Linux Desktop Readiness Thread

[DARKGuy]

I agree - Dell is not pushing Linux - just making some systems available. Maybe we should go the other way and push HW parts companies to include Linux drivers with their products. This would make it easier to install Linux.

100% agreed.

[girard]

I think ubuntu has done a good job on simplifying the installation process which is one of the main criteria for an OS being ready for deployment to home desktops (meaning the pc of an average home user). It has also done a good job at being able to provide most of the needs out of the box such productivity, media handling (music and videos, etc...), and a whole lot more. A person who "just wants a pc" will be fully satisfied with the defaults of fiesty for example. i saw tribe4 of gutsy, and it's only getting better. eye candy and the like are also okay.

one thing that i think has to be worked on, if ubuntu, and linux for that matter, wishes to find itself more on the homes of simple users, is the slow and steady graduation from the terminal.

i know most users would present arguments about the "power" of the terminal, and i myself, despite my nascent knowledge about linux, have come across situations where the terminal has proven itself useful and advantageous. but if we were to ask whether this should be a necessity, a pre-requisite to be able to use linux, then most people would really not bother to read pages and pages of tutorials about how to use the terminal, precisely because the way people use computers have graduated from typing in commands, to simple point-and-clicks.

i'm no computer scientist, but one would think that pc's have a trend it has followed through history. that is, beginning at the terminal or command typing, it went into point and click, and now, we are entering the three dimensional, interactive, whathaveyou desktop - touch screens, voice activation or whatever.

so i think that ubuntu and linux as a whole should follow this trend, while preserving the terminal for those who still wish to use it. if it were to be truly ready for the home desktop, it should enable the user to be able to do intermediate functions, administrative tasks, and probably other complex one's via a gui, and not reserve one's control and management of the system wide tasks to the terminal.

yes, the terminal is, to some at least, easy to learn, and no doubt, one can learn it with enough time and patience. but at some point, i think it has to move on and play along with the trend of entering the graphical, and foreseeable three dimensional desktop.

[popch]

if it were to be truly ready for the home desktop, it should enable the user to be able to do intermediate functions, administrative tasks, and probably other complex one's via a gui, and not reserve one's control and management of the system wide tasks to the terminal.

I think you might be right here.

But then, take my case. I have been into computers since the mid-seventies, and I am quite comfortable with using a CLI (command line interface, as the terminal is also called) and do not bat an eyelid when I have to use it. Besides, if you do have to use it, you just copy some text off a page in the internet and paste it into your terminal.

In the last few years I have used Linux distributions on and off, and now have banned Windows from my main machine. On this machine, I have installed two releases of Ubuntu linux in succession. Right now I am using the third release off the live CD.

Why do I tell you all this? Because I have a somewhat demanding machine, use a more-than-average number of applications and have on that machine used the CLI (or terminal) not once, not one single time, not at all. Zero times.

It just works.

[rabi.fettig]

I agree - Dell is not pushing Linux - just making some systems available. Maybe we should go the other way and push HW parts companies to include Linux drivers with their products. This would make it easier to install Linux.

I'm with you 100%. I have already started making a nuisance of myself to the companies that supplied my problematic hardware (notably Toshiba and RIM) asking for a timeline for Linux support and informing them that I will not buy another of their products until they support my OS.

I think the real issue here is that companies don't take the Linux community seriously. After all, we're less than a percent of the total market share, a large number of us dual boot with a commercial OS, and we're stigmatized as running out of date and second-hand hardware. I don't think any of that sounds attractive to marketing at any large company.

I like the idea of having a certification for hardware that has been tested and provides optimal performance under Ubuntu. I think all of us need to be more vocal in criticism for lack of Linux support and praise for support efforts (I'm looking in nVidia's direction.) As the Linux market grows, so will the OEM support, which will in turn make Linux more attractive to non-techie users.

[darrenm]

I'm with you 100%. I have already started making a nuisance of myself to the companies that supplied my problematic hardware (notably Toshiba and RIM) asking for a timeline for Linux support and informing them that I will not buy another of their products until they support my OS.

I think the real issue here is that companies don't take the Linux community seriously. After all, we're less than a percent of the total market share, a large number of us dual boot with a commercial OS, and we're stigmatized as running out of date and second-hand hardware. I don't think any of that sounds attractive to marketing at any large company.

I like the idea of having a certification for hardware that has been tested and provides optimal performance under Ubuntu. I think all of us need to be more vocal in criticism for lack of Linux support and praise for support efforts (I'm looking in nVidia's direction.) As the Linux market grows, so will the OEM support, which will in turn make Linux more attractive to non-techie users.

Theres a big part of supporting the Linux community that these large companies either don't understand or underestimate. The people in the Linux community are generally quite vocal and they are normally the tech contact of their local family and friends group. Even though they can't always move others away from Windows they will push towards certain manufacturers and away from others. Like ATi/AMD - Their poor support of the Linux community has done them lots of damage that they will do well to recover from. They have a bad image now with the community that spills over into lots of other areas and the general consensus gets changed. Personally I used to be a big fan of AMD, ATi and Broadcom. Now I let everyone know they aren't good companies so my hardware of choice is Intel and Nvidia. A large general moving opinion spread over the Internet works like this.

[XogGyux]

I'm with you 100%. I have already started making a nuisance of myself to the companies that supplied my problematic hardware (notably Toshiba and RIM) asking for a timeline for Linux support and informing them that I will not buy another of their products until they support my OS.

I think the real issue here is that companies don't take the Linux community seriously. After all, we're less than a percent of the total market share, a large number of us dual boot with a commercial OS, and we're stigmatized as running out of date and second-hand hardware. I don't think any of that sounds attractive to marketing at any large company.

I like the idea of having a certification for hardware that has been tested and provides optimal performance under Ubuntu. I think all of us need to be more vocal in criticism for lack of Linux support and praise for support efforts (I'm looking in nVidia's direction.) As the Linux market grows, so will the OEM support, which will in turn make Linux more attractive to non-techie users.

It is just common sence actually, 90% of the client operating system are windows and the remaining 10% are mac OS and any other, even thou in that 10% Mac is actually the biggest group, so basically all linux users together sums up to less than 2% of all (if not less)!
In top of that, linux is free, which is an dissadvantage in some cases, yes it might be easy to distribute, but no company would risk to invest in a market where there is no big flow of money, thats why we dont see Photoshop or the last Logitech webcam (compatible) for linux etc.
Linux development depends on linux's users as well as linux's programmers.
Another thing that i think is afecting linux development, is the huge amount of distributions, there are literary hundreds, and althou they are compatible they have small differences that makes it a bit more difficult when you are trying to get support (e.g. getting a problem fixed, and smalls differences are obstacles, for example, in unbutu you use sudo, however in redhat [at least when i use to use it] was su, password, and then whatever you want] this might not seem too complicated, but still for a novice can give him a headache and this is only an example), in resume i think that +distributions are not good.

[rabi.fettig]

It is just common sence actually, 90% of the client operating system are windows and the remaining 10% are mac OS and any other, even thou in that 10% Mac is actually the biggest group, so basically all linux users together sums up to less than 2% of all (if not less)!
In top of that, linux is free, which is an dissadvantage in some cases, yes it might be easy to distribute, but no company would risk to invest in a market where there is no big flow of money, thats why we dont see Photoshop or the last Logitech webcam (compatible) for linux etc.
Linux development depends on linux's users as well as linux's programmers.
Another thing that i think is afecting linux development, is the huge amount of distributions, there are literary hundreds, and althou they are compatible they have small differences that makes it a bit more difficult when you are trying to get support (e.g. getting a problem fixed, and smalls differences are obstacles, for example, in unbutu you use sudo, however in redhat [at least when i use to use it] was su, password, and then whatever you want] this might not seem too complicated, but still for a novice can give him a headache and this is only an example), in resume i think that +distributions are not good.

I'm not really sure I understand your point about free distribution being detrimental to Linux. For example, how does Adobe benefit from knowing that people paid someone else for the operating system that Photoshop is running under?

I do agree that the number of distributions is an issue. It's not feasible to test software under every possible configuration on every possible distribution. That having been said, I think a large part of the flexibility of Linux is owed to its modularity. It really shouldn't be necessary to test everything, and some companies (nVidia or id Software, for example) have shown that proper design can reduce compatibility issues to at least the level found in Windows.

As far as the pervasive use of sudo in Ubuntu, I believe that is because of the decision to eliminate the root login. This was a source of a good deal of confusion for Windows users who switched over to Linux in the past. Having users with different permission levels makes the computer feel more like a home PC and less like a Unix workstation. It's purely a subjective decision.

[A$h X]

one thing that i think has to be worked on, if ubuntu, and linux for that matter, wishes to find itself more on the homes of simple users, is the slow and steady graduation from the terminal.

i think it has to move on and play along with the trend of entering the graphical, and foreseeable three dimensional desktop.

The above, and the overwhelming amount of distros available are the main hurdles in linux-uptake by the mainstream public.
Also, the relative lack of support (purely quantity wise) is another limiting factor.

One of the main strengths (and major weaknesses security-wise) is the ease of which a windows user can install programs onto their systems.

Yet another reason is the lack of "big-name" software on linux, it simply is not represented by many popular brands, so users will turn away from linux.

Finally, the fear factor for non-technical users is enough to put them off non-windows products for life- " I just figured how to do all that crap. I'm not learning it all again!"

[XogGyux]

I'm not really sure I understand your point about free distribution being detrimental to Linux. For example, how does Adobe benefit from knowing that people paid someone else for the operating system that Photoshop is running under?

I do agree that the number of distributions is an issue. It's not feasible to test software under every possible configuration on every possible distribution. That having been said, I think a large part of the flexibility of Linux is owed to its modularity. It really shouldn't be necessary to test everything, and some companies (nVidia or id Software, for example) have shown that proper design can reduce compatibility issues to at least the level found in Windows.

As far as the pervasive use of sudo in Ubuntu, I believe that is because of the decision to eliminate the root login. This was a source of a good deal of confusion for Windows users who switched over to Linux in the past. Having users with different permission levels makes the computer feel more like a home PC and less like a Unix workstation. It's purely a subjective decision.

Most of what i said is my personal opinion, i might not be necesary true, anyways in my experiece i have seen people that would buy an "expensive thing" rather than a "cheap thing" based only on the price (you can see the philosophy behind this: you get what you pay for, or in other words, the most expensive the better quality) which althou for in some cases (perhaps the majority) is true, but when it comes to linux (quality) i dont think this applies for linux ( or in general software), in my experience at least the best software i have used are free (mplayer [great] openoffice [MS office is annoying!] and more)

What i said about distributions, i meant that there are too many and too few are different, in other words there are 100+ but 3 of them are just the same with 1 small change, another 4 are the same but with another small change, and at the end is just confusion.

Apparence is other thing that i believe is an obstacle for linux develop, althou the overal linux apparence is nice and clean, linux "bunddled applications" (at least in ubuntu) are ugly really ugly and after all it is human nature to prejudge anything for its apparance, for example one day a friend had a problem with windows media player (in windows) and i recomended him mplayer, he laugh because he thought that that "simple" and "ugly" thing was old etc, but after a while he found that was super functional and a very good application and now it is his favorite (happened the same to me when i someone recommended it to me a couple of years ago!)


I couldnt recall who wrote about linux installation a couple of replies ago, anyways:
I dont think linux "installation" need to much polishing (at least unbutu), years ago i installed to try redhat 7 (thats really old) and althou i needed 15+ mins to follow all the indications (over 25 steps to configure keyboard, region, packages to install, partition, etc), it was super easy (as easy as the windows of the time) now, ubuntu's installation is way superior and easy than any other OS i have installed (BeOS, RedHat, SuSE, Slackware, Windows 98, Windows ME, windows NT, Windows 2000, windows XP (sp1, sp2, 64-bit edition), windows vita (32-64) and half MacOS X in pc (half becuase i wasnt patient enough and aborted it )
so, i dont think ubuntu installation needs to much polishing, althou i would recomend to make "/" the default mount dir (well i dont know if this stills apply since my experience was with redhat 7 and i really didnt pay to much attention to the unbuntu installation since i already knew what to do and was so easy that i was too relaxed) since when i first installed linux ever, i spent 30mins to figure out what was wrong (i didnt expesify the mounting dir) and the error i would get was vague.

[XogGyux]

The above, and the overwhelming amount of distros available are the main hurdles in linux-uptake by the mainstream public.
Also, the relative lack of support (purely quantity wise) is another limiting factor.

One of the main strengths (and major weaknesses security-wise) is the ease of which a windows user can install programs onto their systems.

Yet another reason is the lack of "big-name" software on linux, it simply is not represented by many popular brands, so users will turn away from linux.

Finally, the fear factor for non-technical users is enough to put them off non-windows products for life- " I just figured how to do all that crap. I'm not learning it all again!"

I dont think we gonna have "big-name" software for a while, and also when we do get it is gonna be because linux popularity have risen, in other words, there is no insentive for big companies (such as adobe, autodesk, etc), to develop a software and tech support for a very small amount of users.