Problems Linux Enthusiasts Refuse to Address

[Liam Proven]

On 5 April 2011 18:16, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> So to take over the desktop, it does in fact need to succeed in some
> respect that is sufficient to push it forward.
>
> The year of the Linux desktop was 2007. I say this because that was
> the year when it was finally price competition for Windows - with
> reports of Microsoft charging $0 to $5 for XP on netbooks, just to
> keep Linux the hell off them. Before that, OEMs were at their mercy.
> This was bad enough for it to show up in Microsoft's financial
> statements of the time.
>
> So, price was actually enough at that time - we didn't win the
> desktop, but we gave it a damn good shake. What other thing could
> Linux do ridiculously better to beat Windows?
>
> Ubuntu is taking a plausible approach: the Mac has the slickest design
> and Microsoft has proven utterly unable to compete, so apply design
> skills to the problem. This has variable results, e.g. Unity doesn't
> work properly, and even if it did it's deliberately missing far too
> much actual functionality.

Concur. Both GNOME and KDE subtly ape the Windows way of doing things.
Even Mac OS X is more Windows-like than classic MacOS ever was.

Ubuntu seem to be consciously - if carefully - trying to make Ubuntu a
bit more Mac OS X-like. It's a bit of a mystery to me why they didn't
start with GNUstep, but hey. Maybe it's not GNOMEy enough.


> But this is why we have many distros.

Hmm. If anyone else takes up Unity, anyway.

Watched a few of the GNOME 3 videos today. It is rather more Mac-like
than I realised, too, and it also has a left-side Dock in it.

I wonder if at some point a merger between them might happen? I don't
like to see forks, but Canonical does seem to be pragmatic. If the
other lot win out and Unity falters, they might backtrack and
integrate. Maybe?

>> "I'm not talking about dumbing anything down, mind you. No, I simply
>> want to see all of us decide that we either are going to start taking
>> our platform seriously or opt to forgo the usual long-winded speech
>> about how superior it is in comparison to the alternatives."
>
> This is an example of what I meant by the tech press and ad-banner
> trolling for clicks. These are the words of a professional troll.

In the immortal words of Ford Prefect, "Don't knock it, it works."

I have tremendous respect for Andrew Orlowski's writing, for instance,
even though I seldom actually /agree/ with him about the big issues.

(He's a well-informed, rational, unbiased anthropogenic-climate-change
skeptic, for instance. Possibly the only one I've ever met, as opposed
to a hundred closed-minded, ignorant climate-change deniers.)

Andrew is /extremely/ good at digging out a controversial story and
presenting it in a style just inflammatory enough to get a million
page-views. What he personally feels about that story seems to be
immaterial.

That's a formidable talent, one to be reckoned with.

> People don't seem to realise just how good Wine is these days. The
> apps that don't Just Work tend to be (a) large (b) recent. But the
> thing keeping someone on Windows is more often that Just One App that
> they can't do without - and that app will usually work flawlessly in
> Wine. YMMV, of course, but it's *always* worth a try.

True. I've been surprised myself recently. It's what Lindows hoped
for, way back when.

What we need to do is, get some backers, buy out Xandros and relaunch
Lindows, with its classic tidied-up pared-down XP-like KDE desktop and
bundled WINE! :¬D

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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