Addressing "Giving up on Linux": for all list readers

[Wade Chandler]

Alexander H.M. Ruoff wrote:

>>Moral of the story?  A newbie as lame as myself did quite well with
>>Linux of various flavors on various levels of hardware; even though I
>>realize i had setbacks, I figured out alternates and other ways around;
>>and, finally I realized that Linux is worth the work, and is accessible
>>to everyone.
> 
> 
> Same with me, don't know anything 'bout PCs but installed Mandrake and
> Fedora and had no problem. 
> 
> 
>>I can't understand that someone who boasts that they know alot about
>>computers could say that they had trouble with linux.
> 
> 
> That's the part which I find strange, a kernel hacker who gives up on
> Linux?
> 
> 
Ah, just a Microsoft employee....just kidding.

Some people get fed up with some things in the Linux world I guess.  I 
like it, but I'm not without complaint.  One thing the community really 
needs to address is unity.  Diversity is a good thing, but too much of 
it can kill you.  When you are dealing with system level software then 
unity plays a more important role.  I'll point to the sound system for 
this one.  It's a prime example.  Let us not forget why Windows beat 
Unix.  Cost and development efforts.

KDE and Gnome are working together these days which is great.  I think 
we need more standard pieces in X actually, or better let X stay as it 
is, then start a community project like "Unified Desktop Manager" or 
something.  This would be a pluggable mananger which other managers 
could be built on top of.  This is however a pain in the rump because it 
would have to be very well designed to be so flexible.

The community really does have to address the hardware vendors as well. 
  If there were a web site dedicated to hardware users where we could 
start creating petitions for the different vendors then they would more 
clearly hear our voices.  Many names together make a much larger splash 
than one at a time.  People notice group letters when dealing with their 
products.  They see it as: "Why did so many people take the time to send 
the same exact letter?" and "Maybe we should rethink our Linux 
strategy." and "I didn't know there were even that many people who buy 
our products using Linux.".

Anyways, those are just some points to make.  I'm a programmer and I 
hate the sound system issues (as an example).  Mac and Windows I have 
one standard interface.  That makes it so much easier.  Maybe we need a 
team of "community" users from this list to start examining their other 
systems and start giving feedback as to how better improve Fedora.  I 
love Fedora, but there is never a time and place to not say something 
could do something better.

What do any of the Red Hat and Fedora developers think?  Is LSB the 
answer, and is it moving toward addressing sound, graphics, and any 
other issue along this path, or is their a more desktop initiative out 
there?

Thanks,

Wade