Beat Windows: three things to do on Linux Desktop

Beat Windows: There are three things to do on a Linux desktop-general Linux technology-Linux technology and application information. For more information, see the following. What does Linux need to do to make the desktop market more competitive? We have raised some pain points. Obviously, some of them cause much more damage to Linux than other products.

Most people may never think of the first place for improvement in Linux: PC manufacturers and developers are painfully aware that Linux needs to do a good job in power management. As more and more users work on similar devices such as laptops and mobile PCs, it is becoming increasingly important to maximize the battery life.

Yes, Linux has been supporting ACPI for a long time (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface), but this is just the beginning of power management. To truly maximize the power of the battery, you need to have the power-aware function to get the device drivers, power-aware and application programs, at the same time, the system can be precisely controlled for every build. In this field, Linux is far from Apple's Macs or even Windows. To catch up with apple or Microsoft, Linux requires a lot of effort.

The second improvement for Linux is its own application. Maybe we all know that OpenOffice can do almost any work you do through Microsoft Office. It can create Microsoft Office compatible documents to open files in Microsoft Office format. However, people still want to use Microsoft Office instead of OpenOffice. Whether you like it or accept it in front of you, or you want to use a local Windows application that you are familiar. There are several solutions to this problem:

The first method is that software vendors develop a corresponding Linux version for their own products, just as Adobe did for Flash and Acrobat. At the LinuxWorld Conference, IBM, together with Novell, Red Hat, and Canonical/Ubuntu, announced the release of a complete suite of Office services-Lotus Notes, Sametime, and Symphony. The package can run Linux, Windows, and Mac OS Operating Systems. This is the best way to solve the problem, but many Windows-centric software vendors are reluctant to take the risk of not having enough Linux market to worry about it. We cannot expect this situation to happen soon.

Another approach is to use WINE. WINE provides Windows APIs (application interfaces) for Linux, and Windows applications can be run in Linux with WINE installed. Many mainstream Windows applications run quite well on WINE-installed Linux platforms. For example, the performance of Micorsoft Office 2003 in Linux is no different from that in Windows.

The last method is to use virtualization technology. Some virtualization programs, such as OpenVZ, KVM, and VirtualBox, make it easy for you to run Windows applications in a Linux environment. Personally, I like to use VirtualBox. Besides running Windows programs on two Windows beta versions (XP SP3 and Vista SP1), using VirtualBox is the only way for me to run Windows programs, its performance is very good.

Open-source purists oppose the last two methods, which are understandable to them. However, for most common users, WINE and virtual technology are a good option to run Windows applications.

The third thing to improve in Linux is the device driver, which is an eternal problem. Although few PC peripherals do not provide certain Linux support, many of the most important computer peripherals, such as Wi-Fi and graphics cards, do not provide adequate driver support for Linux. These devices can work normally in Linux, but you cannot use them to the maximum extent. This is really annoying.

However, this situation is improving at 1.1. For example, Atheros, a Silicon Valley-based Wi-Fi vendor, recently announced the opening of source code for the 802.11n chipset driver. However, other Wi-Fi companies, such as Broadcom, are still hostile to open source.

Many other hardware vendors still treat open source as their enemies. Most of them finally discovered that they support Linux-at least open its API, which enables open-source developers to write drivers for their hardware devices, this is a good deal and will not cost them a penny. However, the support for poor or incomplete drivers during this period is still a headache for users.

Of course, in addition to the preceding three problems, there are other problems to be solved on the Linux Desktop. However, if Linux developers can overcome these three problems, as a result, Linux desktop will take a big step towards becoming a popular desktop operating system.

Source: http://www.enet.com.cn/