Re: Linux on the desktop - it's come a long way, but is it there yet?

["Jerry Feldman-2" <user=4@nabble.blu.org>]

 While I have not done dual head monitors, I do think the Linux desktop 
is now very usable, but still not quite ready for prime time. I don't 
like some of the changes from SuSE 10.3 to 11.0, in KDE. I might switch 
to GNOME since I use GNOME at work and on my laptop. My current systems 
do not have advanced graphics, so I cannot use desktop effects. 

But, a couple of things that are important in consumerland is watching 
DVDs, and it requires a few extra steps on Linux to install the Codecs. 
I also had mentioned in the past, RealPlayer. Big brother is back 
(barf!), and my wife likes to watch the feeds, and there is no possible 
way to watch the feeds under Linux. The only way is RealPlayer for 
Windows. The problem is that the only way to authenticate is via MSIE, 
but the latest RealPlayer does not run under WINE or CrossoverOffice. 
Last year I found that running VMWare on my laptop did not cut it, but 
I since installed Virtualbox and RealPlayer runs fine in Windows XP 
under VirtualBox. (I was using VMWare Server not VMWarePlayer. 

On a Linux vs. Windows thing on my work desktop, I just got an HP 
Widescreen L1906. Linux (RHEL4U2 IA64) handles the wide screen very 
well, but I have not been able to get Windows XP (Thinkpad T43) to 
consistently get better that 1280x1024. Using the Intel utility I can 
get 1400x1024, but it is inconsistent. (I keep the laptop on 24x5 with 
the cover closed except to physically turn it on). 


 On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:12:52 -0400 (EDT) 
"Rich Braun" <[hidden email]> wrote: 

> Before the rise of the Windows desktop, long ago my preferred desktop 
> environment was a pretty typical Unix/X11-based workstation.  When Linux came 
> out, that's what I used for the first year or two but once editing and finance 
> software emerged on Windows, I embraced that and never could get it to run 
> with emulators of those early days so since then my home setup has always had 
> separate systems to run Windows on the desktop and Linux for back-end 
> services. 
> 
> I started to install VMware at work several months ago so now I decided to 
> once again try merging Linux/Windows at home.  Just a few weeks ago, openSUSE 
> came out with its 11.0 release.  Aha, perhaps the Linux Desktop has truly 
> arrived, I thought! 
> 
> This new version from SUSE is a tour de force in terms of fixing the 
> annoyances of 10.3.  Once I got an autoyast file set up the way I wanted, all 
> the server-side issues come up the way I wanted.  (It can even install on a 
> four-drive RAID10, even though the GUI doesn't include the option.) 
> 
> *However* let me count all the ways that it fell apart once I tried setting up 
> my typical desktop.  Mine is atypical in one way:  like many people, I use a 
> dual-head desktop (dating to 10 years ago when Win98 came with support for 
> this out of the box); but I turn one of the two monitors sideways for portrait 
> mode.  (Don't you just *hate* scrolling through screenfuls in a browser 
> session?  And how often do you really want to watch widescreen DVDs or compare 
> two side-by-side pages of text anyway?) 
> 
> 1) 
> Monitor rotation in sax2 falls apart totally if you have two screens.  It's 
> clear that no one at SUSE or the X consortium ever did QA on this stuff.  I'm 
> sure I could debug the 5 or 6 issues that I found with it, but I don't have 
> the time.  Any time I do something "stupid" like resize a window to 
> full-screen (something that's worked on Windows since the 98 era), it 
> scrambles my frame buffer sufficiently to require log-out and restart. 
> 
> 2) 
> The xrandr rotation support, at least on the Intel DG33TLM motherboard display 
> interface I'm using, is exceedingly slow.  Maybe there is an acceleration 
> parameter I could set--but this is the sort of thing that just works right out 
> of the box in a Windows XP installation. 
> 
> 3) 
> When *will* Linux screensaver support actually work?  The latest failure I'm 
> having is that I've got a "clear" screensaver--it locks the display so I have 
> to type a password to unlock it, but the applications remain visible.  I've 
> never been able to get it to activate Energy Star monitor-standby mode.  The 
> most common problem I have with the screensaver is that it simply fails to 
> activate:  you come in to the office in the morning and see the same root 
> shell that you were working with the previous day, a major security headache. 
> 
> -- 
> Footnote:  I have a kubuntu KDE setup at the office; it was much harder to get 
> dual-head mode working than this openSUSE system at home.  (I've never tried 
> rotating one of the monitors there, mainly because I don't want to breathe on 
> that setup.)  The screensaver problems are just as bad on Ubuntu as openSUSE. 
> 
> Well I just had to vent.  My conclusion:  Linux is *still* not truly ready for 
> the desktop, at age 17.  Maybe once it reaches drinking age?