eWEEK.com’s Linux & Open-Source Center Editor Steven Vaughan-Nichols loves the Linux desktop… for himself and other Linux mavens, but thinks that it’s still a ways off from being the right choice for most companies. Our Take: There isn’t a specific date where you can decide that a desktop experience is good for everybody everywhere (it is already good enough for many people), however I get the feeling that especially around middle 2005 we will be witnessing some truly satisfying results from Gnome 3, KDE 4, OpenCarpet, a matured 2.6 kernel and the evolved distros of the time, so hang on.
2004 Won’t Be the Year of the Linux Desktop
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
If they can get a font manager that works across all DEs and a universal package manager (autopackage?) that works across all distros (so that I wouldn’t have to go wading through apt sources to try and find a current version of something or rolling my own). IMHO, these are the only two things Linux lacks in the ease of use department.
As for apps, if somebody could get Cooledit 2.1 working under Wine, assuming the above two issues are resolved, I would seriously consider it
today, a linux desktop with either KDE or Gnome demands more CPU power/memory than a win2k/xp desktop
I will have to agree with this. Both new KDE/Gnome DEs on Fedora or SuSE or other “professional” distros are slower than the current Windows sold out there.
1997 was the year of the Linux desktop for me…and it has been every year since then.
I use Linux/Gnome exclusively. What I want to see is better “hardware acceleration” I guess? I’m not sure what it is exactly about X and Linux but I can’t seem to get the Desktop speed that I see with Windows. (Lightning fast window redraws or whatever.) At least not with my current hardware configuration which is an AGP ATI Radeon 9800 Pro for my primary video, and a PCI NVidia FX 5200 for my second video. (yeah I know they both have a second VGA port already but I use the 2nd video card because I want DVI for both of my flat panels.)
Anyway – I get reasonable performance out the ATI card by itself. But when I go dual head, the performance is lousy. When I move a window I can see it redrawing itself as it moves… When I minimize a window it takes a second or two for the old window to go away. It’s pretty terrible. But I live with it because not having dual head is even more unpleasant.
And yes – I’ve downloaded the drivers from ATI and NVidia’s websites and compiled and installed them.
Hey, Linux is nearly ready for me. I use a laptop and need power management. I could get Lindows Laptop Edition, but I like Gnome a la RedHat/Fedora. FC2 will probably have everything that I want.
Linux is faster at some things and slower at other things. It totally depends and I don’t mean specific applications or such. I mean that individual actions like switching the active window, application launch and such can be different. Speed really can’t be quantified.
Of course, Microsoft might have an amazing OS in Longhorn that will make me forget about Linux.
Since someone bothered to object I will say that on the 4 computers I own, Gnome and KDE are slower than my windows partitions. The scary part is that Windows has backwards compatibility back to the win95 days and Linux has none. Add 9 years of backwards compatibility to Linux, add all the features it needs then see how slow it is.
isnt windows speed due to some trick they do..? Like when when windows boots up really quick it technically is still booting in the background. Maybe that would explain their speed.
Anyways, Its ready for me. Haha. In fact is the only thing running on my imac right now. Seeing as i totally lost my copy of Mac OS and the last thing I need to do is pay to get a new one, I figured I go with the Free Version of Mandrake 9.1 and it gets the job done.
BS. Mandrake 9.2 runs quite well on my 500mhz 160mb Samba box running KDE. I’m tired of these Linux is slow trolls. Why do I never see this sluggishness?
Guess you haven’t tried to use OOo with KDE on a Pentium 266 MMX with only 64 MB of memory.
XP runs on that setup smoothly , with OfficeXP, IE, Visual C++ 6, WMP 9 and each of them will open up within 8 seconds on first try (second try usually within 3 seconds).
The interesting part is that it plays SVCD (mpeg2) and never has a blue screen since it got xp 18 months ago.
I’ve been running Linux since 2001, and the speed is not a problem at all. I would like to see better preinstalled fonts as well as better icons, for example the Noia icons look great but both of these issues are put on the desktop owner to configure and install. I’d like to see an emacs front end done in GTK+ 2, and my solution to library management is to build from source, which works fine so long as the libraries can be found easily for example on Sourceforge.
Linux provides me with a stable, secure, and great looking desktop. It is a top class programming platform unlike any other. It appears that the Linux community has grown and it continues to grow. I have no interest at all in any Microsoft products.
Why don’t you try redhat 6.0 and pair it against 2k’s speed since thats what was out in ’99? Or 7.0 and XP since that was in 2000?I used XFCE on my duel boot 233 and it was 5x as fast as XP.
thats like saying WOW windows 95 is faster than winME. Well yes 3 years of development will do that…
Longhorn is suppose to have HUGE requirements, what happens when KDE and Gnome still run on 500mhz boxes, is everyone going to switch because longhorn wants 1ghz + 256mb RAM? no.. Hell some games already have 700mhz requirements its time to shell out some money if you use windows or turn those old boxes into fluxbox/xfce4
” Guess you haven’t tried to use OOo with KDE on a Pentium 266 MMX with only 64 MB of memory.
XP runs on that setup smoothly , with OfficeXP, IE, Visual C++ 6, WMP 9 and each of them will open up within 8 seconds on first try (second try usually within 3 seconds).
The interesting part is that it plays SVCD (mpeg2) and never has a blue screen since it got xp 18 months ago. ”
Hmmm interesting, that is kinda hard to buy though, considering that with my previous experience. with a celeron 535 on windows 2000 it didnt quite run that great. With 64 mb RAM im sure you could only have one or two apps open at a time, and theres not doubt your processor should be chattering…. Though your right. You wouldnt want KDE with all its special features on running OpenOffice. On only a 266. Hmm with that i would pick a simple UI or Gnome even o.O My guess is you have all the acceleration stuff on windows xp disabled and it looks more like the previous windows UI
Oh brother you sure no how to tell some tall tales there son !
“Guess you haven’t tried to use OOo with KDE on a Pentium 266 MMX with only 64 MB of memory.
XP runs on that setup smoothly , with OfficeXP, IE, Visual C++ 6, WMP 9 and each of them will open up within 8 seconds on first try (second try usually within 3 seconds).
The interesting part is that it plays SVCD (mpeg2) and never has a blue screen since it got xp 18 months ago.”
Five years ago, installation was text based, the typical way to configure the system involved reading HOWTOs and man pages, editing /etc/foobar files and lots of voodoo magic. At installation time, you had to chose every single package you wanted to have. The bootloader would prompt “LILO:” instead of a nice graphic and after reading lots of text messages (usually involving plenty of error messages), you’d end up on a commandline prompt. You’d type “startx” to get a graphical screen, if you managed to get it configured and working.
Desktop Linux is progressing so fast, that many users don’t even seem to realize it. I often read messages from someone explaining a new user how to do something and think “hey, that’s how you did it a year ago, it’s a lot more trivial now!”.
Today, Linux desktops are integrated and almost feature-complete solutions. Nobody expects from a user to learn shell scripting anymore or to edit his XF86Config by hand. When people complain about their Linux experience, it’s usual about little details, like fonts not beeing used by all applications. Those issues are heavily worked on and seem trivial compared to what we faced only two years ago.
Beautiful fonts, a decent webbrowser, usable GUI’s and complete CLI-less system administration were all major hurdles which were taken (among others).
I don’t know if 2004 will be “the” year, but I know for sure that Linux has become a serious desktop OS. The next years will be about polish, adding some missing pieces and trying to keep up with Windows and Mac OS in terms of functionality and performance. Whether or not it “succeeds”, that’s no question for me, because beeing Free Software, the only thing that really matters is that people who want to, can use it.
I’ve been using a 1GHZ Athlon with 512 RAM since RH 7.0. I’ve noticed that on Fedora Core that Ximian Evolution email and OOO writer run faster than on RH 9.0. I’d love to stay with my existing hardware for another three years ( 4 + 3 = 7 years ).
I agree with this article in the sense that it won’t be a completely smooth transition to jump into Linux in 2004, however now is a great time to start to transition to Linux.
Linux is much faster than MS Windows when you use the command line inside the GUI environment. I would never give up my command line, it simply makes life so much easier.
And Linux security is fantastic, I have only gotten one virus and it was because I was running a server. When you run servers you must keep up to date with security issues, but for the common desktop that is not running servers, Linux and Unix are unmatched in security, while the MS Windows world is a nightmare.
I just opened OOO writer at 3 seconds, and Ximian Evolution took 2 seconds on Fedora Core.
Let me note that the only weakness I have seen in Linux is when the Internet connection goes down. It slows the entire system to a crawl.
I’m not saying anything at all about how WinXP and Linux match up on the desktop; only that the following statement is quite bizarre:
“Guess you haven’t tried to use OOo with KDE on a Pentium 266 MMX with only 64 MB of memory.
XP runs on that setup smoothly , with OfficeXP, IE, Visual C++ 6, WMP 9 and each of them will open up within 8 seconds on first try (second try usually within 3 seconds).”
Are you certain there isn’t more memory installed than you think? Perhaps the processor is overclocked? I can’t imagine getting the speed you’re claiming out of XP on that hardware. I’ve used XP on many machines, including a Celeron 500 MHz with 96 RAM and a Pentium 3 (around 500 MHz) with 64 RAM. It crawled on those machines. Opening two or three browser windows, using Office, and using Winamp simultaneously ground those machines to a halt. The GUI (and everything else for that matter) were absurdly sluggish on a clean install. Once updates piled up, things were even worse. Once that little bit of RAM runs out — opening an application in 3-8 seconds? I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a bearable XP installation with less than 128 MB of RAM on any machine.
It is not the desktop that is holding back Linux.
What Linux is missing is applications. You don’t have Quicken, Quickbooks, TurboTax or other individual/small business apps on Linux.
Once the applications are there, then Linux will take off.
And for the applications to be built, there needs to be better infrastructure than what is currently offered.
My forecast is that 2006 will be the year of the Linux desktop, applications included.
Linux also is troublesome on notebook computers. I expect that to be fixed by 2005.
it is a discussion of business desktop with current apps on outdated hardware – so older version of apps don’t count.
if you think xp/officexp on a pentium 266/64MB is a tall tale, then you haven’t tried what the latest windows/apps have to offer.
Don’t talk about front end for whatever apps, that was the concept of win30/win31 era. These days, anything needs a front end on windows is most likely a half-baked GNU app ported to win32 platform.
xfce ? Look at this log segment to see how stupid it is
(xfce4-panel:1492): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
/etc/xfce4/xinitrc: line 65: xmessage: command not found
A crash occured in the panel
Please report this to the [email protected] list
Meanwhile the panel will be restarted
(xfce4-panel:1500): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
/etc/xfce4/xinitrc: line 65: xmessage: command not found
A crash occured in the panel
Please report this to the [email protected] list
Meanwhile the panel will be restarted
The X server was shutdown, yet xfce4-panel still tried to load every 10 sec to fill up the hard disk with useless information
The laptop issue has improved some. It’s hard to make a prediction about when it will cease to be an issue at all. That will be largely market driven; since lack of cooperation from manufacturers is part of the problem, it isn’t an issue that’s completely in the hands of developers. But I do think it is safe to say that it will continue to get better over time.
The main impediment to desktop Linux is the fact that Linux will never have a “Killer App”. All of the best OS apps are getting ported to Win and Mac anyway.
When you consider that most companies get their copy of Windows included in the price of the PC, there’s no real cost advantage to adopting Linux on the desktop. That’s even more true if you have to pay for something like crossover office or Win4Lin to run Windows apps.
It makes a lot more sense to run OpenOffice and other OS apps on Windows.
Yeah, I know that the notebook issue is not entirely in the hands of the developers but Linux is getting a lot more acceptance by the industry, you’re right, we will just have to wait and things should get better.
Regarding hardware acceleration, this issue is the same as with notebooks. There are extensions to XFree86 which DRI uses but a vendor like NVidia doesn’t open up their specifications so you are forced to go to their website and depend on them to write drivers.
I want to see XFree86 made more accessible. What about a knowledge base not just for projects (Sourceforge) but for current and active documentation. All of the documentation on XFree86 is old. Linux is an open source platform and important libraries like xlib should be popularized.
“if you think xp/officexp on a pentium 266/64MB is a tall tale, then you haven’t tried what the latest windows/apps have to offer.”
You have to be kidding me. I’m stuck on a 200mhz machine at work, running Windows2000 and it’s horrible. It can take over three minutes just for a document to open, let alone even start word. And even then the system is so strained that it crashes once every day or two. I can’t imagine actually trying to run XP on it.
Linux does have killer applications, Apache, MySQL, OOO, Evolution, built in cd burning facilities, etc. What business seem to go for however are product lines. So companies like SUN, RH, Novell, IBM, etc, are now basing product lines on Linux. They are using the Linux platform to market their product. Linux defines the mechanism and the vendor defines the policy. Linux is a true platform and it should not be restricted by any one single vendor product, because that makes it weak, and it will die off that way.
Hi Eugenia, happy new year and keep up the good work wit osnews.com! Do you ever sleep?
“if you think xp/officexp on a pentium 266/64MB is a tall tale, then you haven’t tried what the latest windows/apps have to offer.”
You have to be kidding me. I’m stuck on a 200mhz machine at work, running Windows2000 and it’s horrible. It can take over three minutes just for a document to open, let alone even start word. And even then the system is so strained that it crashes once every day or two. I can’t imagine actually trying to run XP on it.
Sorry to hear your story, but you don’t know how to let a windows run smoothly – on a low end computer, don’t run anti-virus software and stop services that is not needed
First off…if you have a crappy computer, you can scale linux to fit. kde or gnome too hoggy on resources? use xcfe or icewm or some such. kill off services that arent needed, etc. And this nonsense about a speedy windows xp on a 64 meg ram machine, regardless of cpu speed is total bs. If you hate linux so badly as to make up ridiculous lies, then, well, thats your problem.
As for apps, the ONE good thing about os x (ok, theres two things.. the other being that its better than mac classic os) is that all those fancy companies making apps for it, Adobe, etc, are inadvertanly making apps that are only a short distance from linux ports. I expect you’ll see more and more of these ‘killer’ apps out for linux in the near future.
Let us take a realistic look at linux on the desktop. First, the infrastructure: it is almost there right now… but not quite. The 2.6 kernel was *not* primarily optimized for desktop performance, but rather multiprocessor, scaling and other issues. From my recollection (sorry don’t have the reference handy), Linus himself said that they’ll look to focus more directly on the desktop performance in the next kernel iteration. That in turn will not happen for a year from now at the earliest. So, you are looking at the end of 2004 before the kernel is truly desktop ready. The reality is, that it takes between 1 year and 18 months before a new kernel is *widely* adopted, and before apps and the DE are optimized for it. That puts us at the end of 2005 (at the earliest) before the benefits of the desktop-optimized kernel propagate through the DE and some apps. So, it looks like realistically, it’ll be 2006 before linux is desktop-ready for most enterprises… funny, that is Linuses officially stated timetable for “desktop ready” anyway.
But so what? Note, that desktop ready means different things depending on “ready for whom?” The way we think of it most commonly, is that linux is desktop-ready when you could throw it at Joe-Sixpack, and he wouldn’t blink. Sorry, but by that measure, linux will *not* be desktop ready for Joe-Sixpack in 2006. It *will* be ready for the enterprise, which is the correct progression anyway. It will start making serious inroads… though it remains to be seen how it’ll stack up against Longhorn (sorry, Mac is not a factor here as far as the *masses* are concerned… it doesn’t have the linux price advantage or the windows wide acceptance, and so, it’ll remain at the margins at best).
Ultimately, starting in 2006, linux will start moving into enterprise desktops in a more serious way – though it can never move as quickly as it did on the server. Many say: “look how fast it got into the server space”. Sorry, but the desktop is by comparison a much tougher environment, because you are dealing with thousands of apps, many developed in-house, and most of those are windows. So, it will absolutely not move as quickly as in the server space – there are too many apps to deal with. 2006 will be the start of the battle for the enterprise space, and as apps get developed for linux, it will have more success – it will be almost exclusively an app game. Windows has a huge head-start there, but fortunately, linux can move by concentric circles – the first circle will be a handful of basic apps (office, email, etc.), then the next wider circle will be stuff like solid accounting and basic business apps, then gradually the outlying circle of more specialized or niche apps. It takes time. And that will happen in the enterprise space. That is because enterprises are motivated to save money and *can* save substantial amounts when deploying in large numbers. That is simply not true for Joe-Sixpack who mostly doesn’t even notice that the MS pre-installed OS is costing him a $60-$100 (OEM) – that’s not a big deal when the whole system costs less than $400 – he’s not going to spend hours hunting down and relearning everything to install linux to save $60, when he’s lived with and is used to MS products. So, again, 2006 will be an enterprise battle, not Joe Six-pack.
Now, once linux has spread in the enterprise space to garner at least 15% (which could take as little as 5 years – remember apps, apps, apps, and those take TIME to develop), Joe has gotten to know linux from work, and OEMs start selling machines with linux (because now they can see a market, having served it on the enterprise side, and seeing how it can now jump to the home space), you got an entry with Joe. After that, look for another 5 years and you got Joe Sixpack on linux. So, that means linux could be 20% of the domestic market of desktops by 2016. Of course, 13 years in IT is an eternity, so it’ll be a different landscape in all kinds of ways. But linux desktop ready in 2004… for geeks only.
God knows, maybe that would be true if Linux was purely a North American phenomenon, but it isn’t. Nobody has any idea what the landscape will be like in the future especially with so much foreign adoption and local resistance to Linux. It’s possible that Linux users overseas could take over the software industry. The North Americans are very volnerable because they are so resistant to change and competition.
I agree with the article that Linux will not be the OS of choice in 2004 but I dont think it will be it in 2005 either. Major hurdles need to be overcome before Linux can make it and I dont think a year is enough time to get it done. Second, Microsoft is not forcing anyone to upgrade to anything, they are ending support for some products that are over 5 yrs old. You cant blame them for doing it, how long should a company support an obsolete product? Should Ford continue to make parts for the Model T because a thousand people have that car? Also Microsoft has stated that support for Windows 98SE will continue. There are plenty of partners that can pick up the business through the shared source program, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/CE source code is available through the shared source program. One thing I do love is Open Source applications especially on Windows, there are real cost savings there and I benefit from the best of Both worlds. I get the benefits of Open Source community as well as the excellent ISV and IHV support of Windows. We use Apache, MySQL, OpenOffice and a plethora of Open Source apps on Windows. I can recompile the Linux kernel, change it, write modules and device drivers for it and for some people having access to the Kernel source is good, but I dont need to rewrite the kernel, I dont touch it. Out of 700 clients I have maybe 2 that have any need to recompile their kernels or touch the kernel in anyway, most of my Linux clients use the default configuration that their distributor ships. One of the things I have learned in my time in this business is asking a client or a customer to change their operating platform is hard. There are alot of headaches involved, its a lot more than formatting an HD and installing Linux. I used to think that way, most Open Source advocates are closed minded hehehehe, but I learned the hard way. Now I take them through the baby steps, I offer them Open Source solutions on Windows, implement the changes and handle any support calls, which has been surprisingly low, then I help clients who want to make that change to Linux crossover and since they are used to the common apps it is alot easier. For those that wish to use Open Source solutions with Windows, and there are many who stay, I continue to support them and everyone walks away happy. Im not a Windows preacher, Im not a Linux preacher what I preach to people is for them to use whats best for them, heck for me if I saw a benefit to porting Open Office to Multics I would do it and use it, sometimes Windows is not the best choice, sometimes it is, same with Linux. But Linux is not the cure all save all that many advocate and pretend that it is.
—
For more information on Me goto http://www.geocities.com/rjdohnert/
For my Linux tip and information page goto http://www.geocities.com/kane121975/
When the North Americans lose control of the software industry because they were not able to adapt,…if that happens, I will not feel sorry for us :+)
As long as Linux conquer the mobile market, linux will blossom. I dont really care about the desktop. Big deal, u got a company that runs their word procesor in OpenOffice.org.
Companies dont do business on the desktop, they do it on the cell phone. Mobile phones are much more populars than PC around the world. Getting on-line is getting a cellphone and going to a site.
Linux run on the cellphones and we got Linux on the mainstream. Who will make that step? Docomo of course, then watch Matsushita, Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia and the rest follow up. And Linux would be everywhere.
The real leaders are companies like Sun and Novell. Linux is an important technology to include in a product line. It should be supported here at home, not resisted, not rejected because of not wanting to learn. The industry needs to build a strategy around a Linux platform that is lead by innovation rather than repressive dictatorship. What we do with Linux will be judged by the world, and we should be leaders rather than cowardly opressors.
…especially outside of the U.S., directly challenging Microsoft’s lucrative government sales. IBM and other vendors will continue to timidly promote Linux on the desktop, becoming more aggressive as it becomes clear that foreign governments upgrading their office desktops represent a much larger market than anticipated.
Will Linux achieve market dominance over the desktop in 2004? No, and that is not the goal. Linux’s success is not determined by its relative market share, but by its growth. And right now it is the fastest-growing Desktop OS out there, faster than Windows (who can only really go down from its monopoly position) and Apple, though the latter will steadfastly hold on to its niche market.
Linux Desktop use will continue to grow in 2004, which means it will keep improving at an accelerated pace, which in turns is great news for Linux Desktop users like me.
In short, Linux will probably stay #2 (or perhaps climb to #1) on Microsoft’s “threat list” – which is exactly as it should be! 😉
May 2004 be as good for Linux as 2003 was (and better, with the SCO thing finally being revealed for the sham that it is).
“Sorry to hear your story, but you don’t know how to let a windows run smoothly – on a low end computer, don’t run anti-virus software and stop services that is not needed”
Did I ever say anti-virus software was running? As much as I wish they would do so, the one I’m on dosn’t have any installed. As for shutting down services, no, in fact I havn’t bothered with that. But I still think I know how, as you put it, “to let a windows run smoothly” – don’t install it on hardware well below its minimum requirements.
Break it, and than the company will be forced to buy a new one.
GNOME 3? In 2005? Sounds pretty unlikely to me right now. But weirder things have happened. 🙂
“Sorry to hear your story, but you don’t know how to let a windows run smoothly – on a low end computer, don’t run anti-virus software and stop services that is not needed”
Did I ever say anti-virus software was running? As much as I wish they would do so, the one I’m on dosn’t have any installed. As for shutting down services, no, in fact I havn’t bothered with that. But I still think I know how, as you put it, “to let a windows run smoothly” – don’t install it on hardware well below its minimum requirements.
Hmmm. Interesting point. Maybe the trolls know the requirements of MS software better than MS themselves. From the XP Pro site:
128 MB of RAM or more recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
This is overrated to be mentioned in such a row.
“Many Linux people—who love to argue about the technical virtues of their favorite GUI—still don’t get this. ”
-This is exactly what is going on in this forum…. A Business doesn’t care about the technical differences between Xp or Gnome on the Desktop – they have much more important things to worry about.
“Perens gets that businesses want a best-of-breed desktop Linux that doesn’t require much installation or support effort.”
-Perens obviously knows what a business needs and wants …. Hope he will succeed with his project – for the best of Open Source and Linux.
BTW, same goes for Lindows and Xandros on the home DskTop.
Geeks and enthusiast can use Slackware, Debian, or Gentoo to play around. A business can’t afford to have a bunch of engineers spending three days installing S/W…..
BTW, there is hardly any business running the latest and gratest S/W or H/W. Most managers don’t care whether Linux has drivers for the latest Graphics Card or what have you…. All they care about is that a job gets done!
“Sorry to hear your story, but you don’t know how to let a windows run smoothly – on a low end computer, don’t run anti-virus software and stop services that is not needed”
Did I ever say anti-virus software was running? As much as I wish they would do so, the one I’m on dosn’t have any installed. As for shutting down services, no, in fact I havn’t bothered with that. But I still think I know how, as you put it, “to let a windows run smoothly” – don’t install it on hardware well below its minimum requirements.
Did I ever say you must have AV running software ? What I said is that if you have a low end PC, don’t run AV and stop unnecessary services if you want smoother win2k/xp operation – these are just suggestions, not conclusions and the “but you don’t know how to let a windows run smoothly” is a speculation/conjecture. If you think you know tricks but have taken no actions, then don’t complain as the result of your “havn’t bothered”ness.
Hmmm. Interesting point. Maybe the trolls know the requirements of MS software better than MS themselves. From the XP Pro site:
128 MB of RAM or more recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
When M$ says 64MB supported, they mean it, at least in this case.
I could run a Linux binary from 1995 on my 2.4/2.6 system right now.
Hmm… I wouldn’t be that optimistic if I were you. It depends of the program. If it doesn’t depend on glibc, probably. If it does, I wouldn’t say that so quickly unless the binary is static-linked.
My Desktop is running SuSE 9.0 Pro with KDE 3.2 Beta2, and that’s all I need. K3B for burning CDs, OOo for writing, Mozilla Firebird for Browsing and KMail for the Mail. The few times I have to draw anything or make up photos from my camera I use GIMP and sodipodi. I once ran Windows XP with such things as PS Elements, Corel Draw, MS Office etc. Then I realized that for everything I wanted to do there is a more than suitable application on Linux, without paying an enormous amount of money. Sure, there is a learning curve, but you would also have one if you switched the other way.I don’t really understand CLI, but I never needed to – besides simple tasks like rpm or something like that.It’s the small things that converted me: ALT+F2 in KDE makes a lot of things easier and rpmseek.com & kde-look.org became good friends of mine.If I have to take a desktop with my, there is Knoppix at my service.
So I think, Linux is definitely ready for my own Desktop. Since I am an average User, I think it would be suitable for many others.
“The X server was shutdown, yet xfce4-panel still tried to load every 10 sec to fill up the hard disk with useless information”
“Release Name: 4.0.2
[…]
* Various bug fixes in file manager, window manager and panel […]”
Funny how all these paranormal people pop up at this time, claiming Linux (a bloody kernel) won’t be ready for the desktop. Also regarding IPv6, i read on one site Asian governments are spending millions for it, while on another site i read 2004 won’t be the year of IPv6 and that it’s overhyped.
The poll on eWEEK is pathetic; where’s the “i’m using Mozilla right now (for years)” option? Talking about bias…
I’m so tired of these anti-Linux “it isn’t ready” articles… i’m getting more and more indications that a _pre-installed_ GNU/Linux desktop system is comfortable enough, even for beginners who don’t have much or any computer experience however i never read one of these so-called profets speaking about the user-friendliness of XFce4 which i’ve seen non-technical people using with both great ease and pleasure on low-end computers. The average user does not care for all the bells and whistles. It just has to work, where it means ie. a word processor, www surfing, e-mail, stable running during these tasks. That’s why i believe so many people still use Windows 9x. It just works, it does what it has to do (except stability). Then there’s also universities who are using GNU/Linux. For example, University of Groningen has been using KDE for ages.
“Wrong. Most businesses don’t want to maintain and support two entirely different GUIs. For them, supporting both KDE and GNOME is a complete waste of time and money.”
Then you chose 1 of these. Duh! Don’t even start about the “i can’t chose” argument; it’s plain BS. You ask which one to chose to someone who has insight on what you’re demanding . In a sane company that’s not much of a problem since when you’re gonna run Linux as desktop you’re also having workers who know how to handle Linux as desktop. I’d just ask all the people who i think do have the knowledge to fill in a list with arguments of why they want x or y, including what they see as (dis)advantages. Or, ofcourse, hire a consultant. It isn’t only about the MS Windows license either. Additional Free software is also mostly free of charge while the proprietary counterparts aren’t.
“This isn’t just me mouthing off. On Dec. 30, Israel stopped buying Microsoft office programs in favor of open-source alternatives. The Israeli government did this because Microsoft’s programs were too expensive. I expect you’re going to see a lot more stories like this one in the coming months.”
True; and this investigation by Israel gov. was started somewhere in novembre 2003.
Microsoft Office also comes with the swastika symbol included. I’ve not read this has anything to do with it, but only after a few weeks this got published by the media, the Israelian government said they were looking into alternatives for Microsoft Office. Could be coincidence. Then again, a Good Thing anyway that they look to alternatives.
They (MS) said that Win95 should run on
386/25 with 4MB.
Ohh yeah.
Freshly installed NT5 starts on 64 MB RAM.
But even attempt to open Control Panel puts Window in almost endless swapping process:)
Each time we see a new Linux Distro on the shelves, there are many bugs that we need to fix via the Online Update tools or whatever.
SuSE 9 and Mandrake 9.2 have both more than 50 Mo of Patches that we need to download. That’s too much.
MandrakeSoft want to release a new Distro in early 2004 with 2.6. I can’t imagine how many bugs and hardware detection failures the newscomers will get by choosing this distro.
The newscomers will say : “Linux is not ready for the prime time”, even if it is a MandrakeSoft issue.
At least Xandros, SuSE and Lindows understood few months ago that there is no need to release a new non tested distro evry 6 months : SuSE will release SuSE 9.1 pro with 2.6.x kernel on summer 2004, Xandros and Lindows as Weel : These distros will be well tested and wil be far more convenient than Windows XP.
If you have friends that want to give a try to Linux : please inform them to don’t use Mandrake 10 ! This will be a big mistake.
Freshly installed NT5 starts on 64 MB RAM.
But even attempt to open Control Panel puts Window in almost endless swapping process:)
on my p266/64MB notebook, XP control panel opens within 3 sec.
Maybe somebody just don’t have good luck with windows 😎
Better yet,
“[…] K3B for burning CDs […]”
Is not needed for the average companies’ desktop user.
“[…] The few times I have to draw anything or make up photos from my camera I use GIMP and sodipodi. I once ran Windows XP with such things as PS Elements, Corel Draw, MS Office etc. Then I realized that for everything I wanted to do there is a more than suitable application on Linux, without paying an enormous amount of money. […]”
Is not needed for the average companies’ desktop user.
“[…] Sure, there is a learning curve […]”
Agreed. How long would it take for the average user to learn how a clothed down DE with ie. a mailing program, web browser, and word processor to be ready for standard usage?
Because, ofcourse you don’t include ie. K3B in the menu’s if the box hasn’t got a burner or it shouldn’t be used. Ofcourse you don’t install GIMP when the worker doesn’t need it. You customize the DE in such way till it includes exactly what you want. And imo, KDE is _not_ needed for such. It has too many options which aren’t needed for average people. In fact i’d even find it dumb if the network wouldn’t be centralized with images so such is uniform. You’d want some centralized authentication and storage too. But these aren’t issues for desktop users; the issues of such centralisation and customizing of ie. KDE are for the Linux sysadmins.
“[…] I don’t really understand CLI, but I never needed to […]”
Is not needed for the average companies’ desktop user.
Therefore, i think your argument is even stronger than what it seems.
I tried a Linux distribution, but eventually deleted it. I have a laptop with an ATI rage mobility card that I suppose is unsupported. I could get the maximum resolution (1400×1050) after lots of searching, but performance was not very acceptable. Full screen DIVX movies skipped and were not usable, so I eventually switched back to Windows XP which played it fine (better drivers I suppose). I wasn’t too impressed, there didn’t seem to be anything better than what I already had with Windows. Why should I, an end-user switch? Free? Both definitions, I don’t care. I am in fact a programmer, but that doesn’t mean I want to look at the source of my operating system or my desktop environment to hunt down some obscure bug. Free cost? I am willing to pay for something that works better, and I’m willing to settle for something that is marginally decent for free. The distrobution of Linux I tried was neither. People can debate over package management all they want, but the simple fact that I cannot find binaries that work for my operating system when I need them (quickly) is the biggest hurdle. OK. I want to install popfile (http://popfile.sf.net). For Windows XP, I just run the installer, and click next, next, next. For Fedora Core, I search for an RPM. Hmm, I found a Mandrake and a Redhat 8 RPM. Will they work? (No they didn’t). I try to just run the PERL file. Error, missing some database. And then I have to figure out how to make it start at boot, run as root (so it can listen on a privelaged port), and so on. It just seems to be more hassle than its worth. With Windows, I only had to click, next, next, next.
“Full screen DIVX movies skipped and were not usable”
Which type of card exactly? Why “suppose” when you can find the truth via Google? Which video player, which options were used, which video output driver, exactly which DIVX codec? Version?
“Error, missing some database.”
Perl missing a database? Most likely a module. Install it with your RPM APT-alike tool and install the module or run cpan. This is actually well documented at the Wiki of the site:
http://popfile.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?HowTos/AllPlatformsR…
“With Windows, I only had to click, next, next, next.”
With Windows, you didn’t have to think. You only had to click next. You were also lucky this package contained Perl (“POPFile requires a computer that is capable of running Perl. Most popular platforms have a Perl available for it. As of version 0.20 POPFile requires Perl 5.8.0 or better for Windows users or 5.6.0 or better for all other platforms. On Windows, POPFile is available in a pre-configured version that includes its own version of Perl.”) for that’s not always the case. XChat for example, doesn’t come with ActivePerl.
Poor dual headed display support is one of the biggest things keeping me from using Linux. I spent quite a lot on a high end graphics card, I’m not going to use an OS that cripples it. Even after weeks of posting requests for help and editing config files, I still didn’t have any luck getting it working properly. From what I’ve seem just about everyone else with a dual headed display has similar performance problems.
Other than that I just can’t see much reason to use Linux at the moment when I already have a copy of Windows and all the software I need. IME desktop Linux isn’t faster or more stable than Windows.
With KDE or GNOME it feels less responsive even when I’m not using a dual headed display. The underlying OS may be very stable, but I’ve had quite a few X crashes. 3D games seem particularly bad, I’ve had to kill X from the CLI several times when trying to get them working. Having to restart all the graphical apps I’m running is almost as bad as having the whole OS crash. I’ve only had a couple of crashes when running Windows 2000 or XP, overall they’ve survived evey shareware app and game I’ve thrown at them.
I’d still need to run MS Office, Photoshop and other Windows apps. Even if I was happy using Linux software, I need compatibility with other people. I can hardly insist that my workplace switches to Openoffice and GIMP just because I’ve decided to use Linux. Solutions like Crossover Office are far from perfect and add to the cost of switching to Linux.
Having said that, it’s obvious that Linux is making progress, it’ll be interesting to see if all it’s problems can be solved in the next few years.
Actually, I can tell you this information, but its something I shouldn’t have to know. Your definition of “thinking” is my definition of “hassle.” I think of thinking as contemplating the meaning of life, or figuring out (non-optimal) solutions and new approaches to the travelling salesman problem.
Which type of card exactly? Why “suppose” when you can find the truth via Google? Which video player, which options were used, which video output driver, exactly which DIVX codec? Version?
Why isn’t the distribution smart enough to set these things up for me? I am not a computer, I have a finite amount of time and resources available, the computers resources available are much less finite. ATI Radeon Mobility M6, and mplayer, whatever version was stable when Fedora Core one was released. I don’t think its acceptable to have to worry about anything of these things. I’m willing to pay for Windows, which takes care of all of them (except DIVX codec, again- next, next, next). I tried the GATOS drivers and the standard ati drivers included in XFree86. Having to micromanage all of these things is a clear waste of my time, when it could be automated with good programming and better driver support.
With Windows, you didn’t have to think. You only had to click next.
You make easy installation sound like a fault.
You were also lucky this package contained Perl (“POPFile requires a computer that is capable of running Perl. XChat for example, doesn’t come with ActivePerl.
Your example of a bad installation is a UNIX program ported to Windows? I’m not surprised it follows the UNIX philosphy of small (sometimes) interdependent modules. This is a perfect example of bad packaging. I don’t micromanage dependencies and libraries- if the program needs it – it should included. When I download Trillian, I don’t have to then hunt for libraries it needs – it includes expat.dll for XML parsing .. in the package!
One more thought- do you think it would be a bad idea to be able to run a “Linux” package on any (x86) distribution for installing software? With support for running at start-up (any desktop environment), running in the tray, and not requiring any compiling? Do you see that this is not possible on today’s versions of Linux (distributions, of course)? If you are trying to run slightly obscure package x, would prefer: a generic RPM that might install (hope you have an rpm package manager), a gzipped binary (sure it may work), or a universal binary package? I can currently download 99.999% of software available for Windows, and install it in a few minutes. I cannot do the same for Linux distributions. You have to make a special package for each distribution, and that package may not be available. This is something that directly makes people’s use of the computer harder, and that is why I think http://www.autopackage.org shouuld be supported. Its amusing that people even flame the creator of this software, when it (and dashboard) are some of the most practical, interesting software being developed for Linux today.
“Actually, I can tell you this information, but its something I shouldn’t have to know. Your definition of “thinking” is my definition of “hassle.” I think of thinking as contemplating the meaning of life, or figuring out (non-optimal) solutions and new approaches to the travelling salesman problem.”
Then i’m afraid installing an OS on your own is not a task for you. A better solution would be to let others do that. You can hire people to do so, you can buy a complete Linux box for such tasks. Just like an OEM does such for you when you buy a box preinstalled with MS Windows.
“Why isn’t the distribution smart enough to set these things up for me? I am not a computer, I have a finite amount of time and resources available, the computers resources available are much less finite. ATI Radeon Mobility M6, and mplayer, whatever version was stable when Fedora Core one was released. I don’t think its acceptable to have to worry about anything of these things. I’m willing to pay for Windows, which takes care of all of them (except DIVX codec, again- next, next, next). I tried the GATOS drivers and the standard ati drivers included in XFree86. Having to micromanage all of these things is a clear waste of my time, when it could be automated with good programming and better driver support.”
Good, MPlayer. Well, if MPlayer is too slow it’ll give you a nice notice with options you cvan add to make sure it’ll run faster. Such is even noticed on the MPlayer site, too. In the documentation. If you have hardware acceleration working mplayer -vo xv would improve performance heavily, instead of standard mplayer -vo x11 which is relatevely slow (no hardware accel.)
It’s supported too:
http://returntonature.com/pipermail/linux-sony/2003-October/006095….
Here’s a few possible solutions:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-November/msg02777.h…
MPlayer is fast. A precompiled Win32 version was even faster than WMP9 on my XP box (when i still ran that beast).
“Your example of a bad installation is a UNIX program ported to Windows? I’m not surprised it follows the UNIX philosphy of small (sometimes) interdependent modules. This is a perfect example of bad packaging. I don’t micromanage dependencies and libraries- if the program needs it – it should included. When I download Trillian, I don’t have to then hunt for libraries it needs – it includes expat.dll for XML parsing .. in the package!”
“Bad” installation? No, i never claimed we’re discussing a “bad” installation regarding XChat. ActivePerl is not even required to get XChat working. I also don’t think it matters wether the program is ported or not.
Answer: DLL hell and/or bloat. Install such DLL’s in the program’s homedir and you’re wasting space. You’re even wasting space adding it into a package. Such can easily multiply quite fast and it’s dirty. Look, we can also statically link all these programs. And we’ll also make your harddrive suck up too much which isn’t necessary. Install it in system32 and you have the risk of the DLL hell syndrome. Therefore, your “ease” of usage means you pay a price.
Ofcourse, your Fedora box comes with a program which does such “micromanaging” for you. APT does that for me. Do you find apt-get install popfile hard? FYI MS Windows also doesn’t do this automagically.
I agree with you that there are too many bugs in new distro releases.
However, I think your point about Mandrake 10 is not accurate. I’m using Mandrake Cooker right now (which will be Mandrake 10) with the 2.6 kernel and it works without any hiccups, crashes or the like. I think Mandrake 10 will be a great distro.
Answer: DLL hell and/or bloat. Install such DLL’s in the program’s homedir and you’re wasting space.
I suppose wasting <1mb per program is worse than not having the program work at all?
Ofcourse, your Fedora box comes with a program which does such “micromanaging” for you. APT does that for me. Do you find apt-get install popfile hard? FYI MS Windows also doesn’t do this automagically.
Of course, the installer for Windows does do this automaticall for me. The reason there is no Linux installer provided by POPFile is that its not possible to make one (binary of course) that will work on all x86 Linux platforms. And actually, POPfile is not in the apt-get repositories for Fedora Core (or was not when I used it), so yes I do find this quite difficult. Nor was it in the YUM repositories which I used. My point is that, its worth it fo r many people to pay for ease of use. Ease of use is not “dumbing something down,” there is nothing wrong with the computer helping you acomplish something. Somehow, most people have moved beyond manually turning on and off bits. This is just the natural progression (imho of course) towards a very easy to use, yet powerful computer.
And also, I appreciate your support with regards to the technical issues, but I am listing them as supporting reasons to why I do not use Linux. I already spent time trying to solve them, and decided it was much more practical to use something that works perfeclty. I can honestly tell you that this decision was made from a purely pragmatic point of view. And for the record, Windows XP did not come pre-installed on the system. I set it up myself, downloaded the requisite drivers and followed the simple next, next, next instructions and everything works perfectly. This is not currently possible with Fedora Core.
Debates about Linux’ speed or assertions that Linux is ready for the desktop because “My Favorite App Is Great!” miss the point.
Businesses buy computers for only one reason: To use as a tool to get work done. A business knows it needs its employees to accomplish specific tasks in specific ways. If Linux convinces a business that it can support those tasks at reduced cost, that’s an opportunity for Linux.
It is unrealistic to expect businesses to replace existing Windows installations with Linux simply because someone tells them Linux is better. “Better” is of no use to them if it doesn’t increase revenues.
Nor are cornerstones of open source like choice and source availability. People like Perens apparently understand this.
The tipping point for a business is likely to be the need to upgrade hardware before migrating to a version of Windows that MS will support. That provides a Linux compnay the chance to step in and demonstrate that the hardware doesn’t need to be upgraded, that Linux can meet their requirements, and that they can provide support for all those Linux desktops.
Prediction: The company with the greatest initial success in selling Linux into the corporate desktop market will be…Red Hat. Fedora will likely iterate over 3 releases in the next year or so. Red Hat will ramp up a desktop release based on Fedora targetting its existing corporate customers. (Red Hat will get a lot of free PR when it announces that a corporate customer has “asked” it to migrate all its XP desktops to Red Hat.)
Novell will also release a slick Ximian-based distribution, but lacks Red Hat’s advantage of having existing business relations with a substantial pool of customers. SUSE will continue to parlay its European base. Other current Linux companies lack the confidence of businesses and, in any case, are essentially invisible in that arena.
>> Will Linux achieve market dominance over the desktop in 2004? No, and that is not the goal. Linux’s success is not determined by its relative market share, but by its growth <<
Nicely put – its helpful to make distinction between “Linux” as a mass market consumer OS and Linux as a “business” desktop – its pretty clear that there are considerable challenges ahead in making it a succesful Consumer OS (not all by any means inherent/fault in “Linux”) – however – its also pretty clear that with some application it can already be a good,solid adequate business desktop in a host of areas – that’s not to imply that its quite as functional/featured as the latest or greatest Msft OS in certain areas – but rather – its adequate enough for a host of situations.
Regards speed/window responsiveness, I’ve personally found Slack 9.1/KDE3.1.4/.NET style/no fading/higlighting etc ect to be atleast as fast/responsive as XP on Celeron 1.7ghz/256 DDR.
My guess in 2004 – we’re going to see greater progress with desktop Linux in the business/public sector area than in the mass market Consumer area.
Thanks again to all the Kernel/DE/OSS developers – its all coming together rather nicely……..
I tried a Linux distribution, but eventually deleted it. I have a laptop with an ATI rage mobility card that I suppose is unsupported. I could get the maximum resolution (1400×1050) after lots of searching, but performance was not very acceptable. Full screen DIVX movies skipped and were not usable, so I eventually switched back to Windows XP which played it fine (better drivers I suppose). I wasn’t too impressed, there didn’t seem to be anything better than what I already had with Windows. Why should I, an end-user switch? Free? Both definitions, I don’t care. I am in fact a programmer, but that doesn’t mean I want to look at the source of my operating system or my desktop environment to hunt down some obscure bug. Free cost? I am willing to pay for something that works better, and I’m willing to settle for something that is marginally decent for free. The distrobution of Linux I tried was neither. People can debate over package management all they want, but the simple fact that I cannot find binaries that work for my operating system when I need them (quickly) is the biggest hurdle. OK. I want to install popfile (http://popfile.sf.net). For Windows XP, I just run the installer, and click next, next, next. For Fedora Core, I search for an RPM. Hmm, I found a Mandrake and a Redhat 8 RPM. Will they work? (No they didn’t). I try to just run the PERL file. Error, missing some database. And then I have to figure out how to make it start at boot, run as root (so it can listen on a privelaged port), and so on. It just seems to be more hassle than its worth. With Windows, I only had to click, next, next, next.
You see, that’s the problem: you were using an RPM-based distro. Debian is what you should be looking for. You see, with Debian you would just have to add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://mentors.debian.net/debian unstable main contrib non-free
And then:
# apt-get update
# apt-get install popfile
3 little steps.
Or you could do all that graphically using a GUI application such as Synaptic.
Victor.
No, the problem is there is no way to make a package that will work on any distribution. I chose Fedora because it auto-detected my printer, and sets up many things by itself, which Debian did not when I tried it.
There are two types of desktops:
A) Home user desktop;
B) Business user (office user) desktop.
That is what expected today from the home user for his/her desktop:
– Security;
– Stability;
– Ease of use;
– Ease of adding/removing applications;
– Ease of minor reconfigurations (add/remove printed, change screen resolution, switch ISP);
– Ease of patch maintenance (yes, any software has bugs, any OS needs patches);
– Low initial and recurring software cost (sneaking cost of software into annual ‘service’ fees doesn’t work well for home users- Microsoft find it hard way with Office subscriptions);
– A killer application that only runs on that type of desktop OS (alternative- runs very crappy on any other OS, by reasons of bad design decisions of these other OSes);
– A company willing to sell preinstalled Linux OS on a reasonably priced hardware- and taking service related issues to its heart instead of fingerpoiting to ‘community’ when asked for help;
Now, Linux- it has all of that in different distros, but not one distro could claim it has it all. Not one that existed for at least 2-3 years, at least.
No rocket science or innovations required for Linux to get into home desktop, just a distro that takes the best and puts it together. Lindows is very close, except for its annual fees that are rather high for most of home users.
———-
Business Desktop:
– Security;
– Stability;
– Ease of use;
– Centralized management of desktops (centralized user authentication, remotely add/remove local user, disable user account, remotely install/uninstall software, force desktop upgrades, etc.);
– Reasonable recurring software costs (it is OK to charge businesses annual subscriptions, that actually could be better for tax purposes and financial statements);
– Less religion (cult), more business attitude. (Drop dudes screaming ‘free’ ‘freedom’ ‘the beast’ from business meetings with people willing to try Linux in their business);
– Less F.U.D. when talking to businesspeople. Yes, please: no more stories about Evil Microsoft spying on business users. That doesn’t work, and it doesn’t work both ways: A) ITs don’t buy it, they can see what goes through their firewall; B) non-ITs would be happy to have Microsoft spying on them- a privacy violation lawsuit would make them reach and MS poor.
– A killer business application (I hate to say it, but DRM sells Office 2003 and Win2K3 to businesses).
———————–
Bottom line: sell Linux to business people for what is good in Linux, not for what is bad in Microsoft. Don’t tell them they are dumb to use Windows, tell them they are bright to show interest in Linux.:)
Now, my predictions:
1. Lindows could make it to desktop if it finds a way to cut Lindows OS cost to less than $50 in total. Michael is close to that with his $100 lifetime membership offer. Michael, drop that price to $25, include it into each Lindows PC sold, don’t bother Lindows PC users with asking to pay annual fees for bug fixes- and you own desktop!
2. Sun could make it to business desktop with their smart ‘Java Desktop’ move, where they sell Linux without discredited by zealots ‘Linux’ brand. That is smart and could make Sun #1 in business desktops.
Why not Red Hat anywhere? They were too dumb to discredit Linux on desktop, too greedy to ask hundreds of dollars annually for business desktop, too arrogant to start asking thousands of dollars annually for their servers. Yeah, they realized most of their mistakes pretty quick, but businesses have long, long memories.
IMHO, Developers should listen more to user’s perspectives…
I think they could develop such things like that “hey i finished my “appxyz”, and now what do u really want or what does it need to be ?
Guess you haven’t tried to use OOo with KDE on a Pentium 266 MMX with only 64 MB of memory.
XP runs on that setup smoothly , with OfficeXP, IE, Visual C++ 6, WMP 9 and each of them will open up within 8 seconds on first try (second try usually within 3 seconds).
Err, I highly doubt that. I believe the slowest machine I have run XP on was a 400 Celeron with 128 MB of memory. With all of the performance settings tweaked it still ran a tad sluggishly.
On this 233, have you adjusted KDE’s performance settings to the lowest possible? If not you’re not even comparing the two OSes fairly.
No, the problem is there is no way to make a package that will work on any distribution. I chose Fedora because it auto-detected my printer, and sets up many things by itself, which Debian did not when I tried it.
Yep, Debian doesn’t do that – but many Debian-based distros do. Hint: Knoppix; Libranet. Debian-based distros are better than any RPM-based distro.
Victor.
Ok, I’ve run various distros(Redhat, Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian, and recently Slackware and Knoppix), and have programmed professionally on linux doing mostly networking related stuff. I’m no newbie, but i’m not a linux expert either(I’d rather use the system than become joe-super administrator.
For the past year or so I’ve used a thinkpad pentium 166 laptop running fluxbox. It’s an old system so most distros would support everything out of the box(sans sound), even though I think Mandrake 7.x did support sound out of the box, but I knew what chipset I had and had done it many times. In any case, I couldn’t really run any modern DE without it being pretty slow.
Tomorrow, my Sager 5680 notebook(3.0 Ghz HT-enable Pentium 4, 1 Gig dual-channel 400 DDR ram, ATI Radeon mobile 9600 pro, etc..) will be delivered.
Here are some challenges I will face(that I don’t mind, but would be unacceptable to the vast majority of users).
(1) I’m almost positive the ATI mobile Radeon 9600 pro will not be supported out of the box by any distro. The latest Xfree86 cvs might have it, I’m not sure. I’ll have to grab the driver from ATI and use it’s utility to create a XFfree86-4 config file. No big deal to me, but joe average user isn’t going to like it.
(2)A bigger issue for me is the wireless network card. I purposely didn’t have the manufacturer install a wireless network card because I want to buy it locally, so when it doesn’t work, I’m not playing the shipping and sending back game for weeks on end, so I did some research and found that the linksys WPC11 is supported in linux, so I went out and picked one up at the local Best Buy yesterday.
Oops, it’s a linksys WPC11-Version4, not version 3. The version 4 uses a different chipset than version 4. It’s a realtek, which RealTek does have drivers for, but you’ll have to build the driver yourself(ala NVidia, with a wrapper around the core driver so various kernels can use it). Supposedly, the driver was written in a strange manner so that the normal wlan tools don’t work on it, so i’ll have to setup a little script for wlan-up and wlan-down, put it in rc.local and such. There’s a 40 page thread on linuxquestions.org on this chipset, so you know it’s not trivial getting working. Once again, maybe not a big deal for me, but unacceptable for normal users.
(3)The sound card. If past experience is any indication I’m sure I’ll have to monkey around with something to get the sound card to work.
What all of this brings me to, is that chipsets change so fast(especially in the wireless world) and until chipset/card manufacturers start supporting linux from the get-go, on the CD you get(they almost always state that they only support windows even if a linux driver is available) then forget about anything that is close to ease of installation like windows.
As others have stated, the natural progression of things will be significant enterprise of linux on the desktop where admins will control everything and then some brave, MAJOR PC OEMs offering linux on non-server systems. Then we will see Microsoft getting scared. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a major linux kernel fork around that time.
Anyway, linux on the desktop is good for me and you, but let’s not get carried away. It won’t be ready for joe average user in 2005. I would say, maybe, around the 2008-2009 timeframe.
I know. I’m sorry, I should have explained myself better. I feel that the packages not being available for Fedora is a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. I don’t want someone to make a package for Fedora, I want see packages that work with all distributions. I can hope.
For people complaining that the Linux desktop is slow:
At least in my experience, Windows XP does tend to handle low-end hardware better. However, on any system above 1GHz (by 2005, they’ll be verging on the obsolete) the difference between KDE and Windows XP is negligable.
The two things about getting good performance out of KDE/Linux is having lots of RAM and getting a sane configuration. KDE has a large fixed overhead, because of all the library frameworks that all apps link to. The minimal comfortable RAM configuration for KDE is really 128-256MB. On the other hand, because KDE apps share so much code (thanks to the frameworks), KDE actually takes less memory when you have lots of applications started up. Also, KDE has some poor defaults. In my experience, things like single-click, window snapping, Keramik, etc, all make the system feel a lot slower than it is. Combine that with some superficial inefficiencies in themes like Plastik (I’ve got a patch, I’ll get around to sending it in eventually) and you end up with artifacts like the toolbar lagging behind the window frame on repaints. In a well-tuned configuration with enough RAM, KDE is probably every bit as fast as Windows, and a lot smoother in real usage.
This, of course, brings me to the real problem with Linux. It is nothing technical, but largely a matter of polish. I would say my KDE desktop feels at least twice as fast as the stock Keramik one. It looks a lot nicer and simpler as well. Its a matter of polish that the defaults are not better than they are.
PS> To the person who mentioned 2.6 wasn’t primarily desktop-oriented. I think you’ve got it reversed. 2.6 was desktop oriented, and 2.8 will concentrate on scalability issues like supporting big NUMA machines.
(1) I’m almost positive the ATI mobile Radeon 9600 pro will not be supported out of the box by any distro. The latest Xfree86 cvs might have it, I’m not sure. I’ll have to grab the driver from ATI and use it’s utility to create a XFfree86-4 config file. No big deal to me, but joe average user isn’t going to like it.
————
You’ll probably have to download the Radeon 9600 drivers from ATI, but that’s not really any different from Windows. The bundled Windows drivers usually have poor 3D perofmrance, so everyone gets theirs from the manufacturer’s website. Anybody skilled enough to install their own OS should be able to do this. Oh, and some distributions already automatically download the NVIDIA binary drivers, so ATI probably isn’t too far off.
Once again, maybe not a big deal for me, but unacceptable for normal users.
——-
Yep. Wireless support on Linux sucks. Getting my Netgear MA401 to work was non-trivial. This is a maturity issue — wireless support on Linux isn’t very mature, so its got things to work out. To save you some time though, try the orinoco driver. It usually works, regardless of your card. 802.11g support is a different bag of cats entirely, the manufacturers refuse to release specs for those.
(3)The sound card. If past experience is any indication I’m sure I’ll have to monkey around with something to get the sound card to work.
—
It’s been years since I had to monkey around to get my soundcard working. Even Debian detected my Inspiron’s sound card. Nearly every Intel-based notbook will use the i810 audio driver, so its highly unlikely that you will have to fool with it.
PS> Did you by any chance get one of those UXGA panels? Those things are great. To get the best font-rendering from the panel, I recommend a few things:
1) Don’t enable sub-pixel AA. Newer FreeType releases have broken support for it. It’s not a big deal though, you can barely notice it.
2) Download the Microsoft core fonts and the Bitstream Vera fonts. The Bitstream Vera fonts are particularly nice for high-resolution screens because they are designed to be auto-hinted.
3) Ditch the FreeType that came with your distribution and install the latest freetype2 snapshot from FreeType’s repository. Most good distributions will ship a FreeType interpreter with the bytecode hinter enabled, but in my experience, the bytecode hinter results in glyphs with strokes that are two thin. This is because they optimize for low-res CRTs, where single-pixel thick strokes look best. On a high res LCD, you have more pixels to work with, so its better to let the autohinter go to work.
With this setup, my fonts look, on the whole, nicer than they do in XP.
If the Windows softare couldn’t be pirated (copied), Linux and Open source s/w would dominate already today.
Having used Linux for a couple of years, one seems to forget the amount of software/tools that gets installed with todays distros.
If I buy Windows XP professional, I get… let’s see: IE, Paint, Wordpad, Mine sweeper, Solitarie…
/Kenneth
All you linux gurus can say all you want, but that will not change things. There are 130+ distros that do the same thing, but not the same way. Sepose it is your first time looking at linux distros. No, 130+ is not confusing is it? One word people, standards. Why should compiling be a requirment? Well ok maybe it isn’t if you bever want to download anything from the web. People having a choice is fine, but we don’t need to over do it.
PS> Did you by any chance get one of those UXGA panels? Those things are great. To get the best font-rendering from the panel, I recommend a few thing:
Yep, I got the UXGA panel. I’ll be running at a sweet 1600×1200.
Thanks for the font advice! I have never understood fonts on linux. Maybe I’m just lazy, but i hate monkeying around with XFree86-4 or using whatever other tools are out there to get good font support, and even when I have it’s never really looked all that great. Actually, XP Pro on my girlfriends 20″ Flat Panel Ultra Sharp doesn’t look all that hot either, but she refuses to run in its native resolution of 1600×1200, which I believe is an issues with LCDs.
I’m still deciding on which distro to go with. I might just start out with Fedora because Redhat has traditionally had good hardware detection or I might just write down all the hardware from Windows XP Pro(it’ll be dual-boot) and then go with slackware. I recently tried slackware for the first time based on Eugenia’s review and I love it’s simplicity. Debian just seems to get more Debian-ified(read doing things their own way), which I’m not too fond of.
Anyway, my laptop will be here tomorrow(would be here today if not for the holiday), and I can’t wait to ditch this old thing.
When we are talking about speed in GUI, we have to consider two factors.
1). Linux separates GUI and system core, while Windows(since Win95) doesn’t. While the integration gives Windows an edge in speed, it comes at a price of stability. A crashed app(especially if it’s not from MS) usually brings the whole Windows system down, freezing the screen or rebooting the system. This rarely happens to GNU/Linux, it’s a lot easier to kill a crashed app there. And, comparing GNOME/KDE with Win2K/XP GUI on an average new computer with an average graphics system, you can hardly see any difference in speed.
2). Subject speed vs. real speed. I will use two examples to illustrate my point. First let’s compare IE with MozillaFirebird. IE seems a little bit faster in loading a web page, but actually it starts showing the page before its content is fully loaded, so you have to wait for an extra moment before you can click on a link. In contrast, Firebird doesn’t show the the page in that extra moment, but when the page popps up, it’s fully functional. There is no noticable difference between them if you compare the time from start to a usable page(of course, it’s not based on measurement). I’d like take office suit as my second example. At work I have to deal with reports(usually about 20 pages each) with lots of graphics imbeded. Editting those docs in Office XP is a pain. Compared with OpenOffice on RedHat on the same machine, XP is unstable(you have to save more often) and more difficult in handling imbeded pictures. I’m not going to get into those details here, let’s focus on speed. XP opens a doc faster, but it loads only a few pages. When you scroll down you have to wait while XP is loading those pages with pictures, and wait again when you scroll back. OpenOffice takes two or three extra seconds to open the same doc, but loads the whole thing instead. When it is loaded, the whole document is ready for editting; you can drag the scrolling bar back and forth as fast as you can, the doc just moves smoothly. While Office XP would impress a bystander with its faster loading, OpenOffice is more efficient for those who have to get the job done. And again, the difference in speed is so small on newer machines that you can hardly notice it.
IMHO the question isn’t when will Linux be ready for the desktop – the question is when will developers/ISVs port apps to Linux. Developers/ISVs want a standard platform; I think this is the impetus for Perens’ UserLinux. I agree with his strategy – for corporate desktops. Linux and the choice it offers will always be available for the enthusiasts like you and me. Thing is, OSes are becoming a commodity – people that aren’t geeks don’t really care what OS they’re running as long as they can run their apps!
Cheers
P.S. I didn’t read the SVN article.
Money talks…
If I buy Windows XP professional, I get… let’s see: IE, Paint, Wordpad, Mine sweeper, Solitarie…
Ya know, you are absolutely right. And since it isn’t possible to download Mozilla/Firebird, Thunderbird, Gimp, Gaim, Pan, along with tons of other free Windows apps, I guess us Windows users are simply stick with using Wordpad until MS decides to include something better with the OS.
At least the Linux distros package all of that stuff in. Even though many of the packages are already outdated before the distro is released, I guess that’s still better than Windows since Windows users don’t have the option of installing any of that stuff.
Lino
A crashed app(especially if it’s not from MS) usually brings the whole Windows system down, freezing the screen or rebooting the system.
Up until Win2k anyway ….
This rarely happens to GNU/Linux, it’s a lot easier to kill a crashed app there
True, but if that app happens to be the DE (which happened to me more than I would have liked), what difference does it make? From my experience, it would be faster to reboot WinXP after a crash (which has happened less than 5 times in the 2 years I’ve been using it) than it would be to kill X and restart the DE.
First let’s compare IE with MozillaFirebird. IE seems a little bit faster in loading a web page, but actually it starts showing the page before its content is fully loaded, so you have to wait for an extra moment before you can click on a link. In contrast, Firebird doesn’t show the the page in that extra moment, but when the page popps up, it’s fully functional.
Since you are obviously talking about two apps in Windows, what does this have to do with the overall speed of the Linux OS? Personally, I don’t have a problem with Firebird’s speed, even though Opera is faster than both Firebird and IE.
Sepose it is your first time looking at linux distros. No, 130+ is not confusing is it?
Newbies usually go for one of the major distros, or a newbie-friendly one. I myself went with Mandrake when I was a newbie (2.5 years ago). Why? I saw a boxed set at Future Shop and bought it.
It doesn’t really matter, differences are superficial. This is a false problem.
One word people, standards. Why should compiling be a requirment? Well ok maybe it isn’t if you bever want to download anything from the web.
You only need to compile stuff if you want bleeding-edge programs that aren’t available for your distro yet, or highly specialized software (that is usually in its experimental development phase anyway). Newbies don’t have to compile stuff when downloading, ever.
>> The two things about getting good performance out of KDE/Linux is having lots of RAM and getting a sane configuration. <<
That’s largely what I’ve found – am only a simple user, not a developer etc but after installing any new distro, setting up KDE only takes 5-10 minutes – in terms of styles Light Style 3rd Rev or .net are fast/simple – I always switch off any animation,fading,transparency,blinking and other dressings – KDE on Slack 9.1 – FedoraCore1 or Mandrake 9.1/9.2 is fast on a 1.7ghz/256 meg box, plain and simple….. so, 5-10 minutes configuration on reaonable hardware 1.2ghz+/256mb+ and KDE is fast/responsive as most…
My 266 laptop will not play mpeg4 or divx with windows xp but I play anything with mplayer in linux and they play smooth. Any my system has 192mb ram and it runs horribly in windows xp. Yes I do use icewm light, so I know thats a difference. But then again why would you attempt to run xp on a system with 64mb of ram, it must be horrible. Brand new systems with current processors are horrible when they run xp with only 128mb of ram.
Cool edit is dead now, and ardour is already a fine, working substitute for cool edit on Linux.
anopenscroll
anopenscroll.no-ip.com
Way to Go Linux!
Why arent you using your real name? This is “Linux is the anti-christ” isnt it?
Maybe I’m just lazy, but i hate monkeying around with XFree86-4 or using whatever other tools are out there to get good font support, and even when I have it’s never really looked all that great.
>>>>>>>>
Fonts in Linux were definately a PITA in the past, but its really not bad now. Installing fonts is a matter of dropping them into /usr/share/fonts and restarting X (or using the fc-cache program). No messing with XFree86-config required. As for quality, it really just a matter getting good fonts, and making sure your version of FreeType is up to date.
Actually, XP Pro on my girlfriends 20″ Flat Panel Ultra Sharp doesn’t look all that hot either, but she refuses to run in its native resolution of 1600×1200, which I believe is an issues with LCDs.
——-
How come? Running at 1600×1200 is no problem if you set the DPI correctly. Some web-pages don’t like it, but the improvement in text quality is well worth it when you stare at code all day
Whether or not Linux is ready for the desktop is an indiviual decision based on your needs. Windows doesn’t cut it for me. It’s not ready for my desktop while Linux is. Windows has always been horrible at multitasking for me. I have no such problems with Linux. My old Win2000 computer couldn’t cut it even with 384 MB of RAM. My current laptop with Linux and only 256 MB works much better. I have never run out of memory and I’m the kind of user that has apps open on 4 or 5 virtual desktops at all times. My Linux desktop is much more responsive under those conditions. I don’t use KDE or Gnome though. I use Window Maker.
In general Linux IS ready for the desktop, just not mass adoption. It will have to be ten times better than Windows before it becomes common on desktops. It’s also going to take more than just technology and ease of use to loosen the stranglehold Microsoft has over the PC desktop.
To be honest I think Linux is already superior but I sometimes wonder if mass Linux adoption will ever happen. Developers solve problems that they are interested in. Regulars users are not going to have the same needs. I think it’s going to take a major hardware company to get involved with desktop Linux before major progress directed towards everyday users takes place. Until then Linux will fulfill the needs of most users that want to take the time to learn something new.
It’s been awsome for my desktop for some years now. Thank’s very much.
I tried a Linux distribution, but eventually deleted it. I have a laptop with an ATI rage mobility card that I suppose is unsupported. I could get the maximum resolution (1400×1050) after lots of searching, but performance was not very acceptable. Full screen DIVX movies skipped and were not usable, so I eventually switched back to Windows XP which played it fine (better drivers I suppose).
DiVX movies worked fine for me on Redhat 8 and Redhat 9 using mplayer. It also works fine for me now on Gentoo. I have a 4MB Rage Mobility card (had an 8MB card on my old laptop). Movies would always get choppy for me on Windows because of the constant swapping. One of the main reasons I ditched Windows is because I couldn’t listen to songs or watch movies without them skipping because of the swapping, and that was with 384MB of memory.
When I download Trillian, I don’t have to then hunt for libraries it needs – it includes expat.dll for XML parsing .. in the package!
This is also the cause of many of Windows problems. Different versions of dll’s can wreak havoc on your system and the band-aid versioning system is not used all that much in third party apps. Installing older programs that include older libraries rather than the current ones can cripple programs that depend on the current dll. Competent packaging systems (apt, portage, etc) take care libraries for you anyway.
“Freshly installed NT5 starts on 64 MB RAM.
But even attempt to open Control Panel puts Window in almost endless swapping process:) ”
um… I don’t think so! Heck, up until last week my home file server was running Windows 2000 with only 64mb of ram! And that’s on a 200 Mhz Pentium. I could also run Mozilla, Office XP, and a host of other software on that box. and the control panel didn’t have any problems coming up…
I don’t know what you’re doing over there. But NT5 runs pretty good with 64mb of ram. Not very quick, but it’s very usable.
I’ve been using Linux since the .9 kernel but recently
built a new computer using SATA drives. No more Linux
until that incompatibilty issue is resolved.
I can hardly wait to get back.
Depending on your configuration, you can probably get Linux installed already. See this document about Jeff Garzik’s libata (which is rumored to get extremely good performance out of sata drives):
http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/1787
Fedora Core already supports SATA in their installers, and some Debian SATA HOWTOs are out there. If you can detail your configuration, I can give you more accurate info
Linux has 30 years of backwards compatibility?
That’s a wonderful fairy tale (read: flat out bullshit, especially considering that Linux itself has only been around for 12 years, and glibc has only been around for maybe 5), even if you’re talking about source compatibility. Windows goes to amazing lengths to preserve binary compatibility, some of them being quite… unattractive. But the fact remains: You can often run Windows 3.1 applications on Windows XP.
That is not the case on Linux, so please don’t wallow in the bullshit. It helps no one.
Duh.
Hmm. So GTK+ and GNOME’s widely-lauded commitment to API and ABI compatibility in the 2.x series is unimportant, and we should just break stuff all over the place?
I think not. 🙂
GTK+ and GNOME only preserve binary compatibility for minor releases (just like KDE/Qt, FYI). They’re fully willing to break binary compatibility between major releases (as is glibc).
Check this out.
http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/details.html
Heard any plans for GNOME 3 yet? Other than Eugenia’s? 🙂 I think we’ll be happily off in GNOME 2.14 land before we start thinking about any major API/ABI breakage (and even then, it will probably only involve removal of deprecations during the 2.x series).
mah 2003 was – least for me