What are we going to do to keep up with longhorn?

killercow · Last edited by killercow on Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:51 pm; edited 1 time in total

While i know linux is miles ahead of windows in any server situation, Linux on the desktop has just catched up.

Since MS will release more and more beta's and screenshots of longhorn to the public i feel we "the linux people" need to do the same.

In this thread i'd like to summ up the changes that will apeal to "the (legendary) avarage user" that will go into longhorn, and what our answers will be.

I currently know of the following changes, that we'd need to match.

Change: Transparant windows.
Answer: Xorg translucency / window manager themes
State: Somewhat functional under KDE, and other window managers
Where to get: Just turn it on in the Kontrol center of KDE 3.4.*

Change: Bootup speeds
Answer: Speedup Gentoo + tools.
State: Almost matches winXp behaviour, Fedora does a way better job than gentoo.
Where to get: http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Speed_up_your_boot_time / https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-331844.html

Change: WinFS
Answer: Beagle
State: works pretty cool on Gnome, is there a KDE version?
Where to get: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Beagle

Change: Sleek icons
Answer: SVG icons
State: Works on some CVS build i guess?
Where to get: don't know.

keli · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:53 am Post subject:

Bootup: init-ng kicks any Fedora/Windows ass for sure

(but who cares, when you're rebooting once a month anyway?

)

SVG icons: - you have them in GNOME since a long-long time ago ...

But really ... couldn't care less what Windows is doing. I for one do not belive in force-feeding linux on everyone. Everybody id free to use whatever he/she likes and none of this is going to change my mind about what I want to use

Linux doesn't have to "win over windows" in some arguable side-by-side comparison. Linux has features and facilities windows will probably never have and the same is true vice versa as well. You just need to know which featureset you're more interested in, and that's it.
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Redeeman · l33t Joined: 25 Sep 2003 Posts: 958 Location: Portugal

winfs is not coming in longhorn, and, beagle is certainly not a replacement..

new stuff (of microsnot doesent remove move of longhorn planned features) is avalon, the new .net 2.0 runtime which is to be EXTREMELY optimized (the current .net 1.1 runtime was just a hack they put together to quickly be able to run .net stuff, says developers on msdn blogs)

however, i am quite confident that alot of the new stuff for kde4 will match longhorn quite nicely. http://plasma.bddf.ca/ is just one of the new things, and the kde4 change to qt4 will also provide quite nice speedups into kde.

if kde4 can be released (i hope before) or atleast same time, and some desktop distribution can pick it up quick enough, im sure that longhorn will get its competition.

certocivitas · Apprentice Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Posts: 194

I think that one of the most important things Linux should do better is compatibility with Microsoft formats. The problem, as we are all aware, is that much of it is closed-source which makes the job very hard (intentionally so). This is a major roadblock to many potential Linux converts because their data is not easily accessible. NTFS write support, as an example, would make a huge difference. You just have to take a look at some of the projects that are tackling these jobs to realize that they could use much more help.

It's not a cool job like coding new transparency features, but for Linux to thrive on the desktop users need to be able to work with MSFT formats as seamlessly as possible. They are the big kid on the block and like in or not (most defiantly NOT) Linux has to work with their formats well.

Redeeman · l33t Joined: 25 Sep 2003 Posts: 958 Location: Portugal

i dont think ntfs is whats stopping linux on the desktop

noup · l33t Joined: 21 Mar 2003 Posts: 917

mikegpitt · Advocate Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 3224

I agree yet disagree with your points.

First off, I think Linux on the desktop has caught up with Windows years ago, and now we are really seeing some innovative things... that MS will surely copy on Longhorn, then claim them as new and revolutionary, and claim Linux is only copying them. Watch, this WILL happen, and it pisses me off to no end.

Anyways... I agree with the bootup time. Linux used to be fast than Windows to boot, but these days I'm not too sure. What needs to be done is more work on initng. This thing is blazing, but I wan't able to get it working right, and I didn't realyl have the time too mess with it. It would be great if Gentoo backed initng somehow and made it the preferred bootup, instead of sysvinit.

I disagree that Fedora is faster on boot than Gentoo, because I've seen a fedora system boot recently, on a faster processor than I have, and it was deffinitly slow (and had no pretty splash

)

WinFS... who cares... The reiser filesystems are where is is at. I can't wait until Reiser4 is reall stable. I currently use Reiser 3.6.

Transparent windows... I think this is being picked up by most WM's, and pseudo transparency is all over the place.

Icons... I think you should look at kde-look.org or gnome-look.org, or some of those other icons sites people get their icons from. There are tons of nice looking icon sets available for Linux. Actually I've started seeing some of the being ported to windows, and I laugh telling peopel that I have had this icon or that icon for a couple of years.

noup · l33t Joined: 21 Mar 2003 Posts: 917

andyfraser33 · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 7:40 pm Post subject:

jsmaye · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 115

How many past Windows 'gee-whiz' features have flopped? Does Linux want to be in a reactionary mode over features that don't catch on and are dropped or disabled in future releases/patches/upgrades?

Nobody says "hey, let's see if we can't beat Mac OS v.whatever with such-and-such feature." Let's not think that way with Windows.

Linux needs to address what users want, not what Windows/Longhorn is going to (maybe) release. How many times has Microsoft stripped off features to make a release deadline?

Who cares about pseudo-transparency? Make Linux better at what it's already good at (speed, footprint, stability) and improve on what it's not so good at...like... hang on, I'll think of something.

Linux needs more hand-shaking and less chest-thumping...
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certocivitas · Apprentice Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Posts: 194

jsmaye · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 115

kyPixel · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 117

I don't see the big deal of having a fast booting system... generally on linux, you rarely reboot, unless you are on a very unstable system... and even then.... between most distros theres only a few seconds difference between the boot times...

Unless booting a computer becomes life threatening if it's too slow.. I don't see the point of arguing about it... Lets focus on more important things such as improving compile times and compatability.

Naib

killercow · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:44 pm Post subject:

Strage thing is, lots of stuff going into windows has been thought about by people who actually do know what the avarage user is, and get payed lots of money to do so.

Next to that i actually do like some of the features "they" are saying it will have, wheter or not any other OS on the planet has them, or will get them doesn't matter afaic. If something apeals to me, or if something might work better for some users i think we should provide it.

Since i know a lot of things are allready here, i'd like this thread to become more of a general

(how do i get feature "X" from OS "Y" on my gentoo machine, or what program could i use to do something similar, coz what OS "Y" does looks like i want to have it)

Things like transparancy are things loads of general users do like, and want, but cannot be found easily.

In general:

I know we linux geeks like to do it our way, and i know we can. BUT, does that mean we can't also have it their way? Why let Apple and MS spend all that money on gui/human interaction/whatever research, and not pick the cherry's? Since we linux people can do it both our way, And their way, i think we should make it easy for the "avarage user" on linux to also use their way.

get it?

andyfraser33 · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:10 pm Post subject:

andyfraser33 · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:24 pm Post subject:

m0p · Apprentice Joined: 20 Jun 2005 Posts: 205 Location: en_GB

Well, my boottime is less than 1 minute. More like ~30 secs. Not too slow. I could improve it further with some tweaks, too. If I was using Reiser4, a gcc4 compiled kernel, and a tweaked out init system, I could get instant boottime.

jsmaye · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 115

andyfraser33 · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 10:42 pm Post subject:

My electric bill is high enough without leaving PCs on 24/7, not to mention the noise from my main PC in the living room, the one in the hall and the three in the bedroom at night. :wink:

PS My Mac mini boots OS X pretty quickly. The only reason my Gentoo PC takes a bit longer than XP on the same system is because of all the crap I have starting while I test some stuff out.

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noup · l33t Joined: 21 Mar 2003 Posts: 917

Deathwing00 · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 11:51 pm Post subject:

Moved from Other Things Gentoo to Gentoo Chat. No support issues in this thread.

mikegpitt · Advocate Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 3224

noup · l33t Joined: 21 Mar 2003 Posts: 917

Q-collective · Advocate Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 2076