Linus on SCO, and the Desktop Being 10 Years Away

An anonymous reader writes "In this interview from last week's Linux.conf.au in Australia, Linus Torvalds talks about how the SCO lawsuit 'riled' him and led him to spend a week writing an application to archive his email, and how he think Linux will take 5 to 10 years to become mainstream on the desktop."

Comments

I agree

[PatrickThomson]

Linux on the desktop is a long long way off from being as easy to use for beginners as windows is. I think we need to just grit our teeth, clench our buttocks, swallow our pride and set out to emulate windows's simplicity.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we need to just grit our teeth, clench our buttocks [...]

Uh, I'll leave that one to you, champ.

Re:I agree

[Leroy_Brown242]

Emulating someone else is not the path to being a hero. As I have talked about before, we need tog et some fresh blood intothe design of a new GUI. OSX, Windows, windowmaker, KDE, all suck. Outofo them all, I like OSX and windowmaker the best, but they suck.

Linux/unix will be popular on the desktop, when the GUI is not designed by a geek.

Re:I agree

[vpscolo]

At the end of the days users want something that works with their existing apps and documents. They don't care whats going on underneath as long as it works

Rus

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many definitions of "The Desktop"

For many, it doesn't necessarily mean anything to do with beginners, or home users, or kiddie-eyecandy.

Personally, i see it as being a strength on the desktop in a business sense, where an organisation like IBM or Telstra or NTT has 50,000 workers all needing a desktop computer to easily email, browse, collaborate with users, plan their day, type documents, organise stuff etc.

For those users, the whole setup and install thing is irrelevant, and that's the hardest part at the moment. When it comes to actually using say, a good KDE install set up by a company for its own users, Linux is ready for the desktop in the middle of last year.

Re:I agree

[tomcrick]

I think with the lower end of Linus's statement (5 years), the use (and awareness) of Linux will become much more noticeable. I've noticed recently that the SCO lawsuit has made some waves in UK papers, where previously you'd be hard pushed to find a mention of Linux whenever a computer-related article is published (Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft!). Possibly something to do with the fact that the big name of IBM is involved, but surely this is a good thing - getting the Linux name actually recognised!

It's still amazing to see the puzzled look on people's faces when they ask what 'Red Hat Linux' is and when did Microsoft release it.....

Re:I agree

[Durin_Deathless]

Why are we all so focused on cloning something we all agree is awful? Almost everyone I know agrees that overall OS X is a better interface(of those that know both, those that know one don't count here). So why not clone the best instead of cloning the worst?

Seriously, the whole hiding the apps from the user thing ticks me off. I like the OS X solution better. You can have an optional start menu if you like, but make the apps as easy to add/remove as OS X and Be OS and NeXTstep. All GUI programs should be this way. None of this "Program Files" you're too stupid to look here, and don't mix the GUI apps into the same dir with the command line ones.

OK. I'm done. Do I need to don a fireproof suit?

Re:I agree

[CaptnMArk]

Windows simplicity? LOL

Re:I agree

[Durin_Deathless]

when the GUI is not designed by a geek
Yes!! I'm not alone!
True usability is defined(for me) as a machine that my Grandma can use. Not my geeky friends, but my parents and grandparents that aren't into computers.

Re:I agree

[caluml]

Im tired of all this .blah hidden config files which has no standard formats except tabs. how about using something more structured. like XML Why? No reason on earth. foo = bar. Why make it more complicated?

Re:I agree

[starseeker]

Well, yes and no. Two things to remember when considering how to get Windows users over to Linux:

1) most of them don't care what OS they're running
as long as it works

IP issues don't matter, freedom doesn't matter. What matters is things working, being straightforward, and being able to do what other users are doing. Computing is a social activity - people don't use them in isolation anymore. (Insert ironic geek social misfit comment here.) So falling down in any of these camps is enough to prevent people from switching.

2) Inertia is the most power force in the desktop
computer world.

Ordinary users Don't Like Change. If they take the time to relearn something, it has to be because it's so much better than what they have they can't live without it. That's a very rare condition. OSX is better than Windows, but not enough better that everyone is willing to abandon Windows. A few do, but inertia in computerland is a group effect, and as long as the group inertia is strong in one direction everyone goes that way. This is why Microsoft has a natural monopoly, much more so that telephones or power lines. Technology was able to find new ways to provide telephone service, and things like solar and wind power can generate power independant of power lines. But if people need to expend a lot of effort to learn a tool, THEY WILL NOT THROW AWAY THAT EFFORT. The software market, particularly the OS market, must face this. Change can occur, but very, very slowly. Which leads us to our first two guiding principles:

Taking over the World - Rule #1

Patience is not a virtue - it is a necessity

Taking over the World - Rule #2

There will never be a "Year of the Desktop"

Media and fans like explosive, dramatic changes. But that is not how things happen on a large scale. This is more like a river cutting through rock. So don't build up Linux as "about to take over the world/desktop/White House/whatever" because it won't be so dramatic. Particularly in light of

Taking over the World - Rule #3

"Desktop Ready" is not a well defined target,
and as such "making it" is like chasing a
mirage.

Each person has their own definition of ready for the desktop. Linux met mine years ago, and it's doubtful Windows could meet mine now. But I don't worry about what most users worry about - consistent look and feel aren't an issue for me. So who defines "ready"? For me, ready was a while back. But I'm clearly a geek. For my Dad, it might be close. For my Mom, I doubt it's close. It's a fuzzy thing.

With SCO making as much trouble as humanly possible for Linux and open source, and Microsoft lurking in the background, I know it's hard to remember this last rule. But do try, because it's the only reason we got as far as we have, and it's the only reason we'll go anywhere in the future.

Taking over the World - Rule #4 (The important one)

Have fun!

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't kid yourself, a computer simple enough for granny to use will be useless to other people. Face it, the older generation got left out of the whole tech thing, and it's pointless catering to them or the other simpering idiots that find KDE or anything comparable 'difficult'.

The REAL problem, which is too late to fix, is the dumbass desktop scheme. How many people find Folders, Files and other abstract concepts apply well to computing? All you end up with is a user left scratching his/her head, saying 'now where the fuck did I put that file'. Add to that the logical yet difficult unix system tree, and you've got a mess on your hands.

I will admit, however, that having a /home directory each user has all to themselves is a big leap over Windows. And before the windows trolls flame me..wait I'm at zero, fuck it.

Re:I agree

[DoraLives]

emulate windows's simplicity.

True usability is defined(for me) as a machine that my Grandma can use

Which is what's endlessly hanging everybody up in the field of GUI design. They all want to be DIFFERENT from windows, but they fail to realize that windows isn't just decided upon by fiat, but instead is the result of endless focus groups and user surveys to determine exactly what grandma actually works most comfortably with! Microsoft has huge resources and can afford endless focus groups and user surveys to arrive at a smooth, intuitive GUI. We're not asking to emulate Microsoft, but instead emulate (or invent independently) a smooth user interface as defined by the users themselves. Which is apparently such a simple concept that nobody seems able to grok it.

Re:I agree

[westlake]

When you have 50,000 users at all skill levels and none of them geeks, designing a Linux desktop that "just works" for everyone is a difficult problem and by no means solved.

Re:I agree

[starseeker]

Uh - you don't "have" to do anything. Linux is like a takeover by democratic vote - no one forces you to use it unless you want to. Republicians don't get stamped out when Democrats win an election - they still exist. The challenge is to make Linux good enough that the logical decision is to use it instead of Windows, not somehow force users to remove Windows. Indeed, if Linux is strong enough it might compel Microsoft to respect common standards, and everyone would be better off. Taking over is defined as gaining enough momentum and user base so that people have to pay attention to making their stuff work with a product that everyone has complete access to, not leaving a smoking crater where every Windows box was.

The Linux War is a war to break a monopoly, and restore choice as a default situation. Restoring choice does NOT mean destroying Windows. But thanks to the position they've taken, it DOES seem to mean humbling Microsoft. Not end users mind you, but Microsoft. IBM used to be like Microsoft, but after they fell off the high peak they learned how to play nicer with the rest of the world. Maybe Microsoft can too.

You've been listening to Stallman too much. By all means, use Windows if you like it. No one is prying it out of your hands - if you ever let go it will be because YOU want to, not because anyone made you. Prying it out of your hands would be Microsoft's idea of victory, not ours. Open source doesn't say you have to use "our" OS in order to have what you need/want. It does say you should be able to make a choice - i.e., be presented with more than one option. Forcing OS choice is like converting people to a religion at gunpoint - insincere and meaningless. Anybody with guts will let their product fight on a level playing field. Open source wants the level playing field back, and that's what the war is about.

Re:I agree

[Ralph Yarro]

I've noticed recently that the SCO lawsuit has made some waves in UK papers, where previously you'd be hard pushed to find a mention of Linux whenever a computer-related article is published (Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft!).

The BBC have picked up on the story now.

Re:I agree

[mmurphy000]

The rest of the world doesn't like 1 mouse buttons, no task bar, mouse-required task switching,..

Ummm...get your facts straight. I'm right now typing on a Mac with a Logitech scroll mouse that I had been using on a Windows machine, and it has more than one button. The Mac OS X Launcher behaves differently than the task bar, but it has the same core functionality (itemize the running desktop applications and provide you alerts). I think I remember seeing somewhere that there's a hotkey to switch between apps, but I haven't used that in over a decade in any serious fashion on any OS, so I never took note.

Re:I agree

[zulux]

that windows isn't just decided upon by fiat, but instead is the result of endless focus groups and user surveys to determine exactly what grandma actually works most comfortably with!

Focus groups suck for determining design.

Rememeber cars in the 80's that had a computerise voice to tell that "You're door is ajar"?

Focus groups *LOVED* the idea of the car taking to them - it really sucked in reality.

Just like Windows XP has that sucky search dog thing - it's cute the first time, buy annoying as hess lafter that.

Re:I agree

[LearnToSpell]

We're not asking to emulate Microsoft, but instead emulate (or invent independently) a smooth user interface as defined by the users themselves. Which is apparently such a simple concept that nobody seems able to grok it.

It may not be as simple as all that. Yesterday I went to my aunt's house to help her, since her AOL wasn't working right, and the three printed pages of instructions that tech support gave her may as well have been written in Phoenician.

She showed me how the startup was normal, but the "pictures" on the desktop seemed bigger, and when she fired up AOL, the background (default clouds) went "psychedelic." I took ten seconds to go into display settings, up her resolution, and bump the colours up from 256.

The point is, a smooth user interface is not some point to be reached where we can sit back and say "yes, this is it." These concepts of resolution and palettes are so nebulous that it can be very difficult for "normal" people (i.e. not /. readers) to describe properly what they're seeing, and how it's something different from what they encountered last night, when they last checked their email.

I think I understand what you're getting at, and I agree that there needs to be an evolution towards better user interfaces, but I'm not sure that a one-size-fits-all smooth, intuitive GUI can even exist. Some people like KDE, and turn everything on. Some people go straight to Blackbox. I use KMail; others swear by Mutt.

Until we get to a point where programs can ask "Do you want more options or fewer? Do you want clicky stuff, or do you consider a pointer to be the method for switching between xterms?" we'll continue to muddle along trying to balance the needs of the people who want to "do email" and those who want 3D overlapping alpha-transparent Everything, with sound.

There really are no simple answers. There are certainly better options than others, but determining what constitutes the perfect GUI is a pipe dream, because all users are different, and there are too (damn) many of them (grumble grumble).

Re:I agree

[damiam]

Windows doesn't "just work" for everyone either. That hasn't kept people from using it.

Re:I agree

[TheUser0x58]

a smooth, intuitive GUI

Wait, are you sure you're talking about Windows?

Re:I agree

[BigGerman]

My problem with Windows XP search is not the doggy thing - it is easy to turn off.
The problem is that search does not work - it is not intuitive, makes assumptions about file types, and most importantly it is DIFFERENT from Windows 2000 (MS best OS ever).
With Linux I am comfortable that all the tools work the way they are advertized.

Re:I agree

[Bloater]

For all the Grandma lovers...

Grandma shouldn't have to understand XML. The GUI utility should be used to configure the application, so the config file format is a non-issue.

Furthermore, for the Grandma lovers...

The GUI should consist of two buttons... "Solitair" and "Off".

Re:I agree

[Bloater]

But XF86Config can be configured by all sorts of GUI utilities. I'll tell you what, you try to teach my dad about XML - then tell me that he will use Linux if he has to understand *that*.

On second thought, try teaching my dad how to use Notepad...

Re:I agree

[Bloater]

My dad hasn't been able to use a computer effectively since we replaced our old Amstrad 1512 complete with command line and text-mode, key-combination operated word processor with a more modern PC with windows and mouse.

He could remember the keys to press, but for the icons and GUI he must refer to the picture instructions I printed out. That means changing his glasses every 10 seconds. Imagine taking longer to do your work on a top-of-the-range PC than on an ancient rust-bucket :/

But hey, he thinks clippy is fun! :)

If Linux desktops mimic Windows, then not only will *I* find it harder to work effectively, so will my dad - For me, the argument is over. Especially that for the last 5 years or so, tech-support to my dad has been provided over the phone.

Re:I agree

[bangular]

I too think a desktop isn't necessarly defined by kiddie-eyecandy and all that stuff. I think the defination of desktop is a little skewed too. We have a few office suites, we have many many email programs, fast reliable browsers, Instant Messaging,Calendars, etc. etc. What's the problem? You'd think if you told most people that they could have a desktop that didn't crash every 5 minutes and set them up with 5 desktop icons of the stuff they use the most they'd be more than happy to use it. Nope! The problem is people are so stubborn. I think if you did the same for someone on Mac OSX very few would switch even though the GUI is far superior to Windows. I don't think it's about usability and all that stuff, I think it's people are just too stubborn to use anything else.

I think it's the fact people _think_ they know a lot about computers because they know a lot about windows. When they get onto anything else, they feel like an infant again and they hate it. They will spew out things like "it's too hard to use. It can't do this. It can't do that." etc. etc. You could take a windows user and put them on THE perfect operating system, and they probably wouldn't use it because it's different.

I've personally been using linux on the desktop almost exclusivly for about 4 years now. I can't stand to go back onto windows computers. They are just so slow and crash way too much and why deal with all that when I can use something superior.

I mean look at all the things Windows doesn't have. It doesn't even come with a ram disk driver!! And the one MS lets you download it utter crap. Let's see... no 64-bit chip support, no ability to run windows without a GUI (why should the whole OS crash if the GUI crashes), very weak ssl support (netbios stuff not encrypted), office can't export to PDF's, there's almost no basic scripting ability, updating your OS is a chore and much more complicated than emerge -U World, lack of a decent plain non formatted text editor. You get the picture. It's about perspective.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I know people keep saying over and over again that MS use focus groups for their GUI. But there are so many examples of weird limitations and designs that illustrate this must be a big fat lie.

A few simple examples:

1. Environment settings dialog. You go try edit the "path" environment variable and then tell me that a focus group said this was nice.

2. Windows XP control panel. In particular the changes they did to dialogs like Services, with an "Advanced" and "Simple" tab in the bottom of the window. You honestly believe groups and surveys recommended that?

3. File sharing in Windows XP Home edition. First version of Windows where I had to give up on helping a guy sharing a simple directory (without passing along floppy disks between computers with some weird setup).

I seriously doubt Microsoft used usability tests for anything but a couple of versions of Windows back in the 90'ies. Its not something they do on all their GUIs, thats for sure.

Re:I agree

[oconnorcjo]

but instead is the result of endless focus groups and user surveys to determine exactly what grandma actually works most comfortably with!

Actually I don't think that is how MS works. MS gui is an evolution of what they had for win3.1/95 and most gui changes have been mostly cosmetic or coppied from Mac. I personally think that the MS gui is a piece of shit but when people are asked how a gui should work, they say it should work like that of MS but ONLY because that is the way they learned and expect it to work. In essence because most people are too "short sighted" to imagine something better.

Re:I agree

[jeremyp]

Don't kid yourself, a computer simple enough for granny to use will be useless to other people

Patronising pile of shit. My mother is a grandmother and she has no problems using a computer. Any reasonably intelligent person of any age can learn to use a computer given a bit of time. I will not be migrating my mother to a Linux dektop however, because a) she is used to Windows, b) a lot of the software she uses is Windows only and while there may be equivalent Linux packages out there, she sees her computer as a tool not as a plaything. She is not going to be impressed with having to learn a whole new set of conventions and tools just because her son thinks Bill Gates is the spawn of satan.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that I as a programmer and the normal people who use computers are human beings. I don't care if a DB backed file system is necessary, it's more convienient. XML has problems with datatypes and complexity, I don't care if its editable with Emacs.

POSIX was written by reverse engineering the BSD Unix in the 70s, its complicated and rooted to C. Look at how J2EE is taking off, it might not be as simple as I'd like, but at least you can plug a servlet into a server expecting it to work.

The day desktop apps come as little plug-in desklets of some sort (OCAML modules, ColorForth vocabs, whatever) cannot come too soon.

Some people love fiddling with weird bits of crap, the rest of us have LIVES!

Re:I agree

[jeremyp]

Nobody except a developer goes near the environment settings dialog. That's left over from WinNT. I expect they just forgot about it.

I really don't understand what they were thinking about with the new services box. As far as I can see "advanced" is only called that because the left hand edge is completely blank meaning you have to squeeze the useful info into less space.

I think the file sharing idea is to make it harder to do stupid things. In the default "simple" mode you have to move the files you want to share to a special folder. This contrasts with the old way where as soon as anybody discovered sharing they immediately shared the whole "C" drive read/write to anybody on the whole Internet.

Re:I agree

[ca1v1n]

That's funny, ours is trying desperately to get everyone running 2000 to upgrade to XP, because 2000 is such a security disaster.

Then again, our whole network is on publicly routable IPs, and most of it always will be for a variety of reasons.

Re:I agree

[chunkwhite86]

At the end of the days users want something that works with their existing apps and documents. They don't care whats going on underneath as long as it works

I agree, however it has to work for it's target audience. Most Linux distros are trying too hard to be all things to all people. They end up becoming what the Toyota Camry or Honda Accord is to the car market - a bland, boring, transportation appliance, which may be "good" for a great many things, it is not "excellent" at anything.

Another automotive analogy might be to compare your average slashdot Linux geek's computer to a Ferrari. Joe Geek has an overclocked Athlon and the latest -pre kernel compiled with optimization flags out the wazoo. The Ferrari is similarly tweaked to it's maximum potential, is designed to be screaming fast and handle like it's on rails - but unlike the Honda or Toyota, the Ferrari requires more maintenance, a skilled Ferrari specialist to work on it, and is more demanding of the driver. It also provides a much more rewarding experience than than Honda - this is what makes the Ferrari so desireable - but it's also what gives it such a limited market share (besides the price tag).

For Linux to be sucessful on the desktop, there needs to be a clear line between what is a corporate desktop distro, and what is a home desktop distro. This is exactly what RedHat is attempting with their new "Advanced Workstation" product, versus the Fedora Core.

Re:I agree

[cHALiTO]

As someone said before, I don't think usability can be thought in terms of "what grandma can use". I don't think such a thing is possible or even desirable (except for the companies wich only want to sell sell sell). You can make a friendly UI, easy to learn, but at some point you *have* to learn about some basic computer related concepts to understand what you're doing and what you can and cannot do with your PC. Granted you shouldn't need to read a 500-page manual, but at least some basic concepts (what parts make up a computer, what is an OS, an application, etc), it's not a matter of users caring about it, it's a matter of NEED, they need to know this, as they need to know that their car has an engine, four wheels, and it runs on gasoline and not alcohol (except if you live in brazil). Whatever tool you use, you ALWAYS have to learn at least the minimum about how it works in order to use it properly. Call me a zealot, but I don't agree with the MS-view of computers in which even a monkey can use a computer. Computers are NOT simple. They are NOT toasters. They are complex tools that require some knowledge to be used. If you want to use them, you should expect to sit down and read a manual or two, or take a course or have someone explain to you how it works. Otherwise, go buy a dvd/vcr/typewriter/hi-fi/etc.

This doesn't mean that overly complex UIs are ok either. Most people won't want that, no, but what i mean with all this is that maybe at some point it's not ease of use in the sense of how the UI looks or how many clicks you have to do to do something, but the coherence of it all. I think it's far more important to follow the same concepts everywhere in your system. For example, if you have to do something to configure your video card, you should look for something SIMILAR to configure your sound card.

oops.. gotta get back to work :)

Re:I agree

[Afrosheen]

Your mother isn't YOUR grandmother. I think that's an important distinction to make here as it determines her age and therefore her generation. I agree with AC here, if you dumb something down too much, it becomes useless to the average computer user. Just take a look at WebTV. My grandfather (no not my dad, my actual grandfather) does better with a pc than he ever did with WebTV. He isn't stupid, but he's technophobic to a certain extent.

I just wonder if making the computer more physical isn't better for older people. Everything is so virtual..I think if we gave them more buttons to push and meters, switches and gauges they'd like it better. You shouldn't have to click start > shut down > shut down to turn off your computer anyway, that's what the power switch is for. One press should shut it down on ANY pc.

The technological revolution took the physical and turned it all into the abstract. The world of computing is 75% software (and to the end user, much more). It's all theory and code and electrons, none of it is things you can touch and manipulate by hand. My grandfather's generation is one very much aligned with the physical; men who can fix cars and build homes or extensions to them. They're lost on a pc, just as most of us would be lost with a leaky pipe and a pipe wrench.

Re:I agree

[chunkwhite86]

1) most of them don't care what OS they're running as long as it works

This is absolutely key here. My Father is a perfect example of this. His skills with a PC are about what the average /. geek's skills are with women. As soon as a dialog box pops up that he doesn't recognize, he immediately calls me. He doesn't even read it, he just calls me and asks "What do I do". You get the picture.

Anyhow, over the past year, I've slowly migrated his apps to OSS products. For example, I switched him over from IE and Outlook Express (gag!) to Mozilla for web and mail. Similarly, I uninstalled OFfice '97 and installed OOo 1.1. AIM to GAIM, etc. You get the picture.

Once he became comfortable with these new applications (he *loves* the mozilla pop-up blocking and moz mail spam filtering), it was a trivial matter to remove Win98 entirely and install a fresh copy of SuSE 8.2 Pro. I placed the same icons on the desktop, in the same locations, set the wallpaper to what is was in Windoze, and set the SuSE login manager to log him in automatically on bootup.

He was already so comfortable using Mozilla, OpenOffice, GAIM, etc. that when I swapped Win98 for SuSE, it took him about an hour before he even noticed that something was "different"! ;-)

Moral of the story? If my Father can use Linux, *anyone* can.

On a side note, it's better for me now too, because when he does encounter a problem, I can just SSH into his machine (I opened the SSH port on his router) and fix it. With Win98 we would go back and forth for ever on the phone "you see the little picture of the computer? that's called an icon. double click it now. no, with the other mouse button". You all know the drill.

Re:I agree

[azzy]

Your 'parent' said that they couldn't handle folders.. they probably therefore don't know what 'gift', 'incoming', 'video', or 'porn' are in your example. So you shouldn't be so quick to agree with them.

Re:I agree

[spectre_240sx]

Hear Hear. One of the major problems I've had with most gui's is that they aren't configurable enough. I want options. I love a lot of things about OSX, but I hate not being able to maximize a window! Oh, and don't get me started about the home key not taking the cursor to the beginning of a line. Before anyone flames me telling me this is already possible to change, what about public computers? Can't change those. How about some sort of removable device one could carry that would save settings such as those? Unfortunately, that would mean setting up standards which we all know Microsoft will completely obliterate :P

It seems to me that there also hasn't been enough inovation so far. However, I think Apple is heading in the right direction. Expose ROCKS! I just wish it was easier to control. The F keys are a little too out of reach IMO.

P.S. I apologize for any incoherance in this post. I have so many things I want to say and just not the room to say them here.

Re:I agree

[spectre_240sx]

I dunno, I kinda liked having cars talk to me :). I think the problem arises when people start talking back and expecting another answer.

Re:I agree

[gregmac]

Im tired of all this .blah hidden config files which has no standard formats except tabs. how about using something more structured. like XML

How about a DB file system to the core. A better windowing system, and a better coding architecture its just too archane these days.

So, instead of config files that are easy to modify with just a text editor, or some fairly simple shell scripts, we should switch to a database format that requires all sorts of client libraries to load and modify?

In, for example, a network environment, it can get difficult to automate tasks such as changing program settings. An example is the Outlook Express mail store root. I hate to write a program in delphi to do it, because microsoft decided to store it in a deep location using random unique identifiers as key names. (Though mozilla does the same thing with their directory structure, which annoys me...)

Anyway, config files that are easily changable with simple scripts are a huge benefit. Adding complexity is bad. XML is sort of a step in between. It could have its benefits, as long as there was a 'config file' DTD that meant there could be a standard editor to modify ANY config files. There could also be command-line tools to do the same.

I don't see any point in requiring some sort of database server, though, just for config files. Remember, not everyone uses linux with a GUI. A lot of times it's used in embedded devices with limited memory. Should we start having the text-config-file version of apache for those systems, and the XML or Database-aware version for systems that are bigger and have the database server? That would be a step in the wrong irection, for sure.

Re:I agree

[pod]

Our IT department still refuses to let XP on the network, because it's such a piece of shit.

Don't confuse what IT says with reality. My experience with IT support has been that they will say whatever they need to avoid creating trouble. When their workload decreases significantly, or a round of lay-offs is around the corner, expect a sudden rush to XP migration, because suddenly 'it makes sense for the business'.

Re:I agree

[cscx]

Which is why you need Tweak UI and tick the box for "Use Windows 2000-style search dialogs."

=)

Re:I agree

[Decaff]

Microsoft doesn't provide what users need, it provides what users think they want, and what managers think users want. These are very different things.

For example, very little functionality is really needed to produce a document, but look at Word in Office 2000/XP, which are apparently what users want. There is no real productivity gain in the production of 99% of all documents over Word Perfect 5.2 for DOS from nearly 20 years ago, yet Word is 100x bigger, requires 100x more memory and nearly 1000x more processor power.

Re:I agree

[Soruk]

Operating the alien computers is easy. Reading Klingon, on the other hand...

Re:I agree

[Spoing]

Replace the " and" with a ";" and you'll have 3 more chars, to finish it with ("re."). Agree strongly with the quote btw.

Thanks. I'll make the change as you suggest in a moment. ...how's that? (Cut some spaces, used - instead of "and".)

Alternately; "Programs are plans of action. Software is often an assortment of unplanned code that should be avoided." ...hmmmm.

The 'quote', isn't a quote though, it's an original. A friend and I passed a dozen or so messages back and forth, and this fell out of it;

1. Him: We have developed a program (a program, not software -- yet) that...

   Me: That phrase popped out at me. Are you saying...

2. Software = a product in computer program form (a 'ware' or good)
3. Programs = a superset containing software and non-product computer programs

   I like the distinction, though I've always used the two words interchangeably, usually leaning to software if the words "program" or "project" are used in a non-computer context at the same time.

   Him: Nope. I'm making the distinction as in Webster's:

   pro-gram n
   ...
   3 a plan of action
   4 a set of step-by-step instructions that tell a computer to do something with data

   In other words, we've developed a set of operational procedures which, taken as a group, constitute a program which has nothing to do with computer programming.

   Me: OK, so what you're saying is that software is not necessarily an embodiment of a 'plan of action' (a process). It might be, but it does not have to be. If that is the case...

   I've seen plenty of software being created at ACME Inc..
   
   I've seen very few programs, though.

   Him: Now *that* I understand! They say that "where there's smoke, there's fire," but sometimes it's just an old tree stump.

My sig is an attempt to capture the same basic idea, though it depends on quite a few details before it makes any sense.

Needless to say, I'd rather be working on the same team he is...instead of the mixed group of smart but reactionary folks I'm with right now.

Re:I agree

[An Anonymous Hero]

Well... here are counterarguments, I can only say that I'll read your replies with genuine interest.

Ah... no. The [icon] being clicked stands for typing the program name and hitting enter. It is the GUI equivalent of typing the program name, NOT the program path.

No! The file manager shows the icon as residing in some directory. Even though the icon and executable may be distinct files, clicking the icon is done in some directory, so it entails giving the system a full path. From there it damn well ought to be able to get at the executable.

Suppose my browser is Mozilla. If I say "mozilla" on the command line, mozilla opens.

And here you speak again of launching GUI apps from the command line. Who on earth does this? If you're gonna launch a GUI application it means you are in the GUI, where the natural way to launch something is by clicking on it.

Okay, you might still want to also be able to launch it from the command line, or some script. Well, app bundles let you do this: $ open /Applications/Omniweb.app. Yes, in current implementations this requires giving the .app's full path. But if you really wanted, nothing would be simpler than to implement a special PATH for .apps, that open would consult. The reason it's not been done, I venture, is that nobody ever felt the need.

You might bring in MANPATH (etc.). Again I would argue its utter irrelevance in the GUI, where help is done by giving each app a help menu. The GUI gives users more hooks than just a command prompt, so we use that.

This is flexible, it allows Mozilla to be stored ANYWHERE in my PATH without the launcher breaking. Suppose I want to grab a CVS build of Mozilla that I've heard has a Really Cool Feature. Excellent! All I need to do is just install it in $HOME and have the installer place a link called "mozilla" in ~/bin, and suddenly... My launcher launches the new version?! Wow! What an amazing feature. A launcher the program did not create, and has no knowledge of, can track new versions?! I'm impressed.

You must never have "installed" a Mac Mozilla build. Downloading it gives you one double-clickable object Mozilla.app, which you can drag and drop and double click anywhere AT ALL. No hard coded symlink, no "registration" with the start menu, no rpm database, no registry, no special launcher, no nothing.

The file manager (Finder) is the launcher. That way (and I don't see another...) "installs" become simple drag & drops, and GUI applictions are automatically relocatable wherever the user wants, through the GUI. Browsing to Mozilla.app is no pain because it is where you chose to put it. Two Mozilla builds can coexist just fine. How am I supposed to be impressed by a symlink that needs updating as soon as I move anything?

App directory bundles are just a (fairly ugly) hack to get around the same problem.

Ugly how? They work.

Re:I agree

[anthonyrcalgary]

Maybe most people just don't care. Learning something new when they can get along just fine with what they have is too much to ask. Seriously, the fan on my roommate's CPU died, and it's an Athlon so I told him he shouldn't use it until the fan is replaced. He just shrugged and did something else. That's how little some people care. They're not going to spend a weekend expanding their horizons because they (correctly) don't see any benefit. It's something they don't care about, so even a large improvement won't give them anything they want.

When it doesn't require any new skills (eg, when some OEM uses a distribution that's just as restrictive), then people will start using it, and they won't be much better off than they are now. There are deals like that now, but they haven't really hit the mass market.

There will always be people that don't care, and they will never have as much freedom or as much power as the rest of us. And they won't mind, because they don't care.

The real uphill battle Linux faces is no longer MS, it's user indifference. You can't use merit to sell someone on something they don't care about.

Re:I agree

[ma_sivakumar]

Linus says that on the technical side, Linux is ready. Only the commercial space has to be created. That might happen sooner than what he predicts.

If you look outside the English speaking world Linux has a greater chance of reaching the desktops within next couple of years.

I am involved in a project to bring out a Tamil desktop for tamil speakers (Zhakanini. Only less than 5% of the population has access to computers now. One of the main reasons the majority do not use computer is the lack of tamil interface. Microsoft is not going to support Tamil interface anytime soon (for an unknown market demand) and the open source applications provide great support for localisation.

Combining these two factors this project aims to bring out a desktop for firts time computer users. they are not bothered about existing applications and we will be selling them pre-installed systems. Once we make the usage rate to say 20% of population with zhakanini, Linux desktop will be the default for tamil speakers (about 80 million).

I am sure there are many more communities like this in the world.

Re:I agree

[Mark Shewmaker]

I dunno, I kinda liked having cars talk to me :). I think the problem arises when people start talking back and expecting another answer.

I liked it too, as did everyone I knew who heard our family's car talk.

And, well, we also all talked back to it too: "Door is ajar? The door is not a jar; the door is a door!" :-)

(Amazingly, no one ever tired of that joke. But we were all disappointed that cars stopped coming out with speech as an option.)

As for me, I was wanting future versions to let you easily upload your own sound samples for every error condition! Sort of like ringtones for your car.

"Are you really going to leave me here with my lights on again? You remember all the trouble that caused last time, don't you?"

Or maybe a Britney Spears-like: "Oops, you did it again...." might be more popular.

Or maybe for service-required warnings for the Hitchhiker's Guide fans: "I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side."

Re:I agree

[Rary]

I keep thinking we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Instead of making computers so simple that a complete moron can figure out how to use it instantly, teach the moron how to use it.

People don't get to drive a car until they learn how to drive a car. Using a computer is significantly more complicated than driving a car, yet we expect people to just sit down in front of it and start being productive. And when they're not, we blame the computer, or at least its designers. This is fundamentally wrong.

Modern computer operating systems, whether Windows, Linux, OSX, whatever, are all quite easy to use if you learn how. I think this problem will largely be solved over time as we have generations growing up in a computerized world. But as for your parents and grandparents, if they want to use a computer, teach them, don't expect the computer to be "click here and magic just occurs exactly the way you want it to", cuz it ain't gonna happen.

Re:How much is your time worth now-a-days

[kalidasa]

It was worth it to him. Me, I use Zoe; but then I also use an operating system someone else wrote. I'm not going to gainsay what Linus does with his time - I don't have an entire industry built around what I decided to do as a hobby.

It's all about the desktop journey

[LibrePensador]

I don't know about you folks, but for me, when it comes to Desktop Linux, the journey really is much more rewarding and interesting than the destination.

I guess, to some degree that is because I started using Linux as my main desktop close to five years ago, but also because I am aware that profound social changes take time.

I think the key to the desktop is preloaded machines by big-vendor being available at retail stores. Only when the vendors have a stake in the success of Linux will they make sure that the peripherals state on the box that "it runs on Linux".

Re:It's all about the desktop journey

[cerberusss]

I think the key to the desktop is preloaded machines by big-vendor being available at retail stores

I think the key to the desktop is preloaded machines that can flawlessly interoperate with the existing Windows monopoly. If it would include the ability to run MS Office for instance (free CrossoverOffice included, or a better Wine), that would be good. That way, it would run most things that Windows can, and then some more.

Another interoperability issue would be internet-connection. The various ISPs should support Linux as well.

Re:It's all about the desktop journey

[Microlith]

And for some of us the journey, while interesting, is not nearly as good as the end result.

I'd love to have an easy to use system that I could handle without much difficulty while still having the power of Unix at hand should I want it.

This is not Linux.

Apple has it down pat, but that requires an investment in their hardware. Mandrake, Redhat, and SUSE have the install process down pat. The issue comes in just general responsiveness (behavior with hardware, plug & play, getting software installed/uninstalled.)

The question is when we will see something like this for the PC. Who will create the PC equivalent of MacOS X?

Re:It's all about the desktop journey

[po8]

For me, the journey has been more like 20 years. I was running a desktop window system on a UNIX-like OS at home before there was such a thing as X (Smalltalk on LynxOS on a Tektronix Pegasus box).

I have to say that I think the folks who are all over the deficiencies of the Linux Desktop, and how we have to emulate the Windows/Mac/BeOS/Xbox/Sinclair/whatever desktop experience to have a usable desktop are mistaken. I think they underestimate the ability of users to adapt, and overestimate the degree to which familiar = better. For many years I had a PC or Mac sitting on my desktop next to a UNIX/X box. Now I have a Windows box and a Linux box at home. I have always found that I almost exclusively use the UNIX/X box. The monopoly (at best duopoly) is real, and most folks haven't had my experience. I think it's clear that they're going to, and I think it's going to be enlightening for them when they do.

I'm working hard to make the Linux desktop experience better for everyone. But it's pretty darn good now. So good that I finally threw away twm a couple of years ago. :-)

Let's enjoy the ride.

Re:It's all about the desktop journey

[PReDiToR]

I prefer to go the other way, whenever someone asks me to get them a pirated copy of Office, I encourage them to get OO.org instead, or at least try it for a week, and if they need more features, come back and see me.
Only then do I tell them that pirating is illegal and I refuse to partici *yawn* sorry...? er.. oh yeah participate in that sort of thing.

Re:It's all about the desktop journey

[Peaker]

If you want, KDE/Qt have Windows themes (The Redmond theme, iirc).

You can probably find an iconset that's identical to Windows (or perhaps just rip the Windows icon files into a KDE iconset).

Most KDE dialogs are already designed to look like the Windows equivalents, when there's nothing wrong with the Windows ones. Some dialogs/panels are redesigned simply because they are very poor in Windows, or because they don't fit the KDE/GNU/Linux model.

Different interpretations?

[Mazzie]

There seems to be a lot of different interpretations of Linus' views of the future of Linux floating around. There was a recent post on /. entitled "Linus says 2004 is the year of the Linux Desktop" or something like that. That seems to be a bit of a conflict with this article.

Can someone clarify his view for me? I don't follow Linux very closely, but am genuinely curious what Linus' real thoughts on the future of Linux for the desktop are.

Re:Different interpretations?

[10Ghz]

There seems to be a lot of different interpretations of Linus' views of the future of Linux floating around. There was a recent post on /. entitled "Linus says 2004 is the year of the Linux Desktop" or something like that. That seems to be a bit of a conflict with this article.

Not at all. Basically, he thinks that in 2004 Linux will really take on in the desktop-market. But that wouldn't mean that Linux would be mainstream in the desktop-market. Let's assume that number of Linux-users doubles in 2004, and that's due to increase in desktop-use. That would give Linx a market-share of around 5%. If that happened, 2004 would be the "year of the desktop" for Linux, but being mainstream would still be several years in the future.

Re:Different interpretations?

[ragingmime]

Can someone clarify his view for me? I don't follow Linux very closely, but am genuinely curious what Linus' real thoughts on the future of Linux for the desktop are.

He says in both articles that there have been a bunch of really good developments in making Linux user-friendly, but it'll be a while before Joe User feels comfortable sitting down in front of a Linux box. The earlier story but kind of a spin on it - it sounds like they took what Linus said a little bit too far. He didn't really say that 2004 would be the "year of Linux on the desktop"; he said that "This year there will be a lot of desktop users." That's it. Even if you did RTFA, it's still kinda confusing. That's the media for you. :)

Re:Different interpretations?

[Trurl's Machine]

There seems to be a lot of different interpretations of Linus' views of the future of Linux floating around. There was a recent post on /. entitled "Linus says 2004 is the year of the Linux Desktop" or something like that. That seems to be a bit of a conflict with this article. Can someone clarify his view for me?

I'll try. The confusion is actually inherent in the contemporary meaning of the word "desktop". Sometimes this means "just any computer for a non-techie", sometimes "a machine for a home user". Even in this interview Linus has said "it's doing pretty well, especially in companies that can support it already. Linux is ready as a desktop in a corporate environment on machines that are supposed to be nothing more than, say, a locked-in word processing station - but that requires a corporate support. Linux is not ready as a desktop for someone who just bought himself a new PC and want to use it for the same word processing at home, with no corporate support available. Please note that this is not my view, I'm just giving you my understanding on what Linus has said (damn, this sounds like a part of "Monty Python's Life Of Brian").

Re:Different interpretations?

[rcpitt]

2004 is the year of the desktop as far as Linux people are concerned. IBM is reportedly pushing all their people to put Linux on their desktop by the end of the year and there are major governmental pushes all over the world to adopt Open Source (which in most places means Linux but in some means putting Open Office on Windoze).

The point is these are somewhat captive and specific-use oriented desktops, not those of the great unwashed public which account for upwards of 90% of the market. I don't know that it will take 10 years but it might - M$ won't sit back and allow the erosion of their virtual monopoly to take place without a fight and this will include everything from economic incentives for game producers (can't do that for hardware OEMs anymore can they? but the judge didn't say anything about software producers) to "lowering" their prices. Yes, I predict the "value" to the consumer may increase because M$ will bundle more and more into their "base" offerings as they have done in the past - to the point where on a new system the fact that you get "everything" included (OS, game applications, mildly hobbled office apps, etc.) for only a mere $300 over the cost of the hardware will turn people's heads. Problem is you wont' be able to purchase these things individually anymore (have you tried to purchase just Word lately?) so the real value won't be known - marketing M$ style 101.

There are still lots of apps that people "must" have that we (Linux) don't quite get right. That's a lot of inertia to overcome.

On the other hand, I see a ray of sunshine in M$ move to a new OS that is not backwards compatible with much of the software out there. Personally I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, and it remains to be seen just how incompatible they will be - but this coupled with some more work on binary compatibility stuff (WINE, etc.) will make moving to Linux that much easier for some.

It's going to be an interesting decade.

How selfish of him

[DumbSwede]

Yes, he has only given us the best, most stable, FREE OS in the world. My God! Doesn't he realize he owes us every waking and sleeping minute giving us more for free, than to relax and just do some little quick projects for himself. He really has some nerve!

Re:How selfish of him

[k98sven]

Yes, he has only given us the best, most stable, FREE OS in the world. My God!

Well, that's all good and well, but I think declaring him to be your God* is a bit much.

(*Actually, to parody a saying about Larry Ellison, the difference between God and Linus Torvalds is that Linus doesn't think he's god..)

Re:How selfish of him

[LuxFX]

Well technically, no. He did write a new OS. He wrote it in Minix, and wrote it to be compatible with Minix. And he did write Linux because he saw that Minix was lacking in a few areas. But Linus did create everything from scratch.

If you haven't yet, read Just For Fun, it's a great semi-autobiography.

Linus and the P2P Fileswapper victims of the RIAA

[cervo]

I've never seen a lawsuit up this close and personal before

This is what the "lucky" 300 must also be thinking. I don't think they will be spending their time writing an e-mail indexing program.

Linus is the only person I've ever heard of taking a lawsuit as an opportunity to write some new code. The world needs more Linuses!!!

Re:How much is your time worth now-a-days

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Zoe

Lucky you! Most of us geeks don't have girlfriends to archive our mail for us!

Linux becoming commercial?

[anarchima]

...it's not organised in the commercial conference kind of sense. But that just means it's a lot more relaxed, the people just talk about technology, they don't try to sell stuff. And these days in the US it's unheard of, you can't make money with this kind of conference, so I go to the Australian one and I go to one in Canada (Ottowa Linux Symposium). So even Linus admits that the Linux "project" is moving away from its earlier, non-commercial roots. I wonder what effects the increasing commercialisation of Linux will have, through businesses like Red Hat trying to make a profit and so on. Hopefully it won't be all bad, but I'm worried that Linux will just turn into another Microsoft (obviously with open source, but still)...

Re:Linux becoming commercial?

[10Ghz]

Hopefully it won't be all bad, but I'm worried that Linux will just turn into another Microsoft (obviously with open source, but still)...

Linux cannot become another Microsoft. Microsoft is about monopoly prices, lock-in, proprietary technologies etc. etc. None of those are possible with Linux. If Linux gained 100% market-share, there would still be several distros competing (and several free versions of Linux), the core-systems would be open and free, so moving between different vendors would be easy. And you could fork your own version from existing distros (for example Red Hat ==> Mandrake, Gentoo ==> Zynot)

You mentioned Red Hat trying to make a profit. How would that affect Linux? Easy: Red Hat would have even more money to spend improving Linux.

Re:Linux becoming commercial?

[10Ghz]

But what if these distributors like Red Hat "develop" Linux to the extent that it outdoes every single other Linux distro on the market (because of the availability of capital, which seems to be the argument you're using - more money = better development?)? Then, it would seem, customers are effectively locked in to one particular system even though it is theoretically open and free for anyone to change (most users won't bother).

If one distro wins by simply being superior to everyone else, then I fail to see how that could be considered bad. And there would be nothing stopping you (or anyone else for that matter) from creating your own version of their distro (or creating one from scratch) and competing with them with your own version. It has happened several times in the past (like when Mandrake was created from Red Hat).

And having money DOES help developement. For example, Red Hat (or some other company) could hire full-time kernel-hackers that would have more time (and better equipment) at their disposal, instead of if they hacked only in their free time.

Re:Linux becoming commercial?

[10Ghz]

Like what? GPL makes it really hard to abuse Linux (or more presicely, users of Linux). Like I said, I just can't see Linux turning in to another Microsoft. Yes, Linux could achieve complete market-dominance some time in the future. But the very nature of Linux makes it EXTREMELY difficult to abuse that dominance.

Re:Linux becoming commercial?

[Xabraxas]

I think the point that you are missing is that no matter how good a distro gets it's still open source. Anyone can fork it. Anyone can use those features in thier distro if they were so inclined. A monopoly is not possible because the 'trade secrets' are not secrets at all.

the biggest barrier of all

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of games. The odd FPS game crops up, but dual booting isnt an option for mot point and click users.

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[edwdig]

Games aren't a huge barrior. Particuarlly not FPS games, since those seem to be the type of game most likely to get ported to Linux. Most people play games on a console, not a PC. The most commonly used PC games are things like Solitare.

How many business require the use of games? If anything they'd be happier with an OS without many games. How many of you have parents that play Quake? My mom never played anything more than simple card games on the computer.

Really, the majority of the people who would care about the issue are the people who have nothing better to do than see how they can get an extra 1 frame per second out of Quake 3.

Games go where the market is. Not the other way around.

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[Reziac]

My mom is 74 and I just showed her DOOM, and she asked how she could get that on her computer too. I about fell off my chair!!

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[Laser Lou]

Lack of games. The odd FPS game crops up, but dual booting isnt an option for mot point and click users

This is a chicken-and-egg problem. Loki showed the world that games run fine in Linux. Once point-and-click users start using Linux, developers will port their games. The question is, what advantage does Linux offer them?

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[10Ghz]

Most people play games on a console, not a PC.

Come talk to me when you can play strategy-games on a console (like Combat Mission, Europa Universalis etc.). Or how about Flight-simulators (Falcon 4.0, Lock On, etc.)? Nowhere to be seen on consoles. Online games are only just now taking off on consoles, but PC's still dominate there.

Consoles are great for some type of games, but they absolutely suck for other types of games.

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[asparagus]

In six months when she's making you her bitch with the railgun in deathmatch we'll see who's laughing. Go granny go!

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[Tom]

Depends on your target audience.

Would Linux offer enough games for me now, if I were still in school or university? Definitely not, I was eating games for lunch at those times, and could hardly go a week without a new on.

Does Linux offer enough games for me today, where I work fulltime and have a bunch of other things to do as well (including my own game, see below) ?
Absolutely yes. In fact, I have quite a few Linux games on my shelf that I haven't played half as much as I'd like to. (Dominions 2, Terminus, Mindrover)

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

So what if the most common games on computers are things like solitare? That wasn't the argument. Here are some general points you failed to address.

- Home desktop users want to play 3d video games.
- There is no 3D hardware drivers available for the Linux kernel or for XFree86 that performs within a marginal distance from windows/MacOS 3D hardware (except pre-beta quality nVidia drivers).
- idsoftware FPS games + UT/UT2k3 is NOT by any means remotely close to any significant fraction of FPS games. Even id based games aren't ported to linux.
- games "like solitare" aren't even playable on linux. Just check out Yahoo online multiplayer card games, or any other online gaming community similar. You won't find it to work on Linux's web brosers.
- When we talk about games, we don't mean single player i want to blow time while I wait for my 4:00 appointment game. We are talking about online multiplayer games, which are virtually non-extant on linux and the consol.

Your statements that "most people play games on a consol" are baseless, and no evidence exists which agrees with anything your are saying. On the other hand, there are plenty of online PC gamers, and those games just ARE NOT available on any other platforms than OS X and Windows.

Just to make some SPECULATION (not facts or claims) I'll bet there are currently more online gamers playing a game RIGHT NOW than there are home users running linux on the desktop period. (at least in the US). Check out Gamespy Stats. And these are just the gamespy supported games, which is very far from a complete list.

Also from that list you can see that the games supported on linux are a very very small minority of the overall games listed. (Quake 1/2/3, RTCW, UT, UT2k3, ET)

None of my post proves that what is holding back linux on the home deskto is true, but if you stop to consider the enthusiasts are going to be the first to switch to linux, and the enthusiast/competant windows users have a significant portion of 3d gamers using ATI or nVidia 3d video cards playing online multiplayer games, its hard to argue that the HUGE 3D MP gamer community is an untapped audience that would switch to linux in a heartbeat if 3d video hardware were available for it and most popular games ram on linux.

Don't point to the failure of Loki. They faild on their own. Their business model was based on existing linux users feeling sorry for them. They had absoulutely no chance with their strategy. No game they published came out for linux remotely CLOSE to the same time it came out for windows. Forcing anybody who was interested in such titles to buy the windows release and dual boot.

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[stangbat]

What do you mean lack of games? Yahoo Games and PopCap seem to work fine on my Linux box. You mean there's something else?

All joking aside, to most people solitare and sites like these are computer (PC) gaming. At least that is the case for my wife and my mother. I'm sure they are not all that much different than many others.

Re:the biggest barrier of all

[PetoskeyGuy]

And the reason for Lack of games is lack of standard game development system. OpenGL is a good library, but to get a generic or high end 3D video card working smoothly on Linux is still something of a black art with drivers and X-Windows configurations from hell.

Redhat, Debian, Gentoo? Which distribution to support? What pacakage manager? The market is too small, and the support costs too high. I've worked on video games where we've had to evaluate these things.

Making a Bootable Linux Gaming CD was an option I've read before, but that just puts more of the setup and configuration steps into auto-detection where people can't get the full use of their hardware.

Linux is wonderful for porting apps with source, but porting binaries can be a pain compared with making a single windows EXE.

Linus commenting

[xant]

The interesting thing about his comments about desktop Linux are that he's making them at all. He used to have a position of "Linus is what it is, I don't care where it goes, it's just fun to watch." He's not doing that so much now that it appears to be actually getting the places people imagined it would go 5-10 years ago. To make a specific claim, even one as flexible as that, is out of character for him and shows that he's starting to become interested in seeing his work succeed commercially (other than in the areas he works on directly).

Re:Linux Desktop

[toddler99]

I've been linux as my primary desktop for 2 years. Its been working great for me. I write my school papers with abiword, my presentations with open office impress and do all my coding with vim. gnome hardly ever crashes on me and when it does i can typically do one of two things: either login remotely and restart X or cntrl+alt+backspace. Then i can file a bug report and in most cases the problem is solved. Linux just requires patience and an understanding of what and how you plan to use a tool. I think what linus means is it won't be ready for a generic user for a little while longer...

Bummer!

[xankar]

Damn, and I thought it was this year

And the number is ....

[McSnickered]

That was "literally" a great interview. I spent, "literally", 5 minutes reading it. And "literally", I spent another 1 minute determining just "literally" how many times he used the word "literally" in the interview.

The number is, "literally", 7.

Re:And the number is ....

[Dave2 Wickham]

Why spend literally 1 minute?

[dave@tc4 ~]$ wget -O - http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,84 07881%5E15841%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html 2>/dev/null| grep literally | wc -l
7

Re:And the number is ....

[Smthng]

So what if he literally manages to use "literally" twice on the same line ;) .

Re:And the number is ....

[3247]

That's plain C-ly.

Re:And the number is ....

[otis wildflower]

That doesn't take into account the appearance of the keyword multiple times on a line.. You literally need something more like...

wget -O - http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,84 07881%5E15841%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html 2>/dev/null| perl -e 'while() { s#literally#$i++#eg; print "$i\n"; }'

Austrailians

[WormholeFiend]

can't even spell the name of the capital of Canada!

O T T A W A!

Eh.

Re:Austrailians

[f13nd]

you spelled 'australians' wrong :P (i'm canadian too eh)

Re:Austrailians

[Coryoth]

you spelled 'australians' wrong :P (i'm canadian too eh)

In case you curious we New Zealanders spell it "bastards"

Jedidiah.

Re:Austrailians

[Crypto Gnome]

er, don't you mean "baaaa-stards"?

best part of interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: Do you think that's good, seeing Linux being used in little devices, Xboxes and all sorts of places it wasn't meant to be?

A: One of the must fun things was I bought my wife one of those electronic picture frames... I didn't even know it - I just decided I wanted to buy it because we'd just bought a better camera, and we had some good pictures of the kids. So I went out and bought it, and only when I was uploading my pictures, the night before Mother's Day, I was uploading them and looked at the technical specifications and found out it ran Linux!

That's much more fun than big machines.

The Board is set, the pieces are moving...

[ttldkns]

Alot depends on how secure m$ "secure computing" model is. If they do what theyre bragging about and allow pages of memory to go unchecked even by the OS itself i think u have the beginnings of the recipe for a super virus.

The next version of windows and how they move to get it mainstream (new standards, no forward compatibility for older windows, whatever) will be a big factor in how the desktop 'game' plays out...

Linux is developing for desktop with Lindows OS , its M$ turn, we need to wait for their move.

The great dunking

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linus had once noted that he had never been in a dunk tank before, and noted that, without that experience, his life was not complete. He need wait no longer; at Linux.Conf.Au the lucky high bidder got to put Linus into the tank. Here's the photos:"

http://lwn.net/Articles/66665/

lol

[DrSkwid]

for some people 'archive' doesn't mean 'zip up into a binary format nothing else understands'

about that email archive program...

[abde]

I hope it's open source. Maybe Linus will release it? I'm drowning under ten years of archives, spanning email clients from Eudora-Mac v1.0 to Thunderbird and almost everything in between. I'd love to have a cool program that could organizde my scatterred archives ...

Re:Crapola

[caluml]

Or just do what I do - Start, Run, cmdecho my_password | regedit /users

Linus' point

[zr-rifle]

Linus is very coherent. He often says that the kernel isn't being developed as a competitor to Microsoft's own thing. That's why his typically relaxed, hackerish timetable is very extended, while most agree that _now_ is the time for the Linux desktop to emerge.

That's why Redhat, IBM, SuSEa re investing in companies like Ximian who focus on the desktop dark-side of Linux.

Longhorn won't be out till 2005 if I'm correct and many users are very insatisfied with Windows XP, from Sobig/Blaster outbreaks dragging down productivity levels to random annoyances like messenger popups and a full suite of internet blockers/virus stoppers/software firewalls needed to surf the web.

Users are keeping an eye open for alternatives, that's why Linux desktop development needs to become desirable, marketable, usable and thus a replacement for the Windows desktop.

Re:Linus' point

[PhrostyMcByte]

Longhorn won't be out till 2005 if I'm correct and many users are very insatisfied with Windows XP, from Sobig/Blaster outbreaks dragging down productivity levels to random annoyances like messenger popups and a full suite of internet blockers/virus stoppers/software firewalls needed to surf the web.

All laymen users I know will say this- they know about the security, and they will say it's messed up, but it hasn't effected their productivity at all.

Windows XP SP2 due out later this year will fix the popups/virus/firewall problems. With Windows Update v5, users can keep their machine up to date without effort.

The people who do know that there are alternatives out there recognize that they will gain speed and pass Windows someday, but aren't willing to change until durastic changes take place in ease of use. When mentioning Linux most think it's CLI, and that's a downgrade.

Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux on the desktop will happen when businesses can switch all their machines to linux and not miss anything. When Jim-Bob and Betty-Sue are forced to use, and are taught how to use, linux at work they won't be afraid of it at home.

I think everybody understands the lack of an exchange type collaboration server hurts business adoption, but it's not the only thing keeping people from switching.

My business wants to go linux, but we can't. We use an ERP system called Macola. It makes heavy use of VBA and soon will support only MS SQL Server. There is nothing we can do short of writing our own manufacturing and accounting packages.

Before you point me at compiere, let me inform you that I've done research into that. I'm not a big fan of the lead developer. He's dragging his feet on database independence (when few people want real independence, they just want an open database supported) because he wants to get paid for it. Many people have brought forth suggestions and were willing to get started only to get no response from him. Development companies were willing to put people on it and they get no feedback as to the status of the project. So still the whole system is tied to oracle and there's no feedback at all as to when that might change. For the lead developer of an open source project he is VERY stingy with the information. Let's not ignore the fact that there is no current manufacturing module. There are, however, 3 separate development projects that aren't working with each other because of petty pride issues. The lead dev does nothing to stop the pettyness. So fuck compiere. I'll check up on it next year. I don't expect it to be usable then either at the pace it's moving. You have no idea how many people hit their forum gung-ho ready to start working only to leave again after getting no answers to their questions.

There is nothing else out there that is as close to production ready as compiere. There are erp systems that run on linux, but those are for the big boys. My company is very small, the cost of buying those erp systems would be more than the savings switching to linux would create.

Five to Ten

[DumbSwede]

I have used UNIX the majority of my computing career and LINUX for over five. But at work we are still struggling to get to rh9.0 with many systems at 7.2 and 8.0 though the are now considered depricated. We recently had to reconfigure a machine back to 7.1 to regenerate data for a client who is still using 7.1. Not only this, but our code is notoriously unstable if not running on the OS revision and patch level it was compiled on. I'm sure some will flame about the skill of our sysadmins and make script maintainers, but I think that would be unfair. We produce a lot of floating point intensive code that depends critically on the underlining OS calls, and while the code may run, it becomes quite a chore to justify to the customer (government) why the results may differ from earlier versions. This tendency for code to be brittle with compiler and OS upgrades is not something we observe under IRIX and SunOS, the two other platforms we support, and have supported for longer than LINUX.

I am not saying that SunOS or IRIX are superior, just that the upgrades come at a more manageable pace, and tend not to break our code base when upgrading compilers. I think the reason Linus thinks five to ten years before really conquering the desktop is based on two things. By then LINUX should have slowed down in its development and will be a beast you can run two to three years before upgrading. Secondly, Windows will probably sink under the weight of it is haphazard code base, which is guided not by what is best for users and cleanest in design, but what makes sense commercially to support and lock-in their other products in as covert way as possible to keep from running afoul of the antitrust laws.

Looking forward to the day though!

Re:Five to Ten

[tjwhaynes]

We produce a lot of floating point intensive code that depends critically on the underlining OS calls, and while the code may run, it becomes quite a chore to justify to the customer (government) why the results may differ from earlier versions. This tendency for code to be brittle with compiler and OS upgrades is not something we observe under IRIX and SunOS, the two other platforms we support, and have supported for longer than LINUX.

Ahhh the joys of floating point. There are days when I wish that floating point was banned. Customers have a nasty tendency to assume that floating point means totally accurate. Very few really understand the limitations of floating point and comments along the lines of "what do you mean I can't store 20 significant figures in my database?", "I entered 1.10 and now it's 1.0999999", "I've been running my simulation through a billion iterations using a 'float' type and the answer is screwy" are not only common but rife.

That said, within the limitations of the floating point code I've written, I've not observed changes on Linux between versions. I do observe differences between the results on Linux, Solaris, HPUX, AIX and Windows in the least significant digit, but that doesn't suprise me.

I wonder therefore whether you are being burned by standard flags on the compiler with respect to mathematical optimisation. If you are suddenly using --fast-math that will definitely screw your results, as will any of the other flags turned on by that setting. Ditto check -m128bit-long-double -m96bit-long-double or similar settings that might alter your precision and throw new answers out.

To be quite honest, if you are seeing changes in behaviour and you have test cases which demonstrate these changes, you should inform the GCC team via the mailing list and try and determine what has happened. GCC vies to be compliant (often more compliant than other compilers) with IEEE and ANSI standards, and useful bug reports can go a long way to maintaining that compliance.

If you haven't logged such problems, well, nobody else knows that that problem exists.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

Re:Five to Ten

[Billly Gates]

I agree. Many post trolls claim that Linux is finally eating all the fragmented Unix's and creating a new fragmented standard. :-)

I agree on Linux being unflexible in terms of upgrades.

I switched to FreeBSd for this reason. I can run a FreeBSD 2.x app right out of the box without a problem on fbsd 4.9.

They have their old kernel abi's, libs, and older tools, in /usr/compat/x, I think. I am not too sure how it works. Perhaps a linux distro should do this. But anyway old libraries, tools and abi's are supported for many closed sources apps or apps who have trouble compiling on newer systems. No need for a recompile. Under Windows, old MFC 4.2 apps still run with older dlls still in the windows subdirectory. Windows2k an XP just multiple versions of the same dll's and the kernel links to right version depending on the app.

This is what caused those nasty blue screen GP faults in the past. Ususally a Dll is replaced from another program.

I wonder if proprietary unix vendors do this as well? They would have to actually to maintain compatiblity.

The problem is most of the distro's are written for hackers who use free software and they just recompile. They do not run proprietary software.

Also redhat wants rpm to stay so it forces customers to upgrade to avoid having a broken system.

Actually you should write Redhat and mention you would like this ability. Many vendors like Oracle hate getting calls in from angry customers who used their database for RH advanced server 7, upgraded to 8 only to have it break.

Re:Games!

[phrasebook]

The usual points:

- How many game developers are going to want to give away their source code

- If the above isn't necessary, and closed-source binary-only games are acceptable, how can they be successful anyway? How hard would it be to support 'linux' in so many different forms?

Knoppix may be the catalyst that brings desktop Linux to the masses.

Strange. I just tried Knoppix recently and to me it just highlighted how messy and ugly Linux desktops can be! It had all these weird hacks like different mouse cursors, transparency on some menus but not others, wild & blurry (oh I mean 'smoothed', not 'blurred' ;-) fonts everywhere, garish colours, and the biggest hodge-podge of different software in varying states of completeness I've ever seen. Argh. I popped that CD out pretty quick.

Sad thing is - 2 or 3 knoppix versions down the track and it'll probably still be much like that.

Re:How much is your time worth now-a-days

[inode_buddha]

Hey, maybe he had a job to do and existing tools weren't adequate. Or maybe he didn't know about them. Or (likely) it was just something cool to do. In any case, its always refreshing to read a Linus interview; he's got his head on straight and doesn't get full of himself. It puts things into the "real world" perspective. I like the part about how he bought a digital picture frame for his kids pics and found out later that it was running Linux!

Nonsense

[RoLi]

Technically, KDE/Linux has been good enough for the desktop for 1 or 2 years already.

What is missing is applications (especially games) and to a lesser extent drivers.

The 3d-modelling niche is a very good example on how fast Linux can take over a market when the apps are there.

In the next years, expect other niches to go to Linux, the next being non-US government desktops. When Munich migrates and ports their apps, it gets easier, cheaper and faster for other cities with similar application-needs to follow.

The only problem is that such migrations take a lot of time, that's why it is taking a decade (and it already started).

Re:Nonsense

[ceejayoz]

Technically, KDE/Linux has been good enough for the desktop for 1 or 2 years already.

For someone already computer savvy, perhaps.

For your average non-techie, it's not. Hell, even I had issues with Mandrake 8.0 - and I'm doing PHP coding for a living at the moment.

The 3d-modelling niche is a very good example on how fast Linux can take over a market when the apps are there.

The 3d-modeling niche is a very good example of Linux running not on the desktop but as a processing cluster (in this case, rendering graphics).

Re:Nonsense

[RoLi]

Certainly not, but at least Windows' interface isn't designed by techies, and instead GUI specialists.

KDE's interface is much better. Multiple desktops, MMB-pasting, single/doubleclick consistency and tabbed browsing are just a few of many examples of it's superiority.

Yes, as usual, I put forward real examples while the Wintrolls make claims like "being designed by GUI specialists" without even an hint of proof.

Can you put up an example of what is so terrible about KDE/Linux? Of course you can't because there simply are no major shortcomings compared to Windows.

I had no driver issues, but when they occur it is an issue for Linux on the desktop. Poeple expect it to work right off the bat. They're gonna say "fuck this, I give up" if it doesn't - mos people don't get a thrill out of programming their own drivers like Slashbots would suggest.

It's exactly what I said. Essentially Linux is missing 3rd party support. 3rd party means hardware vendors including easily installable and well tested drivers on the driver disc. 3rd party support means software vendors offering Linux versions. 3rd party support means computer vendors preinstalling it.

However, 3rd party support doesn't have anything to do with Linux itself.

I usually don't get personal, but are you really too dumb to realize the difference between problems caused by programming mistakes/missing features (like MS Blaster) and problems caused by ignorant 3rd parties (like that USB-camera that doesn't work on Linux)?

Nope, merely pointing out that Linux isn't ready for the desktop for the average user. In case you missed it, Linus Fucking Torvalds agrees.

Linus Torvalds has realized that it takes years so that Linux can pick up the 3rd party support to become usable for the masses.

As I said, that's no technical problem at all. It's a matter of getting Linux entrenched and established - and that takes some time.

Re:Nonsense

[WNight]

The Windows GUI isn't designed by specialists, it's designed by Microsoft's GUI designers who call themselves specialists. Their credentials? Designing the Windows GUI of course.

They can't be that good if they came up with the abomination that is the WinXP start menu. I've watched so many users struggle with it and ask me to turn it back to the way it was. Their much-hyped user studies seem to be used simply to rubber-stamp their next interface, instead of making any actual improvement.

Then you talk about Usability. As if MS's 'thousands of files in a huge tree, with some scattered around the drive in other directories' and the registry that isn't a registry, but a license key storage and a way to keep from putting settings in a file in the program's directory... That certainly loses a few points for MS.

My point isn't that Linux is better, but that MS is quite bad and you simply don't see it because you're used to it.

But stick a user, someone who never needs to fiddle with the registry or open a shell, into KDE and WinXP configured in a similar way (icons on the desktop and in the main menu, etc) and I doubt either one will have trouble. The Linux user might find the lack of a specific Windows feature to be confusing, but it's not like KDE won't do that, it'll just have a different way.

If KDE isn't ready for the desktop, neither is WinXP. They're very much alike.

Re:Nonsense

[Jondor]

RedHat's CEO said it plainly "... when you go into a bestbuy and buy a digital camera that can sync with linux out of the box, then you know its ready".

Well, in that case it's ready.. I have used two digital camera's up till now, both needing driver installation under windows. Under linux/kde I plug them in, fire up konqueror and below.. I can just copy the images from the camera.. Wow!

And as it goes, hardware makers don't have to write drivers. They just have to release specs.

Re:Nonsense

[ducomputergeek]

I have to agree. I went back last fall as a consultant to an arcitecture/graphics firm that was switching from their older systems running ALPHA processors for rendering to IBM Blade servers running Linux. Not only that, but they were switching from their old modelling applications to Maya deployed on Linux. Hell, Maya is still like $3k a seat, so saving thousands of dollars on OS licenses is something they jumped at. Plus everyone using the program thought it worked as good if not better than on Windows.

The problem for small businesses is that if they had something as easy to use as quickbooks, I know a lot of people that would be willing to dump Windows because they are fed up with viruses, crashes, upgrade cycles, etc.. In our own business, we run Macintosh OSX on the desktop. Why? It allows the flexiablity of a native Unix enviroment for geeks like me, and gives us access to main stream applications people are familar with like Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, QuarkXpress, Microsoft Office (Which I like on the Mac btw), and a few great applications you won't find other places, like Final Cut Pro.

Although there are several small businesses, with fewer than 10 employees, that are fed up and I have overseen switching their computers from older windows machines to Macintosh, and the most common complaint is that there is no Solitare. Other than that they are happy things don't crash and Mac is easier to use. Drag 'n drop actually works.

Enough about Mac and back to Linux. The other thing that is taughted as Linux's great strength is also its achellis heel: flexablity. The fact that you could have 100 boxes with 100 different configurations is a nightmare for developers. Which desktop do you develop for, Gnome or KDE? How many users out there would understand that Gnome and KDE both are on Linux? One time at a local seminar we took 3 computers. 1 running RH/Gnome, 1 runnng SuSE/KDE, and 1 FreeBSD running KDE, and almost everyone in the room though the two running KDE were the same OS. They don't understand the difference nor care too, they just need it to work.

Re:Games!

[Dave2 Wickham]

It looks like you're trolling, but...

1- not required
2- Works fine for UT2003, ArmyOps, Savage, RTCW, etc...

Re:Okay I can take this !!!!!!!!

[abscr]

Alright thats enough ! I live in Canada's Capital Ottawa... And I am getting tired of people calling it Ottowa !!!!!!! grrr ! Do you see me saying Wachingtin or Nu iork...

Washington? New York? The article wasn't from the United States. And anyway, why don't you post something useful instead of complaining about a simple mistake. In fact, it might not be a mistake. Germans spell America "Amerika", while the US spells their country "Germany" when it is clearly "Deutschland".

Re:How much is your time worth now-a-days

[tonyr60]

It would be a help to actually read the damn article. What Linux actually talked about was "they've subpoenaed me for a lot of emails, and I spent literally a week writing a tool to index all my emails, so that when they give a better criteria for me, what they really want, I can actually produce it."

No mention of archive or an archive type app there....

Re:I agree (Actually, I don't)

[mwdib]

You write: Linux on the desktop is a long long way off from being as easy to use for beginners as windows is.

I've done more than my share of teaching total newbies how to use Windows. There's nothing intrinsically logical or sensible about the Windows desktop (95, 2K, XP), Windows' naming schemes, etc. It's extraordinarily difficult for an adult newbie to pick up. -- We tend to think of Windows as "easier-to-use" simply, I think, because of familiarity. Ditto with the Mac interface -- it's easy to use once you've learned how to use it. Come to Mac from a pure Windows or pure newbie background and there's still a learning curve.

Frankly, I don't think there will ever be a desktop that is "simple to use" from a newbie standpoint (at least until the computers can engage in an intelligent dialogue with the user and actually figure out what the user wants to do).

Consequently, I don't think any great re-imaging of the Linux (or any other) desktop is particularly required. Rather, I think the greater value will be in continuing to support a diversity of desktops with some focusing on new-user needs as much as others focus on the needs of sophisticated users.

After wading through four levels of menus on a default KDE install, I wish I had the skills to do some interface design myself. Grin.

Observations

[gone.fishing]

Microsoft has dominated the desktop for over a decade. Unless something drastic and unexpected happens, it will take a minimum of five years from now for it to lose dominance. Having said that, I do think that 2004 is a watershed year for Linux and for Microsoft. Years from now, we will look back and identify 2004 as the year where the tides bagan to change.

Why do I feel this way? Very few companies in very few industries ever achieve the dominance that Microsoft has in the computing industry. Competition always keeps the underdogs going for the golden ring, and profits like Microsoft enjoys have other companies salivating. History shows us that very few companies can hold onto such an amazing lead over the competition.

Linux and other "free" operating systems hold a unique advantage over Microsoft's offerings. They are free. Microsoft can not afford to compete on price alone. Every day that goes by, the gap between Microsoft's offerings and Linux's offerings narrows the gap in quality. With Novell and IBM in the fray, that gap is sure to close even further. At some point, Linux's offerings will become the most logical choice for everyone. Microsoft's grip will sliip and they will slide. It won't be fast, they will lose by percentage points.

At least this is what I hope. I have no crysal ball. They have quite a war chest and they have a lot of lawyers. Maybe one of these hair-brained lawsuits from the likes of SCO will work. I don't know, and I sure hope not.

Linus is probably right but I hope that it is 5 years and not 10.

Some things to consider

[NtroP]

I, personally, think 2005/2005 will be critical for Linux on the desktop for serveral reasons.

First, with Microsoft EOL'ing support and bugfixes this year for NT4 and 98/SE, I see many users and organizations casting about for alternatives. IIR, about 25% of the Internet-connected users are still using 98/NT. With XP being expensive and probably requiring new HW as well, they will be forced to consider Something New(tm). This may mean looking at OS X - since they need new hardware anyway. Or, more likely, they may consider "trying" Linux on their current equipment - especially if they have a friend, or know someone, who can install in for them for cheap or free.

Second, and this ties in with the first, public schools and many businesses are really starting to feel the financial crunch of constant HW/Software/License upgrade. Many public schools (like ours) cannot lease equipment due to board policies against "incumbering subsequent administrations" (or some such nonsense) meaning that new equipment is cash out of pocket and old equipment, which can no longer be used/supported, is surplussed at a total loss. Businesses, as well, face the fact that upgrading older equipment in order to run the new OS from the Beast, simply to be able to have 10 more unused features added to Word, is stupid and wastefull.

When you sit back and think about it, for most schools and businesses, 95% of computer use is for what? Email, Internet access, basic word processing/spreadsheets/"powerpoint" and maybe some IM or connectivity to a "mainframe" for financials, records, etc. which generally means some sort of TN5250/whatever emulation. ALL of this can be done with Linux as the desktop - with the added bonus(?) of increased productivity due to end users not being as able to install Webshots, Kazaa, Trojan-loaderPro, or VirusOfTheHour 6.0. This means work can be done.

But there is still a huge hurdle. Most companies and schools don't necessarily have the technical know-how or confidence to roll out Linux on the desktop. I think this is a pretty big hurdle, but not a showstopper. First, I see a lot more advertising from big players ("no one ever got fired for recommending IBM") on prime-time TV for Linux. Second, I see that Sam's Club is selling a $300.00 Linux box with Linux pre-installed and (in our store) an entire row of monitors demoing it sitting next to the XP boxes selling for hundred$ more. This is bringing Linux into the conciousness of the public (although as geeks we seem wonder how anyone could have missed it for so long :-)

Let me speak from personal experience for a second. Last week we had an engineer from a software vendor show up to install an expensive, high-end HW/SW solution. Unfortunately, it runs on windows only, so we had to buy several Win2k3 Servers and have their engineer set it up for us (lot's of custom tweaks, lots of $$$). I asked him if there were any plans for porting it to Linux, especially considering that he recommended checking with their company first before applying any MS patches to these bexes as some of them have broken their software in the past (eek!). He turned and looked at me and said that over 80% of the places he's been to have asked the same question. So they've begun porting. It should be available next year sometime. Score one for the good guys.

Along those same lines, I took him around to some of our installations to test the new system on our workstations. Wanting to start with the possibility of having the greatest success, I sook him to one of our "newer" labs. His first comment was "You're using Dell GX110's still? Those are, like 4 years old!". I didn't bother to tell him that, as Systems Administrator, I'm still waiting for my GX110. In fact, we still have IBM 340 workstations deployed. Those are 6 or 7 years old.

We are facing a huge budget crunch. Because of this, we are being forced to do a close eval of possible ways to cut costs and squeeze the most out of our current investments. Af

Have to disagree

[bogie]

"I'd love to have an easy to use system that I could handle without much difficulty while still having the power of Unix at hand should I want it.

This is not Linux."

But it IS Linux. I know this will come as a shock to Apple fans, but OS X isn't the be all end all of Unix desktops. I like many Linux users don't want a pc equiv of OS X. OS X does many things right, but it also does a lot wrong. OS X for x86 would be a real threat to Microsoft and would no doubt get more users using a semi-Unix but it's not what I'm looking for.

The only thing missing from Mandrake, Red Hat etc is real support from software and hardware makers. Documented hardware IS truly plug and play. Getting software installed/uninstalled IS moron proof provided that its packaged correctly. Like you said installation is easy as pie.

Imagine a distro running the 2.6 kernel with full oem hardware support, KDE 3.2, and the support of all the big software ISV's. At this point you have an OS that is easily as good as OS X and XP. So your right that we are indeed waiting, but not for OS X to come to the PC. We are in fact just waiting for Hardware and Software OEM's to fully support Linux. Maybe that won't ever happen, but if it does then you can rest assured that there will be no reason to pine for OS X on the PC.

The way I see it you have 3 options. 1) Buy an expensive Mac, thus putting yourself under the thumb of Apple and in a situation which is NOT an improvement over running XP. 2) Wait for OS X to come to the PC. 3) Wait for hardware and software makers to get off their asses and finally support Linux. It has been a long road, but I'm sticking with number 3. Number 1 is not and never will be an appealing option to me and most others.

Give me hotkeys!

[Mr Z]

I think I remember seeing somewhere that there's a hotkey to switch between apps, but I haven't used that in over a decade in any serious fashion on any OS, so I never took note.

Never design a UI for me then. I use [Alt]-[Tab] to switch between windows, [Alt]-[F1] through [Alt]-[F6] to switch between virtual desktops (or [Alt]-1 through [Alt]-4 when using MSVDM on my WinXP laptop), and [Ctrl]-A-<number> to switch between panes in my screen session. About the only thing I don't multiples are my vim sessions -- I no long split things vertically. (Although I used to, with splitvt .)

I live on hot keys to hop around my highly multiplexed desktop!

And this, perhaps, is why I'll never design a UI for others.... :-)

--Joe

People get that Microsoft is garbage now

[IncohereD]

I think with the lower end of Linus's statement (5 years), the use (and awareness) of Linux will become much more noticeable. I've noticed recently that the SCO lawsuit has made some waves in UK papers, where previously you'd be hard pushed to find a mention of Linux whenever a computer-related article is published (Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft!). Possibly something to do with the fact that the big name of IBM is involved, but surely this is a good thing - getting the Linux name actually recognised!

My roommate was working tech support in the summer, and when blaster hit he definitely started noticing angry people saying stuff like "Windows is bullshit!", who had probably never thought about it that way before (i.e. previously they just blamed computers in general, or themselves). People are starting to blame Microsoft for their failures. And that can only lead to them looking for another option.

Re:People get that Microsoft is garbage now

[tomcrick]

People are starting to blame Microsoft for their failures.

Definitely - people seem to be taking notice that Windows is not the complete package they are told it is when they are sold the computer. A good example is the amount of Critical Updates people have to download when they have a brand new computer just to make sure it isn't vulnerable. I had to do this for my parent's new computer with XP Home - it was no fun trying to download 16Mb of updates on a 56kbps connection.

I think it will be a massive step forward to get the average home user (whatever that is!) to actually know there is an alternative to Windows and it's not just for 'hackers and programmers'.

Interface testing

[aashenfe]

Here is an idea for your local LUG.

Nothing to do on a weekend?

Head down to a mall and set up a user interface test. Call the mall first and ask if they will donate an area to the activity. Take machines down and set up tables.

Ask passers by to take a survey. Give them a task to complete. After they try it, have them fill out a survey about the experience. Collect the surveys on a website so open source developers can access the info.

Sound like a good idea?

I will disagree.

[khasim]

It would be simple.

Put all the apps that they would use for work in a folder on their desktop.

Also, have all those apps open when they first log in.

When they log out, save all the information about those apps so they will appear EXACTLY THE SAME when the user logs in again.

Then, have the items that the user is ALLOWED to change in a different folder. Like backgrounds and themes and sounds and junk like that.

Everything else is locked down.

The user info is saved to a server so any machine that the user logs into will have the exact same desktop as the last machine.

This is VERY hard with Windows (unless you're running a Citrix desktop). But it should be very easy with Linux (all apps served from the servers).

I important part is getting them connected to the apps they need, seemlessly and reliably. Every time, every machine.

All the end user should NEED to know about the computer is how to turn it on and where the blinken lights are that show that it IS turned on.

Everything else should be covered by training on the applications that the company uses.

What about this interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://segusoland.sourceforge.net

Re:I don't

[romanr]

I don't. The GUI design is at best inconsistant - they may be trying to play catch up now - but a lot of what is happening is based on behaviour that was thrown together years ago and can't / won't be fixed. I don't actually believe they test usability with their focus groups - they probably concentrate on what eye-candy looks best.

A perfect example of how non-user friendly Windows is the way your keyboard focus gets stolen. I touch type - I don't spend a lot of time looking at the screen - i end up get very, very irritated because some window/dialog has decided to open and steal the keyboard focus - at best, my keystrokes end up in a black hole, at worst - they're invoking some action that I don't want to do.

The Amiga got this right 15 years ago - the programmer guidelines stated that you don't steal focus - Microsoft would do well to re-think a lot of their GUI guidelines (or at least follow their existing ones - they tend not to do that for their own apps anyways).

Chasing Taillights Is

[Christian Engstrom]

Why are we all so focused on cloning something we all agree is awful?

I actually belive that that is an excellent question, and I'll be happy to provide the answer:

Because 90% of all computer users are used to Windows

(The rest of the following rant is essentially a repost, so I apologize if you have already read it.)

You can feel that it shouldn't be like that, and you can make hundreds of snide and clever remarks to the effect that Windows users are too stupid to recognize their own best interests, but you can't change the facts: at least 90% of the people who are using a computer today are using Windows.

It is not every day that a court of law makes an official market survey and releases it freely on the net, in line with the finest traditions of the Open Source movement. Yet it seems that the very people who really believe the most in the benefits of free and open information, are remarkably reluctant to use it when it's available. Think what you will in private, but please please listen to judge Jackson: if Linux is going to have any impact at all in the desktop market, it is Windows users that will have to be converted.

There are a number of good reasons to make the switch to Open Source --- open file formats, control over future license costs, etc., etc. --- but if it means that you have to spend six months cursing all the little things that are different, so that you can't focus on what you're supposed to be doing because you have to relearn all your automatic reflexes, how many people will decide that it's worth the effort?

A lawyer might perhaps consider switching from MS Word to StarOffice simply to make sure that all the files that he creates today can be opened and read on another computer ten years from now, when the case has finally reached the Supreme Court or whatever. But how may chargeable hours is he prepared to let it cost him in the first six months?

It somehow seems that a lot of the people who develop Open Source applications take a special pride in inventing amusing little pitfalls for the Windows user who might be prepared to switch camps. In StarOffice, the keyboard combination to insert a non-breaking space is "Ctrl-Space", rather than Word's "Ctrl-Shift-Space". Please, somebody, why? Of course this is something that one can relearn if one has to, but what's the point of it? The first time a would-be convert, who has been using non-breaking spaces in Word, tries to insert one in a text in StarOffice, it won't work. Whether he decides that non-breaking spaces are not available and that the product does not fulfill his needs, or interrupts what he was originally trying to achieve and starts exploring the help system to find out what it is that he has to do, he will not feel more favorably disposed towards Open Source programs for having tried one. And so unnecessarily.

I could recite any number of examples: if you type "Ctrl-A Ctrl-Return" to mark all posts in a newsgroup as read, Mozilla will instead choose to open a couple of hundred windows (one for each post in the newsgroup), which will cause the system to freeze, so that it has to be rebooted. Excellent marketing ploy.

To change some settings in Mozilla you should of course look under "Edit" in the menu system, and not under "Tools" like in all other programs in the Windows world. Brilliant. How could you possibly fail when you make it so convenient for the user?

And please, don't come and say "RTFM" now. Why the **** should someone who has been using a computer for years have to consult the FM (provided there actually is one, of course, but that's a separate issue in its own right) to perform a so completely trivial standard task as the ones mentioned here?

And please don't come and say "but you can change that if you spend a couple of days learning how to reconfigure the program from the bottom up" either. Pe

Re:Chasing Taillights Is

[An Anonymous Hero]

I could recite any number of examples: if you type "Ctrl-A Ctrl-Return" to mark all posts in a newsgroup as read, Mozilla will instead choose to open a couple of hundred windows

To change some settings in Mozilla you should of course look under "Edit" in the menu system, and not under "Tools" like in all other programs in the Windows world.

In StarOffice, the keyboard combination to insert a non-breaking space is "Ctrl-Space", rather than Word's "Ctrl-Shift-Space". Please, somebody, why?

Let's see...

• Because many of those conventions (e.g. Netscape's) existed before MS chose to take a different route for no reason (other than maybe lock-in)?
  
• Because MS often made brain-damaged choices? They essentially changed the Mac's well-researched ones. Guess why? Precisely for the sake of being different, as look & feel lawsuits were (alas) looming. Examples:
  • Put main menu at the bottom, not top.
  • Put application menus inside windows, not atop the screen (insert usual Fitt's law rant).
  • Add invisible (contextual) menus everywhere, forcing beginners to master two mouse buttons.
  • Then duplicate everything in cryptic toolbars.
  • Make applications not relocatable, then "cure" the resulting C:\Program Files mess by duplicating everything in a "Start Menu".
  • Move all dialog's "Confirm" button to the left, not right.
  • Use control, not another key, as modifier key in GUI apps (so what happens in the GUI app "xterm"?)
  • Top quote instead of bottom quote in mail.
  • etc., etc.

Why, yes why duplicate this disaster of an interface? Blending Unix with a better desktop is eminently possible -- cf. NeXT or OS X, which aren't known to give switchers any problems whatsoever.

Pre-Installation would make a big difference.

[jmors]

While I would have to agree that linux is not quite as simple to use as a typical windows machine, I think the biggest thing preventing linux from being accepted is the lack of pre-installation on store bought machines.

Think about what would happen if you gave the average desktop user, not technical user now but simply someone who wants to use a word processor, send and receive email and browse the web, a computer with a blank hard drive and a windows OS cd. If windows did not come pre-installed would it be the desktop of choice for average users?

I have friends and relatives who would never have used Linux if not for someone to help them through the install process but after setting up the basics they find it every bit as easy to use as a Windows OS. I honestly believe that if Linux pre-instralls were as available as Windows, we would see a much higher rate of adoption on the desktop.

I Can't Believe No One Has Mirrored This

[sabat]

Linus Torvalds Q&A
Kate Mackenzie
JANUARY 16, 2004
LINUX creator Linus Torvalds spoke to Australian IT during his visit to Adelaide this week for Linux.conf.au, his second after attending last year's conference in Perth.

So what made you come to Australia two years in a row?

It's summer here, and it's winter in California, but literally there are only two conferences I go to anymore, because I like the technical ones, and the Australian one, as far I can tell.. it's not organised in the commercial conference kind of sense, but that just means it's a lot more relaxed, the people just talk about tech they don't try to sell stuff, and these days in the US it's unheard of, you can't make money with this kind of conf, so I go to the Australiani one and I go to one in Canada (Ottowa Linux Symposium).

What do you get out of meeting up with people in real life that you don't get from communicating with them on the net?

I actually meet up with different people, mostly it's getting a sense for what people are saying and thinking.

And, I talk to developers here, but not so much - more of the time, I just talk to people who are writing code. The kind of people who come to conferences like this, they tend to be technical people, they tend to be somewhat involved with development, but they're not so much the people I work with all the time.

It means that it's fun. I'm making a bold prediction that we'll go out for beer every night - it's partly socialising, but also getting a better view of what people are thinking about, what people are worried about.

Has anything struck you so far?

So far no, there haven't been any huge issues which is always nice. But on the other hand, the huge issues - when people start fighting, screaming, that can be interesting - that's how you see where there's real problems - people standing on other side of the rooms and not being very polite... that hasn't happened yet, but the week is young.

Anything you're particuarly looking forward to? I'm mainly following the desktop stuff, so the GNOME meetings...

I remember you saying at last year's Linux.conf.au that you were quite focused on the desktop. How do you think it's gone in the past year?

What's kind of interesting is... literally in a year or so, it's been to concentrate almost entirely on server space and things like telephony, where you have big companies setting up rooms.

Within the last year, even six months, there are big copanies now interested in literally not just selling desktop Linux, but also using desktop Linux internally. I mean it's going to take, literally five to 10 years before "normal users" start seeing Linux desktop, but in the technical space it's doing pretty well, especially in companies that can support it already.

Okay, here's the difficult question. What do you think about this SCO business right now?

Right now I'm actually fairly calm, because they haven't made any huge outrageous claims in the past 12 days or so, so they've been quiet for a while. It hasn't been that bothersome, but every once in a while, when they make some new claim, it really riles me - I mean they've literally claimed copyright on files I can prove I wrote personally, and that's very irritating.

But at the same time, the fact that their claims, when you step back, are so clearly bogus and not worth worrying about, is - that makes me worry a lot less. They're clearly scraping the barrel and coming up empty handed.

So it's irritating but I can live with it. I'm just hoping it's going to finally come to a head soon, because it's just dragging on - it's been dragging on for something like eight months, and it's getting pretty tiresome.

It doesn't seem to be having much negative impact though on the use of Linux, that must be encouraging?

I don't see any customers anyway, but apparently... customers aren't reacting very much, especially not much anymore. But it has for example forced me to - they've subpoe

Penguin Logo Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Users need a central, glossy penguin logo website, where approved hardware (pc's motherboards, video cards, sound cards, etc) are listed and unapproved hardware is blacklisted (until drivers are ready). Kind of a Consumer Reports version of Linux supported hardware, where to be listed the hardware has to be fully supported with drivers and proven to install without any bullshit.

By this I mean a very high standard of compatibility. Naturally, people are going to install whatever and that's fine, but to qualify for the hardware logo website, standards of ease have to be met fully.

Device approval needs to be in a heirarchial format, starting with the motherboard. For example, Radeon xxx isn't approved by itself, but Radeon xxx is approved for install into an Asus xxx motherboard, with Kingston xxx memory, with a Creative xxx soundcard, etc.

Yes, such a site would approve a very narrow set of compatible hardware, but that's ok, the idea would be to give a simple place for newbie users who don't want to hassle it to go to choose products that everyone knows will work without a fight.

Most of us (of course) would ignore it and have fun hacking away at insane hardware combinations, because we like that, but if we're talking about the general user population, they couldn't care less which motherboard or soundcard or whatever they have, they just want it to work without the hassle.

Then, get hardware review sites like tomshardware and anandtech to find combinations that work really well together, and to promote the site. Try to get consumer reports to feature it in an article. Then it's up to the hardware makers to support maybe not all of the stuff they make, but at least some of it.

Re:Chasing Taillights Is Good

[Christian Engstrom]

You seem to be arguing the world should rest at typewriters or rotary channel selectors because we're accustomed to it.

Nope, if I gave that impression it's only because I express myself badly.

What I am arguing is that we should learn from the people who created the first computers, and decided to stick with the familiar qwerty keyboard.

The qwerty keyboard was originally designed to make it difficult to type too fast, because that could cause the mechanical parts inside the typewriter to jam (at least according to the urban myth :) ). Since there is obviously no risk that this would happen in a computer, why didn't they change the keyboard layout to something better when they introduced the personal computer? Because they wanted to gain acceptance among people who had years of experience using typewriters professionally, and didn't want to alienate and annoy them by introducing more differences than necessary.

For all I know, it is quite possible that alternative keyboard layouts like Dvorak are considerably better that qwerty --- for typing. But for marketing a new superior technology that had other more important benefits to offer, they would have sucked severely.

Now, let us consider Emacs' key bindings from the perspective of an experienced Word user... :-)

ACL vs. Unix perms and groups

[beakburke]

Frankly all the possible combinations that ACLs provide only serve to add unneeded complexity to the matter. The judicious use of groups and unix permissions, which, IMO are much simpler to grok that the ACLs, results in a system that is easier for the administator to understand. And thus the system is more likely to be correctly configured, with proper security. Yeah ACLs are "more powerful", and if you want them Linux will support them (in ext3 and jfs or xfs iirc). It's better to have "simple" permissions done correctly, than to have your "fine grained ACLs" configured wrong. It's really an application of KISS and the 80/20 rule. Frankly, I'm not entirely convinced that ACLs really provide anything that groups can't. ACL's make the easy moderately difficult, and the difficult moderately difficult. Where as standard unix permissions and groups make the easy easy, and the difficult difficult. Yeah, you can add all the fine grained stuff you want, but the need for that is the exception rather than the rule. So why compliate the simple stuff, just to make the diffcult stuff only moderately easier?

Linus is probably correct!

[ezHiker]

I personally think Linux has been ready for the desktop for about two years now.

But...

At my medium-sized company, our IT department is always understaffed. Our titles mean little and we end up wearing many hats. My official title is Database Admin (MS SQL Server), but since I'm a former field support tech, I end up helping our techs troubleshoot problems they can't (won't?) resolve. We run Windows 2000 and XP on all of our desktops (except mine, of course). Our techs are pretty much MS only, because they have never bothered to learn Linux. Same for my boss, the Director.

I've been pushing Linux since we were a two-man show (the Director and me!). My boss has always been interested in Linux, but he can't seem to gather the courage to leave his Windows comfort zone.

Our field support techs just think I'm a crazy zealot for pushing Linux, and I think they actually see Linux as a threat to their existance, since they are not willing to put in the time to learn it. I think they waste a ridiculous amount of time rebuilding rotted Windows installs, running MS update-reboot-reboot, removing spyware/malware, cleaning viruses, etc, etc.

When I try to explain to them that Linux would make their life easier, they just look at me like I'm nuts.

We have actually managed to get some Linux in the door on our backend servers, running www, DNS, and mail, but because I'm the only Linux guy, support of those servers generally falls on me. Our Network Admin has some BSD experience from his former ISP job, so he helps out some in this area, but I still end up doing a lot of it. Fortunately the Linux servers are very reliable, and don't require huge amounts of attention.

I'd love see all of our desktop installs replaced with Linux, but at the same time, in our current situation, I am the only one who would know anything about supporting them. I have enough on my plate already, and I can't really encourage Linux on the desktop without help.

Recently, after the MS-Blaster fiasco, I started a pilot project with one of our users running a Linux desktop, with our Director's blessing. Our company is actually in a better position for migration than many, because we run our mission critical Windows-only apps on Citrix metaframe servers. It has proved to be favorable, but going forward with complete rollout means a) Forcing our techs to learn Linux (unlikely), or b) Firing our techs and hiring Linux techs (not going to happen).

At this point all I can hope for is to push for a requirement that all future techs that we hire have Linux experience. At the rate we are growing, it will probably take 10 years before we have enough Linux expertise in-house to support a company-wide Linux rollout, so Linus is probably right on the money.

Week for email indexing?

[smallpaul]

But it has for example forced me to - they've subpoenaed me for a lot of emails, and I spent literally a week writing a tool to index all my emails, so that when they give a better criteria for me, what they really want, I can actually produce it.

Of course it would take a kernel hacker a week to write a tool to index emails. He probably wrote it from scratch in ANSI C with dependencies only on stdio.h and string.h. I can just see him spending the first day writing a module to do fast pattern matching across character buffers. Don't get excited Linus worshippers: I'm half kidding. Half.

L.T.: Desktop in 5 or 10 years...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

One of the things that bothers me is this statement from Linus:

I mean it's going to take, literally five to 10 years before "normal users" start seeing Linux desktop, but in the technical space it's doing pretty well, especially in companies that can support it already. Five or ten years? I L.T. feels this is the time frame, I'm worried.

On Linux usability

[0x0d0a]

even baby joe can use it.

I don't know about that. However, it's been pretty clearly established that, five or six years ago, a tech hobbyist could use Linux as his sole desktop. He might have to use care in purchasing hardware, and he might have to deal with LaTeX instead of a word processor. He might have to re-request documents in a different format. He might spend an awfully long time getting things up and running. However, Linux was usable alone.

KDE and GNOME and other projects steadily got easier to use and were cleaned up. Windows compatibility improved. Companies slowly started to throw their weight behind Linux.

Two or three years ago, I'd say that a power user could reasonably start using Linux. There were still some annoying issues. Antialiasing wasn't in use, and many folks noticed this, if they were accustomed to Windows-style antialiasing. Sound drivers at the time were usually OSS/Free, so distributions used software sound servers to do sound mixing, which frequently resulted in poor-quality-resampled sound that broke up. XFree86 3.3 was still around, and 3D support in 3.3 was pretty bad. You still had to use the command line for a reasonable number of things (probably looking online for someone having the same problem), though folks were working hard on frontends.

Today, I think that a power user can comfortably run Linux, without any of the old drawbacks. 3d support is generally roughly on par with Windows. Audio is much better -- most distributions use ALSA and take advantage of hardware mixing, though more unusual features like hardware reverb generally aren't supported. Things like support for cheapo printers and reliable Windows filesharing support are in place. Most Windows productivity programs have an acceptably usable equivalent, and while document compatibility still isn't perfect (OpenOffice isn't identical with MS Office), it's good enough for most people to comfortably get work done without making an annoyance of themselves. Things are *not* equivalent to Windows. While most unusual hardware can be made to work one way or another (for example, I have a SmartHome USB X10 controller that can be made to work under 2.4 by compiling and installing modules myself...though 2.6 support is not in), it's still not flawless. The typical Linux distribution has gained weight -- GNOME and KDE are both quite heavyweight. Games are just not there -- this may not be an issue for the business desktop, but it's a huge deal for the home desktop. Binary software distribution (and no matter how nice it would be for everything to be open source, it just isn't going to happen) is a phenomenal pain in the ass, even in the presence of the LSB. I have Loki games, games that I purchased perhaps two years ago, that already do not run on current distributions. There is no existing technical solution, short of using Java bytecode and taking the performance hit that doing so entails.

I find that XP Home's multiuser workstation environment is much more accessable to a typical home user. Jane can log on, then she can switch to Bob, then he can log off and Jane can continue using her software. While I have run multiple X servers before on my box, I don't believe that there are any major distros that support such a setup nicely out of the box, and I remember running into all sorts of interesting bugs at the time -- run OpenGL software or something, and freezes started coming up.

Two of the major players in the Linux productivity world are OpenOffice and Mozilla, requred for MS Office and IE equivalence. Both of these use oddball widget sets. They are usable, and generally operate roughly like other applications on the system do. However, they are still disconcerting to the user. I *know* when something is using Athena or XUL or whatever OpenOffice uses, and I adapt my behavior accordingly. It's still confusing, unintuitive, and looks unprofessional to someone just trying to do work, however. By comparison, the Qt-Gtk differences are much mor

GNOME is Windows, but slower

[thockin]

I was at LCA, and saw a few interesting presentations on GNOME. Here's the revelation:

THEY'RE RE-CREATING WINDOWS.

No, really, they are. That's not necessarily bad, but it is a bit scary. Look:

GConf == Registry
Nautilus == Explorer shell
Bonobo == DCOM
GStreamer == Direct Show
DBus == (something they do now) ...

Much of the same duplications are being done for KDE, too. Re-inventing, re-inventing, re-inventing.

Furthermore, they're doing it worse. Or at least more slowly. Nautilus is SLOW. GNOME is much slower on equivalent hardware than Windows XP is.

I'm fine with re-implementing something that is the rigth answer. I'm not convinced all of these are, and I'm *know* we're not as fast or stable as XP in the GUI.

I want to see Linux and free/open software succeed. I really really do. I don't particularly LIKE OS/X, but it is a better experience than GNOME is, still.

I once more suggest that either the KDE team or the GNOME team concede to the other. Stop duplicating or triplicating efforts. We're still pretty far behind, and it doesn't seem to me that we're catching up (except on the simplest of desktop tasks).

User modes

[AJ_Levy]

Okay, the idea - the guiding philosophy - behind any UI should be to "get stuff done". One feature that I'd love to see implemented in a GUI - across the board - is "User Modes". Something along the lines of - on the desktop somewhere - a pull down menu with the options "Beginner / Novice / Intermediate / Experienced / Advanced". Beginner mode is designed with the first time / technophobic user in mind. Big buttons, fewer options, cute puppy dogs and paperclips, lots of hand holding. The stuff that drives most of the rest of us mad (the Office paperclip, for example) is handy for first time users. Novice mode is designed for users who use their computers for basic tasks, but get confused when things go out of the ordinary. More options and less hand-holding than beginner, but most of the decisions are still made on their behalf by the OS or programs. Intermediate mode for your average, middle of the road tech literate user. They know how to do what they need, and find the hand-holding annoying. They happily know what to they need to do until something breaks. The aim is to make sure it doesn't. Intermediate users probably don't need to see an xterm window, and running one should even be an option for people in beginner / novice mode. Experienced users are power users. They know their way around a GUI and are computer confident, but don't necessarily know the inner workings. More options, most decisions made for themselves. Finally, advanced mode. "Advanced" in this case is a codeword for geek. All those cool features you think you'd like, but would either be useless to your average or beginner user? Or would confuse them? Cram 'em in here. * * * * * These settings would apply to all apps. Especially with beginners and novices, consistancy is important. If they need settings or features, the options are up the user mode tree, and thus someone more experienced than them would do the configuring.

World Domination

[0x0d0a]

Can someone explain to me why we need to get linux running on every desktop in the world exactly??

To say it step-by-step:

1) Hackers like Linux more than Windows. It's a nice, powerful OS.

2) Microsoft sells Windows. It wants people to buy copies of Windows. One major weapon in its arsenal is compatibility -- .doc files, for instance, are not easily readable on non-MS products. MS has significant incentive to deliberately attempt to introduce incompatibility.

3) Hackers are not islands. They must interact with other people. Sometimes this means getting DSL service. Sometimes this means having to use a computer specified by an employer. Sometimes this means being able to read .doc files. Since Microsoft is The Institution and tries to isolate itself from other efforts, hackers frequently have to put up with Microsoft's products, even if they do not want to use them.

4) Hackers, frusterated with Microsoft, happily work on Linux and other Microsoft-alternative efforts.

Linux having a 30% market share or more would have major benefits (well, and probably drawbacks as well):

* Hardware compatibility. Someone has to write drivers and test and support hardware. It's expensive, so usually this sort of thing is subsidized by lots of people. If many non-hackers are using Linux, then hackers will get hardware support subsidized by non-hackers. This is a Good Thing for them.

* Games. There needs to be a lot of folks willing to buy a game before a company will port, test, and support it on Linux. It's expensive, so usually this sort of thing is subsidized by lots of people. If many non-hackers are using Linux, then hackers will get games subsidized by non-hackers. This is a Good Thing for them.

* Enabling People. Hackers are human too, and they feel good when they let people do something more. It's rather like the digital artist that introduces a conventional photographer to Photoshop. When the photographer's eyes light up and he realizes what he can do, and his ability to produce value increases, the artist feels good, and has helped society. Linux has a number of capabilities that Windows does not, and introducing folks to them would help society.

* DRM. Lots of hackers are not thrilled with the concept of DRM. Establishing a less monopolistic platform rapidly makes it much more difficult for anyone to get everyone using DRM.

* Environment. I'd love to never have to use a Windows box again. However, I run into them. The more people using Linux, the more folks paying people to work on and develop things for Linux, and the less one has to support Windows machines.

* Elimination of proprietary protocols and formats. Only one person directly wins if a proprietary protocol or format is in place -- the vendor of the software using it. Consumers lose, and competitors lose. Linux, having a large collection of entrenched open source and open specification software packages, has a good amount of inertia to not having closed formats.

Now, I grant that there will probably be drawbacks to a dominant Linux. Whatever the dominant easy-to-use distro is, it will likely have security failings, may force people to use a GUI to configure things, and may have a vendor doing all kinds of licensing deals for exclusives (like Microsoft's AOL icon on the desktop). Trojans and viruses will likely be more common for Linux. Politics will become more involved with Linux, just as it did with the Internet (imagine the same thing happening to the FSF that did with ICANN -- being taken over by less-than-nice corporate interests. Ick.) There will be many packages ported, and some of the existing Linux software that appeals to hackers -- small, CLI programs that can easily be combined -- will lose relevance as folks use ported, large, potentially buggy software packages like MS Office. There will probably be more strict backwards compatibility constraints, and cruft will more easily bu

Stumbling blocks for Linux on the desktop

[logicassasin]

Here's what I see being the real show-stoppers for desktop Linux adaptation:

1. Reliance on the CLI: Yes, in a perfect world, everyone would be comfortable with using the CLI to accomplish tasks from installing a driver to reading email to whatever. REALITY, however, is different. The vast majority of Win32 and MacOS users NEVER touch the CLI. No one wants to be bothered with it. The Linux elite's insistance that everything be centered around CLI apps and whatnot is going to prevent Linux uptake. Yes, we should all learn it before diving into Linux, but think about it this way; Apple, with it's BSD powered OSX, does NOT require it's users to know a damned thing about the command line in order to use their OS. It simply works well without it. Of course, power users can get at it and run as many shell scripts as they wish to, but those that don't know about command line stuff are not forced to learn it.

2. Installing new hardware in your PC should not be harder than plugging it in and installing a driver. In all of the years I've been using Linux, I've rarely ever been able to simply install a new card and not have to install something other than a driver. There have been too many times where I have to fish out my install CD's or search the net for some obscure dependancy package, or worse, have the dep already installed, but the driver's installation script not detect it properly. I've pulled out my hair trying to get my little USB webcam (Cool-I-Cam Stylus 1000) to work with GPhoto/Gphoto2 only to give up after weeks of trying (it took less than 5 minutes to get it up and running under Windows 2000). My IOGear USB2 card STILL doesn't work with Linux (the driver is included with Win2000 SP4 and is also available as a tiny download from the IOGear site). Stuff like this annoys the hell out of me. Honestly, I shouldn't have to deal with it and neither should anyone trying to use Linux for the first time. Until hardware installation is fixed, desktop linux will never happen.

3. Apps. I cannot stress how important having GOOD applications is to the average user. Star/Open Office is good, I'll admit that and it's an excellent start in the direction that things should be heading. However, there's simply not enough applications of this caliber. There are no pro-quality audio applications, no Macromedia authoring apps, games are hard to come by IF they're ported to Linux, and nothing that's truely like EZ CD Creator or Nero for CD burning. Until commercial applications start coming over to Linux, we're not going to see many people moving to Linux.

Think of it this way; The Amiga is/was one of the greatest machines ever built and it had the BEST OS of it's day. It's lack of applications (and lack of marketing push) killed it's desktop uptake. In 1990, I knew more people that had inferior PC's than had Amigas and the sole reason was that the apps they needed were not available for the Amiga. Same for the Atari ST, Same for the BeBox. Apps drive adoption, not just the GUI.

4. Elitism. Linux elitism is rampant. If I ask a question in an IRC channel on how to do something in windows, I get a dozen good responses. If I ask a question in #linux on Efnet or a similar channel, I get a bunch of "did you read the man pages?" "RTFM", "Linux is obviously to difficult for you, go back to Windows" or similar responses. Oddly, I don't encounter the level of elitism when looking for help with any other flavor of unix or MacOS (The guys in #SGI/Efnet were particularly helpful when I had a problem reinstalling Irix on my Indy). The attitude that a lot of Linux users display towards newbies will turn off just about anyone to Linux. Kill the attitude, learn some manners, and lend a hand.

Now, before I get flamed, I must let you know that I AM well versed in Linux. I'm currently working as a Unix admin, overseeing a mission-critical, money making production server farm for a Fortune 1000 company. I make my living using Linux, but cannot see having my wife use it for her business (She's a mortgage broker)

Re:Linus and the P2P Fileswapper victims of the RI

[Asprin]

Linus is the only person I've ever heard of taking a lawsuit as an opportunity to write some new code. The world needs more Linuses!!!

UGH! For the *last* time, people, it's "one Linus, two Lini"!

[grin]