Linux on the down low

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by Mrkvonic, Sep 19, 2014.

  1. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    So I have been wondering lately. Has the Linux community gone quiet? This is a short article speculating about the seemingly negative trend in passion and activity in the Linux community in recent months. What do you say?

    http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-low.html


    Cheers,
    Mrk
     
  2. mattdocs12345

    mattdocs12345 Registered Member

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    I've been too short with Linux to really see a trend. But I prefer boring xfce instead of flash and annoying Windows 8 Metro tiles or whatever it is called today. At least I can customize it to what ever I want.
     
  3. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

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  4. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    I could definitely do that. But it's a chicken and an egg problem. Given the low activity, will there be enough feedback? Aha.
    Mrk
     
  5. Kerodo

    Kerodo Registered Member

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    If anything, it could just be the "mobile revolution" as you mentioned. That's probably it more than anything else. The dumbing down of the nation (or world). Perhaps as more young people enter the arena, they are going mobile and less and less good old desktop or laptop. Maybe MS is right, even though they've destroyed the desktop and are too little too late in mobile. I don't know... I still enjoy linux and have more or less dumped Win. I'm happy. As for the rest of the world, I know not.. :)
     
  6. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Given the ongoing platform shift, I suspect that developers are migrating to, and focusing on, Android and iOS. For example, I was surprised to see some younger Tor developers working on OSX o_O
     
  7. fblais

    fblais Registered Member

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    IMHO, a big problem with Linux, for novices, is the surabundance of distros.
    Experts and geeks may like that, but it may scare people who, for instance, are looking to replace their XP for something else, and free if possible.
     
  8. Trespasser

    Trespasser Registered Member

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    IMHO, in the Linux world, Gnome 3 and/or Unity has been a disaster. It has disappointed and disillusioned many people leaving them in a situation where they have to seek workarounds to make the OS usable. But even with these workarounds it's still not a pleasant experience. The only bright spot, at least for me, has been Cinnamon (my main DE). It has made using Ubuntu enjoyable again.

    On two older Sony laptops that I own (1.7 ghz non-pae processor) that are unable to run Cinnamon smoothly I use a highly customized Lubuntu 32 bit version that runs quite well. Via udisks-glue, and some specialized rules, it functions a great deal similar to Cinnamon (usb drives auto-mount and open in pcmanfm...DVD movies auto-play...music CDs auto-play). Very nice, but a lot of work went into making it as such. BTW, udisks-glue, though not in the trusty repos, can still be installed and it functions just fine. If you need a link to them just post and I'll provide it.

    Later...

    Bob
     
  9. Gullible Jones

    Gullible Jones Registered Member

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    @Trespasser: likewise KDE 4. You've got to love a desktop that takes 30 seconds to log in no matter how powerful your hardware is... And the apps have also bloated up quite a bit. Especially file managers, and mind, most of them *still* don't implement combined file/folder tree view, and other basic features found in MacOS 8.6 Finder in 1999.

    Don't get me wrong, Linux is my workhorse OS. Windows has its strong points, but there is no substitute for a free UNIX clone that runs on almost anything. Linux Gets Stuff Done. But it's still not really suitable for end-user desktops.

    (Neither is Windows IMO, but that's another matter entirely.)
     
  10. Keatah

    Keatah Registered Member

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    Absolutely. Android and iOS are still in diapers, but making excellent progress.

    It sure as hell scared me. I wouldn't know where to begin! Linux is too complex and doesn't do all I need.
     
  11. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Indeed!

    I've been crunching a large (but not huge) dataset. I did preliminary massage in MySQL on Debian, and was impressed. MySQL behaves very much like SQL Server, and it's multithreaded. But now I'm working on final analysis and graphics in LibreOffice Calc on Debian, and I am not impressed. There are two major issues for me. First, Calc only uses one CPU core, which is painful when there are many calculations.

    Second, I haven't found an option to calculate during saving (rather than after each edit). I tend to do multiple levels of lookups, and so even minor changes can trigger millions of recalculations :( In Excel, I can tweak stuff, and then just calculate as I save.

    I'd love a multithreaded spreadsheet app in Debian. I've tried Wine, by the way, and it gets hammered too easily. Is there one?
     
  12. tlu

    tlu Guest

    I cannot confirm that. KDE starts significantly faster on my computer (perhaps 10 seconds or even less) although my hardware is not the newest one: I have an Intel Core i7-2600 CPU. My boot disk is an SSD, though.

    What are you thinking of precisely?

    Bah! What's the end-user you're talking about? There is not "the" end-user but many types of end-users with different requirements. Sure, there are always situations where specific users with specific needs miss something (this applies to any platform). But for an average user who browses the internet, gets some emails, writes some letters, does online banking or whatever, Linux is perfectly fine, IMHO.
     
  13. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    Agreed 100%. I can and mostly do use linux exclusively for all of the above. BTW, the XFCE environment is my favorite by far. It gives me enough desktop appeal without the bloat on my aging hardware.
     
  14. tlu

    tlu Guest

    Have you checked possible alternatives like Gnumeric or Kingsoft? I don't know if they support multithreading but they might be worth a try. And I remember that I read somewhere that Calligra supports it.
     
  15. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Gnumeric only uses one CPU core.

    I've never tried Kingsoft. It seems to be a Chinese MS Office clone. I'll try it, and report.
     
  16. fblais

    fblais Registered Member

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    What file manager do you use?
    Thunar is somewhat limited, in comparison to Caja for instance, which comes with the Mate DE.
     
  17. tlu

    tlu Guest

    Another alternative is Softmaker FreeOffice. According to the Arch Linux wiki it's "lightning-fast".
     
  18. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    The best part of Kingsoft is its high compatibility with MS office. Try it and you'll know.
     
  19. mattdocs12345

    mattdocs12345 Registered Member

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    Thunar is limited but it also does what I want it to do.
     
  20. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    OK, so I finally got around to checking out WPS Office (formerly KingSoft) in Linux.

    Bottom line: BAD :thumbd:

    The first roadblock was the lack of a 64-bit package. But yesterday, being a little desperate, I created a Debian 7.6 32-bit VM, and installed it.

    Then I discovered that the spreadsheet app CAN'T DO CHARTS :eek:

    They say that they're working on it ;)

    In other news, I've found how to prevent hanging in LibreOffice Calc. In Options / LibreOffice / View, disable "Use hardware acceleration" and "Use anti-Aliasing". Maybe this is just relevant to VMs.
     
  21. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Well, it's the most compatible office suite with MS Office on Linux.
     
  22. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Ummm, no charts <> compatible.
     
  23. Sm3K3R

    Sm3K3R Registered Member

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    Once more games come to Linux the Windows down low will be bigger.
    CS : GO is coming to Linux and so will happen to other games.
    When there will be no need for Direct X ,there will be no need for Windows for the average user.
     
  24. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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  25. mattdocs12345

    mattdocs12345 Registered Member

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    Linux doesnt do everything. But it has a specific use for me. It can be customized to look like classic windows 98, it is super fast with xfce and it gets no viruses. Neither windows 8 nor OSX can do any of the above as well as Linux. The down side of course is that not everything works as well on Linux as on mac or windows.
    Still, Im getting macbook soon, and will probably try to work with OSX but most likely at some point will either set up dual boot or go 100% Debian like I did on my Thinkpads.

    Linux is far from dead. Long live Linux :)
     
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