[SeanDav]

"Apparently you've never tried gentoo."

and this right here (sorry Parent, just using this as an example) is the reason that Linux has always been consigned to the ranks of the also-rans on the desktop. Someone will always come up with a reason why flavour x is better than flavour y. No matter what aspect of Linux is discussed, there will always be a significant proportion of users that think their flavour is better.

If you care about Linux on the desktop, you have got to see that people like Mark Shuttleworth are absolutely essential if Linux is ever to compete meaningfully on the desktop with Microsoft and Apple.

[muyuu]

I applaud Mark Shuttleworth and his vision.

Sadly we're missing "something else" other than Mark Shuttleworth.

What he does, is what most others are doing in a half-hearted, compromised way: providing a "packaged" system that works without much hassle and which is based in pretty much the same interaction principles of the 70s and 80s.

Being Open Source, Linux could do a lot more than that. But nobody explores these avenues, it just aspires to be Windows/OS2/Mac in the desktop and Unix in the server. Linux could exploit the fact that it doesn't need to hide its workings, that it can allow any level of customisation in the workflow, in the windows manager, in permission management, etc etc because the user owns the software running in his or her computer. This basically has been exploited just for virtualisation.

The problem with that is monetisation. But a lot of development in the Linux community is non-for-profit anyway.

[Raphael]

I am fascinated with the idea of customizable window managers. I haven't delved that deep, but the difference between XFCE and Unity is night and day. I can choose color schemes, window decorations, and make custom task bars. This should be table stakes for graphical interfaces.

[muyuu]

Have you checked Enlightenment lately? it's a decent shot but they seem short on workforce.

Also http://awesome.naquadah.org/ and https://code.google.com/p/wmii/

And that's just windows management which is probably the most obvious advantage of an all-open approach, but there are other things like user programmed priority systems, memory management etc which could potentially do a much more effective usage of the hardware than the standard monolithic opaque approach.

[phaemon]

> and this right here...is the reason that Linux has always been consigned to the ranks of the also-rans on the desktop. Someone will always come up with a reason why flavour x is better than flavour y.

No it isn't. The number of people who don't use Linux on their desktop, simply because someone else commented on a forum that they preferred one distribution over another, is utterly negligible. In fact, the theory is just ludicrous!

[scholia]

But it does impact companies that might otherwise try pre-installing Linux. Whichever distro they pick, they lose 100% of the Windows market plus the 97%* of the Linux market who bitch about not getting their fave version.

* Made up number but I remember Acer shipping netbooks with Linpus Lite...

[drcube]

Not at all. I bought a System 76 laptop that came pre-installed with Ubuntu. But I don't like Ubuntu.

However, I knew that Linux ran on it out of the box, and that meant I could run Slackware without worrying about missing drivers, etc. Also, it was a great way to support a company that supports free software.

To me, a company that sells pre-installed Linux on decent hardware has my admiration and support, regardless of the distro.

[phaemon]

No, it does not impact companies that might pre-install Linux, unless they perform their market research by picking random anecdotes from web forums.

They lose exactly 0% of Windows market by offering another option in Operating System (in fact, I tend to avoid hardware that only does Windows as it tends to be crap, so it might actually be a gain).

If you remember people bitching about Linpus Lite because it wasn't people's favourite distro, you remember wrong.

[scholia]

Actually, it does, and I know this from talking to their senior managers.

Otherwise (1) you're being illogical and (2) my memory is accurate.

[89vision]

"usable" "gentoo"

I think I detect a hint of sarcasm