Desktop Linux: The Dream Is Dead

Not when you consider that most of the world still runs very old systems and software. Even in the more developed nations, corporate websites/servers are known for running outdated software.

 

I was talking specifically of Active X for live quotes.

 

Gee, it must be nice to live in some sort of ideal world where you can contact engineers and developers and have them change their systems at the drop of a hat to support whatever software you're using. Unfortunately the rest of us have to deal with this mundane, boring thing called reality.

 

It seems rather strange to me that all this pressure is put on Linux to behave like a Windows operating system. Somehow once this happens everyone will embrace it and we will all ride off into the sunset.

Windows desktop operating systems are like Fisher Price toys and they want to water down and/or dumb down Linux as well? Linux has always fit the needs of its users since the beginning. The beauty of Linux is that beginners and advance users of this operating system are comfortable using it.

Trying to hammer a round ball into a square hole will only result in a waste of time. If Linux is too difficult for you even with the gui and massive help files then step your game up and read a book.

If the day comes when Linux is watered down for the sake of idiots, I'll use FreeBSD.

 

That depends on who you choose to believe. Try reading this thread; according to many Linux fans, it already is...

 

Regarding DVDs: What about libdvdcss2? I must confess that I haven't tried it in the recent past. I just know that you have to install libdvdread4 and execute

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

It did work when I tried it some time ago.

 

http://eyeonlinux.com/2010/10/20/desktop-linux-the-presstitutes-strike-again/

Apple was written off long ago with its 2% share, its still here and so will Desktop Linux.

 

The dream WILL be dead if people with that attitude are what future Linux users have to look forward to. Newsflash, it might be hard to understand for the elite, but this "dumbing down" is the only reason desktop Linux still MIGHT have a chance. Ubuntu alone has "dumbing down" to thank for its popularity. I'm not anti-Linux here, but reality is reality.

@Linuxforall: Apple has the iPod to thank, actually, for their true success.

 

Hi All

I don't run Linux but I would really love to. The Linux community, and some on this forum don't get it, do they?

I do not like Microsoft (hate), full stop. But they are running a business, and they are ruthless about it. There is no competition, certainly not from Linux.

So what does the Linux community do, it acts like like a local church community group. Disagreements result in splits. There is no coming together to unify resources to offer a real alternative to Microsoft. Just think about all the distros, some disastros, that are totally unnecessary. Its like the aficionados of a Campaign For Real Ale, totally self interested and ready to implode.

Ubuntu, is perhaps the only leading contender to take on Microsoft (and along way from it). How much easier it would be if Ubuntu had the support of the resources of other distros?

It is like slow motion self distruction, interspersed with commentary from hopefuls that Linux will come of age. Linux will never come of age with its current fragmented approach.

Sorry, but I have heard this talk for the last 15 years and its not going to happen unless...


Those who support Linux with its current focus are like those of a minority political party full of humbug, and, the years pass by....

Terry

 

Someone else gets it, bravo. Bring several hundred distros to about 2 or 3, and we may get somewhere. Though, generally anyone who is seriously looking into Linux is going to choose the one most heard of, which would be Ubuntu. Eventually, and, actually it would help matters to be honest, I see Ubuntu being the only distro (for desktops) left standing.

 

Those people don't want that the "unwashed masses" use "their" OS...

In reality there are only 3 distros that matter:
Debian, Red Hat and SUSE everything else is either derivative or so small that their manpower is "lost". What's left is IMO only Arch and Gentoo, but they are as close to vanilla as possible so the problem doesn't really exist there. It doesn't always look that way but generally there is the will to work together, merge upstream, forward bugs instead of devotion to the not-invented-here syndrome.
Let me add there are only two package formats, two major GUI toolkits, one kernel, one GNU userland, one Xorg and one set of free drivers. Fragmentation is not the problem.

If you want my opinion, the real problem is there are lot of skilled FOSS devs, sysadmins, the server and network guys, but no designers and UX specialist. I believe from an objective standpoint user experience you can't put it any other way than: Desktop Linux sucks.
Now look at Android, Chrome OS, MeeGo, they get what people want. Ubuntu? No, they have no clue. GNOME plus some "enhancements" doesn't cut it. They are a faaaar way off. I give them zero chance succeeding big time, even if they get (more?) major OEMs to support them.
OK, maybe they have a clue, but they don't have the means to do it. Canonical simply isn't Intel or Google.

Now don't get me wrong, look at what I've posted here on Wilders. I love Linux. I use Windows and Mac too and appreciate what they offer. All in all I think Linux is the superior OS from an engineering perspective. But in terms of polish and UX it's no match. Personally I can use it efficiently but that's because I'm not your average computer user. Hence I don't evangelise Linux as a Desktop alternative or like to play the fanboi games - let them come when they are ready.

 

Hi Katio

My goodness Katio what a mouthful.

"Now look at Android, Chrome OS, MeeGo, they get what people want. Ubuntu? No, they have no clue."

Ubuntu no clue!!!!

I am not an Ubuntu fan or aficionado, but even I can see that they have got MOMENTUM, they are known and, for Linux relatively large. Who is Android and Meego? I don't ask this question of you, but the general public.

I bet you the average Joe computer buyer might just have heard of Ubuntu, but certainly not Android or Meego. Unfortunately what the public aspires to is image (Marketing) Ubuntu loosely meets this criteria, the other two sound like science fiction novels.

Until some serious operators pull together Microsoft will continue to reap a ridiculous reward for a mediocre set of products, simply because the Linux lobby are like Luddites.

Terry

 

I'd have to say that the general public has far more knowledge of the existence of Android over Ubuntu, the same with Google OS. Marketing plays a factor, and, outside of Linux review websites and the occasional tech magazine, Ubuntu doesn't get a lot of "mainstream" coverage.

@Katio: That's an issue as well. The Linux fans talk down to and mock Microsoft users, claiming superiority and all of the security benefits, yet potential converts get met with attitudes. Luckily it's not as widespread as it once was, but it's still there in good enough amounts.

 

Hi TerryWood,

MeGoo is set to launch next year, it's more or less still in development. Of course the general public doesn't know about it, but they will when Intel, Nokia and others bring out their products (and if it doesn't get killed by the Google OSs). And please note I was talking about UX and not marketing.

About Android, are you serious? You know what Android is, right?
I wouldn't be surprised if market share surpasses Ubuntu anytime soon. Maybe it has already, but you know, those stats usually are based on browser referrals and people still tend to use computers more than their phones for general internet surfing. Also Ubuntu market share is Servers+Desktop, I'm of course only comparing Desktop Linux with Linux on phones and tablets.

 

Linux users hate MS? Thats an understatement considering MS has a devoted team and spends a significant amount of money to spread and go against open source and linux every opportunity it gets, compared to that, less than 1% talking anti MS if any and that too without any budget is peanuts really

 

I'm curious; hasn't Ubuntu stated openly that binary compatibility with Debian is not a development goal? The same goes for Fedora and Red Hat, if I'm not mistaken.

I'll confess that I'm particularly ignorant about this area, but I find myself somewhat skeptical about your claims. Doesn't two major GUI toolkits already mean you'll have to spend 2x the time and effort to develop "native" apps (Firefox and KDE used to be a major problem for years, IIRC, to the extent that some distros advertised "Firefox compatibility with KDE" as a feature)? Don't you need to test for a wide range of libraries/dependencies found across various distros and ensure they all work without bugs? Aren't binaries sometimes incompatible even with older releases from the same distro? And even then don't many distros perform their own modifications to packages before making them available in their distro repos, potentially changing the UX?

Erm, ChromeOS hasn't been released, and MeeGo was officially released only 4 months ago. It's rather premature yet to say whether they "get what people want". As for Android, it runs on mobile devices, a VASTLY different paradigm than from the desktop.

It terms of UX, Ubuntu has done far more than most other distros. In fact I'd go as far as to say it has done and/or is doing everything that's reasonably plausible, and the remaining issues are much bigger ones that are inherent to Linux itself, not Ubuntu-specific, and far harder to solve.

 

Not a gamer, so don't care.

I visit all the sites I want and never seem to have this problem. There are a few sites I have come across where the media wont play for some reason (I guess ActiveX) but it's not a big problem since all of the big sites work fine.

I routinely rip and burn DRM'ed DVD's with Linux. Not a problem really. The only issue is Netflix streaming, which is just something we will have to deal with for a while I guess (since they require DRM and the open-source Moonlight does not include DRM).

I have mainstream hardware and everything works without ever having to compile a driver or a kernel. My friend has mainstream hardware and Linux works on her box without having to compile anything. I have another friend and the same thing. Almost everyone on this forum who uses Linux has never had incompatible hardware (maybe a few people with flaky network cards, but they are rare nowadays).

I don't, so I don't care. And even if I did, I would still use Linux at home.

Latest versions of what programs? You can always get the latest versions of programs. If the distro repo doesn't have them, then often times there are PPA's (ubuntu) or other development repos for other distros. If not, then often someone has packaged a binary for a particular distro.

No thanks. While OS X is a mile ahead of Windows, I don't want to shell out $3k for hardware I can get for $500 bucks off the shelf and build myself. Then I install Linux, and my machine is as good or better than any OS X box.

 

Linux will always be alive as best choice for server OS and on the desktop for the people that use it - and it will still grow.

Although there are some great OS, what makes a great OS are ultimately the applications.

 

Sure, valid points.
Binary compatibility is pretty meaningless in FOSS, as long as the source code works without modification everyone is happy. Ubuntu is based on Debian testing or unstable, both are moving targets and they themselves aren't always "compatible" with themselves! (i.e. updates occasionally break the system) but in general it's compatible down to the binaries. However, since this doesn't matter much Ubuntu doesn't really care and it's not a goal per se. Fedora and RHEL work much closer together, you could say Fedora is RHEL+1.

Off all the mentioned fragmentation the only thing that really matters is gtk vs qt. Personally I solved this by not using any qt libs and apps at all since the days of KDE 3. I admit that this situation is anything but satisfactory.
The thing with gtk and qt is the UX again, Firefox always worked on KDE but it wasn't integrated and looked absolutely horrible and misplaced. As we can see now this was not a technical issue because today both toolkits can coexist pretty nicely. It's not like proprietary OSs don't have such issues, on OS X there's Rosetta, Cocoa and Carbon and in Windows some apps survived from 3.1 till today... The difference is there's one company/man? who decides how it should be done so the problem stems only from backwards compatibility and not from two current competing systems. However in essence the effect is pretty similar.
This "freedom of choice" can be problem, ("reinvent the wheel", twice the devs and twice the bugs) but I think it's not "THE" problem that's holding back Linux. They can coexist and if one of the two got their act together and offered a meaningful alternative to proprietary Desktops in polish and userexperience it would flourish and all the devs would flock to it helping it grow. The very reason we still have two competing systems is that they still both suck. So I think this closes the cycle and hope I've made my point clear.

 

I haven't used MeeGo or Chrome OS, all I know are screenshots, screencasts, papers and my previous experience with Google, Chrome, Moblin, Intel and Nokia. Only based on this I made that statement. Take it with a grain of salt if you want, your call. I still stand by it.

Completely agree on your second point. But that's no excuse to stop trying and improving things

 

Except that the same source code always compiles into (more or less) the same binary. I highly doubt you can deal with bad and/or changing dependencies/libraries simply by compiling the same source code in a different way... can you?

Yes, they can. I never said it's a technical issue either, it's perfectly possible, but it means more work for the devs. Depending on how many aspects are involved (fonts, graphics, system settings, etc), porting complex apps from one to the other is far from trivial if you want your app to be "native".

I don't use OS X, but given Apple's obsession over controlling virtually every aspect of the UX on their products, I'm quite surprised it's a problem. As for Windows, it's far from the norm, and definitely nowhere near as common as on Linux where you see GTK- and Qt-specific apps everywhere. The example you gave is an extreme outlier, assuming it even exists at all. Some 16-bit DOS utilities do persist, but they're meant to be run from the command prompt instead of coming with a GUI.

I think that's a bit of jumping to conclusions. Just because no single player is dominating the game doesn't necessarily mean that all the players suck.

Then I'm curious; in what way does Ubuntu "have no clue"?

 

That's pretty much how it works. Often all that's needed is that the binary is linked against a different version of a dependency.

My conclusion was based on a bit different reasoning:
I /know/ both suck and I /know/ neither has killed the other one yet...

Might want to reread that post above, last sentence. Ubuntu is trying hard, and better than any other distro. But it's not enough. I actually don't even see that it's getting better over time for the last couple of years. They improve a lot of areas, but with every new version other stuff breaks again, a bit like Sisyphus. Rather sad watching them trying so hard and still getting nowhere.
A major reason for that is that their contenders aren't standing still and the bar of what customers expect is constantly being raised.

 

What if the APIs called by the binary are not provided, were renamed over different versions, or provided differently from how the binary expects? I'm not sure about Linux, but on Windows at least, the binary will fail. Welcome to DLL hell, or at least until Vista solved that problem with WinSxS.

Hm, I suppose we have different ideas about what "has no clue" means, then.

Ubuntu more or less "gets it" as far as I'm concerned, for the reasons you outlined. I agree that one of their major problems is consistency, a good release can sometimes be followed by a terribad one, but those are unintentional bugs rather than project goals.

 

This is a typical Windows POV, there devs can expect their badly written broken code will continue to work for years. On Linux devs know it's different so upstream will take care of it (OS X is quite similar in this regard btw). If they don't backporting isn't that much of a hassle. Of course you can only do that if you got the source.
A stable API would be absolutely necessary on Linux if 3rd party devs would start releasing their stuff as binary only. But the Linux ecosystem doesn't work like that and this really isn't the issue you make it to be.

 

Funny that you see it that way. Yes, there have been problems in new releases sometimes but they were ususally fixed very fast. But that doesn't change the fact that generally Ubuntu has improved a lot over the years. I had serious problems in past releases but none in Lucid and Maverick any more.