Three till Seven

1 Nov 05everyone uses Linux

So I mentioned to my dad that some of my friends roll their eyes at Linux in comparison with Windows, or just in general. This was the email I got back that had me cracking up:

Don’t you have any friends with living brain cells? Let me see, Sony, the largest consumer electronics company on the planet, uses Linux for its products and its movies. IBM (remember them? the monster from which a little company called Lexmark sprang?) not only uses it but considers it so valuable that it warrants betting corporate reputation, all software products and uncounted hundreds of millions of dollars (perhaps billions) defending. NASA and the European Space Agency depend on it. The U.S. Department of Defense says its ability to function would be dangerously hampered if they couldn’t use F/OSS and the centerpiece in that usage is Linux. Google, of course, is the world’s largest Linux installation. Cisco uses Linux (although Cisco no longer holds a monopoly-sized share of major Internet routers, their name is still stamped on so many of the backbone routers that their sudden disappearance would effectively mean the disappearance of the Internet). Motorola uses Linux. Nokia uses Linux. NEC uses Linux. Panasonic uses Linux. Palm uses Linux. Samsung uses Linux. Philips uses Linux. Casio uses Linux. HP uses Linux. Boeing uses Linux. Lockheed Martin uses Linux. Amerada Hess uses Linux. The New York Stock Exchange uses Linux. Ameritrade uses Linux. Autozone uses Linux. Korean Airlines uses Linux. Divitron uses Linux. OshKosh uses Linux (I don’t mean for coveralls; I mean for their HEMTT - Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck). Remax uses Linux. Merrill Lynch uses Linux. PeopleSoft uses Linux (ask a banker). Credit Suisse uses Linux. Northrup Grumman uses Linux. Aerospace Parts International uses Linux. Daimler-Chrysler uses Linux. Mercedes Benz uses Linux. Intel uses Linux. Amazon uses Linux. Banco BNL do Brasil uses Linux. AMD uses Linux. Bayer uses Linux. Praxis uses Linux. NOAA uses Linux. Cray uses Linux. ACCEL Services uses Linux. Siemans uses Linux. Gannett uses Linux. Canadian National Railways uses Linux. Genisys uses Linux. Oracle uses Linux. DreamWorks uses Linux. Environment Canada uses Linux. Industrial Light & Magic uses Linux.

Hell, it would be easier to list those who don’t use Linux. Such a list would not include Microsoft. Don’t let the number of ASPy websites fool you, for serious computing the major businesses still rely on UNIX and almost all have discovered Linux is a very robust substitute. The most powerful computers and the largest grid of supercomputers runs Linux.

So, are your sneering and scoffing friends going to flip burgers at McDonald’s? They better hurry because McDonald’s is moving from SCO to Linux. McDonald’s Germany uses SuSE, already.

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9:49 AM
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34 Comments / Add your own »

  • 1 Nov 05 ladylazarus said:

    What do you use?

    Time:
    11:56 AM

  • 1 Nov 05 sarah said:

    Debian Gnu/Linux.

    Time:
    12:30 PM

  • 1 Nov 05 Trin said:

    Yay McDonaldäs Germany! :D Damnit, I have know idea where the apostraphie is!

    Time:
    6:45 PM

  • 1 Nov 05 Trin said:

    OH my god… how about NO idea!

    Time:
    6:45 PM

  • 2 Nov 05 Jem said:

    Lol. Your Dad is funny ;)

    I would move to Linux, but my cheapie USB Wireless dongle is pretty much unsupported and therefore I’d be network/Internet-less. Can’t let that happen!

    I did make the switch from MS Office to OpenOffice recently though. Hoorah!

    Time:
    12:34 PM

  • 2 Nov 05 Trin said:

    For some reason, I was never able to get OpenOffice working in Windows! I’d try to run it, but it’d do absolutely nothing. Oh well, I’m in Linux now anyway so that doesn’t matter :D

    Time:
    12:56 PM

  • 2 Nov 05 sarah said:

    Holy shit, you’re still using Linux? Which distribution is it again? How do you like it? If it’s a Debian derivative (e.g. Knoppix, Morphix, Mepis, or Ubuntu), are you using apt-get or a GUI program like synaptic for installing new software, libraries, etc.?

    Time:
    1:29 PM

  • 2 Nov 05 grouch said:

    My uber-geek nephew thought his wireless thingy wouldn’t work in Linux, too. Mepis found it but it required a search on http://www.mepis.org to get it to work with his weird security setup.

    You might want to try OpenCD at http://theopencd.org for lots of useful open source software for MS Windows. It won’t fix all the nasties to which MS Windows is prone, but it can help reduce the exposure.

    Time:
    6:21 PM

  • 2 Nov 05 Trin said:

    Well, I’m still in Ubuntu because I’m too lazy to configure x in Debian right now. I’ve actually never installed/upgraded any programs in Ubuntu, but I’ve had to apt-get practically EVERYTHING in Debian when I was installing it a few weeks ago. I’ll probably work more on my Debian installation over Thanksgiving break. Just don’t really have the time right now to mess anymore with it.

    Time:
    11:40 PM

  • 3 Nov 05 grouch said:

    Any dairy farmers around who recognize the name DeLaval? They use Linux in a way that proves it’s not just for governments, Harry Potter, grandmas and kindergartners:

    “A 122-year-old dairy equipment company has used embedded Linux in a robotic cow-milking system (the system is robotic, not the cows). The Voluntary Milking System (VMS) allows cows to decide when to be milked, and gives dairy farmers a more independent lifestyle, free from regular milkings, the company says. ”
    http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8308307720.html

    Time:
    12:28 AM

  • 3 Nov 05 Jem said:

    I get Karl (my partner) to do the Linux install testing and I know he has searched and searched for support for my dongle (insert rude ‘dongle’ joke here) but has, as of yet, turned up nothing. I will point him in the direction of Mepis.org (thanks) but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s tried there. Ah, the search continues.

    I will go check out that OpenCD thingy now :)
    I don’t really need help reducing nasties in Windows though, the hardware firewall built into my (Linux-based, whoo!) modem/router does that.

    Time:
    4:39 AM

  • 29 Jul 06 George said:

    I use Ubuntu dapper.It’s perfect!!

    Time:
    4:34 AM

  • 4 Apr 07 Josh Walwyn said:

    This is indeed Very True, Howeve those Companies use Linux to create their own Unix-Based OS, thanks to the foundation of Linux, the original OS - “its underlying source code is available for anyone to use”.

    However, You Can’t say that all those companies use JUST Linux, Macintosh is also a big company OS, surprisingly large TNC’s also Windows.

    Time:
    2:53 PM

  • 4 Apr 07 T W Bones said:

    Microsoft is one of Akamai’s biggest customers, guess with they use to distribute content? Debian Woody!

    Time:
    6:18 PM

  • 4 Apr 07 Douglas Clifton said:

    When I saw the title of this article I thought for sure you’d make the following point (although you did in a round-about way:

    Even people who don’t use Linux (say for a desktop environment) use Linux every time they surf the web. The vast majority of hosting companies use Linux boxes for their servers.

    The same can be said for Apache, MySQL, PHP, and so on…don’t know what any of these are but have heard of them? Guess what? You use them every day.

    Time:
    7:34 PM

  • 5 Apr 07 Clint Brothers said:

    I use Mepis and PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, BerryLinux, DSL. I have tested the top 50 on Distrowatch.com and always end up back at Mepis.

    Time:
    12:37 AM

  • 5 Apr 07 arijit said:

    i use ubuntu.

    Time:
    1:49 AM

  • 5 Apr 07 martinus said:

    Unfortunately, Linux sucks. Geeks always advertise it as something that solves all your problems, but that’s not the case; the point is that it just sucks less than Windows or Mac.

    Time:
    3:04 AM

  • 5 Apr 07 charlie said:

    Try ask your dad what people, normal people, in their houses; not a big enterprise with big it offices letting things ready to use for the employees; people who just know enough to just use a browser and email app uses? he’s not gonna say gnu/linux so easy… really a shame, but that’s where foss is really weak.

    Time:
    7:48 AM

  • 5 Apr 07 Sarah said:

    Charlie: I’ve emailed him the question, but you don’t know him: he will say Gnu/Linux just as easily. My mother is computer illiterate, just your average Joe. She gets upset when she finds windows shifted around on her desktop, for example. However, she uses Debian with no trouble, and has been for a few years now. There are no BSOD’s, it doesn’t crash, updates don’t mess up her system because Debian is known for its stability, and she can just open up Firefox and do her surfing without worry of viruses, crashes, and other concerns so rampant in Windows.

    Mom didn’t install Debian herself, but with the ease of Ubuntu and several other distributions these days, that’s not a problem for other Joe Sixpack users. Stick in a Live CD and let it do its magic. The interface of Ubuntu is intuitive enough and similar enough to Windows to not present a problem.

    Time:
    8:03 AM

  • 5 Apr 07 grouch said:

    http://dailydog.be/archives/737
    http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html
    http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT9325931427.html
    http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php?sort=&showonly=
    http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/%7Epgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
    http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2007-03-02-vista-problems_N.htm
    http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=desktop_applications&articleId=9012140&taxonomyId=86&intsrc=kc_top
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6418965.stm
    http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=343
    http://www.crn.com/software/18819434 (6 years ago, Linux = “threat No. 1″)
    http://www.itworld.com/Man/2676/nls_solutinons_vista060525/index.html
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/linux.html

    It is almost a sure bet that some of the whiners are astroturfers. So-called “stealth marketing” is big business. It is encouraging to see Microsoft’s paid shills responding to an otherwise innocuous email of about a year and a half ago. This gives some indication of how badly Microsoft miscalculated people’s tolerance for the heavy-handed DRM in MS Vista. Those commenters are attempting to persuade the legitimate commenters to be afraid of trying a system which recognizes the user is the owner of the machine. They do not want people who are not computer ’savy’ to discover that an operating system written by other users, for users, is superior to a system written to preserve and protect a revenue stream of a single monopoly.

    Microsoft has never produced an operating system that is suitable for untrained computer users. Every OS they have marketed can be destroyed by an untrained computer user’s inadvertent mouse clicks or by trivial vandal attacks. GNU/Linux, on the other hand, can accommodate the most highly skilled computer user as well as the most untrained one. A person who is able to insert the coaster into the cupholder and reboot will be able to safely click around without damaging the operating system.

    IMO, it is simply cruel to place a Microsoft Windows system into the hands of anyone who is not extensively trained in securing that system and in avoiding such pitfalls as dragging some “system folder” into the wrong place by accident. This is especially true for young children. You should not give a child a toy that will self-destruct if the knobs are twiddled in the wrong way. It is significant that GNU/Linux was chosen for the OLPC project; that computer must be safe for users who may be unable to read or write and who may have no concept of “computer security”.

    Time:
    11:55 AM

  • 5 Apr 07 Linux Linux everywhere » Geeks de Guate said:

    […] this at http://www.3till7.net/2005/11/01/everyone-uses-linux/ and figured it was worth copying. My only question is where are the sources for some of his […]

    Time:
    11:23 PM

  • 6 Apr 07 Midi-Man said:

    The U.S. Department of Defense

    I really can sleep better at night knowing that we can launch a counter attack and that the defense system will not fail in case of emergency. M$ might say they are great but they hide behind $20 grand firewalls which are Unix based. I will always say anything that is mission critical is not windows this is not FUD this is fact!

    Time:
    7:44 AM

  • 6 Apr 07 Tim said:

    100% GNU Linux :) I love Debian + Xen .. granted, I use CentOS for userland, but 10+ years as a HA/HPC cluster architect, using Microsoft products to me would be like going back to rubbing two sticks together to make fire. Post was really funny!

    Time:
    10:24 AM

  • 7 Apr 07 grouch said:

    A clarification: My earlier comment referencing astroturfers was not aimed at the commentary on this blog. There have been comments posted regarding this article on other sites and some of those comments exactly echo the bullet points of Microsoft’s campaign against GNU/Linux.

    For more on “stealth marketing”, where individuals are paid to be astroturfers, see http://spankmymarketer.com

    Time:
    9:55 PM

  • 8 Apr 07 Jesse McNelis said:

    sucking less is what useable desktop software is all about. It’s never going to be good because the requirements are always large and quickly shifting.
    Look at web browsers, there isn’t a good web browser anywhere because the requirements are so large that writing a good web browser is so much effort that it easier just to stick with the crap we have and Firefox does suckless than most of the others.

    Time:
    11:32 AM

  • 8 Apr 07 Aeropunkie said:

    I use Centos, Redhat, Suse, Pfsense.

    Time:
    3:59 PM

  • 9 Apr 07 Adam said:

    I have recently switched to Ubuntu and love it. I stumbled upon this page and am glad I did.

    Time:
    7:48 PM

  • 20 Apr 07 Everyone Uses Linux at Epsilon’s Blog said:

    […] Everyone Uses Linux Published April 20th, 2007 Don’t you have any friends with living brain cells? Let me see, Sony, the largest consumer electronics company on the planet, uses Linux for its products and its movies. IBM (remember them? the monster from which a little company called Lexmark sprang?) not only uses it but considers it so valuable that it warrants betting corporate reputation, all software products and uncounted hundreds of millions of dollars (perhaps billions) defending. NASA and the European Space Agency depend on it. The U.S. Department of Defense says its ability to function would be dangerously hampered if they couldn’t use F/OSS and the centerpiece in that usage is Linux. Google, of course, is the world’s largest Linux installation. Cisco uses Linux (although Cisco no longer holds a monopoly-sized share of major Internet routers, their name is still stamped on so many of the backbone routers that their sudden disappearance would effectively mean the disappearance of the Internet). # […]

    Time:
    6:36 PM

  • 27 Apr 07 Dennis said:

    Did you mention that linux for a desktop computer is crappy? Don’t get me wrong i like linux and all its mainly used for SERVERS since there are no viruses or works possible to write for linux.

    Time:
    12:04 AM

  • 27 Apr 07 Sarah said:

    Dennis: When was the last time you tried a distribution of Linux aimed for a desktop computer? I think it’s decidedly not crappy, otherwise there wouldn’t be such steam behind distributions like Ubuntu, which makes it so easy, pretty, and user-friendly to use Linux on a desktop system.

    Time:
    7:50 AM

  • 30 Apr 07 Lawrence said:

    Hah, Linux crappy as a desktop OS? I’ve been using Linux for the last five years exclusively for a desktop OS, and it’s more advanced than Windows - then AND now. XGL kicks Vista’s sorry ass to the curb and then some.
    My entire family uses Linux as their desktop OS. My girlfriend uses Linux as her desktop OS, and recently wiped her WindowsXP dualboot to reclaim the diskspace it was (ab)using. A friend recently asked me to install Linux on her laptop, as she recently had to wipe 750 virus’ off her laptop and doesn’t want to have to go through that again. Not to mention she is a police detective, and she wants her drive encrypted with a RELIABLE encryption scheme. Something that LUKS can provide, not Vista’s sorry excuse for encryption that is just waiting to be cracked.
    I’m sorry, but anyone who says that Linux isn’t ready for the desktop hasn’t been paying attention since at least last millenium.

    Time:
    10:25 AM

  • 28 May 07 Nixser.com » Get the real facts, Microsoft. said:

    […] stumbled upon a blog entry of Sarah, “Everyone uses Linux“. You should visit her dad’s website too. Title of the site reads “free the […]

    Time:
    11:12 AM

  • 20 Jul 08 fullmetalgerbil said:

    Ah, the shadowy penguin cabal secretly overtaking the transnationals. Love it.

    Time:
    6:06 PM

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