The State of GNU/Linux in 2002: It was Good. 371
An anonymous reader writes "This year has proven most interesting for GNU/Linux. While there was not any amazing surprises, there were numerous events that are noteworthy for review. The upshot to all of this is that most of what happened was good overall for the Free Software community. Read the full story."
just good? (Score:5, Funny)
/.ed? - Here's the text (Score:2, Informative)
By Timothy R. Butler
Editor-in-Chief, Open for Business
December 31, 2002, 20:55:12 EST
Free Software
This year has proven most interesting for GNU/Linux. While there were not any amazing surprises, there were numerous events that are noteworthy for review. The upshot to all of this is that most of what happened was good overall for the Free Software community.
One of the most notable events for Linux this year came early in March when Sharp Electronics started marketing the first mainstream GNU/Linux PDA. The Zaurus, which premiered at $500, started off by appearing in electronics stores across the United States, including Best Buy and Office Depot. While by the end of August, Best Buy had cleared out their stock; Office Depot seems to be sticking around for the long haul.
The Zaurus seems to have fulfilled the promise of a powerful GNU/Linux PDA, attracting interest from a wide array of pundits and purchasers alike. In fact, yours truly is writing on the said device right now. On a side note, the Zaurus SL-5500, which will be replaced with the 5600 in early 2003, won the best Innovation award in the Open for Business Open Choice awards in July.
Linux got another round of mainstream attention in June, when, through a series of announcements, mega-retailer Wal-Mart announced plans to offer not one, but three different Linux distributions on their line of Microtel PC's. Since then, the company has also started to offer custom configuration of the systems.
2002 was also a year of uniting, starting with the formation of UnitedLinux in late May. The alliance, a motley group of two has-been GNU/Linux contenders (Caldera and TurboLinux) and two fairly strong players (SuSE and Conectiva), left most people wondering what exactly the group hoped to do in its quixotic attack on Red Hat. More puzzling was why anyone would want to ally with a company with as little to offer as Caldera, or would let Ransom Love - whose name does not represent the emotion most often expressed towards him - speak as a "spokesman" for the new consortium.
It does seem that the group did finally get the message that Love, if anywhere in the organization, shouldn't be the one speaking for the group - perhaps the muffled sounds of him speaking with a sneaker jammed into his mouth was what finally got that change accomplished (needless to say, Love's comments caused lots of fire towards UnitedLinux for its first few weeks). Whatever the case, the group did manage to get UnitedLinux 1.0 out by year's end, just as they promised, which shows at least the development is better managed than the publicity.
UnitedLinux wasn't the only game in town for various groups joining forces this year, either. We (that is, Open for Business) were part of the alliance that created the popular new GNU/Linux news network Linux Daily News on July 2. It should be said that talks between OfB, LinuxandMain, DesktopLinux.com/LinuxDevices.com, and KernelTrap.org began months before the UnitedLinux announcement, so this was a strange coincidence and not a sign that your GNU/Linux media has taken to playing follow-the-leader with the companies we cover.
Not particularly surprisingly, Red Hat did not fail to provide some of the most interesting (and controversial) news items of the year. It all started in the spring, when Red Hat announced a first ever program offering a rebate to those who "upgraded" from select other distributions to Red Hat Linux 7.3. Beyond drawing a lot of attention in commentaries, it is not apparent whether this program was successful or not.
Red Hat continued plowing forward with controversial moves when, in late July, it became public knowledge that Red Hat was asking a major project it had often ignored to promote Red Hat, while in exchange, the company would do nothing more than mention the project's name on some signage. That might not have sounded like a bad deal had it not been one of the most recognized projects in the community: KDE. Considering that KDE receives most of its support from Red Hat competitors MandrakeSoft and SuSE, and none from Red Hat itself, the project's developers weren't too keen on the offer. After Open for Business' exclusive coverage of the conflict, however, Red Hat made good on its mistake, and KDE showed off their handiwork on Red Hat, using a nice machine provided by the company.
Still, Red Hat, perhaps on a quest for the controversial, hit two more big items as fall approached. The first, BlueCurve, has been a rather polarizing issue; those using GNOME seem to like it, whereas those using KDE do not. The issue at stake is the fact that most of "KDE" on Red Hat systems has been modified to look and act like GNOME. In fact, the vendor went so far as to make GNOME applications default over their KDE counterparts in most situations, even when using KDE. The other issue we mentioned promised to show perhaps what the "red" in Red Hat really meant, as the company surprisingly removed the Taiwanese flag from the localization dialogs in favor of the communist mainland's flag. Worse, at least to those who don't look up to Mao, Red Hat labeled the change a "bug fix." Ouch.
Still, it might be most appropriate to rename Red Hat to Midnight Grey Hat (Black Hat is taken), as the company announced a first ever profit in its latest quarter. That's right, the company best known for the mysterious guy in the red Fedora is no longer in the red.
Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as well for those in Paris, France. MandrakeSoft, the popular GNU/Linux developer that almost wasn't until the company's founders managed to take back the helm in 2001, was forced to issue two pleas for financial assistance as it continued to reel from the debt built up during the previous management's one year reign. While the company's "MandrakeClub" was at first looked on as nothing more than a donation system, by the time that the March 2002 financial communiqué caught everyone's attention, the membership service was finally starting to shape up into something useful.
MandrakeSoft also stirred up the dust of controversy earlier this month with the announcement of their new Multiple Network Firewall product. While the package's availability as a proprietary product (as well as a GPL'ed download), and the associated lock-down on intellectual property, caused somewhat of a skirmish, Duval cleared up much of the concern in an interview with me two weeks ago.
Certainly, MandrakeSoft isn't alone in the financial woes department, with two other long-time GNU/Linux names, Lineo and TurboLinux, going up on the auction block over the year. A third, Caldera, didn't go up for sale, but it did change its identity to a company it bought the year before, renaming itself the SCO Group, and seemingly refocusing on the proprietary UNIXes that the original SCO had developed.
The year was also a great period for software releases, with the highly anticipated GNOME 2.0 finally arriving and bringing that desktop back into the ring with KDE, which had been significantly ahead since the 2000 release of KDE 2.0. Still, due to a decision that is hoped to increase the latter project's next generation platform longevity, KDE 3.0 was already out the door before GNOME's June release.
Other exciting software releases for the year most certainly include the first non-development release of a full-fledged Free Software office suite, OpenOffice.org 1.0. The suite, while still tied to a molasses slow startup time, offers nearly perfect compatibility with Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP, making a non-Microsoft office product finally a reality for many businesses. Likewise, while it really offers only a few major advantages (and some disadvantages) over KDE's Konqueror, Mozilla 1.0 finally did arrive on the scene attracting attention from many mainstream sources. While its impact on the "browser wars" may be minimal, it does promise a real alternative to Internet Explorer on pretty much any platform.
Last, and certainly least, if one goes by media attention, was the arrival of popular "proprietary GNU/Linux" distributions. The duo of Xandros Desktop and LindowsOS (incidentally, both based on the same never released Corel Linux OS 3.0) both sport much more restrictive licenses than any other popular distribution, requiring per-seat licensing for businesses. As our review of Xandros revealed, the package is a pretty good deal -- but mostly for those looking to run Windows applications under GNU/Linux. You'll have to wait a few more weeks to hear from us about LindowsOS.
In all, it may not have been a perfect year for GNU/Linux, but in my opinion, the successes far outweigh the failures. All indications seem to suggest that 2003 might just be even better.
Timothy R. Butler is Editor-in-Chief of Open for Business. You can reach him at tbutler@uninetsolutions.com.
Re:/.ed? - Here's the text (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW as to not be considered a karma whore on my own im posting without my +1 bonus so if you dont wanna read this comment i wont shout it at you.
Re:/.ed? - Here's the text (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:/.ed? - Here's the text (Score:3, Insightful)
It's fair use when you use a snippet of the text. The root post of this thread quoted the whole text, so yes, it's breach of copyright.
Oh, IANAL by the way.
best part? (Score:4, Informative)
200+mhz in my pocket along with 64mb of ram, and Debian GNU/Linux [debian.org] as soon as that damn SD card I ordered comes in!
step 3 (Score:2)
it is rather hard (Score:2)
no more dragonball processors? (Score:2)
Re:no more dragonball processors? (Score:2, Informative)
Not so sure about the clock speed, but you can check here [ti.com].
Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:5, Interesting)
Next we need to radically cut the number of choices that the average user needs to make at install-time (Gee, which of the following 87 libraries should I install? And what the hell is a library anyway?)
If some entity (Redhat? IBM?) just grabs the bull by the horns, we'll have a good Windows replacement in a few months! Pleasepleaseplease somebody do it!
I could be wrong, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, some of us like the look of the sans-serif non-anti-aliased fonts.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
One side effect of this will be interesting. Any distro that dares to put out a release without doing what Redhat did by making a nice desktop and fixing Open Office's fonts will suddenly be out of the running when linux distros get reviewed or cross-shopped. I'm glad Redhat raised the bar, but my advice to other distros is to fix their fonts or fade away. It doesn't matter how easy it may be to "fix" your ugly distro's fonts. There is NO excuse for that anymore and users shouldn't have to lift a finger to fix something so basic, so save your "simple fixes" for nerds who don't care about Out of Box aesthetics. Users have seen how nice linux can look with the right fonts, they simply won't stand for the subpar appearances anymore.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2, Interesting)
Fonts are a big problem with X, and X applications. This is an area that definitely needs improvement. Another biggie is the lack of consistency among X applications such as cut and paste, look and feel, configuration, etc (but all this is tangentally related to Unix; these are X problems).
And why is this story relative to "GNU/Linux" only? Why not free Unix? Oh, I forgot, it's Slashdot. Mark this one flamebait.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2, Informative)
Have you installed RedHat? Or are you just randomly bitching?
Fontconfig [fontconfig.org] (the font managment stuff redhat is using) unifies X fonts and makes things much more sane. Just copy fonts into your ~/.fonts directory, and they work.
Add to that the (non-patent-encumbered) new font-rendering in freetype 2.1.3, and things get pretty darn good. Sure, bitmapped fonts look bad, but .fon's look bad in Windows too, that's not an X problem. Stick to the truetype ones and you're all set.
Or were you referring to yourself when you said, "Mark this one flamebait"?
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
> good to non-nerds. This is the first step towards
> bringing Linux to the masses!
eh? When did font rendering become the holy grail of desktop interfaces? Near as I could both windows and macos were accepted at home long before anti-alaised fonts were available. Even now windows uses the same default sans-serif font they've been using since windows95, text doesn't read any smoother or easier than it did 8 years ago.
seems to me it has more to do with mob mentality and available software.
Everyone else uses windows, so obviously random computer buyer should buy windows too. Aisle after aisle at best buy has windows software in it, so obviously random computer buyer should buy windows to run all of it.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
And not just during the *install* (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the deal, either you don't give a damn and will use whatever default shows up in your prefered enviroment, or you have a fave that you just can't live without for some reason and you'll manually install it from the CD anyway. If you're that picky you're sophisticated enough already to handle this.
If you're *not* that sophisticated the plethora of choices of terminal programs is at best confusing, and getting rid of the unwanted ones ( if you can even figure out which ones are unwanted, and why) may well be a somewhat daunting task.
Because free software is free as in beer to the distro makers they can throw in everything including seven "kitchen sinks," so they do. This doesn't mean it's a Good Idea.
I've got something of a rep as an Ubergeek in meatspace, but even I don't want a distro that just dumps the entire universe of software (including some pretty alpha stuff) on my HD just to prove it can.
Here's what I want to see in a default desktop install. A choice of KDE or Gnome ( I use a couple of others as well, but I'm perfectly content to install those seperately after I'm up and running for a bit), ONE terminal, preferably the default for the enviroment. ONE office package, preferably the default for the enviroment. A basic collection of utilities and, well, that's about it.
Clean, simple, and covering about 99.9% of all typical desktop funtions in one go, with no cruft.
For a newb throw in a special section in the manual explaining that one of the things free software is about is choice, how the CD's offer them many extras to play around with if they want, and clear, simple directions on how to install, and *UN*install, them.
Kinda like installing Windows, only better.
Installing a system should be an additive process, not like hacking away at a mighty oak with a chainsaw to release the inner OS.
Small is Beautiful.
KFG
Re:And not just during the *install* (Score:3, Informative)
I can see up to four being useful.
1. KDE -- konsole. This for integration with KDE; having it in the konq window and so forth.
2. GNOME -- gterminal, for full integration with a GNOME desktop.
3. Eterm/Aterm/rxvt for colorful, purty output, for mutt sessions and the like.
4. Xterm, for that one application that needs the tektronix emulation, or the peculiar mouse button behavior.
BUT, yes, all in all it's overkill. Anybody that needs tektronix emulation can sure as hell grab it themself, ya know? (And yes, I know xterm is part of the XFree86 distribution.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And not just during the *install* (Score:3, Insightful)
As problems go, lack of standardardization is smaller than standardization. Another word for standardization is monopoly. Another word for lack of standardization is choice.
That said, it makes sense for a default simplified install to pick a single selection. But there's sure no reason for every distro to pick the same one. What's needed is open file formats, and api specs. And those we've got. The apps that don't work well will tend to drop away, through lack of maintenance if nothing else.
Still, that's different from saying that they should all be installed. But I've experienced problems adding apps, e.g., OpenMotif, after the install rather than during it. If I tell the installer to install it, then it is somehow handled, but if I tried to add it later, then I got what seemed an unlimited number of application conflict messages, and even compiling from source didn't fix it. Still, this isn't a basic install we're talking about here. (I eventually ended up with "install everything", and then it worked, but I'm sure that there was a simpler approach, if I'd been able to figure it out.)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a huge line several miles wide between what is useful for servers and what is/could possibly be useful for desktops. Unfortunately, this line is so wide most people would fail to notice it even if they hit said line head first. I often see that so called "desktop distros" include stuff such as PERL, Apache, MySQL, PHP, ProFTPd... What the hell would one random computer user do with these programs? And with "random computer user" I mean those kind of people who do nothing about security at all, double click everything that contains the word "naked" "nude" or the name "anna kournikova" and their parents/ofspring/aunts/cousins/grandparents/lovers /mistresses/pets, you name it. I'm not even going to mention out-dated FTP/HTTP/SSH servers that might be exploited because random users don't ever update or turn off programs... ("But I like having so many programs running...")
On the other hand, we have so called "professional" distros that are far better. If you want to use them as a desktop, sure, click anything you want. Server? Just select everything you want for that one. However, these distros will never be destined for the normal user ("Where is my mouse? Yes, I know it's on my mouse mat, just where is it on my screen!? GPM? Wha? Not in X yet?") unless installed and secured by one random friendly non-introverted Linux hacker from around town...
So, get rid of all the stuff people never use on desktop distros such as Apache and the like. The people who DO use it prolly aren't happy with the default included package and will most likely build their own anyways. The professional distros are fine with me atm, no-nonsense and no marketeer buzzwords. (Yes, I just visited redhat.com)
Although the one thing that could improve all of linux is the removal of X. God, it is SLOW, Windows 98 booted faster on my p300 with 64mb and this is an AMD at 1667mhz with 1024mb! While I haven't seen the source code myself (yet), I heard it is about as bloated and obscure as it is. Lose it, replace it with smaller, non-server client orientated graphic systems. Random users want SPEED, not the ability to link up 100+ terminals to the computer.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
hell you probably can't get a debian system to run without it.
mysql has similar (albeit less frequent application uses)
an FTP daemon isn't so different from having file sharing available is it?
I prefer the debian base-system apporach myself, all of what you need, none of what you don't, but easy to get more on as you need it.
that could be why all the new (gentoo aside) distro's are deb-based.
(and have Perl)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhhhh. What is "PERL"? Closest match I found is "Perl", a scripting language heavily used in system maintenance procedures. Kind of important if you want to, say, install packages and stuff. (Actually I don't know about RH8, which is what we're presumably talking about here, but a lot of Debian packages require a minimal Perl install to support the packaging scripts.)
Oh - for future reference, saying "PERL" rather than "Perl" is a lot more damaging to your credibility than any mere spelling mistake I can think of. (:
What, praytell, do you propose to replace it with?
Then you should listen less to people who don't know what they're talking about. (Yes, that means reading less Slashdot.) On my box X takes about 3 seconds to start. This is so dwarfed by the startup time for GNOME, it's not even funny. If I logged in and out often enough for it to matter (hmmm, looks like my last login was 1 Dec), I think I'd switch back to vanilla fvwm2.
Now I know that it is fashionable in certain circles to assume that since X is 15 years old and has "unnecessary" features like network transparency and is still binary compatible after all these years, that it must be the cause of all of life's bloat problems. Sorry, but it just ain't so. Not that X couldn't be improved - it's being improved all the time. But it's not the pig you think it is.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
Hello Nitpick, PERL still is and always has been an abbreviation of "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language" and as far as I have learned, abbreviations are spelled with all caps. Actually including dots between each letter as well, but that's kind of redundant because people who got a clue what PERL is, also know PERL is an abbreviation and hence it is also very correct when spelled in all caps. That still leaves one entire issue about the fact I was talking about desktop issue and you start about Debian. I like Debian myself, but I wouldn't consider it a desktop distro, especially not for the average computer user.
Something else. Like I stated before, who here actually USES the client-server capabilities of X? Apart from a small bunch of people, I presume almost none. It's old, it's archaic and it's in need of something sleek, small and fast to follow it up. Sadly I can't code good enough yet and designing an graphics sustem would be quite impossible for me atm. I'm pretty sure there are people working on alternatives atm though.
Hmm... ... Pass.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:5, Informative)
Um, no it isn't. Right from the FAQ [perldoc.com]:
What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"?
One bit. Oh, you weren't talking ASCII? :-) Larry now uses "Perl" to signify the language proper and "perl" the implementation of it, i.e. the current interpreter. Hence Tom's quip that "Nothing but perl can parse Perl." You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For example, parallelism means "awk and perl" and "Python and Perl" look OK, while "awk and Perl" and "Python and perl" do not. But never write "PERL", because perl is not an acronym, apocryphal folklore and post-facto expansions notwithstanding.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:3, Interesting)
Little credit here? Duh, I know what Perl (once known as "Pearl", by the way) stood for. But no, abbreviations are not always spelled with all caps, and they are not always treated nunc et semper as abbreviations. In this particular case, nobody in authority - from the legions of Perl hackers out there to Larry Wall himself - refers to it as PERL any more. I believe that practice died out well before the release of Perl 5, say '93 or '94. Indeed, referring to it in all caps, like prounouncing Linux Lienux, is a very efficient way to telegraph the fact that you are out of touch.
As I thought.
I do, as do many people I know, but that's not really the point. The point is, you have not yet proven or demonstrated that X is bloated to begin with - or, if it is, that its bloat is even measurable on current desktop setups - or, even if it is, that the client/server design is to blame.
Nice set of assertions you got there, backed up with some lovely handwaving.
My counter-assertion is that while X is old (and "archaic", whatever that means here), it was designed so well to begin with that it has aged gracefully and is not at all in need of replacement. I further assert that your miserably slow experience with Linux on your Athlon has little or nothing to do with X per se and should be blamed on something else.
Then, pardon my bluntness, but you're not really qualified to comment on whether an existing graphics system is even good or bad, much less whether its design and implementation are so horrible as to warrant a complete redesign. I happen to think that X's shortcomings (yes, it has some) are for the most part fairly easy to fix or work around, thanks to its excellent original design.
And hey, aren't you the one who thinks all abbreviations should be in caps? What's with "atm"? (:
Yes. The best-known would be Fresco, which (though I have no first-hand knowledge of this) looks to be a lot more feature-rich / bloated than X. (I believe Fresco uses CORBA throughout, for one thing. If you thought network transparency was an unnecessary layer of abstraction, aka "bloat", check out CORBA. And yes, it's spelled in all-caps.)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, I use it, and so do a growing number of schools and businesses as a way to recycle old hardware and limit administration headaches. IceWM on my little P133 16Mb RAM X Term takes about 10 seconds from ON to autologin... slow because it's got a 10mb NIC. It runs OO.o Moz 1.2.1 and Gimp 1.2.3, all at the speed of the server.
This [k12ltsp.org] makes it easy and profitable. Dropping the server client aspect of X11 would be really silly as people in your country ready themselves for a touch screen with network sound in every room.
X is not slow, apps are (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes the time to initialize graphics mode (like 0.1 secs to 2 secs, depends on your graphics device but it's the same for all graphical systems using the device, Windows included) plus a few milliseconds overhead even with old machines to get X up and running. Hardly slow for me, but perhaps you've got something better to offer.
What you're calling SLOW is the desktop environment running on top of X, GNOME or KDE or something. And I certainly can't argue with you that there wouldn't be lots of room for improvements here. But it's not fault of X, it's the bloat in applications.
So one thing that could improve all of Linux in terms of speed would be removal of GNOME and/or KDE, X is irrelevant here. Oh, wait a second. Actually that sentence doesn't make sense at all, you can't remove X or GNOME or KDE from Linux since it's not there. Linux is just the kernel. Let's try once more. One thing that could improve all of Linux distribution somedist in terms of speed would be removal of GNOME and/or KDE. But then again, I wouldn't use mydist if they took my GNOME desktop away.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:4, Insightful)
For me, the biggest sign of Linux success in 2002 was that non-geeks recognized the word "Linux" when I mentioned it. They still don't quite understand what it means (and some of them think I have a stutter because I always say "GNU/Linux" which comes out sounding like "Guh-New-Linux") but the simple name-recognition was a huge sign of progress to me. I give Wal-Mart a huge ton of credit for this.
Another poster (quite rightly) mentioned that a weak economy is not necessarily good for F/OSS because of the risk-factor involved for companies to implement new software. I work for a very large telecommunications company, and it sure does help sell GNU/Linux to management when you can mention in a business case that Wal-Mart sells PCs that run the operating system. (Big-wigs like business precedents.)
I can't wait to see what will happen in 2003!
--K.
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
Re:Fonts That Don't Suck! (Score:2)
PDA Good || Server Bad (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree ith the PDA article. I found the Sharp to be just as usefull as the Palm software and almost as easy as WinCE. I think the Small evices market could easioly be dominated by Linux because software for those devices needs to be customized by a manufacturer and the cost quickly becomes cheaper for manufacturers due to little to no cost for the Linux and abou tthe same cost to customize it as any other OS (ie Drivers for the hardware and customicing software).
I hope the economy gets better
Happy New Year
Re:PDA Good || Server Bad (Score:2)
Bwaaaaaaaaaahahahahah! Hah!
They'll be back once Exchange hoses up all their data. They will be back.
Rules for GNU/Linux in 2002 and upcoming years (Score:2, Funny)
2. ???
3. Claim that the year was good for GNU/Linux
State of GNU/Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
From the YRO posts I've seen last year, I was expecting the State of GNU/Linux to be this [freestateproject.org].
Article limited and biased (Score:3, Interesting)
Another aspect of the article, however, is more open to criticism. OfB (Open for Business) is part of the alliance behind Linux Daily News, and therefore a player. It is disappointing, therefore, that the author of the article (the Ofb Editor-in-Chief) feels it necessary to disparage rivals by means of insults (e.g.UnitedLinux's Ransom Love spoke "with sneaker jammed into his mouth") and innuendo (Red Hat is hardly mentioned without words like "controversial", "polarizing" and "mistake" in close proximity). Although the article does contain some useful details, at least as a summary of developments in one area, it does reflect an unfortunate bias and the kind of ideological infighting which, one hopes, will eventually be outgrown.
GNU/Linux != Free Software (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:GNU/Linux != Free Software (Score:2, Interesting)
ps. take a look at sourceforge before claiming I'm a troll
Agreed... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's probably also the perception that Windows users need more eye candy and hand-holding to use a utility, although I personally think a little user-friendliness is a good thing no matter which platform I'm using.
Re:Agreed... (Score:2)
Just my two cents...
Re:Agreed... (Score:2)
Suspect that is because to just understand windows better than linux environment.
It's easier to design dialogs in Visual C++ too, although I really don't mind sitting down and plotting out the design on graph paper.
Why don't you use Java? Then you can use eclipse.org or the Sun One java studio, which are both free of charge.
FreeBSD != News. (Score:2)
Come on, It's not like they don't exist or anything, but they don't get the media attention than Linux does. FreeBSD doesn't have big-time vendors like Red Hat and SUSE and the like. Even debian wasn't mentioned in the article. Does that mean nothing happened with it this year? No, but it doesn't really introduce anything huge into garnering a positive public image for open source. Debian's still got one of the nastiest installs to go through but yet has some of the nicest features. Only problem is that Debian doesn't have much of a marketing department, so it's not going to be getting a lot of attention except for those willing to use it.
The article is about what's been happening at the forefront (read: Mainstream attention) of Free Software. And lo and behold, the forefront runners of the Free Software community are Linux and its many businesses surrounding it. Note that they didn't mention anything about the Kernel itself or anything that Linus has been working on... Although I'm sure the advances made on that front _are_ quite useful.
Can't Help But Be Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's looking to another good year.
I think it's a hoax. (Score:3, Funny)
Nowhere in that article does it say "*BSD is dying!"
Re:I think it's a hoax. (Score:2)
next year will be better..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Key projects are starting to mature and become more 'user friendly' which is important for the desktop usage Linux is missing.
a few examples are:
Desktop+ performance features have made it into the 2.6 kernel, things like pre-emption, lower larency, higher frequency clock, async-io, better threading, alsa.. All great news for desktop users.
Support is under development for older video cards (often build into modern chipsets) in the DRI project, giving decient X performance to most users.
KDE and GNOME had a lot of new features in the latest releases, the next couple of revisions should see the features maturing, with performance gains, more universality/intergration &co...
CDRecord has added support for IDE drives (without having to run ide scsi) application like arson are making cd burning easy... all good news for the home user.
Wine is comming along in leaps and bounds....
Xine and Mplayer now work for more-or-less every format out there, hopefully next year will see Moz plugins.
This year was good, next year will be better...
Re:next year will be better..... (Score:3, Insightful)
cdrecord is not Linux specific.
wine is not Linux specific AFAIK.
Xine and Mplayer are not Linux specific.
The year was good for Unix, not only Linux.
Re:next year will be better..... (Score:4, Insightful)
</troll>
What's in a name? On Slashdot, too much. (Score:3, Funny)
There is some argument that it's a bit burdensome to say exactly what you mean anymore when specifying a group of OSes on Slashdot, though.
Let me give an example. I might say "Unix had a good year with mplayer", except someone would be sure to pop up and "Linux isn't Unix...it's a Unix-like OS". Okay, that we can deal with. Then we run the dilemma of whether "Unix-like OSes had a good year with mplayer" means "all operating systems that are like Unix, but are not, in fact, Unix", or whether it means "all operating systems that are or are not Unix, as long as they resemble Unix". You could say "Linux had a good year with GNOME 2", but then you get nailed by a FreeBSD guy that says that GNOME 2 works *fine* on FreeBSD as well, and another Stallmanite or Debianite who says that what you *really* mean to say is "GNU/Linux", not "Linux", which refers only to a kernel. "Red Hat Linux" would refer to a whole operating system, but only one distribution of such. Now, one must be sure not to say only "Unix and GNU/Linux have excellent text processing tools", as someone will be sure to mention that GNU/Hurd can handle those same tools as well, and is being shortchanged in your original comment. One could say that "Sun's make is only supported under Solaris" -- is that in fact true, or is it also supported under SunOS?
At this point, we may think we see a clever loophole. "Free operating systems achieved an enormous boom in the last year." However, that would be sure to get Stallmanites pointing out that you do not mean "Free", since BSD is not Free (or perhaps it is -- even with an almost 24/7 tech habit I can't keep up with what the FSF believes). Instead, perhaps you mean "free". Also, Red Hat may or may not be Free, based on their previous inclusion of Netscape Navigator. But you aren't talking about "free" operating systems -- that would include BeOS and Apple's System 6.0.8. You might change to "open source", whereupon you are informed that several companies consider their operating systems to be "open source" but only to some people or under some restrictions. Instead, you must mean "Open Source" operating systems. Well, even assuming you're familiar with ESR's exact rhetoric and can tell what falls under the "Open Source" moniker, at this point you're probably a bit bewildered.
I've reached the point where I just transpose the proper term, the one someone meant, whenever I see "Linux" or "Unix" or "open source operating systems" on Slashdot. It just isn't worth trying to be perfectly accurate, since a term to properly define the set you're talking about is probably at least two sentences long.
I think its amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
The first time I installed linux (redhat 7.1) it took me a few tries to get it to see my mouse, my laptop video card didn't play nice, my desktop sound card didn't get found and took like 3 weeks of teaching myself kernel compilation stuff to get it up and running, my desktop NIC was a hassle, and I thought the desktop choices were attrocious (KDE 2.2 and gnome 1.4 I Think...)
Not to mention any software to do real work (Office apps, decent browser) or to have any fun (IM, Decent mail client) had to be installed after the fact requiring more compilations, and messing with the system...
More recently I installed RedHat 8 on my desktop and laptop... Oh the beauty... Gnome 2 is a truly nice system if you ask me. the new theme is easy to look at (finally!!) All the apps I need (OpenOffice, Gaim, Evolution, Mozilla) are the defaults and are already installed. All of my hardware was perfectly and flawlessly recognized, even my wireless network card was setup during the installation (Shake a stick at that WindowsXP!).
All in all, night and day, in 1 year its gone from taking 1-3 days to get a desktop linux system really ready for production to about 30 minutes... If the next year holds as many leaps and bounds of usability MS will be in dire straights soon.
I have still done WindowsXP installs during the last few months that don't recognize all of the hardware in a box, especially wireless network cards (the linksys wpc11 most notably). Besides the fact that from a clean install of WindowsXP you still have to install all of the software (office, developement environment), it still takes at least 2 hours to get a windowXP box really ready for use, then another 4 to do all the updates it needs... (granted, it takes about 2 hours to download and install all of the redhat updates since the 8.0 release.. but it all happens in the background and doesn't require a reboot, while with WindowsXP and windows update, there are at least 4 updates that you have to download *alone* and then reboot after each one, meaning to do the updates, you are going to reboot 5 times and you have to babysit the box while the updates are happening, times reflect downloading on 1mbps DSL).
In this users opinion, its been a GREAT year for OSS and Linux, and I hope it just keeps getting better.
Re:I think its amazing (Score:2)
Indeed. With RedHat 8, I can now use Linux as a desktop. Prior to that, I felt that Linux never really had that polished look I needed to use it daily.
I still use Windows every day... But now, I find my self using RedHat 8 more of the day and Windows less.
For 2003, it would be nice if Open Office got better (much better). Also, Mozilla speed improvements or Phoenix 1.0 would rock!
Re:I think its amazing (Score:2)
I for one am confident that both projects will have huge strides in 2003.
For OOo, version 1.1 will be released, probably in mid-year. There is a pretty good list of new features and bug fixes. Also, hopefully the native OS X port will be done. Maybe Apple will even bundle it with every box? Wouldn't THAT be sweet? In your face, Bill!
For Mozilla, yes, Phoenix should create a butt-kicking browser. Mozilla will keep adding features. If the Mozilla guys fix some of the things they broke since 1.0.1, I really see Mozilla+XUL+Javascript making strides in the edutainment department.
Re:I think its amazing (Score:2)
I too am waiting for the OS X port of OOo. Even if it's just a beta. I was looking at the developement time line. It looks like 1st Q of 2003 will bring us an alpha build. I'm sure it will bead paying $400 of MS X.v
Re:I think its amazing (Score:2)
I've been looking at linux as an OS for server platforms since '92-93 and have never considered it on the desktop, until, well, a couple of days ago.
To its benefit, even if I screw up a driver or three, the machine still boots. Every couple of months on XP, when I add or remove or update a driver I've got to deal with mysterious freezes.
Re:I think its amazing (Score:2)
Store the updates in a safe place then, like a dedicated 'files' partition (which is what I do) or a CDR. That way, you don't have to download everything every time you reinstall Windows. I do the same thing with the install files for the programs I use, e.g. XChat, AIM, etc. It's a great time saver.
Re:I think its amazing (Score:2)
Q: Why is linux like sex? (Score:5, Funny)
A: Bill Gates doesn't get it.
wrong on both counts (Score:2, Insightful)
Secondly, I'm pretty sure the world's richest man has an easier time getting laid than someone who's posting on slashdot.
Re:wrong on both counts (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Q: Why is linux like sex? (Score:2, Funny)
Sure he does. He screws millions of people every day.
(ducks)
Other reasions why 2002 was great (Score:5, Interesting)
Phoenix 0.5 - http://mozilla.org/
Chimera 0.6 - http://mozilla.org/
The Open CD - http://www.TheopenCD.org
GNU Win II - http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/en/index.html
yEnc - http://www.yenc.org/
Re:Other reasions why 2002 was great (Score:2)
anecdotal evidence, plus rant re: video stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Red Hat and Mandrake (which I name only because they seem to be the most visible in non-specialist stores) both produce distros which are relatively sane to install, and come with far (*far*) more extra-Operating System software included than the obvious conventional competitors do.
Which brings on an optimstic rant:
The included software with the usual distros varies a lot, by category and in quality. Saying that RH8 has x-jillion packages, though, is nice for exploring, but not helpful when the one thing a potential user would like to use is not among the x-jillion.
If Red Hat, or debian, or lycoris, or *any* distribution of [Linux + GNU utilities] were to come with an video editing app with ease of use approaching iMovie
I think that Windows now comes with a video editing app as well. When will plugging in a firewire video camera for dumping footage in order to do simple, cut-and-paste scene rearrangment be as easy as it is under Mac OS? Hats off to the developers of Cinelerra, Kino, etc, but what I'd like to see is something like "Cinelerra Lite" , or perhaps "Cinelerra Ultralight"
Such a beast would have to be simple, reliable, fast, pleasant, and with the ability to save to VCD/SVCD for DVD-player compatibility, and to DiVX;) or other free video format for long play. Wouldn't it be nice to have a complete toolkit for making low-budget video production using all free software?
This would also be a cool way to show off / play with the capabilities of Xiph's in-progress video format, eh? Eh, eh?!
(iMovie, though a well-made app and IMO sufficient reason for non Mac users to try out the Mac OS, does not make it easy -- and is it even possible? -- to create VCDs or DiVX;) disks.) I'd love for someone to point me to a tutorial indicating otherwise
All in all, thanks to the distro makers and application developers who have made GNU/Linux so much more accessible and friendly. Hope you have a good year!
timothy
Who is kidding who? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Linux vendors have fallen to beg mode, "please give us money or we will vanish" (Mandrake). VA Linux Labs, now VA Software (stock symbol: LNUX) says "We are in no way a Linux company - we are a proprietary software company". Red Hat made a $300K profit last quarter, first ever, on a market cap of about $1B, what a complete joke.
Yes, yes, we have Apache, we have MySQL, we have numerous charity cases, but there is no way in hell that this has been a "great year" for Linux. If you can't make a buck, you can't eat, and sooner or later, you will stop breathing.
In the meantime, Borg-like entities like IBM (for Christ's sake) are adopting Linux (should I say "swallowing up Linux"?) and this is somehow a twisted victory for "the cause".
I want to throw up.
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:3, Interesting)
- mplayer/mencoder
- open office
- mozilla
- gnome 2 and kde 3
These apps make me very, very happy.I hope IBM is itching for revenge after OS/2.
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:2)
Why dosen't IBM just develop it's own distro (desktop)??? Think about it... A multi-billion company to backup a it's very own Linux distro.
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:2)
You ovbiously don't know jack about Linux. Everyone who does is well aware that Mandrake isn't a real company.
Thus, it's a good thing that noone takes Mandrake seriously. Otherwise that damn dirty French company would be giving Linux a bad name.
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft has $40B in the bank and is still making money like they have a license to print it.
Well, Microsoft comes pre-installed on all computers, pretty much. Since it seems many of those folks are going to the trouble to install Linux, that's a good sign for Linux.
Really, if you buy a computer and take out the windows OS which is quite usable for some things, and go to the trouble of installing and configuring linux (or paying someone for it) that means there's real value there.
The Linux vendors have fallen to beg mode, "please give us money or we will vanish" (Mandrake).
Mandrake is _a_ linux vendor. Singular. But I don't sweat this because the new business models will sort themselves out. Besides, if you have to "beg for" (or rather "request") money, what's wrong with that? My local public Jazz station has fund drives every year and they've been around a long time. I don't care if they "beg" once a year.
Yes, yes, we have Apache, we have MySQL, we have numerous charity cases, but there is no way in hell that this has been a "great year" for Linux. If you can't make a buck, you can't eat, and sooner or later, you will stop breathing.
Yeah yeah, "feed my family", "can't make money on free software" blah blah. As if something has to "make money" in order to exist. Linux is just softwrae code, it's not going anywhere. If someone can't afford to hack linux, they can go flip burgers while some 16-year old steps in. And think about this: I recently deployed six FreeBSD servers for about HALF the cost of doing it with Windows. So Free software helps me feed _my_ family (which is just me right now but I have a big appetite :-).
In the meantime, Borg-like entities like IBM (for Christ's sake) are adopting Linux (should I say "swallowing up Linux"?) and this is somehow a twisted victory for "the cause".
Linux is under the GPL, remember? It can't be swallowed up. Each new installed Linux seat is a victory for Linux, as far as I'm concerned.
I want to throw up.
/me deftly steps 3 feet to the left.. :-)
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're missing a big part of the picture.
Financial advances are extremely important but aren't the only advances to take into consideration. All your arguments dealt with the "financial" state of linux and open source in general. Slashdot is a geek site, and so it's understandable that most people are discussing the technical changes for the year.
In terms of technology, 2002 was an outstanding year for linux.
Still, you brought up an important aspect few open source advocates are willing to discuss. That is, how does open source sustain its current growth?
It is said that statiscally, by tomorrow or day after, Microsoft would have made more money than linux vendors make all year, given the market stays the same as it was last few years. That is, MS makes in 2 days what most linux companies make in a year. I hate to throw unchecked stats around, but even if this is remotely the case, then opensource companies have a long fight ahead of them.
I believe open source users have to find ways to spend more on open source in the year 2003. Money is the life line of business, not good will. Yeah, it's free so why spend?
Well if you "support" open source but you buy a dell desktop, a compaq ipaq, or you influence any buying decisions that acquire these things, then you all the open source advocacy is for nothing. Because your vote that really counts, your dollars, is going to Microsoft.
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think we all knew that. What amazes me is just how frigging many of them there are. There's no way the market can support as many commercial distros as there currently are.
I'll stick my head out and predict that 2003 will see the herd thinned somewhat: I can't see a good future for Mandrake (as a company). Out of Lindows, Lycoris and Xandros, only one will remain (I'd bet Xandros). Geographical dominance will continue to be the name of the game, with Redhat taking America and parts of Europe, and SuSE taking Europe and parts of America, Conectiva in Latin America etc.
On the other hand, those that remain will be stronger, which can't be a bad thing. RedHat will start making money reliably I hope - their standing themselves in good stead for taking over the corporate desktop at this rate.
Hmm, while I've got the post comment page open, I'd just like to throw in some anecdotal evidence of my own. I started using Linux in early January of last year, so I've seen exactly a year pass in Linuxland. The progress I've seen is unbelievable: Linux got pretty artwork, got usability, speed, good fonts, a good office suite, a good web browser (moz1.0), KDE3, GNOME2 (and GTK2) and an easy to use "just works" version of Wine came out (no, really!), and finally I started my own project [grin]
It'll be fascinating to see where 2003 gets us. Look out Microsoft!
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:2)
And a $300K profit is a lot better than a loss, which many $1B+ public companies have these days!!!
Linux doesn't need money (Score:5, Insightful)
A commercially backed OS like MacOS or OS/2 or NextStep will die without corporate success, but Linux already has more developers working for it for free than MacOS or OS/2 or NextStep ever did for pay.
The only way Linux and its free software friends will ever die is if laws like the SSSCA are passed to make it illegal.
Re:Linux doesn't need money (Score:3, Funny)
That law is way too extreme, the only way it could possibly pass is if we had a corporation bought president whose party has complete control of congress, and whose congressional leaders are on good friendly terms with him.
Oh wait...
Well in any case, the only way it wouldn't get struck down is if we had a judiciary filled with ultra-conservatives who promote corporate interests at every turn, and THAT won't happen unless...
Oh crap.
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yes. Linux, like all open source software, is a cultural phenomenon, not a corporation, and so its success should be measured by how ubiquitously it is used, not by how much money any particular company is making or losing while trying to sell it.
Your post makes no more sense than trying to judge the success of Microsoft based on how many people are working on the Windows source code.
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:2)
Re:Who is kidding who? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft has $40B in the bank and is still making money like they have a license to print it.
Wow. Jump up and down, clap hands. And they differ from fallen industry "angels" IBM, DEC, Compaq, Cisco in *what* way again? Making money this year doesn't say much about what happens over the next few years...in the computer world, market leaders have been turned to chutney in that amount of time. The point is that, while they have a lead, Linux is finally a viable alternative for many people, and gaining strongly in seats used.
Remember, MS makes more money per installed seat than, say, Red Hat. So if RH makes $10M in revenue in a year, and MS makes $500M, RH may still have more users. Are we at that point yet? Nope. Are we getting there? Yup.
MS is a much older company than RH. They're established, and they have a lot of money.
The same thing was true of IBM and MS a few years back.
In the meantime, Borg-like entities like IBM (for Christ's sake) are adopting Linux (should I say "swallowing up Linux"?) and this is somehow a twisted victory for "the cause".
Who cares if IBM has influence? IBM makes some great products. They happen to charge an arm and a leg, but they get their revenue from hardware and services, not software. They appear quite willing to let the software world do its own thing, and just fund parts of it that are most beneficial to it.
The best thing (Score:5, Funny)
PHB: "It's a well known fact that Linux is developed by a bunch of ameutars, a toy.", in a meeting with big Boss and many others, "There's no proof in saying that Windows server is unstable! Look at our file server, it hasn't had a single downtime since it started!"
another non-PHB: "but sir, but your staffs told me that it's actually a Linux running Samba service."
PHB: "Is it?!...."
He should have talked to us more.
Re:The best thing (Score:3, Informative)
Pointy-Haired-Boss, as in Dilbert [dilbert.com]. Refers to dumb bosses who don't know how to manage their people
to me, Sharp is not a success story--yet (Score:4, Informative)
However, I don't think it's true. First of all, owning a Zaurus myself, I find its use of QPE the biggest problem with the device--it means I can't use it for what I primarily want to use a Linux PDA for: running regular Linux software. Almost any software that uses a GUI needs to get ported. I can't script with my favorite scripting environments (Tcl/Tk, wxPython, fltk-lua), I can't use my favorite image display programs, etc.
Fortunately, the folks at handhelds.org [handhelds.org] have been working busily on putting together a high-quality X11-based handheld distribution. And the Opie versions of the Sharp/QPE applications have been recompiled for X11.
To me, Sharp will be a success story when it really does run the entire Linux environment: command line and graphical. Let's hope that in 2003, Sharp will base their Linux distribution on X11. Because of Qt/X11, the user experience and applications will remain unchanged (well, things may actually get a little faster with X11, but that's not going to be that important on a 400MHz XScale).
Re:to me, Sharp is not a success story--yet (Score:2)
For your information both of the most popular linux desktop have strong commercial ties.
It just isn't open-source versus commercial anymore. People need to get out of this mindset. Ximian puts a lot of money into GNOME, and GNOME would not have been as far along as it had without their full time programmers.
Do yourself a favor. Sit down one of those days and map out (i) Who are the most prominent open source programmers, and (ii) What commercial entity is sponsering them, if any.
It's a little game called "follow the money". You'd be surprise how much of open source relies on commercial backing. Look at all the developers Redhat, IBM, and others are putting on the kernel. Don't you think that Transmeta is in one way or the other facilitating Linus's work on the kernel? Even if it isn't part of his job title? I'd guess that they are.
And that's not a bad thing.
Quote:open source supposedly needs companies like Troll Tech to help with GUIs.
It doesn't need TrollTech, but any help should be appreciated, I'd say. If that is true, I think it really calls into question the entire open source effort.
No it doesn't. Not in any way, shape or form. Open source and commercial can co-exist fine.
By the way as a zaurus owner, I agree with your main point. Zaurus should have at least shipped with a X-server in the ROM.
Apples and Oranges (Score:2)
Yes, Gnome is sponsored commercially, as are many other projects. There is nothing wrong with commercial sponsorship.
There is a big difference, however: Troll Tech has a dual licensing model, and they claim that the ability to license their software commercially is necessary to finance their open source efforts. In contrast, when other companies sponsor open source efforts, the sponsors do not retain any special rights to the sponsored software.
That has numerous implications. For example, contributing to Qt and Gtk+ has very different implications and beneficiaries.
And with their dual licensing model, Troll Tech's motivations are different as well. On the Zaurus, if you want to develop commercial apps, you have no choice but to pay them; that is a very strong incentive for them to push Qt/Embedded over Qt/X11. If Troll Tech were sponsoring Qt like IBM is sponsoring the Linux kernel, they would have no special economic incentive to prefer Qt/Embedded over Qt/X11--their choice would be driven only by technical considerations. Those are the dangers of a Troll Tech-like model.
"If that is true, I think it really calls into question the entire open source effort." No it doesn't. Not in any way, shape or form. Open source and commercial can co-exist fine.
I think they can co-exist, like IBM and Linux do. Troll Tech is a different model, and I think it's dangerous. Sun, in fact, is trying to do something similar with Java, and I think it suffers from similar problems.
Re:Apples and Oranges (Score:2)
That is true. And I agree with you on the Sun point as well. Both Sun and TrollTech hold special rights to the software, and Ximian doesn't.
The thing is all those companies are asking What is the sweet spot? How can I make money and still be open source?. I don't think anyone has perfected this yet, so the dual license is just another attempt at profitability using open source. You can't blame TrollTech for trying either.
Ximian tries to recoup it's cost by (i) services such as red carpet (ii) contracts from HP and Sun ( or at least they use to ) (iii) selling proprietary software ( exchange connector ) (vi) VC money ( probably ). They are in no way out of the woods yet. Although I wish them good luck.
IBM is an entirely different animal. With IBM's size, they can easily put entire teams on linux and write that off as expenses on their exteremly lucrative consulting division's budget. Consultant groups do very well with open source, but very few give back. Most of the time the software producers, be it the sole programmer in his spare time or the open source company is left holding the bill for development. And yes, there is a bill involved, and it gets larger every year as software gets more complex.
My point is to ask "what is fair"? If someone is going to make money on trolltechs investment, should trolltech get something out of it? How is trolltech to continue to produce open source code if they do not have a reliable revenue stream?
Software Installation (Score:2)
If we want Linux to be as slick as it should be, we can't expect beginners to have to run "make install" and "configure ./". Often these things don't work, and they are just so damn ugly.
So, to all developers: Please, please, please make all your software available in RPM (or .deb) format! Have tarred, gzipped sources as an extra for geeks by all means, but make package manager files the main format.
Software installation ticks of new UNIX users more than you realise.
Re:Software Installation (Score:2)
Re:Software Installation (Score:2)
In offices in various places in the world, Linux is becoming widely used. It is being used as a workstation by average non-computer proffesionals. Newbies have asked me many times what they should do to install tgz's. See just because they are end-users, that doesn't mean they don't need niche programs eg. graphics, audio engineering, scientific apps. Now these aren't likely to be packaged, but there is no alernative for these people.
With all the talk of bringing Linux to the desktop, we are forgetting that many people need more than just office software, a browser and a decent mail client.
Re:Software Installation (Score:4, Insightful)
So, let's compare.
Me:
1) apt-get install galeon.
2) Do something else for a while
Them:
1) Drive to store
2) Purchase box
3) Take box home, stick CD in drive
4) Wade through non-standard *interactive* installation process.
As an example, my brother got his hands on an old Windows 98 box today. He asked me to add Divx and CD burning support to the thing. First thing I do is install EZ CD Creator. Installs fine, takes up whole screen, requires a reboot. Upon reboot, starts spewing warnings about applications not being able to launch because of a lack of mfc42.dll exports, as well as another install screen (completing the installation). Okay, turns out he needs mfc42.dll. I go, download that (impossible to find on MS's site even with Google, so I have to get it in a zip file from a third party. No pretty automated installer...drag and drop a dll).
Then, download Divx installer. System gives error about installer being truncated (it's not). Download zip file containing divx codec for manual installation...we'll see how that goes.
I'm sorry, but ease of software installation on Windows does not *compare* to ease of software installation on Linux. I'm not even going to discuss how hard it is to keep software up to date on Windows.
Re:Software Installation (Score:3, Interesting)
You just described the ideal scenario, one that unfortunately doesn't happen very often. In particular, the number of RPMs available via apt4rpm on RH8 is incredibly small. When apt works, it works great, hence the fact that we're stealing from it liberally in autopackage. Usually though, it doesn't work, unless you use Debian, and then the inertia that attempting to package nearly every piece of software on the planet implies (gentoo are having problems with this too) means packages are often out of date.
The Windows scenario as described is also sort of unusual, although as Windows software installation was grown rather than designed yes, it too is far from perfect.
What's needed is for developers to be able to produce portable binary packages, and then have a distributed and decentralised DNS style network to replace apt. The interface is still the same: "package install galeon" and wait, but unlike apt it scales.
Of course, that makes it sound easy. It isn't. For instance, the GNU ld.so (dynamic linker) contains design, ah, issues which make producing portable binaries quite hard (to do with link trees). We're figuring out what to do about that now, talking to libc-alpha, distros etc. We may (worst case scenario) end up having to distribute our own linker, luckily ELF allows for plug and play linkers.
Then you've got the myriad differences between distros. Every distro except debian uses the FSF version of install-info. Debian based distros use their own, slightly incompatable version. File locations differ and most packages built with automake are not relocatable. We have solutions for those things too.
OK, end rant. It's going to be a long haul, but believe me, we will end up with the most kickass software management system in the world. It'll be like apt, except it works more often (hopefully one day, always works), and it'll look good too. Will we make v1.0 in 2003? Hmmm, maybe so, maybe no. We'll have to wait and see. If not 2003 then definately 2004.
Linux: NEVER Ready for Prime Time on the Desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
The second big problem Linux faces is that its written by the OS-infatuated for the OS-infatuated. It very clearly lacks the "common touch". All I want is an OS that does what it's supposed to, then stays the hell out of my way. With Linux, I'm constantly tripping over piss-ant details and indiosyncratic quirks. The control is nice, and so is the ultimate reliability. But at what price? There's a line in one of the many HOW-TOs I've waded through that goes something like this:
God help us all!Some highlights of 2003 (Score:4, Informative)
What can we look forward to this year? Off the top of my head:
Mmmm, toys :)
Only a passing mention of Mozilla 1.0 ... (Score:4, Informative)
Likewise, while it really offers only a few major advantages (and some disadvantages) over KDE's Konqueror, Mozilla 1.0 finally did arrive on the scene attracting attention from many mainstream sources. While its impact on the "browser wars" may be minimal, it does promise a real alternative to Internet Explorer on pretty much any platform.
I think the author downplayed the importance of Mozilla 1.0 :
For me, Mozilla 1.0 is THE event of the year 2002 for OSS.
Re:what about decimal ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This year: good, next year: ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but free software is a growth area in IT and it will be until MS is ground to a shard of it's former self.
In 20 years, the only people using MS will be home users. Games are MS's biggest advantage over Linux. That's the one area in which it is not making headway. MS PC's will essentially be X-Box v 5's by then. They will not be used for serious business applications.
Re:This year: good, next year: ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:GNU/Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:GNU/Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thus, we don't just have GNU or Linux, to have a real competition for other operating systems, we depend on GNU and Linux (GNU/Linux). Why not celebrate both major core components to our wonderful operating software?
-Tim