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Yet Another Call for Linux Standardization
An anonymous reader writes "Newsforge has an article Commentary: United We Stand...the Division in the Linux World, in which David Meyer argues that UnitedLinux will provide standardization for the Linux community that will allow it to win the desktop market from Windows. The article has a number of supporting comments, but then this one particular negative comment that disagrees with David. This particular comment offers an alternative view on the need for standardization. This aternative view that is put forward simply argues that 'Over what is almost twelve years we have pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps. We have done this using a development model that allows us to produce software that proprietary vendors cannot compete with', and then summarizing that 'the Linux community does not need to set up businesses with the specific intention of trying to "win" users from Microsoft; all we have to do is continue to develop software in the same way, and the users will make the switch all by themselves'."
... was a enlightening /. article.
Christmas came early this year!
It's called Linus Torvalds. He will standardize as much as he can, and the rest of us will group behind the best distro of his stuff. Anything else would be closing the free developement model. UnitedLinux is trying to corner the market on useable linux.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Decent standards and standardisation sound like a plan to me .. I mean who'd want to be like MS making their own standards all the time so that no one else's soft can be made compatible with your platform unless you horrible mutilate it ..
It's not lack of certain standards that makes Linux aggravating for non-Linux users. It's that those standards are so cryptic, obscure, contradictory and arbitrary. I'm not talking about TCP/IP or what have you, but simple things:
- Why is there still no standard model for adding and removing apps? The number of competing models for package management alone is sickening.
- Why do we still have to choose between a bunch of different desktops, ALL of which are mutually incompatible?
The lack of standards in Linux is even worse than the closed-ended standards on other OSes (coughWindowscough) because it makes almost any attempt to converge standards nearly impossible. We've had this for 12 years, and nothing short of wiping the slate clean is going to make it any better.
This is fine for people who don't care about such things -- who are just going to dump RedHat on a server somewhere and deal with it as little as possible. But for people who are going to be managing many different systems, not all of which are going to be homogenous, this is insanely annoying. It means that people have to learn four times as much to do the same things.
We need ONE standard desktop -- KDE, Gnome, I don't care. Pick one and use it. The others can be gravy, but we need a sanctioned interface. Not just to make things easier for end users -- and believe me, it does -- but to insure that more de facto standards do not muddy the waters any further.
And yet any discussion of such a thing in "serious" Linux circles is treated with jeering and derision. "GUIs are for wimps!" Face it -- GUIs make your life easier and anyone who tries to argue this down is blowing smoke up the wrong sphincter.
Linux users and advocates need to lose the elitism that used to preserve them, and is now working against them.
Posted as Anonymous Coward because karma can go fuck itself.
There is only one answer: SOMEONE needs to convince me that I can be just as happy and productive in a Linux environment. To switch though, I also need some incentive (in this case that would be that Linux is free).
The idea that "users will make the switch all by themselves" is absurd and unfounded. Does the comment author believe that the BILLIONS of dollars Microsoft puts into marketing is wasted?? I don't think so.
using System.Awesome;
I haven't looked into it, but are the standardization documents open source? It would be great if I could branch and roll my own!
I never really knew how serious is it was untill I wanted to become a unix expert. I began with gentoo due to the great amount of documentation. I had great luck with it untill 1.4 when devfs just became to unbearable and buggy to deal with. For some dumb reason I could not get /boot to mount properly. No its not a devfs thing and I know how to disable it on startup but this problem only exists in 1.4 and the mount -t ext2 /dev/hda1 /boot does not work.
.config files yast uses can be edited manually but I want to be a unix expert and not a suse expert.
/etc that are symlinked elsewhere.
/etc like it should. The FreeBSD manually is a great resource and probably one of the greatest unix books around. Gentoo is the only distro that I know of that comes close to this. I love manually editing the /etc/make.conf file to optimize my whole system. Slackware from what I heard uses bsd style init and maybe more simplistic but I have not tried it so I am not qualified to make an opinion.
Anyway I decided to try out suse and debian. Boy, what a difference. Every single file was in the wrong place on both systems. Suse was truly awefull in yast overiding any changes to my system files. I am aware of the
Redhat tries to have psuedo files
I understand *Bsd users perfectly in regards to defragmentation and quality problems in linux. In regards to quality and I refering to cutting edgeness and bugginess compared to other unix's including bsd. I am not saying its unstable.
I like how *bsd simplier and everything system related is configured from
I got tired of hacking my systems for weeks on end trying to customize it so I switched back to Windows2k. (shudder) I am waiting for freebsd 5.0 to come out and will likely use it when its ready. The early 5.0 dp-2 release does not like my usb hardware for some reason and still needs some work in regards to threading, java and nvidia opengl driver support.
http://saveie6.com/
A single standard would improve chances of infiltrating the desktop market, but would only stiffle innovations. Standardization and compatibility are good and all but they can have adverse effects on progress. In the Wintel world i bet you've all noticed that we're still using the god awfull x86 architecture and we've only recently eliminated 16-bit from the home desktop.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
This is not a troll, but as a devloper for linux these are REAL peeves
Lots of great businesses have come to a screeching halt because they didn't define their core mission or set specific goals. The cause behind it is that the execs or whoever gets excited about doing too many things and the company gets spread too thin and doesn't excel at any one particular thing. IMHO, I think some of this is happening with the Linux community. Linux still hasn't made any really serious commercial inroads into the server market (still dominated by Sun and Microsoft). Sure, you can set up a pretty slick desktop workstation with RedHat or Debian (or whatever your favorite is), but the strengths of Linux make it a good choice for a server. I think it would be better to focus on the server marketplace over the desktop/consumer market at this point and get Linux over that last hump on its way to general acceptance at the enterprise level.
I'll never forget what our system admin said during one of my internships: "Linux is pretty nice, but it just isn't ready for the big-time yet." That company used SunOS instead.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
These calls for standardazation are great but flawed. OSS is about choice. We don't need standards. If a buisness wants to impliment standared internally that's fine, but these calls for standardazation seem more like a call for "everything to be like my system".The lack of standards are overcome for the most part by the CLI. There are very few system related tasks that are not done the same on every system via CLI. the graphical forntends and such that aren't standardized aren't necessary, and the tons of apps are an advantage to linux.
Not to be a naysayer, but in 12 years Linux has managed to gain only a few percentage points worth of the desktop market. Users really don't care, don't know, and have no reason to be aware of the development model used to create their software.
In all probability, Linux will never replace Windows, or even the Mac, on the desktop. It can, however, carve out a viable slice of the market if the Linux community delivers attractive, innovative, easy-to-use software with capabilities that users want but cannot find elsewhere. By and large, this hasn't happened yet.
And, it will not happen if too many Linux developers continue to imagine that their development model is what they're selling. It isn't.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
1. Unified and universal standardized library structure similar to Windows DLLs and APIs(yeah I know it's there, but it's neither standard in location or type, nor is it universal). This could also help accelerate audio and gaming library acceleration development.
/usr/local/bin. These changes are also necessary for future progression in server-side OS distros as well IMHO, but server penetration of *NIXES is (fortunately) much further along.
2. Copying the Windows registry paradigm for system and program information. One should not only be able to install programs and have their components registered, but also cleanly uninstall and/or install over existing versions in the same way. You can also standardize automatic upgrades for existing programs and kernel patches over the 'net using a similar tool.
3. GUI the hell out of every system tool there is and make sure that GUI is strictly standardized with integrated help and unified. It's getting there but it's not there yet.
4. Include copies of software with each distribution compatible to at least some extent with their Windows equivalents (e.g. XMMS, OpenOffice) though this is pretty frequent these days.
5. (Most important, and likely most difficult) Get all current developers to start working under this framework to the greatest extent possible. Whether it's open source, closed source, free software, or whatever else, a common framework is critical no matter who is developing.
That, to me, is what's essentially different between Windows and Linux on the desktop. It's a chicken-and-egg to get more developers of Windows-only software, but the only way to get them on the bandwagon is to cut a standard here and today. This is a lot more ambitious than, say, POSIX compliance. But this is what it's going to take, not just copying the binary into
From the article:
Microsoft users are an interesting lot. They have systems that they have NO control over. They have systems they have to reboot every sixteen minutes. They freely pay Bill Gates obscene amounts of money for buggy programs that they can't use when they upgrade to the next operating system. It's almost laughable. But they are united, "
Using the same OS does not make these people united any more than driving a car makes all automobile owners united.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
A standard does not mean that everybody is forced to do it that way. It's merely a common "language" that people agree upon. ;-)
Defining a standard will therefore enable distros to concentrate their efforts while being able to keep their own way of doing things.
Of course, if the standard lifts offs and everybody accepts it, then the distros will start dropping old features over time.
But even with a standard, it remains open source. So theoretically anybody could try to propose a new standard (as long as it is backwards compatible).
The ENIAC Demo Competition
Linux needs standardization like America needs another war. Please. Give me a break. Learn the fucking facts before you go spewing off random data about standard kernel this, and secure app that.
What Linux needs is to win the damn desktop before Microsoft has a digital rights management utility and owns every instant message, email, song, and paper you ever create. Sound scary? It is, but watch it happen if we don't act now.
A standardized distribution is nearly in existence. It's called Red Hat. Corporately used, corporately sponsored, and standard. Hell, they even have stock shares.
You may be familiar with the movie entitled "What Women Really Want". Well, here's my own script. It's called "What Linux Really Needs".
- A help wizard for Netscape 7 and StarOffice.
- Documentation on how to get cable/DSL modems working. Perhaps a desktop utility (program) too.
- Swap files. They work. People don't have a lot of RAM (well, geeks do, but most home owners have 64 or 128 MB). But they like pictures and video, so let's swap out some of their 20GB hard drives.
- Some blue screen type of application to let them know when their video drivers are corrupted or something bad happens.
- 24 hour free tech support via phone or on-site service for $0.99/minute. People need to learn Linux. Most aren't born with command line powers gifted from God.
- Record hardware configurations and errors that occur (ala "TalkBack" in Mozilla). Users can then call in to 1-800-LNX-HELP or whatever and get some assistance based on their computer's unique ID number.
Michael is hated worse than even Timothy.
Linux is making serious waves with the big boys of IT. IBM, SUN, Hewlett Packard, Oracle and DELL
We all know that Dell has backed off a couple of time, well they never_truly_supported the Linux they did sell for a short time.
Linux division shows its ugly head at perhaps the worst time.
I disagree. This division is not an ugly side to Linux, rather I believe that is what keeps the choices available. Hell look at how many freaking car models we have, granted you have five similar with different names, the choice is still there.
But they are united, and most don't know the first thing about Linux. Why is that?
Well I will say because there are about ten different "Hacker" magz out there that teach them a new trick every month on who to make their system that much faster, and it would be detrimental to dump all that knowledge to learn a new OS.
Red Hat, Lycoris and even Debian need to get on this group.
Now I use RH 7.3, and I know there is now way in hell you'll get a Debian group to admit that RH is an equal-it's not.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
1. Get rid of X
2. ???
3. Have a decent desktop
Furthormore, all standardisation attempts are strictly voluntary. Any other scheme is completely unenforcable, since the vast majority of linux is GPL'd, or has a similar license. All the standards body can do to 'enforce' their scheme is to write a nice note to the offending distro and ask them if they would please comply with their standards. No more.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What...you never talked to a Corvette owner? Porsche? BMW? Saturn? Check the web right now for Mustang fans...you need to do a reality check on this particular analogy.
:)
Don't get me wrong...windows users are not united as a fan base, that's for sure (compared to Apple users, as an example). But using cars as an example of your point is way off, sorry.
Try something like "...any more than coughing up blood makes drunks united."
The problem as I see it, is that Linux is seen as the Windows killer. It is not yet that way. We are willing to praise lackluster device support, and non functioning desktop environments because they don't give us a BSOD or tell us our applications are doing something "illegal".
We need a Lindows type OS, that has a nearly flawles, Windows-like interface, and easy to use device support. We also need massive support for everything that is cool on the Web for home users to tackle learning Linux.
I'm not a computer dummy, but I had trouble getting my scroll button on my mouse to work in Mandrake 9.0. I set it to where it SHOULD have worked and it didn't. Then I rebooted, and all the sudden it worked. Nothing told me I had to reboot, and I assumed I didn't because I was switching between mouse selections and other features were changing so how was I to know that the scroll button needed a reboot?
If I were in Windows, they would have told me to reboot as soon as I picked another mouse. This is just one example of less than thrilling support for my hardware. My soundcard and NIC didn't work either without tinkering.
Thanks for letting me rant. I want Linux to kill Windows [to the point where it is affordable and stable], but Linux cannot do that yet. Standardization will help that, but Linux is not meant to be standard for everything! Contradiction, eek!
You need non standard versions of Linux for people who don't want it for Desktops. Period. Trouble is, those people are the ones driving its development, so we won't see a standard Linux anytime in the next decade.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Because of all microsoft's bullshit, people are not used to making choices about their computers.
With opensource, you can choose what you want to do and how you want to do it, and not worry about any EULA telling you what you can and cannot do.
Mouseclicks, it's all gotta be doable with mouse clicks.
Kinda like Windows:
Install devices, install and remove software, search around in the (centralized) help files.... -ordinary people don't give a rat's a$$ about the inner workings of the kernel or how to compile anything, and certainly don't want to learn.
~
The driver support won't come until more users do, and you won't get normal people to bother using Linux, it's just to difficult compared to Windows/Mac.
market from windows, you're living in a fantasy world. It's not that linux can't do the job, and doesn't have the apps, it's that the workforce that has to use it is old, and afraid of new technologies. It took forever to get people to accept windows, now it is what users know, and they don't want to learn something new when what they have does the job they need. The only way Linux could take the desktop would be if it could do things for regular Joe corporate user that Windows couldn't, and it would have to something critical to Joe's job. Simply doing what windows does on the desktop isn't enough, standardized or not, linux must break new ground, and come up with new tasks that users need done.
As far as Linux distros go there is one for almost one for every personality out there, when it comes to standardization however they only share a skeleton of similarities, the kernel and a basic directory structure... What truly creates a distro are the packages that are available with the distro and the system used to maintain those packages, such as apt or rpm. These would be hard to specify specific standards on as they are all based on user preferences. Standardization on a package level would be a mistake.
SteweyGriffin is a troll. Dont mod him up. Look on trollback: his request to be added
programmers.
:) )
I propose a new standard (we need as many stanards as we can get, don't you agree
Users should be able to buy either "Cash", "Voting", or "Duel" points. These points can be distributed by the buyer to persons/projects at will. Those receiving such points may choose when to cash them in.
In the case of setting "standards" or "project direction" voting points may be applied.
When it's time to buy baby formula ($20/can) or pay the electric bill "cache" points may be redeemed.
Of course "Duel" points will be an equal amount of "Cache" and "Voting" Points?
Here is a simple example. A multibillion dollar company such as Con Ed (ticker ED) buys 2 Million Duel points. The VP of IT can dish out a strong 'YES' for directory standardization with 2Mil votes for standardization, plus $1mil for KDE and $1Mil for Gnome. Now everybody understands the level of commitment of Con Ed and the potential of paying their own bills at the same time.
If you think this is weird, then you haven't been following the actions of the German Government.
If you think the German Gov't is the last in the line... You haven't been following the progress of OSS!
To summarize, this is a way for Governments and Big Business to buy into OSS, reward those that produce, and for those that produce to pay the bills that everybody has to pay.
This puts all those that consider themselves hot shot programmers on notice.....
Personnally...I'll take that challenge and with this model I just might end up with a million dollars even though I am to old to be hired...YA!
The author makes little to no suggestions as to what we can do to solve this problem. Even more useless is that he does not even describe the problem he's trying to present. Like another poster mentioned, just because a group of people use Windows does not make them united.
I believe the Linux wave is going great. Linux software is farther ahead than it's ever been (since it's been given time and hard work), and we're gradually coming to accept a certain number of features as "standard" for any given distribution. Making his comparison to Microsoft, he seems to suggest that all the distributions should "unite together" and make one big distribution. But then... where's the choice? Where's the variety that shows us alternatives and suggests ways to improve our systems even more? There is no one solution, and I'm happy that all these distributions exist, as it allows me to find my own solution based upon the work of a dedicated group of people. Without Mandrake and Suse, who's to say Red Hat Linux is the right solution? Likewise, without RH and Mandrake, who's to say Suse is the right solution?
The only thing I can think of, and something he didn't touched on, is the rippling of changes back to the original maintainers. There's nothing more frustrating than adding a component to your own custom system and thinking, "How did Red Hat put this all together?" Of course, you can always grab their source and figure out how they did it. I find a lot of these changes that the individual distributions make are bug fixes or feature improvements (patches so the software installs properly, or extra data to allow better integration into GNOME/KDE menus). It frustrates me that these changes don't make it back to the original package maintainers as often as they could. I would love to see the pam_stack module make it back into the Linux pam distribution so it can provide base level authentication services without the need for lengthy post-package patches and other tweaks.
Granted, there are some modifications that come with the territory. I see no reason for maintainers to have to adopt the Blue Curve theme that Red Hat uses to dress KDE and GNOME like each other. But at the same time, it would be nice to be able to pick and choose software packages and not have to worry about re-doing common work that all the distributions have already done.
Anyways, back to the article. I think this guy spouts a whole lot of nothing. There is nothing wrong with the way things are going with Linux and if there is, we'll get there soon. But keep in mind that Linux users are not Microsoft any more than Windows users are Microsoft. I use Linux because I feel comfortable and secure using the environment. I built my own server system from scratch because I wasn't happy with the choices offered by the different distributions. And that's the luxury of using an open system, to pick and choose exactly what you want.
1. Debian (who are a very very big player in the Linux world and currently my distribution of choice) have a very very good package manager and even better distribution system for it (apt). LSB, on the other hand, have decided on Red Hat's RPM as their package of choice. This means either Debian somehow has to be extended (some would read crippled) to work properly with RPM, and then on top of that they have to realign their directory structures to go in line with LSB standards, which will confuse a lot of Debian stalwarts.
Windows installers can copy quite fine with the fact that the system directory on Windows 2000 is \WINNT and the system directory on Windows XP is \WINDOWS. It shouldn't be hard to write Linux installers that can do the same thing - even just looking at environment variables should leave you right 9 times out of 10?
Debian can produce a LSB-compliant distro, but they may choose not to. Or not for a while anyway.
2. Has anyone suggested to Richard Stallman that Free software is renamed Freedom software, so people instantly have a better idea of what it's about?
Maybe LV could branch off something and name it different. ....?
We note that many of the new adopters are in industry, where the users do not have to admin their own machines.......
Not one of these statements is true (except perhaps the control over the OS statement, depending on how you define control).
I never have to reboot W2k or XP, except during the occasional (hehe) patch.
I know people that still use Office 97 on new operating systems. In fact, MS catches a lot of flack for maintaining backwards compatibility. And now we're claiming that they don't?
Microsoft users are not united. We are just customers that use the (arguably) best (or only) tool for the job (exchange, 2000 for desktop PCs, office, etc). There is basically no sense of community for MS users that I have ever stumbled across. Microsoft developers have a few hangouts, but most of us just hit MSDN when we need info.
Most (if not all) of the Microsoft users I know of (developers, admins) not only know of Linux, but have used it when appropriate. Given that UNIX is still quite pervasive, finding the robust, free version isn't that hard. Could it be, perhaps, that they only use Linux where they feel it is strong (webserver, etc) and that is the reason it isn't as popular as zealots think it should be?
As for standards... people seem to forget that Windows is top of the heap, and the Windows environment is the least standardized environment I have ever seen. Every app has to be skinnable. Every save dialog and open dialog customized beyond recognition. Just go to the Interface Hall of Shame to see what I mean.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Oh, another *sigh* post. Sigh, that's all we need. You fucking tard, just because you say *sigh* so that you can "try" and get people to think that everbody else is wrong and you have the true answer just makes you look like an idiot. Of course some slashbot will probably mod you up anyway.
A standard model means nothing if the only standard bearer in apps for Linux consists of one Office suite which pales in comparison to the 4th tier product available for Windows.
Is this the only reason to get Linux to be a success, denying MS profit? What about the users? Fuck them, who cares if they don't have any app, just so long as Bill loses money? What a piss poor reason for all this.
It would be just plain perverse if Gentoo or Debian(/Knoppix) embraced the United Linux plan; and I can't imagine Red Hat going that road is bloody likely either.
Okay, so anyone releasing software will have an rpm version for Red Hat that will with any luck also work on Mandrake. And if the software is free and good it will quickly be ported to Gentoo and slowly to Debian. You can see how UL would wish everything would fit their own scheme, but it ain't gonna happen. So what's the noise about?
All we're lacking for widespread desktop acceptance is KDE 3.1 and strong programs in a few areas like household/small business accounting and desktop publishing - and having a few different Linuxes to port those to when they appear isn't gonna be the stumbling block.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Troll.
Alright, that's all I got. You put up a good fight, sir. Good luck on whatever whoring game you're playing today. I'd like to think that some of those downmods are because of me, but I'll bet I did just as much accidental karma upping since your ekrout account had so many damn fans. Whatever. Up yours.
Don't forget readers - SteweyGriffin wants to be a troll. Mod down or not at all.
"Microsoft users are an interesting lot. They have systems that they have NO control over. They have systems they have to reboot every sixteen minutes. They freely pay Bill Gates obscene amounts of money for buggy programs that they can't use when they upgrade to the next operating system. It's almost laughable."
Nothing in these statements is true. Please stop using the argument that Windows is unstable (beginning with Win2K). If you are using supported hardware it's as stable as Linux and dare I say MORE stable than Linux/XWindows. (Random X crashes do occur on occasion)
Please define "NO control over". If you're talking about being able to swap VM in the kernel then yes. If you're talking about being able to choose what apps to use or themes or such than no.
My father still uses a Windows 3.0 app on his XP machine with absolutely no problems whatsoever including printing! That's one thing Microsoft has done right, being able to use most legacy apps.
I totally agree that Unification is necessary to an extent but get your facts straight before you start bashing Windows.
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
the Linux community does not need to set up businesses with the specific intention of trying to "win" users from Microsoft; all we have to do is continue to develop software in the same way, and the users will make the switch all by themselves.
hmmm, Why is there "jealousy" over companies (like MSFT) that are successfully designing products so "users" will not make any switch?.
Bill and his warriors must by celebrating over such statements from you linux folks. Now I happy my "windows" job is secured! -:)
Yes, the ballot was too confusing, there were chad issues, and I'll kvetch until I win!
A big, big part (perhaps the most important part) of usability is consistency. Lack of consistency between apps, and between an app and the desktop environment, contributes to poor usability.
How important you consider usability to be for Linux I guess is up to you the individual. But accept that without a 'standard' GUI you can't have a good user experience.
The point you are missing is that MOST Linux developers are not selling anything. They are just developing software for their own needs.
This tends to create a system that is more developer friendly because it meets the needs of developers well. The theory is that a very developer friendly system will ultimately be a very good platform for developing any software.
I'm not sure how successful this has been, but that's what we have. Don't ask Linux developers to be salesmen, they won't like you very much. Now, there are those who are trying to sell the wares these developers have created, and it may be that they will speak for users and be able to leverage this good development platform, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this plays out.
So far, there's some indication that it's worked well in some areas, for example server software and appliances, and less well in others, such as desktop software.
That article looks like it was written in five minutes. I didn't see anything in it that was new or particularly insightful.
You know Im all for businesses trying to make money from Linux, it helps the development of the OS and provides much needed support for businesses wishing to make the change.
That said the only way that there is going to be a truly United Linux is if Linus takes the kernel closed source and tries to go down that path.
The United Linux organisation is just a business group, trying to drum up business for their product. Nothing more and nothing less. As a sys admin and software developer I can tell you now that I would much rather have a range of specialised tools in my pocket than a all-in-one that attempts to do everything but does nothing well.
Why? Simple. As a software vendor i would like to port my application to Linux. But what distribution should i support where it comes to libs and directory layouts? Red Hat? SuSE? Gentoo? Debian? Mandrake? Slackware? etc. etc. etc.
I have only a limited amount of time to make my product compatible with the os. If i have to support all of them i would have to make more money of my customers just to cover the costs. This would make my product not very attractive to users, and i will probably not sell enough of it to support my efforts. So i decide not to port it yet and wait for better times. The other option is to choose just one distro like so many other vendors (Red Hat anyone?). Making that distro the de-facto standard, not because of the fact that it is the best but because that is the one on which most commercial software runs.
So standardisation is good. It attracts commercial software for all distro's which will attract new users who will make Linux to be able to reach new heights.
Now, i know that OSS could compete on alot of levels with commercial software so it would not be necesary to have commercial ones but not all of them are as good as the commercial product. For alot of software there simply is no OSS alternative which could be viable. Not yet anyway. (e.g. Visio (Kivio comes close but that's it), Dreamweaver, Video-editing software (professional versions) etc. etc.)
Just like we need one type of car, one type of TV and one type of VCR.
I find it amazing that people clamor around the concept of one type of LINUX, but yet will buy a specific VCR, Refrigerator, TV, car clothes.
Why is this? Because a specific vendor has said that there should only be one user experience and not multiple. Why did this specific vendor do this? Because otherwise there MIGHT even be competition. And as a result a whole slew of minions argue along and fight into the hands of that specific company.
What we need to do is convince people that there is choice and that people can choose. Just like you can choose a VCR and TV. Interesting, is it not. You will spend hours deciding which TV you should get with the feature set, but spend one minute on the OS....
Tells you something yes?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
./configure [options]
make
make install
This allows users to update their systems without waiting for packages to become available and gives them the power to choose how the software will interact with the rest of the system. There also exist nice wrappers that automate the process such as Gentoo's emerge that automate and hopefully soon Debian's apt-build.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The key problem with linux (for a new user) is how difficult it is to add and remove software. I am a new user, and so is my younger brother. For both of us, that is what we have trouble with, so I would say that this is 2/2. Both of us quite computer competent.
Now the question, does a standard model directory setup help in the installation and removal of programs? Well, yes and no. Putting all important files under the same prefixes across all distributions helps a lot. However, the fact that each distribution ends up using whatever is the newest version of gcc when it is released, etc, still leaves it difficult to install across all platforms, especially when compiling from source. The way I see it, UnitedLinux is good, but does not go far enough (yet) to address all of the really important issues.
Normally, I read the article and think... 'Feh'...
Then I read the comments on Slashdot and I start to get annoyed and am forced into posting my opinion.. (I figure slashdot is the Jerry Springer show, but for geeks.)
Well... this time, I've neither read the article, or any of the comments, and I still feel annoyed enough to post a comment.
Weird huh?!?
Maybe I'm turning into an angry loner...
Yep, it's so true. The best OS will clearly win, with no effort on the part of the community or developers to make that happen, simply because the buying public will recognize the 'best product' and force its acceptance by writers of drivers, apps (particularly games) and useful third-party software.
After all, that's why we're all running OS/2 these days, right?
----
It is often easer to gain forgiveness than permission
There was a time I read most of what was on Slashdot, linuxtoday and co but now I can't stand to. I still read allot of it but most of it is just so bad that I feel sorry afterwards for wasting my time. There is no need for an article like this one stating that if we only had one distribution (or even) to deal with everything would be all right. I've used many distributions and am glad that there are so many. If one changes something is such a way that it becomes useless or near so, we can change distributions. If there is only one distribution we are doomed to live with some bug that is praised as feature. Just because there is diversity dose not mean that there is a holy war going on. Yes there are many people going around, trying to convince everyone of there belief and the author admits to have been one of them but even more people are not. Most people grew out of it a long time ago. The Gnome/KDE thing is a over and Red Hat hasn't wiped out all other distributions, LSB is coming along nicely and most distributions are trying to implement it. Standardization is doing fine. As to the author, he means well but I suspect that he hasn't been in the linux community for long. Those types are very hostile, I believe, on things like the GPL, gnu and of course everything RMS and se salvation in "unity". I'm betting on diversity.
What the hell is POSIX for if no OSes actually implement their APIs? What is POSIX doing with all these grandeose APIs and standards if no one actually implements them? Why doesn't POSIX evolve with new technology and keep up with new standards? ISO seems to be even more over-bearing, but they don't seem to want to have free and open APIs/protocols. Who the hell would pay money for the specs for supposedly open apis/protocols? The RFC process could easily be extended to *nux APIs. KISS == Keep It Standard, Stupid!
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
"all we have to do is continue to develop software in the same way, and the users will make the switch all by themselves'."
That sounds familiar. I'm betting that's Apple's thinking. I'm afraid it's not getting them any further. I think that if Linux users believe that Office clones are all they need to overcome Microsoft, they are vastly deluded. A world of home-grown dll-dependent apps and simple VB programming is out there that locks these companies into using Microsoft the same way that dynamic libraries are needed by some RPM packages. These are the "character" of how business is done at these companies.
Stop cloning and come up with your own real innovation. Somewhere someone needs to put something truly innovative into OpenOffice or one of the desktop environments that is a generation ahead of Microsoft or Apple. *That* is when the real threat from Linux begins.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
I hear what you are saying, but instead of looking at the glass as half empty, look at it half full. In 12 years, linux has managed to gain a couple of percentage points of the desktop market. Holy cow! That's major! That's amazing! Think about BeOs, NextStep, OS2, and Amiga. Hell, even Irix, Solaris, and AIX have been loosing ground in the desktop market.
I understand what you are driving at, as things currently stand. My thinking is that a half dozen advertising gurus could take linux, repackage it, and make a marketable desktop operating system that could replace Windows, if they could find a better user interface metaphore than 'Windows'. But, let's face it, 'Windows' is a pretty damn good metaphore for operating a computer. If that marketing and advertising team could think up of a better metaphore than 'java' or 'windows', they would stand a chance of reinventing the market. By and large, this kind of thinking is very rare, and the notable exceptions have been Windows, Apple, Sun, Macromedia, and so forth... (notice the metaphorical marketing that is inherent in these companies' logos?).
Hmmm... will need to think about this some more.
It all comes down to usabily. It has nothing to do with development models, and everything to do with making it easy to use. That means that software installation has to be simple. Pop in a disk, and run ./install.bin, or double click it from a GUI. Same applies for downloaded applications. One single self extracting image that installs the application on any distro.
However, to do this we need standardization. And I don't mean LSB, I mean what libraries are available on a vanilla system. In order to make software run on any distro, you need to know what libraries you can expect the OS to provide, and which ones you'll need to package with your application. LSB doesn't cover that, I believe that United Linux does.
A little over a year ago I made a journal entry about all of this. Most of the problems it brings up are still accurate. Check it out.
Standardizing Linux is the wrong way to go about bringing Linux to the corporate desktop and the end user. But that's not saying standards are bad. Instead, the approach should be that we offer the different alternatives to what will be a standard, and then let the decision of which will be that standard for those end user be made by those end users. In other words, let the strong survive. Let there be a system that does get chosen for the new age of desktop computing, and let it be based on Linux. The semantics there is important. It should be based on Linux, not assimilate it.
Distribution choice is a good thing. But if a group of people making a few different distributions want to make changes to theirs to make sure they are the same as each other, let them. That's their choice. But corporate IT decision makes are going to be asking questions like "what is the difference between this distribution and that distribution?" So what will the answer be? Are we going to be able to say what the difference is, or will be end up confusing them more by saying "Oh, they're just alike; flip a coin to decide."
Of course, making sure that programs can be installed on, and run on, a wide range of different distributions is a good thing. But part of the responsibility to achieve that lies with the developers of that program, such as being flexible as to where files are found, what library versions can be used, etc. Consistent interfaces help, but we also need to be able to change and adapt to make things constantly improve, and when there are new things to adopt, new decisions have to be made, and choices have to be available to decide from.
Just don't move towards the notion that a single standard shall define Linux, and no other can be Linux. Linux is a class of systems that have diversity and can adapt. That is as much a part of the power of Linux as is its strength in security and reliability.
Business decisions are all too rarely made on the basis of long term planning. Regardless of the intent, those decisions will be constantly made over and over as the years go by, and as many projects fail. The needs will change, even if they are clouded by uncertainty. Linux, too, will fail, if it loses its ability to adapt.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
does not exist for most of us. I must disagree with the commenter's post on Newsforge about standards not being needed; Linux is already quite standardized *from a technical standpoint* eg ANSI c/c++, FHS, POSIX, sh behvior.
Of course all that depends on the individual vendor's implementation.
Linus himself did not create his kernel to compete with anything; everyone else re-created it to do that. Linus has gone on record as saying he does not really care what happens in user space; he's not interested in anything there.
Let us not forget that distro != Linux.
My next argument is that Linux distros *do* need to standardize on the UI if they want to get $LARGE-BUSINESS-ACCOUNTS. Excuse me, but have you ever tried to tell your management that they don't need to standardize? Bear in mind that in the US business place, MS *is* the standard, mainly on the desktop and 3/4ths on the back-end.... any change will probably freak them.
Leading right back into my previous paragraphs.... business management doesn't really give a crap about obscure (for them) technical standards as long as they can do their jobs effectively (again, the UI thing) which in turn puts paychecks on the table. I feel that this sucks, myself, but that's how it is, and I *do* need to pay my rent.
At the end of the day, the *real* focus of linux is a 32 and 64-bit multitasking, multiuser capable kernel licensed under the GNU GPL, with supporting libraries and tools from GNU. That's all.
Anything else is up to the rest of us.
C|N>K
Why does anybody "need" to do anything for you for free? If you like to switch, good for you. If you don't, well, that's your decision.
I also need some incentive (in this case that would be that Linux is free).
Linux is not "free" in the sense of "having no cost". You pay for Linux by contributing. If you don't contribute, please stay off the platform. And if you can't even make the minimal effort to determine for yourself whether Linux is good for you or not, it looks like you aren't planning on contributing anything down the road.
Next, have several distros aimed at different kinds of users. Everything should be graphical from the very start. The installer should never bother the user with manual partition creation and the like. Just a simple question: You have an 80 gig drive, how much of it do you want to leave to your old os, and how much for linux. No more should be asked, ideally. A basic package set is installed for all of those distros, and a set of packages that is target-specific, as in productivity apps. All hardware should be auto-detected, and the smart installer should download the drivers automagically. Most Windows executables should run directly as if they were linux binaries (transparent Wine). There should be a simple, complete configuration utility, which should also include package management. Network access should be transparent. The installer should also install software according to hardware installed. For example cd-burning software will be installed if the system has a burner. Video-editing if firewire ports are present. Hardware detection at boot and periodical software updates according to software package completeness (if the package development has just started, and the package is still buggy, it will be checked for updates more often). Direct importing of emails and address books from existing Windows partitions without user intervention. In short, the user would be ready to start working immediately after installation(which consists ONLY of popping in the cd and selecting partition size then waiting for setup to complete). The smart installer should also handle windows installer programs.
This is a short summary of the features that would lead to rapid adoption of linux on the desktop. It must be made transparent, as non-intrusive as possible, yet easy to customize and all possible options easily available to power users (interface complexity as a setting in the control panel). It must handle everything automagically, so the user never needs to do anything related to the os, only related to the work they are doing.
I realise that this is far off, but one step at a time we could develop a system that would work for average users as well as power users.
Generally, we need to take the following steps:
- The setup program
- The smart installer
- Transparent Wine and windows app integration
- A central driver repository
- Central package database
- Minimal user interaction when not absolutely necessary(of course available as a setting)
- Interdistribution compatibility
- A method of retrieving settings and data from old os
If we handle those issues, we might actually have a better os usability than windows. If we have something easier to install, free(both ways) or at least free as in speech and very cheap, with better usability and better responsiveness, fast automatic bugfixes, better stability and better application base, we have a winner.
In 12 years, linux has managed to gain a couple of percentage points of the desktop market. Holy cow! That's major! That's amazing!
Except that it's more like a couple tenths of a percentage point. For all the development that's gone into that area in the last 5 years, that's pretty pathetic.
Then I rebooted, and all the sudden it worked. Maybe you just need to restart your x server?
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
not ONE decent "in soviet russia..." joke here
IMHO, the first priority would be a group focused to define a standard set of "user data" API. .....
.userdata in every home directory having a structure something like:
_ folder>
It is amazing to see Evolution creating his own mailbox directory onto a system where the user already have thousand of e-mails into different KMail folders. It is amazing to see KAddressBook creating a empty contact database when Evolution have in his own database all your friends data.
A new project started: Chandler, and guess what??? One of the first issue on the discution lists was: We need good import filters from
What is nedded is a set of API for e-mail (sending/receiving, addressbook, notes etc....).
A set of GUI agnostic (i.e. NO GUI at all) libraries to access into a unique mode these data. If I receive a e-mail when Evolution was up, it should be available into KMail. And When I install Chandler, it must start without ANY setup required, since all my folders, pop/imap/smtp/dial-up settings are there already.
Well. A begining may be extremelly easy. A file called
<userdata>
<desktop_folder name="My Documents" type="x-application/documents">Documents</desktop
<desktop_folder name="My Music" type="x-application/audio">mp3</desktop_folder>
<mail_folder name="inbox" format="unix" type="mail/incomming">Mail/inbox</mail_folder>
<mail_folder name="outbox" format="unix" type="mail/outgoing">Mail/outbox</mail_folder>
<mail_folder name="sent-mail" format="unix" type="mail/archive">Mail/sent-mail</mail_folder>
<!-- and so on for addressbook, calendar etc... -->
</userdata>
Just my 2 cents, mtm
Firstly, I have every bit as much control over my Windows-powered computers (two XP Pro, one 2k Server) as I need, with more control waiting to be seized should I ever need it. No, I can't modify every little detail about the OS the way I could if I had the full source, AND intimate knowledge about each bit, AND the time and patience to hack it (the way the Linux elitists seem to think everyone should have). I don't need to. Windows just works, on every computer I've tried it on so far, with the exception of one 2k Pro install which took a few retries due to buggy third-party RAID drivers. In contrast, the only Linux distro that "just worked" on any of my machines was Mandrake (8.1) and I removed it almost right away, for various reasons which I can't be bothered to elaborate upon here.
Second, I very rarely have to reboot my XP boxes, and when I do (for installing new drivers etc), it's maybe 30-45 secs of downtime, which I don't really mind. The server, I haven't had to reboot in weeks. I know "weeks" doesn't compare to the years that some people have had *nix (and NT) servers up, but for an amateur like me who's almost 100% self-taught, it's just fine.
Third, I'd hardly call the sum I shelled out for XP "obscene", especially not if you split it out on all the hours I've had it running for (on all the computers I've run it on). And hey, if it's still too expensive for you, borrow a CD from work/school or simply warez it. Something tells me that's the way about half of all XP users got their hands on it in the first place.
Oh and hang on, did I read that right? Freely pay Bill Gates money for buggy programs that they can't use when they upgrade their OS? That must refer to Microsoft's applications (Office, Visual Studio, games, and such) rather than the OS's themselves. Strange how I haven't percieved either Office XP or Visual Studio (the two Microsoft app suites that I use - can't speak for any others) as buggy or incompatible with older OS's
Oh, and before someone points out MSIE as a typical case of "buggy Microsoft app", I agree. It is a piece of crap, at least security-wise. I switched to Mozilla long ago, though more for the features (tabbed browsing, mmm) than for the hightened sense of safety that it brought.
Having just re-read the above, I get the feeling this is going to be a "-1, Flamebait" posting pretty soon. Okay, no problem, I've got karma to burn. But I know that there are lots of people out there who share my experiences when it comes to Windows and Microsoft products in general. Okay, there are some less desirable aspects to using them, but overall, they do get the job done. The article from which the paragraph at the beginning of this posting does little but expose the author as the pitiful troll which he obviously is.
I rest my case.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
I was aware, but chose to ignore, the implications of using the word "selling". In the broader sense, however, anyone interested in finding an audience for the software they've developed is engaged in "selling" that software, even if the give it away.
The wider desktop audience, I think, perceives the acquisition of software as a "buying" and "selling" experience, that is, a market transaction. I doubt that an inward-looking development model geared to the needs of ideologically motivated developers will foster products desktop users really want.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I don't think the author remembers when Microsoft didn't own the desktop. The competition gave us some pretty good software for the time. There was no unity and it was good--Central Point vs. Norton, Quarterdeck vs. Qualitas, dBase vs. Borland, etc. Then Microsoft took over and unified the desktop--ignoring the fact that I'm referring to two different eras, CLI vs. GUI, is it really any better? Unification/monopolization was a by-product of Microsoft's business plan...it *wasn't* necessary in order to bring a GUI to x86 platform.
./configure options. Emacs vs. Vi and GNOME vs. KDE are more worthwhile topics than /usr, /usr/local, or /opt. If you're an admin who can't wrap your brain around software being in all three or you can't figure out how to put things where you want then you really need to find another line of work. As for the end-user, the package installs and it works...Microsoft doesn't mandate where software goes and I don't see anyone complaining about that.
I am aware of the confusion that the Linux newbie faces--do they use KDE or GNOME, KOffice or OpenOffice, Mozilla or Konqueror? Does the person who has to decide whether to drive the Mustang or the Stealth deserve any sympathy for their dilemma? The deal is done...you've taken possession...try one today and the other tomorrow...be yourself and make a choice...be human and make a mistake...correct the mistake and be glad you went with a solution where mistakes are astoundingly cheap!
As for the other issues that UnitedLinux covers...it's really too easy to make sure your software is relocatable and let the user set the appropriate
Microsoft got to where it is today because of pre-loading. Joe User doesn't install/reinstall the OS, he takes it back to the store. Jane User is using the software that came with her computer. With Linux, they would not have any more issues with their computers than the average Windows user *and* they would have more choices. But choices apparently make today's users' heads explode--arrogance only works when you have a monopoly and we don't yet. Give the consumer a little credit!
- Why is there still no standard model for adding and removing apps? The number of competing models for package management alone is sickening.
- Why do we still have to choose between a bunch of different desktops, ALL of which are mutually incompatible?
1. There are many standards actually (RPM, debs, etc.). RPM, used by RedHat, Mandrake, Caldera and pretty every distributor that count beside Slack and Debian, is currently the dominant one.
2. Wrong. Desktop are actually COMPATIBLE ! You can run a Gnome application in KDE and vice-versa. Some aspect of the DE are not compatible, like themes for example, but could you use a Winamp skin in WMP ?
Another "too many choices is bad" armchair advocate trolling. Please go get a fscking clue.
:wq
Open source is about freedom of choice. I'd like to think that we are united in our stance againt closed source. The idea of unifying Linux seems very romantic (i suppose) but unity though lack of choice makes us Microsoft users as well. I agree, there shouldn't be fighting over Gnome and KDE, after all, those are desktops, desktops with bundled applications. If Linux users don't want to use kwrite to make a shopping list or kmail to write their grandma they shouldn't. We're united by something more global than just a distribution, we're united by state of mind (cheese). In the aftermath of 911 we stood together as a country, not as a bunch of ethnic groups. I hope that was coherent.
mod -1 redundant
To use your analogies:
Different TVs, but they all can view the same channels and use the same antenna connectors.
Different VCRs but they all use the same tapes and work with any TV.
Different cars, but they all use the same gas and standardised oil grades.
Differnt refridgerators, but they all use the same electricity.
That's the kind of similarity you need to standardise in user space.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Firstly, I have every bit as much control over my Windows-powered computers (two XP Pro, one 2k Server) as I need, with more control waiting to be seized should I ever need it.
Let's talk about a different kind of control here-- Microsoft's control over your machines and mine. Have you installed SP3 on your Win2k boxes? SP1 on your XP boxes? If you have, the EULA you signed off on gives MS admin rights on your machine. I have two Win2k machines on my home network, neither of which have SP3 installed, precisely because I prefer to remain in control of my Windows computers instead of ceding control to MS. I realize that their licensing is such that we don't really own Windows, we just lease it, but I prefer not to have their prying electronic eyes in my personal network.
I have made the decision to move away from VS because I don't like the effect of .net-- to lock me as a developer, and my clients/employer, into a Windows-only environment. I also don't like how unresponsive MS is every time a new bug/security hole is discovered. Compared to folks in the open source world, their behavior in trying to cover up problems is shameful.
I don't hate Microsoft-- I just don't the like the way they do business anymore, and I have made a decision to move away from their products and platforms. This is not about money-- it is about control-- who has control over one's computers and the software that one owns. To the extent that MS is acting in the manner that they are, they are trying to seize control over individuals' and enterprises' computers wherever Windows runs.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
Well that may well be, but that just proves my point. The program where I could configure the mouse didn't tell me to do that, because it assumed I wan't a newbie looking to use a system that is billed as "easy enough for any computer user to use".
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yea. Win2K was a major improvement. Impressive, even. I'm not convinced WinXP was forward momentum. But still. Its a different world than the Win9x days.
That is - if you're not still in the Win9x world. And a very large number of individual consumers and businesses are. And will likely continue to be for some time.
Having said that - even if your wayward Windows user finally makes the jump, its no OS paradise. Win2k/XP is not bulletproof. Windows zealots who like to think otherwise are simply fooling themselves.
Sure. The old "windows crashes" line has aged. Windows is catching up. Maybe the Linux zealots can welcome the Windows zealots to the world of stable computing and ask them "what the hell took you guys so long?"
No matter what you may think of Java, it is incredibly sucessful at providing the sort of standardisation the Linux is after. While there are occasional gliches, given the scope of the APIs and the fact that the apps run on completely different OSes, Java has been incredibly sucessful in the standardisation that has been necessary to make it cross-platform. Maybe the Linux crowd could learn a few things:
:)
1. If it already works, wrap it
For example, Java often wraps existing functionality with a common API and then has SPI (Service Provider Interfaces) that funciton as "drivers" to a specific implementation. For example, the Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) API allows communication with DNS, File System, LDAP, NDS, etc. Each of these naming or directory services were around before JNDI but it enables them to be used in the same way.
2. If it doesn't exist yet, standardise the interface, not the implementation
Some specifications don't wrap existing functionality but create something that is completely new. However, Java trys to have its cake (standardise the solution) and eat it too (allow competition). How does it achieve this seemingly impossible miracle? The interface is typically standardised (to a degree) and the competetion occurs in the implementation. Of course, the interface typically ends up only describing a subset of the functionality that is needed so:
3. If it's too hard, leave it out of the standard interface (but revisit it later!)
It's important to realise that people will have trouble agreeing on the nitty-gritty aspects of a standard. So what? There will always be implementations that push the limit and go beyond the standard. This is good and necessary. What is important is that the standardisation process is a cycle where features can be wrapped into the standard (following the first 2 principals mentioned) after they have had a run competing in the wild with each other.
4. Spec, RI, Test Kit
When giving a talk, it is said that you should tell people what you are going to say, you should then say it and you should then tell them what you said. Only then will they really understand. Likewise, there are 3 components to a sucessful standard - the specification (unfortunately many standards stop here), a Reference Implementation and a Test Kit. Only with the last two can competing implementations be sure that they will be compatible. Of course, like everything in the standards process, these 3 components need to be revisited as the standard is improved.
5. Don't impose the Lowest Common Denominator
For those not from the Java world, the graphics libraries in Java are a useful case study in standards evolution. AWT was originally know as the Abstract Windowing Toolkit but quickly became known as the Awful Windowing Toolkit for a few reasons, the primary one being that it only implemented those widgets that were available on all platforms. Obviously, this sucked - for example, because X/Motif had no tree control, you couldn't use AWT in Windows to do tree controls. There are currently two ways around this: Sun created Swing which takes the AWT library and emulates every platform's widgets. This has both the advantage and disadvantage of consistency: It takes a lot of work to emulate an underlying feature exactly and when the underlying feature changes, people using Swing have to wait for the Swing libraries to be updated. The alternative, SWT/JFace from IBM's Eclipse project uses a cross between the AWT and Swing approach. It works like AWT in that it renders widgets natively but it doesn't restrict itself to the Lowest Common Denominator. Instead, it only uses the Swing "emulation" approach if the given widget does not exist on the underlying platform. While these APIs only refer to GUIs, the general architectural problem is the same when creating standards that wrap other standards (point 1) and need to be considered carefully.
6. Motivation
The following is my personal opinion but I am sure many people will agree: Creating specifications, reference implementations and test kits is boring. Maintaining them is a pain. Trying to get people to agree even on minimum standards, especailly when people have firmly entenched beliefs is difficult to say the least. In other words, making standards is boring, painful and hard. It is also very useful because a good standard makes everyone's life easier. Think about some things that are pretty well standardised - the way you make a phone call for example. Imagine if not all phones had the same symbols. Imagine if the nozzels at certain service stations only fitted certain models of cars.
Why are these things standardised if they are boring, painful and hard to do? Personally, I think economics/money has a lot to do with it. However, I've already ranted enough here so I'll leave that for another post.
A+
We need both. Diversification gives Linux its creativity. Diversification allows competing models. Standardisation pulls the divergent threads back together. Standardisation prevents the framentation of the OS. Linux needs both. If standards are too strong, Linux stagrates. If standards are absent, the distros diverge into separate OSes, if such is possible with a largely common kernel
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Funny... I was just checking out UL (United Linux) earlier today. Seems to be moving up the ranks in popularity at distrowatch.
However, I'm kinda scared about UL. It seems to me like a few of the big players in the linux industry are determining what *should* and should not be. Just check out the UL white paper and count the number of occurrences of "de facto standard".
Personally, I like the distro war. The competition that results just keeps fueling innovation. And in the mean-time just use gentoo.
1. Manufacturers start to make printers and other peripherals that actually have Linux drivers so that they actually work with Linux out of the box.
2. Your local computer store, e.g. CrapUSA, has boxes clearly marked, "This Product Works With Linux."
Wave a magic wand. Linux is as perfectly standardized as any desktop OS can be. Will the mainstreamers suddenly rush out to use it? Of course not, since it still won't run many of the programs people really care about, like games and specific apps (PhotoShop, greeting card programs, PageMaker, etc.) which have no close substitute (and often no sub. at all) under Linux. And Linux will still be ridiculously hard to use for mainstreamers.
As one small example of the difficulty of use: What do you think happens when someone running Linux comes home from Office Max with some peripheral he bought on sale, and finds out that even if it has a Linux driver, he has to find it on the net and download it, and that it might require a kernel rebuild to use? If this kind of thing happens ONCE to a mainstreamer they won't go back to Linux ever, no matter what other people tell them about it.
the biggest problem for linux adoption, forgetting for a moment the onerous oem licenses, is that people know windows. it wasn't easy to learn, and in fact, they don't really "know" windows. they kinda know how to do what they need to, and most people are technophobic anyways. anything new scares the hell out of 'em. i see it all the time where i teach. but...
my students, who haven't been thoroughly borged by redmonditis, have no problem using my x clients in my room. i say, here's the web browser (mozilla) and here's where you type (OO writer). some ask but most just go about getting done their work. and that is the key. we can't, shouldn't, try to beat windows by doing windows. ain't gonna work. be better at being linux.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
When I was in grade school, I got good at computers because I had a lot of free time and it was more fun than anything else around the house. I would spend hours upon hours of trying out every command or menu option and seeing what new tricks I could get the computer to do. That's how I got good at the Apple, the Mac and later the PC. It payed off well when I got a job in computers.
With Linux out, many of us are already adults and find it hard to spend this time "exploring". We've got 12 hour workdays with commutes and family. On top of that we can escape the house and pursue an infinite number of hobbies. There's also more of a desire to make life meaningful before you die: the middle age crisis.
So we reach a dilemma: How to find time to learn Linux to find out if it's worth learning. I'm sure if you devoted some time to learning it for fun you would see it's advantages. However i'm sure if you were in an empty cell with nothing to do you would find a way to be happy and productive with something.
The point i'm trying to make is that if you're happy then no one has to convince you or give you any incentive that Linux is better. It might even take more time than you planned to get things configured properly. You might even affect your career options if you reject Windows. Linux is not better or worse than Windows for the general public. If you're daring people to make you switch then maybe you should stick with Windows.
I like Linux more than any other OS i've seen. It lets me see and adjust levels of the computer that most companies wouldn't entrust me to see because they think i'll just screw it up and sue them for support. Sometimes i'll break something, and then i'll learn how to fix it. I think that's great, and that's how I am.
there will need to be some kind of standardization. The type of standardization where tech support is easily reachable, and the kind of standardization that will allow the person who, while not a complete computer geek, can still get common problems fixed for friends and family. (I'm assuming that most of you here are the person that gets called first when Aunt Gretchen can't get her computer to work, only to find she left a disk in the a: drive last time she shut down.)
Linux, however, doesn't have that kind of standardization yet. And a huge percentage of the PC market turns on the Aunt Gretchen type of people - those who get a computer at Best Buy or wherever and expect to plug it in and have it "just work." Against its independent underpinnings, Linux will need a standardized presentation of some sort that will enable a big player somewhere in the home PC market to sell computers with Linux pre-installed. (On a side note, I'm eagerly awaiting seeing a "Penguin Inside" label on new computers.)
Most Linux users are a computer savvy bunch, seeing that unless you get your computer from wal-mart.com or build one yourself you've generally actually got to hunt down your OS. Most Windows users use Windows because that's what you get when you buy a computer. If you can get a desktop distro of Linux that a major vendor (someone who has REAL market share) is willing to support and ship pre-installed, then you'll see more market share for Linux on the desktop.
> David Meyer argues that UnitedLinux will provide
;)
> standardization for the Linux community that will
> allow it to win the desktop market from Windows.
I am of the crowd that doesn't really care if linux takes over the desktop. I'm happy enough to have it take over lots of segments of the Internet and server market. Just running in the background as a server for so many things.
IMHO, OS X is the best desktop for non-geek users that's out there now anyway. Enough customization is available for Aunt Jane's needs and even Grandpa can handle most of it. Plus, if there's a problem, the family geek can log into it from the college dorm and perhaps debug some info for the computer-clueless relative.
You won't find every linux supporter in the world clamoring for desktop supremacy. For us it's just not important. I'd rather see people putting their efforts to programs that work in the command line that might have a GUI counterpart rather than the other way around.
As the t-shirt says:
Macintosh for productivity
Linux for development
Palm for portability
Windows for solitaire.
But I'll still try and build a portable CARPC on Linux
j
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
I (dis)agree with this person. If linux distros were to really compete with Windows, standarization, familarity, predictability is the key. Not only for users but also for developers. One thing I really really like about Windows is that I can learn its API's (ok, save MFC, it sucks). And they still apply 2 years later. In fact I can run binary I compiled a year ago on everything from win98 to winxp. On linux, one often cant even compile the source on diffrent distros.
Luckily taking over windows is by far not my goal. I really don't care. One should just keep on with the open platform gnu/linux is today. Let people develop what they want. Let users choose what they want.
Evolution!
So let me get this straight. We have this guys who quite often on their own time writ this wonderfull applications. Who do it because they like it. Because tinkering with programs gives them joy. We get this programs basically free. Every time it costs me mere $40 to buy new Slackware CD.
/. Where this will leave users?
And now we come out to them screaming "WE WANT STANDRDS!".
Which leads me to ask a question: ARE YOU NUTTS?
To my opinion the very stage where we are could be only achieved because the developers were completely free to do whatever they wanted. First and foremost we should let THEM decide what kind of standards they want. All the user can do is to provide inteligent feedback, comments and support.
I think the so called "Linux revolution" is not over. It is just starting adn the best way to kill it is to "organize and lead it".
I completely agree with one of the posters that "United Linux" is just a business venture. No suppose those guys managed to put Red Hat out of business (or significantly shrink their market share). And then few years down the road they'll start their own infiighting. And there will be people slamming the dours flaming each other on the
On the other hand. Look at this, we have RMS and Linus (two people that have my highest respect) who seem to be on not very good terms with each other. Yet somehow the applications are still being compiled and new versions of kernell keep commming out. A lot of people take this for granted but I used to be a Mac user and I vividly remember when MS was always releasing new versions of Word for Mac later than Windows and every half year or so I had problem when sombody would send me a file from "windows side".
Ultimately giving developers freedom makes users free. And it's not like they live in their own buble. Look few years ago a many developers had "it was hard to code it will be hard to use" mentality. May be it was not expressed openly many times but there was at least subtile attitude of this kind. And now we have a lot of developers that aware of user interface and produce programms that may be not entirely consistent but very very usable.
The last point I want to make maybe not entirely logical. But I think that Linux is comming and will still be comming to enterprise and eventually to many people desktops with people comming out of colleges (the same way like UNIX did). And if (instead of fragmenting linux with many so called "standards" which some people will join and some people will choose not to) we will keep it in the state of "organized chaos" this will provide emploiment opportunity for many people for years to come.
So every time I have to figure out why the configure script does not work when it is supposed to instead of bitching I tell myself "shut up and enjoy the ride"
- Back off man. I am a scientist
I've tried to sneak linux into production where I work, but no, we pay big $$$ for DNS and DHCP running on Windows servers. Same goes for web servers, Apache=FREE! IIS=$$$$$. We shelled out over 50K for a web filtering software package and appliance that I could of duplicated for the cost of a decent PC (799.00). I did sneak a squid box in as a lockdown device ( we don't allow pc's in public areas much in the way of internet access). The resistance? Because it IS linux, the superiors don't trust anything but "proven" technology.
Proven to them means they're comfortable with it. So when linux is as common as windows, then we may move, and the only way that is going to happen is for Linux to evolve and standardize, not give up it's freedom, but perhaps turn the gui over to someone like Linus who can have the appropriate "vision" for the job.........
~corporate tool, but employed~
"In fact, MS catches a lot of flack for maintaining backwards compatibility"
No, actually MS catches flack for breaking compabtibility.
"Could it be, perhaps, that they only use Linux where they feel it is strong (webserver, etc) and that is the reason it isn't as popular as zealots think it should be?"
No, while Linux has its problems that's not the reason its not so popular. Let me explain something to you about Windows and why its popular. You see MS since the 90's has used its monopoly power to force OEM's ship ONLY windows with their PC's. Only in the past few years have OEM's dared to even offer another OS. MS also has power over the ISV's who produce the software for their platform. They have rewarded those that tow the MS line and threatened ones that don't.
So combine OEM's being forced to ship nothing but windows year after year and also ISV's who year after year are afraid of MS and you get what we have now. MS through its tactics has not only gained 95% of the market, but also has made developing for Linux or any other OS unattractive. Developing for the Linux desktop when it only makes up 1% of the market doesn't make much sense now does it?
So you see while Linux may be rough around the edges and not as polished as windows, MS through many years of heavy handed tactics has created an environment where there isn't a huge payoff for developing for Linux. Think of it this way. Look at the Segway. It like cars, bikes, and buses is a transportation vehicle. But its too late to the party. Its trying to gain entry to a mature industry and there just isn't room for it to become "hugely popular". The infrastructure just isn't there. Sure it may gain some small share, but there literally isn't room for it to really grow. Linux is in the same situation. It may be a better product, but the incentives for supporting it over the entrenched product just aren't there. In fact the same goes for BeOS or ANY other OS which wants to play in the desktop market. Yet another example, try to start your own phone company from scratch. Just like Linux does, go it your own way. I bet you'd be stuck at 0.0%. Notice how the only way into the telecommunications market was to develop a new market, aka cellur etc. The same will be true for linux. It will never become really popular in the desktop market, but may become popular in handhelds, embedded etc.
BTW if anyone wants to point to Apple feel free. Apple only survived because they truly were competitive when the infrastructure was being built. Sure they didn't prosper like MS, but their early foothold in the education market kept them alive. Also while there is some wiggle room for Apple to gain ground on MS, they will never gain the majority of the desktop maket. The same rules which keep linux from gaining any market share will keep Apple a niche player as well.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Maybe he doesn't know what the hell that means?
Come on. People who are trying to migrate don't expect things like that. If you install one of the common Linux distros you're not going to be introduced to that.
Tell me how the opportunity to "restart your x server" is better than having an app shut down with a single "illegal operation" error after which your OS functions perfectly..
Free iPods - now in the UK!
Why does 'Linux' need to unite? The strength of Linux is in choice. Some like Mandrake, some Debian. So install what you like. If we standardise we lose one of our main strengths.
Linux is about choice. After all, it's just a kernel. Anything we put on top of it is up the distributors. The whole one 'environment to bind them, that's what we need' argument is based on the success of Microsoft, something which all Unix users detest because of its detrimental effect on choice.
Contrary to what some people seem to think, the open source model DOES produce standards. It produces de-facto standards ! When the popularity of a particular program reaches critical mass, it practically has to be included in all distributions. Don't believe me ? How many distros have bash as the default shell ? How about almost all of them ? That's not to say that the other shells are not as good, and they're still available incase you need them too. That is the beauty of the open source model. What is or isn't "standard" is determined by the users - it just takes a while.
The fact is, if you truly believe in the open source model you will trust people and companies to make their own standards. If your company wants Gnome as the default interface on every desktop, so be it. That is their choice. Much of what people dislike about Microsoft boils down to the fact that they don't trust the user to make a choice. Microsoft thinks they can make some sort of utopia, where all interfaces are the same, and anyone can use a computer without having to know anything. It's a well meaning, but ass-backwards goal. Computer use is now very much part of society in general, and the central planning model simply can not scale up to something this complex. We have to trust individuals to make their own choices. There should be some handholding available to people, but ultimately we have to trust the masses. Does this philosophy sound familiar ?
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
let us all talk con sis tent ly. we must work to ge ther. u nite. let us build a tow er to heav en. let us have one lang u age. first we must burn all books. in par tic u lar ly the bi ble. Then we speak with one cause.
Sorry, I was just trying to be helpful. If he didn't know that he had the option to restart the xserver instead of rebooting, then why does that seem to offend?
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
SLASHDOT Linux!
It would be developed right here, on this very website. It would be the product of open scrutiny by even casual users for ergonomics and hardware compatibility. It would have upgrades and changes dictated by "ask SlashDot" posts and "Cowboyneal" polls. You'd have to have a 90% advocacy in order to adopt a bugfix. The system would reward karma. The trashbin would be called the Troll, and there would be a universal minimally cleared signon called Anonymous Coward.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
A very good point. Adding to this, it should be noted that a standard is really only a standard in this way. How is something a standard because a small fraction of people determine it to be?
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
The vast majority of the tens of thousands of software packages available not ony work in all distros, they work on multiple platforms and in many cases multiple OS's, the BSD linux support layer for example.
It's OK, I didn't take the restart X server as critisim.
It does highlight a point though. If restarting the server is something that a user should know how to do, then why isn't there a standard option to do that when "logging off" or "shutting down", like "log off as current user" is in Windows?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
So isn't that a defacto standard? (troll)
I agree with the view that Linux is doing fine the way it is.
It seems to me that the best way of doing things, or the most capable software is the one that gets included with the distributions. If someone writes something better than the "standard" then the standard changes, which is as it should be.
The only reason why we have situations like Gnome and KDE is because they are both pretty good. When one of them has a decided advantage, watch the distos drop the other.
Of curse, most of the article he "edits" are capitol-L Lame.
I think that the one thing that is preventing Linux from taking off is application installation. I have been a Linux user for almost two years now. I still have problems installing apps. I should not have to go through ten steps to install an application. While RPMs etc are helpful, they still don't make it easy enough for your average user. The other thing I find interesting about this whole debate is the "works fine for me" arguments. The only way Linux will work is if people start to think about what will work for the greatest number of people. Windows, while it crashes, has all sorts of unethical license agreements, etc. still works for most people. My mom, grandmother, etc can use Windows, they can't use Linux.
In all probability, Linux will never replace Windows, or even the Mac, on the desktop
According to whom, Reallocate The All Knowing?
Simple, in an environment without choice, someone will have the power to set a standard. Take Apple for example. The interface of OSX is a "standard" because Apple made it that way. Although I'm sure you could change it, the idea that you could or should is not readily evident to most people. So in that way, a standard has been determined by a small fraction of users, particularily those that work at Apple.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
In my last year of being a user of Linux on my desktop I've seen a lot of usability improvements in the big distributions. There are also new distributions coming out that promise an easy to use desktop.
Ease of use is the true convergence for the Linux desktop. I don't care what's churning around in the guts of the beast as long as I can do my daily tasks with a minimal amount of frustration.
The convergence is coming, I've seen it from afar.
You really dont have a clue do you? The OS an the desktop isnt something that regular users want to drool at or even have to think about. It is there for a reason, to run my fscking apps! In the perfect computer environment, I would just plop in the cd/DL from internet my prog or game, and behold - an incon for it! *clickety* Now I am shooting badguys... *clickety* Now I am watching a movie... Thats whats important. What the OS allows you to do. Not the OS itself...
If Linux ever is going to get popular by the common stupid american, it has to get games ported. Period. SDL looks pretty decent, I havent tried it myself, but if someone could implement the DirectX API on Linux I bet theres going to get a lot more attention from game developers.
SEE!
-ted
I used to desparately want a more unified Linux system. Something like 'UnitedLinux' used to sound really good to me. I wanted a single consistent desktop and all the rest.
But then I switched to Debian and stuck with it long enough to realise that there already is a consistent, clean, 'united' Linux system - Debian! I installed a small base system to start with, and then managed to get a clean and fast system using apt-get just for the programs I wanted, no more and no less. The end result is the best system I have ever used!
The way Debian works, it allows you to look at the choice that is available and really appreciate it and get the most out of it. Thankyou to all the Debian developers!
Yep, me. It's an assertion of a defensible opinion. There's simply no reason to expect Windows or the Mac to disappear, no matter what happens in the Linux camp.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
'the Linux community does not need to set up businesses with the specific intention of trying to "win" users from Microsoft; all we have to do is continue to develop software in the same way, and the users will make the switch all by themselves'.
Bless that guy that wrote this! Too many people are obsessed with making Linux (and Unix in general) the "Anti-Microsoft" operating system. I would much rather use a real OS than an alternative OS. What is this strange desire to make Linux an alternate operating system?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Or, Michael takes it up the ass from YOU!
Karma: Sucky (mosty affected by saying things people know to be true but don't want to hear)
Look, I use Linux as my primary workstation at home *and* at work, and it's great. But it's not going to win the desktop market from Windows any time soon. It needs: .org and get a cool new name. It also needs major performance enhancements.
- Consistent user interface (Red Hat is at least making an effor at this with Bluecurve)
- Majority of peripherals (USB, Firewire) "just work".
- Significant graphical and/or interface cleanup of almost all the Fancy Bonus Apps (mp3/ogg ripper, mp3/ogg player, video player, cd burning tool, all the gnome-games and kde-games)
- Dia needs major work. Possibly incorporate it into OpenOffice.org?
- OpenOffice.org needs to drop the
Linux is getting there, but there's still a fair amount of work left. Let's get to it.
Linux is totally different from Windows. It's hard to see it as an "improved version" because it's so fundamentally different. To portray it as an improvement it would have to be similar in many ways, except a little better in a few ways. In other words, dumb it down to make the comparison easier.
Personally, I don't see that much importance in the development of Windows-replacing desktop environments. One great thing about Linux is that we can ditch the whole desktop schmesktop paradigm, and use something different that better suits the job and personal preferences.
It's nice to have a migration path when you're moving from Mac/Windows to Linux. I used Gnome for this very purpose, but only for some time. The choice you have in your first Linux UI will give some insight into the whole freedom and choice thing. A standard desktop would just propagate the old, limited ways.
If you're not ready to make some choices and change your habits, why would you leave Windows anyway?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
You're touching on two essential points here:
1) Linux doesn't do everything that Windows does in the same, transparent, yet less secure way: surfing the web with IE is unfortunately still the easiest way to manouvre the web, rather than using Mozilla for one thing, Galeon for another, Opera for something else, etc. How do you expect people to deal with this? And, may I remind you, an un-firewalled Linux box is just as insecure as a Windows box.
2) I don't think we WANT world domination by Linux: it's a self-contradictory reality: as soon as Linux takes over, it'll be the next "Bill Gates", and all the /.'ers will find a new OS and continue to fight then evil "empire of Linux" as underdogs, 'cause that's what we like to be: underdogs.
I love Linux and I love tinkering with it, making devices work, writing scripts, multiple desktops, multi-tasking, mosix, ltsp, options with window managers (blackbox rules!), but I don't think it's for everyone. I think the fact that 9*% of all computer users choose Windows is at least partially due to people's laziness and level of skills with the computer; it's easy! Yes, it's full of security holes and dumb solutions, costs money and all that, but I don't think people care. And, to be honest, I'm kind of happy about that. As long as my bank uses a secure Linux system ;)
The reason people use linux is because of the freedom to choose. When I run kde or gnome I know exactly what it does and how it does it. Linux doesn't need a market. Its lived a long time without any kind of market. Its about choice. If you want someone telling you how to do things then go to windows. If you want only one way to do things then use windows. I live in America becuase I like to do things when I want and How I want. I love linux (slackware) I can do what I want, how I want.. Also for that dumbass that made the comment that he had to reboot to change mouse settings and how windows tells you that you have too and linux didn't. Well you also had a choice there just didn't know it.. You could of just sent a HUP to gpm to reread its settings..
Plus, I like the idea of a desktop distro, a server distro, etc. . .
Linux is still at least 5 years of development time behind Windows XP. In order for Linux to make any strides in the desktop market it has to win over the business desktop market. As much as I love Linux I can not see that happening. Linux while easy for maybe you and me is still extremely difficult for the average user. Making it impossible for standard use and a good support model. A desktop OS should NOT require training for the average user. Linux should forget about the desktop market completely and go after the thing that it is really good at and that is the server market. Linux community is spending too much time trying to make something that is more like "WINDOWS", as apposed to making something that is more like Linux. My 2 cents.
Hmmmm, I think you're on to something.
One of my favorites of Dijkstra's sayings. (From memory, so probably a bit mangled.) "A baby crawling and a jet liner from New York to Los Angeles are both means of transportation. The same thing at different scales winds up completely different."
What seems to be missing from most documentation is the scope of the configuration, when it takes effect, how long does it last, and what does it depend on. Curiously, OpenBSD seems to be better at this than anyone else.
12 years, but to be fair less than a handful during which it had any pretensions of being a mainstream desktop replacement. When I started using Linux around 1997 CDE/Motif ruled and free hardware acceleration for X didn't exist. The degree to which KDE and Gnome surpass its predecessor is astounding, moreso considering the latter two weren't started as commercial ventures. Now that they're being accepted corporately expect Linux to make real desktop inroads.
I don't really understand why it's so hard to support multiple distros. What sort of stuff are you using in your app? Well, standard library routines, so you're going to be using libstdc or libstdc++, both of which will be on any linux system. If you're creating a command line app, then you can use libreadline or libcurses, both of which will be on any linux system. If you're writing a GUI based app, you can use Gtk or Qt (or even Motif/Lesstif or Xt) and have it run on any Linux desktop. And of course you can install any custom libs you want. There's also the distinct possibility of static linking, which is frowned upon generally but doable (you could create two versions of your app, one dynamically linked for a popular distro and another static for everyone else). You can use an installer like Loki's in order to handle the placement of things and making sure that it's all there for you.
/usr/share/lib or /usr/local/lib is irrelevant really. Include the libs you need and the whole of it should work fine. And really, if your only concern is directory layouts, why not simply have a default install location (/usr/local/whatever is a good choice, as it's the default in auto* tarballs) and let people override them as they will. After writing a big and complex app, supporting configurable directory heirarchies (hint: one line in a .rc file and an extra string variable in your code will do it) should be the least of your worries.
I really don't understand why everyone says it's hard to get software to run on alternate distributions. The basics are all standardized. There's standard libraries and standard routines. There's standard packaging formats that one can use, or a powerful installer. Whether you decide to use Gtk or Qt and whether you decide to put your custom apps in
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
If only those who make such arguments would admit or disclose that their opinions are rather limited in scope and suffer from a certain set of biases.
... yet it was a default install anyway for thousands and thousands of NT machines.
... it is only "working", from the standpoint of quantity and not quality.
Having "One standard to bring them all" will lead to an obvious tyranny, and in the darkness compile them.
... because this crowd has factions of people interested in a better computing experience.
... then they'll come around to your point of view.
And you'll be able to charge them $40/hr to set them up similarly.
Bias: Windows users are united.
This is like saying that white folks in America are united, since there are so many of them. A majority market share != a united movement, or in fact any kind of movement at all. Windows users may move together in certain instances, but that doesn't mean that the motion is in a desirable or even sensible direction. Case in point: IIS was a poor excuse for a web server, and we all knew it
Bias: Linux users must be united.
Linux has a very good grassroots background, and that has brought it very far. However, insistence upon unions and -- particularly -- enforcement of involvement, will only achieve alienation of those who were freely involved in the first place. So what, who cares that there are many Linux distros to choose from; the whole idea was to have more choices than just Wintel or Mac.
I find myself confused about the "lack of standards" that the article author is talking about. Does that mean he laments the number of, say, browsers that can be run on a number Linux distros? If having "One distro to rule them all, One browser to find them" is the goal, then we have that now with Mircrosoft Windows+IE, and yeah, isn't that working really well? Obviously, no
Linux users and programmers already feel united in their desire to escape the limited options presented by Saur-- er, Microsoft. These people are also finding more converts and sympathy from the MSWindows-using crowd
One reply to the article on the site forum said " it doesn't help if I swear Linux is better: I only get labeled "zealot" ". This is not a problem, but even if it were, the real solution is to support Linux and run it on your machine and the machines under your control. Living well is the best revenge. As your so-called opponents or critics come to realize that your machine is not only cheaper (no MS tax), but is more stable and lets you play audio and video that MicroHollySoftWood has denied them
In somewhat of a conclusion, I'm not worried at all about Linux's being hampered by a lack of certain standards. Some universal installer will appear when enough Linux users shout loud (!cloud) enough for it. Isn't it the point of a grassroots movement to be driven by need and not by direction?
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
Think I'm kidding? Get off your geek asses and go talk to real mainstream computer users about switching to Linux. Tell them it never crashes, it's free, you'll do the complete set for them, etc., and I guarantee you that they'll start rattling off a list of the programs they rely on, and ask you if Linux will run them. I've seen it literally dozens of times. And if you try to tell them that program Z doesn't run under Linux, but there's something "just like it and just as good for LInux", they'll tune you faster than if you said Linux costs $10,000 a copy.
In short, it's the apps, stupid.
I think (but I'm not sure) that the X server does a partial restart when you log on or off. (Certainly, the way the screen flashes seems to imply it switches out of graphics mode for a minute or two.)
Anyone with more knowledge around to clarify?
All of this is beside the point. Whether anyone wants it or not, the likelihood of imposing standards on Linux is next to nil and probably a mistake. Every few months, the subject comes up for bid on /. and people get all upset about it. "Linux should give up all windows and get back to the command line" vies with "Linux needs one and only one window/desktop system and it needs it now." Hogwash.
I'm new to Linux, struggling with certain aspects but having absolutely no trouble getting onto the web, writing documents, and working with mail. Could I have done this three years ago? Well, I tried and the effort and time were more than I could afford then. Now, I'm running it without too much trouble and actually getting the hang of some of the innards. Back when I couldn't run things, there were gnome and kde. Now, there are still gnome and kde. The difference is that both of them are better and everything around them is getting better.
The improvement didn't come from standardization, did it? Was there someone or some group who came along and said, this is how it will be? Did I miss that?
Screw it. Linux isn't going to take over the desktop this year. Who gives a crap? Linux won't take over the desktop next year either. So what? The only things that matter are these: next year, Linux will be even more powerful and, at the same time, easier to use. Guess what? More people will come along for those two reasons.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I just remembered too that when playing with Red Hat 6.0 2 years ago, I managed to make the menu bar on the main window disapear. Then I couldn't choose to reboot the machine through software without opening a terminal screen and typing the command to shut down the computer.o okies
I tried:
stop
shutdown
reboot
quit
down
bakec
shutthehelldown
man exit
and I think I finally stumbled upon:
halt
If interfaces in Linux were less breakable, and had more helpful documentation, then I could recommend it to more than just Computer Science undergrads.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
* Free as in Freedom.
:(
Yes i can say that without ranting like a hippie. The wonder of Linux and the benefit of Linux is that there is so much more to choose from. The less standardised, the more freedom. Sure this makes applications difficult, but now we have a natural evolution... a survival of the fittest and most versatile librarys and APIs.
* Standardised Linux would attract more windows user and bill gates is satan and must die...
Ranting lunatics. Linux has a purpose, and as Free software (as in beer this time)... its performance is NOT MEASURED IN MARKETSHARE. Do not forget this. Linux should allways be for the power user, the tweaker, the guy/girl that cannot stop fiddling with their computer.
New users should be encouraged to fiddle, they should be given VMWare or VirtualPC and a nice easy distro, or they should have a dual boot system set up. Standardisation is only going to piss off the 75% of people that prefer a different standard.
Who really cares what percentage of boxen runs linux? Sure it might attract a better quality of drivers or closed source apps, but to do this by sacrificing the core Freedom values by standardising bits is ridiculous.
And all those that take marketshare as an ego thing, you are a bunch of morons. If popular equated useful we would all be running Windows.
God, reading thru my post im starting to rant like stallman
those who control the past, control the future. those who control the present, control the past.
Nothing worse using in Linux. Where is my Maya killer, the Photoshop destroyer, the NASCAR game, a sweet DreamWeaver clone, etc.? THEY DON'T FUCKING EXIST!!!! How many times do we have to shout it to you Linux idiots, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE APPS!!!!! We don't want to wait for you conceited OSS zealots to get off you ass and write an inferior version of an app we need, we need apps just like the Windows verions we all use, AND RIGHT NOW!!!!!
The OSS community cannot be depended on to write needed code. Here's the poster boy for this argument. Linux drivers for ATI cards. Now ATI has made available the info needed for any coder to write a driver, yet not one has been offered by the OSS community. Now if this supposedly quick moving OSS group can't even motivate themselves to write a measly driver, what makes you think they can replace every Windows app with OSS equivalents? They won't, and they can't. Commercial programs are what will save the day, not this phantom OSS force.
Until the apps are there, Linux is a waste of time.
Its true that having several different desktops and packaging systems is a consequence of open source. People are free to contribute to Linux, and different people have different approaches to designing software. Different users also have different needs, so its not as simple as having one method clearly "emerge" from all the others. Having a number of Distros, Desktop Environments, and package management allows users to choose what they are comfortable with. It really becomes a question of taste. However, I feel that there still needs to be some kind of standard. The control Linus has with the Kernel should have been extended to other aspects of Linux outside of the Kernel. It always seemed odd to me that the kernel is ultimately under the control of one indivual, and yet the rest of the operating system is in a state of near anarchy. A bit of standardization would go a long way to regain a sense of direction for Linux. Executing this standardization in reality may be very difficult to achieve, however ...
Testify!.....
Hey if he had to reboot to make the mouse work, then thats a valid complaint.. Nothing made clear to him that he could also have restarted this thing called an 'X Server' (whadeverdatbe). He has been told sometimes rebooting helps (windows using friends or previous experiance), so thats the only thing he can try to make it work 'magicly'.
Please try to keep that perspective in mind before you 'bitch' at 'users'. We want people to use linux? then we will get users! If something is not obvious, then we 'developers' made a mistake.
Otherwise we'll forever have linux stuck in the 'By technicians, for technicians' era.
Okay, after reading through the posts I think that there are a few things that need to be made clear.
1. Standardizing Linux distros does not mean that EVERYTHING would be the same. There is still room to customize. What standardizing would mean is that programmers would be reasonably sure that each distro would have a standard base from which to work. For example, as a developer I would know that I could count on certain libraries being available and that those libraries would be backward compatible so that I wouldn't have to recompile my products for each new version of a distro.
2. I would also like a standard way to handle copy/paste so that I know that other applications would have access to the data that gets copied from my product and that my product would have access to data copied from other developer's applications.
3. Standardizing Linux does not mean that we would only have one desktop. The most popular desktops are KDE and Gnome and clearly we already have programs that run on both desktops quite nicely. However, it would be a really good idea for these two rivals to get together and agree to standardize certain things, if possible, in an effort to make both desktops easier to support. This would be good for everyone.
A base standard for Linux distros would help developers develop their products and be assured that they would run hassle free on most flavors of Linux. This is good for the developers and good for the users.
Remember that no one is forced to comply with any standards but those who do will be making it easier for developers to support their distribution. I'm not sure that United Linux is the way to go but it wouldn't hurt to look at the standards that they intend to adopt.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
While reading this, am I the only one who kept thinking "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to bind them. One Ring to bring them all, and in the shadows bind them." ??
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
As for installing and uninstalling programs cleanly, the existing system (RPM or otherwise) is good enough. Application developers are free to use whatever way they like to store config data. If they think GConf is convenient, they can just use it. Users don't care much about these things, and since one application usually do not access others' configs, neither does it hurt the developers.
The real problems is still system configuration IMHO. One of my classmates want to change his MAC address on a Redhat system, but changing that using the GUI tools does not work for some reason, so I just added several lines to /etc/rc.local, and executed it. It just works, but does not look like a "clean" way in the view of the distribution.
I think GUI programs for system configuration should be carefully choosen. If they don't work perfectly, they shouldn't be installed by default. After all, most new linux users buy some books, so it is not that hard to tell them which file to change in order to change your MAC address, and what to do to make it take effect immediately.
Another problems are about command line tools. Even new users like the "less" command or the backward-searching feature of bash, however their key bindings are so different (VI-like vs. Emacs-like) it is confusing. Maybe it is a good idea to make their keybindings customizable (already done for bash) and create some config files that users can choose upon distribution installation.
In my opinion, for some more difficult things (like detecting hardware or running windows programs), the distro should not try to automate things, but rather make manual things easier --- just like it should not decide which partition to shrink to make space for linux.
A central driver repository is already there (in the kernel source --- you need very few vendor-supplied drivers). But it is better if we have some easy-to-find and up-to-date hardware support database that tells me what driver to load for a specific piece of hardware, and how stable it is, etc. I spend quite some time trying to figure out the driver for a D-link DE220 network card (newly installed, so not detected upon distribution installation), and at last found that the might NE driver just works.
Even for a somewhat advanced user like me, Redhat saves me much time. But some distribution-specific things (like things in /etc/sysconfig) are so still so hard to figure out!
Believe it or not, there exists a breed of technically proficient users out there who fully know of linux but are windows users regardless. Like myself, I know many such people on my college campus. I have mandrake installed, and use it every once in a while. I have been using it much less since my semi-successful attempt at upgrading kde. Primarily however, I am in win2k. Contrary to popular slashdotter opinion, with some careful set up, win2k can be quite stable and secure. I am a cs major with an emphasis on AI, and I just want to be able to code. I don't have the time to learn the ins and outs of an operating system when a much more hands free one is available. As long as my OS lets me code with minimum headaches, that's what I'll use. I realize the value of linux and actively hope that it will eventually become hassle free enough to support my video card and let me install or uprgrade a program without competing standards that will work on any desktop, but that is not where it currently is. Meanwhile, win2k is out of my hair, my compiler works, and any hardware I add will also work. I can upgrade or downgrade any of my programs in a few minutes. If linux standardization fulfills its promise, the addition of my kind of user to the linux family will be invaluable.
What they really want is the ability to ask: "How do I do xxxx in Linux?" and not get the answer: "Please tell me the following 85 things about your configuration:"
And that is what standardization is about. Not about forcing a single choice but about having a single default that can reliably be trusted by users who haven't learned enough to change the defaults.
And those who wish to just get work done will continute to use FreeBSD.
TODO: Something witty here...
I have to disagree about the IE easy way: I use Phoenix, and it' works as transparantly as IE does. The only time I end up in IE is when I type a URL into an address bar in Explorer.
I reckon people choose Windows because it's easy to use, its graphical, and it does what those 90% of people want it to do.
I personally hate Window Managers & Multiples (ie Gnome/Kde et.al.) because they lack consistency. They don't all Look The Same (or more specifically, they don't all look the same way that you want it to look). And then people MOAN AND COMPLAIN when someone (ie. RedHat) tries to change it...
Sometimes bad things happen.
I like the concept of diversity in various things.KDE/Gnome etc.
But what I really worry about is the history of Unix. Would MS have ever arrived if there wasn't so much division.
Mmmm Division, like "Divide and Conquer". And this is where I am torn. Despite the advantages of diversity in innovation and the like, if everyone joins together, they are much more powerful than when they are acting and pulling in different directions.
So, IMHO:
- if you want to beat MS, then put away any petty differences -and, eg, to a user a layout manager is petty-, be prepared to swallow your pride, and just work together.
- if you want Linux as an innovation warehouse, then fine, diversify even more.
- they *will be* mutually exclusive.
Let's face it. MS' best strategy is to splinter Linux.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
You're right it is the apps. There is a certain amount of conceit that goes into thinking that because something is better that people will flock to it. Witness OS/2 vs Windows. OS/2 was vastly superior to Windows but who has the market share and the apps? Your average consumer doesn't care what the operating system is, they just want to run the software that they find useful. It's a small group of people that care about the operating system. How many people cared that Betamax was superior to VHS? A lot of money needs to be pumped in to Linux to bring about one common interface that is well documented and easy to code for. I think that if somebody were to really provide a real cross platform development system that they could actually target multiple platforms and if Linux gets as polished as the MacOS and Windows you might see something. If you had a 2 PC's at CompUSA, identical except for the operating system, and with all the same applications looking and working like consumers expect them too Linux might have a shot. The vast majority of consumers see a computer as an appliance and treat it as such. An example of the kind of functionality that is needed is being able to throw a blank cd-r into my drive and just drag files to the cd icon on the linux desktop to burn them. I can do this on my girlfriends iBook, I'd love to be able to do it under Linux.
Installation of applications?
Ports system!
pkg_add, pkg_info, pkg_delete
With the portupgrade utility, I can do something like this:
portupgrade -Rr evolution
Which would upgrade and build anything evolution depends on and anything else installed on my system that depends on evolution. I could specficy makes flags also then. And the best part about it is that, all the dependencies will be fetched, built and installed automatically without having to run around finding rpms or source files. It would also maintain the dependencies of all the other applications that depended on something that was upgraded by evolution.
You can also upgrade/downgrade base system easily and rebuild things simply by updating the ports directories and base src and docs via cvs and a specific release tag. And because the different parts are maintained as a team, issues/discrepencies are fixed rather quickly.
Microsoft users are an interesting lot. They have systems that they have NO control over. They have systems they have to reboot every sixteen minutes. They freely pay Bill Gates obscene amounts of money for buggy programs that they can't use when they upgrade to the next operating system.
Not a single assertion in that quoted text is true. I stopped reading after that point, as someone so obviously out of touch with reality couldn't possibly have anything _useful_ to say.
As to the issue at hand... I always find it most entertaining that so many of the people who extol the benefits of standardisation for things like network protocols think standardising the OS is a bad idea. The same arguments that make standardising on something like TCP/IP a good idea also make standardising the functional basics of an OS a good idea (and if you don't consider the interface to be a piece of base OS functionality, then I think you're well and truly our of touch with the "common user").
...that needs apps, it's all of us who use apps to make money. The artist, the secretary, the web designer, the architect, etc. whatever exists for Linux, it's either not available or it's not good enough. Period. One half ass Office Suite and one bloated browser won't cut it. Mr. Linux Zealot just doesn't get this. The most efficient OS in the world means nothing if the exact app I need isn't there, RIGHT NOW. What part of this is so hard to understand?
It depends, which is exactly the point of needing standards. I think with gdm you can configure it to restart the X-server between logins, or not.
"...I believe that if Linux is to be all that it can be the Linux world needs to UNITE behind standards."
:)
Standards are great, but I am just concerned about any "centralized" body with any sort of motives to gain control over how linux is to be made.Who the hell funds "The United Linux campaign" I don't know, it's smelling of politics...
I unfortunately can't use Linux yet cause I can't be guaranteed all my Macromedia software will run on it... will Linux standards fix this?
Is there really that severe of a division in Linux versions that if I get my box running Red Hat one week I can't make my next upgrade to SuSE?
If it's soooo bad between Linux distros then it's __got__ to be bad going from Windows to Linux... maybe that can be cleared up for me. Is it really that hard to upgrade to Linux from windows? And if __that's__ an easy switch, how hard can it be going between distros?
I really think eventually the OS distro won't mean squat when I can run all my apps in Mozilla.
Here's the crux, what would it be like if there were 10 different distros of Windows out there? And there was a standards body governing it?
-v
As the subject says.
scott
One of the things that frustrates me, and many 'users' like me I am sure - is that there is no common core of applications in Linux, not only that but that there is redundancy that is absurd and annoying... Some distributions will install over 40 editors, 7 web browsers, 35 file system tools for navigating your file system, 11 email clients, 4 irc clients, 9 chat clients, 5 shells, 11 window managers, 37 user interfaces, 200 themes, 10 ftp clients... and those are JUST the default install options...
I think there needs to be a CORE of installed applications, with only ONE of everything installed by default. The user can relatively easily install any one of 1,200 options if they wish just as they do now -- but WITHOUT having to manually prune hundreds of applications files just to get a managable, congruent, consistent installation. It's a LOT of WORK for someone like me that actually wants to USE their computer for something besides playing WITH their computer and OS.
Personally as a Usure, NOT a System Administrator (or even an aspiring one) I'd like to see a SIMPLE, FRIENDLY, FUNCTIONAL, USABLE core of applications -- not the best, coolest, latest, fastest most featur rich; I want the Notepad equivelent of everything. I want simple text mode editors like PICO for it's simplicty and elegance, familiar applications like Mozilla to browse the web, clean unclutterd interfaces with out tons of affectation, simple minimilistic tools to admin the stuff I have to.
The thing of it is; skilled Linux freaks are going to redo just about everything anyway, while everyone else is swimming in application spam that is an absurd frustrating and even deal breaking turn-off to Linux.
I grant that such an idea will leave brused egos; why did THAT app make it in and not MINE etc.; this is good and bad - the test of time will get more focus on real world usability on the core applications by REAL WORLD USERS (not Administrators) and the "left out" applications will get more attention from their target audiences; this stuff needs to be organized according to who actually uses it or more importantly who will NEVER use it.
Agree or disagree with me Microsoft, Apple, IBM, do and most consumers that buy an OS to USE them think they're right...
And, may I remind you, an un-firewalled Linux box is just as insecure as a Windows box.
/.'ers will find a new OS and continue to fight then evil "empire of Linux" as underdogs, 'cause that's what we like to be: underdogs.
Um, no. The fact that Linux does have occasional security holes doesn't make it just as insecure as Windows. Windows is fundamentally designed for insecurity while Linux is not. Linux apps don't go around willy nilly executing arbitrary code because someone thought it would be a neat feature.
I don't think we WANT world domination by Linux: it's a self-contradictory reality: as soon as Linux takes over, it'll be the next "Bill Gates", and all the
Supporting Linux isn't about supporting "the underdog". It is about supporting standard protocols, software choice, and the right to tinker.
Like herding cats if you ask me. About the only thing standard in linux, is that the computer needs electrical current to run the kernel.
Anyone who needs some authority to dictate what parameters their systems must operate under, for the sake of providing a "standard", doesn't even need to consider using GNU/Linux or any other free operating system. There are plenty of proprietary operating systems that will give you the "comfort" of having "standards". Steering development towards some imaginary "standards" is contrary to the reasons GNU/Linux and other free operating systems exist.
It would be interesting to see where Linux would be today if Linus actually cared what went into the rest of the system. He really only worries about the kernel. If you read his comments you can see he really doesn't care what goes into the rest. And seeing how he even encourages people to use other people's version of the kernel if his doesn't include the features they want (like kernel debugging, riser-FS, etc) it's not exactly like he's a standards nazi.
If Linus were actually interested in how the rest of the system took shape, we would be in either of two possible worlds: A highly standardized version of Linux with some tiny offshoots, or a world where no one wants to use the OS of that hypothetical anal bastard Linus : P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ehhh. I'm happy with Linux. It'll evolve, into what, who knows? But I trust the immense group of OSS developers, of whom Linus is a (large) part, to take Linux in a unique direction. :)
So what if it doesn't "kill" windows? It started as one man's little hack and RMS' personal mission and evolved into a worldwide phenomenon of software freedom. I don't think we can make people "be free," and even if we could, I wouldn't want to. You can hate it if you want, and everyone else can flame you if they want, but me and those like me will just keep on using (and hacking, and tinkering, and supporting, and spreading) what we love.
Standards are a good thing, to a point. I love being able to choose between Gnome and KDE (and twm, and straight sawfish, and Enlightenment), and I appreciate the hard work of the developers of all those different WMs (or desktop environments, as the case may be). While they are diverse, none of them could have been developed quite as far if there wasn't the device-independent X Windows core to provide a set of "standards" to build on. I appreciate all the programmers who stay up sleepness nights so that my DeskJet can work with the CUPS standard, or my Wacom tablet can work with the GIMP standards for free.
Linux may be a waste of your time, but I'm glad the community has taken a stand to make it professional. It is by far my most enjoyable hobby.
P.S., the GIMP is the Photoshop destroyer
I've noticed that in RedHat 8.0, in order to get changes to XF86Config to take effect, you have to either CTRL-ALT-BS twice, or log off (to the GDM login window) and then CTRL-ALT-BS once. This suggests that RH always keeps a "backup" X Server running. Weird. The nice thing is, if it was really critical to you, you could certainly turn off this two-server behavior. Then again, maybe I'm insane, and I just can't hit CTRL-ALT-BS on the first try. Either way, for my .02 (Read: Not trying to start a flame war), it was much easier to set up my Wacom tablet in Linux than it was in Windows 98. Plus, there's nothing near the GIMP that's free in windows.
Using RPM (retch) to install Windows (retch retch) would go something like this (blatantly ripped from a sig I saw):
Gentoo's portage tree, on the other hand, goes something like this:
and it installs. Sure beats dealing with RPM's endless dependency bullshit.If I wanted to deal with crap like this, I'd just continue signing checks to Lord Bill hoping he won't remotely disable my precious Windows. As long as we have garbage like this, we're opening ourselves up to FUD that will neatly appeal to the PHBs M$ markets to.
We are willing to praise lackluster device support, and non functioning desktop environments because they don't give us a BSOD or tell us our applications are doing something "illegal".
No, it tells you that there was a segmentation fault. Moron.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
> Plus, there's nothing near the GIMP that's free in Windows
The Gimp itself is still free in Windows, isn't it ?
I was waiting for the Linux Windows Killer distro to emerge for years. I was all for Linux. But then I realized it's not going to happen. There is no unifying force or dependability in Linux, just a vast sea of chaos.
Then the Windows Killer arrived. It's called Windows XP Professional.
It works well, is realiable, can run multiple demanding applications without crashing seemingly forever, is well standardized and does not pose any problem concerning installation of new applications (no compiling, only one desktop under which all applications run).
Sorry Linux, you just lost the desktop market. You may still have the server and command line boys, but Windows XP did what Linux was expected to do: bring a reliable multi-user multi-tasking graphical operating system to the masses.
As a previous Unix-zealot it sickens me to be writing this, but I'm not averse to reckoning the truth.
Windows is pretty stable these days. There's really no arguing the point. IIS remains unstable, but you can kill it and restart it without hurting windows.
However, security in Windows remains an afterthought, while it is a core part of the UNIX design.
I like UNIX very much, I just don't want to see us lose the battle because we're making accusations about stability that just aren't true anymore, in my experience. I leave my windows box up for months without rebooting it.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
You're joking, are you? Any artist worth his salt would work minimum wage to buy Photoshop et al, than use that piece of crap that poses as a heavy duty graphics app.
Ah, The GIMP is OK for cropping a pic, or doodling to impress a dolt, but if you want to make real money doing art, you'll need Photoshop. Anyone who says otherwise is quite frankly, an idiot.
Look, I'll use whatever works. Give me a Linux graphics app made by a REAL company (i.e. Adobe, Microsoft, etc.), not some halfassed hobbyist's project, and I'll switch without a problem. But to claim The GIMP is professional grade is simply to spread absolute falsehoods. Is this really the Linux way, being deceitful?
...always been, always WILL be.
There are a helluva lot of comments of the vein, "if you don't want to learn Linux, stay away." It is obvious to some but not many of us here that the problem is not that people don't want to use Linux, it is that they want to be able to USE Linux. As a relatively new Linux user (although I've used a lot of Nix tools in Mac OS X) I find it incredibly frustrating that oftentimes I want to do something in the CLI, I have no idea how, and I don't even know where to start looking. Friends tell me commands to run like they should be obvious, but how would I know them except by being told? And I absolutely hate it when I want to, say, change my resolution and I have no idea how and a friend refuses to help me because he knows how to do it in Red Hat and Mandrake but he's never used Debian and he doesn't know nor care to know the "Debian way."
The posts about "lowest common denominator" are right now, and here is an example. When you want to change the host name of your machine, you run the command "hostname" as root followed by the new name. Ta dah, its set. This works, as far as I know, on all Linux distros. On Mac OS X, you use the hostname command, and it doesn't stick on reboots. Why? Because the Mac uses a differnt configuration file and its not documented under man hostname.
What do I want as standards? I want you to be able to add new ways of doing things, with new features and better usability and nicer functionality, but I still want my old commands to work, even if their deprecated. Or at least point me in the right direction.
That is what "standardization" means to me...a unified method of handling user interaction. I don't care if you use Gnome or KDE, I just want to be able to access all my apps from each. I don't care what you write your programs in, I just want to be able to use keyboard shortcuts for "cut" and "paste" and "save" that are the same. I just want my window themes to apply. I just want the widgets to look the way I set them. I just want the "Okay" button to always be on the right. Or the left. Whatever.
Please, standardize. Look at the Apple Human Interface Guilelines, and make something better, something that projects and apps can put a sticker on their website proudly saying, "I'm usable!"
That's all I, a Linux newbie, ask.
Since so may /.ers refer to automobiles in this discussion, please note that we europeans, asians mostly drive right handed cars. Americans and some others drive left handed cars. If you have ever crossed over this system, you will know the problems.
Should we not "fix" the driving first, then Linux? How about all americans start to drive right handed cars from tomorrow? (They can scrap all existing vehicles)
Standardizing Linux follows....
And they won't be. I think you're missing a fairly crucial point which is that the desktop Linux effort only really started in '96 with the launch of KDE. In '98 KDE1 was released, and that's when the ball started rolling. That means the linux desktop has in effect been in existance for 4 years now.
In that time, KDE and GNOME have gone from ugly, unstable and primitive desktops into powerful, beautiful and yes, in the case of GNOME2 even usable desktops. Not only that, but a truckload of applications have been developed, installation of the OS has become childs play and an open standards effort has been started to unify the interfaces between desktop components.
That's a lot of progress.
And, it will not happen if too many Linux developers continue to imagine that their development model is what they're selling. It isn't.
Given that Linux has never been marketed as such, it's only ever grown through word of mouse, I think there is sufficient interest in not just the technology but also the development model.
Business in particular is keen on the idea of ridding themselves of vendor lockin, being in control and being able to easily maintain old software if the original vendor/maintainer no longer carries on.
Users are switching in droves to FreeBSD since they've started to realize that linux is nothing new and not even as good as the original BSD version of Unix(tm) which they know and love.
Whew, that's a relief, because you know what... Linux wasn't created to replace Windows! .
Let the users complain all they want, Linux doesn't exist to compete with Windows, nor is the goal of Linux to supplant Windows on the desktop.It may be the goal of some Linux companies to engineer a Linux version to compete with Windows, but this is not the goal of Linux.
As a Linux developer (and not a Linux Distribution employee), I really don't care what the Windows users whine about. If they don't like it, they can go back to Windows. Linux wasn't created by whiners, and I don't work for them.
If the users can't use it, or it's not too easy for them, there are plenty of other operating systems they can play with that might be easier. I'm sick of hearing this topic come up over and over and over. "But for Linux to be successful, it has to make it to the desktop...". Linux is already successful, even if I am the only person in the world using it.
It's MY job to make the software, and make it work.
It's someone ELSE's job to make it work like Windows.
Userland changes do not require a reboot, you only thought you did. You probably needed to restart X, since the mouse is started when X is started... oh wait, you use a graphical login manager, your fault again. Sorry, you could have READ THE DOCUMENTATION and found that out.
Man, I hate when Windows users complain that something doesn't work, when there are thousands of resources to help at their disposal, google, HOWTOs, irc, and reams of documentation.
Please let me know the location you donated several hundred thousand dollars to help change this, and I'll begin to be sympathetic.
Linux is not free, and people need to realize this. It takes time, effort, hardware, resources, documentation, etc. to make things work well together. Many Linux developers have day jobs also. If you want to change their priorities, you need to supplant their income, because they're going to have to take time away from their "normal day" to fix your problems. I'm sure you didn't pay for your Linux distribution, so that gives you ZERO right to complain.
We develop what we want, when we want, because we need it, or because we think it'd be cool, or for any number of other reasons. We don't all develop with the same goals, because we all have different goals. If YOU want to change those goals, help motivate us in that direction, but remember, a "thank you" and a pat on the back doesn't pay the rent.
Better yet, make Linux more user-friendly. Why force the user to reboot at all after selecting a scroll wheel? Why force the user to mount disks manually instead of using automount? Until Linux becomes practical to use, it will probably trail behind MS.
Moderators -- please have mercy on me. Linux is a great operating system, but it's just not yet ready from prime time IMO.
Considering the fact that everyone that I personally know that are concerned about using Photoshop only have completely and utterly warezed copies, what are we talking about?
These people do not need the strenghts that Photoshop has over the Gimp, nor would they like to use it under Adobe's conditions. The same goes for MS Office, and many other kinds of "professional" software.
I like to put Britany Spears' head on top of some nude's body as much as the next guy, and the Gimp is perfect for that. Let's sing a song of freedom!
The Enduser
Have Linux installed at your place in Amsterdam, for cheap
I for one don't want the linux distributions to become any more Windows clones than they already have.
People are praising new KDE and Gnome developement with phrases like "It's just like Windows". We should be out there to make the software _WE_WANT_, not to mimic microsoft stuff, just like Linus doesn't give a fsck wether more or less poeple start using the kernel. He's just on his mission to build the OS kernel he wants.
This is becoming an issue. More and more fscked up features are creeping in while good found-to-be-powerfull features are being neglected. I guess soon the developers will, once again, have to swap their OSs to something not so bloated, built with love, not to impress others in first glance, but to be be found powerful when really used.
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
So we don't have to standardise then, good. The only standardisation I want is for RedHat to stop using their own configuration files with their GUI configuration tools and use then ones in /etc like everyone else.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
The user that I contested agreed with me - my 2 points should stand - please consider throttling this (8%) moderator back for being unfair, thanks.
The users need to pick one. I picked one. They can, too. What? Are they afraid the might be the wrong one? But they aren't afraid of having us pick "the one" for them? Then they should hire one of us to pick it for them. Sheesh. Why is this so hard?
What most users want is for it to work exactly the way they are used to computers working, only better. Well, some don't care about the better part. Actually most don't give a rat's arse if it's better. They just want it to be easy and simple and do what they are doing now, which has been pretty much molded by their past with Microsoft Windows.
The real issue being raise regarding standardizing Linux isn't about what users want, anyway. It's about what developers want. It's about what lazy developers want, which is to not have to figure out anything about a different distribution. If two distributions are identical, or if there is only one, they probably don't care.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Interesting takes on what's really important in a platform, but with a distinctly 1980s flavour.
Hopefully I'm not the only one that regards Java and Dotnet as having changed the ground rules forever.
Bottom line is that a standard Linux can't compete without a standard VM.
I think it [the kernel] should be the only standardized thing in Linux
Rubbish. What needs to be provided is as familiar an environment as possible
As a developer, I would like to know that I can count on certain libraries being included
The only thing that needs to be standardized are the configuration files
Damn right poeople are warezing Photoshop. For most people, the gimp is probably enough - and they just don't know it yet.
When gimp can do true CMYK what-you-see-is-what-you-print color-matching as well as Photoshop can (which is pretty damn good, but needs work), it will be a professional product. But I'm not exactly holding my breath, because, as Eegon says, "print is dead." Long live the Internet.
People who think Linux will never be able to compete with Windows until every damn niche market has been filled have forgotten what ordinary people do with computers. Average Joe Enduser (no offense) will probably never touch Maya in his entire life. I don't see why Linux needs a Maya clone. It's a niche - and free software may fill it one day. It may never be filled. Until it is, most people won't give a jot if some freedom-loving hacker making Lego movies has to suffer with POVray. In fact, most hackers probably don't care already . . .
After letting my non-technical friends test-drive some Linux software, they wanted Linux. They love ee (electriceyes), gimp, logjam, and Mozilla - because they see these programs as better at doing what ordinary people need to do. In two weeks, I'll be putting Linux on their machines just so they can use these four programs. And that's all I have to say about that.
suse 8.1
When you spout all you reasons why people should abandon Windows, your main points are typically 1) it's a quality program, and 2) it's very secure.
OK, fine. But when those same people point out that the apps aren't up to par with Windows offerings, you mumble something about them not having to be top notch, just "good enough". Huh? So now Joe User doesn't deserve quality apps? Wow, when people say that the Windows platform is "good enough", you scoff at this, but you don't hesitate to apply it when talking about Windows apps. THAT, my hypocritical friend" is why people laugh at zealots, and spit on them in the street. For all the moral outrage they throw at the MS camp, they are the equal in hypocrisy.
Don't throw rocks when you live in a glass house.
Anyway, OSX is a better platform. Apple/NeXT did Unix right. This is what happens when REAL PROFESSIONALS write code, not pale faced hobbyists. In fact, I advise YOU to ditch Linux, and move over to Apple.
That is exactly what I said, except you took it to be me complaining. I was mearly stating the obvious, and you just backed up what I said:
The people driving the development aren't working toward a standard distro.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yes, I could have opened Mozilla, or Konquerer, and looked up:
"Labtec optical mouse scroll wheel in Mandrake 9.0"
I'm sure it would have burst forth with information!
Now if they'd included that little information in the scree with the mouse drivers, then I would have known to restart X, however the hell I do that using the GUI?!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
What part of... ./configure
$
$ su
# make
# make install
don't you understand?
Installing from source is dead easy on Mandrake 9. Everything you need is right there out of the box. Yeah, it means popping open a console, but once you get past the initial fear factor it's not a problem. Occasionally when you are dealing with Windows you have to open up a command.com or cmd.exe window...it's not the end of the world.
Use the Source, Luke! Or Tubabeat, whatever...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
It's very interesting reading all of the comments about standard installers, standard GUIs etc. I think that all of these things are good, but then I'm not sure that one GUI or one Installer is the answer here, I think that it's having a good GUI or installer. Clearly Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are all different, but all popular in their own way - so complete standardisation in tools is not the whole answer.
There is one area, however, that these commercial Unixes have, that perception says that Linux has not got - good support. Note that I say perception - I think that Linux does have good support, both from the community and from a growing number of commercial firms. This is where standardisation comes in. Clearly if you are a roll-your-sleeves up type of Linux user, you will get your support from the community - in this case standardisation matters not one jot. As long as you can get what you want done - great! But, we are seeing a growing number of commercial organisations going for Linux. And they want the same support as they get for the Sun, HP and IBM boxes - ie. from a commercial support organisation. How do these organisations support multiple different distros, each with their own foibles - Answer: they don't. They standardise on maybe one or two - and they get their customers to go with those.
That's what UnitedLinux (and indeed Red Hat Advanced Server) is all about - supportability for commercial enterprises who would prefer to use commercial support organisations.
So - let's keep all of the amazing work happening - let's see new desktops, new tools. But let's also accept that some users will want standardisation, this is a natural consequence of mainstream adoption.
As long as we are not all forced into a one-size-fits-all situation (which the GPL pretty well guarantees won't happen) let those who want to create standards do so, it is the best sign yet that Linux is mainstream. And for those that don't want to use those standards - don't! - carry on innovating, making GNU and Linux better - you are creating the potential future standards.
You should never HAVE to install anything from source, or even open a console to install an app. Being ABLE to do is great, it's one of the great poweruser functions. The source is open for you to tweak or compile in customized ways. That you often have to do so just to make it work, is one of the greatest problems with a linux system.
Does anyone else find it funny when ACs beg the moderators not to mod them down?
I am making a CRM program for my own company because i need one and its fun (programing is)!
This is what i believe many developers do, make a program they need and release it under GPL to give something back.
"desktop users really want" And about this, I think most developers don't care! Most developers make what they need and not what Joe user wants. If Joe wants to pay me to make a program the way he wants it great! if not I hope he likes my program the way I want it.
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
Ok. First of all I am no Linux master, in fact I'm still learning it so please bear with my ignorance should I be completely whacked.
I have used Microsoft's products since DOS 5.0. I have been quite pleased at all of the OS's usability and somewhat stability. Yes, there were times where I nearly had a coronary with Win 3.11 or 95, but since W2k and XP most medical threats have been removed.
I use gentoo at the moment. I have been through many incarnations of Red Hat (6.0 - 7.3), suse (6.0 - 8.0), mandrake (since its inception), debian (woody), and gentoo 1.4rc1. I enjoyed each distribution's additions to the OS world and have ranted against their failures as well. Gentoo and Debian imho have pretty much the best installation packages out there in ease of use and 'brainlessness'. just type emerge or apt-get and voila, you're done. Much like Microsoft's installer. I believe this is a Good Thing (tm).
However, one post mentioned the use of Windows registery-like usage and like most, I believe this is a horrible idea.
Linux is fun to use because theres so much stuff you can do with it, and when you break it you learn more (than you ever wanted to ;). I have re-installed gentoo about 25+ times (some consecutively) because I played around and tried to tweak the system to MY needs. Everytime I try to do that with windows, it takes either too long or windows refuses to cater to my needs.
However, I agree that windows is both a kernel and a gui. I use fluxbox for my gui because I prefer to keep my system lean and fast, not bloated with excessive crap. If windows could install a bare minimum OS that was tailored to MY system, that would kick ass, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. This brings me to another point. The gui choices of Linux may be intimidating and/or sickeningly much for some, but to each his own, right? Some prefer the guiness of KDE or GNOME, others the stoic blackbox, some dont even have guis installed. Having a gui is upto the person to choose, and choosing WHICH gui makes the beauty of Linux and OSS shine.
Granted, such 'behavior' would not cause people to flock to linux in droves anytime soon, but it sure as hell got me.
UnitedLinux has a choice here in the whole do-as-you-like attitude (bad choice of words, sorry) that the OSS community has. But its that attitude that has made Linux and OSS so damn good.
It's that freedom that allows many people to be comfortable in the OSS community.
Standardization should happen, but not globally. I believe certain libraries and functions should be standardized. Which ones I have no idea, because I'm not that advanced yet.
To end my sensless rambling, as I'm sure you all are getting tired of this, use what works, give the programmers input on how YOU would like stuff to work and maybe after the process of elimination and a few evolutionary steps Linux and OSS will come out, if not the winner, a damn solid alternative that any can go for.
- SHPQ
Ah, if it were only that easy.
I use to get so frustrated with Mandrake because things that would compile fine on Redhat using just the commands that you gave would bomb on Mandrake.
But at any rate the average user shouldn't have to compile anything. Most computer users just want there computer to work without jumping through any hoops.
I know my way around a computer pretty well but even I reach a point where I want to stop configuring my system and just use it. A non-geek starts off just wanting everything to work.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The replies to this article are such a joke. The truth is that open source has too many damn standards. There's always 50 different programs that do the same stupid thing like read your fucking e-mail. Why? Because most developers are too lazy to learn someone else's code - they'd much rather start from scratch - a sign of crap developers. If the community were truly united, then there would be a unified API/framework.
I understand, and regularly use all of the above. I'm quite comfortable compiling from source & I have no 'fear' of the console - in fact I prefer the console. But my point was in relation to 'standardisation' (The subject of the article!) that the standardisation of a package management system doesn't work unless the packages themselves have standard names.
...that I don't understand is how it relates to my post about difficulty installing a PERL program.
Unless we have a way of managing binary packages which works with all packages on all [binary] distributions and developers can rely on producing one rpm (or deb or whatever) that can be easily installed on all mainstream distros then we do not have standardisation
P.S. The part of... $./configure $ su # make # make install
"Linux is a serious competitor"
- Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Microsoft Corp.
They have systems they have to reboot every sixteen minutes
My XP box doesn't seem to need rebooting any more than the 2 linux ones... FUD like this has no place in a serious article, especially when the *nix using community is trying to achieve some sort of credability here.
And yes, I agree with the above. I drive a Vauxhall Corsa. It's a car normally owned by old ladies with blue rinse hair. I'm not united like them, I have one for my own entirely seperate reasons.
%systemroot%
regardless of where you actually put it.
My background.
:)
:)
I'm your average semi-competent geek. I've used various machines for 16 of my 22 years. I've used every windows since 3, amiga, spectrum, you name it.
Yet Linux confuses me.
I like bits. With a tiny bit of help with the hell that is the samba server config I have a linux machine in my cupboard which sits there happily indefinately performing that function. I admin everything via SSH/Webmin.
Joy.
But. SOME sort of sensible config file structure, or more GUI bits would be great. Without borrowing someone else's and having help, setting up a samba server that needs no authorisation whatsoever would have been HELL. I couldn't get it working.
The common GUI isn't so much of an issue. I happen to use KDE because it works. briefly stared at enlightment, got confused.
What IS an issue is installing. apt-get upgrade is superb but it's never entirely obvious where things are going. Even if there's no choice a little explanationary dialog saying "I've put this here. Start it this way" is great.
Other thing, auto hardware detection. Everyone should use knoppix for this
I don't think this has *anything* to do with Linus or the Kernel. It has to do with userland. And, who the hell cares what desktop GUI I am using?
/etc. The startup scripts are in /etc/rc.d (except for HP(s)UX, where for some strange reason a lot of the startup stuff is in /sbin).
/usr/lib... not /lib, or someplace else. or if they do move, lets get a consensus on it. local packages in /usr/local? regardless of where things go, they should go in a *standard* place across *all* distributions. It, at least, makes life as a sysadmin of multiple OS's much easier.
No, this has to do with the basics... everyone in the *NIX world knows that the hosts file and group file are in
so, where is a standard "pkg_add" command? apt_get, rpm's... c'mon, standardize on something. libraries...
Freedom without guidance is worse than worthless, it's bewildering. What good is 100 choices if I don't know what the best one is? Microsoft is a dictatorship, truely, but guess what: DICTATORSHIPS ARE EFFICIENT! Unity of purpose is *EFFICIENT*! If the democracy of Linux can't get over the "a bunch of squabbling microdictatorships" stage then then IT WILL BE EATEN. Microsoft is just a "Redhat Linux with Gnome" that got in early in the game. Their behavior is no more or less ethical or "community minded" than any other individual that refuses to play community member. So, little ferretlemming, you want to beat the dinosaur? Extricate yourself from the myopic clench that characterizes the typical geek mind-state and: Develop a user interface standard. Develop an installer standard. Develop a community standard (why not? group-of-people-organizer with personal interface). Not an arbititrary form to be imposed but a better form to be revealed and adopted because of it's betterness.
nuts.
I know enough Unix to get me around (and into trouble). I haven't used much the last couple of years, but now I have to get back into it. Fine.
I installed Coherent on my PC back in uni days. In 95 I had difficulty installing Linux until a sys admin told me to skip the "check for bad blocks" step. I ran Redhat 4.x and 5.x without much problem, as well as using Solaris.
Just recently I went to install Redhat 7.3 onto a 20 gig partition, I wanted a developers install with basically everything. I had the official CDs, I could get a good base install, no problem, but with everything, it asked for CD3, but could not recognise it. There was no graceful regression. The only option was to hit the reset button and loose your bootup.
Much the same with Mandrake 9.0 if I wanted everything, after installing from CD1 and 2, it asked for the next CD? There was only 2 with the official distribution, and neither of these were what it wanted.
With some help from a friend, I installed Debian Woody, because I always got stuck in the "dselect" menu, which was completely foreign to the rest of the install gui, both in UI and logic. After getting an install, and finally starting x, I took it home. Then I find that I can only login as an account user and have to use "su" to login as root, which I must also do to shutdown. Not only that, but when I use apt-get to install php4 apacheconfig comments out the php module. I could not understand why certain important CPAN modules were missing and others installed. Why did that not come with a base Woody install, there's 7 CDs? The Gnome help could not find the TOCs.
The other thing is, up until the last few years, I could get old Unix sys admin manuals and file and directory locations would pretty much correspond to those documents (Essential Systems Administration, Unix Systems Administration Handbook, etc). Now with each distro, these locations could be anywhere. Debian Woody did not even install with cgi-bin directory in the web server directory. Even the group names are non standard.
This is what is loosing a lot of people who'd like to move to Linux. Basically, they just want a desktop that runs and installs okay, Linux is getting there, but any further, running daemons and wanting to do more, it gets difficult, because even standard Unix documents people refer to, do not apply anymore. Why did so many of the basics have to change and bring into existence all these inconsistencies?
I'm associated with a small rural Linux user group, and if it wasn't for their sense of humour, we'd have all gone mad. Why should any of us have to learn a whole different architecture for each distro? There are a lot of other things I have encountered recently. I'm willing to preserver because I need a Linux system at present, but most other users rightly are not.
I know there are answers to all these things, but it does not address the basic needs of someone whose approach to using Linux is primarily productivity. They do not want to have to piss around with all these shortfalls, they just want to get up and running, use workable install processes, without the constant need for editing configuration files with a text editor. And to have distros that do comply to standards so that knowing one Unix based system means knowing them all. The lack of that frustrates those users who want to use Linux, but don't want ot spend the hours of their days problem solving Linux OS problems and inconsistencies. I am also sensing from some areas that those who want the Unix features in a friendly, standards based and documented enviroment are seriously considering MacOSX.
"I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any
questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the
speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?
He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work
for him then.
-- Steven Wright
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