What Will Linux Be Capable Of, 3 Years Down the Road?

An anonymous reader writes "In a prediction of the open-source future, InfoWeek speculates on What Linux Will Look Like In 2012. The most outlandish scenario foresees Linux forsaking its free usage model to embrace more paid distros where you get free Linux along with (much-needed) licenses to use patent-restricted codecs. Also predicted is an advance for the desktop based on — surprise — good acceptance for KDE 4. Finally, Linux is seen as making its biggest imprint not on the PC, but on mobile devices, eventually powering 40 million smartphones and netbooks. Do you agree? And what do you see for Linux in 4 years?"

KDE4

[Random BedHead Ed]

based on â" surprise â" good acceptance for KDE 4.

Definitely agree there. KDE4 is going to dramatically improve very quickly. They've made a huge development investment in the underlying libraries, and that will come to fruition this year (and already has somewhat with KDE 4.1). My impression is that it's going to get better. Couple that with a maturing X.org, and you have the makings of a beautiful desktop.

No Microsoft

[V!NCENT]

No it's not predictable. I am not (well at least not trying to be) flamebaiting and/or trolling but given this is Linux we are talking about FLOSS and innovation, so we can't possible know.

Innovation wouldn't be innovation if we allready knew what is going to happen in three years, now would it?

Drivers

[Mooga]

I hope there is better driver suport. Getting *nix to work with graphics cards and NICs is too much of a pain for average users (and even skilled users).

I'm really starting to dislike a lumping of all...

[CaptainPatent]

Linux distros into one category.

In four years Distros made to be user-friendly like Ubuntu will probably be heavier on system requirements but nearing the ease of use of Windows (IE easier driver and plugin installs as some are still a bit touch-and-go)

Distros like Puppy will still be lightweight and have little change to fit on those old Pentium 2s you just can't bear to part with.

Distros like Gentoo will still be hardcore users only with every option available only after heavy config and compiles.

I think usability for the average user will improve on the "fluffy" side of linux, but a lot of the distros do exactly what they're made to.

Drivers? Codecs?

[serviscope_minor]

I hope it doesn't become a mess of binary drivers. Binary drivers are one of the worst things happening to Linux. They ruin the stability and the usefulness of hardware. As fas as I am concerned, they are not the pragmatic choice. I consider an idealist to be a pragmatist who thinks about the future. I have found that the "pragmatic' choice always comes back to bite me, at which time it stops being pragmatic.

Anyway, enough of that rant. On to CODECS. That depends on the patent systems in various countries. Currently FFMPEG has had a history of producing extremely find implementations of CODECS. They sometimes lag behind on the very newest ones, but their more mature ones suprass all others in terms of quality and speed. And they generally get better with time. Anyway, software patents don't exist everywhere and they are unlikely to do so within 3 years. So, it looks like codecs will remain free and FREE for a while yet.

Re:No Microsoft

[bigstrat2003]

we are talking about FLOSS and innovation

Technically, no we aren't. We're talking about where Linux will be in 3 years, and "in the same spot it is now" is a valid, though unlikely, possibility. Besides, a rather likely scenario is that there won't be any major innovations, but things will continue to evolve bit by bit, just like they are now. Innovation is rare.

Re:KDE4

[V!NCENT]

Instead of thinking about a beautiful desktop, let's think about a more usable desktop. The underlying base makes it possible and very easy to do everything you want to do with it in virtually no time at all. I have seen eye candy enough... it's time for some serious evolution.

Speaking of evolution: X.org touchscreen support? There already YouTube videos of people gaming on Linux with touchscreens!

Re:maybe it'll be like ms word?

[Eli Gottlieb]

D-BUS: have you heard of it?

OK, I'll stop the sarcasm and just state the facts. D-Bus is now used by both GNOME and KDE. It can also be installed for any customized DE a user creates. The future for Linux looks like the past, but more so: some distros will go for ease-of-use without customization and others will go for customization over ease-of-use, while the whole system gets more and more modular and scripted.

Uptime

[PPH]

Another 1000 days, more or less.

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[account_deleted]

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equilibrium

[bcrowell]

I think Linux has gotten to a level of equilibrium where it's probably not going to improve vastly in any ways that will be obvious to users. There are some things that are just design decisions, and aren't going to change. E.g., for audio applications, it can sometimes be a problem that linux doesn't have a lot of real-time support; there are real-time patches, but they don't look like they'll ever make it into the mainstream kernel, and in any case linux was never intended as a hard real-time system like qnx. There are some things that aren't going to change because of economics. Currently, we have decent hardware support for many devices, but it's still often a hassle, the quality is often lousy, and the drivers are often binary blobs; even if linux increases its share of the desktop significantly in the next four years, it will still be a tiny niche compared to Windows, so we'll still probably have a lot of the same hassles. Similar situation for availability of more preinstalled systems through more retail channels -- there just aren't enough people interested, for example, to allow linux boxes to be sold at places like Circuit City, and I don't think that will change in 4 years.

Ease of installation is already pretty good, and I think the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. The vast majority of users will never be able to handle installing an OS on their own, and that's not going to change. I'm still experiencing problems like x.org not being able to handle odd-sized flatscreen monitors, and I kind of doubt that's going to improve vastly, because it's like whack-a-mole with the low-end hardware manufacturers in Asia who basically want to sell as many widgets as possible to Windows users in its 1-year product lifetime.

As far as codecs ... well, you can already pay for codecs, so if you can pay for codecs in 2012, how does that qualify as a change? For mp3, decoding is already royalty-free, and as far as encoding it kind of depends on which patents you really think are valid and which are just trolls, but I've seen statements that encoding will be patent-free by 2010.

Apps? Firefox is already a browser, and in 2012 it will still be a browser. I think OOo has already long since reached a state of equilibrium in which the codebase is such a mess, and the developer community so closed, that there is basically no more improvement going on. E.g., users (myself included) have been begging for years now for better curve fitting, and better integration of curve fitting into the GUI; the result is that over all those years there has been marginal improvement in this area, but it's still way behind what my students are used to in Excel.

Compiz FTW

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Base window manager is irrelevant. Users don't care whether it's KDE or Gnome. Behold the Cube! Behold the wobbly windows. Behold the 3D tiling! Behold I say! [compiz.org]

Show potential Linux users a demo of that floating cube, and you will ship millions of Linux boxes. I have observed this effect, first hand [slashdot.org]. If you've got a business selling Linux boxes and you don't have such a demo set up in shop, you are wasting your time. You think OSX got where it is because of its Kernel features?

Re:About like it does now.

[nebulus4]

Linux hasn't had any major changes in the past three years, why would you think it'll have any in the next three?

Because it hasn't had any major changes in the past three years?

It will look a lot like Linux in 2002.

[Animats]

Linux in 2012 will look a lot like Linux in 2002.

• X-Windows forever.
• Configuration still handled with text files, with front-end tools that try to conceal them but never quite do it all.
• Ugly icons.
• Inconsistency between GUIs of applications.
• Too much need for the command line.
• Inadequate locking and interprocess communication.
• Even more kernel bloat.

Re:Drivers? Codecs?

[sznupi]

I hate it how the way major distros are packaged (regarding patents/etc.) is tailored towards US market...why do I (and...most people on the planet) have to download mp3 codec or dvd decrypting library after installation? (necessitating internet connection - yes, it happened few times that I could switch to Linux somebody without net access; but...nope, way too much hassle with installing all the things that should be there from the start)

Why "two versions, full and castrated one for US" model didn't ever catch on?

Well, duh,

[westlake]

The most outlandish scenario foresees Linux forsaking its free usage model to embrace more paid distros where you get free Linux along with (much-needed) licenses to use patent-restricted codecs
.

The OEM system install has been the gold standard in the home and SOHO market for close on to thirty years.

It has been demonstrated time and time again that the system that "just works" is what sells - and that there is no room at the bottom.

gOS at WalMart.com is being unloaded at fire sale prices - and the chain has effectively black-flagged the OEM Linux box as a do-little web appliance.

MS Vista at Walmart.com is priced from $350 to $1700.

The budget netbook to the 64 bit MS Vista Quad Core HP Elite with 4 GB RAM, NVIDIA DX10 graphics. Blu-Ray play, HDTV tuner and a tetrabyte of storage.

The very notion may throw the geek into cardiac arrest - but the "upgrade" to XP or Linux is utter fantasy when you look at systems with specs like these - and what is high-end for MS Vista today will be mid-line tomorrow.

Re:About like it does now.

[jellomizer]

No I doubt it. Linux is a server OS and I really think it is going to stay that way unless there is some huge change in attitudes among the FOSS Community.
Change one: Learning having more features doesn't make it better. Can linux do X... Most likely yes. However its defaults are not really setup for that.

Change two: Easy Drivers. Installing a driver should be as easy as drag and drop a tar ball, if it doesn't work drag it to the trash. It should be done via GUI alone

Change three: Make the command line last resort or if you really want to use it. Still there is a lot of stuff depending on the command line, Geeks like us have no problems but if you are use to Mac or windows and you get a blinking cursor what to type? beats me. For example for those who never used a VAX before login to a VAX terminal and try to move around without googling all the commands...

Change four: If you put it in make sure it works. I have seen many apps that just don't work correctly. If it doesn't work don't put it in.

Change five: Eye Candy is not a good GUI make. Yea it is fun for a bit then it gets annoying. Every eye candy element needs a good GUI reasoning for it.

Change six: Listen to complaints don't marginalize them. Yes yes you have invested emotional interest in Linux however people are having real problems with it, and just saying you are dumb or google it, or you google and give them a non working issue actually take it into account and see if you can fix the problem, or make it better. As well acknowledge it is a problem don't blame hardware for having closed source drivers if your open source one doesn't work. Just say it doesn't work or fix it or both.

Change seven: Learn other usage habits just don't copy your own. A software developer uses a computer much differently then a non-developer. You will be surprised how differently if you are willing to examine it. These people are not dumb they go the path that is most intuitive.

Change eight: Getting threw the boring stuff. There is fun stuff to code and annoying stuff. The stuff that is not really hard or easy just annoying. But it needs to get done to give it polish.

Change nine: Swallow you CS Degree pride. I am not saying make sloppy code but be willing to break the rules when it make sense. I have seen many apps that run very poorly because they try to make their CS Professor happy.

Change ten: swallow your pride, sometimes your ideas loose, embrace the winner and make the most out of it. Keeping you gopher client and adding new features is a wast. Or stop tinkering with the token ring driver in hopes it will kill TCP/IP in the future.

Re:Drivers

[I.M.O.G.]

network adapter support is problem free? I still hear about a lot of problems with wireless nics. Granted they can often be worked around, but getting wireless working without being flaky is far from brainless. Windows isn't much better here, but I think my mom would figure it out in windows before she would figure it out on linux.

Video card support is good? I'd call it mediocre at best... You can spend 100 bucks or more on a card and you don't have drivers which can reliably utilize that power you paid for. 3d? Possibly, but 2d is more likely. Compositing? That's a maybe also.

I'm a Gentoo user. I actively avoid using windows, but I feel I have a realistic outlook on linux. Some around here do not.

Re:KDE4

[hedwards]

Precisely, I'm always confused why Linux so often comes with a default desktop environment which is as bloated as Windows' is. I realize that not all distros are like that, but most of the ones I've tested out over the years have.

It's really a shame considering how much progress has been made over the years to scum it up with a UI which mimics the bloatedness of Windows.

But then again, perhaps that's just my fondness for just a window manager sans most of the environment.

Better filesystems, more uptake

[jrothwell97]

Whatever happens, there'll be more people using Linux-based OSes in 3/4 years. However, there's a long way to go before it can properly overtake Windows, IMO: there are several major problems that stop GNU/Linux becoming the ideal consumer desktop OS.

• Linux still uses the outmoded FHS at the front end - I know I'll get flamed for this, but look at the other options. Windows installs end-user applications in /Program Files, dependencies either in the application folders or in /Windows/system32, the documentation and resources within the application folders and the rest of the core system files in /Windows, and puts all the home folders in /Users. I like Mac OS X's system even more: end-user apps live in self-contained packages (sometimes with dependencies) in /Applications, the home folders live in /Users, system resources live in /System, and dependencies (if not contained in the packages) live in /Library (or ~/Library). The core toolchain lives in the old FHS system for backwards compatibility. I suggest adopting a similar approach to GoboLinux, but sticking non-'end-user' programs such as ls, sh, etc in /System/CoreToolchain or something along those lines. Libraries should live in /Library or something like that, users under /Home or /Users, and end-user applications (like OpenOffice.org) in /Applications or /Programs. On first run, these apps unpack and install their dependencies, and then sit in /Applications, ready to be launched at the click of a button. There could even be an option for System V zealots to retain the old FHS at install.
• Linux needs to stop preaching about free software and get back to work - in the end, users don't give a damn whether or not they can 'modify' this new driver they're installing to get compiz to work. As long as it's free as in beer and it works, they're happy. At most, an EULA dialog should be thrown up.
• Users don't want to be rebuffed with the old 'that's the great thing about FOSS - if there's something you don't like, you fix it yourself' line - in the end, the user wants to press a big red "INSTALL" button, get a coffee while his system configures itself, and then wants it to get out of his way and let him work. This is why I believe KDE is unsuitable for consumer use as yet - as a power user's DE it's great, but it has a switch and a knob for everything. GNOME, on the other hand, is elegant, speedy, and gets out of your way and lets you get on with your work. Look at the other options: first setup and configuration of a new iMac, say, is a fifteen-minute job. You can literally pick one up on your way to work and have it working perfectly by the morning coffee break. In short, developers need to drop the "someone else'll sort that out later, I can't be arsed" attitude - they must be diligent and include every feature a user could possibly want and more besides.

In short, devs need to really get their fingers out and concentrate on creating a truly kick-ass operating system that'll work out of the box on practically any machine you throw it at. This is what led Apple out of its slump in the mid-90s - if the FOSS community can do it now, when the popularity of FOSS is booming, it will truly be a force for Monkey Boy to reckon with.

Re:About like it does now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Change two: Easy Drivers. Installing a driver should be as easy as drag and drop a tar ball, if it doesn't work drag it to the trash. It should be done via GUI alone

No, installing a driver should be as easy and checking a box. Drivers aren't something you download as tarballs; they're something that comes with your kernel. They are part of the kernel, not add-ons. You don't install drivers, you enable them (assuming they were disabled for some reason).

Installing drivers is so 1900s.

virtualization

[Nate Fox]

see all that fancy stuff vmware does with its VMs and hypervisors? I'm thinking much of that will be commodity in 3 years. linux will be the backbone a lot of IT companies due to it being the hypervisor to their windows installs.

Re:No Microsoft

[lysse]

Whilst there is certainly innovation to be found all over the Free Software world, Linux (the kernel), GNU (the userspace collection) and the desktop environments ain't it. Kinda by definition - innovation and compliance (whether with standards or with users' preconceptions) are necessarily antonyms.

Linux the development process is a different matter, of course...

Re:Linux on the desktop

[fireman sam]

With the way desktop software is heading, to get Linux on the desktop all that has to be done is for it to remain "free", as in "I'm free to do whatever I want with my computer".

Re:KDE4

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone tell me what the big difference is between plasmoids and google gadgets, widgets and whatever you call them on a mac? They certainly look cool (vector graphics etc) but functionally what is the difference that sets them apart from other widgets? Is it just tight integration with the rest of the DE or what?
thanks!

BTW this is not a troll against KDE - I've been using KDE 4.0 trunk and now 4.1 and I love it and want to have its babies.

Re:KDE4

[phorm]

I've been a KDE3 user for quite awhile. My first impression of KDE4 was "WTF, are they trying to copy Vista?"

As a whole, I'm hoping it will turn out quite well, but the colour scheme and little boxes everywhere really do seem reminiscent of certain Redmond OS's. C'mon guys, I know you can be more creative than that!

Is it just me...

[Enderandrew]

...or is the author basically predicting that in 2012 we'll have the things we have now?

We currently have pay distros, free distros, and libre distros. KDE 4 already exists. There are already Linux netbooks, and major OEM preinstalls. In the future apparently we'll have Gmail and OpenOffice.

The author also MAGICALLY predicts storage costs will go down.

Linux will also be on servers, and support virtualization.

Will all this stuff happen before 2012?

I'd say so, considering it is all true today.

Re:Compiz FTW

[wtfispcloadletter]

Yeah, but too many geeks say that "shiny" doesn't matter. It's "shiny" that sells. Sure looking back Windows 95 and 98 and even XP, aren't all that sexy, but compared to what was available at the time, their interfaces were cutting edge, sleek and sexy looking.

More people are buying Mac purely because of how sexy it looks. It sure as hell ain't the price, it's purely because it looks cool.

Re:Drivers

[Endo13]

Who said I was trying to find a scapegoat to pin the blame on??

It doesn't do what I want it to (yet), therefore it's useless for me. Simple as that.

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Re:What it will look like to me in 3 years..

[arotenbe]

Id rather take my chances with those two, then having to type my damn password every 5 seconds

sudo stores passwords for 15 minutes after each execution, and you can extend the timeout period in the sudoers file. Try a little Googling next time.

Re:Linux on the desktop

[Computershack]

With the way desktop software is heading, to get Linux on the desktop all that has to be done is for it to remain "free", as in "I'm free to do whatever I want with my computer".

Remind me how well that's going for you again? Oh yeah, that's right - Vista has 4 times the desktop market share even though it's only been out a ninth of the time Linux has.

As long as mom and pop can go do their online banking, get their email and the kids can use iTunes, they don't give a flying fuck about anything you're on about.

How About Working on Mac G5's??

[reallocate]

Working, with sound and video, on a late-model iMac G5? That would be nice. Might save me a few grand.

Re:It will look a lot like Linux in 2002.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't understand this hostility to a shell interface. The technology has been around for what, almost 40 years now? Pipes are an awesome tool for processing. Flat files and plain ascii processing, pipes + shellscripts == massive efficiency. I don't know what you're problem is with efficiency, but it's not mine.

Re:Easy questions in the summary.

[pherthyl]

Whether you like it or not, GNOME will be the big one, because nobody controls it.

That makes sense. Just like no businesses would ever use Windows because Microsoft controls it.

Trolltech never controlled KDE and Nokia can't either. Same as Novell can't control Gnome.

Re:What it will look like to me in 3 years..

[zakkie]

OMFG! I've been rooted!

Re:KDE4

[khellendros1984]

And the beauty of Linux is that you have that choice. I like Gnome, I've enjoyed KDE at various points in the past...but sometimes, something like xfce or fluxbox is good. I don't see it as a shame that "bloated" environments exist. I see it as a benefit that the choice is available for those that miss a Windows-like interface.

Re:Better filesystems, more uptake

[pherthyl]

>> Linux still uses the outmoded FHS at the front end

Why do you even care where your files are? At first it bothered me too that files for one app are in multiple folders, but then I realized that I shouldn't even concern myself with such trivialities. That's the computer's job. Keeping track of files is what computers are good at. There's no benefit to having them all in one place aside from some abstract concept of "cleanness" which doesn't even apply here.

>> Linux needs to stop preaching about free software and get back to work

Since when does "Linux" (whatever that is) preach about anything? You advocate popping up a EULA, which is way more annoying than anything that happens on Linux.

>> Users don't want to be rebuffed with the old 'that's the great thing about FOSS - if there's something you don't like, you fix it yourself' line

You need to get it in your mind that the Linux community is a business that is out to please you. They are only peripherally interested in your wishes. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, tough cookies. Help out, deal with it, or use a different OS.

I also think its funny that you like the cut down Gnome and OSX interfaces and yet demand that "every feature a user could possibly want" is included. If that happened those interfaces would be unusably cluttered.

Re:Think Antarctica

[cencithomas]

...and if you really believe that, why post it as Anonymous Coward? ;-)

Re:What it will look like to me in 3 years..

[Jackmn]

then having to type my damn password every 5 seconds

You are most likely doing something terribly wrong if you frequently need root access.

Running as root allows any poorly written application to trash your installation. It also eliminates any need for a privilege escalation exploit in the event that one of the applications you run is compromised.

Re:Drivers

[Blakey Rat]

Compositing is a bit iffy - compiz and multi screens is flaky as hell - but it's better than no compositing WM at all in windows.

I know this is Slashdot, but... you could install Vista. Windows does have one, it'd had for, what, almost two years now?

It's no fair comparing a OS released in 2001 with one released, what, late last year and claim that Windows "doesn't have it." Try an apples-to-apples comparison, the version of Ubuntu (for instance) with compositing compared to Vista with compositing.

Re:Linux on the desktop

[fuzzix]

The desktop may ruin it... If their "open source expert" is to be believed "...command-line hacking for basic system configuration is a thing of the past"

Now, if you consider 'sudo vim /etc/apache2/httpd.conf' or whatever invocation you prefer/require as anything approaching "hacking" you may be in need of a little more learning.

If this guy is to be believed I'll be running unnecessary X sessions to start BIND...
 
...or maybe just a little, very simple text file manipulation is all that's required to get a service going the way you like it.

The shell will never be a "thing of the past" as it is (and probably will be) the most efficient way to achieve certain simple (and very advanced) things.

Re:Think Antarctica

[Irish_Samurai]

Whatever combination of distro and package code that enables PC gaming on Linux will BE the standard.

We can talk about standards being determined by an educated and enlightened board all we want, but people still code web pages to deal with IE quirks because most people us it - despite it NOT conforming to W3C standards.

Tell a gamer they can play any game they want on a free OS and make EASILY it work. You have the numbers you need to set the "social" standard.

Re:Hopefully it'll be huge

[PitaBred]

Seconded. At least take a couple courses on C or C++. My friend started with Java, but a lot of the stuff he was doing finally "made sense" when he learned about C. Java hides too much of the actual machine's operation to make it a good learning language. Learn memory management. Even if you don't use it much, learn what it is and why it's important. Even Java needs hints from time to time. And that alone will make you a better programmer than 90% of them out there.

Re:Think Antarctica

[EvolutionsPeak]

Four years from now an Xbox 720 or whatever will be indistinguishable from a PC.

Re:Think Antarctica

[carlmenezes]

Three years can do a lot. Remember what Linux was like 3 years ago. Be patient and if you want it to improve, CONTRIBUTE. If the majority of games can work on even one distro out of the box, the other distros will lose users. It is the simple model of evolution at work - the other distros will adapt to suit the environment they are in. Open source will make sure the knowledge is shared.

Re:Think Antarctica

[JohnBailey]

Four years from now will gaming still be on a PC platform, with the success of the Xbox 360 and other current generation consoles?

Because the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are the first ever consoles yes?

The same thing was asked when the paint was still wet on the PS2 and original xbox. Consoles are much more powerful now than the last generation, and not as powerful as the next generation, but console games are not PC games. The two are different, and appeal to different people.

Re:Think Antarctica

[Repossessed]

Why do people continue to insist that PC gaming, which is only done by a small percentage of computer users, is so important to Linux. It would be a simple matter to capture 90% of the PC market without ever having a single 3d driver, let alone anything more than the casual games Linux already has.

Hell, before Aero was announced, most systems had almost no graphics (and thus gaming) ability anyway.

Re:Linux on the desktop

[masdog]

I can't think of any M$ product from inception in '70s that was anything but below sub-par, frought with bugs, hard to use and way overpriced.

No love for Microsoft Flight Simulator?

MicroCrud will disappear from the world o' desktop because they've pissed everybody off on this planet. The sooner they're gone the better.

You think so, don't you? Keep dreaming. Most big corporations aren't ready to drop MS on the desktop yet - although it doesn't look promising based on Vista adoption rates.

Re:Think Antarctica

[Mr. DOS]

(Before I go further, I want to note that I am not trying to start a flamewar.)

With all due respect, I think you're forgetting a few things thing. Let's start with what's the biggest for me: a distro that handles the install properly. I have tried many distros over the last few years, and while they've all moved forward with leaps and bounds, none of them "just work" out of the box.

Let's use Ubuntu as an example. It's far better than it was even a year ago, but it's still not perfect. For example, on Saturday, I started the quest of installing Ubuntu as the primary operating system on an older PC. The install seemed to go fine, but after doing the updates, I suddenly had no sound from my SB Live! I managed to resuscitate it after a bit, but that's the sort of thing that just shouldn't happen. Also, earlier today, BMPx randomly stopped working. I had closed everything and put my computer to sleep, and when I came back three hours later, BMPx refused to start.

You make a good point with your video comment: it's pretty easy to play video on Linux now. Will pretty much any video play? Yes. Is it blindly obvious as to how to play an encrypted DVD? It's getting there. Audio's the problem now. People seem to be focusing so much on video now that information on installing support for such things as WMA audio (c'mon, do you really expect people to rerip everything that they most certainly own? :P ).

And then there's the ubiquitous gaming comment. Thankfully, Wine's making progress, but contrary to what Linux zealots want us to think, it's not actually perfect! Support for games using OpenGL is pretty good, and as someone said earlier today in another comment (forgotten where, sorry), so is support for programs that were actually written the "right" way, but it's still far from perfect.

So, I guess, to sum up: these days, Linux is pretty (or at least, not butt-ugly as it used to be), user-friendly (once it's all working properly), and there's a wide range of utility programs out there. It just needs better gaming, easier-to-find information on installing support and codecs for protected audio formats, and it needs to just work (and keep working!) out of the box.

      --- Mr. DOS

Re:Think Antarctica

[MindPhlux]

I would bet you that 90% of the nerdy guys who know how computers work, support the average user working at helpdesks and IT shops, and sell things to the average consumer at best buy play (or have played) games.

I am one of these nerdy guys. I learned how to use linux when I was a kid to run bots for an efnet channel and bsod windows clients and stupid shit. I liked it because it was robust, I could do things without a GUI, and everything worked off of C, which I knew enough of to get around. So, I imagine I am about as willing to use linux as the average nerd. The thing is, I haven't touched it since I was 16 because it doesn't run games.

I think it's great, but would I be comfortable installing it on a friends' or a coworkers computer? heck no! I don't have the years of experience supporting it that I do with windows based systems, so when they ran into some strange driver error or something, I wouldn't really be able to help.

And again, I want to emphasize that the only reason I don't have this experience is that Linux doesn't support the games I play, so I have no lasting motivation to switch my OS.

When I think about how many people I know who feel pretty much the same, and work in similar positions supporting end users, it's really wholly apparent how important gaming is to the Linux movement. If you truly cared about Linux, it seems to me you would do everything in your power to bridge this divide.

Re:Better filesystems, more uptake

[jrothwell97]

For fuck's sake, that is completely irrelevant. I'm saying that all they'd have to do is package that Realtek WLAN driver into a simple .deb file, with no whining about GPL incompatibility, etc, and everything would have been fine and dandy. It wouldn't have been ideal, but it would have worked without Joe User having to drop to the terminal or even touch the make command.

This is part of two problems:

• Simple tasks not being carried out - diligence is a must
• Hostility towards the need of the end user, and programming with the developer's needs in mind

Stop buying crap non-"optimised" hardware and coming back to complain to us. As Anon said, did OSX install great on that Toshiba?

FYI, I live in the UK, where it is extraordinarily difficult to procure Linux-compatible hardware without sending a cheque overseas and then installing it manually. And if it's going to be computer friendly, it should just work on a consumer laptop which I could pick up, no fuss, from a computer store for £350ish.

Let me demonstrate an example scenario: Joe bought his new laptop 6 months ago, and is disappointed with Vista (he thinks it's crap, which it is.) Joe is not technical in any way, but a techie friend tells him about Ubuntu. He orders a CD and installs it on his laptop, and finds 'the Internet doesn't work' (in reality, his kernel has no support for his WLAN card). Even if this didn't put him off, he'd soon get pissed off to the core by the fact that searching for "ubuntu on brand x 1000 laptop" on Google turns up a few, vague, results, asking him to download a 'tarball' (sounds like a weird euphemism!), open up a terminal, and run make/make install. He writes to the Ubuntu support forums, and is met with either "run sudo apt-get build-essentials" or "don't buy incompatible hardware and come moaning to us". Joe is baffled, and rebuilds his laptop using the Windows recovery CD, wiping Ubuntu. He's left with a bad impression of Linux.

Put simply, the way in which drivers for Linux are documented and distributed is a shambles, and it's the attitude of people like you which puts people off Linux-based OSes.

I would like to propose an alternative solution. Drivers for the 1000-odd most popular peripherals and cards are stuck on a disk in packages (.debs, for example). This CD is distributed with the main distro CD when free CDs are ordered, and there's an ISO image and torrent alongside the distro image link. Alternatively, these drivers can be 'slipstreamed' straight into the install if using a system like Wubi which builds the system from within Windows.

The drivers throw up an EULA (which freetards are quite welcome to reject) and after that everything works perfectly. Simple as. It requires a bit of work - that's all.

Re:Better filesystems, more uptake

[jrothwell97]

BECAUSE, the user DOESN'T WANT to have to do it. I find it a pain in the arse and I've worked with computers for aeons, practically. Meanwhile, poor Johnny User, who's just installed Ubuntu for the first time, might get scared by the terminal, and consider Linux to be 'too techie'. All that needed to be done was for it to be packaged as a Debian/RPM/Netpkg/whatever package file, and it would have worked instantly.

Remember we're talking about the end user here, who wants to work with Facebook and YouTube rather than xterm and make. They should not have to do it manually. It should be automatic.

Re:It will look a lot like Linux in 2002.

[Jorophose]

X-Windows forever.

Why not? I admit, it's not a perfect solution, but it works. And it seems Apple and Microsoft keep trying to copy it.

Configuration still handled with text files, with front-end tools that try to conceal them but never quite do it all.
No, most front-ends do a good job. Which ones are bugging you? And text > database. I just love the way the windows registry works, don't you?

Ugly icons.
More like stupid distros. Have you seen Tango icons? They're very nice.

Inconsistency between GUIs of applications.
Your fault for using random applications.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.media/vista.png [arstechnica.com]

Everything is beaufitul and consistent in Windows land, right? (don't even get me started on OSX. there's an image floating about for that too. and I mean, wood and chrome?? what the fuck?)

Too much need for the command line.
You're trying too hard to find it. =/

Even more kernel bloat.
Become a kernel maintainer?

Re:3 yers down

[ClosedSource]

So what knowledge of computers will be gleaned from learning Linux? Will you learn how to write the microcode that a processor uses to create an instruction? Will you learn how to perform loading analysis to determine if the processor can drive the other digital components? Will you learn how use logic gates, counters, etc.

Like Windows, Linux is an OS with abstractions that have very little to do with "conceptual knowledge of how computers work".

Re:Think Antarctica

[letxa2000]

Four years from now Linux will be doing whatever non-Linux applications are doing two years from now. But you'll still have to compile it with all the right switches.

Mod parent funny

[sentientbrendan]

Seriously, reread that post. If you think he's serious about "4 years will be more than enough to have an actually usable professional Video Editor for Linux" is serious, then you must be new to software, and open source software especially.

>And I think that these 4 years will give Krita and GIMP the time they need to become full-featured and more user-friendly, respectively.
Yeah, GIMP, which was started in *1995*, just needs another 4 years to be not such a piece of shit.

Do you guys get it now? It's *funny*, *laugh*.

That is the stupidest fucking anyone has said ever

[sentientbrendan]

>They are part of the kernel, not add-ons
No, driver's are not part of your kernel, because if they were, then you would have to swap out your whole fucking kernel every time someone comes up with a new piece of hardware.

Oh, *you do* have to do that? And you think it is a *feature*?

Thank you anonymous coward for you contribution to this discussion.

Re:Think Antarctica

[JayAEU]

Why do people continue to insist that PC gaming, which is only done by a small percentage of computer users, is so important to Linux. It would be a simple matter to capture 90% of the PC market without ever having a single 3d driver, let alone anything more than the casual games Linux already has.

That's absolutely right. I used to play games on PC for a long time, but somewhere down the road I got tired of destabilizing an otherwise solid OS installation with tons of games and their dependencies, in addition to always having to keeping up with the latest hardware to get acceptable frame rates. This was the point where I switched all of my gaming to consoles (PS 1-3, Wii), which so far saved me a lot of money, time and hassle, not to mention the overall better game experience thanks to playing on a HDready TV set.

Back to the point, I think gaming on Linux is the least of all things to worry about. If Linux can become the default choice for standard office work as well as on mobile devices, hardware vendors and game programmers alike will become much more inclined to develop for Linux.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:About like it does now.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you, my friend, have summarised exactly why the majority of people find Linux unusable. Consider this situation:

1) Johnny buys computer and installs Ubuntu
2) A couple of months on, Johnny gets a new sound card. The drivers are in the kernel, but kernel 2.6.28, and not the kernel with Ubuntu
3) He can't easily install the new driver (or rebuild the kernel), so he has to wait several months for the next Ubuntu release (and upgrade his whole OS just to get his sound card working)

You're hilarious. Go to any Linux-newbie forum on the net and you'll see that this is a major problem. But you choose to ignore it, and Linux desktop adoption goes nowhere. You're insane.

Re:Mod parent funny

[dodecalogue]

I think the problem is that we've been given a pretty amazing gift by the early pioneers who (of course) didn't grow up with it, like people increasingly are. I think the job was in a pretty big way its own reward, at the time, and that prompted more dedicated work for less (apparent) reward. but now we're becoming like some bratty kid who's given a really nice car and never changing the oil, throwing a bunch of bumper-stickers on it to improve how it looks/make a statement, and then being all annoyed when the 2nd sunroof we cut out of the ceiling starts to pull the whole roof off.

Re:Think Antarctica

[bsodmike]

MindPhlux, I found your comment quite interesting and thought I'd share my experience with Linux and how it eventually made me completely shift off M$ for the post part. In my younger years I spent most of my time tinkering and modding PCs. At one time I had 5+ PCs at home running Windows (something), Redhat, Gentoo, Debian and a couple other distros. Setting up Gentoo from scratch was such a learning experience...and then came Ubuntu \o/... Since 2001 I started studying at University and I wanted an OS that I could rely on for the most part and decided to give Apple ago and their PPC based machines were an improvement over Windows since I could run all my favourites thanks to Fink and X11...but I still couldn't have Linux running at the same time. Fast forward to 2008, I only have two computers - a MacBook Pro and an iMac both running Intel procs and I can run Ubuntu inside Parallels when I need it. I have managed to ween myself off 'Word' to use LaTeX and all my emails are handled by Gmail. I find myself looking to use a lot more GNU implementations of software these days that I did previously but most would criticize that going Apple is no better than running M$ stuff. Gaming? Don't get me started - I used to buy a new graphics card and re-spec my PCs every 3 months just to keep up with the latest games. I've now stopped gaming on PCs and enjoy playing on the 360, PS2, PS3, and Wii. I can keep my work, entertainment (oh yea, I love VLC!) and gaming more or less independent of each other. Mac OS X has been my primary OS since 2002 and for the time being I am not looking back; that said I have *NOT* shifted to Leopard as Tiger (10.4) does everything I need.

Re:Think Antarctica

[drix]

The ship has sailed. While 100,000 of us spent the late 90s grousing on /. about how next year would finally be the year of Linux on the desktop, a company named Apple went out and actually built the thing. Unix on the desktop has been done and done right. Linux had a huge window of opportunity in the early part of the last decade, and blew it. Draw whatever conclusions from that you want about the free software "movement." Mark my words: barring a direct meteor hit on Cupertino, Linux will never, ever be a major player in the desktop market.