Why The Linux Desktop Still Rocks

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/159906/

by Garbage • 15 years ago

57 40 15 years ago

Argorak• 15 years ago

Honestly, I was expecting a "next year is the year..." post.

But this is a point that I can definitely relate to, especially as someone who regularly flies to africa with some Ubuntu CDs in my backpack. A completely free stack (both as beer and as speech) has a tremendous advantage in countries where owning hardware is already a big feat. The ability to tinker with everything that comes with the system is a also a huge advantage for people inclined to learn by doing, which seems to me one of the best ways to learn in the so-called "development countries".

fexl• 15 years ago

Yes, I've been using Ubuntu exclusively on the desktop for about 6 years now. I recently bought a new laptop (from LinuxCertified.com) and tried out 11.10 (Unity) for the first time. At first I liked it pretty well, but a few days later realized that I really missed the GNOME task bar, where I could see everything running at a glance, and click to open an active window, and click again to minimize it.

That feels indispensable to my work flow, so I'm logging in with GNOME Classic now instead of Unity. Although I commend Mark Shuttleworth and his crew on their achievements with Unity, I just gotta have that task bar. Right now the laptop feels like a dream machine -- the keyboard is perfect and I'm a master with the touchpad.

Also, the desktop behaves so beautifully that it makes my wife slightly jealous, so when her Windows computer gives up the ghost I think she's gonna want the Linux desktop.

loboman• 15 years ago

Talking about wives... My wife has been using Ubuntu for some years already. For a while she went back to Windows, until she found the countless problems with Windows bugs, spyware, adware, etc. again. That was the last time she used Windows on her computer.

Maybe the year of the Linux Desktop already happened some time ago.

akeck• 15 years ago

Regarding perennial Year-of-the-Linux-Desktop talk, I think it's as Gibson says: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." I got my wife a Dell Mini 9 a few years ago running Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS. Her response was "This is almost Mac-like". After the initial updates, all the hardware worked correctly, including sleep-on-close. She then declared that she didn't want Windows anything in the future. We've not had a Windows machine since. People act as if Linux will be "on the desktop" all at once. I think instead it's been a matter of various persons' comfort levels being met as the Linux desktop experience gets continually refined. For my wife, 8.04.1 hit the mark. For others, more recent revisions fit their needs.

bergie• 15 years ago

There is a GNOME Shell extension at extensions.gnome.org that gives a list of running windows to the top panel. Slightly tweaked version that looks cleaner:

https://github.com/cannonerd/gnome-shell-windowlist

ap22213• 15 years ago

If I could only find a laptop vendor that could replicate the build quality of my MBP, I'd be in.

fmoralesc• 15 years ago

This might be of some help: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages (I know it's not really what you asked, but still).

bryanlarsen• 15 years ago

Which MBP do you have? The original MBP's have high failure rates. Pretty much any "business-class" laptop would have been more reliable.

The unibody MBP's are much better, though.

Reviews are indicating that the ASUS Zenbook has a similar build quality and a MBA design aesthetic.

Of course, there are also specialty laptops like the Panasonic Toughbook that are designed to withstand abuse.

phaus• 15 years ago

They may be better now, but I used to run into toughbooks all the time in the Army. Basically they were just designed as a way to scam the government out of 5k per machine. They broke more often than anything else we had, including gateways.

I've owned an asus republic of gamers laptop and an eee slate. Both of them are very well built.

wavephorm8• 15 years ago

  ome may say that the Linux Desktop is dead

No, the desktop user-interface paradigm is dead. Overlapping windows, scrollbars, context menus, using a mouse and cursor... it's all dead. This style of computing that Xerox invented, and Mac and Windows perpetuated is getting awfully long in the tooth.

Linux never innovated over and above the desktop model that Windows and Mac used, and it will die along with them, and be replaced with mobile/cloud/touchscreen systems.

rbanffy2• 15 years ago

I am not sure if this is the part of the computer that's dying. I'd bet on the file and application management versus the kind of curated experience Apple popularized.

wavephorm8• 15 years ago

Why do you think Microsoft is going ahead with "Metro" touch interfaces in Windows 8? How applications are installed and files are managed is a different issue, it's irrelevant to how the user interface operates.

whatusername• 15 years ago

Linux will be replaced by Android?

wavephorm8• 15 years ago

I said Desktop will be replaced by Mobile.

cs7022• 15 years ago

Makes sense to me.

Just as Android is spreading like wildfire in the developing world via lower-end handsets, I would expect zero-cost free-software desktop stacks to gain share in 'less-developed' countries as hardware prices continue to drop. (The Free desktop stack is already economically viable in the new range of sub-$25 PCs; proprietary stacks are not.)

My impression (based purely on anecdotal evidence) is that use of Free software on the desktop has been growing at a fast pace in the poorest regions of the world for some time, but the trend is still somewhat 'invisible' as the aggregate numbers are still quite small.

eigenvector• 15 years ago

You can't install pirated iOS on a low-cost handset. If the same were true of Windows you'd be right, but for many users GNU/Linux and Windows have the same price: $0 or the cost of the installation media.

apetrovic• 15 years ago

Poor countries have very little (if any) piracy control. Cost of Windows XP or Win7 even in Eastern Europe is usually exactly the same as Ubuntu.

cs7022• 15 years ago

eigenvector, apetrovic -- that used to be a more important factor some years ago, when the Free desktop was unusable for regular folk, and pirating software was much easier.

I'm not sure it's an important factor anymore, because the Free desktop has become more usable, and using pirated software has become much more difficult.

Nowadays, users who pirate proprietary operating systems end up with unpatched, insecure systems that can't be easily updated, and which require all sorts of workarounds for installing non-pirated applications, among other problems. Meanwhile, proprietary software vendors have been hard at work to make life unpleasant for anyone who attempts to use their code without permission.

danmaz74• 15 years ago

I did not hear of Linux until a year and half later and the worst part, I was misinformed about it. They said, "It is expensive and you cant get applications for Linux very easily"

I really wonder how was that possible: Linux expensive? Who could say such a thing in a university??

CoughlinJ• 15 years ago

>Who could say such a thing in a university? I've heard way dumber things come out of college students mouths.

gdg92989• 15 years ago

where are you people getting all of these viruses from? I use probably 75% Linux, 25% windows and I can honestly say I've never gotten a virus on windows 7 OR Ubuntu.

funkah• 15 years ago

Dunno. I got one yesterday that I could not remove after trying all sorts of anti-malware and googling to find the actual problem. While running Windows Update get the latest security updates, one or more of the updates failed and left my install in an unbootable state. I had to format & reinstall the whole thing, even after diddling with the "recovery" options on the Windows install disc. It sucked and I was disappointed at the state of the art for Windows (I use Mac, but boot into Windows to work). I suspect the IV was the Java plugin.

_ea1k• 15 years ago

> I later got Real Player to work which allowed me to play some mp3s. That was one of my best days ever,

I only don't think I've ever seen "Real Player" and "one of my best days ever" that close to each other.

Seriously, do people actually still use Real Player? Doesn't Ubuntu have better solutions for playing MP3s than that?

Uhhrrr• 15 years ago

Tons - but the context is that it was "during my second year at the National University." Back when I got Real Player to run on my SparcStation in (maybe 1998?) I remember thinking it was pretty cool too.

Why The Linux Desktop Still Rocks

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