Why Linux isn't ready for desktops..

[IGBT]

Text

Regular users expect to be able to download software, install it, and have it just work. Asking them to figure out complex system library and kernel compatibility issues is a one way ticket off of their desktop.

A user should be able to install Fedora Core 4 and go grab the latest Firefox release from Download.com and have it work without the need for finding and installing compat-libstdc++ or whatever.

Developers may think it's cool to reuse as much code as possible but the user doesn't care whether it was Linux that failed to include the necessary compatibility components or Mozilla that failed to make the build work for that particular dot release of libstdc++.



I don't want to start a desktop war but I really gotta say to the distros, pick a desktop and be happy. Normal users shouldn't have to (guess or learn enough to) choose between Gnome and KDE when they're installing your product. They don't need 15 to 20 mediocre games in a highly visible Games menu at the top of the Applications list.



The final major issue is comfort.

Linux must feel comfortable to Windows users. Most people using computers today have been at it for a while now and they've been at it on Windows. Don't mess with their basic understanding of how things work. Regular people do not know what it means to "mount a drive" and they shouldn't have to.

They don't want their OK and Cancel buttons reversed -- tossing out years of finely-tuned muscle memory. They shouldn't have to learn what /home means or how it differs from My Documents. They don't want two clipboards that seem to constantly overwrite each other.

Linux UI fundamentals need a reworking to match the habits that Windows users have been building over the last decade. Get the users first, then try to teach them a better way (if you've have one). Putting things in the "right" place for Windows users will go a long way. You can never do too much to ease the transition.

 

[sourceninja]

So your saying, windows doesn't look, act, feel or work like windows. And to fix it, we need to make linux into windows.

I got it, users can not learn anything new, nor do they want to. I understand your point about installing software, but strides are being made in that by debian, ubuntu, and even gentoo (if you disregad the compiling).

I dont have to search for my software, I pop open synaptic and click install. And as autopackage matures, i'm sure we will see downloads of package files for any distro to install. So I can tell you application installs will get better, but the UI changes you are calling for will never happen. There is a reason windows and linux look different, its because the majority of linux users do not like the windows UI. Its the same reason mac and windows look different.

 

[nweaver]

apt-get install mozilla-firefox


wow, that's probably easier then downloading/installing from download.com on windows.

 

[M00T]

Not this again.

Don't you feel cramped in your little MS world?

 

[doornail]

Oh for Pete's sake. The lastest Firefox is 1.05. Fedora Core 4 ships with 1.04. As soon as 1.05 passes testing you can tackle this immense hurdle with:

# yum update firefox

or even just:

# yum update

There's part of me that prays that the masses don't catch on to what a great desktop Linux is right now. I remember back when we started installing the first Windows 3.1 systems at work and the people complained how confusing and difficult it was. Yet, these folks spent all day pressing stuff like ALT-SHIFT-F4 in Wordperfect for DOS. Slagging your way through Microsoft's interface for years doesn't make it "THE" way.

 

[sourceninja]

But you just said we had to type.

NOOOOOOOOO. that gnome-terminal thing scares me, the last thing I want to do is terminate gnome.

I would rather click 45 times then type 3 worlds, just less chance of error.






*its a joke*

 

[TGS]

Originally posted by: IGBT
[L=Text]


The final major issue is comfort.

Linux must feel comfortable to Windows users. Most people using computers today have been at it for a while now and they've been at it on Windows. Don't mess with their basic understanding of how things work. Regular people do not know what it means to "mount a drive" and they shouldn't have to.

They don't want their OK and Cancel buttons reversed -- tossing out years of finely-tuned muscle memory. They shouldn't have to learn what /home means or how it differs from My Documents. They don't want two clipboards that seem to constantly overwrite each other.

Linux UI fundamentals need a reworking to match the habits that Windows users have been building over the last decade. Get the users first, then try to teach them a better way (if you've have one). Putting things in the "right" place for Windows users will go a long way. You can never do too much to ease the transition.

Because of the ubiqitous presense of Windows on the desktop, means it's the right way to do it. Sure thing. *Drinks more Kool-aid*

[S.L. Jackson] Damn that hit the spot. [/S.L. Jackson]

Seriously all that Linux lacks, is mainly developer support. Whether it is Software or hardware based, developers follow their noses to the greenbacks. More greenbacks are in the Windows pot, so it doesn't take any sense tho figure out who they will write first for.

Which is a more sad situation? A group of people that can make any proprietary software methodology work with their system, with miniscule funding. Or the giant corporation that ham fists product after product, or has to buy out the competition to get it right?

The jumps in the overall ease of both OSes are pretty much on par as far as OSes go. No OS is bullet-proof to the masses. I seriously doubt the masses will learn more about computing than putting a DVD in a player and hitting play on the remote.

 

[P0ldy]

Ooh, look, a fortnightly thread.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: nweaver
apt-get install mozilla-firefox


wow, that's probably easier then downloading/installing from download.com on windows.

Exactly. Package management is the way of the future.

emerge mozilla-firefox

or without compiling:

emerge mozilla-firefox-bin

Done.

 

[Nothinman]

Is it just me or does ZDNet's writers get dumber as time goes on?

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Is it just me or does ZDNet's writers get dumber as time goes on?

Or maybe they've always been this dumb, and others keep getting smarter?

I don't know... I used to enjoy reading PC Magazine and similar stuff when I didn't know much about computers, but now they're incredibly boring (and sometimes wrong, or just overly simplistic). Not that I'm claiming to even know very much relative to some of the much more knowledgable folks (like you) who post here, but I still get much better info from AnandTech than from these "professional" mags...

 

[Nothinman]

PC Magazine really only seems to have like 6 issues, they just keep changing the pictures on the cover.

 

[kamper]

Wow, there's a real rash of "What linux must do to gain desktop acceptance" articles lately. Must be a lot of folks who are bitter because their attempts to ditch windows failed.

Linux is for the people who use it, not for the people who don't. All these frantic changes shouldn't be made just to gain more users, linux (kernel and userland) should continue to develop just the way the developers feel. I think it's great if a particular distribution tries to put together a package that's easy for beginners but ideas like merging kde and gnome to eliminate duplication and confusion are just stupid (I know the author didn't quite suggest that, but I've read it elsewhere).

And the idea of making interface changes to comfort windows users is just as dumb. Kde and gnome are close enough and any more imitation will stifle innovation (I'm sure many say that it already has).

I just think there's no reason to target windows users. If they switch, that's great, but compromising isn't good.

 

[ch33kym0use]

meh I use Linux anyway on the desktop

a 64 bit distro, I dont mind about the people that dont

its not following the masses, its creating you own way of doing things and using what you can

i dont really call it switching, I call it looking at the alternatives and learning how to use linux is part of whats interesting

 

[Sunner]

The major hurdle I see with a Linux desktop is driver installs.
Since lots of drivers are bonary only, one doesn't really have a choice if you're a gamer for example, but to download the GFX driver off nVidia's or ATi's site.
ATi's installer is a great step in the right direction, don't know about the nVidia driver, but if they don't have anything similar they should be working on it.

Oh and a halfdecent way to setup X.org would be nice, personally I don't mind xf86config, but I can see how it can be extremely confusing to a newbie.
I rather like the Windows approach there, start up in a basic SVGA mode and allow for easy configuration.

Granted, it's not like your average user will have a clue about installing drivers under Windows either, but writing a simple instruction is at least fairly easy.

Oh and Gnome needs to get it's act together, I've yet to see a default Gnome dektop that didn't feel extremely sluggish, especially text rendering.
Someone said that the latter is largely because Pango is glacially slow.

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: Sunner
The major hurdle I see with a Linux desktop is driver installs.

Unless there's a package available. Then it's very easy. The hard part for most people is that they're used to looking up most drivers by hardware manufacturer rather than chipset manufacturer; 99% of the time, if someone asks about drivers, and we're not familiar with the specific piece of hardware, the first request worth anything will be "Give us the output of lspci." Anyway, having a good HAL will make it easier to work with hardware automagic detection. Go look up HAL and DBUS on freedesktop.org for more info and some 0.x code.

Since lots of drivers are bonary only,

which makes things harder for us to work with ( :roll: )

one doesn't really have a choice if you're a gamer for example, but to download the GFX driver off nVidia's or ATi's site.

If we had our way and had access to the proper documentation for all hardware, this would be different.

ATi's installer is a great step in the right direction, don't know about the nVidia driver, but if they don't have anything similar they should be working on it.

ATI's installer is a right step in the direction for ATI. nVidia has had an installer for a long time, and it's NotThatBad.

Oh and a halfdecent way to setup X.org would be nice, personally I don't mind xf86config, but I can see how it can be extremely confusing to a newbie.

A good HAL would help here too. Also, the reason why XF86Config and xorg.conf are so intractable for most is that they are designed in such a way as to make complex, difficult, and irregular setups possible, by abstracting many parts of the display process. If you've ever run xf86cfg, it shows you graphically how everything fits together.

I rather like the Windows approach there, start up in a basic SVGA mode and allow for easy configuration.

We have that already, it's called the vesa(4) driver or the fbdev(4) driver. These will work on just about anything, especially vesa.

Granted, it's not like your average user will have a clue about installing drivers under Windows either, but writing a simple instruction is at least fairly easy.

If everything common were in the kernel, every device driver that could do so would be compiled as a module. With a little auto-detection code from the distro, that's not a problem.

Oh and Gnome needs to get it's act together, I've yet to see a default Gnome dektop that didn't feel extremely sluggish, especially text rendering.
Someone said that the latter is largely because Pango is glacially slow.

Well, if Pango is in fact that slow, it would explain a few things at issue in my builds of the FF trunk. I'll rebuild it without linking to Pango and see if it speeds up.

 

[Sunner]

I've read a fair bit about HAL and DBUS, seems nice.
The rest is a bunch of "if's and but's", many of course haven't got a thing to do with Linux itself(binary drivers for example), but an end user won't know that.
Regarding nVidias installer, didn't know they had one, last time I installed their drivers it was kind of a PITA, was some time ago though.

Oh and being as immature as I am, I can't help but find this quote kinda funny.

Since lots of drivers are bonary only

which makes things harder for us to work with

Ok, yeah that sucked, but I'm so bored right now

 

[drag]

There are a few issues that Linux has to work on, definately.

But I think some things are a bit overblown...

Hardware comaptability is less of a issue then many people make it out to be, I think. Wifi support may be inferior, but it's not like you can't find wifi cards that work perfectly in Linux. If a company like Dell or Gateway wanted to produce a Linux Desktop computer they would have no problem finding hardware that would run just as well, if not better, in Linux then in Windows.

I can easily find sound cards, video cards, motherboards, harddrives, dvdroms, printers, scanners, cameras, and a whole host of other devices that work just great with Linux. I could easily build a Linux machine that is as fast, inexpensive, and stable as anything you could possibly find anywere and have it run almost flawlessly.

Trouble happens when you pick out completely random hardware and install windows on it, then expect Linux to work with no problems... This isn't probably going to happen.

For programs the major problem are commercial games. Many people have computers just to play games on commercial store-bought games on them... This simply isn't going to happen for a average person on Linux.

Other types of programs it's actually fairly positive for Linux. One good example is: Support for Excell Documents. A default install of Ubuntu, Suse, Debian, or most other Linux distros can view, edit, and create Microsoft Excell documents with reasonable success once they are isntalled.

With Windows XP SP2 you can't do this. You have to either go out and spend another 100-300 dollars on MS Office or download OpenOffice or something like that.


I don't expect people to be able to take a Linux install CDROM and then be able to use Linux on the Desktop without severe brain trama.. but if I give them a computer with Debian pre-installed and pre-configured for the desktop on it then they would be able to use that perfectly well after a few hours of messing around on it.

 

[doornail]

I bookmarked this blog entry by a Linux kernel developer a while back. It was in response to some criticisms from a Sun guy, but what I liked was his explaination of why Linux doesn't like binary drivers and why that's a GOOD thing for users.

Taken from:

http://www.kroah.com/log/2004/09/23/#2004_09_23_sun_rebuttal
http://www.kroah.com/log/2004/09/26/#2004_09_26_sun_rebuttal_round2

I really need to write a article/essay about why Linux does not have driver api stability. I touched on it in my previous post, but in reading your response, and the responses by others, you all seem to miss the main points. It's not that we don't know how to create a binary api with padding structures out, and offering up new functions, it's the fact that because we have the source to all of our drivers, we do not have to.

One minor comment though, the fact that we have the source to everything changes all of the old rules that operating systems had to live by. Backwards compatibility is no longer necessary, enabling us to move faster, and be more flexible than ever. As proof of that, look at the huge range of machines that Linux runs very well on. Everything from this tiny little gumstick, up to a 512 way ia64 box. And our drivers work on all of those platforms, with no changes needed.

So, let me bring up a few other points about where Linux is better than Solaris:

* Device support - As I mentioned before, and as you mentioned, Linux's device support is unmatched anywhere else. We support, out-of-the-box, more devices than any other operating system. We also support them on every platform that Linux is supported on (somewhere over 21 unique architectures with lots of minor arches last I looked). That's power and flexibility that enables customers to start out with a small Linux box (running on a cheap i386 clone) and if needed, they can go out and buy a ia64, or amd64 box, and use the same investment in devices (disk controllers, etc.) and with no changes to their applications (other than a recompile) and "just work". This also enables customers to not have to rely on any one specific hardware vendor, preventing any "lock in". They can pit HP vs. IBM vs. Dell vs. the whitebox dealer down the street, or just build machines themselves (like a lot of places do, Google for example), in order to get the best service and price and support for their specific situation. That's incredibly powerful for the customer/user, and very scary for the big companies that previously had relied on the cost that a customer had spent already to tie them to that company for a long time.

 

[drag]

Ya. Also note that that's talking specificly about the Linux kernel itself in regards to drivers and such.

For normal application programming things are kept backward compatable as possible, depending on the actual system your using.

For isntance Gnome developers try to GTK display library as compatable as possible. When backward compatability was holding them back then split the libraries up between GTK+ 1.x and GTK 2.x libraires then made sure that they could be installed at the same time and be used at the same time without conflicts. Just so older programs, or programs that would have difficulties being ported to the new platform would still run well.

There is very strong advantages to being open sourced.. much of it goes away when your forced to make allowances to third parties that don't want to play along. The goal of people like the majority Linux kernel core developers and the GNU folks (and plenty of others) is to create a operating system that is completely Free and open source (as they see it), it's not to make a windows replacement or a killer OS or whatever.

(but it's not everybody's goal of course. Some people just want OSS code to use in propriatory/commercial applications, or they want notoriaty, just want a no-cost Unix for web services, or just do it as a hobby, each person has their own reasons)

 

[aGreenAgent]

Frankly I like windows better because Linux is too expensive.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: aGreenAgent
Frankly I like windows better because Linux is too expensive.

Was that sarcasm, ignorance, fud, or some reference to the time it takes to learn a new OS along with the old time == money principle...?

 

[aGreenAgent]

Not ignorance

Windows XP Pro is $35 at the store, and frankly, if I have to compile anything, the amount of time it took is worth more than $35.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: aGreenAgent
Not ignorance

Windows XP Pro is $35 at the store, and frankly, if I have to compile anything, the amount of time it took is worth more than $35.

Where can you get Windows XP pro for $35 without being restricted to a student license?

And with the right Linux or BSD you shouldn't ever really have to compile a damned thing.

 

[aGreenAgent]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: aGreenAgent
Not ignorance

Windows XP Pro is $35 at the store, and frankly, if I have to compile anything, the amount of time it took is worth more than $35.

Where can you get Windows XP pro for $35 without being restricted to a student license?

And with the right Linux or BSD you shouldn't ever really have to compile a damned thing.

I've heard that, but I could've mentioned just as many other things that take more time than I'm willing to allow, like lack of driver support, akward GUIs I don't like (maybe you like them, but I don't), etc. etc.

Oh, and it's $35 at the MS Employee store.