Hands-on testing and real-world experiences reveal that, despite great progress, Linux faces obstacles in conquering more enterprise desktops.
Has desktop Linux come of age?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Every change comes with obstacles..
And what other alternative operating systems don’t face obstacles in conquering more enterprise desktops? MacOS X is still not at more than a few %, hardly more than Linux. So uhm… what else is left?
When Linux got himself a good desktop think that I’m starting to doubt it will ever happen, at this point I’m more optimistic in relation to other OS’s like ShyOS to become an alternative Desktop to Windows than Linux.
Also I’ve not read the article nor I will cause I know what’s wrong with Desktop Linux, I can see it’s faults in contrast with many people who think Linux is perfect to general use.
When will the Linux destop craze around newssites end at last ?
This Desktop Linux hype, is very similar to what happened on the server side a couple of years ago. As long as main players like IBM and Oracle didn’t have any products for Linux everybody asked will Linux make it on the server.
My guess is that it will end when Linux got around 10% of the desktops. This will probably happen two or three years after that Adobe and Macromedia releases their products in a Linux version.
Linux will never be Windows. People will either accept it as it is or they will stick to Windows. Windows could become a command line only OS again, and it would still have 95% of the desktop because for 95% of the population, “computer == Microsoft”. I work in PC sales and you’d be surprised how many people think a computer runs Microsoft Word as its operating system. (btw; any more features, and it will be!)
I use Linux on my desktop because quite frankly, I *MUCH* prefer it. I can’t stand that little delay in Windows when you click on something when you can’t quite tell whether or not Windows is responding. Or when the icon changes to a hand when you scroll over something and gets stuck like that and you can’t ‘feel’ it responding.
UNIX and X just feels more robust. For me personally, and what I use my computer for (everything!) Windows is only second best (actually, third best, FreeBSD is second) Joe public can keep using Windows for all I care, I’m a convert and unless Windows radically changes, I’m not going back.
Eugenia, please stop posting this crud! please!
Nobody gives a rat’s-ass if Linux never becomes “the desktop you must have”. And you know what? It wouldn’t phase the people who choose to use it in any way at all. You could bring the God of Software down (would he be downloaded?) to tell us all with absolute authority that Linux shall never be any more than it is now — and we’d *still* countinue to happily use it. I’d happily keep going with my “unusable” E16 install while others would happily keep going on with their [equally unusable] GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Openbox, etc.
I wouldn’t normally go off like this but THREE ARTICLES on this subject in ONE WEEK is very much excessive. Nobody cares what the opinion of some journalist is. Nobody. They’ve worn out their welcome, as it were. Go home. Let those of us who’ve tried Linux and liked it continue to use it without interruption, you’re not going to convince us that we’d be better off without it. As for the people who try Linux and don’t like it? Well, I suspect they all know where their Windows install disks are…
> Nobody cares what the opinion of some journalist is. Nobody. They’ve worn out their welcome, as it were. Go home. Let those of us who’ve tried Linux and liked it continue to use it without interruption, you’re not going to convince us that we’d be better off without it. As for the people who try Linux and don’t like it? Well, I suspect they all know where their Windows install disks are…
Hear, hear on that!
Moreover, the “is it ready/is it not” dichotomy is artificial anyway. “Readiness” is a spectrum from “Only for hardcore geeks with too much time on their hands” to “any idiot could install and use it”. Any worthwhile inquiry will look at where on that spectrum Linux currently falls.
I have to agree with the above posters. While I am still very excited about longhorn, there is not enough movement going on in the linux world to justify the incessent articles that rehash the same crap over and over again.
Linux:
* Stable
* Free
* Not widely adopted
Lets look at it again in 2005.
Regards
Microsoft Fanboy
What are these innovations? The ability to have flash animated mouse pointers? Please identify these nifty features that the best academic minds in the world are failing to discover. Personally, I think that the GNOME and KDE desktops both provide a higher level of integration, and a higher degree of consistency, than Windows. Try opening Winamp, Windows Media Player, Acrobat Reader, and Nero is Windows…make an argument that they are consistent and integrated well beyond Rhythmbox, Totem, GNOME PDF, and Nautilus-CD-Burner under Linux. And this will only get better with time. No interventions needed, just continue moving acording to plan.
I love FreeBSD, I really do, but it can’t match the vendor and developer support that Linux has. Linux 2.6 scales better on a server than any of the BSD’s, and las lower latency on the desktop. Much of my own argument for BSD over Linux was completely eradicated with the 2.6.x kernel series. What advantage does the ports collection have over APT, Portage, or even urpmi (these days)? Where is BSD innovating, and where are they gaining users from the Linux camp? I think the movement is the other way around.
Linux has a higher market share than Apple on the desktop. It has been that way for a year or more. And it has server penetration in the 20-27% range, much higher than any of the BSD’s.
Adobe distributes Acrobat Reader for Linux and has fore some time, just like Macromedia Flash, Real Player (ick), and Sun Java SDK. Winex and Crossover Office now support Photoshop as well. Native versions of Photoshop are closer than you imagine. Both Adobe and Macromedia have confirmed native Linux versions of their software suites, hopefully by the end of this year.
I’m sure 95% of users think that Microsoft Word is their operating system and that Outlook is their desktop shell. I also know that around the same percentage don’t care if they have Linux or Windows or MacOS 7.1 underlying their 3-4 applications. And if they don’t care, why shouldn’t they use a more economical, stable, and secure software stack? And why should they?
Why do we argue about which OS is better for a market segment that, flat out, couldn’t care less? That’s why OSNews should focus on which operating systems are available for those that do care.
How fragile isn’t that situation???? Just in these forums which are supposed to consist of OS enthusiasts we have a tremendeous amount (I’d even say majority) who simply uses Linux because they figure it’s a threat to MS.
The funny thing is that these stories never mention the amount of people out there that ALREADY use Linux because it sutis them better, like myself. Linux may not be ready for most users desktops, but don’t minimize its strong points and quality by taking this to mean that it isn’t ready for anyone’s desktop.
I’m tired of this goofy question being posed every other week “Has Linux come of age?”. Hello? It’s been “of age” for several years. The only “obstacle” is the software world getting us our ports for the apps we use.
Couple examples:
Yahoo–Give us a yahoo messenger that works with our cams (yes we can use gnomemeeting, not the point).
iTunes / Rhapsody – Realnetworks will soon have Rhapsody streaming software finished for linux users -BRAVO. Now DO THE DO Steve Jobs and get us iTunes. Does linux user money not spend?
Finally- Games, games…Epic software (Unreal) has been doing it. It’s time for Valve (Half-Life, Steam) and Id(Quake) to step up and recognize the formidable number of linux users out there AT LAUNCH TIME. Not six months down the road. (In all fairness, Id has been doing better
Linux is of age, just get the app’s done for us. We as linux users are willing to spend money for a good product (games, apps, etc), but we are less willing to do so if our needs are treated as an afterthought to Windoze users.
and Finally….we pay good money for our distributions to support our favorite vendors….please catch the software up. period
“Both Adobe and Macromedia have confirmed native Linux versions of their software suites, hopefully by the end of this year.”
Huh?! I read A LOT IT stuffs, probably too much, but I have never heard about any such thing beyond wishful thinking…
Three years ago.
“Has desktop Linux come of age?”
Two years ago.
“Has desktop Linux come of age?”
1 year ago.
“Has desktop Linux come of age?”
Sometime in the future after Linux runs every device in your home, the entire Internet runs on it, nearly every company on the planet uses it, most public agencys have switched to it, and yes it even walks on water.
“Has desktop Linux come of age?”
Sheeeeesh!
Finally- Games, games…Epic software (Unreal) has been doing it. It’s time for Valve (Half-Life, Steam) and Id(Quake) to step up and recognize the formidable number of linux users…
:o, ID has been porting their games over to linux for a LONG time, heck Quake 1/2 are opensource and they’re dual releasing Doom 3 for Windows and Linux.
“Has desktop Linux come of age?”
Yes.
“Has desktop users come of age?”
No.
There were at least 4 people here (propably techs) that posted (on OSNews) and said they use Linux today. Based on that evidence Linux must be both “of age” and “ready for the desktop” for all the good people of the world.
I make 5, send the press release.
Seriously, if you want to be counted, wander over to http://counter.li.org after the site comes back up.
Yet another article, good lord!
Linux needs Applications and Games, need we have sweaty Bulmer dance accross the stage screaming “applications, applications, applications!”? Sorry, the day I can get the Applications *I* want on Linux will be the day I’ll climb out of my MacOS X rutt and use Linux. Until that day,I’m quite happy to sit in my rutt, use the applications I want and worship Jobs in the little shrine I’ve setup in my living room 😉
The problem is with OSS, its all geek, no thinking. I would contribute, but when I offer advice I get told to f*ck off, sorry, want advice and don’t like the truth? then remain the 39 year old coder living in your mum and dads basement.
when microsoft was young, around the time of windows 95, weren’t people wondering the same thing? Has desktop computing finally arrived for the masses?
Sounds like (and looks like, since I use it daily) Linux has matured, with KDE a great desktop manager, which I prefer to Mac OS X, and media players like xine and amaroK, and soon itunes, from crossover office.
That’s it, from now on I am trolling on all the doze news posts since you all feel you have to come in and complain that Eugenia reports about a pretty decent article on corporate desktop linux.
If you don’t like the headline, DON’T READ IT!
I know most of you were busy trolling but you might have found out that they are actually worth the read.
So, thanks for reporting these nice articles.
For starters I am a Win/AMD salesman who is sick of M$ Windowz and recently turned convert to FreeBSD and loving. But I can say from experience that joe public barely understands the difference between windows and office. As long as they can surf the web, write letters and play games they are happy. So we install open office, cause it saves them the $300 for small biz ed. of office, and a popup blocker and antivirus and anti-spyware and except for the ones that just can’t help but screw up there computer, that suffices our general customer base. The tower is generally referred to as the hard drive, modem, cdrom, etc.
These people are the general public and I can tell you, there is now way in h*ll these people will ever adopt linux on their own unless it comes on their PC’s pre installed or they start using it at work and like the feel of it better. Everyday I here at least once or twice “I am so computer illiterate”. These people will require a mass educational experience to adopt linux on their own. I am not saying joe public is stupid, well sometimes he is
, I am saying it will take a full blown revolution to get linux to where windows is today in a short order. It will take some revolutionary application or use that blows windows so far out of the water people will generally forget about microsoft all together. I don’t see anything like that anywhere on the horizon.
So what are we left with? A long road of further linux improvements in usability and a very long road of general adoption. In the mean time, for God’s sake, can we PLEASE stop getting these “Is liunx ready for the desktop” articles that only cause flame wars at best and rehash what EVERYBODY knows over and over?? At LEAST give it six months or so before the next one, PLEASE!?!?!
I think you mean “moratorium”, not “memorandum”…
I am a java developer, my main environment is WebObjects 5.2, building JavaClient and Web Applications under MacOSX Panther, and I really think that MacOS is not so advanced and user friendly as it is gererally admitted.
The one mouse button sucks really, the fact of using the finder to browse to the the application directory to launch then is really not user friendly, and it suffers from a big lack of important features.
Linux choosed to be complete rather than being simple, and it could perfecty being simple, if one day a good Linux distributor considers preconfiguring the XFCE4 panel to include launchers of the main applications (OOo, Gimp, Editor, MPlayer). We’ll have a MacOSX like desktop without the damned finder.
I think Uno has it about right.
It’s a standard normal distribution along monetary lines, with the rich 10% going Apple, the po’ 10% (in which you find me) going GNU/Linux, and the middle 80% not venturing out of Redmond…
“Both Adobe and Macromedia have confirmed native Linux versions of their software suites, hopefully by the end of this year.”
Some Macromedia people have made noises that they would port Flash MX first and then the entire MX suite. Have heard nothing from Adobe though.
By the way it is probably a bad idea to start with Flash MX. Most of the Linux community is headed for SVG. So who in their right mind would buy it. And if Macromedia releases this as a test to see if there is any market, it may take a very long time before we se Dreamweaver or Freehand for Linux. Both of them applications that would have the potential of being best sellers in the Linux world.
Until those linux distributions can read MS exchange email using MAPI protocol linux has a long way to go to invade the corporate desktop.
“Is linux ready for the desktop?” is the prerenial aspect by which much linux interest is based. Perhaps this is not the best way to look at what has and is occuring in the linux community.
Linux, and perhaps moreso Apache, Perl, Python, (and more FOOS projects) is really a success of a spirit of cooperation, a paradigm that has allowed both business and individuals to participate and benefit in new relationships, while advancing technological growth.
Personally, I like the spirit behind linux, but I’m not such a big fan of the Unix technological herritage that comes with it. Running and maintaining a good, simple, somewhat secure linux box is way too difficult for most people to even consider. Running obscure command-line utilities piped together is just not what I think of when I imagine my ideal desktop computer experience.
Predictions: linux development will chug along, installs and updates will get better, but will always be a bit clunky, X will use up too many system resources as compared other windowing protocols, liscensing zealots/watchdogs will fragment project implementations and divide time and human resources bringing us further from a ‘standard’ desktop, but overall . . . we each have to decide the success and failure of all this.
Personally, linux (in it’s current form) may be a terrible answer for the desktop, but that doesn’t mean that concepts developed along the way can’t be used to build a desktop OS (or that linux itself won’t itself evolve into and OS) that incorporates the appropriate technical and design aspects to deliver the best benefits for desktop computer users.
Well, look at it this way. Businesses have to answer to investors. If they could have saved hundreds of thousands on software licenses using Linux and kept the same or better productivity levels because its better stability, security and maintenance schedules they will need to justify why they are not switching.
The pressure will come from the little guys who adopt this technology early and are able to compete with lower overall costs. This means they need to make lower overall profits or get to make greater net gains or use better hardware to do the same jobs.
But its not just Linux here. Any free software translates into the same financial advantages, obviously. What needs to be observed is how this free software performs when compared with its commercial/proprietary competition and if the difference in performance justifies the cost. But stability/security and the downtimes associated with it have to be calculated in these performance measurements.
Also add the costs of anti-virus software, ghost, expensive databases and other high priced softwares associated with the commercial/proprietary way. If sufficient OSS software exists to get the same job done without thoses costs you can rest assured your competition will use it to gain an advantage.
I’m posting this from my slackware 10 laptop, celeron 1 Ghz. Using Firefox 0.9.1 and its very responsive on battery power.
Also my MS Word docs open in Abiword and Kword. Not much need for openoffice right now, though someday I might install it on the 46GB of disk space I have available. I use both KDE and GNOME at the same time and have 94MB of RAM available with 4 firefox windows, galeon, konsole, gpdf, and the GIMP 2.0 running. Though I’m also using 100MB of swap, so most of that is probably resting in the background. I enabled swap last night when a top showed I didn’t have any and it was maxed out on CPU cuz updated was running. Though it was maxed out cuz it couldn’t swap and ran out of memory. Fortunately 256MB if more than enough for all this stuff on Linux.
I like streaming movies and music to this thingy too.
I thought my CPU was maxxed cuz it ran out of memory and was trying to swap, but that wasn’t the case, it was just running updated. I doubt I would have been able to get access to the konsole and run a dd, mkswap and swapon if it was out of RAM.
” let em use windows cause i want them to have BSODs, locked up applications, several re-boots a day,”
I would say that an inexperienced user in Linux could have just as many, if not more problems in Linux. Dont worry, I will continue to use Windows. Never seen the BSOD, or had problems with locked up applications, and have only had to reboot when I update or make a change that specifically calls for it.
To Fangorn – this is like shooting fish is a barrel. Have you been using a Mac for less than a week?
“The one mouse button sucks really,” GET A 3RD PARTY MOUSE. I’ve got Mac OS X (Panther) and use a wireless Logitech MX-700 mouse with EIGHT buttons on it. All eight buttons are functional and all are used often.
“…the fact of using the finder to browse to the the application directory to launch then is really not user friendly,” What the F***? That is what the Dock is for. Drag the icons for the Apps you use to the Doc. Then you just click on that icon on the dock to run the app and you can also see which ones are running.
“…and it suffers from a big lack of important features.” Like what? The ONLY thing I can’t do on my Mac without an emulator is creating routes for my Garmin Street Pilot III deluxe GPS device.
The Finder is NOT stupid. I don’t think you are stupid either. I just don’t think that you know how to use it correctly.
EVERYTHING could be better no matter what you use. Even a glass to drink water out of could be better somehow.
Well I did it all. I started out knowing nothing about Linux – and now several months on I built my own Linux install using Linux from sctatch. I came a long way in a relatively short time. It just pissed me off that Linux users have this superiority complex – and I hated their usual retort that ‘You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You are probably too dumb to understand Linux anyway’, really got my back up. So I decided I would go at it from a position of strength – by basically learning everything about Linux I possibly could – and then passing comment on it.
And my view is? Linux sucks big time. What annoys me most about it is that some people seem to feel that the OS itself is the whole point of computing – and any tasks you accomplish with the OS are of secondary importance. But most Windows users tend to feel it is the task that is of primary importance – and if possible they prefer to feel as though they are not interacting with an ‘OS’ at all, they are simply engaged in accomplishing a task. In Linux it is possible to accomplish tasks – but rarely is this possible without having to (or at least gain the impression of needing to) interact directly with the OS itself. (Editing config scripts, using the CL to accoumplish what should be very simple tasks etc). I also understand the need for security – but even as SU security restrictions in Linux are utterly anal. In Linux you can’t even fart without setting the correct permissions first – and even then those permissions may have dependencies on other permissions. It also takes so much more effort to accomplish a task in Liux. For example I installed the thunderbird mail client. Someone sent me an email with a web link in it. I innocently click on the web link expecting something to happen. No go! OK try setting ‘associations’ ‘opens with.’ select Firefox. Click the link again and Blamo! I get an endless stream of Firefox windows opening – none of which show any inclination at all to go anywhere. It turns out I have to learn some pretty complex XML scripting to get thunderbird to do something as simple as launch a default browser when I click on a link.
I mean, come on, how can you expect ordinary users to ‘switch’ when they are confronted by nonsense like this?
Having said that I don’t like Windows, or Gates and I wish there was an alternative – but Linux isn’t it. I wish there was OS X for the PC – I don’t buy that Apple would loose money. After all it doesn’t seem to have done MS any harm. But Jobs will never do it. So go figure. I guess we are all stuck.
GJ
PS
Just to say that Linux makes an excellent server OS. I just think trying to stick on all this extra half assed and mostly half baked functionality was a mistake. It just does not work very well as anything else.
“Never seen the BSOD”
You don’t work with computers much then. The NT BSOD is caused (often) by hardware failures and it’s a very handy tool for debugging dying hardware.
You may remove your foot from your mouth and post a reply when you have spend significant time around personal computers running Windows.
I’ve seen several BSOD’s, and the only ones I get angry at Windows for are from the 9x days. Even those weren’t bad though, they were usually caused from me hitting ctrl+alt+del too many times too fast. Generally, messages like this are far worse “error x in rundll32” or something like that, are the annoying ones caused by software issues.
I’ve never used an XP machine for a significant amount of time without applications locking up, at least temporarily but usually longer than my patience (about 42 seconds). If you have never seen an app lock up, you probably aren’t a power user and I don’t know why you are trying to argue with the typical osnewser; you aren’t gonna win. Try making reasonable claims like this one:
“Windows does not inhibit my productivity and I enjoy working in applications on it, so I continue to use it.”
That will allow you to look like less of a reactionary and more of a logical person.
PS-Yes, I’m taking notes on what I’m saying, I do it to especially when people post things like “why another desktop linux article?!” You rarely see people whining about more .net articles that show you 4 things you could have learned quicker by reading through docs on Microsofts webite.
Sorry my friend, you are waaaaaaaaaaay off on this one. At a price tag a Mac is carrying, I will NOT EVER buy a 3-button mouse additionally. Instead, it should be shipped madatory. There is nothing wrong with that: If you feel like you don’t need more than one button, than don’t use more than one button; Simply ignore the extra buttons, they won’t harm you. On the other hand, if your brain supports access of more than one button, then the Mac should readily ship with them with view to the luxurious price tag. Plain, simple.
“Sorry my friend, you are waaaaaaaaaaay off on this one. At a price tag a Mac is carrying, I will NOT EVER buy a 3-button mouse additionally. Instead, it should be shipped madatory. There is nothing wrong with that: If you feel like you don’t need more than one button, than don’t use more than one button; Simply ignore the extra buttons, they won’t harm you. On the other hand, if your brain supports access of more than one button, then the Mac should readily ship with them with view to the luxurious price tag. Plain, simple.”
I’m not off at all.
Based on what you are saying you haven’t or won’t ever buy anything to go inside or outside of a house because after spending all that money it should come with everything?
There are LOTS of products that people upgrade after buying them. Yes I would love to see Macs come with multi-button mice. But even if it did, I probably would still have gone out and bought my Logitech MX-700 mouse. Another $49 to $59 isn’t going to break my bank. And to not spend it and sit there seething and hating the mouse you are using is well …
It is possible to live indefinately without ever seeing a BSOD.
From what I can perhaps 99% of them are hardware related. I went through countless via motherboards and cursed windows to hell and bakck – until one day I switched to nvidia and nforce. I haven’t had a crash now in over 6 months.
It says it all for me really.
GJ
Is GNOME Linux on FreeBSD?
Is to begin eating all the whiny little MS babies.
Do you people have anything better to do than to take news about Linux as a direct invite to come here and cause strife?
Gnome is a desktop environment (a GUI desktop) the sourcecode for Gnome can be compiled to run on either Linux or BSD. Linux is much more modular than Windows, and desktop environments for Linux or BSD can be either added as needed or omited completely and run in CLI (CLI = commandline interface) if that is what the user desired…
where a windows install is not customizable, (you get what microsoft gives you) that is what turns me off about windows, and makes Linux a much more desirable OS..
I agree with what you are saying..
but there is hope. Linux is free software. So eventually those programmers who thought complex XML stuff was the way to go will eventually figure out that in UNIX you gotta Keep It Simple Stupid, or you’ll end up with lots of whining users complaining that its too hard or be replaced by something more logical and elegant.
I believe eventually they’ll get the point and write good quality software that works the way we want it too. It just might take a few revisions. But by the time it gets there it will still be free, complete with source code and shiny candy-like buttons.
Linux is much more modular than Windows, and desktop environments for Linux or BSD can be either added as needed or omited completely and run in CLI (CLI = commandline interface) if that is what the user desired…
It is specious to equate “modularity” and “availability of modules”.
I think people out there are missing the point of this question (Has desktop Linux come of age?)well yes and no.
because we do want linux wide spread,it needs more talk.. even this question might sound silly
but it gets minds working, developers more productive ,how you say ??well why limit linux only to business side and only server side shit.(people are now offering a desktop version
yeah)and for ordinary people ,why be selfish?(well they are still working on it to be such)it takes time ,so is it ready??? that is the question isn’t it?.not everyone thinks so otherwise such a question would’t be posed.remember desktop linux
isn’t as old as the server side of this os, so its fair to say its still on resonably new grounds in linux technology.
i personaly think the word desktop has more appeal than other terminology, its all about marketing hype remember,
so where can we start to promote linux??? im sorry but i feel linux has a lot more work needed ,it has to be an everybodys system first to get anywhere…(well if you disagree let me ask you this: can a 10 year child load up linux and do ordinary tasks in linux ,you probably would answer yes and i agree they could ok but can they do system
management??? i think not,but i bet they could in windows.
windows makes things easyier thats what i think linux needs
not limited to only super users,(why make an os complicated?)but in the same token as i said before it needs to be an everybodys system, if we get that right ,than greatly promote linux where would linux stand?
intill then than i’ve switched fully to windows and not the other way round.(windows rocks for now)
they write…:
“One major outstanding issue for any company looking to migrate to the Linux desktop, however, is application support. With command of more than 90 percent of the desktop market, the Windows operating system is deeply entrenched. When one considers the legacy applications and Microsoft dependencies common to most enterprises, a move to Linux can quickly become a complicated proposition.
Take the Allied Irish Bank, which recently began the process of migrating 8,000 of its branch-office clients from Windows 3.1 to Sun’s Linux-based Java Desktop System. Linux was appropriate for the bank’s branch offices, which have a “definable functionality,” says Michael Bowler, the bank’s IT architecture manager. But with approximately 500 Windows-based applications in AIB’s corporate offices, the bank has no plans to deploy Linux companywide.”
well, i ask myself, if this is all so complicated (for e.g. one bank), why did cities like munich, bergen, the german ministries, the french ministries and others switch to linux? seems kinda weird to me…
It just pissed me off that Linux users have this superiority complex – and I hated their usual retort that ‘You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You are probably too dumb to understand Linux anyway’, really got my back up.
aren’t there mac-users and windows-users with a superiority complex? i have encountered enough of this species. sure, some people are “too dumb” to communicate with other people, but don’t blame an OS on this.
Linux sucks big time. What annoys me most about it is that some people seem to feel that the OS itself is the whole point of computing – and any tasks you accomplish with the OS are of secondary importance. But most Windows users tend to feel it is the task that is of primary importance – and if possible they prefer to feel as though they are not interacting with an ‘OS’ at all, they are simply engaged in accomplishing a task.
errrm… i think you are throwing two groups of users in one pot. the first one is the coders/os-freaks, while the other group are simple application users. for coders, it is quite logical that their focus is on the kernel and the CLI stuff. for normal users, the main focus in on the apps. just like in windows or mac.
In Linux it is possible to accomplish tasks – but rarely is this possible without having to (or at least gain the impression of needing to) interact directly with the OS itself. (Editing config scripts, using the CL to accoumplish what should be very simple tasks etc).
give a user a distro like linspire or mandrake and they will be able to do (nearly) everything without hacking their system. throw a slack-distro or lfs box at a newb and sure, he will get headaches, but evenso, if you give a newb an old ms-dos-5 comp.
furthermore: if you want to change something in linux (because it doesn’t work) you HAVE the option of editing the config scripts. can you tell me how to do that in an adequate manner in windows? i never managed that sort of thing.
I also understand the need for security – but even as SU security restrictions in Linux are utterly anal. In Linux you can’t even fart without setting the correct permissions first – and even then those permissions may have dependencies on other permissions.
well, it is primary based on a server-surrounding, thus the security is so tight, but as i mentioned earlier, other distros, other surrounding (less restricitons for users).
[i]It also takes so much more effort to accomplish a task in Liux.[i]
negative. my working output has dramatically increased since using linux. and no university would consider using linux, if it would slow down your work. but they do use it. more and more.
So what do you produce with it? Me, I spend most of my time editing scripts and screwing with the CL to get it to do anything useful. And please don’t call me a ‘windows’ baby. I could kick most average people’s butts up one side of the street and down the next with what I know about Linux.
Just what sort of credentials are you supposed to have before you are allowed to criticise it?
GJ