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Linux Distributors Work Towards Desktop Standards
WebHostingGuy wrote to mention an MSNBC article discussing a move by several Linux distributors to standardize on a set of components for desktop versions of the operating system. From the article: "The standard created by the Free Standards Group should make it easier for developers to write applications that will work on Linux versions from different distributors. Linux has a firm foothold as an operating system for servers -- it's popular for hosting Web sites, for instance -- but has only a few percent of the desktop market."
I can run KDE applications under fvwm and Gnome, as long as the runtime libraries are there. I don't see why it is hard to have QT and GTK libraries on each system.
The only remaining issue is cut and paste with rich content but the article doesn't talk about that.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I have tried using Linux on the desktop MANY MANY times and always found myself stymied by getting printers to work and so forth. I have always been adamanat about using it for servers where it's very much worth the time to figure out Linux to have the benefits of it as a server product (bulletproof security, etc).
As a desktop product though I wasn't about to spend all day dicking around with trying to get it to work. That's was then.... this is now...
I have been using Linux as a desktop for several months now and it has flawlessly detected all my perpherals, and I Have now been able to spend more time doing development which is what I get paid to do.
Linux is getting better in this area and Linux is going to start making inroads. Slowly but surely...
If you were a new user to unix, what would you prefer:
A) open synaptic, search the thousands of packages, hope you find what you're after, install it.
B) download an app folder, drag it to your appliactions folder. go.
You forgot the part in B) where you search through the internet for the home page of the application. Then you read the home page trying to find out how to download it. Once you see the "download" link you go through a couple of pages asking you what version you want and what mirror you want to use. Then after waiting for the download you finally start the actuall installation.
Whereas with A) it's more like: Open Synaptic, use the search field to find the app faster than you would on the net, install it.
I prefer option A. It's more convinient for me and the repository based system has other benefits I'd rather not do without. I can see where you are coming from, but different people prefer different things. I'm just glad the distros agree with me (or rather I agree with them).
And for the record, it's not the distribution or Linux devs who are stopping app folders from coming to GNU/Linux. They already exist. Nothing stops someone from bundling everything a program needs in a self-contained folder. That's how most of the proprietary apps I use are packaged. Open source devs could do this with their programs too, but it would be more effort without much benefit when the distros are going to package it anyway.
For Fedora (only one I'm familiar with), there's freshrpms , Dag and a few others that work great. For the distro I use (CentOS) I maintain my own repository, so all other users just have to click to get what they need.
And if you want one-click install, have a look at Klik, which is now available for many distro's already. Although I personally prefer RPM's (since it's easier to clean/upgrade) it's a good idea for novice users.
Things like LSB and freedesktop ARE making a difference, although some of it might not (yet?) be visible on the surface.
Repository based installation is NOT the way to go. Autopackage is just a pretty frontend around the same problem. Until we can install and remove applications as easily as OSX users can, we don't stand a chance.
We can do this already: Klik
The problem is that you end up with 200 versions of the same libraries, and the resulting memory and disk space overhead.
That's why this sort of installation is generally used for easy testing of things instead of a sane installation procedure.