A Glimpse at the Linux Desktop of the Future 759
hisham writes "Every now and then we see articles pointing out "what's wrong with Linux on the desktop." This one gives a nice overview not only of the problems we all know, but also where to look for solutions (app dirs, smarter filesystems) and what's out there (projects trying to change the face of Linux, like Klik, Zero Install and GoboLinux). Still, it usually boils down to things that Mac OS X already has or that are/were touted for inclusion on MS Longhorn. Fortunately, the major desktops stopped playing catch and are focusing on forward-looking Linux projects, like KDE Plasma and Gnome Beagle. Interesting times ahead."
Dear Linux (Score:5, Funny)
At first, I really admired your lofty goals and pure-hearted ambitions. You spoke of freedom. You spoke of choice. You spoke of a world without limits.
But over the years, you have stagnated. Sure, you make a robust server and I'll always have a place in my heart (and my production racks) for you. But you have failed to thrive on my desktop.
Why, just last year, I tried to get you to work with my 23" Apple Cinedisplay. I was ready to return to you full-time after a long desktop-linux hiatus, if only you could have displayed properly on that Cinedisplay without screwing up the resolution. I didn't want to run you in 1024x768 on a 1920x1600 screen. Nor did I want to run 1920x1600 worth of desktop in a 1024x768 resolution where I'd have to roll the mouse all over the place to screen-off to the rest of the desktop.
And should I even mention the fiascos with various sound cards that you just didn't want to play nicely with? Or of the hardware that you were supposed to be "known-good" on that you chose not to work with at the most inopportune moments?
After seven years of courting, you still didn't achieve desktop prominence in my life. In fact, the only switch you encouraged me to make was away from you and toward a platform that "just works".
See, I've recently decided to shove you off the desk and turn you into a fileserver for my massive collection of porn, MP3s and ripped movies. Apple has found a way to give me a beautiful, slick, useful, enjoyable interface that makes everything you offer look like a rejected Fisher-Price prototype. And it slaps this onto a powerful BSD core. It's the best of both worlds. More, when I plug something into it - be it an iPod, 23" or 30" cinedisplay or anything else, it just works. I don't have to spend five days playing with LineModes in x86free.conf or massaging device drivers. I don't have to spend more time configuring and installing things than I do using them anymore.
As I said, you'll always have a place in my production racks. There, we'll always be friends. But when it comes to my desk... I think we should really stop seeing each other. In fact, I already have. I've moved on. And my new desktop is more than you could ever hope to be. Maybe someday you'll grow up and realize that "free as in freedom" and "screw the corporates" rhetoric, nice as it is, doesn't justify sub-par computing.
Maybe we can try again some day. For now, I need my space.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:5, Funny)
"X-Windows Sucks"
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Typical anti linux rant, blame linux because vendors haven't written a driver for something and worse are using the legal system to prevent other people from writing drivers too.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
With that said, however, things with Linux distributions that aren't SuSE or Fedora seem to be coming together fairly quickly. The last time I had a Linux system running in my house was about 8 months ago (Gentoo), and I did have sound problems (the Gentoo documentation wasn't updated, and the method they have for installing emu10k1 with the 2.6.x kernel is flat out wrong - but I wasn't aware of that at the time). I spent a few days working on it. That's a few days vs. a few minutes (including downloading the right drivers from Creative (in my case)). It's alot "slicker" on Windows, but, again, things are getting a lot better in the Linux world. I have faith they'll eventually catch up. But not unless people honestly admit there are flaws and they need to be rectified. Too many fanboys are zealously arguing that any criticism of Linux is amounting to blasphemy. How can things get better if any criticism is immediately denounced as FUD? Just because something works fine for them doesn't mean it works fine for everyone.
2 bits (Score:3, Interesting)
The developers (generally) are not the zealots... they prefer to get work done instead of arguing about which is better. ;)
It's much better to think of the fanbois as Linux's PR department. Sure, they don't have the level of experience of Microsoft, but in true open-source style, they are slowly improving with time :-p
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Does Creative let you actually download sound drivers for their cards now? The one time I was actually using Windows, I tried to get drivers for my SoundBlaster Live! and it turned out that they only offered upgrades, which were useless if you didn't already an install of the drivers. Long story short being that I was forced to dig up the original CD that came with the card if I wanted sound in Window
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Informative)
I followed the instructions which I found here: http://www.help2go.com/postt14349.html [help2go.com]
Hope this is useful to someone.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was building my new desktop Debian box, it had all-fancy-pants on-board Nvidia sound chips that theoretically might work if you were Linus Torvlads and you called in some favors and were really focused. I tried for a few hours, then ordered a $9 sound blaster off of eBay. When I slotted the sound blaster, sound just worked. I think that was a good money/time trade.
But that's not the end of the story. A few kernel recompiles later, sound stopped working. The module was still
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Lack of vendor support is still a mark against Linux, until it can be rectified. It's not that it's not a flaw in Linux --- it is a flaw in Linux --- but the point is that it isn't Linux developers' fa
Re:Dear Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
So then people say "use a more userfriendly distribution!" - a valid response. Until you start to realize that eventually, when the user DOES outgrow the bundled packages, they're going to have to start installing applications themselves. Even Fedora (Core 1) had dependency hell issues at times with various applications. Was this the distributions fault? No. It was the application-in-question's fault for not being able to keep up with the thousands of Linux configurations out there. It's their fault, but it's completely understandable that they often times run behind. That doesn't change the fact that it's often completely fucking impossible for someone who ISN'T a master of Linux to figure out the problem. With the more user-friendly distributions (like, say, SuSE), you go from extremely-easy-to-use to wtfomgbbqh4x. The learning curve from "novice" to "master" is absolutely insane. If Windows learning curve is y = x, then the general "Linux experience" learning curve is y = x^7. Is it any one person's fault? No. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Do I have a way to fix it? No. That doesn't mean it isn't there.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Funny)
1995: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
1996: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
1997: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
1998: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
1999: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
2000: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
2001: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
2002: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
2003: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
2004: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
2005: Linux will be ready for the desktop next year!
I really think 2006 will be our breakthrough year!
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should you have to Google for something though ?
And why should have to figure out what hardware you're using (because Compaq won't tell you), figure out your specs, download drivers that weren't intended for your specific machine, and reboot several times to do it? And all this, just to get my video card to have a refresh rate that I can't see change as I scroll or type. It was more like watching a bad flash animation of a windows desktop, than actually using Windows. Such was my experience with Windows XP. In fact, from what I understand I'm not the only one that goes through this. Anyone with hardware not in the five year old windows hardware database will have similar issues. Then my pad and pen didn't work, so I have to track down drivers for those.
Linux on the other hand...
Much better hardware support. All around, it was just better. With no effort on my part (and no need at all to search Google), Fedora Core 3 picked up and installed everything (except the scanner part of my printer/scanner combo... I'm still working on that). And it worked. In fact, certain pieces of hardware work better under Linux than they do under Windows. Case and point, I can get higher resolution on my NVIDIA graphics card than I can using windows on the same box. My tablet and pen are much more sensitive, and make it easier to do complex diagrams and doodles. In Windows, I had to re-learn how to draw in order to use this technology.
I do have to hand it to the guy who wrote the article. I can't tell you how sick I am of know nothings that complain endlessly because their one in a million hardware configuration didn't work with Linux, and then they go on to tell the whole world that Linux sucks as a result of it, and nobody should even bother installing it. When these same people start talking about usability and things like "Buddy Icons" it's especially funny.
Although I wouldn't put this guy into the same category. At least he's proposing a solution, or set of them. But I can't say I agree with his assessment of the problem.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
I told him about my early experiences and said how going from Windows to Macintosh for the OS and Protools/M.O.T.U./Studer to S.A.W./Cakewalk for the audio apps took "some getting used to". His response was, "If it takes some getting used to, then it's crap. Software should never take getting used to. You should just start using it and never have to look at the manual". At the time, I was a little annoyed because I saw this as a closed-minded approach to audio production. Yes, the Macintosh was far better at the work, but learning to do this stuff on Windows armed me to go much farther and blow away any Mac user in the audio realm. Not to mention that now that I do my audio work on Linux, I have a huge growing array of tools at my disposal. I think people who have the attitude that learning something new shouldn't require any... um... LEARNING are just plain stupid.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:2)
Never really had to Google for something to install or use Windows...
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again, I don't go out of my way to seek parts from closed vendor solutions and then expect them to work with something else. I would not expect an easy time out of some oddball Sun monitor either.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, like it, I must remember that one...
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a couple aspects to the 4 computers I've installed Gentoo on that were what I would consider "slight problems". Were they annoying? You betcha. But at the end of the day (literally), I have scanners, fully accelerated Xorg, NFS, USB 2.0, Firewire, wireless networking, SATA, sound, DVD burning, and hosts of other "cool" features working completely flawlessly and with excellent stability on all 4.
And I really appreciate Linux for that...it was the community that so many lovingly refer to as the "omgwtfbbqlol" posts that make that possible. Sure, there is your fair share of those types of posts, but when I have a problem, there are literally thousands of people on hand whose problem are similar that I can learn from. In the one case where this wasn't so, I did the work to figure the problem out, and I posted it for others to read, learn from and refine.
Neal Stephonson said in well In the Beginning Was the Command Line. He was describing the state of operating systems, and had an analogy with car dealerships. Windows was the coventional "everyone has one" stationwagon dealership, Apple sells hermitically sealed, sylish, almost "magical" cars, BeOS weighed in with "fully operational Batmobiles", and finally, Linux, which isn't a dealership at all, rather a little camp set up with lots of tents. In the camp, the people are building tanks, and giving them away free by the side of the road. They have a "PR guy" with a bullhorn, trying to alert the customers going to the other dealerships of their product:
Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"
Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"
Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"
Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."
Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"
Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"
Bullhorn: "But..."
Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
The moral? That one line about "But you don't know how to maintain a station wagon, either!". The reason I took all this space setting this up is that this an extremly important point. All the people that point ou that newbies don't know how to use Linux are correct. What they're forgetting is that they don't know how to use Windows, either. I'm not here to debate the point, but any self-respecting computer geek can tesitify to the number of Windows-related support calls they get from family and friends. Why do you think they make a "No, I won't fix your computer." t-shirt? A hint: they aren't talking about Linux machines.
So, finally, my point: the argument that you finally "give up and get an OS that just works" is a cop out. There are no operating systems that "just work". Once you accept that (and I have, after working for years with Windows, Mac OS X and various flavors of Linux), the question then becomes whether you want commuity out there to help you. I find that when I google for a Linux issue, I'll get 10 times the documentation I will for problems in Windows, and maybe 20 times as much as I will for problems in Mac OS X. And that's worth a lot to me.
When my wife's scanner stopped working under OS X, it was black magic. One day it worked, the next, it just stopped. No logge
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Right on!
As I've said many times before:
1) Windows is CRAP!
2) Linux is ALSO CRAP!
3) Linux is FREE CRAP!
4) And for the benefit of the first poster:
Apple is EXPENSIVE CRAP!
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
At the same time, often my issue is with how a program interacts with windows - that usually means I have to look for product-specific info rather than windows info. All in all, a major pain in the ass, and there's no "standa
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. However, there's another side to this too. When you choose your hardware to run Linux on, you have to know what you are choosing.
I'll give you an example from personal experience. I once had a wireless desktop PCI card, purchased before I started using Linux. This card turned out to have four different revisions of the same model, and three different possible chipsets, some of which worked without fiddling, others of which required some firmware-loading, driver-compiling hackery to function. I spent a week or so with no internet access and eventually got it working, but when I decided to reinstall Linux with a new distro, I knew what to do. I went to google, found a site with the manpage for one of the most well supported wireless drivers under linux/*bsd and read the list of cards it was known to work with out of the box. I went to ebay, purchased one for around 30 dollars, and from then on I have had zero problems with wireless under every version of Linux I've run on it since. The only configuration I've had to do is a WEP key when one is needed.
The point is, things "just work" on a Mac because they are programmed well and polished so that they do so, but they also work with a MUCH smaller hardware set. You wouldn't go out and buy just any old piece of hardware and expect to plug it into your Mac and have it "just work" - you'd make sure it had Apple software or drivers first, wouldn't you? Linux as a whole does its best to come up with at least SOME kind of support for the majority of the hardware out there, but the quality varies as much as the hardware itself.
If you decide Linux is for you, then make the decision to buy hardware that you can be sure will work well under Linux. I have had almost no issues since the day I figured out that it was worth thirty dollars to me not to spend hours screwing with my wireless card. Take the time to find out if your hardware is going to be a beast to work with, and if it is, consider whether A) it's worth it to you to screw with it, B) it's worth it to you to buy something else that you know will work without hacking it, or C) it's worth it to you to run Linux instead of Windows (or buy yourself a Mac), if neither A nor B is an option.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Funny)
Well there's your problem! All the Windows 3.x versions sucked! Get with the times and upgrade! ;)
Re:Dear Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Telling your customer "if you don't like it, do it yourself!" is a really bad way to handle business and a terrible way to build a user-base. This is precisely what linux's problem is. It's a bunch of primadonna developers developing things the way developers want to. And developers tend to throw every reason at you for why you don't want what you're positive you want (of course, that's usually just bullshit; they just dont' want to put in the extra effort to do what people really want and would rather talk you into wanting what they want you to want).
The solution isn't telling end-users to become developers. The solution is tellign developers to start developing for the average end-user that they claim to so desperately want to reach.
Re:Dear Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing just needs to be robust, not implode and not get itself infected with malware.
GUI non-power users are not that challenging.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mac OS X didn't work this morning (Score:5, Insightful)
Mac OS X is designed like any other platform to be a lock in platform, that is, it uses the same file format everywhere. Even iPods are formatted HFS+. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to burn a disk or reformat an iPod, it just means that you *NEED TO BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PLATFORM TO USE IT*.
Just because the way you use computers isn't the same as the way Mac users use their computers, doesn't mean your opinion is magically better than theirs. It means you are looking for something else. If you like compatibility, stay on Windows. Everything in the world runs Windows. If you like to tinker, use Linux. If you just want to use your damned computer, use Mac OS X. It's that simple.
Nitpick (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to do the same with NTFS or Microsoft's SMB... well, get ready for a lot of reverse engineering and compatibility bugs, and be prepared for the idea it may never work at all. That's a little closer to what I'd call "lock in".
I'm also jus
Wait, Windows can't read HFS+, so Macs suck!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS X didn't work this morning (Score:3, Informative)
Pre-Loading Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
The average user would do just as well with Linux pre-loaded as they do with Windows pre-loaded. Add to that the lack of viruses and spyware and any productivity lost due to being in unfamiliar territory would possibly be more than made up for by the less-attacked environment.
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Until they had to install an application, wanted to play their favorite videogame or upgrade their hardware.
"Hi grandma. You did what? You bought Quicken at OfficeMax today? Um... You do realize that doesn't work on linux don't you? No, I'm sorry grandma, that only works on a PC or a Macintosh. No, you totally wasted your money. But it's okay, you can totally get the same kind of program for free on linux! You just have to download it and install it. Well, your bank probably won't support it and it probably won't even connect to your bank and you'll have to do everything manually, but... it's free! . . . . Okay, grandma. You have to su to root and then apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. But first, make sure to edit your apt.sources file to point to the security branch so you'll recieve all of those updates. Okay, done? Good. Alright, now you wanted to get an account ledger application to track your banking, right? Okay, apt-get install aptitude and then run aptitude from the command line. After it loads up, start scrolling through the list of applications until you find something that sounds like it will do what you want. Oh - found one? Awesome, grandma! Now you need to press + and then g and g again . . . . . . . Huh? Wait, what'd it say? . . . . Oh, crap. No, apparently one of the dependancies didn't update properly. Okay, we need to remove and purge it and start all over again. Do you know how to use dpkg grandma?"
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:2)
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:2)
And, I've heard that's STILL faster and better than Intuit's tech non-support.
one click (Score:2, Informative)
Linux is ready for the desktop,*especially* for grandma, it just needs to be preinstalled and sold like that in the big retail shops. And frankly, with hard drive sizes like there are now, getting a computer with dozens/hundreds of apps preinstalled and available in the GUI menu tree w
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
For projects that use it, one click installs do exist on Linux, via the autopackage installer [autopackage.org]. And they are actually one click too (well, OK, two clicks) because there's no Next->Next->Next style wizards involved. Why not watch the Flash demo [autopackage.org] to get a feel for how it works (it's a bit out of date now, things are slightly slicker these days).
One of the biggest problems autopackage has is simply that developers don't know about it. Whereas every Linux developer has heard of RPM, virtually none have heard of autopackage because it's so new (it only went stable in April).
If you like what you see there, spread the word or even better, write patches! The best kind of product is the one that sells itself, after all, and whilst autopackage is already quite nice for the end user we're still busy untangling the ball of wool that software distribution on Linux has become.
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, absolutely. Actually this camp of people tends to split into two quite different types:
Obviously autopackage will never please the latter type, but this is in my experience a vocal minority. Usually when people say they like apt, what they mean is they like the convenience of the command line for when they know what they want.
There's no reason you could not implement this UI on top of autopackage using a DNS style naming/lookup service. It would not be hard to do, and if anybody is reading this message and wants to help implement it let us know. We already have basic blueprints for such a feature.
Totally. We have a PHP developer who has written some code that auto-selects which packages to show the user based on their User Agent string. I still need to drag it out of him and get it documented, advertised on the website etc. I keep meaning to write an article or somesuch on website design for open source projects; far too many people link directly to their SourceForge download pages which is awful UI.
So there are two types of vendors here: software developers, both open source and commercial, and distribution vendors.
I think it's fair to say that distros like Fedora and Ubuntu will give up yum and apt over their dead bodies. They're unfortunately sold on the idea of centralised packaging.
On the other hand, the "first time setup" procedure isn't all that hard, unfortunately the UNIX non-security system of +x bits gets in the way but after you run your first autopackage succesfully that's no longer an issue. Autopackage is taking off amongst the indie software developer community, especially the open source gaming community. Again we simply need more people - developers are wanted, but any enthusiastic Linux users who want to help spread the word are also quite appreciated and we can put them to work.
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
I would just ssh in, and fix things myself. Over the command line. I believe quicken works with wine. Remote admin (even over slow connection): one of the hidden beauties of linux.
And if you say that grandma does not have an internet connection, I will say that you are just a greedy bastard. Go buy your grandma an internet connection, and forward her a bunch of pictures. As a bonus she will actually know someone cares.
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
And both of those are easily answered in favor of Windows right now:
Computers come with anti-virus suites and Windows. And as far as the user is concerned, it was "free" with the hardware. And as far as the OEM is concerned, they passed the cost on to the customer - so they couldn't care less.
There's just no reason to bother. Windows is "good enough" for everyone involved. Linux is not about a "great desktop experience". Linux is all about tolerating a (currently) inferior experience in support of ideaologies. Those who continue to use it in the face of so many problems and frustrations do so out of stubborn rebelion. Nothing wrong with that, but face it - when you are running Linux on your desktop, it's more of a statement than an experience.
Look at VoIP. It's taking off like mad. I know clueless AOL people who have signed up for and use Vonage (or similar services). Why? Because they want a good cost/performance benefit. Their phone bills drop from $200/mo to $20/mo and their services and benefits expand (they can now call anywhere in America/Canada without additional costs and outside of the country cheaply). They see the benefit immediately and VoIP, at this point, pretty much "just works". You plug the adapter in. You plug the phone in. You're done.
If Linux was truly a better experience, people would flock to it. All the moreso since it's free. The idea that people won't try linux because "if it's free, it has to suck" is laughable. When was the last time you knew someone who hated a bargain?
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:2)
Logic would agree with you, history doesn't really.
There have been better alternatives for PCs running a MS operating system for as long as the PC exists. Yet, people have been using PCs running a MS operating system anyway.
If 'better experience' was what peop
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Therefore, switching to a platform where it isn't
necessary does confer some advantage. As Linux gets more popular as a target for virus writers, that may change. Then again, I think Linux
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt it, installing Linux never was a problem, you could even install a Debian for *years* by simply holding the Return-key pressed, its actually quite a lot easier then installing a Windows system from scratch. Partitioning is the only thing that might be hard, but even that is only hard when you want to let the Windows partition survive.
The hard part is maintaining, using and co
Re:Pre-Loading Linux (Score:2)
A logitech trackball (recognized and configured correctly)
A HP PSC 1200 "All in One" printer/scanner copier combi (recognized and configured correctly)
A 21" CRT (recognized and configured correctly)
A 105 key "international" keyboard (recognized and connfigured correctly)
An external USB card reader (recognized and configured correctly)
An Olympus digital camera (recognized and configured correctly)
Of course the network card and vi
Great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dont believe me those problems exist? go ahead and enable MDKKDM to allow remote X terminal logins. It's massively different from XDM, GDM and KDM on it's own, oh and where the hell are the config files? certianly not where most other X configs reside (the fault there started with KDM's decision to create a new standar for themselves.)
to hell with pretty, clickey, easier to use interface. Fix the problems we have that cause even seasoned vetrans to pull their hair out.
Re:Great idea! (Score:2)
Whats wrong? I (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Windows?"
Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
Re:Whats wrong? I (Score:5, Funny)
If only all Linux applications were that simple to install.
You are oh-so-right. (Score:5, Insightful)
As would be expected, the Windows generation had the most difficulty converting. Thanks to Windows' dumbing down of the interface, people have come to expect the simplicity of throwing in a disc, letting it install, reboot if necessary, and the app is there. Issues like permissions, libraries, kernels, and so forth are going to be completely foreign concepts to the last majority of computer users that are out there.
And can you imagine what most people will think when you tell them that Linux runs X? "You mean, Linux is pornographic?!!" (That's called humor. I know that that's a foreign concept to many Slashdot mods.)
Obviously, education is the key, but that also assumes that the user is willing to learn. Not all of them are, and that's fine. Let them eat Windows. But until Linux does dumb itself down for those who fear the command line, people will look at it, them look at Windows, and switch back to Windows because of the sake of simplicity.
Alternately, I wish that more companies would offer PCs with Linux preinstalled right there in the store with a Linux desktop right there. Let the people see what Linux can do; let them get a feel for it in the store. Maybe they wouldn't feel so afraid of it. The Linux desktop is very nice as of late. MEPIS Linux v3.3.1 has one of the best desktops I've seen when it comes to user friendliness. I've actually been able to convert a few people to give Linux a try because of it. (Not many, mind you, but it's better than none.)
Re:You are oh-so-right. (Score:2)
I have Macs and I have been running Linux for over 5 years, desk, rack and laptop. Most of the linux-on-mac folks don't know their tits from their arse (*) so I hardly see how a slash-tit author has any authority to rant about linux.
Get some real geeks and then we'l talk.
(*) if they DID, maybe linux on a mac would actually work properly! Just scroll throught the linux-PPC maillists for any major distro and you may notice the level of posting equates roughly to the "
Re:You are oh-so-right. (Score:2)
Making Linux easier to use is NOT about 'dumbing it down' (losing features in an attempt to appear less intimidating). If anything, the opposite should be true: the OS should become more intelligent, taking care of the tedious stuff so the user can concentrate on doing his job.
OS X is a good example of how this can be done: you can install some (most?) applications by dragging an icon to the Applications folder. You can still do it
Re:You are oh-so-right. (Score:2)
But surely, that's exactly how it should be.
As an ancient (ex) mainframe sysprog myself, I like to know the technical details, but the majority of users just need to get their work done, or be creative, or enjoy their games or whatever.
Windows and OS-X let them do this, and Linux doesn't, really.
I don't consider making something more usab
Re:Whats wrong? I (Score:2)
No kidding, this is what happened on my game system. It took several rounds of updates and yanking out my good video card and using a cheap one to get the machine bootable with the resulting mess.
Re:Whats wrong? I (Score:3, Interesting)
It goes something like this...
Me: Ensure you have opengl support else Quake 3 will just open a window and close it again before you even get a chance to read what is wrong..
User: Oh? OpenGL drivers? Windows recognized my card perfectly well!
Me: Well, try it.. (user tries and finds out what I just have been saying)
User: ok, how do I fix this?
Me: Did you get a CD with the card?
User: Yes but there was
Beagle == Spotlight? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Beagle == Spotlight? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, I am not sure about this, but I think Beagle was available first. I think it is included in the latest SuSE which was earlier on the market than Mac OS 10.4. Don't know about Google Desktop search.
I have to admit that Beagle is not yet finished (no 1.0 yet) but it'll be ready earlier than Longhorn, I reckon.
For me Beagle is an example for Linux not playing catch up with Windows anymore but Linux having a useful (probably killer) application first to market.
Furthermore I think that Linux is in many
My last Linux problem: (Score:2)
For some reason IPV4 was non-existant on all 4 Ethernet cards, but ipv6 worked. Tried everything, eventually enlisted the help of 2 friends for a total reinstall. But I had no precious data to backup. Ugh.
Choice (Score:3, Funny)
Some good points here. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see some of the points here. However, for most applications, I do not go about the ./configure, make, make install routine. I simply load my app manager (YaST), choose the app I want and it is installed.
I think the KDE and Gnome desktops are very usable with a few minor tweaks. As I often mention, my 60+ year old mother uses KDE just fine. And, hey, she's not gotten any viruses or adware.
Now, I realize that the *nix desktops are not perfect and there are some serious hardware issues, due to manufacturers bending over for big Bill, but these things are slowly changing.
Desktop icons (Score:4, Insightful)
In the bit on desktops he writes:
But everybody I know likes to clutter their desktops with icons. My wife does it in Gnome. My workmates to it in windows and KDE. Everybody does it.
Yes it may look ugly and cluttered but so is the physical desk I work on. That's life. Shouldn't we stop telling users how to organise their data?
Re:Desktop icons (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm really, really fed up to listen to people that think that making things easy for the end user means imprisoning it inside your questionable usability decisions. Users must have maximum flexibility. They want it, they need it, they love it. It is obvious they need reasonable defaults, but they must be free to change them as they like.
I do -so- agree! (Score:3, Interesting)
I run Windows due to some hardware issues, and I feel like I have put in enough effort trying to make stuff work.
However there is no ting which annoys the hell out of me in Windows than the pressumed useful and slightly forced data-organization.
Why on earth would I put my music in a folder called "My music" in a hidden folder called "My Documents" when I obviously want it in a common, shared folder? Not to mention I keep my system and data on clearly seperated partitions, and Windows insists on putti
Re:Desktop icons (Score:5, Informative)
It tends to help to read the entire article before commenting. Don't worry, though. You're in good company. A large vocal user base has been misinterpreting my ideas since they've been posted. I'm working on a followup blog to see if I can hammer a few of these misunderstanding out.
Mods? How about a few points so that this correction will appear on par with parent post?
Running before walking (Score:2)
1) Bugs
2) Usability
3) Performance
GNOME, for example, seems to be shifting its focus from 'revolution' to these points. The frameworks of several great desktop environments are there, they just need to be finished off,
The future's here baby !!! (Score:5, Funny)
The problem with some users... (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh no. Not the Dock. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want the user to be able to determine what Taskbar/Dock type thing they want, you might want to check out DragThing [dragthing.com] as a third option, which lacks the visual style of the Dock but works a whole heck of a lot better.
I'm not a big fan of highly customizable interfaces, but man I wish I could just turn the Dock off once and for all.
Change the people, not the software... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seamless Vs Extensibility (Score:5, Insightful)
With the evolving desktop, people stop writing general purpose tools that abstract data and functionalities as simple files and scripts, and instead write their stuff for specific desktops. One good example is synce [sf.net] - a program to sync WinCe devices with Linux, which integrates well into Evolution, but has no 'dangling interface' where you can just snoop in, get your data and do what you want with it. File-oriented interfaces were a given with most Linux apps till very recently. And as their number/dominance diminish, I wonder if Linux hackers will slowly switch to other UNIXes just because they'd be more UNIX-like.
Re:Seamless Vs Extensibility (Score:3, Informative)
It's seldom commented because there is no such thing. The interoperability features that KDE provides are way more advanced than UNIX pipes.
Case in point: DCOP [wikipedia.org]. Using the console DCOP client, or the DCOP APIs you can control almost every KDE program from your scripts. For example, if you want to pop up the K menu at the mouse cursor, just call `dcop kicker kicker popupKMenu 0`. Want to swi
Re:Seamless Vs Extensibility (Score:3, Interesting)
About 20 years ago, computer scientists realized that a raw stream of formatted data is not the way to go. In the future, when that data format changes then all consumers must also be changed. There's no extensibility or backward compatibility. That
Re:Seamless Vs Extensibility (Score:3, Insightful)
A couple of simple examples, I'd love to see how you would do them in (real world!) OO.
That's what's good about pipes (and command substitution...), you learn how to use them once and you can quickly manipulate data by eyeballing the data and knocking up a one-
Re:Seamless Vs Extensibility (Score:3, Interesting)
No, it's a GREAT model! It's just not suitable for everything. "Pipes and Filters" is one of the basic software architectural design patterns. For repetitive manipultion of data (you know, the core purpose of computers), nothing beats it. If you only have to do a task once at the moment, then the standard GUI way (c
I had answered on my blog (Score:5, Insightful)
My Biggest Linux Complaint (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to target your software to the desktop (and I mean the windows audience), then give me a goddamn binary and let me use the damn software now, not three hours from now.
Re:My Biggest Linux Complaint (Score:3, Interesting)
Already posted on Linux Today (Score:3, Informative)
FYI, this article has already been ripped to shreds in the comments at Linux Today:
here [linuxtoday.com]
Two stories (Score:3, Insightful)
The crazy thing is that that actually was a huge win for Linux! Dealing with USB devices didn't used to be nearly that easy! But it still is a long way from being usable for any normal person.
2) My Linux Waterloo, though, is updates. I have two Linux systems: a TiBook with Yellow Dog, that has an irretrievably corupted RPM database, and a Gentoo whitebox that I can't push through to Xorg and 2.6. (The latter was switched to Gentoo after Mandrake package management imploded.)
It's been a fun ride, but I've spent enough time on treating my computer as a hobby. OS X has pretty much taken over for all my actual computer use outside of work.
Re:Two stories (Score:3, Informative)
That's been my experience up until quite recently too.
However I got a new laptop for my wife recently, so I thought I'd have a go with ubuntu. Ubuntu was a dream to install, and everything just worked with two small exceptions (suspend and xv) which is pretty good for a brand new laptop.
I was extremely impress
Re:Two stories (Score:3, Informative)
Learning curve too steep (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, I have struggled in recent days getting everything I've wanted to install working correctly. Largely this has been due to GCC4.0 incompatibilities (many apps just don't compile at all from source without patches), but also because lots of exotic RPMs (Myth being a prime example) have not yet been built for FC4.
A lot of things I have had to compile manually from sources when I had originally set out to use yum to manage everything (I've recently been converted to the ease-of-use and practicalities of RHEL and Redhat Network).
Another poster commented that Linux is perfectly capable as a desktop OS - until you need to install an application, play a game or upgrade their hardware. Joking aside, this statement is 100% accurate.
In my endeavours trying to install all of my "exotic" applications like a movie player (xine), NZB downloader (klibido) I have either run into problems where the currently available RPMs are buggy [sourceforge.net], or the sources just don't compile out of the box. How can any non-technical person be expected to deal with this?
If you contrast this with Windows, I think the only time I have had a failed installation with a piece of software I have downloaded has been when it has required
Linux will need to standardise itself a lot more if it is going to be a force on the desktop. RPM/yum/apt-get and so on is a step in the right direction, but its still voodoo for most people. Unfortunately I beleive this standardisation is in stark contrast with what most techies (myself included in some way) believe the strength of Linux to be - i.e. diversity and the "joy" of compiling things manually.
Linux hardware support is a mess. (Score:4, Insightful)
If I need a new version of a driver, I need to be able to grab it as I can on Windows without recompilation. That's unacceptable. The NDIS wrapper implementation is a good example: it works and mostly well, but to get support you have to mess with the command line and text files or even scarier stuff. What you should do is be told to insert the CD that came with the device and have linux do it for you.
The office apps are already on linux; it's already fast; much of the UI and desktop is already user friendly. Installs have issues, yes, but they're down the line and mostly hidden from the user. The user is neatly kept in their home directory. Hard disk management is complex, but not much more so than Windows and partitioning is nicely automated in most installs.
I like linux a lot and use it regularly. I don't actually believe, though, that it can currently compete against commercial OSs without a massive change to some of the attitudes about what's acceptable, and a resulting change to the way Linux works. Hardware is the area where those attitudes seem to be totally exposed to the end-user.
This guy hasn't tried Debian or Knoppix. (Score:4, Insightful)
Debian is the distro Knoppix is based of of, so it has really good hardware detection, but the 'stable' version is using the 'older' proven stable detection routines. That means it doesn't configure everything perfectly, for instance I had to enable DMA on my dvd-rom, and I had to use k3b to 'configure the system' for cd/dvd burning*.
I also have the advantage of having prior experience, So I know how to install flash support for my secondary browser, and how to configure java, which isn't included in debian because it's not FOSS. Plus I knew that the FOSS drivers suck compared to the proprietary ones, so I knew where to find them, and I knew what settings to set in the 'install' script for them, because I've been messing around with X11 config files for years now...
So basically, initial set up is probably beyond most users, but the same is true of windows. Most windows users can't even install applications by themselves, and when they try to the end up with a million spyware programs.
Debian is 'ready' for the desktop. The installer is painless for geeks, and simple enough for rice boys. A few noobs might even get lucky with it. The stable version while old, has a very simple gui based app finder that anyone who can use download.com can learn how to use.
*= Because i'm lazy. I wasn't going to muck about trying to figure anything out.
the best of all worlds (Score:3, Informative)
Goodby Apps, Hello Data (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux uses apps which mostly have three tiers: storage, engine and UI. They've got lots of IPC, mostly standardized. The desktops have more IPC options, too. I want a desktop which lets me find multimedia documents by bookmark, metadata searching, or virtual hierarchical views of my storage. When I open a doc, it can include live data, including data updated in realtime from distributed storage (or generation, like web services or streams). I want to work from menus (or other GUIs) that contain all the valid operations for all the valid datatypes in the doc. When I want to add new datatypes, I want to add from GUIs integrated with the doc scope in which I'm working. When I want to store my doc somewhere on the network, either as a resource, or a person, I want to merely send it to that object name, with its default transport (SMB, NFS, email, WebDAV, FTP, HTTP-PUT, SMS/Content-Disposition, whatever) automatic, unless I select another. I want to subscribe to versions of multimedia docs across the network. And I want to diagram how data flows through my document components into each other, including filters and logic, with dataflow/workflow templates that are just other docs that people with whom I work send around.
No more "apps". The Mac paradigm that Jobs swiped from Xerox PARC was supposed to be "doc centric". Apple and IBM started a grand partnership, Taligent, to put "OpenDoc" on every desktop, but they gave up when HTML and the Web supposedly offered a simpler, more popular way to do it. But it's 2005, and I'm more expert in operating a stable of complicated apps, each its own little world (with rickety bridges to some, but not all, other worlds), than I am in my own data. Let's slice up the apps into their features, each with their GUIs hanging out, then rebundle them into a desktop "meta-app". Which is the sole context, representing many different nonmodal contexts, in which I have to work on all my data.
Here we go... (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA:
Installing Applications is complicated
I hear this argument all the time and it really is starting to annoy me. It's just different from windows, that'a all.
A typical windows installation:
You first need to download the installer application or insert the cd where the app resides.
A window pops up welcoming you to the installation, you click next.
Then the program's license pops up which you need to click accept and click next.
Then you need to choose whether you want another installation target folder, other than the default C:\Program Files\ and click next.
Then you choose the name of the start menu group and click next.
Then if the program installs any DLLs which are outdated you'll be asked whether you want to keep or overwrite the some2423_app.DLL or not and click next.
If all goes ok, you'll click next for a few more times before finishing the installation by...clicking Finish
A typical linux installation:
Depending on your distribution you type:
apt-get install thisapp
or you might have to type yum install thisapp
or emerge thisapp.
In all cases, the app will be downloaded and installed for you. That's it.
Directory structures can be confusing to navigate
No they're not. It's just different from windows, that'a all.
Or maybe the fact that you have your kernel and boot loader in one place under
Or maybe the slash(/) is confusing? Although you use slash for URLs and pretty much anything, why not use the backslash for browsing directories like in windows, eh? Better, yes?
I'd say that *nix directory structure is the standard and anything else that uses backslashes and obscure directory structures is plain wrong and confusing.
Interface is confusing and inconsistent.
No it's not. You're coming from windows, that's all. Infact I can find hundrends of inconsistencies with the windows interface. Like for example to shut down your pc you need to click Start. Huh?
And if you're talking about how desktop enviroments are different, like Gnome and KDE, well, they're meant to be different! Use the one you like. There is no reason why everything should look the same. You want simplicity and ease of use? Go with Gnome. You want eye candy and many options to tweak? Go with KDE. You want fast response times(if you're on old hardware)? Go with Fluxbox or IceWM. You want super duper eye candy and fancy effects while you don't care so much on stability? Go with Enlightment.
There's something for everyone, and I think this is alot better than trying to fit all sizes in one shoe.
Steep learning curve required to understand system functions.
Oh, common! How much easier can system functions get? Is it easier on windows? If so, why? Maybe because you've spent so many years learning how to use every system function? Do the same on linux (RTFM/learn) and then come back and tell me if it was at all difficult. You see, it's different but it's not difficult. Don't expect to know-it-all on your 1st day. And don't expect to "just figure it out" without even reading a single sentence of a help file.
When you started driving, did you just took the car into town, expecting to just figure out things without trying to learn? Didn't think so. But you w
SymphonyOS??? (Score:4, Informative)
Do it right (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Don't confuse eye candy with usability. A corrolary is don't confuse trendy with usability. OSX has a lot of eye candy, but it's usability really isn't all that stunning if you look at it objectively.
2) Don't make the unwashed newbie your core audience. Newbie friendly isn't synonymous with usability. Everyone grows up, and no one stays a newbie forever. It's hard to believe, but it's true. You don't want to frighten away the newbie, but neither do you want to force him to abandon your desktop in disgust once he graduates to an intermediate or advanced user.
5) Don't dump legacy functionality. Just because you don't use the network connectivity of X11 doesn't mean no one else does either. If you haven't noticed, "the network" is getting bigger and more heterogenous every day. If I can't use your desktop over the network, it's going to suck.
4) I don't use Linux, so don't make a Linux-only desktop. Most of you developers know this, but unfortunately there's enough of you that don't to make things a real pain in the butt.
Klik? (Score:2)
Re:Klik? (Score:2, Interesting)
Come on! Can you imagine going to a professional conference and admitting that you run "gobolinux?"
not me. hell most of the time when asked I tell 'em I'm forced to be a mostly windows shop and have a few *coughcough*fedora*coughchoke* machines on the network. All these cutesy application names just serve to make boardrooms and administration folks not take the
Re:AppDirs (Score:2)
Re:I used to care about the "Linux Desktop" (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Qt does offer a compromise. They offer expensive licenses, which raise the barrier for entry considerably. Basicall
Re:Comparisons with OSX and Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
As for linux on the desktop not being the focus of developers . . . that doesn't matter. If I need a truck to haul things in, don't bother trying to sell me a mini-cooper. Telling me that the manufacturer's focus was on little sporty roadsters and not hauling vehicals is not relevant, if I'm looking for a hauler and not a roadster. My needs are my needs and the developer's justifications for why it doesn't meet them does nothing to... well... meet them.
LIkewise, I don't care if linux is free. My time isn't free. This is precisely why, after seven years of heavy linux use, I finally decided to move away from it this year. Great - I saved $129 on the operating system. But how many hours have I spent troubleshooting, maintaining, fixing and configuring it? $129 is only a few hours worth of work at the office and I couldn't even begin to calculate the value of my time that I've put into getting linux to work properly over the years.
In short, don't make excuses for why linux isn't ready for the desktop. Don't try and justify why I shouldnt' need the things I need or why I should put up with inconveniences. If you want linux to spread and be more popular, do things that make people want to use it. I've been using linux for seven years. I've been using computers since my VIC-20 in 1984, when I was seven years old. I'm a software engineer that works almost exclusively on solaris at work and have used a dozen distros (preference to Debian - which is what I run on my production server and Slackware which I haven't used in years). I've also used Windows a fair deal. A little 3x, a bit of 95, a bunch of 98 and onward.
If a hardcore techie and geek and long-time linux user is tired of dealing with linux and moving away from it, what do you think you have to battle against to get your average-joe to move to linux?