently confirmed?

I see Dell also tried to sell Linux based machines. But, if you went
somewhere like Best Buy, did you get to see any Dells with Linux
installed? If you want the unknowing to consider Linux, you've got to
get systems on showroom floors so people will find out there's something
different.

In your Asus example, that price difference got the unknowing people's
attention. When that goes away, you have to have something else to get
their attention. If you don't do that, then you are just "selling to
the choir", which definitely won't do much to increase the user base
numbers.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.2
Firefox 18.0.1
Thunderbird 17.0.2
LibreOffice 3.6.3.2

In ,
Ken Springer typed:
On 2/2/13 10:21 AM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Ken Springer typed:
On 12/24/12 11:23 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
"BillW50" wrote:

On 12/24/2012 10:54 AM, ray wrote:
On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 10:30:17 -0600, Gordon wrote:


snip


Oh man! You know how many times this has been tried? It has been
tried over and over again and it always ends up with the same
result. Linux PCs just doesn't sell. Sure you can sell one here or
there, but you always end up losing money because you can't move
your stockpile. The largest attempt at selling Linux machines that I
know of was when
Asus created the first netbook with their EeePC 700 series line back
in 2007. While they were XP compatible and came with XP drivers and
all, but they all came preinstalled with Xandros Linux. They were
selling these things in the millions. This is the only success story
of Linux machines that I know of.

Microsoft got scared and came up with a new netbook OEM pricing that
made Windows more affordable with the lower prices of netbooks. Now
Asus started to offer either Linux or XP on their machines. And if
you wanted one with Windows, it costs about 50 bucks more. And the
XP ones nobody could keep in stock and the Linux ones just wasn't
moving anymore. It got so bad that Asus stopped configuring anymore
with Linux preinstalled.

And it isn't just Linux with this problem. IBM back in around 1990
stopped shipping machines with Windows and replaced it with OS/2.
Then the sales of IBM machines plummeted. Another computer
manufacture in Austria also stopped selling machines with Windows.
Although they didn't back off of their decision and they went
bankrupt in about 6 months.

Like most things, I'd bet it's more marketing and presentation than
anything else.

So, MS changed pricing so there was a $50 difference. Did Asus and/or
the retailers put up a sign saying Free Software? Then, if Open
Office or something was installed, also saying it was MS Office
compatible? Thus letting people know that while there was only a $50
difference, they wouldn't have to buy software?

How about pointing out little to no malware out there for the Linux
unit?
Speed differences that can be independently confirmed?

I see Dell also tried to sell Linux based machines. But, if you went
somewhere like Best Buy, did you get to see any Dells with Linux
installed? If you want the unknowing to consider Linux, you've got to
get systems on showroom floors so people will find out there's
something different.

In your Asus example, that price difference got the unknowing people's
attention. When that goes away, you have to have something else to
get their attention. If you don't do that, then you are just
"selling to the choir", which definitely won't do much to increase
the user base numbers.

I am well versed with these Asus EeePC 700 series machines with either
Linux or XP SP2. They all came with a Celeron 900MHz underclocked to
633MHz. They sported a fan, but it was on the bottom side of the
motherboard and the CPU the the northbridge was on the top side. I
played with the fan control manually and I could only get the CPU to
change 10 degrees F max. The CPU and the northbridge was mainly cooled
by using the keyboard as a heatsink. Some have removed the fan for total
noiseless machine. I could see this working. The only thing I could see
the fan really helping is the RAM, WiFi, and the SSD. As they were on
the same side of the motherboard as the fan.

I used these machines with Xandros, Ubuntu 8.whatever, and XP SP2 or
SP3. And yes Asus disclosed what Xandros included including Open Office,
Thunderbird, and Firefox. The problem was Open Office was stuck at v2.0
(I think), Firefox was stuck at v2, and Thunderbird was stuck at v1.5.
If you wanted anything newer, you had to recompile the Linux kernel
source code. Worse, the Open Office spell checker didn't even work.

Another odd thing about Xandros EeePC is that you could uninstall any
app you wanted too. But it never really deleted. As everything was ear
marked as read only and that is all. And any changes had taken place
somewhere else. The only cool thing about this is that you could hit a
key at boot and say I want it restored back to factory and that
somewhere else would disappear.

Ok, so you say the hell with Xandros and you switched to Ubuntu. Ubuntu
even had a special distro just for the EeePC. Yeah how wonderful is
that? But XP ate about 20% or less of the processor at idle. But Ubuntu
and Windows 7 ate 50% of the processor at idle. Worse the 700 series
only had a 7 inch screen at 800x480 (scrollable to much larger under
Windows only), Xandros and Ubuntu was terrible at full screen videos on
this machine. Although I connected up an external monitor and XP handled
full screen videos flawlessly at 1440x900. That is 30fps. Linux on the
same setup could only do 0.5fps.

I thought maybe it was these machines. So I tried the same test on other
machines and no, Linux isn't so good on other machines either. Lots of
people will tell you that Linux will run on older and less beefy
machines. Run? I know it is more like crawl.

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP2