ral Posted November 17, 2002 Report Share Posted November 17, 2002 I started using Mandrake Linux because is was reputedly the most user friendly Linux Distribution available. Like most home/SOHO, I think that ease of use would be number one on the priority list. It was fairly easy to get into, but i needed a fair amount of help to get it working. This was six months ago. Now it looks like we have RedHat 8, Lindows and Lycoris also seem to be good alterntives for the desktop user. However, in general these distro's are regularly hit for being un-Linux like. It starts to get me to wondering whether or not Linux users really want to win the battle for the desktop. In my case I am perfectly happy running Linux and letting the rest of the world Windows, with the caveat that I dual boot RH8 Linux and Windows 98, with the latter running my games (except for RTCW and Tux Racer). The motivation for getting more people to use Linux, I think, would be to have a bigger market, which should result in the creartion of more Linux apps. I always notice a bit of resistance when it comes to changes in Linux which a directed at the soon to be ex-Windows user. Instead they want Windows users to learn how to use Linux. There are other issues too... but I will leave that for later. So I gotta ask, do we really want to win the battle for the Desktop? Is Mandrake still targetting this market? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted November 17, 2002 Report Share Posted November 17, 2002 Is Mandrake still targetting this market?Install ML 7.2, and you'll have your answer :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero0w Posted November 17, 2002 Report Share Posted November 17, 2002 So I gotta ask, do we really want to win the battle for the Desktop? Is Mandrake still targetting this market? I think we do. However, "we" doesn't mean the way "we" usually means - united. Linux, by its very nature of development, prefers diversity and flexibility rather than (one-stop) integration, which is the strength of MS. The open source developers WANTED to code, test and debug their applications until THEY feel it's ready to release - technical merits and professional (programming) judgment comes before market demand. Of course, the popularity of Linux means that might be changing. However, many proprietary and commercial software vendors (namely Adobe and Macromedia) still felt worried to support Linux, to compete with their open source counterparts - maybe the pressure from MS also counted as well. The basic GUI components of Linux will almost be complete (in terms of finish and general features) by 2003 or latest 2004. Of course power users can already tweak their desktop to be beautiful, to display great fonts and such, but normal users won't expect to do that. Hence other Linux distributions should learn from Red Hat and support Xft 2 + Fontconfig by default (or at least make it switchable between normal and anti-aliased fonts). KDE 3.1 will support object prelink, combining with glibc 2.3, we will once again experience faster GUI navigation. And hopefully the updated version Kylix (3.5 or 4) will support Qt 3.x by default (Kylix 3 supports Qt 2.3 currently). Hence GUI coding will once again become easier than ever. The other component remains to be settled down is the release of ALSA 0.9/1.0 final. Sound card support still remains an issue. It should be noted that kernel 2.6 should have ALSA support by default, hence the ALSA team should make it by the time kernel 2.6 is released. Now, I will suppose all these progresses will happen sometime in 2003, but are other application developers ready/willing to catch up? That's the issue. To be honest, I don't think people will go all over Linux and dumping Windows like Oracle did. At least for those who already had Windows installed and running. However, cross-platform development should become vital to Linux. If more vendors like Borland will release cross-platform development tool like Delphi/Kylix, that may make things easier. Recent survey by Gartner estimated Linux market share will rise up to 5% (remember Mac has only 3%), hence we can't be serious to expect the desktop war will be won within 3-5 years. However, back to the point of "we", one must remember the Linux world valued diversity over uniformity. It doesn't matter how many market share MS had got; the Linux development, as well as most other open source project development, WILL CONTINUE regardless of market share. If the Linux and open source community can fend off the intrusive Palladium and other DMCA nonsense, I think we will win the battle, and I think we want to, since the monopoly has over abused its power - especially when raising licensing cost in the middle of economic downturn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jglen490 Posted November 18, 2002 Report Share Posted November 18, 2002 I wonder about "our" mindset. On my laptop, I have nothing but Linux. It is a Mandrake 8.2 system, but I'll bet it doesn't look anything like yours, nor does yours look like mine. I'm not talking about some minor themeing differences that make "the other OS" look (ever-so-slightly-) different from different from desktop to desktop. Yet my system is just as much Linux as yours or any other Linux user's system. The difference is that Linux has not been, is not, and (God willing) will never be a monolithic product. Instead, it is a whole made of many different pieces that amazingly fit together very well. Because it is not monolithic and is so variable, people do not see it as a tool to "win the desktop". If people find Linux, one user at a time, and actually use it, then the "battle" could be over before it even starts. That's evolution rather than revolution. Perhaps not as satisfying as a good battle, but the result is the same -- Linux finds a way to become mainstream. Because it's made of many different pieces, it's more inviting -- kinda like a good, warm quilt on a cold Winter's night 8) !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOlson Posted November 19, 2002 Report Share Posted November 19, 2002 I like Mandrake Linux perfectly the way it is. The day they start fscking around with stuff like Red Hat does, or removing Gnome or whatever entirely like Lycoris, is the day I switch to LFS. Mandrake is great, and if they stay the way they are, they will appeal to both new users and more advanced users (I mean come on! Some of the guys who port games ot Linux even use it), without sacrificing choices. Don't get me wrong - Red Hat and Lycoris have their place, but I think that it's not really gonna take over (Lycoris esp., RH has a chance). Lycoris especially loses something... I don't know how to really describe it... I recommend everyone who can and wants to to use a spare partition to test out as many distros as possible. You'll never find one better than Mandrake. IMHO. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jglen490 Posted November 19, 2002 Report Share Posted November 19, 2002 High five, DOlson!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ral Posted November 20, 2002 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2002 I agree DOlsen, Mandrake has better tools RedHat. But I was wondering, if somewhere in the install process they could add a simplified desktop like RedHat did. Pick the best of each app and have that one only. If one does a typical ML install he is likely two have 2-3 apps for the same purpose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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