Linux Desktop Summit 2004 Review

An anonymous reader writes "I had the experience this week of attending the Linux Desktop Summit hosted by Michael Robertson's Linspire, Lindows, or whatever you want to call it these days. Irregardless of what you call it, it's Linux, and the general consensus from vendors and attendees was, "We're here to stay." I have to say that this was an interesting convention. Keeping in line with the Linux community, there was more of a sense of community rather than the typical "Choose our product" ambiance, With a few exceptions of course."

Comments

it IS here to stay

[Chuck Bucket]

every year is called 'the year of th elinux desktop', but every year little progress SEEMS to be made. the fact is, Linux IS still around, and will be for a long time. it's acceptance on the desktop will rise as younger folks come into the workplace. think about it, more college students use/understand linux and open source, so yeah, I'm bullish on the future of Linux on the Desktop.

Plus, with WMs like XFCE4 and desktops like Gnome2.6 and KDE 3.2, you can tell that the technology is already there for 90% of what you need on the desktop.

VDS

Re:it IS here to stay

[name773]

WMs like XFCE4 and desktops like Gnome2.6 and KDE 3.2
and ratpoison is pretty good for a lightweight wm. seing a highres terminal at full screen... drool. oh and konqueror on full screen... that's amazing.

p.s. i found out about ratpoison via a /. post

clarifications on the games

[SilentWatcher]

Further on down my wanderings, I bumped into GarageGames.com. They have a kick-ass commercial game which looks a lot like Mech Warrior, and it runs nicely and natively under Linux. They also demo'd the classic Doom game which runs under Linspire's Click-And-Run installation.

I was working for Garage Games at this conference.

The large robot game is Dark Horizon's: Lore and it will be released for linux in a few weeks. It is already available for windows and osx.

We also showed Think Tanks, Orbz, and Marble Blast. All of these are available for windows, mac and linux, from the Garage Games site.

We did NOT demo Doom. People were playing that because some of the machines didn't have good enough 3D acceleration (i.e. no nvidia cards) to run the other games.

Converting Users

[cloudless.net]

"Their plan is simple. Give your Windows users applications which run on both Linux and Windows, teach them how to use them and when they are comfortable, replace the Operating System with Linux."

In my experience it is not as simple as that. Most people have resistance for change. When they have got used to one operating system it is not easy to teach them to do things in a different way. And Linux is still behind Windows in terms of usability, which I think should be the first priority for future Linux development.

Re:Irregardless is not a word

[sl0ppy]

it's nonstandard, but it is a word. it entered common usage in the early 20th century, and has been accepted in most dictionaries since a little past 1927.

irregardless is synonymous with regardless.

Re:Creative english

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it IS a word.

from m-w online:
"Main Entry: irregardless
Pronunciation: "ir-i-'gärd-l&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: probably blend of irrespective and regardless
nonstandard : REGARDLESS
usage Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead."