Re: The death of desktop Linux

> On 9/8/2010 1:31 AM, Stephan February wrote:
>> Assertion: The rise of MacOSX, mobile smart phones
>> and the increasing importance of the browser as
>> platform, has rendered Windows largely irrelevant as a
>> desktop platform. Unfortunately these trends have
>> taken out desktop Linux as collateral damage.
>> Discuss!

On a slow National Day afternoon, this is the perfect topic to discuss.

> I believe smartphones / iPads / iPod Touch will never take over the
> desktop for some tasks:
> because size matters!
>
> Try to:
> 1- type a page long document on an iPad's iWork. Good luck. Predictive
> input alone will make you pull your hair.

The last 25 years of "desktop" computing was an enormous experiment
in usage paradigms.  All things considered, I love a keyboard (qwerty or
otherwise).  Devices like a Android and i* are approaching from the non-keyboard
mode that I think is an experiment with new touch sensitive paradigms.
Will this work? Hard to tell. Will some future generation look at us
the same way we look at the quill-using generation?

> 2- compose some music on an iPhone / iPad / Android phone (there's just
> one very basic line-in jack at most!)
>    I know you can play with your mobile phone and some basic
> synthesizers, but you could probably do better
>    on a Z80 with a tracker.
>
> 3- view a photo gallery. No no: a large photo gallery where you look for
> a particular picture, not one
>    when you swipe left to right 5 pictures. Think more like 50 pictures
> and you wish you had a 15" screen.
>
> 4- in general type more than 3 paragraphs on a touchscreen.
>
> 5- draw anything (better than a doodle, regular photo manipulation (not
> one click auto-settings), brochure design)
>
> 6- program! I know gcc is available on rooted iPhone / Android phones,
> but seriously, VI on a phone?
>    that's OK for 3 lines of code, not for a 1M+).
>
> 7- manage 7 email accounts with 10 mails per hour in each in-boxes. Sure
> email works fine
>    on iOS / Android, but it gets very very tiring and you lack the big
> picture and miss the big screen.
>    The battery alone would get gone in half the advertised time.
>
> 8- view a video in general. iPad/tablets would still be fine but
> seriously on a smartphone screen kind of size
>    try to show an hilarious YouTube video and your friend will complain
> he can't see the details, he can't hear
>    and view the video at the same time (phone against the ear to hear
> better!), etc..
>
> 9- connect to your office using ssh / vnc / citrix and whatever
> complicated VPN setup and actually debug
>    that linux / windows based service that crashes. shells on iPhones /
> Androids are sweet, but after
>    typing my 32 chars long passwords I cramps already. For a one liner
> command it's perfect on the go,
>    but as soon as you have to troubleshoot something forget it.
>
> 10- security: no firewall yet on smartphones / tablets. And the software
> is equally vulnerable
>     (check the jailbreakme.com combo of vulnerabilities), and I'm sure
> there are similar ones on Android.
>     No real antivirus, anti-malware, IDS / IPS, proper security model
> (SE-Linux or vista-like), etc..etc...
>     Smartphones / tablets are the most interesting platforms to hack
> right now. It started slowly but
>     hackers are spending tremendous efforts break them and of course
> they manage.
>
> Linux / Windows / Mac OS / *BSD laptops can still do these 10 tasks
> perfectly.
>
> Don't get me wrong, smartphones are cool, especially the Nexus One! :)
> :) (yeah, got one before they closed
> the online shop!!). But due to size factors, usability gets seriously
> reduced. While it's ok for casual browsing,
> casual messaging (sms, mms, msn, etc...), the occasional urgent email,
> RSS feed / news reading, and obviously
> calling friends, and listening to your music collection, it will never
> replace my laptops in my house / office.
>
> Obviously I send this from a desktop, couldn't be bothered to type this
> on a touchscreen! ;-)

+100 to all the above.

> PS: happy national day.

Majulah Singapura!

-- 
Harish Pillay [email protected] gpg id: 746809E3

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