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GNU is Not Unix GUI Operating Systems Software

What Does Open Source Need for Mainstream Desktop? 204

Posted by Cliff from the so-your-grandma-can-use-it dept.
HesAnIndieRocker asks: "So what will it take to make open source technology a mainstream alternative on the PC desktop? It feels like we've been on the cusp for many years now and the applications available for most common tasks are certainly competitive, but we still hover around a 5% market share by most accounts. I've recently written an article in my weblog about some possibilities, but I'd love to hear what others think."
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What Does Open Source Need for Mainstream Desktop? More

What Does Open Source Need for Mainstream Desktop?

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  • Foobar2000 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jZnat ( 793348 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @11:39PM (#13938235) Homepage Journal
    Foobar2000 [foobar2000.com]

    Seriously, it has to be the most awesome audio player I had ever used, and Linux doesn't even offer an alternative (other than running it on WINE) that comes close to the pure awesomeness of it. I like Rhythmbox and whatnot, but seriously, Foobar2000 could do it all. I mean, it even cured a cold I had once!
    • I don't think any platform has an alternative to Foobar2000. Personally, I would love to have a version of F2K for my Mac, as well as Exact Audio Copy (probably the best ripper in the world).
    • ...when you pry my amaroK from my cold, dead hands.

      Have you used amarok? It's everything winamp, foobar2000, and itunes were meant to be. It doesn't just rock. It dominates the other audio players.
  • I thought Ubuntu/Breezy was going to include Beagle, Tomboy, and all the other hip new desktop apps that havn't made it into any distributions yet. I guess it will probably be next release or something. I saw a demo of integration of instant messaging into a bunch of different desktop apps. So any app that has a list of names becomes a "contact list" that you can click on to send a message. Integration of instant messaging might not sound like much, but instant messaging is probably the most non-integra

  • from the topic about 8 hours ago.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by XO ( 250276 ) <blade,eric&gmail,com> on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @11:46PM (#13938280) Homepage Journal
    There should be absolutely one installation method, that should encompass ALL distributions.
    How each distribution actually DOES it can vary as it wants.

    Each application should be packaged, with a file that has a lot of information about whatever is in the archive.

    What each file is, wether it's source code, a library, an extension for something else, the main executeable, or some stupid utility to go with it.

    Then it's up to the installer, based on WHAT the file IS, to determine where it goes.

    Then you can have distributions that use the traditional *throw every executeable in the entire world into /usr/bin, every doc into /usr/doc, every lib into /usr/lib*, or a distribution that keeps every single application's components in it's own seperate directories. All using the same install format.

    Of course, each would also have version information, and also "compatible with" and "incompatible with" information, particularly for libraries, where /usr/lib/xlib1.0.so and /usr/lib/xlib1.1.so are actually totally compatible with each other, so you can erase /usr/lib/xlib1.0.so when installing 1.1.so .. but, /usr/lib/xlib2.0.so has a totally different interface, so if you have programs that depend on /usr/lib/xlib1.1.so and you install /usr/lib/xlib2.0.so, the installer will know to keep the 1.1 version around as well. (this would also eliminate the idiocy of having things like "glib-5" and "glib2-2", when glib2 replaces glib .. don't take any of these examples as examples of absolute truth, i'm just using the names as examples, rather than as case studies)

        And I really love the idea of "nothing should ever be executed without the installer having previously known about it".. that would be a great thing to add to a distribution, IMO. Hell, the installer could keep track of checksums of the executeables, and make sure they haven't been modified (such as by a virus or worm or rootkit or malicious hacker) before running.

        A unified installation METHOD (doesn't have to be the same program on all distros) would solve a huge amount of Linux distribution problems, and perhaps even provide an answer to more general computing problems.
    • How about a unified source for packages (gentoo is about the best in this regard).
      How about a single place for branching into the various support areas?
      How about automated updates (optionally, natch.)

      How about more simple distros like VectorLinux which do a few things well? Crap, I would've stuck with it if I could have gotten Cinelerra working without chasing down every two bit fucking package on the net and then have to compile it myself.
      Video/Audio/Sync/Office Suite/Email/Screen Saver/Pictures -- don't
    • The biggest problem I see is that any particular package may require a large number of pre-requisites, and chasing those down can be a pain. This is more of a problem with cutting-edge software such as dvr's (mythtv), etc. In these cases, about 90% of the pre-reqs are libraries of one form or another.
      This is where I think packages should go back to static linking for certain libraries. Any library that is included with the default install of most distributions can be dynamically linked, but if a package
      • That's why the library usage needs to be improved, as well.

        --AND-- why any package that does include libraries, the installer should know where and what they are, so if any future package needs them, it can share them instead of having two identical copies of the same one in different places.

        And the definition file that tells you what all is in the package, should also tell you if anything is needed for the package, allowing the installer the ability to sanely find it, if the author didn't see fit to throw
        • A more intelligent dynamic linking system is good.

          I would settle for being able to tell which libraries are optional and which are part of the OS proper.

          On a GNU-Linux system, checking the OS version gets you a kernel version number plus some distro-specific gobbledygook-- almost meaningless. It doesn't even tell you if a GUI is present never mind what 3D capabilities exist. And Linux distros don't even identify to programs whether they are LSB compliant!

          The lack of committment to a standard for desktop fun
          • On a GNU-Linux system, checking the OS version gets you a kernel version number plus some distro-specific gobbledygook-- almost meaningless. It doesn't even tell you if a GUI is present never mind what 3D capabilities exist. And Linux distros don't even identify to programs whether they are LSB compliant!

            A substantial part of the usability and power of systems like Linux comes from the fact that it can be installed in the exact way that is needed for a specific purpose. That indeed results in that you have

  • Windows 2020 Functionality, Windows 95 Usability (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thecampbeln ( 457432 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @11:49PM (#13938298) Homepage

    After ranting for many years about never upgrading past Windows 2000 (mainly due to having to call MS should you need to reinstall, etc) I finally had to put my money where my mouth was when I purchased a new laptop a few months ago (eMachines m6805, AMD64). To make a long story short - I had a buddy help me install SuSE 9.3 on it and I've been on the penguin at home ever since.

    What I have seen from a long time windows user perspective is this: functionality and abilities (and stability) is far greater on (SuSE 9.3) Linux then I ever experienced even under Windows 2000. The problem is the "Win95"-esque problems... such as getting my wireless networking card to work. Now fair enough... I had/have these issues with Windows upon an occasion as well, and I can work my way thru them faster then on Linux simply because I've got ump-teen years experience under Win. My gripes come when I have to follow quite esoteric HowTo's to get my gear to work (or to get this thingy to install, or, or, or).

    Most times, I'll get whatever widget I need to working thanks to 2-3 of these HowTo's (mainly because 9.3 is a popular distro). But if I were unlucky enough to be one of the first people with problem 'X' I know I'd be screwed. Just the number of widgets and command line prompts and whatnot I had to tinker with to get my onboard WLAN card working was stunning. Then, after it was all said and done, I still couldn't get to websites 'cause the router didn't have valid DNS IP's configured (Linux seems to be a bit "bitchier" when it comes to certain things). Thankfully I picked up on this before blaming the card!

    Now... I'm happy with SuSE/Linux and I cannot ever seeing myself turning back, but I'm a nerd that enjoys the occasional hw/sw challenge (something I've not had on a windows box in probably 3+ years). But for Joe Sixpack? We (as in the all of us, or the royal... take your pick) need to bring Linux's usability up past Win95, because in my opinion, that is exactly where (SuSE 9.3) Linux is currently at.

    • Now... I'm happy with SuSE/Linux and I cannot ever seeing myself turning back, but I'm a nerd that enjoys the occasional hw/sw challenge (something I've not had on a windows box in probably 3+ years). But for Joe Sixpack? We (as in the all of us, or the royal... take your pick) need to bring Linux's usability up past Win95, because in my opinion, that is exactly where (SuSE 9.3) Linux is currently at.

      The thing is that the issues you mention have basically nothing to do with Linux and are really only solvabl
      • Firstly... I whole heartly agree with your points. But, as was mentioned in another thread here on this story, Linux needs a unitified install method. If Linux had that, then the "HowTo's" could be rolled into installers and noone would have to run all over YaST and the command line to get something working. If it were more like "download this EXE and follow the prompts" where it could then ask questions like "point me at your Windows WLAN Card Drivers" and then you'd be past Win95.

        Course this would be moo

    • Can I ask a question... Could the linux people go through EVERY SINGLE HOW TO and see if they can replace it with a batch file?

  • packages (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DavidLeeRoth ( 865433 )
    Debs, slackpacks, rpms, etc are a bitch to mess with. I don't want to alien -d xxx.rpm; dpkg -i xxx.deb every time i come across a file of that type. The linux distros should make packages that run on any pc running any distro. also, apt-get, yum, and emerge should come together to make a single repo, so all the linux systems are up to date with everything. this would make our systems much more compatible with eachother, albeit it would take some time.

  • More OS X like integration... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @11:53PM (#13938321) Homepage
    Seriously. I was recently given the opportunity to take the OS X plunge and I've had the OSX epiphany that goes along with it. It's changed the way I see user interfaces, and I finally understand why the mac "addict" types have been so rabid. It's _that_ good.

    FOSS UI's need to integrate or at least peacefully co-exist, and do so with a standards-based foundation.

    That's the key (or ticket depending on your view).

    • I was recently given the opportunity to take the OS X plunge and I've had the OSX epiphany that goes along with it. It's changed the way I see user interfaces, and I finally understand why the mac "addict" types have been so rabid. It's _that_ good.

      Macs are nice. Macs are pretty. Macs are intuitive, easy to learn, and allow you to configure things without learning much about them. All good for some people. The question is, which people? Perhaps the casual home user who just wants a computer to check e

      • Re:More OS X like integration... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by avalys ( 221114 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @01:31AM (#13938746)
        I think you are missing what's wonderful about Mac OS X.

        You get to use an intuitive, easy (and yes, aesthetically pleasing) interface for simple tasks. It saves you time and aggravation. It makes working on simple things simple, like they should be. I'm talking about stuff like printing, mounting an SMB share, synchronizing over Bluetooth with a cellphone, and so forth.

        This leaves you more time to spend on complicated, challenging things. And when you need to, you can just start a terminal window and (if needed) an X11 server, both of which come with the OS, and run essentially every application you can under Linux. I use LaTeX regularly on my PowerBook, and emacs is installed by default as well (though I personally avoid it).

        For years I thought I wanted Linux on the desktop. That wasn't it. I wanted Unix on the desktop. And that's what Mac OS X brings me. It is the only operating system that doesn't trade power for user-friendliness (or vice-versa). Almost everything you can do in Linux, you can do in Mac OS X. The exceptions are few and far between, only due to proprietary applications or Linux-specific kernel features.

        Your complaints are valid for Mac OS 9 and below. But OS X is a completely different animal. I abhorred Macs until it was released, but I switched two years ago and have never looked back. And I'm not some luddite technophobe - I'm an EECS major at MIT.

        • Me too! OS X is fantastic.
        • You get to use an intuitive, easy (and yes, aesthetically pleasing) interface for simple tasks. It saves you time and aggravation. It makes working on simple things simple, like they should be. I'm talking about stuff like printing, mounting an SMB share, synchronizing over Bluetooth with a cellphone, and so forth.

          Doing a lot of tech work with Mac printing problems, it's not as simple as all that. Sure they usually set up fine, but when they don't work properly the GUI feels really very limited. Printin

      • Macs are nice. Macs are pretty. Macs are intuitive, easy to learn, and allow you to configure things without learning much about them. All good for some people. The question is, which people?

        The answer is, the people who aren't using linux.

        It appears the general consensus is that linux needs to be more like MacOS X. But everyone's been trying to make Linux more like Windows. No wonder linux is a flop as a desktop OS.
        • It appears the general consensus is that linux needs to be more like MacOS X. But everyone's been trying to make Linux more like Windows. No wonder linux is a flop as a desktop OS.

          I have to disagree.

          Refusing to define which libraries and functionality are a standard part of the OS, and then amassing huge interlinked OS/Middleware/Applications repositories to compensate for that deficiency seems a uniquely Linux phenomenon to me.

          IMO when an installer looks at "uname -a" it should be able to parse "LSB 3.0" f
          • Refusing to define which libraries and functionality are a standard part of the OS, and then amassing huge interlinked OS/Middleware/Applications repositories to compensate for that deficiency seems a uniquely Linux phenomenon to me.

            There are many problems with trying to standardize on one set of libraries. You want to have a standard set which is useful, but needed by everybody. The problem is, Linux is used for a huge number of tasks, some of which really don't need much more than the kernel. For ex

        • The problem is people are using the wrong criteria to decide what they want in a computer. They go for flashyness and ease of initial setup and learning, all of which Mac OS has. The point is, these things are not what really matter in a system you use hours a day. That people are not using Linux does not tell us that they wouldn't get more work done if they took the time to learn it.
  • Do what MS and Apple do? Spend most of our resoures on marketing and PR?
    • I suspect that MS spends a pretty small percentage on marketing. Apple can get marketing quite cheap through Job's reality distortion field effect on the media.

      Believing that it's all about marketing is to be in denial.

  • Games (Score:5, Informative)

    by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @11:59PM (#13938344)
    Thats it. Thats all it needs. I know over a dozen people who would switch if it just had mainstream games.

    • Re:Games (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nutria ( 679911 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @01:37AM (#13938764)
      I know over a dozen people who would switch if it just had mainstream games.

      • An Exchange-killer.
      • "kids apps". Kid Pix 3, and the dozen other games that my kids like to play when they go to my father's house.
      • A definitely legal method of playing encrypted DVDs.
      • For 3rd-party companies (Intuit, Adobe, Autodesk, etc etc ad nauseum) to release either Linux or Wine-friendly versions of their apps.
      • For companies like Cisco to make it easy to run the VPN Client.
      • A perfect VT220 emulator. There are many in the Windows world.
      • Better wireless support, both thru more drivers from "industry", and better "management" front-ends.
      • Better looking fonts. Sure, fonts are 100x better looking than they were in 1999, but they are still better looking in Windows.

      • Re:Games (Score:3, Insightful)

        by HaydnH ( 877214 )
        An Exchange-killer.

        Have you tried Open Exchange [openexchange.com]? Not that exchange is appropraite to a discussion on the Desktop market.


        A definitely legal method of playing encrypted DVDs.

        Try xine [linuxgazette.net]! (btw Xine is an awesome app!)


        For 3rd-party companies (Intuit, Adobe, Autodesk, etc etc ad nauseum) to release either Linux or Wine-friendly versions of their apps.

        If you can't find an alternative application in Linux you could always run Windows through VMWare - you can also disable network support for the
        • I must say that I agree nearly 75% with you.

          Exchange/OpenExchange == right on

          xine is definitely *NOT* a legal DVD player. The only legal one currently is PowerDVD, which comes with TurboLinux ONLY. The only legal one that I know of that's coming out that consumers can buy is the one Fluendo (fluendo.com) is working on.

          Better wireless support... Good noting ndiswrapper. Another thing to note is that it is a *BUG* if your wireless card doesn't autodetect on Ubuntu. That's a real commitment to hardware sup
    • Not all games are open source (see topic). I do agree that we need more commercial games that are easy to install and set up.
    • Games are the only thing I reboot for, but for most people it's not just games. Go to any computer store, you'll see photo manipulation wizards, home and landscaping design programs, genealogy databases, trip planners, video editors... it'll be decades before there are good open source equivalents to all the most popular commercial software, and until that happens the only thing that will make Linux usable for many people will be a Win32 subsystem that runs all that existing software out of the box.

      Yeah, y

  • For the love of god (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wonko42 ( 29194 ) <ryan+slashdot@[ ]ko.com ['won' in gap]> on Thursday November 03, 2005 @12:05AM (#13938374) Homepage
    A multimillion dollar ad campaign. That's what it'll take.

    Now please, for fuck's sake, let's talk about something else. Every couple of weeks there's another damn article whining about how open source is soooooooo close to succeeding as a mainstream desktop alternative and asking what's keeping it from taking that final step, and everyone always answers "consistency" or "usability" or "accessibility" or "pictures of naked ladies", but the real issue here is that Grandma doesn't know what the fuck Linux is because she doesn't see ads for it on TV.

    Goodness I'm bitter today.
    • Maybe we approach it from the wrong angle.

      In my opinion, most people aren't really qualified to be using computers at all. And most that buy them don't really know what to do with them beyond surfing the web and getting/sending email.

      Certainly it's a very small minority who are actually qualified to maintain their own computers. Hence the rampant virus issues with Windows boxes.

      So given that, a) only people who need/understand computers should be allowed to use them. b) people who need computers but don't k
      • And most that buy them don't really know what to do with them beyond surfing the web and getting/sending email.

        Yes they do. There are free CDs everywhere, at supermarket checkouts, inside Sunday newspapers, on magazine covers. They offer dial-up internet, trialware, older versions of software, software that didn't make it to the shelves. They are all for Windows and they are in the faces of normal people.

        Also, your elitist attitude goes right against the spirit of Free Software, which is about empowering pe

  • Sometimes it is just the little things. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jptechnical ( 644454 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @12:07AM (#13938385) Homepage
    Little things like real replacements for common programs... not half assed attempts.

    There are applications that I NEED on a daily basis that cannot be emulated and there is no equivalent. Don't get all bent out of shape about this, it is just a fact that noone as yet has been able to 1:1 replace Dreamweaver.

    Also, if you are bound to some program for your business or home use you kinda have to go with what works.

    3 simple examples:

    Dreamweaver - NVU is not a replacement by any means... and the sad part is NVU is about as good as it gets in the OS world.

    Quickbooks - No, emulation is not an option... it is sluggish even in windows. And don't try to tell me that the dozens of disparate accounting projects on sourceforge or freshmeat are going to come anywhere near the simplicity and dependability (damn straight it is dependable... lots of backups ;-)) of the flagship Intuit product.

    Radmin - Remote Administrator by Famatech will not work on a *nix box with emulators... some forums have some well meaning people saying "So what if the keystrokes don't work, you can copy and paste text instead" - Thanks... but no. I have a hundred clients with radmin licenses and when compared directly to Radmin I would rather eat glass then install the latest VNC variant. If I had started out with VNC it might be different, maybe if I started out with VNC I wouldn't be agonizing over trying to switch to *nix.

    The plain fact of the matter is, there are many programs that are not directly replaced. I have been trying to switch to a distro for 5 years. I install a new distro on a relatively modern laptop everytime one comes out. It sits on my desk and I genuinely try to use it. So far I really like the debian distros (Like Ubuntu minus the constant sound effects), where 2 years ago I would have been hard pressed to use anything but SUSE.

    Everytime I make a legitimate attempt to change over I run into a half dozen piddly little sub $100 applications that I cannot emulate or replace.

    I have seen Linux make great strides in the last 5 years I have been following it. I have moved most of my servers to linux and bsd (web and mail), I even replaced my SBS2k3 server in favor of ClarkConnect Home 3.1 (so sweet) to run my windows domain.

    I used to get my ass kicked trying to install an HP JetDirect printer, then CUPS started coming preconfigured in the distros... man was I excited! Then I would find that dual displays were troublesome... again that has changed for the better.

    All I have left are DreamWeaver (not just wysiwyg, but the templating and ftp site synchronizing) and Radmin since all my windows clients have it. I manage 50 or so client computers and a dozen windows servers in Alaska from Seattle with RADMIN... so it is kinda important to me. If I can figure out those hurdles then I am on the way.

    Sometimes it is just the little things.
    • Radmin - Remote Administrator by Famatech will not work on a *nix box... ...I would rather eat glass then install the latest VNC variant...

      Have you ever messed with Remote Desktop / Terminal Services? The server comes with every Windows 2000+ other than XP Home. It's very responsive, and the Linux rdesktop client works great. In full screen mode rdesktop captures and forwards all keyboard input, blocking the keystrokes from reaching local apps, which might otherwise have undesirable consequences. I use remo
      • I don't have any linux boxes to support other than my own. RDP is great, but radmin will let you interact with the console login, not a virtual one, though there is a command line switch so you can login to the console login instead of using a virtual login, but I think it only works with 2003. This is what I use Radmin for most, troubleshooting a client desktop whereas if I try to login with RDP it locks the desktop so the client can't see what you are doing, so no interaction. There is remote help, but th
  • We don't need a new distro every week. Too many people are wasting their time reinventing the wheel. They need to cooperate and consolidate. Until then, a mainstream desktop will always be 2-4 years away.

  • Lets quit bullshitting ourselves (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stinerman ( 812158 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @12:16AM (#13938437)
    1) Drivers
    2) Drivers
    3) Drivers
    • The drivers are great if you buy supported hardware. There's a lot of hardware that won't work well on Mac either, but you won't find it in Apple's store.
      • *lightbulb*

        Thats what we need, trendy cool Linux Stores (tm)!
      • I agree. Its just that most people don't buy hardware based on how Linux/BSD will support it. Most people hear from their geek friends about some sort of Linux thingy and how great it is. They get a live-cd and try to do something mundane like print or listen to music and the damn thing doesn't work. If Linux/BSD wants more market share, more hardware needs to be supported out of the box. Now, that being said, I will fault chipset makers for not helping out the FOSS community by opening up their specs.
        • Any details on the WPA difficulty? My Mandriva 2006 install runs WPA fine on my Ralink 2500 chipset no brand wireless card.
        • If Linux/BSD wants more market share, more hardware needs to be supported out of the box. Now, that being said, I will fault chipset makers for not helping out the FOSS community by opening up their specs. They need to get their shit in gear as well.

          Pardon me, but the above is just whining. Why should HW vendors write drivers when there's almost no pressure to do so?

          If the community were serious about desktop HW compatability, then we would have an easy-to-use Hardware Compatability List/Database that we co

      • The drivers are great if you buy supported hardware.

        "Linux isn't free; it costs $150 to replace my scanner." Those who rely on donated hardware cannot choose to obtain supported hardware over unsupported hardware. Those who are switching from Windows to Linux on paid-for hardware have similar problems.

        There's a lot of hardware that won't work well on Mac either, but you won't find it in Apple's store.

        For peripherals compatible with Macintosh computers, I can look on the front of the box for "Compa

  • High Level... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @12:19AM (#13938452) Homepage
    From a High Level, to convince people to switch systems, you have to offer them something an order of magnitude better than the system they are invested in without giving up any substantial functionality. This means:

    The computer should do exactly what the user wants, whenever the user wants, without the user having to think about it. This means extensive end-user testing and brutal simplification. The user should never see anything unrelated to exactly what they want to do. The folder heirarchy they see on the drive should ONLY contain things relevant to their activities. They should be able to re-arrange everything on their disk and still have it all work. They should never have to edit a config file. They should have to wade through "interface spam" of a million options which one in a million users will ever actually use. And yes, this means extensive high level architecting of everything that goes into the system, something OSS isn't traditionally good at doing.

    The computer sould be able to replace legacy systems. That means being MS Office compatible, not a small feat. Not just word, but scheduling, and Excel macros must be readable in the new system.

    The computer still needs a killer application or usage that makes everone want to switch to it. Apt-Get is pretty killer for me, but command line functionality will never reach the average desktop user. What else can the nature of Open Source provide? How can we use dynamic re-compilation to do something amazing that retail software can't provide?

    No offence, but Linux as a desktop OS is still pretty hacky. There are a million unnecessary (to me) files hanging around when I'm just trying to do something, dozens of different ways to try to do something but four or five of which will work, command line still being integral to anything fun on the system (and even some baseline functionality), etc. My feeling is that the current state of Linux isn't the way to get there, any more than Dos should be the way to get to Windows. Perhaps it is time to throw our collective weight behind SkyOS, Zeta, or another upcoming Desktop-oriented OS, and refocus Linux on being the kick-ass server OS we all know it to be.

    • because Linux is just the kernel, and the main problem with the kernel is lack of hardware drivers, which Linux has more of than SkyOS and Zeta have. The killer app and Windows compatibility are also more likely to come on Linux because its user-base and corporate backing are already larger.

      In desktop distros like Mandriva, the home folder is already the default view of the system, meaning everything the user sees is directly relevant to him/her.

      So it sounds like your "Linux" gripes are really Desktop grip

    • Re:High Level... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by amper ( 33785 ) *
      "The computer should do exactly what the user wants, whenever the user wants, without the user having to think about it. This means extensive end-user testing and brutal simplification. The user should never see anything unrelated to exactly what they want to do. The folder heirarchy they see on the drive should ONLY contain things relevant to their activities. They should be able to re-arrange everything on their disk and still have it all work. They should never have to edit a config file. They should hav
    • This means extensive end-user testing and brutal simplification. The user should never see anything unrelated to exactly what they want to do. The folder heirarchy they see on the drive should ONLY contain things relevant to their activities. They should [not] have to wade through "interface spam" of a million options which one in a million users will ever actually use.

      Brutal oversimplification is why Gnome is a bad thing for the Linux desktop. I can't overemphasize how much more I appreciate the KDE appro

  • OEM Contracts (Score:2, Insightful)

    by heinousjay ( 683506 )
    Simply put, 95%+ of all users don't care at all, and see no reason to change.
  • I think that it's too hard to install a lot of software under linux. apt is great under Debian or Ubuntu if your package is in the repository, but for things that aren't in the repository, installation is pretty hard.

    In OS X, you can download a .dmg file, which is automatically mounted, and then you can just drag an icon into your Applications folder. That's really cool. Most OS X users don't even know that the app icon that they're dragging is actually a directory.

    For me, some of the really cool gnome a

  • I can tell you why... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HRbnjR ( 12398 ) <chris@hubick.com> on Thursday November 03, 2005 @12:26AM (#13938485) Homepage
    I have been using Linux on my desktop since 94, so I can relate to this feeling.

    I tried to rip a music CD on my Fedora Core 4 system the other day...

    I put it in and ran Sound Juicer... it saw the CD and loaded all the track info for it. So far, so good.

    I wanted to set it to rip me an OGG at quality 6, the same as all my other ones I ripped in windows. It would let me choose between OGG and FLAC (no MP3), but there was no quality setting. An audio ripper with no quality setting?!? Impossible I thought...

    I looked in the help file, and it said nothing. Though the help file mentioned if you wanted MP3, you could use something called 'gnome-audio-profiles-properties'. There was no link to run this in the program, and I can't find it in my Gnome menus, so, being the guru I am, I ran it from the command line...

    This is a GUI which has a text field to type in a GStreamer pipeline!

    "audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! vorbisenc name=enc quality=0.5"

    Like anyone (especially grandma) is gonna know how to fill in that!

    Anyhow, me being the guru I am, I fish through it and see the quality setting... I want OGG quality 6... so what does "0.5" mean in OGG terms? Well, let's look in the help file...

    *clicks help button* .... *application promptly dissapears*

    No "this help file does not exist" dialog, no stack trace, nothing. *Poof* Gone.

    This is why Linux still isn't really ready for my desktop.
    • One of the tricky things about OSS is that no-one has the money for shelf displays or TV ads, so there's less information available (or rather, it takes more work to find it) about which applications are the best for a given task.

      That said, this is a classic case of just using the wrong application. Next time, given that you're using Fedora and have GTK installed, use GRIP. You won't be dissappointed.

      Just like shareware in the Windows world, there are often many applications which claim to do something bu
  • Anyhow, the article was saying how the Linux desktop needs to innovate rather than simply copy whatever the current market leader (Windows) does.

    Uh, yeah. That guy was right and you're wrong.

    There's this persistent delusion that people will all switch to Linux once there's not a reason not to. Except for (as that guy had noted) a handful of tinkerers and rabid Microsoft haters, users will change because there's a reason to change, not because there's not a reason not to change. When open-source desktops pr

  • There. I've said it. I run both WinXP Pro and Linux (Redhat 9.0 and KDE) Linux/KDE is clearly slower starting aps than WinXP. This is a fairly big deal in a business environment.
  • We need to have an app that will interface with MS Exchange and take care of all the things that Outlook does. Then the corporate desktop will be a much closer target, especially since it will mean saving the cost of an Office license for each seat.

    Currently the choices are Outlook, Outlook Express and Outlook Web Access.
    • This is the single thing stopping me from being able to roll out pure Linux desktops to many of my clients. A replacement for everything that exchange offers on the client and server side is what throws the wrench into the gears. Yes, there are servers that can replicate parts of what exchange does. Yes there are clients that offer many of the things that Outlook does when connected to exchange. But there just isn't yet a unified client-server solution for Outlook-Exchange that can be deployed to the com
  • A list of Hardware, the driver it has and the latest driver available.

    Why is this so hard?
  • As far as his comments about user lockin go, many Universities (colleges in America) have already switched over to Linux often as a dual boot option.

    Inviting students to tinker, schools move farther and farther from MSoft each year and need subsidies to keep them on board this will do more to put linux in people's education than the tiny confrences Microsoft is able to organize.

    The thing holding linux back is it's inability to take risks regarding legal issues (Drivers mp3 codecs etc.) and the difficult

  • What's this "lunix?" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @01:24AM (#13938713)
    It feels like we've been on the cusp for many years now and the applications available for most common tasks are certainly competitive, but we still hover around a 5% market share by most accounts.

    As someone who's not particularly adept with Linux, but has attempted to use it many times over the years, allow me to say that this may be part of the problem. Linux is absolutely nowhere near the cusp of acceptance for mainstream desktop usage, and for good reason:

    For starters, drivers. Rarely, if ever, have I installed any flavor of Linux (starting with Slackware back in '99, having since used Redhat, Ubuntu, Mandrake, Knoppix and SUSE, not necessarily in that order) and had everything work. You need to futz with obscure config files to get something as simple the mouse wheel working, much less buttons 4 and 5. Video drivers are rarely up to snuff; as I've had ATi cards for the past few years, I've yet to even play Chromium BSU. Sound? Forget it. Basically, and I think this is the single biggest issue, virtually anything requiring a driver in Linux is a hassle. No one wants to spend hours pouring over forums and HOWTOs to install a bloody driver.

    Then, there was the package dependancy hell, which has been somewhat resolved by package management systems. However, my experience with these systems has been that they're unbelievably unintuitive, and have an awful interface. Take Ubuntu's system, for example: it's 2005, yet its interface (at least when I last used it, maybe 7-8 months ago) looks like a circa-1990 BBS.

    On top of it all, there's the hideously outdated UIs. There's little, if any, consistancy between apps in appearance, and most of the default themes I've seen in the various Linux distros still look like a clusterfuck of a Win98 box. They don't even match up to WinXP's level of consistancy and polish, much less OSX's.

    Linux really does have the functionality to put it on par with Windows and even OSX in a lot of cases. The problem is that Linux is, by and large, an OS developed by hobbyists and developers for hobbyists and developers. Its level of polish is orders of magnitude off from Windows, and not even on the same plane of existance as OSX. It's just a hassle to install and configure, and not particularly nice to look at. Sure, it's less of a hassle now, but it's still just not good enough. ...and that's the thing: I want it to be good enough. I want it to be better. And for a while, I was even trying to migrate away from my Windows desktop. Then I got an iBook. Linux hasn't even been a consideration since.

    At this point, I honestly don't see what point - other than being free of cost - that Linux on the desktop serves. Sure, more competition is always welcome, but Linux is already a phenomenal medium/heavy-duty OS - does it really even need to be on the desktop, too? And more importantly, without a serious overhaul by a group of artists and GUI designers, does it even have a chance? My guess would be, on both accounts, no.
  • Makie it:
    1. At least as easy as on a Windows system to install applications (even ones that don't happen to be included in the distro)
    2. At least as easy as on a Windows system to install and use hardware
    3. So that there are more mature applications that cover something besides an "average" setup

    Linux may well be ready for a completely "average" user, who doesn't use any unusual hardware and doesn't need any unusual applications - but how many people do you know who run a completely average system with no spec

    • Installing .rpms or .debs is trivial. Not packaging your program for Linux is no different than no packaging your program with Installshield on Windows, leaving most users unable to deal with the compiling, etc. I think all you're seeing there is that most Linux apps are the equivalent of shareware, and it takes work to figure out which ones are decent. After all, professionally packaged stuff like nvidia drivers install like a charm on a huge variety of systems.

      The hardware and the applications, of cour
  • It needs mainstream desktop users.

    -ducks-

    Users need Linux to run the software they can't get for free, which requires commercial software developers to write software that'll run on Linux. It needs to be easier for more commercial software developers to support both Windows and Linux. Open source makes a very good desktop, and there is a heck of a lot of good open source software, but some types of software only thrive in a market environment. This includes games, niche software, and any software that avera
  • I want an easy to use programming framework integrated with the IDE. See MFC, ATL, WTL. I want linux to be faster than Windows XP on my PII 400Mhz. I want a community of code like CodeGuru and CodeProject.
    • 1) Qt/KDevelop
      2) It already is. You just need a no-bloat distro. And forget OpenOffice.
      3) Are you crazy? There's way more code free for the taking for Linux than there is for Win.
  • Seriously, why would you care what anyone else runs on their desktop? Without commercial vendor support at this stage, Linux is not a mainstream contender. Open source has all it needs to be mainstream: Mac OS X. Tons of open source components sitting alongside commercial offerings, with users having very little tolerance for shoddy craftsmanship. Trying to get Windows users to jump to Linux just to reuse bloody *hardware* is stupid. Shove them over to Mac OS X instead and *then* maybe you'll be able t
  • ...putting a 'K' in front of every app name?

    Puts a lot of "normal users" off KDE. I prefer Gnome anyway, but still....

  • It has to work. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mellon ( 7048 ) * on Thursday November 03, 2005 @04:00AM (#13939210) Homepage
    Here are some basic things that are wrong with my very slick ubuntu system:

    1. Sound doesn't work without massive fiddling. I think I happen to have gotten unlucky in this, but it took me a huge amount of effort to get sound working. I am not sure what I did to get it working. I think it was one of several support libraries that wasn't installed. Moral: don't unbundle. Throw in everything the user needs. If you are a moby geek, sure, go for a slimmable distribution, but if your target is the other 95%, it has to Just Work, out of the box. So sacrifice disk space for functionality. X has to successfully probe the monitor and correctly identify the modes that it supports, as well as its physical dimensions; when a new monitor is plugged in, X has to be able to cleanly identify the new modes that are available, and support multiple monitors, and all that crap that Windows and OSX Just Do, completely transparently. Because Xorg is so dependent on static configuration, if something blows away the magic config you put in xorg.conf (which happened to me recently), you're in for an hour of hacking on the part of a serious geek to get it working nicely again. Most people are simply going to wind up with a configuration that isn't optimal, and not know what to do about it. Impression: linux is ugly. It isn't if it's configured right, but it's hard to configure it right. My linux screen looks really nice now, but it took a lot of extremely geeky fiddling to get it that way.

    2. UI is massively inconsistent, and massively clunky. You want a person's first experience of Linux to be "wow, this is a lot easier to use." If it's "wow, this is a little funky," then they're going to stick with Windows. The 5% that are running Linux are early adopters, and they're willing to suffer to be on the bleeding edge. Most people aren't early adopters; for them it has to Just Work. Say what you want about Windows - after it's installed you're going to be sorry - but it works out of the box, for the most part, and when it doesn't, it's a matter of downloading a few drivers that install easily with installshield. Linux is better technology under the hood, but the usability isn't there.

    3. Consistency. My laptop moves around a lot, and peripherals change a lot. My trackpad doesn't work if I start X at my desk, because I have a trackball and keyboard at my desk, and these throw off the device probing. You hear a lot of stories like this. I put my machine to sleep, and nine times out of ten it comes up with a blank screen and I have to hard boot it to get it back; the other time, it works fine. Things sort of work, but they're fragile. If something works, it's got to keep working. This kind of inconsistency is just not something anybody but an early adopter is going to accept. It looks like the problem with X is that it's simply not probing APM correctly, which is because my system does ACPI, not APM. The X wizards probably already have a solution for this, but it's not on my running system, Ubuntu Breezy, so it's not helping me.

    4. None of my data transferred over (I switched from Mac), except for IMAP email, because that uses IMAP. All my address book information is stuck on my Mac where I can't use it. My calendar is on my Mac too. There's no interoperability, nor even a way to transfer the data over once and leave it. Given that there are standards for exchanging this data, it ought to be possible.

    5. The sights are too low, so even early adopters are underwhelmed. Linux doesn't try to do anything new - it just does what MacOS X does, only not as well. Under the hood it's about the same as OSX, and much better than Windows, but from the user's perspective it's not as good as either of these two competitors. It's hard to compete, because Windows and Mac are both single corporate messages, and Linux is a free-for-all; both its strength and its weakness.

    You'd think that free word processing and stuff would make a difference, but people would ra
    • A little more on fringe vs. non-fringe. I made a conscious decision a couple of years back to try to run mainstream stuff, not because I like it (I don't) or because it's better (it isn't), but because I can't help the people who aren't early adopters if I'm running fringe stuff.

      If you are serious about taking Linux to the masses, run something mainstream for a year, don't try to customize it to look like the stuff you prefer, and just get used to it. It grows on you, believe it or not. Being a hacker
  • 1) A single graphical user environment. No more fights between KDE and Gnome, lock the two sets of developers together in a room and don't let them out until they produce a single unified product.

    2) An easier install process. Windows users just click on install.exe or setup.exe but Linux users have to fight their way through apt get, rpm package management and unpacking tar files using obscure command lines. There should be no need for a user to manually unpack then compile source code, this is the 21st Cen

  • Config files (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ardor ( 673957 )
    If a user has to go through HOWTOs to know how to edit obscure config files you know something is wrong. Golden rule: the user must not be forced to dive into config files. NEVER. Too often a simple question like "my printer (model XYZ) does not work!" ends up in "type find -name balau848$""U(" -rh [{\48 20} and then edit /etc/blah/abc/xx__jht/rtkjc, check lsusb, copy the XYZID, check in /proc for bus ID 409482....."

    Provide a GUI for EVERYTHING. And provide a good, self-explaining GUI. Rule of thumb: if the

  • Linux should never be mainstream (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Yonder Way ( 603108 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @08:30AM (#13939950)
    To be mainstream it will have to lose many of the features that make it attractive to tech enthusiasts.

    If you want a very nice and easy to use *NIX desktop, head down to the Apple store.
    • Amen - Too often, 'mainstream' is equated with 'good'. This kind of lowest-common-denominator thinking has messed up many products:

      1. Honda Civic, used to be very popular with motorheads for its easy-to-mod-and-customize frame, Honda saw how popular it was getting and changed the body design to try and attract even more buyers (middle market buyers) and ended up killing the features the hobbyists loved. They moved. Honda is now trying to remedy the situation.
      2. McDonalds vs. Local Burgers - I live in Chicag
  • Make Linux (or any other OSS alternative) look and feel like WIndows, same "plug and play" convenience, and people will buy it.

    I know car analogies kink shashdotter colons, but it fits in this case: The average user wants a car that is simple and convenient to operate. They do not want to have to open the hood just to install a new air freshener or jack up the rear end to install windshield wiper blades. That might be fine for the car tinkerer, but not for the average user.

    The average user is accustomed to

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