How Linux Might Look in 2012

News Reader · Post by **News Reader** » August 17th, 2008, 16:00

How Linux Might Look in 2012
Information Week broke out the crystal ball and made some educated guesses on what desktop Linux might look four years from now. Check it out if youre interested in this sort of thing.

The single biggest change you'll see is the way Linux evolves to meet the growing market of users who are not themselves Linux-savvy, but are looking for a low-cost alternative to Microsoft (or even the Mac).

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Publish Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:08:00 CDT
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Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 17th, 2008, 16:17

Linux in 4 years?

maybe they'll get as far as something like

Vowles · Post by **Vowles** » August 17th, 2008, 20:49

Your that optimistic ey?

amblin · Post by **amblin** » August 17th, 2008, 20:57

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 17th, 2008, 20:59

ISTR 1.2 was fairly light (not used anything lower)

but that was a dos shell, so probably not super light. (same, to some degree, goes for most old windows versions though)

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » August 18th, 2008, 18:38

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Linux in 4 years?

maybe they'll get as far as something like

OK, I'll bite

but I hope I don't come out as fanboy about it as obviously Windows is a good OS too, especially on the desktop.

My desktop looks a bit better than that.

IME, Linux is a damn fine OS.
It doesn't have as many commercial applications for the home audience, especially games - which is obviously a killer for you guys.
It's not perfect, it has it's foibles, and application crashes. But so does Windows.

But as a OS that has browser, office apps,etc and a heck of a load of free applications (of varying quality admittedly, but there are some great ones) which can be downloaded and installed automatically with a click of a button on a menu (rather than having to find stuff on the web and install like with Windows), and no DRM (or OS calling home) as well as customises easily and the newest graphical interfaces outstrip Windows easily.

I prefer to run in Linux these days over Windows at home as I don't play games much and most of the applications I use are free/open source anyway.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 18th, 2008, 18:42

ahh, you say that, but I like the windows gui, and the not-fisting-itself-48-seperate-ways filesystem.

If linux was to use say, the windows 3.1 gui, I might be more inclined to try it

Lee · Post by **Lee** » August 18th, 2008, 19:18

cheeseandham wrote:OK, I'll bite

I thought about biting but didn't

Now that you have though, I'll add my 2p.

The gnome GUI for linux is the best GUI I've ever seen, it's basically took the best bits from windows and mac and blended them together into an extremely clean and attractive GUI. Then there's the fact that it's all completely customisable, you can basically customise the desktop so the task bar works identically to windows. If it wasn't for the fact that linux doesn't have full gaming support then I'd've switched a long time ago.

There's some screenshots of of bits of the gnome GUI here: http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.22/

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » August 18th, 2008, 20:06

I shall retort, as I like a good discussion and I'm a bit bored at the moment

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:ahh, you say that, but I like the windows gui,

Yeah, fair enough I like the XP interface too, so do many others.
Good job that it's easy to change the desktop interface to look like whatever you want

Dr. kitteny berk wrote: and the not-fisting-itself-48-seperate-ways filesystem.[/url]
I'd be prepared to admit XP and Fista can have a lot over Linux, particularly on the desktop.
I take issue however with that statement and anything to do with general reliability. You don't state which filesystem (there are many) but EXT3 is at least as stable as NTFS, if not more so. EXT2 is an old, non-journaled filesystem, and so can only be compared to FAT16/32. (XFS, Reiser, JFS, ZFS et al all have their own advantages and disadvantages and while I'm far from learned on this matter I doubt reliability is a problem with any of them)

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:If linux was to use say, the windows 3.1 gui, I might be more inclined to try it

Masochist

Interestingly (or not as the case may be) we just recycled a P166 / 48Mb laptop using DamnSmallLinux replacing Windows 95 on it, and it's fast, reliable (more reliable than the 95 install on it) and does so much it's just staggering. The whole install is 50Mb.

Post by **FatherJack** » August 18th, 2008, 20:30

As I see it Windows is historically a single-user based OS, which has only fairly recently started to provide reliable back-end server systems with a multiuser, single-instance storage, journalled filesystem.

Linux has similarly only-recently put itself forward as a real desktop replacement, having done (through the technology it shares with Unix) all the back-end stuff of filesharing, webserving and reliable multiuser access for ages. Not all Linux flavours are equal - for example RedHat has more problems with memory leaks than some versions of Windows, so it's tricky comparing like for like.

So Macs - with an established front-end, and a unix back end should be the best of both worlds? It doesn't seem to be that simple.

For games, though - it's got to be Windows - and I can't imagine a scenario where I wouldn't be playing games on my main box.

If I had to pay for software, and just wanted a web/file/media server, I might look at Linux - for a game server it's a toss-up between reliability/stability and ease of installation.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » August 18th, 2008, 20:56

As always, our resident serial killer tells it as it is

I knew it was a flawed discussion from the start, and it's a discussion that's been done to death on other forums... as I said I was bored and was baited by berk

I'd happily answer you but I'd end up being a real raincoat...

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » August 18th, 2008, 22:04

Wine? Surely?

No, not the liquid kind

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 18th, 2008, 22:16

FatherJack wrote:other words

If I had to pay for software, and just wanted a web/file/media server, I might look at Linux - for a game server it's a toss-up between reliability/stability and ease of installation.

all of it.

But, as it is, I know windows pretty well, and given I'm very much a gamer, Linux doesn't appeal, Wine/Cedega or not, 100% compatibility is pretty important to me, and I personally believe that rebooting computers is a sin, so not that keen on dual booting.

Anyway, I've played with linux a fair bit (but not recently), and I don't hate it, but it's not much use to me in anything I do.

cheeseandham wrote:...Reiser... et al all have their own advantages and disadvantages

Murders your wife. for example

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » August 18th, 2008, 22:38

Wine's OK, but it's not as good as <s>beer</s> running a native application as you add an extra layer that can go wrong.
I find it's good as a last resort, and while it's fine with most standard applications, with games I don't bother. It usually works, if you stretch the definition of "works" a bit further than you would normally accept on a Windows PC when you run a game.
Graphical glitches, weird behaviour and stuff like that is common.

(lol at berk for reiser comment..)

Stoat · Post by **Stoat** » August 19th, 2008, 2:58

Linux is not yet ready for the mainstream.

I can very easily install Ubuntu (or variants) with Wubi. This is excellent. But on my laptop the fans blow at full blast all the time. KDE 4 defaults to a resolution above my laptop's native- so I only see the top left of the desktop.

I'm sure these problems could be rectified with careful Googling and Bash hacking, but this is unacceptable to the average end user.

A laptop with -apparently- no power options and an incorrectly configured desktop is a complete and utter failiure to the end user, no matter how efficiently it fails.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 19th, 2008, 3:15

Stoat wrote:Words

I think Linux is still a fettler's OS.

I personally have no issues spending 4 days doing a gentoo stage 1 install, for no good reason, but that's because I'm quite happy to spend 4 days fucking about and learning stuff.

This is from experience a few years ago...
However, I think it's time Linux learned from Windows, Make it so you can be stupid, make an app installer that'll work for everything, so people don't need to know exactly what they're using.

And for fuck's sake, an installer shouldn't need you to spend 25 minutes on google and 10 minutes fucking with random shit, just so you can get UT04 to run.

There's a lot right with Linux, it's just missing the fit and finish of say windows and that other OS of which I shall not speak.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 19th, 2008, 4:22

Just had a short play with ubuntu using wubi.

It really didn't strike me as something for, like, real people.

Words below are what I experienced, I'm not trying to say linux is good or bad, just, well, different, and not particularly windows user friendly.

First thing you see after installing...

Code: Select all

Press esc to open the menu

What does the menu do? do I need to press escape? Shit, 4 seconds left.. must.. decide..

I managed to resist pressing escape, so I don't know what lurks beyond that button, could be Narnia for all I know.

Then, I get to the next screen, which is happy and orange and has a little box in the middle that says "Installing" in happy text.

3 minutes later, I'm getting a bit bored, and notice the button on the box, I see a new thing I've not seen before, it says "move window to the right" or something to that effect. Needless to say, having already resisted one shiny button, I pressed it.

The window went away. Panic. Hit Buttons. Wonder which spastic fuck made it so you could completely lose the installation dialogue box.

Fortunately, a combination of waiting and hitting buttons enter made stuff happen.

Suddenly. OS!

Internet works, that's good, shows DVDs in drives on desktop, good.

Wonder if I can have some music? ... Look at the top to see if it found my soundcard... Nope, it tells me something complicated, so I ignore it.

What about multi-monitor support? this clone setting is fucking with my mind... Not in right clicky desktop type place, moved screens about a bit, no change, poke around in other options... No change.

Oh, look, a big red button that looks like it might take me somewhere comfortable and warm.

Post by **Dog Pants** » August 19th, 2008, 6:56

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:I managed to resist pressing escape, so I don't know what lurks beyond that button, could be Narnia for all I know.

I did a lol.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » August 19th, 2008, 9:25

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:It really didn't strike me as something for, like, real people.

Words below are what I experienced, I'm not trying to say linux is good or bad, just, well, different, and not particularly windows user friendly.

Well yeah, it IS different, and I don't think Windows is Mac user friendly either. As someone said above, apples and oranges.
"Made for real people" is completely subjective. You stick anyone in front of a Windows, Mac or Linux machine as their first experience and they'll get used to it. Put them in front of something else after a period of time and they'll fall over themselves telling you how unintuitive the new system is.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:could be Narnia for all I know.

big lols

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Look at the top to see if it found my soundcard... Nope, it tells me something complicated, so I ignore it.

Complicated? To you?

I reckon that's just laziness!

If it was something about restricted drivers you just needed to click a checkbox saying you understand the drivers have been made by the manufacturer and are not open, and that Unbutu doesn't know what the hell is inside.
Another point is, without any windows experience, do you think someone with a fresh Windows XP install that didn't detect the sound properly would be able to install the drivers without a manufacturers CD right next to them? (and quite often, in my experience of support, WITH the manufacturers CD right next to them)

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:What about multi-monitor support? this clone setting is fucking with my mind... Not in right clicky desktop type place, moved screens about a bit, no change, poke around in other options... No change.

Ah yeah. Probably THE biggest downfall of desktop linux today, and probably the biggest turnoff for Windows Power Users looking to switch.

Possible, but it's quite often a huge faff, and I'll grant you this is idiotic. Again though, this is not helped by the fact that nVidia and ATi just provide binaries for their graphics cards and no specifications.*
A quick search for "nvidia dual monitor ubuntu" shows that the situation (at least on the surface) is improving since I tried last time, with a single command.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Oh, look, a big red button that looks like it might take me somewhere comfortable and warm.

At least you had a look, fair play to you. As a gamer and dual-monitor though I'd say you were stuffed from the start anyway

* Apple achieves it's (variation of) stability by controlling all the OS software and hardware. I think for most people it's a nice experience if you just want everything "out of the box" and working. By starting to realise this in the last 5 years Apple have made quite a bit of headway (as well as them managing to make owning Mac's "cool", whatever that means)

Windows achieves it's variation of stability by controlling the OS -and then with it's significant marketshare- the hardware drivers by "certification" processes. Considering that they have to build for every PC out there, with every conceivable combination of hardware known to man, I think they've done a pretty good job.

Linux gets it's stability (or variation thereof) by being as open as possible, and asking the hardware makers to be open - no mean feat. If they are, everything (in theory) should work perfectly. I'd say Linux does a great job of reverse engineering or making itself compatible with as much as possible. My Ubuntu installation worked with my Dell XPS M1710 out of the box, everything detected and working (sound,wifi, bluetooth, gfx etc). Later I realised I needed to add were proprietary Dell fan drivers/controls.

Anyway, I guess I should shut up about this. But while Windows kicks ass on the desktop, I'd say that's more due to the support by commercial developers (games, software and hardware drivers) that sets it apart these days from Linux, and in most other areas I'm convinced that Mac,Windows and Linux are all in the same ball park, even if they aren't playing the same game on the same pitch.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » August 19th, 2008, 11:25

I somehow missed your previous post

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:I think Linux is still a fettler's OS.

In some ways it can be. But I bet you a million pounds that you've spent hours and hours fettling with Windows. You can fettle ( but you shouldn't have to as long as your hardware works)

Dr. kitteny berk wrote: This is from experience a few years ago...
However, I think it's time Linux learned from Windows, Make it so you can be stupid, make an app installer that'll work for everything, so people don't need to know exactly what they're using.

And for fuck's sake, an installer shouldn't need you to spend 25 minutes on google and 10 minutes fucking with random shit, just so you can get UT04 to run.

Yeah, that's changed hugely. I've not done anything to install applications other than click a checkbox. If anything the software installation process is easier and quicker than Windows for the 25,000 pieces of software in the Ubuntu/Debian repository.
UT04 - game and dependent on your gfx cards 3d drivers.