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Michael Dell Sees Future In Linux Desktop
Robert McMillan writes: "Linux Magazine has just published a pretty interesting interview with Michael Dell -- not exactly widely considered to be a Linux booster. But he is keynoting at LinuxWorld in San Jose tomorrow and he does talk about why Dell is now interested in Linux. Interestingly, he also says he sees good things for Linux as a desktop OS."
"Interestingly, he also says he sees good things for Linux as a desktop OS."
Yet yesterday, 90% of slashdot readers berate AOL for providing their suite of access products for Linux
What's it to be ?
The other thing is -- by supporting Linux, they rather seem to be competing with SUN & al. then with Microsoft. A lot what he says remains unspoken (e.g. he says "Look at SUN and Microsoft", and then doesn't even mention the latter). Linux warriors may be more obsessed with Microsoft, but one conclusion I draw from that interview is that rather the big commercial Unix corporations can be the real competitor / enemy (however you state that) of Linux in the corporate market.
Best regards,
January
It worries me slighhtly that so many companies these days are focusing on Linux as the only alternative. Sure, this is great for Linux, but is it good for computer users in general? Bear with me here...
Out of all the available Operating Systems out there, how many are based on just two standards? There is Win32 (Windows 9x/ME, WinNT), and POSIX (All *nix variants, most BSD's, BeOS, QNX etc). Only two standards? Where is the choice? Where is the inovation?
It seems to me that all anyone is interested in is twisting and squeezing Linux into ever more bizarre and improbable situations (Linux on palm tops, Linux for embedded devices, Linux for games consoles etc.) Is the market stagnating, where no one dares break away from the pack and try something new for a change?
Maybe it's envy on my part, but why can't we have an Open Source project that isn't based around some form of Linux or a POSIX kernel? Is there any room for innovation in OSS these days?
Just had to get that off my chest, sorry.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
- Throw multiuser and files access permissions out of the system. have the user automatically login and work as 'root' just as in windows 95/98/me and in macos. sure, this creates a lot of security issues, but they could be tolerated on desktop machines with dialup-only internet access. by far more simple for unsophisticated users.
- Simplify the file system structure. If multiuser functionality has been removed, it is only longer necessary to have
/home, /sbin, /usr/sbin and to have both global and user-specific configuration files. Join /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, for example. Rename all system directories so that they are easily understandable in natural language: /usr/bin to /Programs, /etc to /Programs/Settings /lib to /Programs/Data. Create /Fonts, /Sounds, /Pictures, /Documents, and so on.
- Throw out X11 - since no desktop user needs its network functionality - and replace it with a framebuffer-based GUI.
- Create lightweight desktop applications not with configurability, but simplicity in mind. Avoid redundant functionality (i.e. button bars doubling menu entries). Most of these apps are already there, just port them to a common toolkit (fltk, for example).
- Reduce inter-application interfaces to classic Unix pipes, sockets and libraries. Avoid bloat and slowdown through Corba and similar interfaces.
- Adapt and simplify LinuxConf to act as the system configurator
- Standardize on one scripting language in your "distribution" (for example, Python). Avoid that several bloated scripting languages have to reside on the system just because system utilies (package managers etc.) need them.
I agree that the resulting system will have litte in common of what we know and appreciate in GNU/Linux. But it would be the perfect system for people who don't want to replace the complexity and impenetrability of Windows with yet another type of complexity and impenetrability. Hammering nice graphical interfaces on top of that complexity won't help.gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
And then spaketh the lord, "Let there be unix companies galore, each different from the other, so that the standards can multiply and compete amongst each other."
And the companies thus arose, and they fought each other, with various wondrous types of software, none of which worked with the other. And everyone saw that there was competition, and it was good.
Thus began the ten years of drought, when application developers moaned, "Wherefore am I to write my software? None shall buy it, for each is on his own little island, each separate from the rest." And Gates said to them, "Come to me, ye fools! And ye shall be happy, for all my denizens live under one roof. It leaketh sometimes, but ye shall earn gold selling yer stuff." And the developers all flocked to Gates, and the unix companies continued to fling dung at each other, and it was all as it had always been.
w/m
manager: Gee, Michel, IBM is getting a lot of press for pushing this Linux thing.
Dell: Nah, Linux sux
manager: yes, but it gets a lot of coverage lately. We should really come up with something.
Dell: Nah, Linux sux.
manager: Michael, you will slashdoted.
Dell: Darn, you are convicing. Call our PR department...
This isn't to say that Linux is a bad OS. It's a terrific OS for servers, routers, and other non-end-user computers. But it doesn't make any sense to try to hack shiny, happy desktop features into it. Everything has its purpose right? Linux's purpose is to be the best server operating system available (whether or not it succeeds is your call), not to battle Microsoft.
Rather than that constantly remake Linux in order to compete with Windows, it would make a great deal more sense for the FSF to create a brand new operating system designed from the ground up to be a desktop OS. Not only would this OS include all the necessary components for a desktop OS (GUI support built in from the beginning, no CLI, journaling file system, plug-and-play devices, advanced multimedia support, etc.), it would eliminate all the problems seen in current desktops -- licensing problems with KDE; feature bloat with GNOME. And right now, there's simple no free OS that does this -- sure, there's BeOS, but it's only free as in beer, not as in speech.
Remember P.T. Barnum's famous quote "You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time?" Right now, Linux is trying to please all of the people all of the time, and that just isn't working. It's time to divide and conquer. Leave Linux to the server market and design the efficient, stable, user-friendly, and most importantly, open-source desktop OS that the world has been waiting for.
The real trouble with pushing Linux onto the desktop market as quickly as possible is that the infrastructure required to develop games easily is still in the process of development. Why games? Because games are where mindshare is in the eyes of Joe Sixpack buying a PC for his kids. Sure, he may claim that it's for "educational purposes", but if it doesn't run games as well then he's not going to buy it.
Whilst the latest versions of XFree86 attempt to go further in what hardware is supported and what features can be used, there is still no unified framework for the kind of features required for games and other multimedia applications. Sure, there's OpenGL and now OpenAL, but these are very much a work in progress under Linux, and even then rely on the goodwill of manufacturers in making driver code available for a system where they won't be making any kind of return.
The reason that there are so many games under Windows is that it is, relatively speaking, easy to create them. DirectX provides a unified framework for integrating graphics, sound, music, input devices, network play and more in a single package, allowing designers to concentrate on what matters - the game itself. The difference is very real, and can be seen in the amount of time it takes for Loki to port a game to Linux.
It is safe to say that the importance of games cannot be stressed enough in the public's view of how desirable a desktop system is. And until Linux delivers a unified framework for creating games a la DirectX, it's success on the desktop will always be limited.