From Wired: “It started as a crusade for free source code. Linux zealots turned it into a full-frontal assault on Microsoft. Now the battle for the desktop could snatch defeat from the jaws of moral victory.” This is the teaser of a four page interesting editorial from Russ Mitchell found on Wired. The author recognises that “Linux has a real shot in the enterprise business”, but he believes that Linux is never going to get a respectful share of the desktop market, and he presents a number arguments for it. He also includes statements from many people like Rob Malda and Red Hat employees who, surprisingly, state that the real enemy for their business today is not Microsoft (where most of their joe-user customers are far reached from Linux’s “nerd” market), but companies like Sun and the “traditional” Unices like Solaris, IRIX, HP-UX and Tru64.
The Desktop Open War
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The main reason I find Linux attractive as a desktop OS: it’s not owned by a money-hungry monopoly that is desperate for more profit, and willing to sell you out, spy on you, turn you in, lock you up, or blackmail you for more money any chance it gets. Or to put it another way, I can reasonably trust my Linux install to be working for me, not against me.
I think this advantage will become apparent in the future, as Microsoft and its cohorts become more heavy handed in their attempts to control and extort money from their user base.
The guy who wrote this article makes some good points. I agree with him on a few key points, such as while Linux can thrive in the server room, and as a workstation at the enterprise level, it will have a very difficult time beating microsoft’s windows on the desktop.
If we ever do start to see Linux on the desktop, one or two things must happen first: 1) Linux’s ease of use must be not at par, but better than MSWindow’s, and/or 2) Linux gets used at the enterprise, people get used to using it at work and arn’t so afraid of it, so they install it at home.
I actually think that WindowsXP will help Linux, mostly because of it’s cost. You see more companies will scoff at the price of winXP, get fed up with MS, and look for alternatives; Linux will definately be there waiting.
Linux will never see popularity in the desktop. If it does it needs to get to the point where you would never need (unless you wanted to) get to the command line to do anything on the box from installing new software to adding new hardware. This can easly be done if one distro makes up its mind to integrate all its software, including the window manager, as a whole system. I’ll tell you who the winner will be .. Apple – OS X. Apple OS X has done exactly that.
just my $.02
OSX may be pretty but you still can’t get it on an x86 platform and I don’t see Apple hinting at ever making it available to the x86. Dropping the prices of its PPC machines to a reasonable level doesn’t seem to be on their list of things to do either.
Its about $9000 NZD for a Powerbook G4 500 without any office software, the same power x86 notebook WITH Office can be got for around $4000 NZD. Seems Apple really isn’t interested in increasing their market share at all…
OS X is good in being integrated. I don’t think it will be showing up any time soon for X86. First, Apple would basically be canibalizing their hardware market and would have to make money on pretty much software alone. This would be very risky, and they would have to be seriously dying to do this.
<p> Secondly, they would need support for peripherals. Even Win2k doesn’t have the amount of support as Win9x, or possibly even Linux. I know drivers would come, but it would take some time.
<p> even if Linux doesn’t can’t take the desktop market, some other free OS might. AtheOS for exmaple, or OpenBeOS, SkyOS, or something else. Not soon, but maybe eventually. Linux could just help pave the way with POSIX architecture, and open source drivers, and other documentation about “making things work.” I agree that the server is more important. The author assumes that all those GUI programmers could just as easily be kernel hackers, which is very wrong. Many people only do this as a hobby. So they have to enjoy it and GUI programming can easily seem more enjoyable then kernel hacking, which could take months before you even make a dent.
Read this article in last month’s Wired and I pretty much agree. Linux will never take off to a large extent on the desktop as long as doing things like getting sound to work or updating a complex package like KDE is so fsck-ing difficult. Things like this are brain-dead easy under Windows or MacOS (and no, I’m hardly a newbie – I use Debian everyday on my PC at work and have been a Unix admin for years).
Right now, the only hope for Unix on the desktop for the avg user is Mac OSX (yes, warts and all
There’s nobody better at the “end user experience” for everyday folks than the boys and girls in Cupertino…
>ts about $9000 NZD for a Powerbook G4 500 without any office software, the same power x86 notebook WITH Office can be >got for around $4000 NZD. Seems Apple really isn’t interested in increasing their market share at all…
Well unless you are not sure of what software comes with installed on the Macs from Apple… AppleWorks 6.2 is a pretty darn good Office Suite with simplicity and elegance, yeah does not stack up to the likes of Microsoft Office, but with those extra things MS Office has to offer, a normal person would not be missing much of that hoopla!!!
I read the article and it was pretty typical of fashion-oriented Wired. Looks like the guy either got fired from whatever Linux communittee or company he was working with or just liked the positive hype some people seem to find or create around anything Microsoft.
Linux is great on the desktop. I’m a Windows user (not for long!) but I found Linux easier than I thought. It was easier than I thought to set it up and run it. Now if only I could back it up.
Well I read the opinions from Wired and agreed and disagreed with some of what they said. Okay Microsoft has won the first war on the Desktop Market on certain fronts, well except for Desktop Publishing which Apple is a hard contender to beat in that respect. Even though I very much dislike Microsoft and what it stands for, I can understand why most companies use Microsoft for their choice for Office Productivity, as the Linux faithful have said… there is nothing that can compete with MS Office, well maybe except for Lotus and Corel’s Word Perfect, but both of those companies have a flawed strategy and are not being very aggressive in their marketing tactics. If I was either of those companies I would be targeting multiple platforms which would make the whole world more compatible and would make a huge dent in Microsoft’s monopolistic power front! Gobe is waking up to that idea now, but is still being prejudice with some platforms including the platform that got them on the roadmap… BeOS!
Could StarOffice be the answer to smashing Microsoft Office? Well if the new release is what Sun Microsystems say it is, then maybe Linux will finally have something to fight Microsoft with and start a whole new war on the desktop front! Personally I think Gobe has the best shot since they have the most integrated Office Suite around, now all they have to do is get their name out there… good luck!!!
what do you mean it hasn’t. it already has! hello! does dell and compaq ring a bell? that plus the amount of linux users are growing in the thousands weekly if not monthly. plus i do beleive it will over come windows by not having it on the common computer in everyhome but in every school. see now in days you hear about schools thinking about going to linux instead of windows cause of what their thinking about for their licencing for XP. for oregon school district a copy of xp is $47 and for xpoffice it’s 27. now that may seem cheep but that’s for each computer. but if the schools would adopt say mandrake for 120 dollars even they could install it on all of their pc’s and it would still be 120 dollars (and that’s the sever eddition. the one that has everything.)
simple algrabra
windows xP and office XP
total-amount = (office-xp + os-xp)computers-to-install-on
or
Y = 74X (y is total. x is amount of computers. 74 is cost for each x)
mandrake linux 8.1
total-amount = computers-to-install-on + cost-of-mandrake-server
or
Y = X + 120 (Y = total, X= amount of computers, 120 is cost of sever disk.)
say x=5
windows: 370
mandrake:120
ok you wondering what all the algrabra is for. well basically it means that mandrake is more cost efficient than windows even with windows extreme price cut . see mandrake only needs to be bought once, manybe twice to install on alot of systems faster. but this is better for schools, cause say my school, there is a computer in every classroom for every teacher plus fifty computers in the labs and ten in the other labs. that would total to about 80 computer maybe.
for 80 computers.
windows: 3760
mandrake:120 (maybe 240 if you get two disks.)(and yes for xp you have to get one disk to each computer or else microsoft will crack down on you “somehow” (mostly making you register with out your knowledge of it.))
now in that example mandrake was only 1/31 of the price. and would of saved the school $3640, which is good cause schools seem to always run out of money. that 3.6k could be good for more computers or more pay for teachers.also the chain reaction here is that the next generation will get used to linux more than windows or mac.
and i support linux instead of osx because osx is only for mac hardware. and if i turn to mac hardware i would have no way of using any of my programs.
Despite what “true believers” would have you think, Linux has yet to stand a serious chance of becoming a viable desktop alternative, because they can’t pass the “average end-user test.” Simply, it has to be as easy to install as the typical MS or Mac product. There is much I don’t like about those two particular OS pushers. However, they have set a benchmark with regard to installation PROCEDURE.
I find it a little sad that Linux is usually set up as the “free” alternative to the big two (MS & Mac). Sorry to be the bringer of bad news, but there are a few “free” alternatives that are much more stable. I’m speaking of the three BSD flavours. BSD has a proven track record, and can’t pass the “average end-user test” either.
If the Linux community had spent HALF the effort they have on infighting and perpetuation their own stupid parody of the MS vs. Mac interface fight (being the default/bundling KDE vs. GNOME GUI mess), and instead backed the BSD projects, the “desktop” wars would be over. As it stands, Mac did the smart thing: They got their own little piece of BSD.
As for Linux being a contender in the Server sweepstakes, again what’s the point? BSD is a much more stable environment on the server side, and again, a BSD distro doesn’t cost any more (or less) than a Linxu distro.
In 20 years of computing, the three best desktop OSs I’ve used are Amiga, Be, and NeXT. If the Linux community wants to do something constructive, they should watch the fates of Amiga and Be next month. The new Amiga OS and compatible hardware are supposed to be coming out the first week of November. Be has their big meeting on November 12th.
Regards To All
Mike
actually with the release of mandrake 8.1 linux is alot easier. i can install software and other things alot easier than with other linuxes, and mandrake has alot of other things that make it user friendly. so linux is really a desktop alternative. but you can’t expect that linux is going to attract just the desktop users cause they can’t just look at that market. linux is all over.
and for BeOS, i’ve tried it. personally i thought it sucked, and it’s not user friendly. it’s down right anoying. and for amiga and NeXT it sounds like it’s just two more operating systems that will probably either make it partitly or not at all. i’m not exactly sure if i would be right on that but i’ll look it up.
I am curious to what version of BeOS you have tried? No one on earth has ever put “not user friendly” and “BeOS” in the same sentence before, well okay except for you!!!
And as for NeXT, if you haven’t already read your OS history, NeXT got bought out by Apple 5 years ago and is now integrated into what we know today as Mac OS ‘X’ with some of the finest of technologies!