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Five things Desktop Linux has to do to beat Windows 8


Peachy

One Linux to Rule Them All  

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Miguel de Icaza is quoted by Stephen J. Vaughn-Nicholls in a recent ZDnet article: “take one distro, one set of components as a baseline, abandon everything else and everyone should just contribute to this single Linux.”

 

And if so, which distro would you want to base it on? Ubuntu? Debian? RedHat? Suse?

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V.T. Eric Layton

Why in the world would Linux ever want to beat Windows? Beat it at what, pray tell? Being insecure? Being the biggest target in the world for miscreants? Being as inefficient and unstable? I'll never understand why pundits like these fellows keep harping on what Linux needs to do to be like Windows. Linux is Linux. Windows is Windows. Let's leave it that way, I say.

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Won't work. You could never get people to agree on what desktop interface to use, for starters!

Some love gnome, other KDE and then there are minimalists who prefer XFCE, LXDE, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, IceWM and probably others I don't know about.

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Won't work. You could never get people to agree on what desktop interface to use, for starters!

Some love gnome, other KDE and then there are minimalists who prefer XFCE, LXDE, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, IceWM and probably others I don't know about.

 

Blimey ! you never heard of Window Maker, Blimey ! :shifty:

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V.T. Eric Layton

Here's a little news tidbit for everyone...

 

As far as I'm concerned, Linux beat Windows way back in 2006 when I first went to Linux full-time. It has been beating it ever since. :yes:

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I do agree that in my case the suggestion in the article to slow down the pace of change is a good one.

When I started with Linux I was a distro hopper and early adopter of new releases. Some of that was necessary as the early distros I tried were pretty bad at handling wireless and later ones much better. However wifi under Linux is really good now - so I've gotten off the propellerhead bandwagon and switched to Linux Mint 13 LTS which has 5 years of support.

The Cinnamon desktop is a nice blend of Windows XP and Gnome 2.X so my wife is happy using it. No Start Screen, Modern UI, Charms Bar either.

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securitybreach

Well the problem with Debian is its stability. Most packages are 2-3 (or more) releases behind the current stable versions. Now I know that you can run Testing or Unstable but to base Linux on pure Debian Stable would not be very good. For servers Debian is one of the best distros around but for Desktop users, Debian is a poor choice due to the outdated versions of software and the kernel. Granted, I am referring to Debian Stable, not Debian Unstable or Debian Testing.

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Debian's stability is it's best feature but yes, it gets a bit behind the latest releases. Most users don't actually need bleeding edge apps.

For those of us who like living on the edge, I think siduction is the best option as it's based on Debian unstable but nursed by it's devs to be fairly stable (I've recently defected from aptosid). So all Linuxii should be based on siduction! (sunrat dodges rocks and runs to find tinfoil hat) :w00t: :P ;)

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Comments in this thread show exactly why there'll never be one main Linux distro. We wouldn't be able to agree on something like "Debian Stable or Siduction." As pointed out earlier, we certainly wouldn't be able to agree on a desktop environment.

 

Why take "choice" out of Linux? Why does anyone feel that Linux needs to compete with Windows, anyway?

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securitybreach
Why take "choice" out of Linux? Why does anyone feel that Linux needs to compete with Windows, anyway?

 

Indeed!! I think that is most people's opinion here (and everywhere else hehe) B)

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Here's something I bet we will all agree on:

 

Steam finishes its Linux_client and begins to port games after the initial offering proves wildly popular. Game developers eyes are suddenly opened to a new and very lucrative market - Linux gamers!

 

Then that old song begins to play in the background - "Another one bites the dust..."

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Most users don't actually need bleeding edge apps.

 

Debian Stable receives security updates. That's fine with me. I do want the latest for the web browser, but I go outside of the Debian repos for that, anyway. The other stuff, it doesn't really matter to me if it isn't bleeding edge. I just want everything to work when I need it to work.

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Debian Stable receives security updates. That's fine with me. I do want the latest for the web browser, but I go outside of the Debian repos for that, anyway. The other stuff, it doesn't really matter to me if it isn't bleeding edge. I just want everything to work when I need it to work.

How many people are still using XP and Word 97? Nobody complains about that. What percentage of Win users do you think are using a version of Word OTHER than 2010? And when a Linux user does upgrade to a later version of LibreOffice, they don't have to pay. And older versions of Linux distros will still run the latest browsers. But you can't run IE9 or 10 with XP.

 

 

The only thing holding back Linux desktop is a function they teach in Eco 101. It's called "The Average Propensity to Change". People don't like to change. It takes a lot of motivation to get them to change. As long as they don't perceive the "Windows Tax" they are paying when they buy a new PC, you aren't going to get them to change to Linux. It's that simple.

Edited by lewmur
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