Linux not ready for the desktop? Give me a break! (NewsForge)

Posted Apr 14, 2003 10:13 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

quote:
And then there's questions of the quality of software to do even moderately serious desktop tasks. Let's try to write a memo. OpenOffice has no templates and the default paragraph settings suck. Oh well, let's set those and finish our memo. Do a spell check? Not with the default dictionary!
\quote

And Windows has decent software? Oh, well, there's always WordPerfect. Wait - that runs on linux!

Gimme a break - about the only MS software that I personally use at home is Windows itself (have to - my family would scream at me...), and of course rather more at work where it's what the sysadmins (at the behest of the PHBs) have put on my puter. Oh well, at least I have the ability to install PerfectOffice and Open Office too, even if I don't really use them - but I don't really use Word, either :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Posted Apr 14, 2003 14:54 UTC (Mon) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

> And then there's questions of the quality of software to do even moderately
> serious desktop tasks. Let's try to write a memo. OpenOffice has no
> templates and the default paragraph settings suck.

Sometime ago I did some project documents on OpenOffice/Linux
combination in a corporate environment where practically all documents
are done on MS Word. The project manager did not notice anything unusual
until I told her... Every major organization has its own Word templates
(if only to allow some graphic designer or IT manager leave his/her
thumbmark...), and OpenOffice user can clone the look'n'feel by taking
one MS Word document following the style as a base. That's what I did.

I admit in this case I had to use some OpenOffice features in a certain
way to ensure the the MS Word export would look good. There were some
maddening cases, where the most natural way to do formatting in OpenOffice
was not transferred to the MS Word version properly.

The above of course is an issue only in a "mixed" environment: I believe a
corporation could well do ALL office work exclusively in OpenOffice
without losing any functionality, if documents going out can be
checked on a "real" MS Word, or, even better, always exported as HTML or
PDF documents. (PDF export is better in any case if you are serious about
having the recipient see exactly the layout and page numbering you want.
Different MS Word versions and viewers, even by MS, can create
differences....)

Posted Apr 14, 2003 23:15 UTC (Mon) by melauer (guest, #2438) [Link]

There are deserving criteria such as "ease of use" where Linux doesn't currently even come close to Windows let alone MacOS. The user interface lacks even basic design criteria such as consistency. Why are there differing procedures to print a page in Mozilla and OpenOffice and Xpdf and from the desktop? Why do I need to tell every package that the printer has A4 paper?

You've hit upon an interesting issue here. You ask why Mozilla, OpenOffice and Xpdf print differently. One answer: Use Konqueror, KWord (which has templates), and KGhostView, or the GNOME equivalents. Both KDE and GNOME are internally consistent, and both have tons of software which follows their standards. More to the point, if all your software is designed for one environment, it is much easier to use (because it all behaves the same). Yet most distros ship with both, and lots more X software which isn't consistent with either (console software/daemons are, of course, something else entirely).

May I make a suggestion to the makers of "Desktop" Linux distros: Ship less software! Seriously, try including just KDE or GNOME, and none of the "extra" X software (perhaps excepting full-screen games and similar software which one would expect to behave somewhat differently). For that matter, just include one "preferred" version of each type of software (e.g. one MP3/music file player, one mixer, one text editor, yeah you heard me!) Your competition (Windows) hardly ships with any software, why should you? People can always download and install more free software if they want. Perhaps you could sell a larger product with all that extra software for more money, as a "Plus" pack or some sort of "Expert Edition". If you must ship tons of software, then make your "default" install (the one all the newbies will choose) smaller. Make the default installation very small but very easy to understand, then let people add on from there.

KDE and GNOME are well designed interfaces. They do not lack "basic" design criteria. They lack good help files, but that's another story :). Anyway, they are each highly consistent. But mixing the two, and other software besides, breaks that consistency. Any distro which wants to be "Linux for the Masses" should keep in mind that the masses need to start sinmple, and learn from there.