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Should Being Competitive With Windows Matter For Linux?
An anonymous reader writes "Is Linux being held back by distributions bent on competing with Microsoft Windows? This article argues that it's a real possibility. Quoting: '... what was apparent early on during my Linux adoption was my motivation for making the switch in the first place — no longer wanting to use Windows. This is where I think the confusion begins for most new Linux adopters. As we make the switch, we must fight the inherent urge to automatically begin comparing the new desktop experience to our previous experiences with Windows. It's a completely different set of circumstances, folks. ... The fact that one platform can support a specific device while the other platform cannot (and so on) doesn't really solve the problem of getting said device working. You can see where this dysfunction of thought can become a big problem, fast."
Linux must compete with Windows if there is ever going to be a "year of Linux on the desktop."
That would force manufacturers to release more compatible products, perhaps even contributing drivers to the kernel. It would spur the release of more commercial software, and gather more interest in the open source software that already exists as well as fostering new growth there.
Computers would be cheaper, as there wouldn't be a Windows tax, and additionally there would be more form factors available. How about ARM laptops with 30-40 hour battery life? Oh, sorry, that's not really happening now because manufacturers are afraid their customers will be confused, and they are afraid of losing their partnering bribes - I mean "incentives" with Microsoft.
Linux on the desktop, from the store, for average people, with first-party support, is extremely desirable for the future of computing. One thing that would be nice is to see some Linux games. Oh sure, you can run Wine or one of the commercial variants of Wine, but most people are just going to stick with Windows.
Making Linux competitive with Windows? I thought that's what FVWM-95 was for! :^)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
While I am more techy than most of the people I worky with (Hence I am sitting here reading this at work) most of the folks around me look at PCs simply as a tool. Can't teach them new tricks? Bollocks. A lot of my time is spent working with business teams who are looking to improve their way of doing business and teaching them about how different programs can be used to get the information they want.
Want to find your current sales trends in a way that you haven't been able to before? Okay, well, we have the data in this thing called Datawarehouse. Our reporting team will be able to provide you a set of reports, but they take a long time to develop and check. If you want to do some quick nasty analysis to fend off a crisis, there is a program called TOAD that will let you directly query your data. Look difficult? Lets go through how it works and how you write a SQL query.
Result: In the last Two years, I have introduced around 100 users who are NOT tech savvy at all to the wonders of SQL queries. They are now in various stages of competence, but they are using new things.
My (belated) point here is that while something like Toad (or now replace with Linux) isn't something that they can just pick up and run with, if people see a benefit to it, they WILL make the effort to learn how to use it.
In my mind, Linux really needs to advertise the benefits it has to the ordinary person so that they are enticed to make the effort to learn how to use it. Having said that, the easier it makes this learning process, the less advertising it has to do.
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Desktops are stuck in a "desktop" paradigm, and so are going to be whatever they are now until they totally disappear sometime decades from now: Windows for most everyone, Macs for some specialties particularly in audiovisual production, and Linux for the very few in either the narrowest range of specialties or the narrowest band of all: those who use the best tool for the job at hand, regardless of what everyone else is using.
But the desktop is disappearing. "Mobile" computing is computing you don't have to notice computing. Especially as input leaves behind keyboards, as all displays are networked and shareable, the GUI will detach from the hardware, to be put anywhere the users want it to be, including merged together. More and more people will do what they do helped by "computers", but they won't be Windows. They'll be Android, or some other Linux variant. Because Windows is like a desktop, and most work is better done without a desktop.
It won't be Linux, either. Linux will have a place in the majority of servers, and there'll be a lot of them. But the "Internet of Things" needs something smaller than Windows, smaller than Linux. It's why even the Mac ditched the old MacOS and is now closely related to Linux, in that it's mostly a (mostly) open Unix variant.
Android is closing in on a majority of smartphones. Around the time it's the majority, all phones that do more than just talk will be smartphones. It's the software and uses of smartphones, and their closely related tablets, that will be what most humans use "computers" for most of the time. Everyone in a developed economy will have their mobile device that's their key to accessing all the people, things and info in their world. Windows will be stuck on desktops, where the first small segment of humans started using them. The rest of the world, most of it, will be using the descendants of Android in ways that Windows can never approximate.
--
make install -not war
Your defense of the registry shows how you don't understand application and user behavior. The registry is a foul design decision, and up to XP SP2, was accessible by anything for the worst of reasons. Because of its relationship to the kernel, user space, and hardware, it was ridiculously simple to screw it up, or make it the crux of bad behavior in strange, unusual, and bizarre ways. After XP SP2 when user-space was 'redefined', it continued to be the garbage pail for every bad programming mistake ever made in Windows. It's been bad for fifteen years. It's bad now. Its predecessor config files were evil. It turned into a monster that Microsoft couldn't control-- but every bad hack in the book could.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Right on brother! I've just spent about 18 months using Linux almost exclusively, (there are a few things that I can't run even under Wine or VirtualBox), and I'm now preparing to return to Windows. I hate Micro$oft, I love the idea of Linux and FOSS, and yet I'm going back to the evil empire. Why?
First I should explain that I'm quite capable of using the CLI to issue commands, configure stuff, etc. And I've successfully edited more config files than I really wanted to, (often piecing together bits of info from the web because I couldn't find all the relevant info in one place). The point being that I'm not a technophobe or a dufus. I'm primarily a hardware designer, but I've written some software, I've used computers heavily since DOS 3.0, and I'm a fairly sophisticated user. But, I really DON'T WANT TO SPEND MY LIFE figuring out why Wine doesn't work any more, or figuring out a workaround for the fact that the structure of CUPS doesn't allow cups-pdf to give me the opportunity to specify my own filename and destination directory on-the-fly. I don't want to waste my time launching a separate app to search for files because Nautilus doesn't have an integrated search function, only to find that the search program doesn't allow me to change file properties. I don't want to waste time installing Dolphin with all its aesthetic ugliness and K-bloat in order to have a decent file manager, only to discover that Dolphin doesn't do partial filename searches and doesn't TELL me that it can't do them. I don't want to have to chase around my system trying to find icons to reassociate with binaries because an update broke the associations somehow.
And I could go on and on in this vein, but I think I've made my point. I use my computer largely for work, and the more time I spend trying to make it functional, the less time I have for either work or recreation. A little bit of dicking around with my computer is fun and educational, (and in fact I did a lot more than 'a little bit' when I first adopted Linux), but beyond that it just gets tiresome and frustrating. I'm much more interested in doing things WITH my computer than I am in doing things TO my computer. When I first started using computers, they were fascinating in and of themselves. Now I want them to be like my car; know a little bit about how they work and how to fix them, expect to do some maintenance and repairs occasionally, but mostly just hop in and drive without a second thought. And as frustrating and far-from-perfect as I've found Windows to be, in my experience it's a lot closer to that ideal than Linux is.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
> Gconf doing that is very rude, and it should definitely stop. Have you filed a bug?
Don't think it is GConf, but somehow tied into Nautilus's virtual file system feature. It is a FUSE filesystem mounted there. But no, there isn't a point in filing a bug report. It isn't a bug, it's a FEATURE! They are using some capability stuff beyond the normal UNIX API as a security measure. Forbidding root from even stating a file is just evil in my book though. Problem is the GNOMES know it breaks UNIX semantics and don't care because they are mostly Windows refugees who were never properly assimilated into UNIX culture enough for them to see the value in it. Filthy Philistines! :)
Same for this Wayland heresy getting started over at Ubuntu. The Computer is the Network, the Network is the Computer. Just words to em, merrily breaking X and the idea of network transparency, not because it will perform better but because the ignorant fools don't realize X's network transparancy isn't the cause of the performance issues they are trying to solve. But mostly because they probably don't personally use apps remotely and don't even realize that they are tossing one of the greatest ideas in computing history down the shitter.
Again, when you get a large influx of immigrants/refugees it is vitally important to ensure they assimilate BEFORE turning over important design work. That didn't happen because of this insane rush to bring about "The Year of the Linux Desktop." In the end we risk letting these hosers screw things up so badly the plumbing gets so screwed up we lose the server and embedded space as well. Those who refuse to learn UNIX will end up reinventing it... poorly.
Democrat delenda est
Same for this Wayland heresy getting started over at Ubuntu. The Computer is the Network, the Network is the Computer. Just words to em, merrily breaking X and the idea of network transparency, not because it will perform better but because the ignorant fools don't realize X's network transparancy isn't the cause of the performance issues they are trying to solve. But mostly because they probably don't personally use apps remotely and don't even realize that they are tossing one of the greatest ideas in computing history down the shitter.
If you're going to throw such statements around, you better get your facts straight. The Wayland developers never blamed the networking protocol for the problems of X, but rather the fundamental architecture of X. In fact, Wayland has been built with networking in mind since nearly the beginning.
Wayland architecture
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"