I agree that would be very cool. However, I don't see it happening
any time soon. Please read the rest of my email keeping in mind that
the ease of use I speak of is targeted to the majority of the market,
the non-computer geek.
To see why Linux PCs do not sell very well to the general public, look
at the products that *are* selling. You have Windows Vista-based PCs,
and, of course, the Apple products. While we all know that a
computing device running Linux is plenty capable of doing everything
the above products do, there's one thing that most Linux-based PCs
have missed that MS and Apple do very well. That's marketing. Apple
has convinced two generations, in just a few years, that using their
systems makes you "cool", and MS has just marketed like crazy and
spread their seed over the last 20 years in such a way that it'll be
hard to take their market share.
Apple and MS don't have the lion's share of the market necessarily
because they are better, they have it because they have good marketing
people, and one thing that, in my opinion, is lacking in the Linux
desktop market: focus.
We've seen focus come together in a big way for Red Hat in the server
market, but in the Desktop market, there hasn't been one company or
group that has really risen to the top. There have been several
distributions, including Red Hat's WS product, that have attempted
this in the last few years. But honestly, as far as the non-computer
geek world, people don't want to decide if gnome or KDE or, something
else, is the right way to go, or whether they should use SuSe, Debian,
CentOS, or Ubuntu. They want to buy a computer, and turn it on, and
then do things with it. While I can do exactly that with most
Linux-based solutions, my 50-year old mother can't, and most people
can't, or more importantly, don't want to screw around with all of the
setup. (the older I get, the less I like to screw with PCs - it starts
to remind me too much of work)
Sadly, (or not, depending on how you look at it) Apple's dumbing-down
of the OS is what's making them grow. I recently bought my wife a
macbook, and I'll say, I was pretty impressed that she had it up and
going and editing video within the first day. This is what people
want. They want a system that they don't have to screw around with
for hours or days just to do what they want to do. Unfortunately,
most Linux systems require just that. Don't get me wrong, they work
great once you get them where you want them, but nothing just comes
out of the box ready to go, and getting them to the point where you
can use them is not easy. For a Linux system to be mass-marketable,
it'll need to be easy to use, and my grandmother should never need to
edit /etc/fstab in vi.
I think this ease of use issue is exactly why people are putting their
own window manager on systems. They're attempting to make the system
easier to use. They're failing, usually, but they're trying.
So, if you want to make big waves in the PC market with Linux, put a
front-end on Linux that makes it operate as easily as OS X :D Then, I
could see a mass market happening for Linux...given that the proper
marketing machine is in place. I'll be the first person to buy a
copy, too. Apple has done just that with whatever BSD variant they
used (can't remember which one right off the top of my head), so why
shouldn't that be possible with Linux?
This is just my 2 cents, I reserve the right to be wrong.
Koree
--
Koree A. Smith, RHCE
--
koreesmith@gmail.com
koree@ameth.org> Nice to see Linux in the stores, even if it is clearly a "value added" turd.
> I could hammer a better system together with wood, nails, and parts for the
> local goodwill computer recycling center (a kewl place)
>
> Start selling Linux Laptops and high end systems, then they'd really be kewl.
> But would they be able to beat prices on no-tax internet sales? Debateable.
>
> I don't get why everybody has to put their own window manager in there though.
> My 9 year old daughter figured out KDE solo about 2 years ago.
>
> my 2 cents,
> NZG
>
>
>
>
> On Sunday 25 November 2007 8:29:58 pm Tim McDonough wrote:
> > I ran across a review of the Everex TC2502 Green gPC that Wal-Mart has
> > been selling with Linux loaded. I don't plan on getting one, it was
> > just interesting reading about the $200 "green" PC.
> >
> > <http://www.lightandmatter.com/article/gos_review.html >
> >
> > Tim
> >
> > -
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