Vocal Voices

At the end of last week I saw a punt for Manjaro linux and decided to have a look at it. First I researched it, where I read that it is based on Arch Linux and designed to be "easier to use" than most mainstream linux distro's.

I agree, getting it up and running was a doddle. Easily as easy as Windows and without the "we want to run your world" stuff. Getting the screen right was not so easy but it was running in a VMWare virtual machine, so I can forgive that.

Firefox was installed and I could get online immediately.

After that it started getting Linuxy very fast. I wanted an office build, couldn't immediately see what I wanted so had a look online. Immediate offers to the command line to install stuff. However I did notice the app installer and found LibreOffice. Which was nice. I selected all three components and it then threw me a scrolling screen of stuff it was going to install. No it didn't ask me to install anything it just needed to "tell me" it was going to install a bunch of packages with names 60 characters long. "People" aren't interested in that, just geeks.

Then I went to install GIMP as I wanted a graphics editor. This time it threw me a scrolling screen with more than 2 pages with packages I could "choose" to install. Christ knows why it's asking users if they want Python installed. This is a "user" install tool. I selected them all and it installed.

Beyond the "too much info" standard of Linux it is actually pretty good. It comes in a KDE variant and I chose that because it is my preferred OS layer. Gnome's "take it or leave it" attitude doesn't work for me. So far so good.

Beyond that, installing the VMWare tools was not for the faint hearted. I did a bit of research because VMWare doesn't support Manjaro and it suggested the VMWare open source tools, from a terminal shell. Which didn't work. So I wound up connecting the CD to the Linux tools CD image, mounting it by hand and copying the entire cd to the home directory, from the shell, then running the perl script manually. It did work in the end.

Still the app space is limited. I decided to try WINE so I could, perhaps, install some windows apps. This was another hour in a terminal shell with loads of commands and having to be Extremely careful with prompts and my responses. Only to find that the .net libraries included don't support anything written much after 2007. I'm sure it will run a bunch of stuff, but not what I wanted.

Will it provide a machine you can browse on with simple office apps and allow you to do mail and calendar (I forgot to say Thunderbird was installed by default); the answer is Yes and quite well. Will it allow you to extend beyond very simple things? The answer is also Yes, but with one proviso. The knowledge cliff is like climbing Everest one handed without oxygen; if you are not a techno geek of many years standing.

#3 son has been looking at Manjaro and is quietly impressed. But, then, he is a techno geek of many years standing and his job is to manage and maintain Linux servers for companies.

If Linux ever wants to be a real force in the world of desktop computing it needs to do a complete revision of what it aims to achieve and it needs to start, right at the very beginning, with a clear definition of who a "computer user" is and what are acceptable expectations for what that user should need to know. Android is a fairly useful yardstick there. a Linux PC needs to be somewhere between the Android experience (locked down and restricted to signed apps by default) and Windows.

The current user expectations of, quite literally, every Linux distribution, needs to be redefined.

I mentioned in the other thread about trying different distros of Linux - Zorin, Solux and Robolinux.

Yes, I also jumped through the hoops and the installations, and the getting comfortable with the system(s). Linux looked to be working well and I was hopeful.... then came the user software.

I have a load of software from XP through W7 days and I use many of them on a daily basis, but not on Linux, not even in a VM in some cases.

For me the choice was simple. I just did not like the apps on offer. I wasn't keen on Libre, the GIMP or other image editors / viewers, music players, video players etc. Yes I could play with them and get them to work something like "my way", but I just could not be bothered so I jumped back to W10.

I have now got a W11 machine and everything is working fine. It took a few days and a few patches, installed then uninstalled till I found the right one, and now it is super stable. The old calculator and calendar are back (W95 style?) Microsoft Money from 2005, Picture Publisher 10, Audacity, Aimp (music player), EPIM (email client) DVBViewer (Live TV from Freeview) Jarte notepad replacement.

I think that's me done till the end of days.

Probably.

Your older apps would work with wine and wine was available to install from the application installer. But when I tried to install the latest version of paint.net (my preferred imaging program), the wheels came off with asp.net.

I use VLC media player a lot and that was selectable from the app installer.

Beyond that, it's much like OS half. Way less user software available and no major manufacturers really supporting the distro. It's all very good having really good software but if it is written by a linux dev team who think learning 100 keyboard shortcuts is the best way to run an app, then the market is always going to be limited.

That having been said I like to keep a few Linux distro's around. It keeps me agile and my ESXi servers are based on Linux and require that skillset to manage them. Also Linux manages drives and other hardware differently, recovery options are a little better when Windows kills itself.

I recon, like you, I'll be long gone before Linux catches up with Windows for user software. If ever. Mac's struggle and their user base is way more profitable for dev's.

I last used Unix in about 2007 / 8 when I ceased with Cisco and Fujitsu stuff. I am not in the least bit interested in re-learning it or its sibling: Linux.

The vast majority of us are now Windows users, we need to accept it.

Phone users are mainly Android. In the early days it was a phone with calls and txt spk 4 msgs. Look at them now! Cameras, music players. word processing, notes, calendars, diaries, weather.... you name it there's an app for it. Not for me tbh.

Win 11and Linux are going the same way.... thankfully I can opt out - for now.

Certainly MS is trying to force everyone down the Unix/Linux/Mac route

The sad part is that for most users that is all they need, just like only 10% of excel users need the deep function language.

True. The average John and Jane can run their daily lives with what is included in the 'operating system'; certainly with W10 and W11 there is little need for anything else. I guess it is why Chromebooks get more popular by the day.

I wonder if Google will ever start working with Android x86.org to get an Android operating system for laptops and PCs?

It is already a work in progress to get Android installed on PC and use it as your primary operating system, but will probably be well in the future due to limited resources, similar to the React OS project v Windows.

I don't know. Certainly I've installed Android on a few x86 VM's. It works, can be used with a mouse and keyboard and "some" apps will run on it. But a lot of other apps won't and also the security features which enable things like work access with office to your mobile simply don't work.

I've actually had better success with Windows 11 on the RPi. With emulated apps working fine. The main issue is ARM drivers. The apps emulate but the drivers don't. Hence the built in wifi and a few other hardware features of the Broadcom chip sit there as unknown in the device manager.

I guess it will take some real movement to force one or the other and right now most people are happy enough with what they have.

I was talking about it as the operating system not something to run in a VM. That is what Android x86.org are working towards - Android OS for PC.

React OS has been working for years to do a Windows alternative same architecture, drivers - Windows but not Windows. They just do not have the staff nor the financial backing, but they keep on.

I guess the big question is "Are they necessary?"

People I know who have Chromebooks absolutely love them. They already know how to use the Chrome browser so there is no learning curve. Google Docs give them everything they need to work, everything gets saved to the cloud. They can shop and browse and surf, watch films, TV, play music.... and they do it all without ever realising that Google owns them.

Workingman wrote:and they do it all without ever realising that Google owns them.

Your online life being pwned rather than just your password....

Well I don't mind if they keep on trying. But the writing is on the wall for anyone who wants to read it. Windows won because of the apps available. Apple won in the first instance because of the app store. Android wins in the wider sphere because of the apps store. Huawei's Harmony OS is going nowhere because of no apps.

All the Linux variants need to tap into the apps store or at least get some of the major app owners on their side. Without this they are never really going to fly.

But all power to them. If they want to try I'll keep seeing what they produce. But there is no way I would ever want to switch until they have a viable app landscape. Or someone brings Wine right up to current W11 spec and keeps it there.

TBH, if they spent as much time making Wine really work, they would have a far better chance of making a real go of it. But they don't want to and that's about the end of it until Microsoft drives everyone away screaming.