Linux 'desktop' still too geeky for mainstream users?

[syampillai]

At least, it will be great if all distros agree on a standard on program locations, library locations, config file locations and their structures etc. It is great that a lot of distros support RPMs but I really feel that any RPM should be installable in all RPM supported distros. That will be possible only if they agree on everything else. Also, it will save a lot of packaging efforts.
(Of course, I remember "United Linux").

[Chrysantine]

Originally Posted by TaraIkeda

Now this is what I have issue with, people want to "standardize" things with linux when standardization is what I feel will kill linux.
What we force users to use the same UI, the same DE, the same package manager, the same packages, etc?

You miss the point here - you're talking about end user applications, I'm talking about standardizing the layer beneath it - the filesystem, the graphical manipulation libraries and device subsystem.

To this day, there's still nothing that even remotely compares to (for example) DirectX on Linux - before anyone says "But OpenGL and SDL and..", don't - they don't even come close.

Originally Posted by TaraIkeda

I rather not have that happen, I rather linux have choice.

Standardization does not imply lack of choice - it implies doing things in a way that allows people to interact better - so I assume you would have 500 different document formats than say ODF?

You would still have a choice in the program you use, you would only have a standard *beneath* the system.

[Sagemta]

Yes standardize where goes what. In Opensuse 64 bit we have /usr /lib64/browser-plugins. I was trying Ubu & there was no such folder. Settling on OpenGL,alsa or OSS this is the kind of standardization that Linux needs.
Maybe though as time goes on this whole argument will be moot as convergence continues. From your phone to your TV/PC Entertainment Center it'll all be Android?

[hito_kiri]

This is one thing I have thought about a lot. A someone who wanted to get into linux, and is geeky, I ignore the faults and try to work with them or fix them. I haven't been using linux for long, about a year and a half.

At the school I worked at we had Linux on the engineering computers (Fedora), but we also had two gurus doing all the intricate stuff. Many people just hated having to use it, and many people blamed it for the problems on the computers or the windows side, even though they were completely unrelated.

The average person is not a computer nerd in the least bit and probably doesn't care too much about them. They just want to get on a computer, use the internet, watch some videos, play some games or whatever and have everything work. That is a big reason Linux isn't more popular. You have to look at it from the perspective of the computer illiterate.

I still can't watch many movies online because I can't find anything to play wmv files. You might say, "well use ___ program and it will work". Sure, for me that's simple, for someone like my dad, you might as well forget it. People just want things to work, they don't want to have to figure it out. I hate to say it, but if linux wants to beat windows, it either needs to become more like windows, or make people into linux users. Well it has been doing the latter for a while...

Standards may suck to a certain extent, but there needs to be some standards if Linux wants to become popular. How would it be if there were no standards in hardware and all the manufacturers just made whatever they wanted with proprietary connectors and buses? Think if we didn't have the standard Intel/AMD processors, and there were thousands of different processor architectures?

Having a standard installer, or at least a standard for what installers HAVE to have/do, and standards for how packages are put together. I mean, all the installers are just trying to do the same thing INSTALL STUFF.

I think there should be standards, but give room for people to customize.

Driver support in linux isn't too bad.

Linux has many great aspects, but as it is now it is an enthusiast and server OS, not a people OS. As many negatives there are with Windows, it is easy as hell to use and learn, and if you plug an mp3 player into a windows pc it will 99.9% of the time play with no problems. Same goes for installing and running software. I have a hard enough time getting my computer to recognize a plugged in flash drive. And quite honestly, I have had to restart my Linux based computer more than my Windows based (it's the same computer).

[ReferenceSeete]

I agree on the need for standardisation. It is coming along, but slowly.

In the past I'd argue that the media situation on OEM Windows isn't so hot either but Windows 7 ends that argument. Win7 includes DVD playback and codecs for DivX, Xvid and AAC. For the average user those plus the usual Windows codec payload are enough.

Still, the problem with this argument over "is Linux ready for the average person" is that people ask of Linux something that no other OS is doing - an OEM experience on every machine from a generic base...and when that doesn't happen, the torrent of complaints come that things are 'broken' or require too much effort.

Sometimes I wonder if the big push to capture more "average users" makes sense right now. Perhaps the community would be better served trying to get more of some other user type, since the "average user" seems to be defined as "knows Windows enough to use it, can't be bothered to learn something else".

[hito_kiri]

True, I think it would require the OEMs to develop their own versions of Linux, and I think if there was more demand for linux among the average user they would have the incentive to do that. I think that would be a much better situation than paying the big bucks to MS too.

[bkorb]

KDE 4.X seen as a positive? Sorry. One crucial and one inconvenience off the top of my head: A window can grab focus even if focus stealing prevention is set to "extreme". I have a years-old bug report about it and they've listed it as an enhancement bug. Isn't going to happen. The inconvenience: I use wallpapers to indicate which desk top I'm using. In KDE 3.x, of course. The feature was removed for 4.X. Many complain of this, but I'm afraid the KDE developers are too busy improving the features that amuse themselves.

[bkorb]

Oh, wait, I forgot to get started about paper size. That _is_ a big problem in SuSE. There are a number of separate applications that keep track of A4 vs. 8.5X11 status, but someone in the SuSE dev. arena should figure out either how to make them all use the same definition or else write a simple app that goes and forces them to all be the same. Every single time I upgrade, I find I am again having the last two lines of my print outs getting trimmed off because A4 is more than 11 inches tall, and then I am spending hours trying to remember how to hunt down and fix all the little places where A4 gets hidden away.

Just to be clear: I love the thoroughness of the SuSE distribution and the fact it is rock solid and the ease of managing patches. I surely do wish someone would run down that paper size thing though.....

[Knurpht]

Almost everything on the 'geeky' side is easily swept aside as not true, or cases of READ THE MANUAL, or at least release notes.
For instance: paper selection. Pick your country from a list, and it's done for you. During install for system-wide config, in Systemsettings in KDE for the user. Just fixed an enormous printing annoyance regarding US Letter and A4, searched every linux and OpenOffice corner on earth, a new Canon driver release fixed it here, there and everywhere. So, not linux, not OpenOffice, but some manufacturor that decides that we here in Europe are US Letterland....

[zolistir87]

Originally Posted by ReferenceSeete

Perhaps the community would be better served trying to get more of some other user type, since the "average user" seems to be defined as "knows Windows enough to use it, can't be bothered to learn something else".

Have to agree with this.