OSNews

Many, many companies use Notes/Domino. For those, Domino runned on linux since years. Now, the Notes client is available as well.

ARMONK, NY - 10 Jul 2006: IBM today announced the availability of IBM Lotus® Notes® on Linux®, the industry's first business-grade collaboration software to support Linux on the desktop. Lotus Notes on Linux now provides millions of Lotus Notes users worldwide with software that enables an open desktop alternative to proprietary desktop operating systems.

The openness and flexibility of the Linux desktop combined with widespread availability of server software running on Linux has increased demand for tested and market-proven, desktop applications such as Lotus Notes. For the first time, IBM is delivering business-grade e-mail, group scheduling and thousands of high-value Notes applications that run on the Linux desktop. Combined with server support for Intel and mainframe Linux, IBM now offers end-to-end support for Linux on the Lotus Notes® and Domino® 7 collaboration platform.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/19940.wss

Now it all depends on how smooth the transition tools are.

well, the idea with groupware systems is that everything is stored in a sentral location. i dont think you will need much in the way of transition tools for putting a linux based lotus notes client into the existing system.

My husband's company of over 1000 employees are using Exchange, not Domino. The company is unix-friendly (many of their dev systems are running solaris, freebsd or linux), but they would not consider moving their desktops to linux without a good Exchange client. You see, their desktops are all running Windows...

Why waste time trying to become Exchange compliant, if the community is trying to squash Exchange? Why not instead work to create a server-side Outlook-compatibile Exchange replacement? Linux has been better accepted server side than client side, so leverage that acceptance with a server side replacement. Then, there is no more "must be Exchange compatibile" argument against moving the clients.

Note my personal belief here - I believe a company with majority Windows admins is not ready for Linux desktops (who supports the desktops? and their interactions with the servers?). A company with majority *nix admins is ready for Linux desktops.

Well there is a solution out there and i'm sure 99.99% of the regular readers here know what it is.. right?

http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1498637333

"The best way to ensure 100 per cent compatibility with Exchange/Outlook features is to run Outlook itself. Crossover Office from Codeweavers (http://www.codeweavers.com) allows you to do just this. "

"The best way to ensure 100 per cent compatibility with Exchange/Outlook features is to run Outlook itself. Crossover Office from Codeweavers (http://www.codeweavers.com) allows you to do just this."


From the codeweaver web site:

*1 - Outlook 2003 is not supported.

You were saying?

Groupwise is good (Version 6.5 and newer).

The company that I work for has about 4400 users on it. It supports linux, Mac and Windows.

Except that Notes is an absolute nightmare. Having had to support both Exchange and Notes in the past, I'll take Exchange any day.

Reliability aside, the fact is that Notes is losing ground, while Exchange is gaining. Couple that with MS having 60% of the market to IBM's 25% and it's clear where the focus should be.

Besides, it doesn't have to be one or the other. Provide support for both, then you don't have to worry about it.

yep, it can be important that you can use the same tools at home that you use at work.

thats why apple are still strong in music and photo, and many people that do that for a living use apple at home as well.

thats the one thats getting funding from the german state right?

Funny I haven't met anybody, that likes working with an exchangeserver. IBM Notes on the other hand - and its right there for Linux

Maybe, but good luck finding anyone that like working with a Notes client on any platform.

I've heard dozens of reasons from engineers about why Domino is better/more robust than Exchange, I've yet to find a single person that finds the Notes client itself anything but horrible. Myself included.

My own organization's IT dept is actually being forced by the higher ups to conduct a feasability study for migrating from Domino to Exchange. We've been on Domino for years as our global messaging platform, but Notes is consistently the single biggest complaint across all of our divisions, including the higher ups. When evaluating our annual employee surveys, consistent hatred of Notes has been highlighted as the single common thread that unites our various business units. It is pretty much universally despised across all regional and cultural boundaries. And it's a kick in the nards everytime we acquire a company and force them to migrate, the complaining never stops.

If IBM was smart they'd read the writing on the wall, seize the opportunity and just produce a simple optimized Notes groupware client and spend a little more effort on making the interface useable. Something that weighs in at, oh, let's say less 200MB and doesn't require a reboot to flush the orphaned processes when it frequently crashes. Something that doesn't try to utilize a gui designed more than a decade ago that still looked clunky back then, even by Win3.1 standards.

How many people forced to use the Notes client are actually running Domino-based collaborative applications besides mail and calendaring?

Even their Sametime IM client is awful. Given a choice, I'd rather just go back to cc:Mail. Well, almost anyways.

It will be interesting to see the new client paradigm, using Eclipse as a platform-neutral application framework. The thought of running an already horribly bloated app like Notes under Java gives me the willies, but hopefully they've made attempts to optimize and clean it up a bit.

Notes has its share of problems, to say the least. I don't think you'll ever see Notes get smaller, but you'll see its interface radically improved:

http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/hannoverscreenshots.ht...

Also agree on the default Sametime client (you can't even click on links and have them open in your browser), although "NotesBuddy" is much more capable replacement for Notes users. I find that GAIM with the Meanwhile plugin is an excellent Sametime client, much better than IBM's in-house Sametime client for Linux.

Looking at these

http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com/
and
http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/hannoverscreenshots.ht...

it seems like those are two products. One with improved look and one looking like the old one (aka. like horses ass). It got me wondering. And based that the layout is completely different those two are different apps.

"Looking at these
http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com/
and
http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/hannoverscreenshots.ht...
it seems like those are two products"

They are. The first one is the Linux 7.01 Notes client just released. The other screenshots are mock ups of the up and coming "Hannover" Notes client for Windows, Linux and Mac, with the new interface that will probably be Notes 8.x and released sometime next year.

Disclaimer I am not an IBM employee or insider. I am just a Notes user who sometimes reads Ed Brill's blog.

Edited 2006-07-23 01:39

`Funny I haven't met anybody, that likes working with an exchange server. IBM Notes on the other hand - and its right there for Linux.`

I work at a small university in its IT department. We have, what I nick name, two `Extra Change` servers. One old and, of course, new. There is an AD migration in process across campus. The people performing this migration are in near daily agony.

I listen to these people daily and they've been working in this area for well over two decades each. One has nearly 40 years in. EC is not quite as friendly as marketing would have you believe.

One even asked me to trade all my BSD, Linux, and Unix servers for her MS EC servers. You can proably guess my response as it was mixed with laughter.

I sometimes wonder how far they would get without a wizard or a rather expensive call to a little company in Redmond.

In any case, define mainstream. Seriously. I see it bantered about by arm-chair or home-based critics who've never run an industrial-level mail server on a daily basis.

Funny I haven't met anybody, that likes working with an exchangeserver.

*Waving my hand*. Glad I'm your first. I'm sure if you search a little bit you should find, say, a few millions.

Seriously, I work for a moderate sized company (250) which I agree is nowhere near the size of some F500 companies. But we're still at zero complains on that dept. Exchange goes the distance for us, and then some.

Agree'd.

I agree, kontact and kolab are great applications, that could be potential Outlook/Exchange killers. The problem is that they currently don't run on windows.

At least that is a big problem for kontact. Most companies would like to have a uniform E-mail/Calendaring structure regardless of platform. If you run different tools on different platforms you are bound to get in trouble as upgrades may lead to incompatibilities, as they most likely have different release schedueles if they comes from different venders.

Perhaps the situation will change once KDE4 is out. It will use QT4 that is available for windows under the GPL. This will make it much easier to port KDE apps to windows.

Another problem with Kontact, is that it in most distros doesn't support S/MIME by default. S/MIME is much more common in busines than e.g. gpg, so not having that might be a showstopper.

1) Even my mom can insert a CD in windows and click install after "autorun" kicks in.

Which is one of the constant IT troubles

2) People have grown to expect things in a certain place. My "stuff" is in "My Computer". If I forget, I just ask a friend.

??? My computer here, my computer there. But if you forget something you ask your friend? Is your friend indexing your files or what? I use beagle for that.

3) Off the shelf hardware is packaged with drivers for Windows that usually pass MS HQA

MS HQA is overrated. You still have to think carefully which HW you buy. No matter which OS (except for example Apple when you're bound with hardware)

4) File browsing - which file browser? some don't support columns, some are slow and clumbsy, some don't do what I want when I drag and drop. Inconsistent between apps that use gtk vs qt vs other decorations.

Simple solution, don't install more than one desktop. Choose one. As for filemanager? DnD works as it should.

5) application -> file type mappings. Can't I just double click a wmv file to play???

??? Do that with ogg, mp4 etc. Without installing codecs. Your mum doesn't know how to do that.

http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/menus/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entr...
Here is where linux actualy leads.

6) how to share a folder... right click, share? Or vim /etc/samba/smb.conf; /etc/init.d/smb restart; ? Yast? Redhat tools? Other?

??? System -> Administration -> Server Settings -> Samba?

7) how about setting up wireless networking?

For my notebook, it meant one click in package manager (after I made search for intel 2200).

8) wizards

???

9) feeling "protected" with norton, symantec, toolbar "helpers", etc.

???

10) I want professional tools (e.g. Photoshop) and not a hack means of running them.

Most (99%) of my windows using friends with this excuse are inadequate to know why Photoshop is usable. If you're not in serious dtp photoshop is one of the worst possible softwares.

p.s. I do a lot of drawing and I appreciate gimp the most. In features it could do better (I'm mostly missing rotating canvas as in Painter) but in working on dual screen and how you interact with alpha channels it is a clear winner.

11) I like being able to right-click desktop and change resolution.

Ok, since I have all 24" LCDs I can't imagine why you would need that. But here it is "randr applet".

12) a default windows installation has a lot less "crap" on it than a default linux distro ~ it's true!

Based on your comment about File Managers? Yeah, I understand you. It is a common feeling of everyone that does "full install".

Edited 2006-07-22 23:15

I mostly agree with your replies. But I still think it's easier for a non-comp-savvy user to get this with a default windows instal, no? Keeping that configuration however... like you said, "...one of the constant IT troubles".

13) can I trust open source drivers for my critical business work? even seldom corruption or process deadlock could cause big problems. And when it's time to upgrade hardware will the O.S. drivers be ready, even after they've had to reverse engineer the spec?

14) where the heck is X installed? well does the dist use GNU /usr/local/... or the LSB standard, or more of a debian deriv or slack or bsd?

15) boot problems but don't want to reinstal whole system? win = /fixmbr, lin = (lilo, grub, hda0, hd0, /boot, dd if=/bkup/hd0_boot_part.img of=... bs=...)

I'm with ya though... I totally 100% grew up on unix. I breathe unix. But I gotta admit, the average "PC Enthusiast" can fix my moms computer. The average "Linux Enthusiast" has 2+ years of CompSci and can admin or find the documentation they need for their own system.

shane

One key point I want to throw out, (it will apply most to #14):
Windows to Linux is oranges to apple-seeds. We need to either compare the NT Kernel to Linux, Win32 to GNU/Linux, or compare Windows XP to Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse, etc. When comparing to Windows, distros are so unique and varied that you cannot just refer to them as "Linux". There is no Linux "OS" in the Windows sense of the words "OS". And we should not *expect* Ubuntu, SuSE, and Redhat to be any more similar than Apple and Windows, as they are different companies. It is purely well-planned convenience that there *is* software that can be used on all Linux distros.

13) can I trust open source drivers for my critical business work? even seldom corruption or process deadlock could cause big problems. And when it's time to upgrade hardware will the O.S. drivers be ready, even after they've had to reverse engineer the spec?

Can you trust closed source drivers? What if you are a US government contractor or big US company oft targetted for corporate espionage? Can you run those closed source Taiwanese motherboard drivers?

The driver readiness for your hardware upgrade has little to do with the OS. Microsoft does not write the drivers in the Windows-space; the vendor does. More and more vendors are releasing Linux drivers with their new hardware, and the FOSS community writes the rest, with much larger variety. Try finding drivers to make Windows run on your Sparc or PowerPC hardware!

14) where the heck is X installed? well does the dist use GNU /usr/local/... or the LSB standard, or more of a debian deriv or slack or bsd?

Why does it matter? We are using software for either Windows, or Ubuntu, or Redhat, or ..., and therefore it is packaged appropriately for that environment. It doesn't matter to me, the normal user, as the packaging takes care of it.

As a power-user, it might matter, as I may want to step outside the box, but as a power-user I know enough to control that - even if it is Windows freeware that wants to install to "c:", or c:[company name][software].


15) boot problems but don't want to reinstal whole system? win = /fixmbr, lin = (lilo, grub, hda0, hd0, /boot, dd if=/bkup/hd0_boot_part.img of=... bs=...)
How do you run fixmbr if you can't boot? You must be using a very limited, command-line only, DOS based, user-unfriendly Windows boot disk. Or you are using the ASCII graphics based Windows Install CD Rescue mode. I'd much rather use the GUI repair modes of your distros LiveCD/Install CD.

I will admit, users do not want to change from what they know. But if Linux distros simply become what is already known, we will lose all of the possible innovation. It will take time, but if some Linux flavor is truly the best, it will be accepted. But mark this - Linux will not gain acceptance by simply mimicking what already exists. Why change at all, if it will just be more of the same? Developers - don't waste your time striving for compatibility with product X (e.g., Exchange) - strive for compatibility with innovative standard Y (e.g., CalDAV), supported by N other products. As these products get better and more accepted, those that are not compatibile will fade away.

<delete duplicate>

Edited 2006-07-23 03:43

One key point I want to throw out, (it will apply most to #14):
Windows to Linux is oranges to apple-seeds. We need to either compare the NT Kernel to Linux, Win32 to GNU/Linux, or compare Windows XP to Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse, etc. When comparing to Windows, distros are so unique and varied that you cannot just refer to them as "Linux". There is no Linux "OS" in the Windows sense of the words "OS". And we should not *expect* Ubuntu, SuSE, and Redhat to be any more similar than Apple and Windows, as they are different companies. It is purely well-planned convenience that there *is* software that can be used on all Linux distros.

You are correct about that; lets take it even further; what about distros like gnusolaris hence I can understand in regards to the reason why it should be called GNU/Linux - because GNU userland can be transplanted into any environment; or in the case of gnusolaris, IIRC, they use the gnu compilers, Debian packaging system and other opensource components.

Regarding the 'planned' part; one could compare the distros to Apple; and how Apple bundle all that you need in the box; you get a system, iLife etc. In the case of GNU/Linux, you get the operating system and all the stuff you need to get on with work.

Can you trust closed source drivers? What if you are a US government contractor or big US company oft targetted for corporate espionage? Can you run those closed source Taiwanese motherboard drivers?

Now how about how ISPs worked with the US government to tap peoples emails and correspondance; considering how compliant the US public is, when ther is the 'if you don't comply and worship the government, you're obvious a terrorist and anti-American' theme in the air (and been like that since the formation of the US), I wouldn't be surprised if the chipset manufacturers don't start adding 'features' in accordance to 'government directives' for 'counter terrorism and protecting the democracy'.

The driver readiness for your hardware upgrade has little to do with the OS. Microsoft does not write the drivers in the Windows-space; the vendor does. More and more vendors are releasing Linux drivers with their new hardware, and the FOSS community writes the rest, with much larger variety. Try finding drivers to make Windows run on your Sparc or PowerPC hardware!

What I hope is this; Intel and AMD purchase Ati and Nvidia respectively, they open up all the specs and allow prices, supply and demand, and volume to sort out things. Screw secrecy when you have the production facilities to provide the whole kit to the OEM vendors; video card, chipset, processor etc. all under the same roof; they'll compete supplying the whole thing, not just the graphics card, thus, if they do opensource their drivers, they won't actually lose any competitive edge.

inux will not gain acceptance by simply mimicking what already exists. Why change at all, if it will just be more of the same? Developers - don't waste your time striving for compatibility with product X (e.g., Exchange) - strive for compatibility with innovative standard Y (e.g., CalDAV), supported by N other products. As these products get better and more accepted, those that are not compatibile will fade away.

True; create a product, end to end; server and client, which utilises open standards protocols and provides the same level of functionality as the commercial products.

These exist NOW; Sun sells the Solaris Enterprise System, which includes EVERYTHING which is included with Exchange; you can use Outlook with it, or Evolution - and yet, why the hell don't people use it? I mean, I'd love to know why a company chooses expensive proprietary software from Lotus or Microsoft when Sun can provide the SAME level of funcationality at a LOWER price.

Same goes for the Kolab project as well; why are these pushed off by the high flying CIO's - the fact that there aren't multibillion dollar marketing budgets behind them? the fact that they don't include cheap gimicy crap; the fact that they don't have smooth talking, silver toungued sales represenatives with ethics so low, they rival Karl Rove in in the "who can be the most unethical".

Edited 2006-07-23 03:47

While I appreciate your comments, can we agree to share some professional respect? It's not my intention to insult you -- whatever league you're in. I'm well schooled, fairly well experienced, and a darn good Linux S.E. There will always be others with better insite and more experience. You may be one. By "I'm with ya", I meant, "I agree with you". No insult intended. The points I made were to bring some ideas to the table regarding why linux isn't mainstream... and I think most of them are valid considerations or hurdles for a predominantly Windows IT world. Yes, there are solutions or alternatives, and yes, some of them shouldn't be show-stoppers for Linux platform integration or even migration. I'm not standing behind these with a pitchfork as arguments against GNU/Linux platform. Did it really come across that way?

Regards,
shane

My God ... these articles never cease do they? Well, thankfully there's less and less comments on them, so I guess these articles are fading away.

Listen, if Linux really is God's only son as many of you deem it with your heart and soul, then most people would actually use it. They really would. I mean, does every kid and his dog use Windows Media Player? No. A lot of people use WinAMP, a lot of inept computer users too. It's not hard to go and download it and use it. Does everyone use MSN Messenger? No. Once again, a lot of people use AIM, amongst others. Where am I going with this? Windows has programs that are preinstalled which many in the Linux community like to believe that people couldn't be arsed to try anything else. Given, this is true for some, but consider those who use 3rd party applications and tools, and there are many. I mean, Windows comes with a word processor built-in, a photo-editor (of sorts ), a media player, a web browser, etc etc. Do people use them? A lot of people do but choices are available, and an OS with little hardware/software support and configuration which is difficult to many is not the answer.

So why isn't Linux mainstream? It's been mentioned time and time again and it's going through one ear and out the other or some lame excuse for a rebuttle follows.

1) I'm sure that your mum can also apt-get <name of program>

2) A users files are in /home/ and with default permissions left as they are, your mum won't be able to put her files anywhere else. Therefore beening unable to lose them.

3) This is an issue of hardware manufactures.
It still makes no sense to me why they don't open their drivers and get them included in the linux kernel.
It would save them development money and offer better quality drivers.

4) ROX is pretty nice.

5) wmv files are covered by microsoft patents.
You'll probably notice that the same issue occurs on windows and you'd have to change the file extention mapping there too for any file formats that windows doesn't know about. eg. .py, .php, .ogg

6) Depends on your distro and desktop environment.

7) Again, largely an issue of hardware manufactures.
The solution is to only buy supported hardware.

8) Druids

9) WTF? Antivirus software is spread through FUD. Is basically pointless. Much better to spend 30mins explaining to the user how best to avoid untrusted executables.

10) That's an issue for Adobe.

11) Are you sure you want to use a linux distro?
From this statement I think you'd be better off with Microsoft Windows.

12) Depends on your distro.



Most of these issues are about wanting GNULinux distros to do things the Windows way.
GNULinux is not Microsoft Windows. If you want Microsoft Windows then use Microsoft Windows.

Agreed, it's possible that "Linux isn't mainstream" because many users want "GNULinux distros to do things the Windows way". Alternative methodologies, applications, permission schemes, system updates, and metadata cataloging exist -- and I enjoy these very much. But the concern is, "why isn't linux mainstream". Just ideas... that's all.

Re: Antivirus... FUD
Ideally we'd be able to reach all end users (or those within our corporation, for example) and convince them that cute emails shouldn't be opened, that outlook shouldn't have msg preview on, etc. And that they haven't really inherited a fortune from the ambassador of South Africa. But in reality, this doesn't work. Attachments come through the firewall, and content scanners (antivirus software) help. In the long run, it's cost effective to maintain a battle front.

shane

10) That's an issue for Adobe.

Let me just say this: "ha ha". Maybe it's an issue for Adobe to support all the Linux desktop distros out there. I really don't understand why there are so many. To most users they all look the same, except for the wallpaper and the theme.

And while I'm at it ... why is there such a complicated and cryptic directory structure: can't there be dirs like linux/ (for the OS), software/ (installed programs), users/ (documents and settings) instead of usr, bin, etc, var, local, root, lib, mnt, tmp and so on? Why is there a need to use the command line on a daily basis to get anything done? I don't want to compile anything ever, I don't want to use package managers - I just want to click the installer and click away through the wizard, I want my OS easy so it doesn't get into my way and I can get work done.

I like very much the way PC-BSD is going. The PBI installers are so darn easy to use. It's something that linux should learn.

Maybe Linux's problem is that it's a server OS that also aspires to be a desktop OS. It would be so easy to make it user friendly if only the developers could think from Average Joe's perspective and not only from theirs.

Maybe Linux's problem is that it's a server OS that also aspires to be a desktop OS. It would be so easy to make it user friendly if only the developers could think from Average Joe's perspective and not only from theirs.

Truth be told, it was original designed as a desktop operating system, and linus still aspires for that to be the case; as he said, "Servers have fixed requirements, desktops are alot more interesting".

The Linux directory structure is kind of a funny thing to complain about since users rarely deal with anything save for their home directory and it's very similar to Windows in most respects.

Mac OSX actually beat Linux and Windows hands down in this department. Linux tends to beat Windows in consistency (that is to say, Windows and Windows apps tend to distribute different types of files in across more directories than Linux, which is typically more consistent).

All but one of your reasons don't even matter in a enterprise enviroment.(which is where Exchange is mostly going to be used)
In an enterprise enviroment, you don't want your users either setting up hardware, sharing folders, changing resolution, or adding file mappings. Those jobs are for the IT guys who should know the setup.

Now, for the more general issue of use...
The average home Windows user neither can nor do install Windows. They use what is installed on the machine when they bought it, and if their is a problem, they have someone else help them. Also, if you install a Linux Distro on someone's machine(who doesn't need any windows apps) and show them the ropes, they can get along pretty good. Point them to Ubuntu Forums and help them for a few days, and unless there is a major problem they can get along pretty good. Now, none of these people are computer geeks. One of them didn't even know how to operate a computer. Could they fix a major problem by themselves..probably not..could they have if they were running Windows..just as unlikely.

Ive found that its mainly an issue being not familiar with the interface or things being slightly different, but those with no computer experence seem to have no problem. Afterall, they have no existing notions on how the machine should operate.

Also, about point 9 on your list. As opposed to "feeling" protected, they are protected. Running Linux there are no Viruses or Spyware which can infect the system. This may change sometime in the future, however, for not the issue really doesn't exist.

Point 10 however, is very relevent though. Where I work we have Windows on the client machines, why? Photoshop and Dreamweaver. If those tools ran fine under Linux, we could ditch the beast for good. We are a j2ee shop, and all our development tools are multiplatform(eclipse and friends) We investigated using the GIMP and NVU and for a few of us it would work, however, there are some features that you just want a professional class app.

Personally, I think the OS(collectively) is ready NOW, however, the third party support(pro apps) just isn't there. Also, the mindset isn't there yet. People can be suspicious of something thats free; especially with the average users fight with spyware from "free" apps.

-Michael Moran

Great points. I disagree though that linux users are protected due to the nonexistence of viruses or spyware. Certainly the casual unix permission scheme (compared to SE-Linux) is helpful. But send an executable by email that a user can download and exec, and they are at the mercy of their own file permissions -- or any files with group wx enabled. e.g. system("rm -rf ~"); And as the user-base grows, I would speculate that tampered packages and code will surface. In this sense, no OS can be safe as long as users are able to download and execute. In general is the platform more secure? I believe so.

shane

1) Even my mom can insert a CD in windows and click install after "autorun" kicks in.

Can she uninstall afterwards? I mean really 100% uninstall? No junk in the registry or anything? Also, IMO, doing an online install with a debian based distro is much easier than messing with CDs.

2) People have grown to expect things in a certain place. My "stuff" is in "My Computer". If I forget, I just ask a friend.

Trivial, at best.


3) Off the shelf hardware is packaged with drivers for Windows that usually pass MS HQA

On install, most linux distro do a far better job of detecting most "off the shelf hardware." than windows.

4) File browsing - which file browser? some don't support columns, some are slow and clumbsy, some don't do what I want when I drag and drop. Inconsistent between apps that use gtk vs qt vs other decorations.

You have to make the same choice in windows. More and more people seem to think that msie sucks.

5) application -> file type mappings. Can't I just double click a wmv file to play???

Of course, I do it all the time.

6) how to share a folder... right click, share? Or vim /etc/samba/smb.conf; /etc/init.d/smb restart; ? Yast? Redhat tools? Other?

May have point. It's never been a problem for me.

7) how about setting up wireless networking?

Very good point. Setting a wireless router is just as easy with linux, as with windows. But Linux may not have drivers for the wireless card.

8) wizards

More msft pain, IMO. Next will tell me about clippy.

9) feeling "protected" with norton, symantec, toolbar "helpers", etc.

I feel much more protected with linux, than with windows. Even if winodws to loaded to teeth with anti-malware crud. From my experience, Linux is *much* less likely to become infected, and I have substantial experience.

10) I want professional tools (e.g. Photoshop) and not a hack means of running them.

Applications are a real issue.

11) I like being able to right-click desktop and change resolution.

Trivial.

12) a default windows installation has a lot less "crap" on it than a default linux distro ~ it's true!

It is not true. Try the network install of debain, by default, it doesn't even install x-window.

I use linux 8 hrs per day, and windows for Exchange and Firefox.

For somebody who linux 8 hrs per day, you sure don't seem to know about it.

Well allow me to retort!

I was just brainstorming ideas from a linux newbie point of view. Wasn't my intention to play dumb about linux administration or tools. In condensed form... I think windows users have grown accustomed to the "windows way" and the "hand holding" that the installs and shiny print-outs accomodate. It's been a good discussion about the "Linux way" of accomplishing the same tasks.

Do I know linux? BSCS compsci, linux/hp-ux/solaris over 10 years, comfortable writing PCI drivers, real-time app dev, custom builds, JAPH, and a very reasonable amount of administration. I have too many machines to admin though, so I must use distributed, load-balanced scripting instead of those cute gui's that help edit config files. I tinker my own rc.d tree, smb.conf, httpd.conf, rotating backups and cron jobs, hard-link snapshots, SVN over ssh and ssh keys, *.auto, and sometimes inetd to inherit a socket handle as stdin -- depending on the project reqs. I don't do enterprise NIS and network topo design, but I know linux.

thx for the good input... i've been enjoying everyones comments.

shane

To: tbostick78

Never bash OSS on OSNews dude... even though your points ARE valid, you'll just get bashed in return.

@tbostick78: From your post, it's pretty obvious you haven't used Linux for a while since all of the things you mention operate more less precisely in Linux as they do in Windows. Save a couple of things: when you insert a CD, the CD appears on the desktop but no software runs (for obvious reasons) -- you'd have to double-click the icon and double click on the install. Also, file-type mappings for most types (more than Windows) are typically pre-installed and are also far easier to manipulate in Linux -- but for patent reasons, people in the US can't distribute all of the codecs widely used in Windows (though you can download them).

File sharing does indeed involve right-clicking and selecting "Share" in Linux (as opposed to right-clicking, selecting "Properties" and going to the "Sharing" tab) -- perhaps the user would be confused to find check-boxes for NFS and Windows filesharing, though.

Obviously there are Wizards, though wireless configs can be confusing because the setup wizards for Linux wireless require you to provide the root password.

Obviously Norton and Symantec's illusory security is not necessary.

There's no "My Computer" icon on most distributions, and "My Documents" is called "Home", but you could put a "My Computer" icon (hint: the URL to use in KDE is system:/ ) and rename "Home" if it makes you feel better.

Windows doesn't have an option to right-click on the desktop to change the screen resolution, but it does have the "properties" just like Linux (KDE anyway), and you can always click the resolution change icon in the tray under Linux, or use the hotkey.

I don't know of any drag-and-drop issues. GNOME and KDE are both more prevalent and consistent than Windows in that regard.

My impression is that your familiarity with Linux is with distributions at least 3-4 years back.

As far as "crap" -- the distributions typically come with lots of software, but you don't need to install it all just because it's free. And having bought a number of PCs with Windows pre-installed, there's far more "crap" on an OEM PC than a typical Linux install (ads, adware, demo copies of software, AOL and a half-dozen other services, crash-prone OEM multimedia apps, etc.)