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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
It's for a minority, even among those who are confirmed Linux users.
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Used to be such a majority that one didn't have a choice in the matter; if you wanted a GUI in Linux, you found the source code for one and compiled it. Maybe the industry should finally start differentiating; as BSD users like to point out, "Linux is a kernel", not an entire OS. Then again, those to whom this needs to be explained often have a hard time separating the OS (conceptually) from the machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Ubuntu is trying to be as easy to get installed and running as Windows, and doing a fairly good job it. But there are fundamental limits in how much it can look and act like Windows. Even if Ubuntu itself attains a high level of Windows lookalike, people buy computers to run applications, and those will still differ substantially from their Windows counterparts.
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I can't say this any better than the original author:
"You'd be amazed how many people...come to Linux, expecting to find essentially a free, open-source version of Windows. Quite often, this is what they've been told to expect by over-zealous Linux users. However, it's a paradoxical hope. It is logically impossible for any thing to be better than any other thing whilst remaining completely identical to it. A perfect copy may be equal, but it can never surpass. So when you gave Linux a try in hopes that it would be better, you were inescapably hoping that it would be different. Too many people ignore this fact, and hold up every difference between the two OSes as a Linux failure."
This work is copyright and belongs to Dominic Humphries. It may be redistributed under a Creative Commons License: The URL http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm is hereby supplied in attribution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
But meanwhile, Canonical wants to play in the same sandbox as Red Hat, providing supported commercial Linux versions, and they are positioning a server variant of Ubuntu against RHEL, and using the desktop to gain traction for the server offering. It will be interesting to see how well they do. (Canonical, Inc. is not yet profitable, but is showing revenue growth and narrowed losses, so the investors continue to fund them.)
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IIRC Red Hat did it the opposite way, using the free software/paid support model on the server first and presenting the Fedora captive-development arm as the desktop version later. It will be interesting to see if Canonical can attract a share of the enterprise market that made Red hat the giant it is today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I'll be curious to hear how you make out, and just what you want to tweak.
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For the moment, only WEP Wi-Fi and the ability to shut down system stuff that I don't need. As it happens I talked to my "cellphone guinea pig" at work today and he said the Motoblur/social networking mess that Motorola insists on doesn't really get in the way on his; it may have been improved in an update (he was a "midnighter", i.e. went to the store and waited for the first ones to be released) and there have been updates since then. Also I like the idea of possibly changing the UI, which will hopefully be possible without loading a whole different ROM.