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More Linux Predictions for 2004
An anonymous reader writes "Experts, shmexperts - it's time for the Linux community's own predictions, felt the editors of LinuxWorld Magazine. Prognostications in their Jan 2004 round-up cover media players ('turning your phone into an iPod will be hot by the end of 2004'), IPOs ('Of course, LinuxCertified, Inc'), and MS ('Microsoft will start an intensive campaign to promote their Longhorn technology as Linux standards compliant') - that last is one from Samba's John Terpstra." The original story was back in November.
2004 will be a year for delivery-on-promise and return-on-investment. The halo is off and linux will have to prove itself by the same measures other IT components are judged. Fortunately, linux will continue to leverage huge cost benefits, huge mindshare benefits, and a rising tide of anti-Microsoftism. that said, lofty valuation for RedHat and Novell will likely come into question sometime soon.
SCO will be forced to show their (nonexistant) hand in 2004 and the gig will likely be up. SCOX will get hammered as the speculators realize SCO is about to get laughed out of court with no remedy and huge legal bills looming.
That's great and all, but I have to ask: What the hell does that have to do with "Linux Predictions for 2004"?
After the whole redhat/fedora thing I started looking around and tried out slackware, debian, fedora, and freebsd. I pulled out an old machine that wasn't beeing used and did fresh installs. The first thing I tried was slackware, and it was great. There were some quirks with partitioning, but I could break out into the shell and do it manually. I was hooked. Next when I tried debian, I knew slackware was the real thing (worst installer I've used in years).
Next I tried freebsd and the damn thing was rock solid. Most of my previous expierence was with IRIX and AIX machines, which help make slackware feel "right." However, when I started playing with freebsd it felt "more righter." Moreover, it was clear that slackware was trying hard to feel like BSD. I quickly realized that I would rather use the original!
When I tried fedora I was pleasantly surprised. Nobody came to my door to rape my cat and beat my wife or anything. Also, the desktop is nice and the support quite broad. The result is that I am now using Fedora on my desktop machines and will be converting my server over to freebsd.
After finally taking a look at freebsd I finally understand what some folks mean when they say the right tool for the job. I have really fallen for the mix of freebsd on a server and linux on the desktop. Also, I think that fedora will do well once it gets a second hearing. I just hope that they move a little slower than the proposed 6 month turn around time...
The Linux community will still fail miserably to work together to present the world's mainstream desktop users with a serious alternative to Windows. Linuxites will still focus on how far Linux has come (a long, long way by any rational measure) instead of how short it falls in terms of compatibility and overall usability. As long as that's true, Bill Gates can keep building %50M houses and laughing at the Linux ankle-biters.
no one's going to tell a $150k/year guy to learn a new spreadsheet.
If an employee of mine makes $150k/year, I might expect him to learn a new spreadsheet on his own time. The more money they make, the higher my expectations, especially if they are in a liquid position (ie. easily replaceable).
Which would cost more? Replacing the $150k/year person, or the continued software licenses? It's a cost-benefit analysis, not so easily waived.
I have a paid for version of office on my home windows computer. I like it.
But I see a lot of people in this situation. They go to wal-mart, and they buy a HP machine for $500. They're not comptuer people, they just want to go online, hit the web, send email, and type up some stuff from time to time.
Because they buy at wal-mart, they don't get a crack at the $234 OEM price on office professional. Something comes up, and they decide that they'd like to have office -- someone sends them a powerpoint file, or whatever. And they find out that office is $450. They're just not going to spend that.
In the old days, they would just bring the office cds home from work. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it is what happened. But now they can't.
My point was that if people start running open office at home, there's going to be a userbase of people who run it. If a pointy headed boss runs open office at home, and says, "this is good enough," maybe he'll figure it's good enough for the people he manages.
Based on what I see, RH will loose a lot of its (former) users to Debian.
One big problem. It can't open all of their old Office documents yet. I have openoffice on my machine but keep having to use my laptop to open Office documents sent to me in formats it can't open correctly. The whole world isn't going to open all of their documents & reformat so the burden still lies with OpenOffice.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
When was the last time you installed windows. Anaconda is a much better install system that the windows install system is. It is much easier to install a linux distro which uses anaconda that it is to install the windows operating system. The difference is in the configuration. It is much easier to point and click your way to configure things for some reason than to edit text files. It just makes more sense for those who don't care about anything else but the gui.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
"First, the linux installer must be as easy as windows."
Err, that's upside down. Linux installer is already a lot easier than Windows. As anoyone who's had to reboot 6 times to install Windows' drivers knows...
Usabilty is also good. There are some fancy advanced features, many of which have been introduced to windows to compensate for other flaws, and some of which are geniunely useful. However, most of these just lead to potential confusion when dealing with an average user. For instance, if a gesture opens an application, then the user must be careful not to make that gesture. Anyone who has worked with casual users know the importance of not overloaded the system with redundant features.
Which leads to three important conclusions. First, most users do not want to do installations at all. like Windows and MacOS, *nux machines must be already pretty much set up at the factory, and only require minimal setup by the user. This is hard to do right now due to lack of *nix demand and MS licensing, but, as Sun has shown, it can be exploited. It is not that installation is hard, it is that it is required at all.
Second, *nix has to be usable by people who now use windows. The basics have been in the marketplace for 10 years, and are largely implemented. The bells and whistles are good, but cannot be confusing to the new user.
Third, corporate is the taget. Many people get thier experience from corporate. Many people get thier tech support from corporate. Many people get thier software from corporate. If the office runs *nix,it is much more likely the home will as well. If the home can buy a machine that already has *nix installed.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Installing linux is easy. Even installing a hard to install distro such as debian isn't hard. Installing SuSe or Mandrake is easy enough that my MOTHER could do it. It's easier than installing windows. Fuck man, just having to type in the cd-key in a win2k install (and having to retype it a few times b/c you made mistakes) makes installing windows harder. Plus, 99% of the time on a modern computer your gonna hafta go out and get drivers for your video card to get it to display more than 16 colors, get drivers for your sound card (although the chipset may be recognized, in windows sometimes that gives you some pretty bad sound lol, believe me i know).
Installing SuSe on my machine was sooo incredibly easy. All my hardware worked (granted i did not have 3d support built in, but this was a long time ago)...
There's one thing linux needs to play catch up on: installing software after your system is set up. package management (yes, i know, itsn ot hard, but for n00bs its VERY CONFUSING) is a totallly COMPLETELY FOREIGN FRIGGIN CONCEPT to anyone in the windows and mac world...it makes installing software appear to be much harder than it needs to be!
replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
Microsoft isn't blind to this. The $149 Student and Teacher Office Edition is licensed for up to three computers in a single household. Their challenge is to prevent the price cutting in the home arena from affecting the Corporate prices.
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
He's not saying 'lock down hot keys', he's saying make the default settings similar across the board.
This is the same point/counterpoint that always gets brought up. It needs to be as easy as possible out of the box, but still have the option to customize. That way you appeal to both crowds.
Sun runs around 20,000 people off thin clients,
Amen, and this is also one of the killer things about linux that sucks under windows.
Yes, I can get Windows to run on thin clients via a server and app servers just like linux. Problem is that it costs 20 Bajillion dollars to do it for even a small company of only 20-30 workstations.
I know it's a change from the trend of the pc... Computer on every desktop to one master computer serving all the Terminals. but it works insanely well. A dirt cheap Dual Athalon MP motherboard with low end IDE drives,A pair of processors and only 2 gig of ram costs less than most desktops right now and can easily handle the load of 15-20 office workers using X terminals or old pentium PC's configured to be diskless X terminals, thus reducing the IT staff load immensely.
I only hope that in 2004 PHB's get a clue and peopel start realizing that putting a 1.2Ghz machine on the receptionist desk is a massive waste of money, resources and IT time.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As far as hotkeys, why would you want to standardize them? I can define any key to do what I want currently with my distro (SUSE). Different people work in different ways. Why restrict them to what you think should be standard.
You've obviously never done support for non-technical users. A standardized interface and layout make it much easier to troubleshoot a problem.
Us geeks expect that we can customize our keyboards to do one-handed Dvorak layouts if we like. Joe User expects that if he's in an application and he hits F1, it brings up Help, not a new browser window or a machine shutdown.
This is one of the things that Apple and (to some extent) Microsoft has right, and Linux still has, um, room to grow in. A consistent user interface.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The halo is off and linux will have to prove itself by the same measures other IT components are judged.
Since Microsoft has set the bar rediculously low in terms of measurable and effective productivity, this won't be much of an issue.
*sigh* Yet another post claiming what Linux needs to be and where it needs to go, seemingly without understanding the seperation from Linux and the desktop.
/. ideallists telling it what and where it should be.
"First, the linux installer must be as easy as windows."
I suggest you try actually installing RedHat or Mandrake compared to Windows. Windows installer is not anything ot be proud of. If you really want to see the example of how an installer should work, try letting Lindows just do it for you. Apart from looking much better than the windows installer, all these installers provide more flexibiliy while retaining an even more user friendly install that Windows. Gentoo and Debian and the like aren't made for being easy to use, basing your idea of a Linux install off of these just shows that you either don't know what is out there or are just trolling.
"Second the linux desktop has to surpass Windows XP in usability"
Again, this is not something that Linux needs to do, because it has already been done. I find my fluxbox desktop infinately more usable than a Windows desktop (or a gnome or KDE desktop for that matter).
A standardized hot-key interface already exists. It's pretty much the same as it is in Windows. Alt-first letter of the menu item. Some people choose not to implememnt this in their applications, same goes for the Windows community.
There already are programs to launch programs or perform other tasks using gestures. Take a look at xstroke. It doesn't come as default in a distro, because most people don't use gestures. This includes advanced users. A great deal of us Linux users try to use the mouse as little as possible, as a keyboard is quicker and more precise, and with customizable hotkey functionality can pretty much make your rat obsolete, which is a perfect reason NOT to force any standard hotkeys. Why include stuff only a few people are going to use? Just because it makes you happy and might impress a PHB who will still never use that functionality? Gesture users are a definate minority. I have yet to use the gestures plugin I downloaded and installed for Firebird, even though I took the time to customize my gestures.
If these are thing syou truly beleive Linux "needs" to become successful in your eyes, then build your own damn distro. Quit screaming that Linux's "needs" are identical to your own, because they are not.
All Linux "needs" to do is stay open and free in the same spirit it has always been, and the community will tailor Linux to suit their needs. It sounds like what you want is a free and open Windows. Linux was and is not created to replace Microsoft Windows, it has it's own goals which it will complete in its own time, and is doing fine without the 20000
Sorry for the rantings, but every time a comment like this comes along it boils my blood. Linux in my eyes has far surpassed Windows in every arena except for gaming, and the blame there lies with Game Developers, not Linux. Yes it took me some time and effort to get my ultimate desktop, and no matter what, it will take individuals time and effor to get the ultimate desktop, because it's a very personal experience. If you just want something that's standardized across platforms, pick a distro and a desktop and stick to it, but you will always have to make sacrafices.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I think the grandparent post was trying to sell the virtues of customizability. The point I was trying to make was, choice and customizability are a Good Thing until you start supporting large numbers of users. Then you want conformity as it keeps your support costs down.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Oh, please provide some evidence for your wild claims.
I've been hearing it every year since, as well as Linux being "desktop-ready."
It certainly is desktop-ready. *IF* the applications are there, Linux takes over. Just look at the 3d-modelling world which has gone over to Linux almost completely. If the applications are not there, Windows stays in place, obviously. That's why all the gamers are running Windows and will do so for a while.
This has nothing to do with Linux on the technical side. Linux certainly is desktop ready and has been so for quite some time, no matter what Trolls like Overly Critical Guy claim. (Actually the Windows-GUI is quite primitive and horrible to work with once you are used to Unix-style copy/paste, 3-mouse button GUI-support and multiple desktops)
It all depends on the applications. As some cities migrate to Linux and governmental apps get ported to Linux, the migration gets easier, faster and cheaper for other cities and the migration accelerates.
Linux will take one market segment after another, it will take years, not just one year and governments and coroporations will be long running Linux before home users and gamers, just like WinNT was used long before in business than at home, but in the end Linux will take over the desktop just like it took over embedded systems and is taking over servers.
I remember people like Overly Critical Guy:
1993: Linux will never be useful for anything
1995: Linux will never be useful for anything except webservers
1997: Linux will never be useful for anything except webservers and fileservers
1999: Linux will never be useful for anything except for webservers, printservers, fileservers and clusters
2001: Linux will never be useful for anything except for webservers, printservers, fileservers, clusters and embedded systems
2003: Linux will never be useful for anything except for webservers, printservers, fileservers, clusters, embedded systems, 3d-modelling and mainframes
Overly Critical Guy, you look like the catholic church fighting science. You condemn Linux but have to take a little bit every year. Of course you never admit that you were wrong. Of course you never have any evidence (like for that ridiculous "Linux overtaking Windows in 1998" claim). And of course you don't realize that every year your beloved Microsoft loses one little bit of grip.
My prediction for 2005:
Overly Critical guy:
Linux will never be useful for anything except for webservers, printservers, fileservers, clusters, embedded systems, 3d-modelling, mainframes, government desktops and cellphones.