Getting Past "Ready For the Desktop"

Jeremy LaCroix suggests in an editorial at Linux.com that the phrase "ready for the desktop" is ready for retirement. As anyone who's been using Linux for several years (or even a few) for everyday tasks knows, "ready for the desktop" is in the eye of the beholder.

Comments

DOS

[bondsbw]

Was DOS ready for the desktop? By many definitions, people would say no, but that's exactly what started Microsoft's dominance of the OS market.

Re:DOS

[JamesTRexx]

That's not just Ubuntu or any other *nix OS, anything but the basic task, including troubleshooting has to be done in the CLI on Windows too.
Blaming use of the CLI is just a moot point.

Re:DOS

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think you've touched on the real issue there. Popular Linux builds have themselves been ready for the desktop for years. What is still missing from Linux that Vista has is applications that are ready for typical end users. As long as Linux geeks continue to believe that OpenOffice is as good as Microsoft Office, the GIMP is as good as Photoshop, etc., and as long as Linux doesn't have things like games and business admin software of the same level as those available on Windows, it doesn't matter how funky your window manager effects are. Real people don't use an OS because of its window manager, they use it because it hosts applications they want.

Re:DOS

[JonathanBoyd]

Speaking to a computer is a horrendously inefficient means of doing a lot of tasks, some of them quite common, Anything involving the creation or editing of graphics, selecting of text, choosing a link to follow, etc. is almost always quicker and easier to do with a GUI than speech. Speech also gets in the way when there are other people about who don't want disturbed i.e. a lot of work places and is draining on the throat after a while. Don't assume computer evolution is going to follow the movies. Though even in Star Trek they're still using a GUI quite a bit.

Re:DOS

[clang_jangle]

I second that. If I need to get any serious work done in Windows, cmd.exe is indespensible. Just like BSD, Linux, and OS X you can use it without ever seeing a command prompt, but that will limit you severely. I guess the reason this gets overlooked so much is because most Windows users really don't know how to use Windows anymore than they know how to use Linux -- What they do know is how to use certain GUI frontends to certain apps. I know some MS users can be very defensive about this, and will even insist that what makes their choice "superior" is that no CLI knowledge is required, but that is just not true. Without knowledge of the CLI one can be just as "stranded" in Windows (or even on OS X on rare occasion) as in Linux.

Also it says a lot that reinstalling rather than fixing Windows is generally regarded as an acceptable practice. Because reinstalling Windows doesn't (usually) require a CLI :).

Re:DOS

[NotBornYesterday]

' ... as good as ... ' is one thing. 'Good enough' is something else. GIMP has more tools and abilities than I ever would use, and I use it on Linux frequently. Do I really need Photoshop? No. I'm not sure what problems you see with OpenOffice, but I use it all the time, and it does everything I need.

Plus, as more apps become web-deployed, desktop apps become less and less important.

Re:DOS

[Darkness404]

Honestly, does the average person really need photoshop? I mean many Windows users struggle using Paint, and most people who use Photoshop are at least technology literate enough to understand how to adapt to a different GUI and therefore don't fit the definition of the dumb Windows users who don't understand the difference between an icon and a program. OpenOffice is nearly as good as MS Office for most tasks, while Office will usually be as familiar to long time Office users, OpenOffice is just as good so long as you are willing to actually learn and even Office 2007's UI is so radically different that OpenOffice will feel even more familiar to Office users then 2007. As for games, many, many, Windows games either have a decent Linux counterpart or will run via WINE, and with Direct-X 10 being Vista-only if the WINE team can get Direct-X 10 implemented, Linux will become an almost better gaming system then XP. And most of the more popular games are already able to run very well in WINE such as WoW and others. The only problem would be is if some Linux person went out and bought some random game and tried to make it run, now chances are with a bit of hacking it would run, but as for the "pop in the CD and play" that won't work quite yet. But when they realize that they can get just about the same level of quality for free, they will just pop open Add/Remove Programs and find a game they think might be good. As for business admin software, again, most can be emulated via WINE and because most of it doesn't need immediate response you could always use VirtualBox and virtualize XP and use that. Granted, right now there are tons of Linux applications the problem is, most people think they have to buy software or go to some unknown freeware site to download who-knows-what, whereas with Linux it is just as simple as point, click, apply (or for you CLI folks, sudo apt-get install whatever)

Re:DOS

[edmicman]

most Windows users really don't know how to use Windows anymore than they know how to use Linux -- What they do know is how to use certain GUI frontends to certain apps

So where's the push to get more of these GUI frontends to certain apps on Linux? There seems to be some work in that end, and Ubuntu seems like it's pushing towards making things easier to use for the layperson.

I use both OS's, and in my experience while I've used cmd in Windows a lot, it's usually for diagnosis purposes, where I can spit out a bunch of information that isn't available in a built in GUI. I rarely think I've ever had to use cmd to *configure* something. Whereas on Linux, there are some frontends to some commands, but I still end up having to manually go in, and add a line here or comment something out there in a text file just to change some setting.

I think the real point is, yes, a CLI no matter what the OS can be very powerful. It should definitely be available. But to *really* use it, you need to *know* what commands to use. Arguing to use man or search the Internet doesn't help. man can be unbearably confusing sometimes, or sometimes it just lists options but doesn't really explain what they do. Of course, man doesn't help if you don't know what the command is to do what you want to do in the first place! And searching for what the command is you want to use if you don't know what it is can be tedious, too.

But anyone can reasonably look for a System or Preferences menu, hopefully drill down to the area of what they're looking for, and toggle options or whatnot. Why is there such pushback to making things easier?

Re:DOS

[rathaven]

For my own part I do not disagree, however, and this is reality - I've met a number of sysadmins of small educational networks and probably others too who do not use the CLI in 99% of day to day use! This is not including the illiterates who do not even know what the "computer" is.

The sysadmins I mention didn't fail to understand the concepts - I quizzed them deeply and was shocked to see them not using a CLI with the depth of understanding they had. Looking further into the methods of work showed that they knew them well but they had to deal with so many issues they were stretched in their time and ability to pick up all the tools required to support multiple platforms - sometimes even the one they were working on. Most of the time that meant they stuck to Windoze and mostly used point and click interfaces. That's not to say they wouldn't use the CLI for emergencies or look up commands but their scripting skills were weak so CLI was mostly avoided. If admins like these need a script they download one or download a tool that does it for them or purchase one and, surprise, most of the time it does eleviate the requirement.

To move to other OS's means that those sysadmins are looking for a system that makes the concepts intuitive to implement - without having to learn commands that aren't intuitive. The illiterates also need this to the small extent that they need the tools at all.

Before anyone jumps on this as an argument of CLI/point and click - I use the examples only to highlight a point. The argument is one of transferable skills related to the concepts behind system administration. CLIs do allow this if the CLI is standardised across OS and people are prepared to learn, but it usually isn't. GUI interfaces are rarely standardised but they are intuitive and well designed and can help boost platforms by making day to day skills easy to pick up on a platform.

Re:DOS

[fbjon]

I don't think it's up to you to decide what people need or should have. The world doesn't bend that way, but the other way: People need/want to run an application, and if it only works on Windows, then so be it.

Re:DOS

[marsu_k]

As for GIMP, the last time I used it, it still didn't have any easy way to draw Ovals/Circles and Rectangles/Squares, something that even the most basic of image editors (MS Paint) has. Making an oval/rectangular selection and stroking it (hmm, that sounds rather perverse...) isn't that hard. But I think people should stop recommending Gimp to novices, while it is powerful the interface can be confusing at first. Krita is a wonderful alternative for simple painting / editing of digital photos.

Re:DOS

[duh P3rf3ss3r]

I'm sorry but this is just so much puffery. My grandma doesn't know how to "set up" Windows "on an old HP laptop for a mate" either. Does that mean Windows is not ready for prime time? Your efforts to suck and blow at the same time add up to a troll -- a well disguised troll, perhaps, maybe a troll in a dress -- but an AC troll nonetheless.

Re:DOS

[man_of_mr_e]

Part of the problem with Linux is that you have to "know" which one of the 20,000 programs in your package manager does what you need done.

So how, precisely, does one know about ndisgtk? What's more, don't you have to even manually configure it to use the restricted extras?

Sure, Windows has a lot of stuff that doesn't work right either, but it has just as much stuff that installs seamlessly, with complete directions a moron could follow. And, if that fails, they can call Linksys or DLINK and they'll walk them through it over the phone (granted, by some guy in india following a script that the user could have followed, but still.. that works most of the time, unless you're an expert and have a problem not covered by that.. which would be the only reason the expert would call).

Millions of people buy computers, set them up, and use them, including installing software and devices, with very little technical knowledge and without asking an "expert". You only see the people that are too stupid (or too scared) to do it themselves, so it gives you a skewed view of reality.

One of Linux's big problems is that it has insufficient end-user technical support and it has limited use-case testing scenarios, so when things go wrong they go spectacularly wrong. The kernel and most kinds of server apps are typically rock-solid, but the GUI end user apps tend to be buggy as hell, poorly designed, and exceedingly complex and cryptic. We like that, end-users don't.

Re:"Ready for my mom's desktop."

[damburger]

Seeing as my mum and stepmum already use Ubuntu quite happily (and aren't phoning up every 10 minutes complaining that something is broken/they've got a virus) it seems Linux is already at that stage.

Windows' ease of use vastly overstated

[cptnapalm]

If Windows is so easy to use for the computer illiterate, why have I spent untold hours fixing other peoples Windows machines, teaching people how to double click on icons, teaching people not to double click on anything which is not an icon, teaching people how to connect to a wireless hotspot, etc etc etc?

Who do you think the "No, I will not fix your computer." t-shirts were inspired by? Mac users? Linux users?

!ready for the desktop

[Toreo asesino]

The way I see it, it's ready for YOUR desktop when it can run all YOUR apps seamlessly and without a problem.

My girlfriend for instance, just browses the net, plays mp3's, checks her emails and occasionally writes documents, prints them, and occasionally uses Skype. Linux is ready for HER desktop.

Me on the other hand, I'm a .Net dev, play lot's of PC games, work with doc & docx files every day, and actually like iTunes (for the iPod). Linux is not ready for my desktop, nor is it likely to be any time soon.

To say "Linux is ready for THE desktop" is quite frankly very short-sighted.

The Question Should Be:

[FurtiveGlancer]

Is Linux ready for the average windows user?

When developers can make money...

[cyclocommuter]

... writing software for it (Linux Desktop) then it might be ready. Or when when smallish companies which bankroll software figure out a way on how to make money of it. I am not talking Office software here but tax preparation and other small business software for Accounting, Billing, Inventory, etc. It may also help if a small company can hire developers that can develop desktop software on it in true RAD fashion without the need for these developers to know how to do it in C ala Linus.

Also when users of these software (outlined above) are confident that nothing will break after 6 months when it is time for them to upgrade to the latest build of Ubuntu or Simply Mepis, Mandriva, or whatever desktop distro it is they are using, then it is ready for the desktop.

Re:"Ready for my mom's desktop."

[antirelic]

I agree that Linux is, and has been ready for the desktop for quiet some time now. Not trying to be too much of a fanboy (because I'm not, I prefer the Fedora distro line) of Ubuntu, but man, Ubuntu is what people have always dreamed a computer being like. For example: If I need a peace of software, I go to that Ubuntu software management application, find the category of different applications, browse through, click, and its installed (all the downloading and installation happens behind the scenes).

The only downfall is still the fact that most commercial software (read as: games, MS Office, and Itunes) do not run on Linux natively. So the question about Linux being ready for the desktop is a misnomer. Linux is and has been desktop ready, it is just a question of when will application developers develop popular applications for Linux.

Re:"Ready for my mom's desktop."

[notamisfit]

I do this in just about every article like this, and I gotta do it here; if those users declare that the GUI is in fact "unready", what the fuck difference does it make? Are they throwing money into the pool? More than likely, no. Are they going to throw in a code patch, or even a bug report that goes beyond "Application X crashed and I don't know why" or "I want feature Z"? No. Best just to let 'em be on their way with a Vista or OSX box; when they're ready, they'll find us on their own.

"Good enough"

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The "good enough" argument is a fair point, but for these specific examples, I respectfully disagree that they are even "good enough". Sure, if you're literally only writing a trivially formatted letter or resizing an image, they can do it, but of course, so can much simpler programs. The big problems come when you want to do things a little bit more advanced, where using a real word processor, spreadsheet or image editor is actually necessary.

It's not just the functionality, though that has some pretty serious limitations. I'm not sure how on-topic the specifics are in this thread, but if you're interested in OpenOffice in particular, go ahead and Google my user name and terms like "OpenOffice" on site:slashdot.org, and my previous detailed commentary is easy to find. It goes without saying that OpenOffice Writer is quite some way ahead of all the major OSS alternatives in features, at least on paper, so I think it's fair to use it as a benchmark of where the Linux+OSS world stands relative to a traditional Windows-based system.

More seriously, the big problem with a lot of everyday OSS applications is quality control. The unfortunate reality is that OpenOffice has always been horribly bug-ridden, often in quite fundamental ways, and worse, the dev team show no great inclination to fix some of these things even though they have been consistently highly voted in the bug tracker for years. If I have a word processor with a major selling point in PDF export, but PDF export is completely borked with OpenType fonts, that's a downer. Spreadsheets that can't sort data when the cells contain simple calculations are pretty broken, too. And so it goes, and so it has been with many other everyday OSS packages I've tried. Sure, Windows products are hardly immune from bugs, but at least the main features in major applications are normally usable. So, until this sort of thing is fixed in the major OSS applications, I find it hard to believe that any amount of "many eyes making all bugs shallow", "with the source code you can always do it yourself" advocacy will convince the average punter that Linux and the applications that run on it are ready to replace the typical Windows-based set-up in practice.

The article contains the answer

[Rob Y.]

Windows has tons of commercial apps, which forces a huge chicken and egg dilemma on OEM's that might want to support Linux. That, plus they actually make a teeny bit of profit on the Windows OS.

OS/X has the Macintosh hardware behind it, so no OEM problems. Beyond that, they have some great mythology and some pretty good software.

Linux has... linux. It's great software, perfectly usable in many cases, but no compelling reason for OEM's to provide it. So, it's limited to geeks willing to install (often over a paid-for copy of Windows) and some businesses that understand the potential savings.

There was a brief glimmer of hope in the EeePC and it's copycats (all prodded by the OLPC). Pre-installed linux made perfect sense on low-end hardware intended to be sold cheap and for limited uses. Microsoft's caught on to this bit of momentum, and is attempting to squelch it with XP. It remains to be seen whether they'll succeed, though press accounts suggest they might.

It remains for other Open Source stuff (most specifically OOo) to make inroads as a real cross-platform money saver. Once businesses stop using MSOffice/Outlook, they can seriously consider ditching Windows. And they might have the clout to get the OEM's to do it.

Interestingly, OOo, because it's own 'yet another cross-platform toolkit' is not shared by other software, it is nicely poised to be distro-agnostic on Linux. That could be a plus.

Re:How about being honest about it?

[dave87656]

You could just say that "Linux will never be ready for the desktop" and be done with it.
It's a lot more honest than simply giving up because 'it's in the eye of the beholder'.

Wankers. I use it for my desktop. We use it for 40 desktops in our company. Seems to work very well there. And, if I compare it to the support required for the ~10 Windows boxes we have, it seems Windows is not quite yet ready for the desktop.

The honest answer is: it depends on what you want to do with your desktop.