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What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

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Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#221

Post by fulafel »

legends2k wrote: post #220

It's the difference between riding a hand-tuned motorcycle versus a car. The latter is low maintenance, always works, etc. but ask a biker, he'd say how passionate he's in maintaining his beast and how well it performs, etc. a car is no comparison to it. Now how many bikes do you see as opposed to cars? The premium would always be lesser, only for those who want it and are willing to sweat for it.

So which is Linux in your comparison? I think many users, especially developers or "power users", feel things just work on Linux compared to more frequent twiddling required on macOS / Windows.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#222

Post by number6 »

dorfsmay wrote: post #209
FireBeyond wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printing still sucks. Out of the box Ubuntu with my WF-3540... Add Printer shows the printer. Great! I hit Add and it says "Here's the OpenPrinting driver for it". Great! I click "Use this driver". It spins. And then acts like nothing has happened. I click it again. Same. I hit Cancel. Oh. Now my printer is installed... with the Generic Text Driver. So I go to OpenPrinting.org directly and download the driver myself.…

Don't use the apps, use cups directly. It's not right but it'll get you printing. http://localhost:631

Is it just me or did they forgot to add css? Nothing wrong with a HTML-BASED backend. But for Tux sake, get some fancy Frontend-Dev to have it look nice out of the box

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#224

Post by fulafel »

dcdevito wrote: post #67
ramblenode wrote: post #17

The people I know who use desktop Linux love their Linux rigs a whole lot more than my Windows and Mac acquaintances enjoy their computers--which in many cases just borders on tolerance, especially with Windows 10. Maybe software needs something beyond market share, sort of like what Bhutan did with Gross National Happiness. We'll rank products based on how much people enjoy them and then see who's the dominant deskt…

That's because it takes more work and knowledge to get a Linux machine running smoothly, so in the end you feel a sense of accomplishment, when in the end all that was done was just getting a local desktop OS running the way a computer should be used in the first place. It's all smoke and mirrors.

That might be true for some users, who are into the tweaking. But I don't think "OS as a challenge" characterises Linux users generally.

All my Ubuntu laptop installs have been pretty much plug-n-play, and I leave out the "last 1%" like installing 3rd party drivers for the fingerprint reader. Last time I spent effort was when setting up dual boot on a Macbook, and all the effort was on the macOS sids, shrinking encrypted partitions using the CLI tools etc.

(Of course I research Ubuntu compatibility beforehand and select the laptop based on that)

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#225

Post by PascLeRasc »

dorfsmay wrote: post #208
AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people were happy with Windows XP in 2003, why change it and install Linux? We deviated from what was good enough 15 years ago! Let's put XP back on the clients and Solaris back on the servers! /s When I started using Linux, it was about thinking out of the box and about change. It had many exciting window managers that put everything in Windows to shame when it came to customizing and style. Nowadays I have the f…

I'd use OSX if it could do focus follow mouse and had a trackpoint.

kwm will do that.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#226

Post by tyfon »

vectorpush wrote: post #87

Nothing killed the Linux desktop. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the fact that the masses only have two options: Windows or Mac. People become set in their ways using a particular system either at home or work and there is basically no reason that they will ever be exposed to a Linux desktop, and if they are, they will find it just as impossible to use as any other OS that isn't the one they've used excl…

I always have a laugh when I see these types of articles. Most of the time it's because the author had some sort of driver problem that was not fixed in 2 minutes or such or that a gui item is not exactly how they want.

I've been running linux on the desktop since around 95, and it's certainly not dead for me. Like you I have also installed ubuntu on my mothers and a few computer illiterate friends computers and it works just fine.

The gui might change a bit from time to time, but I'm not too young to learn new things yet :)

But it's DEAD! Dead I say!!

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#227

Post by antfarm »

dorfsmay wrote: post #208
AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people were happy with Windows XP in 2003, why change it and install Linux? We deviated from what was good enough 15 years ago! Let's put XP back on the clients and Solaris back on the servers! /s When I started using Linux, it was about thinking out of the box and about change. It had many exciting window managers that put everything in Windows to shame when it came to customizing and style. Nowadays I have the f…

I'd use OSX if it could do focus follow mouse and had a trackpoint.

You should try using Mission Control (Exposé and Spaces) with gestures on a MacBook touchpad.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#228

Post by antfarm »

VonGuard wrote: post #6

I think it was the inability for GUI's to stay stable. Gnome went off the rails, Unity completely ruined Ubuntu[1], and KDE always felt very cheap and hard to navigate. My opinion, yes, but I always felt the GUI changes in Linux were extremely gratuitous after Gnome 2. Couple this with the fact that for a decade, the actual GUI was tied very, very heavily to the apps. So you had to use Gedit in Gnome, or whatever the…

Have you tried lubuntu [1], i.e. Ubuntu + LXDE [2]?

LXDE is my favorite desktop environment for being clean, modern looking and lightweight.

[1] http://lubuntu.net/ [2] http://lxde.org/

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#229

Post by [deleted] »

vectorpush wrote: post #174
hvasilev wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, CS students have usually been exposed to Linux at the university and very few of them still choose it as an operating system.

To start with, CS students are not the masses. In addition to that, some CS students at some schools are exposed to the linux command line, and even less are exposed to linux desktop environments because most CS students have grown up using Windows or Mac and the curriculum is nearly always structured in such a way that it is unnecessary for the student to install a linux DE in order to do their work. Finally, I'm no…

[deleted]

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#230

Post by [deleted] »

vectorpush wrote: post #174
hvasilev wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, CS students have usually been exposed to Linux at the university and very few of them still choose it as an operating system.

To start with, CS students are not the masses. In addition to that, some CS students at some schools are exposed to the linux command line, and even less are exposed to linux desktop environments because most CS students have grown up using Windows or Mac and the curriculum is nearly always structured in such a way that it is unnecessary for the student to install a linux DE in order to do their work. Finally, I'm no…

[deleted]
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