How could linux become a big player?

Glaucus

Glaucus

Glaucus

Man of Honour
Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
76,637
I think there are several things that linux could do to become a bigger player and untill they do it, they should stop winging.

1) Thy need to realise normal people have only ever used windows as such the file system (C:\ drive my documents ect) as well as the general GUI needs to be very similar.
2) They need to goto the game developers and make all new games able to run on linux.
3) You need the kernal or parts there of to be standardised so game and other developers can make sure its compatible.
4) it's free, but charge a small amount and advertise. It's wrong of them to moan about MS when they have no business model.
5) Every piece of usual software that runs on windows needs a linux version of it. things like open office.
6) they need some sort of official governing body, to advertise and keep certain things standardised in all releases of linux.

Until all those points are addressed I can't ever imagine a time when they have a large market share.

Just look at firefox. It is identical to the way IE UI works, they advertised to release and is better in every way to IE and guess what it has a healthy market share.
 
  • The requirement to use the command line needs to go.
  • There needs to be a standard way to install/run software (.exe), not .deb/.rpm/portage/source/who knows
  • It needs to look nicer, prehaps have AIGLX turned on by default
  • It needs better support of hardware, or more accuratly, more automatic (and correct) setup of hardware
  • Needs a LOT more support for Windows applications and games
Basically it needs to go in OS X's direction, for OS X to be a big player imo it only needs:
  • Application/Game support (i.e. 25-50% of all applications get released on both Windows and OS X)
  • Ability to run OS X on normal hardware (legally), no way I would switch to a computer I did not make myself.
 
AcidHell2 said:
1) Thy need to realise normal people have only ever used windows as such the file system (C:\ drive my documents ect) as well as the general GUI needs to be very similar.
Click to expand...
Certain distributions can choose to make concessions for users coming from other operating systems (Linspire being the example which immediately springs to mind), but on the whole I wouldn't go about reverting to the naff naming conventions using in Windows and the similarly naff UI.

AcidHell2 said:
2) They need to goto the game developers and make all new games able to run on linux.
Click to expand...
...and how do "they" go about doing this? Individual members of the linux community are not able to port games due to various legal reasons, and there are already a number of applications which make DirectX/OpenGL games reasonably playable in linux (Cedega, WINE etc.). The fact is, DirectX is not going to be officially ported to linux anytime soon, so game developers have an awful lot of work to do to port their games over, and with the current market share it's simply not worth it unless they intend on making a statement.

AcidHell2 said:
3) You need the kernal or parts there of to be standardised so game and other developers can make sure its compatible.
Click to expand...
The kernel is already standardised and waiting for developers to make sure it is compatible? Still, we don't want to move towards a Windows approach and abolish compiling altogether!

AcidHell2 said:
4) it's free, but charge a small amount and advertise. It's wrong of them to moan about MS when they have no business model.
Click to expand...
I get the impression you are not quite sure what the linux business model is (I'm not all that sure either, but I have a vague idea)? First of all, it is open source, so charging for its use defeats the purpose entirely. Then there's the fact that linux in essence is just the kernel, which seperate organisations build upon, with the use of existing software packages, to make distributions. Certain distributions do charge, and do advertise (although admittedly not all that much in the mainstream —*I doubt a newspaper or television advert for a linux distribution could have the same effect as, say, for Firefox, purely due to the nature of the product)

AcidHell2 said:
5) Every piece of usual software that runs on windows needs a linux version of it. things like open office.
Click to expand...
That's not really a fault on the linux developers' part, is it? It's up to members of the community to get engaged in the development of new and existing open source products.

AcidHell2 said:
6) they need some sort of official governing body, to advertise and keep certain things standardised in all releases of linux.
Click to expand...
I just struggle to see how such a body could be implemented. The whole open source ethos is about openly sharing ideas and information, experimenting with code and constantly developing improvements. Who would be at the helm of this governing body, how would they be paid (baring in mind the fact that charging for the linux kernel is not a realistic option, and donations can only go so far when it comes to providing a sustainable income), and what authority would they have over distribution developers? Who are they to decide what code should be the de facto standard?

AcidHell2 said:
Just look at firefox. It is identical to the way IE UI works, they advertised to release and is better in every way to IE and guess what it has a healthy market share.
Click to expand...
Web browsers are much simpler beasts, however. There has been a recognised "standard" layout for web browsers for some time now, and although I commend the Mozilla team for making concessions to make the migration from IE easier (importing user profiles, bridging the gap between terms such as favourites and bookmarks etc.), it would be far more difficult to do such a thing for linux, and most of the fool-hardy users wouldn't want the option anyway.

*av
 
AcidHell2 said:
4) it's free, but charge a small amount and advertise. It's wrong of them to moan about MS when they have no business model.
Click to expand...
Lookup "Redhat".

Edit: Linux has a huge marketshare. It's just not a standard user OS! It's for geeks, advanced users and servers.

Should I do a list of what Windoze needz to do to "get a huge marketshare" in the linux areas? No, because it'd be stupid ;)
 
Linux is a specialist piece of software pretty much, many servers run it and all the geeks like to play with it, its not meant to be a mainstream home user OS, if it was, it would be by now

and as such its market share is gonna be zilch...in the home user market, in the server markets however...
 
Did anyone watch the Steve Balmer webcast last night? Hopefully a few of the mentioned issues will be fixed due to what was announced. SUSE Linux(Novell AFAIK) and MS are basically in bed with each other now. MS has a greed to open up on some of it propriatry patents to allow SUSE Linux to develop file handlers etc to increase cross compatibility. One example that was mentioned was to make sure that Open office and MS office speak the same language and can save/read the same file formats. Whether this is simply a MS tactic of embrace and strangle I don't know. But If they do what they say they will, It can only mean good things for users.
 
i'm not a ms fanboy, but i think linux and mac are total crap (from my experiences)

they're really slow to open any program, feel really unresponsive and the mouse movement is just horrible

my housemates all have g5's for their music video creation business, they're just noobs that didn't know any better imo.. even things like firefox take ages to load compared to a pc

i've tried a few different linux flavours on my main rig, fedora core 3-5, ubuntu, kubuntu and they've got the same problems, take ages to load up programs, and just seem laggy

tried on loads of pcs and always feels the same

i'd def sticking to windows, sure it has its problems too - none are major ones, but speed isn't one of them

*i never bash anything before trying it first!


-edit, i'm only speaking of it as a home user os, not for server use
 
Mac OS 9 was fine, I don't really like OSX much at all though. I find it got more bling and less intuitive to use, they did copy the Windows control panel but didn't do a great job of it.


As far as Linux goes I think Vai summed it up well :)
 
I'm sorry, but those people saying that linux was/is meant for geeks, advanced users, are wrong.

Linux was never meant to be just for geeks and advenced users. The whole idea of it was to give users an alternative to windows, but it failed to realize what users wanted. People just want an OS that they can install and run what they want on it, quickly and easily.

But what do we have. God knows how many different distributions, none of which contain all the functionality of windows. You have to pick one that has the functions that best suits what you want it for.

Becuase of this, and many other problems, linux has become an OS that only geeks and advanced users will use, because only geeks and advanced users know how to use it.

Unitl there is a linux distro that looks, feels and has the same funcionality as windows, it will never become a big player.

And before anyone says it, I have tried many distros and yes I do use linux on a daily basis.
 
In many ways Linux/UNIX is less complex than Windows is, however it doesn't hand-hold users or constrain them in the same manner Windows does. Personally I think its a good thing. I'm surprised at the comments re: Windows having better hardware detection. Windows has minimal hardware detection out of the box, the main difference is that due to its market share and inherently closed nature hardware developers are more willing to invest the time and effort into producing drivers for Windows than they are for Linux.

Also, does Windows have more functionality? Or is this perceived functionality because third-party vendors develop software/hardware for it? I'd say Linux has far more functionality out-the-box than Windows does. Out the box a Linux box will allow you to compile/run a variety of programming languages, open pdf/ps documents, access a large number of disk filesystems (ISO, XFS, EXT3,FAT32,HFS+,read NTFS) and network filesystems (SMB,Netware,NFS,SSH), write documents, produce spreadsheets, burn CDs, run a web server...I could go on :) Last time I checked (i.e. this morning) a fresh vanilla build of XP doesnt provide any of this.

Personally I think Linux should stay the way it is, by trying too hard to cater for the lowest common denominator it may limit itself too much and alienate its sysadmin/server/developer user-base. Also any attempts to dumb it down a Windows-like level are generally unsuccessful (Linspire and Mandrake spring to mind)
 
Last edited:
FWIW the most OSX-like distro I've used isn't Linux, it's BSD, PC-BSD to be precise :) I am referring to its ease of installing software compared to Linux, rather than its interface which is exactly the same as Linux, ie. KDE or Gnome etc.
 
downloading that pcbsd os now to give it a shot :)

now this thread has moved, i doubt i'll read it again :rolleyes: ;)
 
Vai said:
  • There needs to be a standard way to install/run software (.exe), not .deb/.rpm/portage/source/who knows
Click to expand...


  • MASSIVE problem for me this one. I hate googling for a particular application only to find there is a package for just about every distro apart from the one I am using. I mean, come on!!! Installing apps and drivers in Linux can be such a pain that the vast majority of people usually give up at the first hurdle.

    Any time I have ever brought this up, somebody always says "oh but all you need to do is type 'sudo apt-get -install packagename'. Sorry, but most of the time that is complete nonsense (even if the end user has the slightest idea what that command actually means). You have to make sure you have the right repositories set up...so you need to try and figure out how to add repositories in the first place. Then you have to go and find out which repositories you are supposed to have. Then you have to cross every crossable part of your body to make sure that all dependencies are installed.

    AAAARGH!!!

    There seems to be a lot of snobbery in the Linux community which ensures that even what should be the simplest of tasks becomes a monumental project involving editing countless text files. I get the impression that the Linux community just does not like non-Linux users very much and just wants them to stay away so they can carry on with recompiling their kernel every couple of days.

    Windows is simple to use and if set up properly can be reasonably secure. OSX is as simple as falling off a log for most tasks and is fast and stable. Every distibution of Linux I have ever tried ranks MILES below these two OS's in terms of end user experience.

    Apple have proven that you can take a *nix base and turn it into an extremely powerful yet easy to use OS. It's time for the Linux community to pick up that baton...but I doubt they will. They'll just go back to runnin vi on a text only terminal and spending all day tweaking their OS rather than actually USING it.

    Rant over ;)
 
bledd. said:
downloading that pcbsd os now to give it a shot :)

now this thread has moved, i doubt i'll read it again :rolleyes: ;)
Click to expand...
Be careful installing it - it needs to be installed on a primary partition unless they've changed that since I last tried it :) Unlike Linux distros which will install on a primary or secondary partition.

(incidentally this thread arguably should have stayed in the Windows forum, because Windows users are the people whose opinions are relevant to this debate. Linux users are already sold on the idea of using Linux aren't they :))
 
Last edited:
AcidHell2 said:
I think there are several things that linux could do to become a bigger player and untill they do it, they should stop winging.

1) Thy need to realise normal people have only ever used windows as such the file system (C:\ drive my documents ect) as well as the general GUI needs to be very similar.
2) They need to goto the game developers and make all new games able to run on linux.
3) You need the kernal or parts there of to be standardised so game and other developers can make sure its compatible.
4) it's free, but charge a small amount and advertise. It's wrong of them to moan about MS when they have no business model.
5) Every piece of usual software that runs on windows needs a linux version of it. things like open office.
6) they need some sort of official governing body, to advertise and keep certain things standardised in all releases of linux.

Until all those points are addressed I can't ever imagine a time when they have a large market share.

Just look at firefox. It is identical to the way IE UI works, they advertised to release and is better in every way to IE and guess what it has a healthy market share.
Click to expand...

1) There are plenty of different file managers out there.
2) Indeed, but this is down to the games developers.
3) The kernel is standard (kernel.org), it conforms to POSIX standards.
4) Eh? I don't think you understand the open source philosophy.
5) Thats down the the software houses.
6) For the kernel there is a governing body (sort of). All changes need to be agreed by the lead developers before the source is added to the kernel. with the rest no way, thats how come there is so much choice in distributions.

The thing about linux is that you have the choice and do not have to conform to one way of thinking.

To be honest I am not worried about market share, so long as it does the job for me.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom