“After looking around and playing with Ubuntu 7, it’s safe to say that the features, ease of use and stability of this distro may be enough to edge Linux desktops into corporate offices. Given that Ubuntu supports a VMWare-like environment, you can bet that Ubuntu will crop up in many test labs as well.” More at EarthWeb.
Ubuntu: a Viable Windows Desktop Replacement?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
on a brand new theme. I fully agree with it.
I think this type of article is a bit overdone. We cant seem to go a week without finding a new article trying to convince us that <insert distro of the moment here> is ready for the desktop.
Yes we keep getting the “<insert distro of the moment here> is ready for the desktop” week after week, year after year, without anyone ever seriously investigating why these distros of the week are not getting deployed.
There are very good, logical, and compelling reasons why something like Ubuntu will not take over the desktop like these idiot authors write about. WTF, while cleaning out my office I find an old Network World from 2004 talking about how Fedora is primed to take over the desktop…yeah right.
Enough with these B**S**T articles. What we need is someone who actually has a f***g clue to do a real piece of journalism and explore the reasons why or why not Linux is a desktop alternative.
OSAlert team, why not just rename this site Ununtunews.com for #*@& sake. Enough already. I find it incredibly lacking that in this same week serious news has propped up about both Novell Suse, Solaris, and VMWare, yet not a single link to these…tsk tsk
That domain is available. I’m almost tempted to register it and direct it to osnews.com.
Quick! I’ll race ya to it!
[i]Enough with these B**S**T articles. What we need is someone who actually has a f***g clue to do a real piece of journalism and explore the reasons why or why not Linux is a desktop alternative.</>
I think we all know why Linux fails. The reason is that windows is shipped with almost every new Desktop or Laptop that is sold. Windows may not be the best desktop OS out there, but it is good enough for most people. What’s lacking in windows from a technical point of view is compensated for by the “network” effect. Almost everything is built to at least work with windows. Up until now this “network” effect have been so strong, that most people didn’t even know that there was an alternative.
Another thing is the availability of applications. There are 200000 or so apps in the debian repositories, but the ones people want are missing and only to be found in the windows world. Even if e.g. Gimp could replace Photoshop in most cases doing so comes with the cost of retraining.
In the case of complex apps like Photshop that could be far more expensive than buying software from Adobe and Microsoft, and in some cases there are no replacement.
Then there apps like DreamWeaver where you have no Linux replacement, the closest you get is Netbeans Web plug in but that only does Java Server Faces. Running windows apps on Linux with wine or wine derivates is not a solution, the windows apps will behave like second class citizens even if they should work properly.
So, who is to blame for this situation. First of all we can blame Microsoft that (in the past?) have strong armed hardware vendors, to only sell boxes with windows, or only develop windows drivers for their hardware. That was the way we arrived at this near monopoly situation. Today when Microsoft have 90% of the market hardware vendors have a valid business reason to support windows, even without any kind of interference from Microsoft.
Second, we can blame the Linux community. Back in the time when Microsoft and Apple worked their ass off to get a usable desktop there was a macho attitude among Linux people saying that if it can’t be done with vi it’s not worh doing. This gave Microsoft and Apple a head start. Apple blew their chances of dominance by being too expensive, but that’s another story.
The remedy for this is of course, getting Dell, HP, Lenovo to advertise Linux products in the same way they advertise their Windows products. Just providing boxes with Linux preinstalled will not be enough if they hide them away somewhere on the backyard of their web sites and the Linux products needs to be cheaper than the corresponding windows product.
Another thing that holds Linux back is the dominance of Outlook/Exchange in the corporate space. Mail and calendaring is an important part of the infrastructure in an organization and if you are an IT manager you would like to have one solution that runs on all your boxes.
Having Evolution communicationg with Exchange isn’t good enough, as a manager you don’t want to lose sleep over what happens if Microsoft upgrades Exchange and as a result breaks the Evolution connectability.
This is problematic for Linux, because even if an organization would be able to use Linux on 90% of their computers, they will not switch as they have a few boxes that runs som niche applications only available on windows (running Outlook). What’s needed to break this is a good free cross platform Outlook/Exchange replacement.
The main thing holding Linux back is not Microsoft, it’s the fact that Linux is unpolished, doesn’t work on a lot of hardware, doesn’t have a stable standard API for making applications and thus doesn’t have a lot of 3rd party applications available. The hardware driver part is going to be tough to fix by the community, but everything else *can* be fixed. It would be nice if some of the developers (notably in the Linux kernel) would get off their arrogant asses and make a stable API and make things polished. But they’d rather play around and break the ABI with every new release.
You are poorly informed. I will not do a point-by-point refutation of your post, but will tackle one of the most common memes one finds on the net about the lack of exchange replacements.
Exchange replacements:
*Scalix
*Zimbra
*Kolab
*Egroupware
*Groupwise
“OSAlert team, why not just rename this site Ununtunews.com for #*@& sake. ”
Be fair, the new Ubuntu release is a significant development in the Linux scene. In the case of such a release the later reviews are going to represent an important perspective on the release.
“Enough already. I find it incredibly lacking that in this same week serious news has propped up about both Novell Suse, Solaris, and VMWare, yet not a single link to these…tsk tsk”
I take it you submitted these links?
If I’m any indication of how ready Ubuntu is for World Domination, check this:
I was using Ubu 6.10 off-and-on with some regularity for 3-4 months, and it was ‘okay’.
Out came Ubu 7.04 and my expectations were high.
I downloaded it, installed it, saw it was much the same,
and went back to that crappy old Windoze XP they like to bray about.
In the period since Apr.19th. when it came out, and now, I’m using it a lot less than before.
How does that count for World Domination!?
So.. are they up to about 15-20% market share by now, yeah?
I had a quick look at Distrowatch and this is the 6th release of Ubuntu. He probably doesn’t know how the release numbering works and just assumed it was the seventh release because of 7.04.
Minor thing but makes me wonder if the author should be speaking with any authority on the subject.
I stopped reading after that.
I think it’s not right to “stop reading after that” just because the guy does not follow the weird ubuntu versioning number. MOST people don’t understand it or have knowledge of it anyway. And yet, they are all computer users, and so their opinion counts, because as a daily computer user, you can claim if something works ok or not as another OS does, or as you expect it to.
Might count, still, if the yet another self-proclaimed reviewer hasn’t got the picture even to the extent to know what the version number means, why should the readers take a leap of faith and believe the rest is worth the time. I gave the benefit of the doubt and read it. Half of it deals with beryl, and the rest could be written by the neighbor next door and doesn’t give you much more than Ubuntu-is-good-because-Ubuntu-is-good. If you say this “review” counts for those “MOST” people, well, no wonder they think Linux is not for them.
Thanks, you explained it better than I did.
Edited 2007-04-29 09:55
It appears to me that he speaks with the authority (and misunderstandings) of a typical Windows user. On the other hand, if a less-than fully-technically-informed Windows user thinks Ubuntu is ready for the desktop, maybe it is.
The article doesn’t tell much, and the part where he gives instructions for beryl is way overdone – all this could be done from the gui easilly, and I think it’s a bad thing the author shows how you ‘need the commandline in linux’ while you don’t.
Short Answer: No.
Maybe not for you, but it is for legions of others.
Windows on the other hand is not ready for my desktop. I removed it from this machine because of a resource conflict that was making XP blue screen on every single reboot. Vista will not install because of it.
The conflict is a Compro DVB-T200 card and a C-Media 8738 card. They both are trying to use the same IRQ and there is no way to enable them to change IRQ.
Ubuntu works. After installing the firmware for the dvb card, I started Kaffeine and scanned for channels, then was able to watch and listen. No problems.
‘Maybe not for you, but it is for legions of others.’
– The ‘Legions’ you describe are still not a large
number compared to the billions that use Windows.
– A few million geeks does not a viable market make.
It may sound like a lot to you, but to large stores
and PC distributers it’s really nothing.
—
A Viable Windows Desktop Replacement? No… but maybe when an article about it can be written without showing you what to type in the command line it might be ready.
JFYI a point Windows users seems having difficulty to understand is that explaining a task in an article is far faster/easier with a single command line than describing which application to open, where to find it, which page to go to, which box to check… and so on, like in Windows.
All these tasks are easily done using the GUI – but in an article, it’s great we Linux users have the possibility to tell you how to do it in one line than one page (including the necessary screenshots for newbies).
You apparently haven’t noticed, but it has been the case for *years* – so if you’re still waiting to see articles without command lines, you’ll wait forever. Actually, for newbies (the ones that don’t even know about newbies) the ability to tell them to copy/past a line in a terminal then press enter is a life saver. We can use the GUI – but at least we have the choice not to spend half an hour on the phone explaining a relative they have to right click over the icon that looks like a … then right click on the line named… then …
If have some experience helping people through phone/email/irc you have a chance to understand why Linux articles use command lines
Then why are alots of people flocking to Ubuntu?, most of them are Windows users wanting to improve Ubuntu in their own ways.
Average joe can do whatever they want on Ubuntu, lets not go the way of some obscure application that Windows supports and Ubuntu dont.
I used nothing but linux for several months it can replace windows but it still has some growing to do. Don’t get me wrong none of the three major operating systems are perfect. All have high points and low points which make you have to choose what is right for you.
There are many things people want from linux some feel linux needs to be easier more gui oriented, Others want more/better apps, and of course the hardware people still need to get on board.
I believe Linux is getting there it may be a while but the signs are mostly pointed toward a bright future for one of the greatest tech underdog stories of all time.
Edited 2007-04-29 10:55
Just another ad for Ubuntu. Is OSAlert == Digg?
Ubuntu supports VMware? Wow, Windows does too.
What a lame “article”.
“Ubuntu supports VMware? Wow, Windows does too.”
I do not like your comment.
I need to use Windows because I work for a software company that develops software on Windows, but I would prefer using some BSD on my box.
No *BSD supports Vmware and QEMU (IMHO) is not a viable choice when trying to create a Windows guest (on an AMD64 host).
So, I tried VMware on Linux and that works lime a charm, I think that is incredibly good!
I think the problem is on the user needs; a lot of people that plays with 3D games, will found Linux useless. I think Linux is ready for the desktop for common people (people that chats, that uses some basic features of a word processor, browses the web, watches movies and listens to audio files); Linux goes more far than that: A lot of real world applications are already ported to Linux and several Linux-only applications are totally useful and nice (K3B or Amarok are good examples of that).
The community is doing a good job on building Linux and OSS, and that is where the magic is: Linux does not have the same resources (men or money) than Microsoft for creating a full desktop oriented OS, and it is doing an amazing work. Kudos for them!
Yes linux in general especially Ubuntu.For example lets have a look at dbv cards and programs.Hauppagge still releases the same gui that is memory hungry and awfully slow with their tv cards.
tvtime and or kdetv,kradio are way ahead of most windows programs written for dbv-{s,c,..} cards today.for linux there are a lot of user,semi professional programs that deal with multimedia.In addition they are often a few clicks away from install.windows counterparts are most of the times shareware and or commercial with nagging adscreens or crippled functionality.with apt-get or synaptic you have the availability of 22000+ apps at your disposal.Furthermore it’s common to see at least md5sums being for displayed for nearly everything you download and install.If not a gpg key.
However i still believe in the saying your mileage may vary.a lot of people could easily shift to linux if only they were aware of it’s capabilities and or existance.
you can’t upgrade app’s to their latest released version without having to upgrade your whole freaking OS or jump through flaming hoops. I mean ffs, tell me why when I install the latest Ubuntu 7.04 I have to stick with thunderbird 1.5 until the next Ubuntu release? If OpenOffice goes to version 2.4 in the next month fixing a multitude of bugs, I’ll be stuck with 2.2 Until the Gibbon comes out in 6 months time and then I might end up with 2.3.
Dapper users are still on OpenOffice 1.9 and firefox 1.5 and it’s suppose to be an LTS version.
Really, Win2k is 7 years old and I can still install the latest apps I use and keep it up to date, why can’t linux be the same?
I’m sick and tired of breaking my whole system just to get the latest browser, latest office suite, latest mail app, latest codecs, latest you name it! It’s bullshit.
And for those of you that say installing software on linux is easier than windows, just jump on over to ubuntu forums and tell all the people trying to integrate Thunderbird 2.0 into Feisty without having to jump through a million hoops or install a dictionary for OpenOffice. Don’t worry about the windows crowd, they’ve already migrated and sent and received a thousand spam messages!
Also while you’re at it, tell my why in the year 2007, I can’t copy text from Open Office to another app, or from another app to OpenOffice in Gnome?
Tell me why Rhythmbox still chokes on a hard drive full of ogg files, let alone mp3’s
Man I could go on forever with this kind of stuff, but what’s the point? People have been regurgitating these comments for years and then they wonder why again this is not the year of linux on the desktop. Even though I do use it myself!
Edited 2007-04-29 11:34
Hmmm…well actually, as an Ubuntu user myself, I have to say that you’re right. OTOH you have to keep in mind that this largely is the concept of most GNU/Linux distros and with FL/OSS in general. The idea of independant libraries and dependencies is implemented in full. The upside of this is that you’ll save disk space and RAM, the system will be easy to (security) update, and you can rest assured that you know where your software is coming from.
The downside is, as you point out, that programs will be largely DEPENDANT on what system libraries you have installed. The consequence of this, in turn, is that most distros choose to view applications as a part of the system. It’s all knitted together in a complex pattern.
To get away from this practise, I think OS X was the first to implement self-contained packages with all the apps’ files and system libraries installed (DMG). In this case one defines “these parts” as the operating system, and “those parts” as the applications. In GNU/Linux, in most cases, this difference barely exist.
However, there are other implementation of self-contained packages like Apple do. For example there is Klik (http://klik.atekon.de/), wich will do this. I’ve never encountered any distro wich uses this as defualt, though. Other than that there’s PC BSD, wich uses PBI in a similar manner. With PBI one can also update all apps in a go similar to the way apt does on Debian/Ubuntu.
So really, yeah, I agree with you, but there are other ways to do this on GNU/Linux and other Unices..
There’s no excuse, I’m sorry. On Gentoo you have a continuous upgrade cycle. The software and libraries support it. It’s just that the binary distros willfully choose not to let you upgrade, even though they could. It’s extremely ridiculous.
Yes, and on Gentoo you compile everything from source, and when you update libraries you just rebuild a whole bunch of stuff. It’s a solution for some users, including you and I, but it doesn’t make sense for most users.
The GP is exactly right. The free software stack is a web of interdependencies with high levels of code-reuse and integration. It should be delivered as such. Ubuntu does a version freeze every six months, only providing fixes in the service stream. You don’t want to destabilize users’ systems with feature updates. Large changes need to have a thorough test cycle, and Ubuntu has enough problems with release quality as it is to worry about pushing out new features in the service stream.
Right now, since the desktop is developing so rapidly, a fair amount of new features arrive during the six-month window. But things will calm down as the desktop matures, and the six-month update granularity will be good enough for most users. If you want to live on edge, you can point you sources to Gutsy right now and stay current throughout the development cycle. That’s basically the binary equivalent of running Gentoo ~x86.
Hey, that seems to be really cool! Is it actually working? Do distros know about it?
Edited 2007-04-29 14:08
Hey, that seems to be really cool! Is it actually working? Do distros know about it?
Yup, Klik has been around for at least a couple of years. I believe it works with all Debian based distros. It’s easy enough, especially after you’ve set it up. I tried it once on Ubuntu and once on Mepis (before they were Ubuntu based) and it worked fine.
Anyway, this doesn’t need explanation, just try it, it’s easy!:)
The “having to upgrade the whole OS to upgrade one package” thing is not a Linux thing, it’s an Ubuntu thing. There are distros where this is not the case.
And Rhythmbox does fine with my 10,000+ mp3 collection.
Edited 2007-04-29 13:17
you can’t upgrade app’s to their latest released version without having to upgrade your whole freaking OS or jump through flaming hoops
That’s not true. There are several linux distributions where you don’t have to go through that. Slackware, Arch Linux and gentoo springs to mind. They all support rolling updates. There are some linux distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu) that has a tendency to update the entire system when upgrading. No middle way. But Ubuntu and Fedora are not the only choices in regard to Linux distributions.
>you can’t upgrade app’s to their latest released version without having to upgrade your whole freaking OS or jump through flaming hoops. I mean ffs, tell me why when I install the latest Ubuntu 7.04 I have to stick with thunderbird 1.5 until the next Ubuntu release? If OpenOffice goes to version 2.4 in the next month fixing a multitude of bugs, I’ll be stuck with 2.2 Until the Gibbon comes out in 6 months time and then I might end up with 2.3.
Maybe this is a problem… maybe not.
How many Windows Users buy every new version of their programs at the day of release? How many Windows User look every day on the homepages of their shareware/freeware software and upgrade to every new version? As i can say almost none. As long as the software does what it should they are happy with their version.
Some weeks ago i have installed GNU/Linux on a friends computer. I have thought about installing Ubuntu (to have up to date software) or Debian (to have a long term solution). At the end i installed Debian stable. It works perfect and my friend can do everything he does before. Sure it is only GNOME 2.14 etc. But who cares. Probably he not even know that their is something like GNOME for him it is just GNU/Linux. Why should he care that some people runs GNOME 2.16, 2.18,…? He just has his GNU/Linux system and it works. Same for OOo version etc.
Bugs and security is also no problem because Debian delivers bug-fixes and security-fixes. And for me it’s much easier than a Ubuntu system. Because Debian has such a large life-cycle with bug- and security-fixes that this system will probably run as long as he uses this computer, so no more work for me. And if the time has come where he buys a new Computer we will install again the latest Debian stable and use it for the rest of the life of this computer.
Edited 2007-04-29 14:58
“And if the time has come where he buys a new Computer we will install again the latest Debian stable and use it for the rest of the life of this computer.”
Buy a no OS or Linux computer, so MS won’t get any money from it.
“How many Windows Users buy every new version of their programs at the day of release?”
I may continue: How many “Windows” users actually buy their OS and applications instead of using pirated copies? At least in Germany the number is very low…
“How many Windows User look every day on the homepages of their shareware/freeware software and upgrade to every new version?”
I may continue again, judging from Germany only: How many “Windows” users do the required updating of their OS, not to mention those of their installed free applications?
“As i can say almost none. As long as the software does what it should they are happy with their version.”
This confirms my experiences.
“And if the time has come where he buys a new Computer we will install again the latest Debian stable and use it for the rest of the life of this computer. “
Same does my neighbor, he’s using PC-BSD for some years now, and he even got it installed himself.
Here’s another cute example: on my (separate) Ubuntu HD,
I have a special folder in my Firefox Bookmarks…
its name is UBUNTU PROBLEM-SOLVING,
and in it are a buncha useful links, including one to linuxforums dot org,
a most useful site when installing ANYthing,
becoz I’m always over there beating someone’s brains (after mine!)
to figure out how to install simple stuff !
It’s a very busy forum, let me tell you!
In five years of MAC systems and another six of PeeCee Windoze, I never had a folder re. problem-solving,
and I’ve frequented VERY few forums – if any, related to system solving!
Yeaahhh this system is ‘ready’ to slay Windows…ready for the desktop…riiiight!
Bet Bill Gates is nervous!!
If all an end user were to use their computer for was just word processing, email – then sure, its a great thing.
What is the reality? the reality is that people use their computers for alot more; they rip music from cds, syncronise their mp3 players, they print off documents, they scan documents, they email photos, they download photos off their camera etc. etc.
All this does not occur in a nutshell, and alot of the time, hardware which they use (scannners/printers/camera) come with free third party software such as Photoshop Elements, for example.
Ultimately, I think these articles are simply a waste of time; it sounds like the parlour games my brother and sister use to play – “if I had a million dollars” and “if I were the president of the world”. Nice fun games where you can let your imagination run free, but you have to realise one thing, its all imagination and make believe.
Linux isn’t ready for the desktop, MacOS X is hamstrung by virtue of the fact that one needs to replace their whole hardware setup and purchasing a inferior (specifications wise) piece of hardware simply to get the joy of using MacOS X – so really, if Microsoft ever had to shit bricks over something, it would be over the idea of Apple just removeing protection – not promote the use of MacOS X on generic hardware, but merely remove the protection that disallows it.
The problem with Linux, like all opensource projects is this; they don’t want to hear criticism; when I criticise Linux or the opensource projects here, I am abused, my posts are marked down, and I am slandered by half a dozen posters here claiming that I work for Microsoft, I have some vandetta against opensource and/or Linux, or some other made up conspiracy theory.
Now, if you’re happy with the status quo with opensource, then go for it; I’m not expecting the opensource community to change to meet the demands of end users, but at the same time, by the opensource refusing to participate in the discussion with end users over the issues which stop them from migrating, they’re implicitly saying they have no desire to work at improving their software for end users.
Edited 2007-04-29 12:59
What is the reality? the reality is that people use their computers for alot more; they rip music from cds, syncronise their mp3 players, they print off documents, they scan documents, they email photos, they download photos off their camera etc. etc.
ffs, my mother has been using Xubuntu for all these tasks since I took Windows off her machine last September.
Before that, it was “David, can you burn the pics on my camera onto a cd for me?”, now she does it herself.
I think your problems are purely to do with YOUR adversity to change. YOU do not want to learn to do things differently from the way you learned with Windows software.
Almost every article here about linux has a post by you about the lack of applications under linux, however, I have yet to find and application under Windows that has no equivalent under linux.
Come on, name one.
I gotta Agree 100% here, I also use Ubuntu on all 4 of my computers. I play my MP3’s,WMA’s,DVD’s, Mpegs, WMV’s and so on with no issue I can Scan and Print from both of my printers I have a network set up with the windows machines in my home to share files, My MP3 player works. In truth I do everything I did on my Windows Machines only in most cases faster and with less issues. Ubuntu is ready for the desktop MS’s support is sliding little by little.
well ffs, I had to boot into Ubuntu Feisty to do simple things like get TV out working properly and burn DVD’s from within my OS not by using a 3rd party bloat wear app. Geez, it’s fn 2007 and MS can’t even get an OS out the door regardless of them calling siad OS’s “Media Centre” without the media elements being borked.
You might notice that it’s a door that swings both ways in computing. You point out some issues with Ubuntu, I have just with Vista. Yet, I use both. Such is life.
Hence the old addage of, “all operating systems suck, some just seem to suck less than others”. Its up to the end user to work out which one suites their needs best, and use it.
I don’t understand, however, why there is a drive by some people here to get everyone using Linux – isn’t this the same problem there is with Windows? this extreme monoculture which causes the exact problems that exist for end users right now.
Therefore, I said in my original piece that the whole notion of these ‘ready for the desktop’ is articles are stupid; it takes one persons scenario then amplifies it to some how make that to be the status quo, so therefore, it must be ready for all.
If people wrote articles outlining what their usage patters are and what their hardware is, then they would have validity to say that Linux (or what have you) is ready for those people in that scenario, but for people to make generalisations not only harm online journalism (as if it could get worse than it is now) but also Linux when people do try it and find it doesn’t measure up to the expectations exuded by the article which promoted it.
‘my mother has been using’
— You sure it’s not your Grand-mother? Or your six year old kid?
Everyone here has a mother proficient with computers… and everyone can say here that there mother can or can’t use Linux depending on what there OS religion is. For every person here who says their mother uses Linux I can find you one person who says their mother can’t. They cancel each other out, so there’s no need to reckon with them.
Why does every Linux fanboy think that there mother is evidence that Linux is easy to use or ready for the masses?
Assuming that there are about 20 million desktop linux users out there (that’s just a guess, the actual number is irrelevant), and we add everyones mother, grandmother, and six year old kid brother in too we have about 80 million users. The total number of people in Germany – that ‘aint much.
I would guess that your mother doesn’t know what Windows, IE or anything else with computers are – it’s just a computer. If you’d bothered to teach her how to do what she wanted on Windows she could have stuck with it. Next time your mother has a problem with windows and you don’t know how to fix it because you use linux all the time, let me know… I’ll come and show how to do what she wants on Windows.
Your solution to her problem was to uninstall Windows. When she has a problem with Linux are you going to uninstall that too? Of course not, you weren’t interested in helping her, you just wanted to push Linux on her… what’s she going to do when she finds out she can’t see word documents (and edit them with 100% compatability) from her friends? maybe you’ll then give her a copy of AmigaOS or buy her an Acorn… I know a lot of six year old kids that could teach her RISC OS.
Edited 2007-04-29 19:23
Next time your mother has a problem with windows and you don’t know how to fix it because you use Linux all the time
hehehe man, I have been a consultant supporting Windows since Windows 2, in 1987. Twenty years later and I am still trying to tell people, including my mum, how to do the basics. Why should I have to tell them more than once ? I don’t have to with Linux.
I could tell people over and over and over how to do things in Windows, but they still click on everything and try to open the email with the VIDEO.EXE attachment. If the thing is broken to start with, there is nothing you can do to help the user.
Now, even though there are a lot of mothers and grand-mothers who can use Linux, you are right in that there are a lot who cannot… but they do not cancel each other out. Each one is as valid as the other.
This one was a gem though….
what’s she going to do when she finds out she can’t see word documents (and edit them with 100% compatibility) from her friends?
It proves that you have not been anywhere near linux in about 5 years… if you have even used it in the first place.
Most people here will mention OpenOffice and yes it is almost 100% MSWord compatible, the differences are in things like page setting and indexing… things book publishers would worry about, not my mother or her friends haha
but, I was actually not going to reply with OpenOffice, I was going to give the nod to Abiword. This, for me, has been totally 100% compatible with MS Word.
Now.
OpenOffice and Abiword are completely compatible with each other, and they support .ODF where will you be in the very near future when most companies and governments drop ms formats and adopt open ones ?
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39276978,00.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39117341,00.htm
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1863060,00.asp
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=1315…
http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/ODF_Gov.pdf
Where will your msword compatibility be then sunshine ?
‘Each one is as valid as the other.’
Wrong. They don’t need to be included, son. They both push the numbers up by the same amount… so they can be left out… they do infact cancel each other out.
As much as I hate to step into this match of one upmanship… Every user of Linux is just that; a user of Linux. The fact that the vast majority of the world can use Windows does not negate the fact that a growing population of people are learning how to use Linux.
6 years ago you had to have either experience in *nix or a lot of patience to configure and use Linux. And once you did have it configured the end result was not competitive with Win2K as a desktop.
3 years ago, a computer proficient person (with or without *nix experience) could install Linux and with sufficient perseverance could get most basic things needed for a network attached desktop working, though still not on parity with the current Windows release.
Today, given compatible hardware, a typical computer user can configure and maintain a desktop Linux install. It still has deficiencies compared to Windows, especially in the vertical markets such as graphics design. But the audience is widening and more people are trying Linux than have before. More importantly more are sticking with it.
2007 will not be the year of the Linux Desktop, not 2008. I do not think there ever will be a year of the Linux Desktop. I hope though that the capabilities of Linux desktop continue to grow and the things people find lacking continue to shrink. I do not expect to see a revolution occur in any given year though, if anything I expect/hope to see a slow erosion of the dominance of Windows. Not because I hate Windows (I do not) but because I prefer Linux.
So it is true that Linux is not for everybody, but that does not mean that Linux is not a valid choice for a growing number of people.
They are still voices that need listened to
Yes, but in terms of numbers there is no need to include them
‘Where will your msword compatibility be then sunshine ?’
— I’ll tell you where mate, with MS Office which will offer .odf, persuade through price cuts and and other perks that Governments and Orgs. should continue to to use MS Office.
That’s what they want too… all governments are worried about is being able to access docs in 50 years. Not what OS or app they use. It’s cheaper for them to use MS office anyway, no matter what pro-oo.org articles will tell you about the TCoO. Once MS agree to use odf or an equally open alternative (like MS own), governments will go back on their commitment to change — everytime an article appears saying some Company or org is enforcing a policy of using odf a few months later a second article appears saying that they no longer considering it.
‘This, for me, has been totally 100% compatible with MS Word.’
— What constitutes 100% compatible for you is probably not what large organisations consider 100% compatability. ‘raver31 seal of 100% compatability’… probably ain’t gona shift to many units of oo.org.
No, I think you seem to have the same comprehension problem which many people here seem to suffer from – failure to actually read the post. From your reply, you seem to have scanned it, key words popped out, and yet never looked at the post as a whole.
This is what I said:
Now, where did I slam Linux or opensource? I simply pointed out the fact that the opensource community is based around the idea of ‘scratching an itch’, and that end users/reviewers shouldn’t be placing undue demands on these programmers.
Like I said, in certain case scenarios, Linux is a suitable desktop operating system, I never said it wasn’t suitable.
My parents run SLED 10 (once Sp1 is released, I’ll update their system the next time I am up there) on their two computers – they’re very happy with it, but then again, they only download photos, surf the web, email, scan a document, but nothing more demanding than that; for them, it works great, and saved them NZ$400 by not having to purchase Windows XP.
What I was getting at, Linux is not suitable for every situation, its about using the right too for the job – there are situations where Linux is suitable where Windows would be an overkill; where Solaris would be more suited than Windows or Linux.
That’s also the problem I have with his posts. He has tried FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris and from HIS experience with these systems he has come to the conclusion that all of them are not ready for anyone.
Many of my relatives and friends run various distributions of Linux (Slackware, SUSE, (K)Ubuntu) and they don’t seem to have major problems with them, at least not more than with Windows.
The way he talks about the Linux community it’s always “they must fix this and that blah, blah … otherwise it will never be usable by a switcher from Windows”.
It works differently in FLOSS. There are things I am not satisfied with either. But as a member of and not an outsider to the community I do all that I can to make these FLOSS systems as usable and complete as possible.
When there is a need and I have time I even write some code to solve some problem. That’s the way it should be and there is no place for whining about something and waiting till all the work is done only to compare it unfavourably to how that same thing is done with Windows software.
Also if a proprietary application on Windows is superior to anything available on a FLOSS system, just use it in a virtual machine. It’s not as if computers are not powerful enough for that nowadays.
Who said that? who are you quoting? are you talking about the author of the article or are you addressing my post directly?
I ran FreeBSD/Linux for around 9 years, going on 10, so I don’t have an axe to grind with *NIX or FreeBSD, what am not tolerant of is blatent propaganda from both sides which fabricates the true nature of each operating systems strengths and weaknesses.
Praise the strengths of an operating system whilst at the same time acknowledge their weaknesses and how they need to be fixed.
“What is the reality? the reality is that people use their computers for alot more; they rip music from cds, syncronise their mp3 players, they print off documents, they scan documents, they email photos, they download photos off their camera etc. etc. ”
You can do all of this with Ubuntu. I fail to see the point you’re trying to make.
Do you really want me to speal off the laundry list of issues which I’ve found with Ubuntu?
1/ Poor audio track detection and retrieval – is it really so hard for Sound Juicer to implement an interface so when there are multiple instances of the same album, that one can choose which one is the correct one?
2/ Lack of being able to update iPod firmware/software from Linux – considering that these files are merely ‘images’ that are written to the hard disk of the ipod, it should be just a matter of extracting the file and writing it using a friendly front end.
3/ Lack of a Photoshop Elements replacement; either one of three things have to happen; wine has to get to the stage where by one can download a vanilla copy of Wine, plonk in the cd, run the setup and then be able to launch the application without hacking around with anything.
Another is for GIMP to suck in their bottom lip, realise their GUI royally sucks and address this issue by merging in the changes made by GIMP Shop into the mainline GIMP, and make GIMP Shops GUI the default front end to it.
Or we just sit and pray that Adobe opens their eyes to the millions of Linux/*NIX users out there with cash in hand, waiting for Creative Suite to be released for Linux.
4/ Lacking full support for stardards; case in point, look at UVC project, http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/, it has almost nothing implemented of the specifications – and worse still, this is an open specification.
So really, you expect and end user to migrate to Linux, with his UVC compliant webcam only to find that only 1/10 of his camera features are supported, and in terms of IM webcam, the current support is extremely limited/beta quality at best?
Would you like me to add more? Like I said, opensource is a community effort, therefore, the expectations should be different than what one expects from a commercial organisation.
With a commercial organisation, if there are deficiencies, there are no excuses, programmers are being paid, and as such, those issues should be getting addressed, where as in the opensource world you might have your concern addressed, but don’t expect a 24 hour turn around in a solution as not all those involve with opensource do so as being part of a larger organisation – contributing to opensource is merely a side-effect of addressing the issues they find when using the tool rather than it being a programme mandated by the powers that be (aka management/project leader/etc).
Seriously, why do you underrate GIMP so much, is it because you just suck at it?
I get sick of hearing people knocking GIMP for it’s interface when Photoshop in OS X has use this sort of interface for years and yes you can make your panels stay ontop of the canvas like the ‘Windows’ version.
Go look at the Pixel Perfect Photoshop tutorials and then do it in The GIMP, if you cannot then dont give up your day job and claim you know about Photoshop or basic photo editing.
Those criticisms have basically nothing to do with the first list you gave. If you’re going to constantly change the subject when someone debates with you, you’ll quickly end up talking alone…
As for these new items:
Sound Juicer is a CD ripping tool…how can you rip multiple instances of the same album at once? I’m obviously missing something here, because I don’t understand your point. Also, how do you determine which album is “the correct one”?
In any case, this doesn’t seem like a Ubuntu problem, but a Gnome one.
This is a legitimate concern…there are HowTos explaining how you can update the iPod firmware from within Linux (there’s a Gentoo HowTo that can be used on other distributions) but you are right that there is no frontend for it. So now you’re either stuck doing it in Windows/OSX or dropping to the command line in Linux. This sucks somewhat, but it not limited to Ubuntu.
You can do that with Crossover.
As for the Gimp criticism…I’m sorry to say that this is a matter of personal preferences. I don’t mind the Gimp UI, and the fact is that once you get used to it you can do pretty much all that Photoshop does, with very few exceptions.
I do agree with you, though, that Adobe should just produce a Linux version. I imagine it would be pretty popular.
But, again, you can’t fault Ubuntu because of Adobe’s development strategy…
All right, so Linux is lacking as far as a subset of Webcams is concerned. So if you really need those, Linux is not for you (yet). Ignoring the fact that this is *still* not a Ubuntu problem, but rather a Linux problem, there are many people that *don’t* use these types of webcams (or any webcam at all).
Hey, OSX doesn’t support plenty of hardware…does this mean it’s not a viable OS? Of course not…Certainly, there’s still work to be done to improve Linux, and it *is* improving. Whether or not is ready for *you* doesn’t mean it’s ready or not for others…
So, I browse the web and read email on my Linux computer.
I also: Manage photos from my camera with Picasa; Play my WMA encoded music with Banshee, sending them back and forth to my player; I rip DV and encode to DVD from my digital camcorder; play some (not many) games; sync my pocket PC; use Windows software with Wine like Password Safe; interact with Windows users; chat on skype/aim/yahoo/google; and do every single thing any regular home windows user does.
So, what can you do that I can’t?
Oh right, I have VMWare so I can do all those things (‘cept some games) like write VB apps with express; Create menus for the DVD media I encoded with Kino; go to that one last Windows only website; and all the other things y’all do too when needed.
Oh, and when I’m done I can suspend and hibernate just like you can too. Lastly, this version even picked up every single bit of my hardware out of the box (’bout time).
Ubuntu 7.04, the first Linux that didn’t suck.
’nuff said
Edited 2007-04-30 02:04
@Anon
“Short Answer: No.”
How about a long answer with reasons?
@matthekc
“I used nothing but linux for several months it can replace windows but it still has some growing to do.”
Where? How? I’m being completely honest I cannot think of a thing that is a showstopper for the vast majority of users.
“Don’t get me wrong none of the three major operating systems are perfect. All have high points and low points which make you have to choose what is right for you.”
High points low points this is just waffle. What are they.
“There are many things people want from linux some feel linux needs to be easier more gui oriented,”
How? where? the only example of editing a config file would be xorg.conf, thats gone in xorg 7.3. Edit I also added a module for my Nova-T TV card to be autoladed at startup.
“Others want more/better apps”
Which ones. The only ones I ever see mentioned are Adobe Products. Which are in reality used by the minority of users(Flash being an exception). Microsoft Office which is a whole post itself, and hardcore gaming, which in reality has moved over to the console, and casual gaming is available on Linux. The only example of an application that I couldn’t find one of a high enough standard to do the task *I* wanted was DVD authoring, and a good *graphical* ftp program which I found somewhat strange. The only time I can think of using wine is to connect to my xbox, and was astonished that it worked.
“, and of course the hardware people still need to get on board.”
My motherboard; CPU; Graphics Card(with Open Source driver ATI x800); printer; scanner; digital camera; monitor; printer; TV card…all of which can be had cheaper than the cost of Vista Ultimate. The only thing I’d like improving is the graphics card…and thats good now. Its harder to find something that doesn’t work than does work, and at minimal effort can find an alternative that does.
“I believe Linux is getting there it may be a while but the signs are mostly pointed toward a bright future for one of the greatest tech underdog stories of all time.”
Linux provides a superior computing experience to *everyone* apart from the windows *power user*. The harshest critics would argue that its good enough and has been for some time. The only problem with linux is adoption, and I don’t have an answer for that one.
Those three following things are linux’s low points IMHO, Microsoft would be cost, security, stability and I’m not familiar enough with apple to know theirs. Inversely most people would argue ms’s low points are linux’s high points.
I suppose you could say that the gui configs are coming. How many distros are using 7.3 right now. Here is a fun one set up a sprint evdo modem in its gui(mumbles to self if I finish learning python).
I think cnr service, the portland project, and the lsb are going to change my next argument very quickly but trying to find a commercial app for linux is an exercise in futility. I’m not saying that most major apps don’t have a free alternative but sometimes it’s this feature or that and I learned that other layout.
Games some of my favorite games are open source and the most popular work in wine. What of the other very high percentage of games though?
The hardware still has some rough spots they require a look before you leap. If you don’t look you can end up in a swamp of technical problems. Especially stange little oddball hardware like printers and camera’s.
No the harshest critics still tear linux a new one over any minor fault they can find. The majority of users will find if linux is preconfigured to the hardware that its as easy as windows just different. Linux adoption is on an upward creep a few percent a year although slow is not bad.
For what most people use a computer for, Ubuntu would cover their needs. You can write letters, get your mail, do spreadsheets, and surf the web.
Linux’s main problem is hardware compatibility; if your computer does not work as installed, it would probably take a technical experience well beyond a normal user’s experience to get it working. If hardware support is broken, it probably will be broken for quite some time.
There are entire vertical segments of software missing from Linux. Music creation is lacking; Once Ubuntu Studio is release, people will be able to start on the problem. Jack audio server may work out of the box, but there still is a lot of work to be done.
Additionally, Film-Gimp should be merged into the rest of Gimp because standard Gimp is no longer suitable for digital photography; it’s bit depth can only support 8 bits per channel–making it suitable for web only.
Microsoft was successful in breaking OpenGL in Vista, DirectX10 is the biggest threat to Linux at this point. It’s not only used for games, but other large graphic applications. Every program that uses Dx10 for it’s rendering becomes harder to port to Linux.
Oddly, I think that once installed, Ubuntu is MORE ready for mom and pop’s computer than the average user experience. You need to type a password in at anything that may damage the system. The security is tighter. There is no nagware.
[It took over an hour to uninstall trial ware from a new Dell, for a developmentally disabled person to use. Next time I will just wipe the hard drive.]
Edited 2007-04-29 15:24
osnews.com aka ubuntu-marketing.com
“osnews.com aka ubuntu-marketing.com”
It is better than “Vista-marketing.com”.
Like people have been saying here, many people who switch from Windows to Ubuntu, may get upset when they see that they can’t, in a simple way, upgrade their Firefox to the latest version because of shared libraries and dependencies. It is due to quite different OS philosophy. Shared libraries and strict package dependency checking have their pros and cons. We should not forget that the easy to use apt-get and Synaptic also gets much praise from ex-Windows users.
Like mentioned, some other Linux distros, however, allow one to install, say, a new version of Firefox without upgrading the whole OS. Dependency checking in those distros may not always be as smoothly automated though, and users are often expected to understand their system relatively well.
As a middle solution, I’d like to suggest that frustrated Ubuntu users give its mother distro, Debian testing/unstable a try. Debian’s testing and unstable branches are constantly updated, so you will get your apps and libraries upgraded to new versions in a relatively smooth and automatic way. But be prepared to study apt’s inner behaviour (like apt pinning) a bit before.
What I’ve noticed after using both Debian and Ubuntu a lot, is that althoug using Ubuntu is a very easy and nice experience, upgrading from a version to version is not. Upgrading Ubuntu has never worked very well for me. Usually I’ve ended up configuring, removing, reinstalling stuff for a whole day or more just to get the system to the same level it was before the dist-upgrade. (And yes, I’ve tried the official method: sudo update-manager -c too.)
I suppose that if I had stayed only with the default Ubuntu app choices, upgrading would have been smoother. But, hey, I just don’t always want the same things that a default Ubuntu install has. What if I want to, say, remove the fat Beagle from eating all my PC resources while running GNOME..? Or if I want to remove Telnet and some other small apps that I don’t need? For some odd reason Ubuntu depends on such packages, however, and removing those removes also some virtual packages that are quite central to Ubuntu (they have ubuntu in their name).
Debian gives users more freedom and choice. If you want to remove Telnet or Beagle, fine, just do it. If you want to test SELInux, Debian gives you the freedom to use SELinux as much as you want (Ubuntu’s new Upstart doesn’t support SELinux at all). Also, dist-upgrading Debian testing has never caused much trouble for me, although, of course, the testing and Unstable branches of Debian are not as stable as Ubuntu’s or Debian’s stable releases (but Debian testing and unstable do tend to be much more bugfree than the testing branch of Ubuntu before its official release).
Edited 2007-04-29 17:54
“What if I want to, say, remove the fat Beagle from eating all my PC resources while running GNOME.”
Sorry, for some reason I remembered that some Ubuntu packages depended on Beagle. But it is possible to remove Beagle from Ubuntu (Feisty release) without any dependency issues (I thought about replacing Beagle with the smaller and less resource hungry Tracker).
One more prooblem I’ve had with Ubuntu upgrades:
If I want to run the command apt-get dist-upgrade or do the same (“smart upgrade”) with Synaptic GUI, why does Ubuntu want to remove all the official Upstart related packages and install the older sysvinit instead? I had hoped that the new Feisty release would solve this, but no; the same bug remains in both 6.10 and 7.04.
Have others seen the same problem? Or might it be that I have just got some odd unofficial oldstyle package in my system that depends on sysvinit and causes this problem?
Anyway, I think that problems like that should not exist. If newbies just do a simple distribution upgrade while using Synaptic, they might break their system seriously if such problems exist.
In Debian stable releases bugs like that would be solved before an official release, I think.
Edit:
If I use aptitude dist-upgrade instead of apt-get dist-upgrade, upgrades work well and as they are supposed to and the new Upstart packages are kept in place instead of installing older sysvinit to their place. So the problem is related to apt-get (and to Ubuntu dependencies).
Edited 2007-04-29 20:28
Here we see a Linux. This Linux is engaged in a life or death struggle with the Windows. You can see the Linux creeping up on the Windows on all sixes. With great skill he chooses his moment and then, quick as a limpet, with one mighty bound buries his fangs in the Windows’ neck. The Windows struggles to no avail. A battle of this kind can take anything up to fifteen years because the Ubuntu Linux has such a tiny mouth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OHK8iLewLg
I really love linux (Just finished downloading the suse 10.2 dvd), but if linux ever becomes usable for the average person, it will lose everything that makes it great.
To be ready for the average person, accross the board OSS projects need to stop putting the technology first, and put emphasis on the ui, because an unusable UI for the average person is an usable program.
They need to start forcing developers to fix bugs they don’t want to fix, instead of writing what they want to write. As most developers do this as a hobby, and very few people want to do boring things in their free time, this means a transistion needs to be made to paying developers. To pay developers, projects need an income stream, and the most obvious solution is to charge for their product.
There needs to be a push accross the board to stop making commandline interfaces. Even though linux has the best commandline interface on the planet, the average user will resent being forced to use it. GUI all the way, for everything.
Every project must have GUI configurations for everything that needs to be configured, and there needs to be an attitude that if it cant be done from the gui, it cant be done.
The kernel needs to stop evolving so quickly, and provide stable ABIs, so as to give hardware vendors the (practical) ability to support the os.
…do i need to go on?
Not only is forcing these things on everyone an impossibility, but even if it were possible, it would completely and totally change the atmosphere of the OSS world. Not only that, but everything I’ve mentioned are complete non-issues for geeks, who the whole thing is done for in the first place!
IMHO, operating should stop trying to be everything to everyone, and start focusing on their strengths. Linux should be dominating the server room, be on every geeks desktop, and be on workstations where cost is the biggest factor. Macs should be in every home, but should be non-exisistant in the office (except in the creative sectors). And windows should be on office desktops, and only in the server room where it comes to things like domain controllers or groupware servers.
This scenario would provide a much more balanced eco-system, virus/worm writers would have much less incentive if one exploit didnt hit 90% of the worlds computers (which would, by the way, happen if ubuntu ever dominated the world). It would allow for operating systems to focus on their strengths, and provide a better experience for their constituant users, and it would foster a healthy amount of both competition and inter-operability, which is good for everyone. Everyone complains about how microsoft doesnt integrate well into mixed environments, but why should it? How is that in its interest in the slightest? However, if there were serious competition in the business space, and the choice was partial MS or no MS, they would choose partial every time.
Anyways, all that to say that linux is painfully obviously not ready for the desktop, and hopefully never will be.