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.Note: Javascript is required to both view and vote.
There are not really enough results yet to say this definitively but it is interesting that the graphic cards drivers are considered so popular. Is Desktop eyecandy really that important to everyone ?
There are not really enough results yet to say this definitively but it is interesting that the graphic cards drivers are considered so popular. Is Desktop eyecandy really that important to everyone ?
The nVidia and ATi accelerated drivers are important for more than just “eyecandy” as you apparently are implying. Without them, 2D performance is fairly limiting. In fact, both of the drivers (at last check) also provided acceleration needed for video playback (dvd, etc.). Finally, some of us have work that actually requires 3D acceleration — which has nothing to do with eyecandy or games.
I cannot comment on the specific things you do with video but it’s not correct that you need anything on drivers to play-back video, DVD at all.
Well for things like MythTV with HDTV having the binary only drivers greatly reduces the load on your system for decoding. The same is true for DVDs etc.
Now don’t get me wrong, if AMD/ATI open up some on their video cards my next gen card would be from them for sure. It’s just that there really isn’t much of an OSS alternative for real 3D performance drivers.
So does the radeon and nv driver. The ATI proprietary drivers aren’t any better on video, and neither is nvidia’s.
They’re really pretty much only helpful for GL. Although, the radeon driver hasn’t been working right on my dual monitor setup so I had to switch to the proprietary one (the free one made white horizontal lines when there were large numbers of changes on the screen).
And the Nvidia driver provides a lot better dual monitor support than nv+xinerama, but the radeon driver provides its own similar stuff so it’s really in the same class for dual head.
So does the radeon and nv driver. The ATI proprietary drivers aren’t any better on video, and neither is nvidia’s.
I would like to see hard numbers proving that. My experience has always been much better with the proprietary ones.
“Is Desktop eyecandy really that important to everyone?”
Yes. People like pretty things.
I wouldn’t say eye candy is all important for me, but in my experience the nvidia drivers are more reliable than the nv drivers and give me my favorite resolution of 1280*1024 which the nv drivers did not support, that’s mainly why I use them. I don’t really play games either (at least not under linux), but still the nvidia drivers are just about the first thing I install when (re-)installing a linux distro
The “nv” drivers work perfectly with SXGA resolutions. You are probably doing something wrong in the xorg.conf.
Actually, the nvidia drivers cause my laptop to freeze 2-3 times per day. Since I switched back to the nv drivers it’s been solid as a rock. Yeah, glxgears and some of the screensavers play slower now, but they both work fine at 1600×1050 and I reboot for games anyway.
People want clear, crisp, legible easy-to-read displays. That’s not eye candy.
Is Desktop eyecandy really that important to everyone?
Its not just eye candy. There are many FOSS OpenGL games that cleary benefits from good OpenGL acceleration (jDoom, neverball, planet penguin racer [former tuxracer], cube, the patched SEGA genesis emulator generator-gtk comes to mind) and a pile of commercial ones (UT2004, Quake3/4, Neverwinter Nights, X2, Darwinia…).
Moreover, the multiple-screen extensions, HDTV resolutions or on-the-fly switching between different screen configurations are nice and progressing, sort of (these things are somewhat broken in different ways and combinations in each binary release from both companies as far as I know – try setting up a 1080i modeline with a 6200 card the latest nvidia driver and you’ll [not] see).
I use my operating systems to get real work done.
Me too. About 8-9 hours a day. But I also use GNU/Linux for desktop/games machine and HDTV multimedia machine at home as well, so I need more than a database, text editor, ftp and lynx for my computing. I can see no reason not to expect or aim for this functionality when using FOSS.
That said, I think most of us FOSS buffs would benefit a lot from community driver improvements if the driver sources were released…
Hardware-accelerated OpenGL makes software people use for productive purposes usable. Therefore people value high-quality drivers that permit them to use such software on Linux with their expensive accelerators. Maya, XSI, VeriCAD, and the like. Further the drivers appeal to people that like to play videogames in Linux either with native clients offered for id and Epic titles, or with Cedega. Then last you’ll have interest in “eye-candy,” but that’s still a work in progress.
Firstly, the other options are mostly irrelevant. Things like Opera, Skype, Adobe Reader, Real Player, Nero Linux, Intel Compiler, Parallels and others have open-source equivalents which has resulted in VERY low popularity of these applications on GNU/Linux.
Out of those which do not (vmware, flash, graphics drivers, etc), I do believe nVidia/ATI drivers are the most essential. It’s not just eye candy: it’s getting the most out of the money you forked over for that fancy graphics card. Nv 2D performance is almost as sluggish as the non-existent 3D performance. Finally: what eye candy? It’s difficult as hell to get Xgl to compile and run for any average user (or an advanced one like me: I chose to give up and wait until more work is done) and xcompmgr and friends have nasty screen drawing and performance bugs which leave them unsuitable for non-experimental use.
Regarding the point on video support: I don’t know how good nv’s Xvideo support is, but it’s all hardware accelerated with the commercial drivers. Others have mentioned dual-screen (TwinView), overlays (Quadro) etc as reasons.
If you think that “desktop eye-candy” is all graphics cards are good for, and that anyone buying them is really just shallow you’ve got another thing coming.
It’s vitally important that GPUs are available via drivers for software such 3D GPU assisted rendering, video compositing, 2d render acceleration, 3D CAD(D), 3D CAID among many other applications and uses that I’ve even bothered to get into.
Desktop eye-candy is pretty low on the list.
The two most immediate needs that my customers have expressed to me are:
Intuit Quickbooks and Autocad.
If I could get both of those on Linux, tons of my customers could easily be switched to Linux.
Endnote for Linux with good integration with OpenOffice would rock.
Thanks for the poll.
My bet would be on Photoshop. While there are some “alternatives”, nothing beats Photoshop when it comes to serious business. I’m sorry, but Gimp is kinda lame, Pixel32 comes close, but I have a feeling I’m walking in a building made of cards (I did purchase it though).
Heh, I bought Pixel too, but at the RC stage it was so lame and buggy I haven’t been back for an update since.
Gimp? Lame? Was that intentional?
If you look at the functionality, Gimp is great, but if you look at the UI, Gimp is just complete crap. It’s almost unconscionable to present a user with such an UI sorry.
I like the GUI on the Gimp. I personally find it quicker and more intuitive than Photoshop. I prefer the separate window approach, I like the speed of the right-click menu. I frequently spend hours a day, professionally, working with the Gimp.
Your experience obviously differs – that’s why there’s choice, luckily.
“Sorry” but I’ve been using GIMP for years for web graphics, exclusively. I don’t even have Photoshop. I don’t understand / don’t get what the big problem is with The GIMP’s interface – at all. I have to wonder if people have even used this in the last 3 or 4 years.
We saved money on Photoshop licenses, which my team at work was demanding, and everyone whined and complained about The GIMP. 3 months later you didn’t hear a peep out of everyone.
The GIMP’s greatest sin is its interface isn’t exactly the same as Photoshop.
As for print work, I never do that, so fine, it lacks those features (so I’ve read). But I’ve never needed to fire up another graphics application to do web graphics work, home photo retouching, and so on. Nor has anyone on my team at work.
People are going to be whining about GIMP 50 years from now no matter where it goes because of what its interface was in 2001.
It’s got a main menu and a bunch of pull-down menus, cryptically titled “File”, “Edit”, “Select”, “View”, “Image”, “Layers” and so on.
I don’t get the issue. If people can’t accept the fact that there are graphic applications that aren’t exactly like Photoshop, that seems to be an inability or unwillingness to adapt.
Oh, and I came from Photoshop in Windows in the late 90s. I didn’t get The GIMP at first either. I worked with it for a few weeks and from then on I haven’t used anything else.
Not appropriate for every user, but certainly far more than the broken record complaining about its interface would indicate.
There are some crap applications for Linux. The GIMP is not one of them.
Well first of all, nowhere in my post I stated that I want Gimp to be like Photoshop, I just said Gimp has an ugly UI. It just has many flaws. For example, when I want to move a text, I have to click exactly on the text (not just into the textbox), if I’m just one pixel left or right I’m not moving the text but the layer beneath it. This is just annoying. There are generally many things I dislike very much regarding the handling of selections & layers. Photoshop just does this much better and much more intuitive – sorry.
The fact that you always have several separate windows open with the Gimp is just so frustrating. If you’re handling several graphics files it’s just annoying to have all these windows spread around. Two things I’m REALLY missing is some kind of macro recording, and “smart objects” like Photoshop has them.
Well when your people stop whining about the Gimp is it because they start liking it or because they just accepted that they won’t get another software and have to get used to it? If somebody’s whining about an UI, then definitely something is wrong with this UI. A UI should let me do my work as quickly as possible, and it should be non-intrusive. If people constantly are whining about a UI then somethings wrong.
As I said: Gimp is great functionality-wise, but it sucks UI-wise.
I just don’t get this “ugly GUI” stuff about the Gimp. Once I’ve removed the menu bar there’s hardly any gui to be ugly – the toolboxes don’t look much different from anything else around. What I do like is that I can have multiple images open spread over 2, 3, or 4 desktops (1600×1200) where I can see them. I do a lot of multiple paste-up on large images, and find them much easier to keep track of and work with – the way my brain works anyway – than the Photoshop way. Like I say, it’s a choice.
I will say that I work with many other people in the graphics field – sometimes they want to tweak something themselves while in my studio. They are mostly used to both Macs and Windows PCs, and now (with Xubuntu 6.06) they seem to have no problems, no complaints. or even much surprise, at being given a Linux workstation and Gimp, or Scribus, or any of my other tools to work with. They just do the job, and probably care less about the GUI than the finished work. Mind you – I try and work with highly skilled people.
BTW – if you want a really ugly GUI try Cinepaint (the fork of Gimp used by the film industry) – but it does the stuff.
(edited bad html tag)
Edited 2006-07-27 10:34
Oh – and by the way – I personally find the Photoshop interface unpleasant and slow to use – I suppose, in my place, you would call it “ugly”. All this means is that it doesn’t work the way I want it to. I don’t “whine” about it – I just don’t use it.
By your reasoning if I did whine about Photoshop it would mean there’s something wrong with it. There isn’t – it just isn’t my choice. I don’t use it because I don’t like it. You appear not to like the Gimp – so don’t use it.
Well, I *do* graphics professionally for a living, and it’s all 100% free and open-source software, including Gimp, Inkscape, POVray, Blender, and Xaos amongst many others. I tell clients that I wouldn’t use an Adobe product if they paid me to, and after seeing my work, many of them say they can see why.
I’m sorry, but I’ve seen Photoshop user’s skill levels, and it’s nothing to write home about. There is an old saying that goes: “It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”
I have to second the call for Endnote. OpenOffice really needs a serious bibliography tool. That will make a major impact on its adoption in academics.
The upcoming version of OpenOffice already includes EndNote-like functionality:
http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/
Including support for BibTeX, RIS, EndNote and MARC.
Bibliographic is vaporware at the moment. It is unlikely to be ready for OOo.org 3 at this pace of development.
For a good replacement for Autocad check bricscad http://www.bricscad.com/
It is a linux port of intilicad should be able to read all dwg, dwf files exported by Autocad.
I use my operating systems to get real work done. 3d graphics drivers et al are irrelevant to me.
For professional work there’s not just Oracle.
You’ll need good 3d-drivers for stuff like 3d-rendering or CAD. Both of there are used for very serious applications, like construction and simulation.
I believe this in fact is an important market for nvidia, and that’s much of the reason why they keep going with Linux drivers.
LimeWire isn’t closed source.
“LimeWire is a peer-to-peer file sharing client for the Gnutella network. It is free software released under the GNU General Public License.”
Limewire is also Java based as well, it is simply just a matter of downloading the ‘other platform’ option on their website when downloading.
There is a free software Java implementation, does Limewire depend on Sun’s Java?
IIRC, it doesn’t really care; I’ve run it with the one included with MacOS X; the IBM JVM – so one would assume that if the said implementation conformed to the specifications, it should work without a hassle.
In fact, both of the drivers (at last check) also provided acceleration needed for video playback (dvd, etc.).
It’s not actually needed – my laptop has an Intel chip and happily plays DVD’s. It may make it a bit nicer, although I wasn’t under the impression that my nvidia driver was actually accelerating my DVD’s – could be wrong though.
Also, you need the nvidia driver to do TwinView. I’ve had nothing but trouble from the free nv driver.
And there’s nothing wrong with a game or two either 😉
It’s not actually needed – my laptop has an Intel chip and happily plays DVD’s. It may make it a bit nicer, although I wasn’t under the impression that my nvidia driver was actually accelerating my DVD’s – could be wrong though.
True the drivers aren’t needed but they help out a lot. In fact your Intel chip is accelerated because there are open drivers for that chip. Support for options like XVideo are important to a lot of us. My ATI card doesn’t have enough RAM to support 3D but it does do XVideo and I wouldn’t want to deal without it.
will be: nVidia-ATI drivers.
My guess second will be Skype.
Skype? You know about the OSS WengoPhone? http://openwengo.com/
It’s basically Skype, with the equivalent of SkypeOut – only the program itself is GPL’d. Too bad Skype has so much momentum. I prefer open solutions (which is why I recently dropped MSN Messenger (aMSN) in favour of Jabber).
I use Ekiga.
It’s pretty nice. The great thing about having an open standard is that people get to choice the client they wish to use.
I think media codecs are really low, although I think it’s the most important thing for many of us. At least those who browse around alot.
Both flash and propietary mediacodecs are (sadly) quite often used on the net. I can live without the gfx-drivers, actually the ATI-drivers work very badly on Ubuntu.
vmware ESX, no server or workstation isn’t enough.
There is actually NOTHING I want; possibly better integration to allow much easier use of ipods and other widgets, but apart from that, Amarok, KOffice, and friends to all that I need; its more the hardware support side that causes grief more than anything else.
Then again, for me, I’m a FreeBSD user, so I guess the issues are different for me than than the average Linux user.
Hard to answer as there are big differences between what might be vital for the desktop and what might be vital for Linux generally.
For me it is multimedia codecs. No music of my choice or dvd movies, etc., on Linux really would be grim.
My next choice would be 3d drivers. I don’t really need them, but ATI and Nvidia’s involvement keeps up the feeling that Linux is “in the frame” and taken seriously. Without this hook, both would probably soon find reasons to start backsliding on motherboard chipset support.
Reading the list of the propietary software that you MUST run to get an usable GNU/Linux distribution as a good desktop, I realize that in fact, the free desktop thing is a myth after all, so I’m running a propietary OS itself, to get better support for things like Flash, Java, 3D drivers, Real player, Adobe Reader, media codecs … Not to talk about the applications that do not have a GNU/Linux port (Photoshop, AutoCAD or DreamWeaver are good examples … please, do not mention me GIMP or Quanta Plus).
The fact that things like free 3D drivers, free real player, free java alternatives, free flash project, and the kind does not make them more than a collection of alpha software, far from the stability and features of the original ones.
To make a quick summary, why should I be fond/happy to run a free software OS when 40% (a lot of them fundamental ones) of the things I need are not free themselves, and in fact do run better under a non free OS (Windows) ?
For the server room, GNU/Linux is okay, but you’d still need Sun’s JDK for a good Java application server.
I have to find it a bit twisted that things like “closed formats” and “drivers” can ever be described as favorites.
People are simply *forced* to use them.
People are simply *forced* to use them.
True; but I’d put money on it; if there were two drivers for hardware, one opensource, one closed source, and both provvided equal features; you would probably find that the opensource driver would be more stable, more reliable and give better performance than the closed source one. The problem is, hardware companies would rather spread the myth that what they do is something voodoo and mystical and that if they opensourced their drivers their whole company would go bankrupt, which is a lie.
SUN whoses processors are based on SPARC specifications are full open and available, and yet, they are profitable; Broadcom make ethernet adapters, and they offer opensource drivers; same situation, they make a profit; VIA work with developers to support their hardware via opensource drivers, again, they’re profitable.
Its a complete lie to say that if drivers were opensourced, companies would lose their competitiveness – as Nvidia and Ati try to make out in their justification.
>> “People are simply *forced* to use them.”
Expain how that works. Who’s going to come into my house and force me to run their software?
Let’s be clear: When someone markets a closed-source product that does somethng that can’t be done with an open-source counterpart, that’s adding to the choices available to Linux userrs. If the closed-source software is tied to “closed-source” hardware, well, that’s just one little piece of reality. A lot of people believe hardware companies should release their specs, but believing something is all in your head.
I do not agree that the free linux desktop does not exist or that the free linux desktop is a myth. My iBook G4 runs completely on free software. It does run a desktop and it must be usable, since otherwise I would not prefer it above OSX.
It is however correct to say that the free linux desktop does not support proprietary formats. So, no, in practice, I cannot use Flash and I cannot use Java using only free software (note that both are making progress, but still alpha or not even alpha, as you say). I also cannot access DRM-protected media. But still, I can access the web, I can read email, I can access nearly all media content with open source codecs and I can definitely read PDF documents. I also use the open source 3D drivers for the Radeon in my iBook. The lack of flash can be annoying, but for most of the sites that I visit, it is only used for ads, so I honestly don’t care much.
I can agree 100% with you that you are better off with Windows, since you depend on several Windows applications and on several proprietary formats, but a free software desktop is definitely usable for a lot of people. And to answer your question: no one is saying you should be happy with a free software os… if you depend on non free software that runs better on a non free os, then just use that.
If you’re ideological about free software, then you must be willing to make some sacrifices. Personally, I’m not ideological about it and I have no problem at all to use non free software and even pay for it. And I definitely have no problem using non free and commercial software on my free linux os. I do see the benefits of having free software, especially when you’re more or less forced to use free software if you run linux on powerpc. However, the fact that I do run Linux, is because I really like the GNU/Linux OS (the kernel + the userland). It would be wrong to claim that whether Linux is free software or not does not play a role at all (I’m a programmer, so sometimes it does come in handy when you have access to the source), but if it wouldn’t be good, I wouldn’t use it. Fact is that I’m very happy with it.
I’m concerned with ideological subjects, but I cannot hide my head in the sand if I see a thing that even when I may dislike it, is true: a lot of widely used features are not working properly under a 100% free GNU/Linux desktop; for you it is Flash, for me another thing, and the so …
Bah. Just because you’re tied down to a bunch of non-free software doesn’t mean the rest of us are. So maybe the Free desktop will never exist for you. My condolences.
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.
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.
Agreed. Like it or not, things are going to continue to become more and more proprietary.
If you continue to deny this fact, you will be like those Amiga or OS/2 holdouts who eventually get dragged away kicking and screaming. It’s time to face reality, boys and girls .. open source is not going to revolutionize the desktop. You will always be two steps behind trying to keep up with proprietary apps and formats. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but seriously .. how long will you continue to struggle before you face the inevitable fact that 98% of the world doesn’t give a sh*t about open source, and probably never will?
The key is not to struggle. 🙂
If something can’t be done on your platform of choice, use some other platform on a temporary or shared basis to perform that specific task, and continue to use your favorite one for everything else.
That’s how I manage to keep on using OS/2 at home. If I don’t have a DOS/Win16/native program that will do the trick under OS/2 and neither Odin nor Executor will run a Win32 or 68k Mac solution, I either use the Linux version via X on my Warp desktop (with the client running on another box) or flip to another Linux or Windows box via my KVM switch.
Networking can be your friend. Learn to use it. We aren’t living in an age of isolated boxes anymore…
Edited 2006-07-26 14:30
98% may not care about what you call “open source”, yet I know few people who don’t use free software.
Linux is in what, its 15th year? FreeBSD is almost as old; its BSD roots older even than Linux.
They have prevailed, constantly, in spite of and in direct contradiction to the incessant allegations that this kind of development model cannot survive.
Yet we even – recently – have things like OpenSolaris.
People have been saying precisely what you are saying since the beginning of Linux – yet the desktop continues to improve, the development community grows, and we have more and more applications, and more mature applications with each year that passes.
The commercial world has not been able to stamp out free OSes or take it over with commercial “need-to-haves.” This very poll is indicative of nothing more than there are fewer “must have” proprietary packages than ever before. The only two non-free apps I use are nvidia drivers and Opera (oh, and some codecs). That’s it. Of the maybe 50 apps on my system, there are what – two proprietary products?
Your sentiments are very sort of 1996. I don’t have any illusions that free software will eclipse the proprietary software world, but it will continue in parallel as an alternative to taking it in the wallet.
Free software is fundamental for Internet serving, the cost of having it without BSD’s or GNU/Linux would be incredible, well, except if 80% of the current sites closed; and the cost is one key factor (thought there are technical reasons too), at equal prices, and for the same supported hardware, companies and invididuals would not choose GNU/Linux or FreeBSD (OpenBSD, NetBSD) for such a large margin over commercial products as we are seeing now … this is my own opinion, of course, nothing more, nothing less.
On the other side, you yourself have stated to use propietary drivers, and that’s not a fault at all, it is just that a 100% free software (Stallman’s meaning) GNU/Linux desktop can’t compete side by side with a propietary one … well, it can or it cannot depending on your needs, of course …
Free software will always exist, no doubt for me, but I think that it would be widespread for one reason: a lot of people using one thing means a lot of possible money, and companies are going to try to get that money for them if they can … so this would be another discussion if companies can do that with open source …
Your sentiments are very sort of 1996. /i>
Mind you, I didn’t say open source was going away. But as time goes on and the world becomes more proprietary, and devices come out loaded with more and more policeware, it’s going to be increasingly harder for you guys to crack and keep compatable with that stuff.
And granted, you only have 1 or 2 proprietary apps you’re using. And a lot of people I know only have 1 or 2, but most of them are different, and most of them aren’t something that people are willing to live without if they don’t have to. That becomes a problem when you switch to something where these apps aren’t available. You’re just lucky that your proprietary apps of choice are available under an open source platform. Many of us aren’t that lucky.
[i]I don’t have any illusions that free software will eclipse the proprietary software world, but it will continue in parallel as an alternative to taking it in the wallet.
Of course, you’re right. God forbid anybody actually pay for the software they use.
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.
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).
I think it would have been more interesting if we would have been able to rate each application on a 1-10 scale, for example with 1 being “totally don’t care about this app on linux” and 10 “without this app, linux is useless for me”.
Now it feels like you have to choose 1 and only 1 app which makes linux stand or fall for you. Also, it’s not all pure applications, but there’s also drivers and codecs. For example, if someone uses VariCAD, it seems very likely that to that person the nvidia-ati drivers are just as crucial for making linux usable for him as the VariCAD application itself. Or in other words, how could someone vote for VariCAD or Cedega, since without nvidia-ati drivers, those applications will be mostly useless. I also imagine that for some people the combination of Java and Oracle or DB2 is needed to make linux usable for them.
I love Opera browser.
Vmware and google.
There are a lot of progams listed, but i would like to add a extra program, called Maya.
A lot of (3d) artists/gamemakers etc. are using this program. I admid it’s a very expensive program, but it runs on Linux very well. Now – i know most people don’t have the money to buy it, but it’s very important a professonal program – used by professional artists – is also present in the Linux market.
how about an option that says non OSS drivers in general? The one thing that I dislike about linux is that my expensive hardware does not work under it because apparently it is not considered mainstream and such. I can get my videocard to work but how is a relativelly small manufacturer like echo audio supposed to spend money on writing drivers for linux? Not to mention that pro audio applications in linux are almost nonexistent … ( not the case with MacOS though ).
Most of the times I had to deal with missing hardware drivers for Linux in the past (esp. video capture hardware) and present (those pesky wifi cards … ) it boiled down to :
– Hardware vendor xy not willing to provide at least the specs so someone could write the driver for them (this happens to be most of the times gratis for the vendor, btw.)
– Existing standards for classes of hardwares are implemented in a messed up way ( think of the sometimes adventerous ACPI implementations for example)
– Device z is so rare or expensive, that it is difficult for developers to get their hands on at least
one exemplar for testing / developement / figuring things out.
– Legal hindrances (DMCA , patents, et al) that limit the possibilities of driver developers to reverse engineer drivers or introduce legal risks
and linear combinations of these issues.
So, for my naive view of the world, it is most of the times not a question of “do the devs consider a device to be mainstream enough to write a Linux driver / module for it” but rather if there are practical and legal possibilities to do so.
(Heck, there are linux drivers for rather obscure / non-mainstream devices in the vanilla kernel, being not mainstream enough is imho no sufficiant condition for not being included)
And yes, (even nonfinancial) goodwill from the hardware manufactor can help a lot.
regards
I’d add, in some cases lack of skilled manopower, especially if a device is severly bugged (even with a spec available) or complex to grasp.
Manufacturers often have a problem with a quality control of their hardware, so they attempt to fix bugs in drivers, but only in linux ones.
Proper way is to have vendors make minimally the initial functional driver, with full feature support. Either they or the communlity would then adopt it to be ready for mainline (it is preferable that vendor does it with some help from LKLM). Vendor should also set up dedicated bugzilla and even issue patches for problems which are discovered in hardware. They have much better testing capabilities than anyone else anyway. They should also follow kernel philosophy: try to reuse existing ABI’s (and subsystems) and if necessary propose improvement to them if unsuitable for novel hardware (on time before product is repeased). With multiple incarnation of hardware (e.g. gfx cards) they should try to make a unified driver so that code is reused and code size & maintenance job reduced. They should step back from developing “custom” software solutions for their advertised special features and instead cooperate on shared framework, even if competitors can use it (bad examples: twinview vs. xinerama, winmodem software, etc.)
It’s not on the list, but this one is very important to my orgranization. Novell’s eDirectory(formally NDS).
http://www.novell.com/products/edirectory/
Linux is making such strides because the core developers behind the kernel and the desktops are being paid by various companies. These companies in turn are making the money necessary to pay them by working with server-side Linux solutions. As a result, some of the most important Linux software is on the server, including Java (needed for J2EE), Oracle and DB2. I suspect things like Novell’s eDirectory are also important to a bunch of Netware converts.
The good news is that there is work on fixing these items: notably GCJ, PostreSQL and Redhat Directory Server (it’s a lot easier to use than OpenLDAP). Indeed, Redhat is behind a lot of the work into replacing the Java+DB+LDAP dependency.
Beyond academic curiosity, Matlab (and LaTeX) tend to be what encourage people to use desktop Linux here at work. Being able to run Matlab in virtually the same fashion as it will be used on large Sparc machines seems to be a boon here. I was surprised that it wasn’t even listed as an option.
Nowadays many websites use too much Flash, hence the Flash plugin is part of the necessary infrastructure.
The single best product for me to avoid propagating installs of other non-FOSS software – Citrix. One install (plus appropriate licenses) per Citrix node, and presto-changeo – deployment to my entire armada of desktops!
it has to be java and Oracle. With all due respect to Linux desktop applications, Linux is still much more used in the server room.
The only ones I use on FreeBSD are Opera and the codecs.
My top 3 :
– Nvidia drivers – ATI drivers suck so does ATI hardware
– VMWare Server
– codecs
I’d say Maya & Shake are the most important for me. But thats just me
no two ways about this, i have good video and system drivers or i don’t use linux.
No alternatives exist that can hold a candle to it. Octave kinda works, but it’s far too slow for non-trivial problems (100 – 1,000 times on loops and such), and it doesn’t have the extensive suite of toolboxes that Matlab does. It’s the one program that I use about 8 – 10 hours a day, and it isn’t open sourced.
This isn’t an issue for me though, since Matlab have been releasing Linux versions for a while now, and they also support Macs, which I use a lot.
“No alternatives exist that can hold a candle to it. Octave kinda works, but it’s far too slow for non-trivial problems”
How about Euler? I haven’t tried it but I am thinking seeing how well it works. Anyone tried it?
I’m surprised I don’t see anyone here complaining about wifi. I can’t put holes in my walls and run cables, so I have my desktop connected via wifi. My wifi card has a broadcom chipset and only works with ndiswrapper + proprietary driver.
Ndiswrapper doesn’t come with most major distributions. Insult to injury, most distributions require getting online to get the ndiswrapper package(and dependencies)! Yeah, let me just take my desktop down the stairs and put it on top of my refridgerator where my router is just so I can get wifi working. This is the main reason I run Ubuntu instead of Fedora(my prior favorite).
Having access to wifi drivers is so critical for me to use desktop linux. Broadcom’s non-existant drivers really tick me off.
PageStream is the non-free alternative to Scribus. A Linux version has been available for several years now. The current version is 5.0.
http://www.grasshopperllc.com/
Didn’t see anything I really want or need. Pixel32 is cool! Xara maybe? Nah I got the gimp and after a LOT of learning I am h appy with it but occasionally find myself in windows running psp.
Cedega is not a viable option for me and many of my friends. I mean when it comes down to it why buy a subscription wich is not guaranteed to operate with 100% of all games from windows when I could have just bought windows or used windows if already owned. Windows is the better emulator in this sense.
I only buy native commercial games and to me and my friends this is the biggest and most important part of the Linux world to us.
For “favorite” my pick would hands down be Opera, but for “most important”, the short list is:
1. Multimedia Codecs
2. Macromedia Flash
3. nVidia-ATi drivers
4. WiFi drivers and Firmwares
5. Adobe Reader
6. Java
7. VMWare
8. Skype
“I prefer open solutions (which is why I recently dropped MSN Messenger (aMSN) in favour of Jabber).”
The problem here is that my friends use MSN. I would like to switch to something else, but the whole point of IM is the people you communicate with, not the protocol.
It seems like the answers are Desktop based… That I didn’t expect to see but I like it. However for me, the most important applications are Oracle and DB2, because the majority of the enterprise use of Linux, except for Internet servers is for Database hosting. This is due to the stablity, speed and scalability of Linux.
I would have voted for Picasa – but it’s not there! (sob) – it’s my current love – with 40GB of assorted jpegs (circa 3MB each, mostly) to keep track of I get emotional about Picasa.
As a hard-core graphics pro I need and use (under Linux):
NV drivers (not for eyecandy, for work).
Gimp – I find that all the people I have spoken to who winge on enlessly about Photoshop don’t use more than 5% of its features anyway, and have barely looked at the Gimp. I have found nothing I can’t do in Gimp – nothing my clients ever want anyway.
Cinepaint – when I need more colour depth than Gimp caters for.
Picasa – I’ve taken to this like a duck to water.
Crossover Office (running Word and P/shop mostly) – purely to deal with the odd person who insists on sending me Word files (instead of text), Photoshop files (instead of tiffs or jpegs) in spite of my printed instructions issued to clients and headed “How to save my time and your money!”. I rarely accept a second commission from these people as they are in all ways more trouble than they’re worth.
Blender (hence the NV drivers).
Inkscape/XaraLX – Both are gradually developing all the features I need in a vector drawing program, although I’ve never failed to find a workaround. Don’t know which I will end up using, but probably Xara, it’s fast.
ImageMagick (from the command line) – of course, for bulk conversions of images in a ridiculously short time.
Scribus – it does what I need, and crashes less than Quark used to.
NVU and TEA for web stuff.
That’s about it mostly, the rest is the stuff we now take for granted like Xine and Flashplayer and Adobe Reader, that was initially (1999, when I first started moving over to Linux, now completed) unavailable. In fact I can run my business well on Linux, but I do need some “non-free” to make it work.
Deleted link to free but not open Picasa for Linux.
Edited 2006-07-27 00:16
There are two non-free piece of software I use (besides a few games), first the Nvidia drivers. They do a great job, have a clean installer and UI comparable to Windows, are released often (and without problems), and support pretty much any Nvidia card (even the newer ones).
The second piece is the Java SDK, which may be open source in the future anyway (not that it really matters). The community attempts at an open source JRE just don’t match up, and since a lot of server side work I end up doing is in Java, the official non-free product is needed.
They should try this survey about open source applications, I think that’d be interesting to see (although the list would probably be too large).
Java by far. Imagine where Linux would be if you couldn’t run Java on it. Enterprise adoption would be nearly nil.
Some people have said the binary drivers are only good for 3D OpenGL. That just isn’t true.
I’ve been running X.org 7.1 lately, and that has made it impossible for me to use the binary driver. Let me tell you, the open source nv driver *SUCKS* in comparison.
It has weird delays while redrawing the screen, scrolling in the web browser is extra slow, things like virtual desktop switches take 5-10 seconds to get every window back on screen.
I even experimented with running X with real-time scheduling. It helps, but not much.
It is especially painful after using accelerated XGL and compviz. As soon as nVidia releases their X 7.1 update, I am switching back.
I would have voted for Office. OOo is some 5 years behind in development and if you compare with the upcoming 2007 (I’ve been running the beta for months now) the gap is even larger.
The fact that drivers for video cars are even listed as “applications” speaks to the state of Linux in desktop role. I need AutoCAD and flawless Office interoperability to commit 100%. Or, I need OpenOffice and some other Cad competitor to assume the defacto market leading position.
I indeed completely forgot about Picasa and Google Earth. You can’t remember everything.
Deleted link to free but not open Google Earth for Linux.
Edited 2006-07-27 00:17
There’s also QCad, which we use in our schools (runs on Linux, MacOS X, and Windows). Only does 2D CAD, though. But, there’s an OSS community version and a Pro version (only real difference being printing and that you have to compile the OSS version). It’s working great in our CAD labs, and is very inexpensive (~$500 CDN a year for a district-wide license that covers home computers as well as school computers, on all 3 OSes). Has import and export to AutoCAD formats, and supports dxf natively.
For 3D CAD, there’s Cycas, although I don’t have much experience with it.
You people really think the desktop platform is the most important today? Graphics drivers? Wifi cards? The real production linux boxes aren’t desktops. I think probably the to DBs and VMWARE as a close second.
maybe we should change the site name to desktoposnews.com
You people really think the desktop platform is the most important today? Graphics drivers? Wifi cards? The real production linux boxes aren’t desktops. I think probably the to DBs and VMWARE as a close second.
maybe we should change the site name to desktoposnews.com
I agree completely. The responses and the poll do indicate that most of osnews readers are concerned about objects that are only relevant to desktop use.
You could argue with them, but we see that even though your post here was on topic and makes a good point, they vote down even when its against the rules.
… because for a long time a decent CAT-tool used to be the only reason for keeping my XP partition.
And I’m actually localizing Window Vista now – working on my Linux only box. Don’t tell Bill
.
As most people doesn’t know Pixel32, here’s URL: http://www.kanzelsberger.com
Sorry, but I couldn’t resist
Edited 2006-07-26 21:42
Software that have a place in linux world
-Opera (i am nor using it alot, but some are)
-Maya (i use blender but sometime i need more)
-AMD-ATI(lol)/nvidia driver (very usefull)
-Close source codec (who dont use them in 2006!)
-Skype (usefull for call for free, but for chat, jabber do the job)
-Google earth (nasa-ww is good, but vs G. earth… nothing)
-Sun Java (will be open source, but have is place)
-Adobe flash plugin (what is web without it)
-VMware (for when linux cant do the job and we need a GUI friendly user virtualisation software)
Software who dont:
-Real player
-Nero
-Acrobat reader
-CrossOver office / cedega / wine based software (picasa)
Software that are missing:
-Macromedia (adobe) suite : NVU is dead, f4l is dead, linux need GOOD multimedia/flash/web editor. If those project reborn and make real alternative, it is perfect, but actually…
-Itunes and other mp3 player/cellphone/pocket PC/palm manager. Open source apps are too slow to evoluate and sometime important feature are missing (podcast and video for ipod, playlist gestion etc…)