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- mmijatov, on 07/23/2008, -9/+239Dear Mr. Shuttleworth,
Go for it! - diggB, on 07/23/2008, -2/+175"His company Canonical, Ubuntu's commercial sponsor, is working to make the Ubuntu desktop "more beautiful" in the next two years, he told OSCON."
More beautiful is fine so long as it includes an emphasis on UI improvements and consistency between applications. - sandiegodude, on 07/23/2008, -21/+141Oh *****, the Internet is going to blow up. Linux vs. Apple on Digg has occurred!
My 2 cents on the matter.
Competition makes products better (uh, cept Vista. I don't know WTF M$ was thinking there) I want to see Apple and Ubuntu war it out, because the winners are truly us, the end users. - michaelpinto, on 07/23/2008, -38/+127About 90% of the Apple experience isn't just the desktop: It's either the hardware (like an iPhone or iPod) or the applications that work so well with the hardware (like iMovie or Safari). It's also not about the "legions of programmers" after all Microsoft already has that, but it's also about the usability folks, the hardware engineers and yes the marketing dept. In the meantime while Ubuntu is trying to be Windows 95 you have Microsoft reinventing the desktop on the web with Mesh. Ubuntu needs to invent the next thing or find the next big market, not try playing "catch up" with Apple.
- Tribis, on 07/23/2008, -95/+183All this article talks about is how they want to make the desktop more "beautiful". I thought a good OS was compromised of good features and ease of use and not good art.
The day that I can have my mother sit down at a Linux desktop and she never has to use a terminal will be the day Linux has finally achieved the same level of ease as other operating systems. I have used Linux off and on for many years and always find that tasks which are so simple in Windows or OS X often require an extensive amount of time Googling for answers. And once I find the answers, I never know what they mean, I simply copy and paste them into the terminal and hope for the best. An operating system should be intuitive, I should be able to learn it as I go and not have to rely on outside resources.
But I have one final complaint. I work for a business in the real world, where we need powerful programs like Quickbooks that can handle all payroll taxes and employee's taxes online. I need to be able to take something to my accountant that he can actually work with. And the open source "alternatives" on Linux are NOT alternatives at all.
Now bury me the ***** down. - Steeple, on 07/23/2008, -14/+93get third party support, then we'll talk.
it's really not about the spinning cubes - electricwaffles, on 07/23/2008, -2/+78electricwaffles founder: We can surpass MrBabyMan in two years
- BlueSkyfish, on 07/23/2008, -3/+65You underestimate the power of spinning cubes.
- BigManOnCampus, on 07/23/2008, -6/+55I use two linux distributions at home.
Ubuntu on the laptop.
Arch on the media monster.
I use command lines in Arch all the time. In fact I actually find myself annoyed when I don't know the command-line-method of configuring something on my arch box.
I can't remember the last time I needed to use a command line on my Ubuntu laptop. It certainly hasn't happened since 8.04. I simply never use one on it. - Badandy127, on 07/23/2008, -32/+80This is about as likely as Apple surpassing Microsoft.
- Jektal, on 07/23/2008, -3/+49First off, an OS can be functional and beautiful. I see this as a call for more development on the oft-ignored beauty aspect in the linux world.
Second, compliance with your business needs will come after increased casual adoption. Take a look at what is happening with Mac right now. Due mostly to Apple's emphasis on design and aesthetics people are choosing to use Macs at home, and pushing for them in the work place. This creates a need for business software which runs natively in OSX and is compatible with its Windows counterparts.
The same should happen for Ubuntu if it gains home-user support, and Apple have proven that a great approach is a solid unix core and a very fancy interface. - hexydes, on 07/23/2008, -0/+44I consider all of that to be the same thing. Making it beautiful is more than using pretty graphics. If you have consistency, and elements are laid out in a way that is intuitively usable, that is all part of the larger design, and all moves towards making the interface more "beautiful".
- Apocalyptic0n3, on 07/23/2008, -5/+48Funny thing is that people were saying the same thing about Firefox a few years ago. Now it is up to 20% marketshare. 1 in 5 use Firefox. That'll continue to grow, too. Unless Mozilla screws it up, that is.
- seibikitei, on 07/23/2008, -2/+35Hah. Best comment so far. Though this whole "year of the linux desktop" thing is getting pretty old. Why can't people accept the fact that there isn't going to be some worldwide epiphany to cause people to switch to open source and Linux.
Like everything else it will be a gradual process, I just want to see Linux move up to be the acceptable 3rd OS of choice and not get the redheaded step child treatment from hardware companies with drivers, etc. Ah well, Linux and open source in general get better all the time. - kiwiboyus, on 07/23/2008, -8/+39Ubuntu doesn't need to do that, the Linux community does that already. The Ubuntu team just need to cherry pick the best and most ready apps and features that are being developed for Linux as a whole. That is a strength that Windows and Apple don't quite have. It's great that he is setting his sights on Apple and not saying Ubuntu is about to replace Windows which is a much bigger target.
- fakeXsound, on 07/23/2008, -43/+75rofl
- Br3ach, on 07/23/2008, -1/+31If anyone could live up to that kind of statement, Ubuntu could I think
- meddle447, on 07/23/2008, -8/+38The problem the face is not just look and feel. Cocoa is a great framework for building OS X app. .Net is great for building windows apps. What sort of framework are they going to build to make it easier for developers to build apps for their system? Developers making great apps is what drive user adoption of an operating system.
- colincornaby, on 07/23/2008, -11/+40My problem with Linux is they just don't get it. Instead of improving usability, they just add some new whiz bang graphics thing. Here's a hint: I don't use OS X because my icons bounce in the dock. I use it because it doesn't do things like put my control panels in two different places. I don't have a problem with the idea of Linux. A free system would be nice. But please, work on usability before the whiz bang graphics. I couldn't give a damn about wobbling windows.
- Cenobite, on 07/23/2008, -1/+28The problem is standards: you have them.
- PueSi, on 07/23/2008, -18/+42Well good luck with that because right now Ubuntu looks really really bad, the fonts, the space empty spaces, everythinh looks amateurish and wrong. They should hire real designers for the GUI.
- brkhobowriter, on 07/23/2008, -2/+25Crysis works under Wine. It'll just be in spf instead of in fps.
- kayfouroh, on 07/23/2008, -10/+32Using 'M$' is so 1999.
- yhan, on 07/23/2008, -10/+30No we can't, GTK as a toolkit is just not good enough anymore, the bigger issue though is that on average the GNOME, UBUNTU developer has the aesthetic sensibility of a stone.
- waspbr, on 07/23/2008, -2/+22apple's hardware? you mean nvidia's, intel's , asus's, broadcom's, samsung's...
- hexydes, on 07/23/2008, -2/+22Because I won't pay $1500 for a computer that is worth $700, that's why.
- gandhii, on 07/24/2008, -1/+20i don't know what distro you're using... but in recent versions of ubuntu you just need open up the system monitor and kill it there. Practically identical to window's task manager.
The problem with linux for me and seemingly most others is that after years and years of learning windows we feel we are experts and expect the learning curve to be quicker with linux since we have forgotten how long it took us to learn everything we know about windows. - datek2517, on 07/23/2008, -6/+25Fat chance.
I love the openness of Linux and think that Ubuntu has come a long way over its short lifespan, but they've got a long way to go. I hope Shuttleworth is really talking about their UI as well as market share here, because intuitive interfaces are really what Linux desperately needs in order to really become mainstream. Maybe they'll have the Apple of today beat in seven years, but who knows where Apple will be then. - scyon, on 07/23/2008, -3/+211994 was the year of the Linux desktop. Where have you been? ;)
- wildsnake, on 07/23/2008, -1/+19Go for it. Actions speak louder than words
- mrsteveman1, on 07/23/2008, -0/+17***** man...logic....on DIGG....my head hurts now.
- waspbr, on 07/23/2008, -3/+20yes, it's called synaptic
- MacParrot, on 07/23/2008, -1/+18Linux won't pass Apple is market-share until the supporters and creators learn how to...market. Too many versions, not enough commercial software. Apple faced this very same dilemma with the Classic OS. OS 7/8/9 had just enough differences to make them incompatible in many ways. Software that ran just fine under System 7 would crash and burn under System 9. Add in the user base had stagnated for a number of years didn't make the job of reselling the Mac brand any easy.
It took the almost clean slate approach with OS X to wipe out years of neglect and switching to the Intel platform was the icing on the cake (though I must admit I despaired at the time).
Linux distributor's need to get together and present a common front. A common GUI and developer tools. Get commercial software makers to take a chance and release Linux versions of more popular software titles. Don't spend a lot of time trying to get PC games ported, that isn't what is going to get you more users in the long run. The games can come later. Get Adobe to release CS3, get other major developers to pay attention, work with PC makers to offer lines of Linux-ready PCs with a little more enthusiasm than Dell gave.
Even as a long-time Mac user, I can see the benefit to everyone to have a strong third platform besides Windows or OS X. - skoruppa, on 07/23/2008, -1/+16Its called .deb package. Duble click and you have program... easier than on windows...
or apt:url - only one click in firefox. Or Ad/Remove... or.. or.. - TheCoreh, on 07/23/2008, -0/+15Ehrm... Gnome and KDE are not frameworks.
- zeptobyte, on 07/23/2008, -5/+19MS didn't really have any competition with Vista; hence, it sucked. So that doesn't counter your point.
- inactive, on 07/23/2008, -6/+20You can say anything you want about your Apple machines but if the OS was as buggy and bitchy as Windows it wouldn't even make a dent in the OS market. When people buy Macs what they really buy is the whole new OS, you can't get someone to buy a Mac just for how stylish the machine is: there are many machines out there that look better than the Macs. That's why you see people using and working on OSx86.
And Ubuntu isn't trying to be Windows 95, we passed that milestone long ago :). Several of the features that OSX Leopard shipped were on the Linux world years ago. I acknowledge that OSX is ahead of Linux in the usability department but I think that it isn't going to be for long, the difference isn't too much either. - WiseWeasel, on 07/23/2008, -2/+16There is not much threat to Apple from Linux, since widespread Linux adoption will favor the use of open standards, which can typically be incorporated into Mac OS X if they aren't already. A computer OS landscape dominated by Linux will still allow for Apple to carve out their niche, since they will be able to interact with that Linux hegemony seamlessly. In fact, Apple would be able to integrate into such a world much more effectively than with the current MS stranglehold; Apple faces a much greater challenge in gaining traction in the current software landscape. Any small players will have a much easier time competing if the "standard" OS is open source and open standards-based. As long as Apple can continue to provide value by moving swiftly and pushing progress and consistency with their central planning approach, they should be fine, as it will be quite difficult for most open source projects to keep up with them due to structural challenges.
So as a Mac user, I have nothing to lose by promoting Linux adoption, since it will help break the MS hegemony, encouraging adoption of open protocols and APIs that will benefit Macs as well as Linux distros, and it will keep Apple honest and working hard to stay relevant. It's never a bad thing to have a nice Plan B ready in case Apple gets their head too far up their own collective ass and starts fighting their users like Microsoft has, with cumbersome copy protection, activation and DRM. I can't wait until some decent Android and Mobile Linux phones come on the market, for example, so Apple might be encouraged to open up the iPhone to its users and make it a real general-purpose computing platform, or so I can have a decent alternative to jump ship to otherwise. - Steeple, on 07/23/2008, -2/+16no, none of that stuff, i mean mainstream third party software like popular games, office (and for me , photoshop) not the open source alternatives.
if you want people to switch, it's all about giving people confidence that the stuff everyone uses can run on their system. - sandiegodude, on 07/23/2008, -5/+18haha, I didn't even realize I did it! I swear! Old habit from my last job which was a 90% Linux/Unix shop, whenever we had to deal with our (few) Win servers we would always refer to them as the M$ servers.
My apologies to the Microsoft fanbois out there :) - loconet, on 07/23/2008, -3/+16Not really. As far as the desktop is concern, the Apple -> Microsoft is orders of magnitude larger than the Linux -> Apple.
- ileftfark, on 07/23/2008, -0/+12Ubuntu debuted in late 2004. So, that's like what, 25 years?
- frazw, on 07/23/2008, -2/+14I must protest your comment: "It's either the hardware (like an iPhone or iPod)" but this rant is not directed at you.
The hardware in an iphone or ipod was never unique. Ever. In all respects they where beaten to the punch by someone. The thing which made them stand out was the firmware. User interface to be specific. It is fundamentally the most important thing with any device in terms of its public perception and uptake.
E.g. I have a sony NW-HD5 HD mp3 player. I is, or at least was technically superior to ipods contemporary with it at release. It was smaller, more energy efficient and had interchangeable batteries amongst other things. However it sucks. The ipod had about a third of the battery life were bigger BUT the user interface was and is miles better and so it wins.
I apologise for going on about it but it really annoys me that software and hardware developers seem to pay so little respect to how users will interact with their system. They always try to sell based on capability rather than usability and time and time again usability (or at least percieved usability) wins out. See Nintendo Wii vs Sony/MS, the iPod vs mp3 players, iPhone vs smartphones, Windows vs Mac or Linux, Each of the winners has a simple easy to use User interface but its hardware is technically no better than its competition.
Consequently, I fully expect Linux MCE to be a driving force for Linux uptake. It is incredibly easy to setup and use and it functionality is pure genius. Even a monkey could do it. No other media centre equipment can do all of what it does and so easily and it is all down to its UI. Some may not like how it looks but you can tell me it isn't easy to set up. If you are going to argue though that you have to have the right hardware etc then I'd say that there are companies do that for you just like Apple does. e.g. fiire.com.
All I'm saying and this is specifically to devs of all types. UI is paramount if you want to increase market share. Ignore the opinions of anyone other than novices. They are your target audience and what they want will work for the largest number of people. You may piss of the elitists and fanboys but those guys are arseholes. - deadbaby, on 07/23/2008, -1/+13I think you're talking about the GNOME settings. I was annoyed by that too. I found out there actually is a very nice System Preferences like app that combines all the settings into one frontend but unfortunately it's hidden by default. If you edit your menus in Ubuntu you can enable it. I think it's called GNOME Control Center or some such thing. Why it's not on by default is a mystery to me. I am still, to this day, confused by Prefs vs. Admin menus. I can't remember what's where.
- waspbr, on 07/24/2008, -0/+11there's also the add/remove applications menu... how much more straight forward do you wanna get?
- aeoo, on 07/23/2008, -0/+11You own the software but not the service. I like subscription models for entities that provide open-source solutions. I'd hate to pay a subscription to a closed-source company, that's for sure. With closed-source, I like to pay once and sever the contact. With open-source, subscription makes more sense, since the company has a lot less leverage to screw you over as a customer, and therefore supporting it via subscription is less dangerous for your freedom.
- ileftfark, on 07/23/2008, -3/+14Numbers from June 2008:
Market Share:
Windows - 90.89%
OSX - 7.94%
Linux - 0.8%
Linux is also growing faster than Mac. Windows is slowly but consistently losing its stronghold.
By the way, these stats were found via the Internet, which apparently you also have access to. It's a pretty good resource for information and such. -
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