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Desktop Linux Is Dead
digitaldc writes with this quote from PCWorld:
"It kills me to say this: The dream of Linux as a major desktop OS is now pretty much dead. Despite phenomenal security and stability — and amazing strides in usability, performance, and compatibility — Linux simply isn't catching on with desktop users. And if there ever was a chance for desktop Linux to succeed, that ship has long since sunk. ... Ultimately, Linux is doomed on the desktop because of a critical lack of content. And that lack of content owes its existence to two key factors: the fragmentation of the Linux platform, and the fierce ideology of the open-source community at large."
I thought it was BSD that was dead?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
A 1-2% usage rate equals ~three million desktop users in the United States.
I have been using Linux for the past 5 years and I have no plans to abandon it.
While everything mentioned is a big detractor, that doesn't mean that Linux on the Desktop is dead. At some point, someone could come up with a way to make it work. Ubuntu was certainly more of a leap than a step in the right direction. It's moving closer every year. Of course, the desktop seems to be moving away every year too, it's a catch-up race with MS and Apple in the lead. Overall, it does seem Linux is gaining ground, just slowly.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I upgraded to Ubuntu Maverick Meetkat last week.
It's the best desktop I ever used. And now its dead. :(
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
However, what is up with the obvious story troll? Are the /. numbers low today?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
... i dont get it.. why now? why at all? i've been using it for years so for me it's great ..
This entire "story" must be summed up by the following:
Rawhide
I owe you $200 and you boys drank $300 worth of beer
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Rawhide
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them doggies trolling
Rawhide
Rain and wind and weather
Hell bent for leather
Wishing my gal was by my side
All the things I'm missin'
Good vittels, lovin', kissin'
Are waiting at the end of my ride
Move 'em on, head' em up
Head 'em up, move' em on
Move 'em on, head' em up
Rawhide
Cut 'em out, ride 'em in
Ride 'em in, cut 'em out
Call 'em out, ride 'em in
Rawhide
Keep moving, moving, moving
Though they're disapproving
Keep them doggies moving
Rawhide
Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope, throw and brand 'em
Soon we'll be living high and wide
My heart calculatin'
My true love will be waitin'
Be waiting at the end of my ride
Move 'em on, head' em up
Head 'em up, move' em on
Move 'em on, head' em up
Rawhide
Cut 'em out, ride 'em in
Ride 'em in, cut 'em out
Call 'em out, ride 'em in
Rawhide
Move 'em on, head' em up
Head 'em up, move' em on
Move 'em on, head' em up
Rawhide
Cut 'em out, ride 'em in
Ride 'em in, cut 'em out
Call 'em out, ride 'em in
Rawhide
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Rawhide
Rawhide
You can't handle the truth.
All I need is games.
I need nothing, absolutly nothing exception playable games.
WINE doesn't cut it, and I don't think that it ever will, I try it out regulary and it just sucks for the games I play.
Since 2004 I have been dual-booting between Ubuntu, where I do all serious and not so serious stuff, and Windows where I keep my FPS addiction alive (currently MW2)
The Desktop Linux is dead! Long live the Desktop Linux! (You may shout out and dance around.)
As long as I can download and install a free OS for my computer from any number of sources I consider Linux (on the Desktop) alive and kicking. News of its demise has luckily not reached my Desktop and it is chugging along just fine.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
I got on board the Linux bandwagon just as the wheels fell off!
and the fierce ideology of the open-source community at large
Linux troll! M$ minion! He needs to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Funny, I thought I heard this about the Mac several years ago. I have faith in Microsoft. They could alienate anyone.
I think a lot of linux fans don't mind it being an "indie os" y'know?
This comment was laboriously planned and extremely well thought out by Mike Donaghy @ http://mikedonaghy.org
I thought it's what ASUS did to their customized Xandros that really screwed it up.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
looks like there are only 1-2% of us..
Linux is also the only major OS that cannot advertise. Ubuntu 10.10 has great copy on its website extolling the benefits and showing that you can do pretty much anything on Ubuntu that you can on a Mac or Windows based PC. But...you only see that if you're already on the Ubuntu landing page. Linux also doesnt come pre-installed on the vast majority of new PC's either.
The only reason I run windows on my computer at home and my kids computer is games. Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Civ5, Steam. If all of those were available under Linux _At the same time_ as the PC counterparts, I would wipe windows off my PC tonight. I am writing this on my work laptop HP DV8t running opensuse 11.3.
But I thought this was the year of the linux desktop?
seriously, are we starting the troll posts and flamebaits in the articles now?
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
I figured microsoft had more to worry about right now than FUD'ing up the linux arena with Paid-for blogging*, but meh.
Desktop Linux works for me, and has been since 1997. If you don't like it, don't use it. Be thankful you have alternatives. If it weren't for *nix, you probably wouldn't.
[*] - http://www.blogger.com/profile/5530582
http://www.flickr.com/photos/strohmy/315871552/
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Linux is very much alive on the desktop; it is very widely used inside corporations and universities. These "1% market share" figures are meaningless; they are usually based on device sales or web site statistics of popular web sites, neither of which tell you much about "desktop" Linux.
Linux hasn't grabbed much of the general purpose consumer desktop market, but that market is pretty much stagnant in itself. The new consumer market is tablets, netbooks, and smartphones, and Linux is grabbing a large chunk of that with Android and (in the near future) MeeGo and Chrome.
No need for Tux to look sad.
So, by citing many unrelated facts, and some things which the average user doesn't know enough about to care, he has proved that Desktop Linux is dead. Okay, i buy that.
Who the fuck writes this garbage, and even better, why the fuck is it showing up on slashdot?
Repeat after me: Linux exists BECAUSE of the fierce ideology of the FREE SOFTWARE COMMUNITY. Open source has no ideology, fierce or otherwise.
Taco, you should know better.
Okay Taco, I know you're desperate for page views, but posting this is just trolling for them. What a pathetic way to start off a slow news day. How many sharks have you jumped now?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Everyone always thinks the point of games is biased but the reality is a large portion of nerds/geeks/hackers/etc are gamers. These people are not in any way large compared to the market as a whole but they make up a huge chunk of the people that can easily switch and might want to switch. Without these people leading the way for others to switch I suspect Linux will always be stuck.
Clearly Microsoft knows what it's doing too. This is probably the main reason they don't just outright 100% abandon their PC game market in favor of the Xbox.
Gee, another article declaring Linux dead again from a magazine that has years of pushing WIndows on their reading public. I have a feeling that 90% of their readers are exclusively Windows Users....the rest of us find magazines that actually write articles about our preferred OS without comparison to Windows.
What is going on today on /.?
Linux Destop is Dead, Top 10 Reasons to Work for Micsoroft, Pirated Software Making Anti Teorist Drones Fail, MS Donating Software to Charity, Why We Should Use Dell and Forget Custom Desktops, Earth Shortage...
Did ... did it finally grow up? Sell out? Get brainwashed? Recieved ms-paid escort service? All of it in one hectic night?
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
For goodness' sake, since Qt had gone LGPL (thanks no Nokia, admittedly), why does Gnome still exist at all??
KDE has proven superior for many years, freedesktop.org has started unifying some desktop components, but the progress is SLOW. Why tens of sound APIs? Why tens of imaging APIs? Why tens of video APIs? Why less than ten, but still more than one, packaging format?
Choice is good - until a certain extent. And as far as the desktop is concerned, non open source application developers will want ONE api to work with ALL Linux distros out there. That's a fact. Live with it.
There aren't any business databases available for either OS. And I mean databases like dBaseIII or Paradox for DOS, and NOT the useless piece of shit Windows versions. No database, no deal. Many are using Access but if you've ever used anything well designed you don't like it.
The PHP/Javascript/MyPostrgressSQL combo is an abortion. We need something that those who know the business rules can use to implement said rules, and do it easily.
If it ever happens, the publisher will make billions overnight. I'm still selling PDoxDOS apps. Hey stupid, they work.
Oh Dr. Pauker, where art thou?
Linux is dead
Microsoft is seriously ill
But Linux is going to succeed, at least in the enterprise battlefield
Time to stop reading Slashdot, and moving to do something better.
Those are just some of the reasons Linux still isn't there for me. Ubuntu has come a long way toward this, but it's still just not there.
*maybe some of these issues have been more recently resolved, but I can only go on my fairly recent dealings with Ununtu and Debian.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
and amazing strides in usability
Uh, where?
Every time I checked, both KDE and Gnome were pretty much busy copying whatever the latest UI abominations out of Redmond were at the time. Their UI design people completely ignore usability, and the fact that Microsoft can inflict great usability pains on their users simply because they have so many and most of them are locked in.
An alternative OS needs to provide something better, not just a cheap copy.
There are a few innovations and advances, I'll grant that. But the main interfaces are crap, pure and simple. Because usability is expensive. You simply can not create good usability at a programmer's desk. You need user testing, labs, feedback cycles and, most importantly, a clear vision. Some non-programmer understanding of design would also help a lot.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What content? I've supported the desktop world for the entire existence of desktops. The whole landscape of 'content' as the term is misapplied here changes every 2 years or so. What exists today, will be forgotten tomorrow.
So how's this for funny. I just got a job at Apple - something I never thought I'd do. Even funnier though is that I'm using a mac, which is something I'd have put money on not doing. It runs UNIX, but moreso, it has put UNIX in the hands of the -least- technically motivated users, and done so with deftness.
So, I call bullshit on this. It can, and is being done. Just not done right, right now.
It's easy to be a skeptic and predict failure, and even easier for those who cannot or do not try to succeed.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
It is kind of sad how obvious the whole "flamewars for ad views" thing has become on this site.
The only thing that keeps businesses running Windows at all is the large volume of industry-specific applications (and even web sites) that only work on Win32 and IE. It certainly isn't lower support costs.
Uh huh. Even if that were true, you're expecting them to reimplement all those application to what, Linux and Firefox?
This story is a troll, yes, but as long as it's here, let's feed it!
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
10 years ago before the iPod was released if someone had told me that Apple would have a wildly popular music device, a huge share of the smart phone market, a respectable piece of the desktop market and unbelievable sway over industry direction I'd have been hard pressed to say I thought it would happen. At the time they were fairly niche to graphic work for the most part, similar to how Linux is currently doing it's best in the server niche.
"2010 is the year of the Linux desktop!!" isn't realistic, but neither is "Linux on the desktop is dead!!"
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
"the fragmentation of the Linux platform and the hurdles presented by..."alpha-quality" drivers for audio and video hardware made success elusive for the [Linux] Flash development team."
Okay, fair enough. But how does Adobe/Macromedia then explain the failure to deliver a decent plug-in on the two other major platforms, Mac OS X and Windows?
So maybe Linux will camp out in the server and smart-phone markets for a while. Maybe vendors don't believe in Linux on the desktop yet. Whose to say it will never move into that market? Commercial products die when they lack the market share to support the salaries of the programmers. Free software lives until the last guy stops donating his time. We are nowhere near that. Linux continues to make a phenomenal difference to me, and I will continue to contribute as long as it keeps the ideals of freedom. Small != dead.
Look at it this way. The operating system is becoming more and more a commodity. Most of the content "desktop" users want is online, and is going to be accessed via browsers. The other things they want to do are pretty much play video disks (blue-ray is a problem right now) and do pretty basic document editing and e-mail. There are some users that want do basic video work and like as well.
None of these things require a finely tuned OS any more, even Linux with its recent advances in hardware detection and automatic configuration do a good enough job that all this is possible with little technical know how. I don't even have an xorg.conf on the system I am using right now. Android phones are more capable than the PCs most of us were using less than a decade ago. Linux certainly can be the platform on which an end user interface is build and its proven it can host the ever more limited selection of applications.
There is not going to be a market for Operating systems that have licensing costs for home users pretty soon. Look how popular the IPAD is! More and more people are realizing what they want is a smart phone with a word processor and some games, a PIM, and financial package of some type; not a "home PC". Linux devices are perfect for that role; as Droid has already proven. Just wait until some of the tablet manufacturers like Motion Computing marry their existing hardware (tablets with stands and removable keyboards) to a droid like platform and target consumers. My guess is they will have the same success Apple is enjoying.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
"(X) is Dead" is just as unrealistic as "(X) is the Year of the Linux Desktop". I think the TFA is right that Linux may never gain a majority share, but that doesn't mean it's *dead*.
Desktop innovation is dead. The only active innovation is on handheld devices, and linux (in the form of Android OS) is quickly becoming the biggest game in town. If you count handhelds and Android OS, linux would have a much higher user percentage.
That the number of "Desktop Linux is Dead" stories is inversely proportional to the number of "PC Gaming is Dead" stories.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
I'd say, the concept of desktop as it was defined through 80s and 90s is beginning to die. Touch interfaces, actually well-working mobile devices and web services ("the cloud") are taking over more and more of the desktop's traditional role. More than a problem for the Linux desktop, I see this shift as a big opportunity as the importance of the traditional vendors like Microsoft is declining. Here are some ideas on what the "Linux desktop" ought to do: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/the_web_and_the_free_desktop/
Midgard Project - Open Source CMS
Most people want to buy feelings, not actually do something useful with the machine. Example: buying a Mac because it is pretty, at least partially for the feeling of owning something aesthetically pleasing. Games fall into this category too. People will line up to hand over money to buy something that barely works because a) friends are doing it and so they want to play it too, and b) playing the game will give a feeling of accomplishment very slightly different from the feeling of accomplishment gotten by playing the last game.
Most ways in which Linux is technically superior does not fit into this mental model of what a computer is for, and we are surprised that it doesn't have marketshare among these folks why exactly?
I will try Ubuntu on a spare desktop and try to use it for a while and see if it holds up.
It will be interesting to see where it fails and where it succeeds, but my friends have all said it runs very well.
And maybe, I will never purchase an OS again.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I shall predict how the comments here are going to go:
* Someone will complain how Linux doesn't work as well as Windows for X, which is used as evidence why desktop Linux sucks.
* Someone will counter-complain how Windows doesn't work as well as Linux for Y, which is used as evidence why complainers suck.
* Repeat the first two endlessly
* Someone will say Linux is free (beer/speech) and if there's a problem, you can fix it.
* Someone will present a well thought-out essay as to why Linux has failed and continues to fail on the desktop, but will be ignored.
* Someone will state it already IS the year of Linux on the desktop... for them, their family, friends, pets and their friend's pets.
* There will be 1000+ comments in total.
To add my 2c, I tried Ubuntu 10.10 recently. The supplied open-source drivers for my ATI card had working vertical sync but crap power management, so my laptop would run hot and the fans were extremely noisy. I also didn't have much customization of features due to lack of control panel. The proprietary drivers had broken vertical sync but working power management, and the catalyst control panel. I needed the control panel for various functionality and the need to run the fans correctly was not in question, but the drivers couldn't properly vsync to save their life, and so videos tore. The control panel could force vsync to be enabled, but the next time the X server restarts, it conveniently "forgets" this and tears once more. The solution is then to disable vsync and reenable it.
I did tons of research, hoping to find a solution. There isn't none. ATI drivers are the responsibility of ATI, I am aware of that. It doesn't help that they suck balls though, and it affects the quality of my experience with Ubuntu (and hence Linux) as a whole. In the end I thought "fuck this" and went back to a working Windows 7 install.
A front door assault on Windows is not getting anywhere.
Android is proving wildly popular for phones.
If Android can prove as popular for tablets.
If Tablets can make laptops obsolete
If both those things happen, then Android could get somewhere.
It will take a platform shift to displace Windows as King of the Hill.
Let's be honest...
What is "dead" and what is "alive" when it comes to technology? Linux has millions of users. This is a fact. It isn't dead. It isn't going to be. Will it be as popular as the Mac? Probably not. Will it be a market that people will ignore? Probably, but if there is a market of millions of possible customers and little competition, an enterprising company would be foolish not to take some notice. The problem with Mac and Windows is, well, Mac and Windows. Windows does suck. Everyone knows it. Most reluctantly use it. The Mac is better and people love their macs, but they are not as entrenched (yet) as Windows and their are issues, plus it is a more expensive platform.
I would hazard to say that Windows and Mac are just as dead as Linux. There are no new applications. Computers themselves aren't getting faster only "wider." We are done. There's nothing left for the desktop to do. We can only improve what we have or alter the way in which we deliver services (i.e. netflix, hulu, etc.). Its a toaster or a VCR. People still buy toasters and VCRs (well DVD players), but they aren't getting any "better."
The interesting work isn't the desktop, but the device that comes after it. Obviously phones and mobile computers are big, but that is approaching saturation as well. What's next? Is there a next? The whole tech world is search.....
If we are talking about world domination with the goal of being the overthow of M$ and MAC then the story is quite correct. Linux still has a shot at workstations and turnkey PC applications that use a caned desktop. Finally, if certain critical applications such as Open (Libre) Office can improve themselves to the point of being a real substitute for their M$ counterparts Linux still has a shot as the desktop OS in office settings that stick to the basics. Of course, it will remain the desktop of choice for open source developers, home brew 'Makers' and computer hobby types.
I've installed Linux on an older ThinkPad after discovering that the Windows Wifi support didn't work (and I did NOT have the restore CD or partition) while Linux DID get my Wifi to work. My desktop dual boots between Windows 7 and Linux, though I rarely use Windows, it's there for the occasional something that hasn't been ported to Linux yet.
Let the companies trying to make money selling Linux on the desktop worry about the lack of adoption, while those of us who are using it just enjoy. It ain't going away.
Every time Linux has been on its way to success on the desktop Microsoft has stepped in and made its life short. Why did Dell despite pretty decent figures refuse to sell their Linux desktops in the open? Why was it only avaliable in a very limited amount of countries? Why did a computer with Linux cost more than one without an OS or FreeDos, or Windows?
Linux was well enroute to gooble the whole netbook market up when suddenly Asus ditched it overnight after hard pressure from Microsoft. Resellers refused to take it in despite good sales figures.
This has nothing to do with Linux in itself. It could be the best OS in the world but it still dont have a chance until the monopoly is broken. The OEMs are held by the balls by Microsoft and nothing will change until that grip is lessened.
HTTP/1.1 400
a realistic article on slashdot.
i agree and disagree. your points are very valid and correct.
and the mac suffers the same fate for many of the same reasons.... except mac is moving forward?
the pc represents a huge shift in how things got done. people don't fully realize it yet, but the iPad is almost as large a shift. it actually does what java and the browser were supposed to do and failed at (provide a ubiquitous new, useful platform).
linux can hang their hopes on android tablets. if not there, then whatever is next, but yeah, the desktop PC revolution is coming to and end, and linux is out of time there.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
The article is actually pretty spot-on, IMO. Linux will never be a mainstream desktop OS like OS/X or Windows. For the small percentage of computer users who frequent THIS site, it may seem heretical to state the obvious, but that doesn't make it less true. The article doesn't say that Linux itself is dead or that it is not a viable platform, just that it isn't ever going to be mass-market successful as a desktop platform ala OS/X or Windows.
Why does this piss people off? And just because it works great for *you* doesn't negate the arguments that the author is making.
you ever noticed how bad a CLI is ? but its perfectly legal to let users hack around keys in the windows registry (i guess because there is a GUI for that ?).
And then there's Windows 2008 R2... While I applaud the decision to go 64-bit only as a way to try and push developers into finally writing for 64-bit systems (after all, the capabilities have been around for what, a decade or so?), I think it may backfire on Microsoft the same way that UAC did in Vista. Users will be most unhappy that their legacy application that they've been running their entire business on for the last eight or twelve years and that can't be updated or is no longer available won't work on the new server they just bought. Of course, Server 2003 & 32-bit Server 2008 will reach their end-of-life eventually as well, and that's the point when things will really change.
In the mean time, Microsoft's need for constant support and massaging keeps a lot of us employed...
I predicted this all along, and still stick with it.
Linux will become the desktop of choice among the masses when the desktop no longer exists.
That is, as applications move into the cloud and the desktop turns into a smart/thick client, Linux will be the primary choice. It is lighter weight, much more OEM-customizable friendly and cheaper than Windows or Mac.
Sun was right when they said "The network IS the computer". They were just a couple decades early in trying to bring it to the masses.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Even if that were true, you're expecting them to reimplement all those application to what, Linux and Firefox?
The thing about Firefox is that it complies with standards. If it runs on Firefox, chances are it runs on every browser.
Many industry specific apps also run on Linux, it's not a stretch to imagine more tech companies porting their apps to Linux at all.. MS is slowly losing grip on the computing world, and nothing of value will be lost.
which is totally what she said
Whether Linux is realistic depends upon what you want to do. I use a Mac as my primary way to access TV, and to some extent movies. As far as I can tell the only major source of video content is iTunes. I'd love to find an alternative, but there doesn't seem to be any. Hulu only keeps some shows, and you can't rely on which ones. It seems unlikely that the major content providers will be interested in supporting Linux unless things change more than I think they will. It's pretty clear that if Apple hadn't pioneered with iTunes, they wouldn't even support the Mac. I find it odd that content providers haven't provided a credible alternative. It seems in their interests. But it looks like only Apple has enough clout to force them to do something reasonable.
My name is Chad and I hate using linux... however....
Linux has never tried to replace windows for the common user. It's focused on being a useful, security minded, light weight alternative for power users, IT professionals etc...
Linux has never marketed itself as a gaming platform, or multimedia home system etc. There are flavors of linux USED that way, but never advertised like windows. Linux has only recently (past 5 years) reached a point where it is user friendly to new users. Fedora Core or Unbuntu really took off with the whole user experience.
"But there's no content!"... what are you smoking? Sure... your mom can't install "Couponfriend" on a linux machine but that's not what Linux as a whole is focusing on. Linux is a business grade utility. It's a solid alternative to windows that allows you to do almost everything windows can do. The limitations you encounter are what programs you use.
A company I work with recently made the push to move to linux distros instead of windows. Dear lord the users hated it at first until productivity went up, and IT costs went down after 6 months.
There were 567 LESS tickets concerning hacked machines, malware and crashes. The centralized management software they use controls what can be installed on the machine... and pushing installs works just like windows except the machine doesn't have to restart. This solved a lot of issues for the small business as they just couldn't afford the windows equivalents.
The difficulty comes in what programs are being used. Users navigate just like they used to to find files. Hell they even created "My Document" folders... except those are hosted on a SAN, but the user doesn't know.
Linux is NOT dead as a desktop OS. It just might not be at the point of a typical user who thinks Best Buy is a smart place to go for a computer.
Its dead again? Good thing it has a bunch of friends that can cast level 9 resurrection.
Yes it is obvious with the plethora of file systems supported by Linux it can be a daunting task for peanut brained Window users to decide which one to use. It is a wonder they can get past a Windows installation where it asks if you want your partition formatted as fat or ntfs. However, since Window users are so accustomed to clicking through on whatever the defaults are, I fail to see how Not Choosing the defaults of a Linux distro is an issue.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
You can debate whether or not desktop Linux has a chance all you want. I'll just keep using my Linux desktop along with half the people in this office.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Every once in a while, another story like this pops up on /. They're either talking about the strides its making in the desktop market, how it's stagnating on the desktop, or outright troll summaries like this one.
I just don't give a shit.
I run linux on my desktop. My wife does too. As do my parents. Know why? Because my 'support calls' are ZERO. My mother NEVER calls me because something screwed up on her computer like she did with Windows. She sits down, she plays some fucking farmville, talks to her sisters on facebook, reads her e-mail, and she goes away.
All that said, I couldn't possibly care less what you run, or what your family runs. It doesn't affect my life any. If linux becomes the defacto desktop OS, great. If not, great.
My only gripe, the one thing that pisses me off, is how it's still damn near impossible to get a competitively priced, good hardware laptop without fucking Windows on it. That infuriates the shit out of me.
Other than that, use Windows or Mac OS all you want. They're not for me, and they never just do what I want them to. If they do for you, wonderful.
The article sites a lack of good DRM and the move toward cloud computing as the primary indicators that Linux is not only dead, but will always be dead, despite having become viable in terms of ease of use and stability, etc. Ugh. So are savings accounts dead now that almost everyone uses credit? Are families dead because people can buy condoms? What about going outside? Is going outside dead?
That was painfully stupid.
Has anyone else noticed the sharp drop off in comments on Slashdot the last couple months?
Yes the summer is always going to be slower, but wow, someone like Taco makes a statement like this and nothing. It is a desperate move. But why? Isn't that the real headline we are looking at?
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Clearly Microsoft knows what it's doing too. This is probably the main reason they don't just outright 100% abandon their PC game market in favor of the Xbox.
Microsoft and Apple have both seen the writing on the wall. The desktop PC is leaving the home. It is being replaced with a mixture of Laptops, Smartphones, Tablets, and HTPCs, approximately in that order (in terms of replacement, not adoption.) Microsoft's foray into the new consumer reality is the Xbox. The Xbox got them in the door and the 360 implements the marketplace and trusted computing models. Apple's is the iPad, and they have already speculated publicly that OSX will be merged into iOS and not the other way around. This sounds like a distinction without a difference since both are based on the same underpinnings but the reality is that iOS is about a mindset, not about technology. OSX will end up as a walled garden eventually as well, albeit probably on less restrictive terms.
You will be able to do general purpose, Open source (both software sources and multiple sources) for the foreseeable future. But I think that both Apple and Microsoft envision a future in which most software is delivered only electronically, which can provide substantial advantages (to the seller, mind you) in license management. Not to mention picking up a piece of every sale.
The moral here is that Microsoft does not abandon the Xbox because it is the future. One day there will only be one Microsoft platform, but you will be able to buy a machine with little I/O as a games machine. Clustering will solve the expansion problem. The average consumer would rather buy a game console every few years than upgrade their video card, so you can expect PC gaming to be sharply deprecated when Microsoft feels that their desktop customers are ready for a walled garden. Expect it to come quite some time after Apple makes the shift, and "proves" that it is what "people" "want".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If by lack of AAA game titles, well yes that probably doesn't help adoption by hardcore gamers. So very sorry your itch isn't sufficiently scratched. But you know, you are quite welcome to pitch in and address the issue. Maybe with you being so well placed with Big Media you would have some pull? Or are you just having WoW withdrawl? that does run here, you know.
I'd say some niche markets are underserved at present but, largely, those communities are building their own tools now. For instance audio, animation and font folks are getting into their blood that the only folks who can properly address their "market" are the ones who are motivated, that is themselves.
So,
content: only if you limit the definition to broadcast "content"
fragmentation: aka diversity, and largely compatible with each other
ideology: an ideology that is strengthened by great internal diversity
When XP reaches its end of life Linux will see a huge jump in users. Microsoft has done a good job of making sure Vista and Windows 7 are difficult to maintain without a valid license. Once they end support for XP many users will be left with the decision of spending several hundred dollars on a License or learning to love Linux for free.
Most computer users I come across need 4 applications: an internet browser, a pdf viewer, a program that can open word and a program that can open excel files. I haven't seen a Linux desktop that doesn't provide these out of the box in the past few years.
So, what is missing from getting Linux to the masses? ...)
1. retail distribution channels (walmart, dell,
2. marketing presence
3. easy to use, consolidated app store with a way for users to actually pay for stuff
Google could easily fix all 3 of those issues; why hasn't it yet? ... ChromeOS. Expect a solid windows competitor in the next few years.
Long live the cloud!
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
I'm posting this, from a Linux desktop. It doesn't look dead to me.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
If the company is running a legacy application that is no longer updated and does not work on x64 systems, then most likely they will keep a 32bit system even if it is no longer supported (the app probably isn't). And if the server is only for internal use and has a good firewall (which it should have) then the fact that the OS is no longer updated should not be a big problem. How many companies are still using NT4 and 2000?
I never understood the desire to push Linux into the mainstream. It would just make it a greater target for the virus writers. As long as it's not so fringe that it loses community support, I'm fine with it. IMO, the linux desktop has never been stronger than it is now. I can play most of the games I care about under wine and anything else under vmplayer. The nagware that dominates windows applications makes that desktop dead for me.
I had no problems with playing DVDs on my Ubuntu. Well, of course the highly praised WinXP offers that, too... Wait, it doesn't!
Oh, and no DRM... I surely miss this "switch off features if the user is doing anything suspicious" feature from Vista. I feel so insecure without a Master observing me and telling me what I can and cannot do with my computer. The restrictions are beneficial for users, everyone knows that.
And there is no Flash for linux available or even planned in the near future. Robert Strohmeyer told so and I believe him. Just ignore all these "Install Flash" suggestions in Firefox, it's non-existent in linux.
Let's better talk about iPhones and Steve Jobs. Because Steve Jobs is sooo cool. The only way linux can survive is being cool. Like in high-school, you know. Try to hang out with cool guys and do everything like them. Then everyone will love you. Of course, if you're not an ugly geek.
installed with Windows or OS X at the factory, with the costs hidden in the purchase, the public won't care.
To them it is "free" because the cost is not broken out. If you would challenge them most would come back and say a) they don't care, b) the makers get such big discounts it doesn't matter, or c) like what can you do?
So, the purchasing public doesn't see a need for a "free" OS when it just comes with the machine. When a new Windows upgrade finally comes down people can just buy a new cheaper computer to replace that "old slow one". People with Apples, well if its new and shiny (I own two Macs, so don't pelt me with rotten food)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I run a number of 32 bit apps on my Win 7 64 bit machine. They all installed and run fine. What are you on about?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
And now, at long last, the Year of the Linux Desktop is at hand.
May the Maths Be with you!
It's possible to get some nice applications, including CAD, Arch, Mech, and Electrical CAD, CAE, and lots of other good stuff on a Linux Desktop.
A well confugured Ubuntu system will work for a Rocket Scientist as well as some kids wanting to surf the net.
How many times did we hear, "Apple is dying" in reaction to their small share?
Exactly.
Now a few percent means a LOT of users, and that fierce ideology means those users can use it for as long as they want to, share or not.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
Blogging because I can...
what are you talking about? Linux is more popular than ever, being used on more platforms than ever. I am studying computer science in university and we have ubuntu on the majority of the pcs, and we are encouraged to use OS and linux quite frequently. Crap article much? Plus you can play virtually any games on linux that you can on Windows, just download playonlinux and install away~! I play oblivion on my ubuntu desktop all the time. I can't think of any proprietary apps that I can't replace or better on linux for free.
The tags for this post are just hilarious.
troll trolltroll trolltrolltroll trolltrolltrolltroll
LOL
Or at least it is jumping the shark. Look at how many trollish stories in one night. Can we mod the whole site "troll" and be done with it?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Bad news, I guess I got to remove it again and give her back the OS that allows her to install every bit of crap that wants her attention. She is a nice woman but has a low IQ. She "gets" that there are scammers around but can't resist to click on stuff. Endless problems on windows even on limited accounts. Zero under Ubuntu and the relocation of the close window and the start menu? Not a problem. "Oh, this has the close windows on the left..." and that was it. No problems because nobody ever told her it was supposed to be a problem. Close button on the left.
She is very happy with it and now it is dead...
And I wonder how her desktop counts. Because it is a Compaq and so came with windows. So does this work desktop. So did my home computer. None of which run Windows.
But Linux has its problems. But it is like that cute redhead girl who loves you so much. Sure, she has a temper and her hair springs every which way when it is wet and she freckles like mad at even a hint of sunshine and... but you will NEVER ever replace her for the blond bimbo that everyone else has had because despite all her quirks, deep down she is right for you.
There are three kind of linux users. Those that hate MS, those that want to be different for difference sake and those that just want to get stuff done without constant bugs or corporate motives getting in the way. Last time I used windows I suddenly ended up with a ghost network card, complete duplicate of the regular one but kept messing every thing up. Then it went away again. Just no thanks. Linux may have its moments, but I can always fix it. It is handable. Windows isn't.
And as for the dream being dead. It ain't windows on mobile phones or tablets so far. The dream could just be taking a different form. And if you see MS reacting so badly to Open Office, I think MS clearly has not counted opensource out yet. Because they fear loosing office less then the idea that with Word gone, Windows could so easily follow.
The dream is still there, but only for people who use Linux because they like it. Not because they want to see Bill Gates stumble. The lovers remain, the haters will always hate.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Here's one thing *nix can do!
sudo echo "127.0.0.1 www.pcworld.com" >> /etc/hosts"
Goodbye.
> Cowboy hats are also dead, because almost nobody wears them. Someone needs to tell the cowboys.
I did! And I tell them again, as soon as I can have solid food again. O_0
The only real thing that holds Linux back on the desktop is hardware. No so much the actual computer as the myriad of junk people plug into them.
A POS printer from Walmart will run fine on Windows, but not any Linux distro. So many of the external toys that people expect to simply buy and use have zero Linux support. Wifi in particular is tragic.
I use Linux and accept I may have to do a little research to get some PlugAndPray toy that will work. Grandma is lucky if she can figure out where the plug goes. If she plugs into windows, it will usually hold her hand, at the very least say something. If she plugs it into a Linux box, it can be ominously silent.
There kinds of grunge articles are a dime a dozen. ./ must be dropping in 'hits' these days and the Great Taco needs to increase traffic. What better way than to poke a stick at the hive.
Of course, it's ultimately a futile effort.
Trolling - a way to increase traffic.
some of the problems that I (as a very technically literate Windows user)
Right there! That's the spot. The spot where you lost me.
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
I love Linux on all my systems at home. I enjoy using Windows 7+Visual Studio at work, and know my registry intimately. I call 'troll' on the PCWorld article. Does that still make me one an ideologue?
By the time I left community college three years ago, encountering non-geeks who use Linux was no longer a surprise. Some time this year, I stopped being surprised at seeing Linux installed on laptops in coffee shops. Does that make me an ideologue?
I've seen support for Linux in commercial games and applications grow to the level Macs were at prior to the iPhone explosion. I've seen the number of non-Linux-compatible websites drop dramatically, thanks to improvements in browser technology. My WoW-playing fiancee was using Linux exclusively before I met her.
I still call 'troll' on the PCWorld article. Does that still make me an ideologue?
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
flamebait in the morning...
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
... a 1-2% user base hosting install parties in so many different cities when new versions are launched and maintaining user groups isn't qualitatively the same as a 92% user base that are mostly apathetical. It doesn't seem like Microsoft will ever put a break on software piracy, because that's who's their tech enthusiast user basis is. Wine is getting better and better though. Obviously, north american and west european governments can sorta afford to get Windows this or that, but even then, for political reasons (read realpolitik), its way better to have software built locally, or at least that you can review locally.
Some of you are really missing the point and calling this a troll / flamebait. The article has some very good points. It's not the linux desktop itself that is dead, it's the dream of being a major player like OSX or Windows is dead. Linux never WAS a major player, and its opportunities to become such have passed, or at least appear to have for the time being.
I gave up on a linux desktop a long time ago. I fought the good fight. I was there for FVWM, FVWM2, Afterstep, WindowMaker, Blackbox, Original Gnome and Original KDE, Gnome with Nautilus, KDE2, and KDE3. I was there for Netscape navigator gold, dosemu, wine, communicator, star office, openoffice, openoffice.org, mozilla, firefox, thunderbird, gcalc, gimp. Now I use my favorite apps from linux on windows or mac.
Why? Because I simply don't have time to futz with my desktop anymore. I'm an adult. I have a wife that needs attention. I have a house that needs attention. I have a son that needs attention. I have a full time job that takes most of my time. I have one, perhaps two hobbies that get any remaining time and screwing with my desktop to try and make it work at least sorta as good as OSX or windows is literally the very last thing I would ever do with my time now days. I suspect that there are others in this boat. I really never realized how much time I wasted on my *desktop* until I just started using XP or OSX -- oh, you mean I'm done -- awesome, now I can go do something I really care about.
LIES! I refuse to belief this! I know actually a fair amount of friends who are beginning to use Ubuntu from windows. Although Ubuntu is not the be all and end all of linux (I run Arch), I think the userbase is growing. or at least I hope It is...
It's not dead, it's just pining -- pining for the fjords.
Give a man a match: warm him for an instant. Douse him in petrol and set him aflame: warm him for the rest of his life.
Maybe we should start asking what those 1-2% represent.
What kind of people use a Linux desktop full time? Geeks. Developers. Bright minds.
Consider Linux a piece of specialized software. How many computer users run specialized software? A small percentage of the total. Yet those are important for their respective niches.
Apple has 5% but it's the cream of the crop in regard to certain traits: people who favor aestethics and "just works" over everything else and are willing to pay extra for it.
Maybe it's time for Linux to stop aiming for more than 5%, ever, and instead embrace what it is: a professional-grade OS, for professionals.
Why obsess with taking over the desktop of average Joe, against Joe's wishes?
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
I punted on M$ and windoze in 1999 and exclusively ran linux desktops on my notebooks and desktops until 2006. After 7 years of battling everything from not-quite-there apps, to desktop inconsistencies and notebook driver issues I gave up and switched to OSX (cause I wasn't going back to M$.) I chose it because of the unix-like underpinnings. The move was a bit of a struggle at the time (primarily in getting used to using my mouse so much more than I would prefer and I've since figured out how to be mainly a keyboard user again) but I haven't looked back. I still run linux on all of my servers but life is too short to have to wage war with my desktop when I am trying to use it to run my business. I run various linux distros (and XP) in VMware on my MBP for any missing functionality that I still need but I don't resume them very often.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
This is talking about everything but desktop.
Linux is live and well, hoping platforms and claiming ever larger areas of the corpse of the soon mythical desktop. Gamers go to consoles. Netbooks don't have the power for them anyway. Nobody really buys a desktop unless they want a sort of customizable general purpose console or a machine to do a specific task. The only place where the desktop way of life still has refuge are the high end heavy laptops and office workstations. And even that market is thining.
I still run Linux on my servers. But I don't have time to spend half a day installing software anymore where I must resolve dependancy hell or stuff like that. People tell me, "oh, xyz fixes that". Every time I try to track down "xyz", it's never quite there.
Apache, Postfix, solid stuff that's been around forever, yeah. Desktop apps, nah. Too much of a pain to deal with. All my laptops used to be set to dual-boot; not anymore. Windows is stable enough and I don't have to spend 12 hours figuring out how to install stuff and getting flamed if I dare to ask a question or hear "write it youself!"
It's certainly a strength to have so many options available for technical users, but normal users get confused by just the few version of Windows out there. Try and explain the various versions/distribution options for Linux and they immediately start thinking how maybe they'll just stick with Windows. I personally love OS X, and even among friends/family who know that and trust me for tech advice, they have a hard time thinking of anything outside Windows/Microsoft. There are lots of reasons why Linux hasn't taken off, but I don't know that I'd call it dead.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
It's no more dead than it is imminent.
The biggest problem with Linux for the Desktop, is this. Linux developers don't seem to remember (if they ever knew) what it was like to be an ignorant user.
Linux for the Desktop has to be made for the ignorant AOL "Me too!" posters that plagued Usenet back in the day.
My sister in law is no IT slouch, but has limited experience with *nix systems. She emailed me the other day to ask what the linux equivalent of dir /p was.
Ask a linux guy that question, and you can get several different answers. And it's a pretty good bet that some of them will involve things which are non-intuitive or just not common place to the *average* computer user. Like piping.
ls -a | less
was what she eventually wound up with, and only because I went off on a tangent about how less is more, and more was the original paginator etc... before I realised what I was doing, and shut the hell up.
Until linux can be made not just user friendly, but *ignorant* user friendly, it won't be a viable Desktop for the mainstream audiences.
That said, Ubuntu has made great strides in that direction.
You are aware that Server 2008 R2 ships with the 32-bit compatibility layer disabled by default, not totally removed?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
The Linux desktop is dead. Not because Linux sucks, but because the desktop as an important arena for killer apps, is dead. All the killer apps of the latest 10 years have been web based; facebook, twitter, blogging, wikipedia, google mail, google maps, etherpad... The only usage of the desktop nowdays is as a boot loader for a web browser.
Linux, or free software in general, as a delivery platform for killer apps, however, is live and well. Google uses Linux. Wikipedia uses Linux, Facebook uses Linux.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
I think Linux and FreeBSD are godsends on the server side but I have to agree with OP on the Desktop side. There is one very harsh reality that will never go away, the general consumer does not want to have to learn anything to use a computer. User facing technical folks will tell you that most users do not even have a firm grasp of how to use the start button after using MS products for 10 years in a business environment.
Linux has been on my desktop for 17 years now. I don't understand the desire for world domination. How many installs do we have to reach for people to say that Linux has succeeded?
I've used Linux on my laptop and desktop PCs almost exclusively for the last 5 years or so, and a mix of Linux and Windows for several years before then. Yes, I am lucky in that the vast majority of software I use runs on Linux and I fully understand why others may need (or prefer) Windows / OS X to suit their needs.
Linux does everything I need, and does it very well. My work flow is much more efficient, reliable and flexible than anything I've achieved previously with other operating systems. To me, Linux on the desktop is a winner.
However, if you're going to measure it's success by the overall percentage of desktop users using it then of course it doesn't look too good, but that's not a suitable metric IMHO. It may be relevant to some company like Adobe when they determine which platforms to bother developing for, but not to me.
I don't see a 'Year of Linux on the Desktop' happening any time soon... if ever. That doesn't bother me though, as long as the Linux community keeps improving this great product, to be enjoyed by all those who do use it.
If Linux on the Desktop is ever to gain significant market share, it will be in the years to come with OSs like Chrome OS, running mainly cloud based apps. And by that time, the OS you use will largely be irrelevant anyway.
I just loaded Maverick Meerkat on my Linux machine last week, and despite the fact that my Nvidea video card did not have proper support. (Ubuntu should have posted a "NOTICE: Nvidea Users Do Not Upgrade At This Time!!!"), but anyway; the machine is long since too old to run Windoze at all, so I cannot complain too loudly that my ancient hardware is starting to have issues. I was really quite surprised at how usable Ubuntu has become. I have switched back and forth between KDE and Gnome over the years as each became too annoying to put up with for one reason or another, and abandoned Red Hat in favor of [K]Ubuntu because Solaris 8 was more user friendly. RhythmBox is broken, but overall. There is now a tool to do just about everything without a console. I am normally a 'just edit the file' kind of guy, and I find myself USING the GUI tools because they work. Open Office reads docs better than ever before, and most of the tools are really quite good.
In the end, I think Linux has FINALLY arrived. At least for the Debian team and Ubuntu in particular. Red Hat is dreadful today.
Isn't it weird that this article cites only good things about Linux, damns the not so well spent chance in the turmoil of Vista, and then dooms Linux on the desktop because of it and the fact that you can't watch all DVD's (and related content) out of the box. Pretty strange indeed as I don't see Windows coming with a twitter/facebook/irc client, an bittorrent client, a full office suit, andriod integration, osv. out of the box.
Desktop Linux isn't dead. The Desktop is dead.
Everyone is moving to phones, tablets and laptops. Most of the (smart) cell phones sold are running Linux, and quite a few of the other ones are running UNIX. You can buy phones that run Linux at Walmart for like $30. This is probably the time when your mom is most likely to start using *NIX on a daily basis (though she won't know if.)
Computers are dead. Everybody is sick of how they swallow up our lives, so now we're going out more, reading books, writing on paper with fountain pens, and playing games on boards with dice and counters. Maybe this is better suited to a science fiction novel... :-|
One day there will only be one Microsoft platform, but you will be able to buy a machine with little I/O as a games machine.
As I understand it, game consoles have the big I/O and PCs have the little I/O. What's the median screen size connected to each?
you can expect PC gaming to be sharply deprecated when Microsoft feels that their desktop customers are ready for a walled garden.
What does Microsoft expect electrical engineering and computer science students at universities to use once Windows becomes a walled garden? Do they really expect universities to stick with Windows (and keep training their students in Windows) if Visual Studio requires a $99 per year subscription to XNA Creators Club for each student?
I'm at a bit of a crossroads with Linux atm. The things I insist on having are:
1. Easy, integrated whole-disk encryption.
2. Resistance to security problems.
3. Excellent multimedia capabilities.
Nice-to-haves include:
4. Free software to do everything I want.
5. Usable documentation.
Ubuntu wins on 1, 2 and 4. To achieve those goals with Windows, I have to buy an encryption product (e.g. PGP's whole-disk product); install a firewall and virus protection; and be ready to open my wallet for lots of odd software packages. With Ubuntu or Fedora, I just check an option at installation to get the encryption, forget about the security problems, and click a simple download menu to get software.
Windows wins, hands-down, on 3. I've installed Ubuntu and Fedora a couple of dozen times (at least) in the last few months on 5 different computers and in every case getting decent Flash performance, getting AVI files to play, just getting the desktop to display at the native resolution of the panel is a royal pain, often requiring lots of arcane command-line work and the sacrifice of a couple of small animals.
What's broken it for me, though, is my latest build, a machine that highlights the fact that Linux miserably fails on 5. I got tired of slow video performance so I built a nice, fast machine. It doesn't have crazy gamer graphics or a dozen sticks of RAM, but it's got $1200 worth of quality parts, all of them using chipsets listed as supported by Linux and Ubuntu. I get random freezes that stop everything but the mouse pointer. This should be simple, right? Go to the Ubuntu forums and you'll find the mother of all irritating support threads, over a thousand (iirc) posts of people with the same problem with no answers, no decent input from developers, and not even any standard diagnostic flow. There's a bug reporting system that, for this bug, is deliberately set up to require more information than can be gleaned from any frozen machine. The same bug is present in Fedora.
This kind of really shitty attention to show-stopping bugs is enough to make me switch to Windows. I'm actually going to go to the store and buy a copy of Windows 7, download Avira and whatever is the currently best free firewall, and give my credit card number to PGP for another copy of their whole disk encryption. Then I'll have to toss out a few bucks here and there for an up-to-snuff NNTP client and a few other pieces of software.
I've been using and sticking up for Ubuntu for the better part of a decade, but if all this works like it should, I may go back to Windows. (I NEVER thought I'd say that.) I'm such a Linux fanboi that I may also just build yet another machine and try again.
But however this situation turns out, I'm really peeved with Linux right now and I'm not talking it up like I used to.
Such a shame.
Did ... did it finally grow up? Sell out? Get brainwashed? Recieved ms-paid escort service? All of it in one hectic night?
It's been six months since April Fools Day and they need some day on which to dump AFD style stories.
If Linux had conquered the desktop, most of us would have to move on to some other GeekOS.
Fiat Lux.
Linux as a desktop OS is not dead, far from it. It may 'dead' to be unwashed masses; but that is only because of their laziness and fear to try something new. Their loss.
I don't have a single Windows box not only at home (4 desktops, 1 laptop, 1 server), but also at work (desktop/laptop, and I work in a MS shop). I've been doing this for years and have helped a lot of other people convert over (especially if they were using Vista), they just wanted some *stable* to check their email, do some surfing and maybe write a few papers. Once people see that they dont NEED Microsoft OSes/products to do day-to-day tasks (excluding gaming), they have no problem trying some more stable, secure, and solid.
End of rant, and didnt RTFA.
MM.
while Wozz, Paul Allan and Gary Kildall asks to be excused as they are writing new routines for *nix.
-
R. Stallman will in the meantime ask them all to say no bad things about Linux!
enjoy - no more Linux FUD from Redmond!
yours truly
Gary Kildall
Never ceases to amaze me how often articles come to press claiming * Linux is dead. Being desktop linux, HPC linux, Virtualized Linux, embedded linux or webserver linux. Linux is not dead however you visualize linux; is it a distribution a kernel, a building block, another component etc. It's and amazing tool and until the LKML goes offline Linux will exist and people will use it on there desktops etc. I for one think the desktop is dead not linux, I for one use X-Windows, VNC, ssh, and MS Terminal Services to accomplish both work and personal tasks all day long. Most of the time now I'm using some sorta QNX Flavour/Hybrid on my Blackberry to access my machines and my clients machines. At least I'm pretty sure the blackberry is using some sorta embedded Qnx realtime os.
Sometimes efforts need to fail in order for someone else to have an opportunity to succeed.
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
Six months ago my brother, who is a very stalwart end-user-only, tried Ubuntu for the first time. He now recommends it for everything except for gaming.
But he is pretty smart -- probably not a fair test.
Two weeks ago my neighbor across the street came to me and said she had a problem with her computer. She explained the issue in very primitive terms which boiled down to a broad-spectrum viral infection of Windows. She said a friend of her son had recommended that she "Do something called 'wipe my hard drive' then install Ooo Boo Too on Windows." The conversation continued in this vein for a while. In short, she is neither the sharpest tack in the drawer nor a skilled computer user. She asked for my help with the install. I said, well, maybe I should stay here in case you need help, but you should try to do it all yourself. If you can figure it all out, then you should be OK with using it, but it is pretty different from Windows.
I helped out with a couple confidence things -- "Should I really wipe the whole hard drive?" "Yes.", "Do I really need a password?" "[brief pro/con explanation]" "OK, I'll use a password." -- but she did the rest on her own. Once it was up I showed her where the icons were and how to search for more software, where to put in her password for the local wi-fi she uses, how the system updater works -- but nothing else. I left feeling a little nauseous about the number of "How do I..." questions I would get over the ensuing days.
Two days later I stopped over to ask how it was going. "It's great -- works a lot better than Windows did." (which I ascribed to cruft and viruses having made her Windows install slow) I asked if she had any questions. "Nope, everything is working just fine."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The dream of Linux as a major desktop OS is now pretty much dead.
As someone who has used Linux for 13 years now, I agree with that statement completely. There is no reason to expect that Linux will ever become a major OS in developed countries. That said I disagree with the reasons given.
The biggest issue is that Windows is good enough. People aren't going to change what OS they use, as well as all the applications they use, spend time learning something new, and deal will all the hassle of incompatibilities unless they see it as a major improvement over what they have now. This isn't the 90's when Windows crashed multiple times a week and had to be reinstalled from scratch once a year to clean up it's cruft. Viruses and botnets are still a problem, but not as much as they used to be, and there is good free antivirus software available to all but eliminate those problems.
Even if linux was flawless - if it just worked all the time without thinking and was easy to learn, the improvement it offered over Linux still wouldn't be worth the hassle to change for most people. I do still hold some hope of Linux becoming more popular in developing countries, where the cost is a significant advantage, as well as nationalism. However, even they seem to prefer to pirate windows for various reason rather than use free software.
There is also the issue of support. People are going to have problems with any computer system, and when they do who are they going get help? Not from the company that made it, and unless they are especially self-resourceful they aren't going to go to the internet to find it. They are going to ask their friends or family. If those people are using windows, it makes their life a lot easier if they are too.
So it isn't just a matter of someone coming up with a way to make it work - there needs to be a radical change that really improves the way people interact with their computer. And if that happened it wouldn't really be linux on the desktop in the way we think of it. We probably wouldn't even call it linux because it would eschew the entire "linux desktop" software landscape the same way that android does on the phone. The desktop is a mature (or stagnant depending on your bend) concept, and there isn't much refining to be done.
That said there is a good deal of movement in the mobile sector. That is an area where people aren't as locked in, and aren't yet set in their ways when it comes to how we interact with these devices. It is like the early PC market, and at this point it is still anyone's game. Free software (which is what we are really talking about here, not just linux) has a good chance of being a major player in that field, and we may also see more people ditching the traditional desktop for spin offs from the mobile segment (ala the iPad).
However, the desktop is a dead end as far as market share goes. And I'm fine with that. There are lots of good bands that never made it big. There are lots of good products that didn't win in the market place. The linux community is large enough to support itself, and as long as it remains a useful tool for myself and others it is a success in my eyes.
Seriously, compile the piece of software you want to use against the library versions you actually have!
End users don't compile non-free software.
If you don't understand these things, don't use software from outside your package system!
Package systems tend not to contain non-free software. The article mentions this ideological point.
And if you claim all software should be free, how do you expect to fund the development of a major video game if you plan to release it as free software from day one as opposed to five years later like Id?
and the fierce ideology of the open-source community at large
Is total bullshit. Just because Linux developers want to see open source software does not in any way prevent closed-source software from going there. Indeed for several important industries there already is active development and release of for-profit, closed-source software for Linux. Nothing inherent to the Linux model forbids or inhibits the release of such software. There are many software developers who are making money developing and releasing Linux software; just because Microsoft and Adobe chose not to be in those ranks does not mean there is no money there.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I've installed dozens of Linux distributions side-by-side on my various laptops over the years and invariably I would be booting into the Windows OS of the day (XP, skipped Vista, happy with 7). Partly because of need to access some Windows-only software but also a comfort level. Even though 90% of my laptop use is for web/Internet. This coming from someone who spent his PhD doing everything in CDE (and having an Amiga at home).
But then I tried Jolicloud 1.0. It is based on Ubuntu but feels a lot more like the iPhone in presentation. Applications arrayed on a home screen. Application windows maximized with very little OS clutter. Web applications promoted to feel like full apps.
It boots so fast on my SSD Thinkpad X200 Tablet and it feels comfortable. Perhaps this is the Linux Desktop everyone is waiting for?
Of course, I'm waiting for them to rev the Ubuntu base they are working on so the two-point multi-touch and Wacom pen of the X200 Tablet actually work (they work in Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10, if I recall correctly). That and supporting tethering to my iPhone (both of which work in Windows).
Has anyone heard word from Netcraft on this?
The game.
The two billion people hooked to the internet all use GNU/Linux.
This is the 21st century, we deliver applications to the desktop through the browser and other client wares. Google, eBay, Facebook, Twitter, smtp mail....
Everyone on the 'net uses Linux. What a colossal failure indeed.
Off the desktop, mobile computing is the big thing now, yeah what a failure.
I agree. My home PC is mostly an entertainment system, and that means gaming.
I'm not going to dual-boot just for the satisfaction of running my email, web browser, and open office in Linux.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I can go to a website, download an installer and install my software.
If you don't realise why that's a terrible system, you are probably too stupid to ever understand just how stupid you really are.
In other words, the Dunning-Kruger effect. But what's the difference between A. going to a web site and downloading an installer and B. going to a web site and downloading a line to put in sources.list?
Not for being a resource hog, because it isn't. Not for being laggy, because it isn't. But for being so insanely confusing to change even the slightest settings. Every conf file for it is gargantuan and confusing. And it doesn't help that just about every distro I've used has put it in a different location. The tools to change settings are atrocious as well. I recently blew away my Fedora, Gentoo, and OS X boxes to replace them with Ubuntu, because it "just works". And yes, it does "just work", and installing new software from outside the main source repository is surprisingly easy. But that's not the point. X is ancient. Even M$ knew that they needed to do a major system overhaul after XP. But Linux is still using things that predate even itself - X has been around for god only knows how long, but the initial Linux kernel release was in '91. The UNIX-HATERS Handbook even has an entire chapter devoted to X. X is a fantastic system for servers - the client/server model it's built on works great for remote session - but desktop users don't want any of these 9000+ options and features; they want simplicity, and X is anything but simple.
"Over the past few years, modern Linux distributions such as Ubuntu have utterly transformed the open-source desktop user experience into something sleek and simple, while arguably surpassing Windows and Mac OS in both security and stability."
The Defense rests.
...you know, the one that's been sitting on my desk for 12 years and counting...
Really, as Linux users, should we care what PC World or some other corporate troll thinks? I thought we were past that.
Does this mean I have to get rid of my Linux installations now?
Which is more relevant today? The mobile market or desktop market? Who's leading the mobile market...Hmmm.....
Good job PC World- I hope you got a lot of advertising dollars for the FUD article. Just curious, after you've lost all your eyeballs how you'll pay to print your publication?
Would be nice if somewhere there was mention of that fact that the author of the article is president of a software company that appears to be a pure MS shop- in addition to to being a "senior editor" at PC World.
Nietzsche exclaimed that "God is dead." And yet, billions of people ignored Nietzsche and continued to believe and even convert to a religious believe. Just because he said it doesn't make it so. Likewise, PC World claims that desktop linux is dead, and millions of people ignore them, too.
It seems like even Microsoft is ignoring PC World's proclamation as they are stepping up their anti-linux/fsf campaigns. For something that is supposedly dead, they sure are spending a lot of money against it.
Linux on the desktop isn't dead. It's alive and kicking. Does it have any where near as large an installed base as Microsoft Windows does? Of course not. But then again, in the mid 1980s a small software company in the Pacific Northwest didn't have anywhere near the market share of IBM or even Apple. A lot can change in 25 years.
Some might install, some will fail with some weird technobabble.
What weird technobabble, specifically?
Many apps find it necessary to have SEVERAL entries. One will be the game's main files, and then you have to install another "Data files for xxx". Why can't they be in some hierarchy?
For one thing, the executable for a game written in unmanaged code differs for each architecture (ARM, x86, x86-64), but the data files are often the same. For another, a lot of video games have the executables distributed under a free software license but the data files under a different, probably less free license.
The Linux desktop is not dead, it can't be, because I read on the internet that this is the year of the Linux desktop.
Compare the size of the market to the size of the market for various other systems. There were 17 million Commodore 64 machines sold. I suspect there are easily this many people with open source desktops in the world; there are around 10 million users of Ubuntu alone. Does the author mean to say that the Commodore 64 was unsuccessful, was itself dead on the desktop, for having a mere 17 million users? It seems unlikely.
Being the sole desktop option is a hazardous place to be. If you believe in capitalism, you should prefer a mix, you should prefer that users (at some level, potentially corporate) decide which system to use.
I use GNU/Linux: Ubuntu on the desktop, Debian on servers and sufficiently high-end embedded systems. That's not about to change. I'm glad others are concerned about converting people, but only so far as it causes them to make better the software I use.
I guess desktop Linux is about to reach critical mass then. Because every time someone declares something as "dead", it takes off. I remember when they declared Bluetooth dead and then it took off.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Jack Welch was absolutely right, if you want to be G.E. or Microsoft, you must be #1 or #2 in your market (and ruthlessly crush any competition.) But we aren't G.E. and we aren't Microsoft and with the Fed's policy encouraging M&As, we will soon be left with a few dozen mega-corporations who are averse to invention or innovation because it doesn't guarantee #1 or #2 and doesn't guarantee a profit to shareholders in the next 90 days.
So where does that leave the rest of us? There are enormous gaps in the market the big guys won't bother touching because no one will make billions on desktops which require only one support person for 10,000+ desktops. No one will make billions on desktops which can run on last year's computers or on other handheld devices. No one will make billions on desktops which have accessibility designed into standard widgets or desktops which can beused as teaching tools by allowing users to see and modify what's under the hood. No one will make billions on desktops which can be customized to meet many diverse needs which haven't yet been dreamed of.
In case you haven't heard, Jack Welch's winner takes all mantra has been deprecated In this new world, it's O.K. to be a niche player. In fact unless you are G.E. or Microsoft, it's crucial to be a niche player and in that world, the OpenSource Desktops (including various flavors of GNU/Linux) shine.
"Poor Documentation" is an interesting complaint because the documentation for Windows including Win7 is still just as arcane as Gnome (I haven't looked at KDE in system docs but I suspect its the same state). Finding some of the Explorer keyboard shortcuts is a chore instead of being naturally pointed out to you so the onus is completely on the user to dig it out "secrets" which are conveniently in a book for $25.
"Software, Software, Software" is also an interesting complaint where something like "Ubuntu Software Center" is light years ahead of what Microsoft offers let alone any other third party software vendor. Installing Blender of Gimp is just as easy as installing Firefox. And Microsoft isn't providing that special sewing software to your mom but ostensibly the sewing machine manufacturer. Would you have this same problem on Mac? Mac and Linux users seem to go "They won't support us" but somehow its Apple or Linux community fault but I'm not sure how it is or how to correct it. It doesn't seem to be a problem with the platform but the ISV.
"Little Support" is again an interesting complaint because most issue a user will have Microsoft will tell them "Contact the vendor you bought the machine from". Turning around and calling HP or Dell the solutions range from shipping or hauling the box somewhere to long waits over the phone. I'm not going to say Linux is "stellar five star support" but I am confused how Microsoft offers "good support". Apple, Dell, HP offer good support but Microsoft is a giant "bleh".
"Ways of doing things that are confusing to a Windows user" doesn't mean "Doing things the Windows way" was any good to begin with. The Start "button" is not a button, a menu, or an explorer so explain that behavior to a new user is sometimes a challenge. It is at the bottom left of the screen instead of the top left. Again saying "its easy to install in Windows" is really odd because knowing how the installer works in Windows compared to both deb or rpm let alone the more advanced versions of both run rings around native and third party installers. You don't have to say "Install this for myself" or "Pick a directory to install" under Linux packagers. Why is "Doing things the Windows way" valuable beyond not wanting to learn another way? Apple through Mac does these things very differently as well and they don't complain. A lot of things on the modern Linux desktop "just work" but it is different where part of Apple's genius is they take a lot of time and effort to assuage the user from panicking.
It seems like "Why are these not problems on Windows?" is that Microsoft some how drilled it into people's head that it is use's fault not Microsoft. If you didn't know Window-E opened a new Explorer that is the user not knowing not Windows presenting it to the user.
oh well back to Windows 98SE then i can't use a dead operatingsystem
Mendacem Memorem Esse Oportet
I don't think so.
Ubuntu has made some progress towards a consumer friendly Linux distribution, but it may not be enough. Truth is Linux is more of a platform OS not a polished user oriented system like Windows or OS X. We can pick and choose what desktop we like (even CLI) and how it will look and operate.
We are a victim of our own success. Linux is designed to be as generic as Unix. It has attracted a lot of computer enthusiasts and professionals each making their own version of Linux. No idea is shot down or ignored. Everybody has a chance to create the next big thing. This generates a lot of noise. The non-computer savvy consumer finds this noise distracting and confusing.
A lot of people (both non-geeks and geeks alike) really like to use an OS that is designed to be user friendly. They crave something that's been designed from the bottom up to be easy for them to use, while being powerful enough to get the job done. This is not Linux. Linux has the power but not the master design, the single vision, or the official "right way" of doing things.
I think we should all admit that we like it this way.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
utility computing is for the sheep.
running compiz on my sabayon DESKTOP here at the office every part of my desktop-wall runs sessions to other windows boxes mainly. Servers, VPN connections to various hospitals that may need support. This setup has proven to be the most effective for a user like myself that has to have a stable/secure platform when supporting tye types of systems i do.
I will never be running a virtualized thin client from some mega company even though most people end up this way. Walk your path, don't cry about it.
And as long as i can build a better box for media @ home, i will continue doing so. is not DX11 coming to linux in the future? Games have always been the crux of linux..
Kill your TV
I really don't mind some well written trolling, but this is just pathetic.
Linux on the desktop is fine and better than ever. No, it's not mainstream (and I actually hope it stays so, I don't think more than 20% market share is healthy for any OS). It's fine in a way that there is an increasing user base. Also technically it's quite mature, and exceeds most of the competition in many ways (I'd list them, but it gets repetitive).
Now granted, apps on Linux, especially commercial ones need some more work. And it's being done, slowly. Just from the distribution I see (Ubuntu), there are big strides to include this into the Software Center (yes, we have that already). It's still in test mode for the next half a year, but I think with a high probability that it will attract a lot of commercial interest.
I also run a site with international audience (mostly the U.S. and China, + 67 other countries with 2k+ visitors a day, mostly private users) and the Linux share is at 2.88% there. This is much better than one or two years ago.
So anyone telling me that the OS I currently write from is not existent or does not evolve is full of BS IMO. And the troll article was not even written in a way that would be fun to read (and we Linux folks have humor if you hit some valid points). Bad editor, grow some spine!
I've worked with Microsoft employees before. They have *admitted* to me that Microsoft pays people to troll boards, people inside tech magazines/sites/etc to write troll stories, etc. All to keep the *idea* of their barely functional, buggy, bloated desktop on top by making it "the" desktop in a majority of computer users' minds. This is the ONLY reason Microsoft is on top and alternatives such as OSX and GNU/Linux cannot get a foothold, not by any other reason.
It should be illegal for a company to do such negative viral marketing, and is yet another example of how our social and economic system is fundamentally flawed and tilted to people who can lie and cheat and steal their way to the top and keep themselves there by throwing money at everything that threatens them.
I keep a Windows partition on my computer to play games, but have considered taking it off many times before because I want to play games. No game is worth supporting a lying, cheating, scamming company that uses underhanded methods like this to keep themselves on top.
My Windows dies today, if only to prove this trollish Microsoft-funded "article" false. Desktop GNU/Linux is alive and well on mine and many, many other desktops, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. And as we continue to push against Microsoft's lies and make people see what Microsoft really is, we WILL dominate the desktop.
Count on it.
If this is true, then it's good news for Microsoft. XP Support has been set to continute until 2020.
Most users don't *want* to stray from the party line or even realize that there is such a thing. They just want something that works. For normal people, Mac OS X gets that right most of the time, but not necessarily only because the UI is easy to use.
For example, my mother needs a web browser and something that gets her photos off her camera. She does use e-mail, but as far as I know, she only uses some web mail system. She has a Mac because she can go to a store, pick one up, and it just works and does everything she wants to do without her having to call her son about it. It's not so much that she thinks this wouldn't be possible with Linux, it's more that she doesn't even care and/or have a good idea of what Linux even is. She's not buying an operating system, she's buying a magical box that lets her access the web and that stores her photos. Even Windows would beat Linux if new Windows systems didn't come pre-loaded with so much crapware...
Indeed, some instances require Windows.
The point being that there are far more home use cases that require Windows or Mac OS X than require Linux.
Telling someone to break out a command line and type "sudo apt-get whateverthefuck" is like telling a Windows user to reinstall DOS and learn its syntax
And why would you do that, rather than use a tool like YaST, Aptitude, etc?
Sure, you could give equivalent instructions for Synaptic, but 1. they'd be longer, 2. you can't copy and paste "click here, click here, click here" from a web page, and 3. for how many languages do you plan to give them? If you give the English name of a menu item, how is someone who has the locale set to her native Thai supposed to know whether you meant this option or the similarly-named option below it? The command line is in the same language on all localized versions of Debian-based Linux.
Even if Linux doesn't gain a majority of users at some point in the future, there has to be something better than Windows and the latest Apple OS. In my opinion we need to start afresh and say goodbye to various kludges which only exist to ensure backwards compatiblity. We also need to 100% make sure we all work towards a common goal without a million spinoff branches (which is the current state of Linux). Programs which also work off the bat without depending (too much) on external libraries should be a goal too. We can still make things open source, whilst maintaining a 'main brand' that the majority people should stick to.
Maybe something like QNX/Haiku would be good, I don't know.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
2 things keep Windows in the lead - Office and Games. Office is quickly becoming a non-issue. Gaming is another issue entirely. But PC gaming has been on the decline for a while. If the gaming markets moves away from PC's to consoles in a major way we could see a real shift away from windows. I build PC's for people all the time, and usually the cost of windows exceeds the amount I spent building the entire computer. At the very least THAT has to change. In the past there was no way I could have gotten anyone to try out Linux, but recently I've had 2 different people say "Sure, I'll try it out!" and no requests to switch back. Especially if the users only use for the computer is surfing the net and email, there really isn't any reason to waste money on Apple of M$FT.
I've got a third theory: the desktop apps suck donkeyballs. Disclaimer - I use Linux and am a staunch advocate. But the truth is, the desktop apps aren't great. They suffer from GUI oversimplification, over-complication, usability nightmares, crashes, slowness, and more. I'd love to use Koffice if only the font kerning issues were ever worked out. I hate evolution's rigid GUI; I can't change around things I'd like to. I used Kmail and mostly loved it, despite their insistence on not allowing a search filter based on date ("show me mail received within the last 4 days") and the new Kmail-on-Akonadi is utter crap: no new benefits, lots of new disadvantages.
I use Linux for precious few desktop apps these days: SLRN and Mutt for Usenet news and mail, and Vim and Emacs for writing (occasionally Joe and Jedit as well). And I've begun learning how to make Linux useful on the server, where it belongs: web services, LDAP, and more. I like O3Spaces and Joomla and MediaWiki and more, all things where Linux excels.
I agree the fierce ideology can be a turn off, I disagree that the fragmentation has made much of a difference, and insist crappy software is behind a lot of it: if the apps are there you'll figure out a way to install and make it work. If the apps suck, it's not worth dealing with compatibility, installation, and learning-curve issues.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
... it just smells funny.
Seriously now, what?
*checks* mine is working just fine thanks.
Really, like two weeks ago I bought a new laptop and installed Ubuntu over Window 7 and love it. Now you're telling me it's dead? S*!t.
OK. So if desktop Linux is dead, it's moving pretty well on my computer, which tells me that it's undead. So I, for one, welcome our new zombie penguin overlords.
This sig no verb.
"2010 is the year of the Linux desktop!!" isn't realistic, but neither is "Linux on the desktop is dead!!"
Since 2000 was supposed to be the year of linux on the desktop, one would think that a decade late would be attainable. But here we are in 2010, and linux is still stuck in single digits. Loooow single digits.
Linux on the desktop isn't dead, but I think what probably IS dead is the hope that it will one day capture any significant percentage of the market.
SQL itself is already designed for business people to easily translate business rules into database logic. What is the point of duplicating efforts?
If SQL was designed for programmers, it would have been less human readable, but easier to query from code. The fact that people feel that we need tools to generate SQL, it is unfortunate that we did not go with an API designed for programmers from the start.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Trolling articles are still alive and well.
Oh yeah, undeniable prove right there - Linux is _the_ desktop OS of the decade!
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
I'd love to fire up a rich IDE, pull in some standard widely-known libraries, create a program in a smart statically-typed language, build a Linux-native executable, package it up and publish it to the world via a distribution network ("app store"?) that's friendly to both open source and commercial interests.
"But but but..." someone will say, "we have all the pieces, and you have tons of choices, and choices are good!" And I don't disagree with that, but there's no ONE de facto solution for targeting Linux that lets all potential developers play the same game instead of acting in isolated pocket communities. By contrast, it's obvious what you need to use if you're developing for MacOS (XCode, Objective C), Android (Eclipse, Java), and Windows (Visual Studio, C#). Maybe winning the desktop is not important to you (and that's okay), but Linux needs some focus if it's to stand on its own as a brand for programming.
You may think that C++/AutoTool/Makefile/Dpkg is the answer (and that might be the closest thing we have), but those tools are difficult to learn, test, and use. We need developers who are experts in a wide variety of subject matters; making them be experts in an archaic build chain or obtuse packaging tools means that we lose them. Java and Python could be good bets, but there's still a bunch of fragmentation in regards to language/VM versions as well as the number of libraries (persistence frameworks, web frameworks, injection frameworks, etc.) that all do the same thing.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
so other people can be referred here to know the opinions of the tech crowd about it.
"Frankly, I would love nothing better than an OS I could put on my parents' computers and not have to worry about them calling me a month later complaining about all the pop-ups and viruses they have. "
So why haven't you done the obvious and gotten them (or told them to get) a Mac?
They don't come with bloatware/crapware/shovelware and the number of viruses/worms IN THE WILD is vanishingly small. Let's go through your other objections point by point.
Confusing distress - keep up with the Apple update schedule and there's only one distro to worry about. Even if you don't want to pay the (reasonable) update fee (for Snow Leopard it was $29), Apple supports their previous releases for a couple of years for free and it is a very rare piece of software that will require the new update.
Poor documentation - well (for your parents at least) documentation is a non-issue because the Mac OS is so easy to use that most Macs ship with a tiny pamphlet. Of course for people who want to dig deeper well Macs have the slickest easy to use documents/help system around - they ARE the world leaders in desktop publishing/graphics.
Software, Software, Software - Don't know what kind of special software your mom uses but one would think unless she's an engineer or some other sort of technologist, there will likely be a Mac version. If not, she could always use Parallels or VMware which are very large commercially supported environments to run windows software. For the rest of us, most (but not all) PC software has a native Mac equivalent like Microsoft's office suite.
Little support (if not openly hostile) - Not only will your parents find a lot of people who also own Macs to provide day to day support (like how do I download a YouTube video?) but for anything more involved there's always the formal Apple Care. Don't forget the really really nice option of making an on-line reservation at the local Apple store and then meeting with an Apple "Genius" IN PERSON who will spend AS LONG AS IS NECESSARY (my experience) to figure out what is wrong! I don't know if they are, in fact, geniuses but they do seem to be much much better trained (and have access to much better resources) than your typical big box electronics store sales guy. Also I've never been asked if my Mac was still under warranty if it did not require an actual repair!
Ways of doing things that are confusing to a Windows user - Macs ARE different and may be little confusing to the uninitiated. That said, their ease of use is legendary (do we really have to go over this) and once your parents adapt to it, they will find that the Macintosh way is much more consistent than on any other platform.
Before I retired my computer graphics company had a mixed network of Macs, Windows and SGIs and even though I had to keep them all going (and train people etc.) you can guess which ones I recommended to MY parents. The only reason why I might think you're still going the PC route is because of the alleged "Apple Tax". While some might say that is because of the superior quality of construction, even if it exists ask yourself: how much is your time worth? Even though I'm retired I still REFUSE to spend a day reformatting/installing a system because of some virus, life is too short (and getting shorter). So unless your religious convictions demand otherwise you'll find that "once you try Mac you'll never go back!". :)
* One exception that I make to this above argument is: it actually depends on which country you're living in. I'm retired in Vietnam where the per capital income is in the (very) low thousands/year. In this case the "Apple tax" superior hardware or not, is just too high a price to pay for the locals so it makes more sense for them to install their pirated copy of windows and office suite that they paid maybe 2-3 dollars for. But in any developed country I don't see why people are using windows as their "home" computer.
How can it be dead if it has never been alive?
This hits the nail on the head, and was what I came here (late) to say as well. When everything is online that people want, the OS doesn't matter. A standards based browser is all that's needed.
I can use all my social networking, Google Docs, photo uploads, IM, email, etc., from almost any OS. My 2 banks and my credit card all support any standards compliant browser. If I can get flash, (and here's to hoping HTML5 kills it) I can get videos from almost every site. (Is Netflix still being asinine about this? They may be a major hold-out.)
Other than games, which are being served on a console for a large percentage of people now, there's little that requires a certain OS for most people's day-to-day use.
Sure, corporate offices may be different, but they've always been different ecosystems. For home users, the "desktop" is becoming very irrelevant.
Of course, we're also seeing the appliance-ization of computers. As everyone moves to smart phones and consoles which now have full internet functionality, there seems to be a major shift from traditional desktop PCs as it is. I'd argue that the desktop PC is more dead than the OS that runs on it. In fact, as the volume of home desktops plummets, being replaced by smart phones and consoles, the chance for Linux to play a significant role may increase. If you're not making a profit due to large volume, the next step is to cut costs. The Windows OS is one pretty significant cost.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Free software lives until the last guy stops donating his time.
Or until B. free hardware dies, which started in 1985 with the NES and its successor consoles replacing arcade-style home computer gaming and has continued through winmodems (and other peripherals whose makers refuse to deal with free software) and the US mobile phone market. Or until C. home users demand works for which a culture of donating time doesn't exist. Not enough people are willing to donate time to a high-production-value video game, for example.
I wouldn't say that linux desktop is dead.
I would say that he does raise some points that I have noticed and think the community was turning a blind eye towards.
The fragmentation is there. While this can be a good thing, a user that is not tech-savvy but wants to know more, or try Linux, may go to distrowatch and just be overwhelmed. I've found that when I try to talk to non-techies about Linux, they refer to "Linux" as a singular item. While that is the technically true way to think of it, the context of the questions quickly change to stuff that is distribution specific, and I have to launch a whole side topic about what a distribution is and all. About 3 seconds into this, I loose them and they just tune it out. I really think there should be a community effort to push a solid desktop out. Ubuntu is the clear leader in this category IMHO (I'm actually a fan of OpenSUSE). Yeah, I could skip the whole bit on distributions and just focus on the Ubuntu distribution, but would only cause confusion when they were out on their own and tried to look up "Linux" and expecting just a single result. Instead they get all sorts of information overload.
As for the Open Source fanaticism, this is an interesting topic. Throughout college, I was a huge flag waver. I had Linux on anything and everything. However, afterwords, I had to adjust to the real world and it used all MS products. I am now really adept at C#, and familiar with a lot of MS concepts. I have 2 reasons for softening my stance on MS: 1) Those skills pay the bills. I live in a city where there is only one shop that uses Linux. All the rest use windows. Moving isn't an option since my fiancee and I have lots of family around here. 2) MS just works. I have to admit, that after I graduated, I thought it was nice to have all sorts of time to do "computery" things and all. For a while it was nice, but then I realized there was a world outside of computers. Do I want to spend a weekend setting up a Ubuntu/OpenSUSE box and get network printing going with file sharing or do I want to go Hiking? Yeah, you could just set it up once, but the distributions are released so frequently that you are almost always having to update and fix things. I just have my doze boxes humming along without thinking.
I'm definitely not going to say I'm a MS fan boy by any means, but I have had my eyes opened up. Linux provides a good service to computer uses: It keeps MS honest. If users didn't have the option of Linux, I feel that MS would just start raking users over hot coals to make a lot more $ off their products. MS also has to stay on their toes in terms of features.
I wouldn't take this article as what it tries to pass itself off as. I would take it as a person who just needed to write an article an did care if he started a controversy. I would use it as a call to arms to solidify the linux community and tone down the fan boyism. But then again, that is just my $0.02.
Funny how things keep crawling out of the crypt. As long as there are Windows and disco (or its house/techno/blahblah descendants), there will be people who want something better.
Does the desktop OS really matter that much any more? At least in the consumer space, I contend no:
- File format interoperability has improved dramatically. Numerous apps on several platforms can now open MS and Adobe formats, for instance.
- More and more functionality is delivered through the browser by servers.
- As a result, after-market boxed software is less and less important. Core consumer functionality comes built into computers when you buy them (word processing, photos, music, video, etc). Aside from games, consumers simply don't go to stores anymore to buy the hottest new software.
Mobile OS is still very app-oriented though. And Linux is doing very well there, in the form of Android.
Desktop OS still matters a lot in the corporate setting because of custom business applications that have been developed on the MS platform for years. They would be a huge pain to port, and businesses will ride them for as long as they can. But even in those cases, when they develop new apps, there's a good chance they'll be developing server-based software running on Linux (even if the desktop OS is still Windows).
So even though Linux adoption on the desktop might have slowed, that matters less and less in the big picture. The big problem with MS's domination of the desktop was that it was their chokepoint of control because it was the default environment for all developers. For consumers at least, that chokepoint is largely gone. The default environment for developers now is the server.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
How is it dying? It's only grown since desktop Linux became viable. I've had Linux on my desktops for over three years now.
taco. im telling to you. now, on to ranting about the stupid rant you caused us to read. lets use our brains and make an analysis :
10 years ago, linux and open source were a non threats. since a while, microsoft is using EVERY means to prevent them. bribing local governments. national governments. handing out free licenses to schools in south america. pressurizing european union and governments to drop open licenses, and to turn away governments from linux. they are even making videos about open source. they even came up and said that, they didnt like piracy, but if piracy was to happen, they would prefer their o/s pirated. every other month a top microsoft figure barks or snarks about linux or open source.
and situation phenomenally improved DESPITE these. notice the stressed word. DESPITE. proprietary companies are using EVERY means in their disposal to stem linux, open source, and IT IS NOT SUCCEEDING. 'every means' means a LOT. what kind of a lot ? lets see, this kind ; back in 1950s, lockheed bribed numerous nato countries' defense ministers to choose their f104 as the main fighter aircraft. they succeeded and in the end it became de facto nato fighter craft, and caused a lot of national air defense industries to go bankrupt, as well as a few american ones. also it killed hundreds of pilots on take off and landing due to incompetent design. however thats a side issue. then, another example is intel. they bribed desktop producers to use their cpu. what happened ? intel domination for decades. only recently they have been fined.
these two examples show that, how a big company can wreak havoc and change history 'using every means at its disposal'. and, linux and open source, are things these are being used against now. yet, they are still succeeding.
remove microsoft lobbying and meddling, you will see your desktop on the linux before you can say 'chair'.
Read radical news here
Though I'd say it was always pretty much dead. Linux on the desktop is fine for, say, a developer workstation. Or maybe something like a netbook or smartphone OS where the content is mostly managed and/or runs in a sandbox that's entirely shielded from the linux environment (e.g. Android). Anything else its less trouble to run Windows or OSX.
I whole-heartedly can agree. I was quite into computers and the 'hacking' thing back in the late 90's and early '00s, and I tried Linux a couple of times. I could never quite get it to install properly, work properly, and NEVER understood the whole kernel stuff. I tried and tried, and bought a handful of books. But I hate reading. I could never understand how it would take over if someone like me, who passed and nearly aced the CompTIA A+ and Network+ programs, and some Cisco training, couldn't get it working. It was a mess. And the terminal and command line? I thought the future was to stay away from all that typing crap? Trying to get Wireless working. HA! What a joke. And drivers? Unless you have a Soundblaster 16 card, and a stock ATI All-In-Wonder or 3dfx card, it would not work. It was a strenuous.
The Desktop OS is dead.
Apple will wind down OS X over the decade - the PC era is over.
For users, this was heralded by the advent of the iPad, which will usher in 10,000 copies. For data centers, this came with large-scale, production virtualization.
Your beloved PC? Now a "content creator's" workstation. Everything from word processing to simple photo-editing goes on line - or into an "app".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Linux has served me well as a desktop for 15 years. When I started it only had to compete with DOS (Windows 95 was unacceptable to me at the time). Now days I find myself using a Linux desktop/laptop as often as my Macs, and much more often than Windows 7 or XP. If you ask a different person, you'll get different results, but those are my results.
For me, the year of the Linux desktop was 2000 when SuSE 7.0, Redhat 7, Slackware 7.1 and Debian 2.2 were released. Everything since then has just been a refinement.
Perhaps the key to Linux being the desktop for you is if it has software for it that you find useful. I tend to just use compilers, web browsers, and chat clients. so Linux has been ready for me for quite some time. For gaming I generally prefer the console because it is on a big TV in front of a couch, I'm more of the gaming to relax kind of guy rather than a competitive FPSer.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Obvious troll is obvious.
I think Linux already succeeded at every market you can think of. Servers ? Check. Appliances ? Check. Smartphones ? Check. Tablets ? Check. Supercomputers ? Check.
Oh, the desktop. It doesn't have to succeed, it already has. Why ? You don't need to have 99% of the market, you need to threaten the dominant player in a market. Think about what hapenned with Mozilla and IE. M$ was sitting on its hands with IE6 for almost three years. Then came FF and that made them release IE7 in less then a year. FF doesn't need 90%+ of market share, I sure hope they don't ever achieve it, it just has to set a new quality standard. If M$ stays still, FF or Chrome will steamroll IE.
The very same thing can be said about Linux in the desktop. It doesn't need a big market share, it needs to stay a viable alternative to Windows. So we consumers get the best of both worlds: a good closed source non-free (as in beer) SO and a good free (as in freedom) OS, pick the one that best suits you!
Why exactly is it important to me what OS Joe Sixpack uses?
An oft-missed characteristic of using a Linux distro, or any open source OS, is that it doesn't have to compete on economic or 'market share' terms. It just has to do what I need it to do, and I see no signs of that ceasing in the foreseeable future. Operating systems producers that have to worry about things like shareholder value are burning cycles on things that benefit them, not me. If your needs happen to align with the things that shareholders care about, cool, good for you.
I use a Linux distro because it does what I want, in a way that I like, and it doesn't hurt that it doesn't cost me anything. If it doesn't do what you need it to do, use something else. Simple, and no religious wars or market share statistics required.
WALSTIB!
Despite the obvious incitement I can't help but take the bait. Let us for a moment grossly generalize and stereotype. Linux is not for the masses, with the exception of perhaps Ubuntu desktop Linux or enterprise Linux, but forget the debate. Forget the comparisons, the support, the fragmentation, the software, the games and the opinions. Which technological revolution was started by the person who did nothing but incessantly play games or spend their life watching movies and series? Who last heard their grandmother passionately relate a story of converting her cake recipe’s British units to metric units with an intricate combination of sed and grep? What petrol head ever built a kit car with the intention of competing with BMW or Ford?
Linux is not a beautiful and unique snowflake. Linux doesn’t appeal to n00b because it is hard and unfamiliar, but I tell you what, every real user has learnt something and in most cases a lot. Linux may not have the volume of deployment, but it holds far more IT intellectual capital in its users than the mainstream OSes. Linux is about passion and innovation and doesn’t need global domination to be meaningful. It’s about learning something, extending someone else’s work and having the same returned. With Linux the pride of hacking is submitting a kernel patch or fixing a vulnerability just because you can, while the pride of hacking the world’s leading OS is in exploiting a vulnerability, just because you can.
Feel free to class me as part the fiercely ideological open-source community. The author of this article and those that think as he does, are like those short sighted bottom feeders that think Java can be suffocated, but beware the revolution of the open-source geeks. While you’re numbing the minds of the masses with swish click interfaces and plug-in hardware, we’re the ones you depend on to build your devices and control your world.
I've been using Linux as my only desktop OS for fourteen years. It works fine for me. It's not even remotely dead.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
report that the Linux Desktop is not dead on their desktop!!!!
I am one of those few as well :).
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
I'm not going to play Oblivion on a freaking iPad, nor am I going to do it through a web app...
Because ever more CPU-demanding app-development, and ever more screen-real estate (photo/film/games/tv) demanding apps are suddenly gone ? People don't need to type anymore ? I don't get it. I've heard 'photoshop through the web is going to be here in five to ten years' for the last fifteen years now. It hasn't happened.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Linux has been a great win for what people use it for. Developing it to fit the needs of non-developers is a crap shoot; developers aren't casual users. Here are some things I've thought were missing.
Quicken isn't proper double entry book keeping, but it's ease of use wins non-accountants over. It's hard to get that balance right though; even Intuit had to buy Mint when it's attempt to jump start it's Mac version failed to deliver. Other Linux tools have felt like a thin veneer over double entry hell to me. Trust such tools with my financial life? No.
An automated software updater? Cute names probably works against keeping ignorant users up to date. "I know it's been years, but I won't trade in my Karmic Koala for a Natty Narwhal!" Software updates are critical for stability and security, but the Linux update tools I've seen either don't cover enough or they are way too difficult for a casual user to operate. Demanding re-installation basically means sending them back to Windows.
How about training software instead of documentation? Despite the web's illusion otherwise, Mac and Windows users are not very advanced. It's one thing to offer a simple unified interface, but software to train the ignorant bosses of the world how to send email, backup, and print? Of the few such Linux attempts I've seen, some fail by mixing interfaces. But all have failed by going to the command line at some point. Even though they say "just type this, you don't have to understand it", the user's whole experience rides on them NOT making a typo. Way too fragile.
Linux is unparalleled in meeting the needs of it's developers, but without people making apps for their ignorant bosses, middle school kids, and reluctant grandparents, it's audience with (perhaps rightfully) stay self-serving.
First, the PCWorld column states that Linux is dead because of a lack of content.
While I'll agree, desktop usage doesn't seem as wide spread as I would like it, a lack of content is NOT the reason for this problem.
I've NEVER seen a platform so rich in content. There is no computer system or operating system that has more applications than a FOSS system (aside from perhaps a Mac OS X box which cators to both Blender and the commercial Maya... as an example).
Secondly, a default install of any FOSS box would give the user far more content than a default install of Windows. The reason why Linux isn't taking the desktop by storm is simply because of one problem and only one problem.
Microsoft Office and the lack of 100% compatible alternatives.
This is the PRIME reason companies and individuals hold on to a Windows platform. It's the ONLY reason ONE of the FIVE machines on my company desk is Windows; the rest are Gentoo Linux boxes. Watch a DVD on Linux? I've been doing that for over a decade, what the hell is Mr. Strohmeye's problem?
Lack of desktop adoption yes, lack of content Robert Strohmeye doesn't know what he's talking about.
I really do not care about authors desktop, where Linux is dead. On my desktop, on my notebook, on my pocket PC Linux is pretty alive and serving all my needs. The same with a lot of my friends and colleagues. :)
Every paid internet box in every hotel is under Linux, and nobody cares.
Windows is alive but only by inertia, momentum of market and inertia of people's thinking. 2'nd and
even first fluxion of Windows usage is negative.
The Desktop OS is dead.
Apple will wind down OS X over the decade - the PC era is over.
For users, this was heralded by the advent of the iPad, which will usher in 10,000 copies. For data centers, this came with large-scale, production virtualization.
Your beloved PC? Now a "content creator's" workstation. Everything from word processing to simple photo-editing goes on line - or into an "app".
Maybe for most people, but don't forget that part of the content to be created is the apps that run on all these devices. Maybe there will be some cloud-based programming suite, but I wouldn't count the desktop out for me, a programmer. Especially for iDevice apps which are essentially running OS X with a different GUI. Plus, we are becoming an ever more content consuming society, so there will be a lot of content creators. Long live the desktop/laptop/local-CPU-and-sotrage-so-I-can-work-on-an-island!
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
But... but... but I just switched to ubuntu like, 8 months ago and its been the best desktop OS I ever used! But then again, I do have this habit of climbing onto sinking ships...
To be fair, I'd love to advocate linux to everyone I know, but e.g. the #1 reason they can't is that they use Photoshop, or Netflix, or Zune Marketplace, or whatever other flavor of application, so game over. The 'use gimp' argument is not even worth laughing at anymore. And the "use vmware" argument completely misses the point. And WINE just isn't good enough. And its not WINEs fault, really.
So yeah. Its not about the OS. Its about the applications. The number one barrier is not that the OS doesn't boot in 10 seconds. It's not the wallpaper. Its not the desktop usability. Its not the price. Its not driver compatibility (anymore). Its not network setup. Its not web browser. Its not the window style. Its not where the indicators are. Its not what edge of the screen the menus are on. Its not the presence or absence of a dock. Its applications (or lack thereof).
Until that changes, we'll get nowhere. Nobody mainstream cares about software freedom. Nobody mainstream cares about security. They only care that Netflix doesn't work and they can't sync their Zune, and Team Fortress 2 runs at 30 fps (or not at all) instead of 200fps.
I have been a devotee of Linux for nearly 15 years. I have faithfully followed first redhat, and now the fedora releases. All my PCs at least dual-boot, if not run native Linux all the time. I even TAUGHT Linux for a major computer company for a while. In my informally gathered experience, there are three things holding Linux back- 1) The cult of UNIX mentality - this is a belief, deeply held by many OSS fans, that it is morally wrong to make software easy to use. If it was hard to code, it should require effort from the user to make use of it, otherwise how will they appreciate your hard work? Microsoft on the other hand got it a loooong time ago. Ease of use isn't just nice to have, it is the one overiding factor that outweighs all others in software design. Flexibility just confuses most users. security is a sick sad joke that only security wonks care about. Until the Linux community embraces the overwhelming truth that ease of use is ALL that matters, they will be doomed to be a hobby OS for out-of-touch tech weenies. 2) Endlessly re-inventing the wheel. I think Redhat/ Fedora is now on their third version of the X-windows package, and there is talk of scrapping the whole thing for a new windowing paradigm. Every six months I do a version upgrade, and my desktop breaks, my icons disappear, my scripts stop working because the directories have changed. For the love of sanity PLEASE knock it off. If it ain't broke, DON"T FIX IT!!! If you want people to really use Linux, focus on a consistent user experience, keep the magic behind the curtain, and stop screwing up the user interface. 3) Fear of licenses. Every time I upgrade fedora, I have to spend hours getting my Xine video player, web browser, and games to work again. Give up the insanity guys. The world is not going to change to suit your whiny childish prejudices. There's all kinds of industry standard free software out there that EVERYONE uses. You are just marginalizing Linux by not supporting it in your distros. 'Nuff said.
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
If you follow the arguments in the article, the accurate conclusion is that desktop is becoming irrelevant, and the future is in cloud and mobile computing. Then there is an entire section on how Linux is winning in mobile, with projects like Android and WebOS. The correct title would be "Desktop is Dead, Linux wins Mobile".
I agree that this "prophecy" will probably fulfill itself; for you. For me, I am not put off by the slow adoption of Linux as a desktop OS by the entire rest of the world.
I am, primarily, just greatful that, pretty clever, groups of people around the world are diligently building and refining an alternative that is working very well for me, personally. Also that, I believe, they will continue to do so.
I kinda don't want Linux to "become" Microsoft, actually...
It ain't really broke, and I'm not bucking for mainstream adoption to "fix" it...
Right. That's my point. On Slashdot, we're the crew that held onto their Workstations, as cheap Intel PCs flooded in.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I have to agree though the Linux on the average desktop ship sailed a long time ago. I thought with Ubuntu it actually had a shot but that had to go get fragmented to...for the masses its just too much of a mess to really be practical. Oddly enough one of the biggest hurdles I have had in trying to convince people to at least give it a shot is the concept of not needing a full upgrade. The concept of updating=new version just doesn't seem to compute with many people. If its doesn't have a box and new obvious features immediately apparent they seem oblivious. That said its no more dead than its ever been, geeks will still use it and it will continue to advance but I just cant see it ever really gaining traction with the average home user. Then again...thats not really a bad thing.
....page hits is thriving!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
What the repositories don't contain much of is payware
As I understand the article, the lack of a reliable way to deploy payware on desktop Linux is contributing to the death of desktop Linux because not all genres of application are conducive to relying on donated labor.
it's not a store.
Three major game consoles (Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360) have a store. Three major handheld game platforms (iPod touch, PSP, and DSi) have a store. Two major smartphone platforms (iPhone and Android) have a store. Windows has several stores, including Steam, Impulse, and GOG. Not to mention brick-and-mortar stores that sell copies of software on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. So if the repositories aren't stores, what is?
Even if the license is $0.00 there is cost. It takes time & resources & knowledge to deploy. None of which are free.
For many people the $30 windows license (HP doesn't pay full retail) is CHEAPER than the cost to learn, patch, and use Linux.
TCO is what matters and TCO of linux on servers relatively low compared to TCO of windows. There is nothing to suggest the TCO for Linux desktop shares that benefit. Even if it does the TCO for a business (which can standardize platform) and TCO of home user is going to differ.
Windows works simply because it is good ENOUGH and cheap ENOUGH. Until Linux is vastly superior in either benefit or total cost that isn't going to change.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Remember NC's like the JavaStation and Sun Ray, thin X terminals, or Oracle's belief that we would all use thin clients by the year 2000?
The main problem with thin clients is the same today as it was back when -- latency. You simply can't push something to a server and back again faster than the speed of light.
I better stock up on some copies before they are all gone.
This is bullshit. All you need on desktop today is a web browser. There are web browsers for Linux and they work. You can communicate, watch movies and listen music in your web browser, but you can also use separate applications for communication, music or movies. And everything works on Linux. And you can give configured Linux box to newbie and he or she will just use it.
Maybe you still don't get it, but people are not spending half of their lives playing 3D games. They just use web browser, some kind of communicator and various mutimedia viewers / document editors.
I understand that after 2000 lots of people changed their priorities, Slashdot almost died (Digg is dying now), many companies changed their profile, but in the background you can see that Open Source and Free Software is stronger than ever. Look at mobile phones, where is your Windows now? I also understand that Internet is full of Apple fanatics and (hidden in closet) Microsoft fanatics. But the truth is that Linux on desktop just works. No matter how loud you will cry your frustrations.
SQL itself is already designed for business people to easily translate business rules into database logic. What is the point of duplicating efforts?
It was designed that way before it was scaled up to modern businesses. Nowadays, there need to be meta-business rules for security, so that one business person can't add business rules that affect columns that break other parts of the business or violate the customers' or suppliers' privacy. Just giving everyone in the company a phpMyAdmin prompt doesn't really cut it. And by the time you're implementing business rules in stored procedures attached to triggers, you might as well be programming.
It is hardly indicative of the internet at large.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=117&qpnp=25
Mac is 5%. Linux is ~1%. Other is ~3%. Windows is 91%.
It is even more sad if you break it down as:
Windows XP ~60%
Windows Vista & 7 ~30%
Everything else ~10%
You mean like PC-BSD's PBIs?
Everything from word processing to simple photo-editing goes on line - or into an "app."
People have been claiming this (at least the on-line part) for a long time, though. I seem to remember software company executives in the 90's drooling over the thought that you'd pay them a monthly fee to access their word processor and photo editor apps from your thin client at home.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Your beloved PC? Now a "content creator's" workstation. Everything from word processing to simple photo-editing goes on line - or into an "app".
And why would I want to do word processing online?
Well I am using Linux on my desktop work and home from last couple of years. Here is a good news last month we got new HP laptops at our work and 4 of my co-workers ask me to install Linux on there new shiny laptops. Guess what, now they are using Linux as there primary OS and running M$ as guest under Virtualbox. They wouldn't be using M$ if our company were not having the mail on Exchange and one of company portal which only works in IE.
:)
Its all my pleasure to see those folks using Linux on daily bases, installing Linux updates and learning commands. I feel proud coz they watched me using Linux over the years and when they were struggling with there OS infected with viri, malwares etc and my system never piss on me. And finally here we go now they are using the rock solid OS.
For me Linux is just penetrating in our companies desktop
Long live Linux.
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
Someone else posted that 3 out of 100 desktops run Linux. So get with the program slashdot readers.
Nullius in verba
As someone that is current in the process of deploying virtual desktops I beg to differ.
Client terminals had to become powerful enough to connect modern peripherals and device pass-through means that a virtual desktop has no need to compromise. I can plugin my USB camera to my thin client and it'll appear in the VM. I can watch full-screen flash inside the VM on the thin-client with no jittering playback. Hell, even Autocad and Photoshop work marvelously especially through desktop streaming. With remote desktop applications you're usually limited by the precision of your mouse, compression makes detailed work almost impossible, a virtual desktop does not have these limitations.
I don't think workstations are going anywhere anytime soon though. I do however think that Apple is screwing themselves royally by not allowing OS X to be in a virtual environment as many of my Mac users are getting sick of hardware failures leading to their downtime when their Windows and Linux coworkers can just swap machines and reconnect to their VM and be up and running in as long as it takes to plugin the new hardware. Apple has always been weak in the enterprise market. I'm finally seeing pushback much to my delight as a few of my Photoshop jockies are switching to Windows so they can enjoy all the benefits including SSL VPN driven access from offsite without compromising performance.
In short, latency is no longer a problem for 99% of cases. Server virtualization isn't so cut and dry, but desktop virtualization is definitely going to take over as it solves many common corporate problems such as data leaving the building, ensuring regular backups, maintaining a consistent work environment, storage consolidation, and many other problems are non-issues with a virtual desktop. If a particular user needs more disk space I don't need to replace a hard drive, I just allocate more storage to them. With thin-provisioning I don't even have to care if they're using it provided I don't overprovision and run out of disk space but adding another shelf to my tier 1 NetApp storage is easy and takes all of ten minutes to do.
That's why I gave up trying to learn Ubuntu. I started using Windows back in the 3.1 days and managed to get pretty good at making it do what I wanted.
Then, I decided to make a home server, and wanted to use a Linux flavor to keep costs down. I installed Ubuntu, and immediately hit problems. Every single thing I wanted to do (set up shared folders, make the UPS work, encrypt hard drive, etc) took hours of poring over forum posts and different websites. The UPS still doesn't work. And forget about making backups or running server-side applications like a music player or FTP host. After 100+ hours of messing with Ubuntu, my server is nothing more than a glorified network drive.
I just don't have the time to spend learning it and making it do what I wanted. All I want to be able to do at this point is make regular backups to a regular external HD (much less an encrypted one), but I can't even figure that out.
And finally, to hell with the command line. I gave that up with Windows 95 and never looked back.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Linux Desktops are at the highest levels EVER. If that's not the exact opposite of dead... I just dunno.
Netflix, iTunes, MS Office, random work program, random school program, random games, etc.
Some say this is just because of market share but there is more to it. The open source ideology has made the small marketshare of Linux even more unappealing. You can't expect much support from proprietary companies when you denounce them as morally inferior.
Stallman was wrong in his expectation that hobbyists could compete with commercial companies. Sorry but I do not consider Tux Racer to be a competitor to Gran Turismo. Stallman went too far, it's time for everyone to admit it. It is ok to prefer open source but there is nothing wrong with proprietary software.
I think you're confusing "require" with "prefer". For the "average Joe" who surfs the net
Comcast puts unrecognized modems in a walled garden until the customer downloads and runs a .exe file. I don't know how Mac users are expected to get their cable modem linked to their service.
checks email, types up documents
And prints them on what? I have yet to see either A. a home inkjet printer with a penguin on the box, or B. sales staff in a national electronics chain who know which printers do and don't work with Linux.
plays solitaire and free cell, and views DVDs/YouTube/pr0n
Of course you can play DVD on Linux as long as you don't live in the United States, home of MPEG-2 patents, Dolby Digital patents, and the DMCA. Who will fund their emigration?
All of those others that have specialized sewing apps or do corporate taxes as a hobby at home -- yeah, they might "require" Windows.
You forgot those few video games left that aren't FarmVille.
microsoft troll must die
This is why Linux will be adopted slowly, if at all. It's not about the hardware, or the OS capabilities (presuming it's competent, which Linux is), it's about the software. Practically every main profession has a couple of absolutely necessary (read: would be more expensive to retrain than the entire IT department's 10 year budget) to the business. Whether it's Photoshop or AutoCAD or whatever; it has to exist nativly on the platform. Nobody is going to put their butt on the line for a workaround - even if it's one that almost always works.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Desktop computer sales are starting to stagnate but laptop sales are plenty healthy.
...and more desktops. Per user.
That is a total of: 10 linux desktops in use in _ONE_ household
Exactly. One household.
Compared to Windowses and OSXs where a great number of desktops are for business use - there is a huge lack of eyeballs (ads, entertainment...) and hands (apps, tech support...) per desktop in your case.
Add to that the fact that most apps on Linux desktops are free of charge - and the actual market share comes out to FAR below 1%.
Cause, there ever was only one reason for talking about market share - how much money is there in it.
Desktop Linux? Really, not that much.
Business Linux... a whole different kettle of fish.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Tablets are a fad and won't even be around in 5 years. The suckers that believe Steve's BS already have one the rest of us have moved on already. And the ones that did buy it even admit now that it's a toy and they don't really use it much. After they showed up at the coffee shop and could not figure how to hold it and nobody told them how cool they were for having an iPad they are ready to move on too.
There are actually several fairly decent image editors on the web now (there weren't even a year ago), like pixlr.com. I'm not uninstalling my copy of Photoshop any time soon, for lots of reasons, but every passing day these programs get closer in functionality and for a whole lot of uses they're already there.
Regardless, I think content creation is going to need a PC or something like a PC for a good long time to come. The combination of high-bandwidth and precise input (keyboard[1], Wacom tablet) and horsepower is enough to take something like an iPad out of the picture completely for a lot of things. Of course, not very many people actually *do* those things, and for some very common tasks -- like constructing a presentation -- an iPad could well be superior. (I've done it with Keynote; It's *almost* there, but several UI annoyances are big enough to make me go back to the desktop. I could totally see using it exclusively with a few UI tweaks though, and in some cases it's already a lot better.)
[1] Of course, you can get a keyboard for an iPad if you want one. That kind of negates the beauty of the device if you ask me, though.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
There's nothing stopping non free developers releasing debs/rpms of their software - even better is when they have repositories that can be added to to the package manager
Do apt and yum repositories yet support authentication and authorization, such that only people who have bought a license on the publisher's web site can download and install the software?
People who aren't using those distros can probably figure out for themselves how to get it running on their system.
Or if you can't help them, they'll whine to the credit card company and ask for a chargeback.
Well, in that case the Linux desktop will be pretty successful, considering the amount of people, me included, that just wouldn't accept a cloud-based OS with a touch interface.
The obligatory "I'ts GNU/Linux that is dead on the desktop!"
I seriously doubt that Linux is anywhere close to being dead. I think Linux will grow and do just fine. Oddly the virtual boxes may be the greatest asset to Linux platforms as it becomes easier to run Windows apps. It is obvious that Linux is a superior platform and with Microsoft dominating the market many people will prefer Linux. If it ever gets to the point where desktop Linux distros really are under threat it will be by some new and unknown OS that suddenly takes center stage.
http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads solves your #1, or get Windows Ultimate.
This post is, like, totally understandable to the desktop user community.
Sorry, you clearly don't know Linux that well or, dare I suggest, you've never actually used it. Here's why:
Installing something simple on Linux often requires downloading 2 GB worth of supporting libraries
Absolute nonsense! It is still possible to download a single CD image (, some of which may be out of date, or have compatibility problems.
Rubbish. Yes, there used to be issues with "dependency hell" on Red Hat 5 about ten years ago. However, package managers have improved considerably in 10 years, probably as much as OS X has improved in that time - this simply does NOT happen any more on most distributions.
I would also add that I myself have been a user of Gentoo Linux for many years now. This is a "roll your own" distribution that compiles each new package against the libraries it requires that may or may not be already installed on your system. Yes, very infrequently there are dependency issues due to a bug in a package, but the forum is very active & someone usually comes up with at least a workaround in a very short period of time.
No standard physical interface (android), hardware, or even ABI means that I can't just download a "Built for Linux" binary and run it. Chances are the software will make idiotic demands of me like downloading obscure-library-version.1.2.3.4beta4-pre7.
Same as above - maybe some time ago with older package managers.
And let me make you a challenge here - post up an example of an actual installation where this happened to you, then I'll believe you. Until then, I treat this as a sweeping statement based on FUD you've taken in elsewhere.
Linux is getting better for this, but I still can't download a "Linux" distro, and then pop in *HOT PC GAME OF THE YEAR* and run it.
That's right. It's because there's not a Linux version of the game. Why is that Linux's fault? It's like me saying "I bought an Apple Mac but can't pop in a Halo III game disk and play it."
Until Linux can run Windows games better than Windows can, Linux is never going to make any more inroads against Windows games except where there is already a MacOS version.
This is actually statement that can be written as "Linux won't beat Windows for games until more Windows games are written for Linux". Again, an obvious statement written by somebody who actually doesn't know what to say here.
Android is going flop. So many reasons why, but I'll file most of them under "Do you really expect these idiot phone manufacturers to actually update the OS?"
I'll answer this statement when there are *LESS* Android devices being sold than IOS ones - until then, it's patently a statement from a peturbed but rabid Apple fanboi.
And that's why I'm using Windows or MacOS.
You know something? If you had the guts or backbone to say "I don't use Linux because the learning curve is too high" or "I don't use Linux because I feel Windows and OS X are easier to use", I wouldn't even bother arguing with you because you'd be perfectly entitled to have that opinion.
But why do you feel qualified to talk about "libraries" and "package managers" on Linux when here you say you don't use it? That *SHOWS* you're not arguing from a position of knowledge because you just don't use Linux.
Linux as a Desktop OS will never happen unless all the forks die off and we're left with only one de-facto flavor of desktop linux that will (like Windows and MacOS) come with all the neccessary parts to run ANY linux application.
I hate to say this but it *IS* being run as a desktop OS. Maybe in the USA there are more Apple than Linux users but here in Europe, Linux on the desktop at least equals Mac usage, maybe even beats it. Please don't confuse iPhone, iPod or iPad sales with Mac sales - Macs *STILL* have very small penetration.
Fugly user interfaces and library hell are Linux's major failing points.
I don't claim to have used a Mac much because in 30 years of computing I've never found a good
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Sorry, finger trouble. This is what I meant to say here:
Installing something simple on Linux often requires downloading 2 GB worth of supporting libraries
Absolute nonsense! It is still possible to download a single CD image in 700MB for some distros. So why would *ANY* application need three times that size in libraries?
some of which may be out of date, or have compatibility problems.
Rubbish. Yes, there used to be issues with "dependency hell" on Red Hat 5 about ten years ago. However, package managers have improved considerably in 10 years, probably as much as OS X has improved in that time - this simply does NOT happen any more on most distributions.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The Desktop OS is dead.
Apple will wind down OS X over the decade - the PC era is over.
Wrong!
In people's homes, certainly desktops will continue to lose some marketshare to alternatives.
In offices? Not so much. Sure, you have (and will continue to have) some office workers who continue to use laptops in docking stations as essentially desktops, and some that just use laptops as such period. I don't see much if any of that market moving to tablets anytime soon, and the migration of the things those people do to web-based solutions is just not happening very fast, where it's happening at all. At this point, most of what's going to internal web apps or virtualized workstations in the next decade already has.
well the folks here are trying and its pretty neat but still no full blown photoshop
$ unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes,fsck,fsck,fsck,umount, sleep
Until Windows Internet Explorer gains support for new HTML5 technologies allowing a web application to work offline (localStorage and CACHE MANIFEST), very few web applications will have a useful offline mode. This means it'll cost an extra $59.99 per month for mobile broadband to get anything done on a laptop on the bus ride to and from work, the mall, etc.
The main reason Linux doesn't have the virus and security problems that windows does is that it's not so widely used. That's just fine by me.
The real reason for linux is the freedom for me as a developer. But in a modern world where I have to edit video, make music and edit pictures, Windows or Mac is a required choice too.
Having to spend $100 on a windows desktop does not matter a bit to me. Nor to most other people I would expect.
As a software developer on the server end I am happy that there is a relatively lightweight desktop interface on my dev machine that runs virtualised in Virtualbox under Windows 7.
If open source developers are a big enough audience to keep that alive, then that is good enough for me.
I could not care less if my mother switched to linux.
Max M - IT's Mad Science
I seem to remember software company executives in the 90's drooling over the thought that you'd pay them a monthly fee to access their word processor and photo editor apps from your thin client at home.
Heh. I know quite a lot of people who've tried this, and quickly learned the downside of any sort of centralized or "cloud" computing model: If you miss a payment, all your stuff disappears. Sometimes permanently.
And most of the ISPs who provided the early online storage to customers turned out to have contracts saying that putting a file on their server automatically transfers the copyright to the ISP. I know several friends in bands who tried this and learned the hard way that they had assigned the copyrights to all their work to their ISP, who found things that they liked and used in ads. Other people stored pictures of their kids, pets, etc. on "their" web site, and found the ISP using their photos in ads. Remember the fuss when msn.com was caught doing this, and MSN's reps quoted that passage in their contract?
I also have a couple of friends who lost a parent who had been keeping personal info (pics, diaries, etc.) on a hosted site. They were a bit upset to find that after the parent's death, they had no legal access to anything on the site, because the parent hadn't thought to will it to them. And after a few months, the parent's "site" was purged and lost forever.
Going back a bit, one of the original reasons for the rapid adoption of "personal computers" in work environments back in the 1980s was the growing problem of corporate data centers that more and more controlled what employees were permitted to do on the mainframe. Departments learned that if they wanted the computing capability that they needed, the easiest way was with a little computer that the department owned, and which the data center had no control over. This is a continuing battle in corporations everywhere, with no end in sight.
It's an old story. If you don't own the machine(s) that hold your data, you don't own the data, and you have no say in how it may be used. If this means anything to you, you'd be an idiot to trust your data to an organization that views you as a source of income. You need, and will always need, a computer system that you completely control. (And you need it backed up - on your own hardware, not on someone else's. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I have a VM linux and a VM XP up and running under OS X the majority of the time. I do server support through the linux VM (same version of linux the servers run under, simplifies some things, particularly pre-release testing), and I do Windows software development in the XP VM. meanwhile, OS X handles my web browsing, document work, personal databases (OmniOutliner... my favorite program ever), music (both listening in iTunes and performing... Logic Pro is awesome), my RSS feeds, my notes, my IM, my auroral monitoring application, my photography (Aperture)... this is all on a multiple monitor, 8-core machine with 8 GB, and it never chokes.
One thing I don't do on this machine is games -- I have PS3, XBox 360, Wii, and earlier versions of those platforms in the home theater, and that's where I game, period. I don't have to worry about some game manufacturer destabilizing my OS (any of them), or what video card I have, etc., yet I have awesome gaming capability on a great display.
My setup is kind of expensive, but then again, it earns me many times its costs over and over again, so it seems to me that the expense is completely justified. I get to stay home most of the time, work in shirtsleeves with a cat on my lap, and enjoy high performance in pretty much just the places I need it.
Contemplating going to a single-OS box, even one I'm very familiar with, like one with the linux we run, seems like stepping back several years. Can't see any reason I'd ever want to do so. And as for the web or the iPad taking over (and yes, I have an iPad and use it a lot), no. Not a chance. Perhaps the iPad's distant descendant, but the iPad... it's "something else", though a very nice something else. In its current form, it has no more chance taking over the computer's role than electric cars have of taking over a Fender guitar amplifier's role.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You'll play it on a gaming console.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
Wow, I must be totally having an out of body experience, RIGHT NOW, because if I'm not mistaken. I'm actually using a linux desktop. Wait a minute, that can't be true. They're dead...I must be invisible! (runs out into the street....I CAN DO ANYTHING!!!)
It seems incredibly ironic that today Slashdot has two simultaneous threads, one telling us that Linux is dead on the desktop and another telling us that Liinux is pushing Microsoft out of the corporate IT data center.
Perhaps its just that today even grandmothers have become a super-users, who do all their IT work in the cloud.
not at all.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
So are the divorces.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You're right. You're very right. That doesn't mean *every* other point is wrong, though. The PC era won't be over for a long time, and the laptop has won the war in the office, but businesses are also the first to look, point and drool at the iPad. Some didn't like Tablet PCs when they came out, and most simply focus on what it has the potential to do that laptops don't. (Nearly all those things has to do with its form factor and the human mind.)
It does a serviceable subset of what many people do with their laptops (yes, except for Flash games, etc) and serves its "light pad in a meeting" niche well. Some people will move to an iPad instead of a laptop, and a laptop instead of their desktop at work.
I'm also amazed at the idea that the iPad has to fully supplant the laptop before it gets anywhere. The Web doesn't fully supplant the desktop OS yet, and I'm guessing no one would call that a failure. It's about doing enough things well enough and a few things that nothing else does.
Games, film, and TV are covered by consoles and STBs. Coding counts as a specialized field, and not one that mass-produced consumer desktops (as opposed to workstations) need to be appropriate for.
There are many reasons why Linux has failed on desktop. First of all, "Linux" as we refer to a modern "complete" distro, is a Dr. Moreau style monster, patched together from pieces it is statistically improbable that all of these pieces are going to a) be free of bugs and b) fit together properly with the whole picture in mind. Try as Canonical, or any organization might, they will always end up kludging some of it. For example, plaintext configuration files. As stable as my ubuntu system "seemed" to be, let's hope to hell there's no parse errors in my xorg.conf or else it'll never start up again.
In fact, plaintext configuration is a perfect example of where the desktop and server worlds collide. This problem can be seen all over the place. The first time I saw it was when the kernel developers introduced the preemptive kernel which you could tailor for desktop systems so that when you were doing a compile your desktop wouldn't be completely unusable. It still never achieved the type of low latency desktop that these other operating systems are capable of.
The nail in the coffin for me is the desktop. Not that all that effort put in to make things more "window-sy" wasn't appreciated, but they need to get their priorities straight. I remember suffering under the burden of nautilus' horrible desktop icon alignment for years and then installing the new GNOME when it came out, only to find the only significant changes noticeable to the end user were that by default double clicking icons would open new windows instead of a single one, and they added a cd burner, which crashed my desktop every time I used it. Years later, the CD burner works, the default window opening scheme is BACK to 1 window by default, and the icon alignment code STILL HASN'T BEEN FIXED. I mean, how hard is it to factor in the panel when drawing the icon grid?
The average linux user will scoff at these comments, perhaps, claiming the importance of icon alignment is low. But that's exactly it - that's what the end user notices! The Linux desktop has always, ALWAYS lacked the sort of professional polish that these other operating systems have. The community advertises reliability, but while the kernel stays up the desktop goes DOWN, and to the end user that doesn't mean squat. Personally I think desktop Linux could make it, but I definitely agree that it isn't currently. If Canonical can't do it, then who can? What entity will be able to put forth the sort of Herculean effort that it would require to circumvent all these problems?
The Linux desktop is dead because of one thing and one thing alone: mind share. With virtually $0.00 of marketing effort, the only way Linux could become the prevailing desktop is by going viral. It never did. Plain and simple. The public have to be sold. That's what they're accustomed to and that's what works. They don't 'buy' anything if they aren't told they need it.
*** Don't be dull.***
This made me laugh. Linux is much the same as OSX and Windows in this regard. If any of the 3 is weak then it would be Apple's piss-poor security process. That said Linux is a total hodge-podge when it comes to security, witness the Debian OpenSSS bug to see how badly it can go wrong.
Bottom line, Linux needs to find a differentiating factor in which it is actually discernibly different.
So what, we'll all be using the same desktop OS's forever? Fifty years from now it'll still be Mac vs. Windows?
This is the tech industry: things change all the time. Who knows what will be the dominant OS in the future: maybe it's still Windows, maybe it's Linux, maybe it's iOS, maybe it's something that hasn't been invented yet. Until then, Linux or its descendants will always be around, which is pretty good for something that's "dead".
"So... Linux is dead."
Wow, it's amazingly easy to argue against the things you *wish* somebody said instead of what was *actually* said. How can a site billed as "News for Nerds" be filled with people who have such a basic lack of understanding of language and discourse? Here, for the reading impaired, I reproduce the actual quote, as it appeared in the slashdot summary: "The dream of Linux as a major desktop OS is now pretty much dead." (Why do I suspect that reproducing it here will have no effect, as the people who ignored it in the summary will just ignore and re-interpret it here, too, to fit their whim?)
That is a *much* different statement than "Linux is dead". Most of what you said after that only applies to the statement you wish the author had said, instead of the author's actual statement. The author didn't argue that Linux won't continue to be developed and updated, that it's 'not viable'.
You make one statement which does seem to speak to the article as written, and I even kind of concur: "Linux was always a niche system, and personally I don't want it to get too huge. That can only lead to massive marketization and commercialization, neither of which will be good for Linux."
I don't know that I necessarily agree fully that larger marketshare would be a *bad* thing for Linux, but I will say that being in a niche that is large enough to continue developing and innovating, while small enough to largely avoid being a target of viruses, trojans, and worms, certainly has an upside.
Microsoft didn't kill desktop Linux. The newer OSs for mobile devices did.
A decade ago, Linux was in the #2 position. The Mac wasn't going anywhere, phones didn't run applications, and the PDA world wasn't very relevant. Linux had a window of opportunity when Windows XP was late.
Linux isn't in the #2 position any more. All the growth is in the the mobile devices sector, where ease of use is paramount. Even though some mobile devices have a Linux kernel underneath, that's not what the user sees, or what developers write apps for. The Mac has made a comeback. The "netbook" and "tablet" industry tried Linux, and didn't like it. Linux on desktops has become irrelevant.
The only aspect of this story that is credible is that it is certainly true that if you look at the gaming market and markets for "productivity software" sensu latu, what Linux lacks is a lot of widely (nearly universally) used software that can run across distros, with limited or no effort.
The funny thing is that if the various distro vendors really made an effort to get together and make it much, much easier for developers to create cross-platform builds for more open-source software and programmers to adopt more standaridization regarding I/O for porting data across platforms and programs in a truly open software spirit, this situation could change drastically in no time at all. Unfortunately, everyone thinks their way is best, so it won't happen.
The problem with the Linux desktop is basically that open source developers have used their "freedom" to push the snowball in many conflicting directions, so it has little chance to gain momentum against commercial entities who are really focused only on one thing, profits..
The irony is that if only one of the most voracious of the various IT corporation, Oracle, would be actually willing to support a more open, more truly community-based Java Community workgroup for Java that makes it a truly write once-run anywhere language with a full range of API's over the entire domain of possible computation, it could pretty well own or at least direct nearly all of the IT that is not truly open-source. Fortunately, for the rest of corporate IT profiters, Larry Elisson's shortsighted greed will prevent it from happening.
"In a nutshell, Linux is not as simple as windows is, but has it's own MAJOR advantages. The longer I look at it, the more user friendly it becomes. It probably is NOT for your grandma, nor girlfriend(or boy friend for that matter) or a dog or whoever/whatever it is for. It's for you! It's for your security, for your sanity, for your performance."
When you are trying to make your Linux box the default to all your family and/our friends, the OS need to be simple to use. When you are creating one server is fine, but when you need one desktop to all on your home, you are in trouble.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
The days of the desktop are numbered. (No seriously, stop laughing, for real this time!) As widgets in Win7 and OSX become more sophisticated, and app-based economies begin to proliferate the desktop will be come a much simpler device and no longer the big noisy box we have all come to know and love for the past 30+ years. E.g.: Apple TV interface = iPad interface = iPhone interface. However, I see the coming of the Great Simplification a perfect vehicle for the linux kernel.
There will always be workstations for content developers and engineers, but I suspect their #s will continue to decrease.
If Linux is dead on the desktop then this post is written from the graveyard :-)
Wakeup digitaldc. Linux is getting reborn pretty much every 8 month or more.
I wish someone would have told me this before I quit using my Mac and XP desktops at home. What should I do now, look for a copy of BeOS?
Then there is Linux I remember using the command "pump" to renew my ip address, not a big thing rarely used it, then one day I needed it, and poof it was gone (still on redhat at the time). Anyway I was looking for the some reference to pump and noooo, it was like I was a crazy person. Ahhh but I could find the replacement online you say.. NO because PUMP was gone and I couldn't renew the IP address. Pulling a tool and not mentioning that it's functionality has been usurped really cranks me.
Apple bugs me, but I do like that they don't change the UI every release.
Storm
, it's more that she doesn't even care and/or have a good idea of what Linux even is.
"Linux" is un-knowable to most people. Desktop Linux has 8 or 9 user interfaces, so how is she going to get to know it? It has no defined face, therefore no identity among average desktop users.
Geeks have been chasing after a mirage in "desktop Linux". And that's a bigger problem than you might think. Geeks got the "desktop Linux" notion before the pros did, and it became hostage to Geek politics: Thou shalt not standardize the UI (many of us hate GUIs), thou shalt not create an SDK (that's for people who stick to developing apps, who are weenies and n00bs), thou shalt not promote a standard default IDE (again for weenies/n00bs). Thou shalt always cater to system-level developers and tinkerers, who can always decide to create the next PaintShop when they have some extra time because GUI stuff is so simplistic (so much so that we rarely 'sink' to that level).
Incidentally, the mobile world doesn't have these geek desktop political hangups.
You can see the contrast right at the Linux Foundation: They have an SDK for mobile, but not for desktop. And their LSB is some sort of weird non-platform specification deeply affected by the desktop politics; Its so unhelpful that web developers look far more toward a 4-letter acronym (LAMP) as a platform definition than they do to LSB.
Android has it "going on" not only because of its large corporate sponsor, but because it: A) doesn't have "Linux" in its name, B) has an SDK and IDE both encompassing the GUI (this makes Android a real consumer platform), C) was fitted to saleable hardware implementations early in its life.
Yes. We agree - because we are the technical/creative minority.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Of course so was 199x-200x. I remember this crap being posted in the late 90s... geez guess what, it is never going to be a significant presence on the desktop.
Well I guess the Redmond Washington PR department must have gotten a new influx of cash so they can spread their message of joy throughout the world. I have often wondered how to get on that gravy train, I have an opinion on just about everything !
Who wants to do the tech support for commercial products on "Linux"? Even on a particular distro like Ubuntu, you don't really know what GUI the end user will have to navigate with. There is no easy way to have the user check the OS version and there are new versions coming out every 6 months.
Further, directing someone to change system settings is precarious beyond what it usually is, because the GUIs that make the changes either don't exist or work poorly (written with the wrong assumptions, I dare say).
There is a market for it. As soon as a vendor throws itself behind a desktop GUI that can compete with XP/Win7 (and there are several for *nix that do) and they support it - it will happen. By support, I mean public forums as well as REASONABLY PRICED paid support I predict it willt take off. I believe there is is an market for it if they give it a chance. The Windows market wasn't created overnight. Microsoft had to dedicate time and resources to give it a chance.
With respect to losing a dead parent's data: the executor/admistrator of the estate has legal control over that sort of thing, and your friends should have arranged with him to take care of the matter. Most companies are quite respectful of these things once they see the court papers.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
We should only talk about desktops in the home, for routine use, maybe home office. Because big business is a different thing. If their IT departments could figure out from getting out from under MS, they would save cash and aggravation, but that's another story. I don't think any big company has an IT department that is willing or able to cope with change. And then, games at home are a different thing. So, the 1% or 2% is in fact a little larger than the gross numbers make out.
But Linux still has a problem. It's not grandma and usability (whatever that is) as such but it's with software licensing and formats -- lawyer stuff.
I tried for two years to like the Mac. I bought a Mini and tried living with. Apple. It's not great. The hardware isn't so durable to be worth the premium they charge. The system is only perfect for Mac zealots, and impossible to alter for anyone else. The X-windows setup is awful.
But it does play mp3s and commercial dvds, and Safari opens 99.9% of all the web pages I've wanted to see. I just got tired of having my sound break with every other kernel update, and I know how to fix it. I can imagine that Linux is useless otherwise.
Still I went back to Linux on a new Desktop, but keep the Mini for music and movies via VNC -- the setup is probably not for everyone, but it works.
Grab your video camera, go to your local mall or busy street corner and start asking people if they know what Ubuntu is. Place your video on YouTube and link to it here. I await your evidence of spreading like wildfire.
I prefer Linux to Windows and OS X. Everything I plug into my computer just works or the software to make it work is just a few clicks away. The interface is pretty and both my new laptop and older desktop are still snappy and reactive after years of service (Windows just tends to get slower and slower, even with a reinstall). The whole mac needs to be replaced seemingly every 6 months because Apple came out with a new whiz-bang piece of hardeware. I need to reboot the windows computers in my office often because they are constantly losing the thread and locking up or forgetting where the USB mouse is or flipping the keyboard layout setting to 'UK' for no apparent reason whenever a user's back is turned. The Macs do strange and mysterious things with files and are (I'll say it out loud) NOT intuitive at all.
In the last month in a relatively hertergenous environment, I have spent roughly 95% of my user support time on windows and mac issues. It's not because my users don't know what they are doing, it's just that the os they are using is failing them.
Even esoteric and weird things I plug into my laptop are recognized by Ubuntu. This isn't 'It just works'. This is 'It works really well and intuitively'.
The prospect of programming on an Ipad is laughable and while toting a netbook to a user convention is more reasonable that lugging around a laptop, I would go blind in a week and develop severe spinal injuries if I was forced to do actual work on one of them.
Laptops and desktops will go away when computers can read our minds. Until that happens, I will keep using and recommending Ubuntu, because it works really well and intuitively.
- oakbox
Not just answers, the correct questions.
Games and porn... Seriously, I can't watch Netflix on my Ubuntu laptop? AW Jeezus! "Our apologies — streaming is not supported for your operating system"
Rule ONE in the information technology (IT) field: IT will ALWAYS go with the lowest cost solution that does the job.
Years ago I remember feeling upset because of IBM's seeming domination at the IT field, how IBM seemed to have a total lock on mainframe computers to the exclusion of almost everyone else. IBM seemed to be overcharging for what they were offering, while seemingly using ... questionable ... tactics to continue in that role. Guess what, IBM still has a near total lock on mainframe computers, but I (and most of the rest of IT) doesn't really care. Why? Well, there are still a few roles / jobs where BIG mainframes still do make sense, just not many roles, and those niches are getting smaller each year.
Why the near death of the mainframe computer? Well, a number of upstart visionaries/entrepreneurs, like Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ken Olson, Jack Tramiel, and Steve Wozniak among MANY others, showed that in many roles the mainframe could be replaced with far less expensive hardware / software combinations. These various people offered a lower cost solution that could do the job.
So, where are we now? Well, Microsoft has a seeming near total lock on the desktop while using seemingly ... questionable ... tactics to continue that role. Going forward, where does Microsoft stand? Well, Microsoft are dead or dying in the server markets, and the embedded device markets. I don't know what will happen to desktop market, Microsoft may, like IBM with their mainframes, continue to dominate the desktop market ... and almost nobody will care.
Microsoft can NOT compete on cost with Linux, so they will not be the mainstream of IT. It MIGHT be that mainstream IT will be Linux based smart phones backed up with Linux based servers, with Microsoft holding a lock on a steadily becoming irrelevant desktop market. Regardless as to how things play out, I do know that the least expensive solution will eventually win out as the mainstream IT technology and that may mean a small Microsoft catering to a small niche market...
Colin McGregor
The desktop O/S is irrelevant. An optimized HURD kernel running flawlessly won't make a difference.
Kids today, and adults tomorrow simply won't sit at desktops and be sys admins for their desktop
computers. Think Nexus-One, Garmin 405, Nanos.
Linux due to its flexibility will live on as it retains utilitarian functionality. Whether it is a desktop
O/S pales in its ability to exist everywhere else.
Strohmeyer is throwing the towel in a little too early. The main problem of desktop Linux is that Windows XP is a "good enough" system. For now, there's little incentive for average users to switch from XP to Linux other than user's own curiosity or catastrophic Windows breakdown. But eventually, XP users will be forced to switch. The year of desktop Linux will come when Microsoft forces its users to leave XP. I say that Linux will score above 5% in web statistics before XP drops below 50% of Windows market share and above 10% before XP drops below 25%.
I know it's over And it never really began But in my heart it was so real
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1826490&cid=33936156
Also...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1826490&cid=33936448
In short, neither "Linux" nor Ubuntu are desktop platforms. They won't attract app developers because they lack platform-defining features and add severe tech support headaches.
Seriously, people... I can't get over the dumbness displayed here over this subject. Android is very successful and Linux-based, so you need to look at the structural differences between Android and a distro like Ubuntu. Hint: the difference starts right within the Linux Foundation which supplies a mobile SDK but not a desktop one!
installed it in 30 min on my workstation (clean install from Fedora 12).
it had almost everything i need to start developing, only had to yum for some PHP extra modules.
and had to install Oracle Java to get Smartgit and PhpStorm running. also got 64-bit flash player working in 64-bit Firefox and Chrome!
sure Linux is not an OS to play games (and i tried), and that's only because lake of Game Development tools and API, but for Work and Education it's great and not DEAD at all.
I build PC's for people all the time, and usually the cost of windows exceeds the amount I spent building the entire computer. At the very least THAT has to change.
If you mean the entire cost of the PC is less than windows license well that is utterly bogus.
If you mean your markup is less than windows license well it really doesn't take any skill to assemble a bunch of components.
Your markup (or lack thereof) is directly related to the lack of skill involved.
Windows 7 Premium OEM is $95. Purchased in bulk it is much much much less. 3 pack OEM license is about $60 per PC. Large OEM (dell, HP, etc) get it for about half that.
Most web-applications run on Linux. Web-applications are sort of an OS now. I would even say that the Internet is the OS by now.
At it runs of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) mostly.
As for me I use for work the GIMP www.gimp.org . It is originally the Linux application, but I use it on Windows. Sort of, - the best of two worlds.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Considering what the folks at OnLive have been able to achieve, they can already do that if they want to. I think the point is that Photoshop over the web isn't really that desirable. The latency is a real headache, and then you have to worry downloading those massive files to your hard drive.
Which is to say that the main thing holding it up is the fact that bandwidth hasn't been increasing as fast as it was during the late 90s. Were it to kick off like that again that would likely change. But downloading images where a single file is hundreds of megabytes or more is taxing on current internet connections.
The reason Windows still dominates is so so simple. People stay with what they are used to (esp what came with the computer) unless there is a very good reason to change, the gain must massively outweigh the effort.
Most people just think for example, there is only Office as productivity software, all computers get malware, what's an Operating System and I like that flashy MS advert. Most people aren't computer people.
They think changing will take learning and they don't have time for that, they think. It took them a long time to learn this computer stuff in the first place, so why change, when I'll be lost for ages again like when I first got a computer.
Not being able to download and run cak.exe from random website is confusing to them.
The view is, I'd rather stick with what I know and clean up the bogged down computer every so often, hell the number of people I know now that planned to just buy a new computer when it starts to go slowly is amazing.
The above is the main reason. If we want to get people to change then there has to be massive obvious/superficial advantages.
The first thing to do is probably target the PC gamer / modder market. They are basically low hanging fruit. They'd run anything that'd give them 2 extra FPS on the latest game.
To do this we should be getting very fast video drivers (hopefully Open Source) the proprietary NVIDIA driver is good but they don't seem keen to equal the Windows driver for performance. And I'm afraid it means "finishing" WINE for key apps (and heavily optimising it for games).
I know a lot of people object to WINE as it may stop people developing native Linux apps, and this is a fair criticism. But we must lower the barrier to switching, and this is I'm afraid the only way, people don't want to chuck all their old software to switch to Linux. And if market share grows, native apps will follow.
WINE could do with a "Sugar Daddy" to "finish" it. Come on Google, you put money in so it would run Photoshop, why not invest money in WINE even just to annoy MS!
That's why homes are expected to do most of their computing on the game console.
Game consoles do not run free software or homemade proprietary software for that matter. Where are homes expected to do most of their free computing?
Keep in mind that I plan to keep an engineer-class machine at home, but I think that most users neither need nor really want such a thing.
One shouldn't need to own an engineer-class machine to run programs written by a friend or family member who happens to own an engineer-class machine, but game consoles still have lockout.
Well, I went the route of punching a hole in the wall
How would you recommend that people who rent convince their landlords to allow this?
A condition easily changed if necessary to retain student interest.
Another anecdote relating to the suggestion of student discounts on time-limited licenses needed to write and run code on your own computer: My cousin started programming when he was in middle school. I doubt that a middle school administrator would agree to arrange for a discount on XNA Creators Club license because middle schools don't offer programming classes, nor did my high school offer them to freshmen.
I use Mac OS for most things, Linux for scientific computing, and PCs for games and when I have to.
Linux is dead, as a mass-market desktop OS. But Linux has always been dead in that sense. And yet somehow it keeps on going, keeps evolving and improving, always keeping pace with its competitors. I used Redhat back in the early '90s -- that wasn't an OS, that was a torture chamber. Today, while I prefer my Mac to my Ubuntu box, Ubuntu is usually a pleasure to use.
So what if there aren't 200 million desktop machines running Linux? It has enough users to support an active development group, has had for 20 years, and its existence doesn't depend on the whims of some vice president of software development somewhere. It may be dead, but it's also probably immortal.
Over the past few years, modern Linux distributions such as Ubuntu have utterly transformed the open-source desktop user experience into something sleek and simple, while arguably surpassing Windows and Mac OS in both security and stability.
...and usability. I installed and played a new A list title on Windows last week and every minute of the experience made me want to scream. From the surprise reboot due to virus patches to the 25 digit "authorization" code that has to be entered manually, to the many step, go back to the beginning and try to figure it out again installation process, to the jerky video, to the clumsy user interface, it all trails the modern Linux desktop experience by a wide country mile. I swear, this is the last time I will ever run a game of any description on Windows, or any application that I am not absolutely forced to. These days that happens about once every two years, and fallilng.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
The Desktop OS is dead.
Apple will wind down OS X over the decade - the PC era is over.
For users, this was heralded by the advent of the iPad, which will usher in 10,000 copies. For data centers, this came with large-scale, production virtualization.
Your beloved PC? Now a "content creator's" workstation. Everything from word processing to simple photo-editing goes on line - or into an "app".
I really really hope you're wrong. Having the iPad take over would be one of the worst nightmares computing could face.
Hell, I'd even rather have had a 90's-era Microsoft win.
I just don't care. I use linux as my primary and only desktop os for 5+ years. I don't try to convince anyone to use it. I wouldn't go back to windows. As long as there is a group of enthusiasts who make this happen and a group of enthusiasts who use it, it won't vanish. And to be true it is the only os where you can see the latest (maybe not the greatest after all) ideas concerning desktop, user interface paradigms, etc. It's the cutting edge. Period.
Take linux mint as example: If the efforts of all linux communities toward to, let me say, 'linux mint distro', I think that mint may survive on a macosx/windows world.
I currently work for an MSP (Claranet) and we are actively using GNU/Linux distributions (*buntu, Gentoo, RHEL, SuSE and more) and all perople in Operations, Development and Systems Engineering require skills in these systems. Further I had to migrate myself a few years ago and more perople around me stop using Windows in favour of GNU/Linux or Mac OSX (which is a broken BSD). There do also some BSD distros (yes distributions) exist like PCBSD or Desktop-BSD. I think the author of that news should have rather told us where he/she got that imfromation from. Finally I'd like to mention that the Spain government has a plan to migrate more than 50000 systems in schools and universitys from Windows to Ubuntu. And by the way... I'm a Ubuntu dev.;-)
PC-BSD does what you want. Each package installer includes everything that piece of software needs - library versions, etc. The end of DLL hell.
There's a catch; multiple applications using the same libraries have those libraries loaded into memory multiple times. Also, library bugfixes, etc., must be applied across each individual package.
But, it does exist!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Not so fast on OSX. Don't know why people keep saying that they will get rid of OSX. If you look at the most recent financial statement, Macs deliver pretty much 40% of their money. It's a tie between IPhone and Macs. IPods are like the only remaining big chunk, and they're miniscule in comparison to the two.
If I could, I'd mod you up again.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
In the US (and elsewhere), the ability to host your own data is greatly limited by small caps on upload bandwidth. That resource is still owned by ISP's who also, coincidentally will agree to host your 'content' for a price (and for terms of their 'agreement'). Seems like ISP's have a strong incentive to NOT allow you a good upload bandwidth, to make you dependent on remote hosting of your stuff.
Until that problem is addressed, home location of data is mostly a dream except for very small amounts of stuff.
On top of the above is the US-court view that at soon as you locate your stuff with any 3rd party, you lose your constitutional rights to have your stuff be safe without a warrant. That's the a large problem right there unless you want to add the overhead of encrypting everything -- but then forget easy access to 3rd party apps through conventional API's...
I'm starting to see a trend with PC World articles. I think they purposely title and write articles with the intent of angering their target audience. I'm only going to fall for it 20 more times.
Oh, shit, I had better remove Linux from my netbook, laptop, desktop at home, management workstation and all my servers I use at work if it is going to be a dead platform.
I really hope it doesnt go mainstream, then it would be just like Windows and OS X.
Apple winding down OS X hardly qualifies as death knell for the PC.
So you're going to write text 8 hours straight, 5 days a week, on an iPad?
Desktop computers aren't going anywhere, because they're large enough to have a decent display and keyboard. As an added bonus, they can also fit a powerful (by the standards of the time) processor and GPU, lots of memory, and a large hard disk.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
To each his own.
In my case, every individual who I have switched over knows so little about taking care of their computer it has been a net gain for them.
I am doing the work to keep the systems working, but it much less work than if I was helping them to keep windows running AND clean off the spyware every 3 months.
vi +
Excpet of course that the Mach kernel is ... the Mach kernel, not the BSD kernel. You basically just said 'Linux is alive, look at Windows' because Mac OSX has BSD subsystems just like Windows does after you install cygwin.
BSD still isn't dead of course, but the OSK kernel isn't BSD its Mach, OSX just has some BSD userland components.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Wow, spoken like a middle manager who knows absolutely nothing about desktops or server management.
Everything goes online ... into an app ... that still runs on your PC cause in case you haven't noticed, all these 'web apps' do a lot of processing on the desktop and a lot of displaying on a monitor.
Finally, the words you just spoke, I've heard at least 5 times in the last 20 years, and it still hasn't happened.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Based on these statements I'm fairly certain you've never used RDP for anything in your life, or you think the performance of X is good, one of the two.
Now that I've bothered to read all of your post, you appear to be more or less clueless. I don't think I can find one thing you wrote that is actually true.
RDP over even a gigabit connection is noticable different, even in Win7 with its improvements. I can barely stand using a text editor over RDP, browsing sucks, flash is absolutely asstastic. Anyone using PS or ACAD over RDP isn't actually doing anything once they start the program or they would have shot themselves 15 minutes into it.
I don't know anyone that runs a VM inside of Windows JUST so they can move the VM elsewhere if the hardware fails, thats what we have network shares and disk images for, welcome to the 80s when we solved these retarded problems without adding 18 layers of complexity and failure points in the process.
You aren't moving 50 graphics designers to a terminal server either, you don't have one with the CPU power needed to power them, and building a cluster to support them would cost you far more upfront and in maintenance than just supporting 50 desktops.
As for server virtualization ... how is it different than client without a display? Its not. You virtualize when you need a contained environment that doesn't justify a physical server for itself. You're wasting CPU power in virtualization.
I don't know who you're 'rolling out a virtual desktop' infrastructure for, but I'm 100% certain they're going to come out a loser in the deal.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
There are trends that have gone on for years in the magazine publishing industry. One is that if Newsweek puts a bear on the cover, the stock market is going to go up. The other is that if PC World pans your technology, it's about to take off.
Facebook runs on Windows Server actually.
But you still make a good point.
Every time I tried giving the latest Linux distro a go, I've always been disappointed. My most recent attempt was last week when I wanted to install Ubuntu 10.10 on my work-station to use as a VMWare host. The install went fine. It detected all my drivers. All except my 2 monitors connected via USB adapters. I started googling for the right drivers and hit the same problems I always do when I turn to linux: hit upon 50 different forums with references to the problem, but all relating to slightly different versions of Linux, or slightly different symptoms, or describing vastly different solutions, most of which don't work. After messing around for 3 hours trying to get things to work, I turned back to Windows 7. Installed the OS in half an hour, and the 2 external screens 'just worked'. Had the VMWare player running and my guest VM spanning 2 of my 3 screens within the hour. Ubuntu/Linux is great in theory. A free, stable and secure OS. And it almost works. But it's that last 10% or 5% of things that you need to jump through a thousand different hoops to get going that drive people away. Also, the collection of apps available range vastly in aesthetics and quality. There's some good stuff out there, but there's also lots and lots of crapola that will drive anyone but the most devoted geek up the wall with config files, recompiling modules, package dependencies and all that crap. For very basic use (i.e. one screen, simple apps like web browser, OpenOffice and maybe a paint program), Linux is fine. But then again, almost any OS is fine for these things. You can put Android on a netbook that does this. Or MeeGo. Or probably even the new BlackBerry tablet thing. Or iOS. Or OSX. Or Symbian. Or whatever custom crap you can dream up of.
That's a confusing question. Why translate business rules into SQL? Why not run the rules in Java on one of the many Oracle app servers (or, comically, inside the DB itself).
Seriously, I don't even work for Oracle and I could architect a dozen solutions for your problem. Give your Oracle account manager a call, or (for the cheaper option) head over to Apache.org for some open source (but still very professional) options.
Having worked with linux, windows and mac os for over 10 years each on both the desktop and server space, it sounds like you had a rare instance where the loaded OS was old and some firmware patches had come out. I'm not going to deny that those instances exist, but in my experience they are rare. Six times is really, really rare. Once is common.
The big difference between windows and linux/mac is that on a fresh Windows workstation, there is no automated way to just blindly accept all of the packages and install all updates. Pointing, clicking and babysitting is required to become fully patched. XP even requires you to install Microsoft Update to get more than just windows updates for Microsoft software. (Though I haven't had much experience with Win7, so hopefully this is different now.)
The alternative? Linux and Mac both allow you to click a _few_ buttons or run a few commands and blindly update everything. None of this pausing in the middle of the install to see if you really want to install IE8, and if you do then also answer a few quick questions in new web browser windows. None of these pop-up notifications informing you that you can read more information about benefits of Windows Genuine Advantage, if you so please, pausing the process until you answer.
sudo softwareupdate -i -a # Walk away from your OS X system.
sudo bash -c "apt-get update && apt-get -y dist-upgrade" # Walk away from your Ubuntu system.
sudo yum -y update # Walk away from your Centos system.
There are graphical equivalents of all of these too, for the CLI-phobic, that require just a few clicks to do the same behaviors. The Windows graphical equivalent still requires much user intervention and babysitting, *especially* on a new system.
On top of that, Apple makes update bundles more frequently than Microsoft makes service packs, so you end up installing a fewer number of updates which in turn minimizes the possibility of something breaking.
Microsoft's stand-alone workstation update system has always been a sore point for me, I really hope they make it less painful. I do want them to succeed, and I do want things to be easy for their users, that way they won't have to come to me for help as much.
I hope that it is 'dead'. That way I can continue using it the way I do.
The more people that adopt it, the more viruses, malware, etc etc etc that'll pop up. Then, what will I do to remain productive? BSD?
1-2% is a pretty big number. Especially if you take a survey on the type of work that 1-2% do. I'd be very, very happy with that.i
.
The year of no Linux on the desktop! What a relief not to have to anticipate anymore.
-- Cheers!
My dad's a carpenter. Sometimes there's tools that are not worth buying for a one-man operation (say, a front-end loader) - that's when you rent it.
I'm sure if there was a monthly "pay to use Photoshop" option, a lot of professionals would use it for the times they do need it, but not very many would use it long term.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Ahh, yes. I predict that by 2020, there'll only be 6 PCs in the whole world, with everybody else connected by a simple iOS or Android device to one of them.
Face it, you're not the first nor the last to predict the death of the PC in favor of some locked-down alternative, and so far your record has been pretty lousy.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
and I suppose the proverbial grandma is much the same.
Those are not good audiences to drive marketshare for general purpose personal computing.
Finally, Windows is the dregs and has its position from its long history (as well as being a real PC platform). But technical excellence in the Linux world won't matter to people if they can't easily identify it.
The market is with me on this and its moving towards OS X.
Cheap and nasty network printers have postscript or even PDF built into them now and are compatible with just about anything you can think of.
Try typing anything of length on a touch screen keyboard - hell try touch typing.
A mouse is still the most accurate input device, you can select a single pixel, or it can accelerate movement, a small few cm movement makes a larger on screen one. Touch screens are cute for specific tasks optimized for the platform but don't scale. Multi-touch is misleadingly titled, you cannot still do more than one input at once. With a keyboard you can be pressing keys or shortcut combos whilst the mouse is moving, and input mouse buttons and scroll wheel at the same time. Touch screens you can only do one gesture at a time, perhaps some software may support you using a second hand. But thats it.
I've noticed almost all new laptops have multi-touch gestures on their trackpads, it won't be long before mice end up with multi-touch pads on their tops.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I run Linux on my laptop out of convenience/necessity. I use my laptop for two things: network testing, and web development. Linux of course has the richest set of networking tools and capabilities of any OS, lets me do whatever I want with great ease and flexibility. The web dev side of it though, it's ass. The only reason I stick with it is because, half the time, KIO kinda-sorta works, which is better than no KIO at all. I wish it worked all the time, but that is apparently too much to ask of the KDE dev team.
Desktop Linux is dead because Gnome and KDE4 suck.
And then we have the Mac. Since OS X, Unix geeks have been warming up to the platform, because for the first time ever, a snazzy UI has been built atop a Unix core. Actual designers were paid to conceive this interface, and held to some standard of usability and esthetic appeal, unheard of in the Linux world.
Deaktop Linux is dead because OS X does it better.
This relegates KDE and Gnome to the no-budget segment, people who either don't want (me) or can't afford (me too) a Mac. To non-hackers, every Linux GUI will be compared (superficially) to Aero Glass or OS X, which is to say, they always lose.
At the end of the day, even the hackers want something that "Just Works" because we have shit to do that doesn't involve tweaking X configs and restarting FUBARed window managers every hour. The desktop is, above all, a work tool. If it makes my work easier, win! If it makes it painful, fail. Right now Linux desktops are still mostly fail.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I remember desktop Linux getting usable and stable back in 1999, at least it could do anything Windows or Mac could do at the time. I was quite excited, I figured a year or two of development from the FOSS community to polish and iron out bugs would mean a Windows killer was on the way.
Indeed, it seemed unstoppable all you'd need to do was hand someone a live CD to cure their Microsoft related woes. Nothing paid, no licencing, and a good platform for development, I couldn't see how it cold fail.
But a decade later, I've given up holding my breath. Every major Distro release I see minor incremental improvements, often gains are eaten up by brand new problems. It seems periodically everything is completely re-written from the ground up, to only be slightly better. Desktop Linux has been consistenly behind the major players, content to imitate. I remember seeing 3D desktop effects demo'd in August 2003 by Microsoft. It took until 2006 before Compiz, to actually be usable, only when Vista wasn't far away. Oh and only when the BETA versions of Windows 7 showed massive performance improvements did Canonical do something about how painfully long Ubuntu was taking to boot.
There is absolutely no fucking innovation in the userspace, just autisticly copying Windows/OSX. Sure both Microsoft and Apple copy each other, but they both have a long list of GUI innovations and the patents to go with them in wider use today. Oh uh, the desktop cube thing and the tabbed windows I think are pretty cool. But these are Mac-ish, look cool in demos, great to show off to geeky girls in coffee shops when they notice my linux laptop, but I haven't really figured out what advantage they are.
FOSS development is not wanting for brute force labor nor programming talent, dare I say this dwarfs whats available for MS or Apple to muster by a few orders of magnitude.
But by all measures it's absolutely fucking autistic and has been counting words in the dictionary repeatedly for the last 20 years.
Desktop Linux needs a clean-sheet rethink just as happens every 6 months it seems, except this time it actually needs some high-level right brain design. This is exactly what happend with Android, which is a linux distro done right - finally- and look at what's happening with that.
While I still use Ubuntu quite a lot, I've given up on destop linux as a hobby, I'm now a Android nerd. And you know what? I'm happier now.
While I'm still a PC user first and foremost, as well as a smartphone totting hipster, I hang my head in shame. Apple, Microsoft, OSS crowd are all too damn selfish, too far up their own agendas be it profit, politics or whatever. Aren't computers intended for use by people? More specificly aren't computers Tools for productivity communication and leisure for use by human beings? Should this not be priority #1 in design in development?
As an IT guy I'm ashamed, no wonder we're hated.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
long live Unix, and the Macintosh OS X!
Bad grammar on my part. My point is that, eventually, 32-bit native mode will be gone entirely and support for it in any type of emulation will also vanish. Of course, by then we'll probably be talking about having to support 64-bit apps on a 128-bit system, but who knows?
Though, honestly, I don't really know what I was thinking when I hit 'submit'.
Baloney...
I run at least five flavors of Windows and hafter as many Linux distros, am pretty solidly in the Ubuntu camp. I have a Mac and an iPhone and am going to be buying more for a laundry list of reasons.
HOWEVER, the first thing that struck me about the Mac and the iPhone was how much they did NOT "just work." I was ready to be converted. Oh, please, let me for once just buy a !@#$ing box and be able to plug it in and start working. It was NO different to me than setting up a Windows or Ubuntu box. The OS wasn't fully configured or even current. I had to install everything myself only to find it wanted to automatically run 2.9GBs of patches, rebooting about six times in the process. I didn't have a working computer until the next day.
The difference is that Apple has an army of well trained baby sitters who will, for a fee, put up with this crap for you and coddle your ego telling you what a special, pretty smart and interesting person you are and then hand your shiny box back.
I refuse to pay for that sort of saccharine bullshit, so I'm left with a computer that is just as much a pain in my ass as any other.
You've constructed a nice straw man there in which "just works" means "comes magically preconfigured for my specific needs and never requires software updates".
Computers get put in boxes and within a few days they are out of date. The longer it sits in the box before it gets to you, the more updates it needs. Apple periodically refreshes its lineup and new models get the latest software, but yes, you're going to need some updates.
You may or may not be exaggerating the downloads or restarts required; I can't tell. I can only say that the numbers you quote are probably near the upper limits for what any buyer of a new, current model Apple computer is ever likely to experience. I don't think I've even come close to those figures in the last six months on OSX.
How that compares to installing Linux, where you have to download the entire operating system unless you bought a computer preconfigured with it, I don't know. You don't offer any comparisons, so I can only guess-- although you yourself say it's "no different" than an Ubuntu box.
"Just works" means that for the majority of tasks for which an average user requires a computer, the way in which the task is achieved is intuitive-- something that a user with minimal training can achieve without a lot of trial and error or consulting documentation. When referring to peripherals and accessories, it means that when one has a reasonable expectation that two devices should work together, that they do so with a minimum of trouble and effort, and in a way that matches the user's expectations.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with patches or configuration. The phrase "just works" was never intended by anyone to mean "doesn't require configuration" or "doesn't require updates".
...can mean whatever you want. Based on how much market share they gain each year, I'd say Linux is the MOST successful desktop OS. And I'll ignore any data you come up with to contradict me, because I'm an important paid blogger and you're just some dude on the comments.
I miss /. tags. This article would have been tagged 'flamebait' in record time.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
"it won't be long before mice end up with multi-touch pads on their tops."
Magic Mouse has been around for a while.
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline." - Frank Zappa
I believe all software should be free (as in freedom).
How do you propose that the development of a video game with production values comparable to major-label games be financed if the end product will be released under a license for free software and a license for free cultural works?
Would I criticize that software, and/or recommend alternatives to others? Yes, usually.
Let's try an exercise: Can you come up with a free substitute for each of these?
You can release the code for a game but still sell the media.
Which would require distribution of parts of the work under two licenses with contradictory goals. It's not entirely clear to me what "are not by their nature extensions of the covered work" in the definition of "aggregate" in the GPL means, nor could I dig up any guidance from the FSF on video game licensing on Google.
Why do MS want to buy Adobe? When Microsoft 'helped' Corel, Corel sold off Linux and hasn't made any Linus software since.
If Adobe took on Linux, something not that hard given they support the Mac, and included that Adobe project "Display Postscript" (which has always been an Adobe desire) MS would be on a road to death. You can't write software for Windows and be an enemy of MS. Not at the Adobe level, not in a marketplace where timing is so important, see Novell and Wordperfect.
If Linux is dead on the desktop then it is because of MS not because of any other reason. I wouldn't be too concerned. It would only require Adobe to do what they really want to, create their own OS with Display Postscript and the world will instantly change. MS know that all too well.
Embrace the Dark Side, come into the Cloud! Doctorow: Not every cloud has a silver lining
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
What really killed Linux was its corporate-averse licensure, the fact that the user experience is different every two machines you go to, and that KDE and Gnome are agonizing by Windows 3.1 standards.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Yoohoo, Mr. TRoll: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotLinux/~3/wvFN37Ng4JM/Microsoft-Admits-OpenOfficeorg-Is-a-Contender
Last week I needed some 5x8 printed cards. Crank up Abiword. Specify custom page, 5x8 inches portrait. Do my layout -- headline, 4 bulleted items, 3 paragraphs.
Print from regular paper tray. Works.
Print from manual feed tray with 5x8 card stock. Prints blank page.
Two hours later after massive internet searching. Find lots of people with similar problems. And no answers. More time playing with printer settings, I email my text to my wife to run through In Design. 5 minutes later I have my cards.
Similarly wanted a larger sign that would have to tile over 8 pages. On Indesign it was simple. On Linux I couldn't find an app.
****
Wanted a quick and dirty database to track inventory at my tree farm. The kind of thing that even a noob can do in Access in half an hour, and then in an hour each pull all kinds of different reports out of it.
The database part isn't bad. Lots of fine DB's in Linux. Indeed, at this level, I could probably do it with YellowPages.
Easy to do forms for input? Easy reports for output? Nada.
****
Wanted a spread sheet where part of it had a code for the tree. If you typed this code in column 1, then column 2 would hve the common name of the tree, 3 would have the botanical name, column 4, the price unit, column 5 the price per unit...
Tried doing it in OOcalc. Tried doing it in Gnumeric. No documentation on the fancy lookup functions on one, and an average uptime without crashing of about 10 minutes on the other. Right now I don't remember which was which.
****
Wanted a 3D landscape design program in Linux. One that has a decent database to go with it of trees & shrubs, their appearence, their growth habits. Not happening. Mind you, I've not found that in windows either.
****
Wanted a way to create maps for orienteering. Oh. yeah. Linux doesn't do mapping software either.
****
Had sound working nicely in Fedora 9. Upgraded to 10. Has never worked since.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
string management and validation.
...is at the application level. Though MySQL has plenty of string functions available if necessary.
Ease and certainty of restoring backups.
This one might have a bit of truth to it.
Comprehensibility of documentation
I dunno, the official documentation is pretty comprehensive.
Decently organized functions.
If you're talking about stored procedures, maybe. Otherwise, MySQL is ANSI compliant for the most part, so very little should be new.
A major effort at ironing out bugs, quirks, and exceptions to rules. Gawd, PHP is just a horror, and end users hate Java and Javascript, what a mess those versions are. Who the hell has time to overhaul their applications every time the publishers of PHP scratch their asses?
And here you've gone off on PHP when I asked specifically about the database, and the rest of your issues follow suit.
Databases are data entry applications, that means keyboard navigation. Keep your hands on the keyboard. The graphical mouseable interface is just death.
Nope. Databases are databases. Data entry applications query a database. Like I said, if you want a purely text interface, you're welcome to code your own in C. MySQL isn't tied to PHP in any way.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Those are all good points. Actually, I hinted at the complexity of the issue in my overly-simplified bit of history of the adoption of small computers. Since a good deal of the history was people buying such gadgets inside corporations, with department funds, to defeat the control of the company's computer department, the actual situation was a lot more complex. In such cases, which account for a large fraction of the early purchases of "desktop" computers, the machines in question are actually owned by the same corporation that runs the central computer department. It was (and still is) an issue of corporate inter-department rivalry, with the central department wanting control over everyone's equipment, and the other departments wanting control over their own computing. If the central DP department were truly the "service" department that they all claim to be, the rest of the company would never have bought their own computers. The central computer could have done the job much more cheaply and reliably.
But anyone who's ever worked in a corporate environment understands that this is a fantasy. Whatever it's called, a central computing facility becomes a corporate power center that doesn't work in its users' best interests. There is always a power struggle, between the centralized holder of information and the scattered users of that information. The main power the DP-center folks have is withholding or delaying access to data and processing. So the "logic" I described applies there, despite the fact that ultimate ownership is the corporation's. But the power struggle partly arises because of the heirarchical nature of the corporation. And in most corporations ownership is also heirarchical, with equipment sub-owned (to coin a term) by different departments. The central department naturally wants ownership and control over all the equipment, which may be feasible in a small company, but not in a big heirarchical corporation.
Back around 1980, I worked as an outside software consultant at a big corporation (who shall remain nameless here ;-) that had the usual big IBM mainframe "owned" by the DP center. The DP-center folks of course viewed us as interlopers and dragged their feet whenever possible. One evening, a bunch of us decides to stay late and "explore" the system's file security. In the morning, we were able to report to upper management that we could read any file on the system. They were overjoyed, and promptly gave us a list of reports that they'd like have. We'd figured out that the DP center was a power center that top management couldn't control, and management was frustrated by the "inability" of the DP people to give them information that they knew was inside the computer. We'd given them back access to their own data that was being held hostage by the DP center, as part of a typical corporate power struggle.
Some time later, we had a small discussion over whether we should inform IBM of how we'd cracked their file system. Our conclusion was a big "Nah!", because it was to our customer's advantage that our exploits continue to work. We'd been hired by top management, not by the DP center, after all. Also, other customers' management would likely pay us for implementing the same sort of "super-user" access to their own data.
My part in the power struggle came about mostly because I added a number of routines to various report generators that compared the data in different databases, and produced a separate "dubious-data" report listing the inconsistencies it found. Most people's first reaction to this was to get very upset, and want to hide that report. Then, often within a week, it would occur to them that it was better if they got the problem report than that management see it, and they started asking if they could get just the dubious-data report as a separate run. Of course, they could. I also wrote the first interactive database-editing tools they'd ever seen, so they could actually sit down at a terminal and correct the errors in th
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
All I want to be able to do at this point is make regular backups to a regular external HD
grsync?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grsync
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/grsync-simple-gui-rsync-easily-linux/
My stance: I only installed Lucid Lynx on my laptop because I'm sick of calling Microsoft and having to reactivate my legal copy of Win 7. I love Win 7, and would prefer to run it, but after spending Time on hold with Microsoft (going so far as to speak Swedish Chef to confuse their voice recognition software), I installed linux. Been working well so far. My question: If ALL the corporate desktops were taken out of the picture, I wonder what the percentage of Linux to Microsoft or Apple would be. In other words, when given the -choice-, what do people run?
Blah blah blah flamebait flamebait. I'm surprised it got through the firehose.
I'm being perfectly honest here; Linux as a desktop system is working fine on four of my home computers. Two of them are even Windows hybrid systems, if you care to know.
I am not devoid of humor.
http://www.newsweek.com/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html
PS: look at the date... Some "prophecies" just aren't worth the ink.
Those prognosticators did not make their statements at the end of a quarter in which 20 million such devices were sold - by just one vendor.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Slow ride.
Take it easy.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Well, I guess that speaks to the overall state of Slashdot these days. Go look through my long comment history as back support for that comment.
The core point I was making is that overall share doesn't mean much in the open desktop world. Never has, never will.
I use a Linux desktop all the time. I do MCAD on it, and I program on it, and I know many, many others that do the same.
Who the fuck are you kidding indeed?
What? Did we offend the delicate sensibilities of the new up and comers here on Slashdot?
I think I'll e-mail that one to Rob. Bet he gets a kick out of that troll rating!
Just know it's not dead, until the base of users says it's dead. That's the big difference between closed, proprietary desktops, and Linux. Ask around some of the older schoolers, who will set you straight.
Cheers everyone, and yes! My karma is still Excellent! (though with this trend, it may not be, and that's deffo not my issue)
Blogging because I can...
desktop is the wrong analogy. It's more full-on computing vs appliance/device computing; regardless of form-factor. Currently about 6-in-10 people use computers. More than 1/2 are barely comp literate and would drop the learning curve for anything easier that came along. Combine that with the remaining 4-in-10 that mfgs are trying to drag into the modern electronic world and the result will be less emphasis on OS and more on app-stores; device size notwithstanding.
Cheers
resist propaganda
it takes like 30 sec to load this page.
I was just about to rant about how "if I wanted to contribute to say... OpenOffice, because I saw something I could improve upon during my daily usage, I'd have to follow the mass of instructions in the OpenOffice building guide to do so. I can't just point my development environment at OpenOffice.org, open the project and start debugging. which for an OS that encourages contribution to the development of it's applications... seems to fail on the ease of contribution.", then add about contributing to a desktop environment say Gnome, and just getting the info took to long.
I think you need to practice reading comprehension there dude as you clearly have no idea what I was talking about. Specifically I said RDP wasn't good enough and so you need a virtual desktop which is completely different.
Futhermore, you don't seem to understand the concept of a virtual desktop at all as you go on about running a Windows VM on a Windows machine which is stupid and pointless. I run Lenovo's at $230 a piece that come with Linux preinstalled. The Citrix receiver then connects the machine to Windows and they have access to all their local hardware including USB devices like cameras or flash sticks.
Clearly you don't understand Virtual desktops or desktop streaming where you can indeed move 50 graphics designers to virtual desktops, not terminal servers. The best part with desktop streaming in that all the software is in the VM and not on the desktop, if the machine crashes because someone spilled coffee or any number of reasons then all the designer needs to do is connect to his VM from another workstation and he's back right where he left out without losing any precision. There is almost no latency in a virtual desktop session, it's the same as if you were on the machine itself. I've got Autocad people using it this very moment and they are quite happy as just last night I used the Citrix client on the iPad to show the owner the drawings from the next event we're doing.
Before you call people clueless you might want to make sure your own camp is in order as you again show ignorance with your server virtualization statement. Some servers require lots of IO, mainly database servers and those servers have never been good candidates for virtual loads. The same goes with high performance webservers, video transcoding, HD capture, security surveillance, and a number of high IO or CPU intensive applications won't live well in a virtual environment.
"You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."
This quote very much applies to MS Windows and MS Office users ... all over the world.
A computer technician who works in a developing country in SouthEast Asia confirmed this to me just two days ago.
Desktop Linux - Don't give up! Your day will come! We = the ones already unplugged = will keep promoting you!
And not being able to play a dvd makes Linux broken? Excuse me!!! For crying out loud!!! The dvd region code is what makes dvd broken.
DVD video discs may be encoded with a region code restricting the area of the world in which they can be played.
Most people don't even know and are completely unaware of this ...