On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 11:40 PM, Rony <[email protected]> wrote:
> I was referring to the LInux platform and its associated software on > desktops. There are many kinds of "Linux desktops". The two major kinds are the commercial desktop/workstation space and, the personal-user desktop space. Linux distributions and ISVs have a good presence in the former (barring specifically DTP). The latter is a different story. The need to keep lock-step with the latest applications, devices and, the quick release cycle of the distributions has meant that I've probably read about "the year of the Linux desktop" around 10 times now. Having said that, the non-commercial/free Linux desktop space has seen tremendous improvements over the last 3 years - more devices work out of the box, more support for formats (even if via non-free repositories). I get a bit sad when we trumpet about quotes from folks like Linus saying the "desktop is a mess". Sound bytes are impeccable constructs for page hits. Unfortunately, they don't help introducing new users to a Linux desktop. Couple this with the trend that over a period of time a lot of application/use cases for a standard user is moving over to SaaS/web-based services. And, you generally don't get a nice feeling even if the Linux Foundation tries its level best to keep upbeat about it. For what it is worth, the server space was a much messy side a decade back. We've progressed from there, haven't we ? Personally, I don't really think that we will see all pervasiveness of the Linux desktop the way we see Windows on the desktop or, OS X. Your original question was not specific. That is, it didn't have any pointers as to why you think Linux is lagging behind viz. features, prices, users/consumers, device support etc. -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay <http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/> -- http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
