Linked by Sean Oliviero on Wed 28th Jul 2004 05:54 UTC
The promise of Desktop Linux (DL) has been long coming. It's made significant progress since the mid-90s when GNOME and KDE came out, giving Linux users a somewhat modern desktop to work upon. However, it's been 7 years and DL hasn't progressed much at all since then. Today, DL is still nothing more than a UNIX-clone with a task bar, a start menu, and a desktop with some icons on it. But why has DL evolved at such a glacial pace?
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This article runs arguments that are simply based on factual assertions that are simply false. For example:
How can I configure hardware from a graphical control panel on my GNOME desktop? The answer is I can't, because GNOME doesn't yet deal with that portion of my system. Why do I need to tell Linux what disks I have in my system? Because it doesn't know! Windows and Mac OS both know when I stick a disk in my drive.
First point - control panel. A lot of distros provide graphical config tools. They all work on a gnome desktop - Yast and Drakconf. Both work on the gnome desktop. They are not part of gnome, but so what. They are available on end-user oriented distros.
With respect to disk identification, why is it on Mandrake that every time I put a CD-R in my burner, K3B opens automatically? I find that quite annoying, because I burn using the command line, but there's auto detection going on. Why is it when I plug my digital camera in to a usb port, an icon appears on the desktop for a graphical application that will download photos off my camera? Why when I put a music CD in the drive, KSCD opens? Why is it when I change my motherboard, cpu, graphics card, and sound card (leaving my hard drives as is), and reboot after that massive change, linux boots, detects all hardware, configures it, and I'm up and running without reinstalling th OS, or manually installing any drivers? Because linux is capable of doing this. Your factual assertions are just plain wrong!
Then there's software. Drakconf, and urpmi solve the problems discussed. A wizard to set up network - just like windows. A package installer that resolves dependencies without user input - and it's graphical as well. Furthermore, there are many package managers that do this for other distros - apt, yum, portage. Again, factually inaccurate.
X11 - I don't know enough about X11 to respond to this. However, I do know that kde3.2.3 on kernel 2.6 feels just as snappy on my pIII 600mhz laptop as Windows NT on my big arse overpowered desktop machine at work.
KDE/Gnome - What is the obsession with consistency. There is no consistency in Windows, so why does KDE/Gnome need to live up to such high standards. Despite this, there is a tool (GTK-QT theme from kde-look), that will faithfully reproduce the kde theme that is installed on gnome/gtk based apps. Hey presto - consistency (at least on a superficial level).
To argue that the Linux desktop has not moved very far in 7 years is just a joke. I started using linux when Mandrake 8.0 was released. The desktop has come a long long way since then. kde has become more featureful, and yet less bloated and quicker. When compared with Windows, that is a fantastic acheivement. The key application areas are now repleat with high quality apps: K3B, Digikam, Kino, Kaffeine, Gaim, Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office, Gimp and on and on. A lot of people that see my desktop who are windows users just drool at some of these apps. To say that the desktop has not progressed seems farcical. Nothing is perfect, and Windows is far from perfect, but this article is an insult to the developers who have spent the last 7 years taking it to the heights that now is.