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IBM and Its Thoughts on Desktop Linux
Knuckles writes: "According to c|net, IBM will give desktop Linux a thumbs up at the Desktop Linux Conference in Boston on Monday. Sam Docknevich of IBM's Global Services group will give a speech titled, "The Time is Now for Linux on the Desktop." It seems that IBM will not go for the multi-purpose desktop, though, but for machines performing narrowly defined functions (kiosks etc.). However, basic office workstation seem to be included in this definition, according to C|Net" And in a classic case of the right-hand not knowing what the left-hand is doing, Realistic_Dragon adds: "IBM was leading the words of Red Hat's CEO in comments to the UK government last year saying that '...open source was not ready for the desktop'.
Do we like or hate IBM then?
IBM is for the corporation. It can be remotely managed, its stable, all they need is office and email that does not get boggged down with MS Virii.
There's an opportunity for desktop Linux in "running a fixed-function machine like a kiosk or ATM, a transactional workstation like a bank teller's station, or a basic office workstation that runs applications that drive business processes," the IBM agenda information said.
Bravo! Use it in places that you want to be able to lock down. I'm so tired of people trying to lock down windows boxes! Sure anybody can install anything on a win box... that's why it's bad for public access.
Our hospital records program runs on the web. Linux and any ole browser would save our computer guys tons of time.
Oh, well... Good luck.
But I thought IBM was evil..
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
I've been waiting for something like this... Now all I need is an opensource Car. [quote from RedHat install] Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?? [/quote] I hate using my can opener just to the check the oil.
Karma whoring
It's amazing what a $50 million investment in Novell will do for ones attitude.
Who wants free software when people are ready to pay such a fortune for Microsoft products!
As much as I love the "go Linux rah rah rah!" mantra, why not just go to asking "What's the best tool for the job?" For the computer-illiterate home user, Windows is fine (I'd advocate a Mac, but maybe the user LIKES having a zillion games and utilities and viruses available for download). For the corporate desktop where things should be locked down, Linux with OpenOffice may be a good bet at a good price.
If you're a power user, Windows is definitely out, Linux is a good bet, OS X is a good alternative. It seems to me whatever your personality is, one of the options will be your natural best fit.
And isn't it kinda nice that things work out that way?
Murray Todd Williams
So what, IBM said linux wasn't ready for the desktop - last year. That was a year ago! Linux has made quite a few strides on the desktop since then - and MS has dug themselves even deeper into their grave since then, as well. The time is now for linux on the desktop, if there is to be a time. There needs to be positive motion or someone else (Apple) will step in to try and take that market.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
This is a little OT, but since they are so upbeat, I have to report that kernel used in Suse 9.0 has problems with IBM's own ThinkPads. Pressing the Fn button causes keventd() to go crazy eating up 100% CPU and the computer has to be painfully and slowly rebooted.
Boo on the original posting!
This has nothing to do with open source on the home user's desktop.
The article "Red Hat: Stick with Windows at home" describes why home users should stick with windows (or macs or whatever open source.)
This article is dealing with linux on the desktop when a system needs to give its users a closed, locked-down interface!
Apples meet oranges.
Davak
If he's a Slashdot enemy, why do you post as an AC?
Yeah.. 'cause if you don't.. the world as we know it will end... oh.. and SCO will win... and Linus will marry RMS and blah blah blah... sheesh.. get a life and stop obsessing about other peole on /.
Unless you're a total Linux zealot, you'd see that it's not ready for the business desktop. If it can't inter-op with other Windows desktops with ease (and don't go on about open office, evolution, etc...they're buggy and not proven at all), then it's not ready.
As for the home user, it's definitely not ready. Mom and pop can't go to walmart and buy games for their kids, greeting card software or proven money management software and run it on Linux.
..IBM put its money where its mouth is?
It's frustrating to see this story posted tonight -- there's no reason why this story couldn't have waited until the speech was delivered.
So, does this mean we will start seeing IBM workstations with linux on them? I personaly cant wait to get a thinpad without having to pay micro$oft 20% of the cost :P
IBM's prefered Linux is Redhat. Being that Redhat is discontinuing their "free" versions of Redhat, how does this make Linux a contender in a cheaper solution? RedHat linux is expensive. I can't believe how much redhat charges for something that is supposed to be 'free'. Can anyone justify Redhat charging for something they're not able to legally charge for?
That's the main question, I think. I'm pretty computer literature, work as a web developer/designer/programmer and all that, but I've always been a Windows user. Recently, when it came time to reformat my notebook, I decided to just try out Linux because I was curious. I went with Suse. It installed fine, but it was a pain in the ass to get it to recognize my screen size (1600 x 1050), it refused to see my wifi card, and the touchpad wouldn't work. Fair, enough, I can deal with all that because it's a notebook after all, the drivers aren't at all standard. But the actual user experince... well, honestly, yuck. The main thing that made me get rid of it was just how crappy everything looked. Widgets were clunky, interface fonts were either too large or too small, everything was jagged, and the web looked simply terrible. I installed Firebird to see if that'd make browsing a little nicer but no luck. Fonts were huge, tiny, and looked like placeholders instead of something any sort of attention to detail had been put towards. Then I tried upgrading the software. It came with Open Office 1.0; I wanted 1.1. But it didn't look like it was going to happen until I felt up to compiling my own binaries. If someone as tech savvy as me isn't willing to do that, I can guarantee my parents sure as hell won't be up to it. End result: I got rid of Linux after a day. It wasn't worth the huge amount of effort required to do anythign with and it was ugly and clunky enough that it got in the way of everyday use. I realize all of these can be improved and I'm sure in the future they will be. When that happens, maybe I'll give Linux another try. But for now, it isn't anywhere near ready for the average user's desktop.
This seems like a pretty sound analysis - Linux is ready for the desktop in many areas. However it's still not ready as an integrated multi-task appliance in the same way that windows is.
I like to use my PC for lots of stuff, it's still tricky for me to do some things on Linux, lots of programs still don't interact well (cutting and pasting being the first thing that springs to mind, cue flames.....) but for certain tasks it's excellent (web services) and for many it's perfectly adequate (office / multimedia).
More people using linux to do some jobs will start to want to do other little jobs on it too. Whether we like IBM this week or not, this can only be good for user- and developer- share and linux profile.
Stemmo
if a year ago they said linux is not ready, and today they say linux is ready for the desktop, that's not "the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing."
> it will only aid me in damning the lot of you as ignorant philistines.
that insult is sooo 900 B.C.
The unofficial
I will go back to linux on the desktop when Novell releases their desktop linux (they already own all of my favorite pieces).
And, oh yeah, NO MORE X WINDOWS!!!
Apple did at least one thing right.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Better read your cartoon again, and pay attention to the box with "the cat's feet are out of the bag" - you use an apostrophe when writing a posessive. And here, "It's thoughts" as in "the thoughts posessed by It" ... well, I'm sure you can see.
Feel free to mod me into oblivion, since this post's been posted A-nonny-mousely
Imagine if someone like IBM marketed their own Linux desktop distribution. I'd say they have the power to standardize some of the things that make Linux so confusing for new adopters (multiple desktop managers, shells, KDE vs Gnome, etc). Think Lindows, except not a toy, and with a huge company backing it. Home users are not going to adopt Linux in its current very chaotic state. These options are nice for nerds, but your mom doesn't really want to search through fifty open source apps while installing to see which one she likes the best to write a one page document for work.
A reputable company like IBM could give Linux some serious pull on the desktop (they already have in the server world).
If quantum mechanics applied to IBM:
|IBM>= 1/sqrt(2) |good> + 1/sqrt(2) |evil>
Observing a Slashdot article seems to collapse this wave function. Thus, for any slashdot article, IBM is either good or bad.
My constants might be a bit off depending on what SCO is doing.
Long live Schrodinger's cat...
I don't want to look like I'm defending IBM but if you read the quoted article from The Register carefully, you'll notice that IBM said that OSS was not ready for the desktop in 2002. It was because of the delay of the British Parliamentary Commitee in charge of revealing the study that we came to hear about it till now. Yet, I must agree that this news, and the their recent investment in Novell makes IBM look bad.
R.In this interview (posted on Slashdot a few weeks ago) Linus says he is most interesting in desktop Linux. He says servers are not very interesting. He says Linux on the desktop is the only part he cares about. Just look at the article I linked to and read the question about Linux and the Desktop.
My point is that Linus, for me, kind of debunks the idea that Linux is intended for the server. Linus clearly says it's not. And now we have IBM giving a thumbs up for Linux on the desktop too. This is cool.
Wow, lately this is what the linux community sounds like:
linux advocates: we're ready for the desktop!
big corporations: no, not quite yet...
linux advocates: we're ready for the desktop!
big corporations: no, not quite yet...
linux advocates: we're ready for the desktop!
big corporations: no, not quite yet...
linux advocates: we're ready for the desktop!
big corporations: no damnit! Your only good for servers and maybe now kiosks.
What exactly is the holdback anyways? Pretty gui's, drivers, advertising, what?!?
Our hospital is also an all-MS shop (this is dictated by the national company that owns our hospital)... I know most of the IT guys and they would LOVE to be able to use some linux, particularly in the server room. Alas, policy is policy.
I don't think linux is bad on the desktop... heck, I use it for my desktop about 50% of the time. For what you're talking about (simple web-based apps), linux is just as good a client platform as MS, and probably better, if only for the security concerns you already mentioned.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I think there have been two things keeping Linux from taking the desktop by storm.
The first, and possibly most important, has been the lack of anything like MS Outlook for the Linux platform. Security flaws aside, it's a great way to keep everything organized - from e-mail, to scheduling, to notes, to tasks, etc. I looked at Ximian Evolution, but it doesn't allow public folders. A lot of our customers love those public folders - particularly for scheduling things. That's one of the grievances some of our customers have with Groupwise, too.
Now, though, I see Kontact/Kolab ramping up as an integrated groupware solution that will be distributed with KDE, already one of the two most popular desktops for X. Once this starts being adopted as a groupware solution by companies, IMO, corporate desktops are going to see a lot more Linux. I also think it will propel KDE ahead of Gnome (because Evolution, again, IMO, doesn't stack up to Kontact).
The other thing, and I haven't looked closely for it, so it may already exist, but that's an easy development tool for X. Visual Basic-style. Make something easy for your run-of-the-mill Joe to code halfway useful applications in, make it integrate well with an Office suite (preferably KOffice, since Kontact will work well with it), and make it free and open-source. Better yet, provide easy ways of migrating legacy VB/VBA code to it. Wham bam thank you ma'am, Linux on the desktop.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
That said, the Windows "fat workstation" approach is crazy. Corporate networks would be better served by going to a thin-client architecture. In that respect [Li]|[U]nix is on an even keel with Windows Terminal Services and Citrix. Everyone gets a box that logs in, and a desktop that does everything they need and nothing they don't.
At least with Unix you already assume that the person logging in will have only a minimal interation with the bare metal.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
This is pretty much and open declaration of War: MS have declared an interest in the Big Iron market (IBMs home turf) and IBM are declaring support for Linux on desktop.
The gloves are off, SCO are irrelevant (OK, even more irrelevant) and even Novell and Red Hat will be only minor players in what is about to come forward.
Anyone noticed the strong ad campaigns for Windows server on TV recently?
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
It's enough for IBM to ship machines "Born to run Linux". Build hardware and preinstall Linux on it, "Buy hardware, OS gratis". They don't need any extras about that but surely they take care of their baby, if people are to buy hardware that runs Linux, Linux must be good enough for that.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Wrong, dumbass.
"Its" is a special case. "Its" is the plural, and "it's" is ALWAYS a contraction of either "it is" or "it has".
Moron.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/its.html
IBM backing Linux on the desktop, at the same time providing processors for Apple's OS. Playing it safe by supporting both sides. They are doing the same thing right now, producing PPC chips and selling Intel based hardware at the same time.
Indeed, the cartoon actually doesn't address the error made by the article poster :
* "it's" is the contraction of "it is".
* "its" is the possessive form of the "it" pronoun.
The apostrophe in the possessive case can only be used with nouns, not pronoun : so you can write "the cat's feet are..." but not "it's feet are...".
For pronoun, you have to use the corresponding possessive form.
Feel free to mod him into oblivion, since his post's been posted A-nonny-mousely.
lol, I think the parent means:
...
s/plural/possessive/
but that's slashdot for ya
Dust off your english book. It's and its are yet another special case of english. Its is the possessive and it's is the contraction of it is. The original poster is correct.
Ok...left hand not knowing what the right is doing....because of two comments a year apart. Interesting.....
"Desktop GNU/Linux", that is, Home User not Kiosk mono-function uber-toaster (like a kiosk), will not be viable until all of the following conditions have been met:
- The user can add a new PCI card and install a driver for it
- The user can insert a hotplug device (USB or Firewire or even Bluetooh) and get a fixed, known location in the file system for it, the same one every time
- The user can click on any audio file and it will "just play"
- The user can click on any video file and it will "just play"
- The user can drop a CD into the CDROM drive and play it or rip it
- The user can drop a DVD into the DVD drive and it plays, including the horrible and ungodly menu
- The user can drop a CDR into the CDROM drive and burn a random selection of files to it, with long file names on by default
- The user can hook up a TV Tuner card and be able to play video from a cable box / antenna or a VCR.
And all of the above must be possible WITHOUT the user EVER seeing a command line, and without ever hearing or reading the word "compile."
Some of those are already available with the right distributions, and nearly all are possible in some way or another, but they require violating the two cardinal rules of the Home User: "I can't type" and "compiling is something only developers do". Fixing some of the above issues requires alterations to the kernel itself. Others just require improvements in user-side software, others are an issue of driver distribution and open vs. closed source driver availability.
Whatever, the origin of the problem doesn't matter. The why is not at question. But all of the above MUST be taken care of before GNU/Linux can be considered "ready" for Joe Home Desktop User. Until then, we're just spinning our wheels.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
The list goes on from there. A base model 17" eMac, which is perfectly suited to the average productivity worker, is only $799. Bump the RAM up to 256MB for a few dollars more and you're done, it will all work right out of the box.
Compared to the pain of getting a Linux system up and running and then supporting it, going Apple seems like a no-brainer in enterprise IT environments.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
..IBMs stance on the desktop highlights one of the problems with their "support" of OSS (the other is their IP stance). The last presenation I attended they trotted out the "not ready for the desktop" line. I think they see that Linux helps *them* sell servers but helps *other* people sell PCs. Just look at the little sticker on their portables. Funnily enough, Sun's presentation took exactly the opposite line!
It would not be before time if they change their tune...
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
My god! They've OK'ed linux on the desktop? I'm so relieved. I can finally start using it!
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
What is this Bullshit? Why is IBM, Redhat, and every other company going out of their way to make the statement "Linux is not ready for the desktop" Tell us something we all dont already know stupid, of course we know Linux is not ready for the desktop IBM, what is your plan IBM to make Linux ready? This sounds like some bullshit Microsoft would say but why is Linux going out of their way to say this? I'll explain. Its not that Linux is not ready for the desktop, its that IBM is not ready for Linux on the desktop, Redhat is not ready for Linux on the desktop, Suse/Novell is not ready for Linux on the desktop. However we have alot of companies who are, we have Lindows, Mandrake, Xandros, Lycoris all ready for Linux on the desktop, all working to further the cause. IBM does not want these companies to do that because IBM's companies arent ready, if Redhat or Novell suddenly had a desktop product suddenly all these 3 companies would be saying "Linux is ready for the Desktop.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
"For the computer-illiterate home user, Windows is fine"
No, they're the worst ones to have it. They are the ones whose box gets taken over and use to spread worms, and DoS attacks.
There is no reason for the average home user to not use Linux, except that they need to do their work at home. Which is how Microsoft became so wide spread in the first place.
OSX is too expensive. you can put linux on existing Windows box, for OSX you have to upgrade the entire system.
I wonder, how many programs can run on a mac that are over ten years old?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
actually the computer illiterates need web, email and printing.
that's it.
mac is awefully expensive for those needs.
windows is cheaper, but the poor illiterate person will soon have to BECOME literate so they can manage their software-firewall, antivirus, antivirus-updates, adaware and/or spybot, anti-keystroke logger, ms updates, service packs, pop-up blockers etc.
linux? just have a guru setup mozilla/mozilla-mail and newbie is set for next 9 months.
It's not the illiterates who need windows...it's the semi-technical, semi-powerusers. my roomate is not a geek...yet he burns dvd's on his xp system, he installs his own games, and can setup his own mail accounts.
migrating him to linux would be a serious blow. instead of surfing the web, playing games or creating his own dvd movies...he would be scratching his head trying to figure out why suse isn't installing on his nforce2 based system.
You may be right about OSX. You're certainly onto something with IBM's on again, off again support of Linux on their laptops. I've installed Linux on any number of laptops, and if it weren't for the fact that my company's idiotic payroll department insists on using a website that's only compatible with Internet Explorer, I wouldn't have Windows on it at all.
Linux is a viable alternative on laptops. It has support for just about all the hardware, and can be made to support multiple network environments with a little bit of effort. I don't use spreadsheets very much and I don't use word processors at all, but there are several alternatives if I ever do. Generally speaking, it's not terribly difficult to install RedHat on laptops, although Sony's seem to be an exception.
For the computer-illiterate home user, Windows is fine
:)
It is, if you expect him/her to stay that way. Of course that couldn't be good for the advance of civilization
At that time, they contended that you were better off paying for a term server with 8-12 thin clients connected to it; instead of paying ~$1200-2000 per desktop, you would pay ~$5-10k for the server, and ~$200 per thin client.
However, since there really wasnt a significant savings in hardware (most of your savings were due to lower admin costs), hardly anyone jumped on board. Also, around this time the first sub-$1000 computers started coming out.
Linux on the desktop? Hardly. IBM is just recycling the Network PC.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
"How can we use it to make a lot of money, and stick a shiv in microsoft's back?"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Linux for the existing desktop: anywhere from 0 to 100 or so bucks.
OSX for the desktop 799.00 plus they will need to have man power get rid of all the existing PCs
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I can believe ...
...
IBM and others can make a general purpose desktop linux aimed at corporations (Sun has done a pretty good attempt already). I hope it will shake things up a little. I'd rather upgrade straight to OS X, but that's just me...
I can't believe
anybody can make a general purpose linux aimed at the home user. It sort of defeats the purpose of linux at the moment and however much you would WANT a linux for the average home user, it would imply a lot of work, dedication and adherance to rules that a lot of programmers aren't interested in - and why should you be, it's your time, your party, your OS.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
It's like all the comments on this thread have been generated from the same database by the same computer program. Ridiculous generalizations formulated in a stiffly "realist" corporate lingo. Noble self-proclaimed champions of mothers world-wide. Except that not a single mom is endeared by their flat and lifeless pseudo-ideas.
If Linux ever becomes a success, it won't be because anybody follows your dreary advice. It will be because somebody creates an excellent implementation of a great idea.
"If you're a power user, Windows is definitely out, Linux is a good bet, OS X is a good alternative" ...
... how can you be a power user on a Mac? They don't even have proper menu shortcuts ...!
... waiting for password mailer.)
perhaps I'm missing something
(username: urgentdweomer
"Do we like or hate IBM then?"
I don't know, but I know I hate you.
this is one of the most stereotypical and pointless comments yet constantly gets modded funny.
First lets start with quotes. "There is a light at the end of the desktop tunnel,", Michael Tiemann, chief technology officer of Red Hat, "We have clearly seen a limited amount (of demand for desktop Linux) to date in the U.S.," Randy Groves, vice president at Dell "I would say that for the consumer market place, Windows probably continues to be the right product line," CEO Redhat. All this year they said it was ready and now a few deals happen and its not ready? Now suddenly IBM and Redhat volunteer to offer their opinions which we didnt ask for by the way. No one asked "Hey Redhat CEO, hey IBM, whats your opinions of Linux on the desktop?" And even if we did ask, do we need to be told its not ready? Linux isnt ready for the super computer so why isnt Redhat and IBM volunteering to admit "Linux just isnt ready for the super computer" Redhat and IBM are hypocrites, earlier this year they said Linux was ready. proof1 proof2 And now Redhat has changed their mind, they want to focus on the super computer now?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
It is, if you expect him/her to stay that way. Of course that couldn't be good for the advance of civilization :)
Something that I learned when I was selling computers, PCs and Macs is that most people don't care to learn about what is going on inside of their machines.
They're more concerned with the football game, or with Jr's parent teacher conference. No matter how much you and I wish it was different, you just can't make Joe Sixpack care about technology issues.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
- They love the safety net that they have from MS problems (no virus, squid guard, spam assisign, etc).
- They love the sheer number of apps that they have.
- They love the fact that their kids can not screw things up.
HATEI prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'll believe IBM truly believes Linux is ready for the desktop when they port all that Lotus software to Linux -- and not a moment before!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
and we wonder why Linux isn't making it on the desktop quite yet...
My Prediction is...
IBM either builds their own Linux distro, or buys Mandrake...
Home users use Windows because everyone else uses Windows. There are other reasons, but we all know this is the main one.
"IBM was leading the words of Red Hat's CEO in comments to the UK government last year saying that '...open source was not ready for the desktop'.
Last year, he might have been right. Openoffice was not newarly as good as word (had it even reached 1.0 yet), but it is now. Mozilla has matured a lot as well, and Firebird exists. We cna now connect to exchange, I'd say that they were right then and are also right now.
This is big news. IBM Global Services has a very high reputation among corporations. If they say Linux is now usable for some situations, then a whole lot of companies that would never listen to anyone else are going to believe it really is ready.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die."
wrt Win-kiosks, especially that last.
(I should probably attribute the quote, just to make sure it remains fair-use. Blade Runner, as if anyone needed telling that.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
-
For the corporate desktop where things should be locked down, Linux with OpenOffice may be a good bet at a good price.
More than just a good bet, a great one. One of the major problems with windows machines as corporate desktops (and computer labs in education) is that it's damn near impossible to lock them down enough to prevent users from modifying them (as least knowledgable users), while keeping them useable! When you just want your desktop users to be able to do E-mail, documents, etc. that are business related, it's much much easier to do with Linux and Open Office. It's also easier to administer, since you don't have to physically go to the machine to work on it. I think businesses are starting to see this, and that it'll save money by lowering IT support costs, raising user productivity (since the machines will be up and functional more often), and costing less on the front end to setup (the software's cheaper). Not to mention a desktop can probably last more than three years since Linux makes much better use of resouces than any Windows OS does.Well put.
People were saying linux was ready for the desktop back when you had to load Slackware from 8 billion floppies and editing configuration files was the only way to set up the system. Those are the same people who are saying it now, and this makes me severely question their judgement
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Let's see a Notes client for Linux? Had one for Un*x and dropped it. Made a Linux server, no client for version 5 or version 6. While you are at it, how about digging Improv out of the closet and releasing it for Linux? (GNU does have an Objective C port, don't they?)
Sorry, I believe it when I see it.
"The average home user cannot use linux."
That's funny because I have had the most computer illiterate people sit down at my RH9 box with no windows open and figure out how to browse the web quite effectively with no instruction from me at all.
"Mozilla is not up to the task, sorry. It doesn't even render most webpages properly (including such common ones as YAHOO FINANCE)."
I don't think you can categorically say that without some level of proof. And "render . . . properly seems to be an either/or kind of statment. I argue that there are some things that are irrelevant such as font size so long as it does not effect the browsing experience. The only website I have found to date that doesn't work right at all with Mozilla is www.sprintpcs.com after you log in to manage your account.
I feel quite confident that the web pages that don't work right are those that seemed to ignore web standards completely.
"Openoffice is slow and bloated, as well as difficult to use."
Lets start out with the "slow and bloated" comment first. Define slow. Slow to start? Slow to print? That is completely ambiguous at best and not completely bound in truth as far as my experience goes. I give you that it is slow as Christmas to start. After startup completes I find it to be faster than Word.
Difficult to use? I don't find that to be true. Neither did a friend of mine that wouldn't know the difference between a word processor and a spreadsheet application. He used OpenOffice to write a research paper with no complaints. I even asked him if it worked ok.
"Linux is not ready for the home user."
I do not agree for 100% of home users. I think it is ready for a good portion of them already. With each passing release of kernels and distros that gap closes more.
"At least on Windows, when I uninstall a program, it uninstalls its libraries (for the most part)."
I do not see that uninstalling programs is any more thorough on Windows than Linux. They are both scripted and thus the uninstalls are only as good as the uninstall scripts. I have seen some that did nothing more than delete icons on Windows. About the only thing I can say about Windows uninstalling is that most (not all) software makers make the uninstall program easy to find.
And don't even get me started about dll's that refuse to allow themselves to be removed without doing some registry editing and/or booting to a command prompt only in Windows.
Bottom line is that I have had my RH9 box running since RH9 was release and it has not crashed once. At all. The only time it has been rebooted was due to power outages.
Besides, your conclusion is that home users are prepeared to deal with all of the nasty viruses/worms and all the problems they cause yet they cannot deal with Linux?
Linux is made by intelligent people for intelligent people and idiots simply get lost.
Please. Some of the biggest idiots I know use Linux.
Linux is not made for intelligent people. It's really made for people who simply have the time to sit at their computer and spend hours to do the things that take Windows a few minutes.
This sense of satisfaction makes the user feel superior and intelligent. The time required for this also happens to require people who are generally loner and anti-socials, because people with social lives don't have the time nor interest to have using their operating system as a hobby. They just want to get things done.
Sorry to burst your bubble (actually, I'm not).
"Sufferin' succotash."
But buying a new computer every 3 years is fun too.
And now, two days later, this! LMAO.
It's not the installing that is generally the problem, it's the little things that are a pain. Things like ACPI support, suspend, hibernate, resume, CPU throttling, etc. which all work flawlessly under Windows just aren't there yet for Linux, unfortunately. From what I hear (at least for Dell laptops) is that the manufacturer isn't always willing to divy up the information to help the process along. *shrugs* I suspect the laptop will be the end of the road after Linux comes to a Desktop Near You.
> "For the computer-illiterate home user, Windows is
...)
> fine"
> No, they're the worst ones to have it. They are
> the ones whose box gets taken over and use to
> spread worms, and DoS attacks.
Yes, yes, yes! Despite rumors to the contrary, there are plenty of people who use PCs at home, don't know a lot about them, and who don't have a requirement to play the latest and greatest games.
Their apps typically consist of:
- a Web browser
- email client, which may be a Web browser that they use for Web mail
- something to write documents with (could be MS Word, could be MS Works, could be Wordpad, could be Notepad,
- maybe a spreadsheet, if they're really advanced
If they're really high-tech, they might also have:
- something to download pictures from a digital camera
- a scanner to scan old pictures
- graphic software to manipulate pictures
A Linux distribution that had *just* these features would be ideal for this class of user. They don't download virus updates, or configure firewall software - a well-built Linux distribution would eliminate the need to do these things.
If this was on the market now, I'd get it and put it on my parents' two PCs as quickly as I could.
You seem to skip over alot of details:
... "A base model 17" eMac, which is perfectly suited to the average productivity worker, is only $799"
"an enterprise customer is probably better off with Apple"
"it seems to me that for the small price difference between an Apple with OSX and a linux desktop"
Um, ok lets see the reasons:
"Standardized, supported hardware with real enterprise support contracts available"
$799 for a Apple won't give you support contracts.
"A large base of consultants to choose from"
What makes you think you can't find that for Linux? After all, it's a operational descendent to UNIX, the age-old enterprised used OS.
"A good desktop and laptop solution. Does IBM support Linux on their laptops this week? Which models?"
Huh? If a business wanted to know of a machine model that could work with linux, they could ask a large linux distribution maker. Most have a database of working hardware. They can refer you to the right place.
Of course, the larger distributions sell enterprise support contracts too. So it seems like it's the distribution maker that is one easy place to go to get a linux setup going.
" The ability to run Microsoft Office, Open Office, and most other open source productivity packages"
MS Office costs more money. Your not going to get that with a $799 Mac. Open Office or other open source packages??? OS X isn't any better than Linux here. And yes you can run MS Office on linux.
"The ability to centrally manage authentication and workstation management using OSX server"
Sound's like you'll need a OS X admin here.
"Compared to the pain of getting a Linux system up and running and then supporting it"
Have you ever set up a linux system? If you have experience in computers, it's not any harder than everything else today. When your talking about using linux in business, you hire people to run the machines and you train people to use them. Not everyone is going to be the same.
A good linux admin will be just as capable as a mac admin. If there are issues with plopping down a machine and it working, your approach may be wrong.
"going Apple seems like a no-brainer in enterprise IT environments."
You're making a big assumption here. You're assuming that running an Apple environment requires no training (or very little). No business guy or worker is going neccesarily to have the knowledge or time to manage an Apple environment in addition to their job. (well we are talking about an enterprise here?). I'm sorry, but Apple isn't the magic computer that everyone can use. You have to hire people to maintain the machines, train people to use them for their jobs, and this includes support contracts (whatever the kind). Enterprise size linux distributors do give businesses what they need (if they didn't why do they offer businesses such??). Frankly it won't be much different than Apple. A $799 machine eMac may be nice number to look at, and a $199 linux machine may be too. But a computer with nice OS isn't a catch-all for business productivity.
As someone whose recently moved over to Linux totally I can say 100% for certain that Linux will never be ready for the masses. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. The more I learn the more I have fun geeking around in it. But sweet jesus, I've been trying to get GAIM to compile for the past two weeks off and on. It keeps switching from GTK hating me to GAIM hating me. Been bitching with ZSNES like crazy trying to get it to work at greater than 10fps (1ghz system, mind you). Given up on upgrading to KDE3, using KDE2. Tried other window managers and wasn't happy with them. In the past month I've spent roughly 80 hours mucking with my distro to get everything working well enough to where I can just leave it alone and not mess with it for awhile. Now while I love being able to modify my OS to where it feels just right in virtually every way imaginable (and bash rocks), that is the one and only thing I miss about Windows. Everything worked. You didn't have to worry about dependancy after dependancy after dependancy just to get one stupid program installed and working. Drivers were easy as all hell to install. You didn't have to muck with your freakin' kernel trying to get a half-working driver kinda working. Windows took care of all that crap for you. Not well, but it did. In Linux I'm taking care of the OS. This isn't something that can be fixed with a bigger better RPM thingy or pretty GUI. This is both a great strength and weakness of Li/Unix and OSS in general. Everyone has their opinions on how things should work, and thus you have a billion different ways to do things (and a trillion different dependencies... ugh.) I love the penguin to death but I've been hacking away in bash for the past month trying to get my system working just as well as it once did in Windows. And I'm a very computer literate geek who loves reading source code and actually _reads the fucking manual_. Linux is ready for the average user? Bullshit. To say that is arrogance. No way in hell would I install it for my mom. Poor woman's already had one stroke.
RE Mozilla: font sizes are not an "irrelevant" detail. I've found webpages on which the fonts are so bad the page is unreadable. While some of this problem surely comes from the fact that many pages are optimized for IE - the average Home user doesn't care about that - if they can't read the page, its broken, and if their friend running IE can read it, then mozilla sux. Thats just how non-techies treat these things.
OpenOffice is slow to start and often slows up inexplicably while in use. Don't even get me started on printing. Good god, setting up a printer can be hell at the best of times in Linux. Certainly for basic WP OpenOffice works, but so does notepad (or vim, emacs, whatever). For advanced features, Word (sorry to say) is usually better.
Unfortunately I come across as a MS zealot when I'm not trying to. I use Linux and WinXP depending on the task at hand. The fact is that Linux is very difficult to change. If I set up a box perfectly for a home user, then they can probably use it, as long as they don't want to change anything. On the other hand, if I hand someone a CD holder with XP, Office and a few other CDs in it, they'll figure out how to install, use and probably print. Good luck handing someone a RH9 CD and telling them to do all that. Of course Linux crashes less - no doubt. That is due to the kernel and better separation between OS and GUI/Programs, everyone agrees with that.
About uninstalling: Imagine a clean install of some Linux distro, say RH9. Then imagine installing a package requiring some 10-20 other packages thru dependencies. If you try to uninstall said package, why don't the dependencies uninstall (as long as nothing else depends on them)? This, at least, works on Windows and would be great on Linux. If I'm wrong about that, please tell me - I'd love to know how to do that properly.
Cemil.
Can you please give "Is linux ready for the desktop" articles their own catagory so that I can block them? I keep reading these thinking that the comments will somehow be different than last time. They never are. Including this one.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with what I was thinking with laptop support. Now, there's no reason why a company couldn't go with Powerbooks on the laptop and go with cheap IBM desktops running linux, it's just a question of how many platforms a company wants to support.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
You completely invalidate your own argument by implying an obvious re-wording of the very thing you claim inaccurate.
Use whatever tool is best for whatever job!
Then...
Windows is for computer illiterates, certainly not for power users!
You prove yourself to be just as ignorant as those claiming that one tool works for all jobs. Perhaps even moreso, as you choose to be the fool's spokeshole rather than the fool who keeps quiet.
And isn't it kinda nice that things work out that way?
In your head, maybe. In the real world at large things occur just a bit differently.
If you try to uninstall said package, why don't the dependencies uninstall
Some users have reported varying degrees of success with fdisk. It's like that old tenet: "If at first you don't succeed, destroy everything and everyone related to the task and head for your nearest opium dealer." Well, it's more of a guideline than a tenet, really.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Actually, they're both paying homage to a much older bit of propaganda: One God, One Church, One Bishop. Meaning that in light of the unity of both of those bodies, the Church should be ruled by the Bishop of Rome as the Western Church wanted it and not by a council of equal bishops as the Eastern church would have it.
All the geeks want to make Desktop Linux so their moms can use it. Then, supposedly, she will love them and FINALLY let them out of the locked basement!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Desktop Linux fits two kinds of users very well. The first kind are like your parents. Once it is set up, they don't mess with it. There's maybe seven icons that get clicked all the time and thats it. You did luck out with the garden design software.
The second type mess with the system constantly but are comfortable doing things like editing text files and resolving dependencies. Whatever comes up technically gets handled.
There is a third type of user thats still a problem. These users want to continually add and remove software and hardware from the machine. The thing is, they don't know a thing about computers and don't want to know. Such users can usually get about two years out of a Windows install before they have someone straighten out the mess the machine is in. Sure the machine is likely hosed by then but they got some varied service out of it before bunging up the registry or the dlls. A MacOS (Classic) install will sometimes last longer under such use although OS X hasn't been out long enough for me to see the full range of brain damage it's users can inflict. I've even seen them buy whole new systems because it is easier than backing up data and reinstalling. These people aren't necessarily gamers.
Those users tend to HATE Linux. Linux will either totally rebuff such users or they'll do everything as root one time too many and completely hose the system. Lindows and Mandrake attempt to cater to them but screw it up by either having them run as root all time (yes, the option is there to create a regular user account. These users WON'T do it.) or being overly flaky. When I used it, Mandrake was crashy enough to make think I was running Windows 98 again.
Others have pointed out that work needs to be done on hardware detection/configuration and software installs. I think it will get there but those are the two things that really screw Linux as a consumer OS.
They don't download virus updates, or configure firewall software - a well-built Linux distribution would eliminate the need to do these things
How did that Kool-Aid taste?
Seriously. Any operating system, open or otherwise, Linux or otherwise, will always have plenty of security holes throughout (and in deference to 'plenty', even one will suffice). To presume otherwise puts you right back into that class of users at whom we all look down our nose. If anything, blindly trusting a favored operating system to be secure makes it more dangerous than one known to have problems. It's the evil you know versus the evil you don't, unless you are a true blue kernel hacker (which most of us are not).
I don't mean to start a flame war here, but get real. No operating system is immune to security issues, unless perhaps you take it off-line and pummel it with a sledgehammer a few dozen times.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
This is so sad. I've been waiting for a Linux conference to come to Boston for a while now. The Cnet article says this conference is being held in Boston, but in reality it's 40 minutes North. I don't have a car, but I would be willing to work something out. It's being held by the Desktop Linux Consortium, who claim to be a nonprofit outfit.
:)
:P
Why, then, does it cost $250 to register? Is it just to keep students like me from coming? Having a boring job that has nothing to do with OSS, I can't get my company to pay for it, and I certainly don't have that kind of money to toss into the wallets of the people that should be hiring me
oh well, I guess I'll just keep my eyes out for the next one...
But to OS X's credit, it's GUI sucks in the pursuit of being "shiny". Windows is still proud of supporting the overlapping windows feature that it was a bit late to deliver...
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Ooh, a christian fundamentalist. Oh that's right, this is Slashdot. No right wing opinions allowed!
The average user looks at all this great free software out there and think "this is GREAT!!" but then are faced with the reality of having to compile most of their own software. This isn't a big deal for the technically literate but for the newbie it can be quite a problem. Linux software developers need to come together and define a common standard for binary software distribution and then start offering both source and precompiled binaries of their software. If this simple step happens, I think we'll see a much quicker and widespread adoption of desktop Linux.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
I for one would be very happy to not have to recompile my kernel-- ever. It should be totally unnecessary. That being said, it is nice for there to be flexibility, but a stable release should be available. What do I mean by stable? I mean no matter what hardware I have connected to no matter what motherboard, the system will not be self destructive.
On both of my computers no attempted Linux or Unix can not handle my hardware. On one computer it invents an IRQ conflict which doesn't exist, and on the other it sends lethal instructions to the LCD screen (but works perfectly fine outside of X-- except for the ethernet: supposedly it doesn't exist).
Now I'm not asking for any sort of help. I know I could fix either one given a week of no school or work, but that should not be needed. The average computer user would return their computer if it were left in the state mine are after an attempt at a *nix.
I will soon be going on an coop (paid internship) where I will have more free time, and then I will be working on getting Mandrake running on my laptop. I'll write a journal of my trials and tribulations. I think it will very well demonstrate most of what is wrong.
Great, I wouldn't like to be in the same future as you guys, anyway.
Don't get me wrong. I do believe that an Open Source alternative desktop is the future. I just believe that unix geeks and anyone who hates GUI's and uses a command-line doesn't have a place on that future linux desktop, and that they should be locked inside their server closets where they can be among their own kind.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
For me, OO.org is slow to do anything. I'm talking about starting up, clicking on menus, using autocomplete, selecting text, etc. There is lag. Don't believe me if you don't want to. This is on a Duron 700, 256mb RAM, 2.6.0-test9-mm2, XFree 4.3, xfce4, everything else as Debian unstable.
A common mistake is believing that the average home user won't want to perform any fine tuning of their machine; you run redhat so you can be forgiven. Simply put, the learning curve for configuring a linux machine is pretty steep for those who've been using windows for the last decade. For me, seeing how everything fits together by looking through the text files is
IBM sell a product called WebSphere Portal Server. It's reasonably inexpensive for the Enterprise Portal space, they have been getting fairly competitive on software pricing recently.
p t1.htm
But here's the hidden little feature. As a sample portlet included with the server are server-side portlets that read and write Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents.
They don't do it perfectly, not yet, and IBM is not doing a lot to publicize them. And they certainly won't be competing with a full-featured word processor or spreadsheet application.
But take a large corporate customer, who's users need to be able to read, change and create Office documents, but the vast majority only needing the base functionality, why would you be buying each of them an Office license when you can get it for free with your $20,000 Intranet Portal.
As Tim Thatcher, program director for IBM WebSphere Portal emphasises, these productivity components are not a stand-in for Microsoft Office. "We're targeting the users who don't need all the features of Word or WordPro," says Thatcher. "Businesses realise it's not cost-effective to deliver a full-functioned desktop to every user. On a manufacturing floor, for example, a factory worker in the breakroom can jot a letter off the kiosk using the built-in portal applications."
http://www.eos-solutions.com.au/news_sept/news_se
WORKSFORME -- and I spend a fair bit of time in front of Mozilla at home, and a fair bit more at work supporting users on RH9-based corporate workstations.
Don't even get me started on printing. Good god, setting up a printer can be hell at the best of times in Linux.
I just set up Fedora Core 1 on a roommate's box. I logged in as root, and there was an icon that launched a graphical print setup program. I told it about her printer (using a few drop-down boxes), it asked if I wanted to print a test page and it Just Worked.
Granted, 6 months ago it was much, much more of a hassle.
Debian's aptitude does that perfectly; "deborphan" likewise performs that function.
If you don't have any open ports, you're not subject to remote root explots without an app-level security bug in the way (web browser, mail reader, etc). Such things have happened on Linux, but very rarely and (to my knowledge) never beyond proof-of-concept stage to date.
Sure, you still want security updates to work around local exploits (if you have untrusted users logging in) -- but that's what Red Hat's little pulsing RHN update icon is for, or Debian's apt tools, or (etc).
So sure, no distribution is a panacia, but the chances of a security-optimized one on a system being used as a *workstation* being successfully attacked is very low.
(And btw, being a "true blue kernel hacker" is typically rather different from being a security specialist -- generally speaking, kernel-bug-based exploits are local only as opposed to being remotely exploitable).
Looks like they are voting with their feet.
IBM will be exhibiting at the Southern California Linux Expo on November 22nd at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. Other exhibitors include Real Networks, Novell, and Pogo Linux. Some of the speakers include Seth Nickell, Chris Dibona, Patrick Mochel and John Terpstra. Full and student tickets are still available for this event as well as free exhibition only passes using the FREE promotional code.
Simple question:
Are they saying "home desktop" or "business desktop"?
The business desktop doesn't requires easy administration of new hardware or software -- the configuration is standardized and the software is imaged. Adding new software involves approval from the gods of IT, or it's unsupported or (worse) a major policy violation; software installs aren't something end users do.
The business desktop doesn't require support for little USB puppets that dance to music the user plays.
The business desktop doesn't need the latest 3D games to run out-of-the-box.
The business desktop needs to have a low cost-per-unit and be secure and easy to remotely administer.
Linux is very, very ready for the business desktop -- because the typical "it's not ready for the desktop" arguments just don't apply there. Not only that, but it's actively in use as a business desktop environment in a great many places, from Ernie Ball to the software development startup where I work to municipal governments and all the places where IBM and SuSE have been doing massive rollouts.
Do you think IBM sells to (or is talking to) home users? Of course not. When they say Linux is ready for the desktop, they mean the business desktop, and that's exactly where it is ready, now.
What in the world are you using? LFS? Gentoo? Why are you compiling gaim? I've never compiled gaim myself and I've been a Linux and gaim user for five years now.
.exe you got from download.com than selecting a program from a list in synaptic and telling it to install doesn't mean that you can't be retrained in all of 5 minutes. I sure did that with a friend of mine and he had no troubles installing the software that came with his distro. Learn to use the tools that are there for newbies and you'll be fine. It's not really so hard, and I can personally attest to this because the learning curve has dropped significantly since I started using Linux. It's ready for those who are willing to use it.
If you sit a user down at a windows box, you'll never see them say "I want to customize the UI of this thing, give me a different window manager now!" They'll just use what's there. In the case of linux, if it's KDE2 then they'll use that. If it's KDE3 then they'll use that. If it's fvwm then they'll likely have some trouble until you show them how to work it. My largely computer illiterate friends had no troubles at all with windowmaker or icewm.
And as for dependencies, use your distro properly! Debian, Redhat, Mandrake, SuSE, ad infitum will have programs to properly manage depenancies so you don't have to. This problem was solved ages ago. apt and RPM were written well before I started using Linux, so it's not like they haven't been around out in the open for you to find.
Sure, maybe this or that distro might not have everything perfectly set up the way you want it, but then again neither does windows initially. Things still have to be installed, and just because you might be more used to double clicking on some random
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
...if the boobs at work would let me run linux on my desktop. instead, my windoze box is just a dumb terminal that can run winamp.
gawd.
...18...19...20 Submit
I don't have a TV tuner card so I dunno about the last point. I have gotten TV working on a friends machine, but none of the TV programs seemed very good, and interlacing was very noticeable and annoying compared to windows based TV programs.
I had the same problem until I found tvtime. Great program for using a tv tuner in Linux. It has some built-in filters to fix interlacing and also supports 16:9 format and has progressive scan filters.
It's better than any windows-based TV program I've used. The only complaint is that it's relatively new and doesn't support recording.
There's also freevo and MythTV if you want PVR. However, I couldn't tell you anything about them... I haven't gotten around to trying them because I've already got PVR on my receiver. But they both look pretty nice.
The AC makes a good point. In this case, he may have been already frustated that he couldn't run Linux but he can't publicly blame his employer for it.
"If you're a power user, Windows is definitely out, Linux is a good bet, OS X is a good alternative."
/usr/share and hand-editing things. I tried to figure out how to add keybindings, and it turns out all the crap is in an xml *registry*. This is *not* a welcoming environment to a "power user". I'll have to give KDE a whirl and see how it stacks up. But for now I think I'll stick with fluxbox/Windows XP on my dual-boot system. Which both fulfill my "power user" needs quite nicely.
This is gross oversimplification, not to mention quite inaccurate. I'm a system administrator / developer. You don't get to be much more of a "power user". Windows is definitely not "out". In some unfortunate cases, it is damn near required. If you want to do things like static binary analysis, you're going to be using IDA. If you're going to play a wide variety of games, you're also going to be running windows.
"Linux" isn't a desktop. People who keep mixing up Linux with KDE/Gnome and the like, should really get a clue. Let us look at how a power user gets to interact with Gnome. Holy crap, you can't customize the default applications menu without going into
As for OS X, as a "power user" I really need more than one mouse button. As a more technical response it falls short in the same categories mentioned for Linux.
Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut??
If they built it as low maitnance and as reliable as my fridge (The compressor is welded shut) I would love it. Too bad they can't make one that will last for 15-20 years and needs no service except dusting off the radiator once in a while.
The truth shall set you free!
"At least on Windows, when I uninstall a program, it uninstalls its libraries (for the most part)."
And this is a good thing? BAH! These 'braindead installers/uninstallers' SUCK! As I've seen it happen (over and over and over GRRRRR) -- The company installs the important application. End user decides to install video game for after hours recreation (no security on windoze) their little video game installs 'new DLLs' over top of even newer versions (breaking the critical company apps right there). Then they don't want to get caught, so they run 'uninstall' weeeeee, even if the critical company application worked (badly) with the over-written dll, it sure as hell doesn't run now! That dynamic link library is gone! Hey tech support! This application is broken again! Why does it keep doing that? Danmed end lusers!
I'm wondering why you left out the answer to that question?
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Look what they did to OS/2. Anyone who thinks that IBM is the right outfit to promote Linux is fooling themselves or engaging in wishful thinking at best. IBM would fsck up a wet dream in that regard. Oh, hell, I don't know. Maybe something will come of this, but I'll believe it when I see it.
> You can't hate IBM for telling the truth - lets face it, Linux is NOT ready for the desktop I've been using Linux at home and work for three years. But now I hear Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Guess I'll go uninstall it.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
No troll here, I use Linux and love it, but for the average user, only in a business environment.
The issues are clear and have been the same for years, some of this issues might be cleared up in the future now that the two major desktops work together more than they did before.
a) Drivers, the whole Linux driver model is problematic, give it or take it, but a home user expects that he plugs in hardware and has the driver loaded or the driver installs itself from a CD.
b) Application interoperability. I don't talk about the Look and Feel here, but the Applications must work together, compound documents are a good idea and work, but not if you fire up two applications with two different compount document models and a third with a third one.
The Look and Feel is not that much of an issue as long as the applications don't behave as weird as Emacs.
c) Installation of new programs, this is a major issue, Debian has solved it more or less, but others don't.
And if you've ever inserted a DVD like Ronin from MGM Studios and accidently agreed to install "PC Friendly" you know it's true.
I've found webpages on which the fonts are so bad the page is unreadable.
Did you consider emailing the site maintainer telling them that their site is broken and asking them to fix it? I don't know how the idea that the web is some sort of pixel perfect, only-render-it-one-way medium. Thats not the point at all; the web, and HTML seperates content from presentation for a reason. Dreamweaver and Frontpage have created a monster.
For advanced features, Word (sorry to say) is usually better.
Name an advanced feature of Word that you actually use, and cannot do any other way in OO.o?
Thought so.
Now there are many reasons why Linux is not suitable for general use on the desktop for many people, but those really arn't it. Sorry.
Yeah, right. I'm sure it's your stupid setup. Let me explain. I'm the admin in my office, and I have 8 computers - X terminals running from an Athlon 1,2 gigs, with 500 Mb Ram. They use daily OpenOffice, Mozilla, Konqueror, Kmail, and it works for them very well. They needed an hour to adapt, also to the notion that they can switch computers and still get their datas in the same place :)
Another example is that of another computer in my office, which runs Win98 and was extremly lagging in startup times of Winword and Explorer, deleting files, etc. I had to go into BIOS and adjust some things and now it works fine.
My point is, your computer should do just fine. If it doesn't, you're doing something wrong.
Always hate! That's the OSS way !
Hardly a rousing endorsement of linux desktops. They are finally just trusting linux to take the place of OS/2 in ATMs and the like. Part of offering a "total solution" no doubt.
I ran OS/2 at home from '95-'00 and they were good about developing drivers and customer satisfaction in general. No motivation to talk trash about the IBM home experience. But expect the same enthusiasm on their part for popularizing a linux desktop that they had for OS/2.
The difference this time is that there are _other_ companies also promoting desktop linux.
You see the problem.
The problem is that Windows gives the illusion of safety. If it goes anywhere near the net, it should be locked down. I'm sorry that unless you want a spam/worm relay monster on your doorstep, Windows/xx isn't ready for the home user as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
See my journal, I write things there
Drivers have got a lot better in recent times but we still talk about plug, play and crash. As for audio file and video file support, well clicking on a file with a less than usual codec won't get you far. Many of the codecs that exist for WMP etc. have stabilioty problems that don't happen under Linux. As for WinTV support, sure it is better than Linux, but it still tends to crash and I must wait for the vendor to get it working. Only the vendor can do it because they have the source.
See my journal, I write things there
I like IBM. I think they make great servers and great laptops. I just bought one of their T-series laptops. Their laptops work a lot better with Linux than most other major manufacturers that I've seen, but that's not enough. Pretty much all of the hardware on their laptops work under Linux, but marginally. The Winmodems they include are a real bitch to set up and may not even work fully, and the wireless MiniPCI cards they include either do not have drivers out for Linux or require a lot of work and/or binary-only modules to be useful. I also haven't seen anything released regarding their hard drive protection system, which is based mostly in software. ACPI support, of course, is not totally there in the 2.6 kernel, but it's making a lot of progress.
IBM, put your money where your mouth is. Intel might not give much of a shit about Linux on the desktop, but you say you do. Use your power to get Intel to develop Linux/BSD drivers or even release specs to all of the hardware they release as soon as they release it (e.g. Centrino). Release all of the specs to the hardware you include, fund drivers, do whatever it takes to get everything you release fully supported in open-source operating systems.
It's come a long way in terms of having a decent office suite, playing video and Flash, etc. But the hardware support still needs help, and that's not going to come entirely from community efforts. It needs better OEM support in the form of drivers, and better support in the OS for separating the drivers and the kernel, so the drivers are commodity software that are as easy to install as in Windows.
My hardware isn't exotic, but to even start my SuSE install, I had to buy and install an IDE hard drive because SuSE wouldn't even regognize the drives in my on-board RAID existed. It's not that it couldn't access them. It couldn't even see them.
Once I set up a somewhat complicated dual OS, dual drive boot, it recognized my sound card and printer okay, but it wouldn't recognize the on-board LAN and I could not find an easily installable driver for that anywhere.
Between hardware mods and hunting down info on the www and usenet only to find out that drivers for my balky hardware didn't exist, it took me the better part of a day to install SuSE.
And without networking, it's a pretty useless installation.
Now, the reason Windows XP works flawlessly with my hardware is because Windows is fully supported by the OEM's, who have provided drivers for their hardware. Granted, those are 32-bit drivers and the AMD64 version of Windows is lacking in driver support too.
The difference is that Microsoft is taking time to debug and let drivers trickle in and isn't rushing an incomplete release of their AMD64 version to market for $119.95. SuSE did. Can you imagine the day when someone would point out Microsoft as being more responsible and less buggy than SuSE? It's come.
The Linux community is making a yeoman's effort to support all the hardware Windows does, but without OEM support (i.e. drivers), it's not easy, and without the hardware support, it's hard to have broad-based market penetration.
It doesn't help that SuSE, with a reputation for being easy to install, puts out a crappy, high-priced distro. I feel WAY more ripped-off and abused by SuSE than I ever have by Microsoft. Did you ever expect to hear someone say that either?
Maybe in a corporate environment with standardized hardware that has been pre-screened for Linux compatibility, desktop Linux has an immediate future. But that's not going to get Linux widely adopted in the SOHO market. People look at Linux and think horror stories like mine are the norm, not the exception to the norm, and that's because these stories are still way too common.
IMO, the Linux community and the OEMs have some serious improvements to their cooperation to execute before desktop Linux is ready for prime-time.
-- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
themes.freshmeat.net
Now your desktop can look like whatever you want, including (since you say you weren't talking about XP) OS X. I really hope you weren't talking about CDE, but just in case (bleeeargh), you can make it look like that too.
Personally, I use the default E theme (BrushedMetal-TigerT). I don't really care how it looks; my background is always obscured by dozens of Windows, and I don't stare at the window decorations. Things like GAIM, xChat, and Pan certainly look a lot nicer to me than the official AIM client, mIRC, and Agent. And Mozilla/IE isn't even close.
(no, I'm not a "typical programmer with no sense of aesthetics"; I'm an artist who happens to be good at IT, and so has to starve a bit less.)
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
eom
Gee, let's see.
It's bloated.
It's slow.
It's not very good for modern gaming.
It doesn't have modern color matching/balancing
Poor scaling (try running X on a very high res LCD and see how tiny everything is).
It's a royal pain in the ass to get set up.
It doesn't have a high level of standardization (this is also partly a window manager problem).
Who really has any need at all for network transparency on a workstation desktop?
It's a royal pain in the ass to program on.
It doesn't lock on tight enough to the hardware for proper acceleration.
What I would like to see:
Presentation layer lives in the kernel.
All graphic processing that is possible is done on the GPU.
Standardization and enforcement of standardization accross widget/behavior sets.
OpenGL 1.4 - 2.0 fully embedded.
This is where both OS X and the next version of Windows are going and it is time that Linux catch up. OS X proves that a completely different approach not only can work, but excel.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
It *is* a good idea for them to use Linux. Because let's face it - Linux is not popular. 99.9% of the virus writers will never target Linux.
And as many Slashdotters suggest, Linux will succeed on the desktop. More reason for people to use it - *because* it will never be popular, it will always be less of a target for virus writers.
Well, as counterpoint, I have seen the big bright full-color 9x16 order screen at the Wendy's drive-through complain (at the console) that someone needed to run fsck on such-and-such EXT2 partition.
All systems fail, and when they fail they sometimes fail back to a "hacker friendly" mode.
It's up to the application developer to make sure that doesn't happen. The operating system is not to blame.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
I was of the mind he meant that a well built Linux distro would do those things autmoatically.
I mean how hard is it to say after setting up the isp to automatically firewall the connection. And then setup a cron job to detect a valid 'net connection and auto download updates.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
I can't really imagine a LiveCD (Knoppix-like) system to complain about FSCK. Installing harddrives in systems without power backup and automatic power-failure shutdown systems IS asking for (exactly such) trouble.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I see the Linux desktop market occupying the $150-$300 disposable desktop range. Apples with OSX are incapable of competing in that price range. And don't let that $799 price tag fool you. There are a lot of expenses associated with operating in the Apple world that have nothing to do with the purchase price of the machine.
The Apple way of doing things has more overhead than the PC way of doing things, it always has and always will. That's not to say it's inferior! The Ferrari way of doing things will always be more expensive than the Ford way of doing things but you don't see Ferrari owners longing for a Ford or Ford owners kicking themselves for not buying a Ferrari. There is a place for both business strategies. But just like Ferrari's will never be mainstream cars, Apples will never be mainstream business machines. It's just not what they do.
P.S.
I hate the idea of monitors built in to the computers. Montiors last 3-4 times as long as computers do in my household. You waste a bunch of money by bundling the two together, especially when it's a LCD monitor that get's bundled (shudder.)
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
To the lay person, the user experience is the same. The lay person does not install software, be it Linux or Windows. They get the system with everything configured. I installed FreeBSD on my parents' computer, and they do everything they need to without problems (WWW, email, word processing, etc.). And before that they used to use Windows, and they haven't complained. Plus, my mother doesn't know how to install Windows either (nor how to format the HDD every three months, ftm). So to the lay person (i.e. the people we have to convert), it's all the same once everything is set up (don't believe me? here is some "scientific" proof). But at least with Unix you won't need to reinstall every few months, and even when you do, your configuration can easily be transferred. Hell, your configuration can even be transferred accross distros and OS's!
Things like the ugly fonts and ugly widgets, all of that can be fixed. It just takes a little perseverance (a few months, definately more than a single day, no matter how tech-savvy you are). And once you understand how things work in the Unix world, it's easy -- that's right, it's easy to do all of these things. You won't believe how easy it is once you understand how things are done.
And seriously, you have to be really picky if you think that QT and GTK2 are "ugly". Sure, GTK1 and some of the other toolkits out there leave much to be desired appearence-wise, but QT and GTK2 are not ugly, I don't care who you are.
IMHO the people who are saying that Linux is not ready for the desktop are people who think that they are tech savyy, but really aren't enough so to be able to handle installing Linux/Unix. Or else people who might be tech-savvy enough, but don't have the patience, will, or motivation to persevere with Unix. The rest of us, those who are complete laymen, and those who are in fact tech-savvy, willful, and/or motivated, Linux/Unix is ready for the desktop.
I think I speak for most, if not all, when I say Shut Up Apple Fanboy!
The first thing I tried to do after getting an Nvidia Nforce2 MB was install Windows98 on it. That went smoothly enough, but it only gave me generic SVGA, and no audio or network support. Fortunately, the MB came with a CD with Windows drivers.
Unfortunately, the CD's installation program broke down in the middle, complaining that it couldn't find certain Windows files, and left me with a barely bootable system, still with no audio or network.
So for this particular desktop, Windows definitely is NOT ready. Linux, on the other hand, set up with network and audio support without my having to do much of anything.
It is you who needs to shut the fuck up, and shut the fuck up now.
How does it feel to modded to oblivion, you useless jerk-off troll?
People were saying linux was ready for the desktop back when you had to load Slackware from 8 billion floppies and editing configuration files was the only way to set up the system. Those are the same people who are saying it now, and this makes me severely question their judgement
Well considering that we were used installing OS's (DOS) and window managers (Win3.x) from 8 billion floppies, and editing configuration files (autoexec.bat, config.sys, etc), people were used to this.
People were used to using UNIX shell accounts for internet access back then, so migration to Linux was not hard.
A few years later, I could install Linux on a PC with only 3 clicks of the mouse, it was even easier and quicker than installing Windows.
It's ready, its been ready. It just needs people to realize this, and the rest will follow.
still bitter because Linux hosed your filesystem?
poor baby.
If its any consolation, one of my friend's copy of Win95 hosed his filesystem as well.
oh, that doesn't help you feel any better, does it?
still cranky?
oh what will we do with you. at least we can count on you to post to Slashdot 20 times a day, unlike those loners and anti-socials who are too busy using Linux to feel superior and intelligent. They are so busy feeling superior, they don't even have time to post on Slashdot.
Why is it so hard to think that God may not be involved in any of this wonderous technologies??!!
Now permit me a 30-year-old quote, Alvin Toffler's 'Future Shock': 'The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.'
By your statements, the whole of humanity (or humainity, in your case) are incapable of growing beyond their current state, and are unable to learn anything other than what they have been conditioned to do.
I hope for the world's sake that you are wrong.
frob
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
If the command line types don't have a place in the future linux desktop scene, then who will make the future linux desktop? Your average end user?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers