Desktop Linux is dead....

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."
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Agree, to the mainstream user, all that matters is the interface and the software and peripherals that will operate on it. We don't want to have to write code.
 
Henning said:
Agree, to the mainstream user, all that matters is the interface and the software and peripherals that will operate on it. We don't want to have to write code.
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So... I guess building custom kernels isn't high on your list, either? :lol:

-Rich
 
I like an OS that doesn't have to sit and churn the hard driver forever even for simple tasks on high end hardware.

That leaves Mac or Linux as far as anything current and mac comes with a price premium.
 
Henning said:
You must be some kind of freaking psychic!:rofl:
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LOL, psycho maybe, but not psychic.

I remember when rebuilding the kernel was a rite of passage. It also resulted in a faster system by de-selecting the stuff you didn't need. The current kernels are more efficient, though, because so much stuff is modular now. I haven't bothered with it in years.

-Rich
 
cowman said:
I like an OS that doesn't have to sit and churn the hard driver forever even for simple tasks on high end hardware...
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Same here. It's as if Microsoft doesn't know that mechanical stuff wears out.
 
SkyHog said:
I doubt you'd find many ... Windows users saying "DOS is the core of the system. Windows is the overlay."
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Well, especially since that hasn't been the case for over a decade now....
 
+1 for Mint
+1 for Ubuntu + Unity = garbage
+1 for choices of desktop
+1 for being open (listen to Apple and M$ cringe)
 
SkyHog said:
Thoughts?
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Does anyone care, honestly? I mean I am typing this on a laptop with Linux and I never cared for that discussion. That whole thing was blown up by the corporate money bags who wanted to become as rich as Paul Allen by selling Linux, and that didn't work out for them. Cry me a river.
 
zaitcev said:
Does anyone care, honestly? I mean I am typing this on a laptop with Linux and I never cared for that discussion. That whole thing was blown up by the corporate money bags who wanted to become as rich as Paul Allen by selling Linux, and that didn't work out for them. Cry me a river.
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Yup. Most of the people working on Linux have no stake in it becoming popular on the desktop. MythTV will probably never take over the living rooms of America but it works just fine for me.

As far as plug-and-play goes - I haven't had that much trouble in recent years. Printers tend to be the biggest source of problems, and they don't work on almost ANY operating system, unless you buy a postscript printer. My most recent printer supports postscript and "just works" on my non-desktop-oriented distro. The only reason printers work on Windows is because the manufacturer writes drivers for it. They don't write drivers for CUPS, Android, iOS, or Windows RT, and unsurprisingly it is hard to print using any of those platforms.
 
I have a cheap Brother 2170W laser that worked out of the box. Supports IPP, lpd, prints PCL-5 if push comes to shove.

It used to be more of a problem in older USB-connected printers where some idiots didn't feel like implementing the printing class. I wrote a driver for Canon MultiPASS F50 once just for that reason.
 
rich0 said:
Yup. Most of the people working on Linux have no stake in it becoming popular on the desktop. MythTV will probably never take over the living rooms of America but it works just fine for me.

As far as plug-and-play goes - I haven't had that much trouble in recent years. Printers tend to be the biggest source of problems, and they don't work on almost ANY operating system, unless you buy a postscript printer. My most recent printer supports postscript and "just works" on my non-desktop-oriented distro. The only reason printers work on Windows is because the manufacturer writes drivers for it. They don't write drivers for CUPS, Android, iOS, or Windows RT, and unsurprisingly it is hard to print using any of those platforms.
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Pretty much any HP network printer should work with Linux. At least I haven't yet come across one that didn't.

-Rich
 
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rich0 said:
The only reason printers work on Windows is because the manufacturer writes drivers for it. They don't write drivers for CUPS, Android, iOS, or Windows RT, and unsurprisingly it is hard to print using any of those platforms.
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Not to hijack the thread, but I bought a new printer recently for the first time in a dozen years, and the HP I got connects to my home LAN via wi-fi. It's also in communication with HP servers, and via that link allows printing from "non-traditional" sources like emailing files to the printer's "email address", printing from Android devices via an HP app, etc.

It was the first time I'd used a device to send a job to printer without going through a familiar print driver interface. (Well, since I stopped using my C-64, anyway.)
 
Jim_R said:
Not to hijack the thread, but I bought a new printer recently for the first time in a dozen years, and the HP I got connects to my home LAN via wi-fi. It's also in communication with HP servers, and via that link allows printing from "non-traditional" sources like emailing files to the printer's "email address", printing from Android devices via an HP app, etc.

It was the first time I'd used a device to send a job to printer without going through a familiar print driver interface. (Well, since I stopped using my C-64, anyway.)
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Yeah, that seems to be the trend on mobile devices. Google does something similar with their cloud print strategy - if a Chrome browser is running and can get to a printer (via the Windows/OSX/CUPS/etc drivers), then it can make that printer available to websites, other Chrome browsers, or mobile devices that can't see the printer.
 
I'm running two Ubuntu Linux PC's .. 10.10 on this one that I'm typing on and 12.04LTS on my other one. They both work fine for me .. I like Linux. The only thing I've not got to work is a web cam on them.

RT
 
zaitcev said:
I mean I am typing this on a laptop with Linux and I never cared for that discussion..
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Same exactly here.
Linux is what I use on my work laptop.
But Linux is not for my wife, she can barely handle Ipad...
Oh, and for the text editor I only use emacs ...:wink2:
 
olasek said:
Same exactly here.
Linux is what I use on my work laptop.
But Linux is not for my wife, she can barely handle Ipad...
Oh, and for the text editor I only use emacs ...:wink2:
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I had to give emacs up when a friend pointed out something very astute early in my sysadmin career.

At the time, EVERY Unix loaded up from bare metal and had vi or vim available immediately. Emacs had to be added via an add on package on some, not on others. While that's not a problem, you still had to know vi to get the system operational on at least half of the modern flavors of *nix.

His wise words: "Why learn two editors? I have better things to do. One is plenty."

Never found a reason to argue with that logic and I was a dyed in the wool emacs user since Microware OS-9, that I cut my multitasking teeth on, had micro-emacs (uMacs) as it's default editor. I'd been doing emacs or variants for three years when I simply gave it up.

Hasn't been a bad decision. Never ran into any reason to use it ever again, once I knew vi. ;)
 
I love linux. I love Ubuntu. I am a casual user of it though. Plug a couple of things in, they work, I'm done happy. Now the problem I always had was running Ubuntu with unity on a Dell Netbook. There were certain apps that would more than fill the screen and there was no way to get to the buttons to "OK" them. Since, though, a recent upgrade trashed the Ubuntu I was running there and I've not yet got around to building a USB stick version to plug and reinstall.
Maybe some day...
 
silver-eagle said:
I love linux. I love Ubuntu. I am a casual user of it though. Plug a couple of things in, they work, I'm done happy. Now the problem I always had was running Ubuntu with unity on a Dell Netbook. There were certain apps that would more than fill the screen and there was no way to get to the buttons to "OK" them. Since, though, a recent upgrade trashed the Ubuntu I was running there and I've not yet got around to building a USB stick version to plug and reinstall.
Maybe some day...
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You just hit why I as a Linux pro for a living, dumped the Linux desktop. The never ending desktop code wars were constantly breaking the work space where I needed to get things done, not screw with fixing their configuration mistakes.

Apple to the rescue. One consistent UI, with a hacked up BSD under the hood. Prefect desktop. Still have the command line and all tools available anytime they're needed.

Only complaint: Would like to personally strangle whoever added the local DNS cache to OSX.
 
What I left out is that all I need to do my job is an SSL enabled browser (VPN) and an SSH client.

I've done major repairs thru my iPad.

Who cares what else is on the desktop? That's toys and/or some silly Office suite for paperwork when there's a lovely text file in root's home directory already on the server documenting what was done. ;)
 
As Mark Twain once said, "Reports of the Linux desktop's demise has been greatly exaggerated." I'm enjoying Unity on Ubuntu 13.10. Not bad. Razor QT is okay too!
 
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Mate is a fork of Gnome 2 that basically exists to keep the Gnome 2 desktop alive and kicking. So if you missed it, there ya go.

Also XFCE is also pretty slick and has a Ubuntu flavor.

Has anyone tried the Zorin Linux distro? It supposedly allows you to select options that mimic various Windows versions.
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Nope. Most distros have LiveDVDs which you can install onto a thumb drive and boot, then demo them. That's frankly the best way to try out a distro. That way you can see if you like it before any formatting of hard drives takes place.
Lastly Gentoo or GTFO :goofy:
 
I actually really love Unity, it has much more efficient use of screen. It isn't insanely well laid out like Gnome2 was, but it's also much faster once you know your way around. Also I don't think anything is ever shoved down your throat, gnome is just an "sudo apt-get install gnome2" away
 
rollingscissors said:
As Mark Twain once said, "Reports of the Linux desktop's demise has been greatly exaggerated." I'm enjoying Unity on Ubuntu 13.10. Not bad. Razor QT is okay too!
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tumblr_lkzaeq4vRJ1qz4a7ho1_400.jpg
 
teamcoltra said:
I actually really love Unity, it has much more efficient use of screen. It isn't insanely well laid out like Gnome2 was, but it's also much faster once you know your way around. Also I don't think anything is ever shoved down your throat, gnome is just an "sudo apt-get install gnome2" away
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Haven't used Unity, currently have Gnome 2 running under Scientific Linux (an RHE offshoot). I really have no complaints. I don't use it for my everyday work - mostly because I use Power Point and other Office components and there are too many incompatibilities between MS Office and Open Office to make it useful to me. If they fixed those issues (never gonna happen, even Power Point generated documents look different in different MS Office versions or on different platforms), I'd use it in a heartbeat since the quad-core 3.66 GHz Core i7-3820 system it's running on feels (and is) a lot faster than my 3-year-old MacBook Pro.
 
teamcoltra said:
I actually really love Unity, it has much more efficient use of screen. It isn't insanely well laid out like Gnome2 was, but it's also much faster once you know your way around. Also I don't think anything is ever shoved down your throat, gnome is just an "sudo apt-get install gnome2" away
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I think it greatly depends on what you're running it on. It seems almost ideal for a netbook (especially one with a 16:9 screen). On a large 4:3 monitor it really isn't ideal. Part of the problem with Ubuntu is that they've bought into the whole Mobile-Desktop convergence thing, and I don't really agree with that. I'm not sure the right desktop environment for a mouse-based 20" monitor is ever going to be the right environment for a 4.5" smartphone.
 
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