[Mailinglist] Why Desktop Linux Will Not Take off, and Why You Don't Want It to

[Mahesh Aravind]

David,


--- David Desrosiers <daviddes at us.ibm.com> wrote:

> What I've found in the past decade-or-so of Windows users being curious 
> about "This Linux Thing(tm)", is that once a Windows user switches to 
> Linux, they try to make Linux look, breathe and behave exactly like their 
> Windows environment. They don't take the time to explore all of the 
> various options, environments and applications that can extend and enhance 
> how they interact with the their machine. 

Correct.

> 
> I've been using sawfish for at least 9 years that I can recall on my Linux 
> machine (fvwm95 before that), because I can script it with Lisp and it 
> does everything I want, without wharfs, docks, toolbars, window frames or 
> titlebars. This might not work for everyone, but it works best for me.
> 

Aside of that, I've personally been wanting to switch to Sawfish (esp. GNOME +
Sawfish).

> 
> THAT is the beauty of the Linux GUI; you can make it do whatever you want, 
> and if you can't, there are only about 75 other GUI environments for Linux 
> available to choose from. Certainly ONE of them suits most of your needs, 
> with minor tweaking here or there. It's all about choice. 

That's *excatly* my point.  Those non-geeky guys want every choice made to them
_default_ WM, _default_ panels, _default_ buttons, etc.

And what we are talking about is a _Desktop Linux_ which is one way of saying
that we also want non-geeky persons to use Linux.

But they can't because they don't like to tweak anything.


> 
> For me, the "Linux desktop" has already taken off, years ago... I don't 
> need the validation of Windows users to convince me of that. 

Hey, I thought that Linux *was* a Desktop OS... ;-)

-- maravind


« Les cons peuvent être vaincus mais ils n'admettent jamais l'être. »
("Idiots can be defeated but they never admit it.")
	-- Richard M. Stallman
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