Linus on SCO, and the Desktop Being 10 Years Away 827
An anonymous reader writes "In this interview from last week's Linux.conf.au in Australia, Linus Torvalds talks about how the SCO lawsuit 'riled' him and led him to spend a week writing an application to archive his email, and how he think Linux will take 5 to 10 years to become mainstream on the desktop."
I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I agree (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, I'll leave that one to you, champ.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Rus
Re:I agree (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, however it has to work for it's target audience. Most Linux distros are trying too hard to be all things to all people. They end up becoming what the Toyota Camry or Honda Accord is to the car market - a bland, boring, transportation appliance, which may be "good" for a great many things, it is not "excellent" at anything.
Another automotive analogy might be to compare your average slashdot Linux geek's computer to a Ferrari. Joe Geek has an overclocked Athlon and the latest -pre kernel compiled with optimization flags out the wazoo. The Ferrari is similarly tweaked to it's maximum potential, is designed to be screaming fast and handle like it's on rails - but unlike the Honda or Toyota, the Ferrari requires more maintenance, a skilled Ferrari specialist to work on it, and is more demanding of the driver. It also provides a much more rewarding experience than than Honda - this is what makes the Ferrari so desireable - but it's also what gives it such a limited market share (besides the price tag).
For Linux to be sucessful on the desktop, there needs to be a clear line between what is a corporate desktop distro, and what is a home desktop distro. This is exactly what RedHat is attempting with their new "Advanced Workstation" product, versus the Fedora Core.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look outside the English speaking world Linux has a greater chance of reaching the desktops within next couple of years.
I am involved in a project to bring out a Tamil desktop for tamil speakers (Zhakanini [zhakanini.org]. Only less than 5% of the population has access to computers now. One of the main reasons the majority do not use computer is the lack of tamil interface. Microsoft is not going to support Tamil interface anytime soon (for an unknown market demand) and the open source applications provide great support for localisation.
Combining these two factors this project aims to bring out a desktop for firts time computer users. they are not bothered about existing applications and we will be selling them pre-installed systems. Once we make the usage rate to say 20% of population with zhakanini, Linux desktop will be the default for tamil speakers (about 80 million).
I am sure there are many more communities like this in the world.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
For many, it doesn't necessarily mean anything to do with beginners, or home users, or kiddie-eyecandy.
Personally, i see it as being a strength on the desktop in a business sense, where an organisation like IBM or Telstra or NTT has 50,000 workers all needing a desktop computer to easily email, browse, collaborate with users, plan their day, type documents, organise stuff etc.
For those users, the whole setup and install thing is irrelevant, and that's the hardest part at the moment. When it comes to actually using say, a good KDE install set up by a company for its own users, Linux is ready for the desktop in the middle of last year.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
He could remember the keys to press, but for the icons and GUI he must refer to the picture instructions I printed out. That means changing his glasses every 10 seconds. Imagine taking longer to do your work on a top-of-the-range PC than on an ancient rust-bucket
But hey, he thinks clippy is fun!
If Linux desktops mimic Windows, then not only will *I* find it harder to work effectively, so will my dad - For me, the argument is over. Especially that for the last 5 years or so, tech-support to my dad has been provided over the phone.
I will disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
Put all the apps that they would use for work in a folder on their desktop.
Also, have all those apps open when they first log in.
When they log out, save all the information about those apps so they will appear EXACTLY THE SAME when the user logs in again.
Then, have the items that the user is ALLOWED to change in a different folder. Like backgrounds and themes and sounds and junk like that.
Everything else is locked down.
The user info is saved to a server so any machine that the user logs into will have the exact same desktop as the last machine.
This is VERY hard with Windows (unless you're running a Citrix desktop). But it should be very easy with Linux (all apps served from the servers).
I important part is getting them connected to the apps they need, seemlessly and reliably. Every time, every machine.
All the end user should NEED to know about the computer is how to turn it on and where the blinken lights are that show that it IS turned on.
Everything else should be covered by training on the applications that the company uses.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I agree (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, our whole network is on publicly routable IPs, and most of it always will be for a variety of reasons.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still amazing to see the puzzled look on people's faces when they ask what 'Red Hat Linux' is and when did Microsoft release it.....
Re:I agree (Score:4, Informative)
The BBC have picked up on the story [bbc.co.uk] now.
People get that Microsoft is garbage now (Score:5, Interesting)
My roommate was working tech support in the summer, and when blaster hit he definitely started noticing angry people saying stuff like "Windows is bullshit!", who had probably never thought about it that way before (i.e. previously they just blamed computers in general, or themselves). People are starting to blame Microsoft for their failures. And that can only lead to them looking for another option.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, the whole hiding the apps from the user thing ticks me off. I like the OS X solution better. You can have an optional start menu if you like, but make the apps as easy to add/remove as OS X and Be OS and NeXTstep. All GUI programs should be this way. None of this "Program Files" you're too stupid to look here, and don't mix the GUI apps into the same dir with the command line ones.
OK. I'm done. Do I need to don a fireproof suit?
Chasing Taillights Is (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually belive that that is an excellent question, and I'll be happy to provide the answer:
Because 90% of all computer users are used to Windows
(The rest of the following rant is essentially a repost, so I apologize if you have already read it.)
You can feel that it shouldn't be like that, and you can make hundreds of snide and clever remarks to the effect that Windows users are too stupid to recognize their own best interests, but you can't change the facts: at least 90% of the people who are using a computer today are using Windows.
It is not every day that a court of law makes an official market survey [usdoj.gov] and releases it freely on the net, in line with the finest traditions of the Open Source movement. Yet it seems that the very people who really believe the most in the benefits of free and open information, are remarkably reluctant to use it when it's available. Think what you will in private, but please please listen to judge Jackson: if Linux is going to have any impact at all in the desktop market, it is Windows users that will have to be converted.
There are a number of good reasons to make the switch to Open Source --- open file formats, control over future license costs, etc., etc. --- but if it means that you have to spend six months cursing all the little things that are different, so that you can't focus on what you're supposed to be doing because you have to relearn all your automatic reflexes, how many people will decide that it's worth the effort?
A lawyer might perhaps consider switching from MS Word to StarOffice simply to make sure that all the files that he creates today can be opened and read on another computer ten years from now, when the case has finally reached the Supreme Court or whatever. But how may chargeable hours is he prepared to let it cost him in the first six months?
It somehow seems that a lot of the people who develop Open Source applications take a special pride in inventing amusing little pitfalls for the Windows user who might be prepared to switch camps. In StarOffice, the keyboard combination to insert a non-breaking space is "Ctrl-Space", rather than Word's "Ctrl-Shift-Space". Please, somebody, why? Of course this is something that one can relearn if one has to, but what's the point of it? The first time a would-be convert, who has been using non-breaking spaces in Word, tries to insert one in a text in StarOffice, it won't work. Whether he decides that non-breaking spaces are not available and that the product does not fulfill his needs, or interrupts what he was originally trying to achieve and starts exploring the help system to find out what it is that he has to do, he will not feel more favorably disposed towards Open Source programs for having tried one. And so unnecessarily.
I could recite any number of examples: if you type "Ctrl-A Ctrl-Return" to mark all posts in a newsgroup as read, Mozilla will instead choose to open a couple of hundred windows (one for each post in the newsgroup), which will cause the system to freeze, so that it has to be rebooted. Excellent marketing ploy.
To change some settings in Mozilla you should of course look under "Edit" in the menu system, and not under "Tools" like in all other programs in the Windows world. Brilliant. How could you possibly fail when you make it so convenient for the user?
And please, don't come and say "RTFM" now. Why the **** should someone who has been using a computer for years have to consult the FM (provided there actually is one, of course, but that's a separate issue in its own right) to perform a so completely trivial standard task as the ones mentioned here?
And please don't come and say "but you can change that if you spend a couple of days learning how to reconfigure the program from the bottom up" either. Pe
Re:I agree (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
1) most of them don't care what OS they're running
as long as it works
IP issues don't matter, freedom doesn't matter. What matters is things working, being straightforward, and being able to do what other users are doing. Computing is a social activity - people don't use them in isolation anymore. (Insert ironic geek social misfit comment here.) So falling down in any of these camps is enough to prevent people from switching.
2) Inertia is the most power force in the desktop
computer world.
Ordinary users Don't Like Change. If they take the time to relearn something, it has to be because it's so much better than what they have they can't live without it. That's a very rare condition. OSX is better than Windows, but not enough better that everyone is willing to abandon Windows. A few do, but inertia in computerland is a group effect, and as long as the group inertia is strong in one direction everyone goes that way. This is why Microsoft has a natural monopoly, much more so that telephones or power lines. Technology was able to find new ways to provide telephone service, and things like solar and wind power can generate power independant of power lines. But if people need to expend a lot of effort to learn a tool, THEY WILL NOT THROW AWAY THAT EFFORT. The software market, particularly the OS market, must face this. Change can occur, but very, very slowly. Which leads us to our first two guiding principles:
Taking over the World - Rule #1
Patience is not a virtue - it is a necessity
Taking over the World - Rule #2
There will never be a "Year of the Desktop"
Media and fans like explosive, dramatic changes. But that is not how things happen on a large scale. This is more like a river cutting through rock. So don't build up Linux as "about to take over the world/desktop/White House/whatever" because it won't be so dramatic. Particularly in light of
Taking over the World - Rule #3
"Desktop Ready" is not a well defined target,
and as such "making it" is like chasing a
mirage.
Each person has their own definition of ready for the desktop. Linux met mine years ago, and it's doubtful Windows could meet mine now. But I don't worry about what most users worry about - consistent look and feel aren't an issue for me. So who defines "ready"? For me, ready was a while back. But I'm clearly a geek. For my Dad, it might be close. For my Mom, I doubt it's close. It's a fuzzy thing.
With SCO making as much trouble as humanly possible for Linux and open source, and Microsoft lurking in the background, I know it's hard to remember this last rule. But do try, because it's the only reason we got as far as we have, and it's the only reason we'll go anywhere in the future.
Taking over the World - Rule #4 (The important one)
Have fun!
Re:I agree (Score:3, Informative)
This is absolutely key here. My Father is a perfect example of this. His skills with a PC are about what the average
Anyhow, over the past year, I've slowly migrated his apps to OSS products. For example, I switched him over
Re:I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
What is missing is applications (especially games) and to a lesser extent drivers.
The 3d-modelling niche is a very good example on how fast Linux can take over a market when the apps are there.
In the next years, expect other niches to go to Linux, the next being non-US government desktops. When Munich migrates and ports their apps, it gets easier, cheaper and faster for other cities with similar application-needs to follow.
The only problem is that such migrations take a lot of time, that's why it is taking a decade (and it already started).
Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
For someone already computer savvy, perhaps.
For your average non-techie, it's not. Hell, even I had issues with Mandrake 8.0 - and I'm doing PHP coding for a living at the moment.
The 3d-modelling niche is a very good example on how fast Linux can take over a market when the apps are there.
The 3d-modeling niche is a very good example of Linux running not on the desktop but as a processing cluster (in this case, rendering graphics).
Re:Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
KDE's interface is much better. Multiple desktops, MMB-pasting, single/doubleclick consistency and tabbed browsing are just a few of many examples of it's superiority.
Yes, as usual, I put forward real examples while the Wintrolls make claims like "being designed by GUI specialists" without even an hint of proof.
Can you put up an example of what is so terrible about KDE/Linux? Of course you can't becau
Re:Nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
They can't be that good if they came up with the abomination that is the WinXP start menu. I've watched so many users struggle with it and ask me to turn it back to the way it was. Their much-hyped user studies seem to be used simply to rubber-stamp their next interface, instead of making any actual improvement.
Then you talk about
Re:I agree (Actually, I don't) (Score:5, Insightful)
I've done more than my share of teaching total newbies how to use Windows. There's nothing intrinsically logical or sensible about the Windows desktop (95, 2K, XP), Windows' naming schemes, etc. It's extraordinarily difficult for an adult newbie to pick up. -- We tend to think of Windows as "easier-to-use" simply, I think, because of familiarity. Ditto with the Mac interface -- it's easy to use once you've learned how to use it. Come to Mac from a pure Windows or pure newbie background and there's still a learning curve.
Frankly, I don't think there will ever be a desktop that is "simple to use" from a newbie standpoint (at least until the computers can engage in an intelligent dialogue with the user and actually figure out what the user wants to do).
Consequently, I don't think any great re-imaging of the Linux (or any other) desktop is particularly required. Rather, I think the greater value will be in continuing to support a diversity of desktops with some focusing on new-user needs as much as others focus on the needs of sophisticated users.
After wading through four levels of menus on a default KDE install, I wish I had the skills to do some interface design myself. Grin.
Re:Crapola (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes!! I'm not alone!
True usability is defined(for me) as a machine that my Grandma can use. Not my geeky friends, but my parents and grandparents that aren't into computers.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
The REAL problem, which is too late to fix, is the dumbass desktop scheme. How many people find Folders, Files and other abstract concepts apply well to computing? All you end up with is a user left scratching his/her head, saying 'now where the fuck did I put that file'. Add to that the logical yet difficult unix system tree, and you've got a mess on your hands.
I will admit, however, that having a
Re:I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't kid yourself, a computer simple enough for granny to use will be useless to other people
Patronising pile of shit. My mother is a grandmother and she has no problems using a computer. Any reasonably intelligent person of any age can learn to use a computer given a bit of time. I will not be migrating my mother to a Linux dektop however, because a) she is used to Windows, b) a lot of the software she uses is Windows only and while there may be equivalent Linux packages out there, she sees her compu
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wonder if making the computer more physical isn't better for older people. Everything is so virtual..I think if we gave them more buttons to push and meters, switches and gauges they'd like it better. You shouldn't have to click start > shut down > shut down to turn off your computer anyway, that's what the power switch is for. One press should shut it down on ANY pc.
The technological revolution took the physical and turned it all into the abstract. The world of computing is 75% software (and to the end user, much more). It's all theory and code and electrons, none of it is things you can touch and manipulate by hand. My grandfather's generation is one very much aligned with the physical; men who can fix cars and build homes or extensions to them. They're lost on a pc, just as most of us would be lost with a leaky pipe and a pipe wrench.
Re:I agree (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is what's endlessly hanging everybody up in the field of GUI design. They all want to be DIFFERENT from windows, but they fail to realize that windows isn't just decided upon by fiat, but instead is the result of endless focus groups and user surveys to determine exactly what grandma actually works most comfortably with! Microsoft has huge resources and can afford endless focus groups and user surveys to arrive at a smooth, intuitive GUI. We're not asking to emulate Microsoft, but instead emulate (or invent independently) a smooth user interface as defined by the users themselves. Which is apparently such a simple concept that nobody seems able to grok it.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Focus groups suck for determining design.
Rememeber cars in the 80's that had a computerise voice to tell that "You're door is ajar"?
Focus groups *LOVED* the idea of the car taking to them - it really sucked in reality.
Just like Windows XP has that sucky search dog thing - it's cute the first time, buy annoying as hess lafter that.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that search does not work - it is not intuitive, makes assumptions about file types, and most importantly it is DIFFERENT from Windows 2000 (MS best OS ever).
With Linux I am comfortable that all the tools work the way they are advertized.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
It may not be as simple as all that. Yesterday I went to my aunt's house to help her, since her AOL wasn't working right, and the three printed pages of instructions that tech support gave her may as well have been written in Phoenician.
She showed me how the startup was normal, but the "pictures" on the desktop seemed bigger, and when she fired up AOL, the background (default clouds) went "psychedelic." I took ten seconds to go into display settings, up her resolution, and bump the colours up from 256.
The point is, a smooth user interface is not some point to be reached where we can sit back and say "yes, this is it." These concepts of resolution and palettes are so nebulous that it can be very difficult for "normal" people (i.e. not
I think I understand what you're getting at, and I agree that there needs to be an evolution towards better user interfaces, but I'm not sure that a one-size-fits-all smooth, intuitive GUI can even exist. Some people like KDE, and turn everything on. Some people go straight to Blackbox. I use KMail; others swear by Mutt.
Until we get to a point where programs can ask "Do you want more options or fewer? Do you want clicky stuff, or do you consider a pointer to be the method for switching between xterms?" we'll continue to muddle along trying to balance the needs of the people who want to "do email" and those who want 3D overlapping alpha-transparent Everything, with sound.
There really are no simple answers. There are certainly better options than others, but determining what constitutes the perfect GUI is a pipe dream, because all users are different, and there are too (damn) many of them (grumble grumble).
Re:I agree (Score:3, Interesting)
A few simple examples:
1. Environment settings dialog. You go try edit the "path" environment variable and then tell me that a focus group said this was nice.
2. Windows XP control panel. In particular the changes they did to dialogs like Services, with an "Advanced" and "Simple" tab in the bottom of the window. You
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't understand what they were thinking about with the new services box. As far as I can see "advanced" is only called that because the left hand edge is completely blank meaning you have to squeeze the useful info into less space.
I think the file sharing idea is to make it harder to do stupid things. In the default "simple" mode you have to move the files you want to share to a special folder. This contrasts with the old way where as soon as anybody discovered sharing they immediately shared the whole "C" drive read/write to anybody on the whole Internet.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I don't think that is how MS works. MS gui is an evolution of what they had for win3.1/95 and most gui changes have been mostly cosmetic or coppied from Mac. I personally think that the MS gui is a piece of shit but when people are asked how a gui should work, they say it should work like that of MS but ONLY because that is the way they learned and expect it to work. In essence because most people are too "short sighted" to imagine something better.
Re:I agree (Score:4, Insightful)
When it doesn't require any new skills (eg, when some OEM uses a distribution that's just as restrictive), then people will start using it, and they won't be much better off than they are now. There are deals like that now, but they haven't really hit the mass market.
There will always be people that don't care, and they will never have as much freedom or as much power as the rest of us. And they won't mind, because they don't care.
The real uphill battle Linux faces is no longer MS, it's user indifference. You can't use merit to sell someone on something they don't care about.
Re:I don't (Score:5, Insightful)
A perfect example of how non-user friendly Windows is the way your keyboard focus gets stolen. I touch type - I don't spend a lot of time looking at the screen - i end up get very, very irritated because some window/dialog has decided to open and steal the keyboard focus - at best, my keystrokes end up in a black hole, at worst - they're invoking some action that I don't want to do.
The Amiga got this right 15 years ago - the programmer guidelines stated that you don't steal focus - Microsoft would do well to re-think a lot of their GUI guidelines (or at least follow their existing ones - they tend not to do that for their own apps anyways).
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about the desktop journey (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess, to some degree that is because I started using Linux as my main desktop close to five years ago, but also because I am aware that profound social changes take time.
I think the key to the desktop is preloaded machines by big-vendor being available at retail stores. Only when the vendors have a stake in the success of Linux will they make sure that the peripherals state on the box that "it runs on Linux".
Re:It's all about the desktop journey (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the key to the desktop is preloaded machines that can flawlessly interoperate with the existing Windows monopoly. If it would include the ability to run MS Office for instance (free CrossoverOffice included, or a better Wine), that would be good. That way, it would run most things that Windows can, and then some more.
Another interoperability issue would be internet-connection. The various ISPs should support Linux as well.
Re:It's all about the desktop journey (Score:5, Insightful)
Only then do I tell them that pirating is illegal and I refuse to partici *yawn* sorry...? er.. oh yeah participate in that sort of thing.
Re:It's all about the desktop journey (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd love to have an easy to use system that I could handle without much difficulty while still having the power of Unix at hand should I want it.
This is not Linux.
Apple has it down pat, but that requires an investment in their hardware. Mandrake, Redhat, and SUSE have the install process down pat. The issue comes in just general responsiveness (behavior with hardware, plug & play, getting software installed/uninstalled.)
The question is when we will see something like this for the PC. Who will create the PC equivalent of MacOS X?
Have to disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not Linux."
But it IS Linux. I know this will come as a shock to Apple fans, but OS X isn't the be all end all of Unix desktops. I like many Linux users don't want a pc equiv of OS X. OS X does many things right, but it also does a lot wrong. OS X for x86 would be a real threat to Microsoft and would no doubt get more users using a semi-Unix but it's not what I'm looking for.
The only thing missing from Mandrake, Red Hat etc is real support from software and hardware makers. Documented hardware IS truly plug and play. Getting software installed/uninstalled IS moron proof provided that its packaged correctly. Like you said installation is easy as pie.
Imagine a distro running the 2.6 kernel with full oem hardware support, KDE 3.2, and the support of all the big software ISV's. At this point you have an OS that is easily as good as OS X and XP. So your right that we are indeed waiting, but not for OS X to come to the PC. We are in fact just waiting for Hardware and Software OEM's to fully support Linux. Maybe that won't ever happen, but if it does then you can rest assured that there will be no reason to pine for OS X on the PC.
The way I see it you have 3 options. 1) Buy an expensive Mac, thus putting yourself under the thumb of Apple and in a situation which is NOT an improvement over running XP. 2) Wait for OS X to come to the PC. 3) Wait for hardware and software makers to get off their asses and finally support Linux. It has been a long road, but I'm sticking with number 3. Number 1 is not and never will be an appealing option to me and most others.
Re:It's all about the desktop journey (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, the journey has been more like 20 years. I was running a desktop window system on a UNIX-like OS at home before there was such a thing as X (Smalltalk on LynxOS on a Tektronix Pegasus box).
I have to say that I think the folks who are all over the deficiencies of the Linux Desktop, and how we have to emulate the Windows/Mac/BeOS/Xbox/Sinclair/whatever desktop experience to have a usable desktop are mistaken. I think they underestimate the ability of users to adapt, and overestimate the degree to which familiar = better. For many years I had a PC or Mac sitting on my desktop next to a UNIX/X box. Now I have a Windows box and a Linux box at home. I have always found that I almost exclusively use the UNIX/X box. The monopoly (at best duopoly) is real, and most folks haven't had my experience. I think it's clear that they're going to, and I think it's going to be enlightening for them when they do.
I'm working hard to make the Linux desktop experience better for everyone. But it's pretty darn good now. So good that I finally threw away twm a couple of years ago. :-)
Let's enjoy the ride.
Different interpretations? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone clarify his view for me? I don't follow Linux very closely, but am genuinely curious what Linus' real thoughts on the future of Linux for the desktop are.
Re:Different interpretations? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. Basically, he thinks that in 2004 Linux will really take on in the desktop-market. But that wouldn't mean that Linux would be mainstream in the desktop-market. Let's assume that number of Linux-users doubles in 2004, and that's due to increase in desktop-use. That would give Linx a market-share of around 5%. If that happened, 2004 would be the "year of the desktop" for Linux, but being mainstream would still be several years in the future.
Re:Different interpretations? (Score:4, Informative)
He says in both articles that there have been a bunch of really good developments in making Linux user-friendly, but it'll be a while before Joe User feels comfortable sitting down in front of a Linux box. The earlier story [slashdot.org] but kind of a spin on it - it sounds like they took what Linus said a little bit too far. He didn't really say that 2004 would be the "year of Linux on the desktop"; he said that "This year there will be a lot of desktop users." That's it. Even if you did RTFA, it's still kinda confusing. That's the media for you.
Re:Different interpretations? (Score:3, Informative)
I'll try. The confusion is actually inherent in the contemporary meaning of the word "desktop". Sometimes this means "just any computer for a non-techie", sometimes "a machine for a home user".
Re:Different interpretations? (Score:3, Interesting)
The point is these are somewhat captive and specific-use oriented desktops, not those of the great unwashed public which account for upwards of 90% of the market. I don't know that
Linus and the P2P Fileswapper victims of the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what the "lucky" 300 must also be thinking. I don't think they will be spending their time writing an e-mail indexing program.
Linus is the only person I've ever heard of taking a lawsuit as an opportunity to write some new code. The world needs more Linuses!!!
Linux becoming commercial? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux becoming commercial? (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux cannot become another Microsoft. Microsoft is about monopoly prices, lock-in, proprietary technologies etc. etc. None of those are possible with Linux. If Linux gained 100% market-share, there would still be several distros competing (and several free versions of Linux), the core-systems would be open and free, so moving between different vendors would be easy. And you could fork your own version from existing distros (for example Red Hat ==> Mandrake, Gentoo ==> Zynot)
You mentioned Red Hat trying to make a profit. How would that affect Linux? Easy: Red Hat would have even more money to spend improving Linux.
Re:Linux becoming commercial? (Score:4, Insightful)
If one distro wins by simply being superior to everyone else, then I fail to see how that could be considered bad. And there would be nothing stopping you (or anyone else for that matter) from creating your own version of their distro (or creating one from scratch) and competing with them with your own version. It has happened several times in the past (like when Mandrake was created from Red Hat).
And having money DOES help developement. For example, Red Hat (or some other company) could hire full-time kernel-hackers that would have more time (and better equipment) at their disposal, instead of if they hacked only in their free time.
Re:Linux becoming commercial? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linux becoming commercial? (Score:4, Insightful)
the biggest barrier of all (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the biggest barrier of all (Score:5, Insightful)
How many business require the use of games? If anything they'd be happier with an OS without many games. How many of you have parents that play Quake? My mom never played anything more than simple card games on the computer.
Really, the majority of the people who would care about the issue are the people who have nothing better to do than see how they can get an extra 1 frame per second out of Quake 3.
Games go where the market is. Not the other way around.
Re:the biggest barrier of all (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the biggest barrier of all (Score:3, Funny)
Re:the biggest barrier of all (Score:3, Interesting)
Come talk to me when you can play strategy-games on a console (like Combat Mission, Europa Universalis etc.). Or how about Flight-simulators (Falcon 4.0, Lock On, etc.)? Nowhere to be seen on consoles. Online games are only just now taking off on consoles, but PC's still dominate there.
Consoles are great for some type of games, but they absolutely suck for other types of games.
Re:the biggest barrier of all (Score:3, Interesting)
- Home desktop users want to play 3d video games.
- There is no 3D hardware drivers available for the Linux kernel or for XFree86 that performs within a marginal distance from windows/MacOS 3D hardware (except pre-beta quality nVidia drivers).
- idsoftware FPS games + UT/UT2k3 is NOT by any means remotely close to any significant fraction of FPS games. Even id
Re:the biggest barrier of all (Score:3, Insightful)
Would Linux offer enough games for me now, if I were still in school or university? Definitely not, I was eating games for lunch at those times, and could hardly go a week without a new on.
Does Linux offer enough games for me today, where I work fulltime and have a bunch of other things to do as well (including my own game, see below) ?
Absolutely yes. In fact, I have quite a few Linux games on my shelf that I haven't played half as much as I'd like to. (Dominions 2, Terminu
Re:the biggest barrier of all (Score:4, Insightful)
Redhat, Debian, Gentoo? Which distribution to support? What pacakage manager? The market is too small, and the support costs too high. I've worked on video games where we've had to evaluate these things.
Making a Bootable Linux Gaming CD was an option I've read before, but that just puts more of the setup and configuration steps into auto-detection where people can't get the full use of their hardware.
Linux is wonderful for porting apps with source, but porting binaries can be a pain compared with making a single windows EXE.
Linus commenting (Score:5, Interesting)
Bummer! (Score:5, Funny)
And the number is .... (Score:5, Funny)
The number is, "literally", 7.
Re:And the number is .... (Score:5, Funny)
Austrailians (Score:3, Funny)
O T T A W A!
Eh.
Re:Austrailians (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Austrailians (Score:5, Funny)
In case you curious we New Zealanders spell it "bastards"
Jedidiah.
best part of interview (Score:5, Funny)
A: One of the must fun things was I bought my wife one of those electronic picture frames... I didn't even know it - I just decided I wanted to buy it because we'd just bought a better camera, and we had some good pictures of the kids. So I went out and bought it, and only when I was uploading my pictures, the night before Mother's Day, I was uploading them and looked at the technical specifications and found out it ran Linux!
That's much more fun than big machines.
The Board is set, the pieces are moving... (Score:3, Interesting)
The next version of windows and how they move to get it mainstream (new standards, no forward compatibility for older windows, whatever) will be a big factor in how the desktop 'game' plays out...
Linux is developing for desktop with Lindows OS [lindows.com] , its M$ turn, we need to wait for their move.
The great dunking (Score:3, Informative)
http://lwn.net/Articles/66665/
about that email archive program... (Score:4, Interesting)
Linus' point (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why Redhat, IBM, SuSEa re investing in companies like Ximian who focus on the desktop dark-side of Linux.
Longhorn won't be out till 2005 if I'm correct and many users are very insatisfied with Windows XP, from Sobig/Blaster outbreaks dragging down productivity levels to random annoyances like messenger popups and a full suite of internet blockers/virus stoppers/software firewalls needed to surf the web.
Users are keeping an eye open for alternatives, that's why Linux desktop development needs to become desirable, marketable, usable and thus a replacement for the Windows desktop.
Desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
I think everybody understands the lack of an exchange type collaboration server hurts business adoption, but it's not the only thing keeping people from switching.
My business wants to go linux, but we can't. We use an ERP system called Macola. It makes heavy use of VBA and soon will support only MS SQL Server. There is nothing we can do short of writing our own manufacturing and accounting packages.
Before you point me at compiere, let me inform you that I've done research into that. I'm not a big fan of the lead developer. He's dragging his feet on database independence (when few people want real independence, they just want an open database supported) because he wants to get paid for it. Many people have brought forth suggestions and were willing to get started only to get no response from him. Development companies were willing to put people on it and they get no feedback as to the status of the project. So still the whole system is tied to oracle and there's no feedback at all as to when that might change. For the lead developer of an open source project he is VERY stingy with the information. Let's not ignore the fact that there is no current manufacturing module. There are, however, 3 separate development projects that aren't working with each other because of petty pride issues. The lead dev does nothing to stop the pettyness. So fuck compiere. I'll check up on it next year. I don't expect it to be usable then either at the pace it's moving. You have no idea how many people hit their forum gung-ho ready to start working only to leave again after getting no answers to their questions.
There is nothing else out there that is as close to production ready as compiere. There are erp systems that run on linux, but those are for the big boys. My company is very small, the cost of buying those erp systems would be more than the savings switching to linux would create.
Five to Ten (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not saying that SunOS or IRIX are superior, just that the upgrades come at a more manageable pace, and tend not to break our code base when upgrading compilers. I think the reason Linus thinks five to ten years before really conquering the desktop is based on two things. By then LINUX should have slowed down in its development and will be a beast you can run two to three years before upgrading. Secondly, Windows will probably sink under the weight of it is haphazard code base, which is guided not by what is best for users and cleanest in design, but what makes sense commercially to support and lock-in their other products in as covert way as possible to keep from running afoul of the antitrust laws.
Looking forward to the day though!
Re:Five to Ten (Score:5, Interesting)
We produce a lot of floating point intensive code that depends critically on the underlining OS calls, and while the code may run, it becomes quite a chore to justify to the customer (government) why the results may differ from earlier versions. This tendency for code to be brittle with compiler and OS upgrades is not something we observe under IRIX and SunOS, the two other platforms we support, and have supported for longer than LINUX.
Ahhh the joys of floating point. There are days when I wish that floating point was banned. Customers have a nasty tendency to assume that floating point means totally accurate. Very few really understand the limitations of floating point and comments along the lines of "what do you mean I can't store 20 significant figures in my database?", "I entered 1.10 and now it's 1.0999999", "I've been running my simulation through a billion iterations using a 'float' type and the answer is screwy" are not only common but rife.
That said, within the limitations of the floating point code I've written, I've not observed changes on Linux between versions. I do observe differences between the results on Linux, Solaris, HPUX, AIX and Windows in the least significant digit, but that doesn't suprise me.
I wonder therefore whether you are being burned by standard flags on the compiler with respect to mathematical optimisation. If you are suddenly using --fast-math that will definitely screw your results, as will any of the other flags turned on by that setting. Ditto check -m128bit-long-double -m96bit-long-double or similar settings that might alter your precision and throw new answers out.
To be quite honest, if you are seeing changes in behaviour and you have test cases which demonstrate these changes, you should inform the GCC team via the mailing list and try and determine what has happened. GCC vies to be compliant (often more compliant than other compilers) with IEEE and ANSI standards, and useful bug reports can go a long way to maintaining that compliance.
If you haven't logged such problems, well, nobody else knows that that problem exists.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:Five to Ten (Score:3)
I agree on Linux being unflexible in terms of upgrades.
I switched to FreeBSd for this reason. I can run a FreeBSD 2.x app right out of the box without a problem on fbsd 4.9.
They have their old kernel abi's, libs, and older tools, in
Observations (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I feel this way? Very few companies in very few industries ever achieve the dominance that Microsoft has in the computing industry. Competition always keeps the underdogs going for the golden ring, and profits like Microsoft enjoys have other companies salivating. History shows us that very few companies can hold onto such an amazing lead over the competition.
Linux and other "free" operating systems hold a unique advantage over Microsoft's offerings. They are free. Microsoft can not afford to compete on price alone. Every day that goes by, the gap between Microsoft's offerings and Linux's offerings narrows the gap in quality. With Novell and IBM in the fray, that gap is sure to close even further. At some point, Linux's offerings will become the most logical choice for everyone. Microsoft's grip will sliip and they will slide. It won't be fast, they will lose by percentage points.
At least this is what I hope. I have no crysal ball. They have quite a war chest and they have a lot of lawyers. Maybe one of these hair-brained lawsuits from the likes of SCO will work. I don't know, and I sure hope not.
Linus is probably right but I hope that it is 5 years and not 10.
Some things to consider (Score:5, Interesting)
First, with Microsoft EOL'ing support and bugfixes this year for NT4 and 98/SE, I see many users and organizations casting about for alternatives. IIR, about 25% of the Internet-connected users are still using 98/NT. With XP being expensive and probably requiring new HW as well, they will be forced to consider Something New(tm). This may mean looking at OS X - since they need new hardware anyway. Or, more likely, they may consider "trying" Linux on their current equipment - especially if they have a friend, or know someone, who can install in for them for cheap or free.
Second, and this ties in with the first, public schools and many businesses are really starting to feel the financial crunch of constant HW/Software/License upgrade. Many public schools (like ours) cannot lease equipment due to board policies against "incumbering subsequent administrations" (or some such nonsense) meaning that new equipment is cash out of pocket and old equipment, which can no longer be used/supported, is surplussed at a total loss. Businesses, as well, face the fact that upgrading older equipment in order to run the new OS from the Beast, simply to be able to have 10 more unused features added to Word, is stupid and wastefull.
When you sit back and think about it, for most schools and businesses, 95% of computer use is for what? Email, Internet access, basic word processing/spreadsheets/"powerpoint" and maybe some IM or connectivity to a "mainframe" for financials, records, etc. which generally means some sort of TN5250/whatever emulation. ALL of this can be done with Linux as the desktop - with the added bonus(?) of increased productivity due to end users not being as able to install Webshots, Kazaa, Trojan-loaderPro, or VirusOfTheHour 6.0. This means work can be done.
But there is still a huge hurdle. Most companies and schools don't necessarily have the technical know-how or confidence to roll out Linux on the desktop. I think this is a pretty big hurdle, but not a showstopper. First, I see a lot more advertising from big players ("no one ever got fired for recommending IBM") on prime-time TV for Linux. Second, I see that Sam's Club is selling a $300.00 Linux box with Linux pre-installed and (in our store) an entire row of monitors demoing it sitting next to the XP boxes selling for hundred$ more. This is bringing Linux into the conciousness of the public (although as geeks we seem wonder how anyone could have missed it for so long :-)
Let me speak from personal experience for a second. Last week we had an engineer from a software vendor show up to install an expensive, high-end HW/SW solution. Unfortunately, it runs on windows only, so we had to buy several Win2k3 Servers and have their engineer set it up for us (lot's of custom tweaks, lots of $$$). I asked him if there were any plans for porting it to Linux, especially considering that he recommended checking with their company first before applying any MS patches to these bexes as some of them have broken their software in the past (eek!). He turned and looked at me and said that over 80% of the places he's been to have asked the same question. So they've begun porting. It should be available next year sometime. Score one for the good guys.
Along those same lines, I took him around to some of our installations to test the new system on our workstations. Wanting to start with the possibility of having the greatest success, I sook him to one of our "newer" labs. His first comment was "You're using Dell GX110's still? Those are, like 4 years old!". I didn't bother to tell him that, as Systems Administrator, I'm still waiting for my GX110. In fact, we still have IBM 340 workstations deployed. Those are 6 or 7 years old.
We are facing a huge budget crunch. Because of this, we are being forced to do a close eval of possible ways to cut costs and squeeze the most out of our current investments. Af
Interface testing (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing to do on a weekend?
Head down to a mall and set up a user interface test. Call the mall first and ask if they will donate an area to the activity. Take machines down and set up tables.
Ask passers by to take a survey. Give them a task to complete. After they try it, have them fill out a survey about the experience. Collect the surveys on a website so open source developers can access the info.
Sound like a good idea?
Week for email indexing? (Score:4, Funny)
But it has for example forced me to - they've subpoenaed me for a lot of emails, and I spent literally a week writing a tool to index all my emails, so that when they give a better criteria for me, what they really want, I can actually produce it.
Of course it would take a kernel hacker a week to write a tool to index emails. He probably wrote it from scratch in ANSI C with dependencies only on stdio.h and string.h. I can just see him spending the first day writing a module to do fast pattern matching across character buffers. Don't get excited Linus worshippers: I'm half kidding. Half.
GNOME is Windows, but slower (Score:4, Interesting)
THEY'RE RE-CREATING WINDOWS.
No, really, they are. That's not necessarily bad, but it is a bit scary. Look:
GConf == Registry
Nautilus == Explorer shell
Bonobo == DCOM
GStreamer == Direct Show
DBus == (something they do now)
Much of the same duplications are being done for KDE, too. Re-inventing, re-inventing, re-inventing.
Furthermore, they're doing it worse. Or at least more slowly. Nautilus is SLOW. GNOME is much slower on equivalent hardware than Windows XP is.
I'm fine with re-implementing something that is the rigth answer. I'm not convinced all of these are, and I'm *know* we're not as fast or stable as XP in the GUI.
I want to see Linux and free/open software succeed. I really really do. I don't particularly LIKE OS/X, but it is a better experience than GNOME is, still.
I once more suggest that either the KDE team or the GNOME team concede to the other. Stop duplicating or triplicating efforts. We're still pretty far behind, and it doesn't seem to me that we're catching up (except on the simplest of desktop tasks).
Re:How much is your time worth now-a-days (Score:4, Insightful)
It was worth it to him. Me, I use Zoe; but then I also use an operating system someone else wrote. I'm not going to gainsay what Linus does with his time - I don't have an entire industry built around what I decided to do as a hobby.
How selfish of him (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How selfish of him (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that's all good and well, but I think declaring him to be your God* is a bit much.
(*Actually, to parody a saying about Larry Ellison, the difference between God and Linus Torvalds is that Linus doesn't think he's god..)
Re:How selfish of him (Score:5, Informative)
If you haven't yet, read Just For Fun [amazon.com], it's a great semi-autobiography.
Re:How much is your time worth now-a-days (Score:4, Informative)
No mention of archive or an archive type app there....
lol (Score:3, Insightful)
for some people 'archive' doesn't mean 'zip up into a binary format nothing else understands'
Re:Linux Desktop (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Games! (Score:3, Insightful)
1- not required
2- Works fine for UT2003, ArmyOps, Savage, RTCW, etc...
Re:Okay I can take this !!!!!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Washington? New York? The article wasn't from the United States. And anyway, why don't you post something useful instead of complaining about a simple mistake. In fact, it might not be a mistake. Germans spell America "Amerika", while the US spells their country "Germany" when it is clearly "Deutschland".
On Linux usability (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about that. However, it's been pretty clearly established that, five or six years ago, a tech hobbyist could use Linux as his sole desktop. He might have to use care in purchasing hardware, and he might have to deal with LaTeX instead of a word processor. He might have to re-request documents in a different format. He might spend an awfully long time getting things up and running. However, Linux was usable alone.
KDE and GNOME and other projects steadily got easier to use and were cleaned up. Windows compatibility improved. Companies slowly started to throw their weight behind Linux.
Two or three years ago, I'd say that a power user could reasonably start using Linux. There were still some annoying issues. Antialiasing wasn't in use, and many folks noticed this, if they were accustomed to Windows-style antialiasing. Sound drivers at the time were usually OSS/Free, so distributions used software sound servers to do sound mixing, which frequently resulted in poor-quality-resampled sound that broke up. XFree86 3.3 was still around, and 3D support in 3.3 was pretty bad. You still had to use the command line for a reasonable number of things (probably looking online for someone having the same problem), though folks were working hard on frontends.
Today, I think that a power user can comfortably run Linux, without any of the old drawbacks. 3d support is generally roughly on par with Windows. Audio is much better -- most distributions use ALSA and take advantage of hardware mixing, though more unusual features like hardware reverb generally aren't supported. Things like support for cheapo printers and reliable Windows filesharing support are in place. Most Windows productivity programs have an acceptably usable equivalent, and while document compatibility still isn't perfect (OpenOffice isn't identical with MS Office), it's good enough for most people to comfortably get work done without making an annoyance of themselves. Things are *not* equivalent to Windows. While most unusual hardware can be made to work one way or another (for example, I have a SmartHome USB X10 controller that can be made to work under 2.4 by compiling and installing modules myself...though 2.6 support is not in), it's still not flawless. The typical Linux distribution has gained weight -- GNOME and KDE are both quite heavyweight. Games are just not there -- this may not be an issue for the business desktop, but it's a huge deal for the home desktop. Binary software distribution (and no matter how nice it would be for everything to be open source, it just isn't going to happen) is a phenomenal pain in the ass, even in the presence of the LSB. I have Loki games, games that I purchased perhaps two years ago, that already do not run on current distributions. There is no existing technical solution, short of using Java bytecode and taking the performance hit that doing so entails.
I find that XP Home's multiuser workstation environment is much more accessable to a typical home user. Jane can log on, then she can switch to Bob, then he can log off and Jane can continue using her software. While I have run multiple X servers before on my box, I don't believe that there are any major distros that support such a setup nicely out of the box, and I remember running into all sorts of interesting bugs at the time -- run OpenGL software or something, and freezes started coming up.
Two of the major players in the Linux productivity world are OpenOffice and Mozilla, requred for MS Office and IE equivalence. Both of these use oddball widget sets. They are usable, and generally operate roughly like other applications on the system do. However, they are still disconcerting to the user. I *know* when something is using Athena or XUL or whatever OpenOffice uses, and I adapt my behavior accordingly. It's still confusing, unintuitive, and looks unprofessional to someone just trying to do work, however. By comparison, the Qt-Gtk differences are much mor