My thoughts on the linux desktop
There have been many articles floating around the internet on wither Linux is ready for the desktop. Some articles claim that Linux is ready for the everyday user, while others still feel that Linux is a long way off. In short, I would say that Linux is somewhere in between.
I have been using Linux since 2002, as a college student. The college department I worked for gave me a very old desktop and I quickly found out I could get better performance out of the machine by using FreeBSD or Linux. I started using Red Hat Linux 7.2, and while RHL was fairly user friendly for the time, I still had to get help setting up X-windows, partitioning, and other details. I made the jump to Gentoo Linux at the start of 2004. Life was good, the package management system was, I felt, better. I could get newer versions of software, creating a custom kernel was a snap. All of this had a cost through, as the OS installation was quite technical, and in order to get the newest software required source code compiles. In late 2006 I converted over to Ubuntu. Since Ubuntu was popular the software was mostly up to date. Ubuntu was easier to configure, in many but not all instances, a support is easier do to it being so popular. So this hopefully gives you a little background on my experience with Linux.
First let me say that Linux has made big strides in making the experience less painful. For most distributions, there is some form of graphical install, a great improvement from text based, or command line interface installs. Still partitioning can be hard tounderstand what you are doing on a multi-boot system.
Ubuntu’s use of a restricted driver manager makes installing graphic and wireless card drivers much easier than come of the custom compiled kernel modules that you would have to hunt the internet for a few years ago.
While I’m on the topic of drivers, drivers are still a big issue. Drivers for new hardware can be very hard to find. Drivers for SATA RAID, Video drivers, sound card, and other desktop devices are slow to be updated. Also many features (like sound or video features) that are usable in Windows or Mac OS are not usable in Linux. Many drivers have to be compiled, and not many users understand compiling code. Lucky for Ubuntu users, most hardware is supported by a package installation or by using the restricted driver manager.
Ease or use is another major problem. Almost any body can be guided through the steps of turning of the Windows Firewall, but on Linux it is far more difficult to get a user to install firewall configuration software and setup a firewall with Linux. Linux has a steep learning curve. Windows can be easily manipulated through the GUI, but to be able to access many advanced feature of Linux you have to change configuration files of issue commands on a text-based command line. I dont know too many grandmas out there that are CLI gods, do you?
Software support is the other major hurdle. Open Office is a good MS office replacement, but I have not found a good replacement for Quicken. Games are also not well supported; there are some games like Doom or UT. In order to get lots of converts there should be many new (as in currently on store shelves) games that have a Linux binary.
Flexibility is both good and bad. Linux has great flexibility, in that it can be configured many ways for many people’s tastes. You can change you X-windows themes many, many different ways. But this also creates a problem. Do you choose Gnome ore KDE or one of the other desktop environments? Do you use Compiz? Where are the differentconfig files kept? There are a vast number of projects, all with their own designs, dependences, and capabilities. While Windows is a lot less flexible in configuration, it does give a more level playing field as everyone has the same under lying software and configurations. Everyone using Windows has DirectX, you get the idea.
There must be some direction. Linux Distros need to come together and create a general direction. Distros need to have a set of features, software and conventions. I have to say that Ubuntu’s many flavors are doing a good job of this. Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, etc are all using many of the same software packages, just changing the interface (Ubuntu uses Gnome and Kubuntu uses KDE, and so on). If the different Distros could just agree on placing basic interfaces and configurations the same I think people would be more will to try Linux.
If Linux can find a way to fix many of these problems, I think desktop Linux would be a great way to set people up with a cheap PC. The road to desktop Linux is a long one, but the open source world has already made great strides in achieving the goal.