Linux on the desktop is not enough (LinuxWorld.au) [LWN.net]

RE: You have to get beyond caring

Posted Apr 22, 2005 22:52 UTC (Fri) by bdrell (guest, #27837) [Link]

That is a cop-out.

It's not all about killing the Behemoth (TM). It's about allowing companies whose needs are better suited by using a GNU/Linux distribution to use Linux on whatever hardware they happen to have handy.

I, personally, think the article was right on.

Growth

Posted Apr 23, 2005 1:48 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

*Microsoft* has no room left for growth. Everybody else has a wide-open field, as the current crop of MS consumers, hammered by viruses and spyware, is ripe for picking. Apple will pick up some, Linux will pick up others.

Each time the MS consumers cycle the treadmill, every two or three years, they have to make a choice anew whether to buy all their software all over again, or opt out. Each time, it has got a little easier to opt out. All it will take for the laptops to be ready is for a few big manufacturers to certify their machines as entirely Linux-compatible, from the ACPI power management services to the WiFi chip. HP is doing it now, in part simply by making the laptop actually conform to standards that Linux implements. Certified on one distro is compatible with all, more or less. When enough do, the rest will have to match them.

Every year the naysayers claim there is no possibility of Linux making any inroads on the desktop; or that to achieve any growth, promoters must abandon everything that made previous years' growth possible. Every year desktop usage grows at a rate that would have any sales manager jumping for joy.

When Linux becomes, finally, the obvious default choice, the same people will claim they knew all along that it was just a matter of time. It wasn't, though. It was a lot of hard work, every day, and mostly the same sort of hard work as last year. It would be easy for that growth to stagnate; all it would take is to stop doing what has worked so well so far, and start paying attention to what the people who haven't done anything to help say.

Can I quote you on that?

Posted Apr 23, 2005 22:04 UTC (Sat) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

It would be easy for that growth to stagnate; all it would take is to stop doing what has worked so well so far, and start paying attention to what the people who haven't done anything to help say.

Succinct and collectible. Thanks for that.

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 22, 2005 23:13 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

The concern isn't just growth but maintaining the current installed base through the next equipment replacement cycle.

Each year laptop prices drop closer to desktop prices. Once apon a time users would have to pay over 200% of the desktop price for portability, now they are paying around 50%. As this number drops, more people will decide that the additional cost for portability is worthwhile.

So you are going to see many desktop computers which currently run Linux replaced by laptop computers running Linux.

This replacement may not be a gradual event, as replacement cycles in large businesses are peculiar. At the moment a lot of these are supplying desktops as the standard PC, and laptops are bought additionally. That is, the business is paying for two PCs for laptop users. Some large businesses now have policies forcing a choice between desktop and laptop PCs, in an attempt to limit this cost. Given the decreasing cost difference, it is close to the time where it makes sense for large businesses to supply a laptop as the standard PC and making the desktop PC the additional item (with obvious exceptions like fixed installation in shop fronts, etc). So in a one year period a company can move to having few laptops to having primarily laptops. I can think of a few technology development companies where this is already the case.

Have a look around linux.conf.au this week. How many developers use a desktop machine as their primary development platform? And how many use laptops? People using their laptop to ssh to their desktop were far in the minority. So the hard-core Linux installed base has already shifted to laptops.

From a Linux distributor perspective, the "Linux on desktop" market is moving from desktop to laptop, for the installed base as well as for future sales. And having Linux suck so much on laptops makes it hard to retain existing customers, without worrying about growth.

The other major concern is that having Linux run poorly on laptops undermines Linux's deployment on servers (which is the growth area which is currently bringing in revenue for most distributors). The way Linux gets on a server is that someone installs it on a spare machine and tests out what they want to deploy. That spare machine was often a partition on a sysadmin's desktop. The spare machine will increasingly be a partition on the sysadmin's laptop (which is good, as it makes for easier demos). The more barriers to getting that demo to work, the less Linux on servers.

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 23, 2005 20:02 UTC (Sat) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link]

> Once apon a time users would have to pay over 200% of the desktop price for portability, now they are paying around 50%.

Where can I get one of these laptops that are half the price of a comparable desktop?

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 24, 2005 22:47 UTC (Sun) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]

I think he meant that you pay the price for the hardware/perfomance and 50% on top of that for the portability...

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 23, 2005 21:12 UTC (Sat) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Apart from the math which I didn't quite understand, I think you're quite right. Most hackers I
know work primarily on their laptops, although many have a desktop machine somewhere to play
server for their home network.

As for me, there are seven laptops in this house. Five run only Linux, one dual boots Linux and
OS X, and one runs Windows 3.11 -- because it's a 486sx with 4MB of memory. But only the
2000 vintage machines can suspend under Linux; the newer laptops don't. But I haven't used a
desktop as my development machine since 2000, and won't go back.

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 24, 2005 15:59 UTC (Sun) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

" From a Linux distributor perspective, the "Linux on desktop" market is moving from desktop to laptop... "

Where is the big difference ? From a technical point of view almost all Laptops are Hardware+OSes standard x86 platforms equal to the Desktops.

And i belive the contrary to be true, Desktops will get smaller and with as many power aware features as Laptops... and fast. I've seen *of the shelf* slim barebones, not thin clients, smaller than many laptops.

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 24, 2005 22:06 UTC (Sun) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

No, laptops are not bog-standard like desktop machines. For one, they are loaded with weird stuff that just can't be replaced (Winmodems, IR, WiFi (Centrinos have extraofficial drivers that work, so do a few other WiFi chips; the vast majority are hopeless)), for the other they have peculiar screens (wide-screen LCD anyone?). Plus there are considerations that don't apply to desktops (CPU speed and other regulation for lower battery consumption, switching between screen and projector or TV).

Yes, my current Toshiba laptop does (mostly) work with Linux, but what doesn't work right is irritating anyway. Yes, I've got a true PCMCIA modem (the builtin is hopeless). No, the SD slot doesn't work (Linix doesn't even know it is there, AFAIKS). No, IR has no chance either. And I paid for this stuff... Don't bother telling me about all the great resources for laptops out there, I've looked at them and tried what I found already. That's how I got the machine working as it is now.

OTOH, software-wise things are much better today: The preinstalled WinXP hasn't seen any use, as OOo is now capable enough to read the junk people insist in sending as Word or PowerPoint (most just goes into the thrash, but once in a long while it warrants reading...), and to handle the weird formats you have to fill in for grants around here.

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 25, 2005 8:53 UTC (Mon) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link]

For one, they are loaded with weird stuff that just can't be replaced (Winmodems, IR, WiFi (Centrinos have extraofficial drivers that work, so do a few other WiFi chips; the vast majority are hopeless)), for the other they have peculiar screens (wide-screen LCD anyone?).

A number of laptops have their WiFi modules as mini-PCI cards, and these are replaceable. Gigabyte offers two modules (54/108 mbps), which both are known to run under Linux for as little as 24/37 EUR.

Wide-screen LCDs should just be a matter of defining the propper modeline, as it is with wide-screen LCDs on the desktop (I've one, works better than on Windows). Well, probably people forgot how to hand-edit an XF86Config (xorg.conf), since it wasn't necessary for a long time, but the distributions can add the necessary modelines for 1280x800, 1650x1050, and 1920x1200 @60Hz (not exceeding the 170MHz DVI clock limit).

Switching between screens also is an issue that Linux handles extremely well for quite some time. X can handle multiple screens at multiple resolutions with lots of options (side-by-side, clone, etc.), and for screen/projector sharing, you can limit the projector to the typical 1024x768 pixels without problems. This worked out of the box two years ago, when I installed Linux on a Dell notebook - while with Windows, a lot of looking into the NVidia-specific parts deep down in the screen configuration was necessary.

You need to care about the installed base

Posted Apr 25, 2005 14:30 UTC (Mon) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]

modelines - boy that brings back memories...

Anyway, since most laptops use DVI, which is true digital, does modeline even matter anymore. Why should it?

Does modeline even matter with DVI?

Posted May 5, 2005 9:15 UTC (Thu) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link]

Yes. The modeline specifies the resolution (which is obviously necessary) and the timing. And even with digital displays you should stay within the various frequency boundaries; e.g., on a Matrox G450 the DVI output does not work beyond a dot clock of ~122MHz; and most displays will not accept frame rates too far out of the ordinary. You probably can reduce the retrace times to almost nothing on digital displays, though.

Apple has no real advantage

Posted Apr 23, 2005 9:13 UTC (Sat) by xav (subscriber, #18536) [Link]

You forgot the *very* reason why linux is successful. It's not because it's technologically superior (otherwise it would never have even started) but because it's free software. The freedom and openness you get are key, and that's what decides some business to trust linux.
In this sense Apple is just another proprietary offering, and one with less applications available.

Apple has no real advantage

Posted Apr 23, 2005 11:58 UTC (Sat) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

The freedom and openness you get are key, and that's what decides some business to trust linux.

This may be true for some businesses, but what I've seen is that managers base the decisions on cost and on technical merits. If the product is not good enough, they won't buy it. It doesn't really matter that the source is available if the business doesn't have the resources to actually improve it...

Bye,NAR

You have to get caring about end user experinece and hardware, or get a job at MS.

Posted Apr 24, 2005 15:44 UTC (Sun) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

" The desktop race is over, there is no significant growth left in this area. The growth markets are now in embedded computing and mobile computing "

I belive that not to be exactly true. If Linux is dead on the Desktop then is dead, period ... it's only a question of time. And more so because Microsoft dosen't have to resort to a patent war, it only have to make their Desktops some how incompatible with FOSS desktops to get the same or better results.

'Linux is moving very slowly because there never was a real consern about *common* end users experience and hardware!!.'

On the interface front there are more toolkits than necessary, and belive that are not only the big commercial contenders, but also the general Open Source developer, that are not interested on commom fields of union, like a IDL like XUL that could be evolved to speak the different toolkits and use the same technologies underneath.

On the hardware front, inspite the extraordinary effort of the community, there was always a complete divorce, interrupted here and there by short lived flirts. And here is a front, i belive, that a Common Defined Open Source Hardware Platform, cross-platform in CPU arquitectures and kernel OSes, and with the proper device model(perhaps *split* in nature) elected by all that could adress and ease the fears of the Hardware Industry, would be something that could very well shrink MS to half its size in a medium to long term.

In conclusion, or Linux/FOSS do a *real* Desktop effort in the right way as proven by MS itself, software+hardware standards for everybody with no fear at all of "White Box" explosions, or very little of the Linux contenders would be even extremely lucky to achieve a position similar to what Apple has today, because Server without Desktop would always be not much more than repalce Unix Servers, and with the garanty of a war by MS on Desktops that forces them to step back.