AMD Releases ACPI Header For Open-Source GPU Driver

[hal2k1]

Lack of important killer apps (Photoshop, some CAD stuff, tax software, even MS Office compatibility). Much more important than games.

There is no lack of important killer apps:

Photoshop => GIMP (2.8 with single-window mode GUI), or Krita (for raster graphics creation) plus digikam (for photographic manipulation) http://www.digikam.org/drupal/about?q=about/features
CAD => Bricscad http://www.bricsys.com/en_INTL/
tax software => is a problem, admittedly, but I have an accountant who does my tax. For tracking my personal finances, I use Skrooge http://skrooge.org/
MS Office => LibreOffice or more recently, Calligra Office for compatibility with the newer XML formats http://www.calligra-suite.org/

"Important killer apps" are considerably better catered for than games.

For example, a copy of MATLAB for Windows would cost one perhaps $99. I can legally run Cantor with a GNU/Octave backed for free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor_%28software%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Octave

There is no lack of excellent desktop software for Linux.

[pingufunkybeat]

I'm sorry, but no.

I agree with you that there are really good alternatives that are quite powerful. Personally, I prefer GIMP to Photoshop.

But ask a professional designer, and you won't get anywhere. They want photoshop. They have decades invested in learning the ins and outs.

It's a bit like suggesting that you don't need Need For Speed because you have TORCS :P

BTW, a usable copy of MATLAB for research could easily cost you several thousand. At work, I use Octave, but for really advanced stuff, you have to cash up. Luckily, Matlab runs just fine on Linux.

[hal2k1]

I'm sorry, but no.

I agree with you that there are really good alternatives that are quite powerful. Personally, I prefer GIMP to Photoshop.

But ask a professional designer, and you won't get anywhere. They want photoshop. They have decades invested in learning the ins and outs.

It's a bit like suggesting that you don't need Need For Speed because you have TORCS :P

BTW, a usable copy of MATLAB for research could easily cost you several thousand. At work, I use Octave, but for really advanced stuff, you have to cash up. Luckily, Matlab runs just fine on Linux.

I'm sorry, but no.

For most uses, say for over 90% of the userbase, the desktop software for Linux is perfectly adequate. The rare professional might need something more, but if the average user wants to manage and edit their photos, then digikam is more than up to the task, and likewise if the average user wants to create raster graphics (say a webcomic), then Krita is as good as any other software you might want to use.

Cantor with GNU Octave goes way beyond any mathematics that I might need to explore. Skrooge deals with tracking and analysing my personal finances just fine. Firefox is a great browser, but I could perhaps use Chrome if I wanted to. Okular is a great PDF viewer, and between the Calligra Suite and LibreOffice I have far more capability than I could ever need in an Office Suite, and I have zero issues with compatibility.

For my personal use, on my personal hosehold desktops and laptops, there is not one lack of software for the Linux platform that I am missing.

[pingufunkybeat]

For me neither, I'm quite happy with it.

But I live with a designer. We have a Windows machine just for Photoshop. And Illustrator. Yes, I know, I use Inkscape, but I'm not a professional.

There is a lot of specialised software keeping people away. I agree with you in principle, but this argument does not hold water with people who use their computers professionally -- and ultimately they decide to switch or not.

Digikam >>> iPhoto and Amarok >>> iTunes, these are not the problem.

[Ex-Cyber]

There is a lot of specialised software keeping people away. I agree with you in principle, but this argument does not hold water with people who use their computers professionally -- and ultimately they decide to switch or not.

Digikam >>> iPhoto and Amarok >>> iTunes, these are not the problem.

There are still even programs that are fairly common in corporate/institutional environments that cause problems for Linux, such as Cisco AnyConnect. There's both an official Linux port of it and an open-source replacement, but the official port is an unstable mess that's only officially supported on one current distro, and the open-source replacement doesn't support all of the same configurations/features.

[GreatEmerald]

Thinking about it, here in our home we have 3 machines. One is what I'm using right now, and it is used for games, running openSUSE 12.1. It also has a dual-boot option with a (barebones) Windows 7 installation for some of the games or editing tools that won't work over Wine or VirtualBox. The second one is a laptop, also using openSUSE 12.1. It's used by my parents, and they sometimes (well, a few matches daily, pretty much) play casual games such as Mahjong and chess. It used to have Windows, until it nearly caused a disk failure, and since then it's been happily running Linux. The third machine is my tablet PC. Its primary OS is Windows 7, and it's the one that I have most problems with. To put it simply, it's a mess with Poulsbo graphics and broken EFI. I have a dual boot option with Gentoo there (which works extremely well in terms of performance), but it's just not feasible to use it for work (which is what I mainly use it for), due to power saving options, or, more precisely, lack of them. To make a long story short, it can't turn off the screen. Hence it's pretty useless with a few hours battery life, when I get around 10 hours on Windows.

I also maintain a fourth machine, a work PC, also running openSUSE 12.1. It's not for playing games, although it gets used for playing multimedia.

So, to put it into perspective, 1/4 machines here are used for gaming. We don't have any consoles (not a fan of them). And 3/4 machines are running Linux as the main OS.

[boast]

WHO CARES???
0.0000000001% care about gaming, therefore NOT IMPORTANT.

oh, well if thats how things work... Linux desktop is only like 1%, so the entire topic is not important

[vertexSymphony]

Otherwise in due time even the nvidia lovers might want to jump ship to AMD or even Intel!

You're fucking right , my next buy is AMD
Now, I'll need a good reason to buy nVIDIA

[hal2k1]

For me neither, I'm quite happy with it.

But I live with a designer. We have a Windows machine just for Photoshop. And Illustrator. Yes, I know, I use Inkscape, but I'm not a professional.

There is a lot of specialised software keeping people away. I agree with you in principle, but this argument does not hold water with people who use their computers professionally -- and ultimately they decide to switch or not.

Digikam >>> iPhoto and Amarok >>> iTunes, these are not the problem.

Granted. No problem.

The one caveat is to note that the phrase "a lot of specialised software keeping people away" applies only to relatively few people. "A lot of specialised software" could easily (and does) refer to thsousands of applications, yet still only a small percentage of the general userbase.

[hal2k1]

oh, well if thats how things work... Linux desktop is only like 1%, so the entire topic is not important

Out of date. Ubuntu alone will ship on 5% of desktop machines this year.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-Will-Ship-on-5-of-PCs-Worldwide-268264.shtml