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A Glimpse at the Linux Desktop of the Future
hisham writes "Every now and then we see articles pointing out "what's wrong with Linux on the desktop." This one gives a nice overview not only of the problems we all know, but also where to look for solutions (app dirs, smarter filesystems) and what's out there (projects trying to change the face of Linux, like Klik, Zero Install and GoboLinux). Still, it usually boils down to things that Mac OS X already has or that are/were touted for inclusion on MS Longhorn. Fortunately, the major desktops stopped playing catch and are focusing on forward-looking Linux projects, like KDE Plasma and Gnome Beagle. Interesting times ahead."
Dear Linux,
At first, I really admired your lofty goals and pure-hearted ambitions. You spoke of freedom. You spoke of choice. You spoke of a world without limits.
But over the years, you have stagnated. Sure, you make a robust server and I'll always have a place in my heart (and my production racks) for you. But you have failed to thrive on my desktop.
Why, just last year, I tried to get you to work with my 23" Apple Cinedisplay. I was ready to return to you full-time after a long desktop-linux hiatus, if only you could have displayed properly on that Cinedisplay without screwing up the resolution. I didn't want to run you in 1024x768 on a 1920x1600 screen. Nor did I want to run 1920x1600 worth of desktop in a 1024x768 resolution where I'd have to roll the mouse all over the place to screen-off to the rest of the desktop.
And should I even mention the fiascos with various sound cards that you just didn't want to play nicely with? Or of the hardware that you were supposed to be "known-good" on that you chose not to work with at the most inopportune moments?
After seven years of courting, you still didn't achieve desktop prominence in my life. In fact, the only switch you encouraged me to make was away from you and toward a platform that "just works".
See, I've recently decided to shove you off the desk and turn you into a fileserver for my massive collection of porn, MP3s and ripped movies. Apple has found a way to give me a beautiful, slick, useful, enjoyable interface that makes everything you offer look like a rejected Fisher-Price prototype. And it slaps this onto a powerful BSD core. It's the best of both worlds. More, when I plug something into it - be it an iPod, 23" or 30" cinedisplay or anything else, it just works. I don't have to spend five days playing with LineModes in x86free.conf or massaging device drivers. I don't have to spend more time configuring and installing things than I do using them anymore.
As I said, you'll always have a place in my production racks. There, we'll always be friends. But when it comes to my desk... I think we should really stop seeing each other. In fact, I already have. I've moved on. And my new desktop is more than you could ever hope to be. Maybe someday you'll grow up and realize that "free as in freedom" and "screw the corporates" rhetoric, nice as it is, doesn't justify sub-par computing.
Maybe we can try again some day. For now, I need my space.
The biggest stumbling block to Linux on the desktop is that it is not pre-loaded by computer manufacturers such as Dell.
The average user would do just as well with Linux pre-loaded as they do with Windows pre-loaded. Add to that the lack of viruses and spyware and any productivity lost due to being in unfamiliar territory would possibly be more than made up for by the less-attacked environment.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Now how about fixing the things that I and others see as the real PITA of linux. Lack of standardization adoption for filesystem layout, software installation and configuration?
Dont believe me those problems exist? go ahead and enable MDKKDM to allow remote X terminal logins. It's massively different from XDM, GDM and KDM on it's own, oh and where the hell are the config files? certianly not where most other X configs reside (the fault there started with KDM's decision to create a new standar for themselves.)
to hell with pretty, clickey, easier to use interface. Fix the problems we have that cause even seasoned vetrans to pull their hair out.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Linux needs to get its act together
/tmp or the installer will dump core. After the installer is done, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and add a section called "GL" and put "driver nv" in it. Make sure you have the latest version of X and Linux kernel 2.6 or else X will segfault when you start. OK, run the Quake 3 installer and make sure you set the proper group and setuid permissions on quake3.bin. If you want sound, look here [link to another obscure web site], which is a short HOWTO on how to get sound in Quake 3. That's all there is to it!"
Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Windows?"
Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
Am I missing something? How can it be forward looking when its already integrated into Mac OS X (Spotlight) and an add on for Windows (Google Desktop search)?
Linux...the CHOICE of a GNU generation!
I can see some of the points here. However, for most applications, I do not go about the ./configure, make, make install routine. I simply load my app manager (YaST), choose the app I want and it is installed.
I think the KDE and Gnome desktops are very usable with a few minor tweaks. As I often mention, my 60+ year old mother uses KDE just fine. And, hey, she's not gotten any viruses or adware.
Now, I realize that the *nix desktops are not perfect and there are some serious hardware issues, due to manufacturers bending over for big Bill, but these things are slowly changing.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
In the bit on desktops he writes:
But everybody I know likes to clutter their desktops with icons. My wife does it in Gnome. My workmates to it in windows and KDE. Everybody does it.
Yes it may look ugly and cluttered but so is the physical desk I work on. That's life. Shouldn't we stop telling users how to organise their data?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sadly, you and I are probably going to get nailed with "flamebait" or "troll", but you are essentially correct. If we were still in the day of DOS where we have to fight with IRQs and DMAs, what you mention would probably be more tolerated by new users. When I taught Solaris, I found that the people who adjusted to it the easiest were (no surprise here) mainframe users! I even taught one lady who was in her 70s how to use Solaris, and she did better than most of the rest of the class!
As would be expected, the Windows generation had the most difficulty converting. Thanks to Windows' dumbing down of the interface, people have come to expect the simplicity of throwing in a disc, letting it install, reboot if necessary, and the app is there. Issues like permissions, libraries, kernels, and so forth are going to be completely foreign concepts to the last majority of computer users that are out there.
And can you imagine what most people will think when you tell them that Linux runs X? "You mean, Linux is pornographic?!!" (That's called humor. I know that that's a foreign concept to many Slashdot mods.)
Obviously, education is the key, but that also assumes that the user is willing to learn. Not all of them are, and that's fine. Let them eat Windows. But until Linux does dumb itself down for those who fear the command line, people will look at it, them look at Windows, and switch back to Windows because of the sake of simplicity.
Alternately, I wish that more companies would offer PCs with Linux preinstalled right there in the store with a Linux desktop right there. Let the people see what Linux can do; let them get a feel for it in the store. Maybe they wouldn't feel so afraid of it. The Linux desktop is very nice as of late. MEPIS Linux v3.3.1 has one of the best desktops I've seen when it comes to user friendliness. I've actually been able to convert a few people to give Linux a try because of it. (Not many, mind you, but it's better than none.)
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
My plan9 desktop, (at 50% zoom) the open window is a vnc to my X desktop with 9wm running.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
is that they do not want something that is like windows, they just want windows. I've seen people that prefer to do very complicated things on windows rather than running a couple of unix commands. Most people do not "choose" to use linux, they just learn one way to do thing, and this will be "the way" to do things. They are more sure to use windows than you will ever be to use linux, as a superior entity (the computer seller) imposed it to them. Instead you choosed to use linux, you know that there are many OSes, so you'll never be 100% sure that linux is the right choice over all other OSes. How strange is world we are living...
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
If you want the user to be able to determine what Taskbar/Dock type thing they want, you might want to check out DragThing as a third option, which lacks the visual style of the Dock but works a whole heck of a lot better.
I'm not a big fan of highly customizable interfaces, but man I wish I could just turn the Dock off once and for all.
"Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
"Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
I know they are various issues for linux on the Desktop, hardware beeing the most proeminent. I remember the first time I tried to install linux... The installation program asked me: "Do you want me to set the symbolic link ?" ( ln -s /usr/linux-blahblah /usr/linux I guess )
Well, install has gone a good way since. The real problem is not here, the real problem is people.
Yep.
Most people don't understand crap using a computer... They use learned sequences of actions to use their apps but have absolutely no clue of why they are doing so. Most people WILL get very confused if you switch their windows taskbar from botton to top. Try that, really.
They don't know how to orientate in the city, they just know that to go to work they should take right right left left right straight ahead for 100 meters, left left and right. Should they take a wrong turn they will be completly lost.
Most people have a hard time with mac or with windows... geez, most people have a hard time with a microwave !
You can't be ahead in technology and easy to use for everyone. It's like asking a quantum physic book to provide new theoretical breakthroughs and then complaining that your grandmother can't understand it.
\u262D = \u5350
One seldom commented disadvantage of tightly integrated desktops like Gnome/KDE is their lack of extensibility. Yes, you read that right:) As a 10+ year Linux user, the biggest advantage I've felt of using Linux is its extensibility in the 'UNIX way' - using pipes, scripts and files. The more you change these interfaces into object-oriented/middleware derived ones, the more difficult and annoying it becomes for UNIX hackers to script them - which destroys one of the main purposes of being on UNIX.
With the evolving desktop, people stop writing general purpose tools that abstract data and functionalities as simple files and scripts, and instead write their stuff for specific desktops. One good example is synce - a program to sync WinCe devices with Linux, which integrates well into Evolution, but has no 'dangling interface' where you can just snoop in, get your data and do what you want with it. File-oriented interfaces were a given with most Linux apps till very recently. And as their number/dominance diminish, I wonder if Linux hackers will slowly switch to other UNIXes just because they'd be more UNIX-like.
two days ago, i'd like to know what do you think about.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
My biggest complaint isn't with the distributors, but with the software developers: they still hae this 1990's mindset that it's perfectly acceptable to ask the user to compile their package (and about a million obscure dependencies you've never heard of) in order to get their software to work.
If you want to target your software to the desktop (and I mean the windows audience), then give me a goddamn binary and let me use the damn software now, not three hours from now.
I recently installed Fedora Core 4 at home to run a local DNS server, DynDNS daemon, MythTV and a few other things. I'm pretty savvy with Linux and sysadmin for a living (as well as programming) so you could say I have an affinity for problem-solving.
.NET Framework, and I haven't got it installed. At no time have I ever downloaded something and it started telling me that various specific versions compiled against specific architectures are missing, and I cannot continue.
That said, I have struggled in recent days getting everything I've wanted to install working correctly. Largely this has been due to GCC4.0 incompatibilities (many apps just don't compile at all from source without patches), but also because lots of exotic RPMs (Myth being a prime example) have not yet been built for FC4.
A lot of things I have had to compile manually from sources when I had originally set out to use yum to manage everything (I've recently been converted to the ease-of-use and practicalities of RHEL and Redhat Network).
Another poster commented that Linux is perfectly capable as a desktop OS - until you need to install an application, play a game or upgrade their hardware. Joking aside, this statement is 100% accurate.
In my endeavours trying to install all of my "exotic" applications like a movie player (xine), NZB downloader (klibido) I have either run into problems where the currently available RPMs are buggy, or the sources just don't compile out of the box. How can any non-technical person be expected to deal with this?
If you contrast this with Windows, I think the only time I have had a failed installation with a piece of software I have downloaded has been when it has required
Linux will need to standardise itself a lot more if it is going to be a force on the desktop. RPM/yum/apt-get and so on is a step in the right direction, but its still voodoo for most people. Unfortunately I beleive this standardisation is in stark contrast with what most techies (myself included in some way) believe the strength of Linux to be - i.e. diversity and the "joy" of compiling things manually.
If I need a new version of a driver, I need to be able to grab it as I can on Windows without recompilation. That's unacceptable. The NDIS wrapper implementation is a good example: it works and mostly well, but to get support you have to mess with the command line and text files or even scarier stuff. What you should do is be told to insert the CD that came with the device and have linux do it for you.
The office apps are already on linux; it's already fast; much of the UI and desktop is already user friendly. Installs have issues, yes, but they're down the line and mostly hidden from the user. The user is neatly kept in their home directory. Hard disk management is complex, but not much more so than Windows and partitioning is nicely automated in most installs.
I like linux a lot and use it regularly. I don't actually believe, though, that it can currently compete against commercial OSs without a massive change to some of the attitudes about what's acceptable, and a resulting change to the way Linux works. Hardware is the area where those attitudes seem to be totally exposed to the end-user.
Knoppix is a linux distroy anyone can use, the automated hardware detection etc is supurb. The DVD 4.0 version does demonstrate a lot of the incompatability issues he's talking about though. because knoppix has ~6 gigs of applications (they're compressed on the DVD image) many of the applications are broken.
Debian is the distro Knoppix is based of of, so it has really good hardware detection, but the 'stable' version is using the 'older' proven stable detection routines. That means it doesn't configure everything perfectly, for instance I had to enable DMA on my dvd-rom, and I had to use k3b to 'configure the system' for cd/dvd burning*.
I also have the advantage of having prior experience, So I know how to install flash support for my secondary browser, and how to configure java, which isn't included in debian because it's not FOSS. Plus I knew that the FOSS drivers suck compared to the proprietary ones, so I knew where to find them, and I knew what settings to set in the 'install' script for them, because I've been messing around with X11 config files for years now...
So basically, initial set up is probably beyond most users, but the same is true of windows. Most windows users can't even install applications by themselves, and when they try to the end up with a million spyware programs.
Debian is 'ready' for the desktop. The installer is painless for geeks, and simple enough for rice boys. A few noobs might even get lucky with it. The stable version while old, has a very simple gui based app finder that anyone who can use download.com can learn how to use.
*= Because i'm lazy. I wasn't going to muck about trying to figure anything out.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
The developers (generally) are not the zealots... they prefer to get work done instead of arguing about which is better. ;)
It's much better to think of the fanbois as Linux's PR department. Sure, they don't have the level of experience of Microsoft, but in true open-source style, they are slowly improving with time :-p
Conclusions?
1/ Mac OS X is not all that great
Way to go for the 'ole "Proof by Small Example" there.
No offense, but the problem you just suggested seems like one of those "whooptie do" problems.
Mac OS X is designed like any other platform to be a lock in platform, that is, it uses the same file format everywhere. Even iPods are formatted HFS+. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to burn a disk or reformat an iPod, it just means that you *NEED TO BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PLATFORM TO USE IT*.
Just because the way you use computers isn't the same as the way Mac users use their computers, doesn't mean your opinion is magically better than theirs. It means you are looking for something else. If you like compatibility, stay on Windows. Everything in the world runs Windows. If you like to tinker, use Linux. If you just want to use your damned computer, use Mac OS X. It's that simple.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I want my Linux desktop to get away from the focus on "applications". I want to deal with my data, not the tools I use to deal with the data. I want to open "documents", or pages, or multimedia collections of data. I don't want to have to remember which applications I use to edit or view them. I don't want to have to pick one tool, and exclude the rest. If I need to edit the text of a page, retouch the images, then upload it to my server, then serve it, I don't wnat to have to open the page in a series of different, mutually exclusive contexts. I want to open the page, and have combined menu items (or other GUIs) for all the operations from which I'll select to work on that collection of data. Or add new data. I'm really tired of feeling like I'm the janitor for a bunch of applications, finding/opening them in the right sequence, having to choose which app I'm working in, with its shortcut keys, default window positions, and exclusions of operations I'll have to do "later", when I open the other app to do those other operations. Then return to this app when I need to do these kinds of operations again. I can't even keep a single document open in multiple apps, alternately using them on the single doc, because each doc has a single datatype that's tied to a single app (or a few), and each open doc has its own saved instance - which doesn't refresh the open instances in the other apps.
Linux uses apps which mostly have three tiers: storage, engine and UI. They've got lots of IPC, mostly standardized. The desktops have more IPC options, too. I want a desktop which lets me find multimedia documents by bookmark, metadata searching, or virtual hierarchical views of my storage. When I open a doc, it can include live data, including data updated in realtime from distributed storage (or generation, like web services or streams). I want to work from menus (or other GUIs) that contain all the valid operations for all the valid datatypes in the doc. When I want to add new datatypes, I want to add from GUIs integrated with the doc scope in which I'm working. When I want to store my doc somewhere on the network, either as a resource, or a person, I want to merely send it to that object name, with its default transport (SMB, NFS, email, WebDAV, FTP, HTTP-PUT, SMS/Content-Disposition, whatever) automatic, unless I select another. I want to subscribe to versions of multimedia docs across the network. And I want to diagram how data flows through my document components into each other, including filters and logic, with dataflow/workflow templates that are just other docs that people with whom I work send around.
No more "apps". The Mac paradigm that Jobs swiped from Xerox PARC was supposed to be "doc centric". Apple and IBM started a grand partnership, Taligent, to put "OpenDoc" on every desktop, but they gave up when HTML and the Web supposedly offered a simpler, more popular way to do it. But it's 2005, and I'm more expert in operating a stable of complicated apps, each its own little world (with rickety bridges to some, but not all, other worlds), than I am in my own data. Let's slice up the apps into their features, each with their GUIs hanging out, then rebundle them into a desktop "meta-app". Which is the sole context, representing many different nonmodal contexts, in which I have to work on all my data.
--
make install -not war
Who the hell modded this up? My mac reason FAT32 just fine. It is the fault of Windows for not bothering to support HFS+. As for toast, your coworker is a dolt. There is an option right on the screen that says "Burn for Mac", "Burn for PC", or "Burn for Mac and PC". It's very prominently displayed, and in fact, you can't even turn it off.
I don't care if OSX only has one desktop environment. If I were on linux or solaris or any other system, I'd still only be using one desktop environment. I may have the choice to use others, but I'd settle on one and use it. Well, guess what? I settled on OSX so it doesn't matter if there are alternatives to it or not. Plus, it's pretty damn configurable (functionality-wise).
As for linux on the desktop not being the focus of developers . . . that doesn't matter. If I need a truck to haul things in, don't bother trying to sell me a mini-cooper. Telling me that the manufacturer's focus was on little sporty roadsters and not hauling vehicals is not relevant, if I'm looking for a hauler and not a roadster. My needs are my needs and the developer's justifications for why it doesn't meet them does nothing to... well... meet them.
LIkewise, I don't care if linux is free. My time isn't free. This is precisely why, after seven years of heavy linux use, I finally decided to move away from it this year. Great - I saved $129 on the operating system. But how many hours have I spent troubleshooting, maintaining, fixing and configuring it? $129 is only a few hours worth of work at the office and I couldn't even begin to calculate the value of my time that I've put into getting linux to work properly over the years.
In short, don't make excuses for why linux isn't ready for the desktop. Don't try and justify why I shouldnt' need the things I need or why I should put up with inconveniences. If you want linux to spread and be more popular, do things that make people want to use it. I've been using linux for seven years. I've been using computers since my VIC-20 in 1984, when I was seven years old. I'm a software engineer that works almost exclusively on solaris at work and have used a dozen distros (preference to Debian - which is what I run on my production server and Slackware which I haven't used in years). I've also used Windows a fair deal. A little 3x, a bit of 95, a bunch of 98 and onward.
If a hardcore techie and geek and long-time linux user is tired of dealing with linux and moving away from it, what do you think you have to battle against to get your average-joe to move to linux?
The same ol' arguments from windows users. You know what? I've seen people who were clueless about computers, being more perceptive to linux than windows users. Windows users react, because it's different, and they usually refuse to read even a single paragraph of a help file, because that's how they're used to from windows.
/bin for binaries /sbin for system binaries. whats so confusing about it?
Oh, I see it now, C:\Program Files for binaries and C:\Windows\System32 for system binaries is better, yes? /boot is confusing? maybe it's better to have them scattered all over the place like in C:\boot.ini and in C:\Windows\System32 as well as in the registry?
From TFA:
Installing Applications is complicated
I hear this argument all the time and it really is starting to annoy me. It's just different from windows, that'a all.
A typical windows installation:
You first need to download the installer application or insert the cd where the app resides.
A window pops up welcoming you to the installation, you click next.
Then the program's license pops up which you need to click accept and click next.
Then you need to choose whether you want another installation target folder, other than the default C:\Program Files\ and click next.
Then you choose the name of the start menu group and click next.
Then if the program installs any DLLs which are outdated you'll be asked whether you want to keep or overwrite the some2423_app.DLL or not and click next.
If all goes ok, you'll click next for a few more times before finishing the installation by...clicking Finish
A typical linux installation:
Depending on your distribution you type:
apt-get install thisapp
or you might have to type yum install thisapp
or emerge thisapp.
In all cases, the app will be downloaded and installed for you. That's it.
Directory structures can be confusing to navigate
No they're not. It's just different from windows, that'a all.
Or maybe the fact that you have your kernel and boot loader in one place under
Or maybe the slash(/) is confusing? Although you use slash for URLs and pretty much anything, why not use the backslash for browsing directories like in windows, eh? Better, yes?
I'd say that *nix directory structure is the standard and anything else that uses backslashes and obscure directory structures is plain wrong and confusing.
Interface is confusing and inconsistent.
No it's not. You're coming from windows, that's all. Infact I can find hundrends of inconsistencies with the windows interface. Like for example to shut down your pc you need to click Start. Huh?
And if you're talking about how desktop enviroments are different, like Gnome and KDE, well, they're meant to be different! Use the one you like. There is no reason why everything should look the same. You want simplicity and ease of use? Go with Gnome. You want eye candy and many options to tweak? Go with KDE. You want fast response times(if you're on old hardware)? Go with Fluxbox or IceWM. You want super duper eye candy and fancy effects while you don't care so much on stability? Go with Enlightment.
There's something for everyone, and I think this is alot better than trying to fit all sizes in one shoe.
Steep learning curve required to understand system functions.
Oh, common! How much easier can system functions get? Is it easier on windows? If so, why? Maybe because you've spent so many years learning how to use every system function? Do the same on linux (RTFM/learn) and then come back and tell me if it was at all difficult. You see, it's different but it's not difficult. Don't expect to know-it-all on your 1st day. And don't expect to "just figure it out" without even reading a single sentence of a help file.
When you started driving, did you just took the car into town, expecting to just figure out things without trying to learn? Didn't think so. But you w
VStrider.
I can't believe no one has mentioned Symphony and it's eadically different interface. SymphonyOS
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.