Is the Linux desktop one giant failwhale or is the author just disgruntled?
Is the Linux desktop one giant failwhale or is the author just disgruntled?
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/can-we-please-stop-talking-about-the-linux-desktop/
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/can-we-please-stop-talking-about-the-linux-desktop/
Comments
The Linux desktop is here and has been for some considerable time.
The recognition factor isn't, but that's something else again.
Part of the reason for that has been the accessibilty aspect in the installation procedure in the past, and the alienation aspect that has propagated, but that is resolved, for the most part, in many quarters, and the desktop recognition factor, along with any number of others, will be overcome over time.
And hey, I use Linux on the Desktop (ubuntu ftw)
It's a growing demographic, and the desktop will grow with it. And Linux is not an easy metric to measure:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/linux-windows-microsoft-android-ios,20220.html
http://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3818696/Linux-Desktop-Market-Share-Greater-Than-One-Percent.htm
http://www.cnet.com/news/linux-desktop-market-share-is-up-as-much-as-61-percent-study-finds/#!
And this is an exponential growth.
The biggest reason, in my opinion, that command line hasn't filtered down is that it has no memory triggers. When I open a web page or run a GUI which does something, I get visual reminders of what I'm doing, I get prompts or wizards to guide me along. Command line is fast for the same reasons it is unfriendly: nothing between you and the command.
If people find a good enough reason, command line will be come more generally important. Meanwhile, non-tech people care that tech people can fix stuff. That's all the argument you need for command line.
Maybe it's just the massive technical debt in their products? They worked with Google to get a streaming version of photoshop, surely they looked at getting something running in the browser, or something linux native, and ended up deciding the only way was to run a client farm in the cloud.
For my own part, I have a dual boot computer. The windows partition is used mainly only for games that I can't get running in Wine.
I can't say that I have more problems in Ubuntu than I have in Windows. The oposite is probably true. Windows has a tendency to annoy me in a way that Ubuntu doesn't.
http://www.gimp.org/
https://inkscape.org/en/
http://www.blender.org/
http://www.povray.org/
I've had their product offered to me on an extended 12 month trial plan for free. from their international marketing manager, and turned it down.
The special effects for blockbusters such as 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Avatar' were done with some of the programmes mentioned above. Not Photoshop.