When Mono is completed, Linux is the option for the desktop.

Randy Holloway wrote about his vision on Linux and then especially about Linux on the desktop. I disagree with his vision, I think Linux is definitely an option for the desktop at the moment and thus also in the foreseably future. It will become the option for the desktop when Mono is completed. The reason for this is simple: a lot of Windows programs will be written using .NET. If you can run these programs on Linux too, using Mono, what's keeping you on Windows? Perhaps the games. But definitely not the business applications, since the Linux version for spreadsheets, browsers, wordprocessors, emailprograms and other every-day software are solid today, even when compared to Microsoft Office XP.

I've hated Linux and especially its most hardcore supporters, for years. However, you can't have an unbiased vision on what is best for a given company to use as the OS of choice if you are biased yourself. Mono changed me, I really think Mono is the best Linux has ever experienced: it makes transitions of software written for the Windows platform to a free (as in beer, I don't believe in the GPL-philosophy) OS possible.

Besides Mono, I do think Linux is a good platform to use for everyday business applications today, because the office tools can use Exchange, they can read/write MS Office documents, so why bother investing in MS software when you can save that money and choose the alternative? The only problem is: when you have a lot of desktops to admin as a sysadmin, and you want to do that with the easy tools in Windows server 2003, you're out of luck.

13 Comments

  • thats still not on the desktop dude.


    and quite frankly i dont think the bulk of the mono effort is centered towards desktop applications.

  • Frans, the problem is more on the user experience. And believe me, I tried with non developers people, it's a nightmare.





    Installing Linux properly with 10 people sharing the same network is not really there.





    And I like Linux, but as a developer and for some specific applications. ;-)

  • It can be tough to setup, I know :) I've worked with Unix for a few years so I could manage, but indeed, if you're used to 'C:' and nicely layed out folders, you get confused rather fast. However, if the boxes are setup ok, like: the user sees a desktop with open office on it, it can browse corporate folders shared on a server (which are mounted as a folder, great system), work with the files and read/write email, there is not a lot they can screw up. Most people in offices spend their day in office applications, so if you can make the box to be good at doing that, a LOT of businesses can use linux at the desktop today.





    Mind you: even today a lot of businesses are on win9x/winME, and that's no picknick either ;)

  • Frans, one term says it all: TCO.





    So Linux can read/write MS Office docs. Problem is, you STILL have to retrain every single user to use some very separate apps there.





    Virtually every shop out there with predominantly MS desktops will have to retrain their support too. Nowadays the help desk is a decent percentage of TCO for a company.





    Seems the EXACT same argument was being made back in 1998-1999. You know, the old "we have apps" and "we have better security" and "bug fix releases come quickly" and "the purchase price is next to nothing". And Linuz since then has what? Moved from 2% market share to 3% on the desktop?





    TCO, bud.

  • The problem is not technical. Even if Linux was easier to install and had everything an end-user would need, they will need:





    - A worldwide distribution model. MS has it, and is very difficult to build.


    - Make the internal help desks and support center to support Linux. This is _very_ hard to acomplish. The companies invested _a lot_ of money in training people with Windows technologies


    - Books, training courses.


    - Partners that can make money on it. There are much more ISVs in the Microsoft arena than in Linux's


    - Probably more reasons ;)








  • Duh. If I read Randy's original post, I would have realized that it was Giga and not Gartner who said that :)

  • I don't know how many of you have used Lindows, but Lindows is VERY usable. My mom -- which is not quite techno-phobic, but definitely a hard sell -- would be comfortable with Lindows.





    However, I disagree that Mono will make the shift. The only way that could happen is if they had a 100% solid Windows Forms implementation, so there could be desktop app compatiblity. Not only is Ximian not interested in doing it (someone else is), I have grave doubts that anybody short of a team of dozens, maybe hundreds, of Windows _experts_ could ever pull it off. Windows is a moving target, as Wine has showed, and Windows Forms is so leaky an abstraction that it's impossible to forget that there's Windows underneath.

  • Brad: windows forms is such a pain because it is based in HWND's and messages when you want to do tricks (and who doesn't). If you can create an api that has the same interface as system.windows.forms, but calls into the gnome/kde libs, it will work. If mono isn't gonna do winforms, it will indeed be something else that needs to make the shift. I also don't see why a winforms implementation should use wine or a win32 imitating layer, everything that's needed is already there, in X.

  • Anyone else notice that the linux guys only halfway decent products are the ones they clone from MS or some other commercial company? Then, they say they hate MS, because they just steal stuff from everyone. Some people have a bad case of Robin Hood syndrome. I would hate to see the day when commercial commercial software companies cease to exist... there wouldn't be any cool products to clone anymore. :-)

  • errr, doesn't every software company clone aspects of others? I don't know, but 'Excel' isnt a microsoft invention, nor is 'wordprocessor' or even wysiwyg wordprocessor :)

  • Mono is far, far... far from ready. Besides Mono is claiming an independant framework and not a 1:1 copy for .NET. And what'll happen with Mono once MS releases .NET 5.0 concerning compatibility? I can't imagin commercial companies taking such a risk for serious apps.

  • I don't think Mono will be enough. I think it will increase Linux's viability as a server platform, but not for desktops. The availability of good applications and good support for end users is the key there.

  • I'll be very happy if we can get to a point where most .NET desktop applications will run on Mono , but it's not going to be easy. The problem is indeed Windows.Forms, as Brad Wilson said.





    The mono WinForms implementation IS based on Wine, and is thus is limited by the extent of Wine's Win32 coverage. As Brad said this is always going to lag by a certain amount, although I hear it's currently good enough to run MS Office and StarCraft (GTA 3 soon, apparently)





    Frans: I watched the mono WinForms mailing list go over and over the question of whether their implementation should be based on Wine or not. What it came down to was that anyone who had *really* looked into it found out that WinForms is *such* a leaky abstraction that you couldn't do it without emulating at the *very least* all the message pumping behaviour of Windows.





    The other problem is that (in the main) the only ppl who really know how WinForms works are old Win32 developers, who understand what is going on beneath the abstarction. These ppl are the only ppl who are going to be able to write a reasonably compatible implementation of WinForms in a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, they don' t (as a rule) know GTK/QT/X, and generally are used to programming on Windows. I think the wine-based WinForms implementation is going to flesh out a lot quicker than any non-wine one could.





    So, as it stands, to run WinForms apps, you'll need Wine. For all non-WinForms apps, though, mono should be great.





    In the end, I think this is a shame. When I first heard about Mono, I was thinking about how great it would be to just be able to run Windows apps on Linux. I've since seen that this probably won't happen (seamlessly). What you CAN do, however, is write a cross platform non-gui app, or even a cross-platform gui app by using GTK# or QT# (& I think there is now a SWT port as well).





    Wow, I've written too much. I'll shut up, now!

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