Hi there.

regarding the question of the topic: in my opinion the linux desktop is not dead (yet) - but it is on the way to die.

I choose ubuntu gnome / kde some years ago after using windows for a decade because vista gets more and more bloated with unwanted services, indexer and whizards in the background.

Everything gets "easier" for a "better user experiance" preventing the user from choosing what he wants and what not. Search and indexing tools, organizing files in whatever categories, hidden structures etc. make the system more and more a mystery game than a tool one can use and understand. Integration in web based services and "cloud" computing make things even worse. All this can be seen as spyware on my hardware.

So finally I decided to gain back control and installed linux.

An guess what. After some years linux is now where Windows was some years ago. Again dependencies on unintended Internet services, things like Ubuntu One - clouds, spy ware integration into the os like nepomuk indexing / semantic desktop - no chance to opt out all this collaboration things and social network integration stuff - again losing control over my pc. I mean - PC stands for personal computer. I want to organize my data myself, I do not want this data to be searched and indexed in any way I have not configured or allowed to do so, I do not want to have all my communication get semantically analyzed, categorized and stored in any hidden place whithout my permission. I even have no chance to access and see, what this indexer has done - and who knows who can misuse this data in the future?

The next thing I strongly disagree is hardware support: If I buy any hardware out there I get device drivers for windows or MacOS in the package, but nothing for Linux. In many cases the hardware is not useable out of the box in linux - and no it is not only about dvb-t / dvb-s hardware. It applies to printer drivers, nvidia graphic cards, gsm / 4G modems and many others, that do not run "out of the box" in linux.

Linux has a great bunch of software for free - but in most cases there is no documentation af it at all, no explanation of configuration options and lack of support for it after os upgrades. So one cannot rely on a piece of software that runs for ages that it will continue to run on the next OS version - see XDMCP / xnest for instance. It was my preferred remote admin tool for years - with Ubuntu / Kubuntu 10.10 it just disappered. This is not a serious OS for business use if essential functionality can just be killed by some developer out there... Windows at least has a backward compatibility.

KDE has in the meantime almost the same disadwantages that forced me some years ago to go away from Windows. So yes - in my opinion it is dying - at least on my computer...

enorbet wrote:Silly? All of the meeting and email associated stuffs are now integrated into the KDE4 Plasma Desktop through the database linking through Akonadi, Strigi, Nepomuk and Virtuoso and their integration with applications like Kontact. Excel files are trivial anymore.

AutoCAD? See ProEngineer and other products http://www.ptc.com/

ARCGis? Runs in VirtualBox for the few client side components that don't run natively.

PowerPoint no problem

Skype now runs natively in Linux

When you add to this the huge reduction in maintenance I really can't see "silly" in the same sentence.

O dear, where to start..

Excel files are "trivial" are they?? Try that line on my boss when he wants you to do something yesterday using an excel file full of macros and pivot tables created specifically in and for excel. Convert it into OOo if you like - and find a new job tomorrow, cos it's taken you all afternoon today to do a half-hour job.

Kontact is not even close to Outlook 2010 in functionality and real-world usefulness. I wish it were but it's not, and the last time I tried it (4.5.x) it was still pretty unreliable too - I lost calendar information through a bug. Not viable in any serious, conservative, business i'm afraid.

"See ProEngineer"?? Oh right i'll just pop out and convert the entire european civil engineering industry overnight shall I..? Get real. I have to use what everybody else uses. I didn't mention ARCADY, PICADY, LINSIG, TRANSYT etc. All industry-standard, and if you diverge from it you better be prepared for a sh!tstorm somewhere down the road when everyone is looking for something, ANYTHING, to blame for the latest problem. What was that cheap unfamiliar program you insisted on using again? Again, better start browsing that job board.

"Just run it in VirtualBox.." You mean run it in Windows; In VirtualBox. That's still using Windows, just with the added hassle of using shared folders and losing processing power to hypervisor overhead. Might as well install Windows in the first place.

Powerpoint "No problem" - see above. Switching between Host and Guest every other time you want to read an email attachment? Ridiculous.

Skype linux is Version 2.x I think, the windows version is 5.x. The functionality I specifically referred to does not exist in the linux version. Its just not possible to do without Windows afaik.



This seems a typical attitude unfortunately from FOSS advocates who are frankly living in a fantasy land. So blinded are they by their love of linux that they assume everyone else is as well, and they're completely blind to the daily reality of a busy business exec who doesn't give two sh!s about what programs are on his PC, he just wants to do his work as quickly and effectively as possible.

People like my friend here always say the same thing - Problem? Just use this workaround! Virtualbox/Wine/Codeweavers/OOo/alternative software/etc. The point is that they are workarounds, and even viable workarounds are still unwanted hassle - people don't want hassle, they want things that work in as straightforward a way as possible.


Don't misunderstand - i'm not saying the POTENTIAL isn't there for FOSS to take over. It definately is, and I would love it to happen. But to get there we have to be honest about the current situation. Know your enemy.

spoovy wrote:Kontact is not even close to Outlook 2010 in functionality and real-world usefulness. I wish it were but it's not, and the last time I tried it (4.5.x) it was still pretty unreliable too - I lost calendar information through a bug. Not viable in any serious, conservative, business i'm afraid.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly is it that you're missing in Kontact? If it's about Sharepoint integration or something like business contact manager then I wouldn't have too high hopes of it ever being able to compete, mostly because MS probably would do anything to prevent it from happening. The other parts of the MS office suite have been working well in Wine though.

About Kontact (or parts of it, I mostly use Kmail and Korganizer) being unreliable I haven't experienced myself, Outlook on the other hand...

Then again, I haven't used Linux in a production environment so in that respect I haven't been able to benchmark it.

cando wrote:Everything gets "easier" for a "better user experiance" preventing the user from choosing what he wants and what not. Search and indexing tools, organizing files in whatever categories, hidden structures etc.

That's because the average user finds it easier when a database have indexed their files. Regarding Nepomuk and the semantic desktop, I have turned it off since for me it isn't filling any function. That's the good thing about Linux - choice

cando wrote:I even have no chance to access and see, what this indexer has done - and who knows who can misuse this data in the future?

I think it would be discovered pretty quickly if this indexer would "phone home". You wouldn't do that with closed source software.

cando wrote:The next thing I strongly disagree is hardware support: If I buy any hardware out there I get device drivers for windows or MacOS in the package, but nothing for Linux. In many cases the hardware is not useable out of the box in linux - and no it is not only about dvb-t / dvb-s hardware. It applies to printer drivers, nvidia graphic cards, gsm / 4G modems and many others, that do not run "out of the box" in linux.

New hardware can sometimes be troublesome, it's usually hardware that's a couple of years old that is supported "out of the box" (but not always). Nvidia drivers should be available through your package manager however.

cando wrote:So one cannot rely on a piece of software that runs for ages that it will continue to run on the next OS version - see XDMCP / xnest for instance. It was my preferred remote admin tool for years - with Ubuntu / Kubuntu 10.10 it just disappered. This is not a serious OS for business use if essential functionality can just be killed by some developer out there

In the case of (K)ubuntu it's always suggested to use the LTS-releases in a production environment. In the windows world you can't rely on third party software to be compatible across versions either so it's not any different there.

spoovy wrote:Excel files are "trivial" are they?? Try that line on my boss when he wants you to do something yesterday using an excel file full of macros and pivot tables created specifically in and for excel. Convert it into OOo if you like - and find a new job tomorrow, cos it's taken you all afternoon today to do a half-hour job.

It is fun to hammer nails with a screwdriver, isn't it?

spoovy wrote:This seems a typical attitude unfortunately from FOSS advocates who are frankly living in a fantasy land. So blinded are they by their love of linux that they assume everyone else is as well, and they're completely blind to the daily reality of a busy business exec who doesn't give two sh!s about what programs are on his PC, he just wants to do his work as quickly and effectively as possible.

People like my friend here always say the same thing - Problem? Just use this workaround! Virtualbox/Wine/Codeweavers/OOo/alternative software/etc. The point is that they are workarounds, and even viable workarounds are still unwanted hassle - people don't want hassle, they want things that work in as straightforward a way as possible.

I've thought for a long time that if one of the two major Linux Desktop Environments would sponsor a serious "Linux Means Business" development website they could really set the pace for establishing their 'brand' in the business-desktop market. KDE tried it half-heartedly once but shelved it without any real fireworks. All they ever listed as success examples were university mini-frames, etc... I was one who wanted to see real small business success stories. That's where Linux can get in.

cando wrote:An guess what. After some years linux is now where Windows was some years ago. Again dependencies on unintended Internet services, things like Ubuntu One - clouds

Canonical's a business and they want to grow. It's inevitable that some pay-to-use feature like Ubuntu One will pop up. I don't blame Canonical for bringing in that kind of feature. They want to expand and constantly improve their OS for the regular end-user, so they need money. What better way to do it than to jump on-board the latest craze, "cloud" computing?

With that said, let's assume that all hardware companies drop Windows in favor of Linux. I'm sure that Dell, Asus, Samsung, etc. have to agree to some deal with the hardware manufacturers to install X bloatware with Y driver so the hardware manufacturers can get more profits, not to mention the vendor's bloatware. If I'm wrong in assuming that, please correct me.

I don't see how bloatware can sneak its way into a community-supported monolithic kernel. I can see hardware vendors installing their own bloatware in their custom distribution, but what kind of bloatware would that be? What's more, which distribution are they going to build off of? Are they going to create their own? I think bloatware on the Linux desktop is going to be more of a "distribution's bloatware of-interest". Hopefully, compared to the free-trial bloatware on Windows, it'll be less annoying, more uniform, and less out-of-the-way. Kind of like Ubuntu One (that's right, I said it. BRING IT ON!).

tl;dr version: I don't see bloatware being too much of a problem on Linux.

spoovy wrote:People like my friend here always say the same thing - Problem? Just use this workaround! Virtualbox/Wine/Codeweavers/OOo/alternative software/etc. The point is that they are workarounds, and even viable workarounds are still unwanted hassle - people don't want hassle, they want things that work in as straightforward a way as possible.

I don't think that's an accurate representation of the situation. It's better to say that, that, being technically oriented, many FOSS advocates underestimate the difficulty of migrating.

You're not immune to myopia, spoovy, and I question some of your assumptions. The fact that I haven't used Windows for years doesn't mean that I have no insights on the need for windows. I know that I can get by without it, and what else do I need to know?

Again and again, you use "real world functionality" in a way that carries the assumption that the "real world" is the world that Microsoft has made. This is bad for Linux since Windows will always be better at being Windows. In a very real sense, that assumption is true, but it's not the only possible truth.

Try to think out of the box. What if all these fancy applications and formats that your business is addicted to are forcing you to keep reinvesting in an infrastructure that is expensive, restrictive and insecure? That's all real world stuff, right? Money and risk? Now, I'm going to assume that some people really do need Excel and Outlook and others don't, but they're all buying it, and it's locking them all in, because that's what it's designed to do. It kind of sucks that people blame Linux for the pain of migration, when it really appears that the pain of migrating has been built into the system by Microsoft.

If you don't have a technical background, the pain of migration is very real. It was real for me, as a humble home user with a degree in English and general literature. I went through long months of frustration and shuttling back and forth. But then it got better. And then, it got better. I think it would be the same for a business, though a business would presumably find better support now than I did as a beginning Linux user eight years ago. Migration is pain, but it's finite, and it's just one time. The expense and insecurity of Windows is ongoing. For some, the short view and the long view will lead to different conclusions.

I know that most people aren't willing to think outside of the box, but there is a whole world out there, and it's pretty real.

For me, an important benefit of the Linux lifestyle is the ease with which I can use old hardware. I once invested several hundred dollars in a new computer. That was a lot of money for me, and it turned out to be a lemon. The video card burned out in less than a month and a half, the motherboard was replaced twice, the power supply was replaced. What I learned from that experience is that spending real money on a computer makes it hard to walk away when things go wrong, and that means more money invested. And so, I resolved to live on used hardware from that point forward.

These days, I use Desktop computers from propertyroom.com, a police auction site, where, according to the law, all computers are sold without operating systems. The computer I'm typing on now cost me 58 dollars including shipping. It's a pentium 4 with 2.6 ghz and came with a GB of RAM. When I'd had it for a few months, and it turned out to be reliable, I decided to upgrade. I added a 500GB sata drive and another gig of RAM, at a total cost of less than a hundred dollars. I use this computer for entertainment and information, and also for editing video for youtube. (My channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/omgitsmikegravel)

I was told that because this Dell computer still had a Windows sticker, I could legally install Windows XP on it. So I tried it, but drivers were a major issue. I could never get a usable display resolution. I might have been able to scare up the drivers on the web, but I wasn't interested enough to make the effort. I'm sort of used to things just working. With hardware that has generally been not brand spanking new , my issues with drivers in Linux over the past eight years have been, to the best of my recollection, zero. I've never had to hunt them down, download them or think about them, except when I've wanted 3D gaming. I decided that gaming is pretty boring, and second life is a huge timesuck, So I don't bother with 3D rendering these days. However, just using the default driver with the onboard card, I get nice desktop effects in KDE4.

Just a few days ago, I got two more computers from Property Room. They came together in a huge box that was almost too heavy to lift. They're identical IBM P4 boxes with 2.0 ghz. I installed Slackware on one, and sometimes I intend to be using it for writing. from the console with emacs, with no distractions. The other is going to be used as a router. Total cost for both computers, 42 dollars with shipping. And that's what I call real-world functionality!

cando wrote:Hi there.

regarding the question of the topic: in my opinion the linux desktop is not dead (yet) - but it is on the way to die.

I choose ubuntu gnome / kde some years ago after using windows for a decade because vista gets more and more bloated with unwanted services, indexer and whizards in the background.

Everything gets "easier" for a "better user experiance" preventing the user from choosing what he wants and what not. Search and indexing tools, organizing files in whatever categories, hidden structures etc. make the system more and more a mystery game than a tool one can use and understand. Integration in web based services and "cloud" computing make things even worse. All this can be seen as spyware on my hardware.

So finally I decided to gain back control and installed linux.

An guess what. After some years linux is now where Windows was some years ago. Again dependencies on unintended Internet services, things like Ubuntu One - clouds, spy ware integration into the os like nepomuk indexing / semantic desktop - no chance to opt out all this collaboration things and social network integration stuff - again losing control over my pc. I mean - PC stands for personal computer. I want to organize my data myself, I do not want this data to be searched and indexed in any way I have not configured or allowed to do so, I do not want to have all my communication get semantically analyzed, categorized and stored in any hidden place whithout my permission. I even have no chance to access and see, what this indexer has done - and who knows who can misuse this data in the future?

This would be valid if Ubuntu were your only choice for distro, and KDE your only choice of Desktop. Have you tried Slackware or Debian? Have you tried Fluxbox, XFCE, ICE WM, FVWM, LXDE, FVWM-Crystal, or Awesome? I'm using Ubuntu now, and I have yet to activate Ubuntu one, so I don't feel dependent on it.


The next thing I strongly disagree is hardware support: If I buy any hardware out there I get device drivers for windows or MacOS in the package, but nothing for Linux. In many cases the hardware is not useable out of the box in linux - and no it is not only about dvb-t / dvb-s hardware. It applies to printer drivers, nvidia graphic cards, gsm / 4G modems and many others, that do not run "out of the box" in linux.

Well, like I said, I've never had a problem with drivers, and I know for certain that graphics card drivers for Linux can be downloaded at NVidia.com

Linux has a great bunch of software for free - but in most cases there is no documentation af it at all,

WHAT? At the very least, there's almost always a manpage

no explanation of configuration options and lack of support for it after os upgrades. So one cannot rely on a piece of software that runs for ages that it will continue to run on the next OS version - see XDMCP / xnest for instance. It was my preferred remote admin tool for years - with Ubuntu / Kubuntu 10.10 it just disappered. This is not a serious OS for business use if essential functionality can just be killed by some developer out there... Windows at least has a backward compatibility.

I'm not familar with XDMCP, but a little googling reveals that it has not been killed by Ubuntu. The lack of function for XDMCP has been catalogued as a bug, and it's already been fixed in 11.04. In the meantime, apparently you can get the same functionality using xdm instead of gdm, or by sticking with the LTS version. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/408417

KDE has in the meantime almost the same disadwantages that forced me some years ago to go away from Windows. So yes - in my opinion it is dying - at least on my computer...

Linux doesn't have a majority desktop market share. By the time we get there the entire idea of what a desktop is will have been re-defined.

IMHO the whole Microsoft/Linux and Linux Desktop debate is really about 'tyranny of the majority'. Microsoft and it's products have such an impact on the IT industry that everything else lives in it's shadow and therefore has to define itself it terms of MS. Blatant examples of this is that the debate of Linux having to make it on the Desktop to be successful and has to have a MS Exchange alternative to succeed in the business world.

Tyranny of the majority is a state of nature that can't be changed, it will always happen and nothing can be done to stop it. What can happen however is this 'majority' changes to stop stagnation, new ideas are given a chance to breath life into it. These new ideas are born from 'thinking out of the box' and I think that is what Linux has to do. I don't think Linux can succeed by emulating MS but by having a game-changer or by providing better solutions to doing the same thing as MS does.

IMHO Linux is showing that with it quick adaptability to changing technology like the netbooks and smartphones where MS finds it hard to keep up. Unfortunately MS with it's financial muscle can still keep itself in the market and eventually pushing Linux out of the market although they will find it harder in further Google and Nokia/Intel support of Linux via Android and MeeGo.

Another way that Linux can succeed is to question why things need to be done in a certain way and propose a better alternative. Taking the example of MS Exchange, it has to be asked why email is the only form of electronic communication? Can Linux provide a better solution that uses less resources, easier to administer and more importantly a better way for the end-users who will use the solution?

The question has to be asked, will Linux always be in the shadow of MS and dance to it's tune?

Isn't this entire question based on whether the platform is trendy or cool? Touch screen laptops had been around for awhile, but put an apple on it, call it a cool name like IPAD, and wow, now it's what everyone wants. Linux has been around for some time, and never cracked 1% or 2% of the market's usage. Does that mean it's dead?

haltkn wrote:Isn't this entire question based on whether the platform is trendy or cool? Touch screen laptops had been around for awhile, but put an apple on it, call it a cool name like IPAD, and wow, now it's what everyone wants. Linux has been around for some time, and never cracked 1% or 2% of the market's usage. Does that mean it's dead?

Regardless of what you think of him, his company or his product, Steve Jobs is a genius in that he has vision and he knows how to harness marketing and engineering in order to create must-have items that non-computer users want. Materialism that Apple represents isn't my cup of tea but if Linux wants to succeed that way then it needs a patron like Jobs. As I mentioned, in my previous post, if you want to compare Linux to the like of MS or Apple and try to be a clone of their products then Linux will always be a failure.

Desktop Linux is not dying. Windows needs to dominate the market to stay alive. Linux clearly doesn't. Whatever share of the maket we got, it's thriving. Desktop development is happening so fast that (e.g.in the case of KDE4) it's **** people off.

I think we do have our Steve Jobs. His name is Mark Shuttleworth. Ubuntu doesn't have the hardware edge that apple has, but he's done some awesome stuff toward making Linux usable. The new version of Ubuntu adds flashplayer at the point of installing, another big problem solved. It's been eight years for me, and I remember how much it used to be a struggle to burn a CD before K3B came along.

blackbelt_jones wrote:Desktop Linux is not dying. Windows needs to dominate the market to stay alive. Linux clearly doesn't. Whatever share of the maket we got, it's thriving. Desktop development is happening so fast that (e.g.in the case of KDE4) it's **** people off.

I think we do have our Steve Jobs. His name is Mark Shuttleworth. Ubuntu doesn't have the hardware edge that apple has, but he's done some awesome stuff toward making Linux usable. The new version of Ubuntu adds flashplayer at the point of installing, another big problem solved. It's been eight years for me, and I remember how much it used to be a struggle to burn a CD before K3B came along.

Not one major distro has gone out of business. When Red Hat, Suse, Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva or Slackware are forced to give it up, that may be a warning sign, but is anyone even close to that? Hell, from what I see we're looking at slow growth while a lot of the economy has been shrinking.