| I have a Linux Desktop dream |
by Lasse Christiansen (Jun. 13, 2003)
Lasse Christiansen has a Linux desktop dream. This lengthy opinion column at DesktopLinux.com provides Christensen's perspective on Linux usability, application support, and more. He surveys the current state of the Linux desktop, reviews strengths and weaknesses, and suggests some improvements that would propel Linux onto more systems.
I have a "desktop" dream.
I have a dream. A dream of one day having a Linux desktop that would actually be better (or even comparable) in useability, administration and looks than Windows XP.
I know that this is kind of a provocative statement, and will probably result in massive flaming. But try and follow me a bit (I'm in no way trying to put down the massive effort which have gone into many applications or in Linux in general).
Oh, by the way. Yes I use Linux daily on my laptop. It's my primary operating system. And I'm even using it both for my so called enterprise/corporate work as well as logging lots of hours of home usage.
Currently I'm running Mandrake 9.1 but have been around Mandrake, SuSE and Redhat a number of times.
I wrote this article mainly because many of my colleagues asked me these questions and at the same time because I think that most of my comments would make an end-user migration to Linux even easier.
The current batch of distributions have made massive inroads into useability, admin and look-and-feel. I even applaud RedHat for creating the Bluecurve theme, which besides getting tons of flak also resulted in it actually being difficult to see whether you were running a KDE or Gnome app (well apart from startup time). They created the first coherent desktop experience.
My experience is that Linux is still far more stable, has generally better performance, and has better networking tools. But it still (to some extent) plays catch up with Windows XP on some points.
This article is written as the result of having used Redhat 8 for 4 months and Mandrake 9.1 for the past one month and is generally written because i actually think that my current (as close as it can come) dream Linux desktop would actually be a combination of those two distributions.
I will address my current observations and issues in the following.
Boot / Application Startup
Linux boots sooooo slowly when compared to Windows XP. And yes I do know that Windows XP continues to load stuff after it presents you with a login screen or a desktop. But still. Linux loads really slow. And it's probably not a priority since Linux rarely goes down and is used a lot for servers.
But I'm using it on my laptop. And I guess that lots of other people are as well. When Linux comes into more widespread use would really like it to boot faster.
I know that I could remove additional services (when running Windows XP you would probably rarely run syslog, apache, snort, nessus and zebra) but that does not explain a difference in minutes. There is hopefully a way to speed things up.
Can someone explain to me why the loading of PCMCIA need to beep twice .... and loud? Is there a way to turn the volume down? Or disable this while booting?
OpenOffice.org is probably the slowest application in the world to load. Staroffice 5.2 was slow. But after separating the applications in Openoffice.org, it still loads slower than Microsoft Office on a comparable Windows laptop. Why? OpenOffice.org is not larger than Office and it's not that i'm loading a GTK app when running KDE. There must be something to do about the load speed.
Look-and-feel
First, I tried running Gnome with RedHat 8. And although I really love the look-and-feel of Gnome apps and the general Gnome desktop experience (it is more pleasing tha KDE), I simple cannot live without all the options (and cool eye-candy) and functionality that comes with KDE.
I would love KDE to actually get some more look-and-feel tips from the Gnome crowd. And then please learn about Human Interface Guidelines. Although KDE goes a long way, it still have problems with HIG.
Just look at Konqueror. Probably one of the most important KDE apps. It has a "location" menu. Which for some operations is probably a correct naming strategy. But what's wrong with file? In all other apps your would do ALT+F->Q to quit. But in konqueror your would do ALT+L->Q. Not a lot when you learn it. But annoying still.
And what about my primary video player mplayer. With the kmplayer GUI you would use ALt+O (for Source) to be able to press Q and quit. Why not file here again.
For what it's worth. The KDE crowd could call it what they want (and they do ;-)) but please make it consistent !
OpenOffice.org may be an office application, But does it need to have conservative toolbar icons. As far as i've heard Ximian and/or Xandros did some changes to that. Please incorporate some of those changes into OpenOffice.org for all of us to enjoy.
I loved SuSE's semi-graphical boot! With applications, it is animated glory. It offers no real benefit apart from my boot looking cooler and then waiting for the system to boot does not seem as long.
Karamba-like functionality in kicker would also be amazing!
CD burning
I thought that CD burning using Linux tools would be a disaster. I hated basically all CD burning tools in existence for Linux. Therefore I loved Gnome's burn:/// option to drag-and-drop files onto a CD. Unfortunately it just missed some options like blanking CDRW's.
Then I discovered K3B with my Mandrake distribution and I was saved. K3B just plain rocks. With a couple of more features like better bin/cue support, and handling several tracks (for bin/cue), it would really make my day. And match Nero (Windows) when doing most daily tasks.
Web Browsing
To do this we have a multitude of options. But unfortunately most of these do not render pages the same way. This means that I have both Mozilla and Konqueror as browsers. Konqueror for most sites. Mozilla for sites requiring plugins (for some reason I cannot seem to get them working in konqueror .... if they work at all in kKnqueror) and other rendering. And Internet Explorer (running under Crossover Office) to render the really difficult web sites.
BTW, I simply cannot understand why anyone can ship a browser without the relevant plugins for Flash, Java, Quicktime and RealPlayer. Having to install these after installing the distribution would probably be difficult for most novice users.
I know that most people say that the rendering problems are due to Internet Explorer not supporting standards. Since Internet Explorer is so used so widely, then doing some of the same rendering would probably make things a lot easier for all of us out there.
I love the fact that the Mozilla crowd is trying to make a more lean and mean browser out of Mozilla. It became incredibly bloated lately.
Admin / Autodetection
I love the way that Mandrake does autodetection of USB devices. Honestly I have not tried RedHat 9. But Mandrake really rocks here. Unfortunately I love RedHat's configuration tools which Mandrake could learn a lot from.
Laptop usage
For some reason Suspend, resume, hibernate does not work on my laptop. This is probably my fault, but having to use tons of time for troubleshooting when a Windows install would work is pretty annoying. Especially when my colleagues tells me to just reinstall Windows and then it would work :-(.
Archiving
Karchiver and File-roller is already bringing us a long way. But we still need useability improvements in the likes of powerarchiver for windows.
PDF
Most PDF viewers for Linux do not come close to the functionality of Adobe Acrobat Reader. I use Kghostview for most of my PDF's (when not running Adobe Acrobat Reader under Crossover Office). PDF viewers need a fit-to-screen option as well as the option of having PDF's searchable.
Kernel
I would love for someone (RedHat, Mandrake) to incorporate the interactivity patches and the patch that would disable mousepads while typing. Unfortunately I'm not brave enough to do it myself.
Nvidia
Most end-users will probably be more than frightened when trying to edit an Nvidia configuration. I tried YANC and although it is a step in the right direction I still need (like in Windows) and option to change resolution while still working. And a functionality that would discover my modelines automatically while also supporting my external VGA outout as well as my video output.
It's soo cool to see some of my colleagues fire up Powerpoint with an external display connected and see the presentation on the external display while the app stays on the LCD. Wow .... I want that with Linux and Nvidia. But I don't want Windows.
Multimedia
When playing mp3 and ogg's the Linux alternatives are more than capable and just as cool as the Windows options. But when it comes to video -- Linux lags behind. Not in capability since mplayer can do.... well, everything!
Unfortunately i must admit that even though I can use Kmplayer and Mplayer-plugin to get a decent GUI and even view movies from web pages, Windows Media Player still has the edge when it comes to look-and-feel. It's basically just smoother to work with. An Mplayer with a Media player'ish look-and-feel and functionality would blow the whole world away (after getting DVD menu support for Mplayer though).
Package installation/Removal/Upgrading
Apparantly it's only Redhat and SuSE which have not understood yet how to make installing really easy. I just love Urpmi from Mandrake. APT4RPM and YUM. But what would be really cool (and Windows does not have this) is a roll-back option where you could specify how far back (or how much disk space) you would use for uninstalled apps. An install option that would allow you to go back to a specific software release or a couple of days would make management of you own system extremely easy.
Functionality that i miss from windows
Snagit/Camtasia functionality. The ability to record entire screen sessions as a movie. And Snagit for capturing pictures of applications, Windows, regions -- not entire screenshots.
Drag-and drop menu editing. The ability to drag an app from one "category" to another one without having to resort to an external menu editor.
A graphical tool that would make it possible for me to mount and unmount ISO (and bin,cue) images (like daemontools for windows).
A single remote access client (like tsclient .... which looks awesome) that could be used for Windows Terminal Services(RDP), Citrix ICA, X-terminal(XDM), TightVNC/VNC, SSH, Telnet. Even a wrapper for all of them would make remote access a lot easier.
Make Dreamweaver work in Crossover Office. Then I will only need to boot into Windows to play games and to work with Sniffer pro.
The ability to click once (I doubleclick to start an app) and then be able to rename a file. In Windows I need to click twice. One to select and one to rename. In KDE I need to either click once and press F2 or right-click and then choose rename.
Conclusion
Despite all my above ramblings I'm staying with Linux. I might try out RedHat again because I like it's look-and-feel and administration tools better than Mandrake's (even though i'm using KDE). I still feel that there is a way to go to make it in the useability and admin areas. When this happens Linux will surely make more severe inroads on the desktop (We're not talking games here). I hope that this will create a fruitfull discussion about how we can make Linux a better desktop experience for the benefit of us all.
I have a dream ...
About the author: Lasse Kim Christiansen is a Training Operations & Delivery Manager at Azlan Scandinavia; where he has the opportunity to work with very knowledgeable people in Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, and Unix.
Lasse is currently a CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork expert) and a Cisco trainer on primarily high-end topics and security, having written several security courses and custom networking courses.
Working with computers for the past 12 years at different multinational companies, Lasse has had experience with all sorts of operating systems and did some of the first larger design / installations of Windows NT in Denmark. He has been an MCSE in the past as well.
Lasse first became entangled with Linux first with version 0.99 (while the same time working with 386BSD and HP Unix) and have been using multiple distributions on and off for the past many years but always returned to Windows for "comfort" reasons. Only recently did he finally switch entirely to Linux.
Says Lasse, "I think that Linux has massive potential and am eagerly supporting and pushing it everywhere I go for the right tasks; but I still think that the community
has a small way still to go before being entirely fit for the desktop."
Lasse hails from Copenhagen, Denmark. He lives there with wife Rikke and daughter Celina.
Is Desktop Linux ready for the enterprise? Share your views and get help from our popular forum.
(Click here for further information)
|
|
|
Approaching the Linux Desktop
The purpose of this paper is to help organizations evaluate the Linux desktop against their own enterprise needs and discover what benefits the Linux desktop might bring to their organizations.
Migrating To Linux: Application Challenges and Solutions
Several solutions exist to help organizations migrate in an orderly fashion from Windows to Linux desktops. This paper establishes the characteristics of an ideal cross-platform solution and reviews these alternatives in light of this ideal standard. The paper takes a closer look at the pros and cons of various solutions and outlines the business benefits that can be achieved.
Linux Advantages: Publicly Available Information on Linux Software
This paper offers a brief summary of readily-available Linux information to help businesses sort out this widely misunderstood operating system.
Top 5 Strategies for Managing Linux
Despite continuous evolution in the manageability of Linux, a 2006 survey cited manageability concerns as a top reason why organizations are hesitating to adopt Linux. Levanta believes Linux can be as manageable, if not more so, than other operating systems by following key strategies. These strategic recommendations were developed from experiences in numerous customer environments, both large and small.
Why Choose Novell for Linux?
This paper outlines the benefits of switching to the Linux platform and choosing Novell as a high-performance, enterprise solution.
Enterprise Linux Selection Guide
Considering moving your enterprise to the Linux operating system? Since there are so many similar versions, choosing the right one can be tough. This paper offers a clear process to help you make an informed decision and get the features, support, and cost that are right for your business and technical needs.
Overcoming Challenges in Managing Linux
Levanta has created a new administration model with innovative technology that breaks down the barriers to making the most of Linux systems. This paper will provide an in-depth look at the workings of Levanta’s product, the first Linux appliance of its kind.
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 for Retail Businesses
Discover why major retailers have switched to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop in the back office. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is a low-cost desktop that offers a complete set of productivity applications and interoperates seamlessly with the other Windows, Macintosh and UNIX desktops in your store.
Moving to a Linux Desktop
Migrating from Windows to Linux on the desktop can be a substantial undertaking because it has the potential for touching -- and perhaps disrupting -- every user in your organization. Unlike a data center (server and infrastructure) migration that is largely transparent to users, the cultural and administrative transitions and environment readiness required to support a Linux desktop migration are extensive.
Seven Good Reasons to Exchange Exchange
This paper describes seven compelling reasons why you should switch from Exchange to Scalix.
|
|
|
|
|
news feed