Slashdot Mirror
Linus Says 2004 is the Year for Desktop Linux
lca writes "Linuxworld Australia has an interview with Linus Torvalds about the current state of the Linux desktop and where it will go this year among other things. Also discussed are topics such as hardware support, the SCO issue, and whether or not he will be moving to Australia."
Why would any computer-savvy person want to move to Australia? They've got some of the toughest Internet censorship laws in the free world, IIRC...
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd have to agree with it being close to having a real viable desktop solution. Having LiveCD's in place, such as Knoppix, showing off the ease of running Linux will help bring it to the masses. It's much easier to try Linux if you just have to boot from CD and then "play" instead of having to commit to the install process. My Knoppix installed Debian feels solid compared to the "feel" of Mandrake and Suse which makes me more likely to recommend it to others that I see as borderline tech savy.
So, what do you think KDE or Gnome ?
My bet goes on Gnome because it has better backing by Debian, Novell and Redhat.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
cos the kernel is what all that stuff lays on top of.
2004 will definitely be the linux desktop year.
And IMHO it takes the right direction with Bruce Perens' UserLinux initiative, if he succeeds at convincing linux users/developpers to switch to/work on this new DIY operating system.
It's mission statement would be : Provide businesses with freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options designed to encourage productivity and security while reducing overall costs.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent - Salvor Hardin
I was wondering similar things myself on reading the headline. I haven't yet installed 2.6 on my machine yet, but I have heard that it is a bit 'snappier', which I believe goes a long way towards making the desktop seem like you are controlling it, rather than having it control you. The KDE / gnome work, is also very important, but a solid fast user-responsive kernel is a boon to anyone trying to sell anyone else on linux on the desktop.
It's kind of like declaring this is the year that an asteroid will strike the earth. Keep declearing that this is the year and eventually you will be proved right. (not that Linux on the desktop would mean devastation of life on earth, as we know it).
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
Um...Why do we want a 3D desktop? It seems to me that first of all, 3D is always going to be slower to manage and display than 2D; monitors (even the newer ones with the spiffy multi-layer technology) don't really handle 3D displays well. Yes, I want my 3D displays, such as they are, for gaming; I don't see any real need or use for it in a business desktop, though.
Feel free to correct me here, but I don't read text on a slanted pane very well...:)
This flies in the face of science.
Linux is ready for the desktop market, concerning speed, power, and(almost) ease of use.
The major obstacle is that people stick with what they're comfortable with.
Linux's office programs are just as good(if not better) than their windows equivalents, but everyone I know who uses Word will stick with it till they die, because they know it backwards and forwards(I got my friend, an author, running linux, and he loves it, but he made me get word to work on it via Wine).
I use openoffice(I dual boot and use openoffice in both XP and Linux), but only because I didnt want to shell out for word when i got my new computer.
People are comfortable with what they've been using in the past. Until the layperson can understand the massive advantages of using linux, they will stick to windows.
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
This year will see Linux finally crack the lucrative desktop market as more commercial software vendors tool up and cash in on the operating system and kernel developers improve graphical interface integration says cult hero and Linux founder Linus Torvalds.
Yes, Linux is a suitable desktop replacement. I still don't see a significant number of people making the switch. What is the motivation for the average user who has invested time in learning Windows to switch?
Aside from impoverished goverments in third world countries (California anyone?) are the masses going to bother learning something new when what they have tends to meet their needs?
contrary to some of the other responses to your post - i agree with you wholeheartedly. success and penetration of the desktop will have very little to do with performance from 2.6 kernel - but rather with good usability practices within the community.
The so called 'dummies" really don't care much about the operating system that they are using. They care much more about the applications that they are running. They also care about the availability of training and support for the operating system and applications.
The computer using world can be reoughly divided into two categories:
(1) People who want to think about the work their doing, but don't want to think about the computer technology they are using.
(2) People who want to think about the work they are doing and who like to think about how the computer is doing the work.
The first group wants reliability, stability, and transparency. They d not want to spend a lot of time fixing or upgrading their computer. They do not want to spend a lot of time working on a computer that crashes. They do not want to spend a lot of time thinking about how to do their work. Their main interest is in what works, not necessarily what works best.
They won't switch to Linux from something that is good enough to allow them to do their work. They may switch to Linux if they are upgrading a computer and it is clear that Linux will allow them to do their work without giving much thought to how the computer works.
Don't underestimate the importance of a good kernel for the desktop. You need good multitasking support (low-latency context switching, an efficient scheduler, a good VM system) for the GUI environment to be responsive and zippy. You need a good infrastructure and API for device drivers to get the most out of your peripherals. People hate buying a fancy video card only to find that half the I/O ports aren't supported.
Why would any year for Linux be make or break? That makes no sense at all when one considers the strides that have been made in just the last few years.
I personally think Linux is popular because of X,OpenOffice,Gimp,Apache,TuxRacer, etc etc, and ETC and there is nothing but more software coming out for the OS. I cannot imagine everyone throwing in the towel after 2004 if Linux doesn't take over the desktop: "Oh hell, forget it, this was to be THE year, but wasn't so let's shut the doors."
Also, a lot of people are already using Linux as a desktop and feel the "make" much more than the "break" already. If mass appeal picks up, great, but considering the effort that goes into the OS and the software that runs on Linux, to simplify one year as THE defining year for an operating system misses the point.
among other things hardware support(for CURRENT hardware) is vital for desktop success(which 2.6 may or may not have impact on later on, or whatever he plans to do).
the page isn't loading for me so I can't really comment on if his commenting it somehow.
-
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm a programmer, and I don't mind having to google/read a book/scour the newsgroups to find out how to install XYZ software. However, the average user wants to just point and click. They like having Microsoft/Apple update their software for them. Look how popular Norton is. I just don't see how the open source movement will ever be motivated to work on usability issues related to Linux.
Think about this. How many times have you heard the terms "usability" and "open source" in the same sentence. Now how many times have you heard these same terms without the word "NOT". Have you ever heard of "yet another user interface"? No, instead we have software with names like yacc, Bison, and ANTLR (all of these programs are used in compiler design).
Look, I like Linux too, but as a server. It's just not ready for the desktop.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
Not that I'm complaining, but wasn't 2003 supposed to be the year of desktop linux?
Interesting, though nothing earth-shattering. Open-source also supports Freedom."
Hardly.
I'd venture it's because the Slashdot community holds their villians to a higher standard than their heroes.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
He's more than a kernel hacker, he's an open source leader. Part of his role in the community is to set direction, identify problem areas, and do all of those other things that leaders do.
By Linus coming out and focusing on the desktop (even if just in words) he's effectively pointing the collective effort of the open source community more and more to that end.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
I am a uniter, not a divider
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
... because many important peripherals do not work by default. For example, getting 802.11x is still a pita in linux unless you plan ahead by making certain that your hardware works with it. And most people won't care about saving a few hundred bucks if they can't get a scanner or camera or mp3 player or PDA or $whatever to interface with their PC. I could not pretend that an average user should use Linux at this point, unless they are interesting in having PC maintenance as a new hobby.
This is not a problem with the linux kernel, but instead a typical problem of market share in a marketplace dominated by a player with a high degree of monopoly power. Put more simply, the problem is not that Linux sucks, it just needs to have larger market share before hardware manufacturers pay attention and bother with the hassle of trying to deal with Linux (multiple distros, multiple DEs, etc).
However, 2004 will probably be the year where corporations start to move some of their enterprise desktops to Linux. With Novell and Sun both pushing Linux/GNOME solutions, and the less varied peripheral requirements of Linux in the corporate environment... things seem to be pointing in that direction. I would predict that "Year of the Desktop" makes more sense for 2005, when Linux will be building market share thanks to the corps, and hardware manufacturers start to pay more attention to getting things to work.
Though, for knowledgeable people who are willing to go through the hassle of getting devices to work with Linux, the Year of the Desktop was really 2003... at least for me it was. DVD, ALSA, OOo, MozillaFirebird.... these things help make the Linux desktop possible and they are here long before 2004 started.
501 Not Implemented
Being a Mac user, I've learned to take these kind of prognostications with a grain of salt over the years. Linux has a good foundation and it's nearly free but that's no where near enough to win the hearts and minds of the average computer user. Obviously it has to do what they need, with the minimum amount of hassle and the maximum amount of pleasure. Linux has too many loose ends, too much variability, and a really substandard user interface at this point. It's going to have to be at least as polished as Windows and probably closer to OS X level before it really starts swaying people. I'm eager to use Linux and I check out all the distributions when they have notable releases, but nothing has shown me a reason to switch, not even for a bare bones e-mail/web machine.
Shame that those buttons and functions frequently use proprietary drivers that the companies making the laptops won't open up. Why is the burden on "Linux" -- which is a kernel, essentially -- to make a bunch of closed-source companies' crap work? If the NVIDIA drivers are breaking, are you certain that the onus is on Linus and friends to fix it?
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
You know, I hear that argument quite a bit. But Windows 9x -> XP had a learning curve. Mac OS 9 -> Mac OS X had a learning curve. The same goes for applications. Every now and then the interface changes, and users learn how to use it. With OS, the vast majority just go with what's already installed when they buy it. Once Gnome and KDE are deemed useable enough to ship pre-installed on consumer PC lines by the likes of Dell, Sony, and HP, people will buy them as long as they can access all their files. They don't need to know that every widget will look the same. When people buy a new replacement computer, they say "Will I be able to view all my photos and listen to all my songs? Will I be able to access all my favorite web sites? Will I be able access my documents and spreadsheets?" If applications have full file compatibility, and the system mime types are set correctly, they won't care. They'll see right away that it's a little different, and they'll take the time to learn it, as long as the files open and the data is still correct.
None of KDE, GNOME, Gimp, mplayer or OpenOffice come out for Linux. They just come out. They'll be available in BSD ports systems, for Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, SCO UnixWare, and in the case of KDE, mplayer and Gimp, native Mac OS X. Yes, this software is available for Linux. But it's not Linux software. A "Linux PC", such as this one, contains a whole mishmash of software, which is running atop a Linux kernel. That could so easily be a FreeBSD kernel, a Darwin kernel, a SunOS 5 kernel, Windows running SFU, WIndows running Cygwin, whatever. The source is available and people will build it on their own platforms.
You don't remember the enormous amount of bitching that went on when he told the kernel list to use BitKeeper, do you?
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
How is his input vital for desktops which are KDE/GNOME dominated now, projects he is not involved with...
I'm sure you can say the opposite when it comes to hardware support "To get Linux on the desktop, it needs to work with every two-bit gizmo Joe Average has. The kernel needs to do that, not us".
And then someone will come along and say "Kernel, KDE/Gnome that's all nice. But it's our *applications* that make people come to Linux. Without applications, Linux is nothing".
Who is right? A little bit of everybody. And Linus is leading one of the trinity, so I'd say he's pretty damn important.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
For me to switch more toward my Unix style installation instead of XP I would like to see more multimedia. I see a trend toward using the PC as a multimedia entertainment centre. Hook up a projector and you have TV, PVR, timeshifing live TV, Radio Games, mail and Internet on a big screen. I don't see a whole lot of support for the All in Wonder Radeon in Linux or BSD. Also more games would be nice. Otherwise Linux would be a nice stable platform for a Multimedia PC. How about mabey a Multimedia Linux Version, hey Linus, pretty please.
Many a long talk since then I have had with the man in the moon; he had my confidence on the voyage. Joshua Slocum
I already use it as a desktop OS on my laptop with few problems.
As much I don't feel like burning Karma here with Flamebait, this is exactly the reason it's not ready. It runs on a laptop with "few problems". Few problems is a reason enough not to switch.
Will my USB Camera work? Can 1-touch scanning be setup without the use of a complex script? Joe Dialup doesn't want to go to Sourceforge to find a piece of software called gkehjg2 just to get his device to install and compile (compile? what's that!)
The install for Linux is CLOSE, I believe Fedora(/Redhat) needs to handle their package selection better (why install isdn-tools defaultly??) and file systems scare all but people who use it daily.
Where are you files? "My Documents". How do you move it to another harddrive? "". How do you open it? "Double click it." How do you open that same file in a different program? "You can do that?"
For anyone on Linux, Windows seems like a "toy OS" because everything is hidden. Well, that's what most computer beginners want! They don't have time/don't care about a dependancy, they want it to work, NOW!
I like being the different person on the block, make it just a lil easier so people other than hobbists can use it, but not so secretaries of CEOs can and I'll be happy.
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
While I think Linux's desktop is mostly ready for prime time (both KDE and Gnome could still use a lot of polish, though...), it's driver architecture is not. 2.6 is still suffering from a lot of old and poor architectural choices, making it difficult to develop drivers for new hardware quickly. I saw some discussion of changes which could go into 2.7/2.8 which might make it easier to correct this. But until the driver architecture is fixed, you're going to have installation problems on newer machines. And until you have really smooth installation on newer machines, people aren't going to adopt Linux on the desktop. It has to be trivial to install or it won't fly.
I'm amazed that someone pointed out that Linus uses a laptop that has Windows on it, as well as linux, and used that as an example of what an honest guy Linus is (because he was willing to tell everyone, since presumeably, Gates would never be that honest if his laptop had linux). The fact that Linus has Windows loaded on his laptop along with Linux is a blatant example of the fact that LINUX IS NOT COMPLETELY READY FOR MAINSTREAM. Maybe, Linus should be using his laptop without Windows before he declares 2004 the "year of the linux desktop".
Okay, now everyone go ahead and flame away, I've set myself up here I suppose, but just keep in mind I'm very much PRO-LINUX. I want nothing more than 2004 to be the year of the linux-desktop... I'm just a realist and there are a lot of people in the Linux community who are realists, too, who understand that linux is headed in too many different directions to be mainstream. Organize, combine, simplify: 1 distro, 1 desktop, solid hardware detection, simple upgrades.
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
I think that's what he was hinting at in TFA. Generally speaking he notes that things are "consolidating". I just thought it was interesting how he considers "...some confusion and rivalry that has helped its development." to be helpful.
At least he has the patience to let the community work out standards for itself; I sure don't want to be told what to think.
C|N>K
This is yet another article on "the state of Linux on the desktop," and yet again, we're told this year will be "the year."
I've been hear that since at least 1998, every year.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Linus is the maintainer of the experimental Linux kernal, he realy doesn't care about
1. package managers,
2. Window managers,
He seems to like Xwindows, but he isn't saying we have to use it.
He wants to let us all fight among ourselves concerning standards and now Linux is the most fragmented OS in existence.
Well he does try to keep the fight fair which lends itself to the survival of the fittest and ultimately the best overall system.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Please Please Please! Will people shut up about merging GNOME and KDE. It's won't happen, can't happen, shouldn't happen. IT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
You want reasons? OK.
- One is C, the other C++. Many programmers of each project would find it difficult to switch over. I write C++ almost exclusively - switching to pure C is a wrench for me and I don't enjoy it so much. I can't imagine what a complex C++ class hierachy like KDE would look like after a bunch of C programmers 'maintained' it.
- Doubling the number of programmers even on a commercial project where everyone is paid to work doesn't double output. On projects where most of the work is on a volunteer basis, so people have to *really want* to work, the ratio would be even worse. Factor in the arguments caused by all those developers with different ideas, and you could end up actually lowering productivity.
- You can't tell volunteer developers what to do. If you shut down GNOME and said "now work on KDE", I guarantee that most of the GNOME developers would start up their own DWARF project within a week.
- Choice is GOOD. I don't like GNOME. Others don't like KDE. Who is right? Neither of us - it's a personal judgement.
What is a good thing is the increasing agreement on standard protocols for exchange between the two. "Desktop Linux" is not a product produced by development teams. They just make the components - distro makers take the projects and make an integrated desktop from them.
I agree that bootable CDs make a huge difference. There is one problem, though. I've given bootable CDs to a few people. When they reboot with the CD in the drive nothing happens but Windows loading. Many (most?) users need to set their BIOS to try booting from CD because it's not set by default. When I explain that it's an immediate turn-off, no matter how easy it is. They sigh and think using Linux means work. They've all been happy in the end, but unfortunately it may not be as easy as handing out CDs and saying, "Put this in and turn on your computer." Plus if this becomes common I'm sure a certain big software company will strongly suggest to desktop hardware manufacturers that booting from CD not be on by default.
Developers: We can use your help.
You know, I never had any problem watching a divx, browsing the web, emerging the world, running bittorrent, and burning a cd simultaneously on a 2.4 kernel. The mouse cursor might get a little choppy, but 2.6 has fixed this right up. This is on a relatively moderate system. 1800xp, 512mb ram, kt266a chipset. I never had any problem playing music and web browsing simultaneously on my old p200 either. I don't know what your problem is. Buggy audio drivers? Forget to turn dma on with hdparm?
As for apple, the reason it went with the mach kernel was undoubtedly the more liberal license.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think the thing is, Linus, despite being the Godfather of Linux, has not been expressing this sort of sentiment. In fact he's for years seemed to mostly be saying "yeah the Desktop isn't really my concern, maybe something will happen."
This would indicate the fact that he's turned around and is now saying "yeah, Linux is probably ready for the desktop" means something, or at least indicates that this opinion comes from careful thought and not just blind promotion. My guess is that he is mostly making this statement now because his part of Linux-- the kernel-- has, with 2.6 and the new preemption and scheduling system, recieved a very considerable amount of improvement in the way it performs in desktop situations.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"Unix on the other hand, demands that its users master a highly symbolic computing environment based primarily on the motif of arbitrary symbols linearly placed on a command line."
That must be why 'books' never took off. They're just too damn difficult to use! Who wants to spend all that time learning 'grammars' and 'spelling' with arbitrary symbols linearly placed on a page.
I know IHBT, but I'm responding anyway. I believe that the best reason for *both* the CLI and GUI to exist is that they represent the difference between the 'language' and 'visual' parts of the brain (respectively).
With the CLI you are 'telling' the computer what to do. As I would tell you where to go and how to get there. Very effective for many tasks.
With a GUI you are presented with options, and you 'point and click' at them. I show you a map in the real world, and ask you to point at where you want to go.
Some people want to 'drag' a file from one folder to another (these people probably point to objects in a store and grunt to get them). Others would rather 'explain' to the computer what files to move, where, and how.
*nix/*BSD have a nice mixture of both. The CLI was first, but the GUI's are catching up. It would be 'wrong' to forsake one for the other. Even Apple kept the *nix command line for Mac OSX!
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
I certainly expect to see the day (maybe this year) when the average Linux user never sees a CLI, or even knows what one is. BUT, the CLI will remain an essential and critical part of Linux (and all Unixes) forever due to its inherent utility and power. In Windows the config files are hard to find, written in a format that is only machine readable, and if the GUI doesn't have an option for doing what you want, you're screwed. Compare to Linux where the config files are easy to find, human readable, and if the GUI doesn't have an option for doing what you want it isn't really much of a hassle. We need better GUIs, yes, absolutely. Joe User needs to be able to do pretty much everything from a GUI. But the CLI is indespensable to those who need to do real work, and will not dissapear.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
I've said this before, but I'll repeat it. This is really an old argument. If you were to install Windows XP on the same laptop from scratch, you would run into the same (possibly more) problems. Here's a little experiment I recently did:
I bought an emachine laptop (M5310) not too long ago. It came with XP Home installed. I wiped it clean. Installed Suse 9 on it. I had to change a line in /etc/XF86Config to get the proper screen resolution (1280x800). Hot-plug devices (PC cards and USB) worked properly. ACPI worked fine, although I had to futz with the power-management settings a bit (/etc/sysconfig/powermanagement) to get proper CPU throttling. Other than that, SUSE loaded fine.
Now I decided to load XP Professional. Why professional instead of Home? Well, I had a full copy of XP PRO and didn't have a full Home copy. That's right. The laptop did not ship with the full media. It came with a Ghost image.
Let me tell you... XP Pro barfed all over the place. Could not get wireless working. Screen resolution was 1280-768 stretched (I probably could have found a way to fix this, admittedly). Somehow, after the initial install, the CD/DVD drive was gone. Couldn't get it back. Only one USB port worked - how XP managed that I don't know.
My point is that there will always be problems with getting any machine working properly after a fresh install - Linux, XP, BSD. The real key to desktop acceptance by Joe Camera/Scanner/Dialup is for manufacturers to ship boxes with Linux loaded and a generous set of drivers/modules installed - they're out there. All it takes is for one major computer maker to do the quality testing of everything for their hardware.
There is no need to discard the command line. There is a need to improve the GUI. Ideally both should be able to do everything. We CAN have both.
There's no need to Windowsify Linux, there's no need to drop the command line. There's also no need to teach people to use the command line, though that would be my preference if it came to it.
Repeat: The GUI can exist to make remembering those arcane sequences easy in a way that is functionally identical to windows, but whicha ctually leveregaes the power of the command line, and enhances it, thus not alienating the core user base.
I want my Cowboyneal
I've been a Linux user for the past 12 years and it has been my primary desktop for most of those (as in, no dual-boot, just Linux). I've lived through TWM and FVWM. I've hand-editted Modelines with the aide of a calculator. I've suffered through the growing pains of Linux on the desktop. I say all this to show that I know that the Linux desktop has big hairy warts.
Recently I bought an Apple iBook G4 and it came with all the latest MacOSX software. I toyed with MacOSX for about an hour before reformatting and installing Linux. I honestly prefer Linux as my desktop. It does exactly what I want with no fuss or effort. I haven't needed to edit a config file in more than two years. XFree86 doesn't even need Modelines anymore; they're all autodiscovered with DDC and EDID. Even traditional UNIX applications are configured with debconf; I just click on the little GUI buttons that appear after selecting my package updates in the GUI software manager. The Linux desktop has all the applications I want (ie, email, browser, word processor). All the features I want (ie, MP3, DVD). And all the games I want (ie, chess). It's a perfect setup for me.
Does the Linux desktop still have warts? Sure, but from my experiences at work, so does Windows. And I've owned various Macintoshes including more than one PowerPC model, so I know MacOS has warts too (at least Classic did, I don't know a lot about MacOSX)! I think Linux as a desktop is great. It's my preference. I don't care if you don't use it; your usage or non-usage of Linux doesn't affect me either way. But I think you're mistaken if you think there's no compelling reason to use Linux on the desktop. The fact that many of us do use Linux on the desktop should be your first hint that it offers something, even if you can't see what that something is.
I really do disagree and for one very simple reason: Windows 3.0. It was a horrible interface. It was kludgy and undirected. Applications all looked different. Cut and paste did not work properly. You had to edit CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT from the command line. It had memory leaks and was unstable. Drivers were a nightmare, especially for networking.
But it won. It beat out the obviously better alternatives. The majority of users didn't really care about unified interfaces or simplicity. They're only interested in "good enough" and "costs less". And part of the "costs less" component was the hardware that it ran on.
The entire American culture demonstrates that I'm right. McDonalds is more popular than decent restaurants. StarBucks is more popular than decent cafes. Walmart is more popular than speciality stores. People are happy with good enough if it costs less. They very fact that people buy Palsonic is enough proof for me.
I think you're right that Linux isn't as cohesive, unified, directed, etc as alternatives like Windows and MacOSX. I just don't agree with you that it matters. People will buy the cheapest option and that cheapest option is Linux[1]. It just needs to be good enough and then it wins.
[1] And they won't consider TCO. If they did then they would never have lumbered themselves with Windows in the first place. Upfront cost is the only cost that people really care about.