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."

Comments

great timing

[ginotech]

considering i just started using Linux more than i use windows, and I'm a gamer, i'm particularly happy right now ^_^

Re:great timing

[As Seen On TV]

GURPS (I had to google it) seems to be a poor substitute for the long-lost art of telling stories around a campfire.

Re:great timing

[Eideewt]

And that's just a poor substitute for piloting actual battlemechs.

Re:great timing

[Pxtl]

Where are you getting that? GURPS? How 'bout no. Mechwarrior is based off of FASA's classic "Battletech" boardgame. The RPG version that was released later (which did have a GURPS version) was called MechWarrior. The two games were meant to be played in tandem - using Battletech material for vehicular combat. The Mechwarrior games have always actually been far more tied to Battletech (the vehicle technology game) than any of the Mechwarrior (man-level RPG game) material.

Re:great timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading this post actually restored my virginity. Damn you straight to hell.

Re:great timing

[nikster]

the Generic Universal Role Playing System is a great pen & paper role playing game. which, in turn, is more like a single collaborative story told by all who sit around the campfire.

Re:great timing

[ginotech]

okay, windows boy.

Games. We need more Games

[KrisCowboy]

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.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[As Seen On TV]

Normal Joes do not play computer games. They use computers to do things like work and communicate with friends and family. When the time comes to have fun, normal Joes turn off their computers and play tennis or go camping or walk the dog.

If you want to attract people who play computer games to use your operating system, that's great. But do not assume that these people are normal Joes. Do not assume that they make up anything other than the tiniest niche market.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[KrisCowboy]

OK. May be I was taking into considerating only the India market. And now I rephrase, "we need more 3D games to attract a Winblows user". But did you get my point? Linux does lack some serious games.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Solarian]

I was at the summit, and spent a bit of time talking to the Garage Games guys. It turns out that the normal joe is the fastest growing market segment in gaming right now. Now stay at home moms are downloading simple "casual games" from places like gamehouse.com, and playing them. Guys are coming home from their accounting jobs and having a quick puzzle game to decompress. So, evidence is contradicting your assumption that only an elite few basement rats play games.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[neuro88]

Uh, Linux already has NFS..

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Trouble is, while those who know and love Linux would kill for games like Counter-Strike, a lot of people used to the latest and greatest (?) would look at games like that as passé. I had a discussion with someone over this a little while ago, who was fairly obsessed with WinXP and all its amazing features, and I told him Linux was every bit as polished and easy to use, and on top of that more secure, etc. etc. He didn't care, because you can't play HL2 on Linux.

Not one to give up easily :) I showed him a handful of Linux games, and ports of other popular Windows games (e.g. Unreal Tournament, Descent III, etc.) -- but he's played them all to death.

Linux needs some new games that can compete directly with the current offerings on the Windows market, or the people we're trying to attract won't care because it's old news to them. Also, they need to be marketed well (good luck!) or else they won't recognize them, and the unfortunate fact of the matter is that people far too often equate unknown names that haven't been played up and down with flashy marketing with crap quality.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[OneArmedMan]

From some sources the PC gaming industry is rated at being over $35 Billion in value, i'd say thats a fairly large *niche* to be aiming for.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Savage-Rabbit]

If you want to attract people who play computer games to use your operating system, that's great. But do not assume that these people are normal Joes. Do not assume that they make up anything other than the tiniest niche market.


True, games are a niche market, although an important one. The best ways for the likes of Suse, RedHat, Mandrake &Co. to get regular users to use Linux is firstly by developing it's desktop capability to the point that one can convince corporations to use it on workstations. That basically means (this will horrify pruists) idiot proof Linux distros that offer all the same software and functionality as the normal Windows workstation plus the same kind of easy intuitive integration into Windows networks as you have got with OS.X. Secondly it would be important to ensure it has a sigificant representation in the student workstation pools of educational institutions from primary school upward. Which is why Microsoft donates computers and software to schools all over the place, they get to look like philanthropists while securing their market share. The 'normal user' will use at home what he/she learned to use at school or uses regularly at work.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Normal Joes do not play computer games. They use computers to do things like work and communicate with friends and family.

I'm sure this will be marked at flamebate.

Normal joes want to jack off to downloadable free porn with a facial at the end. If I hear "I want you to cum on my face" one more time I sware i'm going to explode!^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h be most annoyed.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[i_should_be_working]

Of course normal joes play games. Who do you think buys all those Xbox's and Playstations?
Some of those normal joes need to use computers. I'm sure it would be appreciated by them if they could use the same hardware to play games and work. Though they'd probably still by the console players.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[johnlittledotorg]

AC's comments are pretty accurate. However, the Linux gaming market has improved significantly in the past couple of years with offerings from companies like TransGaming and more native Linux titles popping up. Granted it isn't perfect but A LOT more gamers could make the switch than people realize.

I haven't tried services like TransGaming's Cedega but I am finding that games like Enemy Territory and UT2004 are running significantly better on my formerly Win2k hardware. Is it Linux or the Nvidia Linux drivers or both? I dunno but it's just another reason that I'm glad I switched back to Linux.

I'm posting a few details on my experiences with games and the switch in general at http://www.johnlittle.org/ in an effort to sway friends and family and lure them into the open source light.

And that concludes my first /. post after too many years of lurking.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[tooth]

well, for me it's an ms-exchange client that works properly.. i've got evolution, but it takes about 30 seconds to crash :( I've got about 30 folders setup (I get *lots* of email) and it has a lot of issues viewing them... only the most simple with only 5-10 emails work.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Trogre]

Maybe that was true in 1989, but PC gaming is now a multi-million (if not billion) dollar industry.

The fact is that most PC owners do play computer games (not all 3D, but games nonetheless), and if they don't, their kids do.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[lsmeg]

No offense, but maybe more people would be interested in giving Linux a shot if so many people in the community didn't use words like "winblows". Just a suggestion...

Re:Games. We need more Games

[bersl2]

The key to having portable games is OpenGL.

Since you can't use the "Well, Direct3D is better than OpenGL" argument, they've started using the "Oh, well Direct3D is more high-level than OpenGL."

Get them to write in a cross-platform API, and porting games becomes economically advantageous.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[randallpowell]

I think that is a Debian based distro made for games, had the most video drivers for the cards, and had core of OS setup for games email Web etc, then companies would port games to Linux once that distro gained popularity. An open source FPS using Tux, BSD Daemon, and random animals would get people's attention. Who wouldn't love to have Tux gun down a puppy?

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Nailer]

I am are more than willing to pay for... Counter Stike, Half Life and NFS Underground.

Bah, Linux has had NFS for ages. The latest Fedora even comes with version 4!

Re:Games. We need more Games

[strider44]

Lets be realistic here. The normal "joe" might not be a computer gamer, but most likely the normal "joe"'s son will be.

They have to accomodate for the whole family.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[MatthewNewberg]

Porting is still almost just as complicated when you are taking a OpenGL or a D3D game. The majority of code with OpenGL is in relation to interfacing the window (if you want to do it correctly, and if you have coded in Win32 you would understand). You might say you could use glut, but if you want to do something other then a small program, I wouldn't suggest it. This isn't even mentioning Input (Game controls are important) and sound. Both of which Direct X accels at compared to other APIs. Even small stuff like FileIO needs to be changed. It is not so simple after all.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[MrResistor]

That basically means ... idiot proof Linux distros that offer all the same software and functionality as the normal Windows workstation plus the same kind of easy intuitive integration into Windows networks as you have got with OS.X.

Have you actually tried Suse? I can't speak for the other majors, but Suse already offers everything you describe.

Secondly it would be important to ensure it has a sigificant representation in the student workstation pools of educational institutions from primary school upward.

Yeah, because that worked so well for Apple!

Seriously, this is really a non-starter. Good PR, but that's about it. Apple already learned this the hard way.

Kids don't make $1000 buying decisions, adults do, and they tend to get what they use at work. That's why when I was a kid every school had Apples, and every business and home (except teachers) had PCs.

Which is why Microsoft donates computers and software to schools all over the place, they get to look like philanthropists while securing their market share.

I challenge you to walk down the street and find 10 people, at random, that think "philanthropist" is a word that could be used to describe Microsoft. Seriously, MS has a huge image problem, and has for years. They need to be doing that stuff.

Linux has an image problem, too, but it's not the sort of problem that can be effectively addressed through philanthropy. I mean, if that was the case, we'd already be there, right? Which brings up the potential PR issues with "donating" something that's already free...

I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing these things, I'm just saying they aren't the big deals people like to make them out to be. The bottom line is: get it on the business desktop, and the rest will follow. IBM and Microsoft proved this already.

Yes, even games.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[KrisCowboy]

Thunderbird :-)

Re:Games. We need more Games

[stoborrobots]

possibly, but you miss the part about attracting 3d-gamers to Linux... Puzzle games and "casual games" on linux already exist...

Re:Games. We need more Games

[airjrdn]

What's the background wallpaper here:
http://www.johnlittle.org/2005/02/life-with-linux. html

Re:Games. We need more Games

[johnlittledotorg]

I picked it up at Deviant Art. I tried to find a direct link for you but there is just too much to wade through. I'm pretty sure I found it in the minimalistic section. Florian Frendt also makes some amazing wallpaper.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Bob Uhl]

I don't doubt that you're correct, but ISTR that games grossed more revenue than movies last year--they're obviously a major market.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[airjrdn]

Thanks. I'll see if I can find it.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[secolactico]

Thunderbird :-)

Does it connect to Exchange?

Re:Games. We need more Games

[johnlittledotorg]

I emailed the file to you since it may be tough to find at Deviant. They have a ton of wallpaper to sort through.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[iamwahoo2]

I do not know a single PC owner that does not own at least a single game for that PC. Go into a local electronics store. Compare the number of game titles versus other softwares. How can you see this and not know that games are the single biggest software market right now. The fact that most of the games market goes to windows is a huge reason that people use it instead of Mac or Linux.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[swillden]

Does it connect to Exchange?

Does Exchange support IMAP4 or POP3?

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

BEST ANSWER EVER!

Re:Games. We need more Games

[prockcore]

That's why when I was a kid every school had Apples, and every business and home (except teachers) had PCs.

True, sort of. PCs won the war because parents were buying home computers that were familiar to them (the same PCs they used at work)

But it took over a decade before PCs caught up with Apple's game library.

If you were a kid in the 80s, you played Apple ][e games (and atari/colecovision games of course). If your parents had a PC.. you went to a friend's house.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[KrackHouse]

I totally agree. I think open source 3D gaming is entering a new era with the release of OGRE 1.0. Game development in the past consisted of trying to learn OpenGL then trying to learn how to code physics which can take a couple of years for professional looking results. Now you can just download Open Dynamics Engine, OGRE3D and SDL and bang out a decent looking 3D game in a few months. The emphasis is shifting to content creators.

2005/6 will see the first real competition for the EAs of the world. I'm going out on a limb and predicting that Open Source 3D games will be the killer app for PCs. If you can buy a game at CompUSA loaded with a ton of high quality PC games or buy a PS3 for $350 with no games people may begin to think twice, especially with the emergence of HDTVs and the home theater PC.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[edwdig]

On date A, 1 out of 100 Moms play computer games, and 20 out of 100 Slashdot readers play computer games.

At date B, 2 out of 100 Moms play computer games. 22 out of 100 Slashdot readers play computer games.

Over this time period, the market segment "Mom who play games" is showing 200% growth. The segment "Slashdotters who play games" only showed 10% growth.

Clearly, Moms who play games is a much faster growing market and where the money is to be made.

More serously speaking, puzzle games and the like that casual gamers will play are a dime a dozen. Your average Linux distro comes with several dozen of these games. Pick your average obscure OS, and you also have at least several dozen simialar games to choose from. These games don't exactly take very long to make, and will get made by the dozens *very* quickly if an OS starts to gain any significant ground.

Most people who say "Linux needs games" are talking about the latest 3D games. When it comes to those games, who the hell really cares. Once you look past the very top tier games like Half Life, Doom, and Warcraft, what's considered good sales for a PC game is only considered mediocre for a console game. Consoles are where the serious gaming is.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[laughingcoyote]

That "tiny niche market" purchases millions of copies, between the thriving PC and console game markets. Now do you think some rich guy is buying millions at a time just to fart around?

Kids who grew up with video games aren't kids anymore. I have kids of my OWN now, and yes, I still will sit down to a video game periodically. (Not that kids leave you -much- spare time, I grant!) I have a job, a house, children, no dog, but I do periodically play tennis. And -gasp- I enjoy video games, as do many of my friends, who lead similarly normal lives. Video games aren't a niche market, or just for kids, anymore.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[dr.badass]

That basically means (this will horrify pruists) idiot proof Linux distros that offer all the same software and functionality as the normal Windows workstation

I don't think you can reconcile the idea of an "idiot proof" distribution and "all the same functionality as the normal Windows workstation."

More seriously, I don't understand why there is this persistent suggestion that Linux should imitate Windows, when it's generally accepted that Windows sucks. It's like aspiring to be mediocre.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[ktakki]

Normal Joes do not play computer games. They use computers to do things like work and communicate with friends and family. When the time comes to have fun, normal Joes turn off their computers and play tennis or go camping or walk the dog.

Normal Joes Don't want to play elaborate 3D FPS, RTS, RPG, or MMORPG games on the computer. These are niche markets, appealing to a small but enthusiastic minority. The Normal Joes who do want to play 3D FPS games go out and buy a console.

Normal Joes Do want to play simple games like Minesweeper, Solitaire, Freecell, Bejewelled, and online Poker and Backgammon. These are the games that, for the most part, have real-world analogs that don't require a manual to understand, and don't require hours of your time to master or enjoy (unlike, say, Evercrack).

I think most Slashdotters think of the first species when the word "games" is mentioned, to the exclusion of the second species. By extension, I wonder if FOSS developers ignore the second species in favor of the first because the simple games just aren't sexy enough.

k.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[hennie]

I agree with you on the ease of use. The modern Linux distro is, in my oppinion, MORE easy to use than the Windows.
I havent tried SUSE personally. Im posting this from Ubuntu Hoary. Ive never configured Samba - except to set my workgroup. Needless to say, I'm vissible and the rest of the network is vissible - and actually faster for me than for my MS-centric colleagues.
What I disagree with you about is getting Linux into schools. People keep on using what they are familiar with.
We have a project in South Africa, sponsored by Mark Shuttlewoth that does just that. See TuxLabs. More than 80 schools is already involved. People donate their old hardware to a pool that goes to the schools. Installation and setup is done by volunteers.
Microsoft, of course, tried to donate software. This didnt help them much, because most of these schools didnt have hardware to begin with and they would need to purchase the "donated" software after two years in any case. The result: South Africa use a lot of opensource in schools. Your average kid is familiar with Linux - not Windows. You stay with what you know.
Disclaimer: I live in South Africa. It is not exactly as third world as you would expect. Computers are commonplace, even for the relatively poor.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[ZephyrXero]

I think what people really mean, is for Linux distros to incorporate the few strengths of windows. I run both Linux and Windows, and after about a year of screwing around in Linux I'm finally getting to the point where I can use it more than Windows...and this is just the problem. Windows is not better because it works better....just about anyone will give you that. It's that it's easy to use. But, hopefully things like the linux desktop summit, freedesktop.org and LSB will bring us to the point where just about anyone can use Linux without having to find someone to help them get started ;)

The other big issue people complain about is driver/hardware issues...but this is a chicken and the egg argument. You have to have enough users for hardware people to make proper drivers, but most users don't want to deal with the current state of linux do to lack of drivers. It's getting progressively better, but it's still much slower than it should be...

Maybe if distros start becoming more standards based and something like Autopackage takes off, things will speed up even more.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[MrResistor]

I was a kid in the 80's, and nobody I knew owned an Apple. The only Apples I ever saw were at school, and the only thing I ever remember doing on them was word processing.

If you wanted computer games in the 80s, you had to have a Commodore, though I do remember playing some decent games on the hand-me-down 8086s we all seemed to have in high school (except for the one lucky bastard who had an Amiga). Mostly text, but there was one pirate game I can't seem to remember the name of.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Osty]

Since you can't use the "Well, Direct3D is better than OpenGL" argument, they've started using the "Oh, well Direct3D is more high-level than OpenGL."

It's not a matter of OpenGL vs. Direct3D. Both are very good in their own way. Direct3D has come a long way, and is a hugely different animal than what it was in versions 1 through 3 (btw, Direct3D as a name is dead, and it's just referred to now as DirectX). The more important part is everything else. DirectX is a framework that provides 3D, 2D (though DirectDraw is dead, and only available for backwards compatibility), audio, input management, networking, and a whole lot more. OpenGL is a 3D (and 2D, if you like) framework and nothing more. That's why Loki developed SDL way back when. As good as SDL is now, it still has a long way to go to be on par with DirectX. Even id uses DirectX for input and sound (though they use other libraries for sound management as well).

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Eivind]

On date A, 1 out of 100 Moms play computer games, and 20 out of 100 Slashdot readers play computer games. At date B, 2 out of 100 Moms play computer games. 22 out of 100 Slashdot readers play computer games.

Over this time period, the market segment "Mom who play games" is showing 200% growth. The segment "Slashdotters who play games" only showed 10% growth.

Where'd you learn that math ? Growing from 1 to 2 is 100% growth, not 200%. The formula is: change/old_value * 100

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Jaruzel]

Yes it does. But thats not the best way to go about it. For a serious MS Exchange user, connecting via MAPI is the only way to do it.

I have never seen a mail client on Linux that will do most of what Outlook will do when connected to Exchange.

(Someone please prove me wrong here?)

-Jar.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[dr.badass]

Windows is not better because it works better...It's that it's easy to use.

My point (and I know it wasn't clear), was the Windows is *not* easy to use. Or, more accurately ("ease of use" is an ill-defined measure of UI quality) , I was saying that the Windows UI sucks, and should not be imitated. The *only* real strength of the Windows UI is that familiarity with it is common.

I think that it would be (and is presently) a disasterous mistake for open source GUI projects to consciously aim to emulate Windows. It's a naive approach to interface design, and frankly, pretty boring. For all the talk about freedom and innovation and choice, open source developers tend to have pretty dull and conventional ideas about GUIs.

I have a lot of thoughts on the subject (I'm writing a pretty lengthy essay on the subject elsewhere), but one stands out in this case: I think OSS GUI designers should examine the Mac OS GUI, past and present.

For all of the small mistakes and commonly hated aspects, the Mac GUI has been consistently well-regarded for more than twenty years. And yet I've yet to see a single OSS GUI project that resembles it in any but the most superficial ways. There's something about that that doesn't seem right.

As for the rest of what you mentioned, I basically agree that it's all good stuff -- but I think the technical aspects are much *less* important than the interface and user experience in regards to actual adoption by users.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[X0563511]

I think we should expect to see commercial games, first. If everything was to be open-source, what would be the carrot for existing dev houses and publishers?

Companies have to make money somehow.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[CmdrGravy]

You mean download viri and crash every couple of hours ?

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Jaruzel]

That must be a user error. My Outlook never crashes, nor does it download anything without my express permission. Don't hide your ignorance by blaming the software.

It is easy for anyone with a modicum of intelligence to tell Outlook not to display HTML or download suspect attachments, thus rendering it perfectly safe from Viruses. (Viri is NOT the plural of Virus)

-Jar.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Elektroschock]

What about such amazing things like the Irrlicht engine? I believe that the PC 3d engine market will go down the open source road. This does not mean Linux yet but it will make it possible to run these games on Linux as well.

And many mods for existing engines are just something like hobby work. So there is an intresting future.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[CmdrGravy]

Point taken on the virus issue but the last time I used Outlook - Exchange ( around 5 months ago ) it did crash a few times each day and is an effective delivery system for viruses.

It wasn't user error, my system was locked down - I couldn't mess with anything even if I wanted to.

You set Outlook up to MS Word as an e-mail editor and see how long it takes before it crashes, I could usually get a good hour or so.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Sentry21]

Not to start any speculation, but I was disassembling World of Warcraft the other day, and noticed something.

There were text fields with names of OSes - Win95, Win98, Win98SE, Win98OSR2, WinME, Win2K, WinXP, Win2k3, MacOSX, MacOS9 - and Linux.

I thought that was kind of interesting. It doesn't say anything, but it's neat to wonder. It's the kind of thing Blizzard might do (or maybe they were just playing around with it).

Re:Games. We need more Games

[iwan-nl]

Who wouldn't love to have Tux gun down a puppy?

Buddha wouldn't.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[andy.ruddock]

http://wallpaper.deviantart.com/deviation/13073889 /

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Jaruzel]

Ahhh, from my experience*, a locked down system (I'm guessing this was a work machine?) can cause more problems than it solves. I've seen many corporate desktop implementations that are more unstable than a beta copy of longhorn on bad day. ;)

-Jar.

*I'm a Qualified MS Systems Integrator, working freelance for large Financial Houses for the past 10 years.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[mahdi13]

Not sure if it exactly holds up to you standards, but...

Evolution with the Ximian-Connector has pretty good support for Exchange servers

Re:Games. We need more Games

[thenefariousone]

Normal Joes don't play computer games on computers. They play them on their PS/2s and Xboxes. The hardware churn & upgrade cycle required to play pc games is beyond the time or expense of the average joe. That's also part of the reason so many average joes have a 5 years old pc: Average joe hasn't had a truly compelling reason to upgrade their pcs since the silly days of "A pentium will make the internet faster."

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Mycroft_VIII]

But games are one of the two main things joe does with his computer, the other is the internet.
I deal with a fair number of joes on thier computers, most do both, some only do one or the other, only a few fail to be in one or the other or both categories for the major use of thier computers.
Games are a multi-billion dollar a year industry, on par with movie releases for income.
Where you got the strange notion that games are a 'niche' market on the desktop is beyond me.

Mycroft

Re:Games. We need more Games

[AvitarX]

lets see...

foot --> Amusements

nope those games are definatly included.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[As Seen On TV]

I do not know a single Chinese person. Therefore Chinese people must not exist. Or, at the very least, there must not be very many of them.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[As Seen On TV]

That's the fallacy of the trend. Children play with toys, therefore when those children grow up there's going to be a massive explosion in the sale of toys, right? Wrong, because when children grow up they stop playing with toys.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[iamwahoo2]

I did not say that people do not exist whom own a computer but do not play them. I just do not know any, and I happen to know lots of people that own a computer. You said that the " Normal Joes do not play computer games." I guess I just happen to know a hell of a lot of abnormal Joes and Best Buy does not stock their shelfs with mostly games to make money, they just think that game boxes are prettier.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[As Seen On TV]

Your statement was stupid. I called you on it. Why all the fuss?

Re:Games. We need more Games

[PastaLover]

Not to mention just about every EA sports title available. There is a reason why the gaming industry is one of the fastest growing markets right now, it's because it has universal appeal.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Pxtl]

I don't think its enough. I think what the opensource world is something more along the lines of the Unreal Tournament games: a skeleton of a game that has an easy content-creation system for full new games as well as smaller non-exclusive projects like mutators, new weapons, new player models, etc. So far, the only one I've seen that fits that bill is OpenQuartz... which is tied down to Id's license, and has pretty ugly content. Cube is another good one. Cube only supports full source mods (as opposed to UT's more elegant embedded Java-like language).

I point to FPS games to start because they seem to have the most appeal for independant content developers - no other genres have the vibrant indie-dev universe like the FPS mod community. Plus, FPS engines are frequently reused for other gametypes.

Aardappel's Sauerbraten could be a good project for something like this - it is a GPL- expansion of the Cube concept, basing a moddable FPS game around an in-engine geometry editor (the map is an irregular octree). A bundled package based on the game, a script editor (even if its just emacs with the script-language syntax highlighting) and other content creation tools (Gimp, Blender, etc. all with game-directed export and editing extensions) all bundled together into a single win32-compatible package would provide a solution that competes with the toolkits that games like Half-Life, the Torque engine, and UT use to entice modders into hopping on the bandwagon. This would have an advantage similar to those 3 except that you could create full GPL free (or even retail) games... only Torque allows you to give your games away for free, and you must pay licensing fees to resell them.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[KrackHouse]

I think we see eye to eye here. We're creating a driving simulator core and we plan to add a scripting system so the community can take our base and create a Rally simulator or Monster trucks or even something like Grand Theft Auto. The problem I've seen with Open Source game engines is that they're too open ended, our simulator has focus and will be good at simulating cars, trying to use a Quake BSP scene manager for a driving simulator won't work, we don't have that problem.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[Pxtl]

To my mind, it sounds like the problem isn't the physics - I've seen FPS games do wonderful things by merging rigid-body-physics into the gameplay - its the terrain. Landscape is much better for racing games than BSP - but look at UT2k4 and Tribes - engines that include landscape-terrain as an alternative to BSP, allowing you to mix vehicles and FPS combat. Even Cube is landscape-based (although it doesn't support the smooth, interpolated slopes you need for a racing game). An FPS engine with landscape support and versatile physics coudl theoretically accomodate every action gametype in modern parlance - there are sidescrollers and RTS titles based on the UT engine.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[dr.badass]

Yeah we all know microsoft spends absolutely no research dollars on UI and design..

Throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it any more than not having any money makes problems impossible to solve. Least of all design problems. Design and research are two very different things -- Paul Graham does a better job of pointing out the difference than I can in this space (especially when I'm responding to an AC.)

Of course every developer out there thinks they always know the best UI

You're right about this. However, I am not a developer with ideas about design. I'm a designer with ideas about design.

(when frankly they are so far out of touch with what is good for the common nontechnical joe it isn't even funny)

You, too, Mr. AC, are out of touch, as you're invoking the myth of the the "common nontechnical joe", as if his needs are vastly different [in design terms] as your own. If you design applications strictly for novices, then not only will it be useless to non-novices, but those novices will stay novices.

When designing interfaces for general use (like a desktop environment), it's a mistake to assume that you have to make things "idiot proof" or "friendly", for some foreign breed of person that is incapable of learning anything and has no desire to do anything with his computer than "browse the web and check email", unless you yourself are like that.

Microsoft probably doesn't have everything perfect when it comes to UI design, but it certainly doesn't "suck" either..

My problem is less with Microsoft's interfaces and more with the blind copying that goes on in OSS. If you copy something without understanding it first, it's probable that you will copy it's mistakes as well. My main point is that copying Windows has a high probability of producing an interface that sucks.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[bitspotter]

if and when Linux drivers and low-level open source graphics libraries surpass the kind of maturity and performance DirectX has had, you'll start seeing the shift.

Games have an intersting advantage over desktop applications: there is minimal integrationinvolved, due to the fact that they are highly immersive expreiences. They don't have to talk to you web browser, GUI toolkits, system tray, etc. Each game essentially includes its own GUI.

Hmmm. While we're at it, why shouldn't it include its own OS, as well? Oh, hey, look! there's a perfectly usable OS over here! Why don't we just bolt it onto the bottom of the stack on the CD, and make it a bootable Live CD? Since you're leaving the desktop to play the game anyway, why not leverage having control of the entire OS layer for making your game run better? Use the hard drive for caching persistent state data, and skip the whole painful installation process.

Once having that kind of low-level control over the OS proves a significant technical advantage for games, you'll start to see more games for Linux. In fact, you might see more Linux-only games, because Windows usees can just boot into the game without having to disturb their existing Windows drives to install Linux at all.

Microsoft would probably have to respond by working out a better LiveCD infrastructure, ala Bart's PE, but with support for DirectX. Again, MS is way behind with this functionality. Bart's PE is pretty much limited to rescue & diagnostics apps, whereas Linux LiveCD's are running the whole desktop, and will soon be the primary way dekstop Linux is run, with projects like Unionfs overcoming the data persistence limitations of read-only filesystems.

Of course, if Microsoft makes Windows able to be run from Live CDs, that just means there won't be any reason not to install Linux. ;) Everybody wins!

Re:Games. We need more Games

[airjrdn]

I got a file not found, but thanks for replying.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[valdis]

On date A, 1 out of 100 Moms play computer games, and 20 out of 100 Slashdot readers play computer games.
At date B, 2 out of 100 Moms play computer games. 22 out of 100 Slashdot readers play computer games.

And here I was expecting you to say "On date B, 21 out of 100 Slashdot readers aren't getting a date B".....

Re:Games. We need more Games

[MrResistor]

What I disagree with you about is getting Linux into schools. People keep on using what they are familiar with.

A lot of people keep saying this, but it's just not true. My generation "learned computers" on the Commodore PET, and then the Apple II series. That was all the schools had. 20 years later Commodore is dead and gone, Apple is a niche player, and none of us had any problem making the transition to Windows.

Similarly, my (very non-technical) wife had no problem making the transition to Linux when I decided a few years ago that I no longer had time to deal with Windows issues, even though she's just younger enough than me that she basically wasn't exposed to non-MS environments as a kid. My best friends (also non-technical, and younger) wife is similarly having no difficulty making the transition now.

There are plenty of great reasons to be using Linux in schools, and I personally advocate it, but this just isn't one of them. Operating systems just don't take over the world as a result of being used in schools. History has already proven this.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[andy.ruddock]

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/13073889/

Re:Games. We need more Games

[randallpowell]

True. Excuse me while I shave my head and meditate for my error.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[joeljkp]

I (and from what I've seen, most other people, too) think LiveCD games are a terrible idea. Sure, you get a somewhat immersive experience, but it comes with a heap of problems and annoyances.

• Patches - you can't patch or update the game; you have to burn a new updated CD
• Mods, add-ons - no installing mods, extra levels, mutators, skins, etc.
• Drivers - so the game was released before your new GeForce came out... you can't use it (if it's closed-source), or you have to download and burn a new updated CD
• Rebooting - rebooting sucks, even for games. It destroys the whole experience of minimizing what you're doing for a quick round of UT2004 or whatever. Even if you have to close all your apps, it's better than rebooting the whole OS

Re:Games. We need more Games

[bitspotter]

patches and drivers both fit under the label of "persistent data". They're not huge, so you can put them onto the hard drive and apply the changes with a unionfs-style overlay fs technique, or less attractively, apply them at runtime, or, worst case, download and apply them at run time.

There's also no reason (anymore) that you can't use the hard drive that's right in front of you, even if it's desirable to install a game to disk for better perfomance. Hell, I use "poor man's" hdd installs for all the LiveCDs I boot, anyway.

As for your point about rebooting, I suppose you're right, if you're rebooting Windows. I hear that does take a while.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[iamwahoo2]

Judging by the responses I got versus all the ones you got, maybe you should check yourself on this. Apparently, it is not just me, but NOBODY agrees with you. In fact most of us are wondering if you have ever seen a computer based on the statement you made.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[As Seen On TV]

Heh. That's one I haven't heard in a while. "All the voices in the echo chamber agree with me, so clearly I'm objectively right and you're objectively wrong."

You need to get out more, I think.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[As Seen On TV]

Said the "Anonymous Coward."

Re:Games. We need more Games

[tooth]

Not good enough for my work.. at home yes, i use it, but work i need the calender functions. We use it a lot to book meetings with each other. Thunderbird doesn't have this. I tried Sunbird but it crashes too much to be productive... maybe when it matures a bit more.

Re:Games. We need more Games

[tooth]

See my post that stared this thread.

Switchvox!

[IO ERROR]

OK, Switchvox has got the nicest GUI for an Asterisk-based system I've yet seen. Too bad it only comes on their PBX systems (starting at $995). I'd love to have GUI-based software like that to go along with my home asterisk setup.

Re:Switchvox!

[dsginter]

Too bad it only comes on their PBX systems [switchvox.com] (starting at $995).

This really sounds like a commercial. Do you work for them?

Re:Switchvox!

[super_luminal]

Thanks for the kind words about the interface. The problem we found with just selling the distro is that there's a fair amount of hardware out there that doesn't play well with the high interrupt rate of the telephony cards we use. By bundling it with the hardware we can guarantee that everything works, and we can work on shipping with the kernel tuned specifically for our hardware. However, we do get a lot of requests for different hardware, so it's very likely that we'll have a rackmount offering, and probably a RAID+redundant power supply multi-proc beast in the near future.

Re:Switchvox!

[ojthecat]

So it sounds like you have modified the Asterisk source code to work with different hardware. If this is so under the GPL shouldn't you make your changes availible? Ojthecat

Re:Switchvox!

[LWATCDR]

Actually they said that they tune the kernel work with the hardware provided. Now if they added code the would only have to provide it to anyone one that buys the system. If they set the build options then there is nothing to share.

Re:Switchvox!

[As Seen On TV]

And right here, in just two comments, we have a microcosm of why Linux has not been commercially successful.

First, there's just too much junk out there for a software vendor to even hope to support a majority of configurations. That goes for both hardware and software. When any tool can disable the wizfiddle driver in his gloopgloop by rejobulating his paramiffins, the cost of providing customer support skyrockets.

Second, every time anybody tries to come anywhere close to developing a product that runs on Linux, leeches appear out of nowhere demanding that the company cough up all their valuable IP.

Linux is just plain bad; that's not really in dispute. The best that can be said for it is that "it's getting better," which may or may not be true. But it does have the virtue of being cheap, and as anybody who's ever eaten at a fast food place or shopped at a retail chain can testify, cheap trumps bad any day of the week and twice on Sundays. So why hasn't Linux taken the world by storm? For these two reasons, illustrated so deftly by these two commenters.

Want to fix Linux? Start by getting rid of the "you can change everything" aspect of it. Ship standardized configurations that everybody can count on. Then drop that encumbering software license. Until those two problems are solved, Linux is gonna continue to be a footnote.

Re:Switchvox!

[Quixote]

we can work on shipping with the kernel tuned specifically for our hardware.

Are the sources to this tuned kernel available somewhere? I quickly glanced at your website and couldn't find it. Thanks!

Re:Switchvox!

[super_luminal]

The site refers to a package that supports one analog phone line- as in one incoming number from a normal phone company, not just one handset.

Also, that's just the default for that particular package- you can twiddle the number of analog lines you wish to support when you click the "Customize it" button (we do up to 8 individual incoming lines, and usually recommend a T1 for customers that need to support more than that).

And no, you're not buying digital phones like with a traditional PBX, you're buying VOIP phones. You can use any SIP phone, regular analog phones with ATAs (analog telephone adapter), or you can use desktop SIP software (a softphone) to work with the system. We sell 3 different SIP phones and a couple of ATAs, and if you buy them from us, we pre-configure them to work with your server.

Re:Switchvox!

[Alex]

Too bad it only comes on their PBX systems [switchvox.com] (starting at $995).

This really sounds like a commercial. Do you work for them?

Sarcasm more like

Alex

Re:Switchvox!

[Quixote]

By this reasoning, a Windows user would never be able to download the kernel source unless s/he was a Linux user. See the problem?

Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sell.

[Nefarious Wheel]

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?

The 3D game in the summary isn't Linux only...

[Anonymous Coward]

it runs on Windows, Mac OS X and one flavor of Linux (Linspire).

Re:The 3D game in the summary isn't Linux only...

[Nermal6693]

Why is this modded Troll? It's a completely true comment, and shouldn't offend anyone.

Re:The 3D game in the summary isn't Linux only...

[strikethree]

there is a god in this world. i just meta-moderated the fool who marked it a troll. sometimes, life just is not fair. this is not one of them. :)

strike

Re:The 3D game in the summary isn't Linux only...

[Nermal6693]

Ah, so the system does work after all :)

User-friendly desktops are for wimps!

[Cyburbia]

Where are the tubby bearded Unix gurus? The skinny, pasty-skinned, ponytailed technopolitical geeks with the long leather dusters? The thought of any "summit" where friendly user interfaces were highlighted probably scared 'em off.

How the hell did you leave out OpenOffice.org?

[oldosadmin]

The first half-day of the conference was an OpenOffice.org RegiCon (Regional conference), and yet there was no mention of them in the article? That's a HORRIBLE summary of the DLS, coming from someone who was there every second of the thing.

Re:How the hell did you leave out OpenOffice.org?

[mrbass]

found all the pdf's. I loved the openoffice presentations you can see all presentations a href="http://marketing.openoffice.org/conference/r egicon/abstracts.html" I'm download the two mp3's about 60MB each of Simon Phipps and Gary Edwards and will host them on my website as soon as I can upload them.

Re:How the hell did you leave out OpenOffice.org?

[mrbass]

Ok found the mp3 of the openoffice talks but they were huge 128Kbps. So I converted them to 32Kbps and they sound great (these are talks not rock concerts) and I threw them all in one 50MB zip file. It's on my frontpage with links to pdf files too. download at mrbass.org

thanks for great review, but how does Skype compar

[sourceview]

does Skype compare with the asterisk voip stuff.?? Inquiriung minds need to know!

And it would be twice that if..

[Anonymous Coward]

...it wasn't for those darn half man/half monkey clones downloading illegal copies of games with their modded Mac Minis running Debian!

Linux...mainstream?

[Robotron23]

Its somewhat difficult to envisage what the exact purpose of these innovations are. I mean Linux's userbase is made up largely of coders and firms, neither group see their Linux OS as one to support 3D gaming. Thus, its pheasable to say that these firms are looking to make Linux appeal more to the mainstream market ("Average Joe" users) by introducing methods even the most basic of PC's from decades ago possessed (ie. Video Gaming).

Re:Linux...mainstream?

[sloanster]

Its somewhat difficult to envisage what the exact purpose of these innovations are.

LOL, it certainly seems to be difficult for the likes of you, but that's probably par for the course ;)

introducing methods even the most basic of PC's from decades ago possessed (ie. Video Gaming).

Wake up rip van winkle - we've been gaming on linux for years, and sad to say, you were asleep and missed it all. For a gentle heads-up, see doom 1/2/3, quake 1/2/3, ut 2000/2003/2004, RtCW, etc etc...

Re:Linux...mainstream?

[fafaforza]

Wake up rip van winkle - we've been gaming on linux for years, and sad to say, you were asleep and missed it all. For a gentle heads-up, see doom 1/2/3, quake 1/2/3, ut 2000/2003/2004, RtCW, etc etc...

Hmm, maybe the variety in the gaming titles that you used as examples was what put him to sleep in the first place.

Re:Linux...mainstream?

[sloanster]

Hmm, maybe the variety in the gaming titles that you used as examples was what put him to sleep in the first place.

LOL, he'd be really really bored, plus I'd get writer's cramp, if I tried to list any appreciable fraction of the games that run on linux. I just mentioned of few of the genre that I tend to play, i.e. networked multiplayer 3D FPS, beginning with doom for linux, back in 1994/1995.

Re:Linux...mainstream?

[Atzanteol]

No, it doesn't. How does it suck ass? I've played QIII, RTCW, NeverwinterNights, Enemy Territory, and Americas Army all perfectly fine on Linux.

Just because game companies aren't supporting it as much, does not mean it's not a viable platform.

Re:Linux...mainstream?

[kayak334]

It's a perfectly viable platform. I play NWN on it too and I'm primarily a Linux user. I just wouldn't ever argue that "wake up, Linux has GREAT game support, check out these 4 game titles... just forget about the 10,000 other titles avaliable to windows..."

Maybe I should have said, Linux doesn't have enough game companines supporting it. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't a good platform.

easymusic.com

[i_should_be_working]

That mp3tunes reminds me that the guy who started easyjet and easycafe started a music download service. Don't think it's been covered here. It'd be nice if one of the European readers found out more and tried to get it on /.'s main page.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[Anonymous Coward]

>network deployability

Ummm, people have been installing Linux over a network for over a decade. The old NFS installs worked just fine. You didn't even need a boot floppy if you had a boot ROM on the network card. Now I just do everything with a business-card CD of Debian, and download all of the packages, including our custom ones, from a central company server.

> end-user configuration lockdown

UNIX has had this for over 30 years, and Linux for over 13 years. When you don't give the end-users the root password, the configuration is locked-down.

Real unveils features of next version

[AlexJeff]

I was there as well and Rob Lanphier, Real's open source guru, unveiled the next feature set of the Helix Player (https://player.helixcommunity.org) and the Linux RealPlayer. The three features I wrote down were: - Subscription radio - Commercial Free - YES!!! - Reduced start up delay - whatever that was - Automatic bandwidth detection - for better roaming I think. Later...

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[kforeman]

Great note taking.

Yes, with now 84% of Real's record revenues coming consumer SERVICES, not products, like RealRhapsody, and RadioPass, Real can be much more open about our direction.

Today the free Helix-powered RealPlayer 10 plays MP3, Flash, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora, RealAudio 10, RealVideo 10, so users can enjoy the web's best FREE content. Our goal of the NEXT version is to allow users to start to enjoy PREMIUM content, including dozens of commercial-free radio stations.

For those of you interested in following our process or lendign your insight, join the free dev mailing list right here: https://helixcommunity.org/mail/?group_id=154

Kevin

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[coastin]

Yeah, was there also and soaked every thing in sight. The Helix Player presentation was really cool. I learned that Linux is the OS of choice for almost all CG special effects.

I am still processing all the info from the event, but it was well worth attending.

Doing an eval of Linspire 5.0 on my Toshiba notebook right now.Will post more later...

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[Joe Tie.]

There's some basic things I'd like to see improved in realplayer 10 for linux. Firstly, a deb would be nice. This issue might come from having to use alien on the rpm to install it on debian, but if not, it'd be nice to have the player show up in KDEs menu. Or, at the very least, to install or put a link somewhere in the standard path by default.

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[kuzb]

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.

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[strider44]

The newer versions are a whole lot better I must say.

Ironically a few years ago I was in exactly the same state as you, and now under linux I use realplay almost daily for some reason or another.

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[SlimFastForYou]

Understandable.

I too have had many bad experiences with Real in the past.

Though recently I installed the Real+Helix player on my desktop (yes I use Linux on my desktop). It's browser integration actually wasn't good enough - I couldn't watch the state of the union stream no matter what I tried. Ultimately I had to use my Windows laptop.

Though I must say that the Real+Helix player for Linux is not at all bloated. I think there is still a prompt to register, but easily skipable. It's bloat is about the same as XMMS or Totem.

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[IamTheRealMike]

You've clearly never actually used Helix Player, which is a totally different product and is not only Spyware free but a pretty competent media player as well.

Now what I'd really like to see is support for their commercial free radio services in GStreamer and Totem, or even XMMS as these are the media players I use. Helix is fine, but I'd rather not use many apps that are pretty much identical UI wise just because of the underlying "platform wars".

Still, commercial free radio does sound attractive. Right now I've got Digitally Imported, Music1, SwissGroove and SomaFM which are great but they do come and go. I am definitely willing to pay for high quality net radio, if the price and experience is right. IMHO Real are smart to be focussing on this area.

Re: Real unveils features of next version

[gidds]

Things have changed in some ways, at least. The Mac OS X version of their player seems very well-behaved: doesn't spy, doesn't install anything untoward, doesn't grab any file associations without asking, doesn't do anything other than play Real files and streams when you tell it to. It's big (15MB), but most of that seems to be the core functionality, codecs, &c,

OTOH, though I've never installed a Windows version of their player, if it was as bad as people say then I can understand your suspicions...

Re:Real unveils features of next version

[rgammon_real]

Part of including RealPlayer in a distribution involves qualifying the player for that distribution -- making sure that mime type associations work, menu items appear, and distro-shipped libraries don't crash the player. Some debian-based distributions like Xandros and Linspire have qualified .deb packages for their distribution, but no one from the debian community has come forward yet & provided packaging and testing for general debian. Helix Player doesn't have these restrictions, and is available in the main debian repository.

Re:thanks for great review, but how does Skype com

[MatthewB79]

Skype is an implementation of VOIP. Asterisk (and Switchvox) is a sort of drop-in replacement for some very expensive telephone switch and voicemail hardware (PBX) like the Avaya systems.

Re:Linspire 5

[DCMonkey]

And I love that screenshot with the taskbar that has room for about 1.5 open window buttons at 1024x768 resolution.

Oh I DO hope....

[Smiffa2001]

...that the folks at Linspire don't do an MS and run everybody as root: http://adn.bmdhacks.com/desktopsummit/images/lindo ws.jpg

It's been a while since I played with Lindows/Linspire 4.5 and I can't remember if that ran as root by default or not. Can anybody confirm ? I really hope that they've not made that mistake as 'Average Joe' mentioned above won't know its "bad"...

Re:Oh I DO hope....

[chill]

When you install Linspire it gives you the option to create user accounts. It explains that it is a real good idea to create an account.

It is *not* default root.

Re:Oh I DO hope....

[MrResistor]

If creating user accounts is optional, it's default root.

Re:Oh I DO hope....

[losinggeneration]

It is default root, that's what most people's (for obviously good reasons) gripe with Linspire is.

Re:Linspire 5

[kabz]

Yeah, the text is big in those pictures, but it's really simple to tweak all the text sizes in Linux.

My Gnome setup looks pretty much like Windows 2000 because that's the way I like it set up.

Re:Not ready

[djplurvert]

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)

Hey I've got some ideas

[fishlet]

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.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[killjoe]

God the same old crap time and time again.

I for one am tired of these old outdated complaints. Nobody has to compile anything unless they want to. With the exception of gentoo no linux distrubitution requires compiling anything.

A common control panel? Wake me up when windows has one. The control panel works for some things, for other things you need to right click on my computer and manage, still others you have to manually load a snap in, and finally you have to muck with the registry for others. With linux everything is in /etc. If the GUI can't take care of it then you can go in and do it yourself. It may not be perfect but it's better then windows.

As for KDE and GNOME I'll say go to F yourself. I hope to hell everybody disagrees with you because I sure as hell do. Linux is about freedom more then anything else. Who are you to shove a desktop down my throat?

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[aldoman]

For #1 there is gnome-system-tools, which quite a few distros use now, and it's usage is gaining. This means that we will finally have a decent control panel. It's well coded with the same GUI for every distro and a backend that does the right thing based on system config.

#2 needs solved fast. apt-get/synaptic 'do it' but have major flaws, in that it is centralized, and therefore resources are lacking (you will have some things that are 2/3 major revisions behind because noone has packaged them for the apt-get repo you have). Plus it's no good for commercial software, which like it or not is not going to vanish. Games for example will never really be able to be developed in FOSS.

#3, agreed. KDE is in a real mess at the moment. It all fell apart somewhere after KDE2. I personally would standardize on GNOME because that's where the corporate world is going to, and therefore all the corp development $$$ will be spent on it.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[gordo3000]

"A common control panel? Wake me up when windows has one. The control panel works for some things, for other things you need to right click on my computer and manage, still others you have to manually load a snap in, and finally you have to muck with the registry for others. With linux everything is in /etc. If the GUI can't take care of it then you can go in and do it yourself. It may not be perfect but it's better then windows."

I pretty much only use windows, though I have tried a couple of times to switch to different linux distributions. Personally, I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never had to use anything other than the control panel to do everything with my windows box. Yep, not a single time have I had to much with the registry. The problem is with your attitude that if the GUI can't do it you should go in and take care of it. Unfortunately, I have better things to do with my time that take a distribution and try to make it work for me with all that effort. A GUI is much more managable and easier to learn.

If your goal is making linux a force on the desktop, then you need to actually address these things. These are actual worries of people who do not have the time to go in and muck with everything in their distro. It is only better than windows for people who have the time to learn how to do these things. I don't, neither do most people. This is not better than windows. 95% of people never want to see a command line and if you want to cater to those people, you're going to have to find a good way to make all functionality accessible from the GUI.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Lisandro]

For #3 check the Freekdesktop specification.

Basically, different toolkits and DE will still exist but they aim to standarize stuff to increase interoperabiltt between DEs; from stuff like common configuration files, proper metadata support, menu files, and trash can management to more complex like drag-and-drop between tookits, control embeeding and (finally) proper clipboard functioning.

This has the potential to end a lot of nightmares for program instalation and interoperability, no matter for which desktop you write them.

Most major desktop enviroments are embracing the Freedesktop specifications: KDE and Gnome among them. XFCE 4 deserves a nod too for being one of the most FD-compliant desktops available.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

A common control panel.

GNOME has the control panel, with the most common things you might want to control, plus the configuration editor, which is a similar to the Windows registry editor except that the back end is simple text files instead of a binary database that's easy to corrupt. I think this split makes perfect sense; for "power users" you can really get in to the fine details with the configuration editor, and for normal users the control panel is all you need.

Older versions of GNOME had the config stuff poorly organized, but I'm quite pleased with the pre-release GNOME 2.10 I'm using with Ubuntu.

Tell the freakin developers to make GOOD intallation binaries and keep them UP TO DATE.

This is why I love Debian. Note that Ubuntu is based on Debian. Package management is easy.

KDE vs Gnome wars: put an end to it.

Sorry, but no one appointed you Dictator around here. The guys who want to work on GNOME are going to keep doing it, the guys who work on KDE are going to keep doing it, and none of them will ask your permission first.

Since both GNOME and KDE are increasingly adopting standards from freedesktop.org, they increasingly interoperate well.

If you are responsible for a bunch of computers, you are free to pick one or the other and go with it. My computers all run GNOME.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[sloanster]

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.

Since your credibility was shot to hell with your rant, there is not really much point in reading your later statements, but I did anyway and saw some tired old ideas that have been trotted out before. Other than the point about "good installation binaries, up to date" (? that problem was solved years ago by all vendors I'm familiar with) the ideas aren't likely to happen, but that doesn't matter since none of those things you mentioned is holding linux back.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Coryoth]

Have a common to all distro's install tool that is very easy to use (perhaps a RPM front end).

Well Synaptic is a fairly universal install frontend for all distro based software - it runs on Debian (and all debian based distros), Fedora, SuSE, Connectiva. All you have to do is install the damn thing (it comes by default with several of those distro options). As for third party packages, try Autopackage. Yes they're still finishing things off, and yes, it's going to take developers bothering to package their software with it, but the promise it offers is, I think, enough that we can expect to see it become fairly standard over the next couple of years.

KDE vs Gnome wars: put an end to it.

Um, it is. Or are you going to say all the GNOME developers have to go and work on KDE (or vice versa)? So who says who "wins"? And who really cares if there are 2 seperate desktops if they integrate increasingly well via FD.o standards?

Jedidiah

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[lahvak]

Thank you!

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Coryoth]

#2 needs solved fast. apt-get/synaptic 'do it' but have major flaws, in that it is centralized, and therefore resources are lacking (you will have some things that are 2/3 major revisions behind because noone has packaged them for the apt-get repo you have). Plus it's no good for commercial software, which like it or not is not going to vanish.

Yup, apt/Synaptic work great for the base distribution, but if you want anything n ot in the distribution you'e in trouble. Fortunately this problem was noted a while ago by some people, and solutions have been in the works for some time. Autopackage is not quite finished yet, but is API stable now, and provides a great way for application developers (including commercial developers) to create distribution neutral easy install binary packages. If you haven't seen it then it's worth a look. Expect to see support for Autopackage increase dramatically over the next year or two as more projects take it up as a packaging system.

Jedidiah.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[MrResistor]

Then you've never had a need to stray far from the default configuration. That's fine, I'm not putting it down or anything, but Windows does make some things nearly impossible for no good reason other than perhaps that not that many people want to do them. With Linux (or any other *nix, really), these things may not be simple, but they're not especially hard either.

That said, if you honestly think Windows has something over Linux in this regard, you really need to try Suse. Yast is so much more usable and capable than the Windows Control Panel, and it's integrated nicely into KDE's Control Center so you have a true one-stop-shop for all your configuration needs.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[yuri benjamin]

Since both GNOME and KDE are increasingly adopting standards from freedesktop.org, they increasingly interoperate well.

This is even better than ending the so-called "KDE vs Gnome wars".
With this it looks like KDE and Gnome will be two different implementations of the same standard, each with their own distinguishing features. Nothing wrong with that.

Now, within any given corporation that decides to use linux desktops, it will either be all KDE or all Gnome, as dictated by the IT dept. Nothing wrong with that either.

The hardcore geeks can still use windowmaker, icewm, et al. Nothing wrong with that either.

My computers all run GNOME.
And mine all run KDE. Not because KDE is any better, but because that's what I've grown acustomed to. I still have the GTK libs so I can run gnome apps - eg I run grip for ripping my CD collection.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Corngood]

How about an example of something a home user of Windows would need to change?

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[otis wildflower]

Or are you going to say all the GNOME developers have to go and work on KDE (or vice versa)? So who says who "wins"? And who really cares if there are 2 seperate desktops if they integrate increasingly well via FD.o standards?

I always figured it should end up something along the lines of Carbon vs. Cocoa (GTK vs. Qt). The look & feel should be uniform, but coding with different languages, APIs, event models, etc. should be supported. There really needs to be a definitive UI guideline summit that would provide a uniform user experience regardless of the underlying development environments.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[killjoe]

Installing a key for a VPN to their workplace.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[dr.badass]

It may not be perfect but it's better then windows.

It may be better than Windows, but it's worse than Mac OS X.

For Linux to make any dent on the desktop for non-programmers, it will have to set it's sights higher than "better than Windows". A lot higher.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Atzanteol]

I pretty much only use windows, though I have tried a couple of times to switch to different linux distributions. Personally, I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never had to use anything other than the control panel to do everything with my windows box. Yep, not a single time have I had to much with the registry. The problem is with your attitude that if the GUI can't do it you should go in and take care of it. Unfortunately, I have better things to do with my time that take a distribution and try to make it work for me with all that effort. A GUI is much more managable and easier to learn.

Which control panel? XP Home? XP Pro? 98? 95? NT? 2k3?

Most of the config files in /etc have been the same since 1996. In fact, many config files I've changed once, and never touched again (even moved them from RedHat to Gentoo). GUI is easier my ass. It's only easy if things don't keep bloody moving around on you.

Wake me up when Windows standardizes on their control panel to the point where I can go from one release to the next without relearning everything.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[bonch]

I've mentioned this before. Whenever someone mentions how fragmented Linux on the desktop is, someone references Freedesktop like it's some sort of universal answer. Meanwhile, Linux on the desktop is still fragmented.

Everything is "this will exist" or "this has the potential to." What about right now? It's been eight years since I first started following Linux on the desktop, and every year has sounded exactly the same. Just saying.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[bonch]

If what you say is true, and all those issues are "resolved," than we'd be seeing a Linux desktop marketshare higher than its current meager 1% (according to the numbers from Zeitgeist before it stopped reporting them).

Just for comparison, OS X was 5%.

It seems you just declare his credibility "shot to hell" without actually explaining why. Such dismissiveness isn't good for progress, and it's about time people started getting self-critical about their projects. That's how the commercial guys do it--it's all about "what can we do better for the user?" This thing is never gonna get off the ground if it remains a hobbyist endeavor for other hobbyists all its life.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[elhedran]

If making GNU/Linux Popular means taking away what I like about GNU/Linux, then to hell with popular.

Linux isn't a company. Linux isn't a religion. Linux is a public space where a bunch of people have come and started helping out each other. It doesn't need to change to succeed, It just is.

If you said for a panda to really succeed it should be made like a grizzly bear, would the panda have succeeded? or would we now just be without pandas.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Lisandro]

I'll give you this: Windows excells in this area. No contest - one has to be blind not to see it. But most of the stuff Freedesktop has to offer is available now, and the rest it's well on it's way.

I use XFCE 4.2. I can load both KDE and GNOME programs that minimize to the taskbar, and they're handled perfectly. Cut-&-paste behaves as it should as far as i've experienced (no more "this pastes here but not there"), and the GNOME metadata i wrote for file handling is seen fine by XFCEs file manager. I can drag and drop files between programs and they're handled fine aswell - i do it all the time with Opera (QT) and my file manager (GTK+).

Granted, it still has it's rough edges. But (again, IMHO) the Linux desktop is not the mess nowadays some people tend to beleive. And it's only getting better.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[killjoe]

Not worse then MAC OS X server. The GUI on mac os x server is just lame.

The problem is that linux offers so much more then either windows or mac. Most linux distributions come with at least three database servers, five email servers and a thousand other programs you can install from the disk. The Gnome control panel does everything the mac os X control panel does and more.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[MrResistor]

How about processes loaded at startup? Yeah, I know about msconfig. I'm also old enough to remember when it actually worked.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[dr.badass]

Most linux distributions come with at least three database servers, five email servers and a thousand other programs you can install from the disk.

The discussion is about Linux on the desktop. (How did you miss that?) And on the desktop, Linux has very little to offer. My point was that this is because the projects are focused on creating something only marginally better than Windows, rather than something really and truly great in it's own right.

Also, projects like Fink for Mac OS X and Cygwin for Windows make adding those "thousands of other programs" trivial. Unfortunately there's no such trivial way to make Linux GUIs not suck.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[EnglishDude]

msconfig isn't available on WinNT operating systems (i.e. Win2k, WinXP etc)

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[IamTheRealMike]

I for one am tired of these old outdated complaints. Nobody has to compile anything unless they want to. With the exception of gentoo no linux distrubitution requires compiling anything.

What kind of fantasy land are you living in? Sure, if you are willing to dick about all day with apt pinning and use outdated software, maybe you can avoid it. It's a bit of a mission.

But if you want to use the latest versions of things, even if you use Debian you'll have to compile sometimes. Check out the users on the Ubuntu lists bitching about how Inkscape 0.41 just missing the upstream version freeze. Check out Fyre, a cool app for generating images from de Jong maps - note the lack of a Debian package. On Fedora far more software is not in the repositories than is.

Blind fanboyism won't get us anywhere. Even if the best case scenario, which right now probably means Ubuntu, there are serious problems with desktop software installation on Linux.

There is a lot of interest in solutions from users, developers and commercial ISVs (eg LSB/OSDL member companies). There are a few projects experimenting with new approaches, check out my own: autopackage, or Thomas Leonards Zero-Install.

In particular if you want to test Fyre, try the autopackage I made of it: Fyre 0.10svn. Both Fyre and autopackage aren't quite version 1.0 yet, but both are very close.

That build needs GTK 2.4. I have a build locally I will upload soon that adapts to the GTK features available at runtime (using relaytool) and therefore only needs GTK 2.2, but can still use the new file selectors and other features if they're available at runtime.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[IamTheRealMike]

These days you can use the GTK-Qt theme to unify the looks regardless of what visual style you like. It has been refined for a long time and works pretty well. The remaining differences are mostly trivial and are of the level of inconsistency found in Carbon/Cocoa apps or between Explorer/IE/Office on Windows. So I don't think it's a big problem.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[Vince Mo'aluka]

Linux is about freedom more then anything else. Who are you to shove a desktop down my throat?

Unless he plans on using the force of government to shove a desktop down your throat, freedom isn't an issue here. If all linux developers got together and voluntarily decided that there's room for only one desktop, how can that possibly be a loss of freedom? Where's the force or fraud? Loss of alternative choice, sure. But loss of freedom? That's a red herring. If McDonalds suddenly decided to stop selling you those Big Macs, would you claim that as a loss of "freedom" too? If you suddenly decided to quit your job, are you infringing on your employer's "freedom" to employ you? (These examples are absurd, of course, but no more absurd than your claiming to lose "freedom" through voluntary association.)

Otherwise, I agree with you that more choice results in better software.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[LocoMan]

I wasn't available in Windows 2000 (I remember I had to install a third party program for that), but AFAIK it has been there in WinXP from the beggining.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[LocoMan]

BTW.. that should have been "it wasn't"... :)

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[fr0dicus]

I see most people have beaten you up over this, but I agree with everything you've written. I'd also mention, sort out font installation, kerning, and add to the KDE/GNOME thing by asking them to at least agree some rules of interoperability to vastly improve the nonexistant integration between related apps (they could really learn a lot from Apple's iLife for example).

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[swv3752]

Most people are happy to use whatever is available in thier distro feeds. I use to agressively compile the latest of everything but of late, I'd rather use my computer even if it means that I use slightly older releases.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[killjoe]

And on the desktop, Linux has very little to offer.

It depends. For corporate use it's perfect. For your grandma almost there.

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[bitspotter]

It sounds like this guy is giving suggestions to someone who's in cahrge of the whole desktop Linux strategy.

I'd love to know who that person is...

Re:Hey I've got some ideas

[MrResistor]

Wrong. It was available for, but not included in, WinNT and Win2k. It is included in WinXP, but doesn't really work right.

Re:thanks for great review, but how does Skype com

[sourceview]

Well, I think the idea of skype is great, and their voice out rates are competitive. Is there anyway to combine the two, such that anyone in the world which calls my skype phone number "sourceview" is then shunted to the asterisk or even the vovida PBX system? By the way, I have an Avaya box for sale!

Re:Not ready

[The Master Control P]

Would you feel the same way if a car buff were to talk down about drivers who didn't know which was the gas and which was the brake? Who left their car doors unlocked and the keys on the seat, despite repeatedly having their car stolen and then being screamed at not to by their employer?

As a Linux desktop user, I do not like overly complicated software procedures. I like being able to use GUI configuration centers (Mandrake Control Center!) for things like changing mice and screen resolution and system updates. That doesn't mean I can't handle running xfconfig for screen/mice or typing "urpmi.update -a; urpmi --update --auto-select -y" for updating my computer remotely.

Seriously, you should know at least the basics of a computer before you can use one. You are required to know where the brake, gas, turn signal, emergency break, ignition, and windshield wipers are to get a drivers license in California. But if cars were computers, those users we talk down about would whine that they just want their car to work without having to know anything about it, and complain that the Linux car doesn't start it's wipers automatically when it starts raining.

Re:Not ready

[iabervon]

Notice how all the users refer to themseleves as 'us', and everyone else as 'them'.

Not him! He refers to slashdot users as 'them', and everyone else as 'us'!

(When I say "him", I mean myself, of course. Maybe it's a good idea after all to refer to oneself and others as 'us', and everyone else as 'them', if only to be somewhat comprehensible.)

Argh!!! There are PLENTY of games (2d/3d alike)

[aendeuryu]

Unreal Doom3 HalfLife2 Enemy Territory Cube Savage Stratagus Freeciv Wesnoth NeverwinterNights Tribes2 Vendetta YohohoPuzzlePirates Civilization AlphaCentauri FrozenBubble Pydance Teg DeusEx BZFlag XPlane Flightgear Torcs Scorched3d Pingus Lincity Tuxcart Torcs Quake 123 VegaStrike Railz LBreakout Armagetron PPRacer Vendetta and there more impressive titles under development.

Here's my opinion. What "we" need are fewer people saying we need more games, and more people recognizing some of the excellent offerings we have right now. If we support these games (even with nothing more than just a little recognition), the companies WILL notice, see us as a market, and want to cater to us.

Re:Argh!!! There are PLENTY of games (2d/3d alike)

[aendeuryu]

If those games are the best you can do, you are a REALLY LONG WAY from mainstream acceptance.

Point taken, but consider this. Look where we were 5 years ago. Look where we are now.

Now imagine where we'll be 5 years from now.

For the moment, the really, really impressive stuff is the graphics libraries. If nothing else, go check out Irrlicht's feature list. Before, we couldn't make good games because we didn't have the tools. Now, we have the tools, and the games are starting to come. Where do you think we'll be once the tools we have now had matured, and the community knows how to play with them? We'll be one or two years behind instead of five.

And that's just the OS community. We're not even talking about the Ids and the Unreals out there.

Re:Argh!!! There are PLENTY of games (2d/3d alike)

[DaveCBio]

The problem is with a lot of those games there is no official support for Linux and the executables don't come on the disc. Not to mention games like BZFlag (and a lot of other homegrown Linux games) don't really stand up too well when people see screenshots of the latest Windows games. There is no way you are going to convert Joe Consumer if he has to go searching for an executable or having them run an emulator (i.e. HL2) to play.

Re:Argh!!! There are PLENTY of games (2d/3d alike)

[aendeuryu]

I'll concede BZFlag doesn't have the graphical appeal that the mainstream games these days have. This problem will work itself out as the open source projects in general attract more artists. The artwork is catching up, though.

The problem is with a lot of those games there is no official support for Linux and the executables don't come on the disc.

Alright, but this is a different criticism, and one that will only go away when more "stupid" money is being thrown around, and people see that there might be a market in providing games support for Linux. Games-oriented Linux distros don't hurt, either. What does hurt is that we don't give them any exposure.

Re:Argh!!! There are PLENTY of games (2d/3d alike)

[wirwzd]

In business, timing has a lot to do with sucess.

Loki was an idea implemeted to early, as the ease of installing/using/maintaining Linux was too prohibitive.

Recent efforts are getting closer to making linux easy enough for the average Joe.

The real switch will come once more companies start shipping an *promoting* pre installed linux in stores like Circuit City, Best Buy, etc.

Even now, most average computer users would be lost if you gave them a PC with no OS/drivers installed and a Windows disk, same as if you gave them a PC with no OS and a linux disk.

There is still is a chicken/egg issue between the gaming indutry and PC manufacturers.

Re:Argh!!! There are PLENTY of games (2d/3d alike)

[einhverfr]

Wesnoth does. It is by far the best turn-based strategy game I have ever played.

AMP

[totalnet]

Well there is already an open source project that does that, AMP. The people that does AMP also has a commercial version call voxbox. I was at that show, it should have been called the Linspire Expo. Since the show was run by Linspire and most of the booths are for Linspire products.

Re:Haha ...

[djplurvert]

Most likely you selected something else that required what you deselected as a dependency.

As a beginner you should use one of the standard base installs and either yum or apt to install software.

Perhaps what you really want is ubuntu. Installs with synaptic by default and is super snappy even on low end systems. Not too much bloat.

ymmv.

Re:Linspire Trying Too Hard to Mimic Apple?

[aldoman]

I agree 110%. Linspire is just like a budget version of Apple.

GNOME, IMO at least looks fairly excellent. Sure, it has rough edges, but generally it's very consistent and has a nice HIG that developers follow because the development tools enforce them.

Compare that with the mess that is KDE, using SVG icons for no real reason which look great when you have them wallpaper size but crap when you actually use them (@ 16x16 or 32x32, for example, as they just don't scale properly).

Re:Coding in Parallel

[LnxAddct]

Err... the linux kernel is probably the most often forked piece of OSS. I don't know of a single distro that uses a stock kernel. Each ditro "forks" a version of their own and works on it in more detail there. When newer kernel branches are released, those branches are diffed and updated again... (more or less). Linus likes it that way. In fact, the kernel developers have accepted this to such an extent that they have decided that they may start including more experimental code in the stock kernel and let the distributors sort it out in their forks. Not to mention... alot of linux's media players are not half baked. MPlayer gui and Xine are two that I can think of off the top of my head that work better then most on windows. Real Player is another nice one.There is also quality software for every other category you listed including thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, gaim, gimp, eclipse, vim, apt and yum.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Not ready

[HermanAB]

You know, considering that there are about four hundred percent more Linux systems in the world than MS Windows systems and that every Windows user is also an unwitting user of multiple Linux switches, routers and servers and probably has a Linux powered cell phone or PDA in his pocket, why exactly would a Linux user be 'above' others - the Linux user and the others, being the same people?

(According to IBM marketing, there are about 2 billion Linux devices in the world - mostly cell phones and routers - versus only 600 million MS Windows desktops)

Re:thanks for great review, but how does Skype com

[Theatetus]

In the same way that apples compare to oranges. Asterisk is a PBX replacement: go into the phone closet at your office and look for something that looks like a really big motherboard with ridiculously huge PCI cards on it and a bunch of phone lines going into them. An asterisk box is meant to replace that: it can run digital and analog telephony, and VOIP to if you want it to.

whoops

[aendeuryu]

Sorry about that. Mentioned Vendetta twice. Hopefully the point is still clear, though.

Take an interest in what people are putting out there for you for ALREADY. Just go to Freshmeat and browse through the games being developed there. Find one that looks promising. Subscribe to it. Post a little something that says "this looks awesome".

Go to Linuxgames and check out the releases there. Go to HappyPenguin and have a look at the projects there. Check out the Game of the Month project and see if you can offer some help, even if it's only testing.

Got money? Vote with your wallet -- find a game that's being developed and isn't in danger of stagnation on sourceforge and donate. Give them half of what you'd pay for a commercial game in the genre. Consider what you're investing in -- tons of content, free updates, no subscription fees, etc.

Not impressed by any of the games? Fine. Donate to library-makers. Take a look at libsdl, clanlib, allegro, irrlicht, ogre3d, blender, crystal space, etc. These guys are putting out free tools for developers to use to make games. And they're bloody marvellous.

When a Linux version of a commercial game is published, if it looks interesting, BUY IT. Think about all that time that Loki had their balls hanging out there. Are you telling me that there wasn't some money you wasted on something else that couldn't have gone to them? Loki took a lot of flack for the way things went in the end, but IMO if there were more people willing to put their money where there mouth was, things would have worked out better for them -- they'd have found a way to survive.

Brag about what we have. Show that you're willing to pay to get even more of it. Don't complain about what we don't have.

Or don't. Most of the projects are going to keep working and working regardless of the lack of mainstream recognition. But if you'd like to be a part of the solution, the above advice is a start.

Re:whoops

[X0563511]

Have you ever played Vendetta?

I was in the beta test (with so many other hundreds), and aside from the occasional bugs/imbalances that game is freaking awsome!

The graphics are awsome at higher settings as well.

Why should I switch to Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

(This isn't a troll, I just want to see some clear arguments.)

I'm a fairly heavy Windows user. For about 90-120 minutes a day, I check email through Thunderbird, browse some sites with Firefox, chat on Gaim and XChat, and download my daily dose of Mercury Theatre[1] with Azureus. I use Sygate Firewall and AVG Anti-virus, and I rarely have a problem.

Why should _I_ switch to Linux?

[1] Mercury Theatre is in the public domain, so this isn't a warez-related post.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[agraupe]

Why shouldn't you? It seems like you like and use many open-source programs, so there is very little holding you back. If I had to pick one thing, it would be selection of programs. Sure there are more commercial programs for Windows, but there are many times more free (open-source) programs for Linux. They work well and install easily. There is no reason to stick with MS at this point, and, if you're a competent user, you will like the choice and customizability that linux offers.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[BlurredWeasel]

You are 90% of the way there. You use almost all open source software (short of the security stuff).

Switching to linux for you isn't necessarily the thing to do if the system you have right now works fast with no interuptions/pauses and doesn't crash. I doubt you would notice much difference if you did an install of Fedora, all the same programs would be there, gaim, firefox, thunderbird...all FOSS.

For some people, the switch really wouldn't bring them anything. Its the people who do what you do, but instead use IE, Outlook, Aim (with WeatherBug!). They are the ones having their computers crippled by spyware and viruses. They are the ones that benefit by a usable Linux Desktop.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[MrResistor]

Well, it would allow you to ditch the anti-virus. Yeah, I know that's not really much of a selling point in and of itself, but think about what it implies:

Even though you don't use them, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are still on your system, and they still represent a non-zero level of vulnerability simply by existing. Additionally, Firefox is still vulnerable to some kinds of spyware and such when it's running on Windows (don't know about Thunderbird).

I've been a Linux user for over 5 years now, and finally made the switch for good about 2.5 years ago, and I couldn't be happier. These days I have to be paid to deal with Windows. A lot of that is that the more I learn about *nix, the more I realize the way MS decided to do things is stupid and wrong, but that's obviously very subjective.

I think the thing I miss the least is the regular reinstalls. Windows just seems to gum itself up after a while, and needs to start over on a clean slate every 6-12 months or so. Obviously, I haven't had the same experience with Linux.

Ironicly, I actually had the switch kinda forced on me. When Suse switched from Lilo to Grub, my very nice SGI USB keyboard was suddenly unsupported (in Grub, it worked just fine everywhere else, even in the BIOS). This meant that I couldn't make selections in the boot menu, which made it a serious PITA to dual-boot. I considered my options, and told my wife she was now a linux user. Her only question, literally, was "how do I log in?" (suprised the hell out of me. She is, shall we say, non-technical, and had no prior Linux experience).

Anyway, since all the apps you use are either available or easily replaced on Linux, you really have no reason not to switch, other than, perhaps, some fear of the unknown. You have no reason to be afraid, though. There are lots of people out there who are willing to help you through it.

My recommendation is to buy yourself a copy of Suse Pro. it's about $90, so you're not going to save yourself much over XP Home, but it comes with excellent printed manuals, just about every app you could want, and their setup/admin tool, Yast, simply rocks.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[killjoe]

Why are you using all those open source software on windows?

You should switch to linux for the same reason.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[prockcore]

Why should _I_ switch to Linux?

Well, all your favorite apps are here. You wouldn't need to run the anti-virus or firewall. And you'll find that the GTK apps you're using look a crapload better on linux than they do on windows.

But, contrary to what most rabid slashdotters will tell you windows actually does "Just Work(tm)" for a lot of people. My parents and my wife don't have problems with it. They use firefox (and they use webmail).. they're NATed behind linksys access points... I don't worry about them.

I say, go download the Ubuntu livecd and try it out.. it's no-commitment linux.. you might like it better.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[kuzb]

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.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[ImaLamer]

You've got a pretty good point.

I use windows a lot, too much. I find it works really well because I use Firefox, Gaim, Azureus, Apache, Media Player Classic, OpenOffice, Sygate Firewall, Norton AV (OEM, free as in beer), Virtual Dub, XviD, FreeRip, Cygwin....

Basically everything my mouse touches in Windows is either GPL, free as in beer or part of Windows itself. I've found that open source software just runs better.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[poofyhairguy82]

Why should _I_ switch to Linux?

If you have to ask, there is no reason to. All those people who have nerd family members or friends that are always fixing their windows computer- they need Linux.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[serialXP]

Reading this I think, why would I use windows? My computer (an old Athlon 600) doesn't came with a OEM windows so I used a "alternative" copy of windows for some time. When I started using Linux I discovered that I can do everything I did with windows (Use web, read email, play NEOGEO games, use icq/msn, listen MP3, watch some movies....) I can do with linux, for free... Here in Brazil a OEM copy of windows XP home costs like 2 minimum wages (minimum wage here = U$ 100, my salary = U$ 300), I could buy one copy, but why should I?

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[gov_coder]

I can't tell you why _you_ should switch, but I can tell you why _I_ switched. 1) tired or malware (viri, worms, adware, etc...) clogging up system resources and my time 2) MS's ominous focus on preventing user actions - rather then enabling users to do things (such as remove a web browser with a poor security track record - for example, burn MP3s, etc...) 3) wanted to support open standards; The markets and competition depend on them - so I might as well vote for fairness with my dollars and my feet. 4) tired of upgrade treadmill and the costs of MS software; seems like I just figured out how to pay for MS Office Pro (in 97) when a new version comes out - and the only way to fix a bunch of annoying bugs is to buy the newer stuff. You can of course get much of this benefit just by using OOo - but there's a lot more than OOo in the linux world. 5) pretty much tired of supporting a convicted monopolist with my hard earned dough. 6) wanted to learn more about unix 7) got a glimpse of KDE (at the time I believe it was at 1.1) and thought - wow, this is better than windows. Still think so.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

On the other hand, it never hurts to try new things. It's true that it takes some degree of time and effort to learn a new OS, but time spent on learning and self improvement is never wasted.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[swv3752]

When Windows crashes what do you do? Most people reinstall.

Short of a hardware failure (And I have had one hard drive start to fail and still was able to backup my Linux system), Linux pretty much never crashes, and on rare circumstances where it does, you can still easily fix it. Even if you are not familiar with the internals of Linux, you can always take out your distro discs and do an upgrade install.

The question should really be, Why stay on Windows? All the software you mentioned is native to Linux. MS wants to take more control of your computer, hence the software subscription model, Palladium, and signed software.

Internal hardware will just work. Sure there is always something that causes problems, but except for the very latest and greatest in whatever there will be support for it in Linux. The two main pieces of harware that will be a source of problems is printers and scanners.

http://www.sane-project.org/ look there for a compatible scanner.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/ look there for printers. The short form, get an Epson or HP. Though Samsung have some inexpensive laser printers which come with Linux drivers.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[agraupe]

What bizzare world do you live in? I quite clearly gave the advantages, in a non-MS-is-evil format (although that's a perfectly good reason IMHO):

1. Wider availability of Free software.

2. Easier installation of new software, assuming you pick a distro with good package management.

3. Choice of themes, and programs to do any one thing (if you don't like, for example, KDE, you can pick GNOME).

4. Raw customizability. If this matters to you, there is virtually no part of the Linux system, from the kernel up to the flashiest GUI program, that cannot be changed.

I fail to see how this constitutes an "MS is evil" rant.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[kuzb]

Sure, I spent my time in the Linux trenches too, and I don't regret it, even though I don't run it now. It gave me a lot of insights.

However, he's not going to gain anything from the experience because what he has already does everything he needs. It's like trading in a honda motorcycle for a harley - The latter is a quality bike, but it's definatly meant for the serious bikers who *want* to dig in to the guts. And it's definatly not going to alter the fact that the rider just wants to ride.

Now, in this case, if you have two choices, and either would do what you want, how much time you'd have to spend under the hood is a determining factor. Linux consumes not just a little time initially, it consumes *gobs* of time. Despite the claims that linux is "desktop ready". There is always going to be some thing in there that doesn't work exactly the way you want it, and you'll spend time trying to change it so it does.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[westlake]

When Windows crashes what do you do? Most people reinstall.

Most people simply reboot.
Some may actually read XP's recovery dialogs and go to MS's Crash Analysis site for advice, in plain English, on how to fix the ptoblem.

Re:Why should I switch to Linux?

[swv3752]

And when you get something like: the following file is missing or corrupt...?

Re:thanks for great review, but how does Skype com

[MatthewB79]

Well yes, the asterisk system can be pretty easily configured to recieve any type of call and route it to another place. All that matters is having the support line there whether it be POTS or whatever.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[Thundersnatch]

UNIX has had this for over 30 years, and Linux for over 13 years. When you don't give the end-users the root password, the configuration is locked-down.

Umm, no. Things like Group Policies on Windows provide much much more than "lockdown". Software installation, sure. But most importantly, configuration. I need to be able to enforce configurations like, "this group of users automatically point to mail server X, file server Y, and this set of icons and default reports for our financials applications. Also, make plain text their default email format, and set their in-office hours on their calendar to 9-to-5 weedays. Prevent them from changing that stuff, but only if they're not in the help desk group. Finally, hide all of the database integration functions from the spreadsheet program, so they don't get confused."

Many many hours of scripting would be required to replicate this functionality on Linux, if it were possible at all with all the customized configuration files each application has. With Windows, Active Directory, and Group Policies, this sort of mass configutation is just point-n-click.

The closest thing I've ever seen to this on a UNIX-style system was how the University of Notre Dame ran their Solaris workstation clusters on AFS back in the mid-1990s. But there was really no application-level configuration done, just some automatic setup of X, the window manager, and user directories.

Re:Haha ...

[djplurvert]

I find ubuntu's default desktop install (with gnome) to be very reasonable on a P-II 500 with 256 mb of ram. But it's not going to be super snappy. I haven't timed the boot, but it's sure as hell not eight minutes.

Re:Linspire Trying Too Hard to Mimic Apple?

[ccharles]

using SVG icons for no real reason which look ... crap when you actually use them (@ 16x16 or 32x32 ... as they just don't scale properly

Umm... you know that the `S' in SVG stands for scalable, right?

I've done quite a bit of work in SVG under Inkscape and I must say that I think the format is wonderful. Whether it's appropriate as a native icon format or not is pretty much a matter of choice, but it's *great* for designing them.

Re:Coding in Parallel

[Deusy]

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.

Gaming needs to move to Java (or similar)

[MatthewNewberg]

SDL is great. It takes care of a lot of things. I personally dont use it, but I have notice there listed of support things are more then I could of ever hoped. Things I would like to see are Networking, and fast FileInput Output added. Even if SDL was perfect, it still leaves issues related to have to compile the source code again. Realisticly the community needs to promote a solution that doesn't need to be recompiled. Wouldn't it be nice that once you bought a game you could always end up using it even if you change your hardware, or OS. Now SDL does have a Java linkage, but I dont really see that being a good solution. I feel the API needs to be added to the Java installer. So hopefully someone from Sun can read this and decide to make a good API for games.

Re:Gaming needs to move to Java (or similar)

[WebMink]

Actually there's already a very active gaming group at Sun, led by their Chief Gaming Officer. There are already a few commercial Java-based games around and I think there are more in the pipeline.

Re:Gaming needs to move to Java (or similar)

[MatthewNewberg]

I have seen and used the Java Bindings to various libaries. Maybe I am a perfectionist, but I find it really weird the only interface for games is in the form of an outside API, of which the API is not object orienated. I really see these bindings the limiting factor of the language for a few reasons. They seem very slapped on ,are currently not included by default to the JVM, and are not a unified API. Now you might say that is a lot to ask, but Direct X has had this kind of thing for years. On the Comercial Games side of things. I have heard of a few, but only a few. Java has been struggling for many years to get developers interested. Until they actually produce something that competes with DirectX it will not happen.

Shame about the copyright assignment

[QuantumG]

What kind of open source project requires people to assign their copyright on contributions to a company for the specific purpose of releasing proprietary software based on those contributions?

Re:Shame about the copyright assignment

[RdsArts]

Ximian and Sun?

Ximian: Evolution
Sun: OpenOffice.org/StarOffice

Re:Shame about the copyright assignment

[QuantumG]

Novell/Evolution now actually. The community needs to fork these projects immediately. I don't know about you, but when I write proprietary software, I expect to get paid.

Re:Shame about the copyright assignment

[QuantumG]

Ank. Read the Mozilla patch lifecycle. As for FireFox, they don't accept ANY patches.

But what about Linspire?

[wrook]

It's all well and good to talk about Linspire, but what I really wanted to hear about was Linspire. Did anyone catch what Linspire was doing at the show? Maybe someone should post an article about Linspire. I'm sure there where other things at the show, but clearly Linspire needs more exposure.

Sigh... You know I've been wasting my time reading Slashdot for almost as long as it's been around. At one point it really *was* "News for Nerds". I was happy to have wasted those few minutes a day -- that was what nerds did!

But Slashdot is now "News for idiots who enjoy flamefests and astroturfing". I can accept that from ignorant commentators such as myself, but from the editorial staff?

If I wanted shocking, controversial, manipulative propaganda, I'd listen to the mainstream news. I want mindless, trivial, techno-mation. I want cool factor, not empire building. Geez, I even miss poor, petrified Natalie Portman. At least that had geek apeal.

So, see ya guys! I end my less than illustrius time on Slashdot completely off topic and being a total troll.

Enjoy!

Re:But what about Linspire?

[MrResistor]

You'll come back. They always do...

Re:Not ready

[ATomkins]

(typed on federa core 3...installed from GUI)

GUI?!?!??!!? Luxury.

Real men compile their operating systems from source at -O0, then carry out any and all optimization by hand at the binary level! With a tiny magnet and a set of torx screwdrivers for cracking open the hard drive.

Wait, this was about combatting linux stereotypes? Oh... uh... yeah, my girlfriend thinks that's important, too...

Re:Linspire 5

[As Seen On TV]

Is not a "linux-like" OS, it a Linux distribution

What's the difference?

If the default appearence doesn't meet your tastes you can always change it

Why? If I don't like the way the house looks I can always spend years of my life or tens of thousands of dollars landscaping and refinishing it, too ...or I can just go find a house that doesn't look like it was designed by an autistic seven-year-old with astigmatism.

My suggestion.

[MatthewNewberg]

I would suggest staying with Windows for the time being. Why becuase it works for you, why fix something that isn't broken.

Now from your description I would suggest to moving to Linux in the future. This is how I would do it.

First Thing I would suggest you to do is read up on how to use Linux, and get used to it. Try out one of the bootable distro and use that for awhile, make sure you can use everything. If everything works(hardware and software), and you have the time go ahead and (Backup)install Linux.

Otherwise I would wait for when you are ready to replace your computer, and plan my purchases around Linux. Linux is really good about Hardware support, but I would be careful and double check everything you buy and make sure it would work, and isn't too hard to setup.

Once you have everything working, then transfer all your work related things to the new computer and then put that Windows Box to rest.

Re:My suggestion.

[RKThoadan]

You've done a decent job of showing him how to switch, but you didn't address his question of why to switch.

I'm only a part time Linux user (mainly because I'm still on dial-up), but what attracts me personally is that Linux recognizes that my computer is my computer. Microsoft tends to think that my computer is actually thier computer, and that bugs the hell out of me.

Re:My suggestion.

[arhar]

The parent was not asking how, or what's the best way. He was asking WHY should he switch to Linux.

Re:My suggestion.

[techno-vampire]

I'd reccomend a different way, but that's because it's the way I used. If you have enough disk space to spare, use a good partitioning program to shrink your Windows partition to about half the disk or so, and install Linux on the other half. That gives you a dual boot system. Use Windows when you want what you're familiar with and Linux when you want to experiment. If and when you decide that you want to go Linux only, you just stop selecting Windows at the boot screen. That leaves all your old programs and data on the disk Just In Case you need them again.

Game Joes

[Spy der Mann]

Normal Joes do not play computer games.

You're right. These are the Game Joes. But they don't stop being Joes after all. Being a nerd or liking games doesn't make you a linux uber-genius automatically.

Re:Not ready

[Bob Uhl]

It's an obvious troll, but I still feel the need to respond (more fool me, I suppose).

First off, mankind spent millennia developing the ability to read, write and speak: why limit oneself to grunting and pointing at pictures when one can express oneself in words? The command line is useful.

Secondly, it's not that we like complex things: it's just that we realise that many tasks are inherently complex, or that the payoff is worth it. As an example, I can play my music, read my email, read Usenet, browse the web, chat with my friends on IRC, AIM, MSN & Jabber and edit my documents all within the same program: emacs. Yes, it's complex, but it's worth it.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[As Seen On TV]

The closest thing I've ever seen to this on a UNIX-style system was how the University of Notre Dame ran their Solaris workstation clusters on AFS back in the mid-1990s.

Actually, that's basically how Mac OS X Server works. User preferences are stored in tiered layers through a facility called NSUserDefaults. Some preferences can be set at the group layer, some at the user layer (by an administrator) and some by the user himself.

Now, many third-party applications (especially legacy 20th-century stuff) haven't gotten around to implementing NSUserDefaults yet. There's not really any excuse for that; it's only been around since 10.0. But if life were perfect it wouldn't be interesting.

Re:Linspire 5

[DCMonkey]

Ok, so I get 4 moving targets and loose the advatanges described by Fitt's Law on half of them.

I guess that's the price one pays to get a good looking OOBE screenshot.

Already done?

[aendeuryu]

Check out Irrlicht. It's cross-platform, free, open-source, handles mesh imports from 3d studio max, maya, DirectX formats, and can import Quake 3 levels and Quake 2 models, amongst other things.

Or Blender, which has support for 3d game creation.

Or Ogre3d, which is more of a graphics engine than a game engine, but which can be used for game creation.

But I think irrlicht is the closest to what you're talking about.

The interesting talks were...

[mrbass]

Robin Rowe founder of LinuxMovies.org
Linux in the Motion Picture Industry

He showed clips of 'The Last Samurai', Bad Boyz, etc. He said Shrek2 had a 2,500 cpu render farm and was fast approaching their deadline. They contact HP for an additional 1,000 cpu render farm and sent their info to them so that could finish. Like in last samurai he said no arrows were shot in the whole movie they were painted in. Also the shot with thousands of arrows the actors had them stuck in their legs and the digital effects people had to reverse trajectory paint them in. Pretty neat stuff.

Mitch Kapor lotus 1-2-3, co-founder of eff.org, working on chandler
I really liked his talk...he really is a visionary. He basically just sees it as a matter of time till open source blows over but his time frames are like 10 to 15 years.

Brenno de Winter
This guy single handedly wrote an op-ed and had the Dutch goverment stop a 160 million Microsoft contract of 5 years for something like 25,000 desktops. Instead he had redhat, suse, etc. summit alternative bids for like 7 million dollars. Anyway he now has minister and politicians asking him about DRM, etc. I stood next to him while I was buying like 25 firefox and thunderbird cds but didn't say anything. He's really a funny guy. He kept belting out s-word and b-word, etc. totally hilarious.

Gary Edwards like a co-ordinator for openoffice OASIS. I almost didn't sit through this talk cuz I was like what the hell is OASIS? But boy oh boy this is really gonna revolutionize all office suites and the way business share documents.

He said last 3 years OASIS (open document) has been in the making. Microsoft objected to it being called 'openoffice document' so they settle on 'open document'. It'll be in Openoffice 2.0. It supports XML, Xforms, UBL (universal business language...bills of lading, etc.), compound documents. Say Abiword opens a compound document with some word processor format with spreadsheets and it'll gracefully handle it just saying it can't display the spreadsheet portion.

Barry is totally in the know and I couldn't get enough of what he had to say. Other talks I liked were Doc Searls and Simmon Phipps who is a Sun guy and anyway.

I really got the feeling that Novell and Sun are embracing it slowly but surely. Anyway about those Linspire 4.5 and Linspire 5.0 beta...I guess they just don't like my little shuttle box. I guess I'll have to wait till they send me a japanese version (hey Scott) of 5.0 and hopefully I'll have better luck with that one.

I did try that Novell 9 Linux Desktop 60 day trial and yeah it's basically suse but with an administrator's perspective to make it easy to manage hundreds and thousands of workstations. Kinda cool.

Now they said they were videotaping all presentations but for the life of me I can't find squat online. I got that cd from Kim Brand (opensource in small schools) but it doesn't seem to have 25% of what was in the whole slideshow presantation.

Re:The interesting talks were...

[mrbass]

ok found a good summary here and a buttload of photos still looking for mp3s of that talks...anyone know where?

Re:Linspire 5

[Nasarius]

What's the difference?

There's no such thing as a "Linux-like operating system", that's the difference. Linux is an OS kernel, not an OS. It's everything you put on top of the kernel that makes it an operating system. An OS with Linux as the kernel is called a Linux distribution.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[barnaclebarnes]

Yep. Linspire is working on an enterprise version of CNR so you will be able to deploy applications in a corporate network. For lock down there is the KDE Kiosk framework which is being worked on.

I love how

[lahvak]

these people can explain everything to us. You see, here I am, spending sleepless nights worrying about what Linux "needs", and so on, and this guy has it all figured out! I just don't understand why people can't just listen to him! C'mon! Work together! Or you will be all half baked!

Not much about KDE/GNOME or freedesktop....

[otis wildflower]

... Was there much in the way of WM updates? Distros other than Linspire? Productivity apps? Prosumer (iLife-style) apps?

I mean, it looks like pretty much a Michael Robertsonfest going on, a few interesting bits, but nothing that's gonna give MS cause to worry...

Now a solid production IMAP or WebDAV groupware release with a free Outlook plugin, _that_ would be cause for partying.. And getting full xinerama support for OpenGL....

Re:Self-Promotion gets modded up?

[thryllkill]

While it is self promotion, it is also informative, interesting, and on topic. This is all a lot more than most of the posts here can say.

Re:Not ready

[man_ls]

Pedels and steering = input devices.
Turn signal = email client
ebreak = reset button
ignition = power button
windshield wipers = the McAfee Security Center that comes preinstalled on every PC under the sun these days.

That's not a whole lot of stuff to know about, honestly. And it leaves users still clueless about the important stuff.

More Blathering...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

...every time anybody tries to come anywhere close to developing a product that runs on Linux, leeches appear out of nowhere demanding that the company cough up all their valuable IP.

There is no law or rule that says everything (or anything) written for Linux has to be GPL or any other Open Source license (the GPL is not the only Open Source license, you did know, right?). In fact, there are huge amounts of expensive proprietary (closed source) application software written expressly for Linux.

Want to fix Linux? Start by getting rid of the "you can change everything" aspect of it.

Supposedly, Windows has this type of "interoperability" too, at least that's what Redmond has been tooting of late. And, I'm sure there are quite a few applications that run on specially tweaked Windows as well.

Re:More Blathering...

[NeoChaosX]

There is no law or rule that says everything (or anything) written for Linux has to be GPL or any other Open Source license (the GPL is not the only Open Source license, you did know, right?).

The problem, however, is that anything closed-source that does get released for Linux is promptly shit on by large numbers of Linux zealots who demand it should be open-sourced anyway for a variety of ideological reasons. This kind of reaction turns off the bigger companies who want to develop on Linux, but still protect their "trade secrets", to continue developing for the platform. The "open-source everything" crowd has to understand that pissing off big companies with their attitude only stunts Linux's growth and acceptance as a major desktop OS.

Re:More Blathering...

[Aaron_bootiemd]

So where do we find a balance between all the companies that want to use the intellectual properties of linux for their own gain without contributing anything back? I realize the motive, but some seem to forget that a LOT of work went into linux and other open source projects. They leverage this "free" work and then get stingy when people ask that they contribute back.

Re:More Blathering...

[Lussarn]

I don't think you are correct at all. What we do not want however is incompatible file formats and nasty DRM schemes. Something thats is close to synonymous to closed source software but don't exist at all in open source sofware.

Sure, Apple could bring iTunes to linux but few would use it, not because it's closed source but because it's proprietary and full of DRM.

Re:More Blathering...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

So where do we find a balance between all the companies that want to use the intellectual properties of linux for their own gain without contributing anything back?

If they are not using GPLed code in their applications, unfortunately, there is nothing we "can do".

But let's look at this trend to make non-OSS software for Linux. Do they give anything back? Sure they do, and it's called increasing the mainstream enterprise acceptance of Linux over Winblows. So are they giving something back? Perhaps.

Linspire Trying Too Hard to Mimic Apple?-Hinting.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've done quite a bit of work in SVG under Inkscape and I must say that I think the format is wonderful. Whether it's appropriate as a native icon format or not is pretty much a matter of choice, but it's *great* for designing them."

Fonts are a vector format. Now ask yourself: why do fonts have "hinting"? Why is it SVG doesn't?

Re:Not ready

[teknomage1]

That was funny. Took awhile to fully grok, but funny.

Driving Simulator - Help Wanted

[KrackHouse]

I'm working on a cross platform(Linux | Mac | Win) driving simulator. I'm confident it's going to be a success is due to our use of 3rd party libraries to aid in development but how long it takes depends on how much help we recieve. A lot of aspiring OSS developers aren't aware that high quality libraries exist to aid in development of increasingly complicated games. We get to focus on the driving dynamics and not arcane shader technology because our graphics engine simplifies it.

Check out our image gallery for a look at the shadowing capabilities we're taking advantage of. If you or anybody you know are C++ gurus and have a love for driving and/or Open Source Software please consider lending a hand. Say hi on irc... irc.boomtown.net #motorsport

Re:Driving Simulator - Help Wanted

[Osty]

I'm confident it's going to be a success is due to our use of 3rd party libraries to aid in development but how long it takes depends on how much help we recieve.

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:

1. The gameplay is good. This depends on your physics engine, and the type of driving game you're building. If the driving mechanics aren't there, or don't "feel right", you're screwed. ("feel" depends on the type of racer -- an arcade title will have a completely different feel than a hardcore sim, and your audience will be able to tell the difference)
2. Licensing. A few games have succeeded without licenses, but those typically have another draw. For example, the Burnout series was successful enough to have two sequels, without car licenses, but that's because the game is not a driver but a crasher. It doesn't matter that you can't crash a Ferrari, because what you're crashing doesn't matter. It's how you do it. Also, while you're a small little startup, it doesn't matter that you're using car licenses without authorization, because it's likely you're not going to go anywhere. If you do succeed, you'll need to re-evaluate that decision. If you don't have the bucks (or a major publisher backing you) to buy all of the licenses, you're going to have to go back to the drawing board and design your own set of cars. If you don't think that far enough ahead, you're likely to get Foxed.

If you or anybody you know are C++ gurus and have a love for driving and/or Open Source Software please consider lending a hand.

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.

Re:Driving Simulator - Help Wanted

[KrackHouse]

I agree that 3rd party libraries aren't sufficient for success they are necessary and we're one of a few that are puting that belief into practice.

We have over 100 people signed up in our forum ready to create content. The problem is finding enough people with C++ skills and time to help develop the engine. We're designing the simulator to accomodate community add ons so we can focus on the core. As far as the physics, we're using Open Dynamics Engine (ODE.org) which is a very advanced chunk of code. So far the reviews have been good even though we have a simple tire model in place.

Re:Driving Simulator - Help Wanted

[Osty]

I agree that 3rd party libraries aren't sufficient for success they are necessary and we're one of a few that are puting that belief into practice.

Is that qualified as, "We're one of a few in the open source community that are putting that belief into practice"? I ask because in the commercial software industry, very few people roll their own. They license rendering engines like id's Quake 3 and now Doom 3 engine, the Unreal engine, Renderware, or one of a number of others. They use sound engines like Miles. The Havok physic engine is widely used by a number of games as well. The point here is that there are a few companies that build infrastructure pieces, and most game developers license that technology so they can focus on content and gameplay. They make some modifications to the licensed bits here and there (Ubisoft's dynamic lighting they added to the Unreal engine for Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, and Rainbow Six 3), but they can do that because they didn't have to spend the time building the engine up from nothing.

For example, people complain that id's "games" aren't very great, that they're little more than technical demos for their latest technology. That's absolutely true. The amount of money id will make from licensing the Doom 3 engine to other developers will hugely overshadow the amount they make from selling the Doom 3 game itself (and when the cash cow runs out, id is good about GPLing their old tech -- the Q3 engine should be available shortly). This is the way of the future, and you're absolutely correct that using third-party software to develop a game is crucial to allow a developer to focus on what's important. Maybe the open source community hasn't quite caught on yet, but they will. Kudos to you for seeing the trend and getting in early.

Re:Driving Simulator - Help Wanted

[cgenman]

Not to be a snob, but you need either burned-in lighting on your world, or some form of grime texturing. I'd put that in for your first FX pass, as that will help far more immensely than any dynamic shadowing.

The world is just far too clean and unvaried. Bump up the resolution on the ground texture significantly (You're on a PC, burn that ram!). And get those cars a lot dirtier. If nothing else, at least simulate what you think the final game will be like in static pictures, to get people more excited about the (hopefully realistic) plans you have made.

You seem like you're at the stage where you should be working on level designs. That's good. I'd be sharing those with the community, getting feedback and refinements, as what your wants are in terms of level design will shape what your needs are in terms of engine programming. You aren't just modding an existing game... the code is yours.

You're not just building a final game. You're building enthusiasm for the project as you go, with the in-progress game. Show people a roadmap to the future and they'll respond by helping you get there. Otherwise people get a bit... aimless, and tend not to go anywhere.

Anyway, it looks like you have lots of help already so I'm probably covering old things that you have hashed out with your team members. Either way, Good luck!

Been there, done that. Is it time to try again?

[Osty]

How soon people forget Loki. They took your premise of, "People will pay for good ports of Windows games," and built a business around it. Guess what? People didn't pay. Whether it was because the game world moves so fast that something even six months old is relegated to the bargain bin, or because the typical view of, "Linux is free, and thus any software for Linux should be free as well," held by many Linux users did them in is hard to say. I suspect it's a mixture of both, and other pressures. The moral of the story is that people won't pay for game ports, at least not in the numbers you need to break even, let alone profit at the porting business. If the port doesn't sim-ship with the Windows product, you're screwed. Even if it does ship at the same time, you need some massive marketing to let folks know that there's a Linux version. If you bundle it in with the Windows version, you have no way of tracking how many sales are for the Linux version, and if you have separate versions you risk pissing off your customer base ("I bought this game, but it doesn't work on my Windows machine." "You bought the Linux version. Install Linux or exchange it for the Windows version." "You suck. I'm not buying your games anymore. I'll just warez them and play them for free.").

Now we're into a catch-22. You need to get games ported to Linux to bootstrap Linux game development, but you can't get enough people to buy the port to sustain a business. What Linux needs is a couple dedicated professional gaming studios writing Linux-only games (similar to Bungie and the Mac back in the Marathon days). Good luck selling that one in a market where if your game doesn't sim-ship on PC (Windows), PS2, Gamecube, XBox, and GBA, you're not going to make a profit (and even if you do pull it off, you still may not make a profit).

None of this is to say that Linux can't be a games platform. Anything can be a games platform (calculators, wrist-watches, set-top boxes like Tivo, you name it, chances are games have been written for it). More, Linux does support popular 3D accelerators, it supports OpenGL and has a decent framework for other bits (input/output, audio, networking, 2D graphics) in the form of SDL. Everything is there except for the marketshare to make it profitable, and the professional development studios to make commercial-quality games on Linux as a first-class platform. I don't know how you get there from here, but I'd suggest talking with others in a similar situation (*cough*Apple*cough*) and see what develops. Too bad the decentralized nature of OSS makes it difficult for a key set of players to be indentified for those types of discussions.

In the meantime, you're going to have to continue booting into "winblows" (hey, real mature there, buddy!) to play the latest mega blockbusters. And I don't want to hear any crap about how games "used to be so much better". If you want to start that discussion, you'll first need to relinquish your rose-colored glasses and recognize that the majority of games (movies, music, books, web sites, ...) have always sucked, will continue to suck, and the only reason why the past seems "better" is because you've forgotten all the shit that came before.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[iamwahoo2]

Things are usually implemented in Linux when someone thinks it is worthwhile. I can see why we are more worried about games.

Re:Linspire Trying Too Hard to Mimic Apple?

[phowardcom]

The graphics for Linspire 5 were all done by Everaldo. http://www.everaldo.com/ He is one of the most talented designers working in the computer industry right now.

The best was the irony...

[soullessbastard]

Disclaimer: I am a developer of OpenOffice.org Mac OS X and a founder of the NeoOffice project.

The DLS was held right across from a gun show (credit to The MacRat for the photo. I'm impressed the guy in the penguin suit at the door didn't go bonkers from the sun, run on over and get a semi and proceed to mow down geeks at will.

<shameless plug>

Of course, for me the highlight was Simon Phipps call for recognition of NeoOffice admist a truly wonderful presentation arguing that open source is a natural evolution of a connected society that will effect a societal transformation, similar to the rise of artisan guilds. But I very well may be just a tad bit biased having been a visual aid... ;)

</shameless plug>

ed

Re:Coding in Parallel

[otis wildflower]

If you call mplayer (a media player with the most comprehensive format support you'll find anywhere) half-baked then you are sadly deluded.

JWZ made some very scathing and accurate comments about mplayer (and other OSS media playing software) years ago, and for the most part his opinions are valid still. How many 'mortal' end users were involved in the testing process for these apps? Was their feedback taken into account when developing the UI of the app? Of course, dealing with people and their criticism is not terribly fun, which is why it usually requires paying developers to put up with it.

I mean, for goodness' sake, Apple's paying for all the usability testing and whatnot.. Just steal everything they do, and have lots of 'advanced' preference modes and CLI stuff for the geeks.

With regards to your sarcastic take on KDE and Gnome, they are totally different DEs with different approaches, architecture, and language choice.

These really need to be Cocoa and Carbon. That is, it shouldn't matter what env I run in, I want all my chrome to be correctly rendered and behave identically. As an end-user I shouldn't have to give a goddamn how the app was developed, in C, Java, C#/MONO, P(erl|ython), etc. It should all look and feel consistently, clipboards should work as expected, etc.

fd.o really needs to be about declaring an agreed-upon supported foundation of libs for GTK/GNOME and Qt/KDE, preferably by integrating the libs while having the APIs remain familiar and functional to their existing developers.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[iabervon]

If you make all of the home directories live on file servers, the per-user configuration is all on the file server, where you can populate it on account creation, make it symlinks, deny users permission to change it, and so forth. MIT's been doing this (on AFS) for at least a decade. (Actually, they use a database for some of the configuration stuff, like mail servers, and prepopulate defaults on account creation and update accounts which still have the default with new Athena releases, so that users can customize things.)

On the other hand, it would be really nice if there were a config file that would set up talking to mail servers regardless of the client you're using, so you could set up one file and have it work regardless of the mail client the user ended up with.

Great.

[Digital Pizza]

Now I find out about it (and I live in San Diego, too!), when it's over. That's me - always a day late and a dollar short.

Re:Linspire 5

[nofx_3]

Actually what you are describing is not an operating system but the user interface and application layer on top of the OS. By definition an OS is what handles device management, files & filesystem, processes(process manager), and I/O(input/output). OS and kernel can in some respects here be synonymous, except that in the case of linux (I can't say for sure about other systems) part of the file/filesystem stuff can be handled by user space programs. Aside from that, the kernel IS the OS by definition, you are describing shells/guis/programs running on that OS. This is why many argue that what most people call linux should actually be called GNU/Linux, becuase linux provides the OS Kernel, while GNU provides the user software.

-kaplanfx

"etc etc"

[bonch]

Just a question, what other games are there in that "etc etc" you ended with? You pretty much listed all of them right there, and they're just a series of 3D shooters.

Re:Not ready

[jensen404]

why limit oneself to grunting and pointing at pictures when one can express oneself in words? The command line is useful.

The problem with a command line is that it uses strict syntax rules, so it isn't like expressing oneself with words. I prefer something more like the desktop search engines coming out. Even if I know where something is, I can often get to it quiker by typing in a few letters from its filename, and then clicking the file I want from a small list. It would be neat if programs could have meta-data keywords, so I could just type in "photo editor", and get a list of all programs that can edit image files, or type "games", and see all the games I have in a list.

ONE WORD - CFENGINE

[WindBourne]

or how about kiosk mode on KDE?

Re:Linspire 5

[Nasarius]

I'm sorry, but most people I know of seem to distinguish between the OS and the kernel. The kernel itself is useless. Stick in glibc, sysvinit, and bash, and you've got an OS. For example, read this and this.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[vandan]

You want Linux to look and behave just like Windows so you don't have to learn anything. For any Linux user who is motivated enough to put a small amount of time into what they're doing, what you're asking for is already available. I know because I've rolled out just such a solution.

But keep sitting there waiting for people to 'ring' you. I'm sure you can focus on that.

Re:linux on the desktop

[Justin205]

Linux developers will never spend the kind of time that Apple does to make things cohesive and easy to use and maintenance free.

Apple controls the base hardware system and the base software system. (I say base system, as there are 3rd party components/peripherals for Macs, as well as, obviously, 3rd party software.) Many Macs use many similar parts. Most PCs have very few components in common with each other. That is the main problem making everything "just work" on a PC, under any OS.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[Alex]

On the other hand, it would be really nice if there were a config file that would set up talking to mail servers regardless of the client you're using, so you could set up one file and have it work regardless of the mail client the user ended up with.



Sort of like a /etc/defaultmailconfig or ~.defaultmailconfig file which the mozilla / evolution / sylpeed / etc installer took its initial config from ?

What do the freedesktop people do about this sort of stuff ?

Alex

Windows all over again...

[smash]

Why is it that in all the screenshots I see for easy to use distros, it seems that the user is logged in as root?

Part of the huge benefit of going to linux in the first place is limiting priviledges, and yet the easy to use distro makers fuck it all up and encourage use of root....

Ah well.

smash.

Re:Haha ...

[bombshelter13]

Purely playing devil's advocate here, but why should a user choose to use Linux over Windows on a machine like that, when it means having to deal with a stripped down '*box' style desktop rather than a full desktop environment ? On a P-II 350mhz/192mb, a Linux user gets either a '*box' or slow, cludgy performance. On the other hand, my girlfriend runs Windows XP on a somewhat weaker P-II 266mhz/128mb and after simply tweaking the Performance setting to 'Adjust for best performance' it runs at a surprisingly usable speed. I'm not trying to talk up Microsoft here, I'm as much of a Linux fan as most people here... I'm just saying that if MS's latest and greatest can perform perfectly usably running a full desktop environment on 5-6 year old hardware like this, why can't ours? The KDE/Gnome/X.org teams really need to work on optimizing and cutting out bloat.

... some more...

[nikster]

[take a step back from the shiny GUI art and consider the basics]

4) binaries that install on all linux systems. one-click installs. i don't care if gcc or whatever is started behind the scenes. no excuses - one click installs for all linux distros, please. or at least for all "desktop linux certified" distros.

5) copy / paste, and, to a lesser extent, drag and drop work across all applications. probably the most basic of all requirements, yet not met by brand new linux distros / apps?!

linux has much improved in technology and graphics. its the basics of day-to-day life that are the problem now.

Re:... some more...

[testerus]

4) binaries that install on all linux systems. one-click installs. i don't care if gcc...
Gcc for binaries, lol, sure. One click to install the latest spyware? I do not want that.
But if you still want it, then surf to the point-and-klik software store.

5) copy / paste, and, to a lesser extent, drag and drop work across all applications
WFM, what is your problem?

Re:... some more...

[nikster]

... 4)... i didn't say anything about gcc for binaries. i was thinking about a package format (say, zip) which contains the sources and an install script which can install said sources on any linux desktop. i am not sure what the problem is with that. think CMake, but without weird error messages and zillions of manually-set options. an end-user CMake with an InstallShield-like GUI.

5) copy / paste, and, to a lesser extent, drag and drop work across all applications
WFM, what is your problem?
the problem is the difference between theory and practice. in theory, it's easy. in practice, it doesn't work. by work i mean work 100%, between any 2 apps on my system.

Re:Coding in Parallel

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Coding in Parallel

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You do have a point.
As yet there is really no linux equivilent for Windows media player. It would be nice not to have to go through ultra confusing menus when I want to play a DVD.(xine) No I don't know why dvd:// isn't working. I don't care. It would be nice to have a GUI at all in some cases(mplayer).
xmms seems to work and work well. Rhythmbox isn't half bad either. But as yet no-one has developed the difinitive Linux dvd solution.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[Wudbaer]

I'm not 100% sure, but as far as I understood Novell is offering/is going to offer soon exactly that with Zen works for Linux and their RedCarpet-derived products and their upcoming Netware-SuSE Linux hybrid server OS.

Yeah.

[jotaeleemeese]

Big firms themselves.

How do I know?

I work in one.

You would become master of your computer.

[jotaeleemeese]

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.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[emidln]

The same thing can be done on Linux/Unix with any ldap or sql server and remedial skills with a particular language (perl, python, java, etc). It is a custom job, and no GUI exists (as it would be a custom GUI) unless you count offerings from Sun, Novell, and IBM. In fact, now that I think about, Linux/Unix has this exact same functionality. If you go with a custom solution, it is even included with the cost of a good admin or two, no license required.

The Home Is Not The Office

[westlake]

The 'normal user' will use at home what he/she learned to use at school or uses regularly at work.

The home is a distinct market segment with its own history, interests and values, and a market segment Microsoft has dominated for close on to twenty years now. It is driven by more than games and more than SOHO office apps. It is digital photography, home video and entertainment. Windows MCE sold well over the holidays. iTunes on Windows has proven quite successful for Apple.

Being almost Windows is a dead end

[gelfling]

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?

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[fr0dicus]

Yep, LDAP is one answer, Apple use this for Mac OS X Server. I'd agree that much more work at this needs doing; centralised management seems to revolve around ssh'ing in to individual machines currently. Linux is miles away from the desktop in terms of having a simple management system with sensible defaults to help guide setup, so less skilled admins can properly support even less skilled users. Currently I'd only trust a Linux desktop with someone who knows exactly what they're doing. Anything else will just lead to exponential increases in support calls.

Re:Not ready

[mausmalone]

I'm sorry, but Linux is in many ways archaic. "ls" instead of "list", "man" instead of "manual" ... a lot of these things were done to satiate extreme technical limitations of old-school unix and Linux still has them 'cause the users are all used to them. The command line may be efficient for a lot of things, but it's most definitely scaring away "Joe User."

Not only that, but pretty much any Linux distro I've gotten to install (for the sake of argument, lets assume that it's my computer's fault that just about every distro doesn't boot after install, but Windows runs absolutely perfectly) has been a royal pain in the ass to use. I'm not just talking about doing the configuration/setup stuff, I'm taling about day-to-day tasks. Maybe it's 'cause I'm used to windows, and maybe it's 'cause I haven't memorized a hundred console commands and all their archaic non-descriptive switches, but even the simplest tasks in Linux (Slackware/Gnome) were kludgy and painful.

It's not me. Seriously, if I can get used to Solaris 7/CDE without a manual, then I sure as hell can get used to just about anything. I know a lot of you think that tons of choice is a great thing, and that having hundreds of different programs that do the same thing is wonderful, but frankly it makes Linux into a Frankenstein OS, where nothing really fits together quite as it should.

Re:Linspire Trying Too Hard to Mimic Apple?

[aldoman]

Yes, I know that, but try scaling the Firefox icon (which is a huge vector file) to 16x16. You will notice it's all smudgy and impossible to take details out of it.

You'll find you have to have one icon in SVG for 64x64 and bigger, but bitmap ones for 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 pixels, because they need to be made specifically with little detail for them to be 'readable'.

Re:Not ready

[djplurvert]

kind of like dir instead of directory.

You're nitpicking and the EXACT same limitations hold for windows which takes its commands from dos which took them from CPM.

Further, talk about useless, the DOS command window and batch language are STILL as useless as they were in DOS 3.x.

It is so simple to map a new set of commands like list and manual to ls and man that if there were any real demand for it someone could do it and include it with your favorite distribution. But really, that's just a red herring, because as soon as that were done you'd be bitching about how you don't use the command window. You never have to touch ls if you don't want to, just click on the little house and navigate like you do in windows.

Of course, if ya want to be l33t, you're gonna havve to crack open a man page or two...

Linspire

[phorm]

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.

Re:Linspire 5

[nofx_3]

Don't be sorry. I don't really care about most people you know, I am talking about the actual definition of what an operating system is. And im not arguing the the kernel itself is a useable system, just that by definition it performs the functions traditionaly considered those fuctions which make up an operating system.

-kaplanfx

Re:what about all the time I have to invest

[agraupe]

Well, I can honestly tell you that, for the most part, I transitioned to linux almost completely in one week. Granted I knew how to do some basic stuff before that, I learned a bunch of all-new programs. There is nothing that takes "months" to learn, unless you want to become a full-fledged admin, in which case you will have the time to invest. A more-or-less casual user like you could pick up most parts of linux in a week or so. Also, though KDE may or may not run slower (it depends on how much eye candy you want), you are not forced to use it. And it doesn't randomly crash any more than anything on windows does.

What's wrong with

[fnord_uk]

Webmin?

HI MR CAPS MAN

[Nailer]

No, you don't. No, I wasn't.

Cedega. GIYF.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[Nefarious Wheel]

We have about 16,000 workstations to control. That's 16,000 empowered individuals or 16,000 zombie drones, depending on your point of view. If we treat all 16k users as drones, we're turfed out as unresponsive. If we empower everyone, we'd need another 10k support staff and we'd be turfed out as being too expensive, even if we can find enough trained elbonians to outsource it to. The compromise position involves an awful lot of work and there's a huge market in the control systems to do that kind of management. So, guys, where is it?

This is enterprise-grade SOE territory, and is pretty much owned by Microsoft at the moment. What I'm trying to say is that if Linux is to take its fair share of corporate SOE the corporate perception of the supportability of product has to change. The way to their hearts and minds is a strongly marketed solution by people with enough clout to convince the executives they're getting a better deal. Not hype, results. You can't sell them an army of OSS volunteers, but you could sell them a Linux-focused support environment if it was comprehensive enough. They will not focus on one single implementation, they want flexibility as well as low costs. They have money to spend, generally, and they can usually pin down the "overall costs" down to the exact dime. What they want to buy is fewer headaches. Security is only one aspect, a cost they can control. Managing 16,000 custom installations is one they can not.

Build it and you can sell it.

Re:Not ready

[mausmalone]

I have to admit that you're right in the sense that the DOS command window is also old and antiquated. As much as I complain that it's a problem in Linux, I also complain that it's a problem in Windows. The difference is that in Linux, sometimes you have to go to the command line to get things done.

And my problem is mostly with the antiquated switches that Linux has on its programs. Take this from the FreeBSD online man page for ls:

SYNOPSIS: ls [-ABCFGHLPRTWZabcdfghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...]

Oh... great... crystal clear now. And I know FreeBSD isn't Linux, but its man pages are close enough for this example.

Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel

[vandan]

Merely quoting a big number does nothing for your argument.

What you're asking for is already on offer. No hype here. No references to big numbers. No buzz words. Just what you're asking for. Do some research.