2020: Will BSD and Linux be relevant anymore?

[David Jackson]

upgradability is not just about about ram and hard drives. But i would beg
to differ that people dont want to add hard drives considering how fast they
can be filled with movies, or they wouldnt want to use their old hard drives
on a newer system considering how much data is on the older hard drive.

but you also have scanners, cameras, joysticks, capture devices for video,
and so on that many common users love to use. A lot of people use computers
for writing, home and office business work, and gaming, and given the choice
between a 3" screen and a 20" screen, you want a 20" screen. Even facebook
is better on a 20" screen.

I stand by what i said, mobile is great for use on a subway, but when you
get home, you really want a nice 20" screen to work on, and the bigger hard
drive and faster CPU.

I do want FreeBSD on both my handheld and the desktop. Now, notice its very
difficult to near impossible to change the operating system on handhelds.
Thats one reason I dont like most handhelds made today. They are designed to
control you.

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 2:46 PM, Daniel Staal <DStaal at usa.net> wrote:

>
> On Wed, July 20, 2011 1:52 pm, David Jackson wrote:
> > I do not believe that these phones or tablets will replace desktop but
> > there
> > is a lot of room for these two types of devices basically to communicate,
> > giving people access to their data and environment from both. The reason
> I
> > dont see the desktop going anywhere is that, basically people dont want
> to
> > work on a spreadsheet, play a game, write a letter or do many other
> things
> > on a 3" screen. Students wont want to use them to do their reports, etc.
> > Phones and tablets are handy when on the go due to the portability, but
> > their portability makes them impractical for use at home when a larger
> > screen is more desirable. The growth of tablets is due to there simply
> not
> > being the market there before and more people buying them for mobile use.
> > But desktops will remain popular for home and work use. Also users want
> > upgradeability, they dont want to be stuck with the same amount of hard
> > disk
> > space and may want to add a new camera to the system, a capture device,
> > scanner, etc. Desktop systems provide much more upgrade flexibility.
> > Linking
> > the desktop to the tablet will be an important thing so people can access
> > data and so on from their tablet.
>
> I'll disagree, somewhat: I know several people who are using a tablet as a
> desktop-replacement laptop.  They have a Bluetooth keyboard, and can use
> the tablet as a full computer or not.
>
> Most *consumers,* in my experience, also don't typically care about
> upgradablity.  Either the machine works when they get it, or it doesn't
> (which is a warranty issue), and after that if it breaks in few years,
> well, time to get a new one.  A few will add RAM or a HD when they get it,
> but that's about it.  Other additions, if any, are done as USB/Bluetooth,
> etc, and can be done on a tablet just as easily as a desktop.
>
> As for binary drivers...  They work ok *if* and *while* the company wants
> to support the hardware/OS.  Once they decide they don't want to, that's
> it.  This tends to cause problems down the road.  Also, they may do no
> more than the minimum necessary to support a certain version of the OS,
> unless that OS is a major source for their customers.  So while they *can*
> make better drivers than the core team, they often *don't.*
>
> Best is an open driver by the manufacturer.  Second is open docs, third is
> binary blob.  My opinion.
>
> Daniel T. Staal
>
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