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Linux to Become #2 on the Desktop?
DiZASTiX writes "An article from Zdnet says Linux on the desktop has become a reality. It is now possible, for example, to buy a Linux-based PC (running LindowsOS) from Evesham. In the United States, Wal-Mart sells machines based on Lindows, Mandrake Linux and others. But though Linux may have its foot in the door, taking the next step to becoming a mainstream success is proving a more difficult proposition."
Both EDS and IBM provide 24x7 support for Linux machines sold by them. When are people going to get a clue about this?
My journal has hot
Uhhhh no. Linux and Windows run on desktop computers, but you need to buy a macintosh to run MacOS. Think about it. There are a multitude of options for desktops machines, but Windows first, Linux second, and perhaps OS/2 or something way down the list. Geeks, such as you and I, read desktop computer and immediately come up with an image of what this could and could not include. However, ZDnet is not written for geeks, it is written for (perhaps the geekier side) of the general public. Hence, when they use the term desktop computer, they are referencing a simpler definition, that includes Macintoshes. The main idea in the article is that Linux is surpassing Mac OS in popularity, which is still important, even if they don't use terms the way we would like to hear them. Think about it.
People who want a UNIX desktop but still want to run Photoshop, Quicken, Office, etc.? MacOS X can.
I'm actually an advocate of linux on the desktop (yes I am) and it seems those points you mentionned don't make much sense, here's why.
:)
- Linux GUIs are faster and faster at each version. Gnome2 for example was totally re-coded with performance in mind and behaves much better now, KDE 3.1 (still a release candidate but still) on this box is working SO much faster than XP did on the SAME box !
- Since I've been running linux on my desktop, I have not yet had one problem reading any PPT, DOC, etc... documents... not once... sorry. And I get a lot of ppt and doc files sent to me daily
- I have had problems with some applications, contacted the mailing list, and the solution was sent to me a few minutes later... no RTFM.
- I use Evolution for my email/calendar/tasklist/contact management stuff, it has everything I could ever use and more... I have used kmail in the past, I've never had any real problem with it.
- Recent linux distributions based on more recent and less backward-compatible glibc usually have some kind of package management system that will not only save you from searching on freshmeat, but also install directly the application for you.
emerge gnucash
apt-get install gnucash
synaptic->gnucash
and so on... You have now installed the latest version of an excellent financial software, which, may I add, will read files from other windows software like Quickbook or Quicken without a glitch
- I use daily applications for all my needs, none of them are poorly written at all. licq is stable as a rock, xmms plays music just perfectly, evolution still handles my emails (without a virus or worm or anything like that infesting my computer), mozilla works like a charm and KDE 3.1 is just a dream. Although all those applications work in a much superior fashion than equivalent applications on windows, they ARE skinnable indeed
- Companies such as the Kompany, RedHat, Suse, etc... actually DO have some marketing people that make your desktop look just like you want it to look like as a user and to behave.
My desktop right now looks simply amazing, yet is really fast and everything is at hand. My girlfriend uses it every time she comes, all my friends really love the way it's set up and even my mom used it and didn't have a problem doing everything she needed to do.
- and for the support thing, companies like Suse, RedHat, Mandrake, etc... DO offer commercial (cheap) support for pretty much all the applications shipped with their distributions, in fact, and I speak from experience, these companies go way beyond that by helping out users with applications not "officially" supported, and also collect bug-reports and offer patches to the original developer of the software to fix the problem for them (http://www.redhat.com/bugzilla) for example.
- Whoever wrote that has NO idea of how much a business license for Microsoft Windows costs... it's not even close to $200. Tell this person to add many zeros to that number.
I think linux is still very young on the desktop OS market but it's doing a great job and I'm very impressed by how fast it's moving forward... KDE, Gnome, Evolution, OpenOffice, etc... all these software are working on a new development version right now that's purely amazing... I can't wait to see what it will be like by the end of the year 2003 !
MPlayer is awesome. I guarantee it can play every single video file you have on your computer right now, and every one you're likely to come across surfing the web. When did you last try it? Yes, it supports Sorenson now. And WMV. And Real. And DivX. All out-of-the-box, all in one player, with no DRM, auto-updaters, horrible licenses, or advertisements.
Star/OpenOffice opens Microsoft Office documents perfectly. Other open-source office efforts are leveraging this code to produce their own document filters.
Cutting-edge games are still a problem. But there are lots of people who don't play games on their computers other than Solitaire and Space Cadet Pinball. And computer games are becoming less relevant as consoles become more and more powerful.
I'd say the Linux desktop's time is near. The pieces are falling into place.
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