In the Linux land 99% of the applications are open source. It is part of the nature of the GNU/Linux community ecosystem to endorse open software. But there are a few applications that are not open and as they fill up a niche, they are pretty popular. Come in and vote for your favorite.
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Member since:2006-07-26
Okay, xpdf, kpdf, ... and ogg would serve you okay then, but you are happy then without being able to use your nVidia/ATI hardware at its full potential (if you own that hardware), or being unable to view some flash sites, and what about binary java applications or applets ? Free replaces for Java do not work 100% okay (in my own experience, and in the experience of some other persons). I think (it is my opinion, you're right at this one) that at least Java, flash and good hardware support are a must nowadays for a good general purpose desktop.
I mean, a GNU/Linux desktop works for me a lot of the times, even a 100% free one, but the fact that "a lot of times" does never become "always" in all of the years I'm working with GNU/Linux, just makes me pesimist and makes me think if someday it could be possible ... as I now see the market, only for internet serving (and for almost any serving purpose - though not for all of the ones) is GNU/Linux ready to compete with its rivals (mostly Windows and Solaris for my work).
Member since:
2006-01-17
You just have to take a second look at the list (again, not listing some applications or the missing ones) to see a lot of things that you can't do or at least can't do at its full potential with a 100% free GNU/Linux desktop ... and that's not my pleasure it being so, but it is the hard reality.
It's not a hard reality, it's your opinion and/or unfortunate circumstance that you absolutely have to have some of these non-free apps. But that's not everyone's situation.
Of the apps in that list I have two installed. Adobe Reader and mp3 support. It wouldn't take too much effort to have pdf viewing and music entertainment at its full potential with another viewer and codec.