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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."
that profitable companies using / pushing linux are essential for it to gather mainstream acceptance.
I know it may leave a nasty taste in your mouth to witness the commercialization of linux, but really, its something we should not only get used to, but push.
Im sorry, but the trailing sentance in the article posting made my inner penguin frown...
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.
Actually, I'd disagree on both points. Most people wouldn't notice if you swapped Windows XP and XPde on their machines until they realized that their desktop had been running for a couple of months without a virus attack bringing their system to its knees. A developer would notice almost immediately but I suspect that if you kept the menus similar enough, most people would just pick up and go.
On useability, I'd say that GNOME was streets ahead of Windows for simplicity and usability (I don't use KDE so I can't compare there). Consistent look and feel across all HIGified GNOME apps, intelligent prompt buttons in prompt windows (and some serious gdesklet eyecandy :-) ) make it an easy system for a user to grasp. I find Windows XP to be a mess of animated icons and swooping flashing windows ruining my concentration in its default form, and I feel palpable relief when I get back to a Linux box with its calmer, faster and more comfortable setup.
Usability is partly a function of what you are used to. But switching isn't nearly as tough as a lot of people seem to think (or fear).
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
If they want ideas to talk about instead of continuing to bleat that this year is the year of Linux on the desktop (It's not yet), I'll give them a few. * Better hardware support. I have some new motherboards which don't work under Linux because the ATI northbridge chips in them aren't detected. This is ATIs fault as much as Linux's - but it's slowing acceptance. We need more vendors writing drivers for Linux. * Better software installation, etc. The great thing about Linux is customisability. Thing is, it's a pain for most users, and is a pain for me even though I can use a command line. Something needs to be done about it. Something like an add/remove program tab to keep track of packages/source code. Standard libraries that all desktop linux should have. Better interfaces between this code and the desktop etc. Half the time you'll never know what's in your machine until you look, and THEN you have to know where it is, and what package it is, and what that package is for, and what depends on it etc.etc. In a perfect world, a newbie user should be able to compile a source coded package for a desktop distro with a single click, with seamless configure && make && make install.... as if it were an MSI install package.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Unfortunately there's one fly in that soup. Games! That's the problem. It's not browsers, or mail clients, or office applications or multimedia players, all of which are available in generally superior versions for Linux. It's games.
I'd save everybody a vast amount of aggravation if I could just install Linux and be done with it, but I can't because most people have games they want to play, and they won't run under Linux.
And I'm not just referring to kids: most of the over 50s around here have MS Flight Simulator (we live near a large airfiled, and are surrounded by pilots, ex-pilots, wannabe pilots, etc); they've often spent hours and hours downloading big mods for it over crappy dial-up lines and they aren't going to like being told that they wasted the effort.
Nor do the vast majority of Windows users want to dual boot: they will say, quite reasonably, "why should I have to do that?"...
Actually, in this discussion it's both on-topic and insightful. And funny.
Why would an end user want an installer API?
If people don't want choices companies are happy to take the choices away for them. Redhat, sun, linspire and to lesser extent suse all give the user a cohesive system with a pre-chosen set of software. The user does not ever have to think of what desktop or browser to use because there is one default one installed. They all also handle updating and installing transparently for the user. This is especially powerful with click n run where the user is presented with a list of available software and they click on the one they want and it installs magically for them.
I really don't understant your point of denying users choice. Maybe you mean users should not even have the option of installing software that competes with the defaults. Is that it? Should they be prevented from surfing the web and finding alternatives or should they be prevented from installing alternatives if they want to try one?
evil is as evil does