"This post comes at the convergence of a number of events. First, there was the story on OSNews titled 'Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst?' That generated a number of responses, one of them from Aaron J. Seigo. With all the drama buzzing in the background, I went back to my Suse 10.2 installation and started to look at the KDE desktop."
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Member since:2006-11-15
"The only company I can think of off the top of my head with a real desktop presence is Burlington Coat Factory, and at least on their POS units it looked more like it was running IceWM or something. "
That's one of the problems with desktop linux. It can look like anything therefore nobody knows what linux is supposed to look like or how it's supposed to work. That's great for enthusiasts but it's not going to sell to corps
Member since:2006-11-26
> That's one of the problems with desktop linux. It can look like anything therefore nobody knows what linux is supposed to look like or how it's supposed to work. That's great for enthusiasts but it's not going to sell to corps
That's a bad thing? They can make it into a win2k look-alike or design a desktop that provides their exact requirements. The source is there, they are free to change it however they choose to.
Member since:2005-10-20
[The only company I can think of off the top of my head with a real desktop presence is Burlington Coat Factory ]
Are you sure that you have seen enough companies. Let me add some of the BIG ones ::
1) IBM - arguably having the biggest workforce in IT industry. They are having a modified version of RHEL and use it on their desktops. They have even ported ll their internal applications on RHEL. So if one fine day u want to Run Lotus Notes ( mail client) or for that matter most of IBM applications, well they run on Linux.
2) Yahoo - Most of their desktops are FreeBSD based. The default desktop is KDE. They have plans to port all their applications to KDE/Gnome.
3) Google - They use Linux in big way. Ubuntu is one of the distro they use and use it to the extent that there is a buzz of google bringing out Gubuntu.
4) The city of Munich has migrated more than 14,000 computers to their own version of Linux (LiMux ).
OK I agree that all the above mentioned also use Windows, but the number of people using Linux/FreeBSD on desktop is not small by any standards.
If Steve Balmer believed that Linux is no threat to Windows on desktop, then MS would never have made a deal with Novell. But then, this is my personla view.
Cheers.
Member since:2006-12-11
>> You forgot Sun in that list.
Let me tell you about my initial experience with Solaris Enterprise System 6/06. I have the complete DVD set, sent to me when I responded to an invitation to review it. I have a lot of good experiences with Solaris on SPARC, so I didn't hesitate to say yes.
I got the software and attempted to install it on two Boxx systems built with Athlon FX 56 (socket 939) CPUs and ASUS motherboards. The first attempt on the first box installed, but seemed to only come up with CDE as the desktop. When I did it myself the second time (on the second system) I figured out how to select and install the Gnome-based desktop. While the underlying OS was top-notch, the desktop was not. It was very dated, and the overall display quality was poor, especially when compared to Ubuntu, FC5, and Suse 10.1 under Gnome. In the end I installed SLED 10 over the second Solaris install, and the folks who managed the first Boxx dropped Windows XP back on it. I recommend and admire Solaris for it's superb server capabilities, even over Linux, especially on x86 machines.
>> ...with openSUSE 10.2, it looks like they're now
>> going back to some of their roots...
I agree. I don't know how OpenSuse 10.2 will feed into SLED, but SLED 10 put some real polish on the OpenSuse 10.1 release. I'm very interested to see how the next major release of SLED turns out with the advances in KDE I've seen in OpenSuse 10.2.
>> Final point: I imagine most of the desktop Linux
>> presence out there is by enthusiasts for the
>> platform.
Or, as in my case and a few others I know, as a development platform for Linux server applications or embedded Linux work. This fight over the desktop has become irrelevant. Linux will not take it over. Everybody in the business world concedes this. But that doesn't mean Linux is dead; far from it. Linux is a powerful enabling software technology for new hardware directions. Whenever I want to drop an embedded 32-bit chip into a new device, I turn invariably to an ARM or Geode chip running... Linux. Look at what's happening with phones. Or better yet, go look at LinuxDevices (http://www.linuxdevices.com). Linux is an enabler for new technologies simply because it is so flexible from a software engineering standpoint. And it doesn't cost you anything to use it, except the work necessary to customize it for your specific needs.
Member since:
2005-08-28
"No wonder the big comercial linux offerings go all to Gnome (Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu). So, why didn't the author try to explain this?"
You forgot Sun in that list. That said, pro-GNOME folks keep trotting out this argument, but under closer scrutiny it just doesn't hold much water.
As to Redhat, they've for quite a while now abandoned the notion of a Linux desktop. I read that with RHEL5 they'd like to reverse some of that, but for a number of years now they've been pushing Linux as a server platform, and not a viable desktop option. Shoot, from what I hear their sales force doesn't even use it on their own personal systems (what do they use? hint, starts with a W).
Sun's a similar story to Redhat (though using Solaris instead), in that they market themselves primarily as a server platform, with maybe some high end specialized workstation type stuff. Aren't they pretty much frozen on GNOME 2.6 or something still anyhow?
As to Novell, well no big surprise there. Remember, Novell's Linux entity is a (not always harmonious) coupling of two very different companies: Ximian (founded by GNOME's original founder...) and SUSE (which historically has been very KDE-centric up until the aquisition by Novell). As I mention below, with openSUSE 10.2, it looks like they're now going back to some of their roots (at least in the sense of bringing some balance.)
Ubuntu, again no surprise, since much/most of the original devs that Shuttleworth scooped up in the beginning of the project were Debian GNOME maintainers. So it's not shocking that they'd have chosen GNOME as their springboard. That said, there is this thing called Kubuntu which looks rather popular as well...
Anyhow, the argument is a little moot. Seriously, how much of a real presence would you say Linux as a _desktop_ has in the enterprise market anyhow (and this coming from the resident desktop linux zealot at my work (a university)). The only company I can think of off the top of my head with a real desktop presence is Burlington Coat Factory, and at least on their POS units it looked more like it was running IceWM or something.
Final point: I imagine most of the desktop Linux presence out there is by enthusiasts for the platform. And in that case, taking a look at the more hobbiest oriented distros out there is interesting. Why? Because, for whatever reasons, they largely appear to favour KDE instead as their desktop of choice.