The crackers currently have the whip hand over Windows, and Microsoft’s assertion that Internet Explorer is now part of the operating system shows its flawed reasoning. Worried sick about the latest rash of Internet Explorer security problems? I have the perfect solution for you, one that’s even better than switching to Mozilla, Firefox or Opera. Switch operating systems: Go to Linux, says eWEEK.
Isn’t Now the Time to Try a Linux Desktop?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Have been since 1999
there are no new arguments anywhere in this article, can’t see why this would give people enough reason to “jump to linux”.
Just my 2 ct’s
Isn’t it time to stop Linux propaganda ?
>there are no new arguments anywhere in this article,
>can’t see why this would give people enough reason
>to “jump to linux”.
I agree. Have advocated Linux for a couple of friends of mine quite “aggressively” lately, and they are getting pretty close to make the jump. Anyone got a link to such an article that just might prove to be decisive?
Yes, it is time to stop Linux propaganda. It is not a dektop OS yet. It is far, far from it.
Linux is getting sweeter by the minute. We are beginning to see the right mixture of free software with the few proprietary apps that give credence to Linux for those that need familiar names before they make the jump.
I just spent an hour talking to a friend in Switzerland by using Skype on Linux. The quality of the call was outstanding. What’s best about the whole experience? Nothing or everything. That is the Linux desktop is beginnign to just work.
Watching DVDs:
1) Set up Mandrake and the plf repository
2) urpmi libdvdcss
3) Put a DVD in the drive.
Burning CDs:
Stick a CD-Rom in the drive and watch as k3b opens and guides you through the process.
Creating PDFs
Just print to pdf from all apps in the desktop.
Talking to anyone and everyone on IM: Kopete
Administering my servers: Just a short ssh session away.
Sweet Music: Juk loads 5 thousand songs in less than a second.
Keeping my movie collection and downloading new titles right off the net: Bookcase.
Accessibility: Making sure I get my needed breaks at scheduled times and even displaying friendly exercises that help me prevent RSI: workrave.
Incredible Content Management System: Plone.
No viruses, no bullshit.
Try Mandrake 10 Official as it is the most out of the box multimedia friendly system and it makes a killer server too. You’ll love it
Linux isn’t even close to becoming a “desktop OS”. All this hype is what turns me off to using Linux in the first place.
This article was well written and fun to read. I enjoy anti MS propaganda. The more the better. One problem is not mentioned, that altho Linux per se is better than Windows, esp for security, switching in its own right will open up many problems, with hardware compatibility, and the taking a step down in the overall look and feel of major applications. In this wa y Linux has a long way to go–money talks.
Like all of the above, Linux is no where near ready to be a mainstream desktop os. The average computer user most likely doesn’t have the knowledge to setup a linux box, or configure it after its been setup.
You can make linux a desktop os (one of the pluses of linux, being able to make it whatever you want), but that requires a good deal of knowledge, and a fair amount of time (took me almost 2 days to get slackware 10 fully configured as a desktop os on my laptop).
“Linux isn’t even close to becoming a “desktop OS”. All this hype is what turns me off to using Linux in the first place.”
If Linux came close to matching the hype I’d switch in an instant, no amount of zealotry would put me off using it.
Unfortunately it’s still got a long way to go before it matches the claims that Linux fans make for it. Maybe in a few years it’ll be a decent desktop OS. Maybe by then the UI of most applications will not be such an inconsistent mess and there might not be so many rough edges. Until then it’s not going to be a real replacement for Windows, at least for non-geeks.
Is it a drop-in replacement for Windows? Not really, not for most anyway. It probably never will be entirly. It IS a perfectly good desktop however. There is a difference people. Being like Windows is NOT a requirment for being a desktop OS!
True, but windows really defined what a desktop os should do, should look like, etc.
“Linux isn’t even close to becoming a “desktop OS”. All this hype is what turns me off to using Linux in the first place.”
I can name several people, including myself, who use it as a desktop. Care to make an argument or just making a blind statement guys?
The article wasn’t the greatest. Here is a more interesting one:
http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/f2abee2df7582f36cc2569a4007e4b…
As for security records though, maybe he should switch to openbsd.
Linux is my desktop on every machine I own, I’m quite addicted to some basic features like virtual desktops and middle click pasting. So when you say it’s not a desktop OS I’d love to hear your argument or clarification. Because I’ve had no problems with my gnome or xfce desktop environments.
Linux isn’t my desktop, but you know what I meant!
Actually, it is becoming more and more attactive. I have been running linux for a year now as desktop, and at the moment, i just feel that it rocks. When i boot windows for gaming ( rarely ), i really hate the default XP layout. Linux’s is alot more nice, and have very much better theme engine.
It takes some times to setup, yes… but when it is.. It just keeps on going forever.
Dont understand why they keep making a fuzz about it. Let people switch to linux because they want to (for whatever reason), not because we tell them it is “better” or that it is for their own good. Let us not insult other people’s intelligence, they can make that decision for themselves.
Quote:
“True, but windows really defined what a desktop os should do, should look like, etc.”
I think that’s the monopoly.
Windows is not the standard of a desktop though.
I hear a lot of people saying that linux isn’t ready for the home desktop.
But I don’t hear people saying why that is.
Can anyone give me a good, to the point, example of why linux is not ready for the desktop? Thanks.
I am so tired of hearing the old “Not ready for the desktop” mantra. Come on, get an original arguement people. Give me a list of why it isn’t ready. What is missing? Is it Web browsing, email, working with office documents? What is it? If it is along the lines of not being able to play homeworld (a personal fav), then your high. This isn’t a “desktop” requirement. OTOH, if it is that there is no way I can go to a web page and pick up some spyware, or get a trojan from viewing an image, then you’re right, it is not ready for ‘your type of desktop.’
I’ve been running linux as my desktop machine since RH6. My research laboratory runs it, my wife runs it, even my grandma runs linux “on the desktop.” Have you tried it? If you had problems ‘loading Slackware on your laptop,’ then maybe you should have stuk with a more noob-friendly distro.
Sorry for the rant, but I’m just sooo tired of the arguements these plebs continue to throw around.
R. Dyer, PhD
i keep hearing the same thing said over and over, “its not ready, its not ready, blah blah blah”, “average joe cant install it or customize it, blah blah blah”. back when i got my first mandrake linux 7.1 cd i installed it and used it with no problems for the first time ever using linux. it was easy to install back then and its easier and even more stable to use today. linux is as easy to install as windows if not easier. mandrake, suse, and fedora walk you through and hold your hand. linux does email, browsing, instant messenging, music, movies, cd burning, office. tell me why you people are still opening your mouths with the same fud every time?
He should do what the rest of the sane windows users do and use Firefox and a router/firewall. I guess he was in need of approval from fanboys. “Look guys, I used linux now”.
A basic linux system is not that hard to set up. I have been running Red Hat (now Fedora, can’t tell the difference) for 5 years. I have no computer training. The few hardware issues I have had I have solved by buying an external modem and a cheap sound card. I don’t do anything fancy but I can do as much or more than most Microsoft users and it doesn’t cost anything. I had to learn to zip (tar -xvf) files but now it is just a right click. At work if I want to zip something I have to transfer it to a co-workers computer as he is the only one of us that has a zip program (microsoft charges for this). I figured out how to have two harddrives for redundancy. In all honesty this took me the better part of a day but now I data redundancy. Maybe that would now be easier in MS but not when I learned it back when Win98 still ruled. I have never had much success compiling a new program and installing it but now with programs such as FireFox and BestCrypt installation is easier than MS. Just download it, link to the executable and click. It is not that easy in MS. Again, no cost. Yes my personal data is quite secure under Bestcyrpt. Again something most MS users don’t benefit from. I don’t remember the last time my system locked up. A few months ago I think and that was just a web page which I was able to kill from a menu. I don’t do anything special for surfing security or download security but I have not trouble ever with a virus.
I think I save $200-300/year for my system by not using MS. I also am much more secure. I admit I had a learning curve but I have led two friends thru this curve with a fifth of the work I put into it.
Linux is usable.
Get off the Internet completely! That way you won’t have to worry about the evil hackers and viruses floating around…
Slackware doesn’t attempt to aim for the desktop OS market! There are Linux distros, however, that do. SuSE 9.1 is in that catagory, and from my experience with it, I have to say that it’s 100% ready to be a desktop OS, at least for a certain class of desktops.
I recently loaded SuSE 9.1 Personal for a friend, and the install went absolutely without trouble. The install itself was a bit easier than a Windows install (graphical all the way instead of partly text mode), and it booted up and detected all my hardware. Even installing the NVIDIA drivers was easy (it prompted me the first time I ran the update tool). Unlike the usual Windows install, no further configuration was necessary. I didn’t have to install Winzip, Acrobat, etc, etc, all the software came pre-loaded. YaST is complete enough that I don’t forsee having to use the command line for any future configuration. Indeed, I run SuSE 9.1 on a server at home, and I never needed to go into the console in the process of configuring it to run Samba, NFS, DHCP, and Apache services.
Linux is ready for the desktop in a locked-down corporate environment where some joe user isn’t going to plug in a USB camera or something, but throw new hardware into the mix and its all over for joe user. It’s getting better. I think project Utopia addresses some of those Plug-n-Play issues, but you also need the hardware manufacturers to get on board to truly get it into mainstream hands. Joe user isn’t going to want to go through the hassle of using a realtek 8180 wireless chipset by compiling a kernel module with ndiswrapper(like I had to).
Yeh, I know slackware isnt meant for teh desktop market, but even Redhat and Suse require some sort of post configuration, well, so does windows, nevermind, I’m not speaking anymore
Use it if you like
I honestly don’t understand all these people talking about “not ready for the Desktop”. These people obviously haven’t tried KDE 3.2.3 or Gnome 2.6.
I have 2 points:
1) I use Linux as my primary desktop for about 8 to 10 hours almost everyday — email, web, word processing, music, p2p. So what’s not ready? You might as well tell me my car doesn’t run, to which I would instantly reply: “yes it most certainly does! what are you talking about?”
2) It’s not Windows, and in some ways it’s inferior. But in many other ways, it’s actually a more polished desktop. Ex: Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just boot up Windows from a CD and actually run it directly from that CD (for emergencies, etc), then optionally click an icon to install Windows permanently? With Mepis, Knoppix, Kanotix, and others, you can literally do just that.
So in some ways Linux is actually a much slicker desktop than Windows as well as the usual arguments about security, speed, etc.
How come these so called “news items” get posted once every day??? CAn we at least cut down the Linux is ready to once every month or something? It won’t get more ready by propagandha, it’ll get ready by code…. and it doesn’t change from day to day…
Or at least change the header to “Flame war article”…
…but it’s been ready for mine for several years. For my needs and preferences, it’s better than Windows. For you, maybe not. And that’s just fine. Windows may be the right choice for you, and Linux may be the right choice for me. That doesn’t make either of us right or wrong.
Absolute statements that Linux isn’t ready for the desktop are as silly as statements that everyone should switch to Linux immediately. No one is convinced by such mindless zealotry. It only serves to shout down meaningful discussion of the real strengths and weaknesses of all desktop systems. Every system can be improved, and such improvements have usually been tried somewhere else first. Macs, BSD, Linux, Windows, and many others are all useable systems that fit someone’s needs and preferences. Please don’t claim that they aren’t; that’s a lie that diminishes the credibility of anyone making such statements.
Please, folks, tell us what you like and WHY. Preferences aren’t arguable, they’re opinion, not fact. If you feel threatened by differing opinions, then that insecurity is a sign that maybe your opinions don’t have a reasonable basis. We should listen and learn from each other, not burn heretics at the stake.
I am using Linux as my desktop right now (Xandros 2.0). Works just fine. No need to manualy install my nvidia driver, epson printer driver, mustek scanner driver, raid controller driver, all things windows xp requires manual installation for. I get free one click installs for a lot of the most common linux apps. Fully functional office program and browser, open office and mozilla. Great instant messenger kopete. It’s preconfigured samba works better on my windows network that my windows machines do (without me messing with it). And I don’t have to worry about those annoying windows wurms, ack.
So, why exactly is this not even close to being a desktop OS???
Wow, that is the best comment I have read in this whole topic. Bravo!
I occasionally have to fix people’s Windows PCs that are full to the brim with viruses, spyware etc.
After fixing it, I don’t think ‘This person should use Linux’, I think ‘What a complete mess this person would make of a Linux install’.
Imagine someone with no Linux experience, running as root, and clicking fairly randomly on anything that looks network related. That’s how many people admin their windows boxes, and they will do the same on Linux.
Microsoft have worked incredibly hard to make Windows still work under that kind of use.
Linux distros have not had the same kind of idiot testing.
The growth of Linux on the desktop will be slow and gradual. As Linux improves and becomes easier to use, it will capture a progressively larger market. Simple, isn’t it?
But is ‘idiot proof’ what the creators of Linux want?
Idiot proof means not having to remember a password.
Idiot proof means not confusing the user with questions about installing new software and codecs. And the resultant security holes (ActiveX etc)…
Idiot proof means never using the console.
Idiot proof means making decisions about the way the computer runs *for* the user.
As a happy Slackware user, that’s not what I want. It does not seem to be the focus of the rest of the Linux community either.
Of course, that is the role of distros, to provide a version of Linux that could be ‘idiot proof’. Somehow though without the full interest of the Linux community behind making them easy to use it feels like a friendly face put on a wild animal, only skin deep. You get the same problems as any Linux distro, which often means recourse to the console.
I am glad Linux works for you, I use (get by with) it also. But to publish an article claiming it to be an alternative to Windows on the desktop is far off at best. People are more than entitled to weigh in and state they think the author is wrong. You take issue with that because Linux happens to work for you personally? Well maybe the author should have just emailed YOU his thoughts instead of publishing to eWeek.
Removable disk support is poor. FAM and the kernel’s assumptions conspire to make inserting and removing CDs and USB keys a hit-or-miss affair, at least under GNOME/Fedora. Put a CD in, run an app that accesses it, and you can’t unmount it without killing FAM – similar issue with USB drives.
Resolution switching/ input device addition/removal etc. is badly implemented in XFree86. Hopefully we’ll see a better way emerge with X.org – Ever try and add a graphics tablet to a Linux system, its not as straightforward as under MacOS X or Windows, I tell you.
Printing support is arcane and inconsistent between distros, applications and desktop environments. CUPS?, lpr?, foomatic? Most distros do a reasonable job of hiding this until you run an app which expects you to type in an lpr string.
No standard high-level DE-defined widgets like filepickers etc. KDE is better than GNOME in this regard, I believe, but apps should ideally be written in such a way that nautilus or konqueror-based widgets are used for filepicking when such software is installed on the system, only falling back to basic GTK+/Qt widgets when the ‘richer’ file managers are not present.
No standard API for url handling – most apps, for example, are incompatible with paths and drag n drop from nautilus SMB mounts, and smiliarly on KDE – If you can see it in the file manager, you should be able to open it in your applications.
Long boot times and lack of concurrent service loading. Sys V init is antiquated, obfuscated and annoying. Desktop environment is not loaded in the background while GDM/KDM waits for user login. If you don’t know which DE the user might want, preload them all, in order of which one was last selected/most often selected.
Slow desktop environments and widget sets. GTK+ and Qt both suffer from this GTK+ noticeably more. Not a biggie in my view, but a source of frequent complaints from users.
Poor support for API and ABI standards for driver developers. Can be seen as a feature not a bug, but for a desktop OS, i’d lean towards ‘bug’ status.
Poor support for inter-distro compatibility. Not really a major issue – you pick a distro and run with it, but it would be nice to see some common ground being expolited by all the distro manufacturers – especially with installation, package management and configuration.
Thats my list. Some of those are technically addressable immediately, some of them are politically difficult, and some of them are hard within the current architecture of the Linux desktops.
I don’t mean this as a ‘this is why i don’t use Linux’ – I do use Linux, as a desktop, every day, and I love it.
I would like to point out that these are some things that, from my point of view, prevent people who aren’t as ‘linux-geek’ as me using and enjoying the system, and perhaps as a few points for people advocating Linux desktop use to think about.
If there are fixes for any/all of these problems, i’d be interested to hear about them.
Simple solution, don’t have them run as root. I have a friend who did not know what linux (or windows really for that matter) was and has little to no understanding of how computers work. Her eMachine was running like crap on WinME, I deleted it and installed Xandros on it for her and she has had more harder of a time installing ymessenger and her other commonly used apps and using it in the same way she did when it ran windows. Except of course that it dosen’t blue screen 3 times a day now.
You must have the slowest computer on the planet.. Hope you dont use XP… that will bring your computer to a crawl as well,, unless you have a gig or higher processor and 256megs of ram or more. All of which would make the computer run linux fine as well with Gnome or KDE…
I run xfce,fluxbox,blackbox or windowmaker (gnome and kde aren’t the only ones ya know) and linux 2.6.7 on a k6-450mhz with 128megs and it smokes….. so I dont know what you are talking about..
And that,, “Oh my god we have to learn something different”, argument doesnt hold water either…. Welcome to the wonderful world of computers; where your purchase is obsolete the moment you head for the stores exit. Whether you’re talking about the hardware, gui, codebase or standards compliance.
Isn’t planned obsolesence great?
“Her eMachine was running like crap on WinME, I deleted it and installed Xandros on it for her…..”
You sorted out the machine, and it will probably run until the hardware dies but….. What if she had installed it, her only previous experience being WindowsME?
Would it be so trouble free? With Xandros, no firewall is installed by default, and what services would be running?
I could probably set up a pretty secure Win2K box for someone, and give them a user account, and it would probably run OK for a while.
Has anyone researched what happens when someone with that computing background installs Xandros?
Nop, i don’t use XP. I use win2k server at my P2 266 with 256ram. I tell you… It’s much more fast(win2k server/opera/office) and consume less ram than this combo: KDE/GNOME, mozilla, OpenOffice.
Anyone discouraged about using linux in the first place
because they think it’s becoming a “desktop OS” is an idiot.
Linux is the kernel, and in no way is it connected w/
the desktop aspects you’re looking at.
If you don’t want a “desktop linux” then use a distrobution
like Gentoo, Archlinux, Slackware, LFS, Debian, and the
countless other’s which are not only good linux distro’s
which don’t try and make linux “idiot friendly”, but
they do “the desktop linux” better than newbie distros
ever could for the rest of us (if we choose).
What is a Linux’s market share on desktop? Do I have to say more?
Redhat and Mandrake we’re notorious for leaving tons of service ports open on a fresh install back in the day. I haven’t used those distros in a while, but I remember having a fresh install of redhat or mandrake out beyond the firewall/router right on the internet to test what would happen. It was hacked within a couple weeks, if not days.
From my experience, using linux since Slackware 3 (switching from OS/2) linux has potential for desktop use. Something like Linspire or Xandros will do the trick. Windows on the other hand has been a desktop os since version 3.1. I don’t know why all this forceful propaganda has to get out there when there really needs to be some hard core development in the desktop space. Look at what’s going on, XFree86 is getting the sh*t end of the stick and X.org is getting some support. With a radical change in the graphical server, stabilization for desktop use is still 10 years off. By radical I mean this is a Fork. There needs to be combined corporate and community effort going on to make it desktop useable. Some choose KDE, some choose Gnome some choose both. Novell/Suse will be the leader in about 2 years in the desktop arena without a doubt. Red Hat will still be only for “Mission Critical” applications and one other company will have the mustle to gain market share for consumers. Who that will be I don’t know.
I look at it this way, remember Wordperfect? DOS versions of Wordperfect were phenemonial, then the Windows version of Word came out and everything went that way once an Excel and Presentation software were out. The software game is in cycle once again, gone are the days of Windows NT versus OS/2. Now it’s Windows (based on NT) versus Linux (and the many hundreds of distros out there). There needs to be internal development at the corporate level and right now the only player in the desktop arena is Novell with Ximian and Suse. Novell is now developing a hybrid desktop OS which uses both KDE and Ximian’s product. We will see the first variations of that next major Suse release (yes I read interviews). Suse 9.1 is a snapshot of things to come. Don’t believe me wait and see.
maybe in a few years. Well hopefully anyways.
Once you can install a damn 7 button mouse without hacking imwheel
After working in Tech-Support (Home Users) for the last five years, I can say Linux IS ready as a Desktop OS. As ready as windows is. People here seem to worry about Setting Up Hardware, or Installing Software … This is the life-blood of our company on Windows Machines! Installing the OS? not something your average user does. Setting up hardware? get it done at he shop you bought it from. Your average home user is NOT tech-savvy, even in windows! As for “why it is not Ready”, the only points i saw discussed here were in quite technical detail – can someone adress what troubles a user would have?
The first part of the article is about the lack of security in IE.
I can’t remember having seen any law suits against MS for the losses caused by the lack of security in MS products. If there has been any they have not grabbed the big headlines.
Why aren’t anyone suing the socks off of MS for the losses caused by the lack of security?
SBC srewed a lot of customers especially in the beginning. Customers were charged in full but got only intermittent service. SBC got sued – class action lawsuit. Why not the same with MS?
I mean – this is a product from America where everybody sues everybody. Except MS. Puzzling.
If it’s because MS can buy itself out of lawsuits – well, then it is as they say – United Bluff.
Jim,
I wasn’t commenting on the article, one way or the other. My comments where directed towards the many messages right here on OS News claiming that Linux isn’t ready for the desktop, or won’t ever be ready. Such unqualified statements are bunk. Linux is obviously ready for some desktops, and not for others. The idea that Linux is not ready for ANY desktop is as absurd as the idea the idea that it’s ready for ALL desktops.
Is Linux ready for use by the general public? In my opinion, no. I think that it’s quite ready for a substantial number, perhaps even a majority, of corporate desktops. A controlled environment with a support staff is desirable with any transition. That’s true for any transition, regardless of which direction the transition is.
Most business users use a handful of applications. Open Office is a good replacement for most users. Some users may have macros or use other features specific to MS Office, and should either run it using Crossover, or stay on Windows. Evolution is one of many good substitutes for Outlook. Mozilla and derivitives are already better than IE. A surprising number of users never do anything more than work with documents, spreadsheets, email, and web browsing.
Home users tend to have zillions of applications installed. Most games don’t run under Linux, although some do. The there’s stuff like AOL, and Windows-only hardware. A business can keep a few Windows systems while switching most to Linux. Home users want to run everything on a single box. Eventually home users will move beyond WIN32, just as they moved beyond DOS and Windows 3. It took years, but very few home users are still using DOS or Windows 3 applications. They didn’t switch everything at once, but over time, they did end up replacing all of their applications. Some sort of transition will happen, even Microsoft wants to move people beyond WIN32. When? I don’t know.
Businesses know the dangers of being tied to a sole source supplier. This, more than anything else, will move businesses from Windows to Linux or BSD. I’m sure that this will happen, and is happening. The funny thing is that when Linux takes enough seats away from Microsoft, there will come a time when there will be less incentive to move away from Microsoft because they’re no longer a monopoly. So I don’t expect them to go away, but they will learn that abusing their customers carries a price.
As more people use Linux at work, then the comfort factor for home use will rise. But at the moment, I expect that a relatively small number of home users will be using Linux. I’m one of them, and I encourage anyone who enjoys working with computers to try Linux, but pushing it on the average home user will probably backfire.
EULA, duh
…and M$ said that OSS has no accountability LMAO!
Quote: Linux isn’t even close to becoming a “desktop OS”. All this hype is what turns me off to using Linux in the first place
Why! because you can’t play as many games on it?. When I got Suse 9.1 Professional I got both the 32bit and 64bit edition for one price in one box retail product . Windows XP 64 bit is still “beta”. Who knows when that will be out. And you won’t get it for free, to have it along with your 32 bit version. You will either have to give it up or spend another $300.00 per pc. Linux is here to stay. Redmond better start worrying.
“Can anyone give me a good, to the point, example of why linux is not ready for the desktop? Thanks.”
The primary reason is hardware support. I use SuSE Linux as my desktop, and the only frustration I have is hardware support. Not a frustration for me personally anymore as I know what to look for, but the fact remains though that hardware manufacturers are mostly not making drivers and such available. Until you can go out and buy any piece of hardware and be pretty much assured it will run, it is not ready for general desktop usage. This is NOT the fault of Linux at all, but it is a factor all the same.
linux? speedy? haha u must be kidding me, my rig was built with performance in mind and its very sluggish in linux, but with windows.. its another story.. speed all the way.. viruses? adware? trojans? no problems there either.. my windows system has no problems ever since i switched to xp. so no reason to switch to linux.. btw i’ve tried gentoo, slackware, redhat 7 to fedora core 2, suse 9.1, debian. ow and i do development work also. java, php, jsp.
took me almost 2 days to get slackware 10 fully configured as a desktop os on my laptop
If you had used Lycoris, Linspire or Mandrake it would have taken you 20 minutes instead.
True, but windows really defined what a desktop os should do, should look like
Excuse me, but wouldn’t that be MacOS?
Linux is ready for the desktop in a locked-down corporate environment where some joe user isn’t going to plug in a USB camera or something, but throw new hardware into the mix and its all over for joe user.
The vast majority of USB cameras work with Linux out-of-the-box. Apart from a few exceptions, hardware compatibility is no longer a problem with Linux. You and the other MS fanboys will have to find something else for your anti-Linux rants.
“Her eMachine was running like crap on WinME, I deleted it and installed Xandros on it for her…..”
You sorted out the machine, and it will probably run until the hardware dies but….. What if she had installed it, her only previous experience being WindowsME?
The guy told before that she haven’t any computer experience, for God’s sake!
Let me refrase that the other way around:
“What if she had installed it (WindowsME), her only previous experience being Linux?”
Would it be so trouble free? With Xandros, no firewall is installed by default, and what services would be running?
Never tried Xandros but, being that a Desktop only distribution, probably there’s not many exploitable services from the outside (if any).
By firewall you mean such things like ZoneAlarm?
Well, Linux (the kernel) as a packet filter built-in and it’s not dificult to setup up by distributors…
I could probably set up a pretty secure Win2K box for someone, and give them a user account, and it would probably run OK for a while.
The diference is that, with a Linux distribution, your’re encouraged from minute one to setup an unprivileged account and use root only for administration. In Windows it seems it doesn’t matter what account you ou use.
I’ve running with restricted accounts and the pains to switch users are way more than in Linux/Unix (even using Run As).
Has anyone researched what happens when someone with that computing background installs Xandros
No, that I know. But that’s there’s a lot of information in the Net of what happens when someone with that computing background installs (and uses) Windows.
You’re comments don’t hold any water. You’re only spreading FUD, nothing more.
Bottom line is the fact that Windows is The Desktop for the majority of people doesn’t mean that can’t be other desktop paradigms.
Personally, I don’t find Windows intuitive at all. I’ll find it bloated in useless features and with a wrong computing philosophy. But that’s my opinion.
Imagine someone with no Linux experience, running as root
Why would they run as root, though? Some desktop distros make it impossible to login as root in X, or at least don’t put an icon for the root user.
But is ‘idiot proof’ what the creators of Linux want?
By your definition, Windows isn’t idiot-proof either.
I could probably set up a pretty secure Win2K box for someone, and give them a user account, and it would probably run OK for a while.
And why do you think that no one set up a pretty secure Linux box for someone, and give them a user account?
Linux/Unix has privileged accounts support from the very begining. I can’t say that for Windows though.
I can give you some examples to back up why I feel that from all the distros I’ve tried Linux is not ready as a mainstream desktop OS.
1. I consider myself an advanced compter user. I’m a developer and I have a BS in Computer Science from a reputable university but I still find installation irritating enough to give up on in many cases.
2. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get Japanese support in Linux, keep in mind that I’ve tried all that I’ve found and it either doesn’t really work or I never figured out the installation. In WIndowsXP, or MacOSX this is almost too easy to believe and it works like a charm with good fonts and hand-writting recognition and everything.
3. Software updates and installation is based around a repository which is maintained by the distro or it’s supporters. In my honest oppnion, this locks a user into a system more than Windows does becuase. This may be effective for building secure and maintainable servers but as for a desktop, people want to get their software from the creator or from wherever and click and install. Dependencies and the reality of how linux developers package things doesn’t yet allow this as an option on Linux.
4. When showing frustration on Linux boards when it comes to usability a user usually gets cussed out for their oppinion. Microsoft may not have the best support in the world but I don’t think they resort yelling at the users and claiming that the software wasn’t made for them.
5. Given the simplicity of even such desktop environments as Gnome who is touted to be one of the most usable, I still find it difficult to achieve certain things such as configuring my panel’s main menu. Even though in this department Linux is improving rapidly I still think it is a little bit off from what users expect who are used to MacOS, BeOS, or Windows.
6. Linux resources tend to reffer to technologies or software by cryptic code names and acronyms which are very frustrating for casual user. Remember that not everybody knows what FTP, XML, GNU, emacs, xserve, wine, KDE, Gnome… means and maybe they shouldn’t have to in order to use and enjoy their system. Giving good explanations at the homepages of software websites, and explaining words at first usage goes a long way to help a less educated reader.
7. On one hand open source software evolves comparitively fast but on the other hand it seems compatability with older or legacy code, systems, or methods complicate and hold back innovation. An example may be the file structure on a Linux installation. To a new user or it’s not very self-explanitory but changing it to something that makes more sense to a newbie breaks compatability with software and standards and such. There are still other options around this but it seems that simplifications such as this are not most Linux developers priorities. Compare this to Windows, yeah they have a lot of old stuff around like GDI, COM, and the registry but look how Longhorn is changing some of that with things such as WinFS and Avalon while hopefully still maintaining compatability.
After all these remarks, I still consider myself a big Linux supporter and I’m looking into working on some projects to correct these measures. I think usability is one of the bases of determining the amount of choice available to a user. If a user can’t understand or can’t use software how they wish then their only choices are to spend more time and effort to learn something that shouldn’t be so difficult or to give up. They may be “free to choose” but what does that mean if these are the only choices. It will be up to the more generative of Linux developers and advocates to give this choice to the rest of us.
Plug and Play
Project Utopia looks really impressive and considering that both KDE 3.3 and Gnome 2.8(Augest and September respectively) will be implementing it in a some form, this could be solved within the year.
Cross-distro packages
Autopackage already works very well. It has support for EULAs, QT/gtk/terminal frontends, .desktop creation, menu additions in both KDE/GNOME, root/user installs, etc. I was reading the mailing list and its estimated that the 1.0 release will be avaliable by the end of this year.
Standard config tools
I really hope the big distros agree to a standard config tool like YAST.
Standard DE
Oh please don’t start that BS about diversity. Please just choose one and leave it at that.
The idea that many of the problems that plaugue “Joe User” with Linux won’t be a problem because “Joe User” is so stupid that someone has to wipe their ass for them anyway i flawed and I wish people would stop saying this.
Sure I know many people this describes, but _most_ of those people are not supported by experts, they get help from people that know enough to get by.
I quit making house calls for friends and familly becasue it would be a full time job for me, my aunts know enough now to support my grandmother etc so I only do support for 3 people now.
If Linux ever does end up on the desktop, you can bet it will start with technical users and trickle down.
I don’t want poorly done abstraction layers on a system that is arcane and broken.
I don’t want software designed with “Joe User” in mind getting in my way.
Linux flat out cannot skip over a knowledge level of critical users and expect to ever be “on the desktop”
Ok. First of all, try Vine linux, it’s native Japanese I think (I did a quick search on distrowatch).
Secondly, all OS’s have cryptic names (except maybe Mac). Seriously, how am I supposed to know my Sierra games are in the Sierra folder? How should I know that calculator is an accessory (ok, you gotta be an idiot, but you also gotta be an idiot to not figure out that gcalculator is probably a calculator).
Also, showing a negative attitude on Linux forums ALWAYS gets you cussed out and deleted. What do you expect? You walk up to someone and say “your work sucks, I hate it.” You think they will turn and say “I’m sorry, how can I fix it?” Maybe you should try a less negative approach. Criticism is fine, whining will get you nowhere. I dare you to call up Microsoft tech support and see how far you get by just whining. In fact, call anyone’s pay for tech support and whine. Actually, make an experiment out of it. See how long it takes for them to hang up on you. I’d say 12-20 minutes.
Original comment: True, but windows really defined what a desktop os should do, should look like”
A nun, he moos: Excuse me, but wouldn’t that be MacOS?
[sarcasm]
I just love throwing away my floppy disk icon on Linux and Windows in order to eject it!
[/sarcasm]
I’m a developer and I have a BS in Computer Science from a reputable university but I still find installation irritating enough to give up on in many cases.
Installing Mandrake 10 Official is easier and faster than installing Windows XP.
Dependencies and the reality of how linux developers package things doesn’t yet allow this as an option on Linux.
Sure it does: the developer only has to use Autopackage.
When showing frustration on Linux boards when it comes to usability a user usually gets cussed out for their oppinion. Microsoft may not have the best support in the world but I don’t think they resort yelling at the users and claiming that the software wasn’t made for them.
Please compare apples with apples: go on a Windows board and then complain about Windows usability. You’ll get cussed twice as much as you would on a Linux board. If you’re going to compare Microsoft support, then compare it with official RedHat, SuSE/Novell or Mandrake support.
An example may be the file structure on a Linux installation. To a new user or it’s not very self-explanitory but changing it to something that makes more sense to a newbie breaks compatability with software and standards and such.
I respectfully disagree. The UNIX file system structure is indeed different from Windows, but that’s only a temporary nuisance. Once users learn it, it is actually much more consistent from system to system than for Windows. It is logical and well-structured – it should remain part of the learning curve.
I agree with some of your other points. I think the best thing for distros would be to have a interactive multimedia “migration” CD-ROM that would walk users through the differences between Linux and Windows. One could even make it a Knoppix derivative, so you could have a bootable Linux tutorial that actually put the user inside the OS to learn from it.
Standard DE
Oh please don’t start that BS about diversity. Please just choose one and leave it at that.
Forget it. It is impossible to force KDE users to adopt Gnome, and vice-versa.
I’ll argue that having to competing DEs is actually good, because competition often brings innovation. Anyway, the two DEs are increasingly compatible, so that shouldn’t really be an issue in the future.
[sarcasm]
I just love throwing away my floppy disk icon on Linux and Windows in order to eject it!
[/sarcasm]
Okay, I have to admit that’s always been a very weird thing, when you think about it: ejecting a disk by throwing it to the Trash…
I’ve also never been a fan of the “menu bar at the top of the screen” thing, but I guess some people prefer that. All joking aside, I remember seeing a Lisa computer when I was about 12 and thinking: “this is what the future will look like.” I also remember the person at the booth being really annoyed at me for hogging the Lisa for hours, until he told me “computers aren’t for kids.” Hmph. Oh well, the Lisa never made it, but the best of it found its way in the first Mac, and into computer history…
Thanks for the suggestion of Vine linux. I’m a little reluctant to switch distro’s just to get Japanese support but I’ll at least watch this distro for a while. I still think a top notch distro and DE neutral IME and langauge support for all langauges should be a main objective of the Linux development.
Also about support on Linux, even polite criticism commonly causes at least some users to lash out in M$ hate propaganda. I’ve had it done to myself and have seen it happen many more times to other unfortunate souls. This type of attitude is elsewhere but with Linux it’s seems unfortuanatly a little too common.
Acutally I’ve complained to company representitives a few times and actually had results in changing some products. When somebody has good points it doesn’t matter if they are whining or what. If their argument is valid it’s valid and should be taken that way. The same is true when I get anti-newbie/casual user sentiment, I still accept the argument but many times it’s invalid, subjective, and emotionally charged.
I often get the attitude that of many Linux users that they are not interested in it’s adoption by casual users. I’m getting the idea that even some developers feel this way to an extent. This would explain at least some of the reason why some usability issues are still a hurdle because supporters like this may be doing damage to the possibility of Linux becoming a valid desktop OS for all. This is why I made the statement in my above post about generativity, because I feel that it is important for Linux as a desktop OS supporters to distance themselves from those with irrational emotional attachments/dispositions and backwards viewpoints on usability.
Until I can go out and buy the newest toy plug it in and have it actually work, Linux is it not ready for the HOME desktop. This is the only reason I run XP. I used Linux on my desktop for about 2 years, it eventually drove me crazy having to settle for hardware that would only work in Linux, using alpha drivers, or just having to wait for the hardware to age with the hope a driver will be available… any day now. I realize this is not the fault of Linux, it’s the manufactures, they don’t release drivers or specs. Yes I get it. But I no longer care, and your average user doesn’t care either who’s fault it is. I just want it to work!
The Linux and Windows bashers are beating a dead horse. No OS is perfect. But given the current environment, Linux does have two major advantages over Win OSs: for “average” users..
1. Security. Script kiddies and anit-MSers tend to target MS based systems. This and the fact that MS has over 90+% of the desktop user means that just by sheer probabilities, you are safer with Linux. Though, if Linux were to have equal market share, Im sure it would have just as many problems with security insults…of course the difference would be response time to the vulnerabilities that surface….OSSers have an advantage here…
2. Stability. With the GUI integrated into the kernel, it has an unfortunate tendency to be a bit more unstable thatn UNIX or GNU/Linux systems. This, in combination with the fact that the sheer massive magnitude of non-MS apps that are attempting to run on MS platforms with sloppy poor QC, leads to the common problem (YES EVEN WITH XP AND 2000!) that a gui hiccup cna unnecessarily bring the whole damn thing down. On UNIX and GNU/Linux platforms, one can just kill the app and restart…and many of the apps even allow you to start right where you left off…
Further, a significant number of posts talk about the “average user”. The average user has to learn an app, whether he/she learns it on linux or windows. The average user has to install software (Drivers, etc) when she/he installs new hardware on linux or windows. If a system gets fried, the average user sometimes needs to reinstall linux or windows. If the system gets goofy or thethe average user makes a user error, in linux and windows, the average user has to call their geeky friend to help them out.
No arguments posted as of yet point out a difference in usability for the “average” user.
Both systems are equaly usable, it is just that when the average user buys a computer it comes with windows preinstalled, so the average user has come to treat his/her computers like a toaster. As an average user gets more advanced with his/her computing needs, they need to learn more, whether they are using windows or linux.
If an average user becomes interested in the process of his/her learning how to run their computer, they have a potential to gain more control over their computer with GNU/Linux than a closed MS OS…of course,a t this point, they are no longer average users..
Average people are not stupid, and they are not lazy. Their only fault, no fault of their own, is that they are average people. And “average” people will learn the bare minimum they need to do the work they want to do.
They have been fed toaster-like computing by the computing environment they are most exposed to nowadays…the MS marketing machine
All this being said, this toaster like age of computing is pretty much here for GNU/Linux. You can buy machines with Linspire/Lindows, RedHat/Fedora, Mandrake, SuSE, Xandros, Turbolinux or any of a number of distros preinstalled..
All this being said, with the reasons listed, I switched to Linux in 1998. I was one of these”average” users (just a pharmacist with no computer training) and look forward to the days when OSs are irrelevant and people really can just use their computers…like toasters…:-) (Longhorn is just around the corner…can’t wait to play with it…)
I notice that many people think because his/her experience with linux went great, for everyone is great. Some said that most of the people only needs word processing, spreadsheet and browser. But “most” people doesn’t mean everyone. I can make a custom installation of Office 2003 and choose what I want, but I can’t add features not avaliable on Open/StarOffice because lack of functionality (Nobody can denies that Office 2003 is by far better than OO/SO). And when the people with nearly zero knowledge start to use Linux, it will be as bad as Windows? absolutely yes, because is the user, not the OS. I know many people said about viruses and spyware on linux are zero, but think of this: the basic user is on his perfect Linux PC and a message appears that the system need to install a software to make him millonare, and needs the root password to install it. Whats you think he will do? And thats the kind of user that XP have (and are a lot of them). So, although MS commited some mistakes, the users commits the most. By the way, I like Linux (although OpenOffice is crap), but when the dumb users using Linux start to grow, there will be the same problems as Windows…
1. No comments
2. I’m running Fedora Core 2 and, to be sure, after I’ve read you’re post logged out of GNOME and logged in with Japanese. And guess what? My Desktop is now Japanized!
OK! First you have to be sure that you’ve have the I18N (internationalization) you need (fonts, messages), than you have to install an Input Method for Japanese. The details vary from distro to distro , but I’m using FC2 with synaptic and have no trouble to find the packages I need.
3. You can always go to the origin of the package, just takes more work. More lock down than Windows?!! Give me a break!
4. Maybe is in the attitude. “Showing frustration” just doesn’t help. If you need to ask questions, ask. If you need some glitch resolved throw a bug report to the developers or e-mail them suggestions. Only that way you’ve got a change to be heard.
5. I agree. Sort of…
6. There’s some examples of that in Windows world.
FC, mandrake and other distros have more sensible names in there menus.
7. Come on! You’re suposed to use you’re home for work and have most of you’re data there. In Windows the clutter happens both in the hard disk(s) root and user’s directory. The reason that directories are so cryptic (at first) is because you may use the command line so you have to write less characters to reach you’re goal.
The absolute path to my Windows XP Account Folder is “C:DocumentosJonasAmbiente de Trabalho”.
it’s worse than my Linux analogous /home/jonas
Here you can see what the system directories are for http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/dirstruct…
“Installing Mandrake 10 Official is easier and faster than installing Windows XP.”
I was actually reffering to to software installations not distro instalation, my bad.
“Sure it does: the developer only has to use Autopackage. ”
I’m also hoping autopackage or something better is widely adopted but right now it still isn’t an option from the user’s perspective.
“I respectfully disagree. The UNIX file system structure is indeed different from Windows, but that’s only a temporary nuisance. Once users learn it, it is actually much more consistent from system to system than for Windows. It is logical and well-structured – it should remain part of the learning curve.”
I never really said that I was for changing the file struture but I was just stating the reality. The thuth is one can have both, look at what Longhorn is doing with WinFS and what Gnome is doing with Gnome storage. Giving a user an alternative view that works in parallel to the file system I think is the better solution.
the reason why I can’t expect linux to make major inroads on the desktop is because there are so many distros, file systems, UI’s -each trying to do the same thing and none really working together with each other. Imagine if linux was designed by one team, from top to bottom instead of one group working on X,another on KDE another on gnome. All the developer talent would be concentrated on making the linux the best system. Instead we have many developers (but not as many as in the Windows world-it’s a clear minority) working on many mediocre systems so that linux loses a big advantage ompared to Windows.
Now a computer savvy guy. But if BeOS made it I would be using that. if MacOSX was for pc’s I would use that in an instant. The other hobby OS’s I don’t really see going too far…so linux is the only real alternative to Windows so what else can I do?
By the way, I like Linux (although OpenOffice is crap), but when the dumb users using Linux start to grow, there will be the same problems as Windows…
Yeah, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there! 😉
jeff
I respectfully disagree with you about the attitude of Linux users. I found the overwhelming majority to be helpful and open. Try doing what I suggested (going to a Windows forum and complaining about usability – especially if you compare it to, say, Mac OS X) and you’ll see the ugly side of Windows users.
Giving a user an alternative view that works in parallel to the file system I think is the better solution.
I agree with you on that point. I myself wouldn’t use something like Storage or WinFS, but I do think it’s cool that such an option is available.
All right, I’ve got to go to bed. Peace, y’all!
As I mentioned I was reffering to software installations and not distro installation but I guess I didn’t make it clear sorry.
But while on the topic let me voice some frustrations with doing an install. When I installed Mandrake 10 Official I was really happy to have the option of an FTP install. It went smoothly for my experience level up until a package was found to be corrupt near the end of installation. The only option given was to download that same package again from the same inital repository, which repeatedly failed over and over. A simple give alternate source FTP option would have made this much easier/usable. Let me mention the fact that since FTP install was available it has a leg up on other OSes however that doesn’t discount it’s shortcommings.
Though, if Linux were to have equal market share, Im sure it would have just as many problems with security insults…of course the difference would be response time to the vulnerabilities that surface….OSSers have an advantage here…
That’s a flawed argument. Apache has ~3x times more installed base than IIS and guess who has more exploits?
I second your wishes that Desktop OSes, one day, become irrelevant…
The only way IMHO is avoiding vendor lock in and promoting standards so they can be equal.
Open Source promotes and allows that. That’s why Linux, BSDs are getting more visibiltiy as customers get tired of empty Corporation’s promises. Unlike you I don’t put mutch faith in Longhorn (although i’ll try too). 😉
I use it exclusively at home and work along with numerous friends and coworkers. I haven’t once had a virus, spyware, or worm. I can play all the multimedia files people throw at me. I have a full office suite (openoffice.org), IDE (Eclipse, Monodevelop), latest flash and java plugins for firefox, mail and calendaring (Evolution), and to top it off I have a desktop environment (GNOME 2.6) that is far more usable than Windows XP. It’s a desktop my mother can use. It’s completely nonsensical to say Linux is not ready for the desktop when millions of users *are* using it *exclusively*.
What is an operating system but mostly just a few layers between hardware and the software people use. If “average” people cannot install software in Linux than how can it ever even be considered as a solution for those people?
As far as Security, I agree Linux is more secure, but would that still remain the case if “average” people were running it?
I have never had my Linux boxes owned, but even my IIS installs have never been owned so that does not prove much.
As far as stability, XP is pretty damn stable. Windows stability problems are usually due to other buggy shit people install on their systems.
And for the last time, stop asuming “average” users are able to use Linux becasue the administrator ferries are going to handle everything they don’t know for them anyway.
If you ever do find these magic creatures pick me up one too so I can task it to hunt down dependencies for me.
Are they potty trained?
the reason why I can’t expect linux to make major inroads on the desktop is because there are so many…file systems
What are you talking about? The FS is basically transparent. The average user would never know the difference between EXT3/Reiser/etc.
I’ll throw the towel here!
What nonsense!
Any one that looks, once in a while,at developer’s list knows that there are discussions between developer’s groups willing to integrate their projects.
The words that apply there are competition, cooperation, evolution, integration, quality and, errr… inovation.
2. Thanks for the tips but I’m really not interested in making my whole system set up for Japanese for myself, I just want to read and write documents and such in Japanese. It’s the writting part (good IME needed) that is the hangup.
“FC2 with synaptic” Actually as a side note I’m also using FC2 with synaptic, but I also use yum from time to time to get packages such as the ones for mono development. Lately they both broke (go slow as hell, give me verification and configuration errors). I really haven’t done anything besides install a few pieces of software using yum and synaptic and browse the web. Aside from that I get freeze ups and crashes that I never had with WinXP on the same machine. I was actually pretty suprised by these problems after reading about the supposed reliability/security of Linux.
4. Good point. Thats basically what I mean by showing frustration but maybe more patience is needed even after patience wears thin due to usability issues and the bad attitude on some help boards.
7. Thanks for the link. I never proposed that Windows was any better though. Actually I definitely prefer the Linux solution although I think to a new user that full names to help so folders like “Program Files” go a long way. If you read my later post you will see my actual oppinions on solutions which follow the lines of alternate views or abstractions as with Gnome Storage or WinFS.
Thanks for the respectful post though, it’s refressing to see possitive and constructive input on this topic.
Eugenia,
The primary case being made in the article is that the security failures with Windows and IE show a compelling reason to migrate to Linux. As I remember from a couple of months back Linux and Windows were in a neck and neck race to be the leader in security failures.
What is the current position and recent trends ???
I’ve actually made frustrated comments on usability on Windows forums before. I usually get an uproar of people who agree actually and thats part of why I was suprised when I did the same on Linux forums. This is true for offical forums or unofficial forums. I think it has something to do with the MS makes software for people in return for money where Linux developers make software for themselves and the others that take the time to use things just as they do deal. So the provider consumer analogy is not the same in Linux.
Eugenia,
The primary case being made in the article is that the security failures with Windows and IE show a compelling reason to migrate to Linux. As I remember from a couple of months back Linux and Windows were in a neck and neck race to be the leader in security failures.
What is the current position and recent trends ???
The problem with the “neck and neck race” is that security advisories for Linux reported are for all packages within an specific distibution (they may not be installed or not beeing used but still counts) and windows security advisories have to to only with windows tools that run in kernel space or services (doesn’t include third party programs).
So the current position as it’s given is rather irrelevant for the case unless you list all advisories from both sides and respective patching times.
Actually his argument isn’t completely flawed as Apache is just a case example and it is a mistake to base an argument upon one case especially if that case can found to be flawed. A possible flaw in this example is that IIS is probably used by less technologically inclined people compared to apache but as I have no figures I really can’t back that. Also I’ve known some exploits in IIS but I really wasn’t aware that it was any more than Apache if this is true I wonder what the reason for it is? Is Apache open source I didn’t think it was?
“And for the last time, stop asuming “average” users are able to use Linux becasue the administrator ferries are going to handle everything they don’t know for them anyway.
If you ever do find these magic creatures pick me up one too so I can task it to hunt down dependencies for me.
Are they potty trained?”
I’m right behind you in line man, I’ll even pay for one if the price is fair.
Linux wears a halo and hold underdog statue, this is why people will finger point and degrade you for pointing out something that may be damaging to their agenda. Simple politics, it happens both ways but is generally more prominent from the Linux supporters.
As Linux makes progress, it will be subjected to more criticisms from more non-bias sources, rather than constant 10 of 10 opinions from the advocates.
The closer Linux moves to Windows on the desktop, the more fair people will be in reviewing it as an alternitave.
In my opinion, that day is still a ways off.
That GDI is in the kernel is hardly a grave stability risk when compared to X. According to the XOrg mailinglist, X does some pretty sensitive things to the hardware, like changing PCI bus parameters, that can cause instability. I’ve been messing around quite a bit lately with my Gentoo install and have found some pretty interesting ways to put the system in a hard freeze by screwing around too much with the graphics systems. For example, try installing the FireGL driver along with a console framebuffer. It’s even more interesting when you realize that it doesn’t work and try removing your framebuffer driver with modprobe -r.
Clearly the average user won’t be doing any of this, but I just want to say that having a graphics system in user mode is not inherently better for stability, and is not a likely cause for an NT crash except in the case of bad drivers.
there’s something to be said about news reporting in our age, it left the building about 20 years before elvis.
Reviewers get to review application on the premiss that they write something *GOOD* about the product. If you’re younger than 40 you might not even remember the days when reviewers were trying to go about it like altruists.
sites like osnews, engadget, gizmodo, slashdot get advance copies of software and tech-books to fluff the presses.
O’reilly has a club where organisations get their books for free, reviewers get the same treatment.
software companies work the same way, this is called evangelism.
Evangelism for linux users is vis a vis word of mouth; Which might be why people find the obnoxious at times, but resorting to adhom. attacks are a fools errand.
what you’re talking about is nice and all, if it’d been in that rosecoloured world of the fifties, but we’re in the gritty millenium now, dog eat dog, mudslinging, corruption and brother-in-law politics.
Needless to say, there are no unbiased sources.
you just need to learn to review and question your sources of information.
” I hear a lot of people saying that linux isn’t ready for the home desktop.
But I don’t hear people saying why that is. ”
There are several reasons why Linux is not ready for the desktop:
Hardware Support — Linux does not support the wide range of hardware that Windows does. With Windows device support is either present in Windows itself or there are third party support. Installation of hardware is a big hassle on the Linux side. If the kernel doesnt support it and you happen to run accross a third party driver or a reversed engineered one I don think the average computing public is knowledgeable to know how to change runlevels, load and unload modules, edit text configuration files and build modules. With Windows you have a very simple method of installing drivers. You plugin hardware insert CD. While some hardware on the Windows side can be a problem to configure such as wireless cards and routers you can call and get assistance from either Microsoft support or from the hardware manufaturer. With Linux you have mailing lists and chatrooms, a lot of help that is if you cannot hook up to the web and if you can get through, I hjave found that some of these lists and rooms are either no help because you have 20 people telling you how to perform the tasks a hundred different ways or Sometimes these people like to ridicule newbies or just refuse to help.
Application support — Application support is not that great either, there are very few commercial applications for Linux. Some say use Crossover Office and WineX for applications but performance is not that great and with WineX some of the newer games are not supported. There is no universal installer on Linux. Average users do not know how to build from source or dont want to drop into the command line to do RPM’s. Average joes do not know how to settle dependancies or what GTK is, most average users if you ask them if they have Java installed they say “Sure, three creams and a sugar please.”
Standards Support — Standard media fromat is not supported in Linux such as WMV, WMA Quicktime and AAC, Sure there are third party hacks but they do not work 100% of the time.
Yes, Linux is ready for the desktop. Who’s desktop?
You have:
1) Audio sofware
2) Video sofware
3) Web browsers
4) Video cam sofware
5) Office suite (excellent functionallity but not 100% MS compatible)
6) CAD/CAM sofware
7) The list goes on and on.
What Linux does not have:
1) Native game support (a little) or you can run various emulators with some degree of sucess.
2) Latest hardware? In some cases you wont have the latest hardware support (or wacky unkown verndor support).
3) Over 80,000 viri.
4) Vendor lock in (file formats).
Unless your totally addicted to games, Linux can function on various desktops. How many home consumers buy the latest and greatest. And yes there is a market for that but not the average joe/mary.
And there were several cracks about I used slackware and it took me 2 days to set up my system. Slackware isnt a newbie friendly distro. How about using Fedora, Mandrake or SUSE. You would be up in about and 1 hour depending on the number of packages installed.
As for the gnome statement “editing menus”. There is a file that has to be created to allow users to modify there DE. I dont remember what the file. Sorry, I would have to steer you toward the manual. Gnome.org has excellent documentation. If that file is present, all you have to do is right click on the menu to add your program.
Resolution switching/ input device addition/removal etc. is badly implemented in XFree86.
While you can’t switch color depth on the fly, you surely can switch resolution easily with XFree86 4.3 or higher. In KDE 3.2 you can do this from the “System” menu, and you can even get an icon in the system tray for easy access.
Printing support is arcane and inconsistent between distros, applications and desktop environments. CUPS?, lpr?, foomatic? Most distros do a reasonable job of hiding this until you run an app which expects you to type in an lpr string.
You must be using some really old apps, i believe the last program i had to enter an lpr string was netscape 4.7. And you only really have lpr and cups to choose from as spooler, and i actually find CUPS to be the best printing system i have seen to date.
No standard high-level DE-defined widgets like filepickers etc. KDE is better than GNOME in this regard, I believe, but apps should ideally be written in such a way that nautilus or konqueror-based widgets are used for filepicking when such software is installed on the system, only falling back to basic GTK+/Qt widgets when the ‘richer’ file managers are not present.
All KDE applications use the KDE filepicker, just as i would imagine that all gnome applications use the gnome one (or is it the gtk one?) It would however be nice if QT could use KDE’s file dialog, but this is not possible, at least at the moment.
No standard API for url handling – most apps, for example, are incompatible with paths and drag n drop from nautilus SMB mounts, and smiliarly on KDE – If you can see it in the file manager, you should be able to open it in your applications.
I don’t know about nautilus, but i do know that if you can see it in konqueror, then you can also open it in all other KDE applications, since they use the same mechanism for loading the file. (KIO)
I agree with most of your remaining points however.
Since you use synaptic, try to install ttfonts-ja under User Interface/X. You can install fonts-ja too but these are bitmap fonts…
There are losers who don’t do regular oil changes, don’t maintain their houses and don’t brush their teeth. If they don’t like Linux, why should I care? The world is made for those kind of suckers to regularly hand out the cash for what they think they need done for them.
I use Linux on a desktop and notebook (no Windows) and my wife uses it on her desktop. It’s free (Debian) and easy to upgrade with Synaptic (refresh, upgrade) and that means I have the latest operating system and office suite and graphics packages at the touch of a button and at no cost.
I had plenty of headaches with Windows and spent plenty of money on software. Those days are long over.
Do I care if YOU use it? No. I don’t advocate using it. This is no advertisement. It’s just a statement of fact.
Hardware Support — Linux does not support the wide range of hardware that Windows does.
It doesn’t matter so much how much hardware is supported, as what hardware is supported. Enough hardware is supported in Linux today that you can buy your random Dell PC, and be pretty sure everything will work. After all, the only hardware support I care about is support for *my* hardware.
You plugin hardware insert CD.
SuSE has an option for this. It’s just that very few vendors ship such CDs. In any case, the HCL for Linux is basically what’s in the kernel. With few exceptions, anything outside is “experimental.” Thus, the difficulty of installing such “experimental” drivers doesn’t matter a whole lot. SuSE and RedHat are updated often enough that, in practice, the things you want supported have pre-built modules.
Average users do not know how to build from source or dont want to drop into the command line to do RPM’s. Average joes do not know how to settle dependancies or what GTK is
To tell the truth, aside from my own code, I cannot remember the last time I built something from source! 99% of the stuff I want is in SuSE’s YaST repository or Debian’s APT repository. The remaining 1% usually has an RPM available no more than a Google-search away. Say I want an RPM of plone. Type in “SuSE 9.1 plone RPM” and hit “I’m feeling lucky.” Bingo! Oh, and who uses the CLI to install RPMs? I click on it and a little “install” box pops up. You might want to upgrade from RedHat 5.x.
Standards Support — Standard media fromat is not supported in Linux such as WMV, WMA Quicktime and AAC, Sure there are third party hacks but they do not work 100% of the time.
That’s a very intellectually dishonest way of phrasing things. None of WMV, WMA, Quicktime, or AAC are standards. They are all proprietory formats! In any case, the libraries used to play these formats are the exact same as the ones on Windows, so they work on the same things the Windows versions work on. Yes, there are some files that don’t open properly in Xine (but do in MPlayer, or vice versa), but then again, there are quite a few video files that don’t work in WMP, but work in PowerDivX.
Actually his argument isn’t completely flawed as Apache is just a case example and it is a mistake to base an argument upon one case especially if that case can found to be flawed. A possible flaw in this example is that IIS is probably used by less technologically inclined people compared to apache but as I have no figures I really can’t back that. Also I’ve known some exploits in IIS but I really wasn’t aware that it was any more than Apache if this is true I wonder what the reason for it is? Is Apache open source I didn’t think it was?
What’s wrong in using a case example?
He based his argument in a case example, making a rule (more Windows = More Security Problems => more Linux = More Linux Security Problems). I just rebutted that “rule” precisely with a case that proves it’s no rule at all.
It’s like math, when you want to prove that one “rule” doesn’t apply you just need to find a case where that “rule” doesn’t hold.
Thanks for the tip, I believe I have fonts up and running that are working most of the time. My problem is still being able to input japanese lanaguage hiragana, katakana, and kanji because an IME is needed to support such langauges.
What do you mean by installing it under User Interface/X anyways though? Oh, you mean thats where it is using synaptic duh, my mistake.
Linux still takes too much tinkering but that may not be the case with some distro’s. I can’t imagine most people not able to get by with linux.
How many people do you know that primary work within just a few apps? They basically browse the internet and use office stuff. Honestly as long as you are able to give the typical, very average user a setup with the alternatives they want then you pretty home free. I think of my Mom and she could probably use linux just as well as Windows (again, with some tinkering like gettting rid of virtual desktops and having her favorite apps clearly in front). Plus she get’s pounded with Spyware so she would appreciate that.
For the power user. No. I don’t see it being there for them at all.
I use windows, Mac, and Linux. All are good in their own respects but I have actaully found myself more and more liking the linux experience as things get refined (but then again I like to play with new technology and nothing offers more new than Linux).
So saying it can or cannot be a desktop OS is really silly. I think it’s has to be based on each user individually and as long as the user requires only a select amount of apps then it could be a good fit. That’s why I think it works for enterprise stuff. The home market is very hit and miss. If games are in there anywhere then forget about it.
Quote:
“True, but windows really defined what a desktop os should do, should look like, etc.”
Absolute rubbish. Macs have always had far superior UI and GUIs.
Linux is not a replacement for Windows, it is an ALTERNATIVE. It doesn’t work the same way as Windows, nor does it look the same. Yes, the UI is not consistent thruought the entire range of GPL software that’s available. In all honesty, most people don’t care! A previous poster compained that he spent two days getting Slackware 10 to run on his laptop. Well – duh!
Slackware has long been considered a serious Linux distro, one that would not be recommended for a beginner. Installing onto a laptop? Please. They are proprietary beasts, horrible things. Of course the hardware is going to be difficult if not impossible to get running on a laptop. It’s not linux’ fault – blame the hardware vendors guys.
The Linux GUI has come a long long way. Sure, it’s not perfect. Sure it’s not always easy to use or administer. But someone who’s got an ounce of intelligence and common sense wil be able to learn basic Linux commands in a month at most. The main problem is that *most* of the average computer users are DUMB. They simply should not even be allowed near a computer. Period. Whilst Microsoft has done a lot of good for the industry (and it has), they have also encouraged every tom, dick and harry to use a computer, and that’s the problem. The GUI and UI have been made deliberately easier. Operating systems have been made to be self sufficient, with minimal input from the user. This creates and encourages security issues. I mean, please. You just don’t let any person drive a car do you? No. They need to be licensed and ‘certified’. Sure using an operating system isn’t going to kill anyone, but I get a wee bit sick of worms, viruses, spam and junk mail, mostly because of insecure Windows machines used by idiotic users who really should never have been allowed to use a computer.
Until this core issue is resolved, you will see this issue. Either make software more secure, but harder for the normal person to use, for the benefit of all. Or keep making it easier with more security issues. I know which one I want. I didn’t get my computer skills handed to me on a plate – I had to learn, read and investigate.
Dave W Pastern
While i didn’t find the article badly written, i didn’t find any arguments in it which speak against Linux and the desktop. Much like F911 wasn’t anything new for me. That’s what you get when you are more into the subject; as a result i assume i’m not among the target reader group, and i doubt . readers, most Osnews/Newsforge readers are either. Don’t know about eWeek.
The reason why you hear every year “Linux is ready for the desktop” is pretty simple. In ’99, Windows was still using 95/98 architecture and it wasn’t very good back then. What the Linux desktop failed during that time is lots of GUI applications and a nice DEs. After these times, it became more and more a suitable alternative. Cause tell me, what do most people want with their computer? Most people are home users who want an Office program, webbrowser, IM, and that is basically it. Such applications are now available, they work well, are stable and compatible. Ofcourse there are also artists who like power audio applications, graphics applications, etc but those could just as well be running MacOSX or IRIX. Linux is far from perfect on these levels, but it is advancing there as well. Because it is so overly easy to set up, and doing the common things just fine, i argue that Linux is more or less “ready”. The only way i see MS stopping the adoption (which will be more and more during the following years, also in home envs) is by breaking compatibility for example with Longhorn. But we are talking about months, years after Longhorn and i expect backfire when that happens.
There are problems however. And not small ones either. Hardware management is one (DBus / HAL try to address this), and X server has several performance and feature prbolems (KDrive plus extensions), compatibility between DEs is a problem (FD.O tries to address this). In short, the FD.O community is driving the thing forward in very important ways and i have to thank Keith Packard mostly, for his hard work.
To tell the truth, aside from my own code, I cannot remember the last time I built something from source! 99% of the stuff I want is in SuSE’s YaST repository or Debian’s APT repository. The remaining 1% usually has an RPM available no more than a Google-search away. Say I want an RPM of plone. Type in “SuSE 9.1 plone RPM” and hit “I’m feeling lucky.” Bingo! Oh, and who uses the CLI to install RPMs? I click on it and a little “install” box pops up. You might want to upgrade from RedHat 5.x.
Hey Rayiner, i thought you ran Gentoo? What happened?
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Oh and i have to respond to this misconception:
Hardware Support — Linux does not support the wide range of hardware that Windows does.
Linux supports far more architectures. Can i run Windows on my MIPS or SPARC? Nah. It goes the other way around too, buddy. Plus digital camera support is well, very very very good for example. I for one, am looking forward to more in depth case-by-case researches. Real researches instead of simple, factual incorrect sentences like this one.
By your reasoning, if I buy a car I should have to be an auto mechanic and an Indy car driver. Because if I’m not how could I possibly work a car. Please, stop the elitist bullshit and realise its just a fucking piece of metal and ceramics. Using linux is just that, using linux. its not religion. When you guys stop that kind of crap then the world will recognize linux and use it, in the meantime we just roll our eyes when guys like you rant and rave about linux being better. ITS A COMPUTER NOT A GOD.
I keep hearing that Linux is not ready for the desktop – May I say bulls###.
I work for an outfit that uses both Windows and Linux on the desktop. Those that are now on Linux do not have down time and can just log in and work and surf without problems. Keeping the windows machines up and running is a major pain our windows users are often waiting for fixes or recovery. I am the admin and spend most of my time on the Windows systems that have failed or crashed. In fact I have only been called out once for one of the Linux systems so far and it was for a damaged connector because someone tripped over the keyboard cord.
I have also set up some friends and family with Linux for both personal and business use Most are total non-teekies and they have no problems with Linux. True they have to call me on the rare occasion need to call me to aid in some hardware install or at least to ask me to help with a hardware purchase. I do not have to rush over anymore because of one screw up or another. Most agree that computing is more fun with Linux on the computer. As my brother puts it “I can just surf – no fuss no muss. It always works without any guff.”
You see just because Linux is weaker than Windows in some areas does not mean that it is not ready for prime time, because in other areas it is vastly better than Windows. Many people are quite happy with some flavor Linux.