Comments on: What does the Linux desktop really need?

by: wcn00

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:18:11 +0000

Absolutely the only thing that prevents most of the people in my company and the companies I consult to from having their choice of desk/lap tops is Office and Outlook interoperability. Ya, its a sloppy proprietary document and email/calendaring standard, but we are absolutely stuck with it.
I run linux on my desk/lap tops but I keep a session around on a windows 2003 server for document and email exchange. It’s inconvenient, slow, lousy at copy&paste and if the vpn isn’t available in my location I got nothin!
sigh…
wcn

by: chaswin

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:19:27 +0000

The biggest problem with Linux is that there’s too much choice for the average home and business user. Windows has the advantage of being driven by one company so there is a degree of certainty about future development, however limiting this might be.

With Linux there always seem to be many different options for doing something. At the technical level this is great, but at the management level it’s a disaster. Will today’s flavour of the month still be there next month? J2EE anyone?

To displace Windows in the home market would mean establishing the average users requirements and putting out a total solution that meets these requirements as easily as the equivalent Windows apps. Ubuntu is a great move in this direction but still has a way to go. (But see the current article about WalMart selling pre-configured Linux boxes to get an idea of how this approach can work). Most home users have very basic requirements.

In the business world it would be nice if there was a single organisation setting the future development agenda. Unfortunately I don’t see this happening any time soon because of the “hobbyist” nature of a lot of Linux development.

by: ratman

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:30:17 +0000

If you are talking about Web-based applications, then there is also thin client architecture. My company supplies thin client software to for instance insurance call centres and 1 of our clients has about 1400 users. Now if they have changed all there systems to thin client then the operating system for the call centre users PC can be independent. That would be a massive cost saving if all the PC are on free Linux vs MS Windows. Also, the end user can then have more office applications on there PC as with MS there is always a limit to what applications they have due to licence fees costs.

So, I think that thin client architecture is also going to have a big impact on free ware Linux.

by: spadmore

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:28:33 +0000

Sad to say, but what the Linux desktop “needs” is a painfully close (but better!) emulation of the Windows environment as a starting point!
Migration of users will be QUITE EASY after this with rapid and significant new feature roll outs.
What this thing needs is momentum, not sporadic divided efforts!

-Shelon Padmore

by: jim.callahan

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:20:15 +0000

…lacks an honest-to-goodness contact manager that makes it easy to round up all my contacts and keep notes on the latest discussions I’ve had with those folks, and so forth.

The desktop only contact manager, such as ACT or Goldmine is being supplanted by web based CRM products. One interesting new Italian product, though not open source is Teamwork 3.2.1.

http://www.twproject.com/home.page

http://www.twproject.com/download.page

a list of open source CRM solutions written in Java.
http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/open-source-crm/view

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL

by: Dan Gheorghe Somnea

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:40:09 +0000

First of all I recommend the white papers of the Linux Magazine Connection to be read regularly.
Moreover, you should accept its weekly newsletter.
Then you might visit:
http://dan.somnea.free.fr/2C/prolinux.php, where you can find some other opinions about the Linux desktop:

prof dr ing Dan Gheorghe Somnea, Bucharest, ROMANIA

by: microdot

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:48:13 +0000

I think wcn00 hit the mark when he talks about ‘fiddling’ to make some aspect of linux work like it should.

Take wireless networking for example. There dosen’t just dosen’t seem to be a definitive list of supported hardware that you can trust.

I spent 3 days fiddling with a card that almost every linux networking form said should work natively under linux. Evenually I ended up getting a different card (with the same chipset, mind you) Even then, I had to use ndiswrapper to emulate the windows API to get it to work.

Now I understand that there are issues with manufacturer support, developers getting their hands on reference cards, and even intelectual property issues when it comes to getting drivers made, but until wireless networking “just works” many who would switch to linux just won’t.

by: moran206

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:16:39 +0000

Every April lots of Americans do their taxes with programs like TurboTax. There seems to be nothing like this in the Open Source domain, nor is there likely to ever be one.
I’m eager to try the just released version of Gimp, but it has a very long way to go before it is competitive with Photoshop and comparable tools in the Wintel world.

by: Dan Gheorghe Somnea

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 07:11:47 +0000

I think Linux has sufficient desktop elements!
Why is it considered as being an operating system for the elites?
Because it is a preconceived idea.

http://dan.somnea.free.fr/2C/ pages dedicated for Linux;
http://dansomnea.tripod.com/linux_diary

prof dr ing Dan Gheorghe Somnea
Bucharest Romania

by: Norm Fox

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:51:26 +0000

wcn
getting multimedia playback support on Suse is actually fairly easy.
I’ve been using the Jem Report’s mtd since 10.0.

http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/84/

Opensuse-community.org also has this set up for 10.3’s new one click install

http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/10.3

Joe thanks for the tip on Kino I’ll have to give it a second try.