Why Mark Shuttleworth is important to desktop Linux
fossforce.com
fossforce.com
Despite its issues (and it has them), Ubuntu is by far the most usable Linux variety, both on the desktop and server...
Unless you want some console-only LFS. But that's not me.
(My gentoo experience may be somewhat out of date)
Corporate use: Ubuntu desktop can be deployed in various ways automatically. Canonical will sell configuration systems as well. There was at one point a desktop image available for corporate use that has the social and media integration removed. Not sure about gentoo in that area (if anyone has supported a large scale gentoo installation for end users, let us know!). I would imagine people would be looking more at CentOS or openSuse.
and this right here (sorry Parent, just using this as an example) is the reason that Linux has always been consigned to the ranks of the also-rans on the desktop. Someone will always come up with a reason why flavour x is better than flavour y. No matter what aspect of Linux is discussed, there will always be a significant proportion of users that think their flavour is better.
If you care about Linux on the desktop, you have got to see that people like Mark Shuttleworth are absolutely essential if Linux is ever to compete meaningfully on the desktop with Microsoft and Apple.
I think I detect a hint of sarcasm
No it isn't. The number of people who don't use Linux on their desktop, simply because someone else commented on a forum that they preferred one distribution over another, is utterly negligible. In fact, the theory is just ludicrous!
* Made up number but I remember Acer shipping netbooks with Linpus Lite...
However, I knew that Linux ran on it out of the box, and that meant I could run Slackware without worrying about missing drivers, etc. Also, it was a great way to support a company that supports free software.
To me, a company that sells pre-installed Linux on decent hardware has my admiration and support, regardless of the distro.
They lose exactly 0% of Windows market by offering another option in Operating System (in fact, I tend to avoid hardware that only does Windows as it tends to be crap, so it might actually be a gain).
If you remember people bitching about Linpus Lite because it wasn't people's favourite distro, you remember wrong.
Otherwise (1) you're being illogical and (2) my memory is accurate.
Sadly we're missing "something else" other than Mark Shuttleworth.
What he does, is what most others are doing in a half-hearted, compromised way: providing a "packaged" system that works without much hassle and which is based in pretty much the same interaction principles of the 70s and 80s.
Being Open Source, Linux could do a lot more than that. But nobody explores these avenues, it just aspires to be Windows/OS2/Mac in the desktop and Unix in the server. Linux could exploit the fact that it doesn't need to hide its workings, that it can allow any level of customisation in the workflow, in the windows manager, in permission management, etc etc because the user owns the software running in his or her computer. This basically has been exploited just for virtualisation.
The problem with that is monetisation. But a lot of development in the Linux community is non-for-profit anyway.
Also http://awesome.naquadah.org/ and https://code.google.com/p/wmii/
And that's just windows management which is probably the most obvious advantage of an all-open approach, but there are other things like user programmed priority systems, memory management etc which could potentially do a much more effective usage of the hardware than the standard monolithic opaque approach.
One issue I really hope gets sorted before 14.04 is the LibreOffice menu bug
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/7...
That is definitely under the 'fit and finish' heading! Imagine a future version of Ubuntu with Unity with that bug landing on the desktops of a few thousand users doing office work...
Do you think Jobs would have allowed a MacOs X update to badly break the way MS Office worked?
Yes, for consistency with my original reply, I should have said Apple!
Shuttleworth has also been active in educational projects especially in South Africa.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying I don't want Linux to succeed. I'm saying that if that success comes at the cost of making it suck more or be less Free, that will be a Pyrrhic victory.
It would be good for Linux to succeed just to have competition- even if there was a better (for me) OS I would still want Linux to succeed so in the distant future I will still have a choice and an even better OS spurred on by competition.
2. I'm not an administrator. I'm a software guy. And I want to make money to buy food and shelter and stuff. I want the Linux desktop to succeed because then I have a userbase that has various needs and is willing to spend money to fulfill the needs. Yes, I want to create beautiful "works out of the box" apps that people want to spend money for. Things like the Ubuntu software center and Steam are pointing the way there, but we still have a long way to go. And nobody else seems to be on this path.
now that is how you hit a nail straight on the head. In the last 15years or so I tried many times to turn to the desktop, but it's exactly issues like this (which are, under my impression at least, way more common on the desktop than on the cli) that make me stick with the command line linux and enjoy it in all it's glory. If I want a desktop I still use Windows. Or OsX if I must.
It's also why Windows does work on the desktop. For all of its issues, it works the vast majority of the time. I never truly appreciated it as an OS until I tried using something else as a daily, desktop OS.
People stick to what works for them until a compelling value proposition comes along. Indeed, the value proposition of FOSS to the average user isn't compelling (yet).
If it didn't just work, I'd've bought a Windows license, as I have previously done. This is, in fact, the first Linux install that I've continued using for over a couple of months.
The "it's not very usable" argument was correct in the old GNOME2/KDE3 world, but at least GNOME3 is exceptionally usable and the OS is extremely stable.
Try making the fonts pretty on non-Ubuntu distros. Good luck making it "just work".
Going off on their own to develop Mir is a big deal, if for no other reason than it looks alienating. Adding Amazon search (by default) to the unity lens is an even bigger deal! I don't come to Linux for that shit! Unity as a whole is not a big deal because you can still just install something else.
I'm just not sure any more. They've burnt a lot of bridges with the community. How is that a good strategy? How is being an asshole a good thing if what you're achieving is partnering with Amazon to snoop on users? What are they trying to achieve here? I don't want to suggest that just because they're trying to make money means that what they are doing is automatically evil, but intentions do matter. What are their intentions? Just to spread awesome free software? I don't think that's all they are trying to do. And honestly, who needs another Apple, Microsoft or Google? We need something better.
>Smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices is the future for Linux and computing in general.
Even if that is true, it does not automatically make Android relevant to a conversation about desktop Linux.
Will you concede that at the current time, essentially no one uses Android as desktop OS?
Hardly anyone uses Android with a keyboard and mouse (for good reason).
You might believe that that will change, and that is a reasonable conversation to have, but it does not make it unreasonable or silly to have a conversation about desktop Linux that ignores Android.
(When the person I replied to wrote, "what kind of bizarro world is this where Android doesn't exist?" he implied that such a conversation is unreasonable or silly.)
It seems the current strategy of Canonical is to change enough of the system so that developing cross-distribution will become more and more of a hassle, and trust software developers to just target Ubuntu due to its market share in Linux-land.
Unity was a step in the direction. It’s not critical to other programs, but Unity itself appears to be very hard to port to other distributions (and to be honest it was the first thing that actually made Ubuntu distinct from other Debian derived distributions).
Mir takes it a step further, now wm and toolkit developers will have to target either just Wayland, and lose out on the vast Ubuntu userbase, or target just Mir.
Canonical does its best to bring closed-source commercial desktop applications to the operating system through the Ubuntu app store. With good reason: they know the developers of these commercial applications will only target Ubuntu, since unlike open source programs where the distribution’s packagers do the work of bringing your application to their OS for you, that can’t be done very well with just binary packages compiled against x version of y library. Thus forcing users who want to use one of these applications to switch to Ubuntu.
EDIT: and let’s not forget that Canonical ships what is basically spyware with Ubuntu. Local searches on your desktop should not be used to help Amazon advertise. Shuttleworth’s reaction to the complaints were extremely cynical as well.
Won't the toolkits simply support existing widget libraries? I mean GTK-Mir and GTK-Wayland or QT-Mir and QT-Wayland &c? Else there will be something of a dearth of applications! I'm genuinely asking as this is an area I don't know much about.
PS: There is a privacy settings manager in system settings probably as a result of the reaction to the Amazon search thing.
First, I drove the App Store both strategy and was responsible for development - in other words _I know_ why we did it. I am my own citation!
Strategically, what do you think the biggest reason is for why end-users don't move across platforms? Guess what it's application software, specifically lack of important application classes and brand names end-users are familiar with. It comes across in all the user-research. So, what you want to do is to encourage commercial software developers and prove out a market - which leads to a situation where familiar applications are available on an unfamiliar platform.
Guess what the other problem is in the Linux ecosystem compared to other 'alternative platform' ecosystems - the lack of a set of commercial software developers. Think back to Apple in the mid-90's a period where the media thought they "were dead". They could still attract thousands of developers to MacWorlds and there were lots of software companies developing great software for users of the platform. Desktop Linux doesn't have that because it never created a market. The result is not as much fully polished, long-term end-user grade software.
So finding a way to create a market place and create the ability for commercial software developers to target the platform is good for end-users. That's the strategic reasoning.
Next, consider the problems that developers face.
If you go to some conferences and ask developers why they don't target Linux - go ask at some Game developers conferences - they'll tell you two things a) Linux users don't pay for anything/market is too small b) developing for Linux is too hard. Now a) is just a hard problem and the only thing that changes is it is time. But, when you dig into b) what you discover they mean is that the development tools on Linux are hard and that the swathe of packaging options is confusing. Which is exactly why Ubuntu started cutting through the "tyranny of choice" to provide information on how to develop/port - see http://developer.ubuntu.com . It's also why we reduced the complexity of packaging, provided tools and a web portal which is what developers are used to on other platforms - now a developer just has to use the autopackaging tool and the system takes care of the rest of it.
Result is that there are more commercial applications available on a desktop Linux (Ubuntu) than every before. Result, some of the commercial tool developers are targeting a Linux desktop in a way never done before. I'm proud of that. And, since by definition it's easier to port from one distribution of Linux than it is to port from another platform to Linux - you should be proud of that as well.
Either way, that's the _facts_ on _why_ Ubuntu targets developers and full explanation of how it's not an evil genius plan.
I'd pay 25% over a comparable Apple for a real Ubuntu-Debian laptop with Apple-quality build and a real software-hardware pairing. I'm tired of flimsy setups from a weekend configuration tutorial hack job or Dell's XPS empty gesture.
I have a ZenBook too as my primary Ubuntu machine. It's almost good enough. I also suffer all the points you list, each of which are 100% dealbreakers and perfect examples of how almost it is yet no one goes the extra mile. A little bit of effort/sway from Canonical would go a long way.
Some plastics are very durable, and the type that comes with the thinkpad is not the cheapo dell plastic. Regardless the plastic shell isn't designed to provide structural strength in the first place. The inner frame is the core strength of the thinkpad; magnesium or some kind of metal (I forget exactly).
Please provide links for your claims of suffered build quality... if only for my sake to perhaps look at other laptop manufacturers.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm free. I can take my data anywhere I want and do anything I choose with it. The presence of proprietary formats and proprietary software hasn't crowded out the--by my perception--superior open source options, which seems to be the main fear of people who tell me not to use proprietary software. Show me a free-by-your-definition operating system that's compelling enough to make me want to switch from an environment where I'm already free to do whatever I want.
Mark Shuttleworth found a way to get ordinary people to use a Linux-based operating system. If you want your idea of a free desktop operating system to thrive, you need to figure out how The Ubuntu Foundation did it with their definition of free.
I don't actually like many of the new things, but you can't fault him for having a go and getting some decent results, and (X/K)Ubuntu always looks pretty polished
They should focus on building a branded/licensed ARM desktop/laptop ecosystem. That is where they can best compete. If they do well there, then they could move to tablets and phones.
One thing holding back desktop linux, is that the options for programming linux GUI's are not that great. There's basically C++, python, and various red-headed step children. Canonical should put some backing into bindings for Rust, Dart, and ES.Next on node.js once they become stable.
I for one, am excited. Their edge device looks great as far as design and specs so far.
> There's basically C++, python, and various red-headed step children. Canonical should put some backing into bindings for Rust, Dart, and ES.Next once they become stable.
Jolla for example help Linux desktop much more than Canonical. They actually work on improving Wayland. I.e. they push mobile Linux using components which allow sharing the effort with the desktop Linux. Unlike Canonical.