Slashdot Mirror
Which Desktop Distro Will Die First?
Over at NewsForge, Roblimo asks the musical question of which of the several recently released "desktop oriented" Linux distributions won't survive the coming year. It's nice to see user-centric distributions at all, but it really is a niche market for now. Apropos that,
psykocrime writes "The fine folks at UnitedLinux have issued a Press Release announcing UnitedLinux 1.0.
Should be interesting to see whether this sinks or swims, considering the general ambivalence (at best) or even outright hostility (at worst) that most of the talk about United Linux has met, from the Linux community.
Questions about GPL compliance, per-set licensing terms, etc... is this the future or Linux or just another albatross?" And J. J. Ramsey writes "BeyondUnreal reviews not only Xandros Desktop's installation, but also shows what this distro's $99 price tag actually gets you. Read more here. LinuxPlanet also has an in-depth review of its own."
Lindows. If they have any success in 2003, Micro$oft will just sue them into oblivion. If they fail during 2003, Micro$oft will just laugh at them and label them as the Open Source failure. If they break even.. they'll probably just sue anyways to get it over with.
Why? Because the one with the most votes already has widespread consumer awareness about its distro. The one that nobody knows about is the one that should be the most concerned.
Hmmm...The writer of the UnrealTournament article gripes that Xandros uses ReiserFS as the default file system, instead of ext3, which is journaled. But isn't ReiserFS journaled as well, and faster to boot? I don't know much about Reiser, that's just what I heard.
I don't think the article draws a clear enough distinction. He says that they will either "go out of business" or "stop emphasising the user..." Hmm...these two scenarios are NOT the same. If Lycoris has crappy spending habits compared to their income, yes, they'll go out of business. Ditto for redhat, any other linux distro. When these companies marked "desktop useability" they moreso mean on the -Corporate- desktop. Thats where their real dollars are. (in _SUPPORT_ contracts) As long as the support contracts vary enough from distro to distro, you can expect them to be hyping desktop-usability to corporate clients for a long time. (Some companies prefer suse licensing&support, some mandrake, some redhat....etc)
Oh, and if someone DOES go out of business?
GASP! The result of a market with competition!
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
...One will survive. And yes, I am optimistic. Linux on the desktop is possible. What needs to happen is people need to be exposed to it. How? Here's my plan.
Start with education. Before someone can use Linux, people have to get beyond relying on Microsoft to take care of everything and actually learn some of the ins and outs of their machine. That way, when it comes to actually installing Linux, they're not as lost as they would be when it tells them "Hey, your modem isn't compatable."
After they are educated, start them on something that doesn't require a leap of faith (i.e. repartitioning their hard drive, etc). Knoppix is perfect for that. It runs off of a CD and doesn't require any extensive knowledge, reformatting or repartitioning. This will help them get used to Linux's differences from Windows at a pace they can understand. They can click around, see what's where, etc.
Once they're familiar, at least in part, with Linux as an OS, then they might be ready for a distro like Mandrake, Debian, or one that doesn't require them to do any Kernel work. Another reason for starting with something like Mdk or Deb (or even RH), is that software installation after the initial OS load is fairly simple thanks to packages. The only conceivable snag in that plan is dependancies. Make the machine dual boot with the default OS in LILO (or whatever boot manager you pick) pointing at Windows. That way, they don't have to leave Windows right away.
From there, it's all up to software companies. But, of course, they won't be too quick to jump on. While Joe and Jane Consumer won't really care about modifying and redistributing source code, major software vendors aren't too keen on the Open Source/GPL way of doing things. They're only concerned about money. Since MS likes to keep their source closed, they feel a whole heck of alot more secure about things. They can charge for their software, in other words. It's getting them to embrace the Linux platform that is going to determine the fate of Linux on the Desktop in the end.
And all this is probably just wishfull thinking on my part, since we all know how MS works...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I think Red Hat will succeed because it has essentially become pretty much the de facto standard for Linux.
I mean think about it: here in the USA when people know about Linux they definitely know about Red Hat Software. And Red Hat Linux is the commercial distro that is by far the most used in the corporate world. Even IBM's well-funded Linux research uses a variant of Red Hat Linux.
Slackware may be better for the highly-experienced user, and Mandrake may be great for newbies, but for the corporate crowd Red Hat Linux is pretty much it.
face it.. the general population is not ready for linux desktops. hell, the genereal population isn't even ready for windows XP or OSX.
True that. But the thing is, XP and OSX are ready for the general population. Linux is not.
Give me an AIM client that doesn't look nasty, a browser that doesn't crawl and swap on a machine that runs MSIE effortlessly, and an Office suite that doesn't look clumsy.
I am a comp sci major with pretty good Linux/Unix experience behind my belt, and still I would be neither happy nor productive if I didn't have windows on my system.
The simple test is this: I never have a moment like "I am in Windows, and I have the need to boot to Linux to do something." But I often have the "Ah shit I am in Linux, now I need to reboot to windows before I can do this" moment.
The general public doesn't care about open source, community effort, MS monopoly, none of that shit. They want features and smooth interfaces. And Linux isn't ready to give them that. Will it ever? May be. Probably. Remarkable strides have been made by RH, for example, to make Linux more usable by "regular people" during the last 3-4 years that I've been paying attention to it. They seem pretty adamant about continuing in the same path.
Oh yeah, another thing Linux needs is the ability to work on all the hardware windows can work on. Whatever's in my computer, windows handles it. If the best linux can do for me is a fuzzing sound card, a modem that drivers don't exist for, and a TV tuner I can't use, then I am not switching. I don't care if this is due to companies keeping their data proprietary. To the end user, it's the same shit: it doesn't work.
And Linux's fabled reliability isn't worth shit if it doesn't support your hardware and you can't do what you need to do.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
I find that a lot of Linux users are closed minded about non-free software. If you want to get into desktop world, you have to be able to make money from Linux applications. In order to be able make money from Linux, software developers have to make a target where the operating system has a large user base. If Linux developers want it to have a large userbase, Linux has to be really easy to use right out of the box, thus reducing the learning curve. With different desktop applications (Gnome, KDE), incomplete manual, little inconsistency copy/cut/paste (which is dependent on applications - not KDE/GNOME), added with the fanaticism and eliticism of its users (Yo! I can c0mp1l3 the whole L1nux from source - I'm 31337 attitude), I personally don't think it can compete with Mac or Windows, especially in usability area. Linux is maybe more secure, faster, and handles a lot of things better than other operating system, however don't forget about usability and consistency & coherence in the design.
...
...
There are just way too many inconsistency in its functions, plus there are too many Linux distributions, and this confuses people. If the scenario were different, i.e:
1) There's only 1 Linux
2) Only 1 desktop/windows manager
3) A more stable X-Window where it doesn't crash the whole operating system
4) Consistent look and feel (btw, Bluecurve is a joke)
5) More complete manual
6) More drivers for hardware
I believe if these criteria is met, computer vendors would be more than happy to install Linux by default. The cost to support an operating system that has many inconsistency is just too much. I've been both a developer and a tech support, and I couldn't imagine myself trying to support different distro with many inconsistencies everywhere.
I have produced a few free Linux software since 1999 and I was a member of Gnome foundation, but now I erased all my Linux partition and just use Windows entirely. Moreover, I need money. I can't make money from developing Linux software. Nobody in the past has hired me solely based on my ability to develop high quality C++ and C software in Linux.
--
My $0.02 + 7% Canadian GST tax + 8% provincial tax
I wouldn't have Debian if I had a GUI installer. I wouldn't have Debian if I was using Mandrake's tools.
They're not?
RedHat does it's own thing just like every other distribution. Unfortunatly they are more powerful commercially than the other distributions b/c of their name and their "backing".
By pulling their collective resources and talent I'd say they have a better chance of taking on Microsoft (not fighting for contracts from Walmart amoungst themselves).
If I were you, I would think about what UL is trying to accomplish. They are banding together to make a standard to compete...against RedHat, against MS, against X.
Umm, ok, so we used to have Slackware. The reason I switched from Slackware to RH back in the day was for the simple fact that I was having more and more difficult of a time running newer programs (gtk, libc6). So say one distribution gains more power and forces OLD libs to stay around... That stifles what we are trying to achieve.
How am I sure?
...
Michael's a salesman, pure and simple. He speaks with passion and he makes you love him and his company
Please excuse my cynicism and pessimism, but that's what startup CEOs do. They have to get excitement going or they never get the venture capital and/or people to work at reduced rates in return for stock options. I've worked for two startup companies in the past two years. One went out of business and shorted all the employees out of their last paychecks, and the other, a co-lo facility, closed or sold off all of its locations outside the founding city. Both companies had very charismatic CEOs and very loyal and enthusiastic employees.
Of course at these types of companies "everyone's a salesperson" so I went to some Chamber of Commerce meetings to network and sell. Sadly eveyone else there is also trying to network and sell, too. All sellers and no buyers, but a lot of startup companies with excited employees with big dreams and stock options.
The CEO's sales pitch is just that: a sales pitch. The product and market (and in some cases the government) ultimately determine which for-profit companies succeed and which fail.
More importantly, you should have a pool to guess which distro will first become as good, usable, and easy to install as Win2k is. My guess is, RedHat, in the year 2007. or maybe 2009.
I've been using Linux for years, and I still encounter distributions that I've never heard of.
;) Also of note is Linux From Scratch.
So, here's my list.
'Business' Linuxes:
Perched for massive growth: RedHat, SuSE.
May die from bad business planning: Mandrake.
'Eternal' Linuxes:
Slack, Debian. These will be around long after all the trendy little skript kiddiez are dead and buried. When business has left Linux, and it will, grizzled veterans will still be playing with source and debs. I'd dare to say these two distributions aren't so much distributions as they are religions.
'On the Verge of Apotheosis' Linux: Gentoo. Total customization? This is fast becoming the 'l33t' of the 'l33t'.
'Dead, Dying, Wounded, Peasants' Linuxes:
Turbolinux, all those other ones a fraction of the population has heard of, but never seen. But who knows - miracle recoveries can happen.
Now, to cut off the flaming Mandrake users - Shut up. Asking for money is no model for a business. I'd like to see Mandrake succeed as much as the next person (Linux needs a good freaking desktop!), but you can't question that Mandrake doesn't have the corporate staying power of RedHat and SuSE.
When I'm in Windows, I consistently think about the things I could rather be doing in Linux.
"Man, if I only had a bunch of virtual desktops so I could have an uncluttered screen."
"Wow, what I wouldn't give for grep right now."
"Hell, why is it that the registry is so incomprehensible? I wish I had a manpage or a README describing this crap."
"Stupid spam. I'd love to have procmail running here. Ah well, I guess I'll wait until I reboot to Linux to read my non-web email."
"It's so great that I've got tabs in Mozilla. Why can't I have them on my windows too like I do in Linux?"
The list goes on. I only boot to Windows now when I absolutely have to. I don't even use the "oh, I need to play games" excuse any more because I've simply stopped playing windows games. I'll play nethack or Q3 or an emulated SNES game instead.
Sure, it's a choice in the way that I choose to use Linux, but it still means that it passes your test. And yeah, I could run programs like Cygwin in Windows, but that's like saying you can run Windows programs in Linux via Wine, which doesn't cut it.
Once I started learning how to use Linux as Linux, rather than as a bad version of Windows, I became much more reliant on its features. Now I feel frustrated by anything without a bash shell and a copy of vi. It's all in what you learn to accept from your interface, as well how you're willing to work with it.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
SuSe and Slackware due to general lack of popularity, corporate backing, and maintenance.
So many Americans say this about SuSE: well, I've got news for you. It is the number one distro in Germany, the largest Linux market in Europe. Ditto, Denmark, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, etc.
It is used in very many corporations, and has MUCH better support than RedHat or Mandrake in my experience (having contacted all three in the last month.
There is a larger world outside the US...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
I don't care that people want to use Windows. It's not a horrible OS and there are many pluses. But stop preaching about "looks bad" and "not productive" because quite frankly, if my 9 year old can figure it out, the 13 year old can do her homework, and the 15 year old can code - ALL ON LINUX - then it's a matter of preference, choice and experience. You don't want to change and that's fine, but your ability to be productive on Linux is NOT universal.
I write for a living. I have all the latest toys and I've never had a problem finding drivers or support under Linux. StarOffice is great, Galeon/Mozilla display things fine (except for lazily coded sites designed for "ie") and I'm extremely productive.
Your inability to be productive on linux is not the fault of Linux. It's your own.
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
It's all about what businesses decide suits them best. If enough companies have an incentive-- be it open source, community effort, [or] MS monopoly. All of these factors can provide a reason for a company to invest money in an alternative. More importantly, any one of these reasons may make it worth a significant investment to switch.
The last wave will be the US; other countries have much greater reasons to invest both public and private money to refine Linux to serve their own needs. (Namely that Windows and Mac are both American products and money spent on them has almost no ripple effect on the local economy.)
How much would it really take to make Linux viable, given sufficient corporate resources?
Once companies switch, it isn't much of a step for their employees to do the same...
Those two things are related. As soon as you get a real rush of programmers and popularity, you can kiss your consitency goodbye. You're always at the mercy of some idiot who thinks that his "revolutionary new idea" (bitmapped buttons / custom window frame / dark grey on black text) is worth throwing own consitency and ease of use. You just can't win, they outnumber you. Enjoy it while you can.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
2. Onerous licensing not in keeping with Linux's mission.
Linux's "mission" and it's traditional community are irrelevant with respect to a desktop distro. IMHO a desktop distro is not for the traditional community it is for bringing new users to Linux. All that really matters is how well such a distro functions as a newbie desktop, how well the user gets along without Windows or Office. Linux's desktop future will be determined by people who don't give a rats ass about the GPL.
A 9 - 15 year old is a poor example as they are at the optimal age to learn something that is not necessarily easy to use. Hell, I used MiniLinux when I was 12 and configured PPP (ya, it was a bit of a task at the time), wrote lame iRC scripts, etc. At the same time, my parent's just DIDN'T GET IT, so I progammed some nice menu's for them. Still, it wasn't good enough, so they bought a Mac.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
"No one will pay for desktop linux"
Well I guess its a good thing Linux and most of the GPL apps are free then.
"But for shit they need to do on the workstation, Windows can't be beat."
You said it. It depends entirely on what your doing.
For example take Redhat 8.0. If you just need Web,Email, and an Office Suite it fits the bill nicely. I never used to say that about linux but now it couldn't be more true.
Contrary to your bleak outlook the linux desktop its experiencing huge growth. Sure it may only go from the current 2% to 4% within the next 2-3 years, but that's an insane growth rate that makes even Microsoft jealous. Microsoft can no longer dream of that. Its even more impressive considering that overall all of the linux companies don't even advertise in any measurable amount.
Think about it. Sooner rather than later Linux will have the same size market as Apple and most likely will surpass Apple and gain even more market share.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
There are too many editors in the market place:
.NET features, DRM and XML and anything else I read on cnet this morning. And that non-expert users will abandon emacs and vi in favour of GUI editing environmnts with intelligent paperclips that assist with more complex editing tasks. The market just can't support nearly a dozen text editors!
- sed
- ex
- nedit
- pico
- emacs
- vim
- elvis
- notepad.exe
Our insanely expensive consultants report says that the minor editors will be driven out of the market by Microsoft's better integrated offering that will support
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"