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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."
How many times was "Year Linux Takes The Desktop" was said at the summit? ;)~
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
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
free ipod and free gmail!
I've been to several conferences in the past few years and have noticed a huge reduction in the amount and quality of conference swag. In the heydays of 1998 and 1999, you could come away with enough clothes to last you all year without washing (about 5 or 6 t-shirts), but nowadays you'd practically have to kill some booth babe to score a pen or mousepad.
This guy says Novell is giving away t-shirts again? Does this foreshadow a return to the heady days of the dotcom boom? Buy tech stocks, folks, it looks like we've got ourselves an upswing in the making!
I have been pwned because my
Linux:
* has 73.2% better interoperopenfunkability;
* is 21.1% more likely to smell like fresh pine;
* and is 25.7% faster via bogolumped figinert bus operability within the plantifold interface than any version of Windows.
Slightly OT, but I can't resist ...
... (they have a GUI front-end for everything, CUPS, Samba, even VPN!!) It probably beats the crap ot Linspire anyday of the week.
... this rant was OT and morely for my fellow Mandrake users ...
There is no denying it. Mandrake is a lovely 100% GPL user-friendly distro, that seems to be rather popular
But even without knowing much about this meeting, I'm pretty sure that Mandrakesoft wasn't there. Why? because Mandrakesoft does a crappy job of MARKETING. And its getting really annoying too watching crap distros like Linspire get so much spot-light.
Like I said
Sunny Dubey
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.
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
Irregardless is not a word. Where are you, spelling nazis? Troll the article!
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."