This commentary on ZDNews talks about the need of the Linux development community to build something new and revolutionary, something that Microsoft has not offered to its customers, instead of trying to recreate Ms Office as the main “killer application” that Linux needs in order to go mainstream. One day after the above commentary went live, there is already an answer to it made by the C|Net News.com editorial stuff here. Both editorials are a good read. Our Take: I wrote a similar editorial once, called “The Killer Application Concept”, about what BeOS needs to make it through and become mainstream, and I still stand in this opinion and I believe it applies for the Linux situation as well. To summarize: The OS doors are closed, except you do create a real (r)evolution.
Linux Does Not Need Office, or Does It?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I think the killer app for linux would be getting linux itself into a nice package. That is make it a descent install size less than 650meg. Have it autoconfig hardware, get where it can but in a decent time less than 30 seconds, add overall user freindlyness such as not needing a password for everything if one doesn’t want to work that way. make using the terminal optional (that is not having to use it for basic operating system operation). Get a good bootloader, that is easy to setup like bootman in BeOS. instead of having a million distro’s get to a couple each one for a particular use, (desktop, server, handheld,..). Not have to compile apps all the time, that is have a simple install a binary setup, not just source tarballs. Get more unified in the tools avalible, that is not have a million little flaky app for each thing to do, get it down to a couple good solid easy tools( no more bobs do nothing tool kit in a distro). Basicly get it to a solid userfreindly OS that people will want to use, and can use without being computer nerds. A unkowning person might be able to install a mandrake distro but after that chances are they get no-where and give up. Been there done that. The killer OS has to come before the Killer App
well the one os that i like is QNX… i didnt have to do anything to get it configured right and it was a snap to install including a New NIC card that has been hell to try and get working on linux i have been trying to the nic to run in linux for a LONG time now… i will try to buy this OS when i can get in contact with a sales person by where i live…
i would be willing to use as my main computer if they were to offer some things like… ICQ MIRQ and a office type packege… i have yet to learn the main difference between linux and QNX though… do you know?
But in short it has a good interface and easy install and it has interesting concepts that i will love to explore…
does anyone know where i can get info on this os…
thanks…
By the way if QNX works within the same rules of linux (which i have found some hints that they are the same) could some one help me get Java installed on QNX as i have had some trouble doing this… if i can do that then i will use JAVA apps on QNX to make this computer a server (the box is already old
)
Matt
QNX is its’ own from scratch OS (like BeOS, not the same but same as in made new by a new company), it was originaly for handheld type computers, then they modified it for desktop use, like what Be did with BeOS/BeIA only in reverse order. Its not related to linux, linux is open source want-a-be unix. QNX is neither. Though if it does have posix compliance, (i don’t know if it does) then maybe you can port *nix apps to it.
Is one distro to just go ok, one mail app, one window manager, one filemanager, one shell, one mp3 player, one text editor (ok maybe two ;-)).
Have all the graphical apps done in one toolkit and have gui development apps included. And get all this into say 300meg. and the rest of the cdrom is more windowmanagers,mail clients, servers etc but they cannot be installed by default – you get no choice in the default.
Lets use rpm but extend it so there is a gui-install script and if you do rpm –gui some-package-i386.rpm (or double-click) it throws up a dialog with the package name, what it is, requires etc and you can click on install and if you can’t supply the root password it installs into your home directory somewhere.
Chuck in a man-page/help viewer that formats and displays html and distinguishes between basic/intermediate/advanced users.
Personally I think the gnustep people should rewrite the gui-backend to use gtk (messy probably) so it could provide a consistent look (you could use a next theme if you want. And this ‘perfect’ minimalist distro should be based on this new gnustep.
Then bundle this cd with a user-guide which explains how to use the one windowmanager, the one mail client, the one file-manager, and the one shell and you are home and hosed.
I think that a revolutionary OS should include a partialy new userinterface. Not like MacOS X, which is only a polished system, but like described in Jef Raskin’s Book “The Human Interface”. Have a look at the summary for this Book.
http://www.jefraskin.com/forjef2/jefweb-compiled/humaneinterface/su…
Some Glossary words:
zooming interface, data translators
What do you think?
Sounds to me like the author is begging to get his hands on a copy of Gobe Productive for Linux (I’d love to get my hands on one too). Gobe figured out exactly how to do something fairly revolutionary, trim out the bloat, do it cheaply, and give people an alternative to Office, making alternative OSes office-viable in the process. Looks like the Windows version is out any day now and the Linux version is not far behind.
“i will try to buy this OS when i can get in contact with a sales person by where i live… ”
You can download QNX 6.10 from QSSL’s website it free to use for non comercial use.
“By the way if QNX works within the same rules of linux ”
QSSL preach that QNX is Posix compliant like linux so port programs should be easy to port with just a recompile unless the progarm uses system calls or X11. In the later the progarm might work with the X compatibilty layer but I’ve heard it’s buggy.
“it was originaly for handheld type computers, then they modified it for desktop use”
QNX is used for embeded systems AFAIK for more info goto http://www.qnx.com
Darrin QNX does most of the things you mention in it own way maybe you should try it.
It even has Quake 3 if you hav a voodoo 3 or better 3Dfx based card.
I have to agree with Andreas. You can’t revolutionize with clones, even not with %150 improved clones. If you want to convience someone to switch his platform, you won’t get far with offering him what he has right now in a different color. You have to offer something that his current platform is completely unable to deliver. The only way to do that is to introduce new concepts. And I haven’t seen any new concepts for years, not in Linux, not in KDE, not in Gnome, not in OS X, not in Windows XP and not even in my favourite OS, BeOS.
Exactly! We should develop an OS that the productivity of the users increases without consideration for traditional concepts. The Zooming Interface and the concept the data translator such as Jef Raskin it described is revolutionary. But above all it is more productive and can be surely very well sold therefore.
Andreas
ICQ for linux is available <a href=”http://www.joher.com/phicq/“>here. They also offer IRC and FTP clients.
There is no way to install QNX without an installed Win32 system yet, right?
That’s the reason why I couldn’t try it yet.
And don’t tell me to install FreeDOS… I tried that and it was a bitch. Lost a partition. Don’t feel like trying it again.
If it is, there is your answer.
“There is no way to install QNX without an installed Win32 system yet,
right?”
I have a disk caddy system. I took out the Windows drive, put in an
unused hard drive, put the QNX CD in the CD drive, and it installed
itself fine. You don’t need Windows at all, any more than you do for
installing Linux or (they say) Amiga Amithlon.
I think it’ll be a pretty big deal when Sun gets finished with Gnome and releases it as the default Solaris desktop. I tried Linux for a while but it seemed:
-difficult to learn. I ended up buying a Sun Blade 100 w/ Solaris8 and the OS seems pretty well designed/thought out.
-buggy. Yeah, I know, everybody said to me, “no! Linux isn’t buggy. It’s that app you’re using.” But that argument got thin after a while with various apps here and there giving out on me. I was using KDE. I’m sorry I don’t have any details — I’m at work on NT, and besides, I gave up my Linux/Intel box months ago.
I’m guessing that when Sun releases their improvements and bug-fixes to Gnome, it’ll be a step in the right direction for the Gnome Linux desktop.
Many ppl just cannot move from ms just because the have to share their data with other ppl and since MSoffice file formats are close/hard to convert, nobody would afford it.
the Office Automation apps for linux aren’t that bad, using their standard format but the almost die dealing with a word document with some picture an excel graphic and so on…
I guess that is one of the reason ppl that work with pc doesn’t move to other os.
the solution at the moment would be move all to other and just trash out MS at all.
For ppl that just play with pc Linux is going to be OK but need some steps further.
some that still have win32 that linux (and other OS) miss are some emulators, but I guess that I feel that point just because I’m a bit inside that grey world
damn I pressed a too much time on the summit button =/
sorry
Everytime people talk about making *n?x (Linux) better, the GUI is always what is spoken about. As a poster above, Brad, said, `…make using the terminal optional (that is not having to use it for basic operating system operation).’ What I say it counter to this — embrace the command line interface.
I won’t get into all of it here, but the CLI can do so much that compared to any GUI. However, yes, it is (if only psychologically) more difficult to learn, but this also means that it is less difficult to use.
Make a listing of commands, by type for new users. These areas would corrispond (sp?) with GUI apps, e.g. for the `file manager’ section would be such commands as ls, pwd, mv, & rm. Include a brief description — not a man page replacement, but something that would let the user know that man pages exist, for example. This combined with a simple window manager so that multitasking is easy. Some GUI apps would remain, e.g. a(n) AIM/Jabber/ICQ/Yahoo!chat app — I can really see IMing in the terminal, although chat like irc works. Other apps that work better for the GUI — image editing, audio editing, & Web browser come to mind — would still be GUI, launched by making a new terminal & typing the app’s name just like for a text-based command. This would be something like Plan 9 as far I can tell (I’ve never used Plan 9 personally, although I’ve read several papers), but using *n?x (esp. Linux)’s better hardware support & available GUI apps for when needed.
Sorry about the babbling rant, I just got home for school, so I don’t feel like too much editing. But maybe I’ll actually do somthing about this, working with Linux From Scratch or something….
alxndr
Linux (or the GNU system in some other shape) will win on the desktop for the same reason it is already so much success on servers and in special purpose devices. Free Software always has better economics than Proprietary Software once it becomes a commodity, regardless of your politics.
Operating systems should have become a commodity item years ago, efforts to prevent this on the desktop (principally by Microsoft) are like King Canute ordering the construction of a sand bag wall. The tide will inevitably come in, whatever Bill Gates says.
A lot of end users will tell you that they don’t care about Free Software (or Open Source) but then they’ll say “I wish my software did this…” and “Why do I have to pay extra for something I don’t want?” and “How dare they (Be Inc) discontinue support of my favourite product”
Every day I hear dozens of comments like this from people who believe that the revolution offers nothing for them. Sooner or later they’ll get the message and the rest will be history.
The watch word of the revolution is LIBERTY
Well I know what my killer app would be. Word processors just aren’t efficient, and businesses/government/people want to be able to put their documents online or in PDF and ensure a consistant style. Making HTML/RTF/PDF versions isn’t helping people to be productive. I’ve been asked to look at the best intermediate format that will allow a government department to have this, er, flexibility. XML <a href=”http://www.docbook.org“>Docbook was it (obviously), but the applications to get it into Docbook have been poor.
<p>Abiword can save as Docbook but doesn’t have styles yet (I think) and can’t markup the document correctly. LyX doesn’t have an Win32 ports (…that don’t require an X server and five other libraries). Adobe Framemaker is too expensive. There were a couple of XML editors that could save as docbook though they were more data-centric and didn’t have spell/grammar check. XMLSpy 4 has a document editor – perhaps we could use that. I haven’t looked into Staroffice yet.
<p>Then I came across <a href=”http://www.conglomerate.org/“>Conglomerate which looked peachy. It could publish and provide a usable editor for a logical document structure. My hopes dropped… version 0.2… and the mailing list hadn’t any posts for months – the last of which said they were abandoning the project.
<p>People aren’t interested in logical high-level document formats – but everyone wants to be able to produce many formats from one source file (that fulfill all the requirements of the export format). Conglomerate looked lovely, and I only wish I was a programmer.
Linux (or the GNU system in some other shape) will win on the desktop for the same reason it is already so much success on servers and in special purpose devices. Free Software always has better economics than Proprietary Software once it becomes a commodity, regardless of your politics.
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Yeah, if only Linux didn’t SUCK so much…
Yep the If you download the ISO of QNX and burn it properly it’s bootable. I really don’t want to have have a file in my windows partition to run it from and the only way to give it it’s own partition is to boot the cd and use the installer that comes up. Then you have to worry about partitioning as QNX needs to be on a primary partition and wWindows only likes to have one around and I couldn’t get disk druid to do what I wanted.
QNX has a really cool Graphical package manager which is pretty good. In general I think the OS is good for dummies like me who don’t want to learn everything about linux just so they can set it up the way they want. I can ftp, ICQ, surf the web, listen to MP3s/CDs, use gcc and even play doom. I don’t know about office like software. And later I can learn the nitty gritty of QNX.
I just wish it had openGL or mesa3d. Sorry if I sound like a QNX fan boy.
I think the killer app for linux would be getting linux itself into a nice package. That is make it a descent install size less than 650meg. Have it autoconfig hardware, get where it can but in a decent time less than 30 seconds, add overall user freindlyness such as not needing a password for everything if one doesn’t want to work that way.
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Yeh, in other words it has to stop being Linux and start being a decent, easy-to-use OS. I totally agree.