Weekly Edition
Return to the Press page
| |||||||||||||
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN)
Linux receives some
mainstream press coverage from MSN.
"Whatever happened to Linux on the desktop? Once upon a time the open, free operating system held a philosophical magnetism that promised to bring down Microsoft. But its reliability and low cost count for nothing at the PC coalface, where Windows rules.
It's different in corporate-land. Linux has had a dream run, its acceptance accelerated with support from heavyweights such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard. These companies want Linux to power their back-end servers, but when it comes to the PC, familiarity is more important than cost, and few are familiar with Linux."
Thanks to Con Zymaris.
(Log in to post comments)
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 2:41 UTC (Fri) by Sage1 (guest, #3287) [Link] I advocate and try to let at least two to three folks to put Linux on their desktop, each week! The http://leap-cf.org has two installs each month, though the lecture on the third Thursday is rather a subdued environment, about ten folks each month come to us, new to Linux! Have posted several newsgroups with our info. Get great attendance by small business owners!But, I sense that too many folks were dumbed down by their schools, or are too beaten up by their workload, and family commitments, and have their own agenda. When can they find the unknown amount of time to let me install Linux (about 1 hour), and teach them (2 hours, tops, plus some calls for help)? Besides, it is too 'geekish' for them... They can't change the clock on their DVD player! Too few see the survival needs of it all. They won't/can't read a book. Yep, 50% of 'em are below average IQ... Humans abhor change... and the aliens are too advanced, already...I almost hate being a smart human... there are family stories of my being switched, at birth...maybe there is a job opening on the mothership...but, I would have to learn a new desktop, and how to get my email...
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 13:30 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] ...maybe there is a job opening on the mothership...but, I would have to learn a new desktop, and how to get my email...One would hope that any race that has mastered interplanetary space travel would have long given up on using the desktop metaphor as a user-computer interface. :-) "Mommy, what's a folder?"
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 7:57 UTC (Fri) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link] Is it any *really* harder to convert from the Windows *desktop* to Gnome or KDE than it is to convert from say Win 98 to Win XP? (Uncle Bill$ loves to confuse Windoze users at every upgrade...)Hold on, who runs MSN? Methinx this (together with other recent similar articles) is just another liberal application of FUD from the monopoly capitalist establishment.
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 15:09 UTC (Fri) by whelk1 (guest, #3293) [Link] The interface changes in XP are a little disruptive, but I've seen plenty of 98 and 2000 users start using it without any significant inconvenience. The Windows interface may be outdated, poorly designed and internally inconsistent, but it still has an edge over GNOME and KDE in all three of those categories. The gap continues to narrow, but mainstream acceptance of the Linux desktop is not "just around the corner" like some Linux advocates have believed for years.I happen to use Linux for my primary desktops at home and at work. Technically, I could force the rest of my coworkers to do the same, but that would be pointless and counterproductive. Similarly, I could convert my parents' machine and keep it functioning, but that would unnecessarily inconvenience them and remove their ability to perform some computer functions (due to lack of available software). BTW, MSNBC has a tendency to run (or reprint) anti-MS and/or pro-Linux articles so that they aren't seen as a marketing arm for their parent. They even reprint articles by Nick Petreley, who sits firmly on your end of the OS political spectrum.
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 16:24 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] The Windows interface may be outdated, poorly designed and internally inconsistent, but it still has an edge over GNOME and KDE in all three of those categories.Please elaborate. I can think of several areas where Gnome and KDE have an advantage over the Windows UI.
On the other hand, I can't think of anything useful that the Windows UI has that Gnome and KDE lack, but then again, I use the Windows UI as little as possible. Unfortunately, metacity -- the more or less official window manager for Gnome 2 -- has eliminated 3 out of 4 of these useful features. As far a consistency, this is an elusive goal, since there are so many different things to be consistent with within the same environment, and they often have overlapping domains. For example, is right-clicking the titlebar of a window to display a menu consistent with right-clicking the root window (a.k.a., the "desktop") to display a window more or less consistent than right-clicking the same titlebar to lower a window in the stacking order, which is consistent with left-clicking the titlebar to raise the window? You can't have them both.
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 16:29 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] ...is right-clicking the titlebar of a window to display a menu consistent with right-clicking the root window (a.k.a., the "desktop") to display a window [snip]Please allow me to back up and take another run at this... ...is right-clicking the titlebar of a window to display a menu consistent with right-clicking the root window (a.k.a., the "desktop") to display a menu... (not window)
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 8:44 UTC (Fri) by KLP2 (guest, #3290) [Link] Don't you just love the smell of fear in the morning?
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 13:22 UTC (Fri) by jdobbs2001 (guest, #3292) [Link] I run linux on my desktop but Im a geek. I honestly cant say linux is ready to replace windows on the desktop for non-geeks. There are still lots of unixisms that show through, installing games is not as simple, there are not many games for linux, some programs require the user to compile it before even using it, too many desktop standards (Gnome,KDE,etc..), not a unified platform (Redhat with its rpms, etc.. etc..), configuration tools nowhere as simple as windows based platforms, troubleshooting simple problems require some knowledge of unix, installing linux is not as easy as windows XP (try installing a driver thats not part of the dist). and there is still not enough comparable applications I still find myself going to the windows pc alot.
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 14:49 UTC (Fri) by phython (subscriber, #3278) [Link] GNU/Linux is ready for the desktop. I took the effort and put Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 on my parents computer and now I am grateful. I don't know how much they use https, but at least I know their machine is secureable.
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 16, 2002 21:06 UTC (Fri) by crouchet (guest, #1084) [Link] >> I run linux on my desktop but Im a geek. I honestly cant say linux is ready to replace windows on the desktop for non-geeks. There are still lots of unixisms that show through ...<<I understand your POV and I'll even say that it is accurate for non-techie power users. You know, the guy who makes extensive use of Outlook's calendar, creates extensive Power Point presentations, has automated some of his word processing with Word macros, manages his projects with Microsoft Project and has reports that he generates each week with XL macros and Access. He does not want to know more than absolutely necessary about the computer itself or how it works because he is already has plenty to know and do with all that other stuff. Any little incompatibility in the OS would bring his world crashing down. But then there are people like my brother who is a blacksmith. He uses e-mail to talk to the family and for blacksmith e-mail lists, word processing to write an occasional article for publication, a utility to download pictures from his digital camera and a photo editor to crop his photos for inclusion in an article. He also looks around on the web a bit. That's it. He has no interest in how or why the computer does what it does but he does not have the power user's investment in MS specific macros and such. Recently I was visiting my brother and I told him I had both Linux and Windows on my laptop. I asked him if he would like to see what Linux looked like and he said yes, so I booted up. I opened my e-mail, checked a few messages and pulled up a word processing document and looked it over. Then he said he was ready to see Linux. I told him he HAD seen it, as well as Netscape and Open Office. To him, the only difference was that a few icons were different. As far as he was concerned, KDE was just Windows. He does understand the difference between OSS and proprietary software. He is also quite clear on the fact that his machine has been trashed by e-mail viruses twice now while mine has been trashed exactly...well...zero times. Until now he had no idea a Linux based word processor could read and write Word files. Would Linux/KDE work for him? I think so. And he thinks so too. I may have an install job to do sometime this fall. :-) He may never patch any security holes after I do that install and it may be years before he updates his software but so what? He connects to the internet only via modem and he never updated his Windows either. Which do you think is worse, unpatched Linux or unpatched Windows?
JC
Linux: Penguin Suitability (NineMSN) Posted Aug 22, 2002 4:57 UTC (Thu) by raindog (guest, #1235) [Link] Of everything you said I most agree with the "not enough games" part - my non-technical partner and I run Linux on our desktops and have yet to feel the need to boot Windows for anything productive, but apart from Tux Racer and MAME we end up going to the old PC hooked up to the TV in the bedroom to play our games once in a blue moon.Yes, I paid Transgaming some money and no, WineX didn't play a single blessed one of my mostly oldish Windows games. And Loki, to my knowledge, never released one title either of us was interested in during the course of their existence. In every other respect, though, I think Linux is ready for the non-technical power user. The one and only thing my partner wanted to do under Linux but couldn't was log in to AOL, and that just provided an excuse to wean himself off of it. Every other non-game application I see people complaining about like it's some general purpose thing every Windows user runs ever day has been something that's actually really specialized like InDesign, Autocad or Finale. Sure, millions of people can't do everything they want to under Linux yet, but substantially fewer millions of people than there were last year at this time. I would actually rate their chances of success as being better than OSX (the Wine thing more than makes up for the lack of AOL.) Linux application support is purely a game of attrition at this point, between Wine and similar technology and people releasing native software (who would have thought there'd be two and a half commercial quality free office suites by now?) By this time next year it'll be hard to recognize as a nerd OS unless you actually want it to be one.
|
|||||||||||||