A man walks along the beach. The ocean tide has washed thousands of
starfish up on the beach where they will die in the hot sun. Another
man is combing the beach and picking up starfish one by one and thowing
them back in the ocean. The first man approaches the man trying to save
the starfish and says "Sir, you can't possibly hope to save all these
starfish". The other man bends over, picks up a starfish, throws it in
the ocean and says "No, but I just saved that one".
Interestingly this story has much more impact when it relates to
something like using open software than its usual motivational purposes
because the benefits can be reaped by the individual immediately instead
of requiring large group participation. The point that I wanted to make
with the story is at what point do you put the bar for desktop software
being successful or not. Some people thinks it has something to do with
how many people you convert to it. I think its more on an individual
basis and one person being successful with their own switch. Not all who
make the switch are going to like it, some are fine where they are at.
Some can't decide what they want to do and the moment you save them,
they get washed back up on the shore. Fine, whatever. People are all
different and there is no stopping that, but the fact that they are
different is what should drive them more towards openness and
flexibility, doesn't matter if its Linux, Mac, Windows, BSD, Solaris,
etc....
Just three weeks ago, I switched to using XFCE4 because I got tired
of issues with Gnome Terminal, so I started using XFCE4-terminal (which
is excellent by the way), then I decided to give XFCE another go because
I had tried it before and thought it was nice, but it wasn't quite there
last time I tried it. This time, I've been thoroughly satisfied with it
and haven't found anything that would make me switch back, so I think
I'm an XFCE convert now. You just got to give yourself time and a
reason to adjust.
The whole experience of switching between desktops within Linux
reminded me once again of why I use it to begin with. Choice. It really
is all about having the ability to choose how I want to use my computer
damnit. If I want my windows to have 15 operation buttons in the title
bar or none at all, that's up to me. If I want 100 virtual desktops that
wrap around or a taskbar or panel buttons that can have their behavior
changed, by george I better be able to do that. If Windows or Mac were a
more open environment that allowed these levels of customization then I
might be more for using them, but they don't. And in a world where
people express themselves and their choices in their cars, houses,
refrigerators, clothes and everything else, it always puzzles me why
they settled for such conformity with their desktop environment.
Mark
On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 01:17:07AM GMT, Joe Auty [joe@netmusician.org] said the following:
> I know this is sort of troll-like, but I do mean this in a constructive
> way. I've wanted Linux to be ready for the Desktop, but I just don't
> think it will ever get there. At what point does it make sense to just
> focus on using Linux on servers and give up on using it as a Desktop OS?
>
> The failings of Ubuntu, in my personal experience, largely don't have
> much to do with Linux itself, but with the general ecosystem. As of
> right now my ethernet controller just randomly panics and I can't do
> anything to restore network connectivity but restarting my machine. This
> is clearly documented in a bug report on Launchpad, this is a known and
> confirmed issue. The update to Ubuntu 10.04 broke LIRC for me - also a
> documented and known issue. I'm also getting random problems preventing
> DVDs from working with messages logged along the lines of the DVD being
> resized (I've had this problem off and on for ages). I've encountered
> reports of other people having the same problem. The NVidia drivers
> randomly cause XOrg to crash. I haven't had this problem in 10.04 yet,
> but the weakness of these drivers have been documented too, hence
> Nouveau except it doesn't have 3D acceleration yet. The 64 bit version
> of Flash doesn't support fullscreen video properly. The 9.10 update (if
> memory serves) partially crippled LIRC for me in using my IR blaster.
> Shared printing broke in Ubuntu 9.10, and SMB printer browsing randomly
> broke for me too. I can print to my shared printer when I restart SMB
> and enter its name manually. I've had file system corruption with ext4.
> It literally seems like more stuff is broken than is not, I've always
> had something or another broken, and maybe I'm anal, but I like having
> stuff work.
>
> None of this touches on the various usability problems I've encountered
> or problems I had some time ago, these are all just recent problems.
> Like I said, most of these have been documented and acknowledged. A
> couple might be fixed in the 2.6.33 kernels, but I've been unable to get
> sound the the NVidia driver to work in these kernels last time I tried.
> Like I said, I realize that Linux itself is not to blame for all of
> this. I appreciate something like LIRC existing pretty cool, I'm willing
> to overlook some problems.
>
> What is difficult to overlook is the constant regression and coin flip
> as to what will go wrong whenever I update. I should not have to wipe
> and reinstall an OS in 2010 as a troubleshooting technique, the idea of
> bit rot or some sort of corruption is weird voodoo, and it is most
> frustrating when I go ahead and do something like this anyway only for
> it not to make a difference anyway.
>
> So, it's 2010. We've been hoping that Desktop Linux will be more
> bulletproof for a long time now, it's just not there. Monitor
> arrangement is nowhere near as solid as its been on the Mac since
> probably the 1990s or something. The commitment from vendors like
> NVidia, ATI, Adobe, and probably many others is just not there. I'm sure
> some progress will be made, but it is so far away from being an OS that
> Grandma can use that it's laughable. Yes, one can setup a rig for
> Grandma for specific tasks and she can never update it, and yes Desktop
> Linux can be functional in some cases, but how about Grandma or even Mom
> being self sufficient like some can approach being with Windows or OS X?
>
>
> Is there any reason why I should not give up on Desktop Linux, guys? I
> don't mean to be troll-ish at all, I'm a very heavy Linux/BSD user, I
> like the idea of consolidating on Linux for my day-to-day use, I'm
> rooting for it. But, it is what it is. Is there a point where it's just
> a complete waste of effort to expend more resources into Desktop Linux?
> Now that I'm a full-time freelancer, I certainly don't have as much
> interest as I used to in fiddling with Linux for my entertainment
> purposes, it's just a huge time sink.
>
>
>
> --
> Joe Auty, NetMusician
> NetMusician helps musicians, bands and artists create beautiful,
> professional, custom designed, career-essential websites that are easy
> to maintain and to integrate with popular social networks.
> www.netmusician.org <http://www.netmusician.org>
> joe@netmusician.org <mailto:joe@netmusician.org>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BLUG mailing list
> BLUG@linuxfan.com
> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
BLUG@linuxfan.com
http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
No comments:
Post a Comment