Will Linux Ever Be Ready for the Desktop?
June 6, 2009 by Clair Ching
Filed under The Free World.
Personally I find this question difficult to answer because I cannot generalize for the public. What would be the criteria for readiness? In the same manner, what kind of usage are we talking about? It’s that wide in variety that is why I don’t think it will ever be easy to define. Many comments have spawned from this blog entry: Don’t Get Me Wrong, Linux Sucks as Much as Windows. There are arguments that say that Linux is not ready for the desktop yet because of issues concerning hardware and drivers, installation issues, etc. There are also those who point out having to fix their screen resolution and dealing with the command line just sucks, in their opinion.
In any case, using Linux does have its pros and cons. The thing is, I think it boils down to personal choice and preferences. What might be pros and cons for me may not apply to you. If I don’t need Photoshop for my image manipulation tasks, then for me it’s one thing I don’t consider in terms of the usability of Linux. However, some of you might think of it as an essential application. And there might be others who are very familiar with Photoshop that using another application is unthinkable.
Maybe some Windows users don’t see the relevance of Linux because they are already too used to it and the applications that they run on it daily. And maybe some of us who are used to Linux cannot see the perspective other users might have so we could say that it is ready for the desktop — but we don’t really say what kind of desktop usage.
Convincing people is not an easy task. We can argue all we want but for people to really know what Linux is about and if it is indeed something they could already use, they have to experience it and decide for themselves. If they give up easily, it’s their choice. I guess that in my experience the people who decide to stick with using Linux have their reasons. But the most of important thing is that they saw how Linux and free/open source software meet their needs. No amount of arguments could dissuade them from believing in Linux because they have really felt its relevance.
I tried Ubuntu at version 7.04 and while it was good, it wasn’t able to replace XP. It wasn’t until V 8.10 that all the hardware bugs were worked out and they made it simple for noobs like me to partition their windows drive. (I am an engineer and must have AutoCAD…no Linux poert or free replacement yet). I tried other distros like Fedora, Suse, FreeBSD and even DesktopBSD and always thought that Ubuntu was the closest. Now (two years later) I spend 90% of my computing time in Ubuntu even though it still cannot fully utilize the 3d rendering of my graphics card and I can’t use Adobe’s Shockwave player. I love it. The main reason…Vista. Maybe Win 7 is better, but now I am free I really don’t care. I keep XP on a small partition not even able to go out to the net and I perfectly fine with that. The users I think that will be more likely to cross over are the heavy internet users. Thanks to Apple, website are making their offerings more and more standardized, which in turns helps Linux. If all you do is Facebook and Tweeter, then maybe a free alternative won’t be so bad. Oh and the fully customizable UI doesn’t hurt either.
lastly, I have been reading your posts for a few months now and just wanted to say thank you.