For many, many years, we have wondered if linux is ready for the desktop.  I want to put a link here to the article, ok I will , but this discussion is such a huge fandango you could really waste a lot of time. In the opinion of AE, the question doesn’t boil down, it remains a festooniferous pile of arguing about the bell curves of human cognition.

The AE also thinks that if you’re going to spend the rest of your life saying ‘i’m not a computer person’, then you should have a consultant by now that visits you at least once a month for 60-200 dollars an hour, depending on your market. Most people’s time is worth a lot less, and they have a few moments to read the websites.

That said, Linux is ready for the desktop. If the following set of screenshots doesn’t convince you, nothing will. If this was 1995 and linux was competing against windows 95, it would win, and no one would ever, ever, have to deal with the cursed ‘Start Menu’ ever again.

Fedora 8 - Gnome Desktop - Green Background

The first thing you may notice about this desktop is the dual toolbar design. Toolbars are especially easy to set up in Gnome.

It is also noteworthy that there are location links on the left and application links on the right. The two applications I use most on this system are VLC and OpenOffice Writer, so those are right on the desktop. I set them on the right because I am right handed, it helps me feel like those applications are at my fingertips, it makes them more real.

But what about the other pile of applications and settings, how does Fedora deal with these? How does it compare to the start menu or the OS X doc?

Fedora 8 Application Menu on the Toolbar

This delineation of possible intentions is very efficient. ‘Applications’ holds those tasks that are separate from the operating system. ‘Places’ holds data locations, local, external, networked. ‘System’ handles everything that Windows would include in the ‘Control Panel’ or OS X would include in ‘System Preferences.’

Also noteworthy is that applications are never nested more than one level into the menu. The only two menus that contain items nested to level three are the bookmarks and the preferences.

Toolbars in Gnome are also highly customizeable. You can set them to any color, make them autohide and change almost anything about them with the conventional right click menu.

Fedora 8 - Firefox in Toolbar

This right click menu lets you add anything, but you can also drag applications right out of the application menu on to the toolbar. In OS X, I have to find the Dock and in Windows you have to add it to the ‘Quick Menu’(in some version and situations you can drag it), but here it drags right in.

Fedora 8 Screenshot

Instead of quick key combinations, this captures a screenshot and prompts you where to save it.

Below it shows how I keep track of the processor, in this case a dual speed Pentium III. This shows me that when I run GNU-Chess, it takes every single cycle of the processor and that when I’m browsing or Bit-Torrenting, it hardly taxes this 5 year old system.

fedora 8 processor monitor

Volume Adjustment, of course.

Fedora 8 Gnome Volume Adjustment in Toolbar

And my terminal, sweet terminal….

Fedora 8 Terminal on toolbar.

Tomboy is a notepad system, you can jot anything down and it will be saved, no matter what.

Fedora 8 Tomboy

Power monitoring and settings.

Fedora 8 Power settings

Networking…

Fedora 8 Networking Icon

User name, time, which is pretty much standard. I will say here that OS X does a bad job with the option to display the date, which some people (me) forget often.

Fedora 8 Time Toolbar

Clear desktop, always available. Forget expose and whatever CTRL key combo works with windows, just put it there in the corner.

fedora 8 show desktop

Then my beloved multiple desktops, so bittorrent runs while i keep a GIMP project open and watch My Name is Earl and never feel one single bit crowded. Or tax the processor, unless i’m playing chess or ripping a cd. Which still works.

Linux Windowing

Last, and probably least, the trashcan.

Gnome Trashcan

And you also get update notifications and networking works on wireless and right clicking the desktop gives you the option to change color and resolution and, and, and.

Fedora 8 just makes sense. I could teach anybody to use this system and much easier than I could teach anyone to use Windows or OS X. Teaching to use windows is much worse.

Linux desktop has arrived. Kudos and thanks to all the thousands of developers who’ve put time into this.