Posted on 08/17/2011 5:00:18 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Where is the Linux desktop going, and where should it go? This is a hot topic, and an important one. Unfortunately the discussion usually starts from the wrong premise, that the Linux desktop has only recently achieved parity with its Mac OS X and Windows cousins. Not so! The Linux desktop has been superior since its early days, and would have to go backwards to achieve parity.
Now which Linux desktop are we talking about? That's a good question, and that is superior item #1: multiple desktop environments and window managers to choose from.
The PC has been a mighty multi-purpose power tool from its humble beginnings. Unlike a lot of multi-purpose tools, it can do many things extremely well. You other old geezers probably remember when hardware was the limiting factor, and impatient do-it-ourselfers were continually upgrading just to keep pace with the software. Then in the early 2000s hardware caught up, and now even cheap commodity hardware has more power than we need. (Except for ghastly script-heavy poorly-coded Web pages that bring quad-cores to their knees; I laugh when people say all they need is a cheap low-power gadget for email and Web surfing. Good luck with that!)
The benchmark for the user interface has always been Windows. This is understandable due to Microsoft's lock on the market. Back in the olden days of Linux most Linux users came from Unix backgrounds. Anymore I'll wager that the majority of Linux users learned Windows first, and a goodly number of Mac users as well. Which has little to do with preference and merit, and much to do with lock-in. I started with Mac, then Windows, then Linux.
I don't like to see Linux chasing Mac and Windows, except for copying the good stuff. For the most part Linux chasing Windows is going backwards. Especially the part where each release grows by gigabytes without providing any additional functionality. Windows 7 Pro eats up a good 22GB, while Windows XP Pro consumes less than a gigabyte for itself. What do you get for all those extra gigabytes? Minesweeper, Solitaire, Notepad... um... oh yeah, drastically higher CPU and RAM requirements. Maybe to power all the nagware.
Chasing the Mac interface might make sense. But listen to Ingo Molnar's extremely insightful comment on user interface design:
"I think what the KDE4 and Gnome3 folks are doing is that they have picked Apple (and to a lesser degree, Google) UI products as their role model...the problem as I see it is that they tried to achieve this by mimicking Apple products, instead of implementing a high quality UI development process...You cannot really gap that difference by taking a giant leap in the "product space", regardless of the existing user base and regardless of the quality of the landing...
"I think OSS UI projects are also making a big mistake by mimicking the development model of closed-source projects...We should realize that our future OSS developers are sitting in front of the device they are using, most of them are at most 100-200 msecs away from a server that the developers are using - they only have to be engaged intelligently ...
"Yet we are doing everything in our power to create silly artificial walls between developers and users."
Linux already has everything it needs to provide a superior user experience. Which users, you insightfully ask? Not Jim and Jane Sixpack, who find iPads too complicated because they can't decide which finger to poke it with. Jim and Jane aside, tablets and smartphones are wonderful devices filling a long-unserved need.
But, they are not PCs. Ever since the early days of Linux the Linux desktop it has run circles around Mac and Windows. Even back when it was raggedy and unpolished it was bursting with functionality. What good is pretty if it can't do anything, or doesn't let you do what you want? First make it do cool stuff and be reliable, then you can always pretty it up later.
Here is a partial list of things Linux can do, some new, most old, many of which Mac and Windows still can't and won't even try, or only with expensive third-party add-ons:
The better approach is not to throw all this great stuff away in the name of simplicity, of dumbing it down drastically to appeal to "the masses." An awful lot of Linux fans have this idea that when the Linux desktop reaches the perfect level of eye-candy one-button one-finger fabulousness then the masses will flock to it. And in a way they're right, as evidenced by the success of smartphones and tablets. But — and I repeat myself — PCs are not tablets and smartphones. And, for those good people who believe that a great GUI is "intuitive", meaning anyone can pick it up and instantly start using it, guess what the consistently-best selling O'Reilly books are: iPad and iPhone books. Go see for yourself. (The supposedly-superior Windows is there too.)
Freedom. This is the biggie. It seems a lot of Linux fans are squirmy with talking about freedom, like it's weird old hippie stuff that nobody wants to hear about. But the reality is that many people are interested. Many computer users, especially frustrated customers of the usual closed, proprietary vendors, are very interested in freedom: they like the idea of Richard Stallman's classic Four Freedoms, and recognize that these add considerable value to software.
They like the idea of freedom from crazy licensing schemes designed to confuse and overcharge, freedom from crazy unilateral end-user license "agreements" that dictate what you can do with your own property, freedom from lock-in, freedom from artificial barriers to interoperability and open standards. They want honesty and accountability, and freedom from the heavy overhead of managing proprietary licenses.
Cathy Malmrose, CEO of independent Linux vendor ZaReason, told me once that they investigated selling Windows, perhaps in dual-boot configurations. But they would have needed an extra staffer just to handle the compliance paperwork. It's just as bad for a business running even a bare complement of proprietary software, what with server licenses, client licenses, client access licenses to the servers, remote access licenses, terminal server licences and so on, all calculated for maximum redundancy. It's nuts.
So please, friends, don't sell desktop Linux short. It already towers head and shoulders above its proprietary cousins. We don't need to apologize for it because it has long provided a superior computing experience, and will only get better — as long we don't get derailed chasing inferiorware.
“The average windows and the average Linux user will both be pretty hopeless,but the experienced Linux user is a different species of computer animal than the experienced Windows user.”
Many people believe computers are tools. They don’t care how it works, they don’t want to modify the kernal, drivers, system files or anything else. They just want to use it. Ya know what, thats ok.
Much of the serious work on the Linux kernel and other related projects like KDE, are in fact funded by corporate sponsors and/or universities. So, no, I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about.
The problem is not with Linux geeks, but geeks in general - It is just the unfortunate circumstance with Linux that the geek interaction is not buffered by the help-desk type. When you ask for help for Linux, you are invariably going to be addressing a Linux guru, and they have heard your question a hundred thousand times... and they HATE it.
It is no different in Windows programmers. If your question bypassed the help-desk types and went directly to the guys in the artificial light of the basement, with keyboards covered in Cheetos dust, and a serious Mountain Dew buzz going on, you would get EXACTLY the same reception.
Geeks are geeks. they tend not to be very sociable. Linux will catch up on that account - with more users, more help desk types and bow-tie boys are likely to join the ranks... there will be a tipping point.
That’s because you didnt pay attention to what i actually said
I am talking about people that I know and have met personally
First, it would be helpful to learn the way that file permissions work on Unix systems. It's usually not a good idea to be logged on as root (administrator), so "sudo" is your friend. Second, the copy command is "cp source_file target_file". So typically that would be "sudo cp source_file target_file" and then authenticate as root. To move a file, the command is "mv source target". I hope this information is helpful.
These commands are standard on any Unix system, so it doesn't matter whether you are using Linux, Solaris, Free BSD, HP-UX, Mac OS X, or any other version of Unix. It all works the same.
As I recall, IBM hired Bill Gates to provide an operating system for their personal computers, the PS/1 systems. Microsoft delivered DOS (Gates bought it from some guy, it was not developed at Microsoft). DOS worked on Intel processors. PC clones then appeared and used DOS too. Years later Microsoft released Windows 95, which was a windowing system that worked on top of DOS.
With the PS/2 system, IBM tried to dominate the market with their Micro Channel architecture. It flopped because none of the manufactures of PC clones were willing to license the Micro Channel architecture from IBM. As a consequence IBM became a niche player in the PC market.
IBM's OS/2 was a great operating system and far superior to Microsoft's DOS. But it was expensive, and people were not willing to pay the higher price. PC clones were cheap. Superior technology does not always win in the market place. DOS on PC clones was cheap and was good enough for the average user. Consequently Microsoft won in the market place.
Exactly the opposite experience. My old laptop was aging poorly. I bought a $50 hard drive, loaded Ubuntu and haven’t looked back.
Incredibly stable. Fast booting. I really love it.
And all of those problems are, of course, Ubuntu’s fault?
There is, truly, only one shortcoming with Linux/Ubuntu. It’s the one common complaint I have always gotten, and still get...
How do I get a #%)&%#!!! printer to work? LOL Everything else always works as advertised.
I think that is true. Linux on the desktop is for geeks. So you have to become a geek to use it. Don't expect much help getting there. I know because I went through that. But I don't think there will every be a Linux help desk worth more the 2 cents.
Linux will catch up...
On mobile devices, it already has. Google's Android operating system for smart phones is a scaled down version of Linux.
See, I don't understand that. I've installed Ubuntu in hundred's of machines for people that knew nothing, or very close to nothing, at all about Linux. (that's just about all that I do nowadays) They are up and running in minutes. I've got machines out there that have been running since 2002 without ever needing to open a terminal or change a system file, or have any of the problems you hear so much about. What IS IT that is so different and confusing? You double click on an icon, and your application opens. I mean, Firefox's logo icon is a different color and design, but it still opens a browser which operates nearly exactly like IE. Ditto with Open Office. They update themselves with security updates and software and even new kernels. Printers are the only issues I've had to deal with. What? LOL
Yes they are.
I had no problems like this with XP.
Put PCLinuxOS on an old desktop a couple months ago. The *only* times I’ve had my XP machine on since have been for either ITunes or Quicken. I am an ordinary, non-geek user.
OS/2 was expensive because IBM was going for a different market.
I just have my music collection as mp3's and use amaroK to manage it. Several thousand songs without any issues.
The empirical evidence denies your position. Ubuntu is an improvement measured in light years when compared against, say, Slack 3... or Slack PERIOD... And I love Slack. If an Ubuntu Live CD runs your box well, it is very unlikely that you will have any significant problem with it thereafter. I should know, as I have Ubuntu on quite a few 'user' level clients' machines. I have experienced virtually *no* problem scenarios, and I have been doing this (setting up Linux user level desktops) for years now. Most of the trouble is getting them out of their pre-existing microsoft mentality. A LOT of hand holding till they get it, but really no troubles. And to date, I have only had ONE person ask to go back to Winders.
Modern Linux is nearly up to par with the commercial OS's wrt 'user friendly', though I admit it still needs some work in that area... mainly in the area of gui interfaces for things that most geeks find too easy to change in a config file - but then, while I recognize that fault, I also see the same thing in Windows - There are many tweaks to windows that users find daunting - but that geeks find simple. To the average user, if you ask them to open RegEdit they will go all verklept and flop about on the floor, spewing vomit till they wind up under the desk sucking their thumb... So it isn't that one is better at it than the other, but more a matter of perspective. Personally, I find the registry in windows to be a useless method and thoroughly wish that they would go back to inifile based settings - like back in the Win3x days... something very much like what linux does under the hood.
Very much my own experience... providing it sets up well against the hardware in the first place, which is pretty usual anymore. I seldom find a box that WONT go pretty easily. SAMBA still sucks, and CUPS still sucks. but IF they set up, they are bulletproof.
Yes, I’ve looked into GnuCash and KMyMoney. I believe I’d be fine with either of those. Problem is, I have 17 years of Quicken data, and the conversion process would be very, very tedious (have to .qif and import every account, even old, hidden accounts, individually). Of course, I could just start over from scratch, but then it would take several years before the numbers would become meaningful again.
I’ve gotten the wife’s Zen player to work with Amarok no problem. And I know pretty much any MP3 player that’s recognized as a MSD would work easily as well. But I use an old IPOD Shuffle (Gen I - 500MB lol) that just won’t work with Linux. Yeah, I know, a new MP3 player can be had for under $50, but what can I say? I’m a cheap ba$tard.
Check your repositories. Ubuntu has iTunes connectors now. And there are multitudes of Quicken clones, also. I have a Windows Pocket PC Phone. Still, no way to connect it, which is to be expected since it’s a 2003 or 4 model release.
Would those work with my PCLinuxOS distro?
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