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What brought this article on is availability of cheap PCs, sub $300 PCs from mass merchandisers like Walmart. These PCs are loaded with various Linux distros like Mandrake, for instance. The assumption is that these PCs are being bought by first time users (or maybe as a second PC) who are not computer experts or light Windows users. I've recently witnessed three instances of where these PCs were purchased, then the hard drive was reformatted and a copy of Windows was installed. I am sure there is more of that going on. The obvious conclusion here is that Linux for whatever reason did not pass the grade. Here are some reasons, in my opinion.
Anecdotal at best.
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It has been written about to death. KDE & GNOME have released their respective excellent wares, but still, Linux is not making inroads at the desktop level.
Neither is apple you will note. And with the popularity of each months new Backstreet Boys I dont think we can take popularity as a measure of value.
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And chances are that it will never make them, unless some radical changes are undertaken by respective leaders of key Linux projects (kernel, X, desktop). Actually latest KDE & GNOME are rivaling Windows at this point, but it doesn't matter.
Note "rivalling Windows." Apple had a chance to do this. They failed. It wasn't a threatened mass installation of OS X in Munich that had Ballmer so worried.
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The problem is the modularization and clear separation of kernel, X and the desktop environments from each other. This division has caused Linux to be poorly integrated. Actually, the problem has several faces.
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Problem #1. The integration of device (and otherwise) drivers into the system. Case and point. RedHat 8 and 9 provide no ability to access WinXP NTFS volumes. They claim is that they can't provide this functionality because of its unsettled legal nature. Now a nice man (woman?) at linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net provides this ability. But how was this done? He took the original RedHat kernel, compiled the module that provides NTFS access and added the module to the kernel. Users can download the RPM that takes care of all the complexity. A couple more simple steps and voila - you can access your XP share. There are more examples like this where the user can add new functionality to the system by recompiling the kernel. In this case, because so many people need it, someone has taken initiative and provided a ready-made replacement kernel. Most of the cases are not like that. And herein lies the problem. Users don't want to recompile kernel or its modules - they want ready made solutions. Even power users don't want to recompile kernel. Period.
I have *NEVER* HAD to recompile a kernel. And as a "power user" I have actually wanted to.
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Keep in mind, I am NOT complaining that RH doesn't include NTFS support. I am bringing up an objection to manner in which users add functionality to their system.
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Consider how support for other file systems is implemented in Windows. No one needs to recompile anything. Instead you simply run an installation that installs a dynamic device driver (.vxd) to handle foreign file i/o. For examples, see www.sysinternals.com
Or mount automatticaly detects the FS type and insmods the right driver.
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Problem #2. Video drivers & X. Somehow it came to be that the Xfree is the one and final arbiter when it comes to displays, video drivers and functionality. They release their wares on a fairly slow schedule. So, if you got a brand spanking new video card, you are pretty much stuck waiting for the next release. This is the case mostly when you just bought a new PC (which will most likely be loaded with windows). You install Linux on the second partition, but alas the install reverts to a generic video driver. Sucks for you.
Yeah I certainly had to get a new version of X when I got a new graphics card. :rolleyes: No, I just ran the driver installer from Nvidia.
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I understand if they release new functionality for X on a slow schedule - that's fine. But drivers should be released separately as soon as they are available.
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Problem #3. Plug & Play. Unfortunately for Linux, its constituent parts are not tightly integrated. As a result, when I plug my USB digital camera (or mouse, printer, etc) into the PC, absolutely nothing happens. In Windows, you get the 'Add New Hardware' wizard (or something similar). In WinXP, it is even better: if the system can find a signed driver for the device on its own, it simply installs it without any user intervention and you can use it immediately. That's what I call true Plug & Play. In fact, the first time I encountered this feature, it took me for a loop. Years of dealing with PCs have conditioned me to a familiar routine: connect hardware, install the drivers and pray that it works. So after installing WinXP for the first time, I connected an Epson USB printer and sat patiently waiting for the 'New Hardware Found' box. Instead, all I got (and missed the first time around) was a little icon in the system tray and a popup tooltip informing me that new hardware has been detected and software for it installed. I hope we see more of this in the future.
DEAR GOD NO!!! HE HAS TO CLICK A BUTTON AND / OR THINK!!! NOOO!!! Jeez get a game console buddy. Or maybe he would prefer a Macintoy?
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Why can't the same happen in KDE or GNOME? Simply because they are not integrated with Linux kernel in a tight manner. I put word Linux in bold and that's key. KDE and GNOME (or GTK and QT, if you wish) are not written for Linux - they are written to be cross-platform. In fact, between the two DEs, they support Linux, Unix, *BSD, Solaris, Mac and partly Windows (I use GTK based WinGimp all the time - in fact the website logo was made with it, though I have zero graphics experience). So due to this, kernel may send messages that my camera is now connected, but no one is listening. And I haven't seen any significant effort to address this issue.
He wants to integrate a desktop environment with the kernel? Apple doesnt do this either and with good reason - because its fucking stupid. If its tightly integrated you have to change one when the other changes. So you have a consistent set of ways to interreact with the kernel and leave that as a "point of contact." Maybe he wants the WM to run IN the kernel as well? Hey why not put in a more few apps while youre there. How about tetris
:-P
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There is Linux USB site that can help you with the USB devices. It can help you manually mount the camera and retrieve the images, but it doesn't matter at all - no user knows or should know the command to mount a drive. The worst that user should encounter when installing or connecting hardware is having to enter a CD with drivers and follow a couple prompts.
Both processes are equivalent in terms of work. I have installed things on Windows, it's insert CD install dirvers, follow annoying promnpts, restart, let Windows set it all up properly, restart ok now we set the desktop res back to normal and try out this new graphics card.
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Problem #4. There isn't an distro that does everything I need out of the box. It usually takes several hours of hunting for software to make the system usable if at all. In fact, I have yet to see a distro, that even after endlessly playing with it, was able to eventually become a truly usable and productive system. RedHat 9, arguably the current usability champ, came offly close to it. Out of the box, just about everything worked. I only needed to download & install mp3 support, xine for video, ms core web fonts for sane web browsing, nvidia accelerated driver for geforce4 (not for performance, but because the generic driver doesn't display the screen right on my flat screen), ntfs support and phoenix. So supposedly a working system, right? Wrong. There are too many small things that desktop users would need and Linux (or distros) doesn't provide them out of the box. For instance, I already mentioned the lack of support for my digital camera. Another nuisance is that after setting up the printer in GNOME, Mozilla (the default browser) doesn't see it but Konqueror (in GNOME, mind you) does. When I tell WinXP to shutdown my PC, I can just walk away, because it will shutdown the entire machine. In RH9, I have to wait for all the processes to end and then manually turn off the machine. Annoying stuff like that. I am sure that there is a solution to every one of the problems - I (and home users as well) just don't want to waisting my time chasing them.
First off all Mandrake when I first got it did that (power off after shutdown.) Without me needing to do anything. And of course I never have a problem with not having a specific program, it's just apt-get install blah blah and I've got it. Boom. Done. Red Hat 9 supports apt get and 10 will support it natively. Get over it. :rolleyes: I'd like to see a Mac support NTFS out of the box by the way. Or of course half of those free programs that Apple users end up bragging abnout "how cool it is to have these one a platfrom! it runs everything! Out Of The Box!"
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Bottom line. Most of these problems can be traced to lack of integration between components in Linux. Until there is some integration Linux is unlikely to gain a foothold in the desktop market.
He wants integration, were everything DEPENDS utterly on something else so cant be removed? Then he should get a game console. For people who want control, get GNU/Linux.
[ October 07, 2003: Message edited by: Faust ]
