Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 1st Sep 2006 14:50 UTC, submitted by Moulinneuf
It's that time of the year again. "If 'a year of GNU/Linux on the desktop' is defined as a year when GNU/Linux has finally started its steady encroachment to the desktop then 2006 is the year. A lot of users have started using GNU/Linux on their desktops long before, but it is 2006 which marked the two probably biggest GNU/Linux desktop releases to date, Ubuntu Dapper and Novell SuSE 10. It is 2006 which marks the biggest opportunity for GNU/Linux to steal the desktop market share from Windows due to the bad reputation behind the pending Windows Vista release. And the eyes and focus of both the GNU/Linux community and major GNU/Linux corporations such as Novell are fixed on that opportunity. Novell marketing is true: 'Your Linux is ready'."
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Member since:
2006-03-10
it may be the year of the linux desktop and it may not... who cares, a lot of people are using it alreay and some even enjoy it.
sure linx is still an "alternative" OS, it's still something for people who like it the hard way... but the fact that linux is more difficult has nothing to do with the fact that linux is a more difficult OS tu use... it's just that it's hard to use something that's not what the other 90% is using.
but the fact that linux has not a bigger market share on the desktop is certainly not due to the fact that windows is easier or more stable, in fact:
- windows has a very illogic, cluttered, utmost-ugly and lousy interface. Want examples? let's take the start menu, it's supposed to make it easy to use the computer, using the computer means to start apps and configure things... well after having installed 10 applications (but usually you need more) the start menu looks like a big mess... every program installes what and how much it feels like, and you either spend time on getting some order back or you will have to seach this mess evey time you need an app. that makes the os very easy and fun to use, doesn't it? oh yes the XP menu partially solved this issue... but only partially... I see it more like a cosmetic change than a real solution. the gnome menu is much easier to use and there are projects like Slab or USP that make it even more powerful and easy to use... btw how much possibilities you have on windows to improve the start menu?
Windows has some great font aliasing, sure it has, but 90% of the users will never know where it is (since it's buried somewhere in some config panel), and since it's often switched off by default... I could probably carry on for days... but I think we all know this by hard.... don't we?
- windows xp is usually quite stable... unfortunately... back in windowsME times I was getting lot more work than now... but fortunately it still crashes enough to make a living on it.
edit: just took out something I forgot in there
Edited 2006-09-01 19:01