Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Daniel — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:34:39 -0000

I prefer Ubuntu.
I dunno why the people still use Windows ;S

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Tristan — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:18:49 -0000

I used to be a very happy vista user, but then I got curious and tried openSUSE 10.3, and I was hooked. but now I've switched to Sabayon Linux 3.4f.... which in my opinion is a potential vista killer.

check it out:

www.sabayonlinux.org

WARNING: SABAYON IS BASED OFF OF GENTOO LINUX AND I REALLY DON'T RECOMMEND IT FOR A FIRST DISTRO. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

John Jamieson — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:20:55 -0000

Repeating others, there will never be a year of Linux for everyone, it is like a large freight train that takes a long time to get rolling, and everyone will notice it at a differnt time.(the majority of the world will use linux in handheld devices first, not the desktop)

I have used Linux some since 1999, but it was never ready for ME to switch over my primary PC's, until the last Mandriva release (2008). I have only used OS-X once in the last six months, and only use windows once in a while.

And talk about a nice 3d desktop that takes very little power... Yep, I am talking about beryl/compiz fusion... sweet.(makes the others (ms,appl) look so dated)

Yes, linux may be behind in some areas (unified experience etc), but at the pace it is progressing, I don't see how the proprietary vendors can keep up.

Like another poster, I am a msdn subscriber that has all the disks and keys for everything MS makes(other than windows home server!)... but, what a pain that is! When I install Mandriva, everything just works, it installs a ton of good free software, and I don't get insulted by microsoft checking to see if I am a pirate every time I turn around.

I guess 2007 was the year of linux on the desktop for me, and I aint going back.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

trademark registration — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 19:17:06 -0000

Linux is becoming very popular these days. A friend of mine has Linux on his laptop, as well as Windows XP. I don't think Linux will overcome Windows anytime soon, but who knows how things will go with Ubuntu.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Michael Shores — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:21:19 -0000

I have been in IT for more than 30 years. I have been waiting for a Linux distro that is ready for the "masses" for a few years. I have been running Suse 10 on a work notebook for more than a year and it was "close, but no cigar". I loaded Ubuntu FF on a system a couple of month ago and was immediately impressed. I ordered a Dell notebook the first day the started selling, but bailed after they kept pushing back delivery and ordered a notebook from System 76. So far, so good except for the wimpy built in speakers. I would migrate a non-geek from XP to Ubuntu before I would subject them to Vista. It's not perfect, but it is good enough and getting better instead of worse. I live in a rural area where a lot of folks are still running '95, '98 and [shutter] ME. When they ask for advice when their systems finally die I will be recommending systems with Ubuntu pre-loaded.

Will Linux ever be a Microsoft killer? Probably not. But it will become a significant player for home users and small businesses on the desktop. I suspect that education is another market that is ripe for a cheaper alternative than MS.

BTW to the Mac users who would never use a Linux system, don't look under the hood. You might be surprised at what's there. It seems that the Mac OS is really just a GUI these days.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

tomonzo — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 04:56:37 -0000

I've switced to Ubuntu 3 days ago. It's taking off.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Julio Colon — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:05:28 -0000

Ubuntu has over come, as you mentioned, the uglyness of linux, it does come pack to give you everything you need. i installed on two laptops, Dell and Toshiba. on my toshiba it installed flawlesly, however i wish i could say the same about Dell. it took me almost a month of researching and tweaking just to get the wireless working on it. but overall i love it!!!

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Jon — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 12:44:32 -0000

I've been using Ubuntu for over a year now.

Only reason I ever use Windows is to use QuickBooks for my business and my goal is to move away from that also next year.

I've used Windows, Mac, and Linux and, sorry to say Robert, but Linux is king!

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

jramskov — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 06:33:03 -0000

#76: "I haven’t used KDE since 2001 or something."

That's 5-6 years ago! KDE 3 wasn't released until April 2002. KDE improved A LOT since then and even though it is still alpha, I will already highly recommend you taking a look at KDE 4 when it is released later this year.

Also, you can expect various KDE software to be available on Windows too (and OS X) since QT4 is dual licensed under the GPL for Windows too (that wasn't the case for previous versions of QT).

You are right that there has been problems with Apple not contributing back their changes, but that has been (mostly) solved now. One of the reasons Apple choose KHTML (and KJS) over Gecko (the Mozilla engine) was that KHTML is a much smaller codebase.

KHTML is in quite widespread use today considering it is used in Safari (which is on the iPhone too of course) and in Nokias S60 series phones. And Safari is available for Windows too these days (still beta though).

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

ozlady — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:41:21 -0000

oomu - here, here - you got that right, pal!

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Chris — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:23:39 -0000

"getting better all the time and it sounds like you don’t really know much about it or KDE in general."

I haven't used KDE since 2001 or something.
But I do use apps that use the QT libs like Amarok for example, and qdvdauthor.

As for the difference between KHMTL and Konqueror, I believe Konqueror was the only browser that actually used it, so the difference is negligible.
Remember Galeon that used gtkmozembed?
I don't remember ever seeing one that used embedded KHTML before Safari.

Of course the UI is going to be different because they developed those APIs on top of their display server themselves. The drawing and parsing engine is still KHTML/Konqueror. I heard the KDE developers had a lot of problems with Apple as far as re-contributing the forked code as they were supposed to.

It's only a matter of time now until Adobe and other companies walk the plank off the pirate ship platforms and release Linux products. Whether they are priced to sell or not remains to be seen.

A platform free of piracy should be a 3rd party software company's dream platform, but they are too short sited to be able to realize it.
The revenue Linux generates from FOSS customization and Linux software application in manufacturing, web dev, retail, and systems management goes into the Billions with a B.
Linux has always been a customizable software system for use in specific software driven solutions.

Only in the past year or 2 have companies like Red Hat and Canonical packaged it up in the appropriate format for companies like Dell to be able to effectively use it as a premade stable Desktop solution.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

jramskov — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:19:13 -0000

A couple of comments.

Year of Linux on the desktop: I don't think there will ever be a year where you will say "this is the year Linux adoption really took off". Use of Linux on the desktop has been rising for years and will continue to rise in the comming years.

Hardware: No OS has supported more hardware and platforms than Linux does. There are stuff that doesn't work, one of the biggest problems have been Wifi but the situation is now much improved. Another problem is drivers for graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA. They both refuse to work with the open source community to create open source drivers, which is sad. Intel is doing really well in that regard. If you got some hardware that doesn't work with Linux, the right place to complain is to the hardware manufacturer and I hope you do complain when you experience any hardware that doesn't work with Linux. If your hardware doesn't work with Vista, do you complain to Microsoft about it? No you don't. I recall that there has stability problems with NVIDIA's graphics drivers for Vista and everyone critisized NVIDIA, but if it is Linux with a driver problem, then for some very strange reason it is Linux that is being critisized. I have honestly never understood that.

Nero: Whoever it was that mentioned Nero should take a look at K3B - it is an amazing application for burning CD's/DVD's.

Development rate of the desktop: I would suggest you take a look at KDE 4 which is under development currently with the first release planned for october this year. Saying that there isn't any innovation or that the development rate is slow is certainly not true. It sounds more like a matter of not following the rappid progress that is happening. Of course, copying other desktops is being done, but then again, look at Vista and how many years it has taken them to release that. Is it more impressive than OS X? Some say yes, others say no. I have little experience with either, so I can't comment, but the stuff I see happening in the open source desktops is not exactly stone age technology compared to them ;)

Chris: Regarding Safari, it wasn't based on Konqueror. It was based on KHTML, the web engine. It's now also used on several Nokia phones and it works quite nicely too I must say. Safari is based on KHTML because it is a pretty darn nice engine and it is getting better all the time and it sounds like you don't really know much about it or KDE in general. Not that I do either, but I do know the difference between Konqueror and KHTML :)

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

oomu — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:03:20 -0000

>Heck, look at the comments above, many of which are from hard core Linux advocates

hey! I'm not "hardcore", I'm soft-heart. and I work mostly on macintosh. please forget ALL yours olds bad linux "friends" and please, be open.

Linux did not "failed" to have a simple interface before "compiz" (of course not, the interface is Gnome). but linux failed to have MANY simple and integrated APPLICATIONS for all the common needs of people.

the problem is not "linux"

linux is _Very_ fine. put it on a good computer and it's rock solid, easy and all.

Applications are the problems. we need More apps, more more more. stuff pretty as Delicious Library, easy money stuff, a kitchen receipt program , stuff as good as Omnigraffle, a better openoffice (better gnome integration) ...

it's why os X is still a lot better : the _applications_

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

oomu — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:31:22 -0000

ubuntu has a music player which manage the ipod.

in an itune like style. very nice.

(you can drop music in the ipod AND DRAG from it ! )

so many things marvellous to say about Ubuntu Linux.

but still, I'm very happy with mac os X and my mac. but I could change my mind in a few month, even with leopard.

there are exciting developments in linux desktops these days.

the interface is more and more nice and polished and _simple_. now we need Great Desktop Applications. (free, commercial, libre, closed, open, whatever , I want them all).

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Gasten — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 08:09:28 -0000

My little sister (16 years old, and have no interest in computers what so ever - except designing homepages and LJ-avatars) switched to linux and have never looked back at windows. If she can, you can too.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Werner Habel — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 06:58:17 -0000

My year of Linux on the desktop has been 2000 :-)

But then it was freedom as an everyday labour, toil and strife.

The difference to Linux in 2007 is, that the freedom Linux offers, is becoming more and more and faster and faster a commodity and a convenience for its own best.

Amarok is a very good example for this
http://amarok.kde.org

as is KDE in general also as GNOME.
http://kde.org/whatiskde/
http://www.gnome.org/about/

Beryl and Compiz have recently joined forces again for Compiz Fusion driving the whole free 3D desktop idea even stronger.
http://www.opencompositing....

Getting people to switch to Linux is less and less a matter of hunting down bugs and more a question of getting the word out.

Thank you very much Robert, for having made that just a great bit easier! ;-D

Best Regards

Werner

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Chris — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:48:14 -0000

2 myths I also want to debunk.
The first is that piracy is obscure and that most people are good honest computer software buying users that own Windows and Mac.
http://www.alexa.com/data/d...
ThePirateBay.org is 264 on the entire internet and it's traffic is rising by the hour.
Most people are bit torrent stealing software pirates, who's only experience with photoshop and adobe products involves keygens and serialz with a z.

Linux so far has managed to avoid this type of consumer.

2nd, No major brands develop Linux software.

Though proprietary and free, Google is fast becoming one of the major closed source Linux software companies.
Desktop Search
http://desktop.google.com/l...
Picasa
http://picasa.google.com/li...
Google Earth
http://earth.google.com/dow...

And they are said to be developing many more closed source Linux software titles as binary RPMs. Annoying to Stallman, but useful for the rest of us. OK with Linus.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Chris — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:05:44 -0000

@Colin

"Downside: lack of support for itunes is about the only gap I have seen."

yum install amarok

Amarok will synch to your ipod or music device and pretty much take the place of iTunes completely. Some even say it's better than iTunes. It works fine for me.

http://amarok.kde.org

Give Amarok a try and see if you miss iTunes.

"… because linux had nothing going for it before compiz…"

Beryl is much nicer for now. I dunno if that will stay the same though, because they are constantly battling against each other.

"Why do linux companies always have to gravitate toward enterprise or business to survive?"

http://www.newzbin.com/brow...
http://thepiratebay.org/bro...
http://thepiratebay.org/bro...

Do we really want to repeat this mess for Linux?
Nero has been doing it right. Make a commercial Linux version and sell it for 4 times less than the other platforms. That keeps people happy.
The same thing happened with CDs in stores. They lowered the price and people started buying again.
Companies producing commercial software have failed because they tried to transpose their Windows approach or Mac approach onto Linux and it doesn't work too well.

On the other hand plenty of companies are making a very good living off of Linux and FOSS customization. Where FOSS and Linux is the solution to an web, engineering, retail or manufacturing problem. IBM being the shining beacon of our Industry.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Richard Querin — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:56:59 -0000

@robert
"to get users like me to switch you’ve got to offer them something more. A better experience, etc. So far Linux has absolutely failed to do that."

So doing everything I need it to do for several hundred odd bucks cheaper is absolute failure. Man, you are tough to please. But then again, maybe to you several hundred bucks is nothin'. ;)

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Robert Scoble — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:06:11 -0000

JMC: to get users like me to switch you've got to offer them something more. A better experience, etc. So far Linux has absolutely failed to do that. Heck, look at the comments above, many of which are from hard core Linux advocates.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

JMC — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:02:28 -0000

I love it... "(much nicer 3D switching than even OSX has, for instance). Damn, I thought to myself, it’s time to give Linux another look"

... because linux had nothing going for it before compiz...

damn, man.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

kota — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:31:55 -0000

I don't care either about THE year, but here are the facts: My sister doesn't know how to install Windows. Neither Linux. She uses the laptop for simple tasks like web/mail/gtalk, ocassionally uploading photos to Picasa or using Google Earth.
She is able to do it on both platforms, but thanks Ubuntu devs because she just CAN'T break my laptop any more.
Oh and Ubuntu it's prettier as Robert points out: http://www.youtube.com/watc...

If my sister can use it, it's a true desktop platform.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Gene — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:57:40 -0000

Boy, I may have come off sounding like a bummer.

How could we make 2008 the year of the linux desktop? Is there something to learn from the failure of Eazel? Are there any good examples of user focused companies in the linux space? Why do linux companies always have to gravitate toward enterprise or business to survive? How can we get the same level of control, attention to detail and technical excellence in both the OS and application space that people seem to admire in Apple and perhaps Microsoft?

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Colin Henderson — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:31:35 -0000

I installed Xubuntu 2 months ago, and am very happy about capability, stability, and speed. Its not unusual to run for over a week with no performance hit. OpenOffce launches literally instantly - zero delay.

Downside: lack of support for itunes is about the only gap I have seen.

PS ... the trigger for me to switch - After 12 years of Windows, I cannot imagine installing Vista. And I have a core duo fast Thinkpad X60s.

Re: Is 2008 finally going to be “year of Linux on the desktop?”

Chris — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:22:30 -0000

Gene,

If it's statically compiled in your binaries, please pull it out and make .a and .so's out of the functions and document them.

I hope PDI/Dreamworks aren't jerks about it.

Just putting out the .so's for the quartz-like functions doesn't necessarily mean that other studios will instantly be able to capitalize on their work instantly.
That type of API can be used for so much.

I hope you can convince them.