Tux to the Rescue !

Most Linux users & curious Windows power users have read many-o' articles about the YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP. And with the internet becoming the great archive that it is, you can still find most of them, caught in the webs of many-o' server mirror, long after their prophecies have proven unfruitful. I see no reason for this one to except that rule.

I first came to using linux in early summer of 2006. After receiving the gift of an old Pentium III that wasn't getting much attention, I found myself with the problem of not having an operating system to use this free hardware. Trying to run pirated copies of XP or an old version of Windows 2003 seemed either too complicated or ludicrous to even attempt. And since I hadn't had anything of important to loose I decided to give this Linux a try. Expecting this to be a laboring excercise in Computing Science 101 - after all, the last time I had laid eyes on a Linux installation guide was back in '98 - I was quite surprised at how remarkably easy the process was. Sure there was a bit of a learning curve, but certainly no worse than trying to use Finder(tm) for the first time on an mac box. (I still have a hard time with that to this day by the way).

So ever since I have been using this little wonder of a technology. Finally I knew what all those geeks had been drooling over all this time. But not everything turned out perfect: the annoying lack in driver support & cruel absense of certain major software titles made me feel like I was using a second-class operating system. I am sure most linux new comers have that fleeting feeling at some point or another in their unix infancy, and as soon the mind starts to ponder on this very topic does it pop on to the next obvious one: why doesn't Linux enjoy a broader user base. That surely would provide incentives for the big boys to port their games & photo shops & final cuts to the penguin, right ?

Well, I have read the articles. I have pondered, wondered, philosophised even... and well, this is the best I could come up with:

Linux deep down is basically a DIY operation system. And as with all things DIY, while given a chance anyone can do it, it's not everybody that'll end up wanting to do it. And this is why linux 'as we now know it' is not being adopted by the masses. **

This is not to say that the technologies of linux, the kernel, the GNU tools, and the many application environment & libraries & what have you are not suitable for that kind of developement. Actually they are more than suitable, as proven by a little startup formely known as Apple Computers. Just as OS X is basically a *NIX kernel running a series of (proprietary) APIs & ABIs all tied up togheter to form a really sexy system, the very same could be done using the GNU/Linux hot couple as a starting point. The big pieces of that puzzle are actually already more or less built, making getting them all to fit & work togheter the main task at hand.

And so, as you've probably read a hundred times before, we could all hope & foresee that perhaps once a certain critical mass gets reached, the big software vendors will tinker with the thought of porting the big brands. It's already starting to happen with device drivers - just look at ATI's recent buolant activity in OSS-dom.

Plus, while protected under the wings of the mighty GPL, with free to nil cost of production & maintenance, this hypothetical platform could do wonders in providing a solid computing platform for third world & otherwise emerging societies, which in turn might just help out in education & development, maybe even help score free-speech/free-press advances (ask the Chinese government how much it likes bloggers). All of that, with the added business bonus of potentially opening up tera-sized markets for proprietary software vendors.

Hardcore (and perhaps old-fashioned?) linux advocades say that creating such layers of software that bridge the gap between the inner nuts & bolts of the OS and what the end-user eventually experiences is backwards & even contrary to the philosophy behind linux and OSS. They see it as a threat to it's openess, flexibility, portability and so on. And you know what? They're probably right. And for one yours truly would not leave his much beloved Arch Linux flavor-of-tux for such an implementation of a linux OS. But whoever out there fell in the category of 'Not Gonna DIY', then there's nothing wrong in using all the buntus of this world.

It's certainly no worse than using Windows.


** IMHO, of course ;)