“I recently read a story that asked, ‘Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst?’ Burst!? No, I don’t think so. Actually, it still isn’t even half as big as it will be when it’s full. The author goes on to explain that he feels this way because GNOME ‘lacks any form of a vision’, while KDE4 is full of wonderful ideas, but not enough money and effort behind turning concepts into code. I don’t see that at all. I think both popular Linux desktop environments are making good progress.”
Linux Desktop 2006: Better Than Ever
yes, yes it is.
Linux Desktop 2006: Better Than Ever
yes, yes it is.
Then, 2007 must be the year of Linux on desktop
LOL
… Sigh.
– Gilboa
Even though I think your post was an attempt of trolling , you may be on to something.
The increased costs of Windows, due to hardware upgrades, third party and in house software upgrades, volume activation, and costs for training may be enough for some companies to consider using Linux. At least this is what IDC thinks.
As an example, according to an article in Compter Sweden a few weeks ago, Skanska one of the largest construction companies in Europe decided to use Linux on their construction sites. According to the article the reason for going with Linux was that the costs of Vista was too high. Further more, they didn’t expect any increased costs of trainging due to the switch to Linux. Just like IDC I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of this in other companies.
Another thing that will improve the chances for Linux in 2007 is increased usability. KDE4 will be released, and some of the things Novell found in their usability studies will enter inte mainstream Gnome and KDE, and set a new basline for what kind of usability you can expect from Linux.
All in all 2007, will be a very good year for desktop Linux, though it will not be the year of the Linux desktop. In fact, I don’t think there ever will be such a year, just like there never was a year of the windows desktop. However, it could very well be the year that starts the Linux decade.
In just the same way Vista is the most secure windows ever. The linux desktop in 2006 looks better than it did in 2003, 2004, 2005 but that’s obvious.
The question for many people is: When will Linux be “ready for the desktop”? And in the same way: “When will Windows be secure?” Only time will tell.
Edited 2006-12-23 20:01
Whose desktop? What workload?
Linux is ready today for lots of things and isn’t so ready for others, games, but this is primarily an issue of market supply and not a technology issue.
Please stop the silly polemics. I am tired of all of this “when will linux be ready for the desktop?”
Jesus, if it is ready for the thousands of bureaucrats and secretaries and children and businessmen that use it in Extremadura, Spain, I am sure it is ready for lots of other people, but you can continue asking the same facetious questions on the hope of creating uncertainty.
It isn’t working.
Here here (I seem to say that a lot).
I run an office based entirely on Fedora thinclients (ten users)- and other than those who are unable to distinguish between a mouse and keyboard, we have little problems.
Nothing larger than using XP and having to overhead of licensing, security costs (spyware, viruses) I would say.
Linux has been more than ‘ready’ for the desktop for several years now, you just have to define what you mean by desktop first.
The anti-linux desktop people define “ready” as “Runs Windows Applications.”
They don’t realize that you don’t need these cruddy programs to be productive. Hell, the Linux desktop comes with replacement applications all installed or ready to be installed at a mouse click.
Try doing that with Windows or a Mac.
Edited 2006-12-23 21:49
Your comment wasn’t bad, until you added your last statement. Have you ever installed an application in OS X? It certainly doesn’t seem so.
In most cases, it’s as simple as drag and drop. Now *that* is actually one click and one fluid motion.
I am not an “anti-linux desktop person” but do I think its ready? Not yet. Linux needs to be polished and my hardware needs to work. Practically any hardware I buy for my computer will work with OS X and Windows. Linux supports a *vast* majority of hardware out of the box, but when something isn’t built into the kernel, for an average joe desktop user, adding that driver is in a lot of cases, not anywhere near easy. It’s “stuff” like that that needs to be improved for Linux to become fully ready, in my opinion of course.
Actually, you’re missing most of the process with Mac OS X app folders.
With Linux, that one click includes getting the software on my PC. I do not have to download the program from some website or put a disc in the drive.
That one click goes through all 3 phases:
1) Download the software
2) Prepare the software for installation
3) Install the software
Mac OSX only does the last one easily. And I’m not saying Mac OS X is terrible at software installation, it just isn’t anywhere near as good as your average end user Linux distro.
A modern linux distro is as polished as Mac OS X. A colleague and I were commenting at the local computer store about how Mac’s are starting to look so dated compared to modern Linux counterparts. It’s funny because the Mac’s used to make the Linux ones look dated.
Driver installation is extremely simple, it’s literally copy a file to this directory and register the driver with the kernel. The problem is: vendors don’t provide binary drivers in a usable format. It’s rare to find RPM drivers, or heaven forbid .deb files.
But that isn’t Linux’s fault… it’s the lousy hardware industry that has built up around Wintendo.
And Mac OSX doesn’t have the best hardware support either. I’ve seen many products that were unusable on a Mac as well. Just like Linux, you really need to check before hand if a product is compatible with a Mac.
You have valid points; however, what happens when I run into software that doesn’t have a binary yet? I’m forced to compile the software by hand. That is certainly not user friendly. I have not found a single OS X, or Windows application that I have had to compile. I have had to compile numerous applications in Linux though. CLI usage in Linux is still too high in Linux IMO to be user friend for average joe, who is scared at sight of any unexpect “white text on a black background”.
To each his/her own, I don’t believe Linux is near to having as much polish. Linux is still very fragmented with QT/GTK/ even TCL/TK. I simply can’t see how anyone can consider Linux to be more polished than OS X. That’s in my opinion, the only thing holidng Linux back.
Driver installation? I’ve never found a driver that wasn’t included in the distribution (or that wasn’t already packaged into a binary) that was just copying a file. I’ve always had to compile it from source. Not easy.
True, you still have to watch with OS X, but I’ve just personally found less cases of my hardware not working without some type of configuration other than click Next Next Next Finished, which frankly, in my opinion, is much easier than copying a file to some “random” location.
I’m not stating that any of this is fact, because its all just my opinion
“cruddy programs to be productive”
You do realise that some people do centre their business around a set of core applications on which they’ve automated their work flow on.
Instead of abusing the poor end user to buggery, how about lobbying the hold out ISV’s comeing up with old wives tales as to why they won’t port their application to Linux or some other *NIX of some sort.
the real question is not
when will linux be ready for the destktop?
but
when will pc seller be ready for linux?
linux is already used around the world on desktop user
when will pc seller be ready for linux?
linux is already used around the world on desktop user
Is your choice in PC vendor delivered by which Linux distribution they sell ON their system?
What if you prefer Gentoo, but installed on the OEM system was fedora. Would that hinder you from installing the OS of your choice?
hp, compaq, dell… already sell computer with linux
in some part of the world
theses company choose the most popular linux distribution… red hat, mandriva, suse
if you are an arch linux user… forget hp, dell to sell it
does really a gento user will buy a hp, dell pc?
company need to made some choice, choose to install gentoo on their pc is not very nice for commercial pc… but a distribution like mandriva and better…
similar to win, easier for people
The Linux Desktop (as an entity) is stronger and more mature more than ever. Look at what freedesktop.org initiatives like the menu, autostart, trash, etc specification have done for gnome/kde/xfce/foo interoperability. Technologies such as HAL / DBUS and the whole Project Utopia spec are stabilizing to the point that a good majority of hardware “Just Works TM” with no configuration. Even projects that traditionally hate eachother like KDE and Gnome are working together on problems like performance and low level library optimization.
Linux is not a small player in the server arena, and its not a matter of if, but when a major OEM like Dell or Gateway will ship Linux Desktops. Customers drive demand and more people are getting sick of Windows virii / spyware.
More and more, Linux is becoming a viable alternative on the desktop. Take a look at some smaller OEMS that already ship Linux hardware like http://www.system76.com (No, I dont work for them)
Linux on the Desktop continues steady improvement, and, when you get a distro that completely emphasizes on the Desktop, then it is simply an awesome experience.
PCLinuxOS, for instance, is fantastic. All hardware works great, multimedia codes are there, Flash, Java, etc are supported out of the box, it looks great, it’s fast and relatively light on resources, it’s secure and very stable, it’s full featured, it’s a snap to configure with the GUI PCLinuxOS Control Center, adding software is a snap with apt4rpm/Synaptic (repo over 5000 strong), it’s install is super easy and takes only 10 minutes (after sampling live).
Quite simply, PCLinuxOS is a vastly superior, in my experience, desktop to Windows XP.
The same can be said of many other distros – Mepis, Ubuntu (after using Automatix), Xandros, Freespire, OpenSuSE, etc.
Yup, Linux is very much ready for the desktop, and has been for quite some time, and continues to rapidly improve.
The only thing in it’s way is end user inertia, lack of knowledge of just how completely easy it is, market realities of ISVs and games targeting Windows, and most of all FUD – so many bloggers, posters, etc, keep falsely stating that Linux is hard, it doesn’t work, etc.
Edited 2006-12-23 20:59
“Quite simply, PCLinuxOS is a vastly superior, in my experience, desktop to Windows XP.”
If not superior PLOS is more user-friendly desktop than ANY Windows, I dare to say.
Just couple days ago my friend’s teenage son asked where he can get Linux for his ageing Celeron 466 e-Machines PC still running Win98. I gave him my (very similar performancewise) Compaq Deskpro SFF box with PSLinuxOS 0.92 which I’ve installed eight months ago.
Now my friend feels like he owe me some bucks and more. He said his teenage soon does not even talk about buying new PC anymore (a topic raising the tensions in ther home since they recently bought $1400 HP AMD Turion 64 laptop running XP Media Center for their daughter interior design college student).
And all that happened thanks to PSLinuxOS user friendliness, polished KDE 3.5.5 look and feel and coupule configuration tweaks I made in order to give
seven years old PC box new lease of live.
Same thing I could say for SAM-Linux and since emerge of Ubuntu derivative for awesome Mint-Linux (Zenwalk comes very close to former).
Oh God no. Yet another Linux on the desktop article that will result in yet another twenty page yawner of a long discussion with two million comments.
Why do Linux discussions always result in mandatory twenty page long discussions?
Why do Linux articles get more comments than other articles?
Linus is ready for the desktop. Linux is not ready for the desktop. Linux Torvalds took a crap. Who the hell cares???
Is this Osnews or LinuxNews Fanatics???
Oh yes, again and again. So good.
“Why do Linux articles get more comments than other articles?” Well, ask yourself … I’m sure you know
This is Osnews and it carries quite a lot of Linux articles – that’s natural when you’re telling people what they’ll have to expect after the Windows cruise is finally over.
linux might not be on your desktop….. so what ?
why did you bore us by making us read your comment ?
if you do not like articles on linux, why do you read or comment on them, just by pass them in future.
Why do Linux articles get more comments than other articles?
Because this is OSAlert, Linux is currently the world’s second most popular OS (grouping all Windows together, and all Linux together), and some would say even the world’s second most popular desktop OS.
In fact if you define “most popular” by “according to the number of people actually choosing to live in Linuxland”, then it’s still in the top two – but jostling for first place with MacOS, not Windows.
The GNU/Linux based operating system is the most pervasive of the “alternative” operating systems. Therefore, it is not hard to imagine that there are more people that are willing to report issues relating to Linux compared to the other alternative operating systems. OSAlert.com will link to them because it is related to what OSAlert is about.
> Why do Linux articles get more comments than other articles?
> Why do Linux discussions always result in mandatory twenty page long discussions?
People will comment about the article or comment about someone else’s comments to state one or more contentions. People tend to have the propensity to discuss any part of an argument they perceive to be incorrect. The reason why discussions about Linux are long is because people have many premises about Linux and therefore, there will also be many comments to argue their contentions.
Please stop, everything improves over time even Windows. Get over it.
This being said by a Ubuntu Feisty 64 user.
as long as we keep seeing “<insert make> recommends windows xp”, we will see a slow (but steady) increase on the desktop.
we’ll have to do it ourselves. roll out linux, don’t sell them XP. It’s striking to notice that all those “recommends” lines are the same. Shows that MS still tries to push windows on every PC out there.
We started a company (little one) that basically installs linux on the desktop and on servers. nothing less. And guess what — no need to get back every week for fixing trouble…..
so try to “push” on the desktop yourself and see that we grow.
everyone is aware that steven v nichols is an idiot
his opinion whether it is correct or not is better left out of public view, he’s just a misguided loser
“everyone is aware that steven v. nichols is an idiot”
Quite opposite is true,jango; everyone (at least here at OSAlert.com) is aware that YOU ARE an idiot and you just proved that one more time with you totaly idiotic post.
EDITED 7:57 pm EST : my (negative) score
It is quite interresting to note that I’ve got -5 in less than seven minutes for this particular post which leads me to beleive that MS/Windows fanboys still wont seize the fire ( whicj is true for Linux fanboys too).
Other than that (idiotic) off-topic and personal offense posts like the one I replied to is one more proof that OSAlert is dangerously sliding into cheap
and annoying chat club which is attracting flamebait warriors rather than wellinformed and calm operating-system world watchers.
So sad!
Edited 2006-12-24 00:59
The desktop environment or window manager has very little to do with Linux, BSD or Solaris desktop readiness. A windowing environment is a matter of choice and fighting a loosing battle such as KDE vs GNOME will continue to blind and hinder real progress.
When DOS was dominant, small, but useful business programs such as Lotus 123 and Wordstar made the PC desktop what it was. The name of the game Today is interoperability. Obviously, Microsoft will not create an Office 2007 for Unix. Adobe will not create a Photoshop or even keep an up to date version of Flash ready.
The apps that exist for unix are fine if you do not want to collaborate with the rest of the world. I will not list them here because, in truth, they cannot compete with the leading applications built for windows.
“The desktop environment or window manager has very little to do with Linux, BSD or Solaris desktop readiness. “
In fact, it has a lot to do with it. What do you consider to be a “desktop”? Here it’s about semantics. The GUI is a central point of the desktop, another is the desktop concept (how you are supposed to do things). Different desktop environments have different ways here. The underlying OS (Linux, BSD, Solaris) is something the user usually won’t even recorgnize. “What OS do you have?” – “KDE.” – “Not the desktop environment, I’ve asked for your operating system.” – “Uh, don’t know, don’t care.” This could be a typical discussion. The first thing users see is the GUI of the desktop environment.
Would you be so kind and elaborate a bit on (i) what you consider “the desktop” and (ii) what criteria you define for “desktop readiness”? After this, it’s possible to discuss if a Linux desktop environment is “ready for the desktop”.
“A windowing environment is a matter of choice and fighting a loosing battle such as KDE vs GNOME will continue to blind and hinder real progress. “
Maybe you’re right here, but I don’t think progress is hindered, I rather think concurrency is good for progress. And some features or concepts are interchangable so something that has intentionally been developed for KDE will find usage in Gnome. But I agree, KDE and Gnome should not fight against each other (do they?), they’re two desktop systems equivalent to each other, existing out of the same right. And it’s up to the user to decide which desktop environment fits to his needs best, and even if he does not need a desktop environment, he can choose a window manager that’s fine for him, and finally, he can change again if he wants. “Windows” users can’t. (Maybe, with “Vista” they have some more choice as long as their hardware is good enough.) In fact, applications and concepts had a good progress in the past years and it will have in the future, no matter if you’re talking about Gnome or KDE.
“The name of the game Today is interoperability. Obviously, Microsoft will not create an Office 2007 for Unix. “
And they don’t need to, because there are word processors and even professional typesetting systems availabe on UNIX, even for free, that offer better interoperability, version compatibility and user friendlyness.
“Adobe will not create a Photoshop or even keep an up to date version of Flash ready.”
Why should they? Who needs Photoshop when he’s able to use Gimp or ImageMagick? It’s just a question of knowledge. Because people like car analogies: If you know how to handle the tools you have available in order to solve a certain problem, you can do it; but if you have no clue, the most expensive tools won’t help you.
Interoperability is definitely not a field MICROS~1 is good at. It’s easy to interchange data between very differnt systems (SuSE — IRIX, MacOS X — Solaris), but it’s harder with “Windows” (to any OS, even MICROS~1’s ones).
“The apps that exist for unix are fine if you do not want to collaborate with the rest of the world. “
Ah… collaborate… just ask a few “Windows” users why they aren’t able to do such simple things like… reuse their address books, import their mails, and even read their “memory dump” .DOC documents from an older version of “Word” in their newer program. So collaboration among different “Windows” versions is still very difficult.
And, excuse me, “the rest of the world”… OS X users are part of the rest of the world, so are Linux users. Doesn’t that count? Oh surely, you will want to talk about “market share”, but what about “usage share”? It’s no problem for an OpenOffice user to read a nonstandard DOC file, but a “Word” user will surely not be able to read an standard SXW file.
So I agree with the first part of your sentence: “The apps that exist for unix are fine”. And they get even better.
“I will not list them here because, in truth, they cannot compete with the leading applications built for windows.”
This may be true regarding some key applications for very special fields of use, but it’s wrong for “everyday use applications”. Proof me wrong and give some examples, please.
In fact, it are the Linux/UNIX applications that offer collaboration and interoperability, because they still are capable reading defective “Word” documents that “Word” refuses to open, and because they are the ones who support formats others than their ownes.
Would you be so kind and elaborate a bit on (i) what you consider “the desktop” and (ii) what criteria you define for “desktop readiness”? After this, it’s possible to discuss if a Linux desktop environment is “ready for the desktop”.
One of the major selling points that users talk about when discussing why they choose Linux, BSD or others over Windows is that they are not shoehorned into using the DE from Windows. The underlying OS and X enable this choice. But statements like “linux on the desktop”, indicate the want to have Linux replace Windows or even Mac OS X and their functionality
I use NetBSD at home and Solaris 10 at work for my main “desktop” OS. When I think of why I need my windows “desktop”, I think of my office apps, DVD utilities, music utilities, and sync utilities. I don’t really care if I use the adolescent XP theme or the Win2k theme, or windowblinds. I know that the apps will work the same, regardless of the windowing theme.
And it’s up to the user to decide which desktop environment fits to his needs best, and even if he does not need a desktop environment, he can choose a window manager that’s fine for him, and finally, he can change again if he wants.
We cannot guarantee that 100% of users today use KDE or GMOME on unix. Your statement here agrees that we cannot guarantee that in the future, the user will be forced to choose between them. So why so much emphasis on how KDE or GNOME work in those desktop environments and call that working on the “linux desktop”.
It’s no problem for an OpenOffice user to read a nonstandard DOC file, but a “Word” user will surely not be able to read an standard SXW file.
It is a big problem for OpenOffice to read standard DOC and Excel files. Two respective functions of those formats that do not translate are simple macros and lists. And when creating a doc or xls in OOO, be careful how you think it will look when you attempt to pass it to someone using the MS applications. MS office exists for the Mac BTW.
Edited 2006-12-26 14:58
“I use NetBSD at home and Solaris 10 at work for my main “desktop” OS. “
I tried the NetBSD Live 2007 live system CD and was quite impressed. I also use Solaris/x86 at home, mostly for educational and server purposes, as well as IRIX.
“When I think of why I need my windows “desktop”, I think of my office apps, DVD utilities, music utilities, and sync utilities.”
If I do so, I think about OpenOffice, mplayer, gmencoder, xmms, xine etc. because most of them are not limited to the underlying OS, that makes it possible to interoperate / exchange data with other systems, even with “Windows” systems. So, I don’t need a “Windows” desktop at all.
“We cannot guarantee that 100% of users today use KDE or GMOME on unix. Your statement here agrees that we cannot guarantee that in the future, the user will be forced to choose between them. So why so much emphasis on how KDE or GNOME work in those desktop environments and call that working on the “linux desktop”.”
Right. Sorry, it wasn’t my emphasis. Personally, I don’t use KDE and mostly recommend Gnome as a desktop environment. I usually use XFCE 3 and 4, personally I prefer Windowmaker. I don’t use any desktop environment.
KDE and Gnome are the most polular (most known) desktop environments, so they are important for Linux desktop. Because of the similarities between Linux and UNIXes, there are interesting approaches of having something like the “UNIX desktop”, such as DesktopBSD is.
Maybe I understood you wrong. English is not my native language, so feel free to clarify.
“It is a big problem for OpenOffice to read standard DOC and Excel files.”
These formats aren’t standard. They are not documented so that developers can read about it. Furthermore, they change from version to version (“Word” 1.1, 2.0, 6.0, 97, 2000, …) and even have differences in one version (normally saved, quick saved = memory dump). Corrupted quick saved DOC files cannot be opened by “Word” in most cases, but OpenOffice still can, so it’s possible to rescue the content. Furthermore, DOC files grow with each save, no matter what you do. Try the following: Type “A” and save, delete “A” and save, type “B” and save, delete “B” and replace it with “C” and save. The file will grow each time. Now you might think, wow, it has something like a CVS or RCS included so I can get any previous version of my document back, but that’s not working.
“Two respective functions of those formats that do not translate are simple macros and lists. And when creating a doc or xls in OOO, be careful how you think it will look when you attempt to pass it to someone using the MS applications.”
That’s right; it’s because the developers of OpenOffice don’t exactly know about how DOC or XLS work. They’ve done their best offering base support without any specifications. Their own specifications for SXW and SXC are documented, they use standard XML in conjunction with a standard packing algorithm. So MICROS~1 would be able to offer import and export functionalities for these file types. But they are not interested in interoperability. Here PDF is a good way, but it has the disadvantage of not being changable. For inter-OS document working (typesetting of book projects), we use LaTeX here.
“MS office exists for the Mac BTW. “
Yes, I heard this before, but there are better office applications for the Mac that you can use for free. I also remember someone told me that the Mac version would be much better than the “Windows” version…
The apps that exist for unix are fine if you do not want to collaborate with the rest of the world. I will not list them here because, in truth, they cannot compete with the leading applications built for windows.
Luckily wine can run Windows applications on Linux.
Nothing can run Linux applications on Windows.
generally to be honest , linux supports more hardware out of the box than windows xp, so all you windows fricks should stop this “linux runs bad with my hardware” crap, fine we admit we are quite bad in the area of 3d drivers, but thats not our fault and we are making strides. Expect the market share of ATI and Nvidia to fall as Intel markets its integrated solutions. Then finally ATI and Nvidia can get the punishment they deserve.
OS X is not so polished, cut the crap, as a developer Cocoa is a disgusting mess. i wouldnt touch Mac with a 10 foot pole. I however must admit that i am quite partial to OS X GUI. I have a mac style VLC skin, and my firefox skin is NOIA Extreme.
i think we should keep binary drivers in some distros, then when Linux has a greater market share, we can strongarm manufactures into releasing specs.
Intel isnt afraid of the competition.
I used to be an AMD fan but ever since Intel is Foss friend i am all for Intel. i feel glad that we have such a dirty evil company backing us, we’ll need them to get the other evil companies.
If you wanna play with the devil you gotta go down to his level. If we wanna smash Microsoft, maybe instead of spending so much time on Linux we could instead create a super-virus like Mydoom-every week, with love from Tux.
I define “being ready for Desktop” as not requireing me to boot into windows or have a copy of windows on another system. So long as I have to use Windows to run apps not available on Linux, it will not be ready for “my Desktop”.
… I can reverse that saying, you know.
As long as I cannot run <insert OSS application name here *> on my Windows desktop, Windows isn’t ready for the desktop.
I’m not saying that you’re wrong – I am saying this if lack of certain application makes an OS not ready for “the desktop” (what-ever that mean), Windows is not ready for the desktop either.
– Gilboa
when I am in windows I get confused. Under Gnome I have no problem. I wish Etoile makes the same progress like Gnome and KDE. The only thing I think is better in Windows than in Linux is Java integration. What a shame now that Java is going to become GPL. But I have to dig more I think. I will report back with my progress.
(open with java (FC6/i386) but what about my favorite jEdit? I will be back after a short break. I have to go to the supermarket to buy some beers and pasturma. I live in Greece you know and we have a very good time during Christmas.
OK. I am back. Right click on the Applications icon up-left and edit menu. I added a custom command and an icon and I am not dependent on win$$$ installer. Right click open with other application and jEdit in front of my eyes. So, has the Desktop Linux bubble burst? I do not think so. It is easier to configure your desktop in Linux than in Windows. Who’s gonna help with LessTif? It can’t start the 3.2.1 Eclipse. Boohoo!!!!
I guess I have to do it by myself. Linux/BSD/Haiku/Aros is a free (as in beer and as in speech) community. You make things tik-tak-toe. You cannot say anything if you do not participate. I bought a motherboard ASROCK 775I65G R2.0 , a CPU INTEL PENTIUM 4 PRESCOTT 531 – 3.00GHZ LGA775 – 800 – BOX , and 2 sticks of TWINMOS 512-400-TWI DIMM DDR CL3 512MB PC3200 (400MHZ) , because I want to run FC6 x86-64 and enjoy my apps. Please if you want this year the world to change and become more open/free/democratic and suitable for humans, don’t use Windows!!!