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2008 - Year of Linux Desktop?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jul 06, 2007 05:34 PM
from the what-year-isn't-the-year-of-the-penguin dept.
from the what-year-isn't-the-year-of-the-penguin dept.
rstrohmeyer writes "Over at Maximum PC, we're betting that Linux will pick up unprecedented momentum in the coming year. With phenomenal new distros, swelling international support, and a little extra momentum from Dell, we think Linux is poised to exploit the current atmosphere of doubt surrounding Vista and pick up serious traction in '08. 'For end users here in North America, Linux poses a low barrier to entry. While many still balk at an upgrade to Vista (typically centered around cost and restrictive licensing terms), those who are curious about the open-source alternative will find few of these obstacles. And an increasingly rich array of ready-to-run software (not to mention surprisingly effective utilities that let you run many Windows apps) makes it easy switch ... Ultimately, I'm not predicting that Linux will take over the market next year. Or anytime soon, for that matter. But if there's ever been a time to try out the world's leading free OS, 2008 will be that time. I am predicting that users will switch to Linux in record numbers next year. And many will never look back.'"
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what is linux (Score:3, Funny)
Re:what is linux (Score:5, Funny)
what is linux
Something that doesn't sync to your iPhone.
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No, I'm New Here (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:No, I'm New Here (Score:5, Funny)
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It's taken four years (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:No, I'm New Here (Score:5, Funny)
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2027 - year of fusion power? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm rooting for desktop Linux to continue to make gains, but I think the widespread acceptance that the article suggests (but doesn't predict, mind you) will take a lot longer. Right now, Vista's main competitor is XP. Vista adoption has been slow because most Windows users are satisfied with XP and don't see much value in upgrading to Vista.
I'm a happy* Mac user, but I like knowing that the
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:2027 - year of fusion power? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:2027 - year of fusion power? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:2027 - year of fusion power? (Score:5, Interesting)
In seven years of giving away my software I've never seen this many requests for non-Windows versions. Unfortunately all my apps are written in Visual Studio 6, so the current answer to both questions is NO. I am rewriting my stuff in VS2005 though, which might offer a bit more cross-platform support down the track with the Mono project. (And no, I'm not switching languages. First, because I do this for fun and second, at almost 40 years of age and with a publishing contract for my novels in hand, I'm past the days of learning new languages.)
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Ooops ... (Score:5, Informative)
CC.
Re:Ooops ... (Score:5, Funny)
3d Realms are waiting for the adoption of Linux before releasing Duke Nukem Forever!
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Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
There will not be a "year of the Linux desktop".
There will only be the year when people realize that most everyone else is running Linux, too.
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to see that Linux will eventually gain significant desktop market share then just compare Redhat 5.2 to Windows98, and Ubuntu 7.04 to Windows Vista; the desktop gap has been slowly but steadily closing for years. More and more people are finding Linux a viable alternative desktop. It is still not viable for everyone, but little by little it will get there.
Parent
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly.
Go ask 10 non-technical people if they would consider using Linux as an OS, and 9 will look at you like you just spoke Greek to them. No, it doesn't count if you ask your wife, who you constantly bore with tech-talk about how much better Linux is than Windows. No, it doesn't count if you go ask your parents, whom you've been trying to convince to make the switch for the past 5 years. Go ask people that don't work in the tech industry, and who you haven't badgered constantly about Linux.
As I mentioned above, 9 won't know what you're talking about. The 10th person will think that Linux is pure command prompt, with no UI. Why? Not because they are dumb, but because they have just never heard of it. Just like they haven't heard of Solaris, and just like they haven't heard of z/OS. They don't talk about Linux on CNN, they don't write about Linux in Cosmo or Maxim. Hell, how often do you see it mentioned in 'science' magazines, like Discover or Popular Science? It doesn't matter if Ubuntu has a nice GUI and can load DVDs like any other OS. Most people just don't know that, and they probably don't care much. The idea of spending an hour replacing XP or Vista with Ubuntu would strike most people are boring and daunting. What reason do they have? Their computer works for the most part. Most wouldn't even know where to start. Not because they are dumb, but because:
1. They wouldn't know where to get Ubuntu.
2. They assume it would be as much of a chore to install as Windows. Oh, you don't think that is a chore? Well, that is probably because you're reading a technical website.
Yeah, I'd love to see Linux blow up this year. It is doing great in server land, but it has a ways to go before it gets on the desktop of the general public.
Parent
My wife used family Tree Maker also... (Score:4, Informative)
She is quite happy with it.
Parent
Every year... (Score:5, Interesting)
What would make it so? At what point would it be possible to quantify that 'yes, this IS the year!'... when there is 100,000 users? 500,000 users? 10,000,000 users?
slashdot, of ALL places should understand that Linux is making better ground each year in a number of markets, including the desktop. To say that 'this is the year' we might as well say 'this is the century'. It's impossible to quantify.
Re:Every year... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's obviously impossible to know for sure how many people use a given OS... especially when that OS is distributed freely and requires no kind of registration. However we can get some vague ideas from a few sources. The Linux Counter [li.org] estimated 29 million in 2005. This was in part based upon verifiable numbers from Red Hat indicating 8 million installs in 1998 (yes, this is including corporate installs, not just home users).
Another (again not totally reliable) way is to use browser stats. W3school [w3schools.com] reports ~3.4% of browsers are running in Linux. Since there are [internetworldstats.com] 1 billion internet users, that means 39 million Linux users.
Again, these numbers are open to massive debate. But I think the real number is somewhere in the ballpark of 10 million to 40 millions users. Alot more than most people think.
Parent
Re:Every year... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're quite right. Windows does no such thing. My experiences indicate that if the Windows GUI fails, an inexperienced user is left helpless without a (usable) command line.
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Re:Every year... (Score:5, Insightful)
What would make it so? At what point would it be possible to quantify that 'yes, this IS the year!'... when there is 100,000 users? 500,000 users? 10,000,000 users?
I've seen estimates of Windows' desktop share that begin at 300 million users - equivalent to the entire population of the U.S.
Vista entered the consumer market in January.
In July, Walmart.com sells HP Pavilion Vista Premium laptops starting at $780.
15" Wide-Screen Display, Dual Core AMD CPU, 1 GB RAM, DVD burner and DX 9 GeForce Go graphics that do not suck. For $12 add 1 GB ReadyBoost Flash, for $120 a key chain USB HDTV tuner.
OEM Linux at Walmart is out. The generic Vista laptop from Dell is in.
If the Geek thinks mass-market pricing of Vista is going to be a turn-off, he is delusional. If he thinks that product activation, DRM, Windows Update, etc., concern anyone in this market, he is ready to be committed.
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Re:Every year... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Geek thinks mass-market pricing of Vista is going to be a turn-off, he is delusional.
You're delusional if you think the US experience applies to the 95% of the world's population that don't live in the US.
---
Windows and closed source software. The US intelligence [washingtonpost.com] agencies' back [wikipedia.org] door [wikipedia.org] to every network connected country and business on earth.
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why not (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also they ignore some major design decisions of Linux that run contrary to what a lot of people want on the desktop. One of the biggest is simply Linux's openess and l
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When I send files to Linux-only users, they whine because they have no means to open them.
Maximum PC should stick to coolers (Score:3, Insightful)
Maximum PC should stick to what they know - fans and heat sinks.
Linux missed the window for the desktop. Now that PCs are expected to play DRM-protected media encoded with proprietary codecs, the window for consumer open source systems has closed. Linux might have made it in 2002, but now it's too late.
I used an AT&T UNIX PC, made and sold by AT&T, in 1982. 25 years later, Unix/Linux on the desktop still isn't mainstream. Sorry, guys.
Not optimistic about the US (Score:4, Interesting)
I recently installed Ubuntu 7.04 as a family desktop (dual booting with Windows), on a Dimension 8400. Having reading so much about about what a terrific distribution it is, I decided to experiment. (To provide context, I also have a Debian server that handles backup, slimserver, print sharing, and a Myth backend, and a Debian Myth front end. I'm extremely happy with both.) I've been unpleasantly surprised by Ubuntu as a desktop.
1. Playing DVDs in the US remains a problem. I know that Linspire is going to address this, but this is a huge issue.
2. VPN is a pain. Apparently Network Manager doesn't work right if you have a static IP address! I spent a *lot* of time trying to get VPN to work before I discovered this. Yes, it's a reported bug.
3. Reliable power management, i.e. suspension and hibernation. It's crash city when I suspend or hibernate. Yes I have the latest BIOS. No, I'm not willing to buy a new machine. And yes, I'm sure there are many machines where power management works properly, but I'm also sure there are many machines like mine.
4. The general polish of the Gnome interface is low compared to Windows and OS X. (Yes, I've also looked at KDE.) When I switch users, why do I have to log in twice?
These strike me as all pretty basic issues. I haven't tried to find problems. I've just tried to get the Ubuntu desktop working as a functional equivalent of the Windows desktop. I couldn't do it.
I do see huge progress relative to 5 years ago, but I also see a long way to go.
Does this story count as a dupe? (Score:5, Funny)
- 1994: No
- 1995: No
- 1996: No
- 1997: No
- 1998: No
- 1999: No
- 2000: No
- 2001: No
- 2002: No
- 2003: No
- 2004: No
- 2005: No
- 2006: No
- 2007: No (pending)
So, though I may be going out on a limb here, I'm gonna say "no" for 2008. And those that think that Vista's awefulness has any sway must have not been around to see how the whole "Windows vs. MacOS" thing played out.Find a specialized desktop market (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Find a specialized desktop market (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why does there have to be one? (Score:5, Informative)
It's "Linux desktop" for me already. All of my computers now exclusively run Linux. I have no Windows installs on my server, firewall, laptop or desktop, and only have a couple of Win2K installs in vmware lying around mostly for the very rare times when I need to compile something for Windows.
For me, the switch to Linux was gradual. I didn't just one day decide to do the switch. Over time, my working Windows installs started failing and I found myself using Linux instead, as it was easier than to spend a weekend reinstalling everything. Eventually I was spending months without booting it, and finally it vanished completely when I upgraded hard disks and didn't have any reason to install it.
I don't really see a "Year of Linux desktop" happening. People seem to like their weird theories about what's holding Linux back, as if changing directory structure, or getting rid of X would suddenly make Linux become really popular overnight. It won't. People will gradually fix the problems there are, and its market share will progressively go up, as people run out of reasons not to use it.
2008 will be the Apple's year, not Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Please note that this is just a personal experience which has repeated itself pretty much every time I ran across a new machine.
It is still a bit of work to get Linux to function properly in a machine with recent hardware. As an example, we have a few new Dell boxes with nothing fancy here, just Core 2 Duo processors, SATA drive, and ATI X1300 video cards.
Fedora 6 and 7 both barfed when starting the install because of the SATA DVDROM. Ubuntu had the same behavior.
After 4 hours of checking multiple forums for FAQs and HowTos, we got Fedora 7 running on them, yet the video card isn't recognized properly by Xorg off the box, so no dual-head, no native resolution. Off to get more updates, more FAQs, etc.
By comparison, we had XP running in 30 minutes in one of the boxes, and one hour later it had all the required software needed for the developer to go to work, including VMWare with a Fedora 7 virtual machine running in it.
How can you expect large user migrations to Linux is experiences like this one are closer to the norm? Joe User doesn't want to spend 2 or 3 days just trying to get his OS installed, only to have to spend another few days just trying to get his/her bearings around.
People will *not* migrate to it if the applications they want to run don't run on Linux, and Joe User can't be bothered with adapting to a whole slew of apps, that 'sort-of-look-but-aren't-really-the-same' as their old ones, even if they're superior to their Windows versions when it comes to functionality.
Let's not even start discussing games. Yes, a number of popular games run under Wine or Cedega, but people do not want to spend hours trying to diagnose issues or tweak stuff; more often than not, they want to install it and go.
Until you can take a distribution disk, pop it on a random machine with decent hardware, and have everything up and running without requiring any type of user action 'under the hood', Linux will remain firmly esconced in the realm of server rooms, geek basements, and nerd bedrooms; not in your average household.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I will have to call you a troll, unless it is OEM in which it is pretty meaningless. But seriously man, you got Dells and wanted to run Linux on them? Why not just buy the one that comes with Linux? God forbid I'd rather have 1000 more years of microsoft than one year of apple.
Re:2008 will be the Apple's year, not Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows will lose to Linux because they can't keep up with the innovation, security and robustness afforded by being open-source. The rate of development on Linux is staggering, and there's no way MS can keep up. If you look at the most successful human societies - they're the ones that share resources (that's the benefit of _being_ a society, after all) - code sharing means that Linux will win in the end.
Someone made the comment about codecs and DRM. I really don't think that will be a problem. As has been noted elsewhere, the average ipod owner has bought about 10 tracks from the ITMS. Almost no one has DRMd video (apart from DVDs, which play fine), so I think that's a non-issue.
Will it (The Year of Linux) happen in 2008? I don't know and don't care. But it seems likely that it _will_ happen.
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Ubuntu. (Score:4, Interesting)
rhY
Sadly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll continue to use Linux at work, in preference to the other choice there, which is Windows, but for home user type stuff, I'm just tired of all the maintenance work that goes into Linux. (Admittedly, part of this is dealing with commodity hardware on the PC side.) And I will continue to screw around with Linux boxes as a hobby. But for the machine that I use to get email, browse the web, watch movies, listen to music...I'd rather have something that works without the hassles of Linux.
If you want to call all this "troll", that's fine...but I know a little of people who used to use Linux and now use Powerbooks. A "troll" is when someone says something inflammatory that they do not believe to get a reaction. I'm saying this because it's true, though it makes me feel a bit melancholy to say it.
If it makes you feel any better, this is also the year I'm discarding my Windows game machine entirely.
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State of the union (Score:4, Insightful)
For me this was the definitive year of Ubuntu on the desktop. The rest I don't really care. It worked totally fine in my computer, and unlike windows XP I didn't require any driver CD to make my hardware work. All the apps are good enough for my needs, and since I was very used to programming on light weight IDES (that means no bloat or the need to have funny features beyond code completion) code::blocks is doing fine for me.
The reason I switched is that it is is far easier to customize and make it do what I want. Very few people might notice that MS hates when you customize windows, and Apple won't even let you do more than changing the wallpaper.
Games? Well... what happened is that I... grew up. I don't really need those flashy 3d accelerated games out there that now sound so expensive, I guess I am getting old already, but can survive with just Sudoku, I am afraid I don't think anymore my computer should be somekind of game station, consoles would do that job better anyways.
Look? I think I made my gnome look absolutely gorgeous, It is MY computer thus I don't really care about how much people think OS/X is the prettiest thing ever invented.
Show off value? I tried compiz-fusion and emerald and It makes the desktop absolutely awesome, I made it a toggle button so if somebody is gonna look and my desktop I enable those effects.
App compability? My emergency plan is using a virtual machine, but what's fun Is that I don't really need any windows app anymore... Yes, it is a different story for everybody, I know
Easy of use? I use this ubuntu OS and it hasn't really given me issues yet, I don't spend 3 hours trying to make everything work like some guys out there say they do when they use Linux.
Multimedia? Totem tells me when I have to download
Applications? I just use firefox , gedit , code::blocks , brazero, nautilus and the terminal. For odd reasons I don't need more things, I was surprised I can have a totally usable (for me) computer without any cost besides of hardware (This is country almost have no OEMs)
The winner: Organization has made me more productive, I like emblems and workspaces, those are features I now find essential.
All in one to me Ubuntu was complete and does the job correctly for me, and I switched.
Go ahead, and post all the reasons you think Linux is not ready for the desktop, all of them are wrong. People will switch once they like it, and this is a war that is not going to be won instantly, it is the satisfaction it can give to each person.
I've seen it since 3 years ago and I know how fast it can improve, I think i evolves faster than OS/X and windows, in fact Vista always copies Mac OS/X features and I found recently that Linux got so good, that apple is now stealing its ideas! [apple.com] so I think we are gonna do fine.
On alternative situations, like OLPC, education, servers , even Bolivarian PCs, etc. Linux has already won. And we just got to wait
And then we have KDE4, it is getting that Mac OS/X look that so much people like, yet it is implemented in a cleaner way and also getting some very outstanding features, and it gets the advantage of being free. KDE4 might just need some luck to give the world a great surprise.
I think even MS is noticing it, that's the reason they are being much more aggressive towards the open source world.
So go ahead and say "NO 2008 IS NO LINUXYEAR AND NEVER WILL HAPPEN " or "2008 is OS/X year because 2 guys and I decided to SWITCH!" I don't care, I think Linux is doing fine, I also don't think getting a good market share is any important, I think Linux is improving faster than the rest and will eventually surpass the rest (although for me it already has)
The rest is sipmply chicken-egg paradox with cycles like "Nobody will use linux until it has good apps and nobody will make good apps for linux until it gets a lot of users" (cliche also works with "games", and "hardware support")
Here we go again! (Score:4, Funny)
- The Year of the Linux Desktop! (2007) [linuxtoday.com]
- 2006: The year of desktop Linux? [linux.org]
- 2005 will be the year of the Linux Desktop [expresscom...online.com]
- Linux breaks desktop barrier in 2004: Torvalds [linuxworld.com.au]
- I am convinced that 2003 is going to be the breakout year for Desktop Linux. [desktoplinux.com]
Try this instead: Year of the Linux desktop? Who cares! [tuxmachines.org]Again? (Score:4, Funny)
private static year = 1995;
public YearOfLinuxDesktop() { }
public YearOfLinuxDesktop(int year) {
this.year = year;
}
public String getNextArticle() {
year++;
return "Is " + year + " the year of the Linux Desktop?"
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
YearOfLinuxDesktop yold = new YearOfLinuxDesktop();
while(1) {
System.out.println(yold.getNextArticle());
Thread.sleep(31536000000L);
System.out.println("Nope, apparently not, but...");
}
}
}
Wait... forgot the @deprecated tag. Oh, well, the FreeBSDIsDead class has the same functionality, I'm sure nobody'll use this one...
Re:if only linux had more games. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:if only linux had more games. (Score:5, Insightful)
The way I see it, it doesn't matter that there aren't games on Linux (and to a lesser extent, Macs) It isn't just that I'm not a big gamer, it is that I don't mind booting into Windows to play a game. Most games have a bit of a time commitment to them. At least an hour. If I'm going to be playing for that long or more, what's 2 minutes to reboot? Of course, that mean maintaining a copy of Windows... drivers and all, which is a bit annoying in and of itself, but not a deal killer for Linux.
Of course, I've never paid for a copy of Windows in my life, so maybe things would be different if I was legit and had to shell out extra money just to play games.
Another thing is that a lot of the really cool games are coming out on console first these days, so maybe the whole Windows/game issue will be moot. GTA IV, anyone?
-matthew
Parent
Re:if only linux had more games. (Score:4, Funny)
That's why most application have this feature called "save." It is so you don't have to lose your work.
Anyway, as I suggested to an AC on this thread, try hibernating instead of shutting down. It can be a little work to setup properly in Linux, but it works.
-matthew
Parent
Re:A tiny market... (Score:5, Informative)
PS. It's been a few years since Loki, and there're more Linux users now. You might wanna update your stupid flamebait.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As usual, YMMV.
Dell is both driven and driver. (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO Dell selling a Ubuntu-preloaded machine is not just a vendor having this epiphany, but also a force to promote it with other vendors.
People wanting to sell peripherals to users of Dell products now have a wakeup call about furnishing Linux support - along with a big-name company betting significant resources on a market being big enough to chase.
Parent