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."

Comments

It's a good start though ...

[airrage]

I'm not a huge advocate of Linux on the desktop (yet), but the server side, while HP-UX rules my world currently, a SIMILAR product without the cost is attractive. Of corporation's want 24-7 support framed like HP, EDS, or IBM.

Re:It's a good start though ...

[0x0d0a]

Are people (besides the Distros) actually pushing for Linux on the desktop?

I'm coming to not care whether the public decides that Linux is a "desktop OS" or not. It's working wonderfully as a desktop OS for me. :-)

Re:It's a good start though ...

[Trolling4Dollars]

This is a good point. I am a huge fan of Linux since it's saved me a lot of money at home and allowed me to spend money where it counts: hardware. But I have to say that the number of people who actually know about Linux or are using it seems to be very small in my area (Cleveland Ohio).

It's actually surprised me how little interest there seems to be among the more knowlegable of my IT peers. The lack of interest ranges from "It's not as secure/robust/logical as OpenVMS, Windows NT, real Unix, etc..." to "Yeah, it's cool and all... but I just don't have the time to learn everything you need to know".

As far as my non-IT computer literate friends, their interest ranges from "Linux? What's that? Does it run under Windows XP?" to "I've heard about it, but if it doesn't run KillerApp 8.0, it doesn't do me much good".

To be honest I don't really have any friends that are interested in Linux since I don't really know anyone who is as "into computers" as I am. I think it really comes down to the kind of person you are. I admit, my friends and family have experience with using Linux, but only through me. If they didn't know me, they wouldn't know anything about Linux.

The thing that I fear the most is that a lot of the publicity to "Joe User" could actually backfire. Imagine if Linux is touted in newspapers and magazines as the "Next Great Thing" and people go out and get machines with Linux that are poorly configured, insecure and on poor/cheap hardware. Then these people get pissed off and start spreading horror stories about their experience with Linux. It could happen no matter how well the systems are configured since Joe User tends to gravitate towards the "latest and greatest" hardware which isn't always well supported in Linux. When he plugs in his digital camera and nothing happens, it's going to make a bad impression.

Keep in mind that I am not saying that Linux is bad for the desktop, but I am saying that it's probably about the same as non-OEM Windows 2000 Pro installation for a generic user. It requires more knowledge than the average user has. At the moment, that could make Linux look bad to the average user. Something like Lindows on a Wal-Mart PC along with some caveats about what might NOT work would be OK. But, Joe Average might be more likely to go to Circuit City and buy a RedHat 8 CD-ROM and then get pissed off when they don't get it to work.

RedHat 8 has a great look, very well laid out menu system, task oriented/integrated interface and is very nice in general, but it has a lot of problems for some systems too: Lockups with certain IDE chipsets, memory leaks in the gnome-panel and gnome-terminal, problems with the Package Manager, etc... In fact CD-ROM 2 has failed for almost everyone I know when trying to install certain programs. Any average user who gives this a first try as an install is going to be very angry and this would be bad for Linux on the desktop in general.

What to do? Sorry... but I don't have an answer. It still seems to me that one of the problems in making a "Linux for the desktop" distro is that a lot of us (Linux users/developers) are so far removed from the average user that we can't see all of the things that could be stumbling blocks. It's hard to sit back and remember the days when you didn't know what formatting a disk was. But that might be what's required. Maybe a sit down with your friends and family to find out what they might not like about computers in general (to know what to alleviate in Linux) might help too.

Re:X-Windows ... eww, smelly

[zulux]

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.

'XWindows' isn't a desktop interface, it's a networkable cliet-server graphical display and input technology. KDE and Gnome (amung others) build upon the X Windows System to proveide a GUI.

I just happen to prefer Windows XP on my desktop.

Me too, I happen to prefer Windows XP on your desktop.

Took Microsoft 8 years to own the desktop

[mikep.maine]

Microsoft copied Mac's GUI in 1984, but it wasn't until Windows 3.1 (in 1992 ?) that it was able to move users to it and own teh desktop. Back then, Lotus essentially owned it -- although they blew their strategic lead. Microsoft captured the desktop my making GUI, desktop manager, and desktop apps MSWord, Excel, ...

There's a good reason why Linux isn't #1 or #2.

[Dthoma]

As has been said many times before, Linux is not easier to use than Windows (I don't care what you say, it isn't), it doesn't run all of the latest games, and it's not compatible with as much hardware as Windows XP. It really is that simple.

I don't mean for this to come across as trollish; it's just that so many people here seem to want to dance around the issue of Linux's usability. I love Linux and it has many advantages over Windows, but its ease of use does leave a bit to be desired.

This is an exciting time

[wideBlueSkies]

Not just for LINUX advocates and users, but I think for the tech community in general.

Seeing those Lindows boxes at WaLMart kinda reminds me of the computing scene in the 80's. There were all kinds of different technologies coming out, and competing with each other. You could walk into any electronics store and find some brand of computer, peripherals and software for sale.

IMO It was a period of excitement and innovation. It felt good to me personally. There were so many choices to be made.

Open source, has that feeling of goodness about it. Change, innovation, choice.

What I'm trying to say is that this is the first time since the late 80's/early 90's that I feel good about consumer options for software.

It's only 1 OS on sale at 1 store, but it is a start. Hopefully other vendors will be brave enough to put together solutions, and stores will be brave enough to put them on the shelves.

I think it's time everyone stands up to the evil empire.

Sure, standardization was good. But monopolistic practices, forced licenses, security holes, bloated OS code, and applications is starting to suck. It's time to shake up the industry a little folks.

Accurately measuring linux usage

[hillct]

The article mentions in it's simplistic way that the 1.7% of machines sold with Linux preinstalled is not representitive of the true number of desktop computers running Linux, but there must be a reasonable method for determining the number of desktops running Linux in a non-invasive way.

Microsoft is able to at least count if not gather demographics for every desktop machine running Windows95 or above, regardless of whether it is licensed or not, through WindowsUpdate. Redhat is able to track usage of their distribution through their UpToDate software (which is becoming more invasive with every release) and other distributions include similar mechanisms, but there must be a reasonable way to gather overall usage statistics for Linux based desktops. It would be a worthwhile endevour, from a PR standpoint similar to the automobile manufacturers who take a loss on every sale of certain models in an effort to have that model garner the title of "Most popular car" of a certain class, for the simple PR benefit of being able to say that toy are the manufacturer of the most popular product in the marketplace.

Likewise, for Linuux, it is important to demonstrate increases in marketshare quarter over quarter in order to firmly demonstrate that the product (such as it is) remains a force to be reconed with.

For this reason it is important to be able to accurately measure the Linux desktop userbase. Systems like that of redhat, which require registration in order for the user to gain some other benefit (in this case convenient updates) seems somewhat draconiaf for the Linux crowd, but a system must be devised to allow for reasonable, varibiable notification of installation of a linux system (regardless of distribution) so that centralized statistics can be maintained for the simple purpose of combating the massive Microsoft PR juggernaut.

--CTH

Good enough for me

[digitalhermit]

I've always felt uncomfortable about the reports of Linux' demise on the desktop. At this moment I'm typing this on a RedHat 8.0 machine, using Mozilla. Three days ago I wrote a bunch of holiday letters in OpenOffice and read my mail in Evolution (though I normally use pine). Though I have no problems using a shell for any task, I was surprised to see that I rarely needed an Xterm.

The counter-argument is that I'm aware of the console utilities and don't represent the typical desktop user. OK, but I have my senior citizen parents, non-technical wife, and lots of kids using Linux without a second thought. For the most part, all of their computing needs for school and work are fulfilled by the RedHat system. The other thing that cannot be ignored is the price of this machine: ECS K7S5A MB + Athlon 1800XP, 40G HD, DVDROM, case, 256M memory all came to less than $400. This cost wouldn't be possible with a $190 Microsoft XP Home license.

DVDs play fine after a visit to freshrpms.net. MP3's work wonderfully and they sure seem to sound better than under Windows (largely because there are no pauses under Linux when the system does other stuff). OpenOffice's speed was an issue on my AMD K62/500. It's not noticeable on this 1.53g Athlon. The typical computer user spends the majority of their time on the web, checking email, and word processing. Secondary uses are usually games, and music (burning and listening). Hmm.. Except for the games, this system does all that perfectly well.

Re:X-Windows ... eww, smelly

[Arethan]

Hrm..
Actually, I find the window managers used in unix desktops much more productive than anything MS ever came up with. Window shading, virtual desktops, and multiple workspaces (not the same as virtual desktops) just by themselves make the OS faster to use. Most people have to start closing windows when they start running out of desktop real estate. I just switch to another workspace and keep going. It makes development MUCH more productive, I can tell you that much right now. One workspace for reading API documentation, another (sometimes two) for writing code, and another for checking my email, surfing the web when I need another reference or a quick break, and for playing music. Depending on the app, I sometimes even use ANOTHER for testing the app.

Windows is far from having the best interface IMHO. It definitely has the most popular, but popularity rarely has anything to do with functionality. (More often it has to do with pressure to conform.)

Don't get me wrong. I think XWindows itself is a fucking joke. Shared memory doesn't help it's situation. Windows update speed is STILL an issue from time to time, and the current implementation of remotely running apps is getting old. What I'd really like to see is the ability to start a gui app from over the network, and dynamically detach it from your XServer without killing it. Letting it run headless in the background for a while, and then reattaching it on a different machine (or even locally on that previously remote machine) so that you can check up on it.

Basically, I want RDP with by the application granularity. Now THAT would be an advantage system admins! In fact, without that killer feature and without even taking shell scripting and regular expressions into account, unix desktops still beat the piss out of the Windows XP (and earlier) desktop environments. IMHO of course. ;)

Name the #3 cola. Anybody?

[kfg]

RC. I also rather enjoy Adirondack, Polar and Stewarts is ok in a pinch. Jolt is universally known even though it sells nearly several cans of the stuff a year.

I can get "support" for these brands at any of my local stores. In fact, I have to walk farther to get a Coke than a Polar.

See, there's plenty of room for everyone.

Of course it isn't your fault you picked a bad analogy. ANY other field will be a bad analogy because the software "industry" works to its own peculiar set of rules.

Those rules are wearing thin and starting to break down though. It's Free Software that actually makes software *more* like cola, where anyone can come up with a recipe and join the game.

KFG

To the 'X windows' bashers

[Kunta Kinte]

I noticed that X Windows critics never give any solid proof to their claims. there is no 'my app runs x fast on framebuffer but yx fast under X'

Those posts are getting tired. There should be a faq somewhere.

X is not a memory hog. The protocol is lean, think of when it was designed. It couldn't afford to be a memory hog. X can be 'fast'. X is very modular. X runs on embedded systems that have very little resources, and I mean *very* little.

Comparing the X network transparency to RDP is like comparing apples to oranges. Frambuffer based transparency eg. RDP work well on low bandwidth situations but push all the load on the server since the entire application and all the rendering is done on the server. This is a terrible design in thin client networks, and why citrix et. all take so much resources to deploy. I've seen Solaris boxes push a ridiculus amount of concurrent sessions while MS terminal services halt at a fraction of that load. It's not that MS did a bad job, it's just that the two approaches have their strong suits.

The bottom line is learn X before you diss it ( someone else said that ).

...cause X rocks!!!