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Linux vs. Windows: Choice vs. Usability
ThaReetLad writes "In this article at DevX, Executive Editor A. Russell Jones makes the case for a standardised GUI for Linux. He argues that the promotion of choice of GUI as a positive feature of using Linux is detrimental to its chances of attacking Microsoft's home user monopoly. From the article: '...the open source community must recognize that its primary goals: freedom of choice, freedom of source code, and freedom to alter applications, are not the goals of the average user.' In particular he argues that the choice of desktop between KDE, Gnome, IceWM etc, is not one that a former windows user, even a fairly technically competent one, is going to able to make an informed choice on, and that they should not be forced to make that choice in order to get good use out of any applications they might want to use."
The Xp.org Desktop Environment is a great idea for people switching from Windows, it's not an exact clone, but will give users a more "friendly" interface (friendly to someone used to windows! not - i've dug myself a hole here... help!!)
That is true -- Linus/Linux is not out to attack the MS monopoly. But RedHat, Mandrake, Suse, $FAVORITE_DISTRO are. RedHat, for example, has already recognized this issue, and started attacking it with 'BlueCurve'.
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
This is up to the distro owner, in my opinion. There is no standard "Linux" install, you run a distro. And the most popular is probably Redhat, and they DO have a standard look and feel, called blue curve. I think they have done an excellent job with it for the end user, and even though I do not care for it personally, I still have a choice to go download and configure a different WM. Redhat will continue to improve on their standard look and feel, and I always look forward to newer editions to see what they have made better.
I would vote for KDE too.
I think the article is stupid, but Apple has won a LOT of support through standardization. Not only of what they look like, but how they're laid out. They've got very, very specific GUI guidelines, and that's a Very Good Thing. They're purely voluntary, but they create a consistancy between software included with the OS and 3rd party software that is unmatched elsewhere.
If KDE (or whoever) were to come out with similar guidelines and most people were to follow them, Linux would benefit. Every non-OS X UNIX would benefit.
When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
The whole "Standard GUI" is far from the problem. It may be a small part of the problem, but the lack of a standard GUI isn't what keeps the average user away! I have never heard someone say "I would like to try Linux, but there are just to many choices of GUI's."
I think the one major thing that keeps users away from Linux is the fact that you can't just go to the store and buy some software or hardware and just put it in and it magically works. Sure there has been a lot of progress made in this area but it is no where near what it is for those other operating systems. If more hardware vendors would start releasing drivers for Linux and these software companies would start porting there applications to Linux this would be a whole new ball game. Without some help from the rest of the PC industry Linux never has a chance at cutting in to the MS monopoly.
There's this thing called freedesktop that defines common standarts on Drag and Drop etc. Gnome & Kde are starting to follow it. and even xfce 4 is compatible,so it's even easier to cross use things