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The Failures Of Desktop Linux
PDAJames writes "Maybe Linux isn't quite ready for the desktop after all. After an earlier, very positive evaluation of SuSE Linux Desktop, ZDNet UK has carried out a more in-depth review, running the system in a production environment for two weeks, and found it wanting. A key problem area was interacting with the corporate Windows network. When will this stuff finally be ironed out?"
Well, the obvious solution is to get rid of all the Windows machines on the network. Presto, problem solved!
If all the world's a stage, anyone who says they want better lighting spends far too much time in a dark theatre.
The review is pretty positive, really. They admitted they were testing the most difficult situation -- non-technical people using Linux in a Windows environment -- and were impressed on many counts.
The fact is it's probably never going to be possible to switch operating systems without some minor glitches... switching will always cost money and time, so there's got to be a good reason to do so...
How does it work the other way round? Is it really a case of Linux not interoperating with Windows networks because of the way Windows is designed, or would it be just as hard to get a single Windows box onto a Linux network?
What I'm saying is: surely the single, lesser box on a network is always at a disadvantage, Macs on Windows, Windows on Macs, Linux on Macs, etc. etc...
Opinions?
It sounds like someone was trying to set up SAMBA without reading the documentation or they were lazy in matching the networks. Having used SAMBA in a mixed SUN and Microsoft environment, it was considered a godsend from both the Windows admins and the UN*X/SUN admins.
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
Actualy, Linux supports Appletalk, and OS X supports NFS. There really isn't a need for samba in a non windows environment. I also believe there will be support for Rendevous in *nix soon too.
I am full of goo... black evil goo
(Christ, I'm going to get flamed for this)
I just got my hands on a copy of LindowsOS 4.0 (Thanks eMule) and installed it on my laptop.
Wow.
Coupled with apt (I ain't paying for Click-n-run), it is one hell of an OS.
I mean, a Debian install that just *works*.
I've been watching Linux for ages, and about once a year or two, I'll get a copy of a distro and give it a shot. This year I actually tried two, which are supposed to be the more user-friendly ones: RedHat and SuSE. While for the first time I managed to quickly set up a Linux desktop environment which did everything I needed, I still found it a bear to work with. RedHat didn't like my soundcard, the forums weren't much help. It took me two weeks to get SuSE to accept nVidia's drivers (because ONE character in ONE source code was off), and then after a week, it decided to stop using the drivers again. Never got Quicktime and most other video formats working. Opera for Linux isn't as good, and I've never cared for Moz. After a couple months of fighting with it, I finally gave up and went back to Windows. It's CLOSE to being desktop-ready, but barely a day went by that I didn't discover something I couldn't automatically do in Linux, and would require a day's tinkering to get working. And this was, as I said, after trying to different distros. Maybe next year... (braces for flames telling him he's stupid and evil)
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Yes, I can see that meeting now:
CUSTOMER: Well, we're having trouble making our new Linux boxes talk to our large installed base of Windows boxes.
MICROSOFT: You don't say.
C: No, really. We'd really like it if you were to make Windows boxes easier to talk to by publishing your heretofore closed standard.
M: So let me get this straight. You want us to make it easier for our competitors to replace us? If we do this, then our market share goes down because the barrier to switching lowers. But if we don't, you'll keep buying Windows because it's cheaper than doing a complete rollover. Let me consider that.
C: Thanks, we'd really appreciate it!
Matt
I kinda wish that existed.
Microsoft, as much as I hate them, is everywhere. The agressive approach to converting people to Linux - forcing them onto Linux computers - isn't going to work all that well. People need to get over their fears of the alien OS, and, to do that, we need to co-exist, side-by-side, until that fateful moment when the M$ system crashes and we're the only one left running.
Seriously, Linux needs to be there in front of the common end-users' eyes for a while for them to start wanting to use it. That means Linux has to be able to work in Windows environments, and it will be graded based on how well it works with other Windows machines and server setups.
Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
What the poster wants is a pipe dream. Linux is not Windows, and it has it's own set of rules and design guidelines. A Unix network is a totally different beast from a NTLM/Active Directory network. THe protocols used are standard, and do not come in a package.
What teams such have Samba have done is pretty amazing by all accounts. They have gone from NOTHING, to a product which can enable a Linux server to server a Windows network without loosing many abilities.
The otherway is different. Yes a Linux computer can access Windows networks, and of course, no it won't behave just like Windows. But it does a damned mean job of accessing NFS shares.
You have to keep in perspective what we fight against. Creating interoperbility with Windows is chasing a moving target. MS will keep adding new things, like differnet encryption in XP, different encryption in Server 2003, and we will keep playing catch up.
This is a never ending cycle. For Linux to "win" the desktop, we need a clear goal of our own set that has advangates over Windows.
Yes, we need interoperbility, and we have that. It's not hard to set up a Linux SMB server, move Windows shares to it, and map it out over Samba and NFS, but it isn't plug and play, and probably never will be.
What it gives us though is a stepping block in order to migrate other boxes. Once Windows is out of the picture (as it is at my company), 100% interoperbility ceases to matter, and it becomes WIndows that needs to interoperate with us.
My two cents.
Until you try to hook things up to an MS domain. That's where it always falls apart.
People forget, but there was a time when there were other word processors besides Word. In fact, many of them had bizarre and confusing interfaces (Wordperfect for DOS, anyone?) When people had to do the inevitable switch to something new, they may have been befuddled for a while, but eventually, they got the hang of it.
I really don't think the issue is user acceptance near as much as ADMINISTRATOR acceptance. To get that, you're going to have to play nice with the existing infrastructure (after all, it was there first).
People can adjust to OpenOffice - we've done it here. But to replace our domain system with Linux would be near impossible. Forget the investments we'd be throwing out the door - think about all the other things like mapped shares, home directories, etc. It would be a massive undertaking to recreate all of that for very little reward.
I know MS plays their little games of half-assed interoperablility ("Windows 2000 is now based on LDAP and Kerberos! Well... Except for these little changes...") But if Linux is going to want to compete it's going to have to try harder.
Xandros has done this, but it's closed source. Kinda defeats the purpose, no?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The problems you encountered (sound card, nVidia) are 100% installation issues.
They have nothing to do with Linux being ready for the desktop. I can install brand new hardware in an XP box and Windows will not know how to handle it. That is, until I install the drivers from the manufacturer. But that doesn't mean XP isn't ready for the desktop, does it?
If you had purchased a computer with Linux pre-installed, you would not have had those problems. If you had only purchased components with good Linux support, you would not have had those problems.
Those driver issues will only be solved when Linux has 50%+ of the desktop market. That's plain economics. The vidoe card manufacturers don't all support Linux to the same degree.
And claiming something should work with Linux because it is "from the most popular manufacturer out there" shows your lack of understanding. It doesn't matter how popular a manufacturer is. It matters how well that manufacturer works with the Linux community.
Though I've known this for a long time, it keeps hitting home every weekend as I travel to a small town flea market and sell used systems + offer cheap system repair and troubleshooting.
Most people out there simply want to buy a computer that runs "all the stuff I run across on the store shelves". I've tried selling perfectly good used PowerMac systems and run into this, just like I run into this if I have Linux pre-loaded on a PC that I put up for sale.
You find roughly 1 in 100 people who praise the fact that you're using Linux (or a Mac for that matter), and they typically spend the next 5 or 10 minutes chatting with you about the superiority of your choice, etc. Then they walk off without buying. (They've already got plenty of computer stuff at home.)
To the general public, Linux being "ready for the desktop" simply means it'll easily let them install and run all the "bargain bin" software on CD-ROM they picked up at Costco or WalMart, their copy of Microsoft Office they paid hundreds of dollars for a few years ago, and they really want to buy after they get their new computer.
This is, ultimately, why Linux won't ultimately be ready for "the desktop" for years and years, if ever. Apple still can't seem to pull off even a consistent 5% market share, and they have hundreds of commercially available software titles!