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Dan Gillmor Reconsiders Linux on the Desktop
Cyrus writes "Influential San Jose Mercury News tech columnist Dan Gillmore has reconsidered his stance against Linux. He now says it's rapidly converging to a viable desktop OS
for the masses. "While I wasn't paying sufficient attention, the proverbial tortoise has been playing some serious catch-up.""
Yes, Wi-Fi is an area of spotty hardware support, as it is developing and changing so rapidly.
FWIW, I suggest using external WiFi bridges for desktop systems where internal cards are troublesome, and sticking to known-functional WiFi cards for laptops.
Of course, I try to avoid WiFi for my networks 'cause even its encrypted modes are not very secure...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
The article likens Linux to the proverbial tortoise, and that gets me to thinking that we should update the famous Aesop fable of the tortoise and the hare to reflect today's reality.
How about this...
Just as the tortoise has crossed the finish line, the hare, waking up and realizing he's lost the race as a result of his own indolence and brash overconfidence, files suit against the tortoise for infringing on his intellectual property, foremost of which is the hare's exclusive rights to using one's legs for forward movement.
The tortoise, facing mounting legal bills and declining support from the other animals, nearly all of whom think the hare's claims are overly broad and invalid but are afraid of being similarly targeted by the hare's legal campaign for the use of their own legs, is forced to settle out of court, concede defeat in the race, and to pay a nominal licensing fee to continue using his own legs.
The hare, and his lawyers, win the race after all.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Maybe it's not as elegant or easy as M$ Windows, but it's not that bad
Have you seen KDE3.2? It is more elegant and much easier to use than any versiion of windows IMHO
IMO, Linux hasn't changed that greatly, it's just easier for non-geeks to get ahold of it. There aren't (m)any new resources; it's just that resources that existed before are easier to get ahold of.
yeah its getting their but I want my installation wizards for programs damnit :) As well as having an easy way to remove programs that I've installed. One more thing though, an easier way to install drivers too. And have unknown devices show up as well if there is no driver part of the install yet. Make it graphical and an easy way to do it at the command line. And distro specific packages like rpm don't cut it. I want a way that'll work with all distro's, not just a specific one. You can install the same program on windows 98/2000/xp. MS did it, now its time for linux to do it.
My Gawd WTF...
"Maybe it's not as elegant or easy as M$ Windows"
Elegance and ease is the key to an effective OS for the masses. It needs to become as elegant as M$ and OSX (or better) to go completely mainstream. If it's not then the average user, like my parents, won't give it a second look.
Evolution or ID?
I don't know whether to mod Dan's article as +1 insightful or -1 Redundant.
Trying is believing. I had been approaching Linux as a curiousity, a sort of hobbyist tinkering OS for people who had a lot of time to invest in learning and deploying the systems. And then I got charged with building a mail server. One Gentoo server later (complete with all the goodies needed to make Horde work properly), I've seen the light, that it's NOT hard to use, and that it's very simple to learn. The level of documentation is also far and away the best of any OS I've experienced. (I did find that it takes a little while to learn how to find and read documentation.) It is a far cry from my first attempt at Linux on a 486 almost 8 years ago.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
I've been looking at different Linux desktops lately, and I've come to the conclusion that there is only *one* viable GNOME desktop out there. When I considered which Linux to install, I realized that my current choices were thus:
RedHat Fedora
Mandrake
Suse
Java Desktop System
I actually tried the most recent Fedora and found it to be useless. They refuse to ship NTFS support, MP3 support, or NVidia support. On top of that, my MS Intellimouse keeps locking up. That problem has been there since RedHat 8! What have these people been up to?
That leaves Mandrake, Suse and JDS. Of those three, only JDS is GNOME based (actually quite nicely GNOME based). Thus KDE seems to have won the day.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
On the contrary. I use Linux on the desktop at work and home...the only use for windoze that I have are Photoshop, my photo printer, and games...the Photoshop thing is quickly changing, as GIMP is getting better and hollywood studios are pushing Wine to 100% Photoshop compatability. The printer is a Canon, which has no support in CUPS outside of TurboPrint...and Games are well, games...they don't matter as much in the grand scheme of things, considering that I have a PS2 already...
But, with my experience, Linux on the desktop is MUCH more elegant than Windoze in every way. Under Linux, I have fewer crashes, better performance, and my choice of window managers. On Windoze, I have Windoze and a series of for-pay "hacks" to make my system look different.
As far as ease of use, that's coming. With my system (Fedora Core 1 + Apt-RPM using Synaptic) I can install new software and upgrades at the click of a button. No downloads, no need to check dependencies, not even a need to uninstall the old versions of the software. Under Linux it just works...
There's a quote in someones signature that goes something like "To really screw up Linux you have to work at it...To really screw up Windoze, you have to work ON it..." I think that sums up Linux on the desktop pretty well...
There is no doubt about it: Xandros is good enough to give to people who know nothing at all about the internals of computers. I put it on an old Dell last month, gave it to my mother, and she did not say anything; the thing got onto the Net, let her edit her documents and send email and browse, print out her papers, and generally did a nice job, well.
Xandros is probably the best of breed, and they are starting to make it available at no cost via channels like Linux magazine covers.
But even so it's well worth the money (and my firm has bought dozens of Xandros licenses) and comes highly recommended.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
But all the KDE tools work the same and look the same as well!
It's just non-KDE programs that look differently, but so do non-MS programs.
I think Linux has come a long way.
When I bought my home computer (about 3 years ago), I tried to get into Linux on the advice of my friend. I bought the $45 book-and-CD with the Penguin on the cover, but it was just too overwhelming (command-line what?!?) and I never gave it a fair shot.
Fast-forward 3 years: While trying to get an old (12MB-hard-drive old) laptop going, I heard that Linux was good for older hardware and went to the local LUG meeting where somebody gave me a copy of Knoppix (Psst... over here...Yeah, you... Try it, you'll like it!...The first one's free... all the cool kids are doing it...You wanna be cool, don't you?!?!). Less than six-months later, I use Linux almost exclusively at home.
Critical factors for the Linux switch made by my non-technical ass:
That's my experience. Every day Linux becomes not only a truly viable option for more people, but also a truly attractive option for more people.
The Dalai Llama
keep your damn command line - I want pretty colors, lots of nifty boxes, and everthing should be accessed through pretty little buttons that look like shiny pieces of candy...
My sig could be your sig!
On Windows all the apps do not look or work the same by a mile. Not even all Microsoft apps look and work the same, i.e. Microsoft Office (XP and above) has its own look and feel that no other Microsoft app has.
If anything, KDE does a better job there.
They ship with no MP3 support because MP3 format is also not free software. You have to pay a royalty or something retarded to write programs to decode it. Granted most programs we use that decode them never payed such royalty, the law is still there. Even if everyone refuses to obey the law, it still exists.
Finally, they ship with no nvidia support because the nvidia driver from the company is not open source and therefore does not fit the GPL's definition of free software. You can still use your nvidia card using the nv driver, sans opengl.
Call this open source zealotry if you wish, but that's why they do it.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
2. Do not use Linux as a weapon to beat Microsoft about the head with. If you're not happy with Windows or Microsoft, then email Microsoft about it, don't migrate to Linux as some kind of "rebellion". Use Linux because you want freedom to run the software you want when you want, use it because you want to control your own access to your data, use it because you quite like the way KDE or Gnome looks or use it simply because it might be a lot more fun than Windows. These are all good reasons but if you're not happy to spend some time learning a new OS and it's associated tools, then don't bother.
3. Don't sit back and wait for Linux to "come to you". "Readiness for the desktop" is a personal opinion based on what applications you use in Windows and what their equivalents are in Linux. Do some research, trawl Sourceforge to find out what kind of software there is and try it, read what's included in boxed distros and, again as a dual-boot system, compare Linux software to the Windows stuff you already know. Migrate gradually and spend time learning.
4. Try some of the Open Source apps in Windows first, see how they run there - Mozilla, The GIMP, OpenOffice.org, etc. Find out whether your favourite web sites render correctly in Mozilla, find out whether OpenOffice can import your word documents, find out if The GIMP gives you the functionality you were used to having in Paintshop Pro or Photoshop.
5. Research your hardware. Will your scanner, printer, camera, etc. all work under Linux? If not, are you happy to use Windows for some work still until Linux catches up?
The idea that Linux is "ready" or "not ready" is subjective and rubbish. It's just about giving it a try and either ditching it or working with it and possibly showing some perseverence.
It's all about getting out what you put in, nothing more...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I had never used Linux before about 2 weeks ago, when I purchased a copy of Xandros 2.0, deluxe edition ($89). I was sick of system crashes, spyware, and viruses with Windows, so decided to give Linux a try.
Here is my experience, so far:
1) Install was very easy. Answer a few wizards, and off you go. I chose to install as a dual boot with my Windows 98 system, which is very easy with the Xandros installer. It recognized almost all of my hardware, right off the bat. Easier than installing Windows, if you ask me. It found but didn't utilize my Comcast Surfboard modem, which is connected via USB, rather than Ethernet card(long story). I found the fix for this in the Xandros forums, which was a _one line_ addition to a configuration file. Worked perfectly after that.
Using the system has gone pretty smoothly. I can use Open Office to open and edit my Microsoft Office files (have only tried spreadsheet so far), and the preinstalled Mozilla browser works fine.
On the downside, the fonts are pretty darn ugly, and I am constantly having to increase the font size in Mozilla, as it defaults to too small of a font on some web sites. Not sure why. Also, a good portion of web pages print out really tiny. Not sure why.
To increase the size of the fonts in Mozilla, I tried monkeying with the video card settings and the font sizes in Mozilla, but I didn't have much luck. Pretty confusing.
The system has been *very* stable, and no spyware or viruses in sight. The included media player is much more stable than the Windows Media Player or Divx, which were constantly crashing under Windows 98. The file browser is brilliant--I can see my Linux partition and my Windows partition.
Overall, I have to say the system performance is about 30% less slower than Windows 98. It's just a lot less snappy to browse the web or open the Open Office programs (maybe 20-30 seconds in Linux).
I should mention my system is an old Dell 5100e laptop, 600 MHz, so that plays in here. May not matter much on a modern machine.
Another downside is the availability of software. It may be sacrilege around Slashdot, but I don't mind paying for a decent user interface, a proper manual, and software support for things like accounting software, etc. Packaged software seems like it's a non-starter for Linux--I just don't see any.
On the other hand, for most users, Xandros includes Open Office, and email reader, and a web browser, so this may fulfill some user's needs.
I intend to keep my dual boot setup, in those rare cases I need to run software that isn't available for Linux. Quickbooks and Kazaa, for example.
Xandros makes setting up a dual boot system quite easy for non-technical users, and it's very stable. I can imagine that for a lot of home users, this will be all they need.
If you're fed up with spyware and viruses, and don't want your data locked in the Microsoft Office file format dungeon, nor want to be locked into the constant upgrades that are a part of the Windows world, then Xandros has what you need.
I can be reached at my junk mail account, gregory underscore close at hotmail.
Cheers,
Gregory