Microsoft’s delay with the release of Windows Vista has left enough wiggle room for other players to pursue the desktop operating system market. An old Microsoft rival, Novell, is angling to seize the day with the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, a desktop OS geared to beat Vista in cost, manageability and features.
Can Novell SUSE Linux Take On Microsoft Windows Vista?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Deja Vu all over again ?
Edited 2006-06-15 02:29
Well put.
“Can Novell SUSE Linux Take On Microsoft Windows Vista?”
No.
There won’t be a mass migration, frankly I think it’s too early to begin predicting when that’ll happen. But as far as individuals are concerned many Linux distributions, including SUSE, are ready for their use.
Frankly though I haven’t yet taken a liking to SUSE, it’s failed to impress me with a smooth experience yet. I still suspect SUSE is geared more towards the workstation market, especially since Novell themselves make and sell most of their products for the business machine market.
No.
Care to elaborate? I fail to see why a simple “no” has been moderated up to score 5.
Care to elaborate? I fail to see why a simple “no” has been moderated up to score 5.
Probably because Suse Linux cannot take on Windows and Vista, and we simply have to accept that. It’s abvious, and the issues and hurdles have been talked about at length for years.
are you talking about…..
training staff to use linux ? Moot
hardware support for linux ? Moot
games under linux ? almost Moot
Vista bieng installed on new PCs ? hmmmm nothing can be done about that.
However.
People seem to forget the locking down Microsoft are implementing in the latest version, and as they have a public beta out, you can try it yourself.
If Vista was my baby, I would have it adopted.
training staff to use linux ? Moot
hardware support for linux ? Moot
games under linux ? almost Moot
None of those things. It’s the infrastructure, programming technology and taking care of issues for developers and users like software installation so all those points do actually become things that can be sidestepped.
If all those points are not a problem then why is nothing happening?
[/i]Vista bieng installed on new PCs ? hmmmm nothing can be done about that.[/i]
Yes it can actually, but Novell are going the wrong way about it by going down the same OEM route as Microsoft.
Simply “No”. Just take a look at computer store, a there any of them who sell PC with pre-installed linux? Compare with XP, and later Vista.
Just take a look at computer store, a there any of them who sell PC with pre-installed linux?
Yes.
And as a percentage?
“with the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, a desktop OS geared to beat Vista in cost, manageability and features”
All debatable, on both sides.
I don’t think it’s debateable the SUSE is gearing towards beating Vista in cost, manageability and features, I’d say that’s a given. If they’ll succeed or not can be debated, but it’s fairly clear that that is what their goal is.
Very few quality commercial applications, poor driver availability for consumer hardware, fragmented and half-functional desktop environments, complex UNIX underpinnings they fail to convincingly hide from the user, dysfunctional audio and gui subsystems, a learning curve that looks like mt. everest to non-technical users, etc. etc. etc.
I mean, its all great until a user asks ‘why doesnt my flash sound work while i have amarok running’ or ‘i want to add a second monitor. I plugged it in but I can’t find a control panel to configure it’ or whatever. and any illusion that Linux is ‘desktop-ready’ goes out the window.
Just… No.
I mean, if Linux really was ready, then 50 million people would be jumping at the chance to dump the expensive security nightmare that is Windows for it, but it’s not, and they aren’t.
And they won’t for SuSE 10.1 either.
I’d be pretty damn happy to be proved wrong by Novell over the next few months, but I can’t see it happening.
And I think this goes to the heart of the so-called Linux Desktop. The bottom line is in my view, the operating system isn’t fool proof and idiot proof enough for the vast majority of corporate, SME or home environments, at this stage.
I mean, its all great until a user asks ‘why doesnt my flash sound work while i have amarok running’ or ‘i want to add a second monitor.
They do have support for dual heade, just connect it and go to the display wizard and there you can choose your configuration ( left, right, above or under my concurent monitor).
I mean, if Linux really was ready, then 50 million people would be jumping at the chance to dump the expensive security nightmare that is Windows for it, but it’s not, and they aren’t.
There are many quality commercial applications for Linux, driver availability is almost at level with Windows, in certain areas even higher. No matter what device you have it’s pretty much a matter of plug’n’play. Especially for USB-devices.
Desktop Environment is a different issue. The fragmentation isn’t the problem. It’s the lack of unified look’n’feel which is the problem. Whether this will be solved ever is the a good question. I have my doubts, but it’s a minor problem.
The user should never have to ask “why doesnt my flash sound work while i have amarok running”, because it does work. Or it should. It beats me why some distributions have problem with this, because setting it up to work, doesn’t require any user action apart from installing. What configuration there has to be done can be done automagically. But for some distributions this seems to work less optimal. It beats me why.
But it’s no different than the user asking “Why doesn’t Windows recognize my webcam” or “Why doesn’t my soundcard work with Windows” or “Why can’t I play this game – it says something about …” (In this case the user probably got an Intel onboard graphic chip).
50 million users jumping to linux is not something I see coming, simply because they don’t know about Linux, or are afraid.
And not because Linux isn’t ready – it is (at least some distributions are).
From the troubles some of my class mates have had and still have with Suse, I can’t see Suse making any dent in Windows’ marketshare. Fedora is too bleading edge, and Gentoo requires quite some external support (unless you know what you’re doing).
Linux on the Desktop is already a reality, but to make it grow one has to accept that the first to switch will be users that understands the concept of computers and operating systems, and can figure out how to use unknown software. Most Windows users do not meet such demands.
I would like it to be the case with a Creatice Skype web cam that my clueless coworkers bought me as a gift.
Somebody, prove me wrong, please!!
>But for some distributions this seems to work less optimal. It beats me why.
Because integration and even more importantly integration testing is a major task that requires major resources. Every distributor is on its own doing it over and over every couple of realses. Most part of community doesn’t really participates here and the omnious duplication of efforts diminishes the remaining part’s work.
MS has much more resources than any of the linux distributors and has much wider release window and produces most critical components under one root, yet integration headaches cause it delays and feature trimming.
On a level playing field, but it’s not a level playing field is it?
Novell have to convince people to switch first to something people dont know. It’s not going to take much convincing with Microsoft and Vista since people are sheep and they own OEM’s.
Frankly, there is never a level playing field. Each company has their strengths and weaknesses, influences and deficits, enemies and friends.
I think your statement is correct though, Novell are going to have to convince people to move to something that is completely alien.
You’d get the impression that only Linux has problems and not Windows at all. As though the tech support lines for the various OEMs don’t stay lit up and as though the installation of apps and drivers in Windows never creates any problems. Are people so anxious to bash Linux that they forget all the headaches that come with Windows?
I am trying SuSE Linux for years now and also in the new version: I don’t like the installer, neither the YaST package manager, neither some of their system panels. Neither there is an overly active packaging site that can satisfy my software needs. Additionally, it wouldn’t install on my PC without passing the “nolapic” argument on the kernel. Speaking for myself, no, this OS doesn’t do it.
You don’t like SuSE because it doesn’t feature Gnome, Eugenia.
And you don’t know what you are talking about. SuSE comes with both KDE and Gnome (and lots of the ex-Ximian Novell engineers work on original Gnome stuff all the time). The latest SuSE DVD I downloaded came with both DEs.
You should stop making assumptions like that without any merit. I explained very well why I don’t like SuSE. It wouldn’t even install without special kernel arguments on my PC, let alone the rest of the YaST panels which I find terrible.
Eugenia,
Re: am trying SuSE Linux for years now and also in the new version: I don’t like the installer, neither the YaST package manager, neither some of their system panels.
Each person chooses software based on their individual requirements but I must admit I’m confused by your comments. Since we’re looking at a Windows alternative the OS should be easy for consumers to migrate. I’ve thoroughly tested several Linux distributions over the past few years and have found only a few select distributions make it easy for Windows users to migrate to Linux. At the top of my list is SUSE Linux not only for personal home users but also enterprise. When one actually compares what comes with Windows XP Professional or even Windows Vista to what is offered in SUSE Linux it’s apparent Novell gives consumers more out of the box for significantly less cost and time involved. Tools such as YAST provide a simplified method of using Linux over using a script in a terminal. I found the YAST Control Center just as easy though offering more than Windows XP Control Center. After all ease of migration should be one of the priorities of Linux vendors which are trying to attract business away from Microsoft. I believe this is something Novell has gotten right for the most part with SUSE Linux. This doesn’t mean SUSE Linux is perfect but that it’s far more easier to migrate from Windows than some people claime.
As for your comment “Neither there is an overly active packaging site that can satisfy my software needs.” I have no clue what that means. Anyway, in case you’re not aware SUSE Linux is no longer restricted to only YAST Source repositories as it now supports YUM. Anyway, even before this increased repository support I found the mirrors available adequate.
Re: Additionally, it wouldn’t install on my PC without passing the “nolapic” argument on the kernel.
I’ve installed SUSE Linux through several versions on various systems both for server and clients. What I’ve found is that SUSE Linux “Plug & Play” hardware detection and configuration is far superior to that of Windows or even most other Linux distributions. Though just as with Windows there will be times where something isn’t detected and manually configuration is required. This is usually due to using either very new or very old hardware.
Join the Slacky bandwagon. :p
http://www.slackware.com/
Need help? No problem.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdisplay.php?f=14
but not SuSE.Xandros,Linspire,maybe even Ubuntu could,but SuSE will drive people away from Linux.
You made me realize something that hadn’t occurred to me very strongly before. There are quite a few millionaires out there betting their socks on Linux. What with Red Hat going strong and Linspire and Ubuntu patty-caking it about, Xandros and SUSE added to the mix, and let’s face it, isn’t Mandriva still making money? It could be an interesting wait for Vista if all these guys pushed at the same time.
They do all push at the same time. Each company uses
software improved by the other. Each organization
benefits directly from the work of their competitors.
This is how open source was designed to work.
Novell/SUSE: made Xgl usable and wrote compiz. This
sets the bar for eyecandy in Vista. At the moment, it
is much prettier than the Vista Beta 1 I played with
earlier. fspot, beagle, mono. (from ximian owned by
novell)
Mandriva: Some guys doing great things to make cups
work out of the box if the printer is recognized. Can’t
remember any names off the top of my head
Redhat: Jason Palmieri made the libnotify popup bubbles
in gnome “pretty” and did a major chunk of the new gtk
print API/dialog after an infamous rant from Linus Torvalds about how horrible they were.
Ubuntu: Canonical formerly employed Daniel Stone, a
boy wonder working more with fd.o and improving x.org.
Making tools like gnome-app-install “Just Work TM” with
apt black magic showing how software installation can
be easy.
I think you’re right about Suse. I don’t see Xandros or Linspire as those to push Linux marketshare, but Ubuntu is a different issue.
I don’t know why, but whenever I meet one of those half-converted windows users, it’s always Ubuntu. It beats me why, but then I’m not much for binary distributions. Fedora “cured” that part of me
One word: Simplicity.
It’s simple to install and configures your hardware pretty well. When it is installed, the menu doesn’t present you with 3 different choices for every type of app, just keeps the menu trimmed down by default.
It keeps things relatively simple, and that’s why it’s my favorite distro. Funny, I’m a programmer, but I think more like a “stupid” user.
That makes sense. Simplicity is underrated.
About “stupid”. Well, you know – as a programmer – always to keep things simple (KISS). So it’s not really a surprise, but rather a proof that your mind is working?
You can’t compare SuSE Linux and Microsoft Windows. Different audience, different features, different needs. People who use Windows will probably not use SuSE, and SuSE users don’t want to use Windows either. So the reply is a big “No”.
Joe User, I cannot say that I agree with you on that. Linux on the desktop is squarely aimed at taking out Windows as the dominant desktop OS.
Edited 2006-06-15 03:11
With Vista’s delays and the reported reductions in features, all I would desire Novell (or anyone for that matter) to do would be to poke Linux’s head over the horizon for the home user. If Novell could pull that one off, we may have ourselves a ballgame here. Of course, that’s discounting the fact that most people know what a Mac is and don’t seem to care much. Yes, it’s a long shot of long shots, but even a decent blip on the public radar would do scads for the effort… I think.
Depends on what you mean by “take on”… I read the article, and they were generally positive about SuSE; The main complaints are with application support– Not that Linux, and SuSE don’t have it, but that finding the right package (and format) isn’t entirely trivial.
Interestingly, what they bashed Vista repeatedly for was compatibility– a lack of drivers, difficulty installing on various PC’s, and of course, lack of application support (either missing, or single “choice”, being the Microsoft app).
Of course, there are a lot of third party applications for windows, and I’m sure many of them will be available under Vista too.
Now, the question that should be asked, is “Are there situations where SuSE Enterprise is a valid alternative to Windows Vista?”– And the answer, in my opinion, is yes. Doesn’t mean SuSE is a wholesale replacement for Vista, but it’s good enough, especially in comparison with XP, to get people’s interest.
As for hardware issues, the only one I’ve ever had is my primary machine’s BIOS doesn’t play nice with the K8 powersave functionality, so I have to disable powersaved.
Other than that, both 32 bit and 64 bit has been fine (although ZMD/libzypp is only just now at the point where it doesn’t irritate me. I still use ‘rug’ for the majority of my package management).
Neither linux, nor Mac OSX are going to “replace” Vista in all, or even most, situations. But if they’re a viable alternative, I’ll continue using them.
The future of non-Windows desktop acceptance is and will continue to be the application barrier. Most executives and employees will demand that their current application infrastructure can still run – regardless of whether they like Microsoft or not. The massive base of Windows applications is far too tempting for most companies to ignore, and it’s what well over 90% of computer users know. For an open posix system to succeed in every-day offices, EXE/PE binaries and DLLs need to be directly executable. Whether it’s via WINE, ReactOS, OS2, or some other method – it’s a must. The general public is inherently lazy.
I haven’t used WINE for a long time (2 years) so take these comments as such.. I would agree with you, however I would suggest that it would be required to run ‘transparently’ and not run WINE then select the executable file. It needs to be as simple as double-clicking the EXE and it works.
Well, on my system, Wine is executed when I double click an .exe so that part is not an issue. But then the application actually has to work…
The latter part is a bit tricky.
Setting it up to execute Wine when doubleclicking an .exe-file is the easy part. Configuring and tweaking Wine so it works with largest possible array of Windows applications… oh dear.
Some applications work, and some doesn’t. To me it seems that especially VB-based programs tend to fail with Wine, while applications written in a “real” programming language have a higher succes rate for running in Wine.
I really have to object to all such comments that the general public is ‘inherently lazy’. I work a 50 hour week, and hence simply do not have the time to ‘fiddle’ with Linux to get it to work for me. This is not to say that I do not have to work to overcome problems with my Windows machine, but I have been doing this for 10 years, and there’s a certain level of nous and experience that I can re-use when troubleshooting. I tried Linux (various distros) over a period of 6 years, and my interest simply gave up the ghost at the point when for the umpteenth time I failed to get my wireless networking to function. My friend, the general public is generally ‘time-squeezed’, and until Linux starts to ‘work’ (in my experience) e.g., like OSX, and allows you the liberty of both getting on with stuff and, if you want and you are comfortable, poking around to an extent, Linux really won’t cut it with people who have to be productive and in that sense have to make decisions all the time about where they can best invest their effort, and where a reasonable return can be expected. It’s all about risk analysis and management, and it’s difficult sometimes even to forecast what the risks are going to be when you install X Linux distro.
and what did you do about it ?
did you file a report with the distro maker ?
did you email the authors ?
or do you think your time is so important, that you cannot take 5 minutes to do a simple thing like that, that would in fact benefit countless other people.
I do not mean to sound cheeky here, but in my line of work, people I meet who say they are always too busy and that they are too important to their company, are the type of person we can all do without…..
Well, perhaps ‘lazy’ isn’t the most appropriate term – you’re right. It isn’t exactly ‘lazy’ to not want to spend gargantuan volumes of time to setup and maintain desktop systems, resistance is understandable. But just like I said, if all the end-user has to do is double-click the same .EXE as they did in Windows, then Linux would gather far more acceptance from those that don’t really understand what’s under the hood. The second you mention “Oh, that program won’t run on this OS…” – the user has totally lost interest and wants to go back to what they’re familiar with. That may be the ‘lazy’ part – if there is one. It’s not so much the ‘system admin’ that doesn’t like Linux, it’s the secretary, accountant, shipping manager, telephone operator, and general ‘person-at-desk’ that doesn’t find OS alternatives of any interest.
How more unified can KDE and Gnome be? All flavours of *nix pretty well run these two desktops. Its not the desktops that aren’t unified, its the DOS/Win32 programs not launching when clicked that drives the mainstream user away. Fix that and you got a winner.
I agree with Eugenia about Suse. I have recently been trying to choose which distro to throw on a laptop, and went through around a dozen before ending up with Debian. I waited for the DVD iso to be released before trying out Suse 10.1 and was amazingly disappointed. Not only was it quite slow in comparison to other distros (and I tried with both KDE and Gnome), Yast could not hold a candle to apt-get/portage/arch’s installer. IMHO several other distros have a much greater chance of stealing away windows users.
Very few quality commercial applications,
Excellent quality free applications + many commercial quality applications available through such efficient tools as Crossover Office.
poor driver availability for consumer hardware
I’d say “fair” driver availability for consumer hardware. The vast majority of hardware works, and works well. New hardware keeps being added. There are a few sore spots, but the situation is continuously improving.
fragmented and half-functional desktop environments
You say “fragmented”, I say “choice is good”. You say “half-functional”, I say “more functional than Windows”.
What you state is a biased opinion, not fact.
complex UNIX underpinnings they fail to convincingly hide from the user,
Why hide them? Oh right, Microsoft proponents want to keep people dumb. Never mind that the CLI is more efficient than the GUI for some tasks, and that office secretaries had no problems learning DOS back in the days.
Are you arguing that people today are less intelligent than they were twenty years ago?
dysfunctional audio and gui subsystems,
That’s your opinion, and a highly biased one at that.
a learning curve that looks like mt. everest to non-technical users, etc. etc. etc.
I’ve tested newbie users on Linux desktops, and the learning curve is a lot smoother than you make it out to be. There have been empirical studies about this that confirm my experience.
I mean, its all great until a user asks ‘why doesnt my flash sound work while i have amarok running’
I just tried it on my laptop and the sound from a flash website (homestarruner) played at the same time as amarok did. No problem whatsoever.
or ‘i want to add a second monitor. I plugged it in but I can’t find a control panel to configure it’
I believe that the Nvidia and Ati control panels now allow for adding a second monitor.
I mean, if Linux really was ready, then 50 million people would be jumping at the chance to dump the expensive security nightmare that is Windows for it, but it’s not, and they aren’t.
Nonsense. I’m sure you wouldn’t argue that Mac OSX is not ready for the desktop, but you’re not seeing 50 million people switch overnight.
The reasons why Linux adoption, while growing, remains slow is: a) inertia, b) lack of high-profile marketing and c) FUD. It’s as simple as that.
The reasons why Linux adoption, while growing, remains slow is: a) inertia, b) lack of high-profile marketing and c) FUD. It’s as simple as that.
d) it doesn’t come preinstalled when joe buys a computer in a shop
Edited 2006-06-15 09:35
Good point. I’m sure we could find more, but “desktop readiness” is not, IMO, an issue with regards to market share.
Yes definitely on the corporate desktop and servers.
But this is true for mainstream Linux in general.
I have experienced a XP2500+ socket A with 512 to be the bare minimum to “run” vista on.
On a AMD64 3000+ (2.2GHz) with 1024 DDR Vista used constantly half of the avaible memory,with aero glass.
It depends on wether someone wants to invest in an extensive hardware upgrade.Linux in general runs just fine on most average hardware which i can’t say from vista.
…”It’s the applications, stupid!”
Linux is a great server OS, but when it comes to the desktop it’s in a distance third place to Windows and OSX. Sure there are some good applications and suites like OpenOffice and and Gimp, but they’re not in the same league as MS Offics and Photoshop (for example). The only desktop app I can think of that beats its MS counterpart is Firefox, but since it runs on Windows as well it’s not really an issue 🙂
The big problem for desktop Linux is that a lot of the applications are written by people who think it’s acceptable to have to edit configuration files in vi in order to get something to work. This hacker mentality if fine in the server world because the server end user is more technically advanced then the desktop end user. I’ve seen posts where Linux advocates mock non-technical desktop users. This just closes the loop and brings everything back to square one!
Linux is a great server OS, but when it comes to the desktop it’s in a distance third place to Windows and OSX. Sure there are some good applications and suites like OpenOffice and and Gimp, but they’re not in the same league as MS Offics and Photoshop (for example).
Problem is both applications like MS Office and Adobe Photoshop are not included with Windows and are too expensive for the normal user. They don’t come bundled with Windows Vista let alone XP while OpenOffice ang Gimp are included on most larger distros and free to download. I found mainstream distros to be more desktop friendly than Windows given the fact they include applications ready for use. For Windows, users will have pay extra fees to make the OS more functionnal via vendors.
The big problem for desktop Linux is that a lot of the applications are written by people who think it’s acceptable to have to edit configuration files in vi in order to get something to work.
Fast foward. You will find out that you can edit files with any graphical text editor included in modern distros.
Dont know if you are trying to be ironic with the fast forward bit, but I am pretty sure that having to edit files in _any_ text editor was the issue. Configuration utilities are the way to go
(with the _option_ of editing config files in a text editor, offcourse;)
The big problem for desktop Linux is that a lot of the applications are written by people who think it’s acceptable to have to edit configuration files in vi in order to get something to work.
You should not forget that plain text configuration files have one advantage that GUI style configuration lacks. You can make comments in your config files. That way its much easier to rember why a particular change was made, who did it and when. Or you can just comment out some setting, to do some tests, and then be fairly sure that you can get back to the old settings when the test is done. Features like this are very valuable in server environments with more than one administrator.
In the Desktop area, Linux is rapidly moving away from the old school file editing practices. Most apps have config dialogs nowdays even though the config information still use human readable text files for configuration information. Often the GUI tools even tries to leave things like comments and old vi edits untouched, at least it is much better than MacOS-X in that respect where this is a constant problem.
Even on the server side, there are configuration tools to use if you prefer a GUI approach. I’m primarily thinking of web based tools as webmin that will be able to configure almost every aspect of your computer, from your file server to your databases.
I would say that the problem for Linux that so many people think they need to learn vi to configure, when it in reality only is one of many options.
The big problem for desktop Linux is that a lot of the applications are written by people who think it’s acceptable to have to edit configuration files in vi in order to get something to work….
hey hey.. let’s not exaggerate here, alright. We are reasonable people and so I’d like to mention that Vim and Emacs is definitely tolerable.
=:P
I don’t know… some people seem to think that Windows XP is good enough for them…
The same thing happens with Linux, to some people, it’s good enough. If it was great already, then it would be a monopoly anyway, just like Windows is…
…….. but not SUSE”
what a ridiculous statement.
I read the whole article and I thought it was pretty accurate, although I didn’t like when he describes how hard it is to install software. He’s actually right about “third party” applications I guess… But what exactly mean “third party” in the linux world? Aren’t a lot of them already available as packages through YaSt or something like Synaptic? I dunno about SUSE cuz I didn’t try it yet but under Ubuntu I find it actually much easier to install software, and I can find most of what I need through synaptic, even (3rd party?) stuff like Skype, etc. If the software installation is so bad in SUSE it’s sad cuz in the case of this article it just gives a false image of Linux in general to people who read this article and never tried Linux… 🙁
As soon as people understand that the process of installing applications under Linux is different I think Linux is a winner on this one!
Well the only thing that MS has and Novell does not is an enormous support from it’s partners and all the other companies that write windows only software. If it wasn’t for that even MacOS can take on windows. Come to think about it you can pretty much do everything that Linux does in MacOS but it still hasn’t even put a dent in the Windows market … so no I don’t think that Novell is up to the task just yet. But they are doing some great progress and in a couple of years with a lot of luck and great diplomacy they just might get a shot. But I am pretty sure that Novell’s management already knows that and they are working on the problem.
As far as windows being better goes … please spare me the bs … if you still believe vanilla windows ( any version ) to be a good OS you either know nothing about windows or are the biggest liar ever.
There is no significant Linux competition to Vista. That’s not what Microsoft has to worry about. What they have to worry about is Windows/XP, which is more than good enough for the vast majority of computer users.
It doesn’t matter what a head-to-head comparison shows, by the way. The reality is that hardware vendors ship Windows with new hardware, and Windows/XP is good enough for most of the people who buy computers. To get Joe Sixpack to switch, Linux has to be significantly better or he won’t bother.
And, frankly, it’s not. Here’s a story from last year’s Ottawa Linux Symposium: A particular presenter got up with his Thinkpad to do his presentation. He opened the Thinkpad, plugged it into the projector, and started Powerpoint. The audience booed him. So he booted into Linux to do the presentation using Impress.
He, along with three fairly well known Linux developers from the audience then spent 25 minutes trying to reconfigure X so that it would the right thing in order to drive the projector at a reasonable resolution and show the presentation. They never got it to work.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I got a second monitor for a Linux box I use. Took a week of debugging to get X to deal with it properly. This is typical, even with people who have a lot of Linux experience.
It ain’t ready for prime time.
You must be stupid to have problems configuring a monitor.
I remember having problems configuring my sound card and modem 10 years ago. But now things just work fine. Not perfectly, but fine.
When Novell have far, far greater problems in keeping their own, existing customers happy who keep their company just about afloat, and their core market is declining, I find it pretty shocking that they start talking about Vista and a pie-in-the-sky market (and non-existant customers) that is as likely to happen as me getting a $5 million share option and a golden hello.
Ignore the comments from the silly analysts about support. The issues are far more fundamental than ‘support’. You have to get around Microsoft’s file formats and proprietary protocols, like Exchange, and create a new market for yourself – ignoring Windows to a certain extent. Novell, and no one it seems, has the first clue of how to go about this and they will continue to strive for something which just isn’t possible.
All the comments in that article are exactly the same as those made for the past few years about desktop Linux, and Novell seems to have been seriously addicted to the anti-freeze. I just wonder when they’re going to realise that they need to concentrate on their existing Netware customer base and market first and foremost in order to keep themselves in business. By the looks of things, the answer is never.
There’s a lot of FUD and mis-information going on here, and it seems a lot of people also state their opinions as facts. Thought to step in and say whatever I have to say, even if no one is interested to hear (read, actually):
Quote: “Very few quality commercial applications, poor driver availability for consumer hardware, fragmented and half-functional desktop environments, complex UNIX underpinnings they fail to convincingly hide from the user, dysfunctional audio and gui subsystems, a learning curve that looks like mt. everest to non-technical”
Though the number of commercial applications is still rather low, there’s free good-quality open-source replacements for almost anything missing in commercial world. Besides, you didn’t really specify what you mean with “quality” or what would you even need commercial apps for. The DEs then: well, GNOME and KDE aren’t fragmented. Have you even tried either? Sure, there are other DEs too, and using GNOME apps in a non-GNOME environment may seem out of place, it still doesn’t make anything half-functional nor fragmented. And where do you see those “complex UNIX underpinnings”? What do you even exactly mean? That is works differently than Windows? Sure, it works differently. It’s a different OS. The audio and video works just fine, though you still didn’t specify anything. About the learning curve…just sit a non-experienced user in front of a computer with Linux installed in it, and I’m sure he or she would learn rather quickly to point and click..It’s not any more difficult than Windows.
Quote: “I mean, its all great until a user asks ‘why doesnt my flash sound work while i have amarok running’ or ‘i want to add a second monitor. I plugged it in but I can’t find a control panel to configure it”
Hmm. Strange. I have had quite a lot of trouble trying to get some soundcards work in Windows, and you still seem to consider it desktop-ready. Though, some soundcards only support one app accessing the hardware at a time under Linux, so such a situation as you describe could be possible. It could be alleviated using f.ex. ESD, if only flash did support that. Or configuring ALSA properly……Since this was SuSE vs Vista, I just have to mention that there is actually a configuration dialog for adding a second monitor..
And to quote Eugenia: “Additionally, it wouldn’t install on my PC without passing the ‘nolapic’ argument on the kernel. Speaking for myself, no, this OS doesn’t do it.”
Since we are talking about SuSE vs Vista, have you tried if Vista works any better? In general, I have found Linux to work a whole lot better with malfunctioning hardware than Windows, which more often than not stops working at all.
In my opinion, SuSE Linux Enterprise is actually a very good alternative to Vista, both in features and in eye-candy. It just depends on what you need and if you are already very attached to Windows. If you have Windows apps you can’t live without, it probably won’t be worth switching since not every Windows app yet works via Wine or CrossOver Office. On the other hand if you can just as well use alternative Linux software to do the job or you know the software actually works in Wine, then you’d save quite a buck in switching. And wouldn’t need to upgrade your hardware either.
Also, while XGL provides all the eye-candy, it doesn’t require even half as much Vista’s Aero. You can run XGL just fine even on a GeForce 2 MX. Though, video playback is a lot better if the card is capable of pixel-shaders. But doesn’t Aero require atleast a DirectX 9 capable card?
Still, as someone already said, there is no mass-migration to be expected. There is really no compelling reason for a casual user to switch to Linux when he/she is already accustomed to using Windows. And the fact is, people tend to trust more what they already know, even if was wiser not to.
As a purely personal opinion on SuSE, I think it is all fine and good. Though, I tried OpenSuSE, which didn’t include the binary ATI/nVidia drivers and it lacked also quite a lot of other stuff (like MP3 support). Those issues are fixed with the commercial SuSE Linux Enterprise. The OpenSuSE version was really easy to install, it looked good and it configured my hardware as well as it could. It came with a lot of software already available, which Windows doesn’t do. I don’t really have any complaints about YaST either. I think it works just fine. Aside the no-binary-drivers and no-mp3s in OpenSuse, my only complaint was the really nightmarish menu structure they had under GNOME. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as horrible.
Ps. I just noticed someone complaining that Photoshop isn’t available for Linux…Well, I have used it with CrossOver under Linux.
Though the number of commercial applications is still rather low, there’s free good-quality open-source replacements for almost anything missing in commercial world.
But a lot of people don’t want to learn new apps or deal with differing file formats. And when you get into business apps like CRM and accounting, there is very little choice for Linux as yet. Even Open Source solutions like Sugar CRM concentrate on Windows clients.
And where do you see those “complex UNIX underpinnings”? What do you even exactly mean? That is works differently than Windows? Sure, it works differently. It’s a different OS.
I imagine that “complex UNIX underpinnings” takes in stuff like the whole raft of commands that are completely different to DOS/NT — and the fact that in a lot of distros there is no equivalent to “safe mode” for when things go wrong. Xandros does it better, and Red Hat tries, but SUSE/Mandriva/etc don’t. Also there is the fact that what works in one distro doesn’t work in another (e.g. in Red Hat “shutdown” only works as root, in other distros ordinary users can run it).
Sure it’s a different OS: the real issue is that the tools such as YaST/RedHat system-config-*/MCC are immature compared to Windows’ GUI config tools.
The audio and video works just fine, though you still didn’t specify anything.
Probably this refers to the fact that there are two kernel-level sound systems (ALSA, OSS), and different frameworks for KDE and GNOME. This causes headaches on many distros. You mention this yourself later on.
About the learning curve…just sit a non-experienced user in front of a computer with Linux installed in it, and I’m sure he or she would learn rather quickly to point and click..It’s not any more difficult than Windows.
True, but 90%+ of the market for Linux (business users etc) have learned on Windows. The majority of potential customers know Windows and need to be catered for.
Hmm. Strange. I have had quite a lot of trouble trying to get some soundcards work in Windows, and you still seem to consider it desktop-ready.
Windows makes it easy to install third-party drivers. Linux does not. Even if there are third-party drivers available for a given distro, they have to be recompiled and re-released every time there is a new kernel (errata or upgrade). Bad news for vendors and users. Meanwhile on Windows, a driver released for XP in 2001 still works on XP SP2 almost five years later. Can you imagine that on Linux?
I just noticed someone complaining that Photoshop isn’t available for Linux…Well, I have used it with CrossOver under Linux.
But why should people have to pay extra for Photoshop on Linux when chances are they’ve already paid the Microsoft Tax and can run it on Windows for “free”?
— For the record, SUSE Enterprise Desktop looks pretty cool and I think that with features like XGL and the VB Macro importer it will make some headway in the corporate world. But there are still problems.
You make some good remarks, but I do have some comments on the following remarks.
I imagine that “complex UNIX underpinnings” takes in stuff like the whole raft of commands that are completely different to DOS/NT — and the fact that in a lot of distros there is no equivalent to “safe mode” for when things go wrong. Xandros does it better, and Red Hat tries, but SUSE/Mandriva/etc don’t. Also there is the fact that what works in one distro doesn’t work in another (e.g. in Red Hat “shutdown” only works as root, in other distros ordinary users can run it).
Windows and Linux are totally different OSes, so if someone wants to switch, he or she needs to be open to change and take the other OS the way it is. One needs to note here that DOS/NT chose to use a whole raft of commands which were completely different than the existing commands already in use in UNIX systems. I don’t think Linux should in any way be changed to make it more similar to Windows, because it would be easier for new users coming from Windows. This argument alone, in my opinion, is not a valid reason to change something in an OS. About the “safe mode”… AFAIK, every linux distro supports a “single-user mode”, which is the “safe mode” on linux. This is normally runlevel 1 and on distributions which use lilo (I don’t know grub, but I believe it’s similar) you just need to type the kernel you want and add the runlevel during boot. (You get something like “2.6.16 1” in my case) This kind of safe mode is standard across linux distro’s. I assume “Xandros” just gives you an explicit ‘safe mode’ to make it easier for Windows users.
About the ‘shutdown’ command… I assume this is a simple ‘default configuration’ issue, and each distro makes its own choices regarding that. Their choice will probably be ‘right’ for their distro. Personally, I would not like that every regular user which has access to my server (or my desktop for that matter), can simply shut it down.
I do not have any experience with the GUI Linux configuration tools from any distro, but I can very well believe that they’re immature compared to the Windows GUI tools. Well, I’ve always preferred to do the configuration the hard way and look at the text files, since I never found good GUI tools.
(Debian does however ask you some questions during the installation of packages to configure them… not a GUI tool, but still an easier way to get things configured.. one can even configure the detail of the questions asked… it will take reasonable defaults, if you don’t wanna be bothered with a lot of configuration questions.)
Probably this refers to the fact that there are two kernel-level sound systems (ALSA, OSS), and different frameworks for KDE and GNOME. This causes headaches on many distros. You mention this yourself later on.
I don’t think the “desktop user” this distro is aimed at even knows they’re using ALSA or OSS. I believe every recent distro now defaults to ALSA. For a lot of sound hardware, ALSA comes with a dmix configuration that is used by default and every application that natively uses ALSA can be used in parallel. I believe ESD and aRts both support ALSA. It’s up to the distro’s to make sure that applications use the appropriate mechanism by default. (Doesn’t Ubuntu do this right?)
On the other hand, you have a point. There are many soft audio mixing solutions on linux and none of them is very good. The problem is also that an application needs to support the mixing solution you’re using.
In this regard, I think that “polypaudio” looks promising and that this could very well be a software audio mixer that works.
True, but 90%+ of the market for Linux (business users etc) have learned on Windows. The majority of potential customers know Windows and need to be catered for.
Here, I disagree. Let linux be linux. With this whole “trying to make linux popular for the masses” movement, people seem to want to make linux become windows. OpenOffice needs to become Microsoft Office. Linux shell commands need to become Windows shell commands. Linux im applications need to speak the proprietary protocols from Windows im applications like Yahoo and MSN. Linux media applications need to play proprietary Windows media formats. Linux needs to be able to run Windows applications. Some people even go as far as demanding that Linux supports Windows drivers. In short, Linux needs to be a “gratis” Windows. (Some of those hard-shouting ‘convert’s claim of course that they are in it because of the “free software” movement and that they strongly believe in the ‘rights’ described by Stallman, to subsequently demand that Doom3 for Linux needs to be given away for free, because if it’s released for linux, it should be released ‘in the spirit of linux’..) And then, and only then, will those Windows users consider Linux a ‘viable’ OS.
No! Let linux be linux. If a Windows user wants to switch to Linux, then he/she should learn to use Linux and respect the differences instead of demanding that Linux be changed to become more Windows-like.
It pisses me off that Gnome Developers are dumbing down and dumbing down and dumbing even more down Gnome, so that they can give the ‘naive’ user the best experience. Do they ever consider that a non-tech-savvy user can become more proficient with the platform they use and that they can become a power user over time? In that regard, I don’t think it’s a good move to force gconf-editor on them to get access to more advanced configuration options. (no worries, I’m sure that, in time, this problem will be taken care off by simply removing the advanced options accessible in gconf-editor)
That being said, of course, improvements are possible in Linux and in Linux distros, but my point is that “to make it more windows-like” is not a good reason for a change.
Meanwhile on Windows, a driver released for XP in 2001 still works on XP SP2 almost five years later. Can you imagine that on Linux?
hmm.. I guess you assume here that XP in 2001 and XP SP2 use a different kernel? and you are referring to the fact that the linux kernel does not have a fixed kernel driver API? In that case, you are right.
Aside from that, I do want to note that many distributions also package third party kernel drivers which work with the packaged kernel without any effort of your own.
But why should people have to pay extra for Photoshop on Linux when chances are they’ve already paid the Microsoft Tax and can run it on Windows for “free”?
Well, they shouldn’t. They should just run Windows and use Photoshop on Windows. It’s just that complaining that Linux is bad, because it can’t run Photoshop is the same as complaining that Windows is bad, because it can’t run E17. (or did I get this wrong?)
Personally, I don’t think anyone “should” switch to Linux for whatever reason. Linux works for me and I like it very much. I’m not gonna push people into using Linux if they’re happy with Windows. People should use what they are comfortable with. However, I also feel that I have the right to use Linux and I should not be forced to use Windows. In that regard, I’m against making Linux more Windows-like, just to better suit Windows users and to make Linux gain more market share. I believe the priority should be with pushing open standards (instead of pushing linux). If everyone starts using open standards, then in the end, it won’t matter what OS your neighbour uses, you’ll be able to communicate and share information with your neighbour. Of course, it would also mean that a platform or application will become popular because it’s good and not because people need it because of backwards compatibility or compatibility with the rest of the world. So, I guess a lot of commercial companies prefer sticking your data away in their own closed formats.
But a lot of people don’t want to learn new apps or deal with differing file formats. And when you get into business apps like CRM and accounting, there is very little choice for Linux as yet. Even Open Source solutions like Sugar CRM concentrate on Windows clients.
Well, as I stated, it really depends on what software one needs to run and what you need to do with the computer. It is absolutely true Linux lacks CRM software, along others, but hopefully it’ll change one day. Differing file formats are sometimes an issue, sometimes not. F.ex. Microsoft Office formats are supported by OpenOffice/StarOffice. Though, I am not saying you are wrong. It’s just pretty much the same problems here that would be if you switched over to Mac from PC.
I imagine that “complex UNIX underpinnings” takes in stuff like the whole raft of commands that are completely different to DOS/NT — and the fact that in a lot of distros there is no equivalent to “safe mode” for when things go wrong. Xandros does it better, and Red Hat tries, but SUSE/Mandriva/etc don’t. Also there is the fact that what works in one distro doesn’t work in another (e.g. in Red Hat “shutdown” only works as root, in other distros ordinary users can run it).
Well, the whole idea behind the modern DEs is that you should not need to resort to command line, and as such, in Vista you probably won’t need it in any normal use. Also, f.ex. under SuSE you don’t need it either. So this point is rather a moot-point. Though, I think adding a “safe mode” option would be generally a good idea for any distro. (Distro makers, take the hint already
Probably this refers to the fact that there are two kernel-level sound systems (ALSA, OSS), and different frameworks for KDE and GNOME. This causes headaches on many distros. You mention this yourself later on.
I don’t know any recent distro which uses OSS for audio output, and any apps using OSS for output works just fine with ALSA. ALSA does have OSS compatibility wrappers. What I referred to was really the fact that some sound cards (usually this means old ones) can only be opened by one app at a time and you need to have software mixing available then. Using ESD for example would solve this, but since the flash player plugin doesn’t use ESD, it would still pose a problem. Another way to alleviate it would be to configure ALSA to do software mixing, but it’s difficult to know when and if it should be enabled. As far as I know, it incurs some performance penalty even in situations where the sound card supports multiple opens if it is enabled. Just for the record, it might still be better to enable it by default, and create a white-list for situations where it will not be needed and/or allow the user to disable it if they know it isn’t needed.
Windows makes it easy to install third-party drivers. Linux does not. Even if there are third-party drivers available for a given distro, they have to be recompiled and re-released every time there is a new kernel (errata or upgrade). Bad news for vendors and users. Meanwhile on Windows, a driver released for XP in 2001 still works on XP SP2 almost five years later. Can you imagine that on Linux?
That is actually a rather good point. Having a kernel interface where drivers could just plug-in without needing to be recompiled everytime would perhaps solve this one, but still, there aren’t many vendors anyway who’d be willing to port their drivers..
But why should people have to pay extra for Photoshop on Linux when chances are they’ve already paid the Microsoft Tax and can run it on Windows for “free”?
I don’t know =P I was just saying it is *possible*
The desktop in generall or the corporate desktop which is a big difference.
THX for that link – good article- for once in a long while IMO a plain good comparison which keeps it at a minimum & doesnt go into specific unnecessary details to just get an overview .
Unfortunately there is no toggle on/off troll option on here
This will or probably already has deteriorated into useless read-unworthy comments .
But – yes – package management etc – is something that especially SuSE have to improve on.
OK, I just have to say this. Don’t mean to be rude, pessimistic, or anything, I’m just a little annoyed.
I’ve tried to install a distro as my audiomachine, since I use stuff like JACKit and Ardour, and this is how it went:
Mandriva up to 10.2 – pretty good and useful around 9.2, after that it went downhill. Good distro with excellent packagechoice, but just too many bugs lately.
Kanotix – refused to start X after upgrading some packages (not dist-upgrade or anything, just 2-3 packages). Don’t know what went wrong.
Ubuntu – Jackit keeps getting “Killed” at random (on my laptop).
Fedora Core with Planet CCRMA – works allright, except my other disks are not mounted (not the NTFS’s nor the EXT3’s) and with the standard kernel (wich I need cause CCRMA’s kernel doesn’t work with nvidia nor vmware player), it freezes my system entirely at random when running Jackit.
PCLinuxOS – interesting distro, just too full of bugs to be used for production.
I guess I have some rather hefty system requirements (nvidia, vmware player, realtime scheduling), and these might not be the primary concerns of distros. Anyway, an OS that doesn’t mount your disks, crashes on upgrade or can’t do MIDI-timing correctly will have a tough time competing in today’s market.
Of course I could have told you about when I was using the HP scanner software in windows, or what happened with the first Creative Nomad in win98, but that doesn’t make these linux-distros any better…
And the winner is : VISTA!
This is the same old “Déjà Vu”, “It’s the year of Linux on the Desktop”, “Microsoft is late with Vista, Linux will move forward”, … Blah blah blah, same old, same old.
Remember, we are talking about Linux on the Desktop, not in the server room where it can rule.
…”It’s the applications, stupid!”
…”It’s the drivers, stupid!”
…”It’s the ease of use, stupid!”
When ALL hardware makers will ship (easy to install) drivers for Linux with the same quality that Windows drivers enjoy, mabe Linux will move forward.
When ALL the major software maker (the best sellers on Windows) produce Linux version of their apps, with some kind of universal installer (add/remove apps) that place the apps icon where it can be reached. mabe Linux will move forward.
Do you know : “Too many choices is like to little choice”. Linux distro are there : too many choices. It’s hard to do standard things with multiple GUI, diffrent configuration files depending on witch distro you run, software packager, diffrent control panel, diffrent utilities all depending on the distro you use. How can someone remember all this going from one distro to the other? It’s crazy. No Standard at all.
Linux is great on the servers, no problem there, but not on the desktop. Someone will have to open their eyes and see that too much is like too little. Too many distro, too many choice, too many configuration files…..
But Linux in general is “manufacture-friendly”. It means that companies that create computers and accompanying hardwares and softwares would prefer to use Linux much more than Windows, because with Linux they don’t have to pay even royalties, much less licenses and support.
“It’s the applications, stupid!”
“It’s the drivers, stupid!”
“It’s the ease of use, stupid!”
It’s the virtual monopoly, stupid.
It’s the slave OEM contracts, stupid.
No, he’s right. Until the average Joe/Jane can pop in a Linux CD, run setup, AND get updates withouts breaking things it will NEVER take over the desktop. I’ve talked to all kinds of IT professionals from various disciplines, and they all say the same thing. It’s great for servers, and the “Geeks” but it won’t take the desktop away from MS, regardless of OEM contracts. OEM Contracts and Monopoly statements are cop-outs for what the real issue is; Linux isn’t ready for the desktop. EOS…
tmanops2006, another how-hard-to-install comment. Have you seen ubuntu 6.06 installation?
You pop Linux CD, press enter to select Installation (or select memory, cd test or etc.), wait until live cd will be loaded. Press install icon on the desktop (believe it or not, that opens installation program), now it’s the hardest part you have to select your language, timezone and enter your name and password (i bet only geeks capable doing that), then you have to partition your hard drive, it has a few options like resize and use free space, erase, manual partitioning (easier comparing to xp partitioner), then after installation you reboot and gui update manager shows pop-up that you have updates, you click install button and wait while updates is downloaded. If you don’t want to break things – use stable version.
I’ve installed a number of distros, and like Linux. The arguement is mainstream, end-users. If you read the entire thread you’d know that. Again, if the Linux community wants this to catch on, then it needs to be easy for anyone to buy and install. That includes the neophites, like you, that don’t read the instructions first, or forum threads.
Who wants joe six pack and his mother to use linux? I certainly don’t want to. Let them stay on windows. I like to think of linux as a power user OS.
I think linux can only loose by becoming too popular.
The desktop know in Windows will die with Windows. It’s too hard to create another Windows without permission from Microsoft, and even Microsoft had to reset Longhorn to create Windows Vista, just to prove my point.
Windows desktop is different from the desktop of the “Web 2.0”, which is different from the desktop of Linux as we that have been using it for years know.
People are afraid of Linux and that’s the only reason. Linux is more advanced than windows by leaps and bounds, but it’s different and not too many are willing to throw away years of windows know how to change. It’s happening slowly and more and more are getting jack of all the windows exploits, but it’s not going to happen overnight, but it will happen
Anyway, that’s only one reason, a pretty important one IMHO. There are others probably equally as important, but they have been thrashed to death for half a decade, no need to thrash em out some more!
that linux would be hard to configure for novice users is true. but then when i work in a computer shop people turn in computers to configure tv-out extra monitors and such for windows all the time.
the avrage computer user cant configure things in windows.
but then i guess that not many computers stores can configure such things in linux.
My only real complaint with Linux are minor things now that are blatantly obvious like Gnome redraw issues, some media graphics usability, and no CAD programs. Are people blind to crap blurring all over the screen, I guess so. I like GTK over WinForms but if it blurs it ruins everything.
The command line I like better because it is not dumbed down and quicker to do things. Only thing I don’t like is why you can’t do obvious things like spacing without going through hoops. If I created this command program that would be the first issue I would have addressed (Linus?)
Most applications are already on the system and if the software is really worth it then it will have a decent *.run installer or you can just unpack it by clicking on TGZ file (it’s just a zip file, why is this so confusing) and it just runs from the directory and the dependencies better be in tow because I am not hunting them down!
Error feedback, start menu stuff, and better help systems that are pre-installed hopefully are being addressed by LSB. It’s a non-starter without a uniformity. Noone will use it if it casually decides not to put in start menus icon half the time. .
I think if Linux was polished more I don’t see why Linux couldn’t be about 30 percent of the market in a few years. It has allot more going for it then Apple. This is mainly because of poorer nations or people who are predicted to take a 30 percent chunk of the market in the next decade.
Can Apple and MS create a very low cost version for them that’s realistic? I think Windows has doesn this but am not sure if the 100 dollar laptop is more realistic.
It could help allot of their was more direct driver support like Novell is doing. I think that’s where most of the complaints are coming from.
> Gnome redraw issues
Not a gnome fan, but this is pretty picky.
> some media graphics usability
Read: Microsoft and others won’t release media codecs because they are attempting a lock-in scheme for video.
> no CAD programs
QCad, VariCAD, others.
> you can’t do obvious things like spacing
I must be missing something here.
> runs from the directory and the dependencies better be in tow
Why would you do this? apt-get install “package” almost always works, similar for most other distributions. Or download a .deb/.rpm file and install it.
Even a lot of commercial software has packages.
> decides not to put in start menus icon half the time
This is a pain, agreed. It’s usually down to the maintainers of the distribution, though.
> It could help allot of their was more direct driver
> support like Novell is doing. I think that’s where
> most of the complaints are coming from.
The problem is the hardware vendors… and the pressure they are under from Microsoft.
> Gnome redraw issues
–Not a gnome fan, but this is pretty picky.
The windows and menus blur/smeer allot on my screen. Firefox seems flappy like paper. It’s not really that great feeling like QT apps. It’s completely unprofessional period, unless maybe it’s the CRT monitors I have been looking at that blur more but I don’t think so.
>some media graphics usability
–Read: Microsoft and others won’t release media codecs because they are attempting a lock-in scheme for video.
Mainly I meant that the media players need better graphics. Also the LSB is the Linux Standard Base that is trying to uniform issues like systray icons and start menu stuff.
> no CAD programs
–QCad, VariCAD, others.
I mean 3D pro cad. Wow, I didn’t know about VeriCAD. Nice. And in any event, about 1000 software distributors have signed up to a Novell program to put their apps on Linux. That should take care of that and then people can see what they prefer better.
> you can’t do obvious things like spacing
–I must be missing something here.
I meant spaces between letters in console. Plus accessing these spaced letters requires a cryptic slash.
While executing I would rather do a “exec test” rather then having to put the entire directory structure or ./test, which is cryptic and silly looking. If these are security features then it’s probably fine.
> runs from the directory and the dependencies better be in tow
–Why would you do this? apt-get install “package” almost always works, similar for most other distributions. Or download a .deb/.rpm file and install it.
I meant independent software, talked about tin the article, not in the repository. Usually putting up an independent DEB or RPM file is a non starter since it doesn’t carry the dependencies. Best to just use a RUN installer or just unpack it from a TGZ file and leave the Repo files to the experts, maybe put start menu icon features in the TGZ format. Obvious programs like ZinfPlayer should have systray functionality.
I think this is a good example of an independent Linux distribution:
http://www.ufoai.net/
Look in downloads
Maybe if Novell can sort out some hardware vendor ties in where they’ll provide 100% support for the supplied hardware/software it could work. Otherwise I just can’t see working out until the Linux community stops fragmenting its self and setting up competing standards whilst lacking in serious driver support from the manufacturers and hopping that someone will provide it out of the kindness of their heart.
If Linux was pre-installed by the vendor with the drivers already installed, then yes. Of course. Using APT or another package manager, they could even optimize for the actual platform (kernel package of HP DL350 for example).
The only thing that makes it “not” ready is this. Most people can’t install Windows from scratch, either.
Edited 2006-06-15 13:35
In SuSE 8.2 my network card was immediately recognized and worked find. In 10.1 it has no clue how to use my network card. It sees it. Just can’t use it.
Winning or losing is another thing entirely. Just because it’s hopeless is no reason not to, nay I think it makes the gesture and effort even far more noble and important even mandatory the challenge must be raised. Just think what if David had slept in and never challenged Goliath…
*heavy sigh*
Many valid points were raised about where desktop linux is inferior to Windows. Yet many of those are irrelevant when talking about corporate adoption. Even Novell has said desktop linux is suited for specific *niches*, not an all out replacement or nirvana for home users.
Remember that this is a market that had to be dragged from using NT 4.0. Microsoft had to cut off support before they would finally upgrade, and even then most of them went to Win2K instead of XP. They don’t care about eye candy. They don’t care about windows that wobble. They don’t care about widespread multimedia codec support. They don’t encourage their customers to watch DVD’s. They don’t measure fps for game playing. They don’t care about photo album applications.
Corporate customers don’t care about pre-installed OSes. They don’t really even care about installation issues. They generally image them before deployment anyways. And even for the Windows-shops, you can bet Vista will be getting wiped out and replaced with XP for the first couple of years at least.
Corporate customers are concerned with hardware compatibility, they will not buy hardware if it doesn’t work with the current infrastructure. Understandably. They are also very fond of buying very bland, vanilla type systems from their name brand vendors. 3d graphics, 78-channel surround sound, ACPI suspend support, raid, blah blah blah, these things are not high on their list of priorities. And no matter how many examples people will try and pull out of the air, the fact is that a modern linux kernel is pretty damned compatible with standard hardware out of the box. Maybe not newer or cutting edge hardware, but definitely with the stuff littered about corporate desktops.
Corporate users are not expected to install their own applications (or OSes), and are most likely prohibited from doing so by policy. Applications are deployed for them. Their desktops are generally locked down to a common configuration. Deployment, manageability and compliance tools are very important for corporate customers, and a range of tools exists for both Windows and Linux. And Novell will happily sell you a solution that works with both.
There are many Windows applications that do not have linux equivalents, this is true. As has been posted, nobody rationally believes linux is a drop-in replacement for Windows in every situation. But with citrix, thin-client apps, server-based CRM/ERP etc. applications, plus the fact that OpenOffice is a useable enough alternative to MSOffice for moderate work, it’s not like linux exists in a void. Hell, I use Suse every day in my office with Citrix to access those MS apps I’m forced to use. And while Outlook/Exchange may be king, there are still millions of installed seats for Notes/Domino that will very shortly be easily migrated with the upcoming linux client of Notes. Or combined with IBM Workplace, corporate environments do not have to be hostile to non-Windows environments, unless they are utterly dependent upon Windows software.
Admin workers, call centers, retail/POS, support desks etc. These are all areas where desktop linux could succeed because the requirements are light and MS offers little advantage over convenience.
Application support is a big obstacle to linux adoption, true, but if a desktop linux solution can become compelling enough as an overall solution then it will draw the applications. To me the biggest issue to be addressed is support, this is why I don’t think we’re going to see desktop linux appear in small to medium sized business in significant numbers. Support needs to be outsourced, hired or built up, and those costs need to be spread out to be effective. Smaller organizations probably can’t scale their networks with a mixed environment enough to justify the additional cost.
Large companies/enterprises have an advantage here, they can often absorb the upfront costs of migrating and deploying a mixed network and then managing the support costs. Whether it’s Novell or IBM or HP or Unisys or any number of large and small solution providers, there is enterprise-level support available for desktop linux solutions.
Enterprises view things in terms of ROI and TCO, they really don’t give a flying fig how their users feel or where their preferences lie, otherwise you’d probably see OS X existing as more than a statistical anomaly in enterprises. If a desktop linux solution can ultimately provide enough advantages to outweigh the disadvantages, the enterprises may choose it.
But obviously, at the end of day, linux will not impact vista any more than OS X will. Vista will succeed, regardless. At the same time, it’s ridiculous to write-off linux as a viable solution because some people can’t figure out how to install it at home on unsupported hardware. If this were a thread about linux gaining support at the consumer level, we’d have different criteria to discuss.
Remember too, that desktop linux doesn’t need to blow away Vista. All it needs is a few statistically relevant points of market share. Hell, if desktop linux could ultimately achieve between 5-10% of the corporate market, Microsoft’s stranglehold would be broken. Of course that won’t happen overnight. Just pointing out that it’s not an all or nothing thing.
> The windows and menus blur/smeer allot on my screen.
Interesting. But may be a result of some preference setting?
> issues like systray icons and start menu stuff.
KDE supports SVG throughout and there is a major initiative to pretty things up. Honestly, I barely even acknowledge this in day to day use, but eye candy seems to be a big draw (thus, Vista).
> I meant spaces between letters in console.
Ah. I see this as a non-issue again, since typing in the first few letters of a filename and hitting TAB in bash usually solves it for me. But really… I prefer my shells to be predictable in all senses. You might say this is subjective.
> DEB or RPM file is a non starter since it doesn’t
> carry the dependencies.
Red Hat’s old RPM repositories were a dependency nightmare, I grant. However, modern versions of RPM and APT will both grab dependencies from the repository provided that the original package didn’t make the dependencies overly stringent. For example, asking for a specific revision of libxml2, etc.
I see this as a strength. I think that the software players should pay a distribution some small amount of money to package their software up and put it in a non-free repository. Hey, that’s a business opportunity for someone with the time!
Sun has done what you’re describing with Java. I’d like to see others do the same/similar. Better would be to run their own repository for distribution or pay someone (see above).
I see where you are coming from. With an OS that progresses as fast as Linux is, it’s problematic. Perhaps they should just include the required libraries or statically link. Ugly but completely justified for a game or app which is almost certainly going to be running in a single instance.
Red Hat’s old RPM repositories were a dependency nightmare, I grant. However, modern versions of RPM and APT will both grab dependencies from the repository provided that the original package didn’t make the dependencies overly stringent.
This is a very bad mistake to compare RPM with APT. RPM was never designed to solve dependancies much like DPKG (the real Debian package manager) cannot solve them too. The quote would make sense by comparing APT with YUM, SMARTPM, URPMI and Portage to name few.
Edited 2006-06-15 15:44
“Why Vista Release Date Really Slipped”
http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/06/15/0252211.shtml
>The quote would make sense by comparing APT with
>YUM, SMARTPM, URPMI and Portage to name few.
True enough.
I really wonder how many people are going to run out and spend $200 – $300 on Vista software to upgrade their current XP computers. I bet not many and those that do will end up having to purchase new Vista compatible sound and video cards. Then once they install it they’ll have to go out and download and install Adobe Reader, Real Player, Quicktime, Firefox with plugins. They’ll have to configure whatever version of Outlook Express (if they use it.)
My point is that Vista also is going to need so additional installing and configuring to get it up and working just like they would with SuSE. Not to mention that Vista won’t come with Office. There’s more $$ to shell out.
I think most will go out and just by a new computer with all that stuff prepackaged and ready to go. In that repect Novell doesn’t have a chance. Linux might make some gains from that tech savvy person who finds that their current pc will not fully run Vista.
Also regarding Corporate, my company is just now pushing out XP SP2. Once Vista is out and preinstalled, we’ll be taking those new desktops and installing XP with SP2 on them.
Edited 2006-06-15 16:57
Perhaps a better way of selling Linux on the desktop is to take a page out of the Apple book. Sell it as a different, incompatible system. If the distro owners came up with a hardware spec and certified certain software/hardware to work with their systems buyers wouldn’t have to worry about incompatibility. Maybe a Linux Certified Product label. Of course, the vendors would have to make sure their distros would “just work” with that hardware/software. This really is more of a sales issue than a technical one, but Linux needs to do a much better job at selling itself.
Could there be a list of things which we shouldnt mention again & again & again – so that maybe these posts become more worthwhile to read ?
There are propably some very good posts in this lot but so much crap which one could simply copy + paste from any other comment section on a previous similiar topic IMO .
Or make it officially okay to mod down if its the same old boring discussion again – only interesting comments coming through .
How about immediate mod score change without an extra page to ask if youre sure or not – maybe with a limit on mod points to “hand out” per day as well .
Making the moding more dynamic & effective .
There must be some way to filter out new interesting stuff ….
🙂
Short Answer: No
Slightly Longer Answer: Not really.
Windows is management safe. People know it, its taught in school, MCSE’s are a dime a dozen and there is a lot of application and device support. IT people like it because a solution such as “we need to reformat/reinstall” is valid and accepted on Windows.
In addition, the culture around *nix is to minimize the amount of system administration required. Virtually the entire process of installing a system, monitoring, updating, etc can be scripted. In addition, duplicating this effort across dozens or hundreds of machines is quite easy resulting in less need for IT staff.
IT staff have no motivation to switch. They would have to learn an entire new skillset, be responsible for more machines and as a result, team members would no longer be required.
Management doesn’t like it because of 3rd party vendor support.. its largely non-existant for a lot of established applications and tools. Sure you *might* be able to get things to run in Wine or some other emulation, but that ends up axing support. Needless to say, management doesn’t like this.
To top it off, I can’t go out and buy a machine that is certified to work with SLED. I can’t go to Dell or HP, etc and get those machines and the support to go along with it.
SLED/Linux on the desktop put me on an island. While it could be considered technically superior (lower administrative costs, more flexible in deployment options, better default security, etc..) until there is more OEM and application support (ie apps that companies have been using for YEARS and have tons of data stored in propietary formats) it is not a very exciting alternative.
Granted, I’d LOVE to see this change. It would be great to see more apps being cross platform and more hardware certified for the OS (with manufacturer support for optimized drivers, etc..). However, until that happens, it will continue to be deligated to certain markets.
Fortunately the utility of *nix systems continues to grow and expand. There is no real rush to get market dominance. It will continue to slowly become an option for more and more people and businesses. It will be good.
“Until the average Joe/Jane can pop in a Linux CD, run setup, AND get updates withouts breaking things it will NEVER take over the desktop”
Good thing Average Joe can install Windows that easily, right? Oh wait, he cant. It’s just as “difficult” as a Linux install.
Of course, Average Joe does not *have* to install Windows since his computer most likely came with am OEM Windows on it.
Can we mod every other post down? Because of all the posts on this topic, including my own, it’s the only one really worth reading.