After five years in development, the time is right for the company’s Linux (corporate) desktop software to take on Microsoft, its boss tells Stephen Pritchard of Independent.co.uk.
Could Red Hat Mean Curtains for Windows?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Nope, because its the same promises we’ve been hearing without producing any results. How many times have I heard “this is the year of the linux desktop”? Over and over again. But Linux isn’t without its share of faults. You need to be able to set background colors and pictures, install goofy little date and time managers, and a few other things end users like to download. You have to offer more than just “its Linux and its free!” You need to give companies what they want for them to maintain a business.
Quote:
“You need to be able to set background colors and pictures, install goofy little date and time managers, and a few other things end users like to download.”
You can do that on any Linux distribution.
Common people, be realistic here! Linux has been playing catch up for a long time, and it will always do so, because there isn’t enough money in open source to take on Microsoft. Windows XP > OS X > Suse 9.1. You people have talked about Linux being better than Windows, and this is the year when Linux takes on Windows for so many years that It has god real boring. The same thing has been said about 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000…
Game over!
I have placed my money(and more) on Mandrake,but there sure is a market share for them too I hope.
The year of Linux, will come, but when it will come no-one can tell. Most computer journalists want sensation in their articles, so that more people read it. “This is the year of linux, because I, editor joe, say so”… It’s what the big guys say what counts, not some stupid editor… and besides, linux in general is about users not about businesses. At least, that is what I like to believe
… Linux has come a longgggg way, but still has a longgggg way to go….
No, not by themselves. What means “Curtains for Windows” and Microsoft is the combined efforts of RedHat, Suse, Novell, IBM, SGI, CA, MySQL, PostGreSQL, Apache, Xandros, Wine, OpenOffice, Sun, HP, Lycoris, Lindows/Linspire, Zope, PHP, OSDL, AMD, Sony, Hitachi, Conectiva, on and on and on and on and on………………….
Microsoft is a big and powerful company but the entire rest of the industry is turning against them. You can only fight the tide for so long.
It depends what desktop you are talking about. For the home desktop, linux isn’t ready yet, and Redhat knows it. That is why Redhat stopped thier RHL product.
If you are talking about the consumer an cooperate desktop, then I think linux is becoming a good sucess there. Due to the better support, easier lockdown, free tools (office, email, etc…), mostly compatible with windows (samba, import/export of ofice documents) which is helpful for a slow and partial upgrade, and so forth.
With regards to the home desktop, I say give another 5-10 years…
I’m kind of concerned about RedHat pushing Linux on the desktop even if it is only to corporations. I’ve used Redhat since version 6.2, and I currently have Fedora Core 2 test 2 installed on a system. I own a copy of Suse 9, and I have used Xandros Business desktop, and found both far more superior to Redhat/Fedora. Seeing that Redhat has the largest market base I’m concerned people will look at it and think linux is not ready. Xandros, and Suse in my opinion is almost as easy as using Windows ( They see Windows shares with ease; they authenticate against Active Directory easily). Yes Fedora/Redat can do all these things, but it’s not nearly as easy.
I don’t beLIEve redhat has any tools to simplify configuration like Xandros or Suse, and I fear people will see this as Linux not being ready (because most users think Redhat is Linux because that’s all they know). We need to remember that most Windows admins/support are used to using 90% GUI for admin tasks, and my experience is that RedHat’s admin tools just don’t work as well as they should.
Is Redhat/Fedora ready for the corporate desktop? My opinion – No. Is Suse or Xandros — Hell yes!
They want their headline back.
The same things that prevented Linux from desktop space back then are the very same things preventing Linux today. These are not bugs either, they are “features” and there are no immediate or future plans to make changes to what Linux is.
RedHat isn’t going to take over the desktop anymore. They chose to follow the profit pathway instead of the free popular one.
Every test of Fedora Core 2 just made me angry. I am not at a position to recommend RedHat to anyone, but I respect those that support RedHat.
Linux itself may not be original: it dates back to the 1970s.
What?
What?
Unix-like operating system. Read much?
It would be really nice if the author of this article could have done his software history homework. UNIX dates back to 1969 linux has only been around since 1991.
It depends what desktop you are talking about. For the home desktop, linux isn’t ready yet, and Redhat knows it. That is why Redhat stopped thier RHL product.
Redhat is just focusing on the more profitable server market. They still support the home market through Fedora. Redhat hosts the Fedora site and their employees contribute most of the improvements to the project.
I just installed Fedora Core 2 Test 3 for the AMD64. After a few days trying things, I’d say it’s ready for the average person. A few applications might be missing (from Linux in general), but that’s no reason to say Linux isn’t ready for the home market. Saying that tells companies not to work on Linux versions of their aps.
“Sorry, Linux isn’t ready for the market. Didn’t you read the comments on OSNews?”
People need to get out of the mindset that “ready for the home market” means that every single program for Windows is available for Linux. Ready for the home market means that the system is stable, full featured, and (relatively) easy to use. Fedora Core meets all those handily. The anaconda installer used by Fedora Core is easier than any Windows installer yet shipped by MS. The install is also faster, and the help messages more informational than in the MS installer. I can’t see anyone complaining about the installation anymore. Linux has surpassed MS on ease of installation.
The default Gnome desktop setup works nicely. Again, I don’t see any reason a Windows user would fault it. The only fault you could possibly find would be that some specific program you normally run was missing because it’s not got a Linux version out. Again, that has nothing to do with being ready for the home market.
Just curious: Why did every test of Fedora Core 2 make you angry?
Were the issues related to the use of beta software or was there something more…technical…that concerned you?
Take a look at this link:
http://kanotix.mipooh.net/viewtopic.php?t=839
That’s me BTW.
Unix-like operating system. Read much?
Linux was started in 1991, and the GNU tools came about in the 1980s. They look like Unix in many ways (best way of doing things and the best features) but they are not Unix. Seems like some people don’t read.
I suppose VMS is NT then. Oh wait….
Not even in one year. The years of linux started back in 98-99 along with the big hype. Linux has grown a lot since then and will continue to grow. It has been ready for the server for a long time and it is allready ready for the desktop.
The Win9x line was less ready for the desktop than what linux is today, still they were propably the most used OSs ever.
It will take a long time for Windows to shrink away from it’s monopoly status, but unless they threathen to blow up the planet it will happend. They won’t go away for a long time, but they will shrink.
but not within only a year. As was stated in other comments, it takes time for things to happen. I use both Linux and Windows myself, as some things just don’t work properly on Linux yet as they are not native. My example as always is games. Some game companies are helping things out by releasing Linux binaries, such as Id Software, BioWare, and Epic. Others refuse to release binaries, an d not all games work with WineX. Once the entertainment comes, then it will be viable for the Home/Consumer market. As for the Corporate desktop, it is definitely more then ready for some applications, but it is not yet ready for the “Personal Assistant”, CEO, Lawyer and Marketing types who require full multimedia capabilities. Now Linux can do this, but not fully and legally as of yet. Given more time it very well could happen, but not within this year. First the companies that write and control the software need to get on board and write DVD software for example.
I don’t know if linux / windows or apple mac osX is better… I think it depends on user…
The more important point I see here is the debate : Can we just sell softwares, or we have to give softwares then sell services ?
I really don’t know.
I’m using linux for everything but games… I don’t know how magicaly linux become so great (kde 3.2.2, kernel 2.6.5, fdo xserver).
My old laptop really rox with these softwares, like osX.
I just don’t know if it is bad or good to support any of the systems (open/closed).
I don’t know if open and closed softwares can live together…
(????)
I’m a gamer, games are on ms windows, I d’ont have choice.
sometimes I regret the time where atari800 was alive, then cpcs, amiga …
Is a world better than another ? who knows…
> Microsoft is a big and powerful company but the entire rest
> of the industry is turning against them.
Nice but not true… hardware vendors are the main force keeping windows alive, since for cost reasons they ship windows-only drivers.
Of course, Red Hat is choosing profit. They’re a business, not a religion. The “free and open” stuff doesn’t mean squat to business people.
Businesses aren’t anymore enthralled about their IT services than their shipping services. They need both to support their business needs. They want to pay someone else to worry about IT, shipping, etc., so they can get on with their business. If Red Hat demonstrates it can meet corporate IT needs at a lower cost the Windows, it’s got a good chance.
Will it take over the corporate desktop market? No, but it isn’t trying to do that. It’s trying to sell more copies of Red Hat.
So, you’re mad at Fedora because it can’t deal with mp3’s? Red Hat is interested in the corporate market right now. That market has no interest in letting it’s employees waste time playing mp3’s. Besides, Red Hat has a lot to lose if they would be sued over MP3’s.
The setup defaults to DHCP. All you need to do is click “Yes” and move on.
RedHat won’t last. Open source projects like CentOS and Whitebox Enterprise Linux will steal marketshare away from RHEL
A few applications might be missing (from Linux in general), but that’s no reason to say Linux isn’t ready for the home market.
Why not, considering that applications are the most important piece of the puzzle. People will put up with a shitty OS if it has all the apps they want to run … this is the reason why a lot of us are still using Windows
Saying that tells companies not to work on Linux versions of their aps.
So what, we should like to them?
People need to get out of the mindset that “ready for the home market” means that every single program for Windows is available for Linux.
Certainly not every single application, but at the very least all the applications that they want to use. For example, if Grandma wants to use above all others, application x, and that’s not available for Linux, then Linux just became a completely useless operating system even with its (real or perceived) technical superiority.
It just boggles my mind how some people just don’t think applications are really that important, considering they are the sole reason why we use applications, or at least most of us anyway … some people just like to grab a bottle of KY Plus and whack off fiercely while staring at their uptime statistics.
[i]Ready for the home market means that the system is stable, full featured, and (relatively) easy to use.[i]
You just don’t get it do you?
> Microsoft is a big and powerful company but the entire
> rest of the industry is turning against them.
“Nice but not true… hardware vendors are the main force keeping windows alive, since for cost reasons they ship windows-only drivers.”
And as more companies add support for Linux those same hardware companies you are saying currently “ship windows-only” drivers for cost reasons will begin to add Linux support…..for profit reasons.
And as more companies add support for Linux those same hardware companies you are saying currently “ship windows-only” drivers for cost reasons will begin to add Linux support…..for profit reasons.
I think you will see more and more hardware vendors releasing the technical specs for their devices so that the Linux community can write drivers instead of doing it themselves.
Afterall, if I am a hardware vendor, why the hell should I go through all the trouble and expense of creating a Linux driver, when there are plenty of hackers out there who would be willing to do it for free?
Never argue with a fool — people might not be able to tell the difference.
It just boggles my mind how some people just don’t think applications are really that important,
They are. But it’s not that important to have every single application Windows has. Neither do Windows need every single linux-app.
And one thing that linux doesn’t need to be is Windows.
What’s the point in having choices if all the choices gives me exactly the same thing?
We are all different, and we all have different needs. That why I choose a SonyEricson phone over a Siemens, even though Siemens makes great phones, but they don’t have support for SyncML and that’s important to me, to a lot of others it’s not. It’s great to have a choice.
There are different ways of doing things you know, and both can be right, just that they are different.
To me, Linux is more usable than Windows, to you it’s obviously not but open standards will allow us to work together even if we choose different solutions.. oh wait..
Just curious about this, nothing else intended:
Quote:
“Afterall, if I am a hardware vendor, why the hell should I go through all the trouble and expense of creating a Linux driver, when there are plenty of hackers out there who would be willing to do it for free?”
Would you be willing to sell the hardware for less money to linux users? As I understand it, some part of the price of the hardware is the development costs of the developers? So, if that’s true, it wouldn’t be fair to linux users if they pay for the development costs for windows drivers.
I agree totally. I noticed that IBM has released IBM Workplace and it runs on MS, Apple, Linux, Unix,… Talk about inter-opperability and super support in the OFFICE program area. Microsoft is being attacked from every direction. And, longhorn is 2 years away, and no ms stuff is ever as good as it is hypeeeeed.
Link that you provided really gives me chills
Yesterday I installed Fedora Core 2 – Test 2 and after messing a little bit with it I ran back to Kanotix.
Didn’t you read on webpage test2 is highly unstable, and installing it (unless you wanted to mess with SELinux) was deprecated (at least in case of users like you)
The installation of FC2T2 was slow compared to that of Kanotix.
Installation speed matters:)
I don’t know for you but I always have last 4 RH systems at my place to be able to build packages for my servers. And FC2 will only replace my notebook OS (and maybe my multimedia machine if and when nvidia 4KSTACKS will be resolved). The first server I put out with FC2 will mean either 5th machine or maybe replacing the oldest system.
Do you people install every day or what?
FC2T2 came with SELinux that at the moment is more problem than solution.
Yes, READ THE FIRST COMMENT
FC2T2 came with X.Org that’s based on a pre-release of Xfree86 4.4, and as far as I know there isn’t an ATI radeon driver for it yet, which is a problem for me as I like to run with “Dual Head” monitors, and I need a driver for that.
Yeah right, the same thing for people bitchin that there is no drivers for Longhorn. FINAL release has to be out for a vendor to support it.
On FC2T2, for some reason, I couldn’t setup the networking with DHCP. I had to do it manually setting up the IP, default gateway, etc. (The same thing happend on FC2T1, so they have to figure out that some day).
On my TEST machine
T1 worked for me T2 (I skipped for SELinux reason) and T3 (will be tested mostly for GCC3.4)
On FC2T2 I couldn’t listen to the shoutcast radios, as they require the mpeg codec, which Fedora doesn’t come with because of legal concerns. Sucks
Again, Fedora doesn’t include MP3, doesn’t include nvidia drivers,doesn’t include NTFS, doesn’t include java plugin…
They will be simple to add: apt-get install xxxxx
Everything that FC2T2 seemed to not do, Kanotix does with easy.
Funny feeling of mine tells me that you tested it on your personal machine and not even bothered to read what official site says.
Btw. RH is not providing some packages and that’s a known fact. But users still bitch over the same facts. Either there is something wrong with the world, or…
If Fedora isn’t your favorite distro use the one that is. In the end any Linux distro you use, you use Linux. For example if you would like Fedora taste and want to get multimedia out of the box there is a distro based on fedora but includes multimedia support. Updates are used directly from Fedora. One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to add packages to the base install. It was well documented on mailing list.
Again making youm repository is two step work.
Copy rpm packages to your web or ftp
run yum-arch ./ in that directory
Add yum line on the yum.conf on clients.
AND FOR ALL JAMES LIKE PEOPLE.
TEST RELEASE OR BETA HAS IT’S REASONS WHY IT’S NOT OFFICIAL
why the hell should I go through all the trouble and expense of creating a Linux driver, when there are plenty of hackers out there who would be willing to do it for free?
Because if the drivers are bad, it makes your hardware look bad, if the drivers are excellent, it makes your hardware look better. ATI & Nvidia ring a bell?
That being said I think it would be to the benifit of both camps if they worked together, perhaps someone who knows the spec’s inside out provides the foundation then let the OSS guys refine it, or vice versa.
Alright, it may not be for me. I can wait the final release but even after it there will be lots of problems that you won’t find in other distros.
Centos and White Hat?
Yeah right, enterprise is really the place to trust hobby enterprise linux distro. They both depend on RH as all of their support (fixes) and it’s known fact that they are slow at providing them. Who in the sane mind would trust second hand distro for such job as enterprise server?
If you really need enterprise server, there’s always a lot money involved. Company has to be big enough and deployment must be carefully designed. Costs up to 10000$ don’t matter there. Mostly because if that server goes down for a day or two, costs will raise with every minute being down.
Do youy really thing that some hobby rip-off is adequate for this job? I’m really interested in your opinion.
Agree (There’s no perfect system, everyone has it’s own bugs, and wheter they are big or small is mostly just a user preference). But as I said, maybe you should wait week or two after official release.
In that time apt and yum repositories will be already filled with packages and all of your problems will be solved with simple update and (apt or yum) install. (considering my experiences with FC1)
We have to differentiate between the home desktop and the corporate desktop. Linux will make big strides in the corporate desktop way before it really makes any impact on the home desktop. It’s a helluva lot easier to handle a linux desktop in a corporate environment with locked-down desktops, hardware that is procurred through policy.
It’s a whole differenet ballgame when your dealing with the home market. All consumer hardware known to man will run on windows but not so for windows. Basically you have to get the hardware vendors on board for that to change. Something like 10% of the home marketshare for linux in say 8 years or so is not unreasonable, but even that might be a stretch.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Having two dominant desktop environments on linux has hurt linux more than helped it. If there was one standard gui toolkit than you’d also probably have a lot more high-quality commercial software to boot.
Linux’s infrastructure is fine, but there’s just a lot more polishing that has to be done before any widespread desktop use.
Ever since I purchased a Mac G5, I have the ultimate unix station.
#1 Reason WHY Windows is here to stay, cuz its 100000000000x EASIER to develope under.
The Microsoft .NET framework, writing GUI applications, web applications, is ALOT EASIER. You can not beat the developer tools that Visual Stuidio.NET Delivers. its MORE reliable that and EASIER to use that command line. I know the replies already…..
Have you seen a new person EVEN attempt to debug there application, its an act of a miracle.. Frankly you can have C/C++. I have .NET, I am a faster developer cause not the 12 Years of software programming. Its because .NET & C# is time saving compared to writing something in C/C++ stdlib…
next thing you going to say “mono is here…..” lets wake up to the fact mono does not have THE TOOLS to develope under. While SOME of the framework is working and ported, it will never ever have VS.NET…
End Of Story.
Our real enemy is the idea that you shouldnt make money from WRITING software, but from support. I have a better idea. Make money FROM both.
Next Subject
> its MORE reliable that and EASIER to use that command line
I can only agree with you. I have tried some IDEs (eclipse, kdevelop) but I keep constantly falling back to the CLI.
It’s just that I don’t want anyone to mess up my projects, force specific RCSs on me, restrict me to a few languages, to a standrad way of doing things.
“Nope, because its the same promises we’ve been hearing without producing any results. How many times have I heard “this is the year of the linux desktop”? Over and over again. But Linux isn’t without its share of faults. You need to be able to set background colors and pictures, install goofy little date and time managers, and a few other things end users like to download. You have to offer more than just “its Linux and its free!” You need to give companies what they want for them to maintain a business.”
http://www.kde-look.org
http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org/
I don’t think many people push it because: “it’s free.” We all know free is an elusive word, and in the end it’s not entirely free (the GPL has restrictions, that’s why I like it) and it’s never free to run software because nothing is *that* intuitive (software can’t make it’s users intelligent).
Somehow I doubt we will see massive gains. I imagine the slow curve will continue and possibly even gain. But next year Microsoft will still have 90%. Maybe they will have only 90%, but I think they will still have 90%. Too many people are afraid of new things. It’s a documented historical fact that people fear new things (see: racism, old people and technology, flying machines, fuel injection).
even if linux catches up to windows xp… it’ll only be short lived ‘cos once longhorn comes out, then a new game of catchup is introduced. longhorn is just going 2 have too much proprietary technology that no linux community will be able to top or even come close to it. just use microsoft products, they are good and reliable, and you have 2 admit anything post win2k is stable. let’s just say linux gets its big break, then you’re gonna have money hungry companies left and right that are all essentially, trying to become the next MSFT. don’t give birth to one if it already exists.
You know I like RedHat just as much as the next guy. But these titles are really starting to piss me off. How is a company, RedHat, going to kill off the most sucessful OS when they can hardly stay above the red line.
A better title would probably be “Could RedHat mean a new compitition against Windows in the Enterprise market?”. The title just suggests that the writter is very delusional, and takes away all credibility from the article.
> and you have 2 admit anything post win2k is stable
I can’t… Just saw explorer (not here) locking up while copying just two files at the same time.
Personaly, I think the year of linux will be 2005. Why do I say that? let me explain. Here’s what will grace the average linux user’s desktop late in 2005.
(1)Kernel 3.0
(2)FreeDesktop.org xserver
(3)Gnome 3.0
(4)KDE 4.0
(5)GTK that’s “90% faster”
(6)The desktops, thanks to fdo, will be using common
protocols and the same underlying components(audio
server, dom, etc….)
(7)Autopackage
(8)A version of Wine that can run most win95 and 98 apps.
This is exciting stuff. Now with the volume of corporate money flowing into linux development we can assume that the development speed will increase even more 😀
The Microsoft .NET framework, writing GUI applications, web applications, is ALOT EASIER.
I’m curious, since I havent used .NET. What makes developing web applications easier over say php/mysql/apache?
Seriously Redhat is always changing things around and that to me means that they have no solid plans of goals.
How many years have we been reading “this is the year of linux”? far too many.. It is possible for linux to play a more dominant force on the desktop, but the product and timing have to be right.. I think IBM and Suse might be able to pull it off in the near future, I like red hat but it will take a lot of convincing to make alot of people switch, and it requires marketing, development, partners (HP), and lawsuits if need be. Something I’m not sure red hat could do alone.
Quote:
“Afterall, if I am a hardware vendor, why the hell should I go through all the trouble and expense of creating a Linux driver, when there are plenty of hackers out there who would be willing to do it for free?”
Would you be willing to sell the hardware for less money to linux users? As I understand it, some part of the price of the hardware is the development costs of the developers? So, if that’s true, it wouldn’t be fair to linux users if they pay for the development costs for windows drivers.
Why are you limiting this to only Linux users? What about BeOS users? And FreeBSD users? And SkyOS users? Do you honestly expect me to offer discounts to anyone not running Windows? If you know that there’s no non-Windows driver out of the box and this bothers you, even if there are drivers available for free for your OS of choice, then buy something else.
Basically what I’m saying is that I’ll write a driver for the OS that 95% of people use. If you want to use a ‘non-standard OS’, you can write your own drivers. This isn’t the most optimal of situations, but is it not better than a vendor not releasing whatever technical information is needed for somebody to write a driver?
Quote:
why the hell should I go through all the trouble and expense of creating a Linux driver, when there are plenty of hackers out there who would be willing to do it for free?
Because if the drivers are bad, it makes your hardware look bad, if the drivers are excellent, it makes your hardware look better. ATI & Nvidia ring a bell?
How often does the OSS community churn out a bad driver, assuming they’ve got all the technical information needed to write a good one? Since they ain’t making any money off it, it would probably be in their best interest to write a quality driver.
Most of what I hear from RedHat has a nice no-BS quality that I’m not hearing from a lot of other companies (cough Lindows cough). In the case of the consumer desktop, hype is the enemy. Windows WILL be the dominant comsumer desktop for a long time and RedHat knows they can’t change that. With that said, the road to the consumer desktop runs through the corporate desktop, and Linux IS ready for the corporate desktop. As Linux starts showing up on more desktops at work, hardware support will improve, the desktops will mature, development tools will improve, and people will get more comfortable using it.
My biggest doubts about the eventual future of Linux on the desktop lie in the use (and abuse) of software patents. A fully open-source consumer desktop isn’t legally possible (at least in the US). Something cannot be both open-source and patent-encumbered. My hope is that the core can remain free and open while the patented stuff is relegated to plugins (like having the gstreamer framework free, but with non-free binary packages available for various codecs). Of course, DRM could throw a big wrench into that too…
Tried all the distros (not true… around 70-80) the best solution for the desktop is SUSE. (Red-Hat/Fedora, Mandrake, Lindows etc. not bad but not enough…the completely free distros don’t have the needed financial support for such battle…)
Suse will be an equal solution for 2006. Even if Longhorn comes with a nicer interface the usability remains pretty much the same…comparable to Suse by the end of 2006.
linux won’t ever be more than just a fan club until they redesign the kernel. until companies can make drivers that can be ‘pluged in’ ala windows/mac. no matter how smart people get on computers – no one but the geeks like to compile *anything*. mark this as troll if you wish, but it’s the truth. to bad Linus won’t go that route.
Seriously Redhat is always changing things around and that to me means that they have no solid plans of goals.
I think a company that doesn’t change has no plan. What have they done?
Offered an enterprise distro for ISV’s and businesses with long release cycles.
Offered a hobbiest distro to keep the freeloaders happy with fast paced development and gadgets at no cost.
Offering a desktop for research and secretarys who need things like java, flash, word, whatever
Offering a workstation more towards developers and foot soldiers that do not need Bind or Database servers.
Granted, Workstation and desktop could be merged but desktop wasn’t ready at the time and they needed something to offer until then. It appears they offer a specific product for each specific need, I like this idea of buy what you need, get what you want. Using an application analogy look at the product zone alarm, it is a firewall, popup blocker, virus scanner. but the popup blocker and e-mail scanning suck, I use Nod32 for virii and adsgone for blocking pop up’s. Too many products try to be everything to everyone resulting in a huge drop in quality of the product, or atleast the nitchs it additionally tries to provide.
I thought 1995 was the year Linux was going to take over the desktop. I know at least that’s the year it took over mine.
My year Linux took over the desktop for me was 1998. I have a feeling there are going to be more and more of us as time goes on.
I’ve used Linux for a l-o-n-g time. I’m using it now (Fedora Core 2 Test 3). I’ll continue to use it.
These days, I’m a rather typical home desktop user. I don’t need to run any servers here at home. I jump around the web, deal with my mail, etc. Sometimes I listen to a radio stream (but the stations I listen to are local and sound a lot better on the radio that’s within an arm’s reach.) The biggest problem I’ve had with Linux distributions in a while is getting the printer to work. (Not an issue with Fedora, but too many distributions seem to think getting peripherals to work is beneath their dignity, if not ability.)
And the truth is, there’s nothing I want to do with a computer that I can’t do just as easily and just as well on Windows or on OS X. That’s what’s holding Linux back in the home market: The competition has everything Linux has.
Red Hat believes it can sell into the corporate market by offering to reduce the cost of IT support. That won’t work with the home market, because moving to Linux means the home user must invest more time and/or money to maintain the staus quo: What can you do after you pay the price of adopting Linux? Everything you could with Windows…and nothing more.
That’s got to change before Linux will compete on the home desktop.
> A better title would probably be “Could RedHat mean a new
> compitition against Windows in the Enterprise market?”. The title just
> suggests that the writter is very delusional, and takes away all
> credibility from the article.
First of all, it’s in the general press not the trade press so it needs to simplfy (also the reason for Linux has its beginnings in the 1970s bit).
Secondly the ‘title’ is a headline and may have nothing to do with the author. The Independent is a newspaper and the headlines are generally composed by sub-editors.
“(1)Kernel 3.0”
Not likely. I would belike 2.8, but I don’t think we will see kernel 3.0 until 2007ish, not that the kernel version matters.
“(2)FreeDesktop.org xserver”
This is very possible and probably will happen.
“(3)Gnome 3.0”
Yea, that fits the Gnome release schedule, although 3.2 will probably be released also.
“(4)KDE 4.0”
I doubt it, unless KDE is planning on skipping some versions.
“5)GTK that’s “90% faster””
90%, I don’t know how they will double it’s speed. Faster, yes; almost double, not likely.
“(6)The desktops, thanks to fdo, will be using common
protocols and the same underlying components(audio
server, dom, etc….)”
I sure hope not. Imagine being forced into arts! Aaaargh!
“(7)Autopackage”
You mean like ./configure? Or maybe you mean like rpm, .tgz, .deb?
“(8)A version of Wine that can run most win95 and 98 apps.”
Done, I think two years ago. It’s nt apps that I hear give them problems.
Yes. CentOS and Whitebox Enterprise is a threat. It does rely on red hat but you don’t have to pay red hat. you get the fixes and everything is cut in costs. you’ll be seeing more spring up as alternatives. that costs redhat money. providing fixes for 3rd party linux distros that are the SAME THING as RHEL.
I’m sure a non profit organization can’t out-do big bad redhat? yahoo thinks different with FreeBSD. millions run high productive servers on non commercial linux distros. alot of the big organizations write their own fixes.
also, you dont need to be a jerk with your comments about me running hobby servers
jump take out the red hat copyrights (graphics and stuff) and you can distribute RHEL fine. Oh, I’ll register one copy and just use the rest on all my machines…
i run my own operating system that is not related to linux. maybe its a ‘hobby production server’
“Not likely. I would belike 2.8”
What I’ve read seems to indicate that the next version will be 3.0
“90%, I don’t know how they will double it’s speed. Faster, yes; almost double, not likely. ”
Read the transcripts from that x dev conference. There’s a reason I used quotation marks.
” I sure hope not. Imagine being forced into arts! Aaaargh!”
First off your not forced on anything in the free software world. Compelled to…maybe, but not forced. Second, imagine a world where all X11 apps work the same on all desktops, which DE it was designed for would be irrelavent. Thats a very good thing. P.S. aRts on kde3.0 and 3.1 were fine when you configured it correctly. On 3.2 it’s great. However, it’s always the KDE devs that make the compromises, so doubtlessly gstreamer will eventualy become the default. I have no problems with this, I just want a finaly united development environment.
“You mean like ./configure? Or maybe you mean like rpm, .tgz, .deb?”
*sigh* http://autopackage.org/faq.html
“Done, I think two years ago. It’s nt apps that I hear give them problems.”
A while ago I spent most of my free time tinkering around with it. Wine will run a huge number of apps, but will definitly not run most of them reliably. Also for the major apps you need “real” windows dlls.
The only win version that you can almost guaranty success with 50+% is 3.1. They have done most of the work already, but there’s so many loose ends to fix and yet more calls to duplicate. They say that they will have a version 1.0 release soon though.
Of course not. Novell will prove to be a bigger threat to MS on the desktop than Redhat. Linux on the desktop could get a few market shares, but it is highly unlikely that it will displace MS Windows as the dominant desktop OS.
The only thing that could really put an end to MS dominance on the desktop is a paradigm shift in how we interact with computers all together. Seeing how rapidly things are evolving, that might not be too far away and we will be here posting about how Linux will topple Company X and that BSD is dead.
I have developed with .Net, the framework itself is quite crummy (I could go on forever), but it is easy to build web applications! Well much easier than J2EE! But compared to MySQL/PHP/Apache its not nearly as simple or as rapid!
And RH good luck with your Desktop… I no longer use RH (I found my new love! GENTOO!) But I will install it in VMWare or UML (When I configure it!!!).
I swear in 10 years we’ll all be cursing Linux and Google’s monopoly on everything.
No.