why not LINUX?

[roid]

I was sat in college today, bored wondering about the large amount of money that must be spent on software. There is the whole Microsoft package word, excel the works, as well as everything Adobe all working on MS xp.

In recent years there has been a few Macs appear where heavy photo & video editing is required. So is there any reason why massive amounts of money cant be saved by using an open source OS? Is it just the stigma that comes with open source? I am thinking more technical reasons.

[mintnoob]

I never heard there was a "stigma" attached to open source. I always thought it was because open source apps still lagged behind Win/Mac apps on average, which I would agree.

[roid]

I am new to linux but so far I have not come across an app that doesn't meet my requirements. This is kinda my point its ok spending thousands of pounds on a all singing all dancing MS system but So far I have had no problem with Open Office. Never come across anything that has restricted me in my work. Surely if anything the time wasted XP decides its that time of the month wastes far more time than any restrictions open source software may cause.

Is there any problems in restricting web access, networking linux computers in the 100s?

[mintnoob]

I think Linux can meet the average computer user's needs, but if you are into more advanced areas like video editing, most seem to agree that Linux still lags.

Another thing is that in some areas, Linux is not very good for beginners, like web editing. Linux got great web editors for intermediate and advanced users, but not beginners.

[DrHu]

In recent years there has been a few Macs appear where heavy photo & video editing is required.

The artificial division of Windows for business, Apple for creativity (media), came about due to historical happenstance; from that dos/windows-->IBM business world, to the MAC -->audio/video graphics world

• It is artificial, because despite the fact that Apple touted the superiority of their OS on PowerPC hardware, they couldn't really compete with Windows OS on Intel or AMD hardware, and finally caved in getting a speed boost by switching to Intel based hardware
  It is further an artificial division, since window's OS video editing can compete with Apple's OS-X video editing applications; and it is the applications that matter, as well as what you are familiar with--> those historical accidents

Linux should be able to benefit from OS-X applications, but since MACs are a niche market compared to Windows (just like Linux), we can't expect that those application developers will want to stretch themselves thinner by also supporting Linux: which might not only offend Apple, but Microsoft as well

People use what they are told to, and the company's that pay for product are overly influenced by advertising; like we all might be

http://www.linuxmovies.org/studios.html
http://www.linuxmovies.org/studios.html
But, it may be that in some cases a windows or a MAC is the better application choice, and I mean application

• The unfortunate part is the lack of commercial applications for Linux, then we would have a level playing field of applications, and could really see which platform Hardware + OS suited us better..

[roid]

Thank you drhu for your very informative post, that has helped me understand greatly some of the problems with linux based commercial systems. I was very supprised to see some of the names on that list of studios that use linux, so there is still hope.

[FedoraRefugee]

For a change I agree with DrHu.

As far as software goes, there are many places where Linux and FOSS lags. How about income tax programs just for starters? Of course you have Office. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can touch MS Office. Can OO.o fulfill most people's needs? Yes. But it cannot integrate like Office can. Then...Add Quickbook pro to that mix! Linux has nothing equivalent which is a MAJOR shortcoming. People do tend to prefer Apple for graphics, but Mac easily runs MS Office so there is an advantage there. However, I run Office 2007 in Mint using Wine and it works great! The only catch is you must use an older version of Wine.

I could go on, there are many areas where the FOSS software just misses the boat. But why is this? Is this a shortcoming of Linux or something else?

The thing that stops Linux from competing in a major way is simply its business model. The very things that attract us TO Linux are those things which prevent Linux from really challenging a commercial OS. There is no "president" of the "company." There is no company. It is a wild west strategy where anyone is free to do whatever they want. Because of this Linux tends to evolve faster, but it has no direction. It is not that Linux developers are not capable of challenging proprietary software, it is that they are not forced to work together and drive an app in one solid direction. Instead they bicker and fork off in myriad directions. Look at Compiz-Fusion, an app that Windows cannot even come close to. It is brilliant for what it does. Yet there is no solid force behind it, it was left to be a scatterbrained project. This is just one example. Look at the number of simple music players Linux has, or web browsers. Is this a BAD thing? Heck no, it is freedom! But that freedom comes at a price. It makes Linux a complicated world.

Can a Linux machine take the place of a Windows or OSX machine? Is Linux "ready" yet? Linux was more than ready in 2000. As DrHu says, people use what they are told to. Most people do not even realize or care what OS they use, they are only concerned about learning how to use the couple apps they need to be productive. If Windows suddenly disappeared you can bet that Linux apps would suddenly become "professional." But it is not likely to happen anytime soon.

My advice? Just enjoy Linux while it lasts. It is already morphing into something else and there is no telling how long the freedom part of the Linux equation will remain dominant over the business side of things. It is a paradox: In order for Linux to become widely accepted it must lose what makes it Linux. The vicious circle has already started, bigger projects like Pulseaudio, Policykit, Gnome and the like are dominating to the point where smaller projects are becoming lost. There is less and less difference between distros; Ubuntu is the same as Fedora. Things are becoming too complicated in the name of becoming "user friendly." I seriously hope Windows 7 counteracts this trend. I hope it proves to be a great and amazing OS that people love. I hope the unwashed masses lose interest in Linux and we can stop the trend of driving Linux into being a free Windows. I hope common sense will finally prevail in the Gnome camp. But I hold little hope that this will be the case.

Be careful what you wish for, a commercialized Linux is within reach.

[myspacecommassergio]

well when it comes down to it@ op I belive it has to deal with software and hardware.

We can go into the arguement that
GIMP is not Photoshop although most people will tell you if you can't afford PS you could probably "Gimp it" to look like Photoshop.

Now the day where people tell you "You can PhotoShop it to make it look like it was edited in GIMP"
Will be the day when people start to turn heads and take a second look at linux.

Also, it's like saying Maybe you can Protools it in Ardour

if we we're able to reverse it and say "You can probably make it sound ARDOURish if you edit it in PROTOOLS"

then like i said... we'd have more heads turning.


Don't loose hope though becuase Clem and his onboard dedicated programers over the net are doing quite a bit of work to make Mint look nicer each release he turns more and more heads.


The day where you can say "Did your modem not work in Windows? Download Linux all drivers are out for all models of your hard ware!"

or
"If something's not working in windows xp/vista/7 it's becuase you need linux to run it flawlessly!"

When people can say stuff like

"you need a virtual machine in Windows to run linux in order to run many popular linux only games"
is the day people will probably ditch Windows for good.

Until then it's only good for common tasks, it's got an impressive load of free software on it as is, and is pretty DAMN GOOD! Just a few hurdles keeps holding it back from being The #1 OS of all time.

Compiz Fusion and the multiple desktop thing alone is brilliant and more organized than windows will ever be but the fact that windows packs more punch and features in its programs is what keeps people going back to it.

I belive Gates himself said you have to make people need you. Alot of people still need windows. Alot of cool games come out FOR WINDOWS ONLY and there are plentiful amounts of games for linux (wich i haven't tried yet) but still some of those games on windows are fun and I want them.

Linux is comming up each day. All I know is if Windows keeps on track with all the resource hoggin software I'm pretty sure that soon windows will fall as the top os and MAC or LINUX will take over as people will begin to turn away from an OS release that will probably require a computer that costs 1Grand just to open a file and browse the web lol. Windows 7 is cool but KDE can do all those effects using WAY LESS RAM and resources wich should by defualt make windows inferior but doesn't only becuase on WIN7 more apps can run games and stuff.

Hope this helps just my opinion don't bomb me thinking I hate linux. I love Mint. xD

[Fluxx]

I read a story recently, although as usual, I cannot find it again, that said that if the British government were to switch to Linux and Open Source software, it would save 400 Million Pounds a year on licensing fees alone.

In my search for the story, I did uncover two other interesting items:

http://www.cio.com.au/article/333686/nz ... pen_source

And: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/07/09/0 ... art_pos=20

Some seem to have figured it out.

[roid]

I would love to open those links but the computer I am on ( ms xp) doesnt want to open it, stupid college computers

[linuxviolin]

Because of this Linux tends to evolve faster, but it has no direction. It is not that Linux developers are not capable of challenging proprietary software, it is that they are not forced to work together and drive an app in one solid direction.

This is one of reasons why many open source softwares/projects are crap. (sorry if the word is a bit harsh but...) No good direction, no real maintenance etc but rather guys are only motivated by "bleeding-edge stuff" and so always more and more bugs with no old bugs corrected (see e.g. GNOME and the hundreds of unfixed bugs since ages, even for simple software like Gedit!), NO ONE will volunteer for a MAINTENANCE task etc You can want to read my post at http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 36#p234717 which partly talk also about this.

Look at the number of simple music players Linux has, or web browsers. Is this a BAD thing? Heck no, it is freedom!

Freedom? What freedom when, see above, no web browser for instance is really good? What choice? Just a bad choice, the choice to choose the least bad... What a choice!

Oh and about money, you know, it is possible to use Windows with almost only open source apps, there are plethora, so you must just pay the Windows license, that's almost all...

[markfiend]

This is one of reasons why many open source softwares/projects are crap. (sorry if the word is a bit harsh but...) No good direction, no real maintenance etc but rather guys are only motivated by "bleeding-edge stuff" and so always more and more bugs with no old bugs corrected (see e.g. GNOME and the hundreds of unfixed bugs since ages, even for simple software like Gedit!), NO ONE will volunteer for a MAINTENANCE task etc You can want to read my post at http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 36#p234717 which partly talk also about this.

For the most part, developers of free software don't get paid, they're doing what they do in their own time, for the love of it. If you don't like the software, you're perfectly at liberty to change it. That's the point of free software after all! If you care enough, you could volunteer to fix the bugs.

Or you could just sit there and complain that FOSS developers don't share your priorities.

[FedoraRefugee]

Both good points from Linuxviolin and markfiend.

It is hard to talk about this subject and NOT make a blanket statement. To say that all Linux apps are crap is badly wrong. FF, Gimp, Scribus, Blender, Compiz-Fusion, and K3b are just a few that spring to mind, a few that I always use.

OTOH, the fact still remains that because FOSS is scattered around the world instead of under the umbrella of a single company it will lack guidance.

By freedom I meant that the end user is free to pick and choose what works for him. I like Xfce. Could it be better? Sure. But it is the closest I have found to a perfect desktop. Windows 7 is okay, but the Xfce interface is better. I like Audacious as a music player. It is all I need to play all the music on my hard drive. I do not like big, convoluted apps like Amarok and rhythmbox. I have not found a comparable app in Windows, I just use WMP which works, but is a compromise. Linux allows a user to tailor the whole OS how they feel things should be. I do not have pulseaudio on my Arch install, nor do I have the other two and a half tons of crap most distros force on you. I like this. You cannot strip Windows to this extent Windows lives in a bundled world. I am a modular user.

Truth be told, I liked Linux better a few years ago when most devs still had a modular mentality. It seems Gnome has led a charge that Fedora and Ubuntu have followed. A charge to become a bundled, Windows like OS. It is still Linux, it can still be modified and tweaked, though removing things like Gnome and mono become harder all the time. I would prefer if we could go back to what Linux once was. But it has passed.

One last note, Linux developers are indeed being paid these days. The days of one or two private developers or even small groups is disappearing. Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, IBM...They have taken Linux over. The code may be free and the home distros may not cost anything, but the developers are now corporate. Projects like Pulseaudio and Packagekit are squeezing everyone else out. Gnome has become the enemy. Freedom never lasts...

[linuxviolin]

At first, FedoraRefugee, thanks for your posts, here and elsewhere.

To say that all Linux apps are crap is badly wrong. FF, Gimp, Scribus, Blender, Compiz-Fusion, and K3b are just a few that spring to mind, a few that I always use.

Ok but they are not "only" Linux apps. You can find them on Windows too... And even if I use Firefox for instance I don't consider it like really "good". For me, Mozilla Foundation kills it progressively. Sorry for the verb "kill" but my limited vocabulary doesn't permit to find another manner to talk. But the spirit is here.

Often I prefer use Opera which is maybe a better browser and with less security issues.

OTOH, the fact still remains that because FOSS is scattered around the world instead of under the umbrella of a single company it will lack guidance.

Yes.

By freedom I meant that the end user is free to pick and choose what works for him.

Ok but what when nothing is really good? When the choice is just to choose the least bad?

I do not like big, convoluted apps like Amarok and rhythmbox.

Me too but I prefer AlsaPlayer. I hate Amarok and like.

I have not found a comparable app in Windows

Have you tried Foobar2000?

Linux allows a user to tailor the whole OS how they feel things should be. I do not have pulseaudio on my Arch install, nor do I have the other two and a half tons of crap most distros force on you. I like this. You cannot strip Windows to this extent Windows lives in a bundled world.

I agree with you but not a newbie or an average user who can do that. And how long this will still be possible with all the crap which appear regularly? When even an important project like GNOME for instance depend more and more on this crap? XFCE is maybe less affected and a better choice for now, especially if you look at Gnome 3 or KDE 4, but for how long yet?

Oh and I have never said that Windows is the ideal but when you look at some/many things in the open source you can say/think it is perhaps " the least bad" choice...
Oh and yes Pulseaudio is crap.

Truth be told, I liked Linux better a few years ago when most devs still had a modular mentality. It seems Gnome has led a charge that Fedora and Ubuntu have followed. A charge to become a bundled, Windows like OS. It is still Linux, it can still be modified and tweaked, though removing things like Gnome and mono become harder all the time. I would prefer if we could go back to what Linux once was.

Thank you for that, to say these things in this way. I am like you about this!

To borrow a quote from a web post that I made in my post here:

Even for the #1 DE (#1 in North America), that is GNOME, and despite the involvement of several IT companies (including RHAT), the development and the maintenance are barely decent. Hundreds of unfixed bugs since ages, even for simple software like Gedit! And, after how many years was the Compact view added to Nautilus? Plus, it was an individual effort -- none of the big companies ever bothered (and this includes RHAT).

It also takes/took ages for NetworkManager to be usable.

Outside the DE, OO.o is such a lame alternative to MS Office that it makes me puke -- enough to say that I have to switch the paper format from Letter to A4 for each and every new Writer document (MS Word has a single-click button that makes this option as default for the Default template; I couldn't find a way to do the same in oowriter). This is AN ELEMENTARY NEED and Microsoft figured out the proper solution decades ago: and here it is Too complex for the Sun/Novell/etc. guys who screw Oo.o, eh?

Linux is a better choice because it's free and flexible. Otherwise, its desktop-related components (being it about X.Org, GNOME, KDE, XFCE, major apps) are so bug-ridden that the single argument in their favor is this one: they're open source.

Big, big, big names: Intel, Red Hat, Novell, IBM, etc. etc. etc. are making money from Linux and Linux apps, yet this software sucks, sucks, sucks

Companies can't fix this. Individuals can't fix this -- it looks like crazy individuals like you guys are only motivated by "bleeding-edge stuff", so NO ONE will volunteer for a MAINTENANCE task, just admit it, dammit!

It's maybe a little harsh but at least it's clear.

And also:

the real pattern is "design by committee". Even if it's not "by committee", the mere fact that 1-100 developers of a major DE can impose their "vision" to millions of users makes me think that the only disadvantage of Windows is that it's not free. The "open" in "open source" is useless -- who can afford to maintain a fork/branch of a project, once its developers get high and take wrong decisions? NOBODY. (As in "nobody adopted KDE3 for further maintaining".)

I hate the open source developers who are always high and trying to "invent things" nobody asked for.

Sorry for duplicates.

One last note, Linux developers are indeed being paid these days. The days of one or two private developers or even small groups is disappearing. Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, IBM...They have taken Linux over. The code may be free and the home distros may not cost anything, but the developers are now corporate. Projects like Pulseaudio and Packagekit are squeezing everyone else out. Gnome has become the enemy. Freedom never lasts...

I'm sorry if my words now are a little "rude", harsh but I must say it when I see some reactions from some/many people, developers (or not) of the open source world when you criticize the work of the "marvelous developers", when you get "attacked", sometimes almost insulted, because you have the misfortune to criticize "what they do for you in their spare time": "Microsoft's developers are more polite and less arrogant than the open-source developers. With closed-source software, the top management is arrogant, not the developers per se."

EDIT. About "Linux developers are indeed being paid these days":

75% of Linux code is now written by paid developers, according to kernel hacker Jonathan Corbet.

(Also at http://apcmag.com/linux-now-75-corporate.htm)

[shua]

Too true, to be honest, I'd recommend Linux Mint or Ubuntu to people who just want stuff to work, i.e. my parents

I want to be able to press a big shiny button that says: Do x,y, and z, and have it do x,y, and z, and if not, I want to be able to take it to a computer repair shop or call the maintainer on the phone and make them fix it

If you want the whole Linux experience though, i.e. modular design, building stuff from source (not saying you can't on windows, it's just not as supported), I use ArchLinux. I really like the Gentoo portage system, and the ArchLinux AUR and yaourt, which makes getting svn and git builds much easier, and you can get that on Mint, but you have to strip it down to build it up (I just recently uninstalled GNOME, and put Xfce in, but I usually just go to xterm anyway).

Mint and Ubuntu, and maybe even Fedora and OpenSuse (if they work) and most of the time Windows, are all for people who don't want to know what's in the box, they just want the box to work, which I think Mint has done brilliantly.

As far as quality, that's also an uphill battle for the open source developer, GNOME, and Pulseaudio are doing exactly the right thing assuming their end goal is a free Windows, but I like Xfce, elinks (I just enjoy it), and just plain terminal stuff, because I like to see how everything works, and tailor it to my needs without everything being bundled with everything else. I do believe that eventually a good quality program will come out for all your needs, but by then you'll probably be complaining about the good old days when we used these things called a mouse and a keyboard to deliver input.

In conclusion, yes, yes, maybe, and yes.