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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."
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.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
There already is a Unix variant in the number two slot, and its called Mac OS.
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.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
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.
Riiight..because Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X are the only Operating Systems in existance.
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, ...
Mike www.sharecube.com
Maybe this news will make Apple seriously consider releasing OS X for the x86 platform.
Yeah, as apple.com base major decisions on 'oooh look what I read on slashdot'.
I tend to think that with the advent of picoGUI and GTKfb (potentially), X-Windows could (stress on could; I love X-Windows) be phased out. These systems offer a new way to access video hardware and framebuffers, etc. directly and as a direct result, they could offer a much more responsive, faster and enhanced GUI.
Your mileage might vary, but I'm very interested in these projects...
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
i will reflect my own comletely honest experiences. I use linux and nothing else at home as the OS of choice for our 3 computers. It takes about as long time to learn as Windows did for someone who jumped into computers from 95 and forward. There arent one single app that i lack in linux. This is from someone who does everything on his computer. Tv, video, bills,music, drawing, developing, chatting, surfing, burning cds, and all the normal tasks to. If i can use it after having learned it so can everyone else with half a brain. I dont consider myself a genious on computers but still i havent any difficulties using linux. And i use a "hard" dist as gentoo. With Mandrake, Redhat and Lindows etc i dont even have to think, they makes most things by themselves.
Linux is most definately ready to bay the power users and people with more IQ than your average white trash this very moment. The clueless ones that holds their paper infront of the monitor and searches the [fax] button are nothing to sthrive for at this moment since they demand to much and returns nothing.
HTTP/1.1 400
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.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
KDE and Gnome (amung others) build upon the X Windows System to proveide a GUI.
You are correct, and they would be much better off if they didn't. For a networkable client-server GDI XWindow System works wonderfully. For a a desktop system it's farking horrible, relatively speaking. Many of it's "FEEL" issues, the least of which have to do with performance and usability, carry over into the "upper layers" and are noticable in KDE and GNome. That is to say, the flaws that are easily felt in XWindows alone still peek through KDE and Gnome, leaving me to believe the problem is with X, not the other way around.
The way Mac went with OS X would be a great way for a free alternative clone (of OS X) to go. X just has too much support(...well...) for people to give up on it no matter how much it sucks for a personal computer desktop environment. Linux will never have the share of users it deserves until everyone can collectively break the mindset that X is the Unix desktop. Unfortunately, for the moment X -IS- the Unix desktop and that's why Linux holds 2nd place in a one horse race.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Just an idea:
In about six months or so, give the next version of FreeBSD a try as a destop OS. By then, KDE 3.1 should be nice and stable. KDE 3.0 is passable for a desktop GUI from a Windows standard. I'd place it at the level of Windows 95. KDE 3.1 is quie a bit nicer, and I would place it at the Windows 2000 level - if not close to XP in style and well thoughout icons/placement.
If you want a peek, goto kde.org and look at the screen shots.
FreeBSD kicks ass as a server. I love it as well.
OpenBSD for firewalls though...
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
So what is it? Microsoft knows it's coming. What's missing?
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.
Huh?
You are correct, and they would be much better off if they didn't.
I humbly disagree - the three things that suck about the free X Windows System, in my dumb opinion, are: sucky mouse cursors, screwy anti-aliasing, shitty fonts and buggy alpha channels.
Fortunalty, all these problems with the X Windows System are being fixed as we speek. The trauma of removing X11 and replacing it with somthing else (somthing else that probably has suckyness of it's own) is probably more than just fixing X11.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
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
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
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.
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.
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.
You said it buddy.
not even mentioning that the average lindows installation lasts about 15 minutes before it's replaced with a pirated version of XP.
you can't get accurate numbers from sales. maybe from browser stats.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
That has ever been the bane of Linux and is partially why it is such a poor choice for the desktop. Geeks say, "yes, but you can do that by doing. . ." and then list off a done of archane processes no regular human would remember or expect to know unless someone told them.
I like Linux and OpenBSD a lot. Use them a fair bit. But lets be honest. Typically installing software, doing updates, and so forth are *difficult*. Further getting things the way you want is as well. The problem is that Geeks who are used to doing that stuff have made fairly difficult things second nature. They are sufficiently used to it that they have a blind spot when it comes to the difficulties involved.
Making a good desktop computer involves much more than a nice windowing system. It means never having to play with a dozen text files listing archane commands. It means not having to buy an O'Reilly book when you want to do something. It means things work in an intuitive, expect fashion. Both Apple and Microsoft realize this.
Linux is powerful. But easy? Ha.
I've not used Lindows, but I halfway wonder what will happen when Grandma wants to run something that requires an upgrade.
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
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!!!
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
A co-worker showed me this earlier today. My take on this is how can they track all Linux installs. I mean most Linux installs are done after the computer is purchased from the store. And most Linux installs are done from the same set of CD's. So my question is how do they get an accurate count? You can't count downloads because that will come in low. You can't count machines that were sent out with Linux installed because that will also come out lower then the actual number.
I think that linux is already the number 2 desktop and just may be closer to Windows then anyone thinks.
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.
I figure Google is a good filter to judge OS popularity. The last stats for OSes used to search Google are here. At least MacOS beats Windows 95. Linux was 1%. I am sure most Linux users are like me, its a Server Operating System not our choice for a Desktop. MacOS X and even Windows XP have a better User Experience than GNOME or KDE -- RedHat 8.0 w/ Bluecurve almost has the idea -- close but no cigar.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
What I do today with no complaints.
/. helped get it there. Why not do the same with Linux? I am because I like it. Thrashing on Linux is fun. Doing the same under win32 is annoying.
Rip and encode CD's with Grip. Burn CD's with Gcombust! Default file format is ogg.
Edit web graphics and pictures I am sent with Gimp.
Open Office handles any basic data processing tasks I need. Documents, spreadsheets and other related things are handled just fine. Once in a while a document comes in a little mangled, but I can always read them. I make sure and let others know how they can send documents without worrying about translation issues. When they realize not everyone uses Microsoft Word, they wonder why. When they understand the cost of Open Office, they will begin to ask how. I am not ashamed to say I want to cut down on my basic computing costs in these down times.
Evolution for mail. I actually prefer this to almost any other GUI mail client. Evolution competes easily with the best of the win32 mail clients.
Ogle is a great DVD player. Simple keystroke commands let you forget you are using a computer to watch the movie once you are in full screen mode. Bonus feature is that you can basically play anything and skip the annoyances. Win32 players need to play catch-up here actually. I have shown this to people who ask if they can run it under windows!
Gaming is a little weak, but reasonable right now. The kind of games I like to play on computers are avaliable for the most part. Not all titles, but enough that I can find something to play. For the rest, there is always PS2!
I do remote support for both win32 and UNIX systems. SSH and VNC perform very nicely here.
For all of those complaining about X --get over it. X rules if you get hardware that is well supported. This is not much different from the win32 world actually. Consider I have a Matrox G400 in the machine right now. Under win32 this card is a dog. Guess what? Linux and X bring out all the performance this card can offer. Nice deal! The best part is this will only continue to get better.
Mozilla and crossover to handle internet content.
Xmms for music.
My family makes use of this machine and does not always treat it well. So, XFS journaling filesystem handles this. There are others, but I know SGI and XFS, so that was my choice. 4 kids and a wife that will all switch it off once in a while without me looking and I have had zero problems.
Acrobat reader for pdf.
Programming works just fine using gcc and OpenGL. If you consider all that one can do right now for nothing, this is really hard to beat. Anyone getting into programming as a hobby or perhaps career change is a fool not to explore this.
Learning how to compile software is one of the smartest things I have ever done. It is not hard generally and the benefits are huge.
I have two areas that are not very well addressed in terms of how I work. Authoring HTML content can be done easily enough, but I want to use Dreamweaver. So that happens under Wine. I also work with MCAD products. Some of those run on another UNIX, so that can happen on my desktop because of X. Others are win32 only so there are times I need to use another machine. (I hate dual booting. --Easier to just use another box and run VNC, or use VMware.)
I do run Maya for some parts of my MCAD work and it works just fine under Linux. This is another interesting case with regard to X window support. Under win32, that older Matrox will not run Maya well at all. Under Linux that card works very well considering its limitations. Hmmm...
Sure I am a technical guy, so I took the time to learn how things get done. If you are willing to work the way Linux does, there is a lot there for the taking. Before you all say that it's too hard for the masses, consider this:
You know about 10 years ago, I distinctly remember dealing with win95 and DOS program installation and configuration issues. I was paid many times to 'just fix it'. Hardware problems, driver problems, and other problems made things very hard for the new user. Things are a little different today, but not too different. Installing windows on a new machine can be quite the chore. Updating it and hardening it for the connected home user of today takes time as well. Is this really any different than what we expect people to do with Linux?
Linux can compete today. It competes on cost, flexibility and stability and capability. It does not do everything well, but it does many things well enough that a growing number of users can make use of it with a little help. Guess what? That is exactly how Win95 got started too. Took quite a few years of thrashing by everyone to get it all done.
The sad part? Most of us here bitching on
Lots of people want a computer that just works. They want to write stuff, read e-mail and use the Internet. Some of them want to enjoy DVD and CD media as well.
For many of these people, a well configured Linux install will do the task with little or no hassle. All they need is someone to set one up for them. Same as they do using a win32 varient now.
All this really means is we are a hell of a lot closer than we were just two years ago.
Going forward is simple. The community will continue to provide creative options which the distributions will eventually figure out how to best package. The big commercial applications are starting to show. (PTC, Alias WaveFront, MSC Analysis and others) Cost will remain low for good systems.
What do we need to do?
Simple, just know what Linux can do today and make sure you can make it perform. Show others what you are doing and let them know why.
Every day, another class of user will be able to realistically make use of Linux if they are willing to make some choices. New operating systems are hard, but that does not mean they are not worth learning --even for fairly average users. After all many of them went through this with win95.
We need to eat our own dog food with regard to Linux. Two years ago, I saw strong potential, but was not ready to use it full-time myself. Today that has changed. Now I can actually begin doing the real learning and from that teaching --same as it was with win95...
It is only a matter of time at this point --or lawyers.
Blogging because I can...