That's completely backwards logic. No one is screaming for that because we've already got native applications that do the job. Therefore, Linux on the desktop is relevant now.
Even if that never changes (which I think it will as more GPU drivers open up and OpenGL becomes a more attractive gaming platform), why does it matter? You said yourself (and I'm in the same boat, FWIW), "the only reason I have a windows OS on my PC is because I enjoy playing games." If in five years, that's all Windows is respected for anymore, would that make Linux any less of a success?
Amarok: You're not wrong with that list, and I'd love to see it, and I know that Amarok ain't there yet. But it's closer than any competing software, free or proprietary. I don't think it's fair to bring codecs into this discussion. On Ubuntu, to name just one distro, if Amarok doesn't have the codecs it needs to play the songs it finds, it will install them itself, without having to leave the window or wait more than a minute or so. Would Amarok by itself compel me to switch? No. But I maintain that it is the best thing going on the music player/management scene. I'm going to take half a point on this one.
Office apps: This one I'll give you without hesitation. I will say that Kontact is the easiest and most intuitive PIM I've ever used, but it starts to lose its shine fast if you're trying to sync schedules with anyone. I think MS Office sucks. But I agree that everything else sucks just as much or more, and nobody's really innovating, and until that changes, until someone somewhere makes an incredible, world-altering UI breakthrough, the Microsoft dominance of the office app space will not go away. No arguments on this one, other than the obvious "OpenOffice is all most people need." But what people need and what they want are different and mostly non-intersecting sets. Your point.
3d interfaces? I never brought this up in the first place, but I think you're trying to make a point about games here, correct me if I'm offbase. While I think OpenGL is, in and of itself, a superior gaming platform, I realize it doesn't matter a bit if the applications aren't being written. I think this is bound to give eventually, with Intel pushing the competition to release open drivers or be left behind by a large chunk of the tech-savvy userbase, I think Linux will become a more attractive platform to develop games and GPU-intensive applications of all kinds. Your point for now, but I reserve the right to revisit this in about three or four years.
apt-get: Nope, this is still the leg I'm standing on. I don't know about businesses, but I've shown home users the power of repositories and they have been pretty much unanimously astonished. You're right, it's all about applications, and apt-get (to most desktop users, actually Synaptic, or Adept, etc.) is the easiest, safest, and friendliest way to install applications on a home computer yet invented. There is nothing remotely analogous in the proprietary software world. That's what everybody wants, they just don't know it even exists. Apt-get is it. I'm sticking with this one.
I'd also like to award myself half a point here in re-emphasizing some places where Linux totally dominates the application space, such as the hard sciences and education (not in America, where Microsoft gives away the farm to get 'em hooked young, but in a lot of other places; the reams of educational software available for Linux boggles the mind).
Which leaves us with a 2-2 tie! Isn't consensus great?;)
Home users want to send an e-mail to their friends, or use their favourite social networking site, or listen to their CD, or play a game to entertain themselves, or write a letter. Business users want to automate their business processes, keep records efficiently, produce necessary documents, and so on. Unless you can name me a specific, Linux-based application that can do one of these things so much better than what people already have on Windows
This is what I meant about moving the goalposts. Just to remind you of where this started, in the top post you said:
But the bottom line is that the end user doesn't care. He just wants a system that can help him to do his work, relax at home, or whatever. As long as Linux doesn't have the same level of key application support that Windows has, and some "killer app" alternatives that are substantially better than what is available on Windows, it will never be the "year of Linux on the desktop"
Others and myself proceeded to give numerous examples of Linux applications that are indeed substantially better than what is available on Windows (Amarok, for instance, lets users "listen to their CD" (from your last post) in a much friendlier manner than any comparable proprietary application. You changed the rules to:
You need something so good and so essential that people will be willing to choose Linux over Windows just because it has that one application.
I gave you apt-get and briefly laid out my case. You completely ignored it, and moved the goalposts again to the snippet I quoted at the top. To sum up, the criteria changed thusly: "substantially better" - "so essential that people would switch for it alone" - "must meet one of these eight examples, and by the way, I'm still not counting the ones in your original reply." It's almost enough to make me wonder who it is you're debating with, because I don't think it's me.
You've obviously not been following the discussion closely, because you included Firefox. For one thing, that is also available for Windows.
That's true. And it comes with every modern Linux distribution. So do a whole bunch of other great programs, like the ones listed above! Can I count that as a killer feature?
The Firefox world has lost the plot with the extensions recently, to the extent that basically my entire configuration on one machine was reset to defaults, by an update to an extension that I didn't even ask to install.
I'm sincerely sorry to hear that, that sucks. I fail to see how it's relevant here.
You need something so good and so essential that people will be willing to choose Linux over Windows just because it has that one application.
I think you'll come up with a new criterion every time I name something, but I'll see your arbitrary definitions and stand on apt-get, and the whole idea of a packaging system and software repositories. I think the only reason it's not more widely regarded as your "killer app" is that it's too "radical" of an idea; proprietary system users don't get it, because there's nothing remotely comparable in their world.
Anyone who thinks KDE is ready for their mom or your average office worker is clearly kidding themselves and I invite them to conduct their own study.
I sell custom-built Kubuntu boxen to Joe (and Qamar, and Chamath) Average in my inner-city, low-income, not-quite-the-ghetto neighborhood. They buy them because I sell them cheap, and in my neighborhood, that's important. They keep them because they're better and last longer and work as advertised for the life of the hardware. As a desktop, KDE's more "ready for the masses" than Windows is. I am kidding neither myself nor you.
And supporting Windows apps is indeed a problem for Mac OS X, but not a huge one. Why? Because you can install stuff like Parallels even if you are just a mere human.
I play a lot Civ 4, it's the only reason I keep a copy of Windows on my machine. Ubuntu's installer automatically detects XP and sets up dual-boot without a bit of user input. You push the "On" button. If there is an easier way, please enlighten me.
Perhaps I didn't explain myself very well. I should have said useful applications.
Sure, I'll bite.
*Amarok - You may not consider this "useful," but to the five gazillion people who have music on their computer and an audio player, it's the best thing on the market. I have gone rounds with lots of commercial and free audio management apps, and there is nothing even close. *Konqueror - It's a file browser. It's a web browser. It's an image viewer. It's a PDF viewer. It's an everything-viewer. It's configurable, and yet sensible by default. How many of these criteria does Windows Explorer meet? Hint: it's the first two, and half-assed at that. *apt-get (and various frontends) - Like Add/Remove Programs, except... it actually does add and remove programs. *ssh *a terminal that does stuff *Firefox - Say what you want about rendering issues. It's better. Everyone knows it. *DigiKam - In 2005, there were 24.7 million digital cameras sold in the United States. "Useful" enough? *the truckloads of educational applications that are available nowhere else
Really? It's common to all tech support to ignore everything the client says and recommend doing exactly what they say they did which didn't work?
Yes. Yes it is. Because people lie out of embarrassment. People mis-remember. People fuck up. I cannot begin to count how many times I've told someone "Do X." "I did that, it didn't work." "That's fine. Do it again. Right now, in front of me."... "Oh! How'd that work this time?"/headwall
I'll grant you that nVidia cards under Linux do blow. I had an older nVidia card in my previous desktop (several years back) and I just ended up sticking with the nv driver and hand-editing xorg.conf to get decent resolution after several failed attempts to get the crappy binary driver to install. I'm very fortunate that my new machine has an Intel chip.
You're on fucking crack. I've had this Ubuntu installation running on my desktop for a year and a half, through two full upgrades, and I have never - ever - not once - are you listening? - NEVER HAD TO HAND-EDIT OR HAND-COMPILE ANYTHING. Not. Once. Windows XP gives me no end of grief. It just will not leave me the hell alone to do what I want to do. Ubuntu does. It lets me work without hassling me, without asking for product keys, without rebooting, without crashing apps. Honest to God, I can't remember the last time I had to turn this thing off.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to use the word "blame," but he (and the first Bush administration) certainly helped pave the road. I welcome rebuttal.
You are mistaken. QT is dual licensed. You as the developer may choose to use it subject to the GPL or pay Trolltech money. Since Tom Tom is already releasing their software under the GPL, it seems like a pretty easy step.
Horseshit. They made the current situation possible. Bush Sr. made Iraq an enemy in the minds of the American public. The Clinton administration drafted the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and rammed it through Congress in the aftermath of Oklahoma City (in a very similar fashion to the current administration's handling of the USAPATRIOT act). These two examples set the tone for the current administration.
Indeed. USAPATRIOT wouldn't have been possible without the Anti-Terrorism Act of '96, which was similarly rammed through Congress by the Clinton administration in the aftermath of Oklahoma City.
From wikipedia (I know, I know, but these are pretty easily verifiable facts and you can go look them up yourself)
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States CIA program to arm Islamic mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. The Program relied heavily on using the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as an intermediary for funds distribution. Along with similar programs from Britain's MI6 and SAS, Saudi Arabia and other nations, the opponents to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan collectively trained over 100,000 insurgents between 1978 and 1992. Somewhere between $3-$20 billion in US funds were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles.
Here is the Senate's page breaking down the original USAPATRIOT act vote. Here is the same data for the House of Representatives.
But not all Christians even believe this nonsense; however, the ones that do somehow are becoming very numerous very quickly (at least here in the USA), so it's pretty scary.
noisy and obnoxious != numerous
They just want everyone to believe they are (numerous, that is). In reality, which is certainly frightening enough, their public voice and sway is vastly out of proportion to their numbers. I live in the upper midwest, YMMV, but most Christians that I've had this discussion with are pretty embarrassed by "those people."
Oh, is that what you think a producer does? I'm not even going to get into to the rest of your inane bullshit comment.
I read a lot of Slashdot, and I see a lot of people make themselves sound like assholes, and I also see a lot of people make themselves sound like idiots. But you are one of those rare gems who manage to pull off both at once. Congratulations.
The point is, make the consumer, a.k.a. Joe Notageek feel comfortable that it is easy to use, that he can buy applications for it at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, or Amazon.
That's the point? That point sucks. Here's the point. Make the user (note my lack of the word "consumer" anywhere in this) feel comfortable that it is not only easy to use, but is a better way. You don't have to go buy shit. It works already, and if you need more, it's a few clicks (and $0.00) away. That's the point.
Open Office (and I haven't checked out the latest version) comes in and says that it's a replacement for MS Office... but it does things its own way. Some shortcut keys are similar, but a lot of stuff is different.
You seem to think it is the second half of that statement that contains the problem. I assert that it is the first. If it could stop trying to be a drop-in clone of MS Office, maybe we could have some... well, y'know, innovation and stuff. I like OOo (although I use the KOffice suite more because it's quicker). But I can understand the lack of the groundswell of support that, say, Firefox gets. Firefox innovates, it sets the tone in the browser space. Amarok innovates, people love it (not me, but people). OOo is boring as hell. Who wants a slowed-down clone of MS Office?
And you know what else? It's people who bitch and moan about hotkeys and slightly-less-than-perfect.doc exporting and the floating menus and every other way in which OOo is not exactly like MS Office that are keeping that from happening. Sun is listening, and that's why you're getting more of the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Fun With Numbers!
Macs sold in 2006: 6 million
PCs sold in 2006: 240 fucking million
Now you hush your mouth.
That's completely backwards logic. No one is screaming for that because we've already got native applications that do the job. Therefore, Linux on the desktop is relevant now.
Even if that never changes (which I think it will as more GPU drivers open up and OpenGL becomes a more attractive gaming platform), why does it matter? You said yourself (and I'm in the same boat, FWIW), "the only reason I have a windows OS on my PC is because I enjoy playing games." If in five years, that's all Windows is respected for anymore, would that make Linux any less of a success?
Amarok: You're not wrong with that list, and I'd love to see it, and I know that Amarok ain't there yet. But it's closer than any competing software, free or proprietary. I don't think it's fair to bring codecs into this discussion. On Ubuntu, to name just one distro, if Amarok doesn't have the codecs it needs to play the songs it finds, it will install them itself, without having to leave the window or wait more than a minute or so. Would Amarok by itself compel me to switch? No. But I maintain that it is the best thing going on the music player/management scene. I'm going to take half a point on this one.
;)
Office apps: This one I'll give you without hesitation. I will say that Kontact is the easiest and most intuitive PIM I've ever used, but it starts to lose its shine fast if you're trying to sync schedules with anyone. I think MS Office sucks. But I agree that everything else sucks just as much or more, and nobody's really innovating, and until that changes, until someone somewhere makes an incredible, world-altering UI breakthrough, the Microsoft dominance of the office app space will not go away. No arguments on this one, other than the obvious "OpenOffice is all most people need." But what people need and what they want are different and mostly non-intersecting sets. Your point.
3d interfaces? I never brought this up in the first place, but I think you're trying to make a point about games here, correct me if I'm offbase. While I think OpenGL is, in and of itself, a superior gaming platform, I realize it doesn't matter a bit if the applications aren't being written. I think this is bound to give eventually, with Intel pushing the competition to release open drivers or be left behind by a large chunk of the tech-savvy userbase, I think Linux will become a more attractive platform to develop games and GPU-intensive applications of all kinds. Your point for now, but I reserve the right to revisit this in about three or four years.
apt-get: Nope, this is still the leg I'm standing on. I don't know about businesses, but I've shown home users the power of repositories and they have been pretty much unanimously astonished. You're right, it's all about applications, and apt-get (to most desktop users, actually Synaptic, or Adept, etc.) is the easiest, safest, and friendliest way to install applications on a home computer yet invented. There is nothing remotely analogous in the proprietary software world. That's what everybody wants, they just don't know it even exists. Apt-get is it. I'm sticking with this one.
I'd also like to award myself half a point here in re-emphasizing some places where Linux totally dominates the application space, such as the hard sciences and education (not in America, where Microsoft gives away the farm to get 'em hooked young, but in a lot of other places; the reams of educational software available for Linux boggles the mind).
Which leaves us with a 2-2 tie! Isn't consensus great?
Home users want to send an e-mail to their friends, or use their favourite social networking site, or listen to their CD, or play a game to entertain themselves, or write a letter. Business users want to automate their business processes, keep records efficiently, produce necessary documents, and so on. Unless you can name me a specific, Linux-based application that can do one of these things so much better than what people already have on Windows
This is what I meant about moving the goalposts. Just to remind you of where this started, in the top post you said:
But the bottom line is that the end user doesn't care. He just wants a system that can help him to do his work, relax at home, or whatever. As long as Linux doesn't have the same level of key application support that Windows has, and some "killer app" alternatives that are substantially better than what is available on Windows, it will never be the "year of Linux on the desktop"
Others and myself proceeded to give numerous examples of Linux applications that are indeed substantially better than what is available on Windows (Amarok, for instance, lets users "listen to their CD" (from your last post) in a much friendlier manner than any comparable proprietary application. You changed the rules to:
You need something so good and so essential that people will be willing to choose Linux over Windows just because it has that one application.
I gave you apt-get and briefly laid out my case. You completely ignored it, and moved the goalposts again to the snippet I quoted at the top. To sum up, the criteria changed thusly: "substantially better" - "so essential that people would switch for it alone" - "must meet one of these eight examples, and by the way, I'm still not counting the ones in your original reply." It's almost enough to make me wonder who it is you're debating with, because I don't think it's me.
You've obviously not been following the discussion closely, because you included Firefox. For one thing, that is also available for Windows.
That's true. And it comes with every modern Linux distribution. So do a whole bunch of other great programs, like the ones listed above! Can I count that as a killer feature?
The Firefox world has lost the plot with the extensions recently, to the extent that basically my entire configuration on one machine was reset to defaults, by an update to an extension that I didn't even ask to install.
I'm sincerely sorry to hear that, that sucks. I fail to see how it's relevant here.
You need something so good and so essential that people will be willing to choose Linux over Windows just because it has that one application.
I think you'll come up with a new criterion every time I name something, but I'll see your arbitrary definitions and stand on apt-get, and the whole idea of a packaging system and software repositories. I think the only reason it's not more widely regarded as your "killer app" is that it's too "radical" of an idea; proprietary system users don't get it, because there's nothing remotely comparable in their world.
Anyone who thinks KDE is ready for their mom or your average office worker is clearly kidding themselves and I invite them to conduct their own study.
I sell custom-built Kubuntu boxen to Joe (and Qamar, and Chamath) Average in my inner-city, low-income, not-quite-the-ghetto neighborhood. They buy them because I sell them cheap, and in my neighborhood, that's important. They keep them because they're better and last longer and work as advertised for the life of the hardware. As a desktop, KDE's more "ready for the masses" than Windows is. I am kidding neither myself nor you.
And supporting Windows apps is indeed a problem for Mac OS X, but not a huge one. Why? Because you can install stuff like Parallels even if you are just a mere human.
I play a lot Civ 4, it's the only reason I keep a copy of Windows on my machine. Ubuntu's installer automatically detects XP and sets up dual-boot without a bit of user input. You push the "On" button. If there is an easier way, please enlighten me.
Perhaps I didn't explain myself very well. I should have said useful applications.
Sure, I'll bite.
*Amarok - You may not consider this "useful," but to the five gazillion people who have music on their computer and an audio player, it's the best thing on the market. I have gone rounds with lots of commercial and free audio management apps, and there is nothing even close.
*Konqueror - It's a file browser. It's a web browser. It's an image viewer. It's a PDF viewer. It's an everything-viewer. It's configurable, and yet sensible by default. How many of these criteria does Windows Explorer meet? Hint: it's the first two, and half-assed at that.
*apt-get (and various frontends) - Like Add/Remove Programs, except... it actually does add and remove programs.
*ssh
*a terminal that does stuff
*Firefox - Say what you want about rendering issues. It's better. Everyone knows it.
*DigiKam - In 2005, there were 24.7 million digital cameras sold in the United States. "Useful" enough?
*the truckloads of educational applications that are available nowhere else
I can keep this up.
Really? It's common to all tech support to ignore everything the client says and recommend doing exactly what they say they did which didn't work?
... "Oh! How'd that work this time?" /headwall
Yes. Yes it is. Because people lie out of embarrassment. People mis-remember. People fuck up. I cannot begin to count how many times I've told someone "Do X." "I did that, it didn't work." "That's fine. Do it again. Right now, in front of me."
ORLY? Link or it didn't happen.
I'll grant you that nVidia cards under Linux do blow. I had an older nVidia card in my previous desktop (several years back) and I just ended up sticking with the nv driver and hand-editing xorg.conf to get decent resolution after several failed attempts to get the crappy binary driver to install. I'm very fortunate that my new machine has an Intel chip.
I LOL'd.
Microsoft can't be sunk by people choosing XP over Vista. Those people are still paying for a Microsoft OS.
ORLY?
You're on fucking crack. I've had this Ubuntu installation running on my desktop for a year and a half, through two full upgrades, and I have never - ever - not once - are you listening? - NEVER HAD TO HAND-EDIT OR HAND-COMPILE ANYTHING. Not. Once. Windows XP gives me no end of grief. It just will not leave me the hell alone to do what I want to do. Ubuntu does. It lets me work without hassling me, without asking for product keys, without rebooting, without crashing apps. Honest to God, I can't remember the last time I had to turn this thing off.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to use the word "blame," but he (and the first Bush administration) certainly helped pave the road. I welcome rebuttal.
You are mistaken. QT is dual licensed. You as the developer may choose to use it subject to the GPL or pay Trolltech money. Since Tom Tom is already releasing their software under the GPL, it seems like a pretty easy step.
Horseshit. They made the current situation possible. Bush Sr. made Iraq an enemy in the minds of the American public. The Clinton administration drafted the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and rammed it through Congress in the aftermath of Oklahoma City (in a very similar fashion to the current administration's handling of the USAPATRIOT act). These two examples set the tone for the current administration.
Indeed. USAPATRIOT wouldn't have been possible without the Anti-Terrorism Act of '96, which was similarly rammed through Congress by the Clinton administration in the aftermath of Oklahoma City.
From wikipedia (I know, I know, but these are pretty easily verifiable facts and you can go look them up yourself)
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States CIA program to arm Islamic mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. The Program relied heavily on using the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as an intermediary for funds distribution. Along with similar programs from Britain's MI6 and SAS, Saudi Arabia and other nations, the opponents to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan collectively trained over 100,000 insurgents between 1978 and 1992. Somewhere between $3-$20 billion in US funds were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles.
Here is the Senate's page breaking down the original USAPATRIOT act vote. Here is the same data for the House of Representatives.
But not all Christians even believe this nonsense; however, the ones that do somehow are becoming very numerous very quickly (at least here in the USA), so it's pretty scary.
noisy and obnoxious != numerous
They just want everyone to believe they are (numerous, that is). In reality, which is certainly frightening enough, their public voice and sway is vastly out of proportion to their numbers. I live in the upper midwest, YMMV, but most Christians that I've had this discussion with are pretty embarrassed by "those people."
Oh, is that what you think a producer does? I'm not even going to get into to the rest of your inane bullshit comment.
I read a lot of Slashdot, and I see a lot of people make themselves sound like assholes, and I also see a lot of people make themselves sound like idiots. But you are one of those rare gems who manage to pull off both at once. Congratulations.
For Christ's sake, it's a fucking beta. Give them a goddamn minute.
install it with less clicks than it takes to install Windows. Provide apps for it.
Done.
Mainstream a Linux server.
Done.
Mainstream Linux apps.
Done, done, and done.
The point is, make the consumer, a.k.a. Joe Notageek feel comfortable that it is easy to use, that he can buy applications for it at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, or Amazon.
That's the point? That point sucks. Here's the point. Make the user (note my lack of the word "consumer" anywhere in this) feel comfortable that it is not only easy to use, but is a better way. You don't have to go buy shit. It works already, and if you need more, it's a few clicks (and $0.00) away. That's the point.
-1 Shut the Fuck Up Already About the Names
Open Office (and I haven't checked out the latest version) comes in and says that it's a replacement for MS Office... but it does things its own way. Some shortcut keys are similar, but a lot of stuff is different.
.doc exporting and the floating menus and every other way in which OOo is not exactly like MS Office that are keeping that from happening. Sun is listening, and that's why you're getting more of the same.
You seem to think it is the second half of that statement that contains the problem. I assert that it is the first. If it could stop trying to be a drop-in clone of MS Office, maybe we could have some... well, y'know, innovation and stuff. I like OOo (although I use the KOffice suite more because it's quicker). But I can understand the lack of the groundswell of support that, say, Firefox gets. Firefox innovates, it sets the tone in the browser space. Amarok innovates, people love it (not me, but people). OOo is boring as hell. Who wants a slowed-down clone of MS Office?
And you know what else? It's people who bitch and moan about hotkeys and slightly-less-than-perfect
There, I said it.