Will The Free Software Desktop Ever Make It?

[Temar]

Hmm... That applies to any OS AFAIK

Yes, but some are a lot easier to handle. The problem is that simple operations like i.e. installing a software are no longer simple if the package is not included in the default repository.

Linux fails to make simple things simple.

[waucka]

I used to give Luc the benefit of the doubt. Now I see he's just a troll/whiner. Is the average user really going to be messing with xorg.conf? No. They will use the graphical configuration utilities. Will the average user want the feature Luc wanted to use? No. If an ordinary user accidentally enabled that feature, they would think "Oh no, I broke something".

Oh, and "virtual desktop" being available on Windows out of the box? Not in XP, that's for damn sure.

[deanjo]

Oh, and "virtual desktop" being available on Windows out of the box? Not in XP, that's for damn sure.

It may not have been "out-of-the box" a decade ago but even if one had to install a 3rd party app it did not mean having to revert to a console or hand editing files. Then again if we look at the state of X back then as well......

[RealNC]

I used to give Luc the benefit of the doubt. Now I see he's just a troll/whiner. Is the average user really going to be messing with xorg.conf? No. They will use the graphical configuration utilities.

Yeah, and they don't work. Then he Googles on how to configure the system and finds arcane stuff to put in X.Org. For example I installed openSUSE and the resolution was wrong. Changing it in KDE's System Settings didn't help; after a reboot, it was back to 1600x1200. The changes wouldn't stick. And even if they did, the login screen would still be in the wrong resolution.

There goes your GUI configuration.

Oh, and "virtual desktop" being available on Windows out of the box? Not in XP, that's for damn sure.

So? It's in 7.

[mendieta]

I used to discuss this topic in slashdot ... what, 10 years ago? We made, we already made it. Most hardware today works in linux out of the box. Two out of three graphics manufacturers support linux with open source drivers, and the third at least provides binary support. Linux can be installed a lot more easily than windows, and provides an awful lot of functionality. And virtualization can help feed the void, otherwise.

Emerging technologies are embracing Linux, including desktop linux, projects such as meego, and even the android revolution is open source and linux based. Chrome laptops are around the corner.

Despite all that, it looks like linux won'r replace windows massively, not out of lack of anything, but really because people want what they know. Whatever.

The one thing we are missing, and to me is kind of silly, is to enable android in the linux desktop. People should be able to buy/download android apps. Ubuntu started a serious effort to do that a couple years back, but it never really happened. Quite a lost opportunity. Ubuntu could be offered in tablets as "android in steroids". Oh well.

[aussiebear]

Known Troll Writes Inflammatory Blog Post, news at 11!

While I agree...I'm curious as to why Phoronix is covering this as a News item.

I stopped going to Tuxmachines.org because they blended their news articles with lots of third-party opinion BS.

Stick to actual news. Like the majority of other bits in the Latest Phoronix News section. Most of that is good.

Discussion that ends up without a plan to make a difference is pointless. I might as well spend that time talking to my dying grandmother. At least that has some worth.

[Hephasteus]

Hmm... That applies to any OS AFAIK

It is a bit more difficult for linux. I'm going to have to give you the blackhat support funny for that comment.

http://xkcd.com/278/

Oh and don't like the message board. It's burning my retnas.

[89c51]

from the article:

I forgot to put apostrophes around "Panning", and i got greeted with a bleeding panel, with no option to easily get around it. What on earth are we thinking here?

be more careful the next time Luc . May the codes be with you.

[Tudhalyas]

I think we're missing the point here. In order to become a good desktop operating system, Linux needs 2 things:

1. A stable API for its kernel and its main subsystems, namely the graphics and audio stack. If you want people outside the open source movement to support Linux, you'll have to give them stable APIs so they can write their modules without the worry that they won't work with the next release of the package. This would also ensures some degree of backward compatibility towards old, non-open binaries that are no more supported by the developers. Yes, we would all like 100% free software on our machines, but this is not a perfect world.
2. One (and only one) thing for every critical task of the OS, so that people can find a similar environment on any distro they may try: one graphical server, one audio framework, one package management system, one GUI toolkit, etc. I know, Linux should be all about users' choice, but when it comes to critical parts of the OS we shouldn't have the luxury of choosing which parts fits us best. With an uniform system framework across distros, people (users and developers alike) would get more attracted to Linux, IMHO.

If we can achieve these two goals, then Linux on the desktop will finally emerge from its niche.

[yotambien]

I'm going to save the author of the rant an expensive copy and paste operation:

Amazingly, very few seems to have grasped the key issue here.

* I am a very long term linux user, X developer and graphics driver developer and it so happens that I edited a config file (Oh! No!), which is one of the key reasons why one is a linux/free software users: one should be able to do _slightly_ out of the box things. Normal people wouldn't even call this out of the box at all, but i read all the above posts, and decided to tune the message to the... public?.
* X gave up, because i had made one minute error.
* My panel started bleeding, because plymouth, KMS and the radeon drm didn't work together, and none of them bothered to catch the fact that the Xserver gave up.

So: "Xserver gives up nicely before even trying to touch any hardware" translates to "panel starts bleeding".

That's grounds for firing people in my book: nobody tested what happens when X refuses to start. No driver issue, no hw issue, nothing: not a single bit on the hardware was touched by X.

Then, when the thing turns white, and only then, the whole patronizing thing comes back with a vengeance, and gives little to no option to to recover from this. Nothing present to try to catch a failed boot, no ssh, no grub menu.

Now what is it that most posters here fail to see?

And to the masses of anonymous posters who think that i got treated right, that it was fully correct for me to receive a bleeding panel and be given no way out. I hope that someone finds a novel way to quickly discharge your laptops LiIon batteries, to the extend that they explode. Then, when you click outside the area where the Designers believe you should click, your batteries will explodes in your laps, and the designer gets his/her way. Soon, they will have only users who click inside the pre-destined/designed area. How would that suit you?