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OSDL Announces Desktop Initiative

Posted by timothy on from the pleasant-buzzing-noise dept.

rhetoric writes "Earlier today at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in New York, nonprofit Open Source Development Labs announced the creation of a "Desktop Linux Working Group initiative focused on greater use of Linux on desktops throughout the enterprise." A press release is available on OSDL's website, in addition to this Register article." It's all part of their non-secret plan.

25 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Perspective of a Linux neophyte by Sarojin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been using Wintel for over 15 years and have just recently installed Mandrake 9 on an older P2 450. Here are a couple of points I think are worth mentioning (ubergeeks can exclude themselves from the classifications below):

    1. Linux is ready for *some* desktops only, namely ones where users won't be constantly tweaking and installing new software and hardware. You want a computer for grandma to browse the web, send email and view a few grandkid photos? Linux is great! You want to roll out corporate desktops where employees don't really need to be able to download and install the latest version of KaZaA? Linux is a godsend (provided the business software you need is supported).

    2. Linux is *not* ready for the average user desktop. The average user wants to do everything grandma wants to do, but they also want to be able to install or upgrade software and hardware *easily*. In addition, they want a fully functional GUI, with no *necessity* of dropping to a CLI for everyday tasks. They want to be able to go to a third party software/driver website, follow the 'click here for Linux version' hyperlink, download the file, then double-click to install it.

    Needless to say, as long as Linux distributions and desktop managers continue to proliferate, the average user's requirements will never be met. I say this as a *fact* not a *prescription*, so spare me the Linux-strength-in-diversity comments. I just think you can't have your cake (freedom/diversity) and eat it too (Linux on average desktop).

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    1. Re:Perspective of a Linux neophyte by thed0gman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hmmm. I semi-agree with the above, but I think that one of the strengths of Linux *is* the powerful CLI and reduced desktop functionality.

      When the Windows GUI fails to start, there's often little that can be done from the command line to help, mainly because the bastardised CP/M-clone that is DOS has been further stripped of any useful features it may have once accidentally had. Linux, OTOH, takes the "power to screw up your machine" out of the hands of the average user and puts it back in the hands of the administrator.

      The only thing I wish for is a faster version of OpenOffice....

    2. Re:Perspective of a Linux neophyte by Apreche · · Score: 3, Interesting
      You got it all right, except for one.
      They want to be able to go to a third party software/driver website, follow the 'click here for Linux version' hyperlink, download the file, then double-click to install it.
      This is what they want to do, but it's also what they shouldn't be doing. The fact that people can do this is the reason there is so much malware out there. Linux done right will force the non geek to have a great system, somethign windows can never do.
      Linux at this point isn't any harder than windows, if you get a geek to set it up for you. What we need is a distro called grandma linux. The WM will be just a bunch of huge icons on a single desktop. One will say E-mail one will say Web Browser, one will say Word Processor, Instant Messenger, etc. Which applications these things actually launch will be decided at install time, which grandma wont do. Stability, compatibility and ease of use will be priority one. There will be also one more big button, Add more Big Buttons. It will run a custom app that will be super grpahical and pretty providing a list of installable apps.
      This is also great for the corporate desktop, because you can give the secretary just the few apps she's allowed and nothing more.

      There is no reason someone can't make this. In fact, this is the kind of thing that just isn't possible on windows, but is exactly what the world needs. You know what, I'm putting this on my CS projects queue. When I'm done with everything else I'm going to make that wm and that distro. All will be laid to burnination.
      --
      The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
    3. Re:Perspective of a Linux neophyte by bangular · · Score: 2, Interesting

      OMG someone finally gets it!!! All this talk of there's no gui for this or that etc. etc. There have been plenty of GUI's for a looooong time. I remember back in the day using Mandrake (very old version) and that had a GUI package system. RPM cooker I think it was called. You just clicked the cooker icon, it updated list of the software that was available, and you either installed new software or updated old software. I didn't know anything about command line back then and was the average desktop user, and I used it just fine. I setup a home network with it just using the GUI. I know people who run linux servers and don't know any command line (usually run it through webmin or an included GUI). KDE has a GUI for freakin everything. There must be at least 10 GUI's just for installing RPM's. I think all this talk of "there needs to be more GUI's" is old, because there have been plenty of GUI's for years. I can't think of a single task that someone hasn't written a GUI frontend for, or at the very least an NCurses interface for.

    4. Re:Perspective of a Linux neophyte by mark_lybarger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      first off, i have no idea why in the world everyone on /. focuses on a 'grandma' ready o/s. what is the average, mean, median, mode (whatever) age of home computer user? sure _some_ folks grandma's use the computer, but they also have a grandkid around everynow and again to show them what to do. grandma isn't the target audience here for any operating system. my mother (who is _a_ grandma) had troubles installing windows ME drivers for a usb HP printer, even with HP's easy to follow (i assume) instructions. she ends up paying someone from the local uni $20 to come over and frix it up.

      next, why shouldn't there be a location for manufacturer hardware drivers. i assume we're talking closed source, but that doesn't matter. a lot of the linux drivers out there never make it into the main kernel, so you're left hoping your distro includes it. also, a lot of drivers find themselves unmaintained rather quickly. end users probably will figure out eventually that open source drives are much more beneficial than the closed drivers (upgrades), but really, if i buy a cheep 'ol scanner at compusa or best buy, and can get a binary driver from linuxbinarydrivers.com and have the thing just _work_, i'd be extremely satisfied. heck, they could even install their own binary application with links onto my desktop if they want. this will get people using it.

      i do know some folks that would need that stripped down user interface you speak of (hasn't it been done yet?). i wouldn't call them a grandma audience, but rather a Wal-mart audience. these are people who the closest grocery store is about 10 minute away. and during that 10 minute drive, they're not fighting traffic lights, they're watching the corn grow just to the other side 'o the ditch.

    5. Re:Perspective of a Linux neophyte by DrXym · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The thing is Mac OS X is an OS grandma can use but you can also open a shell and completely ignore Aqua if you want.


      So the problem with Linux is not technical. If OS X (a BSD derivative) can have a user friendly frontend then so could Linux. That means proper attention to detail in the UI, user friendliness, hiding advanced options, extensive context sensitive help, wizards and config dialogs, plug and play on the desktop, 3D graphics support (out of the box), and consumer device support. Etc.


      Some dists get a lot of this right already (e.g. Fedora has a very nice UI without detracting from the underlying OS) so we're not far from that situation. Hopefully initiatives such as this one from OSDL will help put focus on the work that still needs to be done. It doesn't mean dumbing down Lindows style - a well designed and tolerant UI benefits everyone.


      Another major millstone for Linux is the RTFM crowd. At the moment they're acting like so much dead weight to adoption of Linux. Hopefully they'll get a clue and realise the more users the better. And that is not going to happen while a vocal minority are openly hostile to letting mere mortals use their beloved OS.

    6. Re:Perspective of a Linux neophyte by bernywork · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here is a thought.

      How about the people that put out this hardware include somewhere in the hardware that is connected (Firmware, flash, whatever) a URL for the machine to follow to pick up the latest drivers / software for that hardware. If the machine has the software installed locally it uses that temporarily and the machine comes up saying:

      "You have connected new hardware to this computer, the hardware is currently usable, but may not be optimal. Do you want to connect to the internet and see if there is a newer version of this software?"

      Once the software is installed, the machine every now and again, checks the page for a new version number to see if there is a new version.

      At the end of the day, you might say this is automated and bad; from a security point of view I have to agree to some degree. The only problem I have is that at the moment we are basically doing the same thing anyway, we are just doing it manually as opposed to automatically.

      How many of the people out there review the binary drivers that they get for their SCSI card when they download them from Adaptec?

      Thoughts? Comments?

      --
      Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
    7. Re:Perspective of a Linux neophyte by ckaminski · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree with you in a couple respects only:

      Driver support. Only market penetration can fix this.
      One click installs: rpm's proposed to make this a reality. The reality often is that most software has to be compiled from scratch if you want the particular features you want.

      As an example, I have a particular build of unixODBC. My problem is that on my distribution, I have no idea where it's looking for it's files, because that's entirely dependent upon what someone specified in the RPM when it was built. There's no easy dependency resolution for one-click installs. Including dependencies (GTK) for something like gaim makes one-click installs impossible. This is one place where variety has killed ease of use.

      Linux is so close. So damn close. So close to being powerful for the tweaker (me)... so close to being powerful for the n00b (my dad)... Solve these problems, and Linux/Unix will have a shot at conquering the world.

  2. Server sales counting as desktop sales? by gmania · · Score: 3, Interesting
    From the article:
    According to market research firm IDC, paid shipments of Linux rose to 2.8 percent of desktop operating systems in 2002, up from 1.7 percent two years earlier. In 2004, it is expected to surpass the total new product shipments for the Mac OS.

    For some reason this doesn't quite match my own subjective perceptions. I know a lot of Mac buyers, a lot of linux users, but not that many linux desktop OS buyers. Isn't the majority of Linux sales directed to the server market? Or they mixing the figures as they go along? Pity there is no link provided for the research.
  3. Too Little Too Late? by turgid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This JDS from Sun has quite a head start. How can they compete?

    --
    Stick Men
  4. Desktop Idea by Linus+Sixpack · · Score: 2, Interesting

    X has a big advantage of having a number of virtual desktops. Why dont distros agree to have #5 given over to documenation & monitoring. (#5 is alive) & #6 given over to Distro Specific features.

    Assuming they have 6 desktops (I know you can have more) 4 would be for the user, 1 for monitoring, 1 for exceptions and warnings & 7 to reset the mouse & keyboard.

    ls

  5. Progress by sokk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Linux is getting closer to the easy desktop. I think it's ready as a base-system; but what gives the guys in Redmond the upperhand is the application portfolio that have been added to the Windows OS over the years. The day we get native versions of Photoshop, Dreamweaver and the other major apps on Linux - it'll be very hard to resist it. We also need Outlook/Exchange-killers. Evolution is great; but we still have a way to go.

    I still haven't recommended Linux on the desktop for any friends of mine, because I know who'll get the call when they can't install their new webcam etc. (You guessed right, me). It won't be long before they ask me I hope; when they see my slick desktop -- and how well everything works. Then I'll help them.

    We have KDE 3.2, Gnome 2.6 and kernel 2.6 lurking. We see more and more user friendly distros; and a rise in live-cds.

    Still, when I hear people get viruses and such I can't help myself but comment it with a little: "Nope, no viruses. I use Linux."

    In the end: It's hard to beat free :)

  6. Even More Frustrating by occamboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Your analogy is dead on, Mr. Silver.

    But it's worse:

    The vast bulk of the Linux world doesn't even recognize the truth of what you're saying. Whenever someone complains about Linux useability, they are told that "all you need to do is [poorly-documented two hours of time-suck here], and anyway you're just a M$ troll you swine".

    The genius of M$ is that they recognize when things are hard to use, and they make 'em easier. Ten years ago they could see that their screen font rendering sucked - so they made them unsuck. I certainly have issues with M$ - sometimes they dumb things down too much, and they often are untruthful. But, let's face facts, even Windows 95 was a far more useable system for 95+% of computer users than is any current Linux distribution that I've tried.

    The sad thing is that there's a lot of room for improvement on Windows. Linux can, in theory, win the battle for the desktop. But if folks don't recognize how terribly deficient it is in day-to-day usability, there's not a prayer for it.

  7. Re:Working group representing a consortium of vend by 16K+Ram+Pack · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I know where you are coming from, that multiple models create a "survival of the fittest" situation rather than monocultures and lockins.

    The only thing that this could do is focus everyone on creating 1 really great desktop rather than a number of (often) quite poor desktops.

    To someone like me, the whole 'which windowing system to choose' debate is probably doing more harm than good to the adoption of Linux. It sometimes seems it's no longer that people choose one or the other on merit, but that battle lines have been drawn.

    There's also no reason why you can't take this desktop code and use what you want and don't want from it.

    Getting Linux on the desktop is to me an important objective. From a personal perspective, I don't use it because there's things I'd like to have that aren't there yet. From a more global perspective, Microsoft will attempt to crush Linux in any way possible. Convincing people to get on Linux not only increases the Linux user base, but starves Microsoft of oxygen to take on Linux. I don't believe that enough is being taken yet. It's still mostly hobbyists and a few specialists using it on the desktop. We have to get more home users and more small businesses on, and that means improving the desktop, getting the applications they need built and 'marketing' it to people.

  8. Eazel Nautilus by l0wland · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Is this the same that Eazel tried with Nautilus? Unfortunately, they failed.

    So far, the Linux community exists modtly out of tech-people. When you look at Apple Computer, they have a separate division that purely focusses on human interface design.

    Won't it be possible for people like that to spend some time on a better enduser-experience? Can GUI-development be organised in the same way as Linux' kernel-development is?

    --

    "Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
  9. What Linux is still to give me by fluor2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1. An active-directory similar interface for distributing software packages. E.g. right-click on a group called "Mozilla 1.5", and then just add a computer into this group. This will make the computer install Mozilla 1.5.. All other software should be compatible with this "style", like we have with MSI on Windows. We have RPM on Linux, and that should be okay to use here. Thus we need to have computers as a member of this active directory-thing... And some Domain Admin accounts that are automatically applied to computer domain members. etc. I guess I could go on and on about all Group Policy features of Active Directory. :)

    2. Desktop... that actually gives me good control. Also, X crashes much too often. (Linux geeks seem to laught about that Windows has to reboot often, but I hear my users often complain that they feel their computer crashed, even if just X crashes. And I do agree, not much use in a GUI when it crashes, and the time to restart X seem to match the time to restart a normal Windows XP computer..). Also, Desktop and icons must be files, and not stupid complex data-files, which is pretty hard to modify.

    1. Re:What Linux is still to give me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      The difference with X crashing and the Windows GUI crashing is that X isn't part of the kernel - I don't have to wait for the machine to reboot and all my daemons keep running. Have the Windows GUI crash and all processes are toast.
      But killing and restarting the X server means all connected X clients are toast. And sometimes a crashed X completely locks up your keyboard so bad that even magic-sysrq won't work. If you're not on a network/don't have sshd running, or don't have a serial console plugged in (e.g. you're on the road with a laptop), this means reboot.
  10. TrollTech joined Desktop Linux WG by inc_x · · Score: 2, Interesting
    See press release

    "The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), [...], today announced that Trolltech has joined OSDL and will participate in the Lab's new Desktop Linux Working Group."

  11. Re:Thats evolution by bruthasj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not sure, but I'd think OSDL's focus would be more kernel-space modifications and/or optimizations to make the desktop better. I doubt they'll care about distros or desktops. Focus should be on kernel X interaction, improved drivers, including better peripheral support for the home market.

  12. A boost to Freedesktop.org by InodoroPereyra · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If anything, this is about OSDL sponsoring Freedesktop.org

    This working group is also supported by OSDL's Linux User Advisory Council, which is comprised of senior IT executives from global 500 companies. The overall working group objectives have been developed by an exploratory committee with representatives from freedesktop.org, HP, IBM, Intel, Novell, OSDL, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems.

    Note that the only non-profit member of the committee is precisely freedsktop.org - For those who don't know, freedsktop.org is (in a nutshell) a common effort by the GNOME and KDE developers to develop standards to let Linux Desktop Enviroments coo- and interoperate. Things like a universal protocol for the system tray, etc.

    It just makes sense to see OSDL and their corporate partners sponsor Freedesktop.org, it is a win-win investement for everyone involved ... and I would much rather see the big corps interested on GNU/Linux support Interoperability and Standards than adopt one particular technology as a "de facto standard". Way to go !

  13. Re:IBM - already doing it by GomezAdams · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Lotus under WINE IIRC.

    --
    Too lazy to create a sig...
  14. Re:Working group representing a consortium of vend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    We all know how good committees are at deciding things. Compromise usually leads to the lowest common denominator.

    That's dogmatic, mechanical reasoning. In reality, it depends what the decision-making model is, and what kind of people with what kinds of ideas are on the committee.

    What this one will do remains to be seen.

  15. Re:Business desktop vs Home desktop by jsebrech · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With winex and a plethora of linux ports, linux has better gaming support than the mac. You never hear people say "oh, macs are nice, but they're just not desktop machines." Using lack of games as excuse for claiming linux isn't ready for the desktop is just that, an excuse, and a poor one at it.

    I agree about the driver thing, in specific situations. If you buy new hardware with linux preinstalled, like most businesses would, this is just not an issue. For home users though, this is a problem. Having said that, I run linux on ALL my home machines, and haven't had any significant hardware problems that I didn't have in windows as well (scanner that has no driver, but I can't get it to work in anything newer than w98 either).

  16. Not only that by phorm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But if the game developers go linux... well

    We've already seen linux proliferate into the 3d graphics and rendering biz.

    And we see linux adopted by a lot of programmers

    Over time, this spawns a move to 3d games...

    Already some popular developers follow linux. America's Army is supposed to be quite good. Doom 3 is likely going to kick some serious butt.

    Really, linux already has a strong following of "coders." If more and more of those coders happen to be game coders, then you'll see the advancement of linux games. It's not really hard to port a C++/OpenGL game between linux and windows. The core of the game itself is the same, and the APIs/language very similar. No recoding of the game itself is needed, just a recoding of wrappers.

    Doom3 could be a pioneer to this. Let's say D3 support for linux is really good. If the engine is really all we expect, then it will be adopted and licensed by others for new games beyond D3. These games could also be made to easily run on linux.

    Once one major game makes it to linux, the clones may follow. After that... the slide is inevitable.

  17. Linux has been ready for ages.... by HogynCymraeg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ....it's just the supporting software that needs the tweaks. There is a distinction here...