Wrong operating system?
I love this world: I love the new software and technology launches, the fuss around new services and new applications, the way we use technology, the way we combine it, etc. I start thinking that I'm living the best possible worlds and sometimes I feel so surprised and somehow proud of being contemporaneous and partially part of this.
This week brought us, among so many others, Chrome (the oh-so-talked-about Chrome) and the new Picasa (namely 3) + Picasa web . Nice stuff from google, cool things to play with.
Today I wanted to install the new Picasa and, of course it is not available for Linux, yet. Not to mention that Chrome is only available on Windows. Not to mention how much did I wait for Picasa 2.7 with (finally!) upload to web albums for Linux and how thrilled I was to have it this spring.
And I could mention such a long list of applications following the same pattern...
With so many cool applications available on Windows and Mac and the application developers completely ignoring Linux users, I found myself wondering today: am I using the wrong operating system for my software needs? I mean, maybe the type of user I am, the software I need and the way I use my computer in conjunction with the web is not the stuff that a Linux user would do, or what Linux is made for. It's not about not knowing or not wanting, I can tweak stuff, I can hack my Linux system, sometimes I get too involved in trying to make a webcam work or fixing sound / network / etc drivers problems, etc but I might be too social (wtf other would I need a photo management program for?) or too "trendy" for a Linux (wtf other would I want Chrome for?)
But still, I am using Ubuntu (8.04!), the Linux for girls ;) and given its popularity I should have more!
Yeah, I know my problem is obsolete in the context of the web operating system (or whatever the name of the concept is) but still, some doubts darken my clear skies of hope: Chrome on Linux? Firefox on Linux at the same level as for other OS? Plugins?
Don't get me wrong, I love my operating system, I love its openness, I love its freeness, its ubiquity (being able to have it everywhere just the same and for the same 0 charge) but I'm wondering whether we're the right one for each other.
I understand it's all about money and business (why the hell would application developers write Linux versions of the applications when Linux OSs users are so few (supposedly) and can wait anyway since they use a free operating system and should not expect too much from life because they don't pay?) but I just wish we lived in a (more) perfect world...
2 comments:
:) Nice post ... we all have our doubts. Regarding to the os problem what you should do is start looking at linux as a tool not as an operating system. (same for Windowz[I did this intentionally] and Mac [if you have acces to one]. You should understand that you use the applications and the os is just a 'bonus'. I liked the thing with 'ubuntu is the os for girls' (very funny), easy to use but the level of
cholesterol(bloat) is too big for me. Regarding chrome, there's a linux port called chromiun available at codeweavers.com. [I didn't gave it a try but soon I will install it]. Indeed, using linux has it drawbacks[no games,photoshop,dreamweaver to run natively but comparing to the last 5 years it's great. Just think about the cool things that it offers like compiz,virtualization,stability,np spyware,viruses etc. I'm using (only) linux on my computers and I could say I'm a happy (slackware) user for quite some time. Regarding to the distribution, it doesn't matter as long as it does the job [all distributions are actually the same, it just differs the level of tweeking it gets].
Best Regards
A more perfect Linux :)
Otherwise said, the only problem Linux has is that it doesn't run Windows applications.
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