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SuSE clarifies "Linux on the desktop" Statement
MrEfficient writes, "ZDNet UK has a story in which Dirk Hohndel, the chief technical officer of SuSE Linux, clears up an earlier statement made by the chief executive, Roland Dyroff, about Linux's readiness for the desktop. "
I have always wondered about this point: Of the people who use Windows, how many actually install it? Or could install it? My dad uses Windows all the time, but if even minor stuff breaks I have to fix it. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that most ordinary users never touch their install except when they install their own new things. So, if linux could come pre-installed with everything, and install programs for other vendors were easy to use and didn't screw up often (I sure hate it when this happens), then who cares how arcane the install procedure is, right? Also, I would like it so that big software packages could be less distro specific and more software specific. After all, for my home box I couldn't imagine using a distro. This is my mess-around-with-machine!
> So many people are convinced that the solution
> is to "dumb down" the desktop environments to
> suit the users. Personally I think that idea is
> way off base, and I tend to agree more with the
> concept of hiding advanced functionality in
> order to not overwhelm new users.
If you think it's a bad thing, you call it "dumbing down". If you think it's a good thing, you call it "hiding advanced functionality". Really, they are the same thing. It's what KDE does fairly well, and what vi most certainly does not.
> But there is more than the web, more than word
> processing, and much more than email. The real
> question is, how do we gently push the masses
> into discovering it for themselves?
Like what? For the home user like my father, sisters, and pretty much everyone I know outside of work, that's all they ever use their computers for. The web and e-mail are the killer apps that have put PCs into millions of homes in the U.S. and around the world. These people have no interest in writing programs, doing calculations on spreadsheets, listening to MP3s, creating graphics, or any of the myriad of other uses that we techies love.
We will never be able to "show them the wonder", "gently push the masses", or "educate them" to things that they simply have no inherent interest in! It's only because just about everyone is interested in reading magazines and reading and writing letters from friends that the web and e-mail, their electronic equivalents, are the killer apps of computing today.
> Are we doomed to a world where there are
> distinct information appliances for the
> cornerstones, where the PC as we know it is a
> dinosaur? I hope not.
Well, all indications from pundits and industry analysts are that that's where we are headed, though the PC will not die but probably revert to being a hobbyist's toy as it was 20 years ago, or strictly as a development tool for information appliances/intelligent devices. And as long as I can still do what I do on my PC (internet, programming, games, multimedia), that's fine with me.
Why must you assume that GUI configuration is mutually exclusive with manually editable configuration files? It seems to me that if the program can read its configuration from a text file, it ought to be able to properly write to it. MS Windows has always had GUI configuration, and the configuration files are manually editable. Until Windows 3.1, they were plain text (.INI) files, while in 95/NT you can export the registry to a text file, modify it, and import it.
As for X cut-and-paste, well, the only problem is... it SUCKS. It works only for text data, it's mouse-centric (It doesn't work with Shift-arrow key selections), and you can't paste into a selection.
Sure, installing Linux is fairly simple. The partitioning beforehand is a b*tch though, if you're not installing onto a fresh hard drive & you want to keep your other OS hanging around.
The thing is, once you get Linux installed, you can easily spend weeks tweaking things up. Telling newcomers to "compile a kernel" doesn't give them that warm fuzzy feeling, even with helpful tools like "make xconfig."
One of the (many) things I think is really cool about MacOS is that there's an image of the basic installation -- boot from the CD, wipe the hard drive, double-click on the image, wait a few minutes and you're done.
But I'll echo the sentiments of many others; it's easiest to just buy a computer with Linux pre-installed.
Having finished the final tweaks to a LinuxPPC install, my beige G3 kicks major butt....
-- Dirt Road
Improvise - Adapt - Overcome (unofficial USMC motto)
Why is everyone comparing linux from 2000 with wintel's from 1990? Liberal use of something like Ghost (for reinstalation of your OS) and something like ZENWorks (for application distribution (and repair), print driver distribution, console redirect (like pcanywhere) etc etc, you have a solution at least as good as traditional unix netbooting or nis and nfs'd /usr trees.
And if your running windows on the desktop machines, then your users have the ability to run all of the apps that they want that require windows.
KDE and GNOME are severely lacking design.
Evidence that nobody ever thought of designing the interface:
1. There are menus on the windows, the window title bars, the desktop, the 'start' icon, and even at the top of the desktop.
(yes, GNOME, Enlightenment and X are three separate entities, and so coders think they each deserve their own independent menus... but this is just lumping it all together... this is not design!)
2. Hundreds of damned cryptic commands, pertaining to different functions/systems, all lumped together across many directories.
(you haven't got a real gui until every single last one of them has it's own individual icon and help description available through the file browser, with clear distinctions between apps, system/os components, and shared resources... this is how your grandmother will learn to be comfortable with the computer....
3. Oh, and get rid of the 'start' menu. Lumping everything in a hierarchical menu is just awful. If the file browser was better you wouldn't need a menu to find things.
(MS has made the start menu their 'trademark', which means they had to stick it on WinCE, which is just terrible... all that precious screen space wasted on a menu bar, who's task bar is useless because it was designed to work horizontally on a 17" monitor... this is puking awful 'design'.)
But maybe it's already too late for Linux and X, given their historically justified reasonings and forms. I mean, is it actually possible to solve/design in points 1 and 2 above? I suspect not.
No, we'l never have One GUI. We'l always have several GUI frameworks (Qt, Gtk, the Xt-based (Motif, AThena), OpenLook, etc). But they'l all emerge to a state when they are all interoperaple, and share a huge set of basic features like drag-n-drop, available themes, etc. They will all be configurable to look the same. And you are there again - Linux is not that easy to set up, but to use. But m4, some clever scripts and some GUI-front-ends (Like Gnorpm for the RPM packages) will do it for you!
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
However, when it comes time to do something different or if something doesn't work right with windows you can easily find someone to help you, with linux you can find the information you need if you know where to look.
And unfortunately I (as many here) always get the impression of myself always being the one who is asked for help.
I did it for the last few years and now I'm filled up, I changed something. From last year on I refuse to help people who used ms-word to write important long documents in spite of me advicing them to use latex.
I tell them: "If you use latex - on windows if you must - you'll get every help I can give you, if you use word, I will not help you."
I wouldn't extend that to the os, but doing it for applications seems fine to me. And it makes sense, with word I'm really not able to help when for instance this nice piece of software decides to shuffle around footnotes.
It could help if many people did the same, instead of giving "lusers" the feeling that they buy (our) support together with some ms-software.
2.3.x kernel plug and play works a dream, at least for the couple of pnp cards I have (SB64 and some network card)
1. Interface consistency.
Well, we both know what most Linux users (yes, me included) thinks about this, so I'm not going to even start about this ;-)
2. GUI configuration of system.
This would probably be good for novice users. Fortunately there are some utils to do this (take a look at the current distributions). Unfortunately they usually don't know everything; if I make some modifications on the configuration files myself, they won't work any longer as they are supposed to. I think it's good to have manually editable configuration files; what will happen if my monitor explodes and I only have some dumb terminal to use for configuring?
3. Target audience for most apps.
Working on this :-P
1. First, it is fine to have different window managers. Just make them at least independently consistent. The obvious example - cut and paste, different in every situation and exteremely frustrating and inefficient.
What on earth are you talking about? Using the middle button works in 99% of Linux applications (I just wish StarOffice starts supporting it), and it's a lot faster than the Microsoft way.
3. Linux developers target their apps for a Linux Savvy audience. Bugs are expected, bad interfaces with nasty widgets are expected and in most cases a compile is expected. Most computer users don't know what "compile" means.
I strongly disagree. Bugs are not expected. Hey, take a look at the MS world, and tell me, which MS software doesn't have bugs? I don't think Linux software is any worse (perhaps not any better too, but Open Sourcing help fixing those bugs faster). I also disagree on the interface thing. Could you give me a clue on what software are you talking about?.
You're probably not surprised when I tell you that I disagree on the compilation thing too. First of all, most of the Linux software is nowadays available as precompiled binaries too. But hey, I don't use them anyway. Why? Because I like the fact that the software is compiled using the optimizations for MY hardware, not someone elses. Also I might not need every gadget that might be compiled in and bloats the software. If I could compile Netscape myself (hey, I can compile mozilla! ) I'd leave more than 50% out (if I could do that using the configure script). So: Compilation is not a bad thing, but it's not required any longer anyway
--
It has to work - rfc1925
I think that the HP890c is one of those "winprinters." OF course I could be talking out of my ass. If it is I'm pleasantly surprised that it works at all.
Anyway, I have an HP Laserjet 5L and it works like a charm. Absolutely flawless, its faster than under Win 98 or NT.
I have it shared with SAMBA to my Windows boxes. On windows I install the HP PCL driver, and I get EVERY feature that is available to me if I am connected directly to the printer. Its just a little quicker.
Thinking the speed difference might be an illusion, I devised a rudimentary test. I printed a sample of documents, and timed how long it took. I printed all documents to a local printer, and to a network printer. In all cases when the printer was attached to Linux it was faster. I used the same printer for all tests.
How much faster, about 8%, not earth shattering but you notice on longer documents and ones with lots of graphics. Interestingly the fastest combination is printing from Windows NT to the Linux SAMBA share for the laser. The difference is minute, but consistently about 0.8%. [I wouldn't have noticed without the stopwatch] I didn't account for CPU speed, but I will say that Linux is running on the slowest machines (Pentium 60 and Pentium 100) in the house. Windows 98 is on the fastest (K6-2 300). All my machines have the same network card (Netgear FA310TX) on a 100Mbit LAN (NetWorth Micro 100 rack repeater)
Does this mean that Linux printer support is all done ? I don't think so. It is pretty good for HP black and white laser printers, without multiple paper sources though.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
I fear --
I am afraid that as linux approaches critical mass and the acceptance as a desktop system, the quality of the software and the problem of such things as virii will increase. Viruses come from not auditing programmes before installing them, and installing from untrusted sources. Having too big a user base out there, instead of remaining an alternative operating system threatens the very stability that makes linux what it is.
I want linux to beat out Windows, because nothing frustrates me more then trying to fix a windows system, but if Linux goes mainstream, will it defeat windows, or merely replace it?
Let us not go blindly forward, we have a lot of obstacles to avoid.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Thank god I have other people to think for me.
Hits alt-tab to switch back to his Applix office app.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
My phole point is... do you think I don't?? I don't need someone else to tell me whether Linux is ready for the desktop or not. I'm quite capable of using it and declaring it "ready" or "not ready" myself, as if that was in any way meaningful.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Personally, I stick with Debian. I find it very easy to upgrade which is far more important for me. I don't need to install Linux every couple of months like my roommate does with Windows. But then, I'm hardly a casual Linux user.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Like most Linux users I plunked a Linux partition on an old box (clunky'486) after upgrading a few years ago (geesh, that was back in '96...). It was merely an experiment I would pick up every now and again, but only as at the command line - never loaded up any Xfree servers. Whenever I got a new box (Windows always pre-installed) I'd throw whatever distro I had handy onto the HDD and tinker yet again. It wasn't until Spring '99 that I got the bug again (wanted to see what that old overclocked 166 could really do) I went shopping for new distibutions. I finally settled on SuSE 6.0 and after a month of runnig a dual-boot system I found that it had become my everday desktop.Time to upgrade to a new PIII. Everthing went fine until I tried to get the rest of the family to switch. Here's a few of the things keeping them stuck to the MS desktop.
I'm faithful in the prospect of seeing more games for next Xmas, but it's difficult to tell people that things will be better soon. I've been hearing that for a while now and yes it is happening but slowly (especially measured in Internet years). People will be very slow to convert when you tell them that gadget 'X' which they just got last Xmas won't be supported in the current kernel.
one better than mcleodeight
There are many users out there that have been spoiled by the Windows experience (BSODs included) that have read/heard about Linux and want to switch but fear potential problems they've learned about. Partitioning a Windows hard drive and possibly messing up their Windows partition is one possibility. Another is reformatting the hard drive, installing Linus as the only OS and encountering problems they are ill equiped to handle, leaving them without even internet access. Hardware compatability is another problem, especially WIN modems-don't work at all on Linux, and currently have no vendor support. Leaving them without one of their favorite applications, especially productivity apps (read games) is also a problem. File compatability with Windows Office apps is a problem that concerns buinesses more than the average home user. However home users do want file compatability with audio and video formats, this may be another sticking point with Linux.
OEMs pre-loading Linux will overcome some of the fear; that of installing Linux, and distributions by Linux OS vendors are becoming easier to install. Software vendor support will bring apps and games to Linux, more hardware vendors will support Linux when it becomes profitable for them to do so. The Linux community will do its best to ensure compatability with multimedia formats, whether total compatability is acheived may depend on the outcome of some current lawsuits.
The best users to target shouldn't be grandmas, but students! Students after all are the future users, raise the level of their computer sophistication. I don't want a Linux desktop OS with all the gadgets and gewgaws that Windows has if it causes Linux to bloat to the point where it will crash as often as Windows.
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
What on earth are you talking about? Window managers have nothing at all to do with copy and paste. And copy and paste is consistent amoung every X app I have ever used. You select text with the left button and paste with the middle button.
Few programs support cut and paste at all; but that's either an X or an application-level issue, it has nothing to do with window managers.
--
see shy jo
Bletch. Having yanked my machine open and added a new disk drive, clipping cable ties, pulling SCSI cables up, screwing the drive into the drive bay, blah blah blah, all I can say is...
...fuck that. I've been working with UNIX, including doing kernel development, since 1978 or so, so I'm not even close to a newbie, and, frankly, I would love to have a better way to plug disk drives in.
The same applies to software. I'd rather use my brain cells doing software development than configuring software tools, tweaking my system so that it recognizes my PnP ISA sound card, blah blah blah.
And I run FreeBSD as my home desktop machine for a variety of reasons - one of which is that it was less work to get it to recognize my sound card than it was to stuff the PnP ISA patch into the 2.0.x kernel in Debian 2.1, and it looked as if it'd be less work than it was to configure isapnptools. (It looks as if the 2.4 kernel will do better here.)
A more convenient system could well make life even better even for 31337 h@x0rs - less time tweaking your box to be the way you want it to be, more time to hack software....
One thing about Linux that is a minor annoyance to me but a huge problem for the typical home user is the way device drivers are updated. If I install a random new peripheral under Win 98, the system detects the added hardware and asks for a driver disk. Since the disk generally comes with the peripheral, it's pretty easy for anyone to handle the install.
On the Linux side, I would typically have to upgrade my kernel to a version with support for that device. Or I would have to apply a patch to my kernel and recompile. These tasks are a lot easier now than in the old days, but they can be intimidating to new users and still present plenty of opportunity to screw up one's system.
I recall that there was some discussion among kernel developers about stabilizing a binary driver interface so that a precompiled driver module would work reliably with different kernel revisions. The argument which shot the idea down was that it would saddle the kernel with backwards compatibility issues and would encourage the development of binary-only drivers. I agree that these are both bad things, but I still feel that there needs to be some middle ground.
My initial thought here is that there should be a binary driver interface standard that evolves separately from the kernel proper. It's okay for it to change from time to time, but for the stable kernels there should probably be at least six months between revisions. Then perhaps we could establish a driver packaging format in which each package would include precompiled binary modules for multiple platforms (CPUs, SMP, etc.) and multiple versions of the driver interface standard. It could also include the driver source, so that the module could be compiled on the fly.
Obviously I've avoided most of the implementation issues here, but I would hope that this solution would make peripheral installation as easy for Linux users as it is for Windows users. It would also allow driver developers to work more independently of ongoing kernel development.
Derek
I partitioned my NT 4.0 machine and installed SuSE 6.0 for my use. It worked well but I would boot back to NT for my family (wife and daughter) to use. I recompiled kernels, generally messed with the OS and eventually upgraded to 6.1 in yet another partition. Still booting back to NT when I got off the machine.
Needless to say, I got tired of this and built my own SuSE 6.2 box for myself to avoid the constant booting. Well, do I now have my own machine to putz around with? No. The family is more than likely to be using the SuSE box...seems that it's faster and has some games they like better than the ones that came with NT!
I do have a box to use most times but it's often the NT box because someone's using the SuSE box. I'd say it's ready for the home desktop.
The only complaints I get is that some web sites have plugins that aren't Linux compatible but that's changing in some quarters.
Of all the OS installs I've done, I'd say SuSE installs went smoother than NT installs and I've never had to reinstall SuSE because it wasn't working right. Wish I could say that about NT. Currently it isn't really working right but I hate doing NT installs so I'm living with it. I know it'll get worse and I'll have to bite the bullet and fix it someday....
I'm going to put it off as long as possible though.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
No it doesn't. You just need an app that has a way to select the non-text data, and an app that knows how to receive the non-text data. The XSelection mechanism is far more powerful than the Windows one, just it's harder to program, so many programs don't bother.
Linux is not easy to use.
KDE and Gnome are easier to use. If Linux truely wants to be on the average desktop there has to be at least these simple issues addressed:
1. Interface consistency.
2. GUI configuration of system.
3. Target audience for most apps.
Now a brief expansion (coming from a semi-new Linux user, long time computer user):
1. First, it is fine to have different window managers. Just make them at least independently consistent. The obvious example - cut and paste, different in every situation and exteremely frustrating and inefficient.
2. There have been important strides in this area in a very short period of time, but the common advice is: "Edit the scripts, who knows what [utility] will do to them." This is no good.
3. Linux developers target their apps for a Linux Savvy audience. Bugs are expected, bad interfaces with nasty widgets are expected and in most cases a compile is expected. Most computer users don't know what "compile" means. Package managers help alot, it sure helped me, but it won't help the guy deciding on whether to get that iMac or not.
Linux can be on the desktop, but does it want to be? It's really up to all of us I guess, and as soon as its not and its up to Corel or RedHat or something, then its probably not worth pushing Linux anymore.
Hotnutz.com - Funny
Linux is getting closer as far as software support (such as StarOffice/KOffice, etc.) but it has a ways to go as far as making drivers easy to handle for people. Even my parents and siblings can handle the most basic driver work in Windows such as installing or uninstalling drives or a scanner or printer, etc. - but even engine gods like Carmack can have troubles with Linux drivers.
THE Carmack and Bernd Kreimeier (of Loki software, the guys with the mad porting skillz) talked about this on the Utah-GLX driver list. They have a copy of the exchange on LinuxGames for Sunday the fifth.
I think that the HP890c is one of those "winprinters." OF course I could be talking out of my ass. If it is I'm pleasantly surprised that it works at all.
Well, I won't accuse you of talking out of your ass, but the 890c uses PCL3+ and TIFF run-length encoding for compression. I spent a few hours of my precious free time last weekened examining hex dumps of the output from the Windows and Linux drivers (Time I'd reserved for filling in my tax returns!) The Windows driver seems to use some undocumented PCL3 escape sequences, but I think that I can improve the Linux driver to give similar performance, if I can find a day or two to dedicate to it.
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
Obviously, the vast majority will probably never have an interest in the esoteric features and applications we hold dear. But there are simply so many things that a modern PC can do right now, and I don't think we've even scratched the surface.
You say you know many people who have no interest in using their PC for anything more than the basics. Have you ever asked them? Do they even know what the machine is capable of?
And consider this, without the high availability of computers as consumer devices, the web wouldn't exist as a "killer app". What happens if all those industry pundits are right? The PC as a platform hits a plateau, and declines. Where is the next "killer app" discovered? What we have is the platform, a fertile platform, in which the seeds for the next information (r)evolution are planted.
I do believe that information appliances will be a major industry, but I also think that people need to understand their computers aren't appliances. And maybe the reason that all current computing enviornments don't work well is because they're either targetted specifically at technical people, or they've been designed to hide all the complexity of a purposely complex device.
You can point at just about any computing paradigm and say its wrong, and back it up with good reason. And you'd be right, our entire concept of humancomputer interfaces are flawed. We need something that will retain all the flexibility that geeks love, while making it natural to work with for those that aren't as technically proficient. Perhaps it's just a time/generation thing, and it will work itself out. Maybe we can help it along?
I'm referring to NT 4.0 SP5. I'm not speaking from inexperience, I've been developing for Windows for as many years as Windows has existed, and I know the system as well as any non-microsoft developer probably does. It simply wasn't designed for a corporate environment. It's come a long way, but it will likely never have the flexibility that a unix-like system will. Ghost is great, never having to re-image a PC's disk is better.
And if your running windows on the desktop machines, then your users have the ability to run all of the apps that they want that require windows.
In some corporate environments, this is precisely what you don't want. You don't want users installing anything they feel like. Usually, you don't want them installing anything at all. Personally, I believe this is counter-productive, due to the fact that employees should be using technology to it's fullest. The problem is, most of them don't use it productively, and end up costing time and money when they install something useless that makes the system unstable.
My post covered two somewhat related topics. From an IT standpoint, a unix-like system is much more desireable as long as it provides everything the end-users need. And the free variants are providing more every day.
I don't think that just anyone would want to try and install linux right now. It's just not ready for mass use. If your comfortable with computers and not afraid to give it a try then linux is for you. Most people are not comfortable with computers, ask anyone that works as hardware/software tech support .
Suse is one of the better disto's out there right now. I've tried a few and I like suse the best, that's what I have installed at the moment. Not only does it have decent installation tools it has every program that one could possibly want.
There is nothing wrong with telling the truth. Linux is not ready to be windows replacement for the general public. The typical computer user is more and more just someone that wants to write a few papers play some games and surf the net. People with the level of technical knowledge needed to install linux aren't as common as they used to be. If you think this is wrong think about the people that you know that use a computer. Except for people that I went to school with, most of the people that I know that own a computer are completely ignorant of how or why their computer works.
Someday soon I hope that linux is ready for the general public. I want this to happen so that software that I love from windows(games mostly) will get ported to linux. This will only happen if enough people decide to use the operating system.
Let the flaming begin.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
I love Linux, but I run it without an X server because I hate every GUI ever made for it.
It all comes down to the user interface.
Sure, Linux has GNOME and KDE. Yes, absolutely, Linux has support for most every video card in the hardware taxonomy. Of course, Linux users can play Freecell.
But what it doesn't have is anyone who pays attention to HOW MOST PEOPLE REALLY USE COMPUTERS.
Where's the trash can in the GNOME interface? Why are there no keyboard modifiers for copy, move, or link mouse operations in KDE? Why is it that when I use a marquee to select and move icons on the GNOME desktop, that it only displays the top-most icon? Why is copying files using the KDE file manager harder typing "cp -Rf" on the command line? What's up with all the flicker and redraw with X, anyway? Don't you guys hate that? You should!
Enlightenment (or any other X window manager) is not the answer. Neither are themes, infinite configurability, or cool spinning clocks. I'm sick of eye candy. I want GUI meat and potatoes!
Hopefully the Eazel guys will help. If they don't, maybe someone could rape the NEXTSTEP Human Interface Guidelines and produce a real NEXTSTEP workalike, instead of the bastardization that is AfterStep.
If I hate Linux GUIs, Ghod knows the secretary in the mortgage company isn't going to like Linux any better. And that's the person you need to sell to.
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
This isn't a knock on Linux at all -- the fact that it's come as far as it has in the amount of time it has is, quite simply, amazing. But in all honesty, more work needs to be done before the "average" desktop user will spend more time using the machine productively than he/she will trying to figure out what to do next when something doesn't work as expected.
So again I ask, why the reversal of this position? Was SuSE getting flack for that comment? It would seem grossly unfair if they were.
+----------------------------------------------
+------------------------------------------------
+ The urge to destroy is a creative urge
Linux is ready for the desktop already -- if there is a Linux expert available to set the bloody thing up. But for a some users, if you want web browsing over a lan: you can buy/dl Corel Linux, press "ok" and you got Netscape and the internet. For some people that is all you need. Me, I'm not a Linux expert and am still trying to figure out why I need to compile programs in order to get them to run, and searching for antiquated libraries to support the files... ARG! In windows you just double-click SETUP.EXE (and reboot, and reboot).
But for the end user -- it's all the same: MacOS, Windows, Linux: double-click on the Netscape icon and you got your Internet. So like I said, Linux is easy to use for end users, but they still need an expert to set the thing up for them.
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
There are a couple things that need to be finished up...
OpenGL.
Games.
Glide.
KDE2.
Gnome2/Nautilus
Enlightenment2.
Alsa gets included in the kernel.
Xfree86.
Mozilla.
Better drivers...
Plug and play kernel
Abiword, Ksomething word, Gnome something word. etc.
I forget the rest.
I use Linux as my primary desktop operating system and have for a while now. With KDE and a decent office suite, the only reason I ever want to boot back to Windows is to run games. And even here, Linux is catching up. In addition, I find Linux easier to install than either Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Professional, assuming of course that I pick a decent distribution.
So for me, Linux on the desktop is here now. But what about my mother? She isn't concerned about installing Linux (she wouldn't, nor would she install Windows) and Linux does have a lot to offer. But it also offers her no compelling reason to switch. She has all the software she needs and is comfortable with it. The few times that she buys new hardware, she knows it will work in Windows. She doesn't have to worry about recompiling a kernel or anything like that.
Linux is viable for her. But not yet compelling. She doesn't want to tinker with her system and she would end up having to learn how to edit config files and the like if she switched. Dists like Storm Linux go a long way to making everything easy to use but the Linux world still lags behind Windows.
We are getting there. We have the stability. We have the general ease-of-use if you don't need to tinker too much. We have the MS Office compatibility. We are starting to get the games (though the APIs lag significantly). Linux on the desktop is coming (and soon) but it isn't here yet. We're probably 80% of the way there.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
One of the best things about Windows, in fact, one of the only truly wonderful things about Windows is the printer support. It's very easy to install and configure printers. When I print, to my HP890c I can hit a button in a dialog box that selects 'econofast' mode. This prints quickly (12 secs for a test page), with pretty good (300x300dpi) quality.
The same test page printed from Red Hat 6.1 takes almost THREE AND A HALF MINUTES to print. This means that a 10 page document would print in two minutes from Windows and over half an hour in Linux. It was quicker to reboot into Windows, print and then boot Linux again, than to print in Linux. This sucks hard.
I finally managed to work out how to get Linux to print quicker, but it took a very long time and I had to download, compile and read the source to Ghostscript to do it. Your average user couldn't/wouldn't do this.
I'd love to take time off work to help out with one of the Linux printing projects, but am far too busy at the moment trying to get an interactive TV project on air (I'll try to fix some of the bugs in the print driver though). Maybe in the summer...
But until Linux printing is as good as Windows, it really doesn't have a chance on the desktop.
</rant>
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
I know of at least one place I manage that I'm considering moving away from NT Workstation to either Linux or FreeBSD on the desktops. Its a small shop (about 20 desktops) which relies on a DOS based real-estate management package. The primary reason I'm considering the move is the flexibility I have with the configurations, which brings me to my next point ...
So many people are convinced that the solution is to "dumb down" the desktop environments to suit the users. Personally I think that idea is way off base, and I tend to agree more with the concept of hiding advanced functionality in order to not overwhelm new users. Although I believe that is also less than ideal. Computers are powerful devices, but everyone seems to think they need to be made as easy to use as an appliance. I'm sorry, but I think it's a tremendeous waste of such a powerful and flexible machine. What we need is a way to educate users. Show them that they can do more with these machines than browsing the web, writing documents, and sending email.
Its depressing when I see people buy brand new high-powered machines and really not use them for anything beyond the basics. Its understandable that these are the reasons that most people purchase computers (aside from the "me too" hype), but we need to show them some of the wonder that we experience.
I love technology (and I bet you do too), and I realize everyone isn't like us. But there is more than the web, more than word processing, and much more than email. The real question is, how do we gently push the masses into discovering it for themselves?
How do we educate them without scaring them away? Or are the wonderful flexible machines we all love not really suited for the general populace? Are we doomed to a world where there are distinct information appliances for the cornerstones, where the PC as we know it is a dinosaur? I hope not.
(I seem to have gotten semi-OT here, my apologies)