[arch-general] We have lost the desktop war. The reason? Windows 7.

[hollunder at gmx.at]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:41:01 +0100
Stefan Erik Wilkens <stefanwilkens at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/10/26 RedShift <redshift at pandora.be>:
> > This thread will probably erupt in a massive flamewar, yet I
> > decided to post my
> > story anyway. I am talking about the desktop experience in general,
> > not the technical details behind it. Keep that in mind.
> >
> >
> > I've been working these past few months with KDE 4.3 and it feels
> > very sluggish
> > and incomplete. I can't enable the desktop effects because that
> > makes things even slower. I'm doing this on a fairly decent setup,
> > an AMD Sempron 2 Ghz with
> > an nVidia FX5500. My laptop suffers from this sluggishness as well.
> > On top of
> > that, lots of things annoy me in KDE 4.3, see the end of this post
> > for my top
> > annoyances. Yesterday I had to reboot to my Windows XP installation
> > on this computer and I was shocked when I arrived in XP's userland.
> > Everything was ridiculously fast. When returning to my linux
> > desktop everything felt even more
> > sluggish. That's when I decided to go back to KDE 3.5. I restored
> > my old KDE 3.5
> > profile, installed the necessary packages and logged back in.
> > WOOOOOF, everything is fast again. Opening new windows is
> > instantaneous, hell even bringing up context menus is faster. If
> > Linux is that much better, why does the
> > current Linux desktop (KDE 4.3) still suck compared to an operating
> > system that's 8 years old?
> >
> > Last week I also had the chance to check out Windows 7, and I was
> > stumped. I was
> > genuinly impressed by Windows 7's GUI. It feels fast, works
> > fluently, it has nice effects which just work and work FAST. When
> > browsing around it felt like a
> > very solid desktop environment. I am jealous. I really am. The
> > thought of using Windows 7 in favor of KDE 4.3 has occured to me
> > much more than I like. And
> > it's little things like dragging the windows to the top of the
> > screen makes them
> > maximized, dragging them to the left makes the take exactly 50% of
> > the screen.
> > How many times have you been manually resizing windows to fit next
> > to each other? I have, too many times. These are things that really
> > improve your productivity.
> >
> >
> > So when should we have started working at a better desktop
> > environment for Linux?
> >
> > When Mac OS X came out. When was that again? 2001. Yes, it really
> > was that long
> > ago. It already had awesome desktop effects that just work on
> > (compared to these
> > days) VERY modest hardware. And it worked fast as well. It was and
> > still is a
> > solid desktop environment. From that point on the Linux community
> > should have
> > recognized the threat Mac OS X was for the desktop environment.
> > Unfortunately
> > nobody did and we went on creating a big mess, fighting over
> > implementations and
> > technical details instead of attempting to create a solid desktop
> > environment.
> >
> > Yet we did have a second chance in 2007. Microsoft obviously
> > screwed up with Windows Vista, we had the chance to win back alot
> > of terrain here until the release of Windows 7. So what did we come
> > up with? KDE 4. Yes, a big dissapointment. We still don't have
> > something that's comparable.
> >
> >
> > So basically, where are we at?
> > KDE 3.5 is Windows XP
> > KDE 4.3 is Windows Vista
> > ??? is Windows 7
> >
> >
> > When are we getting to the Windows 7 stage?
> >
> > Microsoft didn't do a big advertising campaign for the launch of
> > Windows 7, nevertheless they delivered a big slap in the face to
> > the Linux desktop environments. The numbers speak for themselves,
> > Windows 7 has already sold more
> > copies in its first week than Windows Vista did in its first month.
> > And with good riddance, Windows 7 really is better than Windows
> > Vista. Microsoft recognized the problems with Windows Vista and
> > dealt with them. And dealt with
> > them swiftly if you ask me, doing it in less then 3 years.
> >
> >
> > Conclusion
> >
> > We are losing ground. We are losing it fast. Our competitors
> > recognize what the
> > user wants and delivered.
> >
> > If we are comparing enterprise desktops, there's no going around
> > Red Hat. The
> > current Red Hat desktop (5.4) ships with KDE 3.5, while its
> > succesor RHEL 6 will
> > be, if looking what Fedora brings now, shipped with KDE 4.2 or 4.3.
> > That means
> > KDE 4.2/4.3 will be the main desktop for enterprises for at least
> > the next 3 years. A disgrace if you ask me. Users will be comparing
> > desktop environments
> > and they will find Windows 7 or Mac OS X to be better. After the
> > damage RHEL 6
> > will have done to the reputation of the Linux desktop, it will take
> > again as many years to rectify the damage done. Granted if we will
> > have a solid desktop
> > environment comparable to Windows 7 by the time RHEL 7 gets
> > released. Which I
> > can't help but doubt.
> >
> >
> >
> > My top KDE 4.3 annoyances:
> > * Slooooowwww. Logging in takes a multifold of times it did under
> > KDE 3.5, repainting windows takes up a lot of time
> > * The battery status applet is buggy, it only shows the actual
> > percentage after
> > you've hovered it with the mouse, even when you've set it to always
> > display. The
> > scale it uses is also difficult to interpret. These bugs have been
> > reported a
> > long time ago and are still not fixed.
> > * The run dialog is useless. The reason is the history function. It
> > can't display a full history when you start typing, you have to
> > type alot more. Having
> > a pull down menu and using the arrow keys to select the entry you
> > want is alot
> > faster. Even Microsoft knows they shouldn't touch that dialog, it
> > still works
> > like a charm in windows 7.
> > * Double clicking the system icon in the titlebar doesn't always
> > work to close
> > an application (the system icon is the left-most icon in the
> > titlebar). This bug
> > has also been reported a long time ago and still not fixed.
> > * I get a full 10 minutes of extra runtime on my laptop when I
> > switched back to
> > 3.5
> > * Power management is buggy in KDE 4.3 and sometimes powerdevil
> > just loses its settings
> > * Some settings KDE 3.5 used to have aren't there anymore in KDE
> > 4.3.
> > * Where's my "home" icon!!!??? :-(
> >
> 
> A general rule in life is that nothing is ever free. Perhaps a bold
> remark to use in an open-source mailing list, but cost doesn't have to
> be defined by money.
> 
> We simply pay for using Linux by coping with slightly lower
> performance in some (certainly not all) areas of the desktop
> experience, furthermore by dealing with a lack of certain features and
> compatabillity with the rest of the world (office and other indistry
> standard applications not being available to us, the open source
> counterparts not being up to par with the standard due to
> closed-source or licencing).
> 
> Though we try to stay on par, I think determining that we have lost
> implies that we must outperform other operating systems in every way
> to be considered a real alternative.
> 
> KDE 4.x is in active developement, GNOME is renewing the desktop
> experience (albeit slowly). Things are moving along in the open source
> desktop world. Thankfully, linux != just desktop

Am I happy to hear that.
I say this because I'm under the impression that people see only two
kinds of linux uses:
1) The traditional server
2) The Desktop

You can, at this time, still do both, but everything in between is
getting more and more difficult.

The problem is that the Desktop Environments, GNOME and KDE, in their
quest for "integrated desktop experience" push more and more stuff
that's really only useful to those DEs deeper and deeper into the
system.
If you as a user need or want it or not, you get it.


I'd like to provide an example.
I'm using an oldish PC and like to pick the apps I use myself, therefor
the DE's so-called 'integration' is just unnecessary and rather
hindering in the background. I also like configuration. Those
are the main reasons I don't use DEs.

Recently I tried to figure out what console-kit is actually good for.
Here's an excerpt of the manual that I especially like:
Defining the Problem
To be written. 
http://www.freedesktop.org/software/ConsoleKit/doc/ConsoleKit.html#id312255

I figured out that it's only useful for something called 'fast user
switching', something I definitely don't need.
When trying to remove it I figured that HAL requires it.
HAL also requires something called policy-kit, yet another thing I
don't know what it does.
I recompiled HAL without either, and the system still works as before.

Somewhere during the research I figured that HAL is supposed to be
replaced by something called device-kit. HAL isn't really needed says
the author in an email, pretty much all the work is done by udev etc..
So I figured, hey, why not just remove HAL, this way the kits won't
come back with the next update, and all I use HAL for is mounting
usb drives, something that can be done with udev rules as well.

Well, trying to do this I found five apps requiring it, the most
surprising: xorg-server

Conclusion:
Yeah, great, install xorg for a minimal graphical desktop, what you get
is console-kit, for a minor feature in a monster DE.
When will "Desktop" people start to see that they are being intrusive?
They live in their own small bubble called GNOME or KDE and can't ever
imagine anyone not wanting to use this.
Sorry for this "slightly" off topic rant, but it annoys me on a regular
basis when I see applications depend on gnome or kde, mostly for some
stupid reason called 'integration' which really isn't of much use in
the specific DE they integrate with and a hindrance to everyone who's
not running exactly that DE.

So please, next time you call something integration, think beyond the
bubble. In our little Linux world with limited developer time we need
real integration, real solutions and still
freedom of choice.

Philipp