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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."
There already is a Unix variant in the number two slot, and its called Mac OS.
What else would be number 2 on the desktop? It is hard to install OS X on "desktop" computers, and we already know what is number 1.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
As long as people consider XWindows (XFree86) to be a viable desktop interface, I think Linux will stand no chance of dethroning Windows or even OS X. I think #2 is a pipe dream, in short. Number 3 could be attainable. As an OS, Linux is fine. I'd use it on a server. I just happen to prefer Windows XP on my desktop.
Are people (besides the Distros) actually pushing for Linux on the desktop? I know if it becomes mainstream the distros will have huge revenue streams but does everyone else think it is so critical? I am just saying that I have noticed a lot of media attention bringing this up, not so much by regular people though. I should mention I don't use windows on any of the machines I own; I use Linux and OpenBSD.
Careless aggression of marketing put Microsoft where there are today.
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
Linux won't get widespread third part software support (games, educational software, bundled device drivers, turbotax, etc) until it becomes #2. Why? Simple: There's Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and everybody else. Name the #3 cola. Anybody?
Most people look at the computer world the same way. You support the #1 platform, and maybe the #2 "to be diverse", and everybody else can go hang. It's _hard_ to make a business case to support anybody else, it's a case of diminishing returns with each new platform and the slope is STEEP.
The macintosh has been #2 since the mid 80's. Platforms like the amiga and OS/2 learned this. Pure java only got attention because it ran on Windows too. Even when the macintosh wasn't particularly significant (just before Steve Jobs came back), people were used to THINKING of it as #2, and targetting their retail software developent and hardware driver support that way. It will come as a surprise to a lot of people when it loses that spot. Confirming it will be news, and not just in the geek world but magazine covers and television evening news.
Now these days, the macintosh is a unix platform. If the mac loses its #2 position on the desktop, Jobs will just claim "we're unix, #2 is unix and that's us". Okay. Jobs does NOT want to give up the marketing advantage of being the "designated alternative", but WHEN the macintosh loses the #2 spot, he may be graceful about it since he does have a fallback marketing position. (You may have notice that on the tech side, he's trying to diversify into the server space.)
But right now, porting to linux without first porting to the macintosh is a really hard sell in a corporate environment, and after the mac port you have to sell linux AGAIN. (P.S. Try doing that sort of thing in the gaming environment, where windows as #2 to the playstation.)
Rob
(P.S. The "desktop" niche is dying, the laptop niche is what everybody should be worrying about. And apple's still doing REALLY nicely there...)
The simple fact is that X-Windows was never intended to do what we expect it to do these days. It was not designed to be an end-user desktop. While it does have neat abilities, like being able to access workstations across a network, end users don't care about those. End users care about the desktop being fast and responsive. Two things that X-Windows is not. X-Windows also knocks the claim that Linux needs less processor power and RAM than MS Windows right into the dirt.
Before Joe Sixpack will use Linux there needs to be a standardization of the UI. A standard that ALL graphical programs adhere to. No if ands or buts. One standard. While the myriad of widgets and environments give power users and geeks the freedom to tweak their systems or programs enay way they want, all of this "choice" just confuses the hell out of the end user. While MS Windows might not be completely consistant, it is enough that the average user can get used to it. Almost every Windows program (save for those nightmares with skins) look and act like Windows, in a manner that most users expect.
Yes, this means that either KDE or Gnome will have to die. End users don't want to have to chose what UI they use. They want one interface they can learn and be done with it.
No end user wants to edit text files. Nor should they EVER have to. This is 2003, not 1975. The days of rooting through a confusing mess of directories for boot scripts is (or should be) over.
No end user wants to compile anything. Ever. Sure, power users and old-hand Linux users might enjoy it, but they are not the people we are concerned with. Until a MS Windows user can effortlessly install ANY program with just a few mouse clicks they are going to stay away.
End Users do not care about running FTP servers and web serves from their desktops. Why bog down a system with all these useless processes they are not ever going to use, and that leave these system more vulnerable than a Windows 2000 system?
Nothing, but nothing turns off a potential Linux convert than having to dig through piles of posts, to Usenet or forums like
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
They want money, moolah, cash, the greenbacks, dinero, Benjamins. And they want a lot of it. The Zealots(TM) have a hard time springing for wash day money, as it is. What makes you think they'll want to make Big Blue even richer?
What strange law has been passed lately that mandates MS Windows as the OS for all computers sold? When linux picks up steam on the desktop to it will start being preloaded from the bigger computer vendors to. They dont make any money off of MS Windows so they couldnt care less what OS is preloaded.
IE a killer app, of what, security? There are plenty of browsers now that has gotten way ahead in features, adherance to standards and functioning. IE is actually lagging behind right now.
Office is something that most people use to write letters and occasionally some spreadsheets. Its overkill in 90% of the userbase. Most people could cope with notepad if they could just read what other sent them in doc format. Being able to read other peoples Office documents is the number one reason people use Office.
Open Office and a bunch of other replacements exists already and more is coming this way fast. The browser is perfect now in linux, next stop Office Applications!
HTTP/1.1 400
As for how easy the operating system is to use for the standard home user, that can be debated rather easily, and again, if you worked IT and actually dealt with this stuff, then you would already know everything that I was about to say. It isn't easier, it is more famailar. You're stupid, congrats.
Last time I checked, most macs still fit on a desk. You might be confusing 'desktop' and 'PC.'
Ewige Blumenkraft.
*yawns*
Dude, the X Window System gets better frame rates than MS Windows on Quake. Do you even know what latency is?
I have been running a Dual Celeron with Linux for 3 years now and the whole desktop screams. I run the screen at 1280x1024, 24 bit color on a Voodoo 4500 video card and it screams. Applications pop up onto the screen as soon as I click the mouse button to call them up. I can grab a window playing video and wave it around and around the screen without leaving any artifacts, while on windows, picking up a notepad and moving it around leaves tracks that take a second to disappear. Even if nothing else is accessing the hard drive or processor.
The X Window System framework was designed back in the late 80's as a powerful, extensible system of presenting colored dots to the end user in a network transparent way. The X Window System we have today has grown and adopted all the modern features of any window system. It is still the only game in town for network transparent desktops.
The best way to manage more than 1 computer is to use thin clients running X window and use a single machine as the application server. Buy pentium 200 machines from a surplus store for $25 and have them connect to the main server running XDM. You can easily connect 20 X terminals up to a 100MB switch and run a copy of Mozilla, Gimp, and Open Office and a dozen other apps on each desktop without a problem. If the server was a dual Athlon with 2 GB of RAM it could easily support a hundred users. And all this while the one server box also ran a web server, a database and automated scripts did the end of month calculations in the background.
So, lets see, I spend $12,000 for all the hardware and software to support 100 users and only have to ever replace the hardware when it breaks, and when a desktop machine does break it takes 5 minutes to replace and while a persons machine was down they could have just logged into another terminal.
Compared to... I have to pay $100 a year for each desktop just for the software and it takes a $600 computer to do the work. Plus I need a seperate server for the web server and the database and the domain server and the backup domain server and each of those needs 1 user license per person that is going to access them. Call that another $10 per person per year. And all the Hardware has to be replaced every 5 years so we can keep running MS's latest and greatest. Call that $12,000 per year forever... and I was being nice. Not to mention the backups, software installation on each machine, the viruses, the down time when a persons machine goes down, and license hassles that being a microsoft shop entails.
I figure that it is at least 5 times more expensive being an MS shop than a Linux shop for hardware and software and it is twice as expensive to hire people to support Windows boxes.
Microsoft earned its monopoly in the BUSINESS world, not the CONSUMER world. I just started working for a chemical company that relies entirely on Micro$oft for EVERYTHING. THAT is all anyone knows! People are paid to process forms, move information around, order supplies, write memos, calculate financials, and doing minor calculations using Micro$oft Excel. These people don't have a choice in using what they want, they are TOLD "You use this to get the job done, and you'll like it!" At the end of the day, they go home to the family and little johnny and sally want help with a report for school. Well, you think, all I know is M$ Office so I'll go steal M$ Office from work and install it on my computer and use THAT to get the report done. The average person don't give a flying duck WHAT they use to get the job done, as long as it just works, which has been the current state of affairs in the PC world every since Bill Gates of Borg introduced Windows 9X/Me/2000/XP. People get used to what they SEE AT WORK and they don't want to change. Certain nuances of a program get "standardized". There is no telling these people Linux is better, or Mac OS X is better. The only thing they KNOW is Micro$oft, however evil it is, people don't have time (they have lives, families, multiple jobs) to learn something new. To them it's like using a complicated appliance and M$ has them bullshitted into thinking that their entire WORLD will come crumbling down around them if they go with some other OS or Office program. Better not use that, you won't be able to read [insert favorite document type here]. Another example, my mother went and bought a Hewlett Packard PC with Windows XP on it; SHE HATES IT ALREADY, but it's the ONLY THING SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE.
Linux is a great OS, stable as hell, ditto for Mac OS X. What Linux needs to offer that is not available in other operating systems is a user interface that is completely comfingurable from an idiots perspective. Average Joe Smith and Jane Doe are not going to mess around in emacs and writing config files. The operating system should have user interfaces that take advantage of the profession in which it's being used. For business people, use more icons for drag and drop, for science nerds and geeks, use the command line. Mac OS X goes in this direction but one can't really modify the UI that much, you're still locked into Apple's Aqua. There have to be psychological studies of how people in certain professions process information. Building a user interface on top of or rebuilding the desktop is a good start. What I'm getting at is that the user should be able to create a UI that works best for them, just like we all saw in Star Trek TNG on the bridge at the LCARS stations; they were specific to who was working at them. Build a Linux operating system that comes with KDE, Gnome, Business GUI Standard 1, Business GUI Standard 2, Engineering Standard 1, Chemistry Standard 2, you get the idea. It all comes down to making a GUI to run on top of the operating system. The work still gets done, it's just that the UI is optimized for the person using the computer at that time. When THIS ALONE will improve worker efficiency and increase profits for companies by decreasing dependence on M$ and better worker performance, then M$ will be dethroned.
I'm not a huge advocate of Linux on the desktop (yet)
I want to be, but I can't (yet). [grin]
Here's the problem:
To put Linux on the desktop, we're asking them to give up the comfort, familiarity and applications of Windows. For what benefits?
Poor applications. Quoting an e-mail I received: "But a lot of it - and mainly the GUI stuff - is still lagging behind, being a slower and buggier version of a half-decent program on Windows. And priorities are wonderful - when we build a GUI application, the most important thing is that it's skinnable. Bugs? Features? Competition? Who cares?! It's skinnable!"
The same writer continues... "And for the biggest question: Mr. Rupert wants a financial software for Linux (his son installed it for him). So he calls his son over to install a simple financial software - just something which can calculate his loan repayments. His son opens google (or freshmeat), and finds 31 financial programs. Each has a different set of features, of course. He downloads and compiles each of them (ah, yes, the rpm was compiled using an ancient glibc version, and no, Mr. Rupert doesn't know what glibc is). The only two candidates which could actually be compiled (and didn't require libobscure.so.2) and actually have this option in their ugly programmer-designed-GUI menus die as soon as you choose the option. That's right - the operating system is stable as a rock, but the programs die immediately. What's Mr. Rupert going to use? hmm.... Maybe a respectable program from a respectable company (on Windows, of course).
But wait! John Rupert (the little 15 year old) can program - he's got some C tutorials, and he's written a few small programs. Why can't he write the program for his father? And the 32nd version is on its way."
We need to work on this stuff. Linux still isn't ready for the desktop.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
If you want to see the success of alternative OSes, don't push for linux on the desktop - push for open standards and cross platform programs. Right now, I can sit down at a linux machine or a windows machine, and use Open Office, Mozilla, the Gimp, Blender, and a ton of other programs. That is good.
I don't want to be tied to Microsoft. That doesn't mean I want to be tied to Linux either. (Although Linux would be a gentler master then windows). I prefer to have applications divorced from the data files which are divorced from the underlying OS. I don't want YetAnotherAudioApp that has its own enhanced file format that isn't cross platform. I want mp3s, I want oggs. I don't want to save my work in the unknown Microsoft Office whatever .doc format. Hell, I don't really like saving it in Open Office's .sxw really, but I know if its in .sxw, I could figure out the file format without too much difficulty, and at least Open Office is cross platform.
If you don't keep data in proprietary formats, its harder to get screwed in the long run.
If you look at the successful OS's (even though some of them eventually died) their appeal was a specific advantage a particular platform (hardware/OS combination) that could be EASILY demonstrated to the average person
The Amiga had graphics and great multitasking. The Mac had/has desktop publishing and a windowing system that was/is easy for the average user. The PC was/is cheap and software was/is plentiful.
In order for LINUX to to become a true desktop contendor, there has to be some application that makes people WANT to buy a LINUX system. This application's appeal must in some way do something that Windows cannot do or do well but that LINUX can do well.
Example, I bought an Amiga way back because the PC (hardware and OS) COULD'NT do what it could do. Even my mother was amazed at the time. Another example was with the MAC, the PC COULD'NT do desktop publishing (well...not nearly as well) as due to the way the OS was designed (interface and all).
Bottom line. Somebody needs to think of GNU/LINUX's REAL advantages and make a killer app that uses those SPECFIC advantages. Then when and if it's a success, people will WANT to use GNU/LINUX just for the use of the app. Then it snowballs from there.
These never were the goals, and they will never be the goals. Posting articles like this makes it look like this is some kind of war, which it is not. Who the hell cares if M$ owns the desktop? The point is not to be #1, it is to make good, free (as in speech) software, for the sake of making it. It is an artistic endeavor, not a business endeavor, or haven't you all even looked at gnu.org? As long as there are artists, there will be an audience that wants to see what is being created. And, beyond that, there is the joy of creating. All of this talk of an OS battle completely misses the point.
B
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
Windows "comfort"? What Windows "comfort"?
Every time I have installed a Microsoft operating system, I have had to start a mad search through my whole room, look under my bed, behind books, in the bread box for those stupid device driver CDs that the hardware makers ship for Windows, because Windows won't support the hardware out of the box. All I get is "new hardware found" and have to screw around with installing it by hand. And if I happen to have thrown out that CD by some stroke of bad luck, then I have to spend hours on the Internet to find a site that will let me download the driver without having to a) register or b) pay or c) both. Is this what you call comfort?
With SuSE at least (can't speak for the other distributions), I put the DVD in the machine, boot it, and -- presto! -- it just installs stuff (big and annoying exception: nVidia drivers, because the company is too elite to let SuSE include them. Guess why I switched to ATI). No extra CDs, no getting out the Windows CD again, and no reboots. Now, you could say that reinstalling the OS is a rare thing, except that Microsoft's new plan is to force me to keep upgrading and upgrading and upgrading every few years -- again, is this what you call "comfort"?
The idea that Linux is harder to install than Windows has reached the status of an urban legend (or Microsoft FUD) -- this is 2003, not 1997.
Yes. At least Xine (and thereby everything that uses Xinelib, like Totem) supports menus just fine.
I don't mean to sound sanctimonious or patronising, but I have to say that my immediate thought on reading this was "You're learning".
I really fail to see why so many people seem to care so much about whether or not "mainstream users" are using Linux on their PCs. As long as it works for you, and you can get done what you need to get done, why worry?
I use Linux (curently Mandrake 9) exclusively at work. I do have XP installed under VMWare, but hardly ever use it. I'm a Java programmer, writing server-side code for websites, and so have no need for Windows; Linux does everything I need. For those few doc files that OpenOffice can't handle, I have VMWare & XP.
At home, I recently bought (yes, bought) a copy of XP Pro. That's because I play a lot of games, and until I can walk into a shop and buy any game I want knowing that it'll work under Linux, I "need" Windows.
I used to care deeply about getting people to use Linux, especially my fellow programmers (I was the first non-sysadmin at my company to install Linux on their PC, having finally gotten the go-ahead from management). Over time, though, I came to realise that it really doesn't matter.
There are enough people passionate enough about Linux that I need not worry about it dying out any time soon. All the hardware I need to use is supported, and I can get development tools for most languages for it (even C# is being worked on!). Why should I care how many people I've never met and never will have any contact with are using it?
The right tool for the right job, but also, the right tool for the right person.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I noticed:
technology searches:
3. linux
but only:
9. microsoft
perhaps we are gaining.
I totally agree. I use Linux on my desktop for over 5 years now and it works perfect for me, but that's a personal opinion and depends on the things that I do with computers.
Over the past 2 years the desktop has become a lot better and in some area even a lot better than the windows desktop to my opinion.
Perhaps for some people there's a lack on major application like Adobe Photoshop(etc...), but certainly when judging the OS by itself it works magnificent I believe.
Many windows users I know are still on win98 and don't like to upgrade to later versions because their old hardware isn't supported in XP or it's simply too expensive they feel. So for those users I'd have to compare the current Linux desktop with win98 and I would certainly say that Linux would be a clear winner.
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 [computeruser.com], that includes Macintoshes.
My idea of a desktop computer would include a Macintosh too. What is this other definition some people are supposedly using?