Slashdot Mirror
2008 - Year of Linux Desktop?
rstrohmeyer writes "Over at Maximum PC, we're betting that Linux will pick up unprecedented momentum in the coming year. With phenomenal new distros, swelling international support, and a little extra momentum from Dell, we think Linux is poised to exploit the current atmosphere of doubt surrounding Vista and pick up serious traction in '08. 'For end users here in North America, Linux poses a low barrier to entry. While many still balk at an upgrade to Vista (typically centered around cost and restrictive licensing terms), those who are curious about the open-source alternative will find few of these obstacles. And an increasingly rich array of ready-to-run software (not to mention surprisingly effective utilities that let you run many Windows apps) makes it easy switch ... Ultimately, I'm not predicting that Linux will take over the market next year. Or anytime soon, for that matter. But if there's ever been a time to try out the world's leading free OS, 2008 will be that time. I am predicting that users will switch to Linux in record numbers next year. And many will never look back.'"
what is linux
It'll happen this time! Honest!
Someone missed to post the 12th anniversary version of the story.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
It's all about the applications. There are too many apps that too many people use that are available on their Windows machines.
There will not be a "year of the Linux desktop".
There will only be the year when people realize that most everyone else is running Linux, too.
It's sad that theres no globally accepted library etc, that all devs use. I mean some apps are mac / windows. why not mac /windows / linux? Since mac runs on a version
of *nix.
And don't give me that wine / cedega bs.
Sadly, until I give up gaming on PC I will have at least one
windows box.
I hope that Linux continues to offer more and more people an alternative though.
Competition is good!
... it's said 'is XXXX the year for the Linux Desktop'?
What would make it so? At what point would it be possible to quantify that 'yes, this IS the year!'... when there is 100,000 users? 500,000 users? 10,000,000 users?
slashdot, of ALL places should understand that Linux is making better ground each year in a number of markets, including the desktop. To say that 'this is the year' we might as well say 'this is the century'. It's impossible to quantify.
This is not the greatest
Wishful Thinking?
/flamebait :)
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be...
This guy's the limit!
My coworker remarked today that Linux jumped from 3% to 6% in the weblogs this month. Now, odds are something else is going on, but it's an interesting little statistic. We often ponder our weblog statistics, seeing clear trends in OS's and browsers.
This year is finally it. Unlike all those previous years that were supposed to be finally it. Remember kids: a broken watch tells the right time twice a day.
well, dont get me wrong or so... I like and use linux a lot, but....
:-)
I just try to remember if there has been any year where this exact prediction has not been made ?
For similar reasons ?
Or am I the only one who has the impression, that every single year is said to be THE year where linux is to get enormous user attention on the Desktop ?
no offense though, one day this year might come
Regards
Read my lips!
...can you be the Next Big Thing? If there's a record, it surely belongs to Linux.
You don't fool us by referring to females of animal species as "girls".
We've heard this "Year of the Linux Desktop" thing for about five years now. And, for five years, end users have been using (for the most part) some flavor of Windows. Until Joe User actually cares about what his or her computer is running as an OS (let alone know what an OS actually is), there will be no "Year of the Linux Desktop".
I respect Linux. I really do. However, something tells me that even the hardcore Linux fans must be getting tired of "Year of the Linux desktop!?" stories, let alone the people who fall in any other point on the spectrum. Or is it the goal of the Internet as a whole to give me gray hair before 30?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I know several people who are seriously considering moving from XP to Linux. Their main concern is running some Windows apps that they need, things like M$ Office, Quicken and the like. I tell them to check out CodeWeavers Crossover Office, but I've never checked it out myself.
Anyone know if that would be a viable path for them?
Maximum PC should stick to what they know - fans and heat sinks.
Linux missed the window for the desktop. Now that PCs are expected to play DRM-protected media encoded with proprietary codecs, the window for consumer open source systems has closed. Linux might have made it in 2002, but now it's too late.
I used an AT&T UNIX PC, made and sold by AT&T, in 1982. 25 years later, Unix/Linux on the desktop still isn't mainstream. Sorry, guys.
...provided we take it in its proper meaning.
Until now, the share of linux users as a desktop OS are estimated by most sources to be 2-3%. This has been to little to force hardware manufacturers and software companies to care about linux. Hence, the endless problems in using very new or very exotic devices and so on.
But once this percentage gets over, say 5-6%, linux will start having more traction, and will become more difficult/risky/costly to ignore.
Clearly, it is inconceivable that anything will supplant Windows as the dominant platform in less than 10 years, if only because of the sheer size of the installed base. But if linux is to become dominant in the long run, this is the way it will start, the Dell/Ubuntu offering being only an early example.
I'm a local Linux/Unix advocate. That's actually my _job_ (along with support et al). But I have a dirty little secret: Even though I use Linux for just about everything, including computer games, I keep MS windows around for some games that don't emulate well. Dual-booting isn't easy for Joe Six-pack, despite the fact that creating a dual-boot system is easy for Joe Six-pack (People get confused by the boot choices [that increase in number over time on some distros] or just the idea that they have to reboot to switch between OSes).
That said, I'm amazed at the people that stop by an AIGLX/Beryl demo box and play Sudoku and Pingus, asking where I bought the games, and they always walk away happy with some Ubuntu or knoppix CDs (even after learning that it _replaces_ MS windows [but doesn't have to]). Maybe it's just the hard core gamers that won't shift.
As TFA suggests, perhaps Linux is poised to take off outside the US. Inside the US, I dunno.
I recently installed Ubuntu 7.04 as a family desktop (dual booting with Windows), on a Dimension 8400. Having reading so much about about what a terrific distribution it is, I decided to experiment. (To provide context, I also have a Debian server that handles backup, slimserver, print sharing, and a Myth backend, and a Debian Myth front end. I'm extremely happy with both.) I've been unpleasantly surprised by Ubuntu as a desktop.
1. Playing DVDs in the US remains a problem. I know that Linspire is going to address this, but this is a huge issue.
2. VPN is a pain. Apparently Network Manager doesn't work right if you have a static IP address! I spent a *lot* of time trying to get VPN to work before I discovered this. Yes, it's a reported bug.
3. Reliable power management, i.e. suspension and hibernation. It's crash city when I suspend or hibernate. Yes I have the latest BIOS. No, I'm not willing to buy a new machine. And yes, I'm sure there are many machines where power management works properly, but I'm also sure there are many machines like mine.
4. The general polish of the Gnome interface is low compared to Windows and OS X. (Yes, I've also looked at KDE.) When I switch users, why do I have to log in twice?
These strike me as all pretty basic issues. I haven't tried to find problems. I've just tried to get the Ubuntu desktop working as a functional equivalent of the Windows desktop. I couldn't do it.
I do see huge progress relative to 5 years ago, but I also see a long way to go.
- 1994: No
- 1995: No
- 1996: No
- 1997: No
- 1998: No
- 1999: No
- 2000: No
- 2001: No
- 2002: No
- 2003: No
- 2004: No
- 2005: No
- 2006: No
- 2007: No (pending)
So, though I may be going out on a limb here, I'm gonna say "no" for 2008. And those that think that Vista's awefulness has any sway must have not been around to see how the whole "Windows vs. MacOS" thing played out.No, I'm New Here
I could go into why, but people will simply tell me I'm a troll and to shut up, so I won't bother. Only thing I will say is that we see these posts every year, and they only get more annoying with time, not less.
I've honestly started to believe that Windows' successor is something we haven't seen yet; not Linux, and not Mac OSX. If it *is* UNIX based at all, it will have to be in such a way that the UNIX core is buried so deeply that not even geeks can get at it...because UNIX that the mainstream consumer can see is UNIX that the mainstream consumer doesn't want; hence Linux's problem.
Graphic artists, musicians, writers, developers or MBAs -- pick one group and love them until they love you back. Linux Year of the Graphic Artist Desktop will be followed by more desktops. That, after all, is how the Mac stayed alive and prospered, and even how to some degree Windows did it. It all starts with one type of desktop in a nice market, and from there the sky's the limit.
technical writing / development
Bleeeeeee
It seems logical that Linux will keep getting progressively better.
It's "Linux desktop" for me already. All of my computers now exclusively run Linux. I have no Windows installs on my server, firewall, laptop or desktop, and only have a couple of Win2K installs in vmware lying around mostly for the very rare times when I need to compile something for Windows.
For me, the switch to Linux was gradual. I didn't just one day decide to do the switch. Over time, my working Windows installs started failing and I found myself using Linux instead, as it was easier than to spend a weekend reinstalling everything. Eventually I was spending months without booting it, and finally it vanished completely when I upgraded hard disks and didn't have any reason to install it.
I don't really see a "Year of Linux desktop" happening. People seem to like their weird theories about what's holding Linux back, as if changing directory structure, or getting rid of X would suddenly make Linux become really popular overnight. It won't. People will gradually fix the problems there are, and its market share will progressively go up, as people run out of reasons not to use it.
The day Linux becomes the majority OS is the day the geeks flee to Solaris and the BSDs. Because Linux won't be the "leet" OS anymore. (We've seen it happen already, sometimes causing developer/maintainer disputes and leading to forks, like cdrtools -> cdrkit.)
I for one am sticking to Linux. I use it strictly for practicality; if I wanted a system to play around with I'd be using NetBSD, because I prefer its base userland and lighter code.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
I have been running Linux as my primary desktop for about seven years, but recently I had to use windows for work. I run it on vmware inside Linux so I can keep all the utilities that I love close to me, but the fact is that I need to run windows for work.
The reason? Checkpoint's VPN client. There is no version for Linux. They advertise one on their website, but it is for RedHat 7.2 and it doesn't work with anything else, so it is obviously there so PHB can tick the checkbox.
I write this because I am sure that this situation is stopping a lot of IT professionals from moving to Linux. Checkpoint's VPN is quite common in corporate setups.
What is really ironic is that their firewalls and VPN gateways are implemented in Linux and use a slightly modified version of IPSEC. But the fact is that if you are behind a NATted adsl connection with dynamic ip address (the usual case), you can't connect to it unless you use Windows.
And yes, they know about the situation. And yes, they are very happy taking advantage of the linux kernel without giving anything back.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
'Not even on Windows there's a "standard library" of any sort'
I can name dozens...and most of them are designed for maximum Windows lock-in.
No sig today...
Linux still takes way more skill and experience to run and configure than the average computer user. Telling average joe to look at the kernel sources and edit config files is _not_ an option. Linux is awesome and I use it daily, but it's years behind Win&Mac for user experience. Also, users could care less if a driver is open source, they just want a kick @55 graphics card that works. This whole mess with reconfig and xstart ..etc is unacceptable in the retail market, which is what you think your going to make ground in.
No stop all this drum pounding and join a project to fix this crap.
Kubuntu Rules! whoooooo.
Great, now the dupes are coming annually
Touche!
"SDL and OpenGL together do what DirectX does for Windows. Portably."
Yes, but in practice none of the big developers do it that way. They get cozy with DirectX instead.
No sig today...
What Unix emerged doing so well are all the labs running thin x-terminal computing all linked back to a server. We moved away from that to the work environment with the heavy desktop, which is essentially when Windows took over.
So if the thin desktop is coming back (due to the sensitivity of theft of local hard drives or laptops, lower hardware maintenance cost, elimination of software updates on the user's desktop, lower power requirements, etc), then will Linux pick up again?
Yes of course there is citrix and windows rdp, but maybe I"m biased but I'd much rather use a linux-based system for a daily thin desktop.
While the article is nice and points to some great progress in a number of fronts (like Dell's recent announcement about shipping desktops loaded with Ubuntu), Linux still has an enourmous amount of ground to cover before it comes close to being a serious rival to Windows in the consumer desktop market.
Please note that this is just a personal experience which has repeated itself pretty much every time I ran across a new machine.
It is still a bit of work to get Linux to function properly in a machine with recent hardware. As an example, we have a few new Dell boxes with nothing fancy here, just Core 2 Duo processors, SATA drive, and ATI X1300 video cards.
Fedora 6 and 7 both barfed when starting the install because of the SATA DVDROM. Ubuntu had the same behavior.
After 4 hours of checking multiple forums for FAQs and HowTos, we got Fedora 7 running on them, yet the video card isn't recognized properly by Xorg off the box, so no dual-head, no native resolution. Off to get more updates, more FAQs, etc.
By comparison, we had XP running in 30 minutes in one of the boxes, and one hour later it had all the required software needed for the developer to go to work, including VMWare with a Fedora 7 virtual machine running in it.
How can you expect large user migrations to Linux is experiences like this one are closer to the norm? Joe User doesn't want to spend 2 or 3 days just trying to get his OS installed, only to have to spend another few days just trying to get his/her bearings around.
People will *not* migrate to it if the applications they want to run don't run on Linux, and Joe User can't be bothered with adapting to a whole slew of apps, that 'sort-of-look-but-aren't-really-the-same' as their old ones, even if they're superior to their Windows versions when it comes to functionality.
Let's not even start discussing games. Yes, a number of popular games run under Wine or Cedega, but people do not want to spend hours trying to diagnose issues or tweak stuff; more often than not, they want to install it and go.
Until you can take a distribution disk, pop it on a random machine with decent hardware, and have everything up and running without requiring any type of user action 'under the hood', Linux will remain firmly esconced in the realm of server rooms, geek basements, and nerd bedrooms; not in your average household.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Both Linux and Software commonly packaged with Linux will slowly continue to make headway, as it has always done. Linux (by linux im including software relating to linux) will continue to find its way into more homes and businesses slowly. There will continue to be great additions and optimizations to linux that competitors will blow off or try to mimick, both outcomes of course will help linux in one way or another.
Linux will not one day all of a sudden be 'THE' prominant OS, Desktop, or Server. Its something that will happen slowly. To say that it would happen quickly ( as in over a years time) would require something groundbreaking to occur for linux only (slight improvements in speed, usability, and stability are not groundbreaking), and something like that is very unlikely to happen.
I would love to see more global linux adoption, although at the same time there are inherant problems with this. A large scale change from PlatformA to Linux would cause many employment problems. Many people who have gone to school and based a career on another system would have to go back to square 1 and start training for a new carreer again. It would also cause an immediate demand for Linux systems administrators, techys, and many other jobs. This would probably lead to too many people deciding to goto school for this career, only to find out that after a few years the demand has gone way down and that now we have too many admins, techs, etc..
Im not trying to be negative, just realistic. This would be great if it would happen, but would require things to happen that probably wont, and definitly havent already. It would also cause many problems relating to jobs.
http://interserver.net/
Why is it always GNU/Linux that is going to make a big splash on the desktop due to Microsoft's latest shortcomings?
Why GNU/Linux, of all things, and not, oh... OS X? I have a very, very hard time coming up with reasons why I should recommend someone go out and buy a new GNU/Linux PC, because it seems to make so much more sense to recommend they go out and buy a new Mac.
Sure, the four essential software freedoms are great, but let's stop kidding ourselves, most PC buyers don't care about these things, and it is extraordinarily challenging to convince them that they should care. If you think Mr. and Mrs. Jones and little Johnny care more about the four essential software freedoms than they do about running their tax software, microsoft office, and Johnny's games, then it's time to venture out of mom's basement for a reality check.
So what do you have left to sell on? Price? I'm sorry, but $50 doesn't mean much when you are just about to pay $500-$2500 for a new machine at Best Buy, especially when $50 is the difference between having a computer that will run your apps and the ones on the store shelves, and one that won't.
If you as an average middle class american whose computer experience largely consists of microsoft office, internet explorer, and that old data entry system at work, want a new computer that will be incredibly easy to use and come with a great suite of software out of the box for internet, email, photos, and multimedia (which make up 99% of my computer use), then you want a Mac.
You are annoying, son.
Games for me! :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Trust me, it isn't coming until some well-known PC manufacturer starts shipping home systems with some version of Linux pre-installed. At that point, provided the manufacturer gets encouraging signs, perhaps some suggestion that the manufacturer might expand the Linux line a bit, it will start gathering momentum. Of course, the only way it'll catch on in business is if Microsoft introduces a new version of Windows that will be difficult to upgrade to, perhaps rendering old applications unusable or requiring lots of retraining or high-end hardware or something. So, I guess not.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Probably flamebait but ...
Linux is not a desktop OS. Its a long way from it. While things like gnome and kde are doing more than most to help get it there, too many apps still don't fit together. Start mixing X applications from KDE, gnome, and other toolkits together and you get a horrible mess of applications that follow no common theme, work in different ways than the typical desktop user will expect, and have UIs that were designed be developers with about 8 times as many options as they actually need.
For linux to be a desktop OS it needs to be a lot more consistent across the board, not just the applications, but the distros. Want to scare people away, give them 5 distros to choose from and no real defining reason as to why they should pick any of them. So they pick one, and not only do they have to get used to learning how the new apps and OS work, they also have to get used to the fact that several apps use UIs that don't act much like anything they used before or any of the new ones on thier shiny new GNU/Linux PC.
I'm sort of ranting here, but make no mistake, I'd love to see a high percentage of FOSS desktop users, it would make my life as a developer much simpler to write for platforms that I can deal with and actually FIX when I find some stupid bug in an API call or bad documentation.
FOSS developers need to learn something very important when making apps for normal users:
Do because you should, not because you can. You must start with a UI design in mind, and make it the way you intended when you started. Don't add the 15 features that 15 different people ask for while you are developing it. Add the 5 features that 300 people ask for while you are developing it. If you must add a feature, do it in such a way that it doesn't scare a normal user to see all the options they have to select from. Make things obvious, don't add a tiny little button for some feature that most people won't use, and then hope that they can figure out what happens when they accidently click it and something unexpected happens.
You want to make GNU/Linux rule the desktop world (and I know you do), you gotta fall back to Keep It Simple (and) Stupid, because most of the people using desktops fall into that catagory. To many options can kill your appeal, fast.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Yeah, this article is dead on. Except the time isn't just in 2008. It's right now. I've recently switched about 20 people over to Ubuntu from Windows, and all but one of them were ecstatic. The one exception is a very heavy illustrator user, and said inkscape wasn't good enough. Other than that though, it's been 100% rave reviews and new clients for my little bedroom/repair shop.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
From far away a penguin does look like a rat. Come to think about it, everything looks like a rat from far away.
"teletype" was the word in the image!
But it is coming - in my opinion this is already happening, even if the numbers don't quite show it yet. I think it will be a very gradual, but growing trend...particularly when people try to keep old (but still good) hardware running but don't really care about the 'wow' of Windows or Mac systems, and/or are unable to install Windows due to licensing/hardware requirements. E.g., my in-laws (in their 60s) are looking at getting a laptop for their kitchen-dining area...but all they want it for is to browse the web. A cheap/used laptop with Fedora or Ubuntu will meet this scenario easily...and if/when they ask me to get them setup, I'll be sure take that route on their behalf. I doubt they'd even notice it wasn't windows as long as their web browser works.
Last year I "converted" two Windoze users to Ubuntu. I'm not sure how they are going as I have moved countries since. They were both programmers in my team and picked it up quickly and could easily appreciate the better design. This year I have converted another programmer who also loves it and is going strong. Today I go to a friend's place (non-programmer) to destroy his vile Windoze partition and cleanse it with Ubuntu. He is very keen on trying out Beryl too. I'm hoping he will be patient on the learning curve and it will stick with him.
Once Linux is easy enough for a novice to use, the conversions will become exponential as users will introduce their friends who in turn introduce their friends. Can't wait for that tipping point. BTW - thanks to M$ for releasing Vista which is helping our cause a lot. It's nice to explain to ppl that these kind of features have been in Mac OS and Linux distros for years.
Anyhow, enough rambling... I think it would be good to put up a website listing people who have recently converted to Linux.. perhaps we could keep conversion scores :-) . It could have simply non-patronizing help and tips for Linux n00bs. Well there are probably a lot of good sites out there already doing this, but I like the idea of a list to keep track.
Duke Nukem Forever for Linux?
You are more annoying than I am, troll.
http://www.linux-mag.com/channel/back-issues/may20 03
"The Year of the Linux Desktop:
2003 will be marked by the emergence of three new enterprise desktop offerings. Corporations seem interested, especially with Microsoft boosting prices. So, once again, we ask: Is this the year of the Linux desktop?"
This will probably be the year I replace my Linux desktop with a Mac.
The cake is a pie
Just saying it because it's true. Digggaaaadddeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
I just try to remember if there has been any year where this exact prediction has not been made ?
"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." (Or once a day if it's a 24-hour clock.)
Some year the prediction will be correct.
Maybe this is the year.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
By which I mean Duke Nukem Forver.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Linux as a moodle server? Hell yes. Linux as my desktop? Not even close. Linux is fine for Joe User who only needs web surfing and e-mail. That ain't me.
Music - www.richardmac.com
mass adoption of Linux on the the desktop is vapourware. Yes, there may be widespread adoption of one or two flavours of Linux, but the amount of work applied to each, should have them individually labled and identified, instead we have a large number of never popular items riding on the success of a few. Don't get me wrong, I have been looking to use Linux since the early slackware days, but without the major driver support from 3rd parties, it will be a poor alternative.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "serious traction"... but for the vast,vast
majority Linux is just not an option.
Windows will die out when the web as a platform obsoletes it. I think in 3 - 5 years
windows won't matter that much to most people - the main use will be to provide hardware
driver support and launch rich client internet aware apps. The day will come when there
is an alternative to Office that works anywhere you have an internet connection and it will
cost much,much less and have more features.
This is the year I install Linux on my mother's home desktop.
But once this percentage gets over, say 5-6%, linux will start having more traction, and will become more difficult/risky/costly to ignore.
IMHO Dell selling a Ubuntu-preloaded machine is not just a vendor having this epiphany, but also a force to promote it with other vendors.
People wanting to sell peripherals to users of Dell products now have a wakeup call about furnishing Linux support - along with a big-name company betting significant resources on a market being big enough to chase.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"I am predicting that users will switch to Linux in record numbers next year."
Yes, the previous record of 368, set last year, is expected to be exceeded both this year, estimated at 417 people, and about 576 people in 2008.
"And many will never look back."
Also true, many people will not be able to figure out how to get rid of the grub bootloader, dooming them to keep booting into Linux, at least until they buy another computer with Windows installed.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Everyone has their own niche that stops them from going to Linux, for example I have a dual boot with Ubuntu, and have had it for some time, but I still spend most of my time in Windows, why you may ask? Well it's because Adobe hasn't released any of it's media tools for Linux, I'm telling you that the second that Adobe releases Photoshop (please don't give me the whole "but there's GIMP!" crap), Premier and Flash, I will not be going back to Windows.
The problem is that Adobe won't release those until it sees enough activity in the Linux department, and yes, I hate them for that, but from a business point of view it's understandable.
I just introduced a friend of mine to Ubuntu Studio, because he's a musician and is now happily dual booted with Ubuntu Studio, but his favourite application is Reason which keeps him chained to Windows, the company Propellerhead, has an OS X version and a Windows version, why not a Linux version? Who knows, either the same excuse that Adobe gives, or they're just happily raking in the money and can't be bothered expending into unknown territory.
Linux can be the OS in 2008, or 2009, or whatever other date you choose, I say "you" because it is up to the musicians and the artists and anyone else who wants Linux support for their favourite software to start complaining in massive numbers to the relative companies. As soon as that happens they'll have no choice.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
I am not so sure. Initially, I was a big fan of Ubuntu, using the Edgy relase on my thinkpad. However, after upgrading to Feisty, there were so many problem, bugs, etc., that as a last resort I reinstlled Edgy. Things are stable again. But, more regression testing and QA are necessary to prevent this sort of problem in the future. 2 cents
There is also a lack of consistency when it comes to packaging. There are RPM and Debian packages as the two "big" ones. A unification of packages would help the software developers.
And the hen and egg situation is also present. Linux versions of the more commonly used tools/utilities like Adobe reader, Flash, Skype etc. all lags behind the Windows versions. (there may be exceptions). One exception is Java, which is released for Linux almost at the same time as the Windows version.
Something that Windows still is better at is the configuration tools for the OS. You are of course still able to hand-hack the config files under Linux but not all users are able to do that. The ability to easily configure triple-head displays are actually better under Windows than under Linux. But you will be able to do it under Linux too if you hand-hack xorg.conf.
On the other hand Linux is really great when you want to do really complex disk configurations. You have full control over the partitioning and not as in Windows that you are forced into an extended partition over which you have no control if you create a second partition. There is no consideration at all in Windows that it maybe is going to co-exist with another OS.
Another drawback with Linux is that it seems to me that the fonts available are often fuzzy or aren't relaxing to view. Here Windows has the upper hand, but I have figured out that the "Cleartype" feature of windows doesn't help a bit, it only adds more fuzziness to the fonts.
When it comes to stability there is no clear advantage for any camp, both have it's share of small problems, but the constant need for reboots are a big Windows problem.
When it comes to software support availability there is no advantage for either camp. Linux support is depending on which distribution you use while Windows support is either expensive or you will get the infamous "have you tried to reinstall" reply.
A problem that also exists are all the web sites that runs pages specific for Internet Explorer. This is a problem that causes users to think that Linux is bad just because Firefox or whatever browser used won't display the page correctly. Microsoft! - Take the Acid2 test and be W3C conformant and come back! And drop the use/support of vbscript as soon as you can!
In the end it does however come down to what you really are going to do with your desktop. Are you just browsing the internet you will probably don't notice much difference, but you will be safer for now if you run Linux. Mostly because the malicious web pages are written for Windows. If you are doing office work you may depend on the availability of business software for your computer. Not only the Word/Calc-features but also accounting, invoicing etc.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
What do we have this year that would drive people to Linux? Nothing fundamental that wasn't there a year ago. By now there are a ton of copies of Windows XP, which is actually a pretty good operating system once supplemented with third party gear. Vast majorities of desktop users don't see any reason to get a new operating system, much less a new kind of operating system. That hasn't changed either. So, let's face it, this will most assuredly not be the year of Linux on the desktop.
I believe every year since about 2002 has been THE year of Linux on the Desktop. Keep predicting it and one of these years you may wind up being right.
If HP and/or Dell and/or others are willing to bring it to stability... It will take over from Windows.
Why?
Same reason all those DOS clones drove IBM out of the PC market. This would be your very own 0$ Windows you could plunk on new desktops.
But Linux WILL have its year soon. I'm hoping October-ish, when Ubuntu 7.10, XOrg 7.3, KDE4 (!!!), and openSUSE 10.3 all get released. At that point, we will surpass Windows in functionality. Drivers are only an issue for ATI cards and Canon scanners. (YMMV) ATI blows, HP > Canon, and plus, if you wanted a scanner 24/7, aren't you the artsy type Apple wants?
Oh, and to all those who say Apple will win: It won't. They had their chance at #1. They almost had it for a few years. Then they (Jobs) blew it. Their market share is in a constant down spiral. (50%-75% Apple II, 10% around 1990 when clones were common, 3%-5% current.)
I have as hard of a time getting people to switch to Firefox let alone trying to get them to switch to Linux. Thats all fun and games that Linux is great in the server enviroment where we have people that have dedicated their lives to learning it and maintaining it. But in the home/office enviroment we have people that think their computer is made by Microsoft.
For an OS to be successful with desktops, there is a need for a killer app. Take for example Word and Lotus 123 on Windows, and Photoshop on Apple. Linux really needs an exclusive killer-app to be successful on the desktop.
Porting of other important apps from Windows will only happen when the new killer-app is available on Linux.
Linux started with Developers Developers Developers, then worked it's way through IT. Next stop is poor people because hey, $50 is a lot when your computer costs $200.
These companies would say no because of the ridiculous difficulty of supplying binary executables for "Linux". ...and they're not about to GPL their secret sauce recipes.
No sig today...
Really, 2008 is the year of osx. Nobody I know is considering switching to linux, but they are considering the switch to OS X.
:~ (
Even the hard core linux guys I know are considering buying a mac for their home system
All of the good *nix utilities with the slick user friendly UI and really really good apps.
Sorry guys,
P.S I switched from linux to OS X back in 2004 and have not looked back since. I have the latest ubuntu 7.04 running on our small server, yes it is nice and semi-solid, but will not cut it for most
There is just one application that will determine if Linux will break through on the desktop: World of Warcraft.
Warcraft has cannibalized all other computer related activities. If you can run it on Linux there are pretty much no other applications keeping WoW players on the Windows platform.
Otherwise for myself I have been on Linux and happy for several years now.
Yep. no buttsecks 4 u
I thought 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and last year were supposed to be "The Year of The Linux Desktop.
Articles titled like this just make Linux look bad when 2008 comes along and MS still has >90% desktop share.
I thought 2004 was the year for linux on the desktop? Maybe I've been taking too many crazy pills (again).
Christmas is the opposite of theft. See?
Yes baby, 2008 is the year of the Linux Desktop. Now shhhh, time for your nappy-nu. Time to go back to la-la land.
I mean, seriously, if it happens this year it happens. We've been seeing posts like this since circa Redhat 5.2
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I've been in the software industry for 30 years and have worked on the Unix kernel, embedded software, compilers, neral nets, web apps, etc. etc. so not completely clueless. I tried Ubuntu recently. What a nightmare. Wireless support was not there. Online help to get the right drivers, find them, compile them, install them, was painful for me, impossible for a normal Windows user. Installing anything was a nightmare without an internet connection. To be fair, with a wired broadband connection everything worked, and installing new packages was easy, but step an inch off the beaten path and it's a nest of brambles. There is no "support" for regular users; it is all volunteer and all very techy. My mother would be lost immediately.
Also, since the whole open source effort is prioritized by what techy volunteers want to work on, not what real users need to easily get day to day stuff done, the whole product experience will never match Apple or even Microsoft; they must prioritize effort based on the needs of the vast non-techy *paying* public, not the techy FOSS enthusiast. This seems like a fundamental flaw in the whole desktop FOSS direction: no one wants to work on the unglamourous gruntwork of making things work flawlessly and painlessly on this platform and that device; they all want to go work on the next cool thing.
I am a partner at a little accounting firm. We have software tools that are absolutely essential to our tax, accounting write up and wealth management work (ie everything we do), for which there is absolutely nothing even remotely similar available on linux or OS X. If spend the overwhelming majority our time working in these applications, should we bend over backwards to hack someway to get these to work on their non native platform?
I have some responsibility over IT, and believe me if there were better alternatives to the Windows platform we would use them, however for a small business like ours I see no compelling reason to switch.
I count myself a "geek". I've tried so many flavors of linux that I have stacks of CDs/DVDs with every version and variety that you can shake a hot pocket wrapper at, for both Mac and PC systems and I have NEVER, not once, had any of them install without having to edit some arcane config file that would make Harry Potter give up wizardry. That's on two different home systems and two different laptops. And, once I finally got the system up and running... never has all of my hardware worked. I have never been able to get my trusty logitech web cam to work, and forget about my bluetooth keyboard. How about the way the mouse works just great during the installation but then, has no mouse wheel action and tracks like a supercharged nitro machine even on the lowest settings once you actually boot up in the OS?
Do you understand that Mac has made the easiest installation of software that you could think of - drag an icon ANYWHERE to your computer and it works - and people screw it up! If that's too daunting for many of the people out there, just who is going to go out and snuggle up to Linux?? I don't think I've every tried anything in linux that didn't turn into a project just to figure out how to do the original thing!
Linux is for the guy that likes to mess with his computer... not "do things with his computer" but, "mess with his computer". If you have to spend 5 hours scouring the net and editing config files just to get that new digital camera to show up so you can pull little Sally's birthday picts off it, your not going to be happy. I know... I've been there and done that; ended up booting into Windows and pulling the things off in less than a minute.
If the cost of software isn't a barrier, then what's the compelling reason for using linux for a mainstream user? Surely there is much more software available on windows, and if windows is implemented with some basic level of skill (likely equal or less than the amount of skill required for implementing linux) it can surely be adequately secure and stable enough for a mainstream users needs.
jP
What's with the obsession of a single year being the period of time in which Linux booms and rises to OS stardom? It's not like it's losing ground or stagnating or anything, it's constantly rising in desktop usage. Right now it's just "nerds" and nerds' grandmothers, but it'll eventually go beyond. I mean, Dell is selling Ubuntu PCs. It seems like a small gesture right now, but it'll all work out in the long run. Nothing's going to happen overnight.
2005 was the year of Linux. At least for me as that was when I nuked the final remains of my XP partition. Just as with fusion there will always be a few years to "the big breakthrough", but it is important to realise that this is simply because the goal post is being moved all the time. If Linux were to be the most common desktop OS within 5 years the goal would be moved to it being 50% of market share, which may or may not happen. Reality is that Linux has been gaining market share at a steady rate and will continue to do so for some time.
2008 is the year Duke Nukem Forever is released.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I have discovered a truly remarkable image macro which this forum is too shitty to contain.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
At what point would it be possible to quantify that 'yes, this IS the year!'... when there is 100,000 users? 500,000 users? 10,000,000 users?
It's hard to put your finger on, but all the relative pieces are in place. If you look back to the early 1990s and Dell, you can see the same thing for GNU/Linux today. It's good enough, it's cheaper than the alternatives and better in key ways due to sharp competition. GNU/Linux systems can deliver what people want from their computers and it's seeping in just like the WinTel monster did.
What happened in the early 90's? People got a box that worked when you turned it on and could be expanded. I had mine running for a good six years. I got better printers, scanners and "upgraded" to 95, and I never had to wipe and reload it until I decided it was time for GNU/Linux. This was very cool. People and small businesses jumped on it for writing their papers and basic organization. It slowly filtered into the corporate world.
M$ has fallen slowly since then. 95, 98, and finally XP each lost things. Split views got dropped from file browsers. There were odd configuration interface and file changes leading up to the ongoing registry disaster. Stability has suffered and has come to a sad point where people think they must wipe and reload their machines once a month. Most importantly, the platform lost it's competitive edge as M$ crushed smaller companies and their superior products. Word Perfect, Lotus, Netscape, QuatroPro, Peachtree and so on. Gaming got better, but so did dedicated consoles which are a lot cheaper.
Let's go down the GNU/Linux list today. Network, check. Printing - check. Media - check. Productivity is good enough. Games - well, there are some problems with accelerated graphics but it's there for real enthusiasts. The real killer feature is freedom, much like Windows 3.1 provided but real this time. It's already made a beach head at the biggest and brightest companies. With it people have jumped on it for writing their papers and basic organization. The year of GNU/Linux really is here.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
But will it run on Linux?
And for a very simple reason: there's no compelling reason for your average computer to switch away from Windows or OS X.
Now, full disclosure: I run OS X and Linux at home and whatever OS is needed at work, usually OS X, sometimes Windows. Of the three I prefer OS X, but I'm pretty agnostic.
That said, the unspoken truth about OS choice is that for most of the things an average computer user does--web, email, music, movies, games, porn--Windows does a good enough job. This isn't to say it does a great job. This isn't to say that OS X or Linux don't do a better job. This is just to say that Windows does a good enough job for most people. In other words, Linux has no killer app. The things which important for the F/OSS community (transparency, free as in speech and beer, DIY) aren't important to average computer users. For your average user, a computer is an appliance like a fridge or a microwave, to be purchased, used until it breaks or is too old, and then replaced with a new one. For Linux to gain appreciable market share it will have to be a better product: it will have to do something much better than Windows. It will also have to have the things people expect from products; warranties, 1-800 numbers and tech support.
Apple's way of differentiating is to make the GUI more accessible for your average user, and to design a vertically integrated suite of hardware and software which reinforce each other. Linux, so far, has no easily identifiable feature or set of features which say, "Hey, I'm better than Windows." Until it does, there will be no Year of Linux on the Deskop.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
A lot of things could contribute to the trends. We're becoming increasingly international, which is odd, mostly because we host some really good general health information. Over the years we've gotten some really odd traffic spikes from Google as they tweak their search algorithms. Even though we only serve the Pacific Northwest, we get lots of overseas traffic.
numbers without context are just - well, numbers.
But context without numbers is - well, bullshit.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
See this earlier post of mine regarding a hellacious time I had with the SATA drivers installing XP on a Toshiba laptop:
6 62223
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=241957&cid=19
ATI drivers suck in both Windows and Linux although I'll allow that the install on the Windows side is probably easier. As for the apps, I NEVER advise anyone to approach Linux as a substitute for Windows; it is it's own environment with it's own strengths and weaknesses.
As far as hardware goes, boot prospective boxes with a recent version of Knoppix or other heavy-functionality livecd. If that goes well THEN go for the full install. Otherwise, replace or research the problem components before committing to a hard drive install. Joe Random hardware tends as you say to be iffy (can be true of Windows too!). I always check anything I buy for Linux compatibility first.
If your idea of a functional machine is one that runs all your old familiar Windows apps then that a Windows machine is the best thing for you and your workplace. Just keep the thing behind a firewall, keep the OS and apps patched, and approach anything that touches the network like email and web surfing with a touch of paranoia.
The only reason Linux even has those "sort-of-look-the-same-apps" is because if we held our breath waiting for Windows dev houses to take care of us we'd turn pretty blue. As you define the problem, I don't know what the answer is. At least most of those sorta-kinda apps are good enough for some people.
something that never is gonna happen, come down and stay in the real world where Windows is what we have and we'll have for the next 100 years..!!!
I agree. And I believe that Windows had the same failings (co-operative multitasking, unprotected memory) until Windows 95 came on the scene, long after Windows' market share dominance had already been established. So it's not like Microsoft won the battle due to a a superior OS.
"Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky - Try to take over the world!"
Forget about it.
For the past eight years and three employers, I have seen zero interest in anything other than Dell running Windows. Nothing else matters. It's not up for discussion. That's just the way it is.
What exactly is it that is supposed to compel these people to change? TCO? I doubt it. Snazzy new desktop? No way. Fear of crapware? Hasn't made an impact.
I keep hearing that linux, macos, whatever is poised to make a difference but it isn't the quality or the price that has been the overriding factor.
So I exported the database into a GED file. (I think that's what it was called.) and imported it into Gramps on Ubuntu 7.04.
She is quite happy with it.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I'm surprised that so many people think Linux isn't ever going to put a dent in the desktop market. Having lived through four changes in the prevailing desktop system (Apple ][, CP/M, DOS, Windows) what is going on feels like a fundamental shift in the market. It's not about Linux, it's about abandoning the one user, one CPU model of the 80s and shifting to the power, simplicity and flexibility that *nix type multiuser operating systems deliver. See, the real fear in Redmond has always been the commoditization of the software they sell. You can't make the basically the same widget for 20 years and hope to have the same price tag on it as when you started (Windows 1.0, $89.95, Windows Vista Home, $199).
Commodotization has started! The first piece of software to go was Redmond's overpriced darling: Windows Server! Now the desktop OS is being reduced to a freebie by Linux. Using Mach and BSD enabled Apple to regain the advantage they lost to the PC business when Apple was a ground up hardware and from the first bit software company. Open Office is doing the same to MS Office... MySQL, Java, Apache, and the P languages have put an incredible hurt on the Microsoft development stack... Nearly every category of software MS is now facing a competing model: open source communites delivering free (as in freedom) software and vendors that sell expertise, not licenses and boxes of disks with manuals in them (well... at least the manuals used to come with boxed software). Now MS will either be torn to shreds by the market or will have to start actually innovating. I have never been so excited about the future!
-- $G
That's certainly going out on a limb...
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
When I talked to him about trying Ubuntu he's saying he doesn't want to learn anything new... but he's using Vista. Go figure.
Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little bit. But it's true. HE does exist.
A little late guys. The majority of PC's being sold now are laptops. And that proportion is growing.
Until you can take a distribution disk, pop it on a random machine with decent hardware, and have everything up and running without requiring any type of user action 'under the hood', Linux will remain firmly esconced in the realm of server rooms, geek basements, and nerd bedrooms; not in your average household.
Oh, for a second there I thought you were talking about Vista. What you're really saying is that until Linux is an OEM OS it won't be widely accepted. Because if you can't install Linux, you won't be able to install Vista, either.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I dunno about the rest of you, but if ubuntu can make my 16 year old sister say "I want a computer like that" keeping in mind that she probably has no clue what the word "command line" means, then I'd say Linux has already made it. Sure, she will probably not configure the network settings on her own, but she definitely wouldn't be able to do that on windows either. I'm personally confident that she will find Firefox no more difficult to use than the windows version of the same. Basically, if people can't cope with Ubuntu on their own, they probably can't cope with windows on their own either. The only major advantage I can think of with windows from a usability point of view is better support from certain important third parties ( nVidia, ATI etc ... ). Other than that Ubuntu is superior. So I'd propose the following definition for the year of Linux: "The year of Linux is the year when nVidia and ATI give their Linux drivers priority above their Windows drivers." When that happens Microsoft can just as well throw in the towel.
2000 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2001 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2002 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2003 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2004 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2005 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2006 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2007 was called the year of the Linux desktop.
2008 is being called the year of the Linux desktop.
What will make 2008 any different from all of the other years that Linux was supposed to take off on the desktop? In my opinion, thinking that Linux will magically take over in a single year is naive. If it ever becomes a mainstream desktop OS, it'll get there by growing slowly and steadily.
For me this was the definitive year of Ubuntu on the desktop. The rest I don't really care. It worked totally fine in my computer, and unlike windows XP I didn't require any driver CD to make my hardware work. All the apps are good enough for my needs, and since I was very used to programming on light weight IDES (that means no bloat or the need to have funny features beyond code completion) code::blocks is doing fine for me.
The reason I switched is that it is is far easier to customize and make it do what I want. Very few people might notice that MS hates when you customize windows, and Apple won't even let you do more than changing the wallpaper.
Games? Well... what happened is that I... grew up. I don't really need those flashy 3d accelerated games out there that now sound so expensive, I guess I am getting old already, but can survive with just Sudoku, I am afraid I don't think anymore my computer should be somekind of game station, consoles would do that job better anyways.
Look? I think I made my gnome look absolutely gorgeous, It is MY computer thus I don't really care about how much people think OS/X is the prettiest thing ever invented.
Show off value? I tried compiz-fusion and emerald and It makes the desktop absolutely awesome, I made it a toggle button so if somebody is gonna look and my desktop I enable those effects.
App compability? My emergency plan is using a virtual machine, but what's fun Is that I don't really need any windows app anymore... Yes, it is a different story for everybody, I know
Easy of use? I use this ubuntu OS and it hasn't really given me issues yet, I don't spend 3 hours trying to make everything work like some guys out there say they do when they use Linux.
Multimedia? Totem tells me when I have to download
Applications? I just use firefox , gedit , code::blocks , brazero, nautilus and the terminal. For odd reasons I don't need more things, I was surprised I can have a totally usable (for me) computer without any cost besides of hardware (This is country almost have no OEMs)
The winner: Organization has made me more productive, I like emblems and workspaces, those are features I now find essential.
All in one to me Ubuntu was complete and does the job correctly for me, and I switched.
Go ahead, and post all the reasons you think Linux is not ready for the desktop, all of them are wrong. People will switch once they like it, and this is a war that is not going to be won instantly, it is the satisfaction it can give to each person.
I've seen it since 3 years ago and I know how fast it can improve, I think i evolves faster than OS/X and windows, in fact Vista always copies Mac OS/X features and I found recently that Linux got so good, that apple is now stealing its ideas! so I think we are gonna do fine.
On alternative situations, like OLPC, education, servers , even Bolivarian PCs, etc. Linux has already won. And we just got to wait
And then we have KDE4, it is getting that Mac OS/X look that so much people like, yet it is implemented in a cleaner way and also getting some very outstanding features, and it gets the advantage of being free. KDE4 might just need some luck to give the world a great surprise.
I think even MS is noticing it, that's the reason they are being much more aggressive towards the open source world.
So go ahead and say "NO 2008 IS NO LINUXYEAR AND NEVER WILL HAPPEN " or "2008 is OS/X year because 2 guys and I decided to SWITCH!" I don't care, I think Linux is doing fine, I also don't think getting a good market share is any important, I think Linux is improving faster than the rest and will eventually surpass the rest (although for me it already has)
The rest is sipmply chicken-egg paradox with cycles like "Nobody will use linux until it has good apps and nobody will make good apps for linux until it gets a lot of users" (cliche also works with "games", and "hardware support")
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Seems nobody has told the boys and girls over at Maximum PC they are a year to late the Linux desktop bubble may have already burst.
I'm really new to Linux, but I've noticed only recently, that popular Linux programs like Mozilla, GIMP, and OpenOffice have Windows versions. If more Windows users install & use these programs, I'm pretty confident they'll have less of an problem upgrading to Linux, since most users don't work with the OS, they work with programs they like. Another thing I've noticed that openSuse, Fedora & Ubuntu also have excellent updaters that not only keep the OS up to date, it also updates the programs installed. That's something Windows doesn't do.
As far as I can figure, Windows reached a peak with win2000 and has been regressing for the past 7 years.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Desktop Linux is to operating systems, what Duke Nukkem Forever is to games.
Gods, I hope not.
More users = More idiots = more companies willing to capitalise on idiots = bloat, crud and general microsoftization of distros.
Ah well, should it happen it'll just be time to move on... BSD or BeOS... tough call.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
if 2008 is the year of the linux desktop i will declare it the year of the dumb faggot.
You can use the Windows XP recovery console from the CD. That thing has like, five whole commands!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Of course most Americans don't notice since they live there, but anyone who travels a lot can attest that the USA typically lags 10 years behind Europe in the uptake of new stuff.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
About three years ago, Maximum PC ran a poll asking their readers what O/S they thought they would be running in 2005 and on what hardware. One of the choices was Linux, the others were MAC, XP, and Longhorn. Although I figured that Linux was a choice intended to be a joke or to set up those who chose it as the butts of jokes, I put down Debian on AMD 64. No doubt the Maximum PC staff howled with laughter. But in 2005, I was running Debian on AMD 64, & shortly after the poll, Lamehorn got sent back to the drawing board. "He who laughs last
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
"I've honestly started to believe that Windows' successor is something we haven't seen yet; not Linux, and not Mac OSX."
;) Just look at the iPhone and AT&T reactions.
It's being worked on.*
"If it *is* UNIX based at all, it will have to be in such a way that the UNIX core is buried so deeply that not even geeks can get at it...because UNIX that the mainstream consumer can see is UNIX that the mainstream consumer doesn't want; hence Linux's problem."
An idea borrowed here and there, but no it's not.
*Interesting wouldn't be people's reaction to a new OS, but what terms it was paired with.
Ok, you are ready for the next great thing because XP or 98 aren't working out for you any more. You upgrade to Vista and it doesn't work at all with your system or hardware or your patience. You can't legally roll back because you bought the "Vista Upgrade", and even if it was legal your system didn't come with an install CD, the restore CD doesn't work anymore, or you can't get it to activate for some strange reason. You are fully in touch with how thoroughly you've been had by this vendor.
It's time to try something new. That OS-X sounds great but that's a whole new PC. Try the Ubuntu. It's fine, it's free, it runs on your PC and it probably does all the stuff you want to do anyway. At this point what could it hurt? Your computer is well and truly hosed anyway. Give it a shot and maybe you'll like it - if not it's not like it cost you anything more than a couple of hours of time.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
2006 - Year of the Dog
2007 - Year of the Pig
2008 - Year of Linux Desktop
Now I've hit the tipping point: A KDE desktop running on Debian is what I use all day.
There is only so much one can progress (when it comes to knowledge and efficiency) using Windows. A comparison I would like to make is that Windows is like duplo lego, while Linux is like technic lego. The console in Linux is really powerful, giving me the abilities to do far more than would've been possible using a simple Windows system.
- Want a image of that disk?
- Want to reliably copy your system from one disk to another?
/etc/fstab and /boot/grub/. Run grub-install /dev/newdisk/
- Found a bug?
(Microsoft has acknowledged that the lack of a useful shell is a weak spot in the Windows family, by creating a new "Powershell" for their operating system). Anyways, preaching to the choir here.Windows: Shell out cash for Norton Ghost.
Linux: dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/home/sokk/backup.img
Windows: Reinstall everything, copy documents from old install.
Linux: rsync the old root filesystem to the new disk. Change some settings in
Windows: Send a bug report to the software company. Hope that the bug gets fixed. If not, you're out of luck.
Linux: Send bug to maintainer. Is it unmaintained software? hire someone to do it, or do it yourself.
A couple of years ago I crossed my fingers and hoped that Mozilla (early alpha) wouldn't crash when opening a page. Even if it opened, it could look like shit, or don't work at all. Now every single page works in Firefox for me.. The only problem I have is 1% of the pages don't look good in Konqueror.
Developing software in Linux is a breeze, with hundreds of shoulders to stand on. Instead of reinventing or rewriting code, you can probably find a free library to do it, cutting development time dramatically down! Want to write a torrent client? Use the libtorrent, and focus on the part you don't like about the other clients (eg. UI).
I think I would have withdrawal symptoms if I went back to the old Windows desktop now. I would miss Amarok (excellent music player), the extensible kde desktop, scripting. The ability to look at the source code of applications, and fix bugs if they should present themselves.
The near future looks bright. (Stable) OpenGL accelerated desktops (on even the low-end cards), open source java (hopefully it will get integrated into the desktops, so that it doesn't feel alien/out of place like it does now), KDE 4.. More and more people using Linux (thanks to Ubuntu, even though I can't stand Ubuntu myself), thereby getting the ball rolling.
Market shares for operating systems are usually measured by the number of licenses sold. It's therefore always going to be difficult to tell how many people are actually using Linux, or any other free OS for that matter. That's unfortunate, because even when the total number of Linux systems does actually become substantial, chances are no one will know for sure. Certainly the average consumer won't know it... maybe we won't even know it. That's why I think the number of Linux systems out there necessary for it to obtain "critical mass" (relative to Microsoft's numbers) will have to be larger than, say, Apple's numbers would have to be to achieve the same thing.
"US always lags the rest of the world in technology" I would love to see some proof on this, I just dont see it. Ive been to Europe, and I live in America - I dont see a 10 year gap in technology.
... of people who are used to get everything for free and if possible with sources. That's not really a business case. Isn't Loki Games bankrupt now?
Lets be honest. Linux is ready for the desktop, linux sits on numerous desktops already.
In distributions like Ubuntu we finally find the right combination of ease of use and flexibility. You can use a single distro for your desktops and your servers. It has rock solid package management and is built on a massive repository of packages. Dependency issues are a thing of the past and it is a breeze to find and install packages.
We now have a desktop with 3D eye candy that rivals or beats anything you can find on MacOSX or Vista. Linux is actually pretty now! Beryl needs to be stabilized and turned on by default but its coming.
In addition to there being tools that readily communicate with windows networks, whether you need files or printer services you can easily configure communication with simple and intuitive graphical tools.
I know, I know, this sounds like nothing but praise. Where is the challenge? Linux is a very powerful and easy to use desktop but there are applications that stand between many users and the desktop. We can't force developers to port their applications and games to linux but we can lower the barrier for entry.
How do you make life easy for developers? You give them common and stable API's. Off hand I think the most pressing is a common window manager API. This will only work if it developed as a joint effort between the kde and gnome folks. It should be possible to write an application that interacts with common events, renders a window with menus and common inputs, utilizes the clipboard, and otherwise utilizes only the basic functionality a graphical application is going to need; and to expect that application to run on the major window managers using their native widgets. I don't mean that this is all the functionality window managers should support. A compatibility layer between this api and the native toolkit is fine. Hell, it doesn't even need to be written from scratch, there are toolkits that do this already that could probably be used as a base. The important thing is that the major WM teams make a commitment to support the universal API and that developers can depend on.
The other is a gaming API. OpenGL is great for graphics but it is very useful to tie 3D graphics and audio.
These should be published and documented much like the LSB.
I tend to lean toward GPL style licensing for the protections it offers but for something like this maximum compatibility is best. Copyright the API (release it under an open license that requires any extensions or modifications be published) and documentation but release any implementation code into the public domain.
I wish this were something I could just up and do but I don't do any WM work, let alone carry any clout in those circles. That said, let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
"I was thinking along the lines of "something companies don't make drivers for." "
Except that excuse doesn't always work. I have a five year old Palm PDA, with a serial cradle. I downloaded the free Windows software from Palm and it "just worked". I booted over to linux and it doesn't even show up when I push the Hotsync button. As for the "free" documentation out there, it's incomplete, out of date, and just plain unhelpful.
As to whether "GNU/Linux" (you mean Ubuntu or Fedora or Mandriva or Gentoo, right?) is "good enough", that of course is a value judgement. Being "good enough" doesn't mean the competition (Windows or OS X) is automatically not, unless you're a zealot.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
You insensitive clod!!!
A fully wrapped OS (one you cant even see) is best for most users. This is why Linux has been so effective in the enbedded market. Most people don't even realise they're using Linux when it is deep inside a cell phone etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Does your mommy know you're using teh interwebs this late?
Maybe the year when desktop processors have 32 cores will be the year for Linux on the desktop.
Real-time ray tracing will be do-able. Raster graphics will be better, but ray traced will be awesome glass effects. If there are no hardware cards for ray tracing, if it is all done on the processor, then one of Microsoft's biggest weapons: DirectX, will be less of a problem for Linux. Not counting networking and sound, games will be easy to port. Just a bunch of standard C instructions. Crappy graphics drivers for Linux won't matter.
However, while I think we will hit 16 cores by 2010, I don't think 32 will be around for a LONG time.
click this
http://webcommando.com/newsite/index.php?option=co ntent&task=view&id=27&Itemid=32 to listen to "I Heard It On Slashdot" (last line of last verse has the reference...)
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
Sadly, it's not a troll. I use Ubuntu 7.04 at work and home exclusively and I can play most Windows Media files. However, the Windows DRM embedded in the audio books you can download from my public library can not be turned into anything useful to listen to on linux (as far as I have been able to figure out, anyway). If I want to play them on my MP3 player I have to download them to my wife's Windows box to activate the DRM license and then I can get it on the MP3 player. If I try to download it to my linux box and play it or transfer it to the MP3 player to play it I get nothing. I haven't tried copying the activated file from the Windows box to my linux box to see if it will play or not because if I have to download it to a Windows box first, then to an MP3 player, then to my linux box, it just isn't worth it to me.
Personally, I would love to see the option for a DRM-enabled audio/video player on linux for those of us who want access to available DRM'ed files. I don't even care if it has to be a binary blob (since it's only going to run in user space anyway) and I don't care to bypass any of the functionality of the DRM. I just want the choice to use a more stable and secure OS when I listen to my audio book from the library.
Does the Linux userspace still suck?
I've noticed this trend in Both Fedora and more recently Ubuntu.
Fedora peaked (as far as I'm concerned) at core 3, after that there is just no fun in it.
Ubuntu is for humans... Humans are dumb. Generally speaking of course.
But I guess that's the good thing about linux, when a distro starts to go a way I don't like I just find another (currently Sabayon) that i do like.
Windows OTOH, there is no real way to get around an OS that you just "don't like". You can either get a different release and lose/gain some kind of functionality but it's still the same OS.
But consider Fedora, Debian and Slackware... all linux, but vastly different Operating Systems.
Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
...makes one major flaw:
""Over at Maximum PC, we're betting that Linux will pick up unprecedented momentum in the coming year. With phenomenal new distros, swelling international support, and a little extra momentum from Dell, we think Linux is poised to exploit the current atmosphere of doubt surrounding Vista and pick up serious traction in '08"
The problem here is - no games. Thus, it doesn't matter. Til there are a bunch of GOOD games available for Linux - home buyers won't bother. Especially when you can catch a sale at Frys...or at BB...or anywhere else, and get an HP or Compaq computer, decent for home, with Windows, for $300 or less, including a CRT monitor...Saving $50 or so won't make someone who wants to point, click, and get to the net buy a Linux machine.
Again - it all comes down to games for home users.
I hate to post that, but doesn't it make much more sense?
For years I've have been watching Linux zealots post stuff like: "with msft no longer supporting W2K, everybody will switch to Linux." And I just think: WTF?
If people don't like msft's new offering, they will just stay with msft's old offering. There is absolutely nothing that compels anybody to switch to Linux.
I use Debian myself. I would like to see people switch to Linux, but I don't see it happening. Windows is much more compatible with popular desktop sw/hw. And frankly, I find windows to be much crisper, snappier, and more responsive, than Linux.
Funny. I thought that was 2004.
... It's a tool. Nothing more. If the tool is working you, instead of you working the tool, it's time to get a new tool.
Or was it 2006?
Or was it actually 2002 and then it burst in 2006?
Umm... 2003?
Oh! Stupid me! It was 1999! Yeah. definately 1999. I mean. It's not like Linus would the exact same thing five years later.
It had to be 1999, because it was Almost Ready(tm) for the desktop back in 1994 when I first used it!
Now, tell me again. Why do I have a mac? Oh that's right. It's Unix, but I don't have to sysadmin it like Linux.
Yes yes. "Some people like to learn about their machine." [emphasis original] Ahh yes. I was once like you, some 13 years ago this fall. Then I got a bit older, and perhaps a bit wiser, and learned that there was much more important things than screwing around with sendmail, or 3d acceleration, or hotplug vs devfs, or ipchains vs ipfwadm, or oss vs alsa, or cups vs lpr, or
We've been hearing Linux was "almost ready" for almost 10 years now. Who's got the earliest link to this old saw? I've got Linus in 1999. There's got to be something earlier?
The "killer" application for linux on joe sixpacks desktop is not games, it is *the internet* as in, being able to surf with much less worries than having to use some windows box with ten different machine bogging helper programs to try and keep trojans and viruses away.
ya, ya,ya, all sorts of leet windows users will now chime in and say this is possible and they do it, etc, but the fact remains that most windows peecees and their users are still horribly vulnerable to every bogus thing that gets pushed on the net. c'mon, admit it, you know I am right on this. Unless you are a heavy power user on windows, you are always one shaky click away from pwnzedville. Ten zillion bots prove this daily. Even with all the press, all the help, all the expensive programs, all that MS has tried to do, all that all the windows centric ISPs try to do-windows is still a dismal security failure for most of the people who use it.
whereas you can take any of the top ten major linux distros, install it, and you are good to go painlessly, and pretty darn securely, with no more advanced training needed than to open a web browser.
Anyway, that's the killer app that should be pushed to "sell" linux. No, FF on windows is still a windows product and as such is not good enough, you need the full real deal there.
With the rise of cheap ram and live cds, this could be even better, and the possibility exists to try once again for the internet appliance. Every time you reboot, a perfectly clean installation, no worries.
the industry tries to sell general purpose computers, but most people just want and could get by with quite well an internet appliance that runs a few things well and securely and with little effort, nothing complicated. Web surfer, chat/email/light texting word processing and some media and printing, that would cover 99% of most people's needs handily.
And games are much less important than you think (it's a big business, but only to mostly younger people*), because most likely you are not in the majority population demographic, which is the older than 30 crowd in the US, western Europe and Japan. Games are important to *you*, but not to the majority of home desktop users,but being able to use the internet safely is much more important. Most of them are just not even aware of linux and safer surfing yet, but this is changing.
*yes, games are a huge business, and most people who buy and play them are younger. The demographics drop off rapidly after around 35 years old, and even there it is mostly power users. Older folks who like actually own homes instead of living in dorms or apartments and buy 100 grand and up RVs for fun don't do games as much as you think (nor do they bop down the street with ipods stuck in their ears), and they are a hugely untapped piece of the computer market for safer computers-once they can see and touch and try them out. And not "webtv" underpowered crap with no mouse, just something fast and powerful and not full of windows bogusness.
Anyway, I am there, thought I'd let you know. and I only have a very few of my peers who "do games" either (I certainly don't, I "do" real stuff for fun, not make believe pretend childish stuff, I want to go shooting, I go shooting, I want to go driving, I drive, etc), but all of my peers use computers, they just want something better than MS crap or over priced apple nonsense. Linux works quite well for the app that matters, the *internet*, and eventually some enterprising people are going to bingo to these two bits of data and put it together in a good package and make some serious coinage. Sure, it's a niche, but all markets are niches really, I just think if you look at the potential numbers that someone is really missing the profitable boat here.
Year of Linux Desktop?
Keep on dreaming......
2008 wont be any different. The reality is that linux is very hard to use, and there is little incentive to put up with the difficulties because all of the applications are on Windows or OSX.
For those of you who truly hate your grandmothers, you can always set them up with LFS. :)
- The Year of the Linux Desktop! (2007)
- 2006: The year of desktop Linux?
- 2005 will be the year of the Linux Desktop
- Linux breaks desktop barrier in 2004: Torvalds
- I am convinced that 2003 is going to be the breakout year for Desktop Linux.
Try this instead: Year of the Linux desktop? Who cares!Vista is so bad. Hey, I work for Microsoft and I'll admit that Vista has a lot of ground to cover. It will drive people to alternative OSes
If you work for Microsoft you may want to let your bosses know that MS's restrictive licensing is already turning some Windows/Office users into switchers. For years I've used Windows, since Win95 almost exclusively, and Office however because MS is now treating it's users like criminals, and that's exactly what Activation, WGA, and WPA amoung others does, I am switching. Some months ago I got a desktop PC with Linux preinstalled and for a laptop I plan on getting a Macbook. If it hadn't been for MS tactics I probably would of stayed with Windows. And if anyone asks me for advance in getting a new PC or OS, after telling them why, I will recommend they get either a Mac or a PC with Linux.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It just took four years to finally become funny.
There are too many apps that too many people use that are available on their Windows machines.
And for almost every app that runs on Windows there's an equivilent app for either Linux and/or OSX. It may not be the same app but it's there. About the only reason to stick with a Windows only app is because it uses a proprietary file format, looking you AutoCAD. And with more people switching to either other OS software developers would be overlooking significant market segments if they didn't release versions for them. About the only reason for someone not to do so is if they don't work in the field as a career but do it as hobby.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I manage a team of developers that produces a web-based business application written in Java. Because we deliver on any platform I purposely arrange developers on a mix of OS platforms (Windows XP, Vista, OS X, Linux). All of our builds run off of Ant, so we don't dictate a specific IDE.
A new developer I hired recently was most comfortable with Windows, but also had Linux experience. I asked if was willing to develop on Vista, and he was excited at the opportunity to get a new laptop and the "latest and greatest" from MS.
He tried using it for 4 weeks and performance was terrible (this was an HP laptop with a dual core Intel CPU and 2GB of ram). Builds that would take under 1 min on a similarly equipped XP or OS X machine would take 7-8mins!
To make a long story short, he has installed Linux over it and it now very happy.
Vista is the biggest turd MS has released since Windows ME. Personally, I'm quite happy with XP and have no desire to move to Linux or OS X. But, there is no way I'm moving to Vista any time soon. MS really screwed up. There is not 1 single feature I need in Vista, it requies 1GB of ram just to load the OS, file I/O is ridiculous, and I don't want to deal with the new security model. What were they thinking?
And If you ignore that, well then you are being an uninformed zealot and I can see how you might make the silly assumption that Linxu will overtake Windows. Like it or not, Windows DOES improve and thus the standard Linux has to meet is a moving target. That is one of the problem with many advocates, is they are so blinded by their own rhetoric they don't keep up with the current state of Windows. For example I often hear how Windows is unstable, Linux is stable. No, not so much. That was true back in the Win 95 days, but that was over a decade ago. Now Windows is quite stable and the argument is one that shows a high degree of ignorance. Denying the improvements and features of Windows does nothing to help promote Linux. Rather we need to acknowledge them and see what can be done to make Linux even better.
OK, I got some pretty heated responses about how Linux sucks for business systems and niche production environments, and isn't worth advertising to Joe Consumer. True enough all of that.
I've given Ubuntu machines to 20 people. All but one of them wanted it for email, internet, digital cameras, and "word". All but the one who needed Illustrator (because Inkscape has different short cuts or something), were not only completely happy, they were ecstatic. They were bowled over by beryl, and completely in love with firefox right away, and didn't notice any difference between open office and word, other than that they had to do "Save As" and save it as a MS word file to email their co workers or schools etc.
For most home users, that don't game or do pro graphic work, Linux is more than ready. It's completely and thoroughly superior to the other offerings by Apple and MS.
Even for the two casual gamers in the lot, they very much enjoyed Mupen and Urban Terror, so.....
Other than Inkscape and Gimp not quite being drop in replacements for illustrator and photoshop, I can't imagine a home user needing anything else.
Not to say that your insurance company should roll out 3,000 ubuntu systems for your own custom app that you have had them running in windows for 20 years. That's completely off topic as far as I'm concerned.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
This is the year I will make the switch to OpenBSD, or if I come to an impasse there, a Linux distro.
I've tried this before, but only with a dual boot. I have more than 50 different folders and icons in my startup menu. A lot of those programs do the same thing, but that represents a lot of capability that will Just Work (TM). I'm sure it took me cumulative weeks to figure out how to use, find and install everything, but that's a sunk cost.
The problem with dual booting is that it's like an alcoholic giving up alcohol with a fully stocked bar in the house. You use linux for a day, surf with firefox, and then you need to do something. Now. You surf around a bit, try a few different things, get stuck, PAIN. It's so much easier to just go back to XP. And all you have to do is click restart... and get it done. But you don't have anything compelling you to restart again.
And I hate the idea of throwing anything away, even if I'll never use it again. So just deleting the XP partition is not an option.
The key is to make the XP partition non-bootable. The best way is to make a brand new disk your master and either remove the XP disk or at least remove the option of booting it. The best time to do this is likely the beginning of some major time off.
But I'm NOT upgrading to Vista, and I'm not going to live with malware in XP, and I refuse to go to closed source OSX. So this time I go cold turkey.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
...but the license and development paradigm will matter. Linux is currently helping us make sure of that.
title = "2008 - year of Linux desktop?";
:P
You idiots! How many times do I tell you. You don't hardcode dynamically changing variables all over your code:
title = ((new Date()).currentYear()+1).toString()+" - year of Linux desktop?";
Aaah.. that's better now
Honestly, I've no idea why smart people keep deluding themselves in "next year it'll be different" fantasies.
Check this from 2005: "Jack Messman, chief executive of networking software vendor Novell says that 2006 will see widespread adoption of Linux on the corporate desktop. According to Messman the catalyst will be the release of Microsoft Windows Vista and the high costs associated with upgrading."
Like a mirror of the current story. Totally. What happened? Nothing. Linux is still exactly where it was.
The truth is, if Linux had any reasons to suddenly take over the market, we'd be having tangible effects and numbers for this RIGHT NOW.
Things don't change overnight. Of course it's tempting to just imagine how the calendar changing digits from 2007 to 2008 suddenly means a whole new universe of possibilities. But it's stupid.
Do you remember how people thought that year 2000 will suddenly bring flying cars and futuristic glassy cities all of a sudden (amongst religious freaks expecting the end of the world and Y2K paranoia)? Did it?
No, just on January 2000, it was exactly one day after Dec 31 1999. And in a day, only so much can happen.
Because it was cheaper, not better.
Linux is cheaper now than XP/Vista and its less of a hassle setting up.
These days I use Linux over windows not because of crashes. Its because Tux doesn't accuse me of being a thief. The Loki games I bought back in 2000 still work(4). No Microsoft/WGA telling me that my software won't work because I didn't spend $300 on the latest version. A valid Windows computer will get you a WGA warning box saying your a thief while installing directX 9c.
Drivers my ass. Windows XP doesn't recognize my new Sandisk cruzer whereas Ubuntu does.
Yes, I spend real money on Linux games. I'd also spend money on adobe if they had a Linux product(please give me an upgrade price).
My opinion
Enjoy.
It's just the normal noises in here.
then what's the compelling reason for using linux for a mainstream user?
Spyware, being treated like a criminal, and stability are three reasons for switching to Linux or OSX. I'm careful about what I install and I use a firewall so I don't run into spyware but many others do. Windows/Office Activation, WGA, and WPA amoung others is all about treating users as criminals. And Windows crashs and is otherwise pretty much unstable. I've used Windows since 3.x and with the exception of NT4.0 they have all crashed on me. Yes even Win200 and XP have crashed. It took about a week before 2000 crashed on me and the first tyme I booted up a PC with XP it froze while booting up and had to be forcibly rebooted, I had to hold the power button in to get it to reboot. That was not an impressive start with XP. And now with all of the things Vista needs to keep working, whether it be Activation or phoning home, I am switching. For a desktp PC, which I'll setup as a server, I got a PC with Linux preinstalled. And for a laptop I plan to get a Macbook Pro.
FalconShould there be a Law?
built in... maby then people can look at a Linux box and go "wow" like they do on those stupid Microsoft commercials. I have my PC triple booting between XP/Vista and Ubuntu.. I was using XP most of the time.. now I'm using Ubuntu 100% of the time because of Compiz Fusion.
10: n = Now.Year() + 1 20: Print n + " Year of the Linux Desktop?" 30: Wait.Years(1) 40: GOTO 10
10: n = Now.Year() + 1
20: Print n + " may be the year of the open source desktop"
30: Wait.Years(1)
40: GOTO 10
Haven't they said this every year?
I'd love to see it actually happen.
Jimi Spier
www.jimispier.com - My tunes
can you go to youtube and have it magically just work with vlc? I tried it a few months ago and it barfed, have to try it again I guess. Not much of a video freak, but once in a great while they have a documentary or small clip I'd like to see. Now google vids with the avi download option is *much* better than that flash thing, that works on all sorts of players
I must say, I not only detest flash, I freaking hate it. Never seen it work all that well on anything, it half ass works, always looks crappy, you are locked into some really strange thing without right click control, just icky all around. If you have a bunch of tabs open it'll kill your browser. I use flashblock all the time now for those reasons, and those advertisers who insist on it, too bad, no eyeballs for YOU! And websites with the intro page in flash?? buh bye, it's a big web out there, don't need your site at all.
XP as sold by default does NOT support SATA DVD. If you installed XP from the DVD, it *would* work (as in boot), but would *not* see the DVD. It would ALSO not see your "recent" network interface. The only way to get stuff in would be via USB key.
So -- XP is a no-go on that particular machine, UNLESS it is customized by the hardware vendor, which is NOT a fair comparision.
I call Liar.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
People are balking at Vista because they're relatively happy with XP. Those people aren't going to balk at Linux?! Sorry, but this isn't the gap in the market you've been hoping for.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hit me with the alternatives for:
Lacerte Professional Tax
Creative Solutions write up
dimensional fund advisors returns
Wagner Math Finance Retirement Planing v. 3
and if you find alternatives for those all of our Charles Schwab and Fidelity Institutional Platform software are windows only as well.
Nevermind that our trading back office who we outsource to (and who are the best in the business for what we actually do - nevermind the tools we use)is all internet explorer based.
Our accounting industry specific time and billing software from CCH
Also I have a retirement plan department who has specialized shrinkwrap profit sharing testing software, Form 5500 preparations and 1099 preparation software.
this is off the top of my head in about 5 minutes
am I supposed to run all of this with WINE?
Please site some examples of this huge average consumer backlash of the DRM in Vista.
I've switched everybody in my extended family to OS X for their home machines. With macs I see a good compromise between mainstream use application support and security (for home users.) I love the idea of linux and tried a number of distributions but I just don't know who it is really for.
When people see that we use and recommend the name GNU/Linux for a system that many others call just "Linux", they ask many questions. Here are common questions, and our answers.
Why do you call it GNU/Linux and not Linux?
Most operating system distributions based on Linux as kernel are basically modified versions of the GNU operating system. We began developing GNU in 1984, years before Linus Torvalds started to write his kernel. Our goal was to develop a complete free operating system. Of course, we did not develop all the parts ourselves--but we led the way. We developed most of the central components, forming the largest single contribution to the whole system. The basic vision was ours too.
In fairness, we ought to get at least equal mention.
See Linux and the GNU Project and GNU Users Who Have Never Heard of GNU for more explanation, and The GNU Project for the history.
Why is the name important?
Although the developers of Linux, the kernel, are contributing to the free software community, many of them do not care about freedom. People who think the whole system is Linux tend to get confused and assign to those developers a role in the history of our community which they did not actually play. Then they give inordinate weight to those developers' views.
Calling the system GNU/Linux recognizes the role that our idealism played in building our community, and helps the public recognize the practical importance of these ideals.
How did it come about that most people call the system "Linux"?
Calling the system "Linux" is a confusion that has spread faster than the corrective information.
The people who combined Linux with the GNU system were not aware that that's what their activity amounted to. They focused their attention on the piece that was Linux and did not realize that more of the combination was GNU. They started calling it "Linux" even though that name did not fit what they had. It took a few years for us to realize what a problem this was and ask people to correct the practice. By that time, the confusion had a big head start.
Most of the people who call the system "Linux" have never heard why that's not the right thing. They saw others using that name and assume it must be right. The name "Linux" also spreads a false picture of the system's origin, because people tend to suppose that the system's history was such as to fit that name. For instance, they often believe its development was started by Linus Torvalds in 1991. This false picture tends to reinforce the idea that the system should be called "Linux".
Many of the questions in this file represent people's attempts to justify the name they are accustomed to using.
Should we always say "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux"?
Not always--only when you're talking about the whole system. When you're referring specifically to the kernel, you should call it "Linux", the name its developer chose.
When people call the whole system "Linux", as a consequence they call the whole system by the same name as the kernel. This causes many kinds of confusion, because only experts can tell whether a statement is about the kernel or the whole system. By calling the whole system "GNU/Linux", and calling the kernel "Linux", you avoid the ambiguity.
Would Linux have achieved the same success if there had been no GNU?
In that alternative world, there would be nothing today like the GNU/Linux system, and probably no free operating system at all. No one attempted to develop a free operating system in the 1980s except the GNU Project and (later) Berkeley CSRG, which had been specifically asked by the GNU Project to start freeing its code.
But I have a sudden urge to go create a gaybuntu distribution now.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
First off, we're talking about the operating systems of today, not 1992. Now Vista appears to really suck at the moment so I'm going to cherry pick XP. I just haven't had too many problems with it - I've had linux machines crash and OS X crash too. It's probably not as good as the alternatives from a technical point of view, but the software available on windows for mainstream users is better on the whole - particularly cost no object again.
Now the grandparent posts talks about how the users 'never paid for windows.' If i'm to assume that this person is a software pirate then it seems like Microsoft has just cause for not having people steal from them. If the losses from piracy were small enough (ie a significant chunk of people weren't stealing,) companies wouldn't require good customers to go through those steps.
People got a box that worked when you turned it on and could be expanded. I had mine running for a good six years. I got better printers, scanners and "upgraded" to 95, and I never had to wipe and reload it until I decided it was time for GNU/Linux.
I got a new PC first when Win95 came out, I got a laptop with Win95 and a tower with two hdd setup as dualboot running Windows NT4.0 and Redhat. In all of the tyme I've had the tower, I've still got it though I haven't used in more than two years, NT4.0 has been reinstalled once. Win95 on the other hand I had to reinstall a few tymes. The laptop was replaced by another laptop running Win98 and the OS had to be reinstalled a few tymes as well. For both I was told to reinstall Windows by the OEM, Gateway, when I called tech suport. I replaced the second laptop with an HP Pavilion tower running ME and I've had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes with it as well.
However before I got them I bought a used Mac SE30, in 1992, and it lasted me until 2000 when the floppy drive died. Not once during those 8 years did I have to reinstall or fix anything. The one problem I had with it was that it was not expandable.
FalconShould there be a Law?
public class YearOfLinuxDesktop extends SlashdotArticle {
private static year = 1995;
public YearOfLinuxDesktop() { }
public YearOfLinuxDesktop(int year) {
this.year = year;
}
public String getNextArticle() {
year++;
return "Is " + year + " the year of the Linux Desktop?"
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
YearOfLinuxDesktop yold = new YearOfLinuxDesktop();
while(1) {
System.out.println(yold.getNextArticle());
Thread.sleep(31536000000L);
System.out.println("Nope, apparently not, but...");
}
}
}
Wait... forgot the @deprecated tag. Oh, well, the FreeBSDIsDead class has the same functionality, I'm sure nobody'll use this one...
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
The "registry disaster" is nothing but FUD. It sucked on Windows 9x but it's solid as hell on the NT products. Ah, you haven't used Windows since 1997. Yeah, I guess you're right.
Windows NT 4.0 is the only Windows OS I have not had trouble with. Win9X I've had to reinstall the OS a number of tymed, as I have ME. Win2000 took about a week before it crashed on me, and the first tyme I used XP it froze while booting up.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Go ask 10 non-technical people if they would consider using Linux as an OS, and 9 will look at you like you just spoke Greek to them.
I used to think most common people wouldn't recognise Ubuntu if they saw it. I started using it in public places. I get reactions from people who haven't seen it from "Is that Vista" to quite a few who go "Wow, you're using Ubuntu. Do you like it?". The fact that a few do recognise it (past the splash screen so no logo showing) is amazing. It's like people who ask how I like my Prius. (I still get a few).
I share my experiance, the waiting for Flash 9, Installing flashblock in Firefox for the obnoxious sites, and the fun getting wireless working. (with the right card, it was plug and play)
I find instead of asking them if they would consider it, simply use it in public. The curious will watch and learn that as a user, it's not hard. Those who have seen it will ask how you like it and ask about hardware compatiblity. I love telling them about installs where not a single driver disk was used in the install, unlike the old Windows install with many reboots. Even all the extra buttons on my keyboard work for volume, internet, email, etc. No drivers needed.
Newer stuff needs more hand holding such as installing the lib's for DVD's, Plays for Sure devices such as the Zen, etc. Overall, not bad.
The truth shall set you free!
Now that PCs are expected to play DRM-protected media encoded with proprietary codecs, the window for consumer open source systems has closed.
Actualy many content providers are feeling the heat from incompatible file formats and propritory players. Nobody wants 2 dozen installs of software to play each providers content and users are limiting the number of restrictive players to only a few. The other content providers can go fly a kite! Some sites still try to get you to register and download and install their special player, but many users simply move on to a more freindly (compatible) site. This leaves most DRM content in either the Apple DRM (Quicktime and iTunes), Flash DRM, Adobe DRM, or MS DRM format. This is why places such as utube and yahoo have adopted formats that use an already established player to make their content play only, not downloadable and keepable.
Adding in Linux simply narrows the field of playback only formats that are supported simply because writing or installing yet another DRM player on yet another platform is not going to fly.
The truth shall set you free!
Activation is not a feature, it is copy protection to keep people from stealing it. And your link just says "It's annoying because sometimes you have to reactivate it when you change your mobo or somesuch."
I should not have to activate anything I buy!!! Not when I install it and not when I make a hardware change to my PC. And I've had to do that a few tymes. I've had my mobo die and had it replaced. The same happened twice to my hdd and to my RAM. I've also installed a second graphics card so I could use two monitors at once. The mobo and one of the hdd died at the same tyme but I still should not have to reactivate once never mind three or more tymes. Activation is not simply annoying, it's not needed!
FalconShould there be a Law?
I often hear how Windows is unstable, Linux is stable. No, not so much. That was true back in the Win 95 days, but that was over a decade ago. Now Windows is quite stable and the argument is one that shows a high degree of ignorance.
I don't know about how stable Vista is but in the first week of using Wind2000 it crashed. And the fist tyme I booted up XP it froze while booting up. What I do know about Vista though is that it requires Activation and is filled with spyware. You may not mind being treated like a criminal but I hate it.
Denying the improvements and features of Windows does nothing to help promote Linux. Rather we need to acknowledge them and see what can be done to make Linux even better.
Improvements like Activation? Who needs it
Rather we need to acknowledge them and see what can be done to make Linux even better.
I agree. Competetion is good. With more than one choice there's a good possibility of improvements to all.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If you hate Slashdot so much why not build your ownsite praising Windows which is powered by windows. You can get your funding by getting a loan on everything. Oh but then some Script Kiddie will haxor your entire site into oblivion and you will be left with no money and no site. WOOOT! Then you will be so depressed you will commit suicide.
Why not do us all a favor right now and just commit suicide. I'm serious, commit suicide as in kill yourself fucktard as you are obviously too fucking stupid to even exist let alone use a computer. Yeah go ahead flame away so your whole account will be modded into oblivion.
Moderators, mod bomb the fucktard petrus' whole fucking slashdot account into oblivion.
All the eye candy that the user sees is not true OS.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
SETI@home announcement:
;)"
We have just deciphered a message from outher space, (its kindof echo-y,) -but-, it says;
"This is year 2379 calling; we want our Desktop OS back. -You may keep RMS; --he cant sing worth a damn, anyway, -and-, we naturally chose Lucid Emacs, anyways..
(Oh yeah; we at SETI thought you should know: -The winning SETI -team crunching towards discovering this fine message did so by use of Beowulfed iPhones..)
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
When I talked to him about trying Ubuntu he's saying he doesn't want to learn anything new... but he's using Vista. Go figure.
Did you point out the contradiction to him?
FalconShould there be a Law?
The more sophisticated software you are running is probably more appropriate on a technically superior system.
We really have more stability and better tools than we've ever had, so we are pretty happy.
I'll have to check out VMWare more - that may have some advantages for our line workers (bookkeepers) in particular.
JP
I think it will only begin to happen when linux has its "equivalent" version of parallels.
Once this happens the average user will begin to feel comfortable using linux fulltime with the knowledge that access to windows is easily available.
What are we going to do this year, Brain?
The same thing we do every year, Pinky - take over the Desktop!
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I use Ubuntu 7.04 at work and home exclusively and I can play most Windows Media files.
Have you looked into using Click N Run, CNR. It allows you to install proprietary media players and other software on Linux. Originally it was just for Linspire but now it support other Linux distros like Ubuntu. The FAQ tells you more about it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Doug Dangger? Is that you?
... Geeks!
;)
Unfortunately they are in short supply and difficult to breed
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
1. Just download the codecs... automatix does it as a GUI. It may be illegal, but it works.
CNR lets you install different codecs legally and it works with Ubuntu.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Err.. anyone seen this little titbit ? http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/91 -OK,-Heads-Up-Linux,-Youre-on-in-5..4..3..2-cue-mu sic....html
If you did your homework, you would have realized there is no legal player for DVD's.
A Fully Licensed, DMCA Compliant DVD Player For Linux".
FalconShould there be a Law?
...year of Free Energy!
Thanks for the tip! I HAVE checked it out, but afaik it is still nowhere near the usability of illustrator, especially for someone who has been using illustrator consistently for 5+ years.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
though I may be going out on a limb here, I'm gonna say "no" for 2008
I don't think there's ever going to be a "Year of the Linux Desktop". Instead Linux will just gain market share.
And those that think that Vista's awefulness has any sway must have not been around to see how the whole "Windows vs. MacOS" thing played out.
There's a big difference though between MacOS and Linux. Without any hacking or cracking there's only one company manufacturers a computer that MacOs can be installed on, Apple. Any number of people can build a PC that runs Windows and Linux though, and a bunch of OEMs do that. If Apple were to release and sale MacOS for most any computer it's share of the market would expand. Even Michael Dell said he'd like to sale PCs running MacOS. However, what many don't understand, is that Apple isn't just a software or a hardware company, Apple is a system integrator. They make the whole system and it just works. Though it would gain market share, if Apple were to release OSX for, say Dell, it would have more than one effect. It would eat into Apple's hardware sales. And it would mean either Apple would have to test the OS on a number of systems with different hardware and or it would mean the OS would be less stable and have more bugs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You heard it here first. Don't say I didn't warn you!
The whole reason I switched to Mac (from Windows) is because OS X has a unix core
Mac OSX having an BSD core is one reason I'm switching from Windows, to both Linux and Macs. I have had trouble with Windows crashs since Windows 3.x Even XP has crashed on me. Another reason is that I don't like MS's policies of treating me like a criminal, requiring Activation and including all the spyware like WGA and WPA.
FalconShould there be a Law?
>90% of Windows users would probably also complain about a .pub file, as Publisher really isn't that widespread (people not doing DTP don't have it, people doing it might have it but they prefer something more professional).
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
Actually you are wrong, the difference between Visual Basic and Visual Basic.net are so fundamental and everywhere, that switching to C# shouldn't really be any harder.
.Net, js, css, xhtml, xlt, ez publish and so on programmer
The reason I'm saying this is that last time I checked, mono vb.net was immature and most advance code examples on the net where in C#.
Sincerly yours,
php,
NT 4.0 I have had problems, but most of those I think MAY have been due to hardware issues. Granted, they just don't make hardware like they used to either. Take my old 586 - still running Windows 3.1 since a few months after it was released, and I have not had to reinstall it ONCE. And not 3.11 either - I have had reinstallations with that release. I still keep it to run the original Duke Nukem, as well as some other games that no longer are supported by Windows in a DOS Window or equivalent.
In the case of computers it is because choice can make things hard. You have to learn how to do more things when dealing with a lot of choices. It's not like with 4 media players you have to choose, as in having one precludes the others (that's mostly what the paradox of choice is about with physical good is opportunity cost) it is that you have to learn how to use them all, especially if none of them do everything well. It is intimidating and thus drives off normal users. I mean hell, I remember the PHP setup procedure on an IIS server. When you actually do it, it ends up not being hard there's just a few steps to follow and things to change. However because of all the flexibility it LOOKS hard. There's no nice GUI to select defaults from, no "quick install" that does everything the way most people want it. So you can get overwhelmed with this feeling that you are going to have to learn what all the hundreds of options in the cfg file are and the differences between all the ways it can be setup and so on.
Non tech users want simplicity. They don't want to understand how or why a computer works, they just want it to work. Linux unfortunately isn't real good at that yet. It's gotten much better, but it is far too easy to run in to a situation where you have to drop to a command line to do something, or interact with something with a shitload of options and so on. Often it really isn't hard, but it SEEMS hard and that's what really matters.
My experiences indicate that if the Windows GUI fails, an inexperienced user is left helpless without a (usable) command line.
This is all pretty irrelevant. Inexperienced users wouldn't know what to do if they were presented with a command line. I am currently building a transient wireless network for a university summer school to enable mobility impaired students to take part at distance. The lead geology academic and I were chatting about how we had to make sure it was simple to use and documented well. Lead geology academic said to me "I could probably learn how to do 'ping' if you taught me but you'd have to get it all written up first of all". Which I felt was a very fair comment. Why the heck should they learn the command line - this stuff should just work. Very interesting that they (a career academic with three university degrees) considered doing anything in the command line as a job for technical specialists. That's where the world is these days. I think it's fair to assume "inexperienced users" won't know what a command line is when it appears. These days (i.e. at least the last ten years) you've got to make sure your GUI actually works.
Who pays you to discredit the free software movement? Microsoft? You should be ashamed of yourself.
1 is not true in Java.
I swear stories like this must come straight from a template... just pop it open, slap the coming year in the date field, and *poof!* ... a Linux-About-To-Dominate-The-Desktop story.
Haven't they been saying this since 2003?
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
procedure MandatorySlashdotPost;
var
i: integer;
begin
for i:=2000 to 3000 do begin
ShowMessageOnSlashDot(IntToStr(i) + ' will be the year of Linux on the Desktop!!1One');
end;
end;
(Pascal / Delphi?!? What the heck, why not; "old claim that people don't believe in anymore", "old language that people don't believe in anymore".)
NT 4.0 I have had problems, but most of those I think MAY have been due to hardware issues.
I haven't had problems with the NT OS though I have with the hardware. Then again I probably was stupid getting a DEC Alpha. I believed all the reviews saying how the Alpha's FX!32 could translate Windows software to run on it, the only commercial app I was able to install and use was Borland C++ Power Builder. The thing is is I was able to install some share/freeware.
FalconShould there be a Law?
There will never be a "year of the Linux desktop", because the desktop OS is dead.
All the cool new things recently don't come from apps, they come through the Web. And the OS you run is pretty much irrelevant.
Linux already is the OS of choice for development, in my opinion, and that's good enough for me.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Sorry if this is a duplicate, but I'm in a rush. 2008 will be the year of OS X, not Linux. Just wanted to be on the record, so in 2009 I can point back to this post :-)
1998 called. They want their news story back.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I noticed he left out iD's comment on the state of Linux gaming about when Quake for Linux came out.
Maybe it's because I'm in the US, where vendors have never heard of any language but English, but there's a major problem I've been trying to solve: My wife and I have a bunch of files in languages like Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, etc. When we try to print them, they come out gibberish (the technical term is mojibake). Most of the time, most software can't even display them correctly on the screen. Or some of the chars are correct and others aren't. Or, with Arabic, only the isolate forms of the characters are shown, which is pretty unreadable. We've even had gibberish printed for simple Russian, which is especially puzzling considering that there's nothing at all tricky about their alphabet.
...
Anyway, I've been trying to research this, and found lots of sites talking around the problem, but nowhere have I yet found anything like a HOWTO that explains just how to make it work with any OS. And we have this problem on linux, OSX, and Windows (XT for now).
Since linux, especially ubuntu, is an "international" OS, you'd think that we could find an answer on the ubuntu sites, but no luck so far. And you'd think thatgoogle could locate solutions, but the obvious keywords return millions of hits that seem totally off the topic.
Funny thing is that, on linux or OSX, a window terminal and the vi[m] editor seem to display all these non-English files just fine. This proves that I've got all the fonts installed so that at least one program can find them. And several browsers (firefox, opera, safari) seem to display them correctly, only messing up when I try to send a page to a printer.
Is this just a problem in the US? Is the rest of the world intentionally hiding the simple solutions from us, while happily printing all their non-English files with no problems? Is there some way to make this "just work" (as the Mac people like to claim even when it fails spectacularly)?
Inquiring minds want to know
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Ayanami Rei, are you so demented & mentally scrambled you can't understand where you are posting, and on what topic? Thank goodness for those useless karma points (right Ayanami Rei?) or you'd be in the "less than zero" ranges on this posting of yours (where you belong, below zero).
"Year of the desktop? Let's see:
1994: No
1995: No
1996: No
1997: No
1998: No
1999: No
2000: No
2001: No
2002: No
2003: No
2004: No
2005: No
2006: No
2007: No (pending)
So, though I may be going out on a limb here, I'm gonna say "no" for 2008." - by nobodyman (90587) on Friday July 06, @06:53PM (#19774321)
And, I am inclined to agree with you, as history is a great indicator of the future (part of my job the past 15 years now has been to use historical data as a predicator of the future really, & it works (database coder, for lack of a better expression, professionally in that timeframe))...
The fact you illustrate, remains true, & it's always been a "Windows world", the past 15++ years now, on the PC-front from workstations/home use rigs, up to server class midrange to enterprise servers. 90% of the world's computers running Windows based OS' says it all...
Personally, if there was an OS that was as ubiquitous as Windows is (providing me greater employment opportunity based on that ubiquity & flexibility) and its body of surrounding wares that ride on it? Trust me, I'd be on it, like "white on rice"... but, that has NOT occurred, per nobodyman's rather accurate analyses.
There's a reason most folks use Windows, & the *NIX camp has tried it as well ("seize the youth, & you seize the future" via academia, & showing poor students a "FREE" OS they can use vs. Windows):
"Everything begins @ home"... so much in life does in fact.
However, vs. the *NIX attempt @ 'seize the youth & you seize the future' @ academic levels - Kids learn on Windows PC's largely, EARLY ON, & love their games (which Linux does not have as large a body of as Win32 does, & not by a LONG shot) & these same kids go thru school using them as well, & become QUITE proficient in using these machines running Windows, so they are their OWN "tech support" largely if need be and quite good @ it.
Then, those same kids eventually get out into "Corporate America" & what do they find MOSTLY? Win32 based rigs, where they are quite expert on them by that point, & already a 'trained weapon' in that regard as well, no need for retraining them exists on personal computing related notes.
So, that said? Why on earth would business' change to Linux overall/wholesale, & create retraining costs, when a watch that runs (and well, witness NASDAQ using Windows Server 2003 RC2 + SQLServer 2005 (zero/0 bugs in its entire history no less as far as secunia data on it) running NASDAQ 24x7 365 days a year @ the fabled "5-9's" - 99.999% of stability & uptime) is in place w/ Windows?
It's nice to see an alternate like Linux out there though, because my roots are from the System V days on UNIX @ the "tail end" of the 1980's/early 1990's, & Linux is close enough to where I can jump into it & use it IF needed and has KDE which I admire & like actually (but, I have yet to see that need @ work (constantly/mostly @ least), OR @ home for long periods, because Windows MORE than does the job on ALL fronts as noted from work, to play!).
As far as security online, as well? I can show you Windows can be secured SO WELL, here:
http://img.techpowerup.org/070618/APK14SecurityPoi ntsCISToolResult84735.jpg
(84.735 of 100 perfect score on CIS Tool 1.x, a multiplatform java based gauge of online security from a respected organization & my photo of my score, via 1 hour worth of work downloading & installing + running this tool, & following its guidelines for better security (it actually HELPS YOU, help yourself here, on many of its counts in its test scoring (not ALL though))
How to do it? Here (step-by-step in a fairly easy to use guide):
http://forums.techp
Why do we get so excited about linux gaining popularity among regular users? Won't this mean that it'll be more bloated for their point&click needs? It's good that it's becoming easier to use, but I don't see how windows users switching to linux will benefit me.
If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything.
If certain distros get bloated, just switch to something like Debian or Gentoo where you have complete control over the bloat.
No need to leave Linux entirely unless you actually want to.
*sigh* back to work...
I'm pretty sure this article has been reposted every year since 1995, but with the date change. Funny how they never catch the dupe?
I couldn't agree more with that statement. That is why the progress of Linux adoption is more strongly indicated by what 3rd party developers are marketing than by numbers of users.
There will not be a "year of the Linux desktop".With this, I strongly disagree.
We will know for sure that we are in the "year of the Linux desktop" the year that either QuickBooks for Linux, or AutoCAD for Linux is announced. There are several other good indicator species as well, but these two examples should give you the idea.
There will only be the year when people realize that most everyone else is running Linux, too.Before that, there will be the year when people see that the producers of major software products like those mentioned above have decided that the Linux market is too important to ignore. That will mark the year of the Linux desktop.
I've played around with linux for years, but never thought it was really any good for the desktop. It was an interesting toy to experiment with, and was good for setting up servers on older hardware without paying for an OS, but the desktop usability just wasn't there - I always eventually had to use the command line for something, or had driver issues (e.g. static from the sound card, poor support for my graphics card, etc) or just couldn't find a good equivalent of a Windows application. I built a new PC last month, and put Ubuntu on it until I had time to pick up another copy of Windows; I was pleasantly surprised. I ended up transferring all my data over, and am not currently planning to install Windows on it (barring some killer game...but I don't game much nowadays).
After downloading the nvidia driver (which was no more difficult than getting a new driver for XP), everything Just Worked. In some cases, things worked better than on Windows (TVTime is much nicer than Hauppauge's own TV application; gaim on linux works better than on Windows). I really like the way higher-privilege things work: the screen dims and you get a password dialog. The ease of installation and initial setup was nice - I'll get back to this in a moment.
Now, last week, my mom bought a new HP laptop, which had Vista on it. After taking care of the first-boot setup (setting the language, time zone, user name) and logging in, there were FIVE windows open, asking me to do different things (set up wireless or sign up for one of the 50 ISPs that were being advertised, download updates for the HP software / take a tour of the OS, register with MS, register with HP, etc. etc. etc). It made me wonder whether any human at HP had actually tried using one of their machines, or if they just took bids for crapware and installed everything they could. It took me long enough to deal with all the crap; it would have taken my mom forever.
Vista's UAC is similar to the graphical sudo in linux, but it's not done as well. In Ubuntu, opening the add/remove software control panel requires authentication, and then you can add and remove as much software as you'd like. With this new Vista machine, each time you install an update or uninstall a program, you're prompted by UAC. That gets annoying fast when the machine is full of garbage (Norton trial software, Office 2007 60-day trial, ~30 WildTangent games (uninstalling them required clicking 30 checkboxes!), Vongo, a bunch of HP bloatware apps....)
Over all, getting the Ubuntu machine to a level where what I needed was there and I wasn't being constantly harassed by garbage pre-installed software was much easier than getting the Vista machine to a pleasant state. There will be a pretty large learning curve with Vista (for one thing, Office 2000 no longer works; it might be easier for someone to switch to OpenOffice than to Office 2007) - for some people, switching to Linux might be an easier move.
My server
And because they're from down under, everything they see is up-side down. What they forgot to tell you was that they had their charts upside down.
Not to be modded troll or anything, but I honestly believe that the desktop is dieing out. Except for hard-core gamers and the like, there's no need for a desktop any more. I'm a student at a large (~46,000-48,000 students) public university that costs a fair amount compaired to other public universities, but nowhere near as much as private ones (unless you're from out of state.) The vast majority of my friends don't have desktops. They have laptops. Laptops are not that much slower than desktops, are not much more expensive once you get comparable equipment (like a decent LCD monitor, etc), and easily portable. Plus, they are generally more quiet and draw less power. Linux, the desktop is dead. Let's target the laptop.
And now that I look at it, I made year a static field when I clearly am using it in a non-static context in the second constructor. Wow, that was stupid of me.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Whatever the next year is "the year of" will still be based on personal preferences, opinions, and needs. The IT colleagues I work with STILL cannot even correctly pronounce Ubuntu, much less support it in our infrastructure. The users we support, both casual and power, take their cues from us and most have no idea what ANY variant of *nix is.
I have done what I can to educate lay-users. When switching to a Mac is infeasible I have been directing them to Dell's new Linux machines. The Ubuntu folks get a regular request from me for discs, along with the copies I make locally. I pass these out like aspirin to users suffering through Windows issues. I have seen *some* traction made, but without more support from my colleagues, I am just the crazy guy who keeps using up spare CD-Rs.
I swapped to Linux in 1995. What is this "Vista" you talking about?
"This is all pretty irrelevant. Inexperienced users wouldn't know what to do if they were presented with a command line."
But the geeks do. The geeks are the ones to fix the computers. If Windows doesn't even show a commandline then it severely limits the geek's ability to fix the computer.
"These days (i.e. at least the last ten years) you've got to make sure your GUI actually works."
The whole discussion is about what happens when the GUI fails. And it *will* fail, one way or another.
1996 was the year I went to Linux on my desktop.
What's keeping you?
Stick Men
I will believe that the Year of the Linux Desktop (tm) has finally arrived when I no longer see "[Insert year here] - Year of the Linux Desktop?" in the news. My year of the Linux Desktop was 1998 so these stories mean absolutely nothing to me.
Get Linux Already!
Codifex
After years of attempting to be on "the desktop", Linux has given up. It is too old, too large for its own good. Netcraft confirms, Linux is quickly dying.
Every time I hear this discussion, it always seems to come from people using their PC at home to play games. Don't take me wrong, Linux has its strenght and has its place in the world. But before it takes over Windows, well, it has a long way to go. The business world (not web provider) run and has run in Windows for too long now. You just can't turn that size of a boat on a dime. The big corporation have many $ invested in their apps running on Windows. Rewritting this to run "properly" on Linux is unthinkable. Yes I know their is things that will make Windows apps run in Linux. But before this pass the corporate IT, again, not yet. One more thing, their apps requiers SQL Server, hum...For as long as Linux won't have something like Visual Studio.NET (VB included), it will always have a hard time. Another thing, can't have x many UI apps (KDE, GNOME, etc). Testing an apps on one is hard enough, takes time and cost money...I for one make my living programming. I just can't start writting code for one OS, then another version for another OS. Who is paying for that. An further more, I spend time writting apps, why on earth will I give this time for free as open source. Mortgage to pay, car to run, kids to feed. We leave in a capitalist world.
Well as a new user of Linux I really doubt it. With the confusing number of Distros, the confusion as to which software will work with which distros and the generation of a usefull package from the varied requirements to build a package I dont think so. I believe Linux will be the way but the complications of getting going (at least for the normal user) are still to difficult. Frank
Every time I've looked --- including your link --- CNR says "coming soon". Is there something I'm missing?
Yea, the CNR site isn't up yet however you can use Linspire's CNR for downloading codecs. I didn't look so I don't know if it'll have what you're looking for.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I think this has been posted before, although not in an exact enough form for me to find it with a quick Google search.
Anyway, there's been a definite uptick in trolling lately; I don't know where exactly it's coming from (or, really, where it went for the past year or so) but I've seen a bunch of reposts of the old classics lately. (And the horsecock trolls; that seems new.)
Wonder what changed?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Sorry, but Linux on the desktop's year is this year, it better be this year, or it's never going to happen. Look around, we have Mint, *buntu, PCLinuxOS, SAM and many, many more, desktop oriented distros, many of which are hitting the same usability targets that XP almost got, and Vista may get. Linux is offering a perfectly good desktop environment, cancel or allow? All this DRM discussion is just a smokescreen. There is going to be a killer app for (Gnu)Linux very soon that will play HD content, if you can be bothered to buy the damn things. DVD is fine where I sit, and those play perfectly well on my PCLinuxOS box TYVM. KDE is doing an amazing job right now of providing a desktop that's just as easy to use as winblows, AND secure too! Add to this the improvements in kernel and driver support, and Linux's year on the desktop isn't next year, it's this! I can install Linux on a new machine, have it up to date, and running with apps and 3d support before Vista has worked out what hardware it's limping on, and you can too. I'm no Linux expert, not a programmer, an average user with a brain can do it too. Linux isn't hard any more!
How to make a flamewar in under F characters: I love SuSE!
Ubuntu reanimated mothers old Win '95 into a fully functional computer that has lasted nearly 3 years and shows no sign of stopping. You can tell who uses what OS in our house by the amount of/lack of swearing.
It's free, safer and it works!
I want Linux now and I want a Mac. It's so much less stressful, unless something wonderful happens with Vista... although in my opinion the gaming community seem quite smitten with it, well half of the time anyway.
Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.
... once the majority of computer users notice they actually have equally usable choices for getting their everyday stuff done. Linux simply lacks mainstream media coverage and general recognition. It's not technical issues, or Microsoft, or the spreading of FUD, or negative preconceptions, or Photoshop, or the lack of a "standard" Linux, or fancy video games, or any chicken-egg-problem that hold Linux back on the general front. Linux is already everywhere, everybody already uses it in one way or another, but it's just not visible enough.
2008 may work. Provided Microsoft keeps shooting themselves in both feet and we start focusing on publicity outside of tech circles.
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
I've been using Linux as my main platform for over 10 years and I still think the desktop is perfectly usable but uncompelling. It's easy to use and does everything that is needed but it doesn't do anything exceptional. KDE and Gnome are nothing more than knock-offs of Windows and Mac OS with no real reason to choose them over Windows or Mac OS other than the fact that they are running on Linux.
Don't the developers with KDE or Gnome have any innovative ideas? They've never listened to any of my suggestions so I guess they must have something better planned or they're happy being the also-ran platforms. What happened to the spirit that it's okay to try something even if it fails? Try out new ideas and even if 90% of them suck you'll still end up with some good innovations. A Linux desktop is a great place to do this kind of experimenting because the average user is more experienced and intelligent and few people have a heavy investment in providing a stable desktop experience. Shake the boat for a while so that OSS desktops can leapfrog the proprietary competition.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Look, you Linux fanbois, there IS NO YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP. It already MISSED its chance to catch on. Linux FAILED to step up at the critical time with hardware support and gaming capability. Linux has been DISMISSED permanently as a legitimate OS choice from the minds of huge numbers of savvy but unforgiving and impatient people. Unfortunately the Linux community does not realize it must cater to everyone, not just fellow Linux geeks.
There seems to be a lot of games coming out with DirectX 10 support. I run Ubuntu server here at work, but when I go home I play games on my PC, as I am usually sick of programming. I have used Cedega for WoW, the performance wasn't really that great. I think the year for linux on the desktop will be when the gaming industry starts providing support. Lets hope it comes sooner than later.
-Skeeterbug
I think Ubuntu with the CNR plugin for proprietary codecs will be the removal of probably one of the largest remaining barriers to "Joe User" adoption of linux as a safe, solid, PC
Actually I think the biggest barrier the wide adoption of Linux in the general community is getting PCs with Linux preinstalled, like Dell is now doing. The only way most people will ever use Linux is if they get a PC running it as most people don't install an OS. About the only tyme someone does install an OS is when they have to call tech support for service and the tech tells them the OS has to be reinstalled. Another way to get people to try Linux is for geeks and hackers to install Linux on PCs when people they know ask for help. That would take a long tyme to reach many people though.
The only reason I use Linux is because I got it preinstalled. I bought two PCs with Linux, one's a dualboot the other OS being Windows NT 4.0. It's old. The other I got almost 10 months ago with Linspire installed. The dualboot I haven't used much, I don't really know how to setup things in Linux, and I couldn't get much software installed in NT. And currently I use the new PC for storage as I don't have it setup yet with all the software. I plan on using it as a server because I plan to get a Macbook Pro for my primary computer. Now I'm wondering about installing Ubuntu on it as a dualboot.
FalconShould there be a Law?
before it can even have a fighting chance.
Apple's Mac is stunningly beautiful with the most beautiful hardware out there, and everything simply works.
I won't even talk about that trash that M$ produces, except to say that they have a ridiculous monopoly on the market.
Like you, I love Linux (I've been using Slackware for ten years now). I think Linux is absolutely the best thing out there and the world would be a much better place if it took over. Total Freedom, choice, the power to the people to do what-the-hell-ever that they want, and the open collaboration of all willing eyes in the world to come up with some of the most ingenious solutions out there for everything large and small.
But a lot has to change and change very quickly if Linux is to ever come close to seeing any significant market-share.
Diversity is one reason I'd like to see differents OSes, and not just Windows, being used. The more diverse the OSes that are used to less likelihood that malware could bring everything down. Each OS has it's own positives and negatives, though the only positive I can think of for Windows is that it's the dominate OS and comes preinstalled on most computers.
FalconShould there be a Law?