Dan Gilmor writes for the Mercury News: “It looks like I’m going to have to reconsider something I’d been taking for granted — that Linux on the desktop, and especially the laptop, was a non-starter in the operating systems race. While I wasn’t paying sufficient attention, the proverbial tortoise has been playing some serious catch-up. One reason I’m rethinking this long-held conviction is in my lap. I’m writing this column on a nearly 4-year-old IBM ThinkPad, a computer that was a marvel of technology in its time but is now fairly old stuff. Linux has rejuvenated this machine.”
Linux on Desktop Gaining in OS Race
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
For me KDE seems to require more horsepower than windows does. Don’t even bother to reply to this and say “well blackbox is fast.”
Linux is not really much firther than it was, sure it may be further along technicially than it was, but the halo is gone and Linux will have to prove itself to be more than just “well, at least it isn’t microsoft”.
Jimbo,
I am wrtiting this reply on my PIII 800 mhz A21m (dvd/rw combo/ 30gb/512mb) laptop wich i bought from IBM. When i bought my laptop Windows 2000 was installed on it and i kept it but installed a new harddrive. I wanted to keep the windows 2000 system because i wanted to see what is so great or not so great about it. I agree with you that kde 3.0/3.1 with kernel 2.4 are slower then windows 2000 and feel bloated but men kernel 2.6 and kde 3.2 just is much more responsive then windows 2000.
I keep hearing that Windows XP is even more bloated than 2000 and tat windows 2003 needs even more horsepower so you should specify windows in your comment, wich version? compared to what?
was installed on it (3 years ago)
You must be trolling, right.
I always have had IBM thinkpads from a 500mhz until my latest
t41 i never ever had any pronlems with any linux distro so i guess you are full of it to. pitty.
One could say the same about Windows compared to the Mac OS, but why start another OS flamefest???? 😉
Personally, I think Linux has made a LOT of headway. The last time I used a Linux distro that was desktop-oriented was Mandrake 9.1. This was about 2 years ago, and everything bscially worked right out of the box. Browsing, e-mailing, docment creation, multimedia. No complaints here. Games used to be an issue, but that looks to be making a turnaround.
If in your mind Linux will never be superior to Windows, then don’t use Linux and keep using Windows. Hey, Longhorn is coming soon, right?? (I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.) In the meantime, I’ll keep using Linux, I thank you….
Hmm….Windows Reloaded….kind of sounds like it’s been here all along….when was the last time you Reloaded Windows?? 😉
I am using redhat normally but due to my deleting all my partitions to completely rearranging them and then noticing I borrowed my cd’s of RH9 as well as fedora cora 1 to someone I was stuck to some mandrake 10 CD’s… (disaster time after using redhat since 7.2 ont the desktop)
I use fedora core 1 on my 450 Mhz laptop with 64 Mb RAM, RH 9 on a 300 Mhz server with 32 MB RAM, RH 7.2 on a 166 Mhz server with 16 MB RAM and normally fedora but currently mandrake 10 on a P4 2.5 Ghz with 1.5 GB RAM.. and I cant complain about linux on the desktop.. I use the 300 Mhz machine for some desktop work every once in a while as well.. and I must say its all quite fast.. you just need to shut down services you dont need and maybe recompile the kernel and remove stuff you dont use to get just a bit more performance I just think it works fine.. only bad thing is gaming
but that is coming now 
so the way I see it its great and it prevented me of getting rid of all my old PC’s
Xandros might be cheaper than XP, but he’s fooling himself if he thinks KDE 3.2 or Gnome 2.6 are anymore lightweight than XP. In fact, the opposite is probably true. To be fair, KDE has made much progress in the optimizations area, but Gnome still suffers under a sluggish Gtk+. I haven’t tried Gtk+ 2.4, but I hear it’s not much better.
I totally agree. Open source has made immense progress. I use GNOME daily as a desktop at work, and I’ve actually become more comfortable with it than Windows in a lot of ways.
I still use windows at home though, for a variety of reasons. One is hardware support. The other is games I suppose. And the third is that Windows still *just works* compared to Linux in a lot of ways.
I think the next big step for GNOME is integration. Hardware needs to *just work*. I also think, and I’m sure 90% of the people here will dissagree, that Linux needs to be MUCH more binary driver freindly. The kernel driver API needs to be more stable for one. Also, distros and the upcoming desktop/hardware integration layer need to make it as easy for both users and manufacturers to use binary drivers.
Being a realist, it’s completely unrealistic to expect ALL the hardware manufactures to release GPL drivers. Also, I believe it’s unnessasary as most people dont’ WANT to go messing with driver code. I know I don’t.
It should be interesting to see what the next generation of desktops brings in terms of database integration as well as GPU powered desktops. Open source looks to be not too bad here as a number of interesting projects are on the way.
would it be possible for the companies to release some kind of mix of binary/source drivers? maybe have the .o files that still need to be linked so they don’t have to give the source for that part, but have whatever part works with the kernel as source?
NVIDIA already does that.
I also think, and I’m sure 90% of the people here will dissagree, that Linux needs to be MUCH more binary driver freindly. The kernel driver API needs to be more stable for one.
Judging from what Linus says, I think this is unlikely to happen. I guess they don’t want to be caught in their own legacy, like Microsoft is. I agree though that there needs to be stability if people want more drivers.
Being a realist, it’s completely unrealistic to expect ALL the hardware manufactures to release GPL drivers.
True. But I just wish they would open their hardware specs (bugs and all), or agree on some standards. Drivers are a pain, hardware is buggy and overcomplicated and pushed too early to market, almost as bad as software. How is that a foundation for the future?
Computer tech, in fact most things, does better in an environment where it can be considered carefully, like a University, or an open source environment. It’s a shame that hardware is still too expensive too make at home 🙁
How can it be that 4/5 news items is about Linux? is OSNews getting flaky about being objective? Especially since few of these articles bring up any new technical info but is more of the “hype” articles talking about how to _force_ people to switch from “evil” microsoft.
now that design is changed, can you please add a button that will automatically remove all Linuxrelated news?
Heh, buzzword of the moment I guess.
4 years old HP Omnibook 6000 with PIII-750 and 380 MB RAM doing just fine under Windows XP Pro, thank you very much.
Laptop came with Win2K, was upgraded to XP Pro.
Crashes? What crashes?
>Linux has rejuvenated this machine
Hardware specs, please. Without them, it is hard to treat the article as anything but hype.
“I think the next big step for GNOME is integration. Hardware needs to *just work*.”
Then I suggest getting the hardware manufacturers to cooperate. That’s why Windows and Apple “just work”. No magic involved.
“I also think, and I’m sure 90% of the people here will dissagree, that Linux needs to be MUCH more binary driver freindly.”
They disagree because they know that it will basically allow one group (binary drivers) to unduely influence another group (kernel guys). Also it makes debugging harder.(1)
“The kernel driver API needs to be more stable for one.”
Stable as in bug-free, or stable as in the “One” API? BTW Giving us programming info so we could write our own could alleviate the “secrets in the driver code” and “API’s constantly changing” issue.
“Also, distros and the upcoming desktop/hardware integration layer need to make it as easy for both users and manufacturers to use binary drivers. ”
See above and I agree with the kernel guys in that it’s not reasonable for them to bend over backwards for the other group that doesn’t want to play by the rules. Or to put it bluntly Our kernel, our rules.
(1) There’s other issues as well, DRM and other protective mechanisms as well.
I recently moved my brother from Windows 2K to Debian Unstable (installed via Knoppix CD). The machine in question is Via 800Mhz all in one Ezra mobo, 256 RAM, and an old HDD of mine. Believe it or not, but no matter what I did to it, Windows rebooted for no reason from time to time (about once a day, sometimes less often, sometimes more). Debian uptime is already 8.5 days and counting (I know, this isn’t much, but comared to what he had before…).
He is certainly fine when using KDE 3.2.1, Konqueror, Opera, sim and OpenOffice, despite being a Windows user before.
Meanwhile, I am sitting envious on my GNU/Win2K (Win2K with enough GNU stuff to make RMS ask for GNU prefix), and plotting a move back to Gentoo
.
— “How can it be that 4/5 news items is about Linux?”
Theres lots of Linux news lately, due probably to the new kernel and the many anouncments following it, which incites lots of articles in response. As Luke stated, its the buzzword of the moment. Now, how can it be that you didn’t notice the utter lack of linux news that came before?
It all comes in waves, not just the linux stuff.
Then I suggest getting the hardware manufacturers to cooperate. That’s why Windows and Apple “just work”. No magic involved.
This actually has nothing to do with it. There is plenty of hardware supported by the kernel that does not *just work*. There is a great lack of hardware -> desktop environment integration right now. I suppose you think projects like dbus and the one ximian/novel is working on are pointless?
They disagree because they know that it will basically allow one group (binary drivers) to unduely influence another group (kernel guys). Also it makes debugging harder.(1)
This is utter bull. Sorry to be blunt, but FreeBSD has had a stable driver API for a LONG time. It changed only with the 4.x to 5.x transition. In no way did this hinder development of FreeBSD, nor did the developers cater exclusivly to a bunch of corporation. The api does not have to be the same FOREVER, but it should also not change with every little bug/fix point release. In fact, in reality, you can load binary drivers made for other point releases on newer ones if you ignore the warnings. It’s just always a gamble thanks to the kernel people. They did this on purpose to discourage binary drivers. It has nothing to do with practicality.
See above and I agree with the kernel guys in that it’s not reasonable for them to bend over backwards for the other group that doesn’t want to play by the rules. Or to put it bluntly Our kernel, our rules.
Completly unrealistic. This is exactly the attitude that is holding Linux back. It’s the same attitude adopted by fundametalists who just refuse to compromise on a given issue. I’m sure all the corporations would simply respond to your statement with “Our hardware, our rules.” Does that get you anywhere? I don’t think so. And look at the current state of things. How many companies have actually decided to give in and give out all their source? Almost none. They either work around it or do not produce drivers for Linux. Your attitude is only hurting end users, not corporations.
I have been using Linux since Red hat 6 days and it has certainly come a long way since then. Mandrake 8 was first one that I started to use as Major Desktop for home. After that there has been no looking back.
But I would like to tell you that everytime I bought a new PC/Laptop there were driver problems. When I bought my first pc with intel 810 chipset, Redhat 6 had no support for it. When I bought my second machine, my sound card did not work. When I came to US for grad studies, at my office, my sound card did not work with Mandrake 9.1 and Redhat 9 and Suse 8.2.
Now that these things work with next release, I have laptop which has NVIDIA drivers which did not work out of the box(no probs with that) but then there is Centrino stuff that did now work(wireless card) and then when I purchased driver from Linuzant now there is another problem, even after recompiling kernel and ACPI on my suspend/hibernate etc does not work with Laptop(which is major thing for any laptop user I guess I can not carry batter everywhere)
So though I use linux more than Windows and just love it with kde 3.2.1 and also with XFCE and fluxbox but these are the points that force me to keep using windows at times. So I have found another way of using linux through VMWARE on windows. Unless Driver support is there for Linux, I doubt I would be ever be able to compeltely switch to Linux alone
> How can it be that 4/5 news items is about Linux?
I have already answered this here:
http://www.osnews.com/phorum/read.php?f=15&i=94&t=94#reply_94
Is fun to see that Linux can rejuvenate a computer, but is this the only selling point of Linux? I’ve seen many post saying how good Linux is on old hardware compared to Windows XP…. It’s cool, but it’s not enough!
What about new/very new hardware? Linux on the desktop will require more mature drivers from the hardware makers. Right now, Windows XP support just about anything and everybody has a driver for it. It’s not the same thing with Linux.
Gaming on Linux, with OpenGL? Once again, MS did a nice job with DirectX API… Linux will need something like that.
That’s my .02 cent. Flame me.
You should also take into account the other side of the situation. You can’t just accept all the terms corporations want to push on us. We have to push back too. Linux isn’t just an opportunity to make yet another competitor to Microsoft. Its an opportunity to change the computer industry as it is today, and change some of the things about the computer industry that has allowed the Wintel regime to happen in the first place.
For example, because of the GPL, we haven’t compromised in that (because we cannot), and as a result, a lot of things have become open that we wouldn’t have expected. The lack of a stable binary driver API has caused a lot of open drivers and specifications to come out. Take, for example, Intel’s new Centrino driver.
Open drivers and open specs *are* better than closed drivers, all else being equal. They run on more platforms, are possible to fix in a pinch, easier to adapt to new situations, easier to adapt to new OSs, etc. Manufacturers realize that for nearly all hardware, there is nothing in the specs or drivers that nobody’s seen before. Thus, opening specs or drivers makes a lot of sense for manufacturers.
For big-ticket items like graphics cards, where the drivers or specs do contain competitively-sensitive information, the current balancing act of closed drivers and open interface layers is a pretty good compromise.
Gaming on Linux, with OpenGL? Once again, MS did a nice job with DirectX API… Linux will need something like that.
What’s wrong with OpenGL? Certainly, the guys at id don’t seem to mind it
For the rest of DirectX: OpenAL for 3D audio, and SDL for everything else.
“Gaming on Linux, with OpenGL? Once again, MS did a nice job with DirectX API… Linux will need something like that.”
The game developers I respect (mostly John Carmack) say that DirectX is a pain to program with and they prefer OpenGL. But OpenGL only provides graphics, what about sound/input? This is where SDL comes in. SDL was started by Loki Games and is still maintained by Sam Latinga. It is cross platform, easy to use and intuitive. You can check it out at http://www.libsdl.org
You make some good points. In many cases drivers don’t contain sensitive information and it is good to encourage open drivers. However, there are cases, as you point out, where drivers do contain senstive information. I doubt open drivers for these hardware devices will ever be released.
I guess I just think that it’s more important to get open source based operating systems more market share. I don’t think that the few open drivers that are released is really worth the price of hindering desktop adoption. If Linux became even 50/50 on the desktop with Microsoft, who’s to say that a lot of companies would want to integrate their drivers into the kernel for this reason?
I fear that this open/closed driver issue will end up being a major sticking point to really getting Linux on the mainstream desktop. And in part, I also feel it’s unfair to make it hard for companies who dont’ want to release driver code as some of these companies have legitamet concerns.
My idea of a free and open operating system/desktop system is that it provides equal opportunity to both open and closed systems (ie everyone). I’d sooner open source become popular with hardware makers due to it’s strengths, not due to the hardware vendors being pushed into it. Pushing people around is the problem with Microsoft, I don’t want a potential replacement to push in the other direction.
“Is fun to see that Linux can rejuvenate a computer, but is this the only selling point of Linux? I’ve seen many post saying how good Linux is on old hardware compared to Windows XP…. It’s cool, but it’s not enough! ”
I run it on an 1800+ w/512RAM and another guy earlier on a 2.5GHz P4. I’ve seen it on G4’s and I think even a G5. My school runs RedHat on a dual Xeon 2.5 for CS students to ssh into and do homework (compile homework programs). I know with a KT800 chipset you can run an Athlon64 quite well, and I believe there are supported chipsets for opteron too. So to be quite frank, do you ever look around or do you just read OS news? It’s running on some new PDA’s too, also routers and other devices like TiVo.
I also run Linux on a 224Cyrix w/128MB of RAM; I use it as a desktop occasionally (but mostly not since it’s my slowest computer, it’s for testing distributions out).
I don’t know why anyone things 2.4 is “sluggish”, I still use it and it seems quite fast to me, and I use KDE 3.2.1. Gnome is hardly sluggish on my 700 cele laptop, and yes it’s a 2.4 kernel too. I formerly ran fluxbox on it, and Gnome is a little slower on some things (minimizing mostly). I had run Windows 98 on the same laptop, for about two days. It ran pretty well, but I just can’t find software for Windows sometimes. I know that sounds odd, but there’s a lot of Linux software that I really like:
epiphany, kaffeine (xine), evolution, gqview, drivel, anjuta, GCC!!!!!! I’m sure some have Windows ports, but I know some don’t.
I am really excited about the Novell and SuSE linux connection, this is going to help establish Linux as a major player on the desktop.
I think its important to remember that there is a balance that must be struck. As for pushing open source, I view that as a pragmatic thing, not an ideological one. Linus once said something very astute. It was along the lines of: “if Linux ever gets marketshare comparable to Microsoft, it’ll be equally sick.” He’s very right. I see open source as a way to dismantle some of the things I think have made it possible for the Microsoft monopoly to exist in the first place. If Microsoft didn’t have its proprietory API, we wouldn’t have a situation where people have to choose their OS based on application support. Linux’s open and open source APIs prevent that from ever becoming a possibility again. If Microsoft didn’t have proprietory drivers, we wouldn’t have a situation where people have to choose their OS based on driver support. Linux’s encouraging the proliferation of open drivers and specs is a way to prevent that from ever happening again.
…why hasn’t Linux made something like Windows Device Manager, where it lists all the hardware in format that lets you add/delete devices, manually set IO/IRQ and well as update/rollback drivers? Lothar/HardDrake and KMagiConf/DControl looked promising at one point.
The game developers I respect (mostly John Carmack) say that DirectX is a pain to program with and they prefer OpenGL.
That was a long time ago and DirectX doesn’t look the same anymore. It’s much easier nowadays.
What’s wrong with the solution Nvidia provides for Linux? It works well, better than Windows on same games and hardware, and is relatively easy to install provided you have kernel sources installed with your distribution.
It allows for good quality drivers that protect their trade secrets in a hotly contested hardware market. As for sound drivers both OSS and ASLA have provided me with drivers for my Semi Pro Audio equipment, Hoontech DSP24 C-Port, with which, Windows users are still waiting for. Bloody travesty if you ask me. Things work under Linux and the sound architecture is miles ahead of Windows, just ask any SB Live and above user or Audio Pro.
Kernel 2.6
Gnome 2.6
AL i686 distribution
AMD K7 2000+ MPU
Nvidia Ti4400
Hoontech DSP24 C-Port
and all is fine. WinXP, Crash, crash, crash. Pierce of crap software! (and I administer Windows based Graphics workstations in a Graphic Design environment so don’t try to tell me it’s me).
I recently got a hold of a old Dell notebook; its a 500 mhz Pentium III with 128 mb ram and a 6 gb hard drive. Installed clusterKnoppix on it and it detected everything. Runs fine. Can’t play 3d games, but then again its a notebook
You see, there was a time when DirectX both sucks *and* was a pain to develop with. Those were the days when people called D3D a API for building toys, while OpenGL was an API for building real 3D apps. These days, its actually quite good (powerful, fast, etc), but its still a pain to develop with. The API, like most Microsoft APIs, is fundementally complex and irritatingly verbose to use.
I can’t copy paste from Mozilla 1.6 into Kdevelop 3 which is really annoying when hunting for code samples. My printer said I wasn’t authorized to use it but only for two days. Harddrake hangs on startup repeatedly. Double clicking a file doesn’t always open it in the foreground.
That said, I’m still using Linux but most still don’t have the time or patience to spend on making things work. Where are the UI standards??? I’m going to spend a few $ on SUSE 9.1 simply because I have a glimmer of hope that they’ll make things play nice together.
Trust me. I have to read his drivel everyday in the local paper. I can’t believe his stuff gets published. He has proven, again and again, his inability to understand things of a technical nature.
> add/delete devices, manually set IO/IRQ and well as update/rollback drivers
The only sane reason for exposing the irq settings was when interrupts were assigned by the BIOS and there were multiple ISA cards. You would have to juggle cards in slots or some such if there were conflicts. Also, older interrupt controllers could not assign more than 16 irqs. Newer mobo’s have an IOAPIC that removes that limitation. If you have any problems with hardware devices not receiving interrupts, that’s a bug and should be reported. But in general you shouldn’t have to fiddle with irqs.
The kernel will assign io ports correctly.
All drivers are bundled with the kernel. If a driver has a bug in a newer kernel but not in an older one, that’s a regression and should be reported. The ‘rollback’ is to boot the last known good kernel. You never have to manually install a driver from a vendor CD or whatever. Binary-only drivers are a different issue…version hell awaits.
Project Utopia is working towards making new hardware discovery automatic. No need to ‘add new hardware’, the kernel plus userspace (HAL, DBUS) will DTRT. Not sure why you would want to ‘delete hardware’, though.
Although my main partition is debian, m$ sent me a winxp cd recently so I have it installed on my old w2k partition. I have to say it was suprised by the performance improvement and how well the drivers worked. Been using debian on this machine for 5 years.
—
thinkpad 600e (3xx MHz, 19xMB RAM)
winxp sp1 and debian/sid
>Or to put it bluntly Our kernel, our rules.
Well, you know it’s not like they (the companies making graphic cards) want anything from us in this case, it’s more like you guys asking them to write drivers for Linux.
Dammit many won’t even write drivers for the Mac and believe me, that share of the market is more likely to shell out some money for that than most of our Linux friends.
So, I guess their answer is: “Your Kernel, your rules? Well then, put it where the sun don’t shine because these are our drivers and we won’t GPL them”.
“I can’t copy paste from Mozilla 1.6 into Kdevelop 3 which is really annoying when hunting for code samples.”
Details, details. And C&P is usually highlight text, CTRL+C, CTRL+P, done.
“My printer said I wasn’t authorized to use it but only for two days.”
Interesting, details please.
“Harddrake hangs on startup repeatedly.”
Well Hardrake is a GUI, but for the “why?”, we need some more info.
“Double clicking a file doesn’t always open it in the foreground.”
What WM and Distro?
“That said, I’m still using Linux but most still don’t have the time or patience to spend on making things work. Where are the UI standards???”
Well you have a GUI for the majority of the above, and to be fair other OSes can sometimes have hardware and/or software issues. UI’s aren’t always going to help.
“I’m going to spend a few $ on SUSE 9.1 simply because I have a glimmer of hope that they’ll make things play nice together.”
Or you could download a Knoppix CD, see if it get’s evrything working. Chances are if Knoppix can get it to work, the other distro’s can (although it may not always be “out of the box”)
Just remember this isn’t the commercial world. There is help out there, but you have to avail yourself of it.
“So, I guess their answer is: “Your Kernel, your rules? Well then, put it where the sun don’t shine because these are our drivers and we won’t GPL them”.”
Well if we’re going to continue along that vein? How about? This is our money, we’ll spend it on your competition. Take your card someplace else.
Remember drivers are a means to an end, and that end is to sell hardware to make money, so the CEO can drive a nice car this year. Kind of hard to do that with your customers not buying your product.
Part of the reason Nvidia and ATI are writing drivers is because one, the big boys are asking for them, and two Linux is a virgin market relatively speaking. Oh and for the part people missed. Nvidia doesn’t provide any info so we can write our own, and ATI use to, but they don’t for the latter cards. The words precedent setting comes to mind.
Nice to see you understand the problem with it Eugenia.
However, like you said yourself, why not skip reporting on all betas and RCs as they come around so often that you almost suspect they only release something to get media attention. Why support that anyway???? Support solid software instead.
At least I’m glad you skip most small news items, still we got to see “PCLinuxOS” a distro I can’t believe anyone really cares about at all… (how many users can they have? 50?).
The way I see it to get balance and a better website, howabout
a) Skip reports on betas and rcs and stick to solid releases?
b) Put in some filter to remove all Linux news so us people who don’t want to see the everyday rant about Linux this and that can miss out on it… I bet it’s more people than you can imagine..
linux in my opinion was horrible on the desktop until 2.6 came out. now its a strong competitor. It just needs those windows games and macromedia flash dev. software!
“still we got to see “PCLinuxOS” a distro I can’t believe anyone really cares about at all… (how many users can they have? 50?)”
PCLinuxOS is a very good distro that really deserves some praise. And it’s got more than 50 users, for the matter… and no one forced you to read the review.
“a) Skip reports on betas and rcs and stick to solid releases?”
I didn’t see anyone complaining about Longhorn news, and many times they don’t even qualify as beta.
b) Put in some filter to remove all Linux news so us people who don’t want to see the everyday rant about Linux this and that can miss out on it… I bet it’s more people than you can imagine..
Well, again, the same goes for those Longhorn vaporware news. I don’t want to see some rants about that incredible, amazingly superior technology that will catalize 17 revolutions in a row in OS land. And they come in groups! Indigo, WinFS, XAML, Avalon, Yukon… now, talk about stealing frontpage space.
I still think your filter idea is really good. Not just to block Linux news, as you suggest, but furthermore, to allow everybody to customize the themes and subjects they want to see.
I still think your filter idea is really good. Not just to block Linux news, as you suggest, but furthermore, to allow everybody to customize the themes and subjects they want to see.
Well agreed… filtering away newsitems sounds good… can it be done?
I guess that would also means comment section would keep away a lot of flamebait as people could just ignore those news that makes them outragoues… like you don’t like MS news and I certainly don’t like Linux news…
I guess some don’t like BSD news neither nor SkyOS news or maybe no proprietary news at all…
Eugenia, what you think?
Well, blackbox is really fast.
“I think the next big step for GNOME is integration. Hardware needs to *just work*.”
I agree. There’s currently work done on this with Linux kernel 2.6, Udev, HAL and GNOME.
KDE could also implement this.
Udev site i don’t know so fast. Google for it.
HAL is on freedesktop.org
The GNOME part is called Project Utopia, by Robert Love.L
Since you dont know much about Thinkpads, this may help.
The 760XL was the most ‘reliable’ of them. It had Red Hat 6.0 installed, it gave much trouble trying to run Dos based apps. It was prone to crashing in it’s Dock II.
http://www.grnet.com/sc/linux/tp760xl/
The 770z refused to go past ‘selecting apps to install’. Mandrake 7.x. I must add here that I called Mandrake’s tech support after many frustrating hours of attempting to install it…once they found out I was using a 770z Thinkpad they told me to return the product for a full refund !!
http://anarchysoftware.com/system/thinkpad770z/redhat6.html
The 600x was the ‘crashamatic’. It has a PIII 650 Mhz cpu. I tried both Lindows and SuSe 8. When it was booted while in the Selectabase Dock it would crash as soon as a connection with my home network was established !! When it was out of the dock it would crash whenever it saw fit.
http://www.samiam.org/linux/600x.html
In no case was a PCMCIA wireless card (SMC) useable in any of these setups. I have to have this type of access in my real job. It was very rare for any of my laptops running Win98SE to crash. The 600x ran Win2K Pro for 2+ years before it crashed (its only time too) and that was due to the heavy RF near the laptop.
Just not being microsoft is more than enough to justify my usage.
“Didn’t you know that communism is a totalitarian ideology?”
uh, don’t want to start a debate about communism, but it certainly does not have a totalitarian ideology… you are mixing up some terms here…
regards,
marillchen
I would love to see Linux and Microsoft in a major battle over the desktop. This would to lead to great innovations in the computer community and would lead to more competitive prices. The consumer would the winner if their is major competition on the desktop front.
recently i was bored (which happens often) and decided to install debian on a second partition on my new sony vaio (i love sony). i’m a veteran of debian and Linux in general, i was going to install debian becasue i’m quite fond of apt, however recently i’ve been using freebsd (which i also love) on my desktops, mainly because of its stability and it’s nature to be consistent (unlike linux, which is highly inconsistent even between releases of distribution). well maybe i’m just getting old or something but after about 30 minutes of fiddling with getting my usb mouse to work, i finally got pissed off and installed freebsd instead because it was literally easier to deal with freebsd. so i guess what i’m trying to say here is, certainly linux has come a long way in the past few years on the desktop, but no one ever really looks at freebsd closely, in fact i feel that freebsd is easier to install on a desktop system. I may in fact write an article to this affect exclaiming why someone would want to use a BSD on the desktop instead of Linux.
Don’t take this the wrong way, i love Debian, but I’m also a lazy bastard.
peace
The font was bigger so I could of read it.
> The font was bigger so I could of read it.
That’s why in firefox you can use ctrl + and ctrl – to adjust the font size
eugenia, please don’t stop reporting on distro betas – the point of betas is to get testing, and for testing you need testers, and for testers you need people to know about the betas, so news sites like this are vital. sure you may only be interested in final releases because they’re stable, but they don’t get to be stable if no-one tests the betas
i agree that some sort of filtering system would be a great idea, though.
“… but no one ever really looks at freebsd closely, in fact i feel that freebsd is easier to install on a desktop system. I may in fact write an article to this affect exclaiming why someone would want to use a BSD on the desktop instead of Linux.”
FreeBSD has won me over too. It’s easy to deal with, proving that being source-based doesn’t mean being hard to setup.
However, there are more native drivers for linux, and things tend to take longer to get ported to FreeBSD. This may be a big issue for some people thinking about using FreeBSD on the desktop. But yes, you can use the linux binary compatibility layer – which is very fast.