Why Desktop Linux Will Not Take off

[gliezl]

Read this article... click here

I was sad to hear his story.
How I wish I can proved him wrong...

[jam]

Remember this is one person's opinion. Naysayers and doubters are usually proven wrong, and I dare say that most of the desktops used by these "dumbed down" users that I've seen are in fact littered with icons and installed programs. Here's something that should boost your spirits if you haven't watched it already - this latest Linux desktop is so advanced it was preferred over Vista by reviewers. It's available for multiple distros, not just Novell OpenSUSE:

XGL/Compiz Presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CgqWlX_GsI

Enjoy the show, and keep in mind that although this demo is designed to cover all of the advanced features in XGL/Compiz, but YES it can be operated by the novice too with a little training. Hopefully this will lift your spirits. At work the "wow" factor is a big selling point too!

[cthisbear]

We should encourage Lobster to send youtube
the latest Puppy 2.10 video with its great features,
speed, quick download, and also the new installer from (MU?),
that is an easy download and will be featured from Puppy 2.11.
Chris

[jam]

Lobster can actually open up his own YouTube account for free and post the latest Puppy video for the world to see. Easy and low-cost advertising for Puppy with a world-wide audience. of spectators.

[Sage]

Probably, Martin Girard does not intend to be taken at face value? More of a warning? Sadly, the Linux afficionados have been refusing to listen to the crie de cour from the user proletariat this last decade. That's where Barry has been different - he has been able to construct his ivory tower from Perspex, enabling him to see out to users as well as satisfying his academic lust.

[jam]

Sage,

Some of these articles are designed to stoke both emotions and action. What it fails to recognize is that millions of OLPC laptops with very simplified interfaces will soon be in the hands of children, nor does it point to the millions of Linux desktops already deployed in other developing nations where MS has not been able to stake a claim. Governments are pushing Linux simply for the fact that they maintain control over the OS and not the other way around. Although there will never be one standard desktop interface, you can mold and shape Linux any way you want according to your target audience.

In my company alone, were are seriously looking at completely replacing ALL of our remaining MS desktops with Linux. As a retailer the economics of spending anyhwere between $200 - $500 to upgrade our existing workstations every few years, plus the amount of licensing costs related to securing the OS and other layered products, puts an unnecessary strain on our budget and raises our costs. With Linux that changes things dramatically and we are more competitive.

[raffy]

The author's long discussion will be irrelevant to kids who don't know what "complex" means when faced with a computer - to kids, everything is simple to discover!

The biggest lesson grown-ups should learn is to control the file formats that they give and receive, making sure that such formats are not tied to particular desktop systems.

[rarsa]

Thank you, you gave me fodder for my blog

Although the author makes some very good points describing geeks (at least it described my geek side perfectly). He makes the wrong assumption that Linux is still just relegated to geekdom.

Linus Torvald criticism of Gnome, is actually its praise.

This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of
Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will
use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long
since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.

The fun part is that Linus does not even develop for 'beginers'. Only experts interface directly with what he has developed. So one should expect that none of his 'users' are 'idiots'. And his remark that he reached that poing is hilarious. He reached that point way before he started working on Linux or he would not have started.

As a geek I think that one can use Gnome for the every day things and still have access to 'under the hood' stuff using the command line console. (actually as a geek I don't like Gnome limitations either so I use something else)

So, Linus displays the clear traits of a geek. so what? some other people that aren't technical geeks have joined the Open Source movement and are slowly making their mark obvious. They are layering simplicity on top of the complexity.

So the basic wrong assumption in this article is that only geeks contribute to Linux.

[CocoJam]

I am not a techie, just an ordinary joe who tries to help friends and neighbours with their computer problems. Some of these people bought their computer just for basic email, surf the net and play solitaire (at least I don't have to shuffle the cards). All of it were pre-installed with windows and an anti-virus, which expires after 90 days. Sure enough after the 90 days they come knocking and ask for help, sometimes it is really bad and the best way to approach it is re-installing windows. Some of them can't go beyond the partitionong question.

Now if I tell them to switch to Linux and introduce a swap partition...tsk,tsk, not sure about that. I may end up explaining it to them for the whole day. Also, CLI...

Also, about the support they will get from the distro. Ther is no question that Puppy community is awesome, someone is always trying to help someone. But how about other distros? I tried Vector Linux before I fully commited to Puppy. My wireless didn't work, which worked no problem with Puppy, so I posted a question on their website. Lo and behold, it was left unanswered. I posted the same question on JustLinux and I was told to blame myself for buying a crappy hardware. What I am saying here is how many people are willing to do alot of research to get their distro working to their liking? Most especially the newbies. At least Puppy worked for me really easy.

[rarsa]

Sure enough after the 90 days they come knocking and ask for help, sometimes it is really bad and the best way to approach it is re-installing windows. Some of them can't go beyond the partitionong question.

Now you are talking about one of the planned topics for my Blog.

If your friends always depend on someone else to help them deal with their computer. Then it really does not matter if the underlying OS seems simple or complicated as long as using it is simple and there is someone available to perform configuration or installation tasks.

So, this is an excelent example where Linux may be more appropriate for the user as it will require less "maintenance" leading to less downtime and support costs.