[PCWorld] Why Linux on the Desktop Is Dead - Page 36  

I think the title of the article and his conclusion (desktop linux is dead) is hogwash because it will always stay alive as long as the community is there to support it. He DOES bring up some very valid points though.

As I have posted before linux was never intended as a desktop system, it's power is server sided and CLI and that I can say works just beautifully , not that it cannot be used as a desktop, there are DEs like kde , gnome , lxde , xfce. most of the hardware companies don't offer drivers for linux except maybe a few like ati / nvidia a few others, so we have to rely on the updated kernels.

e.g. kde offers everything a day to day user does on a windows platform like kmail / libre / openoffice / chromium / firefox / opera of course no IE as most of the users would not touch that browser. Heck flash works perfectly on linux and chromium / FF.

The thing about win 7 is that it is the most stable windows platform I have used till date. Linux has come from where MS was once DOS - win 3.1 - win 95 / 98SE / ME - WIn XP - Vista - Win 7. So linux DE is between XP n 7.

On my Toshiba my wi-fi + plus Reliance Netconnect (datacard) works without trouble I did not have to install any drivers as the kernel has the modules (opensuse 12.1 64 ).

Heck people love Mac OS hey that's again a Unix based system. Compiz offers beautiful desktop effects, ah use gnome 2 and the mac lion theme with cairo or docky and you will see the mac os on your linux system , you want windows type than kde or lxde or xfce.

Now don't tell me that linux DE uses some different language than English, any windows user will be able to use KDE without any trouble for day to day work.

But again it's all a personal.

Hey but I do not need an anti virus.
Edited by ironmaiden - 5/23/12 at 11:34pm

The news is in! I seen Tux on the side walk looking for handouts! Poor Tux got fooled. Little guy never knew he was being fooled. He told me his owner left him in front of an animal shelter in a Windows PC box. Turned out that the shelter closed several months ago and posted directions to another shelter, but the other shelter does not accept Penguins.

I really never cared for Tux, but felt bad for the little guy, so I gave him a free copy of Windows 7 and Pirates of Silicon Valley DVD.

Now it's Tux against the world!

Tux you can do it! Join the winning side! Resistance is futile!

No! My friends to not listen to his lies!

All your Linux are belong to us.

Man there's a lot of flaming going on here, it's hot enough outside without that.

On the X-Fi point - please show me where an average new PC that a novice might buy (say, around £500-600) comes with an X-Fi. Regardless of your "10% of users" comment (which sounds way too high, none of our 200 PCs at work has one), AVERAGE JOE will not have one (why would they?).

Anyway, we should all agree to disagree, as there's too much fanboy vs. anti-fanboy in here. I say I'm right, you say I'm wrong. The answer is of course both, and because it's all opinion, this argument could go on until the end of time.

Bubba makes good points but disguises them in bile and ridiculous posts that jump from point to point.

Not one Linux user is going agree with you when you post like that. Which I'm sure is fine with you, but these posts seems like you're on the fast track to infractionland.

Bile? Really? I merely posted an opinion and was flamed for it and then had to defend it. And I'm on the fast track to infractionland? I didn't realize that in this forum if you pointed out flaws in an operating system you were personally attacking people with "bile". I would expect that from an apple forum. Not here.

Chemical I will agree it's not something a typical "average joe" will come across but it is something that should be addressed in order to open it up to a wider audience as a daily use OS. Anyways, I've said my opinion and shall take my charred hind end out lest I contaminate anyone else with my "bile". I would appreciate help with the x-fi and phoronix issue though if anyone is up to it.
Edited by Bubba Hotepp - 5/24/12 at 2:02am

I guess I'm masochistic or something. I for one love using terminal... it's so much faster to get things done.

But this article, while touching on some valid points, is a joke.

Use is up, it's not dead. However 3rd party support as well as drivers are limited, and this is what will keep Linux in the lower market share as Malcom pointed out. However I don't really believe it's dead. I belive the FAD is dead... where kiddies thought it was cool to run Linux to show off, now it's back to the hardcore users whom use it daily, which is not a bad place to be. Perhaps the Linux community can band together and kick Ubuntu out of it's "Ambassadors Office" by creating a completely user friendly environment, much like openSUSE (Formerly SuSE).... If anything I think this article will help stir the juices and encourage future projects to be sprouting up... can't wait to see what they come up with next...

But they really need to figure out a way to port M$office over because I kinda need OneNote and Visio to work on my laptop.

Yeah having Word, PowerPoint, and Excel is all fine and dandy, but I bought M$O 2k7 and I'd like to use all of my components out of the box...

Till then I'll fiddle with WINE and PlayOnLinux, but this is exactly what's turning users away.


The undertone of the above post is: I don't really care considering Linux isn't dead...
Edited by MediaRocker - 5/24/12 at 5:12pm

TL;DR version of the article: "I don't like tinkering with my system so Linux on the desktop is dead. "

Long version: [insert recycled points from other peoples' articles and make them sound like my own]