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Desktop Linux Summit Highlights
mo writes "The Desktop Linux Summit has just concluded in San Diego. There were a number of exhibitors, including Novell, AMD, and Mozilla. I've put together a summary of some of the more interesting announcements and booths at the conference. Highlights include a Linux-only 3D game, DRM-free music services, and a new Asterisk GUI."
Beyond doubt, we need better and more 3D games to attract a normal Joe towards using GNU/Linux. Even I reboot to winblows for the games. First step would be to port the existing games to Linux, but this cannot be done by the community. We need help from the gaming companies and I am are more than willing to pay for some nice games like Counter Stike, Half Life and NFS Underground.
The big firms will embrace Linux on the desktop when they can see network deployability and end-user configuration lockdown in an easy-to-buy solution. It's a pretty major acceptance criterion. Anybody focusing on that?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
The only person I see talking down is you. You seem to think that ALL linux users fit your STEROTYPE of what a linux user is.
FWIW. I use linux on the desktop and I PREFER the distributions that are the easiest to use, e.g. fedora/ubuntu. That said, I still prefer to use command line toos for many activities because it is simply a more efficient way to accomplish some tasks.
While you are busy trying to defend your predjudice, linux developers have been working to make linux easier and easier for the end user to install and maintain. No, it's not perfect, but it's a far cry from what it was five years ago.
Most people I encounter who use linux fall in between the extremes that you mention. They aren't super geeks who eschew the gui for a command line because it's l33t but they typically aren't afraid of typing a command or two if it is a more efficient way of doing something.
Has it occured to you that what you percieve as archaic and complex is, in fact, neither?
(typed on federa core 3...installed from GUI)
I see lots of posts saying "games" are the magic ticket to Linux getting popular. Stop dreaming... it's not gonna happen for a long time. Linux on the desktop is not even remotely near even 10% market share... no sane company is going to put lots of resources into developing games for Linux. Yes there were some flukes where a couple popular games got made but they were hardly profitable. Most of what Linux has for games are done by hobbyist... which is fine for the nostalgic type who like 80's style gaming but will never fail to succeed an impressing most of the gaming public. END OF RANT.
On to what I originally wanted to say... Linux on the desktop could sure use alot of polish in the following ways. Consider:
1) A common control panel. There are a ton of different config tools which vary by distribution. Even on a single distro you can't configure everything from one place- it's often a mix of various config tools and hand editing of config files.
2) Tell the freakin developers to make GOOD intallation binaries and keep them UP TO DATE. Have a common to all distro's install tool that is very easy to use (perhaps a RPM front end). I am a programmer and yes I do know how to compile stuff but when I'm not programming... I'm also a user and feel I should not have to compile anything myself.
3) KDE vs Gnome wars: put an end to it. I know everyone will disagree with me saying 'choice is good'. I agree... but there needs to be a standard. Without a standard alot of manpowers being distributed where it could much be better focused. Perhaps this is the downfall of Linux in general... everyones got freedom so all they choose to work on something different.
I could go on but I'll leave it at that for now.
Blender And Linux Fan
If you call mplayer (a media player with the most comprehensive format support you'll find anywhere) half-baked then you are sadly deluded.
Admittedly gmplayer isn't the most brilliant interface, but as a gecko plugin it works flawlessly and not only runs happily in-browser but also offers fullscreen playback for stuff you view in-browser. That is a damn useful feature that (IIRC) you won't find in realplayer or MS media player browser plugins.
With regards to your sarcastic take on KDE and Gnome, they are totally different DEs with different approaches, architecture, and language choice. Do you honestly think we'd make faster progress if we pigeon-holed people into one or the other? Half of the development impetus comes from the passion of the developers. Remove the choice for them to work on what they feel is [potentially] the best platform and you remove much of the emotion involved and hence the desire and motivation.
This is not the corporate world when focusing on one thing is best because that's how you make money. The freedom and choice that you deride is not only what makes Free Software so attractive but what provides the reason that most people develop for it; I don't think many people would volunteer their services to Microsoft.
There is more than logistics at work here. You, and others who scorn at Free Software diversity, would do well to appreciate that.
Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary
I hate to break it to you, but games don't succeed because of 3rd party library use. In the case of a driving simulator, success is two-fold:
Relatively speaking, developing the engine is easy. As you said yourself, the use of third-party libraries lets you concentrate on the important parts. What you really should be looking for are artists that are willing to work pro-bono (good luck finding anyone good!), or finding a way to pay an artist to work for you. From your screenshots, it's obvious that you need major help with models and textures. While you might think it simple to model a car (lots of reference material), you'd be surprised at how difficult it can be. And if you miss a detail here or there, expect to have raving fanboys breathing down your neck about why you put the trim piece from a 2003 Caragon on a 1999 version, or why you have a BBS wheel that's only made in 18" sizes on a car that can only handle 15" wheels.
All of that said, good luck to you. You're entering a market with very stiff competition, and if you can pull it off then more power to you.
You shouldn't. What you have does everything you need, and if you don't experience the common problems associated with windows, you may never need to. It amazes me that some people assume you *must* be having problems because you're using windows.
The zealots won't get this, because they're too blinded by the foam coming out of their mouths. Realisticly though, that's their problem, not yours.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Yeah, because we would like to install yet another ad-ware, spy-ware, bloat-ware infested piece of garbage.
I removed realplayer several years ago, and it will never, and i mean *never* go back in. I make it a point to remove it on any system I come in to contact with too.
I'm probably coming across as rather trollish, but I've had so many bad experiences with realplayer that I'm quite jaded towards it.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Admittedly gmplayer isn't the most brilliant interface
Understatement of the year!
When you consider that the interface is the part people see and use, you realize that it's kind of silly to make claims about the quality of a program, and then qualify it by excluding the interface.
Look at Mac application reviews. Note you never see a comment like "decent program, but the UI needs work". To Mac users, the UI *is* the program. I think Linux apps are going to be kind of lousy until people realize this, and stop talking of "interfaces" separate from "programs".
I'd rather have a program like Totem (which I can figure out) that only plays 80% of the videos I try, than mplayer -- which may play 100% of the videos I've ever wanted to watch, but which is a pain in the ass to get working.
If they were going for "most comprehensive format support", then yay, they succeeded. They don't seem to have been going for "good app", sadly. So it's more of an intellectual curiosity for the hacker in me, than a useful tool.
In Windows you are subjected to the whims of whatever company or individual that handles to put a piece of software in your computer, from known manufacturers to spammers, crackers and fraudsters.
With windows you are waiting that uncles Bill snaps his fingers to be out of support, need to upgrade or having to agree to draconian EULAs when installing things like media viewers.
With Linux you are free of those inconveniences and you know that the software you use has a better chance to be improved in the benefit of the users that use it, not in the benefit of the company that produces it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
At least I think it is. After all XP really is a pretty good desktop all other things aside. The problems are a) cost b) security c) adminsistrative overhead. Linux addresses two out of three. Administrative overhead is still pretty high, at least if you're the guy doing it because no one else will be able to. In either case Linux also suffers from a few distinct disadvantages: a) installation complexity b) inability to run Windows apps without introducing another layer of complexity in Wine, etc. c) It really doesn't run well in a desktop environment in hardware that is significantly cheaper or underpowered compared to Windows. XP requires quite a bit of juice to run well whereas W2K runs rather nice on my P2-400 with 288MB RAM. Similarly ANY good Linux desktop really does need 256MB RAM and at least that much processor. Installation disk requirements for Linux are somewhat higher but disk is practically free.
So instead of playing to Windows strengths why not play to Linux strengths? Make a desktop that can run Windows apps when it needs to but runs the machine in a highly configured, locked down, no spyware, no virus no end user ability to change anything configuration? And run it on cheap hardware? In fact a Linux terminal server starts to look like a nice alternative for a home LAN.
Other than that I'd ask for better support and much much cleaner functional installs of devices that are no longer exotic, like Wireless NICs, scanners, multifunction printer/scanner/fax machines, drawing tablets and USB devices of all kinds. Instead of building the 19th most popular UI for Linux why dont' we build better integrated support for LAN bootable 802.11G NICs?
I don't know about everyone else, but personally I found that the last screenshot gave me shivers.
Username: root
Hostname: linspire
I don't really think that touting "looks and works like windows" is a good thing, because eventually that just dumbs down to "gets 0WN3D like Windows" as well.
I run as a local user, which works just fine for me (and guess what, my touchpad scroll also works on X.org). For things that need root access (such as installing new software through apt), specific apps are allowed via sudo.