[ILUG] Is Linux dying?

[Gareth Eason]

     I too would be interested in cold, hard facts on this. As someone 
who uses Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris on a daily basis I cannot 
see why anyone thinks that Windows is ahead at all from a 
desktop/graphical point of view - never mind 'light-years ahead' as I 
have read in one article.

     Mac OS X is the a desktop platform which is tightly integrated with 
the hardware, using OpenGL throughout the entire process. It's fast but 
very visually appealing - and can afford to be since it actually uses 
the GPU natively as much as possible. The flip side is that it does eat 
memory. So is it 'better' than Gnome/KDE/$desktop?

     Gnome is my desktop of choice, which I run on Solaris and Linux. 
While I lament the lack of the windows 'Explorer' file manager, nautilus 
is good enough for 99% of what I want to do graphically with files. One 
of my desktops runs across two large monitors, handled by Xinerama - 
which has proved vastly (VASTLY!!) more stable than any of the
multi-head setups I've used for Windows.[*]

     I've still not found a reasonable desktop switching tool (for 
multiple desktops, a-la every window manager since the year dot under 
Solaris and Linux) for Windows. If someone can help me out on that point 
I would be most grateful. It would make my Windows user interface 
experience somewhat more pleasant. This is a huge shortcoming in the 
windows user interface IMHO.

     In conclusion, I've certainly not yet used the perfect desktop 
interface. All have their problems. And I believe that preference for 
one desktop over another is partially (at least) based on personal 
preference.

     So, what is it that's so great about the Windows desktop. Or the 
Mac OS X desktop for that matter? What have I missed? Or is it all FUD?

     Regards,
     -->Gar



[*] - To my recollection I've never had a dual-head related crash on 
Linux, despite heavily using it on two machines here with two different 
graphics cards. Neither were stable enough to run dual-headed under 
windows and would crash, lock up the entire system, reboot sporadically, 
etc. using more than one monitor. Windows testing was done under 
Win2000, so perhaps XP / 2003 is better?




kevin wrote:
> As someone who hasn't used Windows since Win98 I would be interested to know 
> what it is about the Windows desktops that make you think they are so far 
> ahead? I found people in the Office here moved to a KDE desktop from XP and 
> Win2000 without really noticing any huge differences in usability. Are there 
> really big differences?
> 
> Kevin.
> 
[munch...]