blogs.pcworld.com — Some technology analysts feel that Linux is still not ready for the desktop. Please don't tell that to any of the community members who last year logged in 40,000 times to the 28 Linux stations in our small town library and community center.
Oct 10, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountOct 12, 2007
Yep. Even when MS pumps in millions of dollars, it still has problems. What's their excuse? How come an application crash will take down the whole system when you're on XP? Can't wait for that day when Windows "just works".
init100Oct 12, 2007
He'll ask and get the answer "buy Office 2007".
peestandingupOct 12, 2007
And see, anyone who brings this stuff up is being dugg down. Thats another MAJOR problem with the Linux community. You guys cant take a bit of constructive criticism, you pansies. The people who are bringing these points up CARE about the OS guys, so don't just turn a blind eye to it. Open your ears & LISTEN for once, or just keep doing what you're doing & enjoying less than 2% of the desktop market with no support.
doolittleOct 12, 2007
It's a double edge sword. I recall the saying "easy pour, easy spill" as my mom and grandma consistently calls me because I set them for limited privs on their XP user account, they wanted nothing to do with it. I set them as admin and they are happy - until the screen saver they installed starts causing unwanted popups.If there was a saying do describe the "typical windows desktop user" it would have to be "convenience over security" hands down. They want to install whatever they want whenever they like and not even consider any repercussions until after the fact. Geek squad to the rescue....
daftmanOct 12, 2007
@betterhYou have no idea what you are talking about. I'm not going to waste anymore time on someone who is completely clueless to how the game market work.Go and read gamasutra.com and gamedev.net before you make fool out of yourself.
dreesemonkeyOct 19, 2007
I agree package manager is very easy to install applications in the Ubuntu distro that I used. But what if I want to install a program that isn't in the list and doesn't have a .deb download? After that I'm lost.Not to mention there was no support for WPA wireless security? I've seen recently on digg this has been added to the network manager or whatever, but I find it not being built-in very strange. I tried a few tutorials to get it to work with my wireless chipset to no avail, nor could my friend who lives in open BSD. So I didn't feel too bad.
snowball69Oct 31, 2007
For what it's worth on a pro-Linux item here...The main reason I feel it isn't half-ready yet is simple lack of attention to detail. The boring, fiddly, mind-numbing, repetitive stuff that most devs really find a pain in the butt but which needs to be done. To be more specific, this isn't just a "Linux" issue as such but lack of cohesion also in the assembly and configuration of many distros. Heck, even Novell can't get it right with SUSE 10.x. I can guarantee if I try a SUSE live distro that - yep, it will find my network card but nope it won't bother activating it. I just tried 10.2 Live again this evening with a view to finding something positive to relate to others about but unfortunately if I was doing a bug report for an employer I'd be detailing about 10 "show-stoppers" every 5 minutes. I generally get the feeling (although this may not be true) that KDE distros really don't want to play nicely with Microsoft shares and networks. The overall problems are all the more disappointing as all too frequently problems which supported end-users (lusers) and their managers would not tolerate are easily fixable but down to inconsistent behaviour and lack of critical test feedback. It's this (un-natural) slackness which I find really frustrating.No, I won't be submitting bug reports either, with over 1,000 spams a day to handle I've all-too-often found my email address releases out "into the wild" via bug-reports. Been burnt there, won't do that again in any sort of hurry.Usual caveats apply here. Yep, I know how much time devs give to this with no reward, yep it's free, yep I should do bug reports or see "if I can do better" or "you're-just-a-microsoft fanboy" (yawn), yada yada yada. The big issue here is that all this valuable personal time generously donated is rather wasted on a product which is relegated to enthusiasts who are willing to go that "extra mile" and fix things that are broken. Linux has the potential to be not just a great product but an amazing one - hence all the more shame it doesn't make it.I'd love to be able to recommend to my non-technical friends that they get off the Microsoft treadmill and save a good few bucks, but in all honesty I won't lie to them and when they ask I just tell them the truth - maybe in 5 more years?. I just get the feeling the whole community needs the Gordon Ramsay treatment with a maybe a few F-Words thrown in. (for Americans.... <a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Ramsay">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Ramsay</a> )
marffaNov 10, 2007
Linux has been ready for the desktop for years, it's just not ready for computer-illiterate users. The only reason they always say "Linux Not Ready for the Desktop" is because "Linux Not Ready for Idiots" would sound offensive.!