Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

What linux needs?

<< < (2/10) > >>

mahesh2k:
Well i do agree with fodder and edvard on game design software,but i mean simple for linux users cause windows have so many options.But there are way too many windowing systems.

KDE is biased to use QT which is nothing but pain cause if you are interested in commercial application or want to earn money/fund with QT you'll be charge.KDE also have core team/developers have their own views their GUI themes like plastik,kermik were not changed till 2006 fall,this makes many linux newbies to use gnome for cool look & feature richness.KDE guys don't listen to you at all,instead if you ask for kubuntu or mandriva guys they'll listen to the feature request & they 'll respond to you immediately. :Thmbsup:

I think technical & non-technical members in the linux community have some opinions,suggestions,feature requests & we need to listen to it.Thats what mark shuttleworth did with ubuntu & he succeed.

Gnome is much better & constantly listens to the community,it makes its next roadmap on the discussion it made from gudac event.

On the topic of GUI builder software Like Borland C++ Builder or delphi,one can create it if they are interested in Wxwidgets.I think julian smart should consider this as fundraising project.Cause this type of IDE in Linux environment can run under any desktop enviro without glitches.But wxwidgets is neglected.Instead of Glade & lazarus,wxwidgets IDE can be used to create cross platform software.If not god with C++ then java could come to rescue but you know some of the desadvantage of it.anyway java will beneficial if all else fails.

Best way to improve linux is to tell official distro/desktop -teams to make things simple as we can see with windows.There is lot to learn from windows & OSX. Apple dev community can help with certain features for linux.Its just mindset that window manager team like KDE,Gnome need to change and look at few things.

Carol Haynes:
My 2p - echoing what has been said before to some extent:


* Better hardware support - proper drivers from the manufacturers ideally that take full advantage of the hardware. I want seamless WiFi not hours of messing about and failing to get it to work (except in VMWare which treats it as an Ethernet connection) . I want my printer to print CD/DVDs like it should and produce beautiful prints (like it should) not 'be happy to get something coherent on the correct size paper' approach. I want proper sound and graphics support - not a bad emulation of hardware that is 15 years old.
* Simple, standard, idiot proof approach to installing/uninstalling of packages with proper shortcut creation.
* Standardize how non-Gui elements are installed across distros (use same folder structures and file locations) so that confusion doesn't rain when you try different distros.
* Really basic introduction to Linux - esp. in the incredibly cryptic console mode. OK once you learn the commands you can pretty much do what you like but anything beyond the basic is so cryptic as to be almost unintelligible to the average user. I grew up with CP/M, MSDOS and various other command languages on mini computers and mainframes but I find *nix really off-putting these days. An awful lot of these tools could also be given really useful and easy to use graphical interfaces so that you can run them in KDE without resorting to typing 3 pages of options.

f0dder:
Edvard: my point about standardized filesystem layout (especially the scripts) is not just for the benefit of the user, but also for the benefit of programmers writing utilities to manage things that users really shouldn't need to get their hands dirty with, without having to special-case for N different distros.

I agree on your "component" idea for window-managing/looks etc. I don't particularly mind that users can have whatever look-and-feel they want, thing is that there should be one interface that everybody uses, giving one central place to change look-and-feel for everything. Consistency, aah.

And I'm adamant about "dumbing down" the filesystem a bit. Sure, let it be accessible through the shell, that's the only place you'll really need access to it. Could be done with a toggle like "Hide operating system files" in windows Explorer. Remember, the topic of this thread, as I understand it, is "linux for regular users".

Again, documentation... manpages aren't sufficient. Sure, there's aprospos, but you really do need hyperlinked and properly indexed stuff. Microsoft's .CHM format is perfect imho (and I dunno why they moved the htmlhelp v2 and a crappy viewer).

Of course editing xorg.conf isn't too difficult for most power users, and perhaps even a regular user would be able to google and figure out how to do dual-monitor setup... but why should they have to, considering this has been supported easier-than-cooking-your-grandma since win9x?

If they made decent drivers, I don't think too many folks would care...
-Edvard
--- End quote ---
Never looked at kernel mailing lists, or even slashdot? ;)

MrCrispy: funny that you should mention "DLL hell" - I've never been bitten by it on windows, but I've experienced it multiple times under linux...

Carol Haynes: part of the problems with printers and other drivers is of course the manufacturers not giving enough information...

Carol Haynes:
Carol Haynes: part of the problems with printers and other drivers is of course the manufacturers not giving enough information...
--- End quote ---

No the problem is chicken-egg ...

If the market for Linux increased manufacturers would produce proper Linux drivers - as it is they just don't see it as worth their while and conqeuently Linux doesn't grow the way it should.

I really think that this is by far the biggest stumbling block for Linux - without hardware support from manufacturers (not the Open Source community) at least as good as Windows XP/Vista general consumers will not adopt it.

Similarly software houses won't port software to Linux - for me a big stumbling block would be the loss of PhotoShop (and other Adobe apps) and my video editing/mastering software (notably Sony Vegas). It can't be an insuperable problem to port these apps to Linux (Adobe already has Mac versions of everything so it shouldn't be too hard to do) but until they do Linux is not going to capture the imagination of many users. I presume the main problem is potential licensing issues with GPL but some way round that needs to be found.

I really think Linux would become dominant if these issues could be sorted out and the platform made attractive to hardware and software companies. Who would buy a Windows box or a Mac if Linux was free and supported all your hardware and software choices?

f0dder:
Writing binary drivers doesn't just have the "it's not big enough" problem, though... binary drivers are actively opposed by many people (including kernel devs), and it's hard to do when there isn't a stable kernel API/ABI... which is a thing Linus himself has said he doesn't want.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page