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Linux on the Desktop: More Balls Through Windows
doom writes "There's a story up in the free area of The Economist site about 'Linux on Desktop PCs' called:
More balls through Windows. Pretty much the same old stuff, but if you wanted something new you wouldn't be reading slashdot, eh?" Cynic.
Oooh! Oooh! It's the year that Linux is finally going to take over the desktop... again. Just like 1997 was. And 1998. Oh, and 1999. 2000? 2001? 2002? 2003? Sensing a trend?
/. (or even Linux-friendly journalists) assume.
:)
As Bill Gates himself says, we often over-estimate the impact of a given technology will have in 5 years time, but we tend to UNDER-estimate its impact over 10 years. I think that the Linux on the desktop is similar: it will gain marketshare, but MUCH more slowly than people on
Let's stop measuring progress in years, and start measuring it in decades-- only then will we see the impact that Free software is having. Revolutions take time.
Oh... and balls through windows? Could you have come up with a weaker punn?
--- JRJ
jrjBlog
If you want an OS with more balls, try Amiga!
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
At the risk of sounding overly optimistic, I'm hoping that once Microsoft starts losing some of its dominance, it will strike back with its patent portfolio, which will draw increasing public attention to the problems with patents. When a two-bit, one-man operation like PanIP slings lawsuits around at mom-and-pop operations nationwide, that scarcely draws a whisper, but a behemoth like Microsoft using the patent system to unfairly crush competitors and keep alternatives away from the computing public? That, I'm hoping, will draw enough complaints from everyday people that Congress might actually do something at some point. If Linux on the desktop can start to carry the cachet that the Mac does, an attempt by Microsoft to stem the tide by using ill-gotten patent will, I hope, mobilize the general public to fight back and call for broader patent office reform.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Is it just me, or does it seem that there is increasingly more talk about Linux being widely adopted on the desktop? The more sources that report that Linux is comming, the more likely businesses will choose to use it, so even if all of what we've seen lately is hype, it still serves to advance Linux.
--Mike Boos
Is not so much the article itself (Linux: good, Microsoft: bad, yadda yadda yadda) rather than the fact that it is published in The Economist, probably one of the most influential news magazines for PHBs.
Some of the most important managers, CEOs, CFOs, etc all read The Economist. Therefore, this article may be an important introduction to Linux for many of these people.
On the other hand, this is not the first Linux-positive article in The Economist, so everyone should know by know that Linux = good, Microsoft = bad, etc.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Cynic
Best. Editorialization. Ever.
"There is no real market for a consumer-grade Linux desktop," says Martin Fink, HP's Linux boss.
I'm surprised people in charge of any reasonably sized company can still say this classic idiocy:
Yes, there's not real market for consumer-grade Linux desktop, for the good reason that the market doesn't exist yet, and someone needs to create it, and whoever will take the plunge stands a fair chance to reap huge benefits from it.
Remember, investors said the same thing to Jobs when he tried to get backing to produce the Apple.
Mr. Fink, if I was your boss and I really wanted to push Linux, you'd be fired...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"Software to manage personal finances or organise digital photos is also missing."
Gnucash pretty much has Finace wrapped up, whilst for organising digital photos, you can't go wrong with gkam and gphoto2 to get the images from your digital camera, gimp to touch them up, and the rather excellent Nautilus to view thumbnails and organise.
Or am I missing the point here?
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
Is Microsoft finally about to face real competition in desktop-computer software?
No.
Next article, please.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Who made these announcements? The 1998 article on a Linux "e-zine" is not quite the same thing as an article in The Economist. One audience consists of geeky hobbyists; the other includes the intelligent, wealthy, and powerful. The message might not have changed in all these years, but it is reaching increasingly important people every day.
===--===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
the article introduces a distinction between "information worker" and "transaction worker", and says the latter is more likely to find a linux box on their desk since it can be locked down more easily.
i find this distinction artificial. in any environment where maintenance of the box is done by dedicated staff (bofh or ilk), what is more easily locked down will be more easily deployed, whether the end user is "information", "transaction", "creative", or whatever oriented. (training costs for unimaginative curmudgeons ceases to be an issue as those people die, retire, or get sacked.)
sure, there will be many hold-outs (and subsequent banter and frivolity on sites like slashdot), but that's fine too. w/o dinosaurs there would be no comfortably large rib cages for the smaller creatures to eviscerate and inhabit. nature is a mother, like they say...
okay, I'll bite. 'Organise' is the British spelling. 'Organize' is the US spelling. The Economist is a British magazine (they call themselves a newspaper).
So, you really just made yourself look like an idiot.
hmmm... flaming really *is* good for hangovers...
I am sure I have said this before in previous stories of similar nature, but in the even I didnt, or no one was paying attention...
/usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, etc... try explaining that to a "computer retard"®). This is just one example of the types of things "geeks" ignore that really really really are stumbling blocks for a desktop.
Linux is a nice kernel. It can be used to make a nice Operating System, but the fact of the matter is, even as a computer programmer, I DO NOT WANT a Unix as my desktop system. The people that do, I question their sanity. Rather then worrying about X, and GNOME/KDE to pull users in, I think for Linux to be part of a friendly, usable operating system, things like the ambiguities in the file system (/bin,
This is all, of course, opinion. I now feel compelled to prove what kind of OS that Linux can be used to make... other then "yet another unix ".
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I ran Linux as my primary desktop OS from 1994 until early 2003.
Switched to OSX, now I've got two OSX systems, and a single lone Linux box running my e-mail. That may go the way of the dodo if I can actually move the 300+ meg of e-mail I've got on there into a gmail account and actually find things.
I was a Linux desktop user for nine years not because it was free but because there was nothing better out there. Now there is. It'll be a long time before Linux can regain that spot for what I use computers for.
Its about two things -- apps and polish. OSX's interface disappears when you really know it. Its totally consistent, and becomes nothing but an interface to the tools you're using. Linux's UI's are too inconsistent, and the best apps in each category use too many different UI toolkits. Its a distraction to have to switch from one UI to another when switching between applications.
Until *all* the applications I need on a day-to-day basis use the same toolkits, have identical hotkeys, consistent menu organization then those applications waste my time.
Free software is good in concept and ideals, but its really got a LONG way to go to get people to use it for its quality not its price. Companies think of switching because of their bottom line, not because its going to make their employees jobs easier.
In many respects, Linux is already much, much, much better than Windows. The polish, look and feel, stability, functionality all far surpass Windows. You could say that applications will follow, and I hope they do, but most great applications still come out for Windows even if they started out as Linux only apps.
Right now what is needed is a number of great applications that have no equivalents on Windows. This does not refer to Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc. Most of those can come. Imagine if a Napster and Netscape both came out at the same time, and the ONLY place you could get it was on Linux. I don't know how long that could last before MS created a copy on Windows, but even then it would be in the reverse position that Linux is in now.
In my estimation Linux may need several rounds of applications like that. Then, Windows application developers will start writing to WINE as a compatibility layer and will actually improve WINE themselves to be able to have their Windows legacy apps supported, and MS is absolutely sunk at that point. Still, it's not just parity with Windows applications. It's the perception that the best and greatest new applications are only available on Linux, even if they eventually show up on Windows.
...at least according to some posters here. Let's face it, whatever Linux does, it will never be good enough for some people. They'll always find the stupidest things to complain about (look! the windows are a different shade of grey on Linux, the users are confuuuused!) The rest of us will simply enjoy all the things we have and realise that Linux might never be everything to all people, but it is a damn fine desktop for some people right now.
I got into Linux late (1999), because I was scared by the voodoo magic and demon sacrifices I was assured were necessary for such a step. What I found out after a (somewhat tedious) installation, is a KDE 1.1.2 desktop which looked much like Windows, much software that did the basic things, and a completely usable system which replaced windows on my computer from that point on. I had a browser (NS 4.7), a word processor (WP 8), and MP3 player, I was go. Much of the criticism aimed at it was correct, but it was a usable system nonetheless.
Fast forward a few years. We have two killer browser engines, each one kicking the crap out of MS's offering. We have an amazing (let's face it) office suit in Open Office 1.1, which is an excellent solution even for business use. In 1999 you could forget multimedia, now we have the two BEST video players out there, period (MPlayer and XineLib). Burning DVDs? Graphical frontends. Watching DVDs? Check. It's amazing how far we've come, but the same people keep repeating the same silly arguments (the button has the wrong shape! The users will be confused!) based on 4-year old Linux experience.
Linux might never be the ultimate desktop for all users. Hell, I don't think it should be. But it's ready for many users right now. I don't buy the 'average joe' arguments, here's a real example. I have a guest user set up for people who use my computer when I'm gone. I showed my girlfriend where the important programs were and left for work. While I was gone, she browsed the web, wrote emails, played some games, watched DVDs, listented to some of my MP3s. Then she (wait for this!) downloaded the images from her digital camera and transferred them to her portable hard disk and organised them in separate directories, based on the date they were taken. She had never used Linux before. Too difficult my ass.
Linux is ready for many users right now. It might never be ready for the 'typical' users some self-proclaimed experts always bring up in their condescending tone, but maybe it shouldn't be. It's ready for me, thank you very much.
Ah.. the Linux desktop again. Isn't it weird that these discussions always seem to focus on the question wether Linux has a good desktop, whilst this is not really the issue? Linux _has_ a good desktop. In fact, it has two excellent desktops. The thing is lacks is top quality applications.
I'd go as far as to say that Linux is about 95% there in terms of 'ordinary' desktop things like browsing, e-mailing and chatting, typing a letter, clipping a photo, playing an mp3, etc. The problems start when you are a professional that needs the last 5%:
- Open Office is great for plain text and layout, but it messes up horribly if you have a document with fields or tables. This is not something you use everyday, but people that use it for their work need to be able to fill out a form without having to deal with an address field that runs off the window for some reason.
- The Gimp is phenomenal, but how about those fonts? Sure, you can do lots and lots of cool things with just images, but graphics pros _need_ those slick fonts.
- Pro audio: sure, Ardour looks like a nice digital audio workstation on paper, but in practice you have to deal with a segfault every ten minutes and quite a few usability issues. Same thing for Muse (great sequencer, sloppy timing), Glame (nice, impractical GUI), Jack (fantastic idea, too bad it still locks up systems), etc.
- Your profession here.
Point being: I think and hope that Linux will be all that on our desktops someday, but 'good' is not good enough when it comes to application software. For Linux to take off on the desktop, it needs to have 'excellent' apps. Apps that, at the very least, should be as good as their commercial counterparts, preferably better. For some reason, we see a lot of this quality in server type apps, we see this quality in the actual desktops (KDE and Gnome are prettier than windows XP if you ask me), but the applications are still lacking.
Everytime we see a new article about Linux desktops, they always tout how it has all of these features that Windows or Mac OS X has now. This is fine, but for someone who has Windows already, what is the incentive to move, I am using a system that has all of the features of Windows already.
Everytime I have made an excursion into the Linux desktop, I have found it to be missing one or two things I really need, then boot back into Windows and find it. If Linux is always following Windows in features, they there is no incentive to swtich.
I think Linux could have a chance at the desktop market, it just needs to innovate instead of imitate.
Since the dawn of time, ctrl+C has been copy in each and every app. ctrl+x has been cut. ctrl+v has been paste. Windows have three icons in the upper right hand corner for minimizing, restoring/maximizing, and closing. There's a "File", "Edit", "Tools", and "Help" menu in almost every app. I don't know how you get more consistent than that.
>>On the other hand, despite improvements Linux faces real obstacles. It can still be a nightmare for home users to install and, unless bought as part of a commercial package such as Sun's, it does not come with a help-desk. Worse, there are still too few applications. Fewer than 1% of all computer games, for instance, work on Linux. Software to manage personal finances or organise digital photos is also missing. In theory these programs could all be written but, without a huge increase in users, code-writers will not bother.
First of all, linux is EASIER to install than windows. Newbie friendly distributions boast things like installs in 3 steps. That whole "difficult to install" argument is bullshit. If most Windows users had to install windows themselves and partion their hard drives, we'd hear arguments of windows being hard to install. This will become a non-issue when More OEM's offer sub 500 dollar pc's with linux on them.
>unless bought as part of a commercial package such as Sun's, it does not come with a help-desk.
Ok, and how is that any different than windows? If you buy an OEM copy of windows or a bootleg copy, you're not going to get any official support. So how is downloading an iso off of linuxiso and not getting official/phone support any different? If you want support, you buy the official product from someone like SuSe or redhat.
>Worse, there are still too few applications. Fewer than 1% of all computer games, for instance, work on Linux.
That is a moot point. The only reason is because linux doesn't have enough market share. As the market share increases so do the number of applications. The two will slowly rise together. People don't complain Solaris has a limited number of applications, so why do they complain about Linux?
>Software to manage personal finances or organise digital photos is also missing.
BS. Check freshmeat.
Many of the arguments made against linux on the desktop are 5 year old stereotypes. It's like some of these stories aren't even researched. There was a recent study done that took a group of people whom had never used computers before. One group was assigned to learn how to use Windows and another group Linux. The findings were they both had a very similiar experience. Most of these articles make the argument "Linux isn't good because I'm not used to it and I don't know it". They complain about the things windows has and it doesn't have. But as a linux user, I look at all the things Linux has that Windows doesn't.
That's the first time I've seen the words "balls" and "Windows" in the same sentence.
SSDD, folks. Every major news source and all the minor ones from InternetWeek to Kumquat Digest are speculating on what Linux will do. You know what? I have a new revelation. Linux will come to the desktop when and if it feels like it, when and if it wants to, and you WILL NOT NOTICE IT. You know how I know this? Linux appeared on the scene in the first damn place in a manner so quiet that very few read the newsgroup posting. It grew and distributions started so subtly that most people didn't hear about them until several versions later.
The Angel of the Lord(tm) did NOT appear to me with RedHat install CDs one evening. I got a small email from my roommate saying, "Hey, you ever heard of this Linux thing?"
Linux has never been and, I suspect, will never be the sort of software and/or community to burst into a room, prancing on a stage like a monkey on crack, and shouting to the audience because he "loves this company". We'll be the dude in the back, sippin' a cup of java and poring over the light board while talking to the theatre technician. 'Cause you see, we're not all about fanfare, but we're still running the show. Someday you'll look down and you'll have been running Linux for a year and go, "Now, where in the hell did THAT come from?"
Blog,Twitter
From what I understand, those files, .DS_Store and ._filename, hold metadata. Why OSX insists on creating these files on network shares is mind boggling. That's like walking in mud and not wiping your feet before entering someone else's house.
Anyway, for some reason, OSX creates these files, obtains a lock, and for some reason over samba NEVER RELEASES those locks. So often when one user edits a file, then closes it, other OSX clients can't access the file because they can't obtain a lock on the goddam metadata files. Yay!
$ smbstatus -L | wc -l
1679
All ._ and .DS_Store files.
I have googled up no solution so far, just thousands of other people who have the same problem.
That is just the most irksome of the numerous riduculous problems OSX has at the moment.
If anyone has a solution, please let me know. Is it something obvious? Am I just stupid? I don't fucking care, I just want this shit to work goddammit! I have spent hours googling, and if somehow I have just missed the blindingly obvious solution, then I'm sorry, but please let me know :)
Note, I don't _really_ hate OSX, it's more of a love/hate thing.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I'm surprised that the article makes no mention of Longhorn and the "trusted computing" initative as a barrier to Linux migration. One of the primary goals of Longhorn, with its Palladium technology, is MS lock-in. With Longhorn, vendor lock-in will be easier to enforce. It will be much more difficult and expensive to move away from MS products. If today you want to move away from MS Office suite to OpenOffice, it's really not too difficult, the primary costs are training, installation, conversion etc. With Longhorn, this may require getting digital certs for converting all your client docs to the new format. Or maybe it won't be possible to read Word docs at all with non-MS software. (E.g. Word docs could be encrypted with keys that only MS software can access.) The cost and the unknowns of moving off of MS will be too much to bear for many.
Will Linux* destroy Microsoft's business model?
No! It already did.
Microsoft is finally facing real competition and what happens? Windows gets cheaper and they finally start paying attention to security and stability. $40 Windows XP lite, a huge new focus on stamping out viruses worms and gigantic security holes in their products. If there were no competition, Microsoft wouldn't care about these things. Microsoft is already being pushed around by Linux*.
Free software is already forcing Microsoft to work harder for it's money. Everyone who uses computers, whether they use free software or not, benefits from the competition it introduces into the market.
(* note: by Linux I mean the kernel and all the free software that runs on it most often including some GNU software and lots of non-GNU software)
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
A lot of the trouble I have with MS Windows falls into two categories.
Many programs were designed and built by people who took "personal computer" to heart and never bothered to learn to think in terms of a computer that might be used by several different people, perhaps even concurrently. These ignore security, don't handle separation of user and system storage or configuration gracefully, etc. Let's do better this time.
Other products suffer from the fallacy that computer==desktop. They assume that they're always run by someone who can just barely find the power button, and that they're always guided manually by someone sitting right there ready to respond to trouble. It ain't so; some of us actually care enough to spend time thinking about how best to use computers, and some of us want to script regular processes and get away from all that manual drudgery (which is what we made computers for in the first place).
If "the rise of Linux on the desktop" means I don't have to fight so hard for a non-MS solution in the server room or the laboratory, hooray. If it means I'm stuck with a choice between MS Windows and something that's just like MS Windows only not from MS, then in my view there's been no improvement -- in fact, an improvement we had for a while will have been taken from us.
We have a chance to do it right this time. Let's seize that chance and run with it. All computers should not be alike, because all computerists are not alike.
I've read the article, but I still don't understand how using Windows will give me more balls.
I actually thought this distinction was the shining point in the article, in that it actually contributed something new to the discussions about desktop linux that have been going on for ages. It's not about locking down the box so much as needs of users. When you hear the debates, you hear the two sides saying "Linux now has a good office suite, email client, etc" while the other side says "yeah, but advanced Office users need their Excel macros and their Outlook calendars".
To me, this difference was basically given terminology by this article. The people who need their Excel Macros and aren't ready to switch over are the Information Workers while the ones who just need to type a few emails and memos are the Transaction Workers. It basically clarifies the fact that some people will do just fine with a Linux desktop while others aren't ready. We all know this, but no one's given names to define this distinction before.
To me, it's incredible to see this distinction finally being raised because 5 years ago you couldn't really say that Linux was ready for either. Progress is happening.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Why can't these people just explain what it does and maybe show a few screenshots of KDE or Gnome in action?
Linux is not, repeat NOT, competing with Windows. Microsoft consider Linux as a threat to their penetration and revenue but that is a purely Microsoft facet, not a Linux one.
Linux is an alternative way of doing things, a free way of doing things, and does some things better and other things worse that Windows does. It does what it does despite Microsoft and will continue to do it whether or not MS exists in the future.
The media should take a responsibility to make the general populace aware of the Linux alternative rather than using Linux as a weapon to make MS do what they want them to do.
I'd love to reach the day when I can ditch all my MS products because I personally do not like to support companies that have bad business practices - in the same way I don't eat Macdonalds (or Burger King) burgers or wear Nike sports shoes - and I guess today I'm about 75% there with Linux.
But I'm certainly not going to "cut my nose off to spite my face" and do without certain apps and games purely because I consider myself in a (non-existent) Windows v Linux war.
Just give people the facts and let them use their own intelligence to decide what they like.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Seriously, installing apps in Linux is actually easier than Windows. It just doesn't behave like Windows, so people get frustrated because they foolishly try and do all the work themselves.
The model you use in linux is different in that your distro provides a whole library of programs for you to download and you go through them. If you do, it should work flawlessly the way you describe. It's just a shift in mindset from the download.com way of doing things.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
It's just plain silly to have a carefully set up box, have a user do some carefully controlled things (whether with or without you) and conclude "Yep, we're there".
...) are minor compared to the ones I mentioned (my post, my opinion ;-)
What's needed for UserLinux...
As far as the desktop and general experience goes...
I think you're about halfway there, or three quarters.
- Now find a way to "hide" some stuff like directories,
- have a nice user/not root routine like the OS X way of asking your password to install stuff,
- a good point and click install mechanism that does away with dependency hell and
- a stupid simple updater/security patcher.
This to ensure that the desktop is a moderately secure place where people on the one hand can't do too many things wrong and on the other hand experiment and expand - why shouldn't a user install programs? Why shouldn't he/she install the latest virus definitions or security patches? After all, who else is going to do it...
All of that could be borrowed from OS X. Most of it is as far as I know already in discussion or development. Thing is, it should start to appear in the most popular distributions and be adopted as standard.
I'm not saying "go the mac way", not at all. These are basic things. There are an incredible amount of opportunities to go above and beyond. But Linux and OS X share the same set of challenges, since they share common ancestry and philosophy if you will. And OS X does solve these problems very elegantly. You would overcomplicate by going the windows way on these issues.
That takes care of the desktop (or the general user experience if you will). All other issues (consistency, naming of apps,
Another thing: killer apps. You need just a few. You may already have them, but they still need a fair amount of polish - not only nice looks, but good, consistent results.
OTOH, there's a shitheap of proprietary apps looking into Linux. Be nice, invite them over. These are the apps 95% of the people use today.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Yesterday, my brother called me because its newly installed Windows XP operating system was behaving mysteriously. After upgrading from Windows 2000 (which I installed for him), he connected to the Internet via a modem.
At this point, everything was OK but a worm exploiting a vulnerability in Windows XP infected him at his first use of the Internet. Wow! This is a slam in the face for an average user!
He brought his computer to my home. Since there was no easy solution for his problem, I had to format its hard drive and restart the installation. This morning, I started the update process which is time consuming - you need to be in front of the computer to update it.
My opinion is that Linux is ready for the desktop due to the lack of security of Microsoft products.