United Linux: Two Years Later

ajs writes "In November 2002 everyone who wasn't Red Hat was gathering behind a banner that many thought would spell the beginning of a new chapter in the Unix Wars. That banner was called United Linux. Much has changed in the Linux world since then, and some Founding Partners in the United Linux camp have decided that there are other ways to change the market. Thankfully there are more level headed members of that group. Today, we're not so focused on the differences between Linux distributions, Sun's rants, the aforementioned lawsuits and ever-present, market-gobbling Microsoft keep everyone focused and united enough as it is, and United Linux has begun to fade into memory. So what has United Linux done? Well, it unified three distributions at least, focused attention on Linux standards and made hardware vendors feel a bit less lost when writing drivers for Linux, so it wasn't all a loss. Alas, according the the United Linux site, "There are no plans for a version 2.0 at this time.""

Comments

United Linux

[demon_2k]

It's a shame really, I had high hopes for them.
Linux needs more strics standards...

Re:United Linux

[Lussarn]

Unitied Linux was not an grassroot efort like Linux standard base. This are the one to follow for more strict standards.

Re:United Linux

[Flaming Foobar]

It's a shame really, I had high hopes for them.

Yes, United Linux was supposed to be the Windows killer, after all...

Re:United Linux

[demon_2k]

May I ask, what has Linux Standard Base achieved?

Well sure, they've got Mandrake on board. What about Redhad?

Also, to my knowledge they only apply to rpm based distros. What about Slackware and Debian?
I could be wrong about all this. But if I didn't. The SLB isn't strict enought.

Re:United Linux

[JW Troll]

Standards and Linux are oil and water. Never the twain shall mingle.
Can you imagine the chaos if each minor point release of the kernel somehow didn't break binary compatibility with every driver and most libraries like glibc?
gentoo users would spontaneously combust! no NEED to recompile everything??!! What to do with all those extra CPU cycles? and weekends? weekdays too, formerly spent fiddling and dinking around until things magically congeal into a semi-working anger-powered kludge-ball? Not pretty.
users, too, would be universally flummoxed. i know I'd be amazed and confused if my devices still worked after an upgrade! and that's all i need to say about that.
Standards are the bane of linux.
WE DON'T NEED 'EM!!!!

Re:United Linux

[grumbel]

### May I ask, what has Linux Standard Base achieved?

They have a bunch of standard documents which defines which library must export which symbols and that kind of stuff that you need for portable binaries and a bunch of software to check for complience to the standard. They also provide a development environment (lsbdev) in which one can build LSB conforming binaries on any distro. That said, its currently all more or less theoretical, so far I havn't seen lsb conforming rpms in the wild and neither do I no anybody who uses lsbdev.

### Also, to my knowledge they only apply to rpm based distros. What about Slackware and Debian?

LSB does not require that the distro use rpm for their own packages. All LSB does is to use rpm for LSB-conforming packages, but those have nothing todo with the distro packages, they have their own naming scheme (lsb-*), rely on a specific version of RPM, which might differ from the one the distro uses, get installed in /opt/, etc. So all a LSB conforming distro needs todo is to provide a way to install LSB-rpms, for Debian that would be done via 'alien'. LSB does really not specify much about how the distro itself handles stuff, all it does is require an layer ontop (an own ld.so and friends) of the distro which allows lsb-binaries to run.

Re:United Linux

[PastaLover]

I suggest you google for "debian LSB compliance"

Article, or paragraph with links?

[Vellmont]

This isn't a reference to a story, this is a paragraph with a few links thrown in. Where's the news?

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[LarsWestergren]

Exactly. Strange links too. For instance, how has "Sun's rants" united and focused the Linux community?

The blog linked to is about the Java Desktop System, which at the moment is based on Linux. Are we supposed to feel... what? Outraged? Apprehensive?

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[pohl]

Second Anniversary?

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[ajs]

It was meant as a retrospective. I was inspired to write it last night when I stumbled on the United Linux site for the first time in a year.

If you don't find any of it informative, that's likely because you've been paying attention to this for 2+ years, but much of the Slashdot community isn't aware of some of the back-story (especially the Unix Wars and why UL was founded and by whom).

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[EvilAlien]

... or even excited?

I was hoping for a real update on United Linux, i.e. is it dead or not? I will henceforth call it Schrodinger Linux.

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[LegionX]

Yeah.. Arafat Linux being moot now

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[Vellmont]

It reads like the gossip column in the local newspaper. If you want to provide a retrospective, great. But I think most of us don't follow UnitedLinux very closely, so a retrospective is more than just one paragraph mentioning a few things that happened with no real detail.

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[ajs]

Gossip column? Ah huh. Well, sorry you didn't get anything out of it. Enjoy the other articles today.

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, according the the United Linux site, "There are no plans for a version 2.0 at this time."

I have been paying attention to United Linux the last 2+ years, mainly because a) I used to work for SUSE for a while and b) because I make my living on Linux consulting. Your article isn't news at all because in February 2004, United Linux was declared dead by Jack Messman and Paula Hunter. Doh.

Re:Article, or paragraph with links?

[ajs]

Your article isn't news at all because in February 2004, United Linux was declared dead by Jack Messman and Paula Hunter.

As you say, you know this because you've been following it.

It's a bit like a Mac user saying, "the current stance of Apple on [insert some interesting MacOS feature] isn't news because Steve Jobs answered that question in a press conference 6 months ago." Only problem is that most people have no idea what Steve Jobs said in a press conference 6 months ago.

The point to a "retrospective" about United Linux is not bringing YOU up to speed, because you already are.

No version 2?

[slash-tard]

I dont buy anything until it hits version 2 and gets all the bugs out.

Re:No version 2?

[Aliencow]

Yeah, Windows 2 was AWESOME !!

Re:No version 2?

[Decaff]

Yeah, Windows 2 was AWESOME !!

Well, I hate to admit this, but it was... Windows 2/386 was pretty good at preemptive multi-tasking (I remember being amazed at watching my DOS Fortran code run in several dos shell windows at the same time).

OK, so it wasn't UNIX, and it looked ugly, but this was neat.

Also, for someone who had been dealing with a variety of awful print driver systems and graphics libraries, Windows 2 provided just one awful print driver and graphics library - this was actually a time-saver.

Re:No version 2?

[runderwo]

Windows 2/386 was pretty good at preemptive multi-tasking

That's interesting, since the Win16 kernel has always been a cooperative multitasking kernel (even under Win95).

Re:No version 2?

[Decaff]

That's interesting, since the Win16 kernel has always been a cooperative multitasking kernel (even under Win95).

Premptive multi-tasking was (if I remember right) for DOS apps, and only on the 386 version of Windows 2.0

Working link

[Meostro]

...have decided that there are other ways to change the market.

Here is a link that works... not sure what's up @Groklaw, looks like a typo in the PHP =)

Re:Working link

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Parse error: parse error, unexpected '<' in /usr/local/wwwcache/groklaw/staticpages/index.php( 78) : eval()'d code on line 1

Somebody tell Groklaw that eval is bad, mmmkay?

(Choice quote: "If eval() is the answer, you're almost certainly asking the wrong question. -- Rasmus Lerdorf, BDFL of PHP")

no news is good news

[synq]

if there where news it would probably be bad.

United Linux membership

[DaEMoN128]

If you look at UL's website, they SCO is still members of united linux . how ironic

http://www.unitedlinux.com/en/partners/index.html

Re:United Linux membership

[FluffyPanda]

Well, they are trying to unite linux after a fashion...

Re:United Linux membership

[DaEMoN128]

I can only say they have definately succeeded. If I had mod points, itd be worth 1 funny

Re:United Linux membership

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are, they want to unite all Linux distributions under their own brand and get license money from everyone using Linux.

Re:United Linux membership

[rainman_bc]

I thought Caldera was one of the driving forces behind United Linux...

LSB

[danormsby]

My big hope for United Linux was that if I created a binary it would work under all x86 versions of Linux.

I'm now hoping Linux Standard Base 2.0 will really take off.

Re:LSB

[cpthowdy]

Note that SUSE 9.2 recently received the first LSB 2.0 certification...

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly, i whole heartedly agree, i love it when apps like Azureus, OpenOffice, Mozilla, HelixPlayer/RealPlayer, Sun's j2re etc..., can all install in any Linux distro with just a single binary package or from a single extracted directory...

Re:LSB

[Otter]

I think that's why there's no longer as much demand for Linux standardization -- the market for proprietary binary-only software turned out to be far smaller than had been hoped. Pretty much every such software product I see now just targets Red Hat and leaves it at that.

Re:LSB

[Progman3K]

This may not be the most popular point-of-view, but I actually really like compiling apps from source.

And with Gentoo, the whole process is insanely easy.

I believe the compile-from-source approach has the added benefit of mostly avoiding the problem you sometimes get with binary packages, where the binary needs a different version of the libs on your system.

True, with really BIG apps, compiling takes hours, but in those cases, there is usually a binary package for the app too in the catalog.

Re:LSB

[RogerWilco]

from someone who worked at proprietary binary-only software:
It could be a lot bigger if Linux was less of a moving target.
In my specific case: Lack of a standard way to talk to modems. (no not /dev/ttySXX, modems: Diamond Supra Pro 56 USB, Nokia 6150, Tornado III 9600, Siemems C55, some don't even use a character based protocol, but are essentially "winmodems") I just should be able to tell it: "Dail 123-456", NOT "ATDT 123-456", which might do the trick for some of them, depending on their GSM node network transparency settings and other stuff.
I need drivers from the HW manufacturers and a standard modem API, I guess similar problems are holding back a lot of others.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the problem with running binaries? I've used debian, gentoo, and mandrake. All of them seem to be capable of running VMWare, UT2K4, Maya, Neverwinter Nights, even Alpha Centauri (a really old game). All these are binaries, and they all work without a problem. What difficulties have you had running binaries in linux?

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of like TAPI for Linux. (SAPI would be nice too.)

Re:LSB

[smittyoneeach]

I may be ronngg, but doesn't LSB consider itself with what more than how?
As long as the stuff is in the prescribed locations, what difference does it make whether it's an RPM or Portage install?
Biggest stumbling block, irrespective of distro, is things like 802.11g firmware. That is usually a DIY piece, largely for licensing reasons, and it really makes getting ANY distro installed a right mother. Especially the research step: where do I find my firmware easter egg, and what magic incantations get it loaded and initialized.
Hopefully LSB will prove better than LSD in convincing vendors that there is cold, hard cash to be made targeting a stable, FOSS platform.

Re:LSB

[Blnky]

As a Slackware person I have to agree. I find "./configure; make; make install" easy and it does seem to avoid the majority of the dependancy problems. Something about knowing the binary exactly fits my system is nice. That said, I also must point out that large binary apps, like OpenOffice, are rarely a problem binary wise.

Re:LSB

[Progman3K]

You're undoubtedly right about what the standards mean and how they should be applied.

As for your second statement, I truly believe that vendors will do anything the market tells them to, and if people adopt Linux, then they will follow.

I read somewhere that Linux users now outnumber Mac users. Surely some vendor out there has got his finger on the pulse and is going to find a way to cash in.

Re:LSB

[sgtrock]

Oh, I don't know. I'm in a position to talk to software vendors here in the US on a semi-regular basis. About 3/4s of them are supporting at least Red Hat and Suse (now Novell) distros. ALL of them target specific versions of each distro that they support. I point out to them that generally speaking, their software doesn't really need that level of specificity, and that they would reduce their development and test costs considerably if they could target the LSB instead.

About a third say, "But our customers don't know what that is!" or something similar. I respond, "So? Target the LSB and you can still certify that your software runs on a much broader list of distros!" Some of them get it, some of them don't.

About a third say, "No, we can't do that because of X." Sometimes X is real, sometimes it isn't. I make myself available to talk through X to help them determine just how much of a hurdle X really is. In one recent case, the senior development architect admitted to me that I was right and that they should take a longer look at LSB support. However, he was constrained by their parent company's policy (which was under review at the time). He was going to begin agitating for a move to LSB as a target.

The final third say, "What a great idea! Why didn't we think of that?" and promise to look into it. Some (most?) of them come back later and say they can't. A few come back with a revised 'Supported Distributions' list.

So, yes, polite pressure on your vendors DOES work. Just point out the benefits to THEM. :)

Re:LSB

[Progman3K]

Yes, I've heard Slack is quite slick (sorry for the bad pun).

I'm sure there's probably also a way to build a ports-system for it too, like Gentoo has.

Because for the truly clueless, finding the tarball, and performing the (albeit quite simple) incantations you mentioned would probably be too much.

But then again, that's part of the beauty of it all; all distros fit into a scheme of things varying across the spectrum of ease-of-use, installation, addressibility of specific needs, etc...

You know, I can't help wondering; Gentoo is quite easy to maintain, but pretty difficult to initially set up...

I don't know how that's going to resolve itself, but eventually it will.

Re:LSB

[smittyoneeach]

Is there an implicit assumption in your last sentence that all users employ just one OS?
I run a dual-boot, and end up spending the bulk of my time in a proprietary vein, mainly for hardware reasons, but also Exchange Server.

Re:LSB

[Progman3K]

Not sure I understand your question, but no, I DON'T think everyone should run the same OS.

We need to keep Microsoft around for many reasons.

One is they keep everyone on their toes.
Another reason is that they are so dang entertaining to watch, what with all their mischevious schemes!

Think how boring Slashdot alone would be if there was no MS to rail against.

OK, joking aside, I really do mean it when I write that enlightenment can come from any direction, and often arises out of conflict.

Just so long as Microsoft doesn't gain an advantage by getting unfair laws passed or some sort, the whole computer industry, and consumers will benefit.

Re:LSB

[smittyoneeach]

No, the question is whether or not you should run exactly one OS. Your statement seemed to imply an assertion that all should run the same.
Anyway, MS has stabilized the market, but, are they a cure worse than the disease?
Joking aside, will non-US countries rally around FOSS and turn MS into a giant suppository for the US economy?
<your speculation here>

Re:LSB

[Progman3K]

OK, I understand.

My answer is still 'no'; we need multiple OSes.

For example, a DVD player can be running a variant of Linux, but it would differ in its possibilities from someone running OpenMosix.

It's not the 'One OS to rule them all', per se, it's more 'code should be open' because we've seen that closed-source is usually a way to hide deficiencies.

Could you elaborate on your statement 'MS has stabilized the market' ?

Sorry I'm so dense.

Re:LSB

[smittyoneeach]

Consider how many different interfaces there were for keyboard shortcuts, and such.
Like it or not, Mr. 800 lb. Gorilla has a stabilizing affect on interfaces, hardware, and other standards.
TMTOWTDI isn't a good thing, from a management perspective, as it hints at unbounded problems.

Re:LSB

[HiThere]

I understand what you want, and why it would be desireable. Please understand that there are also many reasons why it's a bad idea. We need to maintain at least three separate versions. (I suppose that Mac can't count here...I'm not REALLY certain.)

Monoculture allows parasites to flourish. So it's really best to avoid it, even if you try to design things so that the parasites have a difficult time. There are always flaws. The advantage of a diverse genotype is that the flaws are different in differing systems, so there are barriers to transmission.

Personally, I think the current system is approaching optimum. A tiny bit more uniformity is probably desireable. LSB should do this, but it may go too far.

Re:LSB

[Progman3K]

I understand.
That's certainly true to an extent.
Sort of what the IBM PC-XT did for hardware.

But at the same time, now that I've gotten used to Linux and its multiple window-managers, I feel so much happier. My UI looks and functions pretty much exactly like I want it to, now that it's not someone in Redmond deciding for me anymore.

Of course, your post hints that that kind of freedom can create problem (if I read your acronym properly), and maybe it's NOT for everyone, but then again, there is the freedom for a project like XPDE, so it's not really a problem.

So maybe this is the beginning of a renaissance, like the PC-XT and Windows before, it'll herald something new, something great, and the market will create the stabilizing influence you speak of.

Only I hope it comes from a general consensus and not from a tyrant like Microsoft.

Re:LSB

[Karma Farmer]

As a Slackware person I have to agree. I find "./configure; make; make install" easy and it does seem to avoid the majority of the dependancy problems.

No dependancies? No probems. Otherwise, I can't see how it avoids any problems, much less the majority of them.

And, of course, someone is going to point out that making a homebrewed database of everything you have installed, along with keeping around enough to do a "make uninstall" when you upgrade a package, is kinda like having a home-brewed package manager anyhow. Only, probably not as efficent or documented.

Re:LSB

[The Conductor]

Slackware gives you a range of options, from tarballs, to native *.tgz, to more automatic swaret. It can take in rpm's or .debs if you want, but dependency resolution doesn't work that well.

For my use, I would rather deal with a few dependency issues here and there, than break the whole dependency database whenever I have to compile a tarball. But others find apt-get to be very labor-saving. There is no single correct answer: Different choices for different needs.

Re:LSB

[Blnky]

>Different choices for different needs.

I cant agree more. I have never been wild about rpms and the like. However, I won't knock somebody else if they like them. I am just happer compiling on my own then wrangling with dependancies. I do feel sorry for them when they have dependancy problems since it seems so unnecessary to me. But hey, each to his own, birds of a feather, and all that bit. The diversity makes a better and happier community and that is what matters. This is why I oppose any overly zealous conformity argument. You wouldn't be happy with what I would like and the reverse. It is also not required for a successful platform. The fragmentation and continued success of Unix already disproved that argument before Linux arrived. So enough of my rambling, cheers to all, donate to your favorite distribution, toast and have a drink. :)

Re:LSB

[Blnky]

Perhaps I can explain my comment. As one example, I am refering to the following situation.

On a package/dependancy system I may wish to install app A that depends on library L of version 1.2.3. I may very well be forced to locate that exact version of the library app A was comiled against. It may very well be that it would work just fine with 1.2.4 or 1.2.2, however I have no choice.

On a package/compile system I can just rebuild the package against the libraries that I have on my system and be done with it. No hunting down an absolute specific version. Should the version of library L on my system be too old, the configure script will catch that. I just grab any new version, compile it and I am ready to go.

Hence why I stated "the majority of the dependancy problems". Briefly I had to face it by grabbing a new version of the library but I was free to grab any new version. Likewise, I could even substitute a compatable library if I wish. A good example is the old motif and lesstif libraries. I dont have to find the one compiled for the libaries I have or can get. I just compile against exactly what I have.

As for the homebrewed database idea I have to be honest. I find that a little nuts myself, no offence meant. I don't use or require one. Since I am compiling specifically on my machine I can also control the install path. That being the case you will find that the example app A will be installed in /usr/local/bin/A.5.6.7 with a symbolic link going from /usr/local/bin/AppA to /usr/local/bin/A.5.6.7/AppA. This makes it clear as to what was installed directly with app A.

My "make uninstall" is a simple "rm -r". No special script needed, since everything is under that directly, there is nothing missed. And I believe that the rm command is very well documented :P Ok, I am just being silly there, please don't take offence. Nothing is wrong with those who prefer dependancy style installs, I just have not determined a need for them myself.

Hopefully that helps you understand why some of us really prefer to compile instead of using dependancy management. Keep in mind, I am not saying you are wrong if you prefer that, I am just explaining why many of us are different. If you have any other questions along the lines of "Well how in the heck to you deal with (whatever)?" I would be glad to explain. I think you would be pleasantly surprised at how much "non chaos and non confusion" compile style systems are. Cheers :)

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds a lot like the philosophy of GoboLinux. They have make the filesystem the package manager. A very elegant solution.

Check it out.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Linux/UNIX UI is based on the CUI spec from IBM and Microsoft. MS even hold copyrights on Motif. In short, your so-called "freedom" is monopoly-dictated mandates, and you are a prol dupe.

Re:LSB

[Progman3K]

If you'd read the parent you'd see that I'm arguing for freedom for individual users to break from UI norms like the one you quoted, but then again, you're an AC troll, so you probably don't do a lot of reading before posting.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop posting in monospaced font. It's annoying.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

It's annoying to post in monospaced font. Please stop doing it.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop posting in monospaced font. It's very annoying.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite annoying to post in monospaced font. Please stop doing it.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very annoying to post in monospaced font. Please stop doing it.

Re:LSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop posting in monospaced font. It's quite annoying.

Re:LSB

[Karma Farmer]

As for the homebrewed database idea I have to be honest. I find that a little nuts myself, no offence meant. I don't use or require one. Since I am compiling specifically on my machine I can also control the install path.

Err, no offence, by if you have a directory that contains a link to every package installed, that IS a homebrewed database. Similarly, if you have a notebook and a number two pencil with a list of every package you have installed, that's a database too.

You have a homebrewed database which isn't as efficient as a regular package manager, because your datbase is badly implemented that it depends on your file locations. You don't have dependency management, because you can accidentally uninstall (err, rm -r) a package that other packages depend on, without any warning. You have a system thats not documented or transparent for the other half dozen sysadmins on the boxes you run. And, finally, if your dependency checking is nothing but "well, it compiled, so it probably works", then you're really not doing depency management at all. And, you have a system that makes it difficult to robustly move a compiled package from a stage server to a production server.

If you have a production system with no compiler that may be up for years, with a dozen sysadmins hired, fired, and hit by busses during the uptime, then you're going to have difficulty with a hodge-podge package management system like you describe.

On the other hand, you do describe the machines as "your machines", so you probably have of room to play with them, and it really may not matter if they go down. For example, if you get sick and die, is there anyone who is going to care more about the services your machines provide than they care about you? If not, then go ahead and run them any way you feel like running them. If so, you're probably doing that person a grave disservice running the machines as if they were yours.

It's SCO's Fault

[piett134]

A big portion of what pulled the UL project apart was SCO's lawsuit right at the beginning of it. They then pulled out, leaving on SuSE, Turbolinux, and Connectiva. Not exactly a star studded cast :)

Do you Opine?
http://www.opine-it.com

Re:It's SCO's Fault

[advocate_one]

IIRC, they didn't pull out, they're still in it... Suse left in disgust...

oh this is so ironic... posting a link to a Maureen O'Gara article...

Re:It's SCO's Fault

[chadm1967]

Look at the website, SCO is still a part of it. How could a "true" Linux and Open Source supporter ever use something that SCO is a part of? Seriously.

Re:It's SCO's Fault

[sloanster]

SuSE, Turbolinux, and Connectiva. Not exactly a star studded cast

SuSE was the star, since UL was basically SuSE, with the other 3 distros along for the ride.

The reason why linux isn't strong on the desktop..

[Mithrilhall]

Now this isn't the only reason but the thing that bothers me most about Linux is updating software. Debian looks like it would be easy to update but I wouldn't know becuase I can never get X to work correctly.

The main reason why I don't use Linux on my desktop is GAMES. I'm sure people complain about this all the time. If the game developers would just design games to run on most systems I would be using Linux right now but instead I'm stuck using this piece of shit Windows.

United linux would succeed if..

[dcstimm]

If Linux distro Could get a macosx type Application installer (aka drag and drop the application anywhere into the harddrive) it would gain support like you wouldnt believe, RPM, deb, ebuilds, tar.bz2, tar.gz, all are to complicated for the normal user. Yes I know rpm -ivh blah.rpm isnt hard and apt-get install gaim isnt hard, but I think Staticly compiled binaries are the way to go!

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right. But those of us who have used and loved Linux for years understand the importance of having a tar.gz. Optimization dear watson.

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Che Guevarra]

I'm so with you brother. It's all about the install. There will NEVER be a mainstream Linux until after the intall process is made simple. Pick whatever version you like, it'll never reach mainstream ears until they can 1. download it 2. install it 3. use it

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Anonymous Coward]

GNUStep is the direction *n*x needs to go in order to achieve a more unified look and ease of use.

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[kbmccarty]

RPM, deb, ebuilds, tar.bz2, tar.gz, all are to complicated for the normal user.

I have trouble understanding why comments like this keep coming up. RPM, deb, tar.gz, and so on aren't installation programs. They are package formats.

Even leaving aside the whole question of whether an integrated package manager like Synaptic, KPackage or RHN is easier to use (it certainly is!) than for the user to download software manually from all over the place... Users don't need to have a clue about the actual file format of these things; they just need to be able to double-click on one of these files in (say) a Nautilus window, causing the underlying package manager to pop up a "Root password?" dialog box, then automatically install the package. What could be simpler than that? From the user's point of view, how is this any different from double-clicking on the icon for a Windows installer program generated with InstallShield?

Admittedly we may not quite be at that point yet -- if the RPM/deb has unmet dependencies, for instance, then the package manager should automatically download and install those as well when the file is double-clicked -- but we're getting there fast. And Windows-style executable installers, for reasons of consistency, are NOT the way to go.

Slightly off-topic: anyone ever try binary editing of a deb file to put "#!/bin/dpkg -i" at the beginning, or "#!/bin/rpm -i" at the beginning of an RPM, and chmod a+x'ing it? Does it work?

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem...

http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[JimDabell]

RPM, deb, ebuilds, tar.bz2, tar.gz, all are to complicated for the normal user.

Last time I used an RPM-based distro, installing an application was as simple as clicking on its RPM, and it would simply show up in the menus. That was years ago. Sure things like ebuilds are more difficult - Gentoo is aimed at the power-user, not the average desktop user.

I think Staticly compiled binaries are the way to go!

Hmm... let's see, assuming KDE:

$ du -sh /usr/qt/3/lib/
17M /usr/qt/3/lib/
$ du -sh /usr/kde/3.3/lib/
159M /usr/kde/3.3/lib/

So you want 176MB to download with every GUI application... and you'll have to download an update for every app on the system whenever a security hole is found in what was a shared library... and each application will have slightly different versions of the libraries, so an improvement in, say, the file selector dialogue will only show up once all the applications on your system have been updated. Sounds great!

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Chris Burke]

Never tried it, but unless dpkg/rpm knows to ignore the line you added, they would choke.

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[dabadab]

"[i]if the RPM/deb has unmet dependencies, for instance, then the package manager should automatically download and install those as well[/i]"

That's precisely what apt does since the end of the last century.

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, linux could simply have an easy way for programs to query for the files they want to use. Like a database of librarys. Then it doesn't matter where the distro puts said files /usr/lib /usr/bin /opt/lib, whatever, the program can just go ask this standard database every linux distro has. It could be manually maintanable, and maintanable by installers. apt, rpm, pacman, etc could all be changed to write to read/write to this database should they so desire. Then if I manually compile something, I can add the libararys to the database by hand. With the current setup, If I manually install something, its a bitch to remove, and even more of a bitch to get apt/pacman/whatever to know where those librarys are when dependancy checking.

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[tajmorton]

That's what Autopackage is for. Packges are mostly static, relocateable, and have a nice GUI.

Have fun!
--
Taj

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[j.blechert]

I think there should be a unifed installation process (I know there are some projects heading for this), a program that would just take any RPM, deb or whatever and install it on the system (every distro should include a file that tells that program where the files should be, so every installation package could simply be converted to fit the distro.) And to sort out library dependencies (some of those could still be included in the distro-specific file, if the library just has another name, just create a link and it works fine) there could be a compatibility layer, a library that links against the newer version while providing the old functions (so programs linked against old libc version will still work on new ones) Well probably that's troll, but I can have dreams too, can't I?

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[JimDabell]

Or, linux could simply have an easy way for programs to query for the files they want to use. Like a database of librarys. Then it doesn't matter where the distro puts said files /usr/lib /usr/bin /opt/lib, whatever, the program can just go ask this standard database every linux distro has.

The linker already does this. Have a look at /etc/ld.so.conf.

With the current setup, If I manually install something, its a bitch to remove, and even more of a bitch to get apt/pacman/whatever to know where those librarys are when dependancy checking.

Oh, I see. The problem is that RPM etc aren't capable of figuring out if something has been installed by an external process? I don't know how other distros deal with it, but with Gentoo, you can simply "emerge --inject".

I don't see how this is a problem for normal desktop users though - first people start out by saying that they don't know how to compile stuff manually, and then when somebody suggests using RPM etc, they say "what about all the stuff they compiled by hand"?

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[grumbel]

### Users don't need to have a clue about the actual file format of these things; they just need to be able to double-click on one of these files in (say) a Nautilus window, causing the underlying package manager to pop up a "Root password?" dialog box, then automatically install the package.

The throuble is that that is completly impossible unless you first have a standard way to package and compile stuff. You can't just resolve missing dependencies of a Redhat RPM when you are on a Debian box, it just won't work. What you need would be a self-containing LSB-conforming RPM to make this work, however so far I have neither seen one of them in the wild nor being able to compile one myself (lsbdev is kind of a pain to get working). Linux might be getting there slowly, but today from a users point of view its not much closer to the goal then five years ago.

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[kbmccarty]

That's precisely what apt does since the end of the last century.

Don't worry, I'm well aware of APT (being an avid Debian user). I meant the case of J. Random User double-clicking in a file browser window on the icon for a random RPM or .deb file s/he happened to download from somewhere (not via APT), since InstallShield fans apparently want to install software this way.

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what the binfmt kernel module is for:

echo ':rpm:E::rpm::/usr/bin/gurpmi:' > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm well aware of APT (being an avid Debian user). I meant the case of J. Random User double-clicking in a file browser window on the icon for a random RPM or .deb file s/he happened to download from somewhere (not via APT), since InstallShield fans apparently want to install software this way.

...and they are part of the problem!

There should be a way of intercepting the action you mention above with an offer to install the same package from an APT repository:

"The package (foo) you opened is available from (bar), where you download other software from. Since (foo) is a different version than the one from (bar), it is possible that it will not work properly together with other software from (bar). Therefore we recommend using the version from (bar) instead."

The above is a bit longish. The message needs to be consise and honest: Stick with the packages from the repository if you want to minimise the risks! It has to become second nature for new Linux users to stick to the repositories. They need to be told. Not just by other users, but by the package manager user interface, too: "Search the repositories first!"

Re:United linux would succeed if..

[dg41]

That doesn't make sense. If the user does what he wants, and is almost there, and the system tells him "you have this one, but that one has the slight chance of being better," it will just piss him/her off. It's all about simplicity and ease of use. That's why Linux isn't even close to being used ubiquitously. Searching repositories may seem all well and good, but it is not practicable when it comes to a "normal" end-user. They're used to going to a website, clicking download, open, next two or three times, and be done with it. Throwing anything at them (ESPECIALLY if it involves typing any command) will just frustrate the user and make them think Linux sucks. It's all about simplification.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[geoffspear]

As long as people like you keep buying the Windows versions of games, what motivation could developers possibly have to support another platform? They're not going to see an increase in sales if the potential customers for a new version would be buying it instead of buying what they already make.

Re:If linux had..

[pe1rxq]

I think Staticly compiled binaries are the way to go!

Great, a 1.5MB hello world.....

Jeroen

United Linux - far from everyone

[dabadab]

"everyone who wasn't Red Hat"

Or Debian, or Slackware, or...
United Linux would be better described as a group of smaller commercial Linux distros.

Re:United Linux - far from everyone

[FluffyPanda]

Would you call SuSe a smaller distro?

I've never managed to find any reliable statistics (oxymoron noted) about the popularity of the various distros, but from the mailing lists that I subscribe to I can certainly believe that they are the second most used distro after Redhat/Fedora. Possibly the most used in Europe.

Re:United Linux - far from everyone

[Pros_n_Cons]

Or Debian, or Slackware, or...

Indeed, It should be noted that Red Hat wasn't asked to be a part of this standard until 6 hours before the announcement was made: "hey RedHat we made a new standard, you have half a day to be standards compliant, thanks -United Linux"

People should be aware of what this really was, SuSE attempting to be what RedHat already was.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[pe1rxq]

A lot of distros are (and will be) based on debian. So in a way it already is the common base UL was supposed to be.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Ubuntu, it is based on Debian and works with X right out of the box. And with Synaptic, it is easy to install software. When you enable universe and multiverse you have access to all the software available in Debian proper (and more) all compiled for Ubuntu. It is the Most newbie frendly distro ever. I switched from Mandrake which I got tired of not finding an rpm for software that I wanted, or finding ones made for RedHat but wouldn't work correctly in Mandrake.

Install and Use...

[Che Guevarra]

Okay, this is a totally outside the box way of thinking but I think Linux could win the desktop wars if it were "one-click" installable and ready to use. But it isn't. It never is. Get that part right, and maybe this discussion is worth something.

It's not about what version, it's about ease of use.

Re:Install and Use...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like Ubuntu Linux is already better than Windows in that respect. And as for the package management, I think the main problem with Synaptic is for new people that they don't know the names of the programs. I know that if I want a drawing program I have to install the GIMP package, but will they?

Linux' main installation problem is that it doesn't come preinstalled, period. That will be hard to change as long as Microsoft keeps "discouraging" the Dells and HPs of this world to preinstall anything but Windows.

Re:Install and Use...

[Anonymous Coward]

So perhaps a front-end to portage would do the trick? I might hack one up sometime....

Re:Install and Use...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't _want_ linux to win the desktop war. To win the desktop war, it will have to lose the aspects of it that I, and most users, use it for. It lets you do what you want. It doesn't make you do things you don't want to do. It can behave how you want it depending on the application. Linux is a niche product. (Most of the best products are.)

Re:Install and Use...

[FluffyPanda]

I used to believe that linux was harder to set up than windows too, then I installed XP and SuSe 9.1 Pro on my laptop in the same weekend.

At the end of the weekend I had a fully configured Linux system with all the apps and server components that I wanted. My windows install was already crashing because there aren't WHQL certified drivers available for some of the components in my laptop.

I was still trawling the web looking for applications to meet my needs on monday morning.

It certainly didn't seem to me like windows was easier to install.

Re:Install and Use...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anything "one-click" installable? Get real..
Linux is better than that, it is "no-click" usable. Just have quick looksee at Knoppix, better yet go download and burn it, simply pop it into your favourite reasonably recent x86 box and Penguin's your daddy!

Re:Install and Use...

[Che Guevarra]

Windows is self installing, self fixing, self updating. As broken as all those things are, how does Linux answer that?

Look, there is no way Linux even comes close to the daily needs of the user like Windows does. Windows=automated, Linux=start reading.

-personally, I use a Mac.

Re:Install and Use...

[FluffyPanda]

And yet my boss calls me into his office at least three times a day to explain something you'd consider trivial to him.

Today I've had:
Why his win 98 box won't print (he hadn't logged on to the domain with his usual password)
Why isn't norton antivirus working? (beats me, reboot?)
What the hell's happened now? (errr... it's crashed. Try rebooting)

And I still have 2 hours to go.

Windows isn't as straight forward as people tend to make it out to be. It's just that the layman expects all of windows little bugs and crashes and has got used to hitting the reset button.

Yeah, you might need to read something to fix a problem in linux, but it stays fixed.

Re:Install and Use...

[Technonotice_Dom]

I can't resist the flame bait...

Windows is self installing
Eh? I installed FC3 yesterday on a machine to play with it (I'm normally a Debian fan) and the whole thing's done in X, and is very easy to go through. I'm sure Ubuntu, Mandrake etc are even easier. The first part of the installation of WinXP that asks details about partitions and filesystems is all done in text mode. Do you mean that Windows is bundled with new PCs? Is that an advantage of Windows?

self fixing
How so? Self-breaking in my experience. Unfortunately, part of my job requires me to repair Windows machines, and I'm sceptical at best about any "self fixing" Windows does.

self updating
So is FC3 to name one. It has a program called up2date which as soon as I'd installed FC, it flashed and asked me to download some new versions that had been released. Other distros also have similar systems.

It all depends on the distro. A lot of distros have done a brilliant job for the desktop user giving them great hardware detection, clear control panels to change settings. There are distros (my favourite, Debian) that cater to those of us like to understand what's going on, but even so, the package system and the community are brilliant.

Re:Install and Use...

[ATN]

I think that's a point that needs to be made very clear. Windows is not easier for Joe Average to install, it's just that it's usually installed for him before he buys the computer. I've run into many people who bought a computer from a company without an operating system, who wanted to install Windows on their computer but couldn't get everything to work so they asked me to do it for them.

Re:Install and Use...

[grumbel]

The Linux install itself never was much of the problem, todays Linux are not harder to install then a Windows, in many cases even much easier since almost all drivers come with it, no need to hund down a trillion different sites to find the drivers.

Where Linux however misarably fails is in the maintainability, the day to day install of some toy app or a new 'not yet in the distris standard kernel' driver. For the average Joe User RPM, DEB, tar.gz and friends don't make any sense and never will. Under Windows and MacOSX installing is a matter of double-clicking, pretty much a no-brainer, under Linux there are dozens of ways to package and compile stuff, incompatibilties all over the place, there simply is no right way to package stuff, everybody is doing it their own style, leaving the user stuck with a whole lot of try&error. Until Linux gets to the point where I can install a 'Linux App' in a common way on every Linux out there it won't make much of a difference on the desktop.

Re:Install and Use...

[Limburgher]

While I agree with you, we have to ask ourselves why Windows should not be held to that standard. What Windows task is truly as easy as Linux detractors seem to want Linux tasks to be? This week I had to retrain my father-in-law from using on MS Photo editing app to another MS photo editing app. The newer version that he was forced to upgrade to for licensing reasons has a totally different interface, tasks are grouped differently, and seems to be missing a few features. Hold this up against the Gimp, which is currently 2.0+. I've been using it since just after 1.0, and nothing has changed substantially, except for added features. I can still open the Gimp, in any distro, and make the same series of clicks to do task X that I did a full major version ago. For Abiword, I can say this from .96 to the present 2.0+. What MS app has done this? I can't even reliably OPEN a Word97 doc in Word2003!

Windows's only advantage is the intertia of a large installed base. Which Linux/F/OSS are chipping away at.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[brianlawson]

How am I supposed to buy a Linux version of a game if one isn't produced? Chicken or the egg? I think the community of gamers that work on fixes, WINE, emulation, etc. to configure games to run on Linux should be an indication that there is a demand there. If someone would go to that much trouble to play a game on Linux as opposed to clicking "install" on Win, it represents a strong desire (at least for a certain community) for gaming on Linux.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[halivar]

The main reason why I don't use Linux on my desktop is GAMES.

Linux is driven by the needs of the professionals who make the big-time procurment decisions. The needs of gamers are singularly unimportant. If you want games, get an XBox.

SCO

[Ambient_Developer]

I think everyone can agree, SCO pretty much killed any chance United Linux had.

Hopefully soon, a game distro will be done.

[WindBourne]

What is needed is a distro that panders to the games developers. That means not only the libraries, but the post development of a distro that fits on a cd or a dvd. Think Knoppix. Once that happens, then major games can create a cd that the user boots from. Simplifies a lot of things.

Re:Hopefully soon, a game distro will be done.

[advocate_one]

look at America's Army... that's a self booting minimal Linux distro. Morphix game version is what you need to play with.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[LnxAddct]

All of the big commercial distros (the ones consumers and businesses will/are using) are based on Red Hat. Red Hat is pretty good with standards, so itd be safe to say that if a standard is in order companies and developers are more likely to go with Red Hat. It is safer (or at least appears to be from a business perspective) because its backed by a corporation, and its already what most commercial distros are based around. Game developers etc... are going to listen to where the money is. If someone refuses to pay for a linux distro, they most likely (yes this is stereotypical of me) won't buy other software, so why should a software developer dependant on making money from software, market it to a base that typically doesn't buy software? I'm not trolling/flaming/etc... just trying to be realistic.
Regards,
Steve

It's too bad that....

[MarkEst1973]

a grassroots unification will have to happen in order to solidify the Linux standards.

Microsoft has the unparralleled advantage of maintain strict control on its own platform. It can push an agenda much more easily than a disparate group of distros.

I am posting this from a RH box right now and feel good having a linux box under my desk at work (on a KVM switch to a windows box), but I don't use this box for much. Everything is more difficult than in windows, unfortunately. I'm a coder but a linux newbie. If it's difficult for me, you can bet your ass it'll be difficult for the non-techie.

And that's why Microsoft is king of the hill right now. They make it for the mass market and make it easy for all.

A *STANDARD* type of Linux distro, app installer, etc. would be a great stride forward for Linux.

Re:It's too bad that....

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's difficult for me, you can bet your ass it'll be difficult for the non-techie.

Actually my 12 year old daughter picked up linux from windows quite easily. she even figured out how to download and instal a game.

MY girlfriend also made the switch in a small amount of time. She was able to install Java and Flash for mozilla on her own.

last night she was bragging to her friends that were complaining about how crappy their computer runs lately that "Oh! I don't get that spyware stuff anymore. Tim moved me to linux and now the computer just works.

If you find it difficult, I suggest some basic IT training...

Although you are a Coder, you guys usually do not know anything about computers in general.

(I was asked at work to install the drivers for a new monitor from one of them. it was fricking funny.)

Re:It's too bad that....

[aardvarkjoe]

A *STANDARD* type of Linux distro, app installer, etc. would be a great stride forward for Linux.

What do you mean by "standard?" If you mean a single distribution / desktop environment / set of applications that everyone will use -- forget it. You're going to be using Windows for a long time.

Re:It's too bad that....

[RailGunner]

I really don't want a whole lot of unification on Linux. I use different distro's for different tasks: For example, for a system recovery / rescue disk, I use Knoppix. For my in-law's home computer, I installed Mandrake, and it's easy to use configuration tools. For the datacenter server I'm designing at work for a project, I'm recommending Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Microsoft has the unparralleled advantage of maintain strict control on its own platform. It can push an agenda much more easily than a disparate group of distros.

Yes, in fact they can break your application, and even burn your CPU with a Service Pack. (Google Microsoft Service Pack Cyrix for more info). With Linux, if you decide you don't like Fedora Core, there's Mandrake or SuSE, along with hundreds of others.

I also disagree with everything being harder under Linux. Setting up my home DSL connection was a snap, and as far as applications even when my wife boots my machine into Windows she's running the same OpenOffice, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Opera that I'm running on my Linux drive. The only reason there's Windows at all is because she needs Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop etc. and refuses to learn the GIMP.

Now a standard type of app installer? That's a fantastic idea. I'd love to see something along the lines of Wise Installer or InstallShield for Linux. Wizard UI's are ridiculously easy to write, and it's a pretty safe bet that any linux distro is going to support Perl for scripting... and InstallShield really isn't much more then that. It would also enable more non-techies to run Linux, because most non-techies are terrified of their computers and tpying "make" followed by "make install" is just too tough for them. (Yes, it's *their* problem, but we can be magnanimous and allay their fears...)

Re:It's too bad that....

[fortuna]

Oh my god that's good. I think you've just managed to piss off about 95% of people here (me included!) :)

Re:It's too bad that....

[mccalli]

Although you are a Coder, you guys usually do not know anything about computers in general.

(I was asked at work to install the drivers for a new monitor from one of them. it was fricking funny.)

That's exactly the point. Although your example is a bit extreme, it doesn't back up what you say - it actually helps the poster you're replying to. Knowing about "computers in general" doesn't mean knowing how to stick a monitor driver on some desktop. That's specific knowledge about some particular platform.

Knowing about "computers in general" is much more than that. It's about algorithms at one level, it's about hardware knowledge at another level, it's about systems knowledge at yet another level....it really does have nothing whatsoever to do with slapping drivers onto things. That's the difference between tech support and design/development.

For the record, I too asked tech support to put a new graphics card driver on to my client XP box. Could I have done it myself? Yes, I could. But you see, my knowledge of computers in general tells me that the client box is a platform, a tested coherent whole. If I randomly slap a driver on to fix one problem, I might cause a whole host of others. Hence a call to tech support - tsick me an approved driver on here, you perform the operation, and you support the platform afterwards.

Be careful of claiming computing knowledge. There's a world of difference between systems knowledge and knowing how to write a particular macro in Excel, updating monitor drivers or even knowing to put in an /etc/init.d script.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:It's too bad that....

[MarkEst1973]

I think we're like-minded in our desire to see Linux triumph over M$, as evidenced by our desire for a unified installer mechanism. Still, though, I think the community overall needs to tighten further and create broad standards and general consensus. Without that, I fear an organized M$ will continually kick the crap out of a disorganized Linux community.

I really don't want a whole lot of unification on Linux.

Then it won't ever take off like we all want it too. If it takes a guru to work all the various distros your using for different purposes, well, you can expect to have M$ keep on eating linux's lunch. IMHO, an organization that is focused, centered on a single vision, and effective in executing its strategy will always crush the loosely organized, no vision or direction, disparate grassroots organizations.

The Bazaar might be a better form of development, but the Cathedral is significantly better at sales, marketing, communication, and stategy.

Competition is good, too, but when distros are competing against another distro, how is the community effectively competing against M$??? Competition means choice and freedom which (generally) benefits the consumer. Political infighting in the linux community (competing distros, competing desktops, competing anything that is incompatible with another distro) reduces the community's effectiveness in competing against M$.

I also disagree with everything being harder under Linux. Setting up my home DSL connection was a snap

When i set up this Fedora Core 1 box at work, it wouldn't connect to the interweb, despite the fact that I set it to use DHCP. There was something wrong with a DNS lookup that was found and fixed by the single linux guru we have in our office. He walked me through editing a config file in vi.

I'm sorry, but that is not what I call "easy." It was certainly not a snap. Everything else was installed quite easily, though. I even installed a JDK and Eclipse, but that's only because the Fedora desktop (Gnome, right?) gives me the ability to right-click a RPM and install it.

Re:It's too bad that....

[LWATCDR]

As a programmer I have to say that I am more than capable of installing a device driver. Why a monitor should NEED a device driver is a bit of annoying to me but hey what can you do. I have set up networks, firewalls, databases, and just about anything else you can imagine. Frankly I find the opposite to many "computer experts" that do not code don't know JACK about computers. The do not know binary, hex, They have no idea why ram tends to come in chunks like 64 megs, or 128, or 256. They have no idea what an interrupt is or what DMA is. They can install programs, run Adaware and Spybot, and maybe do a defrag. However they can tell me what the fastest graphics card is and how well it will run Doom3.

Re:It's too bad that....

[sffubs]

That's the attraction of the large, community-supported distos like Debian and Gentoo - they have enormous package databases that make it _easier_ to install stuff than under Windows. The vast majority of programs that you'll ever want are only an "apt-get" or an "emerge" away. Dependencies are solved automatically. What is more, the package maintainers on these distributions typically work to a tight set of standards for file locations, documentation etc, and packages are only made available once they have been tested and marked stable (the standard for stability is rather higher on Debian, although I prefer Gentoo).

I have no experience of Fedora, but Redhat 8/9 suffered terribly from RH not packaging all that much software, and developers packaging software for it to their own standards and conventions. Redhat also couldn't solve dependencies automatically. It is my understanding that Fedora is an attempt to solve some of these issues, but as I say, I haven't tried it yet.

So I'd say that unifying distributions is unnecessary, so long as the community can continue to support distros such as Debian and Gentoo.

One area where unification _is_ important is interoperability on the desktop. The divide between Gnome and KDE is far more significant to the man-on-the-street than between distributions. This is the point of freedesktop.org, and I think they are making progress.

So as far as making it easy for the mass-market goes, no, Linux isn't there yet. However, it's moving rapidly in the right direction. Every year I see the gap in basic, out of the box usability between Windows and Linux shrinking faster and faster, and in many areas (such as package management) Linux is already streets ahead.

Re:It's too bad that....

[achim]

I also disagree with everything being harder under Linux. Setting up my home DSL connection was a snap, and as far as applications even when my wife boots my machine into Windows she's running the same OpenOffice, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Opera that I'm running on my Linux drive. The only reason there's Windows at all is because she needs Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop etc. and refuses to learn the GIMP.

That's not really the thing that is more difficult.

Have you ever tried to distribute a program in binary from for Linux? You are directly in distribution hell, because every distribution (and different versions as well) contain incompatible library versions. Static linking used to be a resolution, but since glibc 2.3.3 it does not work anymore (even worse, it prints out warning, then works on your computer, but crashes on a computer with a different glibc version).

Everything is fine with source packages, either you download/compile/install it yourself or your distributor has already done that and provides you a package of some sort (or an ebuild, or a port, or whatever...), but for people who want to distribute binary packages, a common base like UnitedLinux would have been great. If LSB can do that, also fine! That would never mean the end of specialized distributions not targeted at normal desktop usage, nor would it mean to have the one distribution only.

Now I already can see lots of answers to this post telling me to simply distribute source, open source and nothing else. Sorry, as much as I would love to do that, that's not an option for the stuff I write at work for two reasons:

1. giving away our source would mean giving away our knowledge as well and that be the end of the business in our current situation.
2. we are targeting at an audience not too comfortable with compiling programs before using them.

A GUI installer would be nice, but a common package format (maybe compatible with RPM, DEB and other on the backend level) that works on every Linux would IMHO be more important. Maybe one where you have the chance to install the program in your home directory if the system dirs cannot be accessed.

Re:It's too bad that....

[HiThere]

There's a big difference between a uniform system, and one that's easy to use. I think the two concepts are nearly orthogonal. (Not quite. Familiarity makes even difficult systems easier. N.B.: Not easy, merely easier.)

Fedora Core 1 was an early beta. Criticising it for rough spots it taking shots at a straw man. Of course it's easy to knock apart! On my system it wouldn't even boot...I didn't bother to work on the problem. It was obviously something so basic that it was on the list to be fixed. Core 2 worked without a noticible hitch...except for not having the software that I wanted. Rather than rebuild everything I switched back to my LibraNet partitions, but it's still on my hard disk, and I keep thinking that I should check it again for software updates.

That said, some vendors do make it difficult to connect with Linux systems. Blaming that on Linux is unfair, but if you don't have an alternative, I could understand that it might be difficult to work through. Blaming it on an early beta though... that's silly.

Re:It's too bad that....

[Karma Farmer]

That's the attraction of the large, community-supported distos like Debian and Gentoo - they have enormous package databases that make it _easier_ to install stuff than under Windows.

I've never understood this. Why would redhat, gentoo, debian, etc. all require seperate package collections? Why wouldn't they all have exactly the same collection?

Re:It's too bad that....

[Anonymous Coward]

A Standard Linux Distro in my book does not limit choices in applications or installers. It has more to do with the underlying operating system configuration.

For instance why is there modules.conf, conf.modules, modules.conf.local? Caldera had a really funny one. lilo and lilo.real. If you tried to run lilo, it came back with an echo "We don't use lilo. Use lilo.real". So every application that checks for the existance of lilo found an exacutable shell script that was really worthless.

No one wants to limit the number of mp3 players you have dude. I just want some standard as to how the system is layed out. Mainly the things you find in /proc and /etc.

Re:It's too bad that....

[Coryoth]

Have you ever tried to distribute a program in binary from for Linux? You are directly in distribution hell, because every distribution (and different versions as well) contain incompatible library versions. Static linking used to be a resolution, but since glibc 2.3.3 it does not work anymore (even worse, it prints out warning, then works on your computer, but crashes on a computer with a different glibc version).

Check out Autopackage. It's not finished yet, but it is designed specifically to handle the sorts of cross distribution packaging issues you're talking about.

The current package formats are not broken, and are not badly designed. They work brilliantly for what they were designed to do: provide a way for a distribution to package up binaries so as to modularise and make maintainable a large system with lots and lots of optional packages. Using rpm/deb with yum/apt-rpm/apt is an excellent way to maintain your distribution. It doesn't help you with third party packages.

If you want third party packages that anyone can make, you need another way. Autopackage is making excellent inroads into making that other way a reality. Really, check it out.

Jedidiah.

Re:It's too bad that....

[mrchaotica]

On the other hand, there's no harm in knowing how to use particular software, in addition to understanding the inner workings of it. I, for example, am competant to maintain (at least for home uses) Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X boxes, yet I am most definately a CS (as opposed to IT) student. I may not know the finer points of registry editing, kernel configuring, or OpenFirmware, but at least when one of my computers has a problem I know how to fix it.

Besides, if you happen to need to write anything with a user interface, it would help to know how to use similar programs on the chosen platform so that you know what kind of interface to make, right?

Re:It's too bad that....

[G00F]

But you know what, that is exactly the kind of person linux needs to make happy next. Well not happy, but be able to work for them.

Any buy unifying a lot of linux stuff. (a single installer/package working on all(most) distros would do a long way of completing this.

Or having a unified kde/gnome/wm/etc plugin that allows manipulation of the OS. Like chaging the IP addy, adding new hardware, changing grub/lilo, changing resolutions/depth, nedd I really go on, with basic things in windows, that takes a bit more work in linux?

If the distros make it so the guys who know enough to install firefox, spybot, and know what the best video card is, then they can tip the balance. They are the are the 13-16 year olds of the music industry for us.

Now honestly, I couldn't care less if linux ever made it past 20% of the desktops. With just that much, companies wont ignore it. However, I do want greater than 50% of servers to be non windows.

Re:It's too bad that....

[0racle]

'M$' makes you sound like an idiot.

Re:It's too bad that....

[tehdaemon]

Libraries, like different glibc versions.

File systen layouts are often different.

Legal concerns, like red hat taking out mp3 support.

So, a program compiled for one distro may not work on the other. It may use a feature of a library that is only on red hat, or put it's files into a directory that does not exist on debian, (or hard-code the locations of a program in, eg /bin/bash, when the actual file is /usr/bin/bash on the other distro!) Or expect mp3 support in a particular library, and not find it. In this case there is no advantage at all for having the same package mannager, or for putting all of the programs into the same package collection. KISS says keep them separate.

Re:It's too bad that....

[achim]

If you want third party packages that anyone can make, you need another way. Autopackage is making excellent inroads into making that other way a reality. Really, check it out.

I did and indeed it looks very promising. It's great that it tries to tackle all these problems at once: package format, installation, library dependencies, install location. I will keep an eye on it and hope for a 1.0 release very soon!

Re:It's too bad that....

[Karma Farmer]

So, a program compiled for one distro may not work on the other.

That's my point. Believe me, I understand the technical reasons. I just fail to understand why anyone would put up with the pathetic state of affairs.

United anything is a joke

[Che Guevarra]

The competing versions of Linux are worse than the browser competition. Microsoft has made sure that HTML, and now XML, are proprietary depending on how you choose to implement them. The divisions are killing the effort. Is this the future of Linux? Or is this the fate of open source?

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[geoffspear]

Desire, yes. Extra profit, no.

No corporation is going to want to spend extra money to make 2 versions of a product if the market for the 2nd version consists of people who will just buy the 1st version even though they have to go through trouble to play it. The fact that the people go through all of that trouble instead of not buying the game at all tells the corporation that they're product is so great that they don't need to improve it; their customers will do the work for them.

Re:If linux had..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, having one and the same library strewn accros the computer in several different versions certainly is a very clean and secure way to install software. (The recent Windows security issue with the gd library that was used and provided in different locations by dozens of applications really brought the supriority of this kind of system home, don't you think?)

Also it's a major pita to have one central place to update all the software installed on your system, using something like versiontracker is of course much more convenient and easier to use and it doesn't even cost much.

Finall, thank you for pointing out that there are no easy to use graphical frontends for the package managers you listed.

It's a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a shame that ever effort made to merge the ditros together fails miserably. this is the reason why microsoft will win in the end and Linux will die out. the community needs to get it's shit together and fast.

As mentioned here

Re:It's a shame

[pandrijeczko]

Just about everything in your bigotted argument is wrong:

it's a shame that ever effort made to merge the ditros together fails miserably.

There has never been any effort to merge the distros together. There has been an effort by United Linux to introduce a standard way of doing things such as the layout of the filesystem, device naming, etc.

However, the reason to have different Linux distros is due to the requirements for which it is used - embedded systems, secure servers, desktop use, etc.

For precisely the same reasons you should be criticising Microsoft for producing Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional, etc.

this is the reason why microsoft will win

Erm, precisely what will Microsoft win? It's already got 95% of the desktop share and most of the corporate share. Yet Linux is being used more and more.

So what determines Microsoft has won??? The Linux community doesn't care, we're just here using it and enjoying it.

My niece, for example, happily uses Windows to do her homework on, play games and surf the Internet. Just because me, her uncle, prefers Linux does not mean I'm going to erase her Windows install and put Red Hat on? The fact is, she uses what she likes to use, I use what I like to use, end of story.

Linux will die out.

How do you work that one out??? It's already embedded in more devices than you could possibly be aware of, Open Source apps like Apache and Sendmail are the core Internet applications and the whole UNIX philosophy started a whole 10 years before Gates even thought of MS-DOS!!!

the community needs to get it's shit together and fast.

Sorry, which community? The Open Source and GNU have been creating and distributing free software for nigh on 20 years now, the Firefox browser is stealing users away from Internet Explorer, third world countries can't get enough of OpenOffice...

Sounds like a community that's got it's "shit" labelled, weighed, measured and filed away in neat cabinets if you ask me!

You need to go off and try Linux yourself, then hate it! At least then your opinion will be valid...

Re:It's a shame

[j.blechert]

considering third world contries, if (and I'm sure they are or will) they are using linux more than windows I think microsoft will lose marketshare, they already did, they didn't lose any customers but I'm sure they did lose a lot of users. They are just not counted in the statistics because they never buyed it. And in 10 years or so computers will for sure get more affordable for third-world countries and there linux already has a foothold so I think for the statistic it isn't really important that people in the USA or EU will switch, microsoft will lose either way

Re:It's a shame

[pandrijeczko]

Yes, but with respect, you're still making this out to be a Linux vs Microsoft war where such is not the case.

Sure, MS are spreading FUD about Linux, they're waging their own little war but it isn't the same from the Linux side of things.

Apart from a few zealots, the Linux community is just trying to get a message out, namely "Linux is free, it's an alternative, give it a try" and defneding itself when MS blatanatly lies when making comparisons.

Who cares what software people use as long as it's right for them and that they have been given the correct information to make informed decisions about security, stability, DRM, etc?

Re:If linux had..

[Kethinov]

I think Staticly compiled binaries are the way to go!

Great, a 1.5MB hello world.....

Preferable to a dependency not found hello world...

Re:If linux had..

[menkhaura]

/* Hello World, the way Real Men(TM) do it */

.data
.alo:
.string "Hello.\n"
.text
.globl _start
_start:
movl $4, %eax
movl $1, %ebx
movl $.alo, %ecx
movl $7, %edx
int $0x80

movl $1, %eax
movl $0, %ebx
int $0x80

See? After compile/strip, we have a mere 273 bytes binary. Nowhere near 1.5 MB...

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[Anonymous Coward]

How am I supposed to buy a Linux version of a game if one isn't produced?

If you actually want the option of switching to Linux, you write to the developers saying "I didn't buy your game because..." or "I bought from [x] vendor because they support Linux". It's more effort than whining about the lack of Linux games on Slashdot though.

Focus on functionality.

[khasim]

Why limit yourself to one installer?

Why doesn't the LSB specify what functionality is required in both the installer and the package format?

That way, any installer can include that functionality and any package can include that format, yet we can still use whatever works best for each individual.

And that's why Microsoft is king of the hill right now. They make it for the mass market and make it easy for all.

With Microsoft, there is not one standard installer. Package management in Linux is far better than in Windows.

That's why you end up with junk .dll's and crap in the registry after you un-install an app on Windows.

By way of comparision, check out deborphan and debfoster on Debian.

Re:Focus on functionality.

[RogerWilco]

There is: Windows Installer, it comes standard with w2k and XP and
can be added to older systems.
Wise and Installshield are no more than easy GUI builders for it.
You could write your entire installer in Orca, the MS env. for it.
It has versioning and package dependency, version 2.0 even does uninstalling correctly IF the programmer of the install script did his/her homework. It also supports updates and patches.
I am no expert on rpm, but I think it's quite similar, as usual with MS.

Re:Focus on functionality.

[fortuna]

But if these operating systems had decent metadata collecting filesystems you wouldn't need to worry about the uninstalling (or possibly even installing for that matter!). The filesystem would know who put what where and every single dependency.

Basically what I think I'm saying is that the "standard installer" should be at a much lower level than a bunch of dlls sitting on top of everything else.

Re:Focus on functionality.

[swv3752]

RPM also has Encryption signing though I think even the Windows Installer supports that if you pay MS for the priviledge.

Point is that RPM did it first and still does it better.

Bullshit.

[SalsaDoom]

This annoying nonsense pisses me off. I don't want a fuckin *MICROSOFT* XBox because...

1. MS stinks and I'm not some POS hypocrit that ditches his values for a few crappy games.

2. I already own a PC with a powerful graphics card that performs better then any lame console.

3. Gamepads make playing 3d games a chore, mouse+keyboard is the One True Way.

What is singularly unimportant is your damn opinion that all linux users should buy XBoxes! I mean, what kind of assholes do you think most slashdotters are? A whole lot of us complain about Microsoft, then you lamely suggest we should all go buy Microsoft XBoxes to play games instead of use our PC's which are better suited to our desires.

I guess what I really mean to say is: Kiss my ass. If we want games, then we'll just try and convince people to port them to linux and if they don't fuck'em.

Besides, since when was linux made for big business jackasses? I don't recall hearing anything about how Linus started working for The Man. What a lot of garbage.

--SD

Re:Bullshit.

[Mithrilhall]

Nicely put SalsaDoom.

Re:Bullshit.

[halivar]

What is singularly unimportant is your damn opinion that all linux users should buy XBoxes!

I didn't say all Linux users should get XBoxes. I said if games are so important you, then you should get one (or a PS2, or GameCube, or whatever). Professional Linux users (the vast majority of Linux users) don't give a damn about your video games.

Besides, since when was linux made for big business jackasses?

Since the big business jackasses started funding its development and paying to people that write the kernel.

Re:Bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell me what made the parent poster a troll?!

Re:Bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

the bridge, the thing with the billy goats, pretty much the whole package.

Re:If linux had..

[gowen]

The funny thing is, given that disk space is cheap and Linux doesn't page unused code sections in to memory, your 1.5MB hello world is only 1.5MB on disk. In memory, its no bigger than a dynamically linked one. The real loss comes from the fact that if you run 1000 of these programs, the footprint is 1000 the size of one, whereas 1000 dynamically linked executables are considerably smaller.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[pe1rxq]

You are right, but that doesn't make RH completly like UL.
I didn't put it in my post but the original idea behind UL was to make a strong RH competitor. In that perspective debian comes closer....

One of the bad things about companies choosing RH exclusivly is that they asume RH==Linux and anybody who dares to put its files a little different or use a different library version is in for a surprise.
(When are big software vendors going to learn not to link to a specific sub-sub-version of a library instead of just a major version?)

If there were two big guys (RH & UL or RH & debian) vendors would be forced to take possible differences in account. The result will be better and more flexible software.

Jeroen

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[Mithrilhall]

Actually I have written to developers asking why they don't produce games playable on Linux and I have NEVER received a response. I have purchased games that are SUPPOSED to run on Linux and with some screwing around they worked. I love your excuses for no Linux games..."write the developers"....Lol. Give me a break. Like they listen!

Re:If linux had..

[ATN]

Ubuntu Synaptic Package Manager. Pure Gold. It's your daddy.

"zero-click" installation

[mangu]

Windows XP isn't easy at all to install, but it comes preinstalled on most desktop computers. If you need to reinstall for any reason, modern Linux distributions are easier to install and configure than any system from Microsoft.

I recently did two installations from scratch, a Windows 98+Linux on my desktop, because I got a larger disk, and an XP+Linux installation on my laptop. In both cases the Linux installation was much quicker and smoother than the Microsoft installation.

Ironically, the biggest problem for Microsoft today is what was the biggest Linux problem a couple of years ago: device drivers. Any hardware that's more than three or four years old is very troublesome to install in XP. I couldn't get my Adaptec PCMCIA card to work in XP with my Genius scanner. Turning the scanner on and off gets me a BSOD in XP, or rather, the BSOD-equivalent reboot. I couldn't get the HP-6200 CD writer to work either, all I get is a pop-up telling me the driver isn't kosher and is being removed. I get a warning that the built-in touchpad doesn't have a registered driver. And that's when reinstalling from the same XP installation CD that came with the computer! Not to mention a digital camera for which I lost the installation CD since the last time I installed. And the JVC camcorder which has a driver that isn't OK either, for some reason, and reboots XP when the firewire cable is plugged in.

Contrasted to this, Linux installation is very easy. Apart from unsupported hardware, like my HP USB scanner, everything runs from the box, without any click being needed.

Counting all the time I have spent on the four installations, two for each computer, I must have spent at least ten times as much effort for the Microsoft installations than I did for Linux.

After going through all the hardware installation steps I mentioned above, often with intermediary reboots needed, I had to get the security running. I got a worm that rebooted XP after being connected to the internet for less than one minute. Had to boot Linux to download the patch for that one.

Then comes the functional patches. How to get several different games running in each 3d card. Patching, patching, and patching. Repatching, rebooting, and trying to download another version of the patch. Patch 4.003 breaks this game, try going back to patch 4.002, etc. 768Mb is too much memory for some games, must disable some of it in the BIOS, need DirectX 9 for this game, that other must have DirectX 8, etc, etc...

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I have written to developers asking why they don't produce games playable on Linux and I have NEVER received a response.

I'm not surprised. If the amount of mail like that is small enough to write back, then it's not going to be influential. On the other hand, if enough letters get sent, they won't be able to respond to them due to the sheer amount.

I love your excuses for no Linux games

Which excuses would these be? I made no excuses.

Like they listen!

Yeah, because game companies aren't interested in finding out when somebody is put off buying one of their games. It's not like they are trying to make money or anything.

This is why I dont use Linux

[Ized]

I think this is one of the big problems with Linux: The avalanche of distro options.

Sure, you can tell me that it's great to have different flavours for different uses, but it would most definetly be even better if ALL the efforts beign put into the various different distros we're beign poured into one.

Re:This is why I dont use Linux

[Limburgher]

Why allow that to be a problem? Choose a distro with a huge support structure, like Fedora or Debian, even Slackware, and stick with it. Also, it's not like the efforts of each distro occur in a vacuum. If a Debian maintainer finds and fixes a bug in package X, you can bet the maintainer of that package for Fedora will roll that into her own package. That's the beauty of OSS. As one distro finds a way to do something that works really well, sometimes other distros adopt it(apt) and sometimes others do the same thing differently(yum). As they compete, all improve, and everyone benefits. Sure beats having one vendor calling all the shots (MS). Ever see Windows Update break any speed records?

United Linux Concept Overrated

[Carcass666]

What exactly was United Linux supposed to do? Ensure that companies other than RedHat could make a profit/living selling GNU/Linux? Simulate momentum by adding up all of their cumulative minor market shares? Why would I care? United Linux was never nearly as compelling as LSB, which does address the issue of making sure apps built for a named platform can be installed and run on any distribution.

If all of the United Linux companies bit the dust, GNU/Linux would still carry on in the same fashion. On the server, GNU/Linux continues its inbounds. On the desktop, driver support by manufacturers is still spotty at best, and if you go to a lot of trouble you can get some Windoze games to run almost as well as they do in Windoze.

If anyone with money is interested getting Microsoft off desktops, they need to build an integrated platform based on GNU/Linux that consists of an "entertainment unit" (combo DVD/DVR/Game Unit) that communicates seamlessly with a desktop productivity PC's that can play the same games. Put out plenty of press-releases with ad-whores like CNET and set up plenty of demo units at consumer stores.

Finally, this will make the true-believers gag, implement some form of copy protection that content-creators can use so they will be willing produce games, add-on's and apps (of course, open source developers will be welcomed and encouraged to create Free apps/games for the new system)

You present Joe User with an end-to-end solution with a Myth-TV-like box, a stable PC not subject to the Microsoft Tax, package decent controllers/remotes, you might get Microsoft off of the desktop. About the only company I'm guessing that could pull this off who isn't already in bed with Microsoft is Sony.

Re:United Linux Concept Overrated

[hey!]

What exactly was United Linux supposed to do?

It was supposed to, in effect, shout, "Hey! look at me! Stop talking about Red Hat for a minute and look at ME!"

I've been working in this industry since '82, and have seen countless "alliances" of this sort. 99.9% of the time they are pure exercises in publicity generation and .01% of the time publicity generation is a big part of the reason to do them. Expecting them to actually actually deliver something useful is like lighting the stick on a lolipop and expecting it to explode like a firecracker.

Re:If linux had..

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude you scare me.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[boky]

You should have said "get a PS2 || Gamecube."

Promoting Xbox over these two on slashdot is same as promoting Win over Linux :-)

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[AbbyNormal]

True, but the linux population is too few/small. If we all stopped buying games, would there be much of a dent to begin with?

The problem is educating the general public, in business (Open Office/Firefox) and friends/family. Then move them over the Linux with the same general tools and they'll say: "Hey this isn't too different". Linux needs to grow up now. We can't just say, "because its in Windows, why do we have to do the same". Windows is the dominant OS out there. There is nothing you can do overnight to change it. Start with features that make a Win users comfortable, then gradually migrate them over. I've had tons of friends/family members that have tried Linux and just have not felt comfortable adding software/configuring hardware/ or other (SUSE/Ubuntu). I view it as learning to swim...need to take it slowly and surely, but eventually.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[freshman_a]

I see where you're coming from, but 2 companies that came to mind when reading your post were Epic and id. UT and Quake are available for Linux. Yeah, I know that's only 2 companies and about as many games, but I'd be curious to see the sales stats. Obviously, I'm sure the Windows versions outsold the Linux versions, but I'm curious to know how much money the Linux versions made them. I wonder if there is that big a demand for them, or if they take in so much money from the Windows versions that they can afford to spend extra time on Linux versions.

Re:If linux had..

[AndroidCat]

It could be worse. I did a trivial app using one company's object library on top on .NET. The trival app produced a 1.6MB exe and dynamically linked to the moby .NET runtime.

I miss the days when linkers could drop unused object files or even by function. Perhaps OOP languages make it harder to do that, but it would be nice if more work was done on that rather than assuming that all computers will be larger/faster in a few months.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[EvilNTUser]

"The main reason why I don't use Linux on my desktop is GAMES."

I had the same dilemma. I chose Linux.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[nvrrobx]

Wow, that was eliteist.

Anyhow. I'm one of the "professionals" you mentioned and I spent my day surrounded by other "professionals", and guess what? We all play games.

because of SCO

[jonathanduty]

I thought United Linux was a cool idea until SCO (which was one of the 3) started their ordeal. Then I wanted to say as far away from them as possible, that included staying away from United Linux.

not important?

[frankvl]

if it would have been suitable for the mainstream game industry, the amount of linux users just might pop up a few hundred %

Which is also quite interesting for non-gaming linux hotshots

Reminds me of...

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminded me of this:

#106579 +(506)- [X]

Topic in #os: hey guyz, stop pickin on irix.
(SCO) w00t! i bought unix! im gonna b so rich!
(novell) /msg atnt haha. idiot.
(novell) whoops. was that out loud?
(atnt) rotfl
(ibm) lol
(SCO) why r u laffin at me?
(novell) dude, unix is so 10 years ago. linux is in now.
(SCO) wtf?
(SCO) hey guyz, i bought caldera, I have linux now.
(red_hat) haha, your linux sucks.
(novell) lol
(atnt) lol
(ibm) lol
(SCO) no wayz, i will sell more linux than u!
(ibm) your linux sucks, you should look at SuSE
(SuSE) Ja. Wir bilden gutes Linux für IBM.
(SCO) can we do linux with you?
(SuSE) Ich bin nicht sicher...
(ibm) *cough*
(SuSE) Gut lassen Sie uns vereinigen.
* SuSE is now SuSE[UL]
* SCO is now caldera[UL]
(turbolinux) can we play?
(conectiva) we're bored... we'll go too.
(ibm) sure!
* turbolinux is now turbolinux[UL]
* conectiva is now conectiva[UL]
(ibm) redhat: you should join!
(SuSE[UL]) Ja! Wir sind vereinigtes Linux. Widerstand ist vergeblich.
(red_hat) haha. no.
(red_hat) lamers.
(ibm) what about you debian?
(debian) we'll discuss it and let you know in 5 years.
(caldera[UL]) no one wants my linux!
(turbolinux[UL]) i got owned.
(caldera[UL]) u all tricked me. linux is lame.
* caldera[UL] is now known as SCO
(SCO) i'm going back to unix.
(SGI) yeah! want to do unix with me?
(SCO) haha. no. lamer.
(novell) lol
(ibm) snap!
(SGI) :~(
(SCO) hey, u shut up. im gonna sue u ibm.
(ibm) wtf?
(SCO) yea, you stole all the good stuff from unix.
(red_hat) lol
(SuSE[UL]) heraus laut lachen
(ibm) lol
(SCO) shutup. i'm gonna email all your friends and tell them you suck.
(ibm) go ahead. baby.
(SCO) andandand... i revoke your unix! how do you like that?
(ibm) oh no, you didn't. AIX is forever.
(novell) actually, we still own unix, you can't do that.
(SCO) wtf? we bought it from u.
(novell) whoops. our bad.
(SCO) i own u. haha
(SCO) ibm: give me all your AIX now!
(ibm) whatever. lamer.
* ibm sets mode +b SCO!*@*
* SCO has been kicked from #os (own this.)

Too many cooks

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always thought the "problem" with Linux is that it is a democracy.

While on one hand this allows anyone to make any bit of code and bolt it on to Linux, it has the very serious adverse affect of generating "non-standards".

I think the BSD projects are much better in this respect (Theo of OpenBSD has actually stated "it is not a democracy"). While the odd use might complain of lack of choice etc (not me, I might add), I think most users really appreciate the fact that you can pick up a bit of code and if it is documented as working on *BSD then you can be pretty sure that it will.

I accept, of course, that there are differences between the BSDs out there so it's not all rosy.

When it comes to Linux though, I think the problem has got completely out of hand. You have the KDE vs Gnome ware. Ok, this is not specific to Linux, but I think its affect it much more strongly felt in the Linux community. Most end users (and I'm talking about Jo / Jane Bloggs here, not us geeks that read Slashdot :-) ) couldn't give a **** what desktop they use as long as it works. ...and what happens if a distribution decides to just supply KDE or Gnome (but not both) ? We have a flame war !!! There is so much in-fighting in Linux that I fear that it may never be accepted as a real alternative.

Personally, I think the world should move to one of the BSDs (OpenBSD is my choice) - they simply do not suffer this in-fighting to anywhere near the same extent as Linux does. But that's another issue altogether.

In the meantime, I think the Linux needs someone (elected by all the distributions) who can steer this whole mess into some cohesive system so that when we say "Linux" we actually know what we are talking about and we don't have to worry about exactly WHICH Linux we are talking about. Until this happens (and I don't think it actually will !), Linux will always have an acceptance problem.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[glamslam]

A standard way of:

1) Installing any App
2) Installing any Driver

Those are the only things that matter. The rest is preference.

With these two things, Linux use will skyrocket.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[Anonymous Coward]

That's quite a funny statment just after the release of the doom3 linux binaries. Thanks to companies like ID Softwar linux gaming *will* grow.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[halivar]

I'm one of the "professionals" you mentioned and I spent my day surrounded by other "professionals", and guess what? We all play games.

I play video games, too. I love video games. I have a PS2, and therefore have no further need for Windows on my desktop.

I eat my own dogfood, see? ;)

Noooo

[RAMMS EIN]

Sorry, but you are _so_ wrong. Packages are far superior to plain application folders, and especially installers (commonly used on Windows). I don't have time or desire to explain it now, but dependencies are an important part of it.

And what's that about packages being too complicated? Select the packages you want, click install, and you get them with all dependencies and everything tuned for your distro. Difficult? Maybe computers are not for you, then.

You can even search package names and descriptions, or get the source of the package and make a custom version of it.

Seriously, if you think packages make your life difficult, work with a distro like Debian or Ubuntu for a while.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[nvrrobx]

The other catch to that is I take my laptop with me almost everywhere. It would be nice to be able to take The Sims or Warcraft with me, but they don't play well under Linux.... I can't haul my GameCube with me too :)

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[FooBarWidget]

Then what business do you have to install games on your computer at work? Tell your boss that you want to install a game on his computer and see what his reaction is. Face it: the road to profit and success is road of the corporate world, not the gaming world. It's people like your boss who make big decisions, not Joe Gamer who likes to shoot people in FPS games.

Turbo not too interested

[phoebe]

I like that after installing turbolinux enterprise server 8, based on United Linux 1.0, you get a message "Welcome to SuSe Linux". Seems a bit of a PR exercise rather than producing something anyone cares about.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[grumbel]

While in the business world playing games of course don't play a major role, its one of the major issue that keeps people from using Linux on the home desktop. It doesn't matter how good Linux gets in all other aspects, as long as there isn't a wide varity of games out there it won't make any difference on the home desktop. Guess why we have multi GHz CPUs today, its not because Excel needs all that power, its all just for the games.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[geoffspear]

No, it wouldn't create much of a dent. But the size of the market is another thing working against you.

There aren't nearly as many games for the Mac as there are for Windows, but it really makes more sense for a game manufacturer to port their game to the Mac than to Linux. The x86 Linux users already own a machine that can play a Windows game, it just involves running Windows (which probably came with the hardware in the first place) or getting it to run under wine. A person with just a Powermac probably can't get the Windows version of the game to run at all on his machine (even with Virtual PC, which might be nice for compatibility for non-gaming applications, but which isn't really good enough for the kinds of games that cause windows users to upgrade their hardware for the newest game that came out).

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[SunPin]

The main reason why I don't use Linux on my desktop is GAMES.

That's nice but the real reason Linux is not on the desktop is because of DRIVERS. Primarily, printer drivers and wireless network card drivers.

okay then; linux/posix won a long time ago...

[x40sw0n]

as far as server technology goes we all know that most of the backend of the internet is served to us on some POSIX (linux, unix, sun etc...) unit or cluster. So we know that the community has won that war. The things that Linux needs to do to win the DESKTOP war is this: 1. easy install features (automated installers) RPM's are close, but dependencies can be a nightmare. 2. games. you are all going to bitch about this one I know, but the reality is that the game industry has now SURPASSED the movie industry in profitability... now tell me games are not important to desktop applications. Look at how much business TransGaming does just simply by retuning Wine to run games...

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[nvrrobx]

Funny, because the management at my company plays the games with us. It's called a team building exercise, and a great morale booster. I'm in the software development business, BTW.

Re:If linux had..

[Anonymous Coward]

somehow i dont think this this compiles on PPC. or on SPARC. or most most non-x86 linux archs ....

Re:If linux had..

[menkhaura]

I forgot that not all the world is a x86...

BTW, it won't run even on FreeBSD/x86 if you disable the Linux binary layer.

SCOG destroyed UL

[Anonymous Coward]

SCOG started their anti-linux jihad. UL asked them to leave the group. SCOG refused. UL contains the most verbal anti-linux company in the world.

UL had to die.

It's all Darl's fault.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[halivar]

That's true. Although I think things will change once the PSP re-opens the hand-held gaming market.

Not the same.

[khasim]

Look at the functionality of deborphan and debfoster. They can tell you what packages are not required by other packages so you can clean out any junk you don't need.

They can also tell you what packages are dependant upon others so you can remove all of them at once.

With Windows, I cannot identify every installed file and where it came from. With Linux systems, I can.

I can also verify the the files against the package that installed them.

The $11B company -- my ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

From Sun's rant: We're an $11B company trying to become a $50B company.

Correction, your an $11B company trying not to become a $1 company. Sun, you're so full of shit that it's no wonder you're dying.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[sloanster]

The main reason why I don't use Linux on my desktop is GAMES.

I have been using Linux on the desktop for years. I play games, way too much in fact. I like 3D FPS, so I play things like ut2004, doom3, and that old standby quake 3 arena, which still has a lot of people playing it out there.

On the mellow side there are things like frozen bubble as well as pysol and other variations on the card-game-with-soundtrack theme.

Sure, there aren't as many titles currently available as there for the ms windows platform, but if that's the worst of my problems, then life is good. I certainly see no reason to switch to ms windows just to make it easier to play a few games that aren't native linux. If the game doesn't have a linux port, too bad - it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned, and meanwhile life goes on.

And nevermind the guy...

[Kjella]

....that actually can't anything. I have this guy at the office, who claims to be an "IT Guy". And he "should have been working with us".

This is the kind of guy that asks you to redesign his webpage in a partial sentence (copy it over, oh and while you're at it could you make it so that I can use that web interface to make updates". That the interface uses a database and that the code needs to call and parse it seems beyond him.

He used Word to edit his webpage (well, I suppose he didn't make it and of course completely FUBAR'd it. No back-up, except for a CD we had, and that's just pure luck.

He could not manage to log in an ftp server. He got the username/password, server name (default port) and still couldn't bang two rocks together.

Guys like him is the reason we're in business. A completely clueless user is a risk, but people who believe to have vast skills but in reality don't are the InfoSec equivalent of time bombs. Nuclear time bombs.

WinModems, WinPrinters, WinScanners.

[khasim]

First off, complaining that WinModems don't respond because the hardware manufacturers don't supply specs or drivers for them is not a problem with Linux.

Secondly, "proprietary binary-only software" should have an easier time on Linux because the entire developmental process is open.

If you were working on an app for Windows, then you'd have to wait for the actual release.

With Linux, you can see the changes being tested and take advantage of that knowledge. You should be able to have your app ready the day Linus announces the new kernel.

Percieved market vs. real market

[Kjella]

People that are willing to jump through hoops to do *anything* are a minority in *any* case. If you have a target market (Windows users) where an adjacent market (Linux users) are willing to use it despite being difficult to use for them, that normally means there'd be a much larger market for a product actually directed at them.

Let me take a trivial example. If women were buying men's razors, built for male facial hair (primarily, let's not get into that) and design appealing to men, would there be or not be a market for a razor directed at women?

Normally. Note that the above is right out of Marketing school, completely generic. The key point countering that is not that people use it on Linux - it is the fact that most Linux users also have a Windows machine. I.e. they already have a platform where it is easy to use. There goes the whole "bigger market" and you're left with those that exclusively use Linux and don't jump through hoops. That a pretty damn small niche to go for.

Re:Percieved market vs. real market

[brianlawson]

Don't get me wrong...I'm not arguing scale of markets. I agree...you go where the money is and the bigger market for game developers is Windows-using customers. All I'm trying to say is that there is a market and, although small, could still be profitable. By the way, you sort of lost me in your marketing example, but for some reason I have a strange desire to use deodorant that is strong enough for a man, but PH balanced for a woman. :)

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[HiThere]

I don't think you mean what you appear to be saying.

Synaptic is certainly easy enough. And it exists on Fedora systems as well as on Debian (and actually a close relative exists on the Mac, but only for the Fink).

So it would count as a standard way of installing any software, and if the packages are built properly, it figures out it's own dependencies.

But you also said driver. I can't think of the last time I intentionally installed a driver, and I install from OS's from CD frequently (trying out new distributions is a bit of a hobby). I install software. If it's not in the installer, then I could uniformly use synaptic. (Frequently I use apt-get or rpm or yum ...but if I don't know the system yet, I'll usually pick synaptic.) (P.S.: I know you aren't supposed to mix-and-match software install utilities. They keep the records of installed & installable software separately, so it uses excessive disk space. So if that's your constraint, pick something and stick with it. I don't, though, and it's never [possibly rarely] caused me any problem.)

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[HiThere]

Not hardly. But it *is* promoting MS. None of the gaming consoles are open, however, so there's nothing equivalent to Linux in that area.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[HiThere]

Also incorrect.

The reason that there are few games on Linux is that there are few games on Linux. If there were more, then gamers would install Linux, which would mean a larger market, which would mean more games written for Linux, etc.

MSWind had a headstart with more games written for it. So the gamers stayed on MSWind. So the new games are written for MSWind.

Apple, early on, decided to cast off the Apple ][ image for the Mac, and eschew gaming. This basically GAVE the market to MS. And Apple never recovered.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[glamslam]

Well, the driver issue is a problem: Get a TV-tuner card, a wireless adapter, an nvidia graphics card with tv-out, and a motherboard with integrated audio/network --- and show me a standard way to get all of these parts functioning perfectly on any of the major Linux distros. Good luck getting it all to work on any distro. Even if you do get it working, could your Grandma do it? Did you have to touch a config file?

Re:If linux had..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no:

BITS 32

org 0x68504000
db 0x7F, "ELF"
dd 1
dd 0
db 0
inc eax
push eax
push dword 0x00030002
xor eax, eax
lea edx, [byte eax + 13]
inc eax
push eax
push dword 4
mov ecx, msgtext
xchg eax, ebx
done:
pop eax
int 0x80
dec ebx
jmp short done
dw 1
msgtext:
db 'hello, world', 10

Courtesy of Brian Raiter. Runs on 2.4 Linux kernels, at least, and is 59 bytes. Not a very standards compliant ELF program however.. =)

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a TV-tuner card, a wireless adapter, an nvidia graphics card with tv-out, and a motherboard with integrated audio/network --- and show me a standard way to get all of these parts functioning perfectly on any of the major Linux distros. Good luck getting it all to work on any distro. Even if you do get it working, could your Grandma do it?

Your grandmother aquiring a PC with a TV-tuner card and wireless networking? Is this supposed to be a common scenario? If she knew she wanted those features, chances are that she is rather curious and somewhat savvy.

But she would probably be more than a little put off by the challenge. I would, and I like Linux.

Redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

How redundant and old is this comment? "Everything is more difficult than in windows". Maybe its because you know windows or just a slow learner. I have taught newbies from the ground up on mdk or xandros. Even my fiance uses debian and she's a non-tech. How hard is it to point in click in a gui? The usability and learning curve points against linux died for most users back in 2003.
As for unity of distros, isn't that why we have different distros? They do different things and have different purposes.

Re:The reason why linux isn't strong on the deskto

[grumbel]

### The reason that there are few games on Linux is that there are few games on Linux.

While this is in part true, Linux has far to many other glitches that make it not so much attractive for gamers. Binary incompatible which breaks games after a few years or even months is such an issue, getting some older Loki titles to work which are just a few years old is not much fun. Graphiccard driver support is also not at best, while NVidia drivers are great, ATI drivers are still more a game of luck. Configuring X11 is also still a major pain and always was, if some graphic mode has the wrong modeline you are welcome to manually 'vi XF86Config' and games are kind of used to switch video modes a lot, so most people will sooner or later run into such a problem. XFree86 also still has a bunch of issues which make it not so attractive, such as the lack of a real fullscreen mode (ie. switch color-depth at runtime) which can cause quite a bit of slowdown for some games.

Linux might be 90% down the way to be a good gaming platform, however the last 10% are really the hard part and as long as the distros don't work more together and stuff like LSB isn't more solid I don't think Linux gaming will ever become more then the pet project of some Linux freaks.

Standards can be good...

[Trejkaz]

Standards can be good, and standards can be bad.

For example, if you standardise the filesystem hierarchy among distributions, then it encourages people writing software to hardcode the location of certain things.

Hardcoding is bad.

Hardcoding causes otherwise groundbreaking distributions like GoboLinux to need to support stupid notions like configuration files "always" being in /etc, which in turn means they end up filling a directory full of symlinks to the real location of the files. :-)

Maybe what's really needed is for all the upstreams to be kicked in the shins if they don't already support a flexible configure mechanism. Pretty much all autoconf-based stuff already does, it's everything else which tends to be slack. :-)