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Linux *Won't* Fail on the Desktop?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the rubbing-against-the-grain dept.

HanzoSan sent in a story claiming that Linux will Succeed on the desktop, and not just the server market where it already has had much success. I think that the latest version of KDE has demonstrated that it can compete, but with the increasing dependance on file formats that have no support on Linux, it's going to be awfully difficult. That said, Linux has been my desktop for many moons, and I don't plan on changing it (Maybe If Apple released TiBook's with 3 mouse buttons I'd at least have an option ;)

2 of 829 comments (clear)

  1. Whose desktop are we talking about? by DagnyJ · · Score: 3, Redundant

    I guess that depends on whose desktop you're referring to. Linux is already popular on geek desktops. Getting Linux on the desktops of your average Joe (or Jane) is entirely different.

    I would be mightily impressed if a distribution of Linux was released that my mother could use easily.

  2. Re:Linux on the desktop... by Nailer · · Score: 1, Redundant
    but with the increasing dependance on file formats that have no support on Linux, it's going to be awfully difficult.

    I don't think the person who wrote this has much of an idea about using Linux on the desktop either.
    Which file formats is he talking about?
    • Doc, XLS, ppt, etc are suppoting by Staroffice and OpenOffice, as well as many other Linux apps (though most don't do as good a job as StarOffice 6.
    • Windows Media 7 and 8 video is supported by both the Open Source Xine and the closed source Mplayer apps. mms:// streams (streaming WMV) are supported by a recently released Xine plugin
    • Flash is both an open standard and has many Linux implementations, Open and closed. The best still seems to be Macromedia's though, but it works well natively.
    • Likewise PDF.
    • RealOne (the successor to RealPlayer is native to Linux
    • Quicktime, Shockwave, QuicktimeVR, Ipix, and other file formats are supported through Codeweavers Crossover, which geneally works quite well.
    • Zip. Supporting by zlib.
    • MP3, supported by everything
    • Ogg. Hell yeah.
    • DivX - Xine or Mplayer for playing, Drip or Transcode for creating.
    • HTML. Obvious.
    • MSHTML - KDE's Konqueror uses an IE like feature where non DTD documents (ie, broken HTML) are rendered uses a different set of rendering rules, meaning most MSHTML displays well.

    The situation looks pretty good in my opinion for Linux to play 98% of what every desktop user wants to play.

    Problem file formats
    • Windows media 7 and 8 audio. AFAIK there is no player for this file fomrat under Linux. Its not anywhere near as popular as WMV, but a player would still be nice.
    • In browser WMV.
    • The Linux DivX / WMA encoders seem pretty slow