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Old Arguments May Cost Linux the Desktop
itwbennett writes "The old Linux arguments that pit one tool against another — Evolution vs. Thunderbird, LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice, and GNOME3 vs. Unity vs. KDE vs. everything else — may cost Linux its shot at the desktop, opines blogger Brian Proffitt. 'We can compare LibreOffice to OpenOffice.org to Office till the cows come home,' says Proffitt. 'But what happens when Google Docs gets truly robust enough for business and high-end document production? Or Prezi gets enough mindshare to start an upwards trajectory of user numbers?' It should be the case that increasing reliance on cloud software will make it easier for businesses to choose Linux, but for that to happen, Linux communities need to stop fighting the old fights, says Proffitt."
n/t
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Is LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice an old argument? It's hardly a year old...
...is more important than monoculture, in my humble opinion.
If only 1 percent of computer users use Linux, then I will argue they are the Top 1 percent ;)
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Linux does not have a shot at the desktop and never will. That is some /. nerd fantasy.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
So, let me get this straight: "Linux On the Desktop" is doomed because, when 'cloud applications' come into the fore, there will still be nerds with strong opinions about native applications?
Isn't that exactly backward?
If "The Cloud" rises up and devours natives software, nobody will give a fuck about any application on the Linux desktop, except for the browser(the state of which is fine) and none of the suits will care about the raging emacs/vi crusades, so long as they can get their almost-thin-clients booted into gmail as cheaply as possible...
The hypothetical rise of in-browser stuff renders battles about the relative value of assorted linux-native applications irrelevant, that's sort of the whole point.
Once people shift to using cloud-based software, the very reason for people to use Linux on the desktop (software freedom) is lost in any case. It will be a case of getting past the post after the race is over.
When software models compete against each other, new features are created, if there was no competition in the Linux world, progress would come to a halt. Oh, and... cloud computing will never be used for anything serious. Trying going to bed with a picture of your SSN in the cloud and what that means for your bank account next breach, night OP.
Unless you are a developer.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Only because it has the "it's different.... WOW!" factor. after that it will be a meh moment.
Prezi is a PITA to use compared to Keynote or Libre Impress. I have given the info to some of the marketing people here and they give up after 10 minutes and go back to Libre Office and their dancing gif's and stupid looking presentations.
Now Google Docs, if they come in FTW and have linux,Windows,OSX native apps that work when not connected to the intarwebs.... I'm all for it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm done caring about the "year of the desktop debate". I use Windows 7 for gaming and I use Linux for everything else. If that puts me in a 1% camp, then so be it.
Google Docs is only useful if it is a native application. Otherwise, it is mostly worthless and a pain in the ass(sorry, running an application within a browser is not optimal, particularly when free variants exist already).
Gamers and computer enthusiasts might stick with it, but regular users will use specialized devices as they become more compact, power efficient and above all, cheap.
how does arguing which is better in the presence of of online alternatives cost Linux the desktop?
It might not cost Linux the desktop, but it might cost Linux the laptop. Mobile broadband to use Google Docs or Prezi while riding a bus is still priced as a luxury service.
1. This article blindly assumes that "linux on everybody's desktop" is a goal. It may be for some people, but if I had to put money on it, I'd say that 95% of linux users don't really give a damn. Linux will always be useful for them, irrespective of whether grandma can buy a desktop with linux pre-installed.
2. Linux already IS on the desktop for millions of people. It's been on my desktop for 14 years. It may not be on grandma's desktop, but again, why would I care? I use linux because it's the best tool for what I do (and also the most fun and interesting for me) not because I'm on some kind of world-domination crusade.
Nobody asked this guy to speak for them, myself included. So I kindly suggest that he piss off.
more like the year of linux in your pants!
errr.... pocket.... yeah, that's what I meant...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That all the arguing in the community is what is holding Linux back is itself a tired old argument.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Linux had its shot at the desktop when Netbooks first appeared. It lost that battle. I doubt it will have another one.
...about porting Linux apps to the Cloud? TFA talks about how OpenOffice/LibreOffice will never make it to the cloud in time to be competitive vs Google Docs/Office Live...but if the Linux/FOSS crowd wants their software to remain open, why would they use such applications in the cloud? Would providing the app via the cloud into a browser be considered "distribution" of the application or binary, and if so would the cloud provider be required to provide their modified source to interested parties? If not, I see no reason why OSS advocates would even want to use such applications in the cloud...and without those who are most feverishly supportive of Open Source, what real market would "Cloud LibreOffice" or "GIMPCloud" have?
TFA:
The old arguments about desktops and application superiority aren't going to matter if all the other platforms have moved on.
Headline/conclusion:
Old Arguments May Cost Linux the Desktop
Make up your mind. If everyone moves to the cloud as their new platform, as noted, it simply won't matter, but that doesn't cost Linux anything, it just makes the local platform irrelevant. That happens regardless of whether people are arguing about desktop apps or not. The article gives no compelling reason why such arguments are actually harmful, or cost Linux anything, just points out how they become irrelevant. The author seems to want to argue both ways -- that someone the platform has to remain relevant when people move on to the new platform... to what end, I don't know, since the point seems to be people are inevitably move to the cloud, and the author mistakenly portrays that as "other platforms moving on" rather than "other platforms being moved away from as well in favor of the new, cloud platform".
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Lets be honest here, soon we wont have desktops like we have had for the last 20. We are right back to the micro, mini and mainframe paradigm, but now the micro-comps will be MIDs (consumption), mini-comps will be dedicated workstations (production), mainframes are the cloud (storage, processing). Linux is never going to be loved by the masses. People love marketing, Linux is pretty much the opposite of sexy marketing.
Good-bye
But if google docs gets so good that everyone is using it, isn't that one more thing that makes what desktop os you run irrelevant? That would be good for the linux desktop, right?
last night I visited mod archive, and wanted to use its web player, which uses java and I didnt have it installed
Firefox pops up "you need a plug in" do its little search thing cant find shit, goto java's site there is source and RPM but no deb and I really dont feel like compiling software to listen to chiptunes
BUT thank god it was in the software manager thingie! fired it up let it install, restarted firefox "you need a plug in"
so now its a half hour later and I am digging around in a fucking ubuntu forum trying to figure out the magical cryptic command to get fucking java working in a browser, I finally found
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
restarted firefox and OMG it works but now I have to go to bed. WTF, you seriously want people like my parents using this garbage as a mainstream OS? I don't even want to deal with it anymore, cause every single little nitpicky thing turns into a pain in the ass, and there are a trillion variations so it never seems to ever be "fixed" it just moves around distros
It may not be on grandma's desktop, but again, why would I care?
Developers of specialized software lack the resources to support every platform. They choose which platforms to support based on which could make the most money for them. And right now, Windows and Mac OS X have much clearer economies of scale than GNU/Linux. So if GNU/Linux isn't widespread, it won't draw a large selection of specialized software, especially in those markets that free software has historically had trouble serving.
...so maybe the article author should try to figure out just what "linux" or "linux community" means.
Because they certainly don't mean what he thinks they mean. And therefore his reasoning is flawed from the start.
Linux is just the kernel.
There is no monolithic "community" who can make up their collective hive-minds about OpenOffice vs whatever.
There's plenty of companies, pushing out dists - and some of them might have some sort of ambition to get their particular dist on someones desktop, but it's hardly representative for the entire "community" (which doesn't even exist).
Why is that an issue? Does all this linux software not come from developers?
is putting important info into the cloud. I was recently with a document management company and we started cloud based solutions a few months before I left. We had large companies small companies, banks, schools all going cloud... it scares me to be perfectly honest
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It's like expecting hobbyist ham radio operators to take over the broadcasting industry
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It won't cost Linux the desktop for the same reason why having to choose between Google Talk, AIM and MSN doesn't do that to the Windows desktop: those things aren't really significant and not new either.
Evolution vs Thunderbird doesn't matter, as they're pretty much equivalent for most purposes. Besides, a lot of people use gmail and don't really care about either. Then it's not like Thunderbird doesn't run on Windows, creating exactly the same choice.
Libre Office vs OpenOffice doesn't really matter at this point in time either, as the differences are tiny, and the file format is standard anyway. Long term there'll probably be a clear winner. I'm betting for Libre Office because that's what Ubuntu is shipping right now, and Oracle is a hulking behemoth.
But, there's a bigger thing here, and it's that all such discussions are ultimately pointless. The OSS world is fluid and distributed. No matter how much somebody might pontificate at great length about the need for unity, nobody is obligated to care.
Libre Office for instance, appeared for a good reason, and I doubt very much the developers that work on it will suddenly "see the light" and go back to trying to submit patches to Oracle, just because some guy wrote an article saying it "might cost Linux the desktop". I'd say that most developers don't really care. At least when I contribute patches to Linux software I don't do it because of some world domination long term goal.
I think what is needed is open standards. So long I can use whatever I like to do my work, why would I need to care about what the rest of the world uses?
Doesn't the cloud make the host OS less significant? I'd think that'd be an argument *for* Linux on the desktop. What's that Windows license bringing you again?
Linux, and open source in general, will never be that popular, simply because of cognitive load. It's software designed by engineers, with no clear understanding of style or ergonomics.
To use a car example, it's like a car with high torque and excellent gas mileage, but ugly to look at and the instruments are labelled differently and in the back seat.
Many companies hire artists and usability experts to look at the final product and make tweaks and recommendations. Some even take the trouble to engage focus groups of customers to find out what features are confusing, what aspects are uncomfortable, what looks ugly. They take this information and change their product for the better.
For the most part, the success of Apple products is for this reason: the iPod was not the first MP3 player on the market, but it's usability and aesthetic appeal and robustness made it highly popular.
Open source, on the other hand, is usually done by a single engineer putting in most of the effort. The results usually have the following pattern:
1) Documentation: Writing documentation is boring. Put up a wiki and let the users fill in the details.
2) Aesthetic looks: This is not important. Give the user a panel to change the environment to suit their tastes.
3) Compatibility: Not important. "Search for text" is different in every application, it's impossible for your fingers to memorize the action.
4) Simplicity: More features is better! Try viewing the man page for "ls" some time. Or preferences in VLC.
5) Descriptives: Don't choose descriptive names for anything. Instead of "Internet Explorer", "Paint Shop Pro" and "Media Player", use terms like "Gimp, Firefox, and VLC".
This last is one reason why old folks have a tough time using the new technology. They have to learn a completely new language: Every random word that they *thought* they knew ("pidgin", "handbrake", "calibre") means something different in the new system.
Gimme a break.
The top five or so open source projects try to deal with these issues, but the overwhelming majority are robust, strong, functional, and totally enigmatic.
Where are the open source tech writers? The ones who take that part of the problem and work alongside the engineers to ensure quality documentation? Where are the open source ergonomic experts, the usability analysts, the aesthetic artists? Who ever does usability studies, or consistency between apps?
Until the engineers get a clue, open source projects will never be more than a closet of hobbyist projects.
Making good software is more than robust coding.
Apart from Call of Duty vs. Battlefield, the examples you give don't have built-in network effects that make a product more useful when everybody else is using the same product. When everybody is using the same operating system, everybody can run the same applications. Or is everybody already running the same operating system of HTML + CSS + JavaScript + CACHE MANIFEST + localStorage?
What shot at the desktop? That battle was fought and is pretty much over. There are new battles ahead, and the desktop is evolving into something else. You can see both Microsoft and Apple are taking their desktop operating systems in decidedly non-desktop directions. What is the open source world doing? Well if Ubuntu Unity and Gnome 3 are any indication it doesn't look good in my opinion.
1. Write inflammatory blog post about Linux on desktop.
2. ???
3. Proffitt
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
"Some dude I've never heard of writes idiotic opinion on blog."
I think one of the problems with people who make statements like this is they have their thinking about Linux and free/open software all wrong. In particular, they see the world as defined by its conflicts. So immediately they jump into "Linux vs. Everything else". Linux vs. Windows. Linux vs. Mac. If you're stubborn and think in a box perhaps this mentality makes a lot of sense.
I don't see it that way. First, I don't think Linux ever set out to deliberately take over the world. But to me, Linux is more like a tool that I use. I am very glad to have it, but do I care how it does relative to others? Only insomuch as it's good to have a vibrant community of developers and users. If that can be said (and I think that statement has been true for most of Linux's existence), then great. Beyond that, I'm not very interested in the horse race.
Google Docs is already truly robust enough for businesses
Really? It may be getting there, but it's taking way too long. Their spreadsheet app didn't have filtering until March of this year. Sorry, but that's not professional grade, no matter how small your company is.
to gradually improve things in gnome, i was happy because that was actually the first time i have seen that things - even small things where continuously getting better (talking about 2007-2009). In the end they really had me stopping using the terminal, something which was absurd a few years back.
But now that they decided to go the (steep) way of pushing gnome in one direction which keeps and makes it usable, but rolling out their own shit (Yes, i mean it - 11.04 made me think about switching back) and weirdly enough did not adress the obviously missing parts (e.g. pdf commenting is possible only in okular, openoffice would need a closer look by somebody who integrates it), i am extremely pessimistic.
And honestly for 99% of the SMEs out there Google Docs does everything they'll ever need.
Have you seen a study? Or does "honestly" really mean "guessing wildly"?
If nothing else, many companies have privacy concerns (or should have them if they don't).
Then there are all the small businesses that don't have broadband Internet access, and in many cases can't even get it (in many rural areas of the US, POTS is all you can get) or reliably use it (like in transportation and fishing).
My wild guess is that the sum of these are far more than 1%, but you honestly know better?
We have 'arguments' for who gets to come with the system. Why is this a bad thing?
Whenever your position is shaky, you are driven to do more. When IE locked down the market, it stagnated. Now there are so much different competitors, you need to innovate.
This is a GOOD THING. If I'm developing something and I want to get default, I need to be better than the current one. So I innovate.
Plus you can still get the other choices, so there's no loss.
So then my desktop does not exist?
In the sense of the return on investment of a commercial off-the-shelf software developer, your desktop probably doesn't exist enough to be profitable by itself.
Others have covered why this is not actually a problem or why it was never going to happen in the first place, but my issue with this is no solutions are proposed. It's easy to come up with potential problems, but kind of pointless if there's no solution. What would a solution even look like?
Wait until one of the options is clearly far and away better in all aspects than everything else and go with that one?
Declare by consenus that "this one" is the way to go?
Agree to elect a decision maker to decide all those old arguments?
It seems like the timescale for the first one is infinity. The second one won't happen on it's own either. The third one would be absurd and would only work until the first decision is made, at which time most people who were on the losing side of the argument would still go with gnome or unity or open office, or whatever.
This guy is totally right. All this choice is just too confusing. There are too many competing options, and it's ruining things for everybody.
So I'm going to start listing alternatives, and we'll get a simple, fair show of hands. I hope the losing projects have the good grace to step down, disband, wipe their code base, and instruct their users to migrate to the winning project. Oh, I'm sure it'll be hard, but it's the only way to get to the Year of the Linux Desktop.
Okay, let's start at the basics:
vi, or emacs?
The only thing bloodier than the Windows / Mac / Linux religious wars are the internal Linux wars.
http://xkcd.com/934/
But you know, there are a lot of people who are disagreeing with the article, but I generally agree. At first the "fighting" was productive. It served a purpose as it created a competitive environment in which various projects could mature. I don't think that's the case any longer. Now we are seeing different drives behind projects and now we are seeing a lot of "change for the sake of change" and version number escalation clearly meant to make people think there's a huge difference between (for example) Firefox 4.x and Firefox 5.x.
And if various projects can't manage to work together for a common cause or goal, then it is highly unlikely there will be much acceptance of Linux in the Enterprise for desktop use. Why should they when there are so many flavors and styles out there? We're not just talking about theming, but also various internals as well.
One thing that is horribly wrong with Linux today is that a useful software package is nearly impossible to create which works on ALL of the current distributions. That's a tremendous and obvious block right there.
The last time I spoke words like these, someone use the word "shill" to describe me. I am a hard-core Linux user. I favor RedHat based Linuxes (though I'm not pleased with F15 at all... mostly GNOME3's fault) and the only Windows anything I use are in VMs that are called up on an as-needed basis. So it's not like I don't love or use Linux and definitely not like I'm not a user and don't know what I'm talking about. I've been at this since the beginning of RedHat 4.0 and have watched it grow and improve since that time. I'm no shill. But I can definitely see where things are going wrong and they are. The community must change and especially mature.
Really? Unity vs Gnome 3 vs KDE 4 whatever? There is no difference, they ALL suck. I have used Linux for a LONG time but the recent changes to the basic desktops have me ready to throw in the towel. Yesterday I accidently let Sabayon upgrade... instant problems as gnome 3 greeted me with its "fuck you". As simple a thing as opening a samba share requires killing a runaway browser process every single time.
The odd thing is that I had just helped some people migrate to Gnome 2 to get rid of constant virus infections when all they wanted to do is browse the net and play flash games when this shit hit. First Ubuntu and now everyone else.
I am now considering going for a Ubuntu LTE and just not updating it at least Ubuntu makes it bloody clear you are about to destroy your productivity.
The author claims Linux people should work together. Well they have. KDE/Gnome/Unity bundled forces and ruined the desktop. And for what? Tons of bugs, lots of disgruntled users and still not going to be adopted mainstream.
I had to check if Smedley hadn't finally led off by SOE and started working for opensource. Gnome 3 and the NGE have a LOT in common. Wonder if any of the three desktops will ever admit they were wrong.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One can support all mainstream versions of desktop Windows with one binary. How easy is it to support all popular distributions of desktop Linux with one binary? Can you recommend a HOWTO for building a binary that will run correctly on Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE, and everywhere else? (I'd use Google, but Google often turns up years-outdated guides, poor practice that isn't marked as such, and forum questions that have gone years without an answer.)
Considering that Windows can't really be stripped down to bare essentials
It isn't quite the 200 MB you ask for, but Windows can be stripped down to 600 MB.
It should be the case that increasing reliance on cloud software will make it easier for businesses to choose Linux, but for that to happen, Linux communities need to stop fighting the old fights, says Proffitt."
If the cloud takes over, most of the old fights should become irrelevant... apart from Firefox vs. IceWeasel vs. Epiphany vs. Konqueror vs. Chrome vs. Lynx. Last time I looked, ChromeOS and Android were, technically, Linux.
LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice, Evolution vs. Thunderbird
...provided distro designers wise up, realize that none of those will be household names to switchers, and have large friendly icons called "Wordprocessor", "Spredsheet", "Mail", "Browse the Web" (with a "preferred applications" config somewhere for those of us that give a damn) that should be irrelevant.
GNOME3 vs. Unity vs. KDE
If distros keep rushing these out before they are ready* and still lack key functionality then this will kill linux on the desktop deader than it already is, without help from the cloud.
* That's me giving Gnome 3 and Unity the benefit of the doubt. I'd like to give them a chance, but I prefer to use virtualbox to play with new distros, and it doesn't seem to want to play nice with all the new eye candy.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
As this is free software though, there are not winners or losers in the traditional sense. People happy with Thunderbird, Openoffice and KDE can continue using them. It's not like KDE is going away any time soon, even though Unity so dominates the Linux desktop. Unity is still very heavily dependent on the Gnome framework in terms of libraries and applications. Canonical does not have anywhere near the manpower to handle what the Gnome project handles. It's an ecosystem where everything benefits from everything else - Unity benefits from Gnome, KDE benefits from freedesktop.org work by Gnome developers. And vice versa - the fd.o library which handles PDF format is done mostly by KDE-centric developers - only Carlos Garcia Campos is more Gnome-based.
Compared to Windows or MacOS, a Linux desktop/workstation is a dream platform for developers, so it is never going away. The only question is will it break through to the wider public? As Linus says, Linux had done well on the low end with embedded and mobile, and does well on the high end with servers and "cloud" (whatever cloud means). It also is a popular desktop/workstation for IT people. Now, efforts like Ubuntu are trying to make headway into the standard user desktop area. Although they've been more focused on servers, Red Hat and Suse have done a lot of work in the desktop department as well, something which Canonical benefits from.
are you telling me this is NOT the year of the Linux desktop? That's news to me!
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Linux is at 1% of the desktop/browser client market, and is now behind both IOS and Android in market share, and losing ground rapidly. KDE, GNOME, etc. all need to go away for Linux to have a shot at being anything more than a backend server OS. As long as there is no standard "Linux" desktop environment, then it will never be able to compete for end users.
The application fight is not the issue that needs primary attention.
Microsoft is coasting on an interface/ architecture that is "good enough", Linux and Mac are doing the same.
It should be better... Imagine three people playing a game on one machine (three monitors/ mice/keyboards/headsets) , with a fourth playing the same via a thin client, and a fifth playing over the network. This is doable with modern hardware, but the OS isn't there. There are dozens of major architecture problems hobbling "modern" operating systems. Fixing these flaws would be a major advantage to Linux, Mac, or MS.
Storm
mini-comps will be dedicated workstations (production)
But will home users still be able to afford these? Otherwise, it'll be more difficult for home users to make the leap from consumption to amateur production.
Linux does not have a shot at the desktop and never will. That is some /. nerd fantasy.
Not necessarily. Android on the âoetablet topâ begins to crack that door open. Certainly Linux may never crack Windowâ(TM)s hold, but with greater interest in Linux based *consumer* front ends â" on tablets right now â" the possibility of expansion to low end and high end systems a la various Apple products is a greater possibility.
I do think, however, that Linux will never have the middle ground.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I don't see cloud computing taking over entirely, but desktops are becoming increasingly less important to the masses. Esp considering even computer gaming is falling to hand held devices and consoles which to me is a large part of Window's stranglehold. Until large companies start putting out linux versions of their software though I don't think linux will ever be much more than a server or a developers desktop. Everyone else can just buy an ipad and be happy
Linux has always been made by hobbyists, for hobbyists.
In the commercial software world, the distance between "functionally complete" and "release candidate" is very large and labor-intensive, i.e., expensive. Hobbyists can use the "functionally complete" version, but grandma has to have the polished product. Because of that extra expense, it generally requires a large financial interest to make that last mile of development feasible.
Most of the open source projects that have been successful with the masses are those that were backed by commercial, profit-making entities: OpenOffice (Sun), Android (Google), Red Hat...even Firefox is made possible by the for-profit Mozilla Corporation.
Linux may have a better chance of success in the future, as more of the functionality users want becomes available inside the Web browser, and the underlying OS becomes less relevant.
Prezi will only catch on when they remove the retarded "Create game-changing presentations online" tagline from their front page. Things that were game-changing: revolutions, the car, flight. Things that are not game-changing: presentations.
no news here, move along
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
I prefer Gmail WITH Thunderbird. I can use Thunderbird Portable and Thunderbird installs sync'ed to my webmail accounts.
I'm on a fecal Time-Warner connection, and I prefer the Thunderbird interface to Gmail. I can work offline using Thunderbird. Win/win.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Prezi will only catch on when they remove the retarded "Create game-changing presentations online" tagline from their front page.
Things that were game-changing: revolutions, the car, flight.
Things that are not game-changing: presentations.
finally the suits can have touch-button control of every single user, what they are doing, what they are looking at, etc.
and you dont have any of those fucking nerds getting in the way soaking up profits.
next step - get rid of users.
For Linux to ever have a shot on the desktop, it would have to stop being Linux. Namely it would have to get some standards beyond the kernel. It would have to become a system where a lot more was standardized and you could rely on features, packages, UIs, etc being in all distributions. To desktop users, an OS isn't a kernel, it is a rich experience that comprises, well, everything you find on a Windows or MacOS disc. Until that happens, it'll never be an OS people want to use on the desktop because people don't want choice, they want consistency. That doesn't mean it couldn't still be flexible, just that it would have mandatory features and defaults.
Along those lines it would have to do away with having source be something a user had any idea existed. No distributing programs as source, no recompiling the kernel to make something work, all binary all the time for users. Again, wouldn't mean it would have to get rid of source, just that the user experience couldn't include it. That would have to be all nice guided installers that are fast and easy.
These things aren't important to servers, and completely unimportant to embedded devices, hence Linux has done well there. However they are what people need on the desktop.
Notice that the end-user facing Linux that has had the most success by far is Android and it does precisely those things. It gives users and developers a consistent environment and set of tools that are guaranteed to be there, since they are a part of what Android is. It provides easy, binary-only installs for users so they just click on what they want and get it.
That's what Linux as a whole would have to do to have a chance of capturing a significant share of the desktop market. So long as the answer to problems remains "Oh just use a different distro, that one doesn't have feature X and Y," or "Recompile your kernel with these options to make that work," it'll be the sort of thing that there isn't widespread interest in.
the magazine that conveniently forgot about the google chrome book, the asus netbook, and ostensibly the android platform as a whole has now concluded we must put aside our petty and childish preferences toward one piece of flotsam or whatnot in the linux ecosystem and fall lockstep into a uniform and marketable microcosm through which we can finally take "the desktop."
interstingly enough "the desktop" seems to be on slow holiday for apple and microsoft, who see it more profitable to nickle-and-dime the general populous one microtransaction at a time for an amorphous entity thats resultant components are in fact mostly linux anyway.
so id conclude that the 'shut up and pick something already or you lose' assertion is a nice way of saying 'get used to a choiceless slate of poking and prodding your next computer with one or more touches to purchase the next application we tell you you can have, and stop worrying about freedom.'
of course, this could all just be my stallman gland acting up again.
Good people go to bed earlier.
considering that we now have multiple different versions of Windows 7, windows XP, windows Vista, and 64 bit vs 32 bit, etc.
That's pretty much what happened to UNIX on the desktop. The old wars between BSD, Sun's Solaris, Apple's A/UX, SGI's UNIX, and the actual AT&T versions are now mostly forgotten. They each had their own totally incompatible GUI. Sun went through about four proprietary GUIs, all terrible. Because of this, there were few graphical cross-platform applications.
So when Windows NT came along, and X86 PCs got powerful enough to run it well, it just rolled over UNIX on the desktop. Around 1998, I visited Sony Pictures Imageworks, where they had dozens of SGI workstations and two NT desktops for testing. Two years later, it was almost all NT workstations with a few SGIs for legacy projects. Today, of course, almost nobody even makes UNIX workstations. (What's left of SGI still sells an "Octane III", if anybody cares. It's a big box full of Intel CPUs.)
Linux on servers is more or less standardized, but on desktops, there's too much diversity. Mostly because the GUIs have never advanced beyond mediocrity.
"Like fools we clung to the old hatreds...and fought as we had for generations. Until the day the sky rained fire, and a new enemy came upon us. We stand now, upon the brink of destruction, for the reign of chaos has come at last."
GNOME and KDE are already working on ensuring no one wants to use Linux desktop :P
the humble bundle guys got it. plenty of the linux games are a single download, whatever distro your using.
You assume that Linux is developing in a vacuum, and it magically got good enough to be on your desktop. But that's not how it happened.
Linux got good enough quickly enough that various critical players assumed it would soon (or at least eventually) be a viable desktop alternative. So they began to support it. You probably wouldn't be using Linux on your desktop (at least not exclusively) were there no nVidia drivers, various HP printer drivers, Broadcom (yes, a late comer) and, yes, Flash support available for it. But what you willfully refuse to see is that all of those things became available because their vendors assumed they'd get some advantage from providing them.
There's a whole rash of things that never became available (Quicken, games, etc), because their vendors didn't see the advantage of Linux support, or were holding back to wait for critical mass, or wanted to jump in, but were stymied by the need to choose a platform on top of Linux (GNOME, KDE, etc) to target.
If it becomes obvious that critical mass will never come, those last players may never jump in. And the first group may jump out (no nVidia drivers for new classes of cards, etc). Hell, even Firefox support on Linux is lagging Windows these days. So you can argue all you want that 'choice is good' and 'I can use Linux, so why should I care', but you can only use linux because other people have cared in the past. Wake up. World domination is not the goal - viability is, and that goal can slip through your fingers even though you are happy with your Linux setup today.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Programmer here. I develop for both Linux and Windows. With my limited knowledge of Linux the only debugger I know of is GDB. Yes, there are things like DDD but all of the ones I have seen appear to be a wrapper for GDB. I find it faster to do printf debugging on Linux than deal with GDB or a GDB wrapper. Windows I have Visual Studio, if you've used VS, enough said. While for the end user Linux is certainly better than Windows (unless you are a gamer) the developer is still going to pass his "savings" or lack thereof to his paying or non-paying customers. If I am wrong and there is something on Linux commercial or not please tell me so I can go out and buy/download it now.
I figure, at current rate of development, it's going to be another two or three years before Google Docs can really be said to be robust enough and feature-rich enough for the enterprise. I think Google knows this quite well, but by basically keeping everything in perpetual beta, they can work out kinks and add new functionality all while managing expectations.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Linux has hardware support for things 20 years old that almost no one needs on a modern computer. Windows 7/Vista has support for almost every piece of hardware being sold today -- Linux does not.
Linux provides choice, and in virtually every other aspect of daily life there are choices... The idea of a computing monoculture is an anomaly, not something to aspire to.
There are many brands of virtually all consumer goods, and most brands then have a large number of models to choose from. There's no reason software should be any different. The only thing we need, is standards so people can choose the software they want and then interoperate on a level playing field.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Record low temperatures will be reported in hell.
Do you really think that serious business can entrust its data to some online application. Security, privacy concerns and customer record handling laws won't let them do that. In some places even translate.google.com is not trusted.
The argument that Linux won or lost the desk top is moot. It won some, lost most. The problem wasn't Linux, it was the microsoft monopoly and influence in business. Even though Linux was a superior product, the fortune 500 resists change. This is why IBM OS/2 failed as well.
The desktop as we know it is going away. Sure, engineers will have their "workstations" (desktops really), but the general consumer is going mobile. Windows will dies as a predominant platform and be replaced by a mobile OS. That will probably be based on FreeBSD or Linux.
Linux == servers
Linux == desktops
Linux == webcams
Linux == TVs
Linux == Blu-Ray players
Linux == phones
Linux == anywhere that people want a free, secure OS
If they're all running Chrome, what's the diff.
Some devices have always-on, high-volume connections to the Internet. Others do not.
is the same day the desktop market isn't important.
Linux is an excellent Server OS a really good Workstation OS, it blends itself well to work well on mobile device. But the desktop is the doughnut hole Linux never really filled. Mostly because that market has some really strong players in that market. Microsoft Windows and Apple.
Windows dominated because it has the bulk of the consumer apps, and hardware manufactures make sure they have drivers for that platform. Apple is next because it has always specialized in that area and has a real smooth seamless Environment (Please no anecdotal stories about how you were able to do X so much faster or better on your Linux box while the Mac guy struggled to do it, even though OS X was suppose to be the best at it) that is easy to use and efficient for desktop usage, they also have a tight control on the hardware so there is less hardware drivers they need to code.
Linux has always have a moving uphill battle for Desktop mindset, Good drivers have and still are always a problem. Companies who do provide closed source drivers are treated like scum and in order for say Ubuntu to install them you have to agree that you are truly a bad person link to get access to the driver. And many of the open source drivers may not have the best specs so they have issues. Much of their UI choices are not done by UI experts but software developers who think they know what a good UI is.
Linux will probably win the Desktop share at some point and it will probably be a really good system... However by that time the markets will be in a way that Microsoft and Apple don't care about the Desktop anymore, and are probably moving more towards mobile solutions away from the old Desktop Model. Leaving room for Linux to come in and take it... However at that time the Average Joe will not really need a Desktop or Laptop anymore and it will be more for Software Developers and High Computing uses like CAD and Modeling. The Desktop will fall to where the Mainframe is today. Still alive and strong but no longer a driving force in a usage and reserved for things it is really good at.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I can only imagine the discussion that preceded the writing: Let's trick those zealots into trading their core values of freedom and openness for hierarchy and control by dangling shiny irrelevancies in front of them. Then we'll have have fewer targets and might gain some traction. Sure why not, everything else has failed.
Since the lInux community consists of individuals each in it for his/her own reasons, there is no possibility of defining a coherent strategy or set of targets for the thing (you can't really consider it a product, or package or anything that implies there's an overall direction or design to it) that we call "Linux".
While some might reason that this is its greatest strength, it's also the reason why it has, does and will fail to be adopted outside the geek world. If you were creating a building you'd use materials that stuck together and formed strong shapes that could support each other. Where this happens in the Linux world, it's purely by accident or at best a localised phenomenon that lasts right up to the first forking. After that you've just got a collection of pebbles again. Each more-or-less strong in itself, but not usable en-masse to make a strong structure from.
Compare that with the MS products, or Apple's products. They might not have the strength of the individual Linux pebbles, but what there is does hang together to some extent and allows organisations to use those products as a foundation to build their businesses on.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
This guy thinks of Thunderbird and Evolution as "offline e-mail readers." Really, that's what he calls them, using "offline" very consistently. And while it's true that they can be used offline, and maybe some people still use 'em that way (POP download, hang up the modem, read your emails off the ISP's clock, send replies to local SMTP, then dial up again and let the email go out), referring to them that way shows a pretty major misunderstanding of what is by far the most common use case of mail readers.
So right off the bat, before he even really gets into the real topic at hand (web browsers as generic (but powerful) terminals, replacing specialized applications running locally), he's made it harder for people to take him seriously.
All that aside, while I understand people's attraction to web mail and other web services, the author's premise really seems to be that this shit is the inevitable future. Hey, for the short-term, he may really be right. Most people are getting away with it, and putting their heads in the sand whenever they read a news story about spying, "cyber-warfare" and other DoS stories, the lack of accountability for free services, etc. But long-term, really?
Do you think there's a trend toward less spying (both by governments and in terms of the diversification of other parties who do it)? Do you think liability laws won't catch up or might even get more lenient?
Those seem like bad predictions, to me. I don't think working on local clients is last decade's battle at all; it's next decade's battle, after this luddite flirtation with the mainframe passes. People still take "the cloud ate my homework" and "I didn't know storing confidential info over there is a bad idea" excuse cards today, and I don't think there is a trend toward people generally acting more responsible, but nevertheless, people are eventually going to want good results, so they'll hold people who inappropriately use the cloud responsible, even if that motivation doesn't come from within.
Local clients will return.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And yet, you will never be allowed to run these selfsame Linuxen ironically enslaved to the Content Lords.
So the market looks likes it's going like this - mobile & thin clients for consumers and light producers of content, workstations for people making computationally expensive "stuff", and servers serving up stuff for both groups. Just my opinion, but it's well reasoned.
It doesn't matter what host OS you'll be using for your apps - it'll be over HTTP and everyone knows that linux and friends are the best choice on the server side. :P
Hence, linux is on the desktop - just not occupied with the boring crap of running a browser GUI.
Server is the desktop. It just comes over the "cloud". duh, winning.
OP is a troll though all the same.
Ha! Near the end I kept saying "local clients" where I meant "local applications". That just happens to include email clients. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
When someone asks me to help them get rid of their virus, instead of telling them I can't help them, I now rush over with an Ubuntu install CD. Months later, I ask them how they feel about the difference, they say, "the computer is a lot faster." When I ask them if they lost any abilities, they say, "no". In all honestly, most users can't really tell that much of a difference. Facebook and Youtube are Facebook and Youtube.
Performance is what people want now, even if they only intend to use their web browser. Their computer should boot and shutdown fast, and not put barriers between them and the apps they choose to use, web or desktop. Ubuntu is far superior in this respect. With Windows, you pay $100-200 more for an OS that is worth less than Ubuntu.
So, why do people pay for Windows? Because they don't have a choice. They go to Best Buy, and there is not one computer that offers a lower price if you don't want Windows!!! This is the real problem, protected by Microsoft's unethical behavior of taking advantage of Congress' lack of understanding by insisting that if a consumer doesn't pay for Windows, they plan to steal it. Why on earth would people steal an OS that is far inferior to the free and legal OS?!?
Open Standards Portal
This guy is totally right. All this choice is just too confusing. There are too many competing options, and it's ruining things for everybody.
(OK, I did spot the sarcasm, but...)
What's needed is the Goldilocks solution: just enough choice. A monopoly is bad. A new option every month is equally bad (diluting the talent pool and ensuring that nothing is ever finished). A couple of strong competitors for each major application = good.
vi, or emacs?
Sorry: nano. .txt file it should open in something which most emphatically isn't a marginally desktopized vi or emacs, has a "File: Save As" menu option and which is labelled "Text Editor" and not "KGViMACS2". When they double-click on a .doc or a .docx it doesn't really matter whether it opens in OpenOffice, LibreOffice or KOffice provided (a) it does a half-decent job of converting the .doc and (b) is described in the menu as "Word Processor".
Seriously: it doesn't matter one jot. Anybody who has an opinion on vi or emacs will have the appropriate variant installed in a jiffy. What matters is that when Joe Luser double-clicks on a
The real problem is not choice: its Linux, you always have choice if you know how. The problem is making sensible default choices for non-techy users who can't easily change things. Sticking to those choices for more than 6 months is good, too.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
And if the file formats can be opened in both, it shouldn't matter.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Is it just me or does anyone else think the "all the apps will live in the browser" mantra is a little over hyped. Using the browser is great for a lot of things but it isn't for everything. No matter how fast your computer is a native app will always run faster. Also the cloud depends upon having unlimited internet access. Verizon just recently got rid of unlimited data plans and other wireless companies throttle; that is a total cloud killer. I'm sure cable internet companies like Comcast are also going to start throttling (if they haven't already) or charging more because why are they going to give away all that bandwith for free to some guy that watches 2 streaming netflix movies a day when his neighbor just uses the net to check his e-mail and look at his favorite news web sites? Further, with android and the iphone the app stores are very popular and all those apps run independent of the browser (atleast I think so I don't own a phone that runs either). It seems all apps living in the browser is dead on arrival.
I don't get this. Why would anyone care if Linux gets a shot at the desktops of big companies? It's not like free software is liable to make a bunch of money from being there. Or at all. It's the 0-cost solution, and being on more desktops won't change that. And it won't get improved faster just because it's there. The bug-reporting base is pretty mature by now. And, as I said, there won't be a lot of money coming in to create anything like and "investment" in it.
It's on my desktop. Well, this one of my desktops. That's enough for it to be alive. It really doesn't matter if General Mills or Kodak or First Solar or Lehman Bros. (what? oh, uh, just e.g. that one, then) has it. Doesn't make shit-all of a difference to most people who use it now.
At best, this "story" is complete trollbait and flamebait. At worse, it's an advertisement for something most of us have never heard of (Prezi?). OMG kill all the KDE5 and Gnome3 devs or teh Googles and Prezis take over! Gnome2 and KDE3 for everrrrr....
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
Stop talking to tepples because he is a fucking broken record.
I don't want to be a broken record anymore. What changes should I make to become less repetitive?
You act as though there is only one use case. You act as though these issues are not solved, in one way or another. Look at MojoSetup for example, which is just building on the work Loki did.
Someone suggests in any thread netflix and you always bring up sports. Sure that market exists but for a decent group of folks netflix is good enough.
Dudes! Stop arguing about how y'all don't like all the nice 'innovations' we're making to the desktop with the new Gnome Interface/Unity, or the Linux Desktop Quest gets it! I'm not fooling around!
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Unity in software selection will not make linux better, and crippling its flexibility to meet wide-ranging needs would kill it. Sorry if such diversity is too confusing. There is a company based in California that is still making products you might like if you don't like having to make any decisions for yourself, or one in Washington that is winning the popularity contest if that is more your thing.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I am a BSD person myself. But we all run the same software more than less. Our apps run on windows.
The beauty of the situation is true for Unix from the start. It's software and we have choices. It's all about mixing it up.
Thank you for the response.
If the answer to question "Will you still use this product with no documentation and a non-intuitive interface?" is "Yes, because its technically superior to X", that product won't make a dime unless its a niche market.
That's a brilliant soundbite! I've been looking for something like that for awhile. I'll definitely pass that on.
Most new linux users don't know there is a difference between Gnome and KDE. They don't know the difference between evolution and thunderbird. They don't know the difference between libre and open office. and I can go on. They just pick a distro, install and use it. That is why I do not see how old arguments can put an end to linux desktops. What will end the linux desktop will be the actions of the popular distros,
One of the biggest problems with the linux community was all the different distros. It made things very confusing and if you picked the wrong one to install, it could either be a nightmare or make you a believer. Then came ubuntu. It was doing good and turned a lot of windows users into linux believers until the last update. The last update turned linux into a nightmare for many because of unity. It just plain did not work on a lot of computers. Then there were those who did an upgrade and lost their installed programs because the latest ubuntu decided to change default programs. IMO, when you do an upgrade, you leave the install programs alone and just install the os upgrades. Actions like this is what will turn users off from linux and this is what I believe will kill the linux desktop.
Stop it, already. You're embarrassing me as a member of the human race.
A better title would be "The desktop lost the battle to Linux". With Android, more personal computing devices ship with Linux than any other OS.
The popularity of Windows - and, for that matter, Windows' own admin tools - demonstrates that the world does not want a choice of a dozen different window managers, toolkits and widget libraries. The world wants one that works well, that most applications integrate with.
Right now, it would not be unreasonable to describe the process of a project as:
1. A commercial software firm comes up with an idea. At this point, we are at year one.
2. They demonstrate that the idea is a good one (by getting lots of customers). This takes them a while; let's say it takes us up to year three.
3. Microsoft spot this and either buy them or copy the idea and integrate it with an existing product. This process takes a year or two, so we're now about halfway through year 4.
3. Another few years pass; the product goes through an iteration or two and becomes reasonably well-known (Year 7). A number of F/OSS projects are started, attempting to emulate it - either from scratch or by taking an existing codebase. Most die on the vine; a few don't.
The complete product is quite complicated to replicate, so the F/OSS product starts out with a more reasonable target of replicating the functionality of an earlier version to what is current at this point - let's say they try to replicate the product as it was in year 4.
4. It's damn hard to attract developers to a fledgling F/OSS project. So development is slow; meanwhile Microsoft are ploughing on with more and more new features. The first RC of the F/OSS project is released some time in year 8 or 9. Note that at this point, the F/OSS product is five years behind the state of the art.
5. More time passes. The next version of the F/OSS project aims to iron out the biggest bugs and bring it a little more up to date - but it typically takes 2 or more years for the F/OSS project to catch up 1 year's worth of progress from the commercial product(s) it apes. Before long, the F/OSS product is ten years behind its closest commercial competitor.
We're seeing exactly this happen with Office and Windows vs. LibreOffice and Linux. By the time Samba actually releases version 4, I bet you anything you like the majority of Microsoft shops won't be using a traditional fileserver at all - they'll be storing everything on Sharepoint because a properly implemented Sharepoint installation gives you a complete, searchable document management system.
MojoSetup
Thank you for the suggestion. I'll look over it. As for the other issues you brought up, let's take that to my journal please.
...give a rat's ass what he has on his desk.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
There are compatibility problems between [modern] Microsoft Office and [decade-and-a-half-old] Microsoft Office.
I imagine far more employees would be regularly opening documents made in the past month than decade-old archived documents. But I also understand your edge case, and there's a workaround. Such a business could keep only a couple licenses for the ancient version and corresponding OS around. I guess one of the advantages of web-based* office software is that as the document format changes, all existing documents are supposed to be migrated automatically.
* Definitions of "cloud" are cloudy, and I don't want to make FFVII analogies.
I always thought the flamewars were a part of UNIX specification.
All pretty valid points. Although for me, points 1) and 2) make me stick with Linux instead of Windows.
1) because I'm just used to it, and 2) because I stand a better chance of figuring out what the problem is, since there is more information available to me on how stuff works, straight down to the source.
Of course the *main* plus point would be that *you* have control over how your system works. Which, sadly, has been on decline with a lot of Linux projects. What I really liked was to look at project A,B,C,D, decide which one I liked best, then started using that. But nowadays that's completely impossible. When I pick project A, I can pretty much bet someone there will get it in their mind "oooooohhh, we need to be more like project C with the next release", and then I'm stuck with something that works like C, which I DIDN'T LIKE when I made my decision to pick project A in the first place.
And, I too, like stuff done the "easy way". Ironically that made me go to Gentoo and Archlinux instead of Ubuntu. They might be somewhat more "complicated" on the technological side, but on the other hand they don't throw spanners into the works because of "ideological" reasons. For example, the media players just work out of the box instead of having to explicitly install "non free" packages in multiple additional steps.
The main OSes have become a lot more alike. Since the 90s Linux has become a lot "GUI-ey", while Windows has a lot more command line possibilities than it had in those days. So from a technologically standpoint I could live will the major OSes pretty well. But what is becoming worse and worse these days is that things that could be possible *technologically* are disabled for ideological reasons.
I solved this situation by installing both Emacs and Vim. Suddenly the wars ended.
(although jokes aside, I actually have "conflicting" apps installed, although I am a KDE user I have Unity around for just playing around and stuff like that. Same with Vim/Emacs. I don't care about install space (NOTE: ANYONE WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT THE BIiiiiIG SPACE REQUIREMENT OF QT/GTK/WHATEVER LIBRARIES CAN GO *censored*. It's less space than downloading a movie (even a legal one)), and at times it's fun to change around)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well said.
I find Linux to be an absolutely wonderful system to run a server on and to develop with. If I ever need to set up a simple server for any purpose, Linux can handle it without problems. You just set it up and leave it alone.
The desktop experience, on the other hand, just isn't there. Drivers are still too finicky. I have to tweak more things than I prefer to get it to work the way I want. Ubuntu wasn't bad until they jumped onto this whole "Unity" concept, which I don't care for at all. I'm pretty accustomed to using a Windows desktop and I don't see Linux offering any particular advantages in terms of desktop productivity. At best, it is equal to Windows to Mac. Once you factor in games and driver compatibility, though, this doesn't hold true.
I like Linux, and I think there is a viable niche for it on the desktop: low-power, very cheap computers, perhaps sold or given away in developing countries. It is flexible enough to run on highly limited hardware. Those are real strengths, but there is just nothing about it that makes it good enough to supplant Windows for most people. It doesn't offer a "killer app."
The Linux world has been working on the desktop for over 10 years now. That's about as long as Mac OS X has been around. It still has an utterly pathetic level of desktop penetration. When is it time to say "enough is enough"?
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, "You had to do what with the seat?"
However, I believe this more accurately sums up one of the big problems with linux: ...
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Half of the passengers however decide that they dont like the #10 bolts used to fasten the chair down and that since Linux is all about choice they're going to improve the bolts. So they whip out their tap and die sets and proceed to 'do things their way'. They then proceed to tell everyone around them how good their bolts are. Half of the plane doesn't care because 'it's just a goddamn bolt' and the other half insists on doing it their own way because 'they can'. They then split up into 50 camps each with a slightly different bolt thread or length. The plane can't take off until all the chairs are fastened, so the plane never actually leaves the terminal. All the other airlines' passengers laugh as they take off because LinuxAir travelers insist on debating the same stupid shit over and over and over and over
If you purchase a computer with Windows, Linux, or OSX pre-installed I would suggest that getting from point A (opening the box) to point B (compiling an Android App) takes the same approximate amount of work. And in none of those cases would it require a command line. Ironically you'd be using the same tools to do that development any of the platforms so the existence or lack thereof for tooltips should be the same. If you use Windows because it's familiar then that's fine. If you use Excel (and hence Windows) because of market saturation/compatibility then that's fine also. But it's perfectly plausible to use any of the platforms listed without making any use of the command line. I personally use a mix of Windows and Linux and I rarely use the command line, and when I do it's stuff that generally exists on either platform (ping, telnet, etc.)
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
... is that they cannot accept imperfection. They are too close to the code and need to stop designing for themselves and design for the masses. One can have 1 version of linux for the engineers, the other for the desktop. No one cares about the obscure stuff linux people argue about. They just want stuff to "just work" and be easy to understand and use.
"the cloud", as offered by various vendors, is proving too unreliable to be entrusted with critical data. I'd never put my core data, or my employer's, on the cloud. Most companies feel the same way.
I see your point about Word documents getting archived to XPS or PDF. But wouldn't this be harder for Excel workbooks, which contain formulas?
My Apple IIe and I'll bet C64 users would disagree. They were embedded systems and desktops.
That started to change as floppy drives become popular and then HD, and then bloated but much more capable OSes.
Today, embedded may not be a desktop, but embedded can be a desktop.
For Linux to ever have a shot on the desktop, it would have to stop being Linux. Namely it would have to get some standards beyond the kernel.
Bwahahaha!! You mean, like Microsoft and Apple follow desktop standards? C'mon. See freedesktop for your desktop standards.
it is a rich experience that comprises, well, everything you find on a Windows or MacOS disc.
Oh, look at that, Debian releases desktop-specific disks. If I do nothing during install, I get a full-feature GNOME desktop. If I select options clearly presented, I can have KDE, XFCE, LXDE appear like magic when I reboot. I tell you it's MAGIC!!!!
And since when does microsoft release a full-featured set of applications with their minimal installed OS? Apple? A default Debian desktop install gets you a very good image editor, very good "office" suite, PDF ripping, audio and video playing desktop, great web browsers. Apple and Microsoft cannot make the same claim.
Along those lines it would have to do away with having source be something a user had any idea existed. No distributing programs as source, no recompiling the kernel to make something work, all binary all the time for users.
1999 called and they want you back when this claim was possibly valid...
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
You are calling open source desktops out for things no one in the industry does.
To use a car example, it's like a car with high torque and excellent gas mileage, but ugly to look at and the instruments are labelled differently and in the back seat.
You've never owned a 70's era American car, have you? The funny thing is, some people Loooove those 70's cars.
Where are the open source tech writers? The ones who take that part of the problem and work alongside the engineers to ensure quality documentation?
Under the "help" menu option? If you have geek cred, man FTW!
Where are the open source ergonomic experts,
Are you kidding me? They are working for Microsoft or Apple. You know how Office looks nothing like the OS GUI? That's their hard work right there.
the usability analysts, the aesthetic artists?
Who? What? Is this the geek version of the old Hollywood line "I'm a director."
Who ever does usability studies, or consistency between apps?
When does this happen in the industry? Adobe doesn't talk to Apple or Microsoft when they are designing yet another loose menu. Microsoft's own Office dev team *clearly* does not talk to the OS people.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Do we really need to repeat this AGAIN? The *ONLY* reason windows appears to have better driver support is because the manufacturer/retailer spends all the time getting the drivers for you. Tell you what, buy a computer (with some windows version on it, such as windows 7), then wipe the harddrive and install linux plus windows (a *different* version than what came with it, such as Vista or XP). Now see which one takes longer to get FULLY working with drivers.
Every time I have done this, windows took SIGNIFICANTLY longer, linux usually just "worked".
Oh, and the only reason Mac seems to work so well is that there is extremely limited hardware available for it.
Those who are happily using Linux on the desktop, especially those of us who have used Linux on the desktop since before "Linux on the desktop" was an established meme, are puzzled by assertions that Linux is "not on" the desktop. It might not be on YOUR desktop, but that's neither a problem for you nor for Linux.
I've never understood what the issue was, not even a little.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
No need to be anonymous. I've said the same thing for quite a while.
Until someone can tell me which version of Linux is best for which uses and which window manager is best for which uses, I'll stick to Windows where I don't have to think about those decisions. I'm not scared of config files or compiling code or anything like that. But with Linux, there are so many spin-offs because one person decided they didn't like one aspect of this other version and it's a jumbled mess with no central control (that's a pro and a con). But, with too many choices, Linux will never win the desktop......because the mindless masses don't want that much choice.
Linux being THE desktop for the masses? The trouble is most people, including most PC retailer staff, don't know what an operating system is! Let alone what a desktop is. My eldest daughter, an undergraduate, wasn't sure if a Mac was a windows computer and yet had experienced linux (Ubuntu) and liked it..... I think the real inertia to change is marketing and the fact that Microsoft is so dominant when it comes to purchasing new hardware that the masses don't see Linux and/or are scared of it because it is different. Most people I speak to think that a microsoft is the only choice out there. They are shocked and bemused when I explain and demonstrate Linux and the choice of desktops, applications available.... all free... and so much safer than Windows, once the basics of security are explained. Indeed they seem to become much more computer literate, which can only be a good thing. My point.... Why aren't our schools teaching our kids the real fundamentals of computing (do we really need gui all the time!) instead of parrot fashion learning of Office which spirals into the belief that only Windows and Macs exist........
In the late 90s, linux was a prime candidate for those wanting to flee from Windows 98. In the early 00s, the situation wasn't much different, with those wanting to abandon Windows ME and Windows XP.
Now, Windows 7, for all the bitching here, is a good OS, that ships with most new computers. OS X is a very good OS that ships on the rest.
So, your end user has a choice - 99.9% of the software on Windows, or they go to a Mac for a little less software and better reliability.
What does Linux offer? The Windows UI fundamentals haven't' changed since 1995. The OS X fundamentals haven't changed since 2000 or so.
Linux, with its new incompatible desktop APIs every 2 years, no standard desktop and little commercial desktop software is not a compelling option. Free is nice, but when 90% of computers are bundled with an OS in any case, and most upgrade hardware before they upgrade software, its not enough to outweigh the negatives.
I say this as someone who was awaiting the linux desktop takeover since 1996. I gave up waiting and got a Mac.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The reason it's so easy in windows is because everything (framework, libraries, etc) is normally compiled right into the binary itself, this can just as easily be done on linux. The reason it ISN'T is because it's a stupid way to do it, if you have a 10 apps using library X, then you end up with a 10 copies of library X and waste a lot of harddrive space. Just link your libraries properly (any linux tutorial will show how) and let the distro maintainers handle the packaging, that's what they DO and they are probably MUCH better at it than you.
Right now, the whole "Linux on the desktop" brouhaha is failing at the point where I have the choice of either
And that's not even starting with the overly half-assed state most "desktop" applications are in. Most of KDE is a pile of ugly hacks that manages to get worse with each iteration, only to be beaten by whatever cruft Mozilla is shoving out the door, actually losing features with every "release". Gnome is quickly going towards a point where they will be a sad imitation of an Apple UI without any usability or skillful design. The office suites are trying to rip off their commercial counterparts, but mostly fail because they suffer from an extreme amount of legacy ballast.
This is not about "arguments", this is about failing to get the basics right. Linux doesn't belong on a productive desktop by a long shot, unless your idea of a desktop still is a bunch of terminal windows running vim/emacs/ed (or if that meets your requirements).
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
This is pretty much a non-issue. I've never seen the variety of applications and software available for Linux hurt Linux. In fact, more software, more projects, and more support is always better. Sure, some projects slow down, some fizzle out or just die, and some are engaged in constant ideological battles with each other, but I fail to see how this hurts the ecosystem as a whole. If anything the varies conflicts drive progress, since for every dead project 10 new projects come alive, and for every ideological battle a third concept emerges. The diversity and varied potential is a great boon for developers and even power users.
End users could not care less about things like GNOME vs KDE; they'll just use whatever you put in front of them, and if they ever get around to trying the other and want to switch, they can go ahead and switch at their leisure. And switch back! It doesn't hurt end users at all because all end users have to do is get their software from a vendor that chooses for them. Look at the success for Android; did the Linux software ecosystem cost Linux a shot at handsets/tablets? No. A vendor took Linux, packaged it with whatever software they desired, and delivered to the customer. Easy-peasy.
Linux communities can fight among themselves all they want. The fighting just makes us stronger and is a testament to the vibrancy of the community. How would Linux get any better if all debate ceased and differing viewpoints were silenced?
'But what happens when Google Docs gets truly robust enough for business'
Yes, WHEN is the key word. Given the bugs that have been present and unaddressed in Google Docs for years, I'm not too worried about it.
Seriously, when a simple bug, like sharing a document with a mailing list, sorry, GROUP, requires EVERY member to visit the link to the document in-browser or never see it again, has yet to be addressed, not scared.
Anything is possible given time and money.
Just link your libraries properly (any linux tutorial will show how)
The problem I've run into is that when I've found tutorials with Google, I've had trouble determining whether they were still applicable or horribly outdated. That's why I ask people to recommend specific tutorials.
and let the distro maintainers handle the packaging
If you can't distribute the entire package as free software and free cultural works for one reason or another, the maintainers of the mainstream distros (especially Fedora) will decline to handle your packaging. So as I understand it, you have to set up your own repository for each major distro.
Yes the desktop battle is so last-decade, but you manage to utterly miss the current battle. The future may not and should not be compiled apps from a curated store written for a particular runtime on a platform controlled by a commercial behemoth. The alternative is running a bunch of HTML applications that run in any browser on ANY platform, that you can View > Source to inspect and modify. That's a free software battle worth fighting!
Most of the get-off-my-lawn graybeards on Slashdot miss this point. They refuse to understand the potential of HTML, they conflate it with cloud computing and web services (I run several "web" apps from my hard drive), and they make dismissive snorts that native Gnome/KDE/whatever desktop apps will always be superior while ignoring the relentless advance of exceptional HTML applications. I think that's what Mr. Proffitt is getting at in the original article when he write "I have some doubts that any Linux distribution is going to be able to get its collective act together in time."
At least Mozilla understands this battle, read The App Model and the Web and the rest of Mitchell Baker's recent posts. But the Linux users who should be Mozilla's natural allies in promoting an open Internet don't seem to understand what's going on; maybe that's why Boot to Gecko is based on Android instead of a Linux distro. A few other projects like Joli OS and Webian shell are moving past the Linux desktop to the browser. If these falter, there's still Google's ChromeOS, but it competes with Google's own Android ecosystem.
=S
/Linux... About 12 years ago I was at my local LUG and there started a semi-heated debate between a Linux guy and a non-Linux guy. The non-Linux guy said, in believing that the Linux CLI tools weren't "unified" enough (still not sure what he meant, he was comparing them to DOS commands), "If anyone ever wants Linux to succeed as a product, then they have to make things streamlined."
Some people lightly chuckled, and a couple erupted into laughter.
"A product?" I asked him.
This is the separation point. People don't understand that the goals of Linux is not to dominate, unlike their (quote, unquote) "competitors". IMHO, the goals of GNU/Linux and the greater open source community is to build awesome software in the eyes of those creating it.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Thanks for making Mr. Proffitt's point, as he writes in the original article "The old arguments about desktops and application superiority aren't going to matter if all the other platforms have moved on."
Native apps suck, on every platform. You can't select text everywhere, you can't Ctrl-+ to zoom, you can't bookmark/back/forward, you can't View > Source or View > Selection Source, you can't run bookmarklet hacks on them, you can't drag images out. Sure, the native toolkits haltingly advance in areas like HTML rendering and URL support, but every time I right-click in a native app and I don't have a rich context menu available, I curse the bloody thing. Meanwhile every week HTML 5 applications get better and every couple of months the browsers add APIs that eat away at the few remaining things that only native apps can do.
=S
It's a silly argument. Linux failed in the consumer desktop space No it didn't...It never even competed. It was never offered as a market choice. who's fault that is isn't the point. It "failed" because it never tried. No marketing, no exposure, no nothing. Linux will succeed but it will never be on the desktop...but it will prevail in the mobile market...they just won't call it Linux. Take the victory and move along.
Windows assumes you are an idiot...Linux demands proof.
Users != OEMs
Users are embracing Linux but not OEMs.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
I love the fact that I'm able to choose, if something doesn't work now, I try and if it doesn't work out I just switch, it's that simple, .. what to do if there is no choice and something just doesn't work for you ? I'd rather have choice, ..does it really matter that much if someone is using KDE, UNITY, LXDE, XFCE or GNOME, ..
Well that's just my humble opinion.
no one buys a computer for the OS anymore (outside of business, obviously). People expect things to be interoperable and don't care what's inside so long as it works and is shiny, so your (linux) phone can take photos, and you can plug it into your (apple) laptop and copy them over, then print them from the printer connected to your (windows) desktop. That's the idea anyway. Electronic goods are disposable as far as meatbags are concerned, if the phone doesn't work anymore, they take it to the shop to get replaced or fixed or they just toss it and buy a new one, nobody but us lot here actually installs or configures an operating system (upgrades, maybe, but they're largely automated now) so the "choice" between office suites and desktop environments is never made by meatbags.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
I would like to say it's the silliest thing I have ever read, but sadly, it's not.
Still, this is plain stupid : if you want to try linux and don't know which distro to get, just pick one mainstream, preferably known for being user-friendly (Ubuntu is still the simplest distribution to begin). As you say, most distribution is about particular choices that are irrelevant to you, so you shouldn't even bother with that. (Well at first... you can always choose to think about it later, or not.)
Some jerks will say you picked the wrong distribution for reasons good and bad, but the same jerks will still critic your choice to stay on windows anyway... (I may be a jerk saying your reason to stay on windows is stupid, but at least I won't critic your choice whatever OS you Choose, and by that I mean "not use by default".)
Multiples distributions exist because some people aren't satisfied with the other ones. That fine : They work to have what they want and share it with others. It's nice really. If you're not interested, just stay mainstream, it really isn't as complicated as you make it sound.
And then if you don't like, say, the windows manager, you can change it, because their are alternatives. And that is just great, because if you don't like what one thing is becoming, you can try something else. But as a beginner, you shouldn't bother to much with choosing a distro, since you'll only get a good idea of what you want with practice. In the meantime, the choices of a mainstream distribution are as fine as microsoft or OSX choices in usability.
(\__/) This is Lapinator
(='.'=) copy it in your sig
(")_(") so it can take over the world
Because the community as a whole can never have 1 goal. Everyone wants to do their own thing, and that will be their legacy. I've talked to numerous linux users who talk down about Microshaft, but ya know why I use Windows? Because a lot of people came together on one goal, Windows. If Linux would produce and keep maintaining advances on 1 single OS distro, then yes, I would consider it, but it would be a requirement that it had something comparable to Direct X. But until the community comes together, the products will always be half-ass.
In the future smartphones will be portable and powerful computers. Everybody will carry a copy of their work environment in them. People will come to work and connect their smartphones through a special connector to an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, lan connection, etc. All their files and programs will be on their phones and backed up on the internet. And those phones will use some variant of Linux, some super-Android-like OS.
They can google reviews of the program choices.
They can ask others in the same field, that use OSS, what they use.
They can purchase and read magazines in the field that do reviews of software choices.
The same process in the non-OSS world is used for:
- picking a movie to pay to watch
- going to dinner
- buying a car
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Corporate Desktop:
Here are some things you should keep in mind. Since 2006, among Linux users, the Open Directory model where OpenLDAP runs a directory service, Samba 3.x runs a PDC, and Heimdal Kerberos runs the KDC, and FreeRadius runs RADIUS has been extremely popular. Open Directory (OpenLDAP+Samba+Heimdal Kerberos) was a definite step above the Sun Yellow Pages+NFS, or early NT4 Domains created by Samba 2.2, and it ran like a well oiled machine. Certain distributors supported it well. Mandriva and Suse being model citizens, while Ubuntu not so much. Ubuntu and Debian did a horrible job with Samba, LDAP and Kerberos. But Samba, LDAP, and Kerberos as Open Directory aren't MS Active Directory. That cost the Linux world many casualties. For the longest time, AD Dominated.
I recently tried Samba 4.0 Alpha 15 and was able to create a mostly functional Windows 2008 R2 Style Forest. I ran into problems incorporating Open Directory applications and schemas used to OpenLDAP's model, but I am certain those can be resolved. Samba 4.0 will have all the features of Open Directory and all of Active Directory's forms combined. It will likely replace OpenLDAP and Heimdal Kerberos because it is so much easier to manage just one application that does all three, and is completely compatible with its predecessors in the Unix world's feature sets.
In the future, I can see Samba 4 becoming the predominant Server for both Windows AD Clients, and Unix Clients running applications like NFS and AFS, FreeRadius, PostFix, eGroupware, and Zimbra. At the same time offering AD support to AD Clients. If you think it can't happen, just remember that Windows 7 has special code in it's registry to allow Samba 3 Domains to authenticate with Windows 7 clients, and even though Samba 3 style domains are still in some sense NT4 Domains, while NT4 itself is completely incompatible with Windows 7.
Samba 4 can devour the AD market inside out.
Home Desktop
What really matters here are games. Linux desktop needs to be able to run games of all platforms, for Windows, this of course means Wine. Wine again, is in a position to become more compatible with Windows than real Windows. There are now, a few applications that will run on Wine but not Modern Windows. This is mostly Games from the 9x era. But as time moves on, we may see more XP games that work on Wine that won't work on Windows.
Android support is another issue. A market for Android phones is growing, and Linux needs some sort of API translation layer to run Android games on PCs.
Desktop Interface:
Another thing is this: The constant desktop shifting and changing has to stop. someone really needs to back the Trinity Desktop Environment. Both KDE and Gnome now take away system resources from video cards to make the desktop look and interact more wth the user. This needs to stop. These effects slow the machine down, they slow games down, they slow EVERYTHING down. What I want is an interface that runs what I tell it to run. I would be extremely angry if my game was slowed down by KDE compositing, Gnome effects, Compiz or Beyrl. They look cool, but, they are completely useless and take away from resources I need for other things.
Citation?
OSS photoshop replacement, google "open source photoshop" ==> GIMP
OSS M$ office replacemnt, google "open source office" ==> Libre Office, or Open Office
OSS M$ anti virus, google "open source antivirus" ==> ClamWin, ClamAV, spamassassin
Those took seconds. And all products a desktop user, home user, and office user are likely to find useful.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Most of Linux kernel developers code for money. Far from hobbyists.
And Mozilla is non-profit.
1-2: Burden Of Proof
3: Ad Hominem
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.