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Desktop Linux Summit Highlights

Posted by timothy on from the no-joke dept.

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."

26 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. Games. We need more Games by KrisCowboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Games. We need more Games by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Games. We need more Games by Solarian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Games. We need more Games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Games. We need more Games by OneArmedMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:Games. We need more Games by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    6. Re:Games. We need more Games by johnlittledotorg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:Games. We need more Games by KrackHouse · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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  2. Switchvox! by IO+ERROR · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
    1. Re:Switchvox! by super_luminal · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      -- Switchvox: Bringing big business phone sy
  3. Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sell. by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The big firms will embrace Linux on the desktop when they can see network deployability and end-user configuration lockdown in an easy-to-buy solution. It's a pretty major acceptance criterion. Anybody focusing on that?

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  4. User-friendly desktops are for wimps! by Cyburbia · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  5. How the hell did you leave out OpenOffice.org? by oldosadmin · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Jay | http://oldos.org
  6. Re:Cool -- ring me when they have an SOE I can sel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    >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.

  7. Real unveils features of next version by AlexJeff · · Score: 5, Informative

    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...

    1. Re:Real unveils features of next version by kforeman · · Score: 3, Informative

      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

      --
      Kevin Foreman
  8. Re:thanks for great review, but how does Skype com by MatthewB79 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:Linspire 5 by DCMonkey · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    --
    DCMonkey
  10. Re:great timing by Eideewt · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  11. Re:great timing by Pxtl · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  12. Argh!!! There are PLENTY of games (2d/3d alike) by aendeuryu · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  13. Re:Hey I've got some ideas by Lisandro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  14. Why should I switch to Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    (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.

  15. Re:Coding in Parallel by Deusy · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    Admittedly gmplayer isn't the most brilliant interface, but as a gecko plugin it works flawlessly and not only runs happily in-browser but also offers fullscreen playback for stuff you view in-browser. That is a damn useful feature that (IIRC) you won't find in realplayer or MS media player browser plugins.

    With regards to your sarcastic take on KDE and Gnome, they are totally different DEs with different approaches, architecture, and language choice. Do you honestly think we'd make faster progress if we pigeon-holed people into one or the other? Half of the development impetus comes from the passion of the developers. Remove the choice for them to work on what they feel is [potentially] the best platform and you remove much of the emotion involved and hence the desire and motivation.

    This is not the corporate world when focusing on one thing is best because that's how you make money. The freedom and choice that you deride is not only what makes Free Software so attractive but what provides the reason that most people develop for it; I don't think many people would volunteer their services to Microsoft.

    There is more than logistics at work here. You, and others who scorn at Free Software diversity, would do well to appreciate that.

    --

    Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary

  16. My suggestion. by MatthewNewberg · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    --
    mnewberg.com
  17. Driving Simulator - Help Wanted by KrackHouse · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

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