Comments on: Linux backers foresee desktop gains

The upstart operating system may be entrenched in the data center, but even Linux backers say it needs some sprucing up before it can grab a significant spot on the desktop PC.

Linux on the desktop is man many years away.

Like the folks in this article, too many people see getting a
decent version of Office and a few other common apps (such as
games) onto Linux and the Linux desktop will boom.

Sorry! If that was the case Apple would have done it years ago.
They have the support of Adobe, Macromedia, Symantec, a little
company called Microsoft and many many others including
games developers, yet their market share lingers around 4%.

Many many many many applications in the corporate world are
Microsoft dependent. eg VB front ends, MS SQL backends,
Windows only versions, intergration with MS Office only etc etc.

Of particular note is the Windows only versions. Many
developers of core business apps will never develop for any
other platform than Windows, simply because of the massive
cost involved in switching.

I work in local government and we have several major
applications that will never be anything but Windows based. To
convert our organization would cost the equivalent of at least 5
or more times our annual IT budget. (And if I was going to
convert, I'd go Apple anyway - Like Linux, it's Unix based, but
has the support of many major vendors, is user friendly, support
open-standards, some support for open-source etc etc )

Microsoft's grip on the desktop goes much deeper than MS
Office. And until the corporate world can be changed, the rest
of the world will not follow.

The only place Linux has any hope in the desktop is sites using
only Office productivity type apps. As soon as you get into
industry specific apps, they will struggle because almost all of
them are Windows dependent.

And even if Linux had some hope in the desktop, their greatest
threat is Apple, as witnessed by the Australian NSW RTA's
decision to buy 1200 Apple iMacs for their counters instead of
Linux boxes- even tho upfront costs would have been much
less.

All that said, there may be some parts of the world, such as
Europe, where Microsoft has never been as strong, and in these
countries there may be greater opportunity. But in the English
speaking world, Microsoft has the desktop tied down for a very
very long time.

Linux Desktops

Pope sees more conversions to Catholicism

Knoppix has the look

If "window dressing" is enough, get Knoppix. As smooth and elegant an interface as you're going to find on any O/S. No more "install" technical crisis. GIMP actually uses the same dialogs as Photoshop - from two versions ago. That would be like complaining OpenOffice doen't use Office2003 menus. Linux is coming. The desktop market will choose it as the dominant product for exactly the same reasons the server market did - price/performance/stability.

[zeeone]

Desktop PC? Yes, But....

I have been using Linux as a home pc for over 7 years now and having a lot of fun using it. But of course I fit the mold as a "Techie" and after 35 years of working with more computers systems than I care to remember.......

The story I feel only hit one small problem area of Linux, drivers, and missed two major problems Linux has to face. Drivers? How long did it take MS to realy, some what, get that to work? I still call it plug & pray. Over the years I have watched the Linux folks doing thier best to keep up with the huge data base of old and new drivers needed. When something needs a driver for Linux, it is a short time before one is made. So I feel the Linux folks are doing a darn good job in that area.

The two hurtles I see for Linux to over come, deals with USERS, the person who just wants to be able to use thier HOME PC, to do what ever they need/want to do, with the least amount of problems ( blue screen of death anybody? ).

Hurtle one: Program loading.
Belive me, this area has over the years improved by leaps and bounds, most Linux distros have more programs for them than most anybody could ever use. Long as one is using that Linux distro to load programs things will work as it should. But, users go on the internet, find what ever it is, want to download and install it, why won't it work, what do mean, I have to use the command line? Well it worked for Windows. So until the one button download/install like Windows & Apple have, users will turn away.

Hurtle two: But I have all this stuff.

Money tied up in software, years of saved data, time setting up what ever, will it work on Linux? This includes myself, remember what almost killed IBM? What made MS so strong? Remember when IBM & MS were one? User have the same concern today as then, but as myself and many others have learned, with many more to learn yet. MS is doing the same thing to themself, what worked in DOS, did not in Win 3.1, what worked in Win 3.1, did not in Win 95, what worked in Win 95, did not in Win98 and so on. Maybe it is me, but, I have had a lot of problems getting data converted onto Linux, saved data from one Linux distro to a different distro.
Most users that are trying Linux are dual booting it, and using the MS side for help to get Linux side working. I would have say that most of these users are very young people and they are swtiching to Linux, but they do not have years of stuff. I have been working at getting many of my customers changed over to Linux, but they are worried about all of thier stuff. So we need more conversion apps for all that stuff.