

How the Linux desktop shoots itself in the foot. - chanux
http://blogs.computerworld.com/14911/five_ways_the_linux_desktop_shoots_itself_in_the_foot

======
senko
This article is symptomatic of people thinking about "Linux Desktop" as a
concrete thing (or project, or idea), while it isn't. It's an ecosystem of
vendors (targeting different markets), projects, technologies, and you can't
directly compare it with standalone companies like Microsoft or Apple that
(mostly) have a consistent and focused product/marketing strategies.

The five ways outlined are:

Lack of vendor support - author mentiones SLED, but conveniently skips over
the fact that Canonical also provides commercial support for its "arguably the
most popular Linux desktop" desktop systems.

Lack of advertising/marketing - a bunch of video commercials (RH's Truth
Happens, Novell's PC/Mac/Linux spoof), Ubuntu's CD shipping program and
release jams/parties many of the distroes organise & support is not
insignificant; it probably is pocket change to Microsoft's marketing machines,
but the entire budgets of these companies are probably a pocket change to
Microsoft's marketing machines.

Too much bad techie attitude - surprise, someone's a jerk on the internet -
you can find l33t people in most online communities. More than average
historically in linux communities, but the author does acknowledge there are
good sources of online help nowadays (e.g. Ubuntu forums). Esp. the Ubuntu's
code of conduct (and similar more or less formal codes in other communities)
tries (and IMHO goes a long way to) minimise this problem.

Too much infigthing - goes on to recite a recent developer-oriented flamewar
and concludes "no-one outside certain developer circles cares". So, why does
the author care? Open development means not only is the source code open, all
the joys and flames related to it are as well.

Not enough developer co-operation - again, if you compare the cooperation
between different teams in a same company, and between teams in different
independent (and possibly competing) companies or projects, the latter will
not look as good. I agree with the basic premise, "not enough developer
cooperation", because we can never have enough of that, but the arguments are
just wrong. And, the given example - that fedora and ubuntu have different
package systems - has nothing whatsoever to do with developer cooperation.

Two positive examples of cooperation:

1\. KDE and GNOME using (or planning to use) same underlying technology: glib,
webkit, telepathy, and the rest of the freedesktop.org stack, and actually co-
hosting their main conferences last year.

2\. All the distros working closely with their upstream projects (e.g. many of
debian developers, ubuntu MOTUs and fedora developers actually _are_ the
upstream developers too).

(Note: I'm biased, as Linux has been my primary desktop for quite some time
now and I'm actively involved in GNOME and freedesktop, but I've tried to look
at this as impartially as possible. My biggest pet peeve is people really
thinking about a "Linux desktop" is a single project).

~~~
bad_user
> _It's an ecosystem of vendors (targeting different markets), projects,
> technologies, and you can't directly compare it with standalone companies
> like Microsoft or Apple that (mostly) have a consistent and focused
> product/marketing strategies._

Saying that it's an apples to oranges comparison you're just dodging the
problem.

Ubuntu competes directly with Windows. OpenSuse competes directly with
Windows. Debian competes directly with Windows. So is Red Hat to a lesser
extent. And these distributions have the same software on them, only organized
differently.

So how are these direct competitors doing? You can measure that with the
availability or lack of third-party commercial support (we are talking about
the desktop here).

Adobe Photoshop isn't available for any Linux distribution, isn't it? I've
worked there. Those people aren't interested in maintaining the Windows
monopoly. They are only interested in selling their software. And there was at
least one big internal debate over whether Linux is viable as a target or not
(with the light on the horizon being Asus eepc and Ubuntu). The result of that
is Flex Builder for Linux, and guess what, it ain't doing so well.

> _Open development means not only is the source code open, all the joys and
> flames related to it are as well._

I've never worked for a company that had such internal fights. Maybe there are
such bad apples out there, but I find them unacceptable and if they'd happen
where I work, I'd quit on the spot.

And these fights are implicating end-users as well. I've asked on the official
opensuse forum how to get my DWL-g122 ver.C1 wireless stick working, and some
twit hijacked my call for help with a moral discussion about how that driver
isn't "free software".

> _you can find l33t people in most online communities_

Yeah, well, some communities are better than others. The more pragmatic a
community is, the friendlier it is. I've really tried being active on the
Ubuntu forums, I really did. But the sheer volume of answers ranging from
"that's not Free" to "it's your fault for not wanting to relearn everything
you know" ... it's just overwhelming.

NOTE: I've also been a Linux user for like 6 years.

------
DanielStraight
That article is terrible. It's subjective and in many cases downright false.
_Linux_ suffers from interoperability problems? I have never come across a
single Linux program that wouldn't run on my machine. Linux even runs a lot of
Windows programs through Wine. "Bad techie attitude"? A few people are jerks
and they tend to be the loudest. This is true in every field, not just Linux.
Lack of vender support and advertising? One of the main appeals of Linux is
that it isn't (primarily) a commercial product.

Wow... the comments are even worse. We even got a Nazi reference in!

~~~
mtomczak
Sadly, I think the issues mentioned in this comment are exactly the point,
primarily the last issue. Most desktop consumers using Windows and MacOS
aren't used to dealing with a product that isn't a household name.

While lack of vendor support and advertising (no "one right way to do things")
appeals to those of us who can invest time learning to maintain our software,
people like my parents need someone to call when things go wrong. And it is
extremely important that the person they call be courteous and accepting to a
fault; my experiences with Dell customer service have been nothing but
unhelpful, but none of them have ever chewed me out for failing to read the
manual. My experiences with people apparently acting as volunteer service-
providers for GNU software online (via IRC) have been both unhelpful and
insulting. Perhaps the fault is mine for trying to find help on IRC; sadly,
with a lack of a well-advertised vendor offering support, I'm left to scrounge
help wherever I can find it.

To be fair, it is perhaps reasonable to ask the question of whether people in
charge of most Linux distros actually should want to dominate the desktop. But
if people do want to create distros that would move in on that space, they
should understand that it's exactly these sorts of "subjective" assessments of
the OS that would block widespread adoption. This isn't a technical problem.
It's a sales problem---a problem of not investing as much time and money into
the people-to-people interactions as into the people-to-technology
interactions. Both are needed for widespread adoption.

------
cschwarm
In my opinion, the first two reasons are valid. But the author forgots the
main reason: There simply is not compelling reason for the majority of people
to switch to a Linux desktop.

Nearly all the good Open Source desktop apps run under Windows as well. But
there are quite a lot of good Windows and Mac apps that won't run under Linux.
There's no good replacement and Wine is too complicated to be a feasible
solution.

Commercial desktop ISVs don't support Linux for 3 simple reasons: (1) There's
no standard decentral installer. This is the _most important tool_ for desktop
ISVs in their sales funnel and Linux has none (or rather: too many half-
finished ones). (2) It's not a single coherent platform but several different
ones. And it's not going to change without a decentral installer. (3) It's
easier and more profitable to develop web and mobile applications today.

There's nothing the Linux community can do about (3). But (1) could be solved
and in the long run, also (2). If these two problems for commercial ISVs could
be solved, the supply of desktop applications could increase.

Then, desktop distribution could also make money by reselling these
applications. Then, it would also be rationale to advertise.

But that's not going to happen, for one cannot rationally discuss the need of
a decentral installer with many Linux users (or Linux distributions).

~~~
ezy
I think you nailed it in your first sentence. I ran Ubuntu for about 9 months
before I switched to a Windows 7 RC release. Why? Well, the software I wanted
to run isn't available for linux, or requires a virtual environment to run it
(and OSX doesn't run without hacks on custom-built hardware).

And the "free" desktop software equivalents? Well, they are just about worth
their price (with some exceptions). Most developers in the open source
community never finish their desktop products. And just about no one in the
commercial software industry makes a desktop app for linux natively. Put
simply, you can't even _pay_ for something good.

Just try finding a decent photo manager for linux with _any_ degree of polish.
F-spot/Digikam? Basically hobby projects -- no finishing at all -- random bugs
in fricken _obvious_ places (do they run their own software?). How 'bout
Picasa? Ok, more professional, but oh yeah, it's a windows app running on
Wine. Pathetic :-)

</rant>

------
rv77ax
This is what happened when non-engineering people become part of engineering.
Everything is looks wrong.

'90: "Dear X, your program does not work in my system, here is a patch."

'00: "WTF, i cannot run this program, what should i do ?"

There is nothing wrong in Linux as OS, in fact it's become more mature and
usable since i first install it. Most problems that i read in forum now is
about not working hardware or from people that does not know how to read
manual or to lazy.

------
pbhjpbhj
I glanced at the article long enough to know that I didn't need to read it all
... what does he mean by "the linux desktop". He links to Corel's 1999
offering, which is a distro using KDE. Does he mean distro? I noticed he
mentions KDE and Gnome disagreements but he doesn't appear to say why devs
disagreeing are ruining "the linux desktop", again whatever that is supposed
to be.

He could have started by defining what he meant?!

Read the manual is actually sometimes the best response. I answer questions on
the Inkscape "answers" page and "how do I erase" comes up about once a week,
sometimes only a few lines above the previous person asking the question:

<rant & car analogy = bonus!>If I describe a car problem and someone on teh
internetz tells me "it's your head gasket, it's blown mate" I'd expect to have
to look up what that means. Yet with computers if someone says "it's your
menu.lst entry, you need to add ACPI=off [or whatever]" people can't be arsed
to read up on it.</rant>

------
mtomczak
I can't help but wonder if it's a mistake to try and push widespread adoption
of Linux distros in the desktop space. It's possible there's insufficient
money to be made in that space--Apple is a hardware company; Microsoft is a
de-facto monopoly but rumor has it that they're going to have to struggle to
recoup costs on their desktop OS in a world that cares less and less about the
details of the host system.

Maybe the right solution for desktop adoption is "If you want to run Linux on
your desktop machine, that's neat. But don't think you're going to be pushing
Windows off of your neighbor's desktop."

~~~
pbhjpbhj
But if he bought a netbook he probably has linux already.

Microsoft actually make some good software (don't tell my LUG I said that) but
do I really need Windows Seven Ultimate Basic Home Advanced Edition to use a
browser, email and wordprocessor? No, I can have a nice linux desktop with
buttons on the desktop for FF, Thunderbird and OOo.org.

------
3pt14159
The thing that bothers me in Ubuntu is this: Sometimes I want to do something
with a desktop app on a file in /var/ or /bin/ the desktop app tells me
"permission denied" or what have you. How the hell do I type "SUDO" and my
password? Even if there is a way (which I doubt) if it isn't obvious to me,
then it certainly will not be obvious to other potential users.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If this annoys you and you can't work out how to fix that annoyance or work
around it then messing around in /var or /bin is going to ruin your
installation. Having a barrier to entry is often a good idea IMO.

One could solve it by having a "reveal content" button that allows you to
enter the dir by entering the su password ... but I think that makes it a
little too easy.

For me Alt+F2 and "kdesudo dolphin" doesn't seem too tricky (especially with
autocomplete) to get a root fm.

------
JeremyChase
My read of the article describes a Linux desktop as a system that can be
maintained without opening a terminal window. That entails a lot of GUI and a
distribution that works well underneath it. Why exactly is that a good thing?
Are all of these GUI users going to start donating to free projects? What is
the upside?

------
omouse
Linux is a kernel, GNU/Linux is a server operating system. It's all based on
UNIX and no amount of hacky patching can make it a coherent and integrated
desktop system. It'll always have some shitty spot that ruins the experience
somewhere.

Things like Haiku are the future.

