Whenceforth the Ubuntu fanboyz now?

[ted leslie]

On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 17:22 -0500, Stephen Allen wrote:
> On 08/02/2007 George Nicol wrote:
> > Perhaps not.
> 
> Yeah I don't think the Linux desktop is ever going to be reality. It
> goes back to understanding what the market that uses Graphical Desktops
> want. <ie> Marketing for normal everyday users, as opposed to hacker
> culture needs. Nothing wrong with hacker culture though.

I agree if one restricts this to desktop thinking, but I think
relatively soon (upto 10yrs) most cell phones, PDA, PVR, PS3/4, web
appliances, TV's, even mobo bios will be Linux , so I am hoping that
fact will just make it take off on the desktop, i.e. coming from a whole
different angle.

> 
> Apple has spent litterally millions on getting it pretty close to what
> users actually want and like (although not perfect). I don't see Ubuntu
> being the solution either.

And whats really bad is that SUSE claims to have sat generic computer
users down and done evaluations to build a easy to use system.  They
improved in some areas (i think) and actually got worse in others.
With all the $$$ spent in Linux, you'd figure they could just sit 
down a nice population (statistical representation of)  5000 users,
capture the issues they have and solve the issues, its not like its rock
science, its just a bit of coin needed. What would it cost to have 5000
people submit to 160 hours of "monitoring"? at 16$/hr thats 12M$,
someone just spend it (in the linux camp) and be done with it for pete's
sake. 

> 
> I've been using Linux for probably a decade or little more (mainly as
> server OS). There just isn't the full suite of applications that I need
> to use on a daily basis for the Linux desktop to be reality where I work
> or at my home.

I'd be interested in what it is you use that you can't get on Linux ...
I stopped using Windows 5+ years ago because it couldnt give me what I
wanted, only Linux could. Win32 was a dead end for video capture tech.
and programming development, and of course IE was totally screw'd.

One thing that is interesting at my work, is that they just got a
crackberry outlook express server thingy. And the installing company
says to interface with it from Win desktop you need to go to the full
2003+ office suite, that has a outlook client to support corp.
calendaring (or so they say). So i google and hopefully Evolution
(windows client) for free will come to the rescue. If it does, i can
hopefully steer another 10-15K$ away from Bills pocket.

> 
> Like another poster suggested earlier this week, the desktop application
> suite has to be developed for Linux, in order for the desktop to be even
> a good sell to most people. Unfortuantely that will require  copious
> proprietary products being supported by vendors for Linux. I don't see
> that happening. :(
Hopefully the Fluendo example will start to change this.

If adobe wasn't so dam screwed up, it would be a better situation.
How such a completely useless company can have such a critical suite of
products baffles me. The Flash 5  IDE  product was a grade school
computing class project at best. The slowness of flash for linux for
years was costly to Linux, and the lack of photoshop, and to a lesser
extent premier doesn't help. Personally it would be nice to see every
Linux user ban adobe, but then that would drive some back to Windows
just to get flash ability. Its a vicious cycle with adobe, someone has
got to put them out of their misery. Gimpshop is great, and I can power
my way to get what i used in Premier in Linux products, but no choice
when it comes to going to a web site and having to view flash, for that
I have to rely on those bastards. 


-tl
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