NO!
https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/42
https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/43
https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/58
Mostly stemming from this 10+ year old GNOME bug
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86382

I was an early widescreen Linux adopter and these bugs drove me nuts. Now Unity is optimized for widescreen monitors. KDE and XFCE also work fairly well w/ vertical task bars.

Finally,a knowledgeable post. Executives won't be bothered to use burner laptops or fresh installs, never-mind bootable CD Linux install. Any IT admin would be fired for trying such a stunt. As someone who's HD crashed while traveling in Vienam and was forced to use a bootable linux CD for a few days, it was a MISERABLE experience. Anytime you do anything in the OS, you have to wait seconds for the system to respond. No businessman traveling to Asia would put up with that.

Fully encrypted laptop and if you're really extremely concerned with security, give them a system "upgrade" after their trip. That's the only reasonable solution to this real threat.

As someone who switched from a browser based OS, WebOS, to iPhone 3GS, and now to Android, I can tell you I will never go back to another laggy HTML based OS. If anything, I’d like to see Android move away from its VM based apps to something like Apple’s native apps. Many apps ran better on my 3GS than they do on my much more powerful S3. Mozilla is going the wrong direction on this one. Native > Java > JavaScript

The whole idea of using HTML, CCS, and JavaScript as the back end technology for a low-end smartphone is nuts. Even the best HTML rendering engines are CPU and memory hogs. CSS was never designed for and is nearly impossible to hardware accelerate, and JavaScript is notoriously difficult to optimize and even the best VMs like V8 run orders of magnitude slower then Native code, while the JS VM itself takes up a massive amount of memory relative to Java VMs.

Whether it's moving to true native Apps like iOS or just better code optimization, I too would like to see Android focus more on responsiveness and battery life than adding new features. FF Mobile based on HTML5 tech is going to be still born.

You're not alone. I'm also stuck with using the terribly slow and buggy open source ATI drivers. Linux needs a stable driver interface. I wish the kernel developers would stop trying to screw over ATI and nVidia with every new kernel update and start thinking of the end-users for a change.

I was the IT Admin in an office that tried to switch from MS Office 2003 to OpenOffice. OpenOffice could only open the simplest Word Documents. Excel macros were completely broken. I don't think a single PP doc converted properly.We never got embed PP videos working. I wasted hundreds of hours in training and helping users convert and reformat their docs. I opened up over a dozen support tickets outlining new issues on the OO bug tracker. To this day, most are still open. Eventually my boss threw in the towel and we bought MS Office 2007.

I also love Linux. All my servers run it, I'm connected to a SSH session as I write this, and have an Android phone by my side. BUT Linux is still a long ways off from being ready for a gaming. There are 3 main issues video drivers, sound subsystem , and the X WIndows Manager.

Every time a new kernel comes out, they break something in the drivers, so I need to download a new proprietary driver. Yet somehow, I can install Vista drivers from 2007 on my new Win7 machine. Then there's the issue of the Nvidia Optimus drivers. Linux needs a stable graphics drivers interface like Windows or OS X.

The Linux sound subsystem situation is complete mess. There are currently 2 low level audio stacks that apps use OSS and ALSA's.
http://insanecoding.blogspot.hk/2009/06/state-of-sound-in-linux-not-so-sorry.html
OSS offers great sound and low latency, everything else sucks. But the kernel developers have refused to add the free GPL'd OSSv4 updates into the kernel, so we are all stuck with OSSv3 legacy and ALSA's crap that's only good for watching videos and listening to music. Real time apps like music production or music games are impossible to do on Linux with the current situation. Using the PA layer only makes the latency situation worse and added another layer for things to go wrong.

The X Windows Manager issue just came up a few weeks ago. How do they expect us to take Linux seriously when you can crash/freeze your desktop, just by launching a game that tries to run Fullscreen? This issue has plagued me for years, and there was even a Slashdot article on it just last week.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/10/25/2339223/a-proposal-to-fix-the-full-screen-x11-window-mess

Maybe wayland will solve the X Windows issue and maybe if Linux does start to talk off, the kernel developers stop being so high and mighty and start doing something for the end users instead of trying to screw ATI and Nvidia every release.

How about making Firefox it feels as responsive as Chrome when you have many tabs open? How about making FF support multiple CPUs? This is 2012 already! How about making Firefox support WebP? There are many improvements that could make Firefox better for developers and end users.

Until Firefox is a better browser than Chrome, Mozilla shouldn't be wasting their resources on a stripped down version of Android that's can't run any of the 700,000 Android Apps and is limited running their FF browser.

Hairyfeet, I think you and I are pragmatists and pretty much on the same page. I'm an IT pro,so I run Linux servers for my job, but I'm also a gamer, and dual booting is a pain in the ass. Trust me, I would love to make Linux my primary desktop, and every few months when I have some time, I give it another serious shot. But I always end up back to dual booting mostly due to the reason's you listed above. FOSSies and an lack of stable driver interfaces.

Years ago, I was happy with OSS audio system, but that is controlled by one company so the FOSSies have done their best to replace it with a far inferior ALSA. This caused me so many headaches back in the day. But lately my issue has been with the graphics subsystem. I have to chose between open source drivers with terrible performance or proprietary drivers that don't work with modern kernels.

Finally, X windows and gaming don't seem to mix. Here is a case, where I think Linux needs to change the interface. I think Wayland may be the answer. decent or at least X11 with decent full screen support would be a godsend.

So from my perspective for Linux to make it, it would have to use :
1) OSSv4 Audio Subsystem (FOSSies it's GPL'd already get over it)
2) Stable graphics driver interface ( or FOSSies stop breaking ATI and Nvidia's drivers )
3) Modern Display Server - maybe Wayland or throwing out all the kruff in X11 and fixing Full Screen graphics

Yes, but not a single machine on their site can run modern games well, because they are all based off of slow integrated Intel graphics.

Microsoft does not require Nvidia or ATI to release their source code, and yet I can install the latest drivers on my 3 year old nvidia laptop. Hell even my 7, SEVEN, year old laptop loads windows Vista drivers. And you know what? That 7 year old laptop runs circles around Linux in 3D games because of the crappy open source drivers I'm stuck with. AMD released the Spec to my cards years ago, but OpenArena is still a slide slow. Screw you FOSSies!

As people mentioned above. The hard line FOSSies that run the kernel refuse to expose a stable graphics API for Nvidia and ATI to write to. These are the people that have prevented Linux from making it on the desktop. I love Linux, but it will never fulfill it's potential without some pragmatists running the ship.

Yes, because Tux Racer, crashes their desktop when they try to change it to Full Screen. It does it for me on Ubuntu 12.4 with the latest drivers. Linux still has a long ways to catch up to Win7 or OS X.

Exactly!,As a Linux gamer, managing Linux servers, sitting next to an Android phone, I couldn't agree more. The audio stack is a complete mess. Not to mention the X Windows situation.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/10/25/2339223/a-proposal-to-fix-the-full-screen-x11-window-mess
http://insanecoding.blogspot.hk/2009/06/state-of-sound-in-linux-not-so-sorry.html

I would love to see Linux a viable alternative to Windows, but first the Kernel devs need to get their heads out of their asses and put in a proper audio subsystem, like the free and GLP'd OSSv4 that every other UNIX uses. Also X11 had it's day, back in the 70's, but it's time for a modern windows manager that won't freeze or crash when a game or app tries to run full screen. I don't know if Wayland is the answer, but Linux needs something.

I love Linux. All my servers run it, I'm connected to a SSH session as I write this, and have an Android phone by my side. BUT Linux is still a long ways off from being ready for a gaming. There are 2 issues I see. 1) The sound subsystem is in a sorry state 2) The X WIndows Manager needs to be thrown out

It's true that OpenGL support is not bad, but the sound situation is still a disaster. There are currently 2 low level audio stacks that apps use OSS and ALSA's.
http://insanecoding.blogspot.hk/2009/06/state-of-sound-in-linux-not-so-sorry.html
TL:DR OSSv4 offers great sound and low latency, everything else sucks. But the kernel developers have refused to add the free GPL'd OSSv4 updates into the kernel, so we are all stuck with OSSv3 legacy and ALSA's crap that's only good for watching videos and listening to music. Real time apps like music production or music games are impossible to do on Linux with the current situation.
The added PulseAdio layer only makes the latency situation worse. Check out the issue the WINE developers had with it.
http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2012-June/095954.html

The X Windows Manager issue just came up last week. How do they expect us to take Linux seriously when you can crash/freeze your desktop, just by launching a game that tries to run Fullscreen? This issue has plagued me for years, and there was even a Slashdot article on it just last week.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/10/25/2339223/a-proposal-to-fix-the-full-screen-x11-window-mess

Now for the positive. Maybe wayland will solve the X Windows issue and maybe if Linux does start to talk off, the kernel developers will get their head out of there ass and merge OSSv4 back into the mainline. A Linux gamer can dream.....

Thanks you! You just made my point! My laptop gets 8-15FPS while running this HTML5 web demo in H/W accel. Firefox. When I run the Native version of Cube I get over 100FPS.

Do you see the problem now? My laptop is much more powerful than that hardware they are targeting, but all of the built in and downloaded apps will be gimped by this HTML "technology".

For those of you interested, try it out yourself:
Cube 2: Sauerbraten:
http://cubeengine.com/files.php4
Firefox HTML5 Cube 2 port:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/detail/bananabread

LIGHTWEIGHT?!?, just like their browser Firefox, right? I switched to Chrome for a reason, and that was because Firefox was a bloated CPU, memory sucking pig. The idea of Firefox being the ideal technology for low-end smartphones is laughable.

The whole idea of using HTML, CCS, and JavaScript as the back end technology for a low-end smartphone is nuts. Even the best HTML rendering engines (Mozilla's Geko is not one of them) are CPU and memory hogs. CSS was never designed for and is nearly impossible to hardware accelerate, and JavaScript is notoriously difficult to optimize and even the best VMs like V8 run orders of magnitude slower then Native code, while the VM itself takes up a massive amount of memory.

I get that Mozilla wants to put Firefox on a phone. Fine, but first, focus one building a competitive rendering engine. Then you can use this Firefox OS to prototype a easy to use touch UI. But in the end, I want a responsive fast phone, like the iPhone or Galaxy S3, not some dog slow HTML monstrosity.

Sorry buddy, but Reality is not Negativity. There are millions upon millions of iPhones and Android devices running with lower specs than 256 MB memory and a 700 MHz CPU, and they are very usable and responsive, EXCEPT for web browsing! So if Mozilla wants to fix the problem with low end smartphones, they need to fix their browser first.

Then they can focus on creating a streamlined smartphone OS based on Native apps, not CPU hogging HTML5/CSS. Mozilla is living in a dream world, where they don't grok the real problem with low-end smartphones are battery life and performance. CSS was never intended for GPU acceleration and Javascript requires a heavy VM that sucks away CPU cycles and drains battery life, not to mention 10-100x slower than native.

Here's an idea, take WebOS or Android,make the GUI fully hardware accelerated, rewrite all the basic apps to run Native code, remove any HTML 5 / VM kruff . Now add your new state of the art Firefox XXXXX for web browsing, and you'd have something that I'd want to run on a low-end smartphone.