Slashdot Mirror
The Linux Desktop Obituary
rcriii writes: "Kevin Reichard is announcing the end of Linux on the desktop over at Linux Planet . Having spent the past couple of weeks fighting with Star Office and Netscape, I'd say that he has a point. Let the flame wars begin." I'm still not sure it was ever born in the first place ... although I happily run Linux on all of my desktops. But I'm not exactly the desktop of corporate America either.
Alas, we hardly knew ye...
I guess we just have to admit it, this guy is right. As a server Linux is awesome, no doubt. As a desktop, it is plagued by many problems. Will I still use it after this? Yes, but can I ever see my mom using it, nope. That's not such a bad thing though. It should probably be only used by the tech elite IMHO.
For someone that runs Linux on all their desktops, you certainly seem to be playing a lot of Windows only games every time a story gets posted.
- Mark URL in whatever is showing it.
- Switch to Netscape (or Mozilla).
- Press middle button.
?Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
This is not a problem - it's a design. In that particular case you don't even have to paste into the input filed -- middle button over _any_ part of the browser window except that field causes the browser to go to the URL.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Nonsense. Both are dead or dying and we have a standard desktop: Motif. Don't you read Slashdot? ;)
Many people have commented that the arrival of Mac OS X will make it easier to to port Mac apps to any Unix, since "developers will be forced to port [apps] to Unix". This is totally inaccurate. Mac OS X doesn't have anything approaching a Unix API (although it is Posix-compliant, that only consists of the BSD layer. All the fun stuff that makes the computer usable, like the GUI, is Apple-prorietary). One of the main APIs, Carbon, is a slightly altered version of the traditional Mac OS APIs. The other, Cocoa, is basically NeXTStep's OOP frameworks. A program from either of them is just as hard to port to Unix as before; cocoa programs are probably harder.
Interesting. *17* moderation points wasted on this parent post so far.
If Microsoft wanted to muddy the waters, wouldn't they have a bunch of people sign up for Slashdot, post lots of innocuous posts until the got moderation privs, then send in a agent provocateur, and the hell out of him?
This is similar to the astroturf campaign Microsoft did against OS/2 8 years ago. Very sneaky, don'tcha think?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The same was said about Word Perfect back in the WP5.1 days. It took Microsoft less than 2 years to kill Word Perfect, with bundling deals and choking the distribution channels with pre-installs.
Microsoft Word was not superior to Word Perfect for many years after. Granted WP committed suicide by *not* fixing the codebase and releasing a good update-- WP5.1 was *it*. MS-Word didn't catch up to WP5.1 until Office97. (Don't believe me? Try editing tables-- specifically, merging two cells horizontally (or is it vertically?), in anything prior to Word97. This is only one example. There are others.)
MS-Office is *not* the ultimate killer application. It's a matter of distribution and acceptance; and if Microsoft keeps using old-time Mafia tactics to keep the profits rolling in, it won't be long before businesses start looking at non-licensed software. Once OpenOffice (or LyX, or Koffice) is accepted as an alternative, acceptance as a standard will shortly follow.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The author seems a little over-focused on the business aspects of "the Linux desktop". He believes that because Eazel died and Mandrake is having financial difficulties, the sky is falling in. Well, color me unconvinced.
Eazel died because it had no way to make money. Mandrake is having problems because it has never really managed to claw it's way out of Red Hat's shadow. Tough, but have you looked at the number of Linux distributions out there? Can you say market glut?
But these things aren't really relevant. All that these events prove, is that businesses which receive a lot of venture capital funding and don't have any revenue projections will go away. We've seen a lot of non-linux businesses with the same problem suffer the same fate recently.
The fact is that Linux isn't going anywhere. A lot of people use it, as servers, as workstations, and yes, as desktops. And there will always be a community of developers who will add to the body of work that's out there. Whether it's AbiWord or KOffice or GNUMeric or whatever, those applications aren't going to suddenly wink out of existence because some startups' funding dried up. That is exactly the beauty of Open Source -- when the product is free and the source is free, abandonware is an obsolete concept.
And with these desktop projects, as with all other open source projects, people will take up the reins, ant the evolution will continue.
I say give Linux on the desktop time - I switched to a 100% Linux desktop about two years ago and I love it. The important thing is that there are people who have switched more recently that wouldn't have bothered two years ago. Every day all the new functionality and useability which is added to Linux makes it a viable desktop for a few more people who have slightly less of a geek threshold than the adopters the day before. Linux on the desktop may be a niche today, but that niche is growing and given time it will eventually be more than a niche. Once it hits critical mass, expect things to explode as the Microsoft tax will no longer buy anything useful (it buys compatibility with other MS users today).
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
..install their own systems? Outside of the IT departments, almost no one does anything on their machines other than point, click, and print.
Don't try to use Linux as if it were Windows. Windows does that better. The fact that most companies have (or should have) a pervasive network by now, coupled with the fact that each end-user workstation probably needs to perform at most one or two tasks, makes Linux perfect.
One appropriately skilled Linux hacker could probably run an entire small/medium-sized company (about 100 employees) if you left all of the software/hardware decisions up to her. And I don't mean by having her install crap like StarOffice on 100 Red Hat boxes. I mean by asking her to analyze your business and having them suggest the way to make it all come together, with modern technology. If you step back far enough, every system is an embedded system.
The fact that you can totally control Linux means that you can design a more efficient end user experience. If the Linux hacker is appropriately skilled, you needn't even employ them fulltime, ie -- they're a consultant!
This is what Linux companies should (and do) focus on. It is total silliness to try to provide something that looks and acts like Windows, when realistically, Windows is totally ill-suited to a lot of these tasks. Copying Windows means you're just doomed to fail. They do it better, and they have a monopoly. Instead, do something innovative
Windows has it's places, but Linux has so many more.
FVWM was good enough. Instead of pouring all those spring breaks and dead weeks into window manager/desktop environment/object brokerage/meaning of life environments the hackers of the world should have focused on writing applications for FVWM. The reason I got into UNIX was how little the large applications of the time were hindered by clumsy window managers.
Okay, so you've described XFree86 version 4. 4.0 was released over a year ago now and while there may have been driver availability problems back then, there should now be support for all current graphics cards as loadable modules. There is a single X server binary, which loads things like graphics drivers, font engines, 3D acceleration support, monitor power management, and most other non-core features as cross-OS (hardware platform specific, so you can't use an x85 Matrox driver on an Alpha machine, but you can use it in Linux, *BSD, Solaris...) loadable modules.
As for the rest of your comments - repeat after me: X11 IS NOT A GUI. X11 is a network-transparent windowing system, which has GUIs implemented on top of it in the form of window managers, 'panels', 'pagers', and so on. You can do some quite amazing things with the flexability of X11+a window manager, including making copies of other GUIs (like Windows, MacOS, BeOS, etc.), at least at the window decorations, mouse behaviour and 'desktop' level, such that it's pretty hard to tell (excepting the apps) what you're using.
The downside of that, of course, is the complete lack of coherence between different apps and the desktop. Personally, the only X apps I run are Netscape/Mozilla (depending on the quality of recent Mozilla builds), XMMS and gvim - everything else runs in an xterm - so I don't worry about consistancy between apps. That, however, is the main problem the two desktop projects (KDE, GNOME) are trying to solve - by producing a load of programs (most of which already exist separately) using a coherent toolkit and (hopefully) design guide, you can produce a coherent desktop.
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
If you want intuitive check out Mac OS.
Ah yes, the OS where you inuitively drag everything to the trash when you never want it to be used again, except for removable media, where dragging it to the trash means "pop it out so I can use it later". And using the "Eject disk" menu item means "pop it out, but then nag me about it not being in the drive incessantly until I put it back in". Yeah, that's intuitive all right.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Well, my dear friend, you're not in Kansas anymore.
The Mac OS is not intuitive, but it's d*mned f*cking 100% consistent. On the Mac you CLOSE windows and QUIT applications. Every time, all the time. There's no way you can quit a normal modeless application by closing all the windows.
This fact is stated in no uncertain terms in the "getting started" manual. As is the infamous ejecting-disks-by-dragging-them-to-the-trash idiosyncrasy.
I understand that you're scared of the thought that you might have chosen a less consistent OS for your workstation, but hey, you can always bitch about it and spread FUD on Slashdot.
--Bud
Well, in my opinion "file" and "disk" are two different things. Your perception of reality may of course differ.
On the Mac, all mounted disks will have a corresponding icon on the desktop. Insert a disk, and an icon appears. Remove the icon, and the disk will be ejected. Where's the inconsistency in this?
--Bud
It's a file. It's even a file on Macs nowadays.
That one refers to the disk DRIVE and is in no way indicative of the DISK or the FILES on it.
-Bud
The following isn't intended as flamebait, although my tone might suggest it ;)... Having killer apps under Linux isn't going to make it anymore appealing as a desktop. I don't know whether it's the flexibility of X or just plain incompetence by the applications programmers for X, but the UIs (including when running KDE) really suck. It's as if the applications programmers are completely clueless about these things. Don't knock Windows (or Mac OS) for how generic or inflexible their UI is... it works, it's consistent and it's far less quirky. It's the quirkiness that really causes problems: for every application you have to learn how it behaves, and how it differs from others (even though it looks the same). And for crying out loud... test the tabbing order in dialogs!
<current pet peeve with X applications>
MAKE YOUR MODAL DIALOGS COME UP CENTRED OVER THE CORRECT APPLICATION WINDOW! I was playing around with Mandrake recently. I had my application window (Netscape or Mozilla, or something) in the lower left of the screen... every dialog appeared in the top-right (which is a long way away at hi-res). In fact, the dialog placement seemed almost random. What with the other Windows on the screen, it's often hard to notice a dialog pop-up when it's so far away from the action.
</current pet peeve with X applications>
Yes, and if XP Home Edition is priced competitively with Windows ME, it might even get installed. Otherwise Windows ME will live on. And while XP has addressed some of the security concerns with Windows, it has opened a whole new can of worms with its new draconian EULA and its adoption of anti-consumer technologies like Secure Audio Path.
It will be interesting to see if Microsoft can actually sell Windows XP. If they price it competitively I think they have a chance. If they expect end users to pay the premium that they have been paying for Windows NT (and 2000) XP will be stillborn.
If all you are copying and pasting is text, then the easiest way to do this is with the middle mouse button. Simply highlight what you want to copy, and then place your mouse cursor where you would like it to go and press the middle mouse button. If you don't have a three button mouse then you have to press both the right and left buttons at the same time (this is why it is important to get a three button mouse).
Once you get the hang of cutting and pasting without needing to keyboard you will find that you begin to wish Windows worked this way as well. It is much faster.
Hope that helps.
I suppose that the difference is that I don't copy URLs into Netscape. If the URL is in my text editor (Emacs) I simply use the browse-url function and it opens it up in Mozilla for me. If it is in a gnome-terminal I right click on it and slide down to "open in browser."
I can see what you mean, however, and in fact I vaguely remember having a similar problem. It just goes to show you how one becomes used to their preferred environment. I still like being able to cut and paste without touching the keyboard (otherwise I would simply use Emacs), but I can see your point.
Software better than Office is essentially trivial: emacs has always been better than Office for actually getting things done. The interface is more straightforward, and it's easier to see what you're doing. If you use LaTeX, you don't need fix your document formatting every time you change anything. Office has enough fundamental design flaws that, on technical merit (including usability) it's not hard to compete.
What Linux lacks is a program that is exactly like Office; this is the niche that StarOffice and such are trying to fill. Since business users want have generally gone through hell to learn how to deal with Office, they want to use this skill instead of learning even an easier and more efficient system. Crippled by trying to have the same functionality and file formats as Office, it's not surprising that Linux fails to have an acceptable program; Microsoft doesn't really have an acceptable version, and they control the standard.
No, I'm afraid you missed the point.
Word and Excel might be the one suite of apps that all users have in common.
But it is not the only app that all users need. There are the remaining 40,000 or whatever. You won't know about those apps until you talk to an individual user.
I guess it depends on what your goal is.
If it's only 10% of the users you are seeking to gain, then maybe I can see your point.
If it's 70%, 50% or even 30%... it will never happen because of those other 40,000 apps.(Actually it's a lot more than 40k)
There is another platform out there already besides Windows which has Office, Quicken, even Internet Explorer and a whole slew of other very popular applications.
And yet it barely has 10% of the market.
The Macintosh.
Linux advocates always seem to get caught up in this "What one app do we need to make this popular?"
The thing is, it isn't one app. It's 40,000 applications that make Microsoft Windows popular.
You have to have an environment where anything that is needed, especially anything sent to you by partners or regulatory agencies... just runs.
I used to run into this same issue back in the days supporting OS/2. At the time it meant we had many users with two desktops. One to run OS/2 and our "standard" apps, one to run all the other apps that didn't work under OS/2.
This is expensive and a nightmare to maintain.
Anyway, it's not just one app... It's everything.
This is so true! It's true because MS Office is primarily how MS has gained control of the desktop and kept control of it. Everyone made such a big deal about the integration of Internet Explorer with the OS. True, this was a big deal and brought about the downfall of Netscape. The real win for MS was creating Office. It became the standard office suite. It didn't run on any other platform. You had to run MS Windows to run Office. Ingenious!
IMHO, the best punishment for MS would have been to make the make the source for Office available.
Personally, I like KOffice, I love Konqueror. I just wish you could import documents from KOffice and StarOffice into MS Office. Can you imagine? You are using Linux in you workplace, because you to choose to, and you could send a co-worker a KOffice document and they could import it with no problem. That would be cool!
I dual-boot Linux and Win 98 on my work laptop precisely so I can exchange documents with my co-workers, otherwise, I think I could stay in Linux all of the time. I'm away from the office right now doing contract work, but when I get back, one of the first things I'm going to look into is a Windows emulator like VM Ware or Wine so maybe I won't have to get out of Linux at all. Then MS Windows will merely be an application I run in Linux
Also, I think Linux should forget about the desktop market and focus on the server market like the author of the article says. Linux is great for me. Most average users probably won't use it because they are not concerned about which OS the use or about the issues with Free Software. Who cares?!? I think Linux could be much more secure and rock solid if Linus and the other kernel hackers didn't have to worry about all of the desktop issues pulling them in so many directions. I say go for making Linux the most secure, stable, powerful, and fast SERVER OS available and forget about the desktop. Besides, I think it works great as it is.
Just my
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Darn, forgot all about that and considering OSX looks pretty sweet, I might have to get a Mac soon.
By the way, since you brought it up, why do think MS doesn't port Office to Linux? I have my own opinion, but yours would be far more interesting.
Thanks for the reply,
Jason
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
My Linux desktop has never been this usable, and it keeps improving by the day/week/month. The good folks at KDE have been doing wonderful work! And the XFree86 gurus have really picked up the ball the last couple of months. From my own experience I;d say we're only starting to compete. The fight is not over... and I'm confident Linux will be one of the last ones standing at the end of the battle.
:)
:)
Concluding that the Linux desktop is a failure simply because a company that writes a silly Linux/Unix file manager for it fails is really, really stupid! Eazel's business plan was flawed beyond believe! They counted on revenues from "services". However, the services they provided were already commodity items (supposed proper package management, free internet disk space).
And then there's this quote:
Such is the way of all movements: either the professionals take over and the movement evolves, or the movement recedes.
No shit! So the Linux desktop attracts some cheap money, but when that money fails, so does the Linux desktop? Give me a f*cking break
The only thing that's dead or dying are companies with flawed business plans. And for the record, I don't hope the author of this articles tries to make a living by writing, he'll starve
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
- The "Desktop" issue is, to some extent, just a popularity contest. If Linux had a larger desktop presence, then Linux Geeks would have more "cocktail-party credibility." Who cares?
- Linux is Open Source Software and Open Source Software is written by Geeks to solve the problems that Geeks have, not the problems that Joe Desktop has.
Ideally, there should be roughly three kinds of computers: an engineering (geek) kind (e.g. Linux), a low-admin server kind (e.g. AS/400), and an appliance kind (e.g. Mac). What would really capture some desktop space would be something like a "Linux Install for Business and Interactive Desktop Operations" (LIBIDO?!). Not only would this thing not need a command line, but it would actually be hard to find it, if it had one at all. It would install with an office suite ready to go. Applications would have strict API and install guidelines. The goal would be to produce a machine with very few options so that it had a repeatable, bullet-proof operation across thousands of installations. Geeks would find this intensely dull and I don't know very many who would line up to donate their precious open-source development time to such a project.Linux is kicking ass in the server market because the people who define what it does (the Geeks) care about the server market. When a critical mass of suitably-motivated Geeks really wants to produce a system that will win the hearts of Corporate Goons and find a home on desktops everywhere, then it will be created.
Until then... well, I'm going to spend the next 10 hours painstakingly customizing the appearance of my titlebars...
They were using the Netpliance iopener for email to inexpensively keep in contact with family and friends. Netpliance had some major financial problems and discontinued the 800 number support, which left my relatives high-and-dry after they became hooked on email.
I've modified their iopeners to run Linux. I set them up with Blackbox as the window manager because the iopener is rather underpowered. The iopener's function keys have iconic labels instead of F1-F12: a weather key with a cloud on it, a news key with a newspaper on it, etc, so I've configured bbkeys to run Netscape and pass the appropriate command line arguements to display the correct URL or email option. (I would have used Mozilla, but it's email support was too slow - 20 seconds to display an email vs 2 seconds in netscape).
Last year my mom traveled the country visiting relatives with her laptop and scanner and digitized all the family photos she could lay her hands on. So, as an added bonus, the iopener is also an electronic picture album and runs CHBG as a screensaver when the system is idle. The grandparents really love this feature.
Sure, I could have done this using Windows, but the non-upgrade price of Windows(since the iopener's originally ran QNX) would have been about twice the cost of the hardware I purchased to convert the iopeners.
A Desktop client should not take 3-4 days to set up(!). It should only take six to eight hours of semi-attended work. Assuming of course that all the media is at hand.
If you properly script things or use Drive Image, you can fully automate the process and have the ability to recover the system in case of emergencies in a small fraction of the time.
Of course these advanced imaging techniques are not covered by the OEM license of your Windows machines. You need to subscribe to a MS Select or Enterprise license for your corporation, else you must purchase a new full license for your OEM machines:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/downloads/lice ns ing/reimaging.doc
I suggest you spend some time (and perhaps a few dollars on a lawyer) to review the Microsoft corporate licensing briefs which may or may not apply to your company. If you're spending as long as you say you are configuring machines, it may save money in the long run to explore your options.
http://www.microsoft.com/business/licensing/volume /briefs.asp
A skilled Linux admin should be able to set up a bare-bones Linux system in little more time than it takes to get the machine off the loading dock and onto the user's desk. All the apps can run remotely without much pain. No local data, smooth backups... it's a tradeoff though, your Network will take a beating and your servers will be big.
Of course, the same argument could be made for Terminal Server, with a multi-k$ price tag thrown atop per workstation.
Alas, as long as MS holds their proprietary document formats, such an option is not at all practical.
Pesky innovators.
It should not be exceptionally difficult to make old X programs work anyway, by making an Xlib replacement that translates the calls and throws away things that cannot be done on the new system. The only X programs that would not work would be window managers. This should be vastly easier than making WINE work. You could also make an "X server" that uses this library so remote X applications work.
There are about a dozen viable replacements (I like the look of DirectFB, but Atheos looks pretty good too though it may have the toolkit problem described below).
There are a few problems with the replacements, though. First is that they often throw out the client/server model and rely on shared memory. In my opinion this eliminates the one good thing about X, which is that programs from many sources can share the screen. I also think client/server can be far faster than shared memory, due to the triviality of making it multithreaded. The problem with X that causes these shared memory ideas is that X has far too many "synchronous" calls, where the call has a return value. The interface needs to be designed to by almost entirely asynchronous, so that thousands of calls can be batched together into a single context switch.
The other problem is too many of the replacements try to force a "toolkit" on the programmer. This is like trying to make a file system that requires you to use MySQL to do all possible manipulations of the files. It is too high level, complex and thus potentially buggy, and it forces you to use current-day designs and precludes any innovation.
how the fuck can you claim "The Linux Desktop is dead" when everyone already knows that it hasn't been born yet.
I guess it is something like a premature baby (I am going to go out on a limb here and say 1 month old in the birth calendar) coming out and not surviving.
get real pal.
The desktop is dead because it is in development? Sounds to me like it is alive and kicking away at what needs to be done. Perhaps the author runs in a reverse-time mode or something, but I keep looking at true desktop Linux (Gnome/KDE/XFCE/etc) and keep seeing more and more good things. For example, I just got a little handspring visor (which I went on to name "Manos", the Handspring of Fate) that I rather easily set up to sync with a bunch of Gnome tools, AvantGo, and some other stuff. That there is _real_ desktop material, not serving web pages and/or email. So I wouldn't pronounce it dead before it stops being developed. The BeOS desktop may (sadly) be pretty dead, the NeXT desktop may be dead/mutated, and so on, but the Linux desktop is nowhere near dead...
Posted from the wireless couch.
All I have to say is that in order to SHUTDOWN the computer I click on the START menu. um, hello?
That's only for the people who aren't smart enough to hit Control-Alt-Delete, then Alt-S.
Or you could think of it as starting the routine which shuts the system down.
My personal biggest gripe about Linux as a desktop OS is how hard it can be to simply change your resolution or color depth. Try any recent distribution, using either KDE or Gnome, and try to find a shortcut in the menu system for changing your resolution. Doing it via a GUI method takes a lot of hunting around, if it's even possible at all...
---
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
I am not surprised that Linux is not exactly doing well with desktop installations.
The big problem is that Linux still doesn't have the completely seamless support for hot-docked USB and IEEE-1394 devices, which can cause installation problems for many novice users.
Despite what everyone things about Windows 9x/ME/2000 here, you have to admit that having single unified UI and API makes for a lot easier programming when it comes to writing applications. Besides the issue of seamless automatic configuration, Linux has to contend with two different GUI environments, KDE and GNOME. The question is what company is willing to spend the money to write applications for both GUI's?
And with the arrival of Windows XP Home Edition this fall, many of the issues Linux users have been complaining about are being addressed. With tightened compatibility requirements for full WinXP compatibility certification, every program running in its own distinct memory space, and incorporation of firewall capability, Windows XP will have far highly levels of stability than now and customers will complain far less about system crashes caused by memory leaks.
Linux, in my opinion, is already perfect for the server environment, where kernel-level stability is very important and interface issues are not so important. With the 2.4.3 kernel, Linux now can do the extremely high-volume applications that was once the province of Solaris and OpenBSD boxes, as the recent success of the TPC benchmarks with the 16-CPU SGI server machine shows.
But there is hope for Linux, though. The Linux Standard Base (LSB) project will likely become a central clearinghouse for all kernel and API issues, so everyone will more or less be on the same page when it comes to writing Linux applications. This will dramatically simplify programming issues, and eventually will allow Linux to evolve to the point it can have the same ease of automatic configuration that Windows 9x/ME/2000 now enjoys (for the most part).
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
But Star Office was just a copy of Word. The question is if an original word processor could be developed open source.
In any event, StarOffice is an open-sourced version of a commercial product that was sold to Sun. Could open source duplicate that? I doubt it; it would have been too mind-numbingly boring.
But perhaps Koffice will prove me wrong; I haven't checked it out yet, most likely because I'm an Emacs hound from way back and find office software sluggish to use compared to the old style control keystrokes of emacs.
If anyone can show me an office suite that wouldn't slow me down in that respect, I might well give it a try. Since that might well be built off of emacs, it wouldn't surprise me if my best shot for something like that might be an open sourced project.
D
----
When I visited the Grand Opening of the Apple Store in Glendale [see my report at http://www.amazing.com/applestore/ ], I saw a great many Digital8 and MiniDV camcorders in the audience. So at least in the Apple market, I can confirm that video editing is catching on.
Of course I have about $ 8k worth of equipment to make videos (Canon XL1 MiniDV camcorder, dual processor PowerMac running Final Cut Pro 2.0, etc). Video definitely attracts free-spending enthusiasts like me. The question is whether you can lure folks like me from Apple; my guess is that it would be tough.
(I use a Macintosh desktop at home and a Linux desktop at work; in my view, Linux is not nearly as nice, but I'd still rather use it than Windows).
D
----
I used to run Linux and MacOS 9 at home, Linux to do text editing on emacs and MacOS 9 to do graphics.
Now MacOS X serves both purposes perfectly and I don't need two computers anymore.
I'm happy as a clam and would recommend it to anyone geeky. The sheer beauty of the interface appeals enormously; nobody does details like Steve Jobs, just go to one of the new Apple stores and you'll see that.
D
----
The cheapest Mercedes-Benz ($25,000) available costs about triple what a Hyundai Accent ($8,500) does.
... well, actually, there's very little difference. The cheapest PC is about $600, throw in $100 for a monitor and you have $ 700. So the actual spread is only about 30%.
The most expensive Hyundai costs about 20% as much ($25k) as the most expensive Mercedes ($121,000).
A shirt from Target costs $12; a shirt from Barney's New York in Beverly Hills costs $ 165.
The cheapest Macintosh ($899 with monitor) costs about
The most expensive packaged system in the Macintosh line costs about $3,500. I'm sure if I wandered around dell.com or compaq.com long enough, I could find comparably expensive systems.
The new iBook is regularly compared favourably with systems costing about 70% more than it, so we can't even make a case for it being that expensive.
The new Titanium iBook is very comparable in cost to similar machines.
In the end, then, Apple is a premium desktop brand that's selling at a price somewhat higher than a "normal" machine, but not consistently so. For notebooks, it's right in the middle of the pack.
Certainly we do not have the wide price spread of cars or houses. (Cheapest house in Key West, Florida: $99,000. Most expensive: $ 6,000,000; cheapest house in Malibu, CA: $400,000; most expensive $15 million).
If you're a smart shopper, you can avoid Apple's worst sins. For instance, if you can spare $2,600, about the price of an average notebook, you can get the gorgeous Titanium PowerBook, a technical tour de force. But don't buy memory from Apple; you'll pay about four times what it's worth. Not even I can defend stunts like that.
But can I defend Apple as being fair value for money, being priced as a premium brand, but a far from outrageous one? Sure.
D
----
A copy of WordPerfect?
... was ... something completely alien and strange. I both liked it and hated it, all at once.
You obviously never saw the DOS version of Word. It was extraordinarily quirky. WordPerfect was a crude reproduction of a Wang word processor; Word was
Word for Windows, on the other hand, was, well, Windows incarnate.
D
----
Word for Windows was radically different from WordPerfect or even Word for DOS. As I remember, WordPerfect's problem was that it didn't have a Windows version for a long, long time, so when Windows became popular, Word for Windows killed off WP.
:-(.
Wordperfect had a blue screen and the whole thing was driven through function keys - you had to take your hands off the home keys and hit F1-F10 all the time.
Word for DOS had a black screen, operated in what passed for a high-resolution graphics mode at the time, used its own character set which was oddly different from anything else, and you had to hit and a letter to run commands.
Word for Windows had the ugly, toylike look you saw on all Windows 3.x programs.
I don't think there was any question about them being very distinct products. In fact, in those days, I preferred Word even before there was Windows. In those days, I quite liked Microsoft and their products; it took the flakiness of Windows to change my mind. Windows and I were pretty much hate at first sight
D
----
I just got Applixware 5 in the mail yesterday. It's on sale pretty much everywhere for $49.95 and I must say, it is a welcome replacment for StarOffice.
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
IMO, the focus issues and the lack of a working hourglass cursor (and other basic feedback issues such as this) are the #1 problem of the X11 desktop.
It seems as if development has leaned towards pretty pictures and not towards basic usability issues. Stuff like letting the user know an app is launching is really kindergarten material in GUI design (See MacOS 1.0), and it's still not there yet.
Maybe this is because it's easier for developers to tack things onto Gnome or KDE and not fix lower-level issues in X11, but building a successful GUI on Unix (ie one that works for more than launching xterms) demands systematic approach that fixes ALL of the problems, not just the easy ones.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Well, there's a gaziilion unresolved usability bugs in Windows like your example.
For example, during the W95 beta period we filed a bug that if you created a shortcut to a folder and then tried to navigate through that shortcut in the standard Save As dialog, your file was saved as "Shortcut.lnk.doc" or whatever. This was a normal user opertion discovered within a day or two of beta testing, not some deep bug, and the response we got was that it was serious issue and would be fixed before release.
Turns out it wasn't fixed until Win2000 shipped, 5 years later. Leads one to believe that UI issues aren't exactly top priority over at MS.
The problem at hand is that the Unix desktop community's slogan is apparently "Aim Low" (copy Windows), when usablity flukes should really be the top priority. But 95% of users can't be wrong.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Any post that starts with "I'm an RHCE" and ends with the conclusion that Linux is ready for the desktop has got to be given very little credence.
Maybe you meant to say "Linux is ready for the desktop, if you happen to have a RHCE or other Unix guru in the house willing to donate services".
(BTW, I don't really consider Windows "Ready for the desktop" either. Ever installed a driver on MacOS? You literally drag the thingy into the thingy.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Quite interesting, There must be a huge shortage of competent It people in your area, or you are related to the owner. Only a best-buy employee or a boob would need to take that long to install W2K. Cripes it took me 2 days to configure the network unattended installer for W2k,O2K,Mcaffee,and 5 other apps for 6 different hardware platforms. (Note this is a Helluva job to do, the brainturds at microsoft decided that how things were done before needto be changed drastically for no good reason.)
a monkey can install W2k in 3 hours, 5 if drivers need to be downloaded.
you sir need to resign from your job, as you are obviously fudging your way through life.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That, um, wasn't his point. His point was that doing it one way for networking, and another for disks, is not *consistent*. And stuff that isn't consistent doesn't lend itself to intuitiveness. And I don't see the word Linux in his post at all, though he does promote MacOS. So to flame him for 1/2 of his example, and using Linux as a "counterexample" is fairly blatantly stupid.
Have a nice day.
(BTW: to whomever mod'ed this up as "insightful", lay off the bad drugs. Sheesh.)
And why should it? The PC has become so firmly entrenched in corporate America that a large number of people have to learn the interface as it stands, and their feelings about the desktop do not drive OS sales. There are machines being marketed to people who find PCs too hard to learn, but as far as I can tell, those machines have a simplified version of the standard GUI, not a radically new interface.
So the stalwarts who are still working on KDE, GNOME, and GUI apps for Linux have one consolation: an almost stationary target.
--
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
According to the article World Domination by any one OS is impossible, but lets face it MS got damn close and it is almost certainly a good thing that Linux is there to stop it. Lets face it, nothing else seems likely to.
Linux does currently have its problems on the desktop, but whilst Word/Excel is my document/spreadsheet of choice, I don't expect the situation to stay that way. If/when KOffice is mature enough to read/write Word documents then I will move over. Then all I have to do is get all my games to run in Linux.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Upgrades are less frequent, but there's two caveats to that:
1) you can only upgrade when microsoft deems it is okay to upgrade. So, if you want to add some new functionality they haven't made official yet, tough luck. Or if some exploit has been found that they don't have a patch for yet, too bad.
2) when the upgrades do come along, they make an effort to break things to force you to upgrade so you can pay them more money.
Frankly, except for the occasional security patch, old versions of Linux work just fine. My server at home runs Redhat 6.1, and it's pretty stock except for security patches. And really it worked fine when I had RedHat 5.2. I upgraded because I wanted some of the new features, but I was by no means obligated to do so.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
So it's not quite there yet, therefore it's dead? Bollocks.
We all agree that linux makes a great server; but was it a great server from the day Linus first made the code available? Nah.
The desktop is far from dead. It may take a little longer, but one pronouncement is not going make all those people working on the various desktops say "well, that's it. Back to windows." They'll continue to work, and some day we'll have a desktop non pareil.
Open Source doesn't adhere to timetables. We'll have a desktop when we have a desktop. Declaring its demise may put that date back a month or two, but it's not going to kill it.
So, you've just stated that Linux needs a user base to survive. What if the userbase dwidled to but a handful? How much support/development would Linux get then?
You seem to be assuming that the GPL is bulletproof armour for Free Software. It sure seems to be, but what pray tell is protecting the GPL? Without a very substantial userbase, as well as the Buzz that comes by being "the Next Big Thing (TM)", lawmakers may actually start listening to the GPLs detractors. Without the GPL having some weight behind it, it could be easily short circuited - as in "Yes Mr. Stallman, they used GPL code and didn't re-release it. You get $500.00. Next case!" See what I mean?
(++Linux_users) == (++people_dependant_on_GPL)>(--FUD_directed_at_Fr
I for one hope that Linux does become a ubiqitous desktop OS - that will entrench the GPL into the everyday lives of netizens everywhere. That will make it good for business. Good for business means more resources for Free Software. Free Software means the Internet can still be safe for free Speech. Free Speech means the world is better for my children.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
People constantly make arguments about the superior reliability of the Linux OS, especially when compared to NT. Linux has a more reliable _kernel_, but it unquestionably does not have a more reliable gui, or more reliable desktop apps. Gnome with enlightenment has constant glitches, and crashes regularly. My new Red Hat 7.1 installation (Gnome/Sawfish) hangs the entire box within 3 days no matter what box I install it on. Even the Linux mail clients, which are comparatively simple pieces of software, are very much in beta (Balsa & Evolution, for example). The desktop software (diagramming tools, documentation tools, etc) are in an extremely primitive state: development on AbiWord appears to have ceased, and Dia is not even in beta.
The sole redeeming feature is the newest release of Mozilla (0.9), which _is nice._ It has gotten dramatically better. However, this is no vindication of the Open Source development model: Mozilla development is done in a traditional "cathedral" way with a paid, professional development staff.
Aside from that one exception, the Linux desktop environment is vastly inferior to its commercial alternatives (OS X & Windows 2000).
Yes, I saw it coming earlier this year. With IBM pumping (quite literally) billions of dollars into Linux development, and putting "Linux everywhere". What with RedHat turning a profit, and of course what with companies such as Sun and HP promising GNOME on the next major release of their OS. Of course don't forget Loki Entertainment staying alive through the worst of it - and gaining the support of Nokia...
Yes I saw it, the end is coming. There is no economy for Linux on the desktop. Just billions and billions of dollars floating around from corporate giants.
Why do we say this each and every time that something bad happens? It's like chicken little "oh the sky is falling oh the sky is falling". It's not the end, there is too much invested in it now. In fact the number of people I know who run Linux as the desktop of choice has easily doubled since early this year.
Is it the end? Hell no...
I'm an RHCE. I was down at SSC (the Linux Journal guys) filling out some paperwork, and I needed to pull an IRS form off the web (I had forgotten my copy). So I'm telling the secretary the website, and we get the form, and Netscape cranks up Adobe Acrobat Reaer, and now we go to print, and... oh, RIGHT, of COURSE it's a Linux box, this is SSC!
I had made the mistake of thinking "secretary == Windows box" and had not twigged to the "K" on her toolbar until the print box said "lpr".
Now, remember, I've been running Linux since 1995, I'm supposed to know what an X desktop looks like. I couldn't tell the difference until it hit me in the face.
Linux not ready for the desktop. Feh. My wife has run Linux on her desktop for three years now. Word Perfect, Netscape, Solitare, Free Cell, Minesweeper, now Hearts is out, Quake, Civ, Gnucash, GIMP, and Samba if you must talk to the EE... she demanded Linux after Windows 95 ate the registry twice in as many weeks. She hasn't missed a thing.
The ONLY thing Linux needs is shelf space at Comp*USA for preinstalled machines. Other than that, we are SO ready for the desktop. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar or a wuss. I count Microsoft marketroids in the former category.
--
Software is like sex.
It's better when it's free.
-- Linus
Check out this post on comp.os.linux.advocacy, which calculated the uptimes of OSes in the Hot 100 Web sites back in January. The impatient may want to skip to the bottom, where they'll find something like this:The patient could use the article's links to produce a current version of the same stats, and let us know whether anything has changed.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The link that I cited has its own links to where you can find the raw data and do your own analysis. (Actually, I get bogged down in Nocookieland at the Hot 100 site, but I suppose someone who thought the report didn't jibe with their personal observations could poke around and find the list, given sufficient motivation.)
Other than that, I agree with your sentiment. How does the old saying go?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It is a fact that Linux faces many obsticles on the desktop. Although it is catching up fast, there is still a gap in productivity and end user applications, it is still harder to setup and use for non-technical users, and it still lacks certain functional consistency (look at font handling, for example, and I'm not talking about anti-aliasing, but consistency across screen, printing, and applications).
I am 43 years old and work for a company run by 50 year olds. I'm one of only a couple of Linux users around here, and certainly the oldest one. It will be a long time before I can convince the company management to switch desktops to Linux, expecially since there are still perceived and real shortcomings.
But Linux is very popular among technical college and university students. What will happen in another few years when tens of thousands of college students who have grown up on Linux go into the workforce. Certainly some of them will either start their own companies or move into decision making positions in existing ones. You will begin to see Linux on the desktop, and increased demand for Linux applications. The timing will be very good for this because by that time, most of Linux's desktop shortcomings will have been addressed.
Success (if not dominance) on the desktop will take the longest of any area, but it will eventually happen.
AOL!!!
I agree that Linux on the desktop isn't dead, it just needs more time to catch on. Look at DOS & Windows. When Windows 1.0 first came out, it was incredibly limited and clumsy. Everybody wrote it off as a poor Macintosh clone. It took several more years before Windows matured into version 3.0. Compared to the Mac, it was still clumsy, slow and limited, but more people noticed it. Windows only really took off with the masses when Win 95 was released. It took Microsoft about a decade to get Windows to sell.
And people call Linux dead because people didn't suddenly drop everything and install Red Hat two years after the first useful desktop environments appeared. Bah! Linux on the desktop can be successful, but it takes persistence. It will take a lot more than two years for this to happen.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
The clipboard in Linux sucks incredibly. It is nice to be able to select and middle-click to paste when you're in a console, but doing something as simple as copying and pasting a URL into the browser is difficult.
I agree that the clipboard in Linux sucks incredibly, but this isn't why - in at least Netscape 4.x, Mozilla, and Konqueror, you can just middle-click on the HTML display area and it'll paste whatever's in your clipboard into the URL bar and go there.
Middle-click paste is one of the nicest things about X apps, IMHO. It's right up there with sloppy focus and virtual desktops (yeah, you can get the last 2 in Windows, but they always seem to have issues.)
--
> The problem is when you have to install and
:8]
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
> upgrade programs.
It's not as though this is any easier in the windoze world though - and you have to reboot just for things to take effect there, too!
> DEB isn't much better - from my experience,
> it'll b0rk completely if it can't find some
> mythical lib like libpakistanicalender.so.1.2.
Now that's just too much. Debian has no aspirations to be one thing (server) or another (desktop) orientated. Of course there are more-"together" offerings around there, like the *BSDs, of course - their ports system rocks - but frankly you sound like you've been tracking unstable and couldn't quite keep up, because I know that in a couple of years' solid use as a desktop system here, tracking unstable, there's never yet been a Debian-specific glitch I couldn't solve.
That said, bear in mind that my idea of desktop use is that I really don't give a fig about 3D-FX cards and the latest wizzo-graphics game, although I know life can be fun when you start trying to work around Mesa and all the assorted OpenGL packages. Feel free to go work on this
> I wouldn't recommend Linux to a newbie for
> anything more advanced than
I wouldn't recommend Linux to a newbie, full-stop.
Face it, guys, sometimes to be a user you have to have a clue. And I'd much rather say `you're an idiot, forget it' than water-down something good and geeky to fit the thickest moron on the planet, any day.
~Tim
--
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Second Final Word: printing.
/. for years now, and it hasn't changed: There's always some possible challenger that may become usable at some point in the future if the open source development model ever actually started to work for things like this. That, too is not a flame, but a valid observation: the open source model has had its successes, but they tend to be geek-ware infrastructure rather than user code.
Back when NT 4.0 was about to come out, I was working at Sun and we received a briefing on the capabilities of NT4 vs. Solaris.
One of the PowerPoint slides I remember consisted of the following words: "Printing: They can."
It's maddening to realize that not much has changed since then. There are many of us that have *really tried* to use Linux/Unix on the desktop, but sadly, the tools available in the Unix space for this sort of thing remain third-world primitive and five years behind. People who only code (and are light-duty browser users) may be able to get by with Linux, but not the rest of us.
And no, before you flame me, I'm NOT anti-Linux, but I've been saying this same thing here on
I think really this points up a fundamental weakness of the open source development model: without strong central control and authority, no one wants to write the really hard stuff, and there's not enough coordination to ensure it can be done piecewise. It's taken us *years* just to get to the point that we have some services that might be good enough to build apps on, but those apps are even harder than what's already been done, and the starting points are pretty bleak. Just try doing non-trivial spreadsheet work in *any* open source app and compare the functionality gap to Excel. For all Excel's warts (and it has them, believe me), it winds up being the best tool I can find for most what-if/analysis tasks. (Remember Excel is the whole reson Windows even exists: for those of you too young to remember or those not paying attention at the time, Windows came about only because MS wanted to put its wildly successful Mac spreadsheet (Excel) on PCs, too.
This problem cannot be fixed with the current open source development model, and I'm not sure there can be enough of a profit motive to support alternative models, as Eazel so poignantly illustrates.
Like many I've talked to in the community, I've given up - none of my "main" desktop machines now boot into Linux as the default anymore, and I find I spend less and less time there, especially as W2K, for all its faults, is increasingly "good enough" and allows me to accomplish the work I need with less hassle.
I have only one gripe with the article - Linux was never even in the game on the desktop, and most likely never will be, unless it manages to establish a beachhead in embedded devices. That scenario is looking increasingly likely, and Qt/KDE has a shot there, but Gnome continues to sap the efforts that could result in a real, workable alternative...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
That article has been posted around a lot, yeah. Unfortunately it's very wrong. A QWERTY keyboard does not, in any way, shape, or form, promote alternating use of hands. The amount of alternating hand use on a QWERTY keyboard is about as close to nil as it could be. It is very important that you understand this. If you would like an experiment, take an arbitrary paragraph and make a plot of each time a QWERTY keyboard would use the same hand twice, or more, in a row. For example "Anonymous Coward" would be a 1, 7, 2, 1, 4 on a QWERTY keyboard, or 1-2, 2-1, 4-1, 7-1.
The most important design goal of Dvorak is alternating hand motions; this large flaw in that article shows it to be poorly researched. For example, "Anonymous Coward" on a Dvorak keyboard is 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,1,1,1,2 or 1-9, 2-3. Try this with a bunch of English words, and remember how much of an advantage the alternating hand motion is.
Now, which is simpler: that clearly poor research would come to a bad conclusion, or that clearly poor research would accidentally stumble upon something true?
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I think only a very few people are attached to MS Office. Most people find it confusing, unpredictable and hard to use, eventually settling into an uneasy truce with it having mastered the minimum necessary to get by on their jobs.
I think you are missing the real value that people do find in MS Office: it is a communication tool.
People need to be able to send formatted text or calculations to each other by e-mail or via a file server. MS office is a lingua franca for this. It is extremely convenient to have a system that generates these and can write them in a format readable by 99% of the world. Remember what document exchange was like before MS office's domination and you'll see what I mean. This advantage is so great that people put up with an application that the majority of user dislike somewhat, and a substantial number of them outright detest.
The key to Microsoft's lock on the desktop is not their control of the Office applications, but their control of the file formats. Right now, Microsoft has every company and governmental agency over a barrel, because so much of their organizational memory is stored and transmitted in a secret format understood only by Microsoft. Microsoft understands this very well. Despite participating in the general stampede towards XML, you don't seem them proposing to replace Office formats with XML and OLE with URIs.
Microsoft's control of the format of so much information could be a nightmare scenario except that it is too smart to push this advantage so far that there would be a backlash. It is content to lock users into its office suite and such desktop OS's as it deems acceptable.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If the author fails to see Linux as a viable desktop OS then he's obviously at odds with all the people who disagree and are using it as such.
I use Linux at home primarily because it offers a software development environment far superior to Windows, and essentially identical to Solaris which I use at work. Sure I could run Solaris for free at home too, but Linux has much better support for the multimedia stuff I'm interested in.
Maybe Linux will replace Windows one day, maybe it won't. Who cares? The point is that for a very rapidly growing number of people it's a preferable alternative, and those people are the only ones that matter. Remember that Linux got to where it is based on volunteer efforts, not based on the contributions of the companies that are now trying to commercialize it. If no one ever makes a buck of Linux it won't matter one iota to the millions of people who still choose to use it and improve it.
Okay. Start with this: why the hell does kwrite automatically copy selections into the clipboard whether I want it to or not? (Did that on RH6.0, anyway; I haven't really paid attention to whether it's been fixed since).
This is a feature in X, not a bug. If you don't like it, you can turn it off. Well, unless KWrite does it explicitly (as opposed to the general way most apps use). Now, the real question is why Redhat doesn't make this easily configurable.
Why are we letting politics dominate our desktop decisions? And why the hell isn't the Linux community trying to forge alliances with the Mac community?
Some might argue that those politics are why we're here. Now, I agree that you can (and people do) go too far with it, but the reason that Microsoft and others can't just assimilate GNU/Linux is because of things like the GPL and decentralization. As for alliances with the Mac community, I think there are hurt feelings on both sides. Plus many developers think Apple has a rather one sided view of sharing. I can't speak on this myself, but i do know that Apple is rather trigger-happy with the lawyers which does keep me the hell away, both from anger and fear of litigation.
Still, i think you have a point about forming alliances. I think first we should look to the other UNIX's, where most any software can be ported with a minimum of effort. Then look towards the BeOS's, Macs, QNX's, etc. The problem, of course, is that all these OS's are competing for a lot of the same users, so there's bound to be some friction.
When the Mac came out, Apple put out the Mac Human Interface guidelines. Microsoft has its own rules for Windows. We have no such thing for either of the significant Linux desktops. Believe it or not, this is a bad thing. For this to work we need some interface guidelines, preferably written by someone using both MacOS and Linux (since Mac users as a general rule are more sensitive to clumsy interface design)
I agree for the most part, but I will say that I've been really unimpressed by Apple type designs (Nautilus, for example). That's not to say that there's nothing to be learned from Mac users, but I'd like to see some of the UNIX spirit in the GUI. Small, powerful apps (or pieces, ala CORBA) that can be linked together with scripts (read "high level languages." Whoops! There's your RAD) rather than these monolithic monstrosities. Power should NOT be sacrificed for simplicity. If there's no way to make something both usable for the average layman and powerful for those of us who're interested, then make to versions that are as compatable as possible. There does not need to be one answer to everything, there should just be one default. We'll get nowhere by copying other desktops. We have to go with what works, and scrap the rest.
As for the matter of open source desktop apps, we only have ourselves to blame. Browser?
Hey, I hear great things about Konq.
If you have nothing at all to contribute to OpenOffice or any of its competitors, you have no
right whatsoever to bitch about articles like this.
Yeah! Anyone who's working on GNOME and KDE but not an office suite should shut their yaps! Wait, no. I think anyone who's happily using Linux as a desktop enviroment has a right to disagree with articles like this. That's not to say there aren't valid points, but there are plenty of problems in the arguements, too. Everyone who wants Linux on the desktop seems to be saying, "Come on! We need to clone these other desktops. Forget what got us this far, let's get in shape and do what Apple/Windows did!" But as I said earlier, we have to use our strengths, and improve where these other GUIs didn't. I don't think choice has to be a bad thing if we also have good standards.
Why can't [g]vim and [x]emacs live side by side? How about a CORBA object for displaying/editing text, and let the user choose vim, or nedit, or kwrite, or emacs, or whatever? Choice doesn't have to be bad.
The Linux world needs to swallow its pride and accept that some decisions do need to be made from above, or at least proposed from above and accepted by a critical mass.
Like the Linux kernel and Linus Torvalds? Or like Perl and Larry Wall? Maybe more like Python and Guido van Rossum? Or GNOME and Migel de Icaza? Granted, there's still room for inter-project cooperation, but with the exception of a few feuding factions, I think we're pretty good about that. Even GNOME and KDE are getting along better these days.
Our desktop flagship programs are huge. Mozilla is about a 20MB source tarball IIRC, and I believe OpenOffice is well over 300MB. This is IMHO unacceptable in a Unix-based community; monolithic office suites are a Bad Thing to begin with, and given that there hasn't been a really core-type feature invented since the multidimensional spreadsheet I have to wonder where all this bloat is coming from (since I don't use it I could be off-base).
My guess is that a lot of it is coming from the feature-cloning with regards to MSWord, though I couldn't say definitely, since I don't use OpenOffice. My point is that for the media to say, "oh, Linux is becoming a viable desktop OS" we need all that bloat. They want to see the "Linux version of/counterpart to" MSWord, Excel, and all those other ones. If you're really just looking for functionality, pick up emacs and LaTeX. If you want all the razzle-dazzle of MSWord, you're going to have to take the bloat that comes with it too.
We need more than developers in the Open Source community, you see. What's missing from the Open Source equation is support personnel like tech writers and creative people.
I couldn't agree more! So much of the current work towards UI design is being put towards making stuff pretty, when what people really want is making the GUI usable. Even some of the people doing GUI design at Redhat make dumb mistakes, such as asking for data that could've been inferred, or making a window pop up in front of the information to enter into the window... In GNOME (last i used it, at least), there's plenty of pretty stuff, but why can't i set up the working directory for a program I launch off the bar? Why can't i easily make global revisions to my application menu without su'ing to root? It almost makes me want to fix these things myself.
Of course, then i found WindowMaker.
-ben.c
So Windows has better office-programs and a more consistent UI. It still does not have several desktops and a good CLI for those tasks that are not easily done with a point-and-click interface.
I code. I have tried VC++ version 6.0. It is horrible with this small workplace and the floating windows always covering up the windows showing my source code. I cannot consentrate on my work when I constantly have to search for that other window.
Windows has a 'do-one-thing-at-a-time' philosophy that just does not work for me. As long as Windows is not more flexible, I need me Linux.
There are good things and bad things. Linux will suit some (like me) and Windows will suit others.
There will be a place for both.
Linux on the desktop is dead because the desktop applications, in development for 3 years or so, are incomplete and immature.
The specific examples of Netscape and Star Office are more ports from Windows rather than actually being written from scratch for a unix type system.
Suffering from "Need to be configured by end user syndrome".
Something also present with Office and IE. Even using the various "resource kits".
At least it's possible use a script to set up ~/.netscape and ~/soffice52 for each user, so they don't have to mess around typing information the computer knows multiple times.
Obviously she can't call the guys at GNOME for customer support, or the guys at KDE to ask why Konqueror isn't rending a webpage properly.
You can call Microsoft for "customer support"? Only if you are not using an OEM version. How about asking why IE isn't rendering a webpage properly...
Not only that, Linux tries to mix Server and Workstation too much..
Something which is even more applicable to Microsoft. Who make "servers" which look and feel like "workstations".
...they just want to USE the computer. It's like with cars: The vast majority of people don't give a rat's ass how the engine works, they just want to get in and drive to the store. Filling up the gas tank is the most complicated maintenance they'll ever perform.
If that is really the case then you just wouldn't see Windows in use. Since Windows more or less obliges the end user to perform complicated maintenance on the system.
If the real issue were about use, rather than making sheep like fashion statements, then your typical corporate workstation would have the OS and applications in either ROM or loaded over the network. With user files only storeable on a network file system. Apple makes such systems, Sun makes such systems, Acron made such systems before they died, in the case of Linux there is like like of www.ltsp.org, etc, etc.
The thing that's difficult is installing new programmes, and the lack thereof. If you go to a shop and buy some random chess programme or a spanish course or whatever, it's Windows... even if it was there for Linux, you can't just put the CD in wait for the "Do you want to install xyz programme" box appear and click yes.
Remember this is only a "problem" for a certain catagory of users.
On any kind of corporate network you explicitally do not want Joe/Jane User installing anything. Especially if you are running Windows, too many issues with it breaking things and the risks of being fined huge amounts of money if licencing isn't complied with.
People need to start realising that the "home system" not the "standard".
For preinstalling a system for a specific purpose that can't easily be broken, I think Linux is far superior.
N.B. this "specific purpose" is actually the vast majority of systems on the planet.
Try to protect a Win install in a school from tinkering by students without making it completely useless...
Guess what, suck "tinkering" is not exclusive to students and the kind of staff who tinker are certainly not unique to education.
If you don't want users to install new software, Linux + KDE/GNOME is fine...
And the likes of Windows is something to avoid.
It's stupid for Linux to even think of competing there. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are far superior, at least on the desktop
The obvious exception being multi user support. Very messy and fiddly to administer.
When I need to set up a new desktop client, it typically takes 3-4 days, using Windows 2000.
hardly a ringing endorsement of Windows 2000
If I were to try and use Linux, I would have even longer, downloading the source, copying it, fiddling with unresponsive hardware and looking for drivers that usually do not work. Then I have to compile, and compile again.
Even if you insisted on using this method once you had done one you could simply copy the files to another machine. Or if that is still too challenging check out www.ltsp.org.
Simple things like when you put a CD in your CD drive it automatically pops up a window asking you if you wish to install the piece of software.
Or maybe simple things like asking them what they think they are doing and if they still want their job?
What users want is the ability to easily setup their internet connection.
Given a system which is easy for the system administrator there is absolutly no "Internet connection setting up" to be done in the first place. Unlike certain systems which expect the end user to do all sorts of techie things.
What users want is the ability to easily change the date and time in an intuitive manner.
Why? Any half decent computer system only needs to know the timezone (or failing that the longitude) do get the time and date correct all by itself. Remember the point of computers is to make things easier for the human...
What users want is the ability to get a piece of software that advertises linux support, install it with just a few clicks of the mouse buttons and have it work with no further hassles
Should these same people be customing their company vehicles, remodeling the desks in their workplace or school? ("I don't like my office wall, so I can just knock it down.")
If people want to mess around then they can stick to their own computers. Rather than trying to drive others into becoming the BOfH.
Users don't want 6 text editors, 4 e-mail readers, 3 web browsers, and 2 GUI's installed. They just want one of each that is easy and intuitive to use and offers all the basic functionality.
Guess what, people differ, one person's "intuitive" is another person's nightmare.
I'm not going to argue things one way or another but I have to comment about Windows stability. I used to run Windows 98 at home and I rebooted the machine about once in two weeks or so.. Stability was never an issue.
Now I run Windows 2000 on two machines (a laptop and a desktop) and not ONCE has the OS crashed in the about 6 months I've had them.
At my old job, I had an NT 4 workstation and when I left, I checked the uptime - roughly 6 months. It had never even occured to me to reboot, and I had never any problems with that machine even though I developed software on it and the software in development (obviously) crashes all the time.
In my new job, it's all Win2k for desktops and I've seen no crashes on any of the machines yet.
My point? Linux may be stable but stability is definitely not an issue on the Windows side either, except on the Windows 9x machines. However, even for Windows 9x's, it's nowhere near the problem some Slashdot posters make it out to be. Of course there will be people who have had Windows 9x (or even NT) installations that crashed once an hour, but for some odd reason, it usually always seems to happen to those people who are the most fanatic anti Microsofters.
"All strongly held opinions should be strongly opposed."
And I have no problem managing signatures in KMail or Mutt. Try setting Outlook 2000 to use different signatures when replying or starting a new message. Or acting with different "personalities" based on any kind of rulesets. Or taking your rulesets with you.
What interoperability problems? I cut-n-paste all the time with a variety of unix desktop apps. There's even several nice clipboard programs for when cut-n-paste gets more complicated.
Frankly I wish that widget sets didn't grow into such large desktop projects. After using windomaker for a while, I can conclude that the only thing lacking is a nice file manager, so I use Konqueror. Too bad so many small problems for real usability on the Unix desktop became such a giant holy war. X is pretty clean. OS X *tried* to get it right (XP will, just later and not as cleanly); storing stuff on the desktop is a pretty bad idea. I can't even do one second of work on the average desktop pack-rat's mess.
IE 5.5 is great on a Mac. On a PC it just sucks less than Netscape.
I'd love to see more games, and I really wish that more cards were supported in most games.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
It's Resting.
Pining for the fiords.
Linux on the desktop is great for those of us who use the full functionality it has to offer, or at least a subset of it.
Your average office user though WANTS Windows. Okay, it may crash quite frequently, but let's face it; it's intuitive, and well-designed aesthetically.
Lets keep working on the desktop for ourselves and if others want to use it, great... But lets not forget where our true strength lies: In the Server market.
Bzzzzzt..."AAAAaaaaarrrgh!!!" Thud.
I just got my notice for my 20-year high school reunion. I remember back as a senior, I put down "World Domination" as my life goal (I am serious, I wrote that, I just hadn't figured out how I'd get there). Of course, Linux came along, and I jumped at the chance to make it happen, or at least ride Linus' coattails to glory. Now this guy comes along and tells me that all my Linux/UNIX skills are worthless for my goal! I am crushed. Is he right? Should I give up the dream? Is there any hope? Or should I just change my goals to "get a faster CPU"? Anybody have any advice? ("Get a life" I've already thought about...)
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Ahem. Debian has a menu-management system which makes it insanely easy to get the icons and clickies ready to roll. Speaking as someone who's rolled up a few .debs for personal (mine and my Dad's) use, it really was quite easy.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
He says that Linux, while fine for us techies, isn't useful for your average computer user. I disagree. Linux is of course, fine for us techies, but its also good for normal users IMHO. Who it isn't good enough for [yet] is the corporate desktop.
Most of the "average" computer users I know want three things, web, email, and tunes. What do we have for that, netscape/mozilla/galleon/konq, for email we have evolution, gtkmail, and a dozen other ones that are pretty good, and for tunes, xmms looks just like a player that everyone who owns a computer knows how to use..... Its fine for your average user. Come on, how many people really need Word? People who do corproate work at their home pc's. Which is where it fails. We still don't have a killer office app, and until we do, this guy will be right.
Linux isn't dead on the desktop, were still just too young to sit up high in the chair. But I think were due for a growth spurt.
And to back up my claim, I got quite a few non-techy friends who I have introduced to linux running ximian gnome who love their "new" computer. They can get on the net, they can send mail, and play their mp3's just fine. Some of them have even taken some initiative and learned to do a little more with their systems. Like learning the command line and shell scripting. Needless to say, they exceeded even my optimistic expectations.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Yeah, I guess I left a few things out. Instant messanging is a mixed bag, but I sort of think of it under email I guess. But some people swear by it, some people swear it off. Digi cams are a lot less common than you'd think, but I have seen em work in Linux. printing, I lkeave out, maybe I'm baised in that, I print next to nothing, unless it is for buissiness use, I personally have no use for a printer personally, and most of ym friends are green freaks who look at printers as tree killers. As for installing/maintaining software, have you used red-carpet? I can teach a monkey how to use that thing, it's so damned easy. Only hard thing is teaching my friends how to find the Linux equiv of some windows program they wanna use..... and explaining to them why Limewire for Linux reaks of goat nads. And as for upgrading hardware, come on, most average users canb't do that in windows without taking the thing in to best and paying fifty big ones for a 10 minute job.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
I have been fighting Gnome, Mozilla and KDE for a week. This resulted in 20 crashes in a morning, followed by a swift reinstall of the OS, no more Mozilla, and sticking with a simple KDE and Konqueror (which is quite a good browser actually, much better than Mozilla).
Now, it makes a killer programming box. emacs, kwrite, etc are great editors for Perl and Java amongst others, and I even got anti-aliasing working on the Voodoo 4500 at home (but not on the ATI at work). KWord and co. still crash far too often. Kmail doesn't grok IMAP. Mozilla is a slug on dope. How can I guarantee a good Word format conversion?
However it is improving. Many Linux distros can install a reasonable desktop from scratch. However, for a lot of things, where are the GUI interfaces? If they exist, they suck in many cases.
Microsoft know about making an easy to use system. Apple moreso. I have no objections to text files for configuration (in fact I encourage it for the obvious reasons), however software installation on Unix is a mess - splattering files all over the place, urgh. Software should install in a single location, in a chroot jail if possible, by default. Think Apple OS X bundles.
The Unix file system is a horror for most non-unix people.
Also, OS updates need to be better and easier for the average user. To update FreeBSD requires that you write a cvsup configuration file, and run cvsup! Don't make a mistake though, or your computer will get knackered.
Still, I remember the days of the Amiga. That was a sensible computer in terms of user friendliness, GUI features, file system and configuration. QNX has also impressed me recently, but it needs to support more hardware.
Final point: As the Unix desktop improves, so does Windows. However, Microsoft may finally shoot themselves in the foot with their licensing. If you don't need to mess with the internals of a Unix system (you get someone else to set it up for you), then things are straightforward (until you buy new hardware) for most people. Click on the pretty icon to run the work processor.
Second Final Word: printing.
See... you're right, but it isn't so far-reaching.
To use your car example... give a car to a 15 year-old and tell them to drive. 100 to 1, they'll make plenty of mistakes. That's why we have Driver's Ed.
So the basic idea is that everyone *has* to learn at some point. Those people that don't understand how to set their VCR clock would never get past, "A computer is just too complicated." So those that *do* try... whether it be at work or at home, will eventually learn whether they want to or not.
Granted, setting up 3D is harder. Setting up sound is harder too, though it's getting much easier than before. But those that don't try at least a *little* probably aren't the ones we need to worry about anyway.
* Also by CmdrTaco
It's pretty bad when even the Taco is trollin' Slashdot! What's the deal? Konquorer not doin' it for you anymore? So is X on the desktop dead too?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Maybe there was a window_placement=random setting somewhere in the global window manager config?
This is currently my biggest problem with KDE2. It doesn't matter where a prorgam tells a subwindow to appear, or where a user tells a window to appear with a -geometry option, the window will damn well appear where the KDE WM tells it to. Which is one of random, smart, or cascade. That's it. There's no choice for "leave it the hell alone."
But hey, I can't complain much. It's not like it's coredumping...
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Select the text in one window, and middle-click in another.
------
I'm not satisfied with the current GUIs either. They're either too inefficient or have dumb usability issues. When I get time (which will probably be several years from now, but I'll do it), I'll write a half-decent desktop system (it'll probably turn into a GNU/HURD distro) that doesn't suck. XFce and fspanel are steps in the right direction, but fspanel is too generic and XFce has gross usability problems.
My first step will be to learn Objective-C. Any good resources?
------
With that in mind, consider where Linux applications come from: they can either be written from scratch, or ported from existing software. And frankly, the commercial software stores and catalogs are where most computer buyers find their applications.
(The point of this post, BTW, is to suggest that Linux tends to make big gains from the willingness of Unix software vendors to port. So feel free to stop reading now if you want....)
O.K. So think about this: Linux has at present acheived its greatest penetration in the server arena. At first it had only native software. Then one by one the commercial software vendors in this space (i.e., the database vendors) ported their products to Linux and established it as a heavyweight.
Next down the line from servers: high-end workstations. We're seeing a lot of porting from commercial Unix apps in the graphics arena; every few days some new 3D app or rendering solution gets announced. Partly that has to do with SGI being so gung-ho, but it's made easier by the fact that porting from one Unix clone to another is a simpler task. The scientific stuff is different, since it's wrapped up in academia and government research. But I take the high-end graphics package porting to be a significant event; it follows the same pattern that the server market experienced with Linux.
So, then, where does this trend leave "the desktop?" Well, there aren't currently too many commercial software products on desktop Unix systems because there aren't any desktop Unix systems. To speak of, anyway. But that's about to change. OS X is forcing Adobe, Macromedia and who knows who else to port their apps to Unix (more or less).
The porting trend says when the high-end workstation market is about as Linux-saturated as the server market is now, the dekstop Unix software houses will have the momentum they need to port their stuff to Linux en masse. So, in short, I'm not worried.
Hmm.... It's only just now dawned on me that I didn't use the word "inertia" in this post after all.
Nate
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
Brian Proffit responded in his own Linuxplanet column that just targeting what works for some other system is selling Linux short. Rather than trying to recreate what's working on Windows, the really exiting developments occur when someone decides to make an app that lets people do something totally new.
And I personally believe that the distribution houses could benefit a lot more from pumping developers into nutty cutting-edge projects than into StarOffice or anything that has a "K" tacked uncerimoniously onto the front of its name.
Not that I have some brilliant idea in mind, of course, but in addition to the dozens of productivity-oriented app projects that are out to mimick what everyone in the Windows world already has on their computers, there are forward-looking projects like video editing (ie, Broadcast2000) that are aiming for markets that haven't been commoditized already.
I think Apple has already thought about this. That's why they're focusing on "tomorrow's" killer apps, in media, rather than today's, in documents. So it's not "you should get a Mac; they can do everything a PC can do... but they're not a PC", instead it's "you should get a Mac, they can do all sorts of neat stuff a PC can't do." That wouldn't be a bad thing for people to say about Linux, would it?
Nate
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
Well, maybe not. Video is more interesting to me than to some people. But really the crux of what I was trying to say is that it would be better to try for up-and-coming "markets" than for already saturated ones.
If I was writing that post again, I might say our definition of "killer app" isn't doing us a lot of good, for the simple reason that it's commoditized and everyone already has it.
Tomorrow's killer app is where the bullseye ought to be, if you ask me. So, it might very well be an IA ...or video, or smellovision or whatever. The big coup would be to be the first player to the market, and not the last.
Nate
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
And here are the things that bother me the most:
You actually have to delete the existing contents of the location bar, before you can paste the new one in. You can't select the contents of the bar and delete it after you've copied the URL you want, since the clipboard gets overwritten with the new selection. This goes for any copy/paste work, and is plain stupid.
Cut, Copy and Paste should be explicit operations, not things that happen 'behind the scenes'. Why not make ctrl-middle button copy, and middle button paste?
How would one go about changing this behaviour on a typical Linux distro? What pieces of software need to be modified to make this happen?
Fonts X font handling (rendering is reasonably good) is f*cking useless. I spent about 2 hours last night going through docs, searching through my folder structure and editing fonts.dir files manually, just to get truetype fonts to display correctly (i.e. not overlapping) in the latest builds of Mozilla.
You could call the overlapping fonts problem a bug in mozilla, but it highlighted for me the ridiculous complexity of managing fonts on Linux.
In hindsight, its not so difficult.. you modify the fonts.scale/fonts.dir files in your fonts folders, and you can find out where fonts are being stored by looking in: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fs/config
However, it took a long time to actually figure this out, and WHY do you need to tell X the number of fonts in the damn file??? Can it not COUNT the LINES? Rendering a single glyph is probably more intensive than counting the number of lines in a file, which it only needs to do when it is restarted. Could they possibly have picked a more unintuitive location for font files? IF theres one thing that the LSB project needs to address, its X configuration.
Filepickers You would think that one of the most useful features of the modern UNIX shells - tab completion, would make an apperance in the GUI file-pickers. Why is this not in there? if bash can do it, why can't the GTK+/GNOME filepicker? KDE may do this, i don't use it enough to know for sure.
When i think about it, there is actually not that much that bothers me about the X desktop, just mainly the points mentioned above.
I'm pretty successful at getting my work done - mostly programming and web development using Linux, but most of the other people in the office just freak out when they see that you cant copy and paste a url into the location bar of the browser.
Thank Christ Eazel have gone out of business. Nautilus was/is a pointlessly slow and bloated application, that didn't actually do anything. I actually hated this app. I only hope the GNOME foundation will be good enough to include Nautilus as an *option*, not a required component of the GNOME desktop.
As an example, Mozilla's filepicker is the worst, slowest, crappest filepicker i've even used.
Why these people thought 'hyuck hyuck, lets rewrite the widget set' is beyond me. This is, of course, purely a Mozilla issue, and not a 'Linux' one, but the problem with Linux on the desktop is that nothing related to the Linux desktop is a 'Linux problem'.. 'Thats an issue with app Z, or toolkit Y, but never with Linux, or X itself. No desktop functionality seems to actually belong anywhere central, and is instead handled by a loose collection of sloppily interconnected components, few of which know anything about each other.
Now i have that off my chest, its also necessary to point out that despite this incredibly poor design, Linux on the desktop is actually usable, and improving all the time.
XFree86 is now pretty damn fast, and i'm sure there is much potential to make it a lot faster in future.
Mozilla is pretty much complete, and even though its still dog-slow compared to browsers on an identically specced Windows machine, it will make the grade, and hopefully keep on truckin to become better, faster and more flexible than anything M$ can squeeze out of their mighty corporate anus
Sawfish and GNOME make a pretty good GUI. I much prefer multiple desktops/panels/window options to MS's super-fast but unconfigurable GUI. Can't comment on other GUIs, since i don't run them.
Overall, i just can't agree with much of what the article says. I don't rely on MS Office to get my job done though (Actually, i haven't even used MS Office in months).
Linux is alive and kicking on the desktop, and will continue to win converts all over the world.
So while this guy proclaims Linux dead and buried on the desktop, i will continue to make my living, do all my work, increase my knowledge of computing, save $$$ on software, code some cool apps, have fun and fight the power on my Linux desktop machines.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Ever since I got my SBLive! soundcard and 4 channels speakers, I've been less than contented with BeOS. So, I have been faced with the painful prospect of looking for another OS. Although it fills my every need, I am loathe to go to Win2K because of my disdain for non-bash command lines, and my general dislike of Win32 programming. Thus, I am seriously thinking of moving to Linux, although it is essentially a least of three evils decision. So, without further ado, some of the problems with Linux on the desktop. (PS: Linux == the whole Linux system, X, KDE and all.) A) Linux is a server OS. This was driven home to me the other day when some moron on /. went "Linux can't handle hundred of net devices without bringing down the IP stack, and you're worried about you're stupid desktop?" It seems to me that the majority of Linux developers find nothing wrong with developing for the 1% of users, at the expense of the 99% of users. The fact that GNOME uses CORBA (which, at only a few ten-thousands of invocations per second, i pitifully slow compared to the near 100K (16byte) messages per second handled by BeOS (or 400MB/sec of total messaging bandwidth shown with 1K messages)) at the expense of desktop performance. Both GNOME and KDE have tons of featuers that are great in theory, but are of little use in practice. Who really needs RPC to send a message to the taskbar that something should be added? Wouldn't SysV IPC work just as well?
B) Linux is slow. By default, the timeslices are a server oriented 50ms (on 2.4) and the lack of preemptibility in the kernel makes for terrible latency. To the user, the result is that Linux will compile 10% faster, but have a GUI unusablly unresponsive. When Windows2000 is more responsive than our OS, you know you're doing something terribly wrong. This could easily be fixed by splitting Linux into desktop and server versions (both with the same API, just different tuning) but it seems desktop users just don't carry that much clout in the kernel development world. (BTW, yes, theoretically a fork is doable, but in the real world, it isn't feasible). Then, given the fact that KDE 2 (which is the most advanced desktop at the moment) takes a second or two to launch most apps, why would anyone want Linux on the desktop? Certainly those used to fast OSs like Windows (tongue in cheek!)
C) Linux is bloated. KDE 2 sucks up over a dozen megs of HD space, and has a huge memory footprint. (About as big as Win2K). That is simply unacceptable. Sure one could use FVWM, but you can't compare something like Win2K (which has tons of features) to FVWM.
D) Linux is fragmented. My biggest issue is the Linux community's propensity to create new APIs. Although MS is a beast, they do make sure that there is only "one true way" of programming the system. There is something to be said for API coherence. It means that not matter the software configuration, all apps take full advantage of the user's machine. Right now, there are two major sound APIs, ALSA and OSS. On top of that, there are esound and aRts. Then there are the dozens of inbetween libraries. What, you expect me to use them all? Get real. Clue: Linux apps should not need to include "drivers" for the various sound systems. One OS should == one API. And don't even get me started on all the X toolkits.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
*this* got "insightful"?
Ignoring for a moment the intensely irritating "Period", this is by far the most important point made. But even this misses the mark; the problem isn't that "there's nothing as good as Microsoft Office", the problem is that "Microsoft Office doesn't work on Linux". This is the one and only killer application - now and probably for the next five years, only environments which run MS Office have a chance to survive. It doesn't matter that StarOffice and Applix and KOffice are every bit as useful for the majority of users; it doesn't matter that users' attachment to Office is largely irrational (the UI differences between different versions of MS Office are often greater than those between MS Office and StarOffice), and it doesn't matter that MS Office is bloated almost to the point of unusability. The only thing that matters is the perennial question : "Does it run Word?" and until this question can be answered "Yes!" (which presumably means a radically different Microsoft to the one we have now), the gloom will persist.
That said, the sensationalism of the article is completely wrong; there's no "end" in sight, and an actual look-at-the-figures will probably reveal the same slow but steady gains for Linux on the desktop that we've seen over the past eight years. Editorials don't kill operating systems, so everyone just relax...
3 or 4 DAYS for a WINDOWS PC? I was upset when it took 3 days (elapsed time. About 4 hours dedicated time) in install RH7.1 on a Dell Laptop.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Let's see:
Linux on the desktop is dead because the desktop applications, in development for 3 years or so, are incomplete and immature.
Linux on the server is alive because the server applications, in development for 6+ years or so, are complete and mature.
So, linux on the desktop is dead. As in, incapabable of life. As in, permanently deceased.
In a couple of years, these applications will still be incomplete and immature... um... why?
Personally, I think Linux on the desktop is in it's infancy, rather than it's deathbed.
You're using a bad Windows manager. Lots of Linux users who run it only for 2 hours a week love their E or Sawfish, but as someone who works in Linux 24/7, I've found nothing compares to IceWM.
Why is it good? "Centre dialogs on owner window" setting. Alt+tab moves between windows. crtl+esc brings up launcher menu. Totally Gnome WM compliant. Multiple destops. Stability. Speed and low foot print. But the best feature? A default configuration fully usable without tweaking!!
--
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I am a software developer and I tried to push Java as the multi-platform solution. Moving away from the windows C++ world. So I convinced my company to use J2EE. We use EJB on the server side with JSP and Javascript front end. Our goal was to have a multi-platform server side solution and and multi-platform web based client. As we move along, we have to drop more and more Netscape browser versions. They are absolutely horrible to support. They don't respond correctly to a lot of our standard stuff. Has anyone tried version 6? Jeez! We had to drop everything netscape except the 4.7X versions. And we've had to bend to make it work in those versions as well. How are we supposed to make a multiplatform web based client without a decent browser on a Linux\Unix machine? Browser support is lagging.
Linux has never been a candidate to replace Office+Windows. We all speculate and hope, but the reality is that aint going to happen in at least the next 4 years if ever. However, the Linux desktop will live on in the many other market applications other than Office. How about, Developement, IT management console, Fortune500 Enterprize Appliances (cash registers, airline reservation desktops, other one-offs), etc. Imagine how many linux workstations companies like Verizon, HP, IBM, Motorola, etc have to have for their various development enterprizes. The Linux Desktop is NOT dead. The Linux Office Application is still a ways a way. While we are all rooting for those Open Office developers, we have to recognize that their battle is uphill.
Someone you trust is one of us.
First of all, Ximian, a great linux desktop, takes about an hour to set up, not 4 days. It takes you 3-4 days to set up a windows client? What the heck are you putting on there that takes that long? What does the hard drive have like a 10rpm governor on it or something?
Someone you trust is one of us.
Obviously she can't call the guys at GNOME for customer support, or the guys at KDE to ask why Konqueror isn't rending a webpage properly. It these things that are preventing it from being a true workstation for the masses.
When is the last time you called MS for support? If you are like most users, the answer is "never."
I think that this argument is functionally equivalent to the "who are you going to sue" argument. There is no real safety (or in this case support) there, but there is a psychological difference in running software "backed" (read any MS EULA to see why I put the word backed in quotes) by a multi-billion dollar company.
MS pushes most of the support out to OEMs. The question, I suppose, is when is the advantage of having "the standard" (what I bastardization of the word) OS/Office/etc out weighed by the ridiculousness of paying for the privilege of supporting MS stuff vs. supporting Free stuff.
This point is being passed in the Intel based server market right now.
Or, are you talking about paid support? There is plenty of that for Linux, and is, in my experience, of better quality. Again, when is the last time you called MS support?
Then the common answer for people that are struggling with Linux and always asking questions is "RTFM", well guess what, there are people out there that don't want to learn about a computer, but just use it. And futher more, I doubt this person has a book on GNOME, and people trying to learn GNOME aren't going to know GNOME has built in documentation
This argument is hollow. The GNOME help system is functionally identical to the windows help system, as is the KDE help system. If there is any difference here it is in third party products (video professor, teach yourself MS office in 28 days, etc.)
Not only that, Linux tries to mix Server and Workstation too much.. Once again, the average geek will like this, but most people don't care if they have a telnet server running, in fact its a huge security risk for the average home user.
This is a problem in general, but try an "all defaults" install of Redhat 7.1. It is easily as secure as a "windows power user's" box with black ice or whatever, and is easier to install. (given like installs. Installing RH 7.1 in a single boot, stock install is no harder than the Win98 equivalent. Much easier than the original Win95 on a system with PIXII and USB.)
-Peter
legally required rant:
Ok, moderators, are you smoking crack? This is the first post to point out the painfully obvious, moderate him up!
On the serious note, this article fails to support its own title. "Death of the linux desktop" it says, but where was there evidence that it's alive? The beauty of open source is that things don't die. Ever. If someone stops developemnt (Eazel being the obvious), so what? those who use it and want it, keep developing! Where's the problem here?
The other thing that just burned me about the article is the mention of Corel linux failing. First of all, Corel linux was a POS to begin with. I couldn't get the POS installed on 3 different machines. There's no options, so I know I didn't screw anything up. My first install attempt, it didn't even unmount the partitions after install! It fsck'd on my first boot, most of the daemons wouldn't start, the OS was UNUSABLE. I tried installing on a laptop, the res was messed up and it put the "Continue" button off the screen. I couldn't even click the Continue button! I never got past the first screen! Corel linux blew chunks. Lots of them. Take them OUT of the equation!
Linux on the desktop is alive and kicking. This article is just blowing senseless smoke. Mozilla is really starting to look good, Evolution beats the crap out of OutHouse, and Open Office is getting there. Wiritng an article like this is poiintless, you've just reconfirmed what we already know.. the linux desktop needs work. Saying that it's dead... STFU. It's not there yet. Development will continue, and I'm reminded every time I sit at a Windoze machine how truly superior it is.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
It's completely stupid! Yes, I know the problem is that there are a dozen different desktop managers, and they each have their own API. So why doesn't somecreate a generic API that lets you create icons, etc on the whatever desktop you happen to be running? I've installed dozens of apps via RPM, and I had to make icons for all of them. Not only that, but I've had to dig up icons to use.
--
Lord Nimon
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Alas, poor desktop GNOME
They meant well, I know
But their attempts at creating UI's were of infinite jest though their pixmaps were fancy
They had blindly copied microsoft 1000 times
And now, how abhorrent an imitation it is
My grandmother cringes at it.
Fitts' Law--the menus on their windows breaks. It is at least something they forget at Sun.
Something is rotten in the state of GNOME.
To fork or not to fork
That is the question
Whether tis nobler to suffer the bungling errors Of Gnome's outrageous UI design
Or build up an army of mac programmers
And in doing so, win the desktop
What's in a kernel? That which we know as a good interface with a linux kernel would be just as sweet.
Oh penguincow, penguincow, wherefore art thou my penguincow? Deny Bill his victory and the mac's greatness reclaim.
Sorry. I'm feeling rather poetic and silly today. But I'm already starting to do what you've mentioned. Mac people are best qualified at creating interfaces for grandmothers, which is why I'm creating (albeit slowly) a mac flavored GNOME fork. The current linux user environments were made for geeks by geeks. For them, technology is the ends unto itself and not and a means by which you get work done. On the gnome-gui list, there was an effort to put out UI guidelines. The effort, while not much, could be summed up as "let's go copy microsoft." When I pointed this out, the responses on the list were something to the tune of "Let's go copy Microsoft. We don't care if Apple did it better or it made more sense". Screw forging alliances with linux; it's time to take it over. I also agree with you about StarOffice. It really is big. And all the code comments are in German. Und ich spreche nicht gut Deutsche.
If you want, I can e-mail about the project. I will eventually bring other people in on this.
Ukab T. Great
In addition to making a good developers desktop, Linux is pretty good when supporting users who have absolutely no intention of doing their own system administration.
My Mom calls me all the time asking how to fix something or another on her Windows desktop that I could fix much more easily if she were running Linux and I could simply ssh to her machine.
And for the software that she likes to run Linux is really almost there. She just needs a good mail client, a web browser, and a word processor. I need her to use tools that don't do unexpected things like open unclosable windows (like Netscape & IE), propagate mail viruses (like Outlook & Word), or mess up her registry (like Windows 98).
Personally I think that Linux is getting close to satisfying all of those. Windows doesn't even seem to be trying.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
Ah, good point. But is Microsoft actually going to win the console wars? True they have billions of dollars...
But against them, they don't understand the market, and they aren't even using the tried and true methods of succeeding in that market, but have instead decided to forge their own new path, and ultimately their hardware is more expensive than their competition.
Microsoft hasn't exactly made good on WebTV if you'll recall, and that was their best bet at a grandmother can use it device that I've seen in recent years. It's too sad.
I do think that the console market is a rich oligopoly ripe for upsetting, I just don't think that Microsoft has a guarantee of winning.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
This presumes that you know what the next desktop OS will look like. If instead the industry completely misses the boat, heads off in one direction and interest of the public runs off in another then Linux could very easily cross the finish line first.
Consider TIVO for example. I'm not a big fan of the device, but suppose it caught the imagination of the american public in a major way; it could easily result in a complete displacement of Windows on the consumer desktop.
There are other examples, but that isn't the point. Open source also means that a thousand companies, without any significant value or staff size, are able to innovate however the mood strikes them. And that, I claim, is the very core of invention.
Microsoft's can be displaced just as easily as Nokia surprised and overwhelmed the cell-phone market; all it takes is a blind spot. And right now that blind spot (for Microsoft is in recognizing the value of open source. (Who knows what it will be next year.)
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
I also contend your implications that Win2k is more stable than Linux. Back that fact up with some hard data; give me a Win2k server that can match my record 400-day uptime under linux. Also, a default Linux installation is far more secure than a Win2k one this day.
The comment that Alphas are "dead" is worthy of a true troll so we're not even going to get there.
When was the last time you actually used a Linux system? a "prompt"? did you get the news that Linux has graphical logins these days? Anyway, any user with a clue is smart enough to follow the instructions "give login and password, and then type startx at the prompt". I mean, your users *Can* type, can't they?
Finally, trying to diss Linux as a server system is plain dumb. Say what you will, but every statistic available on server operating systems proves you wrong regardins Linux as a server.
Microsoft Windows always has been, and always will be holed up in the desktop market. It's stupid for Linux to even think of competing there.
That's the statement of a troll, I think, but I'll pretend otherwise. 5 years ago, I had to compile everything for linux. I didn't even try to get X running. There was no office software, at all, that I knew of. Mail was text only. Fast forward to today: several office packages, 2 of which are free, to choose from. I enjoy having mutt as a mailreader, so I read from a shell, but it has both inline pgp and can spawn up attachments into StarOffice right from the mail client. Oh, and I don't have to worry that every attachment I'm getting (or every email, for that matter) is some VBScript laden bomb waiting to infect my system with a virus and wipe out all my files.
When I need to set up a new desktop client, it typically takes 3-4 days, using Windows 2000.
About 6 months ago, I needed to update my Linux box (well, wanted to, anyhow, but that's such a fine line for a computer geek
An inferior operating system, matched by shoddy programs that don't work
I've spent months now using netscape and staroffice every single day. Netscape is utterly stable, when you discount Java, which I have off on ALL platforms due to that instability. Try comparing the resources used by the latest linux netscape to those used by IE. Mozilla isn't a 1.0 version yet, but I tried out 0.9, and it seems like its well on its way to being nice.
That said, let's look at what I get that you don't:
I get built-in firewalling/packet-filtering capability, and RedHat 7.1 will even build access lists for me.
I get a variety of mail clients, graphical or shell, which are faster and more robust than garbage like exchange (ever try to close a multi-thousand message box? Better have something else to do for a while), as well as not being easy victims for every virus writer on the planet.
I get system monitors, media players, development tools, games, graphics programs, irc clients, a palm-sync package, cd ripping/burning software, newsreaders, as well as a desktop that is so customizable it makes the pathetic attempts under windows ("Oh, your mouse pointer is now really a mouse, how cute *gag*") worthy of tears. And of course, I get to choose from a variety of office suites that are free, never mind the commercial ones.
Meanwhile, Linux as a server has grown from fun to just amazing. With a vastly improved kernel, now offering fast context switching, and speedy multithreaded I/O, you get software like Apache, PHP, MySql/Postgres/Oracle, sendmail, BIND, etc, all of which put their Win2k equivalents utterly to shame (with the possible exception that MS SQL Server is pretty decent). Want an incredibly fast webserver? TUX in the kernel and you're beating the pants off anything.
This is to say nothing of the true cost of ownership. Imagine an IT world based on linux: you can export X displays without expensive add-ons, you can ssh safely and securely into your client machines, you get built-in packet filtering with logs you can easily transfer and audit, which your users can't override at their whim, AND is fast and free. Linux really COULD be a desktop now. I shudder to think how amazing it will be with some market share. Add to this the incredible stability -- I'd like to see you put a windows box at a colo provider 1500 miles away and feel safe when you walked away!
CompUSA cheap... nice troll, or nice setup, but give me a break -- IT people spend 10x as much time just repairing virus damage on windows garbage than they would converting their whole company to Linux. Games under linux are coming, and when they do, Windows is finished.
XML causes global warming.
For the desktop environment, it is a battle between Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft wins the core corporate users (a proper Exchange client, etc), accounting uses (from the low-end Quickbooks to high-end solutions, you KNOW that MS is supported, even if the backend part runs on real iron, although I still see the occaisional 3270 emulator...), etc.
Apple wins where the creative types need the power that Apple provides for graphic design and musical work. Use Photoshop and Illustrator on Windows and Apple, you'll see the difference.
Solaris/AIX/HP-UX fight out the mid-high end with their Unix lines. The power of them is simply unmatched by anything else.
IBM OWNS the high end with their mainframe line. Although more applications are moving to high-end Unix, this space is still growing, albeit slowly.
The low-end (workgroup) server space belongs to NT/W2K. Although AD is a pain, NT4 still works and works well in this space. For managing a group of Windows workstations, NT still rocks.
The low-mid-range (where web servers prosper, etc) there is a battle between FreeBSD and Linux. Linux is winning in terms of installs, FreeBSD still wins in systems that need the capacity and have professional sysadmins. FreeBSD does everything Linux does, with a more sane process. I personally love OpenBSD, buy YMMV. More people learn Linux than BSD. But I know many people that went from Linux to BSD... I don't know ANY that went back. Linux users tend to play around with it, find the mess that is the hacked together internals, and often move to one of the BSDs where the system is designed by a core team (instead of random apps from everyone thrown together). I believe that the BSDs kick Linux's ass, and will continue to do so for a while.
Linux has a REAL core strength, that of a programmer's desktop. If you are developing server side apps, having a REAL server environment is priceless. Even if you want real Iron for the deployment, Linux is more than adequate for testing. Additionally, the desktop environment/programmers tools are BEST supported on Linux. The Open Source ones support BSD as an afterthought, commercial ones barely support it. This is an area where Linux shines. I don't let Linux in the server room, but the programmers work on Linux workstations. The random tools may make Linux servers aggravating, but they are a gem for developers.
The Unix workstation market remains a fight between Sun and HP, although this market is dying off. Linux is making SOME inroads here, as is Apple Mac OS X (several commercial Unix apps are coming over).
Apple Mac OS X shows a lot of promise as a compromise OS for those that want the programming power of Linux with the compatibility that MacOS offers (MS Office, etc.).
I look foward to renewed competition. The BSD process of an integrated OS makes it silly for the desktop, though die-hard fans will use it.
The word of the day is interoperability. A Linux hegemony is NO better than a MS one.
FNORD.
--
--
I like to watch.
--
--
I like to watch.
Obviously she can't call the guys at GNOME for customer support, or the guys at KDE to ask why Konqueror isn't rending a webpage properly. It these things that are preventing it from being a true workstation for the masses.
That's why small additions like the Ximian MonkeyTalk button in all Ximian GNOME apps are such a good idea. You're stuck, you've tried the help manual (or at least as much as is currently complete) and no go. Click on the Help->Talk button and get simple type and respond interface to talk to other Gnome users (including the Ximian people) and try to solve your problem.
Beyond the somewhat random talk room, there is always commercial support. That's where companies like RedHat will really find their niche - supporting the distributions they have put together. You already pay for MS Windows help desk support, so it is not such a long chalk to pay for Linux desktop support if you need it.
Not only that, Linux tries to mix Server and Workstation too much.. Once again, the average geek will like this, but most people don't care if they have a telnet server running, in fact its a huge security risk for the average home user.. Considering he'll probably be storing webpage passwords on his machine..
This is nitpicking, but Linux doesn't try to mix Server and workstation - the distros package it that way. Don't blame the famous Linux flexibility from embedded to mainframe for the packages that distros choose to installed with it.
That said, recent releases seem to be far more clued up on how much/little to have automatically starting on a workstation install and security levels are starting to look less like swiss cheese. Ditto 3D hardware support working straight away from install is also coming along - it's not completely there yet but it's better than it was 6 months ago.
Then the common answer for people that are struggling with Linux and always asking questions is "RTFM", well guess what, there are people out there that don't want to learn about a computer, but just use it. And futher more, I doubt this person has a book on GNOME, and people trying to learn GNOME aren't going to know GNOME has built in documentation, or what the f*ck is a manpage.
'Users' aren't going to need man pages - developers and system administrators are. And while I think that having GUI administration tools (such as Ximian Setup Tools, which look like they will provide the backends for both GNOME and KDE) for setting up and keep the system running is a major advance for normal users of the Linux desktop, anyone who uses a computer should be expected to put some effort into reading some of the various documentation provided - hopefully this documentation is part of the Help system of the package. In no other sphere of endeavour would you find this 'I have a tool and I'm just going to use it' mentality. Even using a hammer to bang a nail into wood works better if you have actually had some instruction in how to do it. A computer and software is analogous a complete set of carpentry tools, from bradle to lathe, some simple, some complex. Nobody expects to turn out Chippendale furniture without some training. Computers are the same - you should be able to the most basic tasks with 30 seconds of tips, but to carry out the more complete and complex tasks, you are going to have to learn some things.
Thats the only thing I give Windows, I can install it for my parents, show them the icon for IE, put a few games on for my Dad, show him the icons, show my mom the "Word" icon, and how to print, and they're set, happy and have little problems.. I only need to teach them when blue screens pop up, or things lock up, press the reset button and start over. ..
A successful install of the latest distros put you pretty much at this point - a pretty windowing GUI with a completely point and click interface. with little or no need to ever see the command line. If the install doesn't go smoothly, contact your vendor and let them know what died, hung, crashed or was simply ambiguous or unclear. You'd be amazed at what an impact constructive reports and criticism can acheive.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
How many times can that guy say "not ready yet" and then also state that it's already dead?
I suppose people get more motivated when the reward is a game with a nice animation at the end, compared to a nicely-formatted invoice.
Mmmm *DOOL* nicely-formatted invoice Mmmm YEA!
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Unfortunately due to the /. effect I can't read the article.. But I've always had discussions with coworkers on this topic.. Linux has yet to be a user-friendly desktop. And it probably won't be for at least another year. Sure its the desktop of choice for geeks and techheads alike, but imagine installing a fresh copy of Debian on a Pentium, and giving it to your grandmother? Unless you've done a really good job of making sure everything is working, and you show her how to use things, where is she going to start?
.. and don't get me started in printing in Linux.. sigh.
Obviously she can't call the guys at GNOME for customer support, or the guys at KDE to ask why Konqueror isn't rending a webpage properly. It these things that are preventing it from being a true workstation for the masses.
Not only that, Linux tries to mix Server and Workstation too much.. Once again, the average geek will like this, but most people don't care if they have a telnet server running, in fact its a huge security risk for the average home user.. Considering he'll probably be storing webpage passwords on his machine.. Then there is lack of a good Web Browser, although this will soon be a thing of the past, as I've been using Konqueror myself for months without a problem.. But Netscape bundled by default is horrible.. And then the one topic that is keeping it from being on every machine, is games.. Loki is doing a good job trying to fix that, but even I had trouble getting Quake 3 running properly with a PII 450 and a Voodoo3, It was slow as hell, despite talking with reps at Loki on which Mesa libraries to use and install, only to get a "Well we don't really know" answer.
Then the common answer for people that are struggling with Linux and always asking questions is "RTFM", well guess what, there are people out there that don't want to learn about a computer, but just use it. And futher more, I doubt this person has a book on GNOME, and people trying to learn GNOME aren't going to know GNOME has built in documentation, or what the f*ck is a manpage. I can say the same thing, I don't care about how my Microwave or Toaster works internally, but when I put in leftovers or bread, I expect them to be heated and toasted..
Thats the only thing I give Windows, I can install it for my parents, show them the icon for IE, put a few games on for my Dad, show him the icons, show my mom the "Word" icon, and how to print, and they're set, happy and have little problems.. I only need to teach them when blue screens pop up, or things lock up, press the reset button and start over.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Because they are the only ones that are free. Feel free to create some better ones. As you will soon notice, creating high-quality fonts is not easy, and that's why people tend not to give them away. That's also why MS-Office isn't free...
Also, most applications are written to be portable. While some linux-distributions ship with other and better fonts, or can steel fonts from you windows-partition, the applications still have to use fonts they know are available. (Would you write an application that only worked on Mandrake Linux, or one that aimed for general Unix-compatibility?), which means the old X11 bitmap screen fonts.
X11 font-handling is also unnessecary complicated for end-users, and usually requires root-access, so requiring people to install non-standard fonts to run your application is generally not a good idea.
And of course, netscape font-handling sucks as well. But IMHO X11 is mostly to blame for it's lame and retarded font-handling (although things have improved with XFree86 lately, but such things take time to propagate to applications and libraries).
All movements. Wow, there's obviously a lot of wisdom bottled up in this little sentence.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
That is the last, good shot at anyone making a dent in the microsoft office empire. If you've used it, you know it's extremely compatible with microsoft office documents, so you can reasonably use it to open and edit documents created by windows users, and it's free, so it's got a good advantage over the microsoft competitor, and to top that off, it's on Linux.
Yet, it gets very little help, and almost no press from the Linux community.
If the community is serious, it will throw as much support as it can gather behind openoffice.org. I'd love to see the KDE team drop the well-intentioned, but highly impractical KOffice to contribute to the Openoffice.org effort, a KDE native version for example.
Go to the website... Try Openoffice. If you want to be involved with a project that really will change the standings in the software game, that project is probably the one with the highest potential to make a real difference at this point, yet it's getting very little publicity or support.
________
All this article says, under all the overblown, sensationalist statements, can be reduced to one sentence buried halfway into the article: "But as it stands Linux on the desktop is not an entity that is usable by the average PC user when it comes to accomplishing their daily work.". That's a statement that most of us would agree with-- but most of us wouldn't bother to click over to and read.
So what we get is a bunch of flamebait surrounding a state of affairs that reporters have been covering for years. Here's an example of the senseless rhetoric: "Such is the way of all movements: either the professionals take over and the movement evolves, or the movement recedes." Wow. That would've been cut from Catch-22 for being too absurd.
Now, am I saying that everything on the Linux desktop is great? Of course not. The fact that this is essentially identical to articles about Linux two or three years ago should be of concern to anyone who wants Linux on more desktops. A lot of the software still isn't quite there. Mozilla isn't quite finished. A lot of lower-profile tools also aren't quite finished, or not polished yet. So a better question (and one this reporter completely fails to ask) is: is this a natural and expected development cycle for new and useful tools, or is there some inherent obstacle holding back these tools?
--I have Linux on almost all of my machines. I have one purely WIN box in my house and my wife uses that.
.zip files and have them do their job.
--It started with, "I don't care if it's better, I can't run Quicken. I don't want to run something as good as Quicken I want to run Quicken. I can barely see the words in Netscape. Why can't I play The Sims on it? Nothing works. I want Office, I hate Star Office it is ugly. Dell says they can't help me becuase the machine came with Windows 98."
--I gave up after that. She's not a stupid user either. She's a power user for the NT set. She just wants things to work as expected. tar -xvf doesn't make her happy. She like to click on
--I love Linux and tweaking and such but guess what I can't play NASCAR 4 on it.
--Linux never stood much of a chance
---
This
Monkey sense
The end-user is someone like my dad who is sick to death of the Win9x series. Last week it 'intuitively' semi-reversed the upgrade to WinME back to Win98 and refused to boot beyond the DOS prompt.
Yet another reinstall, and 'likely another 13 reboots' (his words). He's got Windows 2000 as well, but it doesn't work with all his hardware or software, so that's not a terribly useful option.
Believe me, end users are sick of shoddy software, they just don't have anywhere else to go (but that's another thread entirely).
Because I already have 2 x86 PCs and not enough room for a Mac as well. Should hell freeze over and Apple port OS X to x86 then I'll give it a try.
Just my thoughts, but...
Okay. Start with this: why the hell does kwrite automatically copy selections into the clipboard whether I want it to or not? (Did that on RH6.0, anyway; I haven't really paid attention to whether it's been fixed since).
I agree with those who say the Linux community is too insular. We sit here and bitch and whine that the world isn't taking us quite as seriously as we'd like, but who's out there hacking OpenOffice to help make a workable MSOffice replacement? Why are we letting politics dominate our desktop decisions? And why the hell isn't the Linux community trying to forge alliances with the Mac community?
I'll start with the last point first and get the flamebaiting out of the way. When the Mac came out, Apple put out the Mac Human Interface guidelines. Microsoft has its own rules for Windows. We have no such thing for either of the significant Linux desktops. Believe it or not, this is a bad thing.
For this to work we need some interface guidelines, preferably written by someone using both MacOS and Linux (since Mac users as a general rule are more sensitive to clumsy interface design) (ducking flames, please hold). Specs like this are not amenable to committee design, so they should be handed down from on high by the toolkit developers for public comment rather than designed by committee. That's one.
The politics have got to go. Yeah, you've got your favorite features; I personally rather enjoy the look (though not the feel) of Athena widgets. Stuff 'em; you can add them later if you need them, but you need something to fit them in with. We have two desktops, which is one too many, and they will probably never be merged. Fine. Let's go with what we have and relegate the rest to the special-purpose bins where they belong; Motif is dying anyway, and it's the only other toolset that really counts. And if we must keep them, let's have XawGTK and QtLesstif around so we don't get confused and have to look at fruit-salad apps.
As for the matter of open source desktop apps, we only have ourselves to blame. Browser? Okay, Galeon's halfway there, but you still need Mozilla. That's ridiculous; AOLTW/Netscape changed the licensing, so there's no reason for separate downloads. Desktop? Sorry, I have no sympathy when OpenOffice goes wanting for developers. You've got a rather useful package there -- huge, but it's got everything you need and an open file format to boot. If you have nothing at all to contribute to OpenOffice or any of its competitors, you have no right whatsoever to bitch about articles like this.
The Linux world needs to swallow its pride and accept that some decisions do need to be made from above, or at least proposed from above and accepted by a critical mass. You fork, you're out. You've just created a new community, and the burden is on you to get it accepted, not to whine about why it isn't.
There is another component to this. Our desktop flagship programs are huge. Mozilla is about a 20MB source tarball IIRC, and I believe OpenOffice is well over 300MB. This is IMHO unacceptable in a Unix-based community; monolithic office suites are a Bad Thing to begin with, and given that there hasn't been a really core-type feature invented since the multidimensional spreadsheet I have to wonder where all this bloat is coming from (since I don't use it I could be off-base). Same with wasting space on skinnable browsers when performance should be the big issue.
We need more than developers in the Open Source community, you see. What's missing from the Open Source equation is support personnel like tech writers and creative people. We need more books like Coriolis Press' Lions-style source commentaries. We need interface designers willing to make stuff look pretty (something I'd love to help with, if anyone wants a Mac user's view, btw). We need Open Source RAD tools like VB or MacOS X Interface builder. It is very much time we reached out to the rest of the world to see what there is to be offered.
Yes, there's the marketing problem as well. Don't expect Linux desktops everywhere next year. But how many people who know only the hype are aware that Linux is coming up on its tenth anniversary?
/Brian
Is it a dumbed-down "one desktop is enough for everyone"?
Well, if by a desktop we mean a Windows/MacOS clone, then I'm happy to admit there has never been a serious Linux desktop. I wonder why the idea of a desktop should be defined by winblows, but then again it's no real surprise.
Think of a real desktop. Some people have one desk and they keep the 'tools' neatly organized on the back edge, for example (I'm thinking of a Windows analogy). Others, however, like to have several desks for different types of work, and they like to keep the desk as a clean workspace, so they keep the pens and stuff hidden in drawers. This is kind of like my Enlightenment. I'm infinitely more productive with tools like Emacs in this environment than with any graphical toys.
Anyway. If people want something like Windows, let them use Windows. There's no point in us copying the same desktop look and feel. I imagine if I had a windows interface to my machine, it would be as limiting as real winblows. We can do better than that. Oh, wait, I think we already have. :-))
Come to think of it, just one problem. Or maybe not really. I just remembered the first experiences with Linux, I used Gnome in a rather Windows-like configuration. I wanted to change my thinking, but it was quite impossible to just jump into the cold water of command line. There is still need for a (buzzword alert) migration path. But I'm glad Gnome made it quite obvious that there were a lot more choices, at some point realizing that E can be run without the Gnome-panel that was getting more and more useless to me.
[OT] "They call open source communism, while they promote a Soviet-style central planning of software. The closed source is collapsing under its inherent inconsistencies. All the signs are there. 'Yeah, right, and penguins fly' you may say, but hey, penguins do fly underwater." ;-)
(me, it just looked better in quotes
--
I hit the karma cap, now do I gain enlightenment?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Why do the editors and posters on Slashdot keep insisting that "Corporate America" accept Linux as the best thing since sliced bread and run it on every system in their inventory? Who cares what Corporate America runs on their desktop? There will always be an abundance of software for the Linux desktop regardless of whether there is anyone from a large corporation actually using it. That's because everything that we use on a basic Linux desktop is free software. That's right, free software! It doesn't matter whether company X sees a continued interest in them supporting application Y on the Linux desktop, because the software for Linux is developed free from the constraints of financial expectations.
The only rational reason that I can deduce from this constant evangelizing of Linux by the Slashdot editors would be their own self-interest in seeing their VA Linux stock break above whatever the hell single-digit price it is currently valued at. After all, moron companies that base their business plan on selling something that's available for free are the only ones who stand to profit from large corporations putting Linux on the desktop and demanding large amounts of "accountability" and "support" from these same companies.
--
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Personally, I've found that the Linux GUI's have lots of configuration options... it's just a royal pain in the ass to find them.
It is a common site to see a rookie Linux admin sifting through menus looking for one config app or another, only to give up after 10 minutes and run the CLI version of it.
Almost every aspect of Gnome or KDE can be tweaked to your taste, which is a good thing I guess, but the default layout of all the menus and tools is so bizzare and byzantine that it boggles the mind. It almost looks like it was designed by a huge assortment of different programmers... oh wait... it was, wasn't it? [ducks under the rotten cabbages]
I don't think the Linux GUI is a lost cause. I'm sure that more logical structures will fall into place once the dust begins to settle. Besides, some people actually like it, just the way it is. Not me, but some people.
Then there is the famous third-button pasting... Some geeks would die before giving that up.
Personally, on the rare occations when I am actually sitting in front of a Linux box (instead of hitting it remotely), I tend to go to the command line and stay there.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Well I don't know. It does not seems that the market for a killer video app is similar in size to that of a word processor. It is more of a niche application. I type email, and docs everyday. I view video maybe several times a month, and and have had the desire to edit a movie maybe once or twice.
So I wonder if there is a market for this stuff.
The next real killer app I see way down the road would be a true AI intelligent assistant, a man or girl friday thing. Answers the phone, handles the spam, takes care of the routine items I delegate to it. Of course, there would be a fantasy element that alot of folks would find enticing. But I digress...
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This is what is really needed. Unfortunately, the open source community has been diversified and splintered about this. And so this equivalent amount of effort, enough to match the results of something like a MS, has not taken place. This is observable even in projects that have a large amount of community support, such as Mozilla. The raw number of people has been one half or one third it could have been to really get it out in a "timely" manner, resulting in Netscape 6 being beta-ware in fact if not in name.
I happen to think that Linux can make it to the desktop, but that the core applications need to get there too. Otherwise it remains a developers tool set.
The amount of effort that has gone into the OS has to go into the productivity suite.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
In case you didn't read the article at Linux Planet, what he said was it's not the environment, it's the applications. He even specificly mentioned the quality of the KDE environment. There just isn't any "killer apps" (Photoshop, M$ Office, AutoCAD, Illustrator, ProTools, etc.) that businesses require today available for Linux, and in many cases no equivilants. OK, in all fairness, mabey not "require". But how many people can you find with Gimp experience compared to Photoshop experience? And good luck finding a secratary or purchasing agent familiar with StarOffice. It's just not worth the expense to retrain employees for the cost savings of the software. Don't get me wrong, there are many great apps on Linux, but few things that are awe inspiring. Not for the desktop at least. Server side, Linux is still king. And the author never said the poor sales of Corel and the death of Eazel were setbacks, but flags pointing to the direction of the Linux desktop. Sad to say, but untill some of the big software houses, and even many hardware companies support Linux there is little hope. The toughest sell for Linux will always be lack of manufacturer support.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
The article seems a little contradictory, saying that the Linux desktop is entirely dead, but still saying that enthusiasts will continue to work on it. To my mind, continued work on something implies that it's probably not dead.
However, I agree with a lot of the rest of the article. Linux is a superb server platform as far as I can tell. I don't know about truly industrial strength applications since I've never used it that way, but just for setting up a web server, firewall, mail server, QuakeWorld server it rocks. But for desktop productivity... eww. The window managers are slow and clunky (Sawfish is the best that I've found, but that takes an age to start), most of the applications are flakey in a random way that I don't see on Windows - right now the Gnome File Manager keeps telling me that there's no response to a save yourself command, and would I like to remove it? Clicking yes does absolutely nothing. Sure loads of Windows applications crash, but they crash, and stay dead. I can get rid of them. (even kill -9 doesn't seem to work properly). And don't even get me started on the productivity software...
It all comes down to using the right tools for the job. Linux does a great deal of server work for me in the networks I am involved with, Windows does a lot of the desktop work. Even if the Linux desktop is dead (and I don't think it is, it just needs improving) that's not really that big a deal for Linux.
Henry
i don't do sigs. oops.
It is hard to bring a decent desktop to linux,
that will satisfy both flavors of users.
It has gone very far into trying to replace
windows, alas that is very wrong thing to do.
Trying to replace your competitor by building a
better product, when your competitor has a
monopoly on market is completely wrong. What
is the way is to predict a market niche and
shoot for it hard and fast, that will replace,
the fastest growth niche in present day, and
move from there on. Try to run as fast as possible
and as quick as possible to get there first,
and buildup a forstress, to withstand the storm
of monpoly fiend.
Linux was doing quite well. There is too much
effort being spent in replicating windows and
macintosh models. There are some creative movements
though like E17, wich will integrate shell into
desktop more than ever and make configuration of the
look of the environment trivial.
Yes these mundane monster projects will ultimately
add to the value of UNIX systems including linux,
but rather cutting edge software like E17 would
bring attention to linux.
Another thing, don't use markets as a benchmark
of present creativity in a community, especially
enthusiast based. Yes, present market blance
action, as to weed out wouldbe internet businesses,
Companies based on innovation, would strive,
not those who take stuff off the self, and replicate
neighbour's effort with little deviation.
cheers...
Was KDE. Eazel may be dead, but KDE continues to get better and better. Konqueror is arguably the best browser on any platform (and is at least as good as MSIE), and yet is still a relativly new project. KOffice is coming along in leaps and bounds, and given that the KDE team were able to make a Mozilla-beater in far less time, *from scratch* (Mozilla is based on pre-existing NS code remember), I have high hopes. It's already extremely useable for day-to-day tasks, and above all is quick.
I continue to use AbiWord for its MS Word importing features.
Linux isn't dead on the desktop, you just need to look in the right places.
--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
I had a conversation with my gf this morning that made me realize how geeks and "normal" users are different in this regard. I've been learning to fly a Cessna and I mentioned how when I first got into the cockpit I was sort of overwhelmed by all the dials and gauges and buttons and knobs but simultaneously thought "wow, this is *cool*, I can't wait to learn how it all works." She said "Ugh, I hate that stuff -- I can barely stand all the instruments in a car." And she's not tech-averse in general -- she just looks at technology as a tool she can use to get something done, rather than being enamored of it for its own sake.
I really believe this is one of the reasons that it's so hard to build software that satisfies both geek and non-geek users. The geeks (and I include myself) want control, they want to get under the hood, they actually enjoy achieving competence and understanding why things work or don't work. The non-geeks want it to DWIM, to steal a term that's often used in the perl world: Do What I Mean. A truly effective computer for the masses would be so transparent that a user would never have to hear the term "device driver" or "operating system", let alone actually install one or, god forbid, understand what it's there for. Remember that most people can't be bothered to figure out how to eradicate the flashing 12:00 on their VCR. Telling them to read a manual or go to a newsgroup for help isn't going to cut it: They want someone they can call and say "It doesn't work, fix it."
By the way, although I find this attitude alien to me personally, I don't think it does any good to dismiss such users as stupid or unmotivated. Most people have things they want to accomplish so they can get on with living their lives, and computers are only interesting to them insofar as they make it faster and easier to accomplish those goals. It's not a question of motivation or intelligence, it's a question of priorities. You and I may happen to value tackling challenges and achieving understanding, but lots of people just want to, say, pay the bills as quickly as possible so they can spend time hanging out with their kids. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
I've had problems with Linux ever since I decided it could be a viable desktop platform.
For web browsing and word processing, Linux is great. Use Opera instead of netscape. Use nedit instead of M$ Word. If you have to open Word documents, use Wordpad under WINE. Great, fine.
The problem is when you have to install and upgrade programs. You can't just double-click on the cute little box-by-a-computer-with-disks, noo... you have to figure out if you have an RPM or DEB or TGZ-based system, you have to go to a command line and type "RPM -i foo*.rpm" and if it bitches about a dependency, you have to go to rpmfind.net and search for some obscure package that should've come preinstalled in the first place. DEB isn't much better - from my experience, it'll b0rk completely if it can't find some mythical lib like libpakistanicalender.so.1.2. RealPlayer and Loki's installer have some semblance of sanity in them.
Games for Linux? A joke. If you want to run anything more complex than Solitaire, then you're in for a long ride. First you have to find out if your card supports DRI or not. If it does, great. If it doesn't, go to dri.sourceforge.net, attempt to comprehend the incredibly bizarre directions, download and compile a library, try to figure out how to install it, etc. Loki's ports are incredibly shoddy; after more than eight hours of troubleshooting, I could not get either Quake 3 Arena or Unreal Tournament to work on my Mandrake 7.2 system with a Voodoo Banshee. I checked Loki's newsgroups.. and the Unreal Tournament group had FOUR THOUSAND support messages on it. When Unreal Tournament SIGSEGV'd on me, I looked up Loki's web page and found out that I had to compile and install my own Mesa libraries. At this point, I just gave up. Linux is not a viable gaming platform.
I wouldn't recommend Linux to a newbie for anything more advanced than word processing or web browsing. In my experience, for productivity, that's pretty much all it's good for.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
This may shock you, but XFree86 4 already HAS this.
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers. Tell me what you see in there - yep, a .o file for each card. And you know what? Hardware vendors can even distribute binary-only modules! You know, like NVidia is doing with their drivers.
If you're running XF86 4, look in
Quite amazing, huh?
So what's so bad about X again? If you tell me it uses too much memory, don't believe what top tells you - that includes pixmaps in use by apps as well as as the memory on your video card (which may be counted more than once).
Is it that X is slow because everything is done using a network connection? Think again, because if you're running it locally, it does everything nice and speedy through shared memory and cool fast stuff like that (I don't have the exact details).
The moral of the story: do some research before you bash something.
the point was that companies are pulling resources away from desktop linux. the article states that die hard fans will continue development. but the article contends that without professional resources, linux will be unable to compete with mac and windows
look at sourceforge. it is possible to have active projects that move so slowly as to be dead. it doesnt matter if linux moves forward; if it cant keep pace with other desktop oses, its dead on the desktop
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
"Pie Iesu Domine. Dona Eis Requiem."
It means "Holy Lord Jesus. Grant them rest."
(The two phrases are included in many Catholic funeral masses)
----
One world. One internet. One root. (ICANN policy)
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Been there, done that over on linuxtoday and linuxplanet.
- 05 -22-006-20-OP-DT
/ 33 92/1/
You will get this on slashdot tomorrow, so I am might as well post it now. Brian Proffit's rebuttal is here:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001
Original article is here:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions
Sorry, could not be bothered with html.
I believe Kevin did this about the desktop to rile people up and get them motivated. Whcih seems to be working...
StarTux
heh.. that's funny, but so near the truth. we just replaced windows with linux in one of our departments. they have everything they need to get their work done, and the first thing out of their mouths was -- and this went on for about twenty minutes -- "does this mean i can't play freecell?"
irb(main):001:0>
Try Debian 'apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade' all done! pretty easy and unless you're using custom sources no editing of files is needed as apt-config makes it pretty easy. apt is a pretty forward thinking tool and is really innovative when it comes to package management, that type of think will help Linux's viability in any market.
In fact I used to be able to install slashcode (pre bender slashcode mind you) in about 30-40 minutes from install (network connection providing) even faster is your average desktop setup which installs in a painless fashion I run three desktop environments just for kicks. I'm not advocating one tool as the one that will make or break Linux but apt has been one reliable and near indespensable tool. Suddenly we saw several 'ports' of apt-like functionality, up2date and similar package management helpers but apt comes with a maturity level and 'super cow powers'. So for what it's worth give debian a shot you may find as I did that it's not perfect but it certainly straightens out kinks and scratches itches, at least it did mine.
- A Server Operating System
- A High-End Operating System
- An Operating System Designed by People who Know Computers for People Who Know Computers, and not the Masses
Think for a moment: UNIX has been around thirty years. Yet there really isn't a major market for UNIX as a general purpose desktop. As a server application--definitely. As a workstation OS for CADD/CAM, graphics, etc.--sure.Linux is basically UNIX, so it seems to both benefit and suffar from that which is ascribed to it.
Problem is, desktop space is not geeks, engineers, scientists, etc. It's not people who need to know estoic bits of command line knowledge, or need to telnet into their system. It's not people who, once educated to save early and often, can't afford a quick bounce once in a while.
Desktop space is secretaries, accountants, managers, parents, teachers and others who do not, as a primary job function (or even interest) know and love computers. To them, it is just a tool. Many know how to get into their word processing and check their e-mail, and that's about it. I have seen more than a few that, if you MOVE AN ICON, spend a day trying to figure out "what you did to their computer." Add an inocuous piece of software, and any problem, no matter how unrelated, is attributed to "that guy who came and messed with my computer."
For those folks, who make up the majority of desktop space, Linux is just something "computer geeks" play with. True, many will argue that Linux is better/more stable/less evil/cooler/neater/etc. that alternatives, but, an OS that has no applications is basically sucking electricity and little else. Even DOS is stable when sitting idle.
And thus it becomes chicken or egg. Until there is demand for applications, people won't write many for Linux--only the ones that "scratch their itch." Until there are applications that provide the greater functionality and ease of use than what's out there, there will not be a reaon to switch.
Will there be a Linux desktop? Perhaps. It will probably require an effort similar to Linux itself--someone writing a large chuck of it, then many more adding all the various features, until, one day, you have a package. The, it will take putting together a cohesive and consistent package that can be easily installed.
Until the, it will remain something that just "those computer geeks" use.
Though sometimes I wonder if that is what is wanted...
I believe Mandrake rpms are set up to call Mandrake's menu management system, thus adding at least menu entries (assuming you use the Mandrake hierarchy).
Why is it that every distro of Linux I have ever installed has the ugliest, most unreadable fonts ever conceived by man? Why must Linux versions of Netscape default to Hideous Serif in 3pt size? It's like Microsoft and Apple share some kind of patent that give them exclusive rights to attractive, readable fonts that default to a normal size.
This is a serious question.....
I use an out of the box Mandrake 8 install on my machine and while I prefer using it (and KDE2) to Win98 (which is on the other partition) the speed of both the windowing environment and the applications under GNU/Linux is nowhere near what I could get under Win98.
Question: Why?
Personally I agree with an earlier post about ditching X11 and starting again.
Give me a break, you're going to compare ANY versions of NS/Mozilla, Word Perfect, and GIMP that you can get on Linux to IE 5.5, Word 2000, and Photoshop for Windows 2000!?
I'm sorry, but apps that you can get for Linux, that your average desktop user are going to WANT to use are about 5 years behind the ease of use and interoperability that Windows 2000 has to offer.
OOOH, you can get Quake & Civ geee, that really makes up for the other 90% of the games that only get released for Windows!
Anyone who says otherwise is a liar or a wuss.
Yeah, good one. "My OPINION is right, so that makes you wrong and therefore a liar and a weakling!". Go back to elementary school buddy, you're not ready for the real world yet.
You know what they say! A ittle necrophilia never hurt no one.
The article says that nothing out there is as good as Microsoft Office. The unspoken assumption to that line is:
"Nothing is as good as Microsoft Office at being Microsoft Office."
And probably nothing ever will be. Linux is fine as a desktop, or an Office Tool, when judged on its own terms. MSOffice doesn't always make sense, be people are used to it. Things that are essentially text documents are stored as Microsoft Word documents. No we don't have a program that readlily lends itself to destop-publishing every tiny little note you want to write, but I think we can edit text with the best of them.
We also don't read MS Office documents as well as MS Office. Actually, neither does MS Office - a fact that people are sure to start complaining about with the upcoming release of Office XP.
Amongst all the sound and fury, I'm not seeing anyone asking the simple question: who cares if Linux never takes off on the desktop?
Who cares if Linux never beats Windoze on the desktop? Who cares if it never even beats MacOS? What exactly do we win as individuals if it does? Commercial Linux distros need this to happen, but (sorry guys) if it never happens and they die, Linux still goes on.
Am I happy hacking Linux? Yes. Am I happy using Linux? Yes. Am I happy supporting other happy Linux hackers? Yes. Would I be happy supporting hordes of griping Joe Sixpacks and Suzi Cubicles? No!
Frankly, screw them. Home and corporate users have a real choice right now; that most of them still use M$ just shows that they want to be taken care of, and that applies to corporate IT as well - they want the low risk, works 90% of the time, phone drone support solution. Fine, but I don't ever want Linux to be that solution, because the bigger Linux gets (in every sense), the more it will become like Windoze. Releases will be done to coincide with trade shows and shareholder meetings, not when features are complete.
No, I'm quite happy with Linux the way it is, thanks. Sure, I still have a Windoze boot for games, but I don't see that it makes me a hypocrite because Linux != Windows, and personally I hope it never does.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"The" killer app ;)
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
I guess this kind of article isn't looked very well upon, but it is pretty relevant for a lot of Linux users out there, like it or not.
... "just give it time." Well, we heard that crap 2 years ago and I'm tired of waiting. While I'm sure it doesn't matter to a lot of the more "hardcore" Linux users out there -- and probably makes some glad a lot of people will be leaving so it can regain it's coolness through obscurity -- I certainly don't plan on staying with an operating system that doesn't grow with me. There are alternatives out there. And the "hey, this is nifty" crap is starting to be outweighed by the "hey, I need some better applications."
Linux does offer a splendid environment for network related serving/daemons and programming. However, there are lots of Linux users out there who do not use it for these purposes. They, in it's current state, use Linux for web browsing, MP3 playing/ripping, graphics work, text editing, occasionally word processing/spreadsheets. Some like a desktop environment, others prefer window managers like Window Maker by themselves. In any event, there are problems. as I see them:
1. Desktop environments. Not everyone likes KDE. I personally do not; KDE is overbearing. GNOME is dead, like it or not. When the file browser GNOME settled on takes up 75% of CPU time when it does not even have a window open there is obviously a problem.
2. Productivity software. Where is it? Openoffice lost several components that Staroffice had and doesn't seem to be making a great deal of progress. Corel's commitment is more or less dead. All the other choices are half-assed, including Applixware.
3. Web browsing. I am tired of people thinking what is available is acceptable. I am tired of the sheep bleating mentality: "Oh, you dislike Mozilla. You're uninformed." Give me a fucking break. Mozilla is awful, people, and I don't know how people can speak well for it when it runs so poorly and crashes all the time. Alternatives are Opera (equally awful, and payware), Konqueror (decent), Nescape 4.7 (nowhere) and other miscallenous programs.
4. All the others, CODECs, etc. There are so many applications out there that we don't have anything close to. So many file formats we can't view.
In short, I guess my point is Linux is a niche player at this point and time. We have heard people state Linux will advance on the desktop
mwtr / THIS SIG HAS BEEN PRAYED OVER AND MAY BE USED AS A POINT OF CONTACT (ACTS 19:12)
3-4 days to set up a windows 2000 desktop at $20/hr?!?!?! God, they need to get rid of you and hire me. At my old company, I could take my time and have a win2000 machine up in 4 hrs, even given only adequate hardware. That includes office 2000, service pack 2 and setting up their mail etc.
I got laid off last month, and here I am stuck at the fscking university making beans for pay. Seriously, your company needs to HIRE ME!!!
First, they don't address the needs of the traditional UNIX/Linux user community. Those users want tools that they can use to put together applications quickly from the command line after looking at a couple of concise manual pages. For desktops, Gnome and KDE fail to support that kind of usage. Gnome and KDE are complex C/C++ systems that require a lot of time to get started with and a lot of effort to build applications for. If UNIX/Linux users wanted that, why wouldn't they just switch to the "free" copy of Windows that shipped with their PC?
The second problem is that Gnome and KDE (plus all its applications) are oriented towards the past. Putting together desktop apps by laboriously writing widget creation code and laying out widgets in some "visual designer" is so 1990's. That's what Microsoft used to do. And building huge, complex, do-everything applications harks from an era where vendors needed to cram whatever functionality they could onto a single CD-ROM because they only got one shot at reaching the end user; with the Internet, we don't need that anymore.
So, where should the Linux desktop really go? Here are some ideas:
The Linux desktop needs to do more than just be a better implementation of dated Windows/Macintosh ideas in order to succeed.
You take 3-4 days to set up a client (of any kind), and moderators mod you up to +4 Informative? Do you have several friends with mod points today or something. Man, if it takes you more than 4 hours you should be fired as a clueless twit!! Moreso, if it takes an additional 10 hrs to get a linux client running.
It's supported on 99.999 % of the hardware out there
Probably 99.999% of the stuff at CompUSA (where you're probably working as a checkout clerk). The rest of us know that the world of computers is comprised of more than what comes from hallowed halls of the WalMart of Computerdom. Besides, try downloading a copy of Mandrake 8.0. I find it a nice replacement for that stack of driver CDs and floppies that you get when you put together a new system.
Wrong!
I submit that Microsoft Word, only one piece of this monstrosity of a... what is it, a program? An OS? A bug? To continue, Word is more complicated to use, more frustrating to learn, and more work to account for all its quirks and failures, than a decent Linux OS in its entirety.
Give me an inquisitive, fresh mind, LaTeX, and a simple text editor, and I'll have him or her creating letters, reports, web pages, pdf documents, and much more in a week.
Give me a fresh mind and MS Office, and maybe I can get them sending me a snail mail letter in that time...maybe.
Linux applications are not more complicated. They are simply not MS applications. And since the better part of our computer-using community here in the US has spent the last decade consuming brain cells with knowledge about how to deal with the Office monstrosity, they have little tolerance for learning something new. How are they expected to know that it won't be as painful this time, and pay off in the end? And lots of them are repressing the memories, so they don't even remember how painful it was to learn Office in the first place. Most likely, this is the case with our original author here.
so can Linux developers! Apple has taken BSD Unix and NeXTSTEP and made it extremely accessible to the great unwashed (those who greatly fear command lines in this case). I have been using it since the beta and while the GUI could use some work in the area of speed and needs a few missing things put into place, it is quite usable for the vast majority of people, Mac or Windows users. I had some friends over this week who were windows/linux users and they had absolutely no trouble with OS X's GUI and in fact they quite liked it. So my point it, why can't Linux do the same? I say they can and will do it. Certainly eventually *someone* will manage to organize a project to make Linux as easy to use as the Mac OS or Windows. It is really only a matter of time and one thing about Linux is that it does seem to evolve a bit more slowly than commercial OS's. However it also doesn't suffer from the bloat and stupid mistakes which result from rushed developement. In the meantime, it may even be benefitial to some people to have to fight with getting it set up. One friend who was a complete dolt at computers fought and fought with Linux and finally got it set up as he liked it and now uses is 90% of the time as his desktop OS. Because of his ordeal, he is no longer a computer dolt having learned so much in the process of getting Linux running.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs