Lycoris Desktop/LX update 2 Released

David writes "Redmond Linux Corp has just released Lycoris Desktop/LX Update 2 (build 46 final). Relatively user-friendly, loads of goodies and nice features. Should give Lindows a run for its money. Who says Linux is dead on the desktop? ;-)"

Comments

Re:Umm

[Hard_Code]

"So this 'Linux on the Desktop' thing is less about Linux and more about having screen furniture. File menus, browsers, printing, etc, working in a consistent and normal way."

For a coherent GUI to work in a "consistent and normal way" it is imperative that the operating system also work in a consistent normal way which hopefully reduces the impedence mismatch between the GUI and actual operating system abstractions. AFAICT, Linux, and Unix in general, is horribly horribly inadequate to match a decent GUI. Linux/Unix has no component model and everything feels like a one off - APIs are flat, configuration files get dumped into the /etc ghetto, and applications are broken up by content (binaries go here, man pages go there, configuration goes elsewhere), instead of staying atomic wholes. This is entirely different from how a GUI presents an application, as a whole, with help and configuration integrated. Mac OS X seems to have overcome this hurdle with a workaround called "bundles". The user experience is not provided solely by "screen furniture". This is an elitist idea. The OS has to have the desktop user in the picture from the start. Unfortunately since it is "good enough" for most Linux/Unix users, who have themselves already learned to work at the command line, and have spent a lot of time (often painful)accustoming themselves to Unix, there is little impetus to "fix" anything at the OS level. I certainly do not begrudge the KDE or Gnome projects, I think they are valiant. But grafting wings to a tank does not make it a fighter jet. I never understood why the open source crowd decided to hop on the Unix horse. Proprietary Unix is no better than proprietary Windows, or proprietary Mac OS. So why do we persist in insisting that Unix should be the basis for a desktop OS? Fortunately there are projects like Atheos, Open BeOS, Cosmoe, etc., which are trying to tackle these problems. Microsoft will keep laughing to the bank if we continue forcing Unix on users without trying to meet them half way (well, ok KDE/Gnome is probably half way, but if we really want to have an open source OS on the desktop, we will certainly have to go way further than that to displace Windows). That's the end of my rant, flame on. And send some flamage to that know-nothing Miguel de Icaza for writing "Let's Make Unix Not Suck" while you're at it.