What would you like to see developed further?

[guitargeek]

I would like to see more support for USB devices. Although my printer works flawlessly under linux, I have heard about some people having trouble with their USB devices. Also, I have a gamepad that I LOVE, but the only game it works under is Tux Racer...

What would you like to see improved?

[SnarfBlatt]

As a newbie... I would like to see an easier way to install new stuff. RPMs are great and I can compile from source as well. But the dependency problems you run into and the fact that older versions of the software may already exist and the whole uncertainty of what really to do would scare most casual computer users senseless.

IMHO, Linux will not take over the everyday desktop until I can download a piece of software and install it without spending 2 hours finding all of the dependencies for it.

Thanks for hearing me out :D

BTW... LINUX ROX

[carrja99]

Originally posted by guitargeek
I would like to see more support for USB devices. Although my printer works flawlessly under linux, I have heard about some people having trouble with their USB devices. Also, I have a gamepad that I LOVE, but the only game it works under is Tux Racer...

What would you like to see improved?

my gamepad rocks, and it works flawlessly under Linux, and was suprisingly much less painful to install than windows. I plugged it in, typed modprobe joydev, and then created a symlink to /dev/js (for some reason XMame won't tolerate a gamepad at the usb folder), and away I went.

Tuxracer sucks, it runs real slow on my computer, when XMame games run full speed at full screen. Go figure.

[guitargeek]

Tuxracer sucks, it runs real slow on my computer

Weird, Tux Racer even runs great on my girlfriend's Celeron with a 16MB vid card.

[gretchen]

* Better power management for laptops
* EASY samba config - I still haven't gotten this yet, and I think once Linux can be connected to Windows as easy (or close to as easy) as Windows can be connected to Windows, Linux on the desktop will become much more popular.

[wapcaplet]

I've gotten pretty adept at installing RPM, source RPM, tarballs, and others, and would really love to see some kind of improved software installation system. Maybe I am just not using the right packaging system, but it is a major annoyance to have to track down all the dependencies of things, especially some tarballs which have little or no documentation about what is required to compile them, and you just gotta figure out the compiler errors and trace that back to some obscure xxx-devel package.

I like Red Carpet for that reason - but it is pretty restrictive about what it does or doesn't include, and it needs a much improved interface and searching capability. The problem seems to be that there is no general consensus about what a packaging system should be like. (How is .deb on this front? I haven't tried it).

That said, it's pretty astonishing how much better RPM is than anything in MS Windows. Just think about how long it would take, how much it would cost, and how many EULAs you'd need to agree to, to upgrade all of the software on a Windows machine! And think of how many things would no longer work correctly afterwards. With Linux, it's a 5-10 minute task, depending on how fast your internet connection is; all configuration is saved, and everything still works afterwards...

Better and easier configuration of XFree would be great. I can personally do it just fine by editing the config, but the average user will be baffled by stuff like monitor refresh rates and whatnot. Actually the same concept could be extended to many text-file-editing configurations. GUIs for all those will be a must before the average grandmother will want to touch them. (And of course, the geeks are still free to use text editors!)

My experience with USB has so far been pretty positive, so I don't know what would be needed in that area.

I would personally love to see a bigger diversity of weird new interaction styles. Seems we have a preponderance of standard window, button, widget, and other Windows-style GUIs; it'd be awesome to see Linux software pushing the boundaries with 3D file managers, or totally VR-style interaction with the computer. Radical new input devices. If you think about it, the GUI of computers has been more or less the same for more than 15 years. It's time for something new, and Linux would be the place to do it! (btw, I have tried compiling/installing the few 3D window/file managers out there, with no luck yet - anyone else tried/like them?)

[mocnicom]

CD burning isn't as good as it could be. Nero is a great program and someone should clone it for linux.

[nouse66]

Tuxracer sucks, it runs real slow on my computer, when XMame games run full speed at full screen. Go figure.

doesnt that mean you didn't install 3d drivers for your video card?

[Dawa13]

i would like to see better windows games support in more distros.

[plattypus1]

Just two things: easier installs (I've never gotten a SINGLE program installed when I had to compile it from source, but RPMs work great for me) and MORE GAMES!

[Dun'kalis]

I'd like to see KDE continue forward with new technologies and concepts, and even more features for the advanced user.

I'd like more performance enhancing in the kernel (I'm using preempt-kernel, and it really helps). 2.6 is going to be a huge performance jump.

[kart38]

my gamepad rocks, and it works flawlessly under Linux, and was suprisingly much less painful to install than windows. I plugged it in, typed modprobe joydev, and then created a symlink to /dev/js (for some reason XMame won't tolerate a gamepad at the usb folder), and away I went.

[ sarcasm]
Yes. That is quite a bit easier than just plugging it in and using it like Windows forces you to do. I haven't had to install a driver for a USB device since moving from Win2k to XP. How dare they make my digital camera, joystick, steeringwheel/pedals, and MP3 player work without me doing one single thing :mad:
[ /sarcasm]

I consider myself a better than average computer user and have to say that by far installing programs is where Linux is lacking. With less than 10 mouse clicks and minimal typing a program is installed. I'm not affraid of text config files. I play with them all the time tweaking games. I just don't find it exciting to have to start dinking around with them just to get something, that I just installed, to work.

The nvidia drivers are a GREAT example of this. Ok, sure, when you install the new drivers in Windows you have to restart the computer. But you download one file, click on it, click on a few yes/next buttons and it is done. Computer restarts and boom, new drivers. With Linux you have to exit X, unzip the two packages, install the packages, edit the XF86Config-4 file, then restart X. In my case the only time I've gotten the nvidia drivers to work is with Suse 8.1. To top it all off it too me longer to get the drivers to NOT work in MDK than it did to get them installed in Windows.

Oh yeah, installing things in Linux is just peachy :rolleyes: Until this is made as simple as it is in Windows Linux will remain a "geek" OS.

I'm off now to fix MDK so I can try it again ;) Wish me luck....seriously....I need it :)

BTW, support for Windows games, or even all the software, would help immensely. I'm sure that everyone knows that though.

Jason

[tankinan]

Better hardware and software compatibility and more games. Joe ComputerUser loves his games, and until linux has the same number of high-quality games that windows has to offer, linux will be an afterthought.

[sharth]

what do i want... I want to have my family to be smart and not install stuff from Bonzai on windows... yeah. :)

Some more games, especially warcraft 3 and half-life as ports, not as winex. Balsa to work a smidge better (it crashes on load every once in a while, no problem really though).

Samba configuration is a pain, although swat does make it easier. Printing is slightly confusing, because I'm not sure abuot how its working exactly yet. :)

Other than that, i really don't know. And all of you people who say that you hate dependencys, give Debian a whirl. as long as you don't mix versions, you will be fine! :) The only usb device i have is a mouse, so i can't comment on those devices. Personally, cdburning is fairly simple. However, I use command line so my easy may not, and probably isin't your easy. cdrecord and mkisofs :)

the nvidia drivers were simple for me. and if you are not upgrading them (first use), then you shouldn't have to kill the xserver. but even then, its not that hard.

I think that the first 10 some posters in this thread all need to try and run debian. but hey, that's just me :)

[chatins]

I would like to see more wine development. I want to run more free downloads like i.e. 6.0 under rh 8. http://www.winehq.com/

[IRQ5]

I'd really deeply sincerely like to see a way to create/resize partitions from NT 5.1/XP NTFS drives. Or am I missing something?

Better support for devices of all kinds that have been sabotaged by MS and the OEMs (WinModems and such) - not that Linux hasn't done a great job, but one unsupported device will kill you if you're the unlucky one to have it.

And, definitely, better app installation and handling of dependency issues.

(Why don't the people who have sites with apps on them include links to the libraries required to make the program run and print specific error reports to the screen during configure/make? Again, some do a bit of this or all of it, but many don't.)

[GeekGuy]

$my WISHLIST:

- I'd like to see a lightweight X as an alternative
- Better support for USB devices definately
- Decent pro-quality recording studio software (ummm, make that ANY pro-quality recording software)
- An easier way to setup printers under CUPS
- Linmodem support for my st00pid USR 5699 series PCI Winmodem :(
- A linux driver for my st00pid HP 3400C scanner :(

[GeekGuy]

Originally posted by IRQ5
I'd really deeply sincerely like to see a way to create/resize partitions from NT 5.1/XP NTFS drives. Or am I missing something?

Ranish Partition Manager - freeware d00d ;)

[IRQ5]

Really? I used a version of that on one of my computers (worked great), but didn't think it could do what I needed for this one, or even support NTFS at all.

Don't mean to get off-topic or threadjack, but I think I need to defragment an NTFS partition (which I guess I can do with defrag) and then create a bootable Linux partition with the free space (which would probably be some of the 20-37 gig range), without trashing several gigs of data on the NTFS. I checked the site but to read the latest FAQ, they want me to join a Yahoo group - everything available was just about FAT. So it can handle that?

[GeekGuy]

Originally posted by IRQ5
Really? I used a version of that on one of my computers (worked great), but didn't think it could do what I needed for this one, or even support NTFS at all.

Absolutely. It's my tool of choice for fixing up fubared WinXP (NTFS) partitions :)

As for your other question on resizing without trashing, I do not know. I have created, deleted and repaired NTFS with it, but not resized.

If you do a forum search though, this has been asked several times before and I'm sure the answer lies on this forum for you ;)

[dimitrylevin]

To resize NTFS partitions: bootit (see my sig)

Something I'd like to see developed: A AOL instant messenger client that is as good and has all the features that the windows one has, including direct connect, file transfer, typing indicator, buddy icon, saving conversation, sound, etc. Many clients have some of these features, but neither gaim nor the one from AOL have all.

[IRQ5]

Cool - thanks for those tips - I'll check them out soon.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread, already in progress...