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."

Comments

The small will die

[spinlocked]

Of the 'real' companies, I'm afraid the small will die first.

Redhat (possibly et. al.) have the best chance of success in the business world because the have:

a) Industry credibility

b) A half decent support organisation

No serious business customer is going to invest any money without those...

Who will succeed: Lindows

[HoserHead]

I've seen Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com, speak (at Debconf 2) - and I can tell you that I am certain that Lindows.com will not be yet another dropout of the Desktop Linux business.

How am I sure?

Michael's a salesman, pure and simple. He speaks with passion and he makes you love him and his company - and I've heard that he succeeded in convincing a lot of people who attended Debconf. You should be aware this is coming from a group of people who are probably a lot less friendly to corporate (particularly proprietary corporate) involvement in the free software world.

Michael's ability to make the connections, to sell his company and his vision - that's what's going to make the difference. I've interviewed for a job at Xandros, and I'm sure they've got good people technically (I'm saying this sight unseen), but there's one thing Lycoris, Xandros and all the rest don't have - Michael Robertson. He will make Lindows.com succeed, I guarantee you.

(Of course, this is discounting the huge war chest of money he got from the sale of mp3.com. I'll bet he could fund Lindows.com for a lot of years even if he never sold a single product.)

Re:Who will succeed: Lindows

[numark]

No, he'll just hype everything up and then sell-out. Don't forget, his job before Lindows was the founder and CEO of MP3.com. Back in the day, MP3.com was the best place to go for independent music, and they truly cared about their artists. Now look at it. Once MP3.com got really big, Michael sold out to Vivendi and they've totally ruined it, hiding independent artists in pages overshadowed by the latest mindless drivel from Nelly and Eminem. I don't trust Michael's intent for Lindows at all.

OT - What will arrive the coming year...

[teamhasnoi]

I may be jumping the gun, but OpenBeos is making huge strides all the time. Beos has fewer applications, sure, but it also has a consistent interface, is easy to install, works well on older hardware, and easy to configure. It also has the advantage of being easy to code for, and doesn't have a million distros sapping the pool of developers.

There *is* a Linux based version called Blue-Eyed OS (YALD - yet another Linux distro), but I think that the speedy and efficient OpenBeos will make some waves, especially in the "Digital Hub" arena.

If you haven't tried it, you should see what I'm talking about. There is a free download at Bebits.com (in my sig) - Personal, Max and Max Lite distros are available.

Ain't enough 'O's in smooth to describe Beos.

Re:OT - What will arrive the coming year...

[Kiwi]

Let me second that. BeOS was an excellent operating system; if they can suceed in duplicating BeOS with an open source license, this will make for a better desktop OS than Linux.

Linux makes a decent server OS and a passable desktop OS. The problem is that Linux's desktop design is anything but unified, and has a lot of 15-year-old cruft in it. While there are ways of band-aiding things, such as what RedHat has done with their 8.0 release, the Linux desktop experience is still not as unified and as fast as it would be on any other OS. For example, inconsistant cut-and-paste; each application has its own "file save" dialog, many of which do not have ability to create a new directory to put the saved file in; slower-than-ideal performance; poor Unicode support; and so on.

This is why MacOS X uses a BSD kernel but doesn't uses X windows as the desktop.

This is not to downplay the heroic efforts of the KDE and Gnome teams to try to make a usable desktop for Linux while still supporting all of the cruft; nor is this being done to downplay the heroic efforts of the Mozilla team to port their browser to Linux, creating yet another X toolkit in the process.

If OpenBeOS becomes a usable desktop OS I can get at cheapbytes for $2, I may very well replace my current Linux + KDE 3.0 with it for my desktop machine. My only problem with BeOS was that it was not open-source.

- Sam

Okay....

[cookiepus]

I'll take the plunge and post for the first time in my life.

No one will pay for desktop linux. Why? Because people who pay for OSs are generally businesses, and businesses want productivity. There's just not enough of that in Linux desktop apps. If you're going to pay, you may as well pay for what's going to give you the most bang for your buck. And that's Windows.

I am not anti-Linux, at all. I cringe at Windows-based servers, and I fully realize Unix-based server power and flexibility, and encourage my clients to consider it. One of my clients moved to Red Hat and they pay RH some nominal fee for every RH server they ship out. Not even for that RH Network thing. They just pay some ammount to ensure that RH continues its development.

And yet, these guys use Windows on the desktops in the office. They are all Unix professionals. But for shit they need to do on the workstation, Windows can't be beat.

Re:Okay....

[Phroggy]

No one will pay for desktop linux. Why? Because people who pay for OSs are generally businesses, and businesses want productivity. There's just not enough of that in Linux desktop apps. If you're going to pay, you may as well pay for what's going to give you the most bang for your buck. And that's Windows.

WRONG. More and more businesses (and government agencies, and schools) are switching to Linux, precisely BECAUSE it gives them more bang for their buck. Yes, even on the desktop.

Besides, I bought Slackware, after I'd already downloaded and burned the ISO, because I appreciate that Patrick et al have done and I want to support them.

Re:Okay....

[frozencesium]

well...not always true...

i'm in the Air Force, and arround the non-classified network, they use primarily NT for the reasons you mentioned. on the cassified side of things (air walled from the world), they use linux, bsd, solaris, and irix (and yes irix CAN be locked down...).

on a more interesting note...the USMC has a large investment in *nix systems. most of the systems they use on a daly basis (at least here) are *nix based. most of the regular office workers use xterms for god's sake! when i "shipped" (went through a processing station to leave the local area and go to basic), the people there all had xterms as their desktops.

*nix systems have plenty of software out there, and when in doubt...write your own. most big companies write their own propriatary software to handle their needs anyway (on both winblowz and *nix systems). hell, i've run in to many small companies that write their own stuff (or modify the open source solution) because it doesn't *quite* meet their needs. but then again...that's just my experiance...by no means am i saying that it's always that way...

as i said...there are plenty of people using *nix solutions and have no problem with it. for example, i had a friend (a total computer newbie) that was surfing the web on my box (debian/unstable with kde3). they were able to chat, surf the web, and work in open office all without me having to tell them how to do anything. what is my point? this person kept telling me that they didn't know if they could ever work on anything but windows...(yes, they were so clueless that they had no idea they were on a linux system).

at this point, even a newbie can work on a working *nix desktop. put a windows user in front of OSX and they can do their job...click on an icon, use dropdown menus, etc. the look and feel is different, yes...but the basic concept is the same, and thus it isn't as hard to re-train people as one might think...

-frozen

Re:Dumb...

[garcia]

this is not Insightful.

I don't believe that they should merge. If they did I would have to put up w/the tons of shit from Mandrake and RedHat while all I want is Debian.

What's wrong w/Mandrake? What isn't? That's my opinion and that's yours... That's why I don't want Linux distributions to merge.

Why is UL crap? b/c they are trying to band against what they believe is an attempt by one distribution to gain too much power.

I don't think that UL will gain much ground but that doesn't mean it's crap.

Re:Red Hat is "de facto" standard Linux

[__aadkms7016]

2003 could be an interesting year if Sun
bought RedHat. The numbers work: at 862M
market cap, RHAT is 10% of Sun's market
cap. Plus, Sun has 5B+ of cash in the bank.

It may be worth it, just for the transient
effect of having all of the hardware vendors
who partner with Redhat scurry to find a new
Linux vendor. That's six months of FUD, during
which Sun can launch their new Linux hardware
as a safe choice against Dell and IBM and HP.
The long-term value of RedHat is an extra.

Which desktop-based distribution won't survive?

[Trogre]

Microsoft(R) Windows(TM) 98,ME,2000,XP.

Well, it won't survive in my business anyway.

I simply don't have the time to administer technically-inferior products distributed by illegal monopolies.

Re:Probably Most of Them..

[quantaman]

I too am a compsci major and I have found that I cannot code in windows anymore. The linux environment is simply too well equiped for programming not to mention how much I use ssh to use labs remotely. That being said I still find myself constantly wondering how to do task X, what do I use to uncompress this (yeah I know man pages and the gui acn do it also), how do I install this, and why I haven't I had sound for over a week:)

But I often have the "Ah shit I am in Linux, now I need to reboot to windows before I can do this" moment."

Other than some games or having to talk to someone on MSN (not for a few months) I pretty much have this urge finally kicked unless I want to print something...

Red Hat will be the desktop Linux

[bkontr]

I know some people will be upset at this, but Red Hat has more staying power than all of the other Linuxes combined (other than Debian and Mandrake). I don't have anything against the other linuxes, but let's face it what easily sets RH apart is that they have the most clout with major businesses here in the US and abroad. I think even Linus still uses RH! No other Linux has that kind of credibility factor going for it. With RH 8.0, the look and feel of the desktop seems professional and appears to be striving towards some type of consistent feel, look etc....and this is where linux IMHO is really lacking. A business linux on the on the server and even more importantly on desktops has to have some level of consistency. I hope RH understands this concept. What I think the linux distributors really need to do is to get together and finally decide on a standard configuration for /etc and init scripts....the resulting linuxes then can be called standard linux. That doesn't mean there can't be non standard linuxes, but I think it would go a long way in getting linux accepted. It's clear to me that RH knows they are on the way to being the standards leader for linux and they don't have much competition.

Where can I download "UnitedLinux"

[z84976]

Sorry to ask a stupid question... I've been a SuSE user for years now, after having graduated from Slackware (go figure, slack still rules tho).... but... where can I download UnitedLinux? Is my SuSE 8.1 "UnitedLinux" and if so what about the SCO and Turbo and Connectiva downloads? Are they, too? If so, the UL group has done a worthless job of branding and consumer-recognition. If not, then this "1.0" release is useless since it can't be readily downloaded. I pay for my Linux distributions (Yes, I did buy Slackware CDs years ago, and yes, I even had a SuSE "subscription" which mysteriously died a few years ago, and I still purchase every other SuSE pro release) but I certainly wouldn't purchase one I couldn't download/test first.

Am I insane here? (ok bad question) Am I out of line here?

Re:Depends on what 'dead' is.

[MullerMn]

'On the Verge of Apotheosis' Linux: Gentoo. Total customization? This is fast becoming the 'l33t' of the 'l33t'.

Ok, hands up how many Gentoo users had to look that word up to decide if they needed to get defensive about their distro... ;)

(I did)

Re:What kills Linux distros

[ReelOddeeo]

Ruined your day? Think about the sweet potato. Not so sweet any more ...

That all depends on whom you ask. You must not have ever met any jumping, cheering fans (shills?) who give applause on command. They would say that, on the contrary, this makes it even sweeter.

This would MAKE their day. Such a potato would be rare indeed, and valued due to limited supply.

The easiest distro will survive

[mcgintech]

Look, I'm just as much geek hacker as the rest of you here. Linux is great in that it is powerful and free (yes, as in beer). But to the current windows user base, linux is hard.

Examples:

1. Now, how do I start that program now that I installed it?
2. I have to edit part of what file to make that work? Huh?
3. I wonder what software I could install from the CD and what it does...lets see there is
   • 4Suite-0.11-2.i386.rpm
   • Canna-3.5b2-50.i386.rpm
   • Canna-libs-3.5b2-50.i386.rpm
   • FreeWnn-1.11-19.i386.rpm
   • FreeWnn-common-1.11-19.i386.rpm
   • GConf-1.0.4-3.i386.rpm
   • ImageMagick-5.3.8-3.i386.rpm
   • XtrmelyCnfsingNme-4.5.3.4.45.56.4.3.3.rmp
   • etc...
4. 400 Hours trying to make wine work
5. Not knowing what to do with attachments from friends in MS format

Any distro that can remove some of these confusing things and make it super easy for ANYONE, not just us geeks, will have the ultimate success on the desktop or anywhere else for that matter. Even some IT people don't want to have to struggle to do things that should be simple. The fact is that easy things should be easy...maybe most users don't need 700 ways to do the same thing. Linux has how many text editors and I still can't find one that I like. Yes, I take pride in the fact that I can hack the crap out of a linux box and make it do what I want and even put it to use in critical business applications, but most people couldn't give a rat's ass about that.