“Linux will be deployed on no more than five percent of desktops over the next two to three years because of a lack of viable applications, claimed Gartner research director Phil Sargeant on Thursday evening at the Gartner Symposium and ITXpo.” Read the article about the Gartner Group’s analysis.
Gartner: Linux Poised for Desktop Failure
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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What that Gartner guy saying might be true about apps and marketshare, but we should also be realistic: 5% is HUGE amount of userbase, it is more than twice of what Apple has today. This _is_ huge. I believe that it is just impossible to completely win out Windows in marketshare, which has deep roots everywhere. But getting 5% of the market is already a huge accomplishment and it is in no way a “failure”.
BTW, 5% of the desktop userbase worldwide means about 45-50 million users on today’s standards. That is already quite some.
I read that 54.47% of all statistics are just made up. to be a bit more serious, didn’t they also proclaim a few years back that everyone would by now use tablet PCs and desktops would be on the decline? I guess that answers as to how serious such predictions in relation to the IT industry are. Whoever has the passion could also go back and check what their predictions were prior to the dotcom’s folding up.
I had been using Suse 8 as my primary desktop for about 6 months, and I dont need Gartner to tell me that there is still a long way to go before linux will be even close to ready for primetime. A couple of weeks ago, I threw in my XP CD and have this thing set to dual boot, but mostly booting into XP now. I think even 5% is more like wishful thinking.
I do guess they will be great. Linux have many good applications, best there is in many areas. However, those are mainstream applications.(browser/office suite/email client etc.)
Now, in many of the companies i’ve visited, there is probably just the boss and some secretaries that actually could do their daily work with these applications. However many of the other folks base their work at rather specialized application, applications which I’ve never seen running on a linux box.
So, what could switching to linux help if they depend on these applications which don’t exists on a new platform ?
Won’t Wine have any more influence on this?
Lots of distros are including it with their default set-up or are including Crossover. Looking at the current progress Wine is making, most Linux distributions will run at least ~50% of all the Windows apps in a year.
According to a poll on ZDNet some time ago, more than 80% would switch to Linux if it ran all their Windows apps and more than half of it would do it immediatly. So it seems that apps are indeed important for Linux atm.
right.. that is s/great/right on that first sentence.
Well, I honestly don’t believe wine will become truly stable. Besides you still need a copy of windows if you want to do things legally.
Lets rather try to do better, and make native apps.
And most important, provide the means for doing easy development of applications. Which for one means provide good (API)documentation, and avoid library hell.
Thats one thing I admire in windows, you learn an API and joy, you don’t have to learn it again next month/year its still the same. And the app I just compiled on my win2k even runs at all the other windows version.
No fun for library developer I imagine, very good for application developers.
Don’t you just love headlines like this “Gartner: Linux Poised for Desktop Failure”. Not trying for pagehits or anything.
Anyway, if having a Free easy to use OS, desktop Office suite, and webrowser that anyone can sit down and do the basics at is a failure then so be it. Me I’m happy that we even have a choice considering almost No OEM’s ship linux as deafault and Microsoft is doing its best to maintain its monopoly by using its billions to crush linux and make is disapear from the face of the earth.
The fact that any OS can gain even 1 or 2% in such a hostile marketplace is success in itself. Also I don’t see how you can possibly put a price on the freedom that linux has afforded me and many other who BTW are never counted in the statistics.
Anyway is summary no matter how many useless statistics designed for FUD and pagehits are put out there, it won’t damper the spirits of me or anyone else who is thankful for a free alternative to windows. That is the real story.
In a desktop role linux can’t really compete with windows, except on value, the problem is, that for many people the choice is between free linux and the “free” piracy version of windows xp, so choosing windows is only natural. Some times i think that piracy does more for microsoft then all those strange court rullings.
That’s an interesting question, and unfortunately, it attracted a 1500 comment Slashdot thread, which made it kinda hard to get a good idea of where things stand, and /. tends to be more pro-Linux than most tech sites anyway. So that said, what’s keeping people here on Windows? Personally, I’ve been using mainly alternative OSs for a long time. I used BeOS exclusively for a year or so, then, after a few months with Windows, switched to Linux. I keep a small (3GB) Windows partition around because I want to play the occasional game of CounterStrike with my friends.
The funny part is that the person who submitted that story on ./ first submitted it to OSNews, days ago. I replied to him that this is a question that comes up very often and it is boring to run over and over. I still believe that it was a story more appropriate running on ./ than on OSNews. OSNews does not advocate a particular OS, but all of them, so it was not really appropriate to run it here.
I would do handstands of joy if Linux had 5% of the desktop in 2-3 years! Either way though, prognosticating about the future in computing has proved to be a really bad bet over the years – I don’t know why these people still do it.
When M$, Intel and AMD use Palladium and other types of hardware protection I want to see if people will remain to use Winblows paying the real expensive price …
People are lazzy and it will use linux on desktop if they are forced to pay the M$ tax. There are no technical reasons today to not use linux, except in specific niches.
As I recall 4-5 years ago industry pundits were predicting that Linux was nothing more than an interesting curiousity which would never see serious business deployments, and a few years ago it was a niche server operating system but would never gain traction on the desktop. Now they are ceding Linux 5% of the desktops?
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they
fight you, then you win.”
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: if we think that OpenOffice.org is a good Office alternative, we’ve out of our minds. If you’ve seen screenshots of the two and don’t know any better, you’d think that OO.o was circa 1992. It looks like crap. They need to beef up the interface. Same with other apps. Mozilla need to look nicer, as does gAIM. Note: nicer does not mean dumber. There are plenty of nice looking, yet functional, apps out there. Take Word XP, for example. It looks great, but even advanced users don’t feel like it’s being dumbed down. Or the OS X interface. We need to find something that words for both newbies and professionals. We need some consistant UI, and it need to look good. Good, not impossible. Good, not Play Skool.
As Dan Gillmor Said in this Slashdot interview:
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/31/1525255&mode…
I’ve been dismissive of desktop Linux, too. For me, Unix on the desktop is called Mac OS X. But the open-source ecosystem doesn’t care what I think. It’s slowly but surely pulling together the pieces of a desktop environment that will be more than adequate for large numbers of users. Just as we tend to underestimate the long-range impact of Moore’s Law, because analog creatures can’t really grasp exponential change, I suspect I’ve underestimated the collective power of the community development process, which is an intellectual barn-raising raised by many orders of magnitude.
Windows is here and will stay some more time… [DoJ certified us of it]
Linux is getting ready for the desktop… the next versions of the kernel will help a lot… [check OSNews blurb regarding the kernel benchmarks…]
There are already some “cross” OS developing platforms out there and i forseen that the ability to build “develop here port anywhere” programs will be a normal thing in the future [Java and Delphi/Kylix comes to mind… but there should be others].
Linux as a platform is starting to gain momentum… and starts to exist programmers that aren’t hard core linux gurus, but simple programmers, with “normal” skills with any OS [user skills that is]. That is good, but will have some consequenses [as some reports regarding secure programming have creaped out latelly, but not the daunting consequences that some academics reported…].
In the end, everyone will benefit… I presume…
IT is a moving target… anyone is free to forseen the future… but the future will unwrap on us all, nevertheless… [some professies are self-fullfilling… so beware… to detect them… and recognize them among the others… LOL]
Cheers…
It seems to me that the quantity of Linux apps is not the issue. The hold-back is the lack of brand-name software titles that people are familiar with. Such as Microsoft Office, AutoCad, entertainment titles, and industry-specific software. Even if such titles are available, they are not commonly seen in retail stores.
I think 5% is a reasonable goal, and in many ways could be seen as a huge success. However, I don’t see it cutting into Microsoft’s market share. Many users will always have dual-boot machines, Windows will always be necessary to run the software people have accumulated, and it will likely continue to be included with most new PC purchases.
Too bad for Apple though. As Mac users look for something that is less expensive, can be run on PC hardware, and still isn’t Windows, I expect to see them migrating to Linux. And they are already accustomed to special-ordering all of their software!
>> …it is more than twice of what Apple has today…
Hmmm, it’s interesting that at more than double the size of Apples market share, Linux is considered a failure!
This is proof that Gartner has high expectation for Linux! Much more than it has for Apple’s OS X.
I think Linux will be up to the challenge.
ciao
yc
I am truly amazed if Linux gets 5% desktop market share during the next 2-3 years! That indicates some 50% annual growth!
Very positive thinking from Gartner!
I would take those predictions with a huge grain of salt.
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Several years ago, Gartner predicted that apps rented over the Internet would be huge. Hasn’t happened.
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Around 2 years ago, they said watch out for Bluetooth. Bluetooth is finally gaining ground, but still has a long way to go.
<BR><BR>
All it takes to be an industry analyst subject matter expert is to have read a few really good articles.
Would love to see all the apple-guys change to Linux and the need for their apps (photoshop, illustrator, after effects, premiere,indesign, dreamweaver, flash, fireworks). Adobe and Macromedia start porting their apps to Linux. Then things could change very quickly. Guess i’m just dreaming! Or could it happen?
Its strange that Linux holds so much but it has so little!
Its wierd that people won’t port apps to linux until people start to use it and people will only start to use it if people port apps to it.
Its also strange that some companies are now coming up against the beast in their field of computing and are quite cleary going to lose yet do not port apps to linux so that they can surivive and earn some extra revenue because they are not OS independant. Example being logitech.
Logitech develop some really good products and the Beast has now started to add move periphels to its product line, they are so cheap (MS could make them cheaper as well in order to out price them) that logitech is going to find it hard to compete nad stay ahead as they are at the moment. Why don’t they decide to do support something that MS wouldn’t and make money. How hard is it to write a device driver and certify it fit for linux use? If people realise Logitech fully supported linux then people will buy their stuff, webcams, wireless keyboards, joysticks and so forth. Instead they do nothing but try to compete with the Beast and will lose much like others. Or supprt apple, WOW!
I use them as an example because i find that logitech periphels don’t work as well as say MS ones so what do you end up buying? My distro wouldn’t take a logitech mouse so i used an MS one. Me bein me would rather line logitechs coffers than MS’s. I emailed Logitech once and their reply to me saying “will it work in linux” was basically a case of if they support USB and logitech support USB then it should work as with serial and other connection standards. That wasn’t goo enough so i didn’t buy from them.
But recently MS is pitching for the accounting software industry coming up against Oracle and SAGE and whoever else. Now with the way MS works they will certainly make an impact, so to do something about it, as i said. Why not port apps to linux and thus the ball starts to roll and these other companies will gain markets share via other avenues without needing to work soley on linux, its not as though they have to worry about MS porting apps to linux is it? One they wouldn;t do it and 2 people i doubt would buy it not when you could purchase from respected markets leaders like SAGE.
I won’t argue against this particular headline – it might even have a point. However, the Gartner Group isn’t exactly famous for very successful guessing
yes its hard to break into the widows end of things. but quite frankly, its beacause there are really only 2 other mature os’s to compete.
windows dominates because it has been around a while and all the popular apps are out for it. mac osx is around because its claim about ease of use is absolutely true. its main drawback is that the hardware is expensive. besides that all unix os’s struggle in the department of ease of use, familiarity, and any sort of popular programs.
when it comes down to it, unix based systems are fine if all you do is type papers and read email (for the average user). past that, you have to be a nerd or geek to really get into it. these people who claim to be setting up their mothers and girlfriends with mandrake or whatever are just using it as a way to promote their anti-microsoft feelings. for when my girlfriend wants to view a quicktime trailer or view a website that has the latest plugins, linux is a joke.
yes you can use crossover, openoffice, and whatever else to make your linux box run all your windows needs, but its slower, unstable, and not half as convenient. i’d like to see your mom even try use to install mozilla and get all the plugins working correctly.
long and short is, linux will do ok because its free and has enough geek following to make apps that are merely just good enough. but i see no way it will ever get past that.
hmm, the logitech guy’s are correct.
you don’t need special drivers for mouse/keyboard
you only need support for the special stuff like iforce itouch thingy’s
the last still doesn’t work under *nix (please correct me if I’m wrong 
you can test you’re “multimedia” keys with xev
I don’t understand how a marketshare of five percent could be called a “failure”. Is there a paragraph in the release notes stating how taking over the whole market is the intended goal of Linux development? Must have missed it.
All Linux is trying to be is to be usable. To be an alternative. Well, an option. It already is that for many, many people, and it’s improving every day. Why doom it? Why hype it, for that matter? Linux is the largest collaborative project in the world, and I don’t see how a report from a small company called Gartner research is going to stop that. It won’t, because apparently, developing Linux is what a large bunch of people wants to do. In the end, you don’t live to make money. You make money to live properly. And I strongle believe this to be the real world, yes.
When the Mac 1st came out in 84, it was considered a great success when a million were sold, & at about 30% of the few million PCs of the time. It was enough to attract developers esp since it was so different to DOS.
Now almost 2oyrs later, a million is nada or 0.1%.
Developers go for only the top 1st or 2nd market share holders, so no 3,4,5… are invisible.
The news of Gartner is amazingly good. It shows that there will be no more Apple computer in a few years. Oh yes, the company will still be there. But they will be relegated to ‘has been’ and ‘they’re over’ status.
Many of the new PC’s are nearly silent. And small. The Shuttle SB51G/SS51G computers are what the iMac should have been — expandable, AGP-enabled, small, fast, quiet performance machines. Put Linux on one of these small powerful machines and you have an amazing computer for a great price.
The iMac of today is a slow dead-end closed white mushroom that can barely display web pages. Apple in their ‘innovative’ engineering couldn’t even make an arm that would allow the LCD to be used in portrait mode. What a bunch of idiots.
The advances in PC technology come much faster than advances in Apple technology. No wonder as there are 1000’s of companies working on cool stuff vs. 1 company. Apple doesn’t even have enough brains to know how to pick a fast CPU vs. a slow CPU.
Just looking at the operating system, it is plain as day that Linux is evolving at 100x the rate that OS X is evolving. The kernel is fast, scalable, interruptable, etc. There are more and more apps as Linux becomes ‘low cost’ vs. ‘totally free’. Once there is a standard GUI API for Linux, it will blow Apple into the weeds.
Thank you Gartner for the good news.
Red
“The kernel is fast, scalable, interruptable, etc”
I’m to understand that xnu isn’t any of these things based on what you said?
Ugh… “Doesn’t even have enough brains…”
Gartner must be one of the least reputable research organisations in the entire industry (they’re neck-and-neck with Aberdeen). Here are the results of some of their “research” regarding GNU/Linux:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5283
And another regarding Compaq:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=2249
Their reaction to the IA64/x86-64 debate is especially funny. In August, they predicted that Itanium would sell poorly (no surprise there, since Itanium is already selling poorly).
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5185
Less than two months later, however, they claim that AMD Hammer-based (x86-64) chips would be no match for IA64:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5801
This looks very fishy, especially when they use language like “[Itanium] will sink 32/64-bit hybrid chips”. In September, they recommended that companied “ignore” AMD-based products:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5309
How can anybody trust this company?
Glad you hate Macs.
Just looking at the operating system, it is plain as day that Linux is evolving at 100x the rate that OS X is evolving. The kernel is fast, scalable, interruptable, etc.
Yes, but Linux lacks any IPC facilities of performance levels necessary to build a decent window server on top of.
There are more and more apps as Linux becomes ‘low cost’ vs. ‘totally free’. Once there is a standard GUI API for Linux, it will blow Apple into the weeds.
I assume you mean a high level API as opposed to something like DirectFB. Unfortunately there will never be such a standard due to the operating principles of the bazaar. Linux is doomed to factionalization (the GTK camp versus TrollTech, and neither of them working together with the XFree developers) which will ultimately lead to its overall cruftiness for desktop use.
This story is correct to a certain point.Every review of Linux ive read in the last 2 years always miss the point entirely. Especially the ones that claim “Linux is ready for the desktop”. Linux is not ready for the desktop
Yes-modern Linux distros are easy to install
Yes-modern Linux distros detect most hardware during install
Yes-there are various full featured Office suites available
Yes-there is loads of software available
The problem with Linux is 3rd party hardware support. Noone ever seems to mention this. Linux will not gain major market share unless it gets a large number of third party companies writing Linux drivers for hardware.
And to get this it needs a platform that doesnt change every week. Just look at the nvidia drivers-they have different ones for different kernels and different distributions.People who write the drivers for thier hardware want just ONE platform.
There also needs to be a standard,easy way to install these drivers without recompiling kernels or compiling code.
It needs to get to the stage where i can go out and buy a piece of hardware and install the supplied Linux drivers on my 3 year old distribution and not have to upgrade or compile anything (like i can with win2000).
There also needs to be a standard,easy way to install software that takes care of dependancy issues for the user (yes i know there are various tools available but theres not one standard one that has been adopted by all distros)
The apps are getting there-I use Openoffice myself and would never switch back to MS Office.
However the issues that affect everyday users need to be addressed. Too much time is spent talking about how easy Linux is to install and how great KDE is-not enough time is spent fixing the real issues.
Just wondering, how in the world (literally the whole world) is market share calculated? I remember seeing those google.com stats (Zeitglist or something) that measured/compared what platforms that were hitting their engine and I thought to my self “Self, that must a pretty fair *estimate* of market share as I think all the platforms probably use Google rather liberally.”
Windows blew the numbers away at about 93% but I remember Mac having about 4% and “other” at about 1%. Either way, how are these “market share” numbers computed on a worldwide basis (or local even) and what are the margin of errors?
-Spider
I don’t really care about what IBM has so-called “contributed” to Linux.
They went’t off, proclaimed that they have pledged $1billion to Linux. Well, put it this way, I certainly haven’t seen anything out there to say that the $1billion was well spent.
They went off and created projects based on things that were going to happen with or with out their help, such as native posix threads and improved threading and scalability. Infact, the most important contributions have been from people who have nothing to do with IBM at all!
If IBM wanted to do somethine USEFUL, they should have ported all their Lotus software accross to Linux (Lotus Smartsuite and Lotus Notes), make a decision what desktop environment they were backing (SUN supports GNOME for example). Heck, even buy out Corel and pay for the porting of all their software to Linux. These are the types of things that are important. These are the types of developments that would contribute to the growth of Linux.
Well, I honestly don’t believe wine will become truly stable. Besides you still need a copy of windows if you want to do things legally.
Lets rather try to do better, and make native apps.
And most important, provide the means for doing easy development of applications. Which for one means provide good (API)documentation, and avoid library hell.
Thats one thing I admire in windows, you learn an API and joy, you don’t have to learn it again next month/year its still the same. And the app I just compiled on my win2k even runs at all the other windows version.
No fun for library developer I imagine, very good for application developers.
—
1) Who said you need to “Windows” to so-called run it “legally”.
2) API’s are already documented on Linux. Just goto http://www.opengroup.org and download the information. Great isn’t it when someone follows openspecfications. oh, and that information is also useful for IRIX, Solaris, HP-UX, infact any UNIX/*BSD out there.
3) If you compile you application to the LSB standard, you shouldn’t have any problems runing it on another distro. As for you comment regarding “the app I just compiled on my win2k even runs at all the other windows version”, that is very wishful thinking. If you have some crapbox shareware VB application that uses superficial api calls, sure, not problems, but don’t make out that it is a nice road of compatibility, or otherwise, how can you explain why Microsoft has development kits with all their Windows versions? they have them because there are little quirks in each OS that can cause cross platform issues. Hence, a software needs to test there applications on the different OS’s and remove any problems faced on each platform.
“Some times i think that piracy does more for microsoft then all those strange court rullings.”
Actually, I think it does too. In my case, there’s no way I could afford most of the apps I use and if I had to pay for them, I probably wouldn’t have much use for computers because free/cheap alternatives to what I use mostly don’t exist.
“When M$, Intel and AMD use Palladium and other types of hardware protection I want to see if people will remain to use Winblows paying the real expensive price … ”
I don’t think so. Most people said the same thing about WinXP and WPA, and I don’t think it has had any affect at all. Hell, it is so invisible to the average user that most Joe Users I’ve talked to don’t even know what WPA is.
“Linux will not gain major market share unless it gets a large number of third party companies writing Linux drivers for hardware. ”
I don’t know if this would work but if I were a hardware manufacturer, I’d probably just release the technical specs for my hardware to the Linux community and let hackers write the drivers for me, and then say my product was supported under Linux when they get through
“It needs to get to the stage where i can go out and buy a piece of hardware and install the supplied Linux drivers on my 3 year old distribution and not have to upgrade or compile anything (like i can with win2000). ”
Yes, and one other thing … Linux really needs more alternatives for the $20-$50 ‘Fisher Price’ apps that line the shelves of CompUSA.
The fact even if Linux does manage to gain 5% of the desktop marketshare, it still won’t be very good.
Because of the nature of development under Linux, it will eternally be fragmented, meaning that issues such a driver installing, toolkit use, program installation/paths, will ALWAYS be an issue. Unlinke windows where everything just works, on driver fits all though an easy interface etc, program installation/un-installation is a joke it’s so easy.
That just won’t happen. If you want to do anything but use a web browser under linux, you’ll always have to resort to the console and/or some tricky run arounds. It just isn’t good enough, and it ain’t going to go away, it can’t, that’s the nature of Linux development.
And as a developer myself, it sucks.
I agree with you on the driver part. The problem, however, is compounded by the fact that there are multiple versions of the kernel out there with each distro adding their little spin on it.
HOWEVER, this is improving, for example, Redhat Linux 8.0, for example, there is going to be longer gap between that and the enxt version. As for Kernel updates, thereis nothing wrong with a hardware company giving the driver source to Redhat and asking them to compile it into their kernel and distribute it.
As for future developments, there is a solution for that problem called something like “Universal Drivers” or something. Anyway, you shouldn’t be concerned as these things are kernel level issues that are being addressed as we speak/rant.
..report, but since they sell almost exclusively to companies, their view of what an “application” is must be skewed that way. There’s plenty of computing out there that has nothing to do with vertical niche applications.
Linux has a long way to go — me, I’m hoping in 12-18 months Apple hardware will catch up and lose some $$ and they’d have me forever. I want the power of unix and the elegance of a decent UI.
KDE sucks; GNOME sucks; their respective apps suck.
Nevertheless, I’m going to make a very concerted effort to dump Windows completely. My wife can run Photoshop on W2K, I’ll do my best to live again in the world of free software.
First, the Gartner people are serious losers. When Win95 came out they said that Macs cost 25% less (I think) to run than Win95 machines. That was a crock! My experience suggest that a Mac costs less than a third what a PC does to support.
Second, Mac marketshare is not 2 percent–it’s between 5 and 10. Industry metrics tend to favor business sales, and pointy-haired business dorks tend to favor PC’s.
Third, this “red Pill” guy has his head up his butt:
” The iMac of today is a slow dead-end closed white mushroom that can barely display web pages. Apple in their ‘innovative’ engineering couldn’t even make an arm that would allow the LCD to be used in portrait mode. What a bunch of idiots.”
1) current iMacs are far from slow. 2) OS X is open-sourced–
only partially “closed”
3) Web pages look BETTER on Macs, IMHO. Mac monitors tend to be more accurate about color, for one thing. And the Mac has browsers as good or better than the PC world. I love Chimera and Mozilla, and though I dislike MSFT, IE is not too bad. In fact, it is more standards compliant than the Windows IE.
4) You are right about portrait mode, but I have not seen that on PC’s either.
” The advances in PC technology come much faster than advances in Apple technology. No wonder as there are 1000’s of companies working on cool stuff vs. 1 company. ”
Again, not true. Most PC’s still don’t even ship with 1394. And, Apple had the first cost-effective 802.11 system to ship. PC’s still run on outdated CISC chips, even the AMD ones. Apple ditched CISC in –’93 I think. And PC’s (98 plus percent of them are still running an obsolete OS– Windows. Also, the list of developers supporting Apple is far from short and it is growing all the time.
” Just looking at the operating system, it is plain as day that Linux is evolving at 100x the rate that OS X is evolving. The kernel is fast, scalable, interruptable, etc. There are more and more apps as Linux becomes ‘low cost’ vs. ‘totally free’. Once there is a standard GUI API for Linux, it will blow Apple into the weeds. ”
I haven’t seen as much progres in Linux as in OS X in the past year. Anyone else care to chime in on that point?. LINUX is fast– blows Windows away. And it is cheap– again, it blows Windows away. But we Apple folks LIKE LINUX for the most part. We figure that its a real step up for most people versus what they use. I DOUBT LINUX will ever seriously challenge the Mac for marketshare or ease- of use, or prettiness of GUI, though.
but we should also be realistic: 5% is HUGE amount of userbase, it is more than twice of what Apple has today. This _is_ huge
Comparing Linux to Mac isn’t the best comparison
(Mac is only fuzz and distortion from a few blind people — hope Linux people never get that disease)
Linux have many good applications, best there is ???? in many areas ????
However, those are mainstream applications.(browser/office suite/email client etc.)
The best there is ?? Mainstream ?? You should try some real mainstream applications (Office XP, Photoshop, Acrobat/PDF, Delphi (no, Kylix isn’t the same), C++Builder, JavaBuilder, 3D Studio, Lightwave, Maya, Visual Basic, Visual .Net, ASP, Java2/SDK …….)
I said many times I like Linux but if you aren’t a University Student/Teacher you would see Linux desktop as a bad joke (to say the least).
First, the Gartner people are serious losers. (Maybe, …) When Win95 came out they said that Macs cost 25% less (I think) (Not sure ?)
to run than Win95 machines. That was a crock! My experience suggest that a Mac costs less than a third what a PC does to support.
Support ?????? Bullsh* !!!
This is osnews.com not hardwaredummies.com
(Before someone comes along and claims that Gimp is ready to replace Photoshop: Just don’t. It isn’t. Certainly not for print, anyway.)
I wonder if in 2010AD I’ll be reading more “Windows Vrs <insert another OS name here>”, it does get very tedious
imho Linux doesn’t deserve to be considered a “viable desktop OS”, and thats not saying Linux is a bad OS, I am just saying that Linux was not designed as an OS for “home gamers” to use and people should remember that.
Several reaons I see stumbling Linux are:
1) It’s terribly scripted and in my experience as a technician, a large majority of people have enough problems with config.sys and autoexec.bat files.
2) End user documentation almost needs a decryption
machine run over it for the “average” user to understand.
3) The directory structure of a *nix system can be
very confusing for people.
4) Kernel compiles, Oh right, Joe’s grandmother just downloads the source and runs the scripts and compiles herself a new compile to suit her hardware… umm, not likely, which means that Joe’s Grandmother has to run a bloated “generic kernel”.
5) Drivers, ahh, yes, Joes Grandmother also has to update
her geforce drivers, which means uppacking them and running a console and editing her XF86Config file by hand.. erm, also, not likely.
6) While the Internet has become a big part of peoples lives, they don’t live on it, and some people like to use their computer for entertainment.. welp, games.. another stumbling point.
7) GPL/LGPL… How many developers hate the GPL/LGPL I wonder.. The numbers may be larger then you think
There are many, many more things that I see as hindering Linux as a viable desktop OS, but I admist Linux is GREAT as a Server OS, which it is DESIGNED for. I just wish that all those free software creators out there on the Linux platform who sit there day to day battling, trying to get Linux “ready for the masses” actually spent that time on something more orientated to their final goal like getting AROS or another OS completed thats actually been DESIGNED to be used as a home desktop OS.
… well, then someone should tell this to Japan, India, Vietnam, Peru, Columbia, and Germany. They are all going to be making a big mistake if they swith any desktops to linux. So please warn them.
Was Dos “ready for the desktop” in the 1980’s? Was the original Mac ready? Neither could multitask. Dos didn’t have any GUI for a while. Did the original Mac come with hardware support for every periferal? did it come with Photoshop? Could either of them even be networked?
While the definition of the desktop has changed, and Linux still has some shortfalls, I’m not sure you couldn’t live with it. You’re asking it to be everything to all people. While it may not work for graphics artists, the majority of people I know aren’t graphics artists. Linux is great at interoperating. It has Samba, OpenOffice, and Mozilla. It support email, FTP, SSH, NFS, etc. Its not hard to move a could pictures across a network. There are certainly other niches where Linux isn’t a possiblity yet, but one by one those products might have to get ported over it they wish to survive.
“Linux is GREAT as a Server OS, which it is DESIGNED for” — so you’re telling me Linus Torvalds needed a server OS for his 386? He didn’t just want a little desktops OS that he could program in? It was his “386 server” he was worried about? I don’t think MS Windows was “designed” for anything, their EULA even says so.
Whatever Gartner says, once 5 or 6 governments use linux, others are sure to follow, and with each one, they will make it easier for the next, because its shortcomings will slowly but surely(or even quickly!) be taken care of.
Unlike proprietary companies that can say “not our problem, don’t use our software if you don’t like it”, after you’ve paid for it, open-source campanies get paid to make it their problem, and either work at fixing it, or go out of business.
This is great news, if it’ll get people off this goofy Linux desktop kick. It’s an absurd idea prima facie. A desktop operating system needs to be utterly consistent, even to the point of stifling programmers’ creativity if need be. There’s no “Linux” operating system; the word describes a phenomenon of competing ideas and code, expressing its creators’ needs and creativity, constantly in flux and always improving open and/or free source code. It’s the very antithesis of what makes a good desktop operating system.
Let’s see Linux on the desktop in its true light, as the domain of geeks who wish to dive into, understand, and gain full control over their systems.
Linux global market shares TODAY are (as far as I have understood them, please correct if wrong):
– All servers 9%
– All desktops 1-2%
– All PDAs 4%
Microsoft has, respectively:
– All servers 68%
– All desktops 94%
– All PDAs 25%
In my opinion, Linux will have some 50-100% annual growth in all categories, as Microsoft more or less keeps its market share or suffers some nominal losses – that is, during the next 2-3 years. The real worries for MS will start around 2005/6 when Linux market share in these categories has become strong enough for the OS to start popping up here and there. That’s when Linux really challenges Windows’ client and application vendor base – when you really can’t avoid seeing a Linux machine running in front of you and when you really can’t stop thinking that should I get one myself or port my company’s apps to it.
This takes time. At the moment it is happening with the best possible speed.
I love to read these articles. In my office Linux desktop usage is at 12% A survey of my customers ranges at 5-15% for desktops and servers at 3-20% (Fortune 500s so pardon if some are on the slow side) The point is Gartner/Aberdeen and the other base their numbers on units sold <sorry thats not the way open source is distributed>
Of course as much as the % desktops reports amuse me I love the security reports even better. Open Source with 100% reporting vs MS with minimal reporting then they cram all possible software for the Open Source numbers and a fairly basic system for MS. I mean get real, wake up smell the coffee-or how about integrity in reporting (opps never ask for that it doesn’t exist anymore ITS ALL ABOUT PERCEPTION NOT ABOUT TRUTH)
The Gartner article didn’t say much, and I imagine was addressed to IT managers of front office desktop installations at larger, established companies, not exactly the folks to adopt Linux near term no matter what it could do.
Where Linux could have more success in the near term are environments that have the following attributes:
1. Cost sensitivity.
2. Lack of MS entrenchment.
3. Use of “platform independent middleware” such as standard web and e-mail technologies, Java and open file formats (pdfs, in the future xml-based formats), rather than reliance on MS-proprietary technologies (Exchange server, Office file formats (particularly those using the more sophisticated features that are difficult to impossible for the likes of OpenOffice to keep up with), DotNet).
4. Desire to create a customized, perhaps limited-purpose, operating environment rather than a general purpose one that needs to be able to run a broad range of third-party commercial applications or the most advanced games (games were perhaps the #1 reason cited in the responses to the recent /. article regarding why /.’ers had not switched over to Linux).
5. IT decision-makers that have a higher status than the end-users (limiting impact of end-user push-back to changes in computing environment).
6. Hardware selection and administration that is centralized and competent (rather than numerous individual “newbies” trying Linux out).
Many of these attributes would be lacking Gartner’s target audience, but could be found, however, in:
1. Companies and institutions in developing countries.
2. Producers of low-end consumer PCs or other non-standard or computing devices (Internet applicances (haven’t had great success so far, but who knows — after all, even in the U.S., the internet only has about 50% penetration), POS devices, kiosks).
3. Desktop deployments in cost-sensitive or narrow-task-range niches (for instance, call centers).
4. Government or education.
Successes in these areas could provide the track record necessary for more widespread, high-profile deployments and perhaps eventually the more aggressive offering of Linux systems by OEMs.
A large portion of the computing needs of a typical light-use office or institutional environment could be addressed by:
1. A web browser (Mozilla or its progeny).
2. An e-mail/groupware client (Mozilla again or Evolution) (as Matthew Gardiner mentioned above, it would be a real boost if IBM ported Lotus Notes to Linux (as well as SmartSuite), and I think that it would be a long-term smart business decision for IBM).
3. An office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentations) capable of adequately importing and exporting MS file formats (OpenOffice.org has really impressed me in this area (and companies demanding a “name” standing behind their software can get the StarOffice variant from Sun) and other efforts such as AbiWord, Gnumeric, KOffice are as apparently making excellent progress).
4. PDF viewing and production (xpdf, various conversion filters).
5. A Java JRE for use with in-house or third party Java applications, to the extent specialized applications are even needed on the client side (vs. an intranet implemention).
6. For the odd Windows-only program needed, WINE.
With recent distros and versions of Mozilla and OpenOffice.org, I do not think it would be irresponsible for a large company or institution to try out an all-Linux deployment in the right environment.
The weakest link of the above-mentioned factors is the need to chase the MS Office file formats. OpenOffice and others have their own XML-based file formats. More widespread adoption of such formats (perhaps including establishment of common open formats for major document types) is crucial. (I am surprised that the U.S. Gov’t didnt focus on this more in their suit against MS.) This is something that perhaps can be addressed by instititions (especially MS competitors) with sufficient power using open formats internally and externally, and encouraging third-parties with whom they interact to do so. For instance, imagine the impact if the U.S. Gov’t or EU insisted that all internal and external communication be done using specified open formats — once MSOffice had to be able to import and export the open formats, things would really open up for competitors.
How all of the foregoing adds up to an “X% Linux market share in 200Y” is obviously unclear, but I think the process of Linux adoption is not going to be (i) decisions by Fortune 1000 IT directors to flip their entire infrastructure to Linux at once (Gartner’s view) or (ii) numerous individual end-user decisions to repartition their hard drives (which seems to be the model that many OSNews commenters are using).
Firstly, a question I have asked on here many times and never ever had an adequate response:
Windows has a standard Kernel for all PCs – why does Linux need a specially compiled kernel to run at its best?.. IE what in Microsofts “generic” kernel makes it run so much better than a Linux “generic” kernel?
Why doesnt Linux have a normal Driver model like Windows, or OSX – why the need to compile in support for some stuff when in windows you just load a 200kb-ish driver file?
Thirdly: Microsoft buying accounting companies:
As an accountant the reason for that is logical – Accountants dont need any fancy windows only stuff, they just need their main accounting app, banking software, and an office suite. I use SAP at work, which also runs on Linux, and Excel 97 .. which for the stuff I use it for could easily be replaced by KSpread or GNUmeric as well as OOo.
If my works PC had its copy of Windows 2000 Pro replaced by RH and OOo I’d just turn it on and keep working. Office PCs are a prime Linux target… so Microsoft wants to restrict the number of accounts apps that run under Linux by buying them and keeping them Windows only.
Lastly, someone commented that WINE needs a copy of Windows to be used to best effect.. True with the standard wine tree but ultimately , Codeweavers is proving there are other ways and this can only keep going. Running any app under emulation is imperfect but in the multigigahertz world, as long as it runs stably, who cares?
In one past job I used a DOS accounting system under DOS emulation in Windows NT.. that was bad. Times change though.
Moreover, if major software makers realise that a lot of their users are buying to use under Emulation it may convince them of a need for Linux products.
Linux has everything it needs to be a great desktop os, but it lacks standards, not just standards for installing software etc but application standards. Before linux can make even a dent in the desktop market there has to be:
– one offical widget set
– one offical desktop
– one offical set of configuration tools
windows and macs have theses things, linux doesnt. Linux is too flexible for its own good. The fact that we have KDE and gnome shows this, they are both great DE’s with excellent widget toolsets and applications, BUT WE NEED TO CHOSE ONE and only one to be the offical DE, there could still be the option for people to change there DE’s or whatever. This is not going to happen.
But i think linux will own the workstation and sever market in the next few years because it is on these platforms you need that flexibilty and where the users and knowlegable enough to handle it.
Linux has about 4,000 MORE applications available than Windows. I can do much more, in a more secure manner and much faster on Linux. When you say that Linux “lacks” applications, if you mean kiddy stuff like gaming and baby picture processing, then maybe you should stay with your TellyTubby OS. For serious computing NO-ONE, I mean NO-ONE, not even the US Gov used Windows. To sum it up, the reason that “most” people use Windows is that “most” people are semi-illiterate, unintelligent, uneducated slobs who believe Oprah is the summum of intellectualism and that AOL is the saviour of information.
Bascule: Yes, but Linux lacks any IPC facilities of performance levels necessary to build a decent window server on top of.
Actually, they do. Otherwise Fresco won’t exist. If there were more developers behind Fresco, it would be done. IPC is not the reason why there aren’t any developers behind a project to build something like Quartz.
Most people don’t care how efficient their window server is. As long it works, it works. Everyone except geeks that is.
—
On the article, 5% a failure? Wow. Besides, this is from Gartner, friends. How many fails predictions about Linux did they made?
Gartner’s still in business? LOL I thought the world has forgotten about them and their “enlightening” opinions, I know I have.
Matthew Gardiner: If IBM wanted to do somethine USEFUL, they should have ported all their Lotus software accross to Linux (Lotus Smartsuite and Lotus Notes)
Lotus Notes’ backend already have a Linux version. The desktop versions won’t sell, and IBM knows it. How many office suites on Linux did succeed financially? I can’t name any.
Matthew Gardiner: make a decision what desktop environment they were backing (SUN supports GNOME for example).
Why ever for? They couldn’t care less about desktops. Their interests in Linux is not for the desktop. It is for the servers, mainframes and recently PDAs.
Matthew Gardiner: Heck, even buy out Corel and pay for the porting of all their software to Linux. These are the types of things that are important.
I got a better idea! Buy out Microsoft and pay for the porting of all their software to Linux!
Seriously though, IBM isn’t here to follow a idealic way of life. They are here to make money. They are the same scumbag ever self-righteous geek on Usenet bashed during their landmark antitrust trial.
Porting Corel apps to Linux isn’t profitable. Heck, Corel even did a costly experiment with it, and to today, they still haven’t recovered fully.
Matthew Gardiner: These are the types of developments that would contribute to the growth of Linux.
These kinds of development may contribute to the growth of Linux, but doesn’t to IBM’s bottom line. Did you even think for a second that IBM investment was because they want to see Linux succeed? Heck no, they don’t care. As long they make money.
Matthew Gardiner: 3) If you compile you application to the LSB standard, you shouldn’t have any problems runing it on another distro.
Not everytime. There are many things LSB still doesn’t cover, like the placement of KDE and GNOME libraries. SuSE and Red Hat, both LSB-compliant, still doesn’t use the same directory. LSB is getting there, but isn’t there.
Plus, the chances of binary compatiblity between distributions without at least a recompile is quite unlikely. Which is the main reason why SuSE, SCO, Turbo and Conectiva wanted in on a standard distro base.
Matthew Gardiner: how can you explain why Microsoft has development kits with all their Windows versions?
To take advantage of newly included APIs. While not as faithful as Sun, Microsoft’s success relies on its binary compatiblity. If a new version of Windows breaks 25% of the apps, you can wave its business success good bye.
There may be some compatiblity problems (obviously), but they are never intentional (you could argue Corel’s case, but I don’t believe it for even a second).
Windows only makes sense in America. Microsoft is an American business and benefits other American businesses and works with the American government. Europe is not confined by these market limitations, European developers would be free to utterly ignore Microsoft’s schemes and develop their own applications, free of American stipulations. Europe’s information infrastructure would also not have to rely on the questionable trustworthiness of standardizing on Microsoft/American communications systems. Have you forgotten about Echelon so soon?
With Linux, you can develop your own systems and know exactly what is in them. With Microsoft, you don’t know if Donald Rumsfeld is hiding in your computer and waiting to incriminate you in some “terror” plot or steal your illegal Japanese tentacle pr0n.
It’s one of the things i miss most from other OS’s.
Every distro has its own scripts and config files.
Every distro has its own system config tools.
…
Standard as a mcd, not as mandatory.
Why i need to relearn that everytime i swith from one distro to another?
well, who cares? linux and bsd were doing fine with a marketshare with a tenth of the size of what it is today. stop thinking in terms of success == number of installations otherwise it will disappear. the nice thing about OSS is that there is no need to make a profit for continued development.
as for the nutcase comment earlier regarding OS X: hey, I used it for 1,5 years, finally concluded it’s crap, built a nice Shuttle SS51g and installed FreeBSD/Gnome2; nicer, faster, more usable and more productive while cheaper than OS X was.
Linux will fail on the desktop because it’s too slow and hard to use, not because lack of applications.
sounds like FUD to me…
First of all, the “home gamer” is not a “standard desktop user”, but is usually a fairly advanced user. I generally consider linux to be a poor option for this class of users as they want to do things they probably wont be able to do on linux. There will of course also be specialized users who cant use it because lack of software, but i do dare claim that they are niche users, even though they will probably claim not to be, but they are
But the less advanced users i cant see any problems with. They just need the few apps they are using, and thats it.
And now let me take your points one at a time.
1) I think this is a non issue. If you cant figure out how this works, then you probably dont need it anyway, and can get whatever you are trying to do done much easier in a different way.
2) You are probably right here, even though it is getting better.
3) It sure can, but this could be easily solved by only showing them /home per default. Thats all most of them would ever need to see anyway.
4) Congratulations, you just demonstrated that you dont know anything about the design of the kernrl
It loads almost all of its subsystems and drivers on dynamically. They will of course take up a little disk space, but they wont be loaded into memory unless they are used. And if you think kernel bloat is of concern to the average user, then you are a fool.
5) If she is using a decent distro then this will happen by clicking a few times with the mouse. And unless she actually need 3d acceleration then it isnt all that important that she upgrade. I could understand it if you were complaining about lack of drivers, which you werent, but instead you were rambling about a non issue.
6) Yes yes, but then they arent your average desktop person anymore. WineX already supports fairly many games, and unless they go out of business this will continue to increase.
7) So what? They can just choose a different license for their work. Or are you complaining that a company cant take a (L)GPL’d program or library and work a little on it and then turn it into a commercial product? Well, too bad, we are some who use the GPL of exactly that reason.
I’m sorry, but i think you are very far off base with your reasoning.
Da: fail in what way? if apple or microsoft fails it means bankruptcy, just like be failed. something which can not happen to an opensource project.
Most people don’t care how efficient their window server is. As long it works, it works. Everyone except geeks that is.
Actually i believe that most real geeks finds X to be just fine. I wouldn’t even consider switching to something else unless it got all of X’s features.
I have yet to see anyone coming with any GOOD arguments as to why X is bad. And don’t give me that crap about xlib being nasty to use, this is totally irrelevant to almost everyone as they would use a toolkit on top of it anyway.
No, most of those who complain about X are not geeks, they just like to sound like they are
one offical widget set
I have been waiting for that pseudo argument
Multiple widget set haven’t been a problem on other platforms, why should it be one on Linux?
Duh!
Poised for failure eh?That is hillarious. Im no power user..But i can say this, i can do ANYTHING.. on my mandrake system, that i did on my win9x system. Music(mp3,.ogg) Letters(openoffice),WebBrowsing(Mozilla) and email(Mozilla).Simple fact Gartner Group: That is all tha 80% of us do with our computer.Throw in some irc, or im functionality(XChat,gaim gabber,host of thousands)and youve gained a few more percent
All this from an OS that is…what..10 yrs old? Frankly I see Linux becoming ubiquitous. Its already happening in africa, and south america where the price of proprietary OS cant be justified. India, and china are promoting a ton of Linux desktop implimentations. Part of the prob with the figures is.. because its free, and because it can come from so many sources and distributions, no one knows for sure how many people are really using it. Believe me.. its just a matter of time before the “specialized” apps are out there. In fact , hasnt much of the computer animation field already migrated? I was under the impression that “Shrek” was done completely on linux workstations. Also ILM has migrated.Be patient Gartner, you will live to eat that story..
On most of people where I install computer, I put windows XP, for more on less only one reason. These people buy programs that won’t run on linux. For every apps included in a distribution, I know theses people can use them easily and could really work with them. I speak about newbie person that never configure their system, they generally use the sames apps during years and never do updates.
But, technically, next year, a linux distro could be a perfect windows compatible replacement for a minimal cost. I use crossover office and winex, when we see today their capacities, no doubt that 99% of common windows application will run next year, and 80% of games. Distro can even simulate autoboot of windows CD, launch autmatic install… Xandros, do already that, and other distro like Lindows or SuSE will probably follow.
When you can have a system windows compatible with a very similar desktop, an office suite, ton of included programs, for less than 100$ are you sure a massive migration will not happen ?
In any case, I hope Free Unix impose them not only because of their windows compatibility but because more and more apps (and games) will be ported on them.
5% in 2005 is not a disaster. 10% in 2006, how many in 2010 ? Popular open source (free software meaning) applications can’t loose against closed equivalent. But it can take time.
It is rather likely, that Microsoft will share the faith of Apple Computer. Windows originally emerged as the cheap alternative to then better Macs and later surpassed them altogether in usability, market share and -uh- everything.
But now Linux is emerging as the cheap (idealistically free) alternative to Microsoft products. Part of Microsoft’s image has been that it enables cheap solutions – and now that part of the image is moving over to Linux. Microsoft suddenly looks expensive, overpriced and even greedy.
Most of the companies that assemble consumer and business products will start moving over to Linux – that IS INEVITABLE and it has already started. They get Linux cheaper and they can put a cheaper solution on the market. Perhaps the quality is not the same as with Windows, but hey, it’s dirt cheap.
And then what, Microsoft?
Microsoft already labels lot of hardware on its own name – keyboards, mouses, XBox. As the competition get tighter, it may be that Microsoft finds itselfs in a situation where it just has to build the whole box, not only the OS inside. That would result in expensive all-Microsoft products which even more alienates former allies from its presence and makes them favor Linux. At the end, Apple and Microsoft can have a death match over whose 5% market share has a better looking user interface.
Linux really doesn’t have many applications that I can use to get work done. I was just browsing through my Applications directory in MacOS X and noticed that I have some serious applications that there simply are no reliable and featureful equivilents for on my RedHat 8 PC.
Dreamweaver
Illustrator
Photoshop
Final Cut Pro
DVD Studio Pro
Flash
InDesign
…etc.
So while I know I can use my RedHat box for a lot of things, there are still a LOT of things I can’t do with it. If all I ever did was browse the web, read e-mail, write a few documents, and listen to MP3’s then sure Linux is almost there.
The things I think need desperate attention for Linux desktop success is a new way to deal with Linux’s own version of DLL’hell. A mechanism like OS X’s Application Bundles would go a LOOOOOONG way with Linux. It would fix several problems at once, ease of software installation and removal, and reduce the amount of “clutter” by way of config files and libraries by including them in the Application bundle.
Some of the solutions to so many of Linux’s ills are staring developers right in the face, but they seem content not to do anything about them.
-Nathan
I am in general agreement that, if Linux really takes off on the desktop in the corporate world, it will be because the powers that be in companies will simple decide to use it, whether it is deemed to be “ready” or not. People start using it and that’s when the apps and utilities will start to emerge.
Microsoft has certainly passed Apple in many areas, but I don’t think usability is one of them. XP itself is very usable but, for the avaerage user, nothing can beat what comes with the Mac now – iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iCal iSync, etc. And .Mac extends some of these and has other services. Also, the integration of Mail and the Address Book is great now. You cannot get a computer and software that has that kind of tight integration of programs out of the box. I like XP, but MovieMaker and Media Player just don’t cut the mustard. Sony VAIO’s are about the closest PC equivalent to Apple. Speaking of Sony, I think Apple is going to come out with more and more hardware – digital hub type stuff. I think that’s where they’re headed.
This guy is just running his mouth. No one can predict where Linux will be in five years. Where was Linux five years ago and where was this guy. The only thing we do know is that Linux will continue to grow in importance and give us all what we really wanted – but may have forgotten …. a choice.
A friend has used photoshop 6 with crossover office (1.2). Crossover office officially support only few windows apps, but practically, a lot works, more or less.
I have no doubt about macromedia and adobe products working very well next year, that will probably boost the linux adoption.
“Was Dos “ready for the desktop” in the 1980’s? Was the original Mac ready? Neither could multitask. Dos didn’t have any GUI for a while. Did the original Mac come with hardware support for every periferal? did it come with Photoshop? Could either of them even be networked?”
*sigh* This argument is so lame, it doesn’t even deserve a response. Back about 50-60 years ago when a computer was big enough to fill a room and you fed it punch cards, was it ‘ready for the desktop?’ Did it have a GUI? Did it come with Photoshop? The point being is that back then, people didn’t have a choice and now they do, so your argument doesn’t work.
“While the definition of the desktop has changed, and Linux still has some shortfalls, I’m not sure you couldn’t live with it.”
I probably can’t but even if I could, why would I want to? As I’ve said numerous times before, I don’t care about your revolution.
“While it may not work for graphics artists, the majority of people I know aren’t graphics artists. … There are certainly other niches where Linux isn’t a possiblity yet”
So you say that it may not work for graphics artists and you don’t know many people who are graphics artists, and then go on to say that there are other niches where Linux isn’t a possibility yet. So, what exactly is your point?
“but one by one those products might have to get ported over it they wish to survive.”
That’s great! When this happens, give me a call. But until it does, here’s a quater .. call someone who cares.
KAOS
“Linux has about 4,000 MORE applications available than Windows.”
Yeah, let’s see …
* 300 command shells
* 200 console email programs and newsreaders
* 1000 emacs clones
* 700 scripting languages
* By the time you actually get to useful applications, you’re down to about 20
“I can do much more, in a more secure manner and much faster on Linux. When you say that Linux “lacks” applications, if you mean kiddy stuff like gaming and baby picture processing, then maybe you should stay with your TellyTubby OS.”
Oh boy … here we go. Typical zealot here, wouldn’t you say? Bring up just one area where his Godlike OS can’t cut it, and he resorts to insulting people who use their computer for things different than himself. Though I don’t personally do the stuff you mentioned above, I have friends who do. And I think I can speak on behalf of all of them when I tell you to go fuck yourself.
“For serious computing NO-ONE, I mean NO-ONE, not even the US Gov used Windows.”
Depends on what your defintion of ‘serious’ is. Believe it or not, people have different needs than you.
“To sum it up, the reason that “most” people use Windows is that “most” people are semi-illiterate, unintelligent, uneducated slobs who believe Oprah is the summum of intellectualism and that AOL is the saviour of information.”
Someone recently asked why Windows users felt the need to jump into these conversations – it’s because of dumbasses making unintelligent comments like the one above. Go and build and alter for your Linux box and worship it, you stupid sod.
naschbac
“Linux really doesn’t have many applications that I can use to get work done. I was just browsing through my Applications directory in MacOS X and noticed that I have some serious applications that there simply are no reliable and featureful equivilents for on my RedHat 8 PC.
Dreamweaver
Illustrator
Photoshop
Final Cut Pro
DVD Studio Pro
Flash
InDesign”
Glad you see my point, and let me add a few more to your list ..
CubaseSX
Reason
Basically anything by Native Instruments
Cool Edit Pro 2.0
Newsbin
Streets & Trips 2003
Trillian Pro (Gaim? Get real.)
Directory Opus
The list goes on …
“So while I know I can use my RedHat box for a lot of things, there are still a LOT of things I can’t do with it. If all I ever did was browse the web, read e-mail, write a few documents, and listen to MP3’s then sure Linux is almost there.”
To be honest with you, I don’t know anybody (even the most amateur users) who use their computer only for these purposes. There’s always the ‘kiddy stuff’ to contend with as well, but according to Kaos, these people are all unintelligent anyway, so I reckon we shouldn’t even count them as users in the first place, right Kaos?
you’ve got to decide for yourself what makes sense.
if using microsoft makes sense for you…use it.
if using linux or opensource software makes sense…then use it.
as someone who has managed plenty of microsoft environments, listening to gartner or aberdeen would have been suicidal.
those guys don’t know technology from a hole in the ground.
now that i’ve moved on to bsd…guess what? i’m still not listening to those losers.
using gartner or aberdeen is worse then paying someone to pick your stocks.
that’s interesting that you list applications as your major argument.
that’s really the only interesting thing you said.
except that it’s been repeated over and over like some kind of mantra.
you listed nearly $7000 worth of software.
are you familiar with it? like as in you actively use this software?
are you familiar with the BSA?
a plethora of software is only good if people can afford it.
i’ve met very few people who use those apps in their home that actually paid for them.
it will be deployed mostly on the 2nd PCs in multi-PC households. Why?
first: it will probably be deployed on mostly newly purchased PCs.
second: it lacks the most crucial app of them all, GAMES GAMES GAMES. Evidence? ~80% of all hardcore linux users that responded in the / questionarre do dual-boot to access their (Windows) games.
third: I suspect you’ll see lots of grandpas/grandmas buying Linux based systems from Lindows/Xandros as they are ultra cheap, have basic email/Internet access and quite easy to use.
Lindows/Xandros/Lycoris must really convice game publishers to write for Linux or pay Codeweavers to really improve WINE to allow near native performance/have much greater coverage of existing games/education sw titles.
Comments?
Windows has a standard Kernel for all PCs – why does Linux need a specially compiled kernel to run at its best?.. IE what in Microsofts “generic” kernel makes it run so much better than a Linux “generic” kernel?
Linux too has a standard kernel and you have no obligation to compile a new kernel (same thing for FreeBSD now). And MS’s generic kernel doen’t run better than a Linux generic one.
But yes, if for some reason you want to fine tune your machine, you may have to compile a kernel.
Adobe can port its main apps to Linux in no time, really. Mac OS X runs on Unix core, so for any software running on a modern Apple it is only a matter of vendor will and company policy to have it also run on Linux. You will soon see Adobe taking that step.
“Adobe can port its main apps to Linux in no time, really. Mac OS X runs on Unix core, so for any software running on a modern Apple it is only a matter of vendor will and company policy to have it also run on Linux. You will soon see Adobe taking that step.”
Just because MacOS X sits atop a BSD UNIX layer, or next to one really, that doesn’t mean that Adobe or any other major company can just port their software over so easily that it becomes just a matter of “company policy”, whatever that means. The Mac OS X Carbon API is not available on “UNIX”, and this is the API that the bulk of commercial Mac software is built with these days. Other than products from Omni and Stone Studio, I can’t think of any commercial products that are built using the Cocoa API currently. Which would be the only hope for a less difficult porting effort than to go from Carbon to Qt or GTK. One could concievably write software for both Cocoa and GNUstep with a pretty large amount of code sharing between the two. However for this to be a success current Mac OS X developers would have to move completely away from Carbon, and on to Cocoa. This isn’t likely to happen for several reasons. Codebase probably being the largest, and backward compatibility probably running in a close second.
Even if that did happen you’d have problems on the Linux side. Terrible font support, poor multi-res capability (as a web developer you switch resolutions frequently to test layout, and currently in Linux you generally have to reboot the X server to do that), the fact that hardly anyone uses GNUstep on Linux (I actually think they should be putting more effort into getting it running with Darwin), terrible color management, etc…
There are a LOT of things missing from current Linux systems and desktop environments that will have to become standard and consistent over a LONG period of time before a company like Adobe or Macromedia is going to deploy software on it.
-Nathan
“that’s interesting that you list applications as your major argument. that’s really the only interesting thing you said. except that it’s been repeated over and over like some kind of mantra.”
Of course it has, and maybe some day the Linux/OSS pundets will actually understand what it means. As I have already stated, without applications, what other use is there for computers? Do I want to buy a new computer every few years just to see how secure the newest operating systems are, or to brag to my friends that my ‘uptime’ is longer than theirs? Do I really want to sit around all day and compile kernels, and admire how elequent the OS is?
Some people rant about apps, others rant about security and freedom. Again, there’s not one side that’s better than the other – it just depends on what is most important/useful to you.
“you listed nearly $7000 worth of software.”
So, what’s your point? That this software is expensive? Well no shit, Sherlock! Do you have any idea how much it would cost to replace this software with hardware?
Where are the free/cheap alternatives that are FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVILANT?
“are you familiar with it? like as in you actively use this software?”
Yes, except for not all the Native Instruments stuff – just FM7, Pro52, and Absynth. I also know of many other apps that have no equivalents (many of them quite popular) that I don’t list because I don’t use them.
“are you familiar with the BSA?”
Yes, I am quite familiar with the BSA.
“a plethora of software is only good if people can afford it. i’ve met very few people who use those apps in their home that actually paid for them.”
Again, what’s your point? Give me free apps that are just as good as the ones I mentioned, and I’ll use those. I’m not here to pick sides, I just use what’s best for any given task.
third: I suspect you’ll see lots of grandpas/grandmas buying Linux based systems from Lindows/Xandros as they are ultra cheap, have basic email/Internet access and quite easy to use.
Why is there so much bashing of the elderly on this site and Slashdot? What makes you think someone a few years your senior is inherently a dumbass? Speak for your own relatives if you must, but it’s an unfair stereotype for the larger population.
Linux keeps getting better and more appropriate for the average desktop user. In five years, it might do a lot better than 5% of the corporate desktop because the world is clearly tiring of MS and linux is getting more and more support.
I think one should expect linux to grow linearly at a slow pace in the desktop at first (maybe the next 3 years) but at some point, you will see an exponential jump in the use of linux. the applications keep getting better and linux is starting to be considered more seriously by corporate IS managers.
Da: Linux will fail on the desktop because it’s too slow and hard to use, not because lack of applications.
Too slow? LOL! Always need laughter to start off you day, heh? Thanks man. (Linux isn’t even close to being slow, compared with Mac OS X and Windows. Besides, Windows started to dominate the market around the time when their product is slow and, well, hard to use).
But the less advanced users i cant see any problems with. They just need the few apps they are using, and thats it.
True, getting a less advanced user to switch to Linux is easy enough, but there is some problems to your concept
1) There aren’t all too many less advance users.
2) Most of them couldn’t be bothered about wasting their time moving to a alien platform.
6) Yes yes, but then they arent your average desktop person anymore. WineX already supports fairly many games, and unless they go out of business this will continue to increase.
Installing and using WineX isn’t for the “less advance user”. Which again makes me repeat my point, why the heck would anybody move to Linux if it just does the same old thing the same old way?
Troels: Actually i believe that most real geeks finds X to be just fine.
Some geeks would cry foul if Microsoft took out a couple of FPS in the next version of DirectX. Some geeks would start writing their last goodbyes and wills when they see a piece of graphic on a window not refreshed or a cursor skipping around.
Of course, there are some geeks that couldn’t care less. You are one of them.
Troels: I have yet to see anyone coming with any GOOD arguments as to why X is bad. And don’t give me that crap about xlib being nasty to use, this is totally irrelevant to almost everyone as they would use a toolkit on top of it anyway.
Specifically, yes, xlib is the problem. Yes, you have many toolkits over it, now that makes the problem. Do GTK+ and Qt and Motif apps look and work alike? Nope. if xlib has widgets of common stuff like buttons, radio buttons, etc., and toolkits actually map to it, you probably won’t see a general inconsistency you see now in X11 apps.
Another problem I have with it (X11, not XFree86) is that it is raster based (similar to Windows) rather vector based (like Quartz). You may say “So what?”, actually as resolutions keep increasing, and the same with hardware, it makes little difference, no? Wrong. Having a vector based window system would increase the performance of the hardware for other apps.
Kevin: Multiple widget set haven’t been a problem on other platforms, why should it be one on Linux?
Because it is a huge problem on Linux. With Windows, there is only one maker, one standards maker for the GUI. Sure there are apps that use their own widgets, but they are getting fewer and fewer. On Mac OS X, it isn’t a problem at all.
Okay, 4-10 years ago, stability was a problem on Mac OS and Windows, why should Linux fix that?
Daison: That is all tha 80% of us do with our computer.
Please tell me where you get that numbers? Most computer users happen to be at the office (specialized apps). Gamers also take up a bulk (speciallize apps). Then there are other small niches like video production and audio editing that also uses specialize apps. A small amount of the market goes to the category your describe earlier.
Daisan: Its already happening in africa, and south america where the price of proprietary OS cant be justified.
With Africa and its small number of internet users similar to the amount found in New York City plus huge political and economic problems, and South America with a volatile politcal scene, I don’t think Microsoft is all that worried. What worries it is growing markets like India and China.
Daisan: India, and china are promoting a ton of Linux desktop implimentations.
True, that’s why I say Linux would triumph in the end though matter what MS do.
Jay: XP itself is very usable but, for the avaerage user, nothing can beat what comes with the Mac now – iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iCal iSync, etc.
The guy said Windows is more usable than Mac OS. Don’t bring in applications that aren’t a part of the OS into the equation.
whatever: a plethora of software is only good if people can afford it.
People pay for it because they need it to make money. Specifically in the creative market, people don’t mind high prices for what the product actually does.
Bee: Windows has a standard Kernel for all PCs – why does Linux need a specially compiled kernel to run at its best?..
That “standard” kernel is no way standard. Different versions of Windows uses different kernels. Now here’s something new for you brain. Look at each distribution as its own product, now a Linux that has to be compatible with each and every other version of Linux.
Don’t they have a standard kernel for each release?
Bee: IE what in Microsofts “generic” kernel makes it run so much better than a Linux “generic” kernel?
It is in no way better than Linux kernel. It may be more pretty in design, but it isn’t as fast or as efficient as the Linux kernel.
naschbac: Terrible font support, poor multi-res capability (as a web developer you switch resolutions frequently to test layout, and currently in Linux you generally have to reboot the X server to do that), the fact that hardly anyone uses GNUstep on Linux (I actually think they should be putting more effort into getting it running with Darwin), terrible color management, etc…
Amazing NOW, none of these problems exist, heh? Font issue is fixed with FreeType 2 with XFT2, multi-res capablity is already into XFree86 CVS and would be able for public consumption by this year, with support by KDE and GNOME plus the fact you could spend some money buying a commercial server like Metro and Xi, GNUstep is no way used as much as Qt and GTK+ because it isn’t ready yet (and hardly anyone uses Darwin without OS X’s graphical layer), and terrible color management… since when was that a problem since 2 years ago?
Dreamweaver
Illustrator
Photoshop
Final Cut Pro
DVD Studio Pro
Flash
InDesign”
Glad you see my point, and let me add a few more to your list ..
CubaseSX
Reason
Basically anything by Native Instruments
Cool Edit Pro 2.0
I wouldn’t use any of those programs and I am sure a lot of other people fall into the same category. Not everyone is an artist.
Newsbin
Only certain people need this functionality. I have a friend that does this through bash scripting.
Streets & Trips 2003
Great program I’m sure if you live in the US which most of the world do not.
Trillian Pro (Gaim? Get real.)
I don’t see the difference but then I again I don’t use such products.
Directory Opus
X-Tree for Windows XP
Now finally you list something that could be useful that I don’t think is on Linux
The list goes on …
When you write such a list make sure you list things that other people actually use instead of stuff you use.
Things that I miss on Linux that I have seen lots of others use
Half-Life (Native-Port) Many gamers still play this and it sucks under wine compared to a native port.
MYOB, quicken or similar. Kapital is catching up here
No I don’t use them but many people do.
Current PC Game Titles
That crappy software you get with your scanner, camera etc to manage your photos. Not that I would use it but most people do.
Those bargain basement bin titles. Some exist for linux but A lot do not.
That I beleive is a better list
if Linux really gets that 5% market share, those applications will come.
StarOffice, CrossOver and WineX are proof that it is possible to place commercial Linux apps in the market (contrary to ‘GPL cancer’ FUD); a 5% market share might even make that profitable.
And the more users there are, the more opensourceware/shareware/freeware will be built.
There will even be a point where MS will have to port its Media player, and Apple its Quicktime, to protect their media formats’ market share.
Tell me, did StarOffice 6.0, WineX and CrossOver made any money on Linux?
a 5% market share might even make that profitable.
as in ‘profit=money’.
Think “Field of Dreams” (no, I’m no fan of Kevin Costner, but the quote is classic):
if you build it, they will come.
Fill in ‘five percent of desktops’ for ‘it’, and ‘financially viable commercial products’ for ‘they’.
With such a business plan, financiers will start drooling (as soon as they’ve forgotten the dotcom bubble).
MSFT has a 85 percent profit margin on Windoze (see Yahoo Finance). And this for a product line that blows dead goats! No wonder Gates likes to throw a few coins to African babies every now and then. Windows is probably bankrupting their governments!
“When you write such a list make sure you list things that other people actually use instead of stuff you use.”
Riiiiiiight, like I’m sure they continue updating these programs even though I’m the only one who uses them *pfffft*