Sunday, September 09, 2007

The death of home desktop Linux

Here's a reply I posted to Giri's post on "The Linux Desktop".

The biggest mistake that people do is to mistake the end with the means. Our purpose of using a computer is to improve productivity. I have been trying Linux flavors since the time when red hat used to make desktop variants eight years ago and I still have my Suse 6.3 lying around somewhere, but as I try Ubuntu now the increase in end-user friendliness is minuscule. I don't want to spend an hour learning how to install a program nor do I want to spend the same time in searching for a driver for my hardy web cam. For a home user, Linux is still retrograde that only hampers productivity. 8 Years is a long time and not one company has utilized that time to come close to the user friendliness that behemoths of Microsoft and Apple offer. Hell, even the big two seem to be collaborating now for the sake of their end users. If Linux companies are happy earning their bread and butter from the server space then so be it. I think Red Hat had sense when they bailed out of the desktop space, someone must have realized that Linux is just not going to make the cut in the home user market. Mind you, it's not the product I have my doubts about, it's the companies who still seem to be stuck in the rut of pleasing the advanced techie. As far as the home desktop is concerned for linux it's either shape up or ship out!

6 comments:

  1. When we use ms windows our machine may restart at any time. Wat productivity will we provide if the system is not robust! U'll say that u r coupling a hardware problem with MS Windows but still the linux system supports in a better way even if ur hdd is crashed.
    The memory is not properly managed by windows.

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  2. In that case I suggest you take vista for a test drive, all the system resources hog notwithstanding! I am not talking about one way in which Linux is better than windows or vice versa but the package as a whole. The end user experience. The number of people still using windows speaks for itself.

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  3. well i guess that red hat still supports desktop through fedora. its true that none of the linux are close to windows or apple but hey they are not open source. I guess the lack of common standards for linux makes it hard for companies to come up with drivers for linux as the come up with drivers for microsoft....
    and over all i guess linux is catching up all new edition of linux are very user friendly and everything in there is FREE... installations are also just few clicks.

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  4. Atleast that wasn't the impression i got from ubuntu

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  5. well i dunno agree with some points here. "Our purpose of using a computer is to improve productivity." BUT to enhance the productivity wher will u get the softwares from..nobdy lyk to buy original stuff 4 there home pcs. Right now, i hav one DVD, it has all imp stuff i need!! The idea of LIVE destro is hugely famous (at least in Europe, pardon India :P). Companies like Mandriva are coming out with 4GB pendrives...promoting the idea of 'chalta-phirta' OS + memory.

    Basically, its the idea of free software n innovation!! remember firefox;)..even MS admires it :p

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  6. However, free is still not saving me time. Time is money. Time is more time for enjoyment.

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