What do you think linux needs to replace Windows?
 

Hey guys i got to thinking, what does linux need to become a primary desktop? I dont know about you guys but i sure wish it would, as then many companys would start writting their software for it. Me being a video editor, you know thats not one of linux's things.

Now most of us can handle ourselves just fine. But i like to think in terms of "what if my girlfriend had to use this? what if my parents needed linux instead of microsoft for some reason? and im not there to fix everything?"

Im hoping some linux programmers read this and get ideas.

So with that said heres what i think it needs:

EASIER package install. I know its easy with .rpm and such, but make it BUI like windows setup.exe junk. RPM managers, SuSE's YaST are alright. In fact YaST is reallyeasy, but what about double click-install apps you download?

DEPENDENCIES! No linux newbie can handle gentoo. Now i know FreeBSD has something similar to portage? im going to try it later. Yes i know im just attaking something thats been hated for years.

GUI installer. Personally i dont care, i feel at home with all text. So far SuSE and mandrake have the most friendly installers.

Auto detect hardware: i know thatsa tough topic. but some distros find every peice of hardware on my system, whereas others need EVERYTHING installed.

GUI in general i have NO complaints. i love the linux gui's, be it Gnome, KDE, XFCE

FileSystem: Ive seen distros that install to NTFS. No swap or anything. Id like to see more of that, but those distros dont have NTFS Captive support (go figure)

Grphiacal kernel compiles: couldnt there be a GUI thing where you drag your module files over into a "window" and it fits it in there, click "compile" does it, boom your done.

Thats all i can think of at the moment. I like linux, but again id love to see it replace windows, and these are just some things that i wish would happen. Now im dusting off the old C++ books and id love to contribute in my spare time, so im no leech. Ive contributed the impossible SiS Xabre xinerama config.

NLE for the professional is VERY doable on Linux - but perhaps not for the hobbiest if you want commercial tools - good packages tend to start at $3K or so.

There is one inexpensive NLE app for Linux called MainActor but honestly, I tried the trial, and I've seen much better in FREE software for Linux.

THere is another option - which appears to be better than MainActor, and it's free. It's called Cinerella and can be downloaded from http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3. The great thing about Cinerella is not only is its GUI as good as the low-to-midrange NLE apps on Windows and OS/X, but it also supports render/rip farms, and it's all free of licensing costs! They claim it's not for consumer use, but by that they mean it's pro quality, and not a low-end piece of crap.

I think that Linux needs more people who complain about package management and dependencies to try out Debian based distributions.

There's a REASON why Lindows and Xandros and Knoppix and Ubuntu and Mepis and other distributions attempting to make easy home user desktop operating systems started off with Debian under the hood. Easy software installs is that reason--easier than Windows Setup any day!

In particular, Mepis is good for a newbie who needs a simple out-of-box experience with straightforward Windows networking connectivity.

For someone who has had enough experience with Mepis and/or Knoppix and/or Kanotix and/or other Linuxes to know what software he wants, Debian Sarge is good. However, I wouldn't recommend Debian Sarge for a newbie because its default install is a bit spartan and mediocre.

There's no "wow, this is fun" factor with Sarge the way there is for Mepis or Knoppix.

it'll never happen..........because most people/kids want games that work..............and after what happened to "tux racer" -- commercial game developers won't invest money for linux at all............Sunspire Studios is out of business because the freeloading cheapskates refused to support the commercial version! one can still get tux racer off ebay..... someone bought the rest of their stock and is authorized to sell it all...........

See ya i know theres CInerella and Main Acotr 5, but IMO they dont compare to premeire. Then again cinerella does have the cluster render which makes mre REALLY happy. At the moment im just freelance, id like to learn stuff the professionals use. And if cinerella is it, then ill give it a try again. But we dont have things like after effects, particle illusion, combustion, etc..and my card wont run maya so thats out.

Ubuntu, DONT GET ME STARTED! i wasted 2 hours on it last nite and i will never even touch that distro again! It doesnt even allow you to setup a proper root account, the XF86Config is TOTALLY wacked out. i editied, X wouldnt start, tried to load my backup, said i didnt have permission. entered the general user PW, rejected it. Also the LILO it installed screwd my MBR. I told it to install to /dev/fd0, and it said it did, next thing i new i couldnt get back into windows.

Ive tried debian. THe install is shaky, but its well worth it. I love the whole FTP install.

Im just saying, think in terms of when you wer a noob, the debian install is text (atleast the FTP is)

Package management is great i cant argue that. Now whats the package management freebsd has?

How this for awsome, mac osx users can have portage ( i have it, i love it)

Ubuntu does let you set up a "proper" root account if you want, although you do have to know how to do it (or know how to look up how to do it).

The way Ubuntu handles root and sudo by default is rather strange, compared to most Linux distribution (including other Debian based distributions). However, it's not anything strange for someone familiar with sudo to handle.

In any case, a newbie shouldn't be messing root login anyway. It's better for a newbie to learn the proper way to do administration with sudo from the start rather than logging in as root.

I personally haven't tried out Ubuntu, though; I don't care for GNOME, and prefer to stick with the standard Debian repositories.

BTW, most Knoppix variants use knoppix-installer, which is graphical. Mepis uses its own installer, which is also graphical but looks slicker--more newbie friendly.

As I understand it, Ubuntu uses a slightly modified Debian Sarge installer. I suppose Sarge's installer is good for maximum control, but a newbie just wants to press an install button and see progress bars go. That's where the all-or-nothing install of Knoppix variants is actually not a disadvantage.

the thing about ubuntu, Sudo only works while logged into Gnome. I needed to access stuff without gnome, wouldnt let me. Infact it refused to let me restart my computer without root privilages.

And thats jsut the thing, i agree newbs shoulnd learn administrative properties first, but this thing was just overall frstrating.

As for the games, yes i agree, linux wont go far without gamers support. Thats why im thankful i can play quake 3 and wolfenstein on my computer. IIRC, the new crossover office supports directX. If i get a chance im gonna throw premeire at it and see how it handles.


Would it be possible ( i know this is just like wine) to have a program that takes your windows install CD, and just pulls files from it that it might need to run certain apps? Of corse youd pay for windows and such. I know thats like wine/winex, but justa thought.

Ubuntu is rather loud about their GNOME-only support. As I said, this is a reason why I've avoided Ubuntu so far.

For a newbie this could be okay, since a newbie wouldn't have a compelling reason to not use GNOME.

Actually, the only problems I've heard of outside of GNOME in Ubuntu is with KDE. KDE administration tools assume a traditional root account. This isn't a problem with "sudo", but rather a limitation of KDE's implementation of "administrator mode".

I agree. Neither MainActor nor Cinerella crash every 30 seconds. ;)

got me there Kimvette. I take it your quite experienced? Main actor i couldnt get to work on 9.1, i had the trial. It would crash the system. Premeire pro 1.5 (the rest SUCK) is pretty solid. Although its my hope to move to mac soon., since the os supports everything i do, and on top of that i can compile my favorite unix apps.

I just tried to load suse9.2 on my spare drive to find the drive developed a click of death GR!

Everyone I know who bought Premiere Pro went back to Premiere. Premiere is bad, but Premiere Pro is the spawn of Satan.

If you want to stick with mainstream operating systems, check out Ulead Media Studio Pro or switch to OS/X and use Final Cut Pro. Both are very capable, and far more reliable than Premiere. Adobe product management should feel ashamed for letting that unstable software go out the doors.

alright well me and kimvette have gone way off topic..

PPro7.0 i hated
PPro1.5 i love.

Ulead aggervated me, as the plugins wer limited. Also i found ulead crashed more than anyting, especially when doing timeline veiws. I almost had ulead startup in linux. Plugins are a big plus for me. Boris Red, Sapphire, photoshop plugins working in premeire/aefx. I am hoping to switch to mac. I prefer the professionally used NLE's, simply because people are intimidated (when they dont know about it) and think you hold some high knowledge. Magic bullet can never be replaced.

I will say i read about cinelerra, i cant diss it. I was amazed with the color correction it offered, the feature that fixes up pixelated footage, its mac like integration with the desktop. No use in convincing me, id switch to it if i could, but then id have nothing to take care of particles, lightning, film mimicing. I do editing/SPFX for a indie film. I looked at cinelerra a few years ago, and thought nothing of it. Now its becomming more of an option to me. I honestly think its gonna get picked up eventually and evolve into something great.

Currently i got my hands on CinePaint for windows and its way better than uleads CGI infinity.

Id be enclined to switch to linux all aorund for this stuff, since windows locked me out of a 2gig folder containing about 43clips of random SPFX clips me and my bro did. Wont let me veiw/read/edit/write..nothing. even after i did all M$'s tweaks to take ownership.

not true i use the terminal all the time with our X running sudo works fine :)

i killed my xf86, i couldnt get into gnome. just BW text, and it wouldnt let me do a thing. i didnt have a chacne to set a root PW. But even windows asks you to setup admin privilages on install.

Very little in itself. What it really needs is less lazy people who want their computer to work without needing any knowledge on their part.

If you're willing to put the time and effort in to learn it, Linux does everything you want. If you're not, stick with Windows - everybody will be a lot happier that way.

IMHO, the reason for the increase in Linux use as a desktop isn't just down to Gnome, KDE et al making a more friendly desktop. It's also because computer skills are steadily increasing, and people stop being happy with an OS that's aimed at the clueless and look around for alternatives.

If that's really the case, to what do you subscribe the reason that the newbie-friendly distros like Linspire/Lindows, Xandros and Lycoris/Redmond Linux have taken off the way they have?

I think there are many Windows users - some who know what goes on under the hood as well as many more who don't and have no interest, either - who just want a computer they can switch on and do whatever task needs to be done.

I don't call that lazy. Most computer users are appliance users, not nerds or geeks, or any other sort of expert.

That's just my two cents worth, and I've been known to be wrong in the past. And i'm sure I will be wrong again in the future :D

Not sure where you're going with this point. Firstly, if a linux distro is Windows-like, then of course it'll appeal to people who want a windows-like OS. That's exactly what I said. What am I supposed to be explaining?

Secondly, I have to disagree with the "taken off". Have you seen this site's Distro vote for the year?
Linspire gets 0.17%, Xandros 1.16%, and Lycoris/Redmond doesn't even appear. That's not really much of a take-off. . .

I'll agree that "lazy" is perhaps not the best word if taken out of context, but I thought the rest of my post provided enough context. Obviously not.

I'm in no way condemning people who want to just have a computer that works with no knowledge. Heck, they're the majority! If that's what they want, fine. Good for them.

But Linux as an OS appeals to people who want to get 'under the hood' and be able to change stuff and do stuff. Windows appeals to those who don't. "Lazy" users was as good a description as any.

Linux isn't meant for people who want an OS that just works and that's it. It's meant for hackers, in the true sense of the word.

Trying to turn Linux into an OS for people who aren't interested is a waste of time - they already have an OS that does exactly what they want that they're comfortable using. To make Linux usable for them is to make it something it's not.

I say again. Linux doesn't need anything function-wise to replace Windows. All it needs are users willing to learn how to use it. If they don't want to, fine. That's what Windows is for. If you want Linux to spread, don't focus on changing Linux. Change the everyday computer users.

Words we should all live by :)

Could it perhaps be that the people who take part in these polls aren't the "target audience" for the easy-to-use versions of Linux? The appliance users?

I think that saying Linux appeals to those who want to get under the hood is fine (and I partially subscribe to that view myself) but it can (not saying it does!) sound a bit elitist where the great opportunity of making available user-friendly distributions of many different flavours that are understandable and useable to non-geeks is something that ought to be promoted to the appliance user level of computer owner.

Dunno if that comes across a bit better lol :D

I think linux is already there as a desktop for the majority of home users to use.
A lot of people spend most of their time surfing the net or doing general administration work at home.
Greater Business and government support to linux would increase peoples education about it. Do they teach it at schools? Is it promoted to small firms? etc.
Yes there are somethings i cannot do in Linux for work (i.e. Accounts) but I have pretty much ditched Windows at home all together.
All i see is Linux getting better month by month.

Linux already has replaced windows in this house. If it's preinstalled it's no different to windows for the user as they can't install windows or look after it anyway. The only limitations with linux now are the manufacturer's support and software support. Things like wine and crossover and winelib are helping to make it easy for software makers to port the apps across if they choose to, or at least make the app wine-friendly...

These types of threads always, without exception, live in General. So that's where you'll find this.

I find it amusing everyone talks about how much easier linux is to instal then windows. but guess what it is a null point. People use windows because thats whats on their system when they get it and they are happy with it. if the person is competent enough to install Windows then it really doesn't matter if linux distro (insert here) is easier ebcause that person can surely handle it just fine and not really care. So IMO its a moot point There is a reason people are still running 98 and even 95 Windows OS and its not because of games.

Different Linux distros have vastly varying difficulty levels.

I just completed a Slackware install and it's really tough. You need to read each and every step carefully before applying changes.

Now Debian was middling. Neither really tough nor easy.

Fedora Core (in my experience) was the easiest and the only Linux distro that I installed with graphical install.

Nah, Slack's easy. LFS, however. . .
:)

It's not easy in the traditional sense. It's a bit of no-fuss, no-mess kind of setup. You can really screw up your system if you don't read some of the options carefully (not that you cannot in other distros, but Slackware is a little more involved).

And I have no idea how to start configuring all my hardware which I took so much for granted in Debian (which autodetected my network cards, allowed me to easily configure sound and so on).

Now in Slackware, I must figure out how to do all these.

I don't think Linux distributions should even *try* to replace MS Windows at all. Linux is different. Leave it like that. For those who want MS Windows, use MS Windows.

Making Linux more user-friendly wouldn't mean less concentration on the performance side? I mean, the ones who are now busy writing software with a high level of quality regarding functionality shouldn't lose the focus. IMO, if you start imaginating and writing all sort of graphical gadgets just to convert a M$ fan then you're wasting time.
The ones using Win at the moment are happy with it, so let them be. The starter of this thread personally admitted that he's comfortable with the cli. So are most of us. What's the problem then? A representative percentage of the ones who're trying to "migrate" to Linux are doing it for fun (their own or just to show off) and shortly give up.
Does any of you really want a "click 'n click 'n voila" OS? Where would be all the fun? We all would get nostalgic. And look what happened(s) with the OS that does it that way. Way less performance over eye-pleasant interaction.
Also, if you only had to click a few times to get things set up our mind would stop wondering about this and that and would stop producing quality output. It would be a false impression that everything goes fine only because you don't have to edit files and issue pseudo-cryptic commands at the command prompt.
I'd say keep Linux the way it is. It has no point (it might be even dangerous) to force things now. Linux will look like Win$ (but run much better, of course) when its time will come. Untill then we should be happy with what we have.

Enjoy a quality OS.

I for one would. I use my computer(s) purely as tools, and I think apart from a small proportion of wannabe geeks, that is true in most cases.

For those who are geeks as well as those who would like to be, fine. Use the command line all the time. Edit files painstakingly. Have to reinstall when you got it wrong.

Me - I would like to switch the machine on, get the job done, and go and do something more important. And I've worked in engineering design and commissioning for years, and in IT support. :D

That's exactly what I want to do with linux as well, and I do, as does the rest of the family. I use linux because it lets me do this reliably without crashes or high risk of infection.

This is completely the reason I use *nix as well. Except my desktop is never turned off so the switching on needs to be replaced with logging on (I log out because my sister frequently uses the computer as well).

I sit down at my computer and just know it is going to work and I can focus on getting the job at hand finished. I never start it up and suddenly need to run the adware remover because the computer is acting funny or start it up to find that it won't boot all the way and just keeps rebooting over and over (darn automatic updates... they break the system as often as they fix things)... or any of the other 9 billion things that can (and frequently do) go wrong with Windows.

My sister loves my laptop (running fluxbox -- with idesk -- of all windowmangers) because she can log on, click on an icon, and watch a DVD without having to do anything special. Or browse the web, write and email, type a paper, watch a video online... whatever. She does this from my "unfriendly" laptop without second thought and loves it. She is NOT a computer geek... she is currently taking a computer course and got a low 70 on a test regarding WORD!!! How can you get a 70 on a test with Word? It doesn't even seem possible but she did. Proof enough to me that she isn't a computer geek. But she finds it easier to use my laptop (or desktop) then the Windows XP machine in the other room. She'll often ask me to get off the computer (the desktop) because she has stuff to do and can't I just use the laptop because she likes the big monitor.

:D

I'm always happy to let her use the computer. Pleasantly shocked doesn't even begin to describe how I felt the first time she asked that.

Well, I don't theink its a usability problem, its compatibility thats stopping it, most users think Only MS Word can open up simple .doc with almost no formatting. My mom didn't know MS Word for the Mac and MS Word for windows files were even compatible (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Then also you have to know it exists, Most people I know wouldn't even know Macs exist if the schools(elementary and middle) didn't use them. After all they're only sold in Apple stores so people think they're specialty computers or something

I'm not sure if this was a question or not, but in the case it was, I'd like to answer it ;). FreeBSD uses a similar system to Gentoo's portage called ports. It downloads source and dependencies and compiles everything. It also uses a binary management very similar to Debian's apt-get, called pkg_add.

@ Debians:
Now, on the Debian greatness: The difference between Ports and Portage and apt is the ports and portage actually works. The drawback is that it get's a hell lot of time to compile certain programs. Apt-get on the other hand, work's fine for a while, but sooner or later something always get broken, at least for me. My most recent example is python-pygame, which I use to program very often with. I've apt-get installed a package and it automatically updated python, thus breaking pygame. It was no way around this, either install the other program and upgrade python and brake pygame or forget about installing that program (can't remember which program it was).

I've used Debian Potato long ago as server. Later, I decided to upgrade to Debian Woody (clean install) on the very same machine. During the install process of Woody, I had to specify my network card type (just as I did with potato) and, even though parsing the very same name and model of the inbuilt network card, the module failed to load.

That took Debian out of my table (or HD) for hopefully all of the eternity. I love the philosophy of Debian in theory, but in practice, it gave me a lot of headaches from the installer to running a Desktop.

well i can officially quit whinning about video

http://www.jahshaka.org/index.php

if i get a new video card (preferably matrox) that can handle linux, ill be giving this, cinelerra and Maya a shot.

Yes. If you don't want it, just opt out of X and/or stay in runlevel three. Have fun.

In actually playing games, getting work done, playing movies, watching television in a window, etc. - not in cursing ATI and other vendors while trying to hack together a FULLY-working Linux box.

Uh, no, we wouldn't. You obviously haven't been working with Linux very long - or computers in general. ;)

Oh really? Have you ever run Windows XP, properly configured, on a dual processor box?
What about OS/X on a dual G5?

Those operating systems really fly then (I generally don't do single processor boxen - I tend to multitask heavily with six or seven large apps open concurrently)

Even on single processor boxes, Windows XP runs just fine. In fact, a common complaint on here is that Linux is slower than Windows - it all comes down to how you configured it. If you run Windows and click on every popup add, "free" toolbar and software offer out there, etc. then sure - your Windows box will be slow - and it isn't M$'s fault, it is the user's fault.

You're in the vast minority then. I'm all for making it truly PnP, easier to use, with better admin GUIs (why must all the administrative GUIs be broken and force you to go to the .conf and .rc files and change settings by hand? That's so . . . 1991). With Linux, or any *nix (except OS/X, which is the castrati of Unix), you have the option to NOT run X. Everyone else will take that option, just don't install it if you don't want it. Your desire for a command line ONLY should not bar everyone else from getting the nirvana of graphical user interfaces.

$.02 and then some :D

Has anyone mentioned Tax software?

Even the IRS's Adobe form fill documents require a version of Adobe that is not yet available for Linux.

yea but who gives a rats *$$ about the IRS?

For me, I would be much happier with linux if it had a better ocr. Gocr works sometimes, but it is a lot less forgiving than its windows counterparts. Either gocr or one of the other ocr projects will have to get a lot better. Beyond that linux does just about everything I want and it does it for free so it's already there for me.

I think the forward advance of the wine project will be important for anyone who invested a lot of money in windows apps. Wine is probably the single most important project for selling linux to a windows user.

One of the big problems with getting WINE to work properly, from what I've been told, and I can't vouch for the truth either, is that even with the court decisions made against Microsoft, there are still api calls that have not been released.

Windows code - and that of most of its applications - is not open source. Hence there is bound to be difficulty in hooking into its closed code.

So I have been told anyway. So it is likely that that particular nirvana is way off, if ever.

I have also been told that the Windows OS is also not truly backwards compatible with applications... meaning that a more recxent version of an application written for Windows may well not run in WINE because a different set of DLLs are needed. That comment seems to fit the facts, whether true or not.

I have noticed that apps for win95 and earlier often don't really run that well in win98 and sometimes don't run at all in Win2000. What I just described could well be the reason why.

My 2 cents, and I don't need the change <grin>

I agree with you all the way. I really enjoy the OCR in Windows that comes with my Canon USB scanner.

I don't know how my remarks led you to that?

Let me explain myself.

The IRS is part of the US government. The IRS supplies forms for ALL the citizens of the US to prepare their taxes on. The IRS now provides electronic tax forms e.g. Adobe PDF Form Fill Documents. These forms are available to the "Netizens" of the US, however, these forms are not useable by ALL "Netizens." If you want to use these electronic forms you must use a Windows PC or an Apple computer. Where are the tax forms for the Linux/UNIX computer users.

People want to do their taxes on their computers. I do it every year, but I have to keep Windows installed because there is no Linux Tax software.

People who actually pay their taxes to the US government. Tax software made it soooooooo much easier. I remember before tax software where it would take weeks to get your taxes in order now you can do it in a day or two.

Well I guess Adobe or IRS heard me cause we now have Adobe Reader 7.0 for Linux.

Woot!

lol, I'm glad to know I was not the only person having fits of joy to finally have acrobat7. Finally... there are some things I have been wanting to do for a long time (Cut and paste text for example) which just did not work before.

Oh i know, im just saying, not like anyone enjoys it. I guess I'm old fashioned here, our family has always gone to this business that does our taxes, but thats because we own/race/sell/breed horses, so tax software is kind of out of it for us.

Linux ready for desktop?
 

Hi everyone!

I use linux systems for about 5 years now.
The reasons why I chose linux is a question that all of us already know...

Over these 5 years I have see a huge evolution in the way linux has changed peoples minds about what there computers are made for, about the fact to have the possibility to make a choise between using your computer and the computer using you.

I am prowd to use linux because it gave me the option of remaining in the unknowing state of why windows doesn't start on next boot, or getting mathers into my own hands and feel that my pc is cooperating with me as if we were one bieng.

However these are still troubling times: Windows is still not giving the possibility to other great operating systems (and I don't mean just Linux) or is greatly slowing this fact.

Where I go and tell people that I use Linux, these people ask whether Linux is faster than Windows or other silly questions of those kind...

What am I supposed to answer to these people? Those zombies who don't understand that speed isn't important but the choise you make?

I bet they haven't even read the licens that comes with Windows installed pcs and haven't got a clue about the restrictions!

It feels a bit sad to say but: ordinary people ( who wanna look cool because they have all the new funky-fresh hi-tek technologie of witch they don't have a clue on how it works and think they know better ) simply don't want to know whats happening inside there computer, we should respect that ( dawn I hate to say this! :( ) and try some other way to spread linux.

Ordinary people are simply afraid about all those options they can click on to tune there pc.

I think Windows owns part of that for it's success ( they have some doctors analysing what people want!).

Should developers of distributions lower the possibilitys of linux to adapt to the ordinary peoples needs?

I've seen some distributions ( no names! ) that are headded that way, and from my point of view are worthy to be tried out. But what they lack is the true spirit of linux and also they aren't doing much to commercialize there product.

Yeah right! So they post pubblicity on theire web page, but how do they know if someone will ever go there and download there 2-4 Gigabyte cd operating system based on Linux on internet???

And the most difficult question of all: why would ordinary people be intrested in linux when they have windows?!

Thank you for your attention.

The average computer user, IMO does not give a s**t about Linux, because he has never
heard of it. When students on this site will get a job in the real world, and I don't mean
future sysadmins and the computer people who give their time and answers to all of
us here, they will see that Linux is sooooooooo unknown that they will forever wonder
where and how they have heard about it in the first place
.
Come on, Linux is SCARY, even when people have heard of it, in addition. And do not talk about FUD, Linux
is for people who like doing things differently.

In the school I teach in I saw 2 years ago ads for computer teachers to be PAID by
Microsoft to get training and spread the good word. Now, what do you think of that ?
This is reality, and not a Linux-friendly one...

Maybe, maybe not!

does it really matter if distributions try to commercialise their products? If anything it just harms them, look what has happened to redhat. I use my own jerryrig as my distro and I have it the way I like it.

Linux has had cd rippers, p2p apps, movie players, audio players, browsers, and some great games (ut2k4, aa, cube) for a *long* time now. How can people even ask if it's ready for the desktop?

The more appropriate question is; is it ready for people who don't give a damn about learning anything about their machines but still want the advantages of linux?

The answer to that is no, it'll never be ready for that because as soon as you make linux "easy" / "convenient" enough so that people don't have to know a thing about how linux functions or what's going on in the background then all the advantages that come with linux are gone...

Linux's greatest asset is a community of well informed, very intelligent, and willing-to-learn users. Not it's fancy gnome "desktop environments" or any of that crap.

Wow - you guys have really jaded attitudes. <G>

More people are open to linux now than ever because they're tired of the constant virus updating, pop-up issues, and everything else that tears up their machines. This is why Apple is making some headway. You're right in the fact that people don't care about the guts of the machine - they just want something that works. There is nothing that's wrong with that.

However, the attitude that this will somehow takeaway from linux - how can that be? You have an operating system that's anything you want it to be. How does it become less if my mom has it installed on her home computer?

If Gnome becomes easier to use, with better integration with multimedia, and therefore becomes more appealing, how does that "lessen" Gnome? (Insert your interface name there if Gnome bothers you.)

There's nothing wrong at all with some companies commercializing their product. There is a certain segment of the market that won't accept it unless there is a company standing behind it providing the support.

What I believe is that there are plenty of linux geeks who don't want it to become widespread as it would somehow lower them to the masses, lessen their elitism, their geekiness. Bizarre attitude, that one. For those people, I'd recommend they get out into the world once in a while. <G>

Jon J.