Ok so over the weekend I once again attempted to install Linux on my box to prove that
it's a desktop system. This year came closer than ever with Mandrake, Knoppix, Morphix
and Fedora coming quite close to a perfect install but unfortunately with none
recognizing all peripherals without hacking files under /etc. or having to recompile
this, that, the kernel, download this that, and the other thing.
Please bare with me on this as I will get to the XUL/XUI/XAML part in a second. The
GUIs still seem to be patchy/buggy/hacky (hacky a word?) and of course ALSA sometimes
working, CD-ROMs/DVD-ROMs, video cards sometimes working or not working.
As the push with Blowhorn (or whatever the hell M$ wants to call it) grows nearer I
couldn't help but noticing several ingredience in the Opensource/Linux world that
could possibly tip the scales yet again closer to Linux being a viable desktop
alternative, and they are:
- Fedora with
- Clarux (Directory Free KDE - read the info on that one it's funny) on top for GUI
consistency (and user sanity - these guys are thinking in terms of user needs - a
first in the Linux community)
- Mono for .NET on Linux - a "stickin' it to the Man" effort
- MyXAML (good ol' Marc here - our defender and another proponent of "stickin' it to
the Man")
You see I know, I just know that all that stuff is there buried in /etc for setting up
CUPS, SAMBA, ALSA, and other places for driver miscalani. It's just a matter of
someone putting the whole damn thing together in one pretty package with a nice bunch
of user interface components that let all be configured (as an example, in Morphix the
CUPS setup is all Web based in Konquerer - quite slick). Imagine doing the whole thing
(video cards, sound cards/ALSA, ,CUPS, SAMBA, accounts, look-and-feel and networking
(although this usually never needs to be configured since many distros seem to be
smart enough to recognize ethernet cards - even onboard Asus cards something that
Win2k doesn't seem to do on my box).
Is this just one of those "Gee Arron, nice but I think you need to lay off the
caffeine and get some sleep" moments or does this sound like something that is viable?
Comments? Rants?
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