Getting Past "Ready For the Desktop"

Jeremy LaCroix suggests in an editorial at Linux.com that the phrase "ready for the desktop" is ready for retirement. As anyone who's been using Linux for several years (or even a few) for everyday tasks knows, "ready for the desktop" is in the eye of the beholder.

Re:"Ready for my mom's desktop."

[Joe Jay Bee]

It isn't required for any normal operation.

It is sometimes required for some operations, usually fixing things or setting a couple things up.

In general though, the command line is very rarely used on Ubuntu, which is a good thing; if you tell a normal Windows user they'd have to use the DOS prompt to accomplish something, their eyes would glaze over.

(In fairness, Apple are no better for hiding options in the command line and requiring the use of the defaults command to set them, but at least these aren't very very basic things...)

Re:Ready for the desktop?

[Keyper7]

In Ubuntu, this ability is called Synaptic.

And for third-party applications, if the third-party only wants to provide a non-compiled .tar.gz or a .sh, it's not really Ubuntu's fault, is it?

GUI is ready, hw

[Coopjust]

I'd have to fully agree with the author's opinion. Like an earlier poster, however, I've had several people (including 70+ yr olds) to the Ubuntu GUI. When compared to Vista or XP, they agreed it was easier.

Linux faces a few problems that are slowing widespread adoption:
-Hardware support. This becomes less of a problem everyday. Dell supplies Linux drivers for every component of my 2 year old budget (less than $1000 USD) laptop, and as a result, Ubuntu compatibility is amazing.
-Program support. This is currently the Achilles heel of Linux- many people are trained on Outlook, Photoshop,etc. GIMP isn't as elegant to use, and while Evolution is much more intuitive in a lot of ways, some people just don't want to switch.
-Protocol support. Sorry, but I haven't found a reliable or consistent way to import DOCX/XLSX/etc. files into Openoffice. And Evolution flat out refuses to work with my Exchange server (with the same settings as the Windows partition on the same PC). Sure, I can use IMAP personally and always save as DOC. But every day it's more frequent to get those new Office 2007 files from others, and my work email isn't really a choice for me. If I have to constantly bootup into my Windows partition, Linux is more difficult to use.

I'm really excited about the progress that desktop Linux has made and will make. Wireless support has gone from poor to amazing within the past 3 years, and other hardware support has gotten better too. Repositories have grown, programs have become more stable, distros have become easier (easier than Windows!) to setup and maintain...in a lot of ways, Linux IS "ready for the desktop". The community has a few big issues to tackle before more people adopt it, however.

Are there gui apps ready for it yet?

[shdowhawk]

Before anyone starts pestering me on this, I want to mention that I've been using *nix based systems for a long while now. I'm a software engineer, and I worked at a linux based ISP for two years on top of it. I've installed countless distro's and eventually stopped using them all (mostly for gaming reasons). The one problem I have every time I go back to loading up gentoo (still my fav) is lack of applications I like.

Example: Trillian [ceruleanstudios.com] for windows / Adium [adiumx.com] for mac (click on Xtras, top right of screen). They're pretty looking, they're functional and have lots of addons. Linux has gaim (which I love actually, but it's the point of the matter. I don't have the option to switch from "clean and basic interface" to "fun with extras").

I'm a web developer, and my favorite database program to date was for Mac (Yoursql [ludit.it] .. or look at this image [minds.nuim.ie]). It's small, it's light, and it does 99% of what I need (which is just quick look ups and checking data). In this case, I LIKE not having 20 ways to do the same thing with an interface with a billion options. And no, don't tell me to use phpMyAdmin, or to use the command line, that's the easiest way to DETER someone from using linux. Yes I CAN use the command line (all my queries are written from scratch, I dislike those gui query builders).

Next is editors. Simple fixes here and there, I use Vi(m). But for my Php/xml/html/javascript/css, I want to see a program that just does web languages. For Windows and Mac there are TONS of them. For linux, there are a few, and most are either bloated to hell (eclipse, since it handles ALL programming languages for the most part) or just unstable with practically no features (line numbers? good color switching between php/html/css? tabs for multiple windows?). Given Bluefish [openoffice.nl] is good stuff, but programs like this (IMHO) are few and far between.

Mac, I believe has it down the best. There are many programs, and (which is also the problem IMHO) many of them are not meant to do EVERYTHING. In the end though, you have a bunch of options(programs) to choose from, and they're really well built for what they need to do (lots of planning to put only what is generally NEEDED, while spending time to make sure the DESIGNS look good and are simple. The whole "i don't like it because it took too many mouse clicks" mentality that mac users have), instead of one or two programs that are meant to try and do everything =/. As much as I hate to admit it, eye candy is a major player. It's sad because Desktop wise, linux is AMAZING at it Linux vs Vista [youtube.com] (I'm not trying to bash Vista here, i'm just making a point).

While I mentioned web development based things, I'm sure this is generally true for most people in most aspects of computing (I've had a lot of friends mention this about various things). I believe that biggest problem is the idea that "a program should do everything" mentality. When we build some more basic programs that are quick, clean and easy to use for any and all purposes (even basic text editors), then I believe that many more people will start to use linux because they won't be so lost from needing to search all over the internet for "a program to do X" (ubuntu / gentoo / suse all that those threads in their forums, the stuff really isn't that easy to find...) or overwhelmed by seeing the 500 options when they just wanted to write a few notes to themselves. Ubuntu was a great step at simplifying and getting people curious to install, now we just need to add more "stuff" to keep people here! The "Ready for Desktop" can be thrown out as it IS ready for desktop. Now we just need to work on the "Simple and Easy to Use" .. which will eventually lead to the new,shi

Re:Oh dear...

[besalope]

It's not just x64 Linux that has issues with flash. x64 Windows XP/Vista can't do it either (provided you're using IE x64 or even Firefox--Minefield x64). This is neither Microsoft nor the Linux community's fault, rather that of Adobe for being completely lazy and worthless.

Re:DOS

[Cjstone]

Okay, this is one of the things that bugs me. OpenOffice and the GIMP do everything that the average user needs them to. I know of a lot of people that use the 'Microsoft Works' bundle that came with their computer and the so-called 'photo editor' that came with their digital camera or scanner. I'd say that most of the 'average users' I know use such products. OO.o and the GIMP are far better than the kind of low-budget software that usually comes with hardware.

Re:"Ready for my mom's desktop."

[Fred_A]

The UIs are extremely poorly designed on Linux and worse still they're often inconsistent with half a dozen ways to do the same operation.

I seem to remember one of the hints in the Microsoft Accessibility Guidelines was that the more ways to do a single operation, the more accessible it is. I don't use windows, so I can't check now, but I'm pretty sure I can think of 4 ways to move a file, 5 ways to change screen resolution and 4 ways to shut down the computer. I don't think this is a bad thing.

Not to mention the systems that have only one way to perform a task, which is so cleverly hidden that it takes 10 minutes to figure it out... (happenned to me a lot on Mac OS, I'm probably not intuitive enough for it, and on Windows because it's just weird)

Re:DOS

[VGPowerlord]

OpenOffice and the GIMP do everything that the average user needs them to.

OpenOffice is nice and all, but it still has some weird issues with losing RTF formatting. Since I'm required to use RTF at work, opening, editing, closing, and reopening to see if OO.o fucked up the RTF formatting again isn't an option. I'm not paid to waste time.

As for GIMP, the last time I used it, it still didn't have any easy way to draw Ovals/Circles and Rectangles/Squares, something that even the most basic of image editors (MS Paint) has.

Re:DOS

[silent_artichoke]

Everything from iTunes to Lego Mindstorms SDK is available only on Windows.

I don't think you meant to say iTunes here.

Re:"Ready for my mom's desktop."

[pablomme]

I finally installed Ubuntu. The package manager is nice... but browsing through the 100s of packages there named:
[...]
and most of the descriptions might as well have been written in Wookie for as much as my mom would understand. Even search rarely returns a single, or even small number of results.

Try "Add/Remove Applications" rather than Synaptic. That comes with pretty icons, meaningful names and descriptions, reasonable multi-package bundles, and even popularity ratings. It's a mistake to tell newbies to use Synaptic.

Re:DOS

[clang_jangle]

Care to elaborate what those tasks are that require command prompt in Windows?

Mass renaming files, for one. In fact, I don't think there is a GUI file browser for Windows I don't find so clunky as to be unusable. Also, there are some NT services which are best audited and controlled from the command line. And of course, there are those times the desktop tools just sit there and ignore their mouse clicks, or times you don't have twenty minutes to wait for a file to copy, etc.

Re:DOS

[cecil_turtle]

There are GUI tools for everything you say you were "required" to use the terminal for. Go to System | Administration | Synaptic | search for and install ubuntu-restricted-extras and ndisgtk, and you'd have been done. Setting up NDIS wrapper via ndisgtk takes all of 70 seconds. The media playback codecs will prompt to be installed as needed. Try playing a .mov or .ra file on a default Windows install and let me know how well it walks you through installing the supporting applications.

Oh yeah and my mom (who is a grandmother) has been running Ubuntu for a few years now.

I just noticed you're an AC and I just wasted my time posting, but since I already typed it I'm posting anyway.

Re:DOS

[Haeleth]

As far as Compiz goes, I had to apt-get the compiz config panel so I could tweak the hell out of my setup.

No, you had to install it. However, you didn't have to use apt-get in a CLI to do that; you could simply have gone to your Applications menu, clicked on "Add/Remove...", selected "All Open Source applications", searched for "compiz", and clicked on the first option in the list. 100% GUI.

Re:DOS

[JasterBobaMereel]

Photoshop - could be ported to any operating system and be exactly the same, it happens to have been written for windows, but does not rely on it ...?

Outlook is the front end to Exchange, take away exchange and it is a poor email client with a few extra features and a lot of broken ones, Outlook/Exchange as a combination is a fairly nice corporate messaging system, that happens to to email as one of it's functions... but if you have ever actually managed an exchange server you will know how badly written it is ...and if you have ever had to explain to an outlook/exchange user that, no the user you sent the meeting request to did not see the request because they are outside the exchange system/are running another client/etc ... you know how brittle it is ...