Desktop Linux is dead....

SkyHog

SkyHog

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Everything Offends Me
Forget Linux Servers, they are still the king, but desktop Linux is dead dead dead. Blame Unity or Ubuntu's decision to force it down consumer's throats, or blame GNOME for blowing the development of GDE3, it doesn't matter....Linux for the average desktop user is dead.

Thoughts?
 
I'm running Fedora 17 on my laptop which I use quite a bit, I'm very happy with it

Linux was never a thought of option for the average user anyways
 
Can you explain in more detail? What is Ubuntu forcing down our throats? Something that makes it incompatible with older hardware?

I have a couple of Win XP machines I'm thinking of changing over to Linux, probably Ubuntu. I'd appreciate enough background to understand your issue.
 
PW_Plack said:
Can you explain in more detail? What is Ubuntu forcing down our throats? Something that makes it incompatible with older hardware?

I have a couple of Win XP machines I'm thinking of changing over to Linux, probably Ubuntu. I'd appreciate enough background to understand your issue.
Click to expand...

Unity is garbage. Its Ubuntu's default desktop environment. Previously, Ubuntu shipped with Gnome or Gnome2, which were very popular options. Gnome 3 and Unity are horrible, horrible desktop environments, and unfortunately, Gnome 2 is no longer an option.

Starting in 2011, with the forced installation of Unity, Ubuntu started to become less desirable for me personally. Mint, OpenSuse, and Fedora just haven't been as reliable as Ubuntu was in the past (Ubuntu 10.04LTS, as an example, was the first and only Linux operating system I ever ran where after installation, everything worked on every computer I installed it on - wifi, sound, video, etc.). Nothing has been the same since.

Combine the oddball decision to force Unity on users with the almost simultaneous release of Windows 7, and the death rattles for Linux has begun.

Its really a shame. For the first time in many years, I spend more time at home on a Windows PC than any of my other computers. I have a Mac, 5 Linux PCs, and a Windows PC.
 
ChitDisturber said:
Linux was never a thought of option for the average user anyways
Click to expand...

I disagree. Ubuntu was on its way. Ubuntu was singlehandedly taking Linux and making it more readily available for the mainstream everyday user.
 
It's blasphemous to even use the words "linux" and "mainstream everyday user" in the same sentence. Never had a glimmer of hope in any rational mind. 'Never broke 3% of desktop users. Too weird, too many changes, too many versions, too many cooks.
 
Some computer magazine or website has declared "This is the year of Linux on the desktop!" every January since about 1995, at least.

I'm a nice combination of mainstream/power user, and I have some basic Unix familiarity from college and past work lives--I think I'm a perfect candidate for adopting desktop Linux. And in fact, I have repeatedly tried various Linux distros over the years to avoid the cost of Windows licenses on hand-me-down / spare computers lying around. However, the lack of out-of-the-box compatibility always killed the deal. I always ended up spending days looking for a driver for my network card or sound card, or being constrained from using video modes I'd been used to under Windows, or something.

The last few Ubuntu versions I tried (several years ago now) were almost good enough. The final nail in the coffin for those were a handful of tools I used in Windows that I couldn't find satisfactory equivalents for under Linux, and they wouldn't work with Wine.

I finally figured out that the movie might look different, but the ending was always the same, so I haven't tried any Linux distros in at least 3 years.

If Linux on the desktop is dying, it never had a whole lot of life to begin with.
 
Last edited:
SkyHog said:
I disagree. Ubuntu was on its way. Ubuntu was singlehandedly taking Linux and making it more readily available for the mainstream everyday user.
Click to expand...

Your definition of 'mainstream everyday user' is quite different from mine, and I'm on the advanced scale of the mainstream everyday user. There has been no Linux platform I have ever seen I would consider 'plug and play', even geeks I know have to spend hours making things work, each and every thing.
 
Henning said:
Your definition of 'mainstream everyday user' is quite different from mine, and I'm on the advanced scale of the mainstream everyday user. There has been no Linux platform I have ever seen I would consider 'plug and play', even geeks I know have to spend hours making things work, each and every thing.
Click to expand...

Then you never ran Ubuntu 10.04LTS.
 
SkyHog said:
Unity is garbage. Its Ubuntu's default desktop environment. Previously, Ubuntu shipped with Gnome or Gnome2, which were very popular options. Gnome 3 and Unity are horrible, horrible desktop environments, and unfortunately, Gnome 2 is no longer an option.

Starting in 2011, with the forced installation of Unity, Ubuntu started to become less desirable for me personally. Mint, OpenSuse, and Fedora just haven't been as reliable as Ubuntu was in the past (Ubuntu 10.04LTS, as an example, was the first and only Linux operating system I ever ran where after installation, everything worked on every computer I installed it on - wifi, sound, video, etc.). Nothing has been the same since.

Combine the oddball decision to force Unity on users with the almost simultaneous release of Windows 7, and the death rattles for Linux has begun.

Its really a shame. For the first time in many years, I spend more time at home on a Windows PC than any of my other computers. I have a Mac, 5 Linux PCs, and a Windows PC.
Click to expand...

I agree with you regarding Ubuntu. You must admit that Canonical and Gnome were ahead of the curve, though: They alienated their users by forcing a crappy, universally-loathed UI upon them before MS did the same with 8.

But you know, if you're judging by the UI, that's really not Linux, anyway. You can build Linux to suit whatever fancy you like. If you're used to Ubuntu but hate what Canonical did to it, you can just download a copy of Ubunty Wheezy and go from there. If I had to build a Linux desktop today, I'd probably start with CentOS or Fedora because I'm more used to RedHat.

My point is that the GUI is not Linux. If you hate Ubuntu's, you can build your own, or use someone else's, or use none at all.

That being said, Linux was never an ideal platform for a GUI-based desktop system, anyway. That's not what it does best. It became semi-popular on the desktop for philosophical and economic reasons, but also because Windows in the DOS lineage that most home users and many really small businesses used was such a festering pile of crap from Win95 forward to Me.

A lot of people, myself included, just got tired of the instability, and started using Linux just to have a stable platform that didn't crash and burn two or three times a week.

That changed when MS released XP, which was far from perfect, but at least could rack up uptime measured in weeks or months, rather than hours. Then came 7, which is superb; and 8, which is even better except for the horrid Metro interface. XP to a good extent, and 7 even more so, brought stability to the Windows experience.

Linux is still a viable "desktop" platform for people with a limited set of specific needs, such as SDA. It's also a good platform for special-purpose machines. I'm currently playing around with a point-of-sale system on a Fedora box for a friend of mine who has a hardware store and needs a machine just to run the POS functions. So I'm tinkering with uniCenta oPOS on top of Fedora. I'll also wind up playing with it on top of, at least, Debian and CentOS before I'm done.

So basically, I agree with you regarding Ubuntu, and I also agree that the need for Linux on the desktop has receded as Windows has actually become stable. But remember that Ubuntu is not Linux. It uses Linux, but it's not Linux.

-Rich
 
While GUIs come and GUIs go, I can live with any system that allows me to edit text files using vi.

(I even installed vim on my iPad.)

:wink2:
 
RJM62 said:
I agree with you regarding Ubuntu. You must admit that Canonical and Gnome were ahead of the curve, though: They alienated their users by forcing a crappy, universally-loathed UI upon them before MS did the same with 8.

But you know, if you're judging by the UI, that's really not Linux, anyway. You can build Linux to suit whatever fancy you like. If you're used to Ubuntu but hate what Canonical did to it, you can just download a copy of Ubunty Wheezy and go from there. If I had to build a Linux desktop today, I'd probably start with CentOS or Fedora because I'm more used to RedHat.

My point is that the GUI is not Linux. If you hate Ubuntu's, you can build your own, or use someone else's, or use none at all.

That being said, Linux was never an ideal platform for a GUI-based desktop system, anyway. That's not what it does best. It became semi-popular on the desktop for philosophical and economic reasons, but also because Windows in the DOS lineage that most home users and many really small businesses used was such a festering pile of crap from Win95 forward to Me.

A lot of people, myself included, just got tired of the instability, and started using Linux just to have a stable platform that didn't crash and burn two or three times a week.

That changed when MS released XP, which was far from perfect, but at least could rack up uptime measured in weeks or months, rather than hours. Then came 7, which is superb; and 8, which is even better except for the horrid Metro interface. XP to a good extent, and 7 even more so, brought stability to the Windows experience.

Linux is still a viable "desktop" platform for people with a limited set of specific needs, such as SDA. It's also a good platform for special-purpose machines. I'm currently playing around with a point-of-sale system on a Fedora box for a friend of mine who has a hardware store and needs a machine just to run the POS functions. So I'm tinkering with uniCenta oPOS on top of Fedora. I'll also wind up playing with it on top of, at least, Debian and CentOS before I'm done.

So basically, I agree with you regarding Ubuntu, and I also agree that the need for Linux on the desktop has receded as Windows has actually become stable. But remember that Ubuntu is not Linux. It uses Linux, but it's not Linux.

-Rich
Click to expand...

Jim Logajan said:
While GUIs come and GUIs go, I can live with any system that allows me to edit text files using vi.

(I even installed vim on my iPad.)

:wink2:
Click to expand...


I rest my case...:rofl:
 
I am a ridiculously satisfied user of Linux Mint 13. I use the cinnamon desktop, which I believe is a variant of GNOME2? Mint was literally plug and play for me. All of my components and peripherals just worked. Maybe I just got lucky.

I tried to Ubuntu with the Unity desktop and hated it. But I'm not clear why you believe it to be the downfall of Linux as a whole, when there are a number of other distributions gunning for the "mainstream" user. I use that term loosely because as far as I can tell, Linux works for those doing nothing but surfing the internet, as well as intermediate to power users, but not for a pretty wide band between those two.
 
RJM62 said:
I agree with you regarding Ubuntu. You must admit that Canonical and Gnome were ahead of the curve, though: They alienated their users by forcing a crappy, universally-loathed UI upon them before MS did the same with 8.

But you know, if you're judging by the UI, that's really not Linux, anyway. You can build Linux to suit whatever fancy you like. If you're used to Ubuntu but hate what Canonical did to it, you can just download a copy of Ubunty Wheezy and go from there. If I had to build a Linux desktop today, I'd probably start with CentOS or Fedora because I'm more used to RedHat.

My point is that the GUI is not Linux. If you hate Ubuntu's, you can build your own, or use someone else's, or use none at all.

That being said, Linux was never an ideal platform for a GUI-based desktop system, anyway. That's not what it does best. It became semi-popular on the desktop for philosophical and economic reasons, but also because Windows in the DOS lineage that most home users and many really small businesses used was such a festering pile of crap from Win95 forward to Me.

A lot of people, myself included, just got tired of the instability, and started using Linux just to have a stable platform that didn't crash and burn two or three times a week.

That changed when MS released XP, which was far from perfect, but at least could rack up uptime measured in weeks or months, rather than hours. Then came 7, which is superb; and 8, which is even better except for the horrid Metro interface. XP to a good extent, and 7 even more so, brought stability to the Windows experience.

Linux is still a viable "desktop" platform for people with a limited set of specific needs, such as SDA. It's also a good platform for special-purpose machines. I'm currently playing around with a point-of-sale system on a Fedora box for a friend of mine who has a hardware store and needs a machine just to run the POS functions. So I'm tinkering with uniCenta oPOS on top of Fedora. I'll also wind up playing with it on top of, at least, Debian and CentOS before I'm done.

So basically, I agree with you regarding Ubuntu, and I also agree that the need for Linux on the desktop has receded as Windows has actually become stable. But remember that Ubuntu is not Linux. It uses Linux, but it's not Linux.

-Rich
Click to expand...

Your post drives home my point. To a "mainstream" user, Ubuntu is the GUI, just as much as Windows or OSX is. Also - Ubuntu is Linux (both to a newbie and to anyone that understands operating systems) - its just not the only flavor or Linux out there.

Also, of course you can customize it (and I recommend XFCE if you're going to), but that is not the point. The point is, for a viable desktop, Ubuntu was the closest thing we had in many, many years. And its all but died because of the forced support of an X Server than no one wanted. Without the geeks, you'll never have the dweebs.

Very sad, indeed.
 
asechrest said:
I am a ridiculously satisfied user of Linux Mint 13. I use the cinnamon desktop, which I believe is a variant of GNOME2? Mint was literally plug and play for me. All of my components and peripherals just worked. Maybe I just got lucky.

I tried to Ubuntu with the Unity desktop and hated it. But I'm not clear why you believe it to be the downfall of Linux as a whole, when there are a number of other distributions gunning for the "mainstream" user. I use that term loosely because as far as I can tell, Linux works for those doing nothing but surfing the internet, as well as intermediate to power users, but not for a pretty wide band between those two.
Click to expand...

I ran Mint 13 for a bit myself. It was very nice, but it never felt polished to me, and was a bit laggy, IMHO. But it showed promise.

But not mainstream promise, as I had a ***** of a time getting madwifi going on it.
 
It took about 15 seconds from the time my desktop search tool returned results allowing me to purchase music by an Austrian alternative band to the time I had the disk repartitioned. Total time spent on Unity: 4 minutes 38 seconds.
 
As someone who is thinking of trying Linux, this thread is very informative.
 
SkyHog said:
Blame Unity or Ubuntu's decision to force it down consumer's throats...
Click to expand...

How do they force it down consumers' throats? Is running an older version not allowed?
 
Has anyone tried the Zorin Linux distro? It supposedly allows you to select options that mimic various Windows versions.
 
I was running Mint 11 & 12 on my desktop and was happy with it, but got tired of having to upgrade what felt like too often -- and the upgrades usually ended up being of the "scorched earth and reload everything" variety. So, since I had to wipe everything anyway, I tried Ubuntu. Yick. The UI sucks badly, even when you switch to the "classic" Gnome. The new one is completely unusable. I still keep my desktop dual boot, simply because there are things I prefer to do with it than from my server that just can't reasonably be done with Windows. However, for day to day use I have switched to Win7.

Servers are a different story. I have one running CentOS5, one CentOS6, and one Fedora 15 machine. The two that aren't already are about to get replaced with CentOS6. And then there are the 15,000-plus at work running RHEL.

I am deeply disturbed by the trend to try to make desktop operating systems look and work like a cell phone. It's just a bad idea.
 
DaleB said:
I was running Mint 11 & 12 on my desktop and was happy with it, but got tired of having to upgrade what felt like too often -- and the upgrades usually ended up being of the "scorched earth and reload everything" variety. So, since I had to wipe everything anyway, I tried Ubuntu. Yick. The UI sucks badly, even when you switch to the "classic" Gnome. The new one is completely unusable. I still keep my desktop dual boot, simply because there are things I prefer to do with it than from my server that just can't reasonably be done with Windows. However, for day to day use I have switched to Win7.
Click to expand...

Upgrade meaning to a new version? Mint 13 is a long term support version so I'm happy at the moment.
 
I have to agree with this, I'm a long time Ubuntu user, before that I ran Debian.

I'm currently using Ubuntu 13.03 and I use the Gnome "classic shell" window manager. Unity just isn't usable and they don't really support classic shell, it works but it doesn't look as good or feel as polished as the old versions were.

Unity to me seems like it was designed to run on small screens and be used by the computer illiterate. Pretty much the opposite of the Linux demographic. Then again Microsoft ruined a perfectly good UI with Windows 8 and still seem to be sticking to it while everyone installs classic shell to make it a usable system again.

From what I've heard, everyone is trying to mimic tablets on the desktop with this stuff- more simplicity less complexity. The problem with that is if you actually work on your PC and need to have many things open and switch between them frequently. All of these new UIs fail miserably- I just need to rapidly locate the application I want to launch and rapidly switch between running applications. They had a good model for that all the way back to windows 95- the start menu and alt+tab. It works good, why change it?
 
DaleB said:
I am deeply disturbed by the trend to try to make desktop operating systems look and work like a cell phone. It's just a bad idea.
Click to expand...

There's something to be said for trying to unify the interface across platforms for the mainstream user. Such users generally have three (or four?) platforms they might use on a daily basis: Smartphone, tablet, and desktop (...and laptop, if you want to count that as distinct from the desktop).

If there's a good way to provide commonality across those platforms to provide a more seamless user experience, that would seem to be the ideal.

Unfortunately, it's not obvious that that's possible, or how to accomplish it if it is. Win8 was an attempt, and so far it hasn't gone over too well.

It's rare that such things happen perfectly on the first try. But that doesn't mean the idea itself is necessarily fatally flawed.
 
DaleB said:
I am deeply disturbed by the trend to try to make desktop operating systems look and work like a cell phone. It's just a bad idea.
Click to expand...

Amen to that! It's a tremedous waste to do that on a 1920 x 1080 display.
 
asechrest said:
Upgrade meaning to a new version? Mint 13 is a long term support version so I'm happy at the moment.
Click to expand...
As I recall... I was running 11, upgraded to 12 and it was a disaster. Since I had to toast everything I decided to try Ubuntu instead. I hate it, but got tired of scorching the earth and starting over.
Jim_R said:
There's something to be said for trying to unify the interface across platforms for the mainstream user.
Click to expand...
Yes, there is something to be said for it... none of it good, though. Most of us are smart enough to be able to operate more than once device. My bicycle, car and airplane all have different controls, too.
 
Jim_R said:
There's something to be said for trying to unify the interface across platforms for the mainstream user. Such users generally have three (or four?) platforms they might use on a daily basis: Smartphone, tablet, and desktop (...and laptop, if you want to count that as distinct from the desktop).

If there's a good way to provide commonality across those platforms to provide a more seamless user experience, that would seem to be the ideal.

Unfortunately, it's not obvious that that's possible, or how to accomplish it if it is. Win8 was an attempt, and so far it hasn't gone over too well.

It's rare that such things happen perfectly on the first try. But that doesn't mean the idea itself is necessarily fatally flawed.
Click to expand...

It's very possible. Just offer the user a choice.

Probably 99 percent of the hate directed toward Win8 -- which is a genuine masterpiece of an OS under the hood, by the way -- would evaporate if MS simply restored the blasted Start Menu and let the user choose which UI they want to use. That is all they have to do, and yet they stubbornly refuse to do it -- even in the face of continued lagging sales.

I really don't get it. I've never been an MS fanboy, but I've never accused them of bad marketing before, either. If the masses want the Start Menu back enough that they're shying away from 8 or installing third-party kludges, then for crying out loud, just give them back their Start Menu.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Probably 99 percent of the hate directed toward Win8 -- which is a genuine masterpiece of an OS under the hood, by the way -- would evaporate if MS simply restored the blasted Start Menu and let the user choose which UI they want to use.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that. I walked into a large retailer fully intending to buy a tablet or convertible laptop. Five minutes with Windows 8 was enough to convince me to do without. I could buy an Android tablet... but I can do all that with my phone.
 
cowman said:
I have to agree with this, I'm a long time Ubuntu user, before that I ran Debian.

I'm currently using Ubuntu 13.03 and I use the Gnome "classic shell" window manager. Unity just isn't usable and they don't really support classic shell, it works but it doesn't look as good or feel as polished as the old versions were.

Unity to me seems like it was designed to run on small screens and be used by the computer illiterate. Pretty much the opposite of the Linux demographic. Then again Microsoft ruined a perfectly good UI with Windows 8 and still seem to be sticking to it while everyone installs classic shell to make it a usable system again.

From what I've heard, everyone is trying to mimic tablets on the desktop with this stuff- more simplicity less complexity. The problem with that is if you actually work on your PC and need to have many things open and switch between them frequently. All of these new UIs fail miserably- I just need to rapidly locate the application I want to launch and rapidly switch between running applications. They had a good model for that all the way back to windows 95- the start menu and alt+tab. It works good, why change it?
Click to expand...

I think the most promising desktop Linux ever built was Corel Linux. It didn't last long: MS made sure of that by buying a big hunk of Corel. But I installed a comp copy of it to review, and it was truly an "OH WOW!" experience the first time I booted into it. Completely plug-and-play, recognized every single piece of hardware in and attached to the machine, polished, usable... it really had great promise.

Another one that I kind of liked a lot was Xandros, which had promise, but has been defunct for about five years now. One of their backers was a client of mine, and I got new distros for free for as long as the company was in business. But alas, they are no more.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
It's very possible. Just offer the user a choice.

Probably 99 percent of the hate directed toward Win8 -- which is a genuine masterpiece of an OS under the hood, by the way -- would evaporate if MS simply restored the blasted Start Menu and let the user choose which UI they want to use. That is all they have to do, and yet they stubbornly refuse to do it -- even in the face of continued lagging sales.

I really don't get it. I've never been an MS fanboy, but I've never accused them of bad marketing before, either. If the masses want the Start Menu back enough that they're shying away from 8 or installing third-party kludges, then for crying out loud, just give them back their Start Menu.

-Rich
Click to expand...

My understanding is that 8.1 will return the 'classic' start button and is due for release shortly and be a free upgrade for 8.
 
Henning said:
My understanding is that 8.1 will return the 'classic' start button and is due for release shortly.
Click to expand...

I've been told the Start button will just drop you back into Metro. Hopefully you're right and I'm wrong, because I'm itching to buy a new laptop.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I've been told the Start button will just drop you back into Metro. Hopefully you're right and I'm wrong, because I'm itching to buy a new laptop.

-Rich
Click to expand...

Yeah, I need a new primary computer as well, I was just shopping them the other night. It really didn't take too long to find my way through Win 8 though. It still does everything.
 
8.1 brings Start Button, and a boot directly to Desktop, but not Start "Menu". Not a biggie, but easily fixed with Start Menu 8 or Classic Shell.
 
SkyHog said:
Your post drives home my point. To a "mainstream" user, Ubuntu is the GUI, just as much as Windows or OSX is. Also - Ubuntu is Linux (both to a newbie and to anyone that understands operating systems) - its just not the only flavor or Linux out there.

Also, of course you can customize it (and I recommend XFCE if you're going to), but that is not the point. The point is, for a viable desktop, Ubuntu was the closest thing we had in many, many years. And its all but died because of the forced support of an X Server than no one wanted. Without the geeks, you'll never have the dweebs.

Very sad, indeed.
Click to expand...

That's getting into a bit of semantics, Nick. A lot of people define Linux as nothing but the kernel. Others include loadable modules, drivers, libraries, and even programs and utilities that are so ubiquitous that they may as well be included. There are a lot of ways you can look at it.

But I still tend to define Linux as the current vanilla kernel as approved by Linus. I consider anything else to be a distro, flavor, build, or whatever other term tickles your fancy.

It's really just semantics. But to me, Linux is still the mainline kernel. Anything else builds upon, modifies, adapts, and uses Linux.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
That's getting into a bit of semantics, Nick. A lot of people define Linux as nothing but the kernel. Others include loadable modules, drivers, libraries, and even programs and utilities that are so ubiquitous that they may as well be included. There are a lot of ways you can look at it.

But I still tend to define Linux as the current vanilla kernel as approved by Linus. I consider anything else to be a distro, flavor, build, or whatever other term tickles your fancy.

It's really just semantics. But to me, Linux is still the mainline kernel. Anything else builds upon, modifies, adapts, and uses Linux.

-Rich
Click to expand...

And I agree with you.

But you and I are not "mainstream users." I doubt you'd find many Mac users that will say "Meh, its BSD under the hood." or Windows users saying "DOS is the core of the system. Windows is the overlay."
 
SkyHog said:
And I agree with you.

But you and I are not "mainstream users." I doubt you'd find many Mac users that will say "Meh, its BSD under the hood." or Windows users saying "DOS is the core of the system. Windows is the overlay."
Click to expand...

Okay, gotcha.

-Rich
 
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