"Over the years, I've had a number of people asking me what I believe the problem was with further migration over to Linux by the public at large. To be frank, I don't believe that there is a simple answer to this. To me, there are a number of factors that play a role in keeping Linux out of the mainstream limelight" writes Matt Hartley in his opinion piece.
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Member since:2005-07-12
>> 1. Linux is not a single OS.
No shit sherlock.
>> 2. Linux purpose is not to be a desktop OS
Then WHY push it for normal users, which is the whole TOPIC AT HAND. The whole POINT of the discussion is that it's not - and that SOME people keep trying to tout it as such.
>> 3. Linux users need not to change kernel every now and then (RHEL will be supported for 7 years with one kernel version)
Unless you want to add hardware that isn't supported by your older kernel (see the lions share of wireless in 2.4.1 and earlier kernels, even WITH ndiswrapper)- or are concerned about security updates that haven't been backported, or want to support the latest distro - which was my POINT from a hardware manufacturers point of view. SURE, one user doesn't have to change their kernel 'really'... but someone writing drivers DOES have to worry about the what... eight to ten minor revisions the past year, a hefty number of which break code in drivers?
>> 4. Real powerful linux Desktop promoters are Redhat and Novell and both of them don't have the power or money to simplify linux or force hardware manufacturers to write drivers for their OSs.
... and notice how much their pay versions of the OS (especially the enterprise versions) lag behind on EVERYTHING, including bugfixes. (RHE3 with RAID drivers comes to mind)... Pay SPECIAL attention to the fact that the spun off Fedora Core is now a better/more reliable product than ANY of the RHE's or mainstream RedHat releases... Half the time you pay for assistance on RHE now, the most common suggestion is to either fold in or switch to Fedora - and that's from RED HAT'S OWN SUPPORT CHANNELS!!!
>> 5. You based your frustration of linux on one distribution called ubuntu which is not a major linux distro with no powerful company behind it to support it or simplify it,
Which of course is why it has been simplified so much, it's one of the few distro's I'd even THINK of sitting grandma down at that... and I was using Ubuntu as an example BECAUSE it's one of the simplest on doing this stuff - but most of what I said APPLIES to other distro's... I've tried FC, Debian, SUSE, the works - and while they are all different in the details, the problem itself is uniform.
>> even during installation of that distro you are not able to choose to install kernel headers and kernel sources
Ok, apparantly you don't know what the word SIMPLE means... Much less ASSUMING the distro includes your mainboard drivers for AGPGART and/or PCIx - which unless you happen to have a nForce mainboard probably means you are shit out of luck; Try that with a VIA or SIS chipset, and you are reduced to downloading tarballs and building by hand.
>> 1. Open konsole
2. su -
3. password
4. init 3
5. login as root
6. password
7. sh NVIDIA-driver-version.run
Did you EVEN READ the post you responded to? Ok folks, here's a PERFECT example of someone who "doesn't get it." Mind you, [u]YOU AND I[/u] may be able to decipher and do that, but that doesn't mean it's something a nube should even be ASKED to try in the first damned place; WHICH AGAIN is the entire topic being discussed.
>> Again, be patient and wait for the 2nd wave of linux maturation
Odd, I thought we were on the third by now - it has been a decade after all... Bare minimum we're in the second since there are at least attempts at hotplugging - At least when I insert a CD or USB flash disk I don't have to futz around at the command line with mount anymore (of course, sometimes you still have to on the unmount) - to me, things like that and the new WM's like KDE and Gnome ARE the 2nd wave.
>> (which might take another 10 years)
With the attitude that making things like openGL work right you have to go to a terminal and run shell commands, it just might. That SHIT should be wrapped by the damned GUI already.
>> and always remember that linux started in 1993 and windows and Apple on 1984-85.
Built on a posix/unix foundation that predates both by a good decade.
COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT... Not that I'd expect most of the linux apolists to even UNDERSTAND the concepts.
It's a fine OS, but for {censored} sake, be HONEST ABOUT IT'S SHORTCOMINGS.
Member since:
2005-07-06
1. Linux is not a single OS.
2. Linux purpose is not to be a desktop OS
3. Linux users need not to change kernel every now and then (RHEL will be supported for 7 years with one kernel version)
4. Real powerful linux Desktop promoters are Redhat and Novell and both of them don't have the power or money to simplify linux or force hardware manufacturers to write drivers for their OSs.
5. You based your frustration of linux on one distribution called ubuntu which is not a major linux distro with no powerful company behind it to support it or simplify it, even during installation of that distro you are not able to choose to install kernel headers and kernel sources, try RHEL 4 eg and download nvidia kernel and all you have to do is
1. Open konsole
2. su -
3. password
4. init 3
5. login as root
6. password
7. sh NVIDIA-driver-version.run
Done. Now try fedora which is also from Redhat, then you cannot do the previous steps, because of issues in kernel headers and source code, so its all about the distro choice and your frustration is gone! Ubuntu is also a debian based distro which mean you cannot install rpms which is the most common package technology available online applications.
I mean that even though linux is not intended to be a desktop OS you still can use it as a destop OS only if you have the guts to learn, be patient and not to ask too much from it ( let linux box be your secondary device to let you do things you cannot do with the shakky windows like server tasks, internet, multimedia).
Again, be patient and wait for the 2nd wave of linux maturation (which might take another 10 years). And always remember that linux started in 1993 and windows and Apple on 1984-85.