7 ms·

Why The Linux Desktop Still Rocks

57 points by Garbage 15y ago

Argorak 15y ago
Honestly, I was expecting a "next year is the year..." post. But this is a point that I can definitely relate to, especially as someone who regularly flies to africa with some Ubuntu CDs in my backpack. A completely free stack (both as beer and as speech) has a tremendous advantage in countries where owning hardware is already a big feat. The ability to tinker with everything that comes with the system is a also a huge advantage for people inclined to learn by doing, which seems to me one of the best ways to learn in the so-called "development countries".
bonch 15y ago
I have to say, it's not encouraging when one of the points cited in favor of Linux on the desktop is the rewarding feeling of getting audio and video to work. After listing their use of various IDEs, this person clearly does not represent a typical computer user. The talk of his friends' fear of virus attacks also partially explains why they used Linux more often. There's just a lot of anecdotal storytelling going on here to build up Linux on the desktop to be more appealing than it probably actually is. We've all heard the classic anecdote of the guy who set up Linux for his grandma and how much she likes it, but the fact is that he had to set it up for her, and he set it up just right. The moment she wants to plug in some printer or digital camera she got from Walmart, or she wants to install some new software, he's right back at her house working on her computer again.
fexl 15y ago
Yes, I've been using Ubuntu exclusively on the desktop for about 6 years now. I recently bought a new laptop (from LinuxCertified.com) and tried out 11.10 (Unity) for the first time. At first I liked it pretty well, but a few days later realized that I really missed the GNOME task bar, where I could see everything running at a glance, and click to open an active window, and click again to minimize it. That feels indispensable to my work flow, so I'm logging in with GNOME Classic now instead of Unity. Although I commend Mark Shuttleworth and his crew on their achievements with Unity, I just gotta have that task bar. Right now the laptop feels like a dream machine -- the keyboard is perfect and I'm a master with the touchpad. Also, the desktop behaves so beautifully that it makes my wife slightly jealous, so when her Windows computer gives up the ghost I think she's gonna want the Linux desktop.
- loboman 15y ago
  Talking about wives... My wife has been using Ubuntu for some years already. For a while she went back to Windows, until she found the countless problems with Windows bugs, spyware, adware, etc. again. That was the last time she used Windows on her computer. Maybe the year of the Linux Desktop already happened some time ago.
  - akeck 15y ago
    Regarding perennial Year-of-the-Linux-Desktop talk, I think it's as Gibson says: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." I got my wife a Dell Mini 9 a few years ago running Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS. Her response was "This is almost Mac-like". After the initial updates, all the hardware worked correctly, including sleep-on-close. She then declared that she didn't want Windows anything in the future. We've not had a Windows machine since. People act as if Linux will be "on the desktop" all at once. I think instead it's been a matter of various persons' comfort levels being met as the Linux desktop experience gets continually refined. For my wife, 8.04.1 hit the mark. For others, more recent revisions fit their needs.
- bergie 15y ago
  There is a GNOME Shell extension at extensions.gnome.org that gives a list of running windows to the top panel. Slightly tweaked version that looks cleaner: https://github.com/cannonerd/gnome-shell-windowlist https://github.com/cannonerd/gnome-shell-windowlist
ap22213 15y ago
If I could only find a laptop vendor that could replicate the build quality of my MBP, I'd be in.
- fmoralesc 15y ago
  This might be of some help: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages (I know it's not really what you asked, but still).
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  Which MBP do you have? The original MBP's have high failure rates. Pretty much any "business-class" laptop would have been more reliable. The unibody MBP's are much better, though. Reviews are indicating that the ASUS Zenbook has a similar build quality and a MBA design aesthetic. Of course, there are also specialty laptops like the Panasonic Toughbook that are designed to withstand abuse.
  - phaus 15y ago
    They may be better now, but I used to run into toughbooks all the time in the Army. Basically they were just designed as a way to scam the government out of 5k per machine. They broke more often than anything else we had, including gateways. I've owned an asus republic of gamers laptop and an eee slate. Both of them are very well built.
    - commandar 15y ago
      Old school Toughbooks were tanks. I had both a CF47 and CF61 way back when and they were indestructable. Of course, those were old P1 era machines. I know I've seen some Toughbooks that didn't really look any more rugged than regular consumer stuff, so maybe that's what you were dealing with? EDIT: I will add that I did do some repairs on newish Toughbooks owned by the Army maybe 3-4 years ago. The big plus with them is that they were repairable; all the ports were on separate daughterboards so they could be easily replaced when broken, whereas they're soldered directly to the main board in more typical laptops.
wavephorm 15y ago
ome may say that the Linux Desktop is dead No, the desktop user-interface paradigm is dead. Overlapping windows, scrollbars, context menus, using a mouse and cursor... it's all dead. This style of computing that Xerox invented, and Mac and Windows perpetuated is getting awfully long in the tooth. Linux never innovated over and above the desktop model that Windows and Mac used, and it will die along with them, and be replaced with mobile/cloud/touchscreen systems.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  I am not sure if this is the part of the computer that's dying. I'd bet on the file and application management versus the kind of curated experience Apple popularized.
  - wavephorm 15y ago
    Why do you think Microsoft is going ahead with "Metro" touch interfaces in Windows 8? How applications are installed and files are managed is a different issue, it's irrelevant to how the user interface operates.
    - untog 15y ago
      Why do you think Microsoft is going ahead with "Metro" touch interfaces in Windows 8? Because a new form factor has emerged. It hasn't killed the old one, though- very few people that use computers (i.e. in an office, sat at a desk) could perform their job on a tablet. Metro sits on top of the existing UI without replacing it, in the same way that tablets complement existing computing setups, not replace them. I don't doubt that tablet usage will increase and that PC usage may decline, but tablets still fill a specific role.
      - wavephorm 15y ago
        It's not surprising that most people (even programmers, and the technically inclined) can't even comprehend how the desktop model will be replaced by natural user interfaces. That's precisely why paradigm shifts catch people and entire industries off guard. I guarantee in 10 years you won't be using a mouse, you won't be resizing windowed applications, and moving scrollbars up and down, none of this will be necessary. I'm not just talking about iPad replacing your Windows PC. I'm talking about a mouse not even being necessary to perform your tasks. Why use a mouse to click a button, when you can just touch it with your finger, or why click through 20 context menus to activate an option when you can just speak to your computer and say "turn music on". The operating system and form factor of the device is irrelevant. Natural user interfaces (touch, sound, speech, vision, gestures) are going to blow the desktop model into the dark ages. And it's going to happen way, way faster than most people expect.
cs702 15y ago
Makes sense to me. Just as Android is spreading like wildfire in the developing world via lower-end handsets, I would expect zero-cost free-software desktop stacks to gain share in 'less-developed' countries as hardware prices continue to drop. (The Free desktop stack is already economically viable in the new range of sub-$25 PCs; proprietary stacks are not.) My impression (based purely on anecdotal evidence) is that use of Free software on the desktop has been growing at a fast pace in the poorest regions of the world for some time, but the trend is still somewhat 'invisible' as the aggregate numbers are still quite small.
- eigenvector 15y ago
  You can't install pirated iOS on a low-cost handset. If the same were true of Windows you'd be right, but for many users GNU/Linux and Windows have the same price: $0 or the cost of the installation media.
- apetrovic 15y ago
  Poor countries have very little (if any) piracy control. Cost of Windows XP or Win7 even in Eastern Europe is usually exactly the same as Ubuntu.
  - cs702 15y ago
    eigenvector, apetrovic -- that used to be a more important factor some years ago, when the Free desktop was unusable for regular folk, and pirating software was much easier. I'm not sure it's an important factor anymore, because the Free desktop has become more usable, and using pirated software has become much more difficult. Nowadays, users who pirate proprietary operating systems end up with unpatched, insecure systems that can't be easily updated, and which require all sorts of workarounds for installing non-pirated applications, among other problems. Meanwhile, proprietary software vendors have been hard at work to make life unpleasant for anyone who attempts to use their code without permission.
danmaz74 15y ago
I did not hear of Linux until a year and half later and the worst part, I was misinformed about it. They said, "It is expensive and you cant get applications for Linux very easily" I really wonder how was that possible: Linux expensive? Who could say such a thing in a university??
- CoughlinJ 15y ago
  >Who could say such a thing in a university? I've heard way dumber things come out of college students mouths.
gdg92989 15y ago
where are you people getting all of these viruses from? I use probably 75% Linux, 25% windows and I can honestly say I've never gotten a virus on windows 7 OR Ubuntu.
- funkah 15y ago
  Dunno. I got one yesterday that I could not remove after trying all sorts of anti-malware and googling to find the actual problem. While running Windows Update get the latest security updates, one or more of the updates failed and left my install in an unbootable state. I had to format & reinstall the whole thing, even after diddling with the "recovery" options on the Windows install disc. It sucked and I was disappointed at the state of the art for Windows (I use Mac, but boot into Windows to work). I suspect the IV was the Java plugin.
jsight 15y ago
> I later got Real Player to work which allowed me to play some mp3s. That was one of my best days ever, I only don't think I've ever seen "Real Player" and "one of my best days ever" that close to each other. Seriously, do people actually still use Real Player? Doesn't Ubuntu have better solutions for playing MP3s than that?
- Uhhrrr 15y ago
  Tons - but the context is that it was "during my second year at the National University." Back when I got Real Player to run on my SparcStation in (maybe 1998?) I remember thinking it was pretty cool too.

57 points by Garbage 15y ago

Honestly, I was expecting a "next year is the year..." post. But this is a point that I can definitely relate to, especially as someone who regularly flies to africa with some Ubuntu CDs in my backpack. A completely free stack (both as beer and as speech) has a tremendous advantage in countries where owning hardware is already a big feat. The ability to tinker with everything that comes with the system is a also a huge advantage for people inclined to learn by doing, which seems to me one of the best ways to learn in the so-called "development countries".

bonch 15y ago

I have to say, it's not encouraging when one of the points cited in favor of Linux on the desktop is the rewarding feeling of getting audio and video to work. After listing their use of various IDEs, this person clearly does not represent a typical computer user. The talk of his friends' fear of virus attacks also partially explains why they used Linux more often. There's just a lot of anecdotal storytelling going on here to build up Linux on the desktop to be more appealing than it probably actually is. We've all heard the classic anecdote of the guy who set up Linux for his grandma and how much she likes it, but the fact is that he had to set it up for her, and he set it up just right. The moment she wants to plug in some printer or digital camera she got from Walmart, or she wants to install some new software, he's right back at her house working on her computer again.

fexl 15y ago

Yes, I've been using Ubuntu exclusively on the desktop for about 6 years now. I recently bought a new laptop (from LinuxCertified.com) and tried out 11.10 (Unity) for the first time. At first I liked it pretty well, but a few days later realized that I really missed the GNOME task bar, where I could see everything running at a glance, and click to open an active window, and click again to minimize it. That feels indispensable to my work flow, so I'm logging in with GNOME Classic now instead of Unity. Although I commend Mark Shuttleworth and his crew on their achievements with Unity, I just gotta have that task bar. Right now the laptop feels like a dream machine -- the keyboard is perfect and I'm a master with the touchpad. Also, the desktop behaves so beautifully that it makes my wife slightly jealous, so when her Windows computer gives up the ghost I think she's gonna want the Linux desktop.

loboman 15y ago
Talking about wives... My wife has been using Ubuntu for some years already. For a while she went back to Windows, until she found the countless problems with Windows bugs, spyware, adware, etc. again. That was the last time she used Windows on her computer. Maybe the year of the Linux Desktop already happened some time ago.
- akeck 15y ago
  Regarding perennial Year-of-the-Linux-Desktop talk, I think it's as Gibson says: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." I got my wife a Dell Mini 9 a few years ago running Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS. Her response was "This is almost Mac-like". After the initial updates, all the hardware worked correctly, including sleep-on-close. She then declared that she didn't want Windows anything in the future. We've not had a Windows machine since. People act as if Linux will be "on the desktop" all at once. I think instead it's been a matter of various persons' comfort levels being met as the Linux desktop experience gets continually refined. For my wife, 8.04.1 hit the mark. For others, more recent revisions fit their needs.
bergie 15y ago
There is a GNOME Shell extension at extensions.gnome.org that gives a list of running windows to the top panel. Slightly tweaked version that looks cleaner: https://github.com/cannonerd/gnome-shell-windowlist https://github.com/cannonerd/gnome-shell-windowlist

ap22213 15y ago

If I could only find a laptop vendor that could replicate the build quality of my MBP, I'd be in.

fmoralesc 15y ago
This might be of some help: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages (I know it's not really what you asked, but still).
bryanlarsen 15y ago
Which MBP do you have? The original MBP's have high failure rates. Pretty much any "business-class" laptop would have been more reliable. The unibody MBP's are much better, though. Reviews are indicating that the ASUS Zenbook has a similar build quality and a MBA design aesthetic. Of course, there are also specialty laptops like the Panasonic Toughbook that are designed to withstand abuse.
- phaus 15y ago
  They may be better now, but I used to run into toughbooks all the time in the Army. Basically they were just designed as a way to scam the government out of 5k per machine. They broke more often than anything else we had, including gateways. I've owned an asus republic of gamers laptop and an eee slate. Both of them are very well built.
  - commandar 15y ago
    Old school Toughbooks were tanks. I had both a CF47 and CF61 way back when and they were indestructable. Of course, those were old P1 era machines. I know I've seen some Toughbooks that didn't really look any more rugged than regular consumer stuff, so maybe that's what you were dealing with? EDIT: I will add that I did do some repairs on newish Toughbooks owned by the Army maybe 3-4 years ago. The big plus with them is that they were repairable; all the ports were on separate daughterboards so they could be easily replaced when broken, whereas they're soldered directly to the main board in more typical laptops.

wavephorm 15y ago

ome may say that the Linux Desktop is dead No, the desktop user-interface paradigm is dead. Overlapping windows, scrollbars, context menus, using a mouse and cursor... it's all dead. This style of computing that Xerox invented, and Mac and Windows perpetuated is getting awfully long in the tooth. Linux never innovated over and above the desktop model that Windows and Mac used, and it will die along with them, and be replaced with mobile/cloud/touchscreen systems.

rbanffy 15y ago
I am not sure if this is the part of the computer that's dying. I'd bet on the file and application management versus the kind of curated experience Apple popularized.
- wavephorm 15y ago
  Why do you think Microsoft is going ahead with "Metro" touch interfaces in Windows 8? How applications are installed and files are managed is a different issue, it's irrelevant to how the user interface operates.
  - untog 15y ago
    Why do you think Microsoft is going ahead with "Metro" touch interfaces in Windows 8? Because a new form factor has emerged. It hasn't killed the old one, though- very few people that use computers (i.e. in an office, sat at a desk) could perform their job on a tablet. Metro sits on top of the existing UI without replacing it, in the same way that tablets complement existing computing setups, not replace them. I don't doubt that tablet usage will increase and that PC usage may decline, but tablets still fill a specific role.
    - wavephorm 15y ago
      It's not surprising that most people (even programmers, and the technically inclined) can't even comprehend how the desktop model will be replaced by natural user interfaces. That's precisely why paradigm shifts catch people and entire industries off guard. I guarantee in 10 years you won't be using a mouse, you won't be resizing windowed applications, and moving scrollbars up and down, none of this will be necessary. I'm not just talking about iPad replacing your Windows PC. I'm talking about a mouse not even being necessary to perform your tasks. Why use a mouse to click a button, when you can just touch it with your finger, or why click through 20 context menus to activate an option when you can just speak to your computer and say "turn music on". The operating system and form factor of the device is irrelevant. Natural user interfaces (touch, sound, speech, vision, gestures) are going to blow the desktop model into the dark ages. And it's going to happen way, way faster than most people expect.

cs702 15y ago

Makes sense to me. Just as Android is spreading like wildfire in the developing world via lower-end handsets, I would expect zero-cost free-software desktop stacks to gain share in 'less-developed' countries as hardware prices continue to drop. (The Free desktop stack is already economically viable in the new range of sub-$25 PCs; proprietary stacks are not.) My impression (based purely on anecdotal evidence) is that use of Free software on the desktop has been growing at a fast pace in the poorest regions of the world for some time, but the trend is still somewhat 'invisible' as the aggregate numbers are still quite small.

eigenvector 15y ago
You can't install pirated iOS on a low-cost handset. If the same were true of Windows you'd be right, but for many users GNU/Linux and Windows have the same price: $0 or the cost of the installation media.
apetrovic 15y ago
Poor countries have very little (if any) piracy control. Cost of Windows XP or Win7 even in Eastern Europe is usually exactly the same as Ubuntu.
- cs702 15y ago
  eigenvector, apetrovic -- that used to be a more important factor some years ago, when the Free desktop was unusable for regular folk, and pirating software was much easier. I'm not sure it's an important factor anymore, because the Free desktop has become more usable, and using pirated software has become much more difficult. Nowadays, users who pirate proprietary operating systems end up with unpatched, insecure systems that can't be easily updated, and which require all sorts of workarounds for installing non-pirated applications, among other problems. Meanwhile, proprietary software vendors have been hard at work to make life unpleasant for anyone who attempts to use their code without permission.

danmaz74 15y ago

I did not hear of Linux until a year and half later and the worst part, I was misinformed about it. They said, "It is expensive and you cant get applications for Linux very easily" I really wonder how was that possible: Linux expensive? Who could say such a thing in a university??

CoughlinJ 15y ago
>Who could say such a thing in a university? I've heard way dumber things come out of college students mouths.

gdg92989 15y ago

where are you people getting all of these viruses from? I use probably 75% Linux, 25% windows and I can honestly say I've never gotten a virus on windows 7 OR Ubuntu.

funkah 15y ago
Dunno. I got one yesterday that I could not remove after trying all sorts of anti-malware and googling to find the actual problem. While running Windows Update get the latest security updates, one or more of the updates failed and left my install in an unbootable state. I had to format & reinstall the whole thing, even after diddling with the "recovery" options on the Windows install disc. It sucked and I was disappointed at the state of the art for Windows (I use Mac, but boot into Windows to work). I suspect the IV was the Java plugin.

jsight 15y ago

> I later got Real Player to work which allowed me to play some mp3s. That was one of my best days ever, I only don't think I've ever seen "Real Player" and "one of my best days ever" that close to each other. Seriously, do people actually still use Real Player? Doesn't Ubuntu have better solutions for playing MP3s than that?

Uhhrrr 15y ago
Tons - but the context is that it was "during my second year at the National University." Back when I got Real Player to run on my SparcStation in (maybe 1998?) I remember thinking it was pretty cool too.