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"Good Enough" Computers Are the Future
An anonymous reader writes "Over on the PC World blog, Keir Thomas engages in some speculative thinking. Pretending to be writing from the year 2025, he describes a world of 'Good Enough computing,' wherein ultra-cheap PCs and notebooks (created to help end-users weather the 'Great Recession' of the early 21st century) are coupled to open source operating systems. This is possible because even the cheapest chips have all the power most people need nowadays. In what is effectively the present situation with netbooks writ large, he sees a future where Microsoft is priced out of the entire desktop operating system market and can't compete. It's a fun read that raises some interesting points."
Being saying since the Pentium II days. This "always-be-upgrading-the-latest-spec" is fine for hardcore users, but for everybody else, "good enough" happened quite a few hardware generations ago. The sad part is that we're only now having this conversation.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
This kinda of reminds of the '640KB should be enough for everyone' theory. If everyone is just content surfing the web and writing e-mails, then sure the 'good enough' solution sounds fair, but if 'good enough' also means dealing with a Windows ME experience then no thanks. At the same time what is considered 'good enough' will evolve over time and new solutions are created and user expectations evolve.
Will my 'good enough' computer handle my photo library, my 32MP entry level camera, recognise the faces in my photo collection. This sound like far fetched stuff today, but as these technologies peculate down from high end systems and people get used to the computer doing more of their mind-numbing repetitive tasks, user expectation will adapt and want them in their 'good enough' computers.
In many ways plenty of people are already using 'good enough' computers. Whether they are satisfied with them is a whole other question.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
There is nothing particularly insightful about the article. Obviously the largest portion of the computer using population would never need cutting edge power, so effectively "good enough" has always been the paradigm. How many of us have super computers? This is just a piece with some wishful thinking hoping that people eventually see through Microsoft's coerced perpetual upgrade cycle.
I got a catholic block.
The article argues that people won't upgrade from XP - it expects that as MS tries to force them, people will migrate to Linux instead. I think as Microsoft discontinues support for XP, people will move to Windows 7 - sales of Windows based netbooks seem to be much higher than for Linux.
Whether the same will hold true when the time comes for MS to try to get people to upgrade from Windows 7 to whatever comes next, it's too early to tell. Hopefully by then Linux will have managed to gain enough market share that most people have heard of it and/or know someone running it and the barrier to a non-MS OS will be much lower
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
Is predicting the rise of "good enough" really all that bold? Although we don't think of it this way, the rise of "good enough" has already happened at least once.
Remember all those $10,000+ Real Serious Workstations, running Real Serious OSes that real computer users did real work on, back when the kiddies were twiddling bits on the Z80 box they built in their garage? All of them are dead. Almost all computers now in use are the direct descendants of the low end crap of the past.
Further, even within the category of boring x86s, almost all of us are already running something much closer to "good enough" than to "good". Some enormous proportion of PCs are in the sub-$1000 category, which still entails a bunch of tradeoffs(not nearly as many as it used to; but still).
It will, indeed, be interesting if Microsoft hits the chopping block during the next round of "good enough"ing(or, more realistically, gets shoved to rather more cost insensitive business sectors that like backwards compatibility, the same way IBM was); but "good enough" is already all around us.
The year of the Linux desktop!
I'm level 6 you insensitive clod!
I've been in the small/medium sized business support for a while and I'm here to tell you that "Good Enough Computers" are the standard. You'll have a few engineers and designers (along with a boss or two that is a wannabe nerd) that have the latest and greatest but the vast majority of users in those businesses have had good enough computers for a long time. Sally Dataentryspecialist has a computer that she can type up Word documents on. Jimmy Executive has a laptop that's just good enough to browse porn and play DVDs. This includes home computers. They never ask about some brand new state of the art system (see exceptions above), it's always about the eMachine or Gateway that their dear grandmother left them when she died, and the only use it saw before they had it was traveling to church websites on Sunday.
This is especially true in small town America.
Its funny because the same feeling people get about using Linux (will it run what I need to), I now get when I boot into Windows. I sit there in front of windows and wonder, what can I do with this? I'm not sure its going to run the applications I need it to. The tables have turned.
The reality is that computers today "live longer" than they used to. Having a 9-10 year old computer was once unthinkable; it's now almost normal for just about any old Pentium 4 to still be in use today, and the Pentium 4 was apparently released in late 2000.
I put a new (but cheap!) AGP video card into an older P4 desktop computer (hint: PC-133 RAM!) that my son now uses to play Spore - one of the newer, hotter games around - it plays just great.
It's a trend - computers are "doing" for longer than they used to. They are in use for longer, and people hang on to them longer. They are less willing to buy the top-end because there's no reason to.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Im sorry, you seem to have failed to make any form of point.
Please re-insert your thought process and try again.
Parkinson's law is "Work expands to fill all available time". It applies to processing power too. What's "good enough" today won't be "good enough" tommorrow, because someone will invent some CPU-sucking memory-hogging disk-flogging killer app that everybody will want to have.
I don't know what it will be. But then again, who predicted grandmothers would be editing home movies of their grandkids on their computers? Try that on a machine which is just "good enough" for email and the web.
Have you actually seen Linux? Honestly - you CAN learn the CLI (and a powerful skill it is) but you really don't NEED to (no more than you need to use the CLI in Windows).
Take a look at Ubuntu (which is one of the easiest Linux's out there). It's simple to install. Adding applications is easy. Updating is easy. Seriously, what's not to like (apart from the brown colour scheme)?
You can get plenty of paid support, from proper firms (Oracle, Novell, IBM - to name a few). I'm not sure where the engineers live, but they've got jobs (even if they don't have windows).
Your post is true; but I don't think that it actually contradicts TFA's assertion.
Apple is, in fact, a significant beneficiary of "good enough". They make mostly laptops, which always have price/performance and worse absolute performance than do desktops. Nobody much cares; because laptops are more convenient, and they are fast enough for the job(even within the laptop market, Apple doesn't bother with any dual HDD offerings, or SLI setups, because the lower spec stuff is good enough). On the desktop side, all of Apple's consumer offerings are all-in-ones with extremely limited expandability. Nobody(except gamers) much cares; because the stuff built in is good enough, and PCI blanking plates are ugly.
Having a manufacturer selling limited-performance hardware, with minimal expansion capacity, distinguished by industrial design and software, rather than performance, and doing quite well is exactly what "good enough" looks like.
That doesn't mean that Apple is the only part of "good enough" el-cheapo walmart desktops and netbooks are also a (larger in marketshare terms) part; but Apple is hardly in opposition to "good enough".
Well then, get on writing efficient code that'll decode HD video on a 900mhz processor. Don't tell me that is something "normal users" don't want, video on PCs is exploding and people are all about a higher res better looking picture. Don't forget the 5.1 audio that goes with that, and HRTF calculations for those that want to wear headphones but get surround. Oh it can't handle that? Well there you go then.
I get real tired of this whining about "Programmers aren't efficient," thing, as though the be-all, end-all of coding should be the smallest program possible. No, it shouldn't, computers are getting more powerful, we should use that power. There are a number of reasons for programs to get bigger and require more power:
1) Features. I don't want computers to be stuck and never get any better. I want more features in my software. This goes for all software, not just power user type apps. For example one thing I really value in Office 2003 (and 2007) is their in line spell checker. It is very good at figuring out what I mean when I mistype, and learns from the kind of mistakes I make to autocorrect and make more accurate guesses in the future. Well guess what? That kind of feature takes memory and CPU. You don't get that for free. No big deal, my computer has lots of both. But it isn't "bloat" that it has features like that, rather than being a very simple text editor.
2) Manageability of code. Generating really optimized code often means generating code that is difficult to work with. I mean in the extreme, you go for assembly language. You get the smallest programs doing that, and if you are good at it the fastest. Ok great, but maintaining an assembly program is a bitch, and it is easy for errors including security issues like buffer overflows to sneak in. Now compare that to doing the same thing in a fully managed language like Java or C#. Code will be WAY bigger, especially if you take the runtimes in to account. However it'll be much cleaner and easier to maintain. No it won't be as efficient, but does it matter? For many tasks there's plenty of power so that's fine.
3) New technologies. HD video is an example that is out now, true speech understanding (as in you can command the computer using natural language) would be one that we haven't reached yet. These are things that are only possible because of increased processor power and memory/storage capacity. Look at video on the computer. For a long time it was non existent, then when it started it was little postage stamp sized things that weren't useful, to now where you have full screen HD that looks really smooth. It wasn't as though peopel haven't always wanted better video, it was that computers back in the day couldn't handle it. Only recently have drive become large enough to hold it, and CPUs fast enough to decode it in realtime.
4) Faster response. Computers have gotten MUCH faster at user response. The goal is that users should never have to wait on their system, ever, for anything. The computer should be waiting on the human, not the other way around. We keep getting closer and closer. If you don't try new systems it is hard to appreciate, but it has been massive strides. As a simple example I remember back in high school when I went to print a paper for school, I'd issue the print command and wander to the kitchen. Printing a 5 page paper was a lengthy process. The computer had to use all it's resources for some time to render the text and formatting in to what the printer can handle. Now, I submit a 50 page print job with graphics and all and it is spooled nearly immediately. The printer has the entire job seconds later, since these days the printer has it's own processor and RAM. It is printing before I can walk over to it. Things that I used to have to wait on, are now fast.
5) Better multitasking. People like to be able to have their computers do more than one thing at a time, and not bog down. It can be simple things like listen to music, download a file, and surf the web but not that long ago it wasn't possibl
I like the brown color scheme. It gives Ubuntu a warm, earthy feel.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I feel that if Ubuntu made it easier to change to well made themes, it would cause many people to take a second, if not even the first look. Design is important, and that includes the look and feel. Imagine if during the setup you were given up to ten themes in different colors, all "professionally" done. I am not trying to hate on Ubuntu, I love it, but when I show it to people with the default colors they go uh, yea ok....
They could even stick to earthy tones and cooler colors. I like blues myself. I would even be willing to donate to this, because I feel that it could that strongly help adoption. I just don't have the artistic skills myself.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
With the debut of Windows 3.1 'good enough' became the accepted norm in computing.
You could pay more for a NeXT workstation, a Sun workstation, or even a Mac. However Windows 3.1 was 'good enough'. Most people didn't need networking support built in, or the compilers or software that was available for the other platforms.
You could have gone all multimedia with a fancy Amiga that did incredible sound and graphics, but 16 colors and trading files via floppy was 'good enough' for the majority of people. You could add hardware and software to Windows 3.1 computers if you really had a need to network them. The computers Windows ran on were capable of displaying better graphics (games that booted to DOS showed this), but Windows 3.1 was 'good enough'.
Windows 3.1 really did make computers easier to use. Macs, Amigas and NeXT did a 'better' job of making computers easier for people, but Windows 3.1 did a 'good enough' job at making things easier. At about US$2,400.00, a mid range computer with Win 3.1 on it was a lot cheaper than the competition. It was 'good enough' and cheaper.
The history of economics shows that 'good enough' and cheap wins.
Think of the 'best' hamburger that you ever ate...
Did you think of a plain old McDonald's hamburger? Probably not. In any scale of human measure (taste, smell, satisfaction) McDonald's hamburgers rarely rank as 'best'. But measured in market share the McDonald's hamburger is the best.
Ford's Model T was not as fast or as fancy or as comfortable or as good in quality as the hand crafted automobiles it competed with. But thanks to mass production and economies of scale it was cheaper and it was 'good enough'. Ford and other mass produced vehicles dominated the market. There are still purpose built vehicles, but they are a small specialty segment of the market.
'Good enough' and cheap is always the 'best' when you consider things from a market dominance point of view. What a human thinks is 'best' and what the market thinks is 'best' are not the same thing.
I know exactly what you mean. I had to boot into Vista the other day to update my iPod, and it was a mess. I mean, it's pretty much a brand new install, and I've done as much as possible to reduce running services and apps, but still...it can barely handle a single browser on this computer. And it's so damn unresponsive. Combine that with the horror than is iTunes (It just starts doing all kinds of crap that I don't want it to do, and it slows my computer to such a crawl that it takes ten minutes get my mouse to the cancel button) and what should have taken five minutes ended up taking over an hour.
After that experience I have truly realized why I love Linux. I love it because, even on my $500 Dell Vostro, I can run a browser with 15 tabs open, and leave it running for weeks at a time (an old, leaky firefox even!)...while running KDevelop and Pidgin and Amarok and Konsole and Epiphany (yes, I run two browsers sometimes) and kate and whatever else I need. And nothing slows down. I love it because I can squeeze almost 6 hours of life out of a battery than can barely hit 3 on Vista. I love it because I can do 'sh passmount.sh' and punch in a password rather than typing in some huge string, typing in a username and password, selecting a drive and hitting next 6 times...but if I want GUI tools, they're right there too. I love it because all of my apps run. All of them. From Fantasy General and Zone Raiders (old DOS games) to World of Warcraft and Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars. Basically, I love it because it does what I want. Everything I want. But _only_ what I want.
I feel that if Ubuntu made it easier to change to well made themes...
How is System>>Preferences>>Appearance anything but easy?
You'll note he said "easier". A default theme that more people like is easiest. A picker during install is easier.
And, as we're talking about mass-market users here, a "System" menu is just about the scariest thing they can imagine. They don't see, "This is where you can customize your computer to just the way you want it. Have at it, you freedom-lovin' hacker-dude!" They see, "click the wrong button and you're fucked." Except all the buttons are in Chinese. And they don't read Chinese.
And how many of those people running Photoshop actually paid for it?
I would argue that it is Adobe's responsibility, as they are the company creating a product that people are paying outrageous amounts of money for. They get to choose what operating systems they wish to make it for.
It doesn't matter whose responsibility it is. It doesn't matter whose fault it is. What matters is whose problem it is. And it's Linux's problem.
If you want people to use your system, and they can't due to some issue, that issue is your problem.
I always wonder, when Linux advocates blame some third party, what they think the end-user's thought process is going to be. Do you think some graphics artist is going to think, "I want to run Photoshop, but it doesn't work under Linux. It's not Linux's fault, so I guess it's OK. I'll just run Linux and wait for Adobe to port Photoshop over."
The blame is Adobe's, the problem is Linux's.
GNOME?
Pretending to be writing from the year 2025
In the year twenty twenty-five if Intel is still alive. If Microsoft can survive they may find...
I recently tried Ubuntu after leaving Linux as my primary OS in 2003. You're wrong. The GUIs are only fine if you're willing to stick with their narrow limitations. I think it's because they're constantly being rewritten instead of incrementally improved.
Examples:
When I hooked up a second display and clicked "detect displays", it did nothing. No error message, no effect. I see no way to fix this without editing config files manually.
My sound doesn't work at all. It's listed properly in all the config screens, but nothing comes out of the speakers. Now what do I do? I see no easy way to try different driver or other things without delving into a kernel module mess. Hello, terminal.
How do I disable that wretched shutdown beep with a GUI? The mute control has no effect on it, nor does disabling the system beep in the sound preferences.
This is basic stuff that's been an issue for 10 years.
Sorry, but desktop Linux in 2009 gave me the same experience as desktop Linux in 2003. I.e. 3 days of googling and sludging through manuals to get things working. The process is a tad smoother now, but it's still only good for two groups: Grandma who'll leave it the way it is, and experts who live Linux. Almost everyone I've ever met falls somewhere in between. It's hard to be just savvy in Linux. It's all or nothing.
Pretty skins are just that, skin deep.
Don't give me that paid support crap. I've never called MS support. I've never called Apple support. I can figure out how to maintain their systems by using them. If I'm going to have pay someone to help me with how to do basic things in Linux then I might as well just buy one of the other two.
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse