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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."
They didn't ask Linus if he paid his $699 licensing fee to SCO. It'd be a shame for him to have to stop working on their OS..
Trolling is a art,
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
With the advent of the 2.6 series kernel, along with the efforts for compatability between KDE and GNOME, I think linux is getting very close for the desktop. I already use it as a desktop OS on my laptop with few problems. With a little bit more effort, even so -called "dummies" will be able to work with it as well.
Linux breaks desktop barrier in 2004: Torvalds
Rodney Gedda , Computerworld
15/01/2004 15:43:16
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. Computerworld's Rodney Gedda cornered the penguin power supremo at the Linux.Conf.au in Adelaide.
Computerworld: How do you feel Linux on the desktop is progressing?
Linus Torvalds: Last year was good but I'm seeing a lot more noise about it this year. The server space is easier to tackle first with any operating system as it can be applied to specific tasks such as mail serving; however, the desktop is harder to sell.
Now, the kernel and other pieces are coming together including office applications, games and Web browsers. This has made the Linux desktop interesting to commercials. Commercials tend to choose one desktop, such as KDE or GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment), and stick with it. There has been some confusion and rivalry that has helped its development. Right now it looks like the two are closing in on each other, for example, with Red Hat's Bluecurve interface.
I don't think X is going away as it has a powerful infrastructure and throwing it away would be stupid. And its network transparency is good. It's likely that X will be the 2D interface to a lower-level graphics system that is based on OpenGL. The Linux desktop wants to have 3D as the base and X as the interface to 2D.
The fact that X and kernel development have been separate is good; one could evolve without the other but DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure) has made them not completely independent. As a developer, having the two separate is good, because different people are good at developing for each.
CW: Any plans for 2004?
LT: I've never had much of a plan for the direction of Linux as I react to outside pressure. This year there will be a lot of desktop users, which will impact kernel developers.
For now I will be working the stabilisation of kernel 2.6 and in a month or two I expect Fedora (the core of Red Hat Linux) to have a release with 2.6 so I expect to get more bug reports.
CW: Would adopting an integrated hardware and software system be good for Linux?
LT: There are pure technical disadvantages of having an operating system that supports a wide range of hardware. The variety of hardware makes it challenging as Linux needs thousands of drivers.
But having an operating system that is independent of the hardware is powerful for the user as it is basically the same on big and small machines. Another big advantage of a wide hardware base is an operating system that is more flexible. This is why Linux is having a lot of impact in the embedded space. An operating system is a complex beast, so it's nice to have an existing one that can be adapted to the hardware. There are a few problem spots with Linux driver support by hardware companies and wireless is one of them. With hardware getting better this problem is being solved.
CW: What about Linux in the enterprise?
LT: The direction Linux takes in the enterprise will depend on what resources enterprise companies put into it. This is the one thing that will push Linux into the high end.
IBM is the most obvious, and although it is impressive to run Linux on high-end hardware, most of the people who work on Linux don't have access to it. It's the regular desktops that get most of the attention by programmers.
CW: What about open source code bundling by commercial software companies?
LT: Quite often that's fine and it is fine with BSD (Berkely Software/Standard Distribution) code. But I like the GPL (General Public Licence), because I want people to give [code] back. If hardware appliance makers don't give back code then that's a problem, but giving it back shouldn't cause any problems. And
I've got weapons of math instruction!
At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later
discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying
to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a
protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft
said he believes the man is a member of the notorious
al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with
carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult,", Ashcroft said. "They desire
average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off
on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret
code names like "x" and "y" and refer to themselves as
"unknowns", but we have determined they belong to a common
denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.
"As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3
sides to every triangle," Ashcroft declared.
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If
God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction,
He would have given us more fingers and toes.
"I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that
it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are
willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky
statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of
influence," the President said, adding: "Under the
circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our
point, and draw the line."
President Bush warned, "These weapons of math instruction
have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a
scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a
Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex."
Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our Great Leader would
say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty
of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered
as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks."
What's his latest toy?
A Sony Electronics Inc. Vaio, Japanese edition. It's a handheld PC that has a 4-GB hard disk, 64 MB of RAM and a Pentium MMX 266-MHz processor. It weighs in at just 2.6 pounds and runs both Linux and Windows. "It's cute as hell." Oh, and it has a built-in camera.
Now imagine Billy-boy using Linux (maybe just to give it a test-run) and talking publicly about it. That would never happen because of the expected PR backlash.
Linus, on the other hand can be as frank as he wants to, without an axe hanging over his head.
Interesting, though nothing earth-shattering. Open-source also supports Freedom.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.
Its not being to be a 3D desktop. Its going to use 3D hardware on current graphics cards to allow for really rich 2D artwork. Current-gen 3D hardware can do Quartz-style anti-aliased, transparent 2D without breaking a sweat, and that's what developers want to take advantage of.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
What finally got me to try Linux is when I read a post on Slashdot about Mepis, which, like Knoppix, is a Linux distribution on a bootable CD. While I'd been aching to give Linux a try for years, I never had a spare box to run it, and I wasn't about to wipe XP and all my stuff off my main computer. If you haven't heard about it, Mepis is a full linux install and suite of software that you can boot off a CD and play with, without wiping your existing operating system from your hard drive.
After trying Mepis for just a couple hours, I fell in love. Everything from my optical mouse to my Nvidia drivers to my keychain drive worked without any installation. I'm going to go on using XP on my current box, but I now know that the Linux desktop is indeed ready for prime time. When I upgrade to a new system next year, Microsoft won't get a penny. I'm going to buy a whitebox system, and get myself a good Linux distribution.
I don't care how polished Linux gets; I think the only way it's ever going to get exposure to general users is on Mepis/Knoppix style CD ROMs that let people take the OS for a test drive. I really think that the best way to bring Linux to the general public is to distribute as many ten-cent CD ROMs as you can to friends and family, so they can see for themselves that there's no need to pay the Microsoft tax on their next PC purchase.
The way I see it, overcoming Microsoft's hegemony requires working on two fronts. The first is building quality distributions that work plug-and-play with everything from printers to wireless cards. And the second front is the creation of full-featured bootable CD's that let people see -- on their own machine -- how great Linux has become.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
I think you mean GNU/Christ, brother.
Erlang.org: wow
According to The Register, Munich is finding that trying to get Linux on the city's desktop is not yet possible -- even with direct help from IBM and SuSE. They're finding that what Microsoft has said about Word is true in general: it isn't just the big things that everybody uses which are a problem, but also the little things which a very small number of people can't do without. In that case of Word, it turns out that almost everybody has a few small, exotic features that they really need, and that those small features, taken together, add up to a much greater barrier than all the big features which everybody needs.
This isn't going to be the year of Linux on the desktop if that holds true generally.
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.
Well, I have some experience here. My mom ran windows for the last 3 years. She doesn't know computers, but that's what her DELL had on it. She has been it with virii and recently some adware that prominently displayed itself on her desktop.
Her computer runs slower and she doesn't know why. Probably unknown background processes chewing up CPU. All she does is email and surf the web, but the computer crashes and she is annoyed beyond belief with it. She is begging me to put something better on her machine, and she SPECIFICALLY asked for linux. She knows about linux as an alternative because I've mentioned that it's what I run on my machines. Her problems with windows have led her to conclude that she'd rather try something--anything--than continue running what she has. Oh yeah, she has paid "her guru" to come over and fix problems several times, and is tired of hiring someone to fix things that shouldn't be broken. So, an unstable, unreliable, virus-ridden, expensive operating system is its own incentive to switch. At least for MY mom.
That may be as far as
When 2.4 was stable and he started working on 2.6, Linus said he wanted to put in more features for desktop. Now, I don't know if you noticed, but Linux on servers has been working out pretty well during that time period. Now, it's desktop's turn (according to Linus) and we'll see what happens; even Linus admits that it's harder on the desktop:
The server space is easier to tackle first with any operating system as it can be applied to specific tasks such as mail serving; however, the desktop is harder to sell.