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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'.
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.
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
We neither like nor hate IBM, we simply praise them for their support of Linux and other good things that they do and critique their patents of items that already exist and other stupid shit they tend to do.
Zealots like and hate things blindly. Zealots usually turn a blind eye to the flaws of what they support. Don't be a zealot.
The Slashdot community is far more intelligent than this.
Place something witty here
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.
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.
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!
You can't hate IBM for telling the truth - lets face it, Linux is NOT ready for the desktop. I handed my father a computer with Linux/KDE/openoffice installed and told him to do some simple business related things. He's a smart guy and yet simple things like checking his email, opening attachments, things like that - just didn't work properly. Until these things work seemlessly on Linux like they do under windows, people like him will put up with security holes to have a working system.
Let's face it, the vast majority of people are not techno-philes, and don't need/want to deal with vagaries like the command line. Simple things like product installation and uninstallation are almost impossible to do easily in Linux.
Cemil.
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
At present you have KDE and GNOME which set about to rule the entire desktop in 2 entirely different ways. Each of them employs an application toolbox that is so handy and candylike that developers are hooked on one or the other. We have several different sound packages, each mutually exclusive. Printing is a pick and choose proposition. Scripting is a pain because it seems that everyone has a favorite language the requires its own interpreter.
If we put aside our holy wars and worked towards one system we would be better off.
We need a Desktop Czar in the same vein as Linus is to the Kernel. Someone to assemble the application side of OS. One shell. One scripting language (preferably the same interpreter AS the shell). One compile and build system. One package management system. One file layout. One printing system. Some one needs to stick their neck out and say "This is how it is will be done."
And if we don't do it, Bill, IBM, or Novell WILL.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
"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
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
Home users use Windows because everyone else uses Windows. There are other reasons, but we all know this is the main one.
Maybe having your dad start with Pine was a bad idea. Must have been, because neither Mozilla Mail or Sylpheed have ever posed a problem saving attachments. Or was your dad unfamiliar with the new desktop software you presented him and he stumbled because it wasn't Outlook? All software requires a period of acclimation. He'd have the same troubles with OS-X.
This "we need one unified desktop" argument always puzzles me. It is impossible.
"Get rid of all the little windows managers..." It's impossible.
"Get rid of all the different text editors." It's impossible.
"Get rid of all the different shells." It's impossible.
GNU/Linux is about choice. Because it is about choice, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of the choices. No one person owns all of this. No one person can ban any of this. It's like saying, "let's just get all people to agree on one idea and one path for the future." It doesn't work; it is impossible.
This is because it is not compatible with the fundamental rule that people can make choices in their lives. The Free Software World works by the same priciple. That is why it's impossible.
So let's start working with what we CAN do.
People are not stupid. They do not need everything to look precisely the same to figure it out. They figured XP out even though it was blue and the control panel had a different layout.
Look at http://www.freedesktop.org. THAT is a good idea. Have the distributions put some pressure on the desktop systems to conform more fully to that. Put some pressure on them yourself.
The people who have some authority in other areas, like printer configuration and on the available printing systems, should make similar guidelines. We should then support those guidelines.
And these guidelines can be collaboratively developed, as freedesktop's are.
Distributed systems can be as effective as controled ones -- they just run under different rules. The key is collaboration and respect. If the developers feel they are being respected and that they have a say in how a standard is developed then a third party can develop a standard that all concerned parties can appreciate, respect, and follow. The fourth party, the community, can contribute by support such efforts at dialogue.
So let us think about what IS possible, rather than wish for something that is not. Option number two will not die, so let us find a new way of thinking so that it doesn't have to and that is is BETTER that it doesn't. Poison into medicine.
Tata.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
This is like a proposal to take down all those ugly, messy websites, and recode them to comply with the most strict interpretations of the very latest W3C standards, and everybody will live happily ever after.
It's nonsense. Because the messiness and ugliness follows directly from the ease with which people can (try to) fill a niche. Take away the messiness and ugliness, and you take away half to three-quarters of the software. And with that all the vibrancy.
To get back to the World Wide Web analogy: if HTML had been more formal, there would be fewer junk. But there also wouldn't have been a Web as we know it. The Web as well as Linux have been successful because they are extremely open and free. Not because they provide "one way of doing things".
And if we don't do it, Bill, IBM, or Novell WILL.
So what? We're not in the same race as them. "We" don't have the same goals.
IBM has always pursued a LARGE number of patents, and has largely used them defensively. Until it uses a patent against a linux user, I'd let the jury stay out. Companies LOVE getting IP in patents, it gives them options. Then they can decide to use them or not.
IBM has poured an enormous amount of money into linux development, and this has already benefited all linux users.
On the desktop, there is no reason why not. Mac built a good desktop over Unix is just a few years - in linux most of the tools are already in place. A well packaged solution is not far away at all - it would just take a concerted effort to provide consistency to the users - this would mean far reaching attention to detail across all packaging for the linux solution.
And this is really what separates something like OS X from something like RedHat. OS X attempts to provide consistency and attention to detail across everything they package, RedHat and other linux distros just throw in the kitchen sink and leave it to the users to sort out the inconsistencies.
It won't take long.