Big Winners and Losers of 2011

by Susan Linton - Dec. 16, 2011Comments (14)

Linux There's been a couple of those "Winners & Losers of the Year" posts pop up recently and TuxRadar is asking visitors what they think. It's an interesting topic because it seems as much of a niche as Linux is, there are several smaller niche subsets. Some comment from the perspective of Open Source consulting, from an overview all technical news, or from the regular desktop user.

Now which is the most interesting to you? To me, I relate to the desktop user perspective. I may have begun using Linux back when one had to get proficient under the hood, but that was still from the end-user perspective. Most of what I learned was in response to a personal need. Well, I guess it's that way for most, even the developer.

This is why TuxRadar's Open Ballot this week is more relevant to me than some others. I think some forget that users are a necessary element of the equation.

So, who do regulars user think were the big winners and losers of 2012?

You didn't expect agreement did you? Some think GNOME 3 was a winner and Ubuntu the big loser while some think both lost out. I'm in the latter camp by the way. Most agree that Linux Mint is on the winning team, despite the brouhaha over the Banshee revenue. One guy thinks Ubuntu made a comeback this year. Folks couldn't even agree on a winning browser. Some think Chrome wiped the floor with Firefox, while just as many think Firefox is winning. I prefer Firefox over Chrome, but I think they messed up with that accelerated release cycle thing. I don't trust Chrome or Google. I use Gmail, but I signed up before my paranoia kicked in.

Man oh man, the number of folks mentioning Android is surprising to me. I know some circles really want to push Android, but I didn't predict how many regular desktop users were going to seem pro-Android. Again, for me, the whole Google thing... Just how open is that Android anywho? Did we ever decide?

I particularly like the comment by towy71. He (or she) said, "Linux is a winner every year
Losers: unity, gnome3 & canonical." I have to agree with all that, except I think that extension project just might save GNOME 3's bacon.

A few people are saying KDE is a winner for 4.7. Folks seem to like that version. It might be time for me to brave away from 4.6, especially since my Aggregator has starting crashing lately.

Another outlier even mentioned Slackware for remaining relevant. Well, his exact words were, "Slackware for continuing to be powerful, rock-solid and fast." Gotta love the Slack. This same commenter also put Novell in the big loser column with, "Novell for selling their soul." I'm not sure I agree with that. When I think of Novell selling their soul, I think more of the Microsoft deal than the Attachmate acquisition.

LoosersR'Us expressed how I feel sometimes with the tablet interface direction the big desktops are taking with his subject line: "Who are the Loosers? Linux Users.." His comment gets a little long and ranty, you can read it here, but I can't really disagree with his premise.

My PIcks?

So, for me, the winner this year is Linux Mint. They deserve their day in the sun. It's a good system and the team works very hard to make it that way. Congratulations to them.

But some of Mint's good fortune came as a big ole ribbon-wrapped gift from Ubuntu. Their decision to forge ahead and continue with Unity after the outcry forced many to Mint. I think Ubuntu is the big loser this year. Mark Shuttleworth is doing a tremendous job marketing and promoting Canonical, but Ubuntu has become a shadow of its former self.

And GNOME 3 was losing big, but I really think that extension site has gone a long way to mend relations with their users. There were extensions before and howto after howto found more and more, but users couldn't seem to find just the right thing when they needed it until GNOME had the good idea to sponsor a centralized repository. With that one act, they've become a wash this year.

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by Stan Brown on Dec. 16, 2011

Another vote for Slackware!

That Slackware still exists, is a powerful thing. A distro that does NOT pamper its users, yet still remains a constant favourite with diehards who refuse to use anything else. Hey, there's a message here.

Slackware does not get in your way.

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by an anonymous user on Dec. 16, 2011

> It might be time for me to brave away from 4.6, especially since my Aggregator has starting crashing lately.

I would add "especially since 4.8 will be here soon"...

1 Votes

by an anonymous user on Dec. 16, 2011

On OpenSUSE 12.1 (KDE 4.7.x) Akregator was crashing a lot. Then I found a tip stating to change the engine in Konqueror (used by Akregator) from Webkit to KHTML.

No more crashes since!

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by Paul on Dec. 16, 2011

Completely agree with you Susan that that the extension project just might save GNOME 3's bacon.

I am using both Cairo Dock and Unity. However, it is just not ergonomic when it comes to some jobs that need the following:

a) frequent switching between files and windows

b) working with several files of the same type, for e.g. several Writer or PDF files

Cairo Dock though wonderful does not 'spell out' the names of files names at a single glance. (More Clicks / mouse overs needed & file names cannot be readily seen).

This is because the functionality of the bottom panel is the best for certain tasks. Now for these tasks in Ubuntu I have to log out of Unity and log into GNOME where I use this extension ( https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3/bottom-panel/ ). This helps me a lot in certain tasks.

I hope Ubuntu can give us such an extension that is very useful and when not needed can be removed with just a mere click. It can easily be brought back when needed with a simple click in Firefox. I feel this will be a killer feature for Ubuntu 12.04.

Some people have suggested one can use GNOME Classic, but it is not that attractive as GNOME or Unity.

So the search for the elusive bottom panel with Unity on the side goes on ...

1 Votes

by an anonymous user on Dec. 16, 2011

I would say due to Gnome 3 & Unity, KDE & Xfce were the winners... I also think Pinguy OS's version of Gnome 3 was far better and more polished than Mint's.

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by an anonymous user on Dec. 16, 2011

Regarding Gnome 3 and its extensions a recent article on Datamation (2011: The Year of Linux Disappointments) said it best and stated that ...many of the first extensions to these interfaces undo most of their changes (that the Gnome developers have introduced)...they demonstrate the community's determination to get what its members want. If the core developers at a project won't listen, then others will.

That couldn't be more dead on! I have always been a Gnome user and have found it very good for my particular work flow. Recently purchasing a new machine I had to bite the bullet with the new Gnome. Even though Gnome 3 looks nice, it is not all that productive to use...that is until I installed the Flippery extensions (among others) and figured out several other simple things, such as how get files deleted using the DEL key. I find it kinda arrogant that the developers haven't listened. The fact that you need an extension to do something as simple as shut down, is just plain ridiculous.

Yes, the extensions site may well, be the only thing that is saving Gnome 3! At least Gnome can be made to be what you want again. Otherwise I too would have been another convert to the XFCE.

The developers seem to think that they are building the interface to be suitable for phones, tablets and other small-form screens...well, that ship has sailed. They should be concentrating on the needs of their core users. At least the developers should be making the interface much more configurable.

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by Albin on Dec. 16, 2011

I tried Ubuntu's Unity interface, both on the Netbook Remix and again when released in 11.04 and just didn't like or want it. But that is beside the point.

What intrigues is me is, in reading reviews and pundit remarks about it throughout a year now, how many of the supporters say "It's a good (e.g. great, innovative, interesting, productivity enhancing, attractive, "user friendly", newbie oriented) interface for SOMEBODY ELSE, even though I personally don't need (want) to use it."

That seems to me the kiss of death for Unity, developed for some geeks' "imaginary idea" of an end user, instead of developing for real, proven, meatware end users that one realistically wants to convince to use the operating system.

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by istok on Dec. 16, 2011

"One guy thinks Ubuntu made a comeback this year."

lol

great line

and yeah i'm crazy about android too, what about it :)

android on the phone, debian on the notebook, no desktop box, that's the law :)

otherwise i agree with some folk here, mint and xfce won, ubuntu (and that thing..) and gnome shell lost, difference is, i think gnome will recover. not because of any extension per se, but like they say, it's too big too fail.. too influential in too many places in lunux and beyond just any shell.

ubuntu should stick to netbooks and dell, i hear that's the future of computing... poor things.

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by Orion on Dec. 16, 2011

I am a teacher and have introduced Ubuntu to quite a number of students who are still using it and, over time, in preference to Windows which they keep and use really only when they want to play games.

Their Internet browsing and work are done almost exclusively in Ubuntu. Surprisingly, almost none of them use Linux Mint, even 12 with the tweaked version of Gnome 3.

I guess the difference here is the generation gap. They have grown up more accustomed to a graphical-icon interface than older adults who have grown up with the traditional Windows desktop interface, which I believe explains the adult prefence for the Gnome 2 interface.

Day before yesterday, I helped one student install the latest version of Ubuntu after he had messed up Ubuntu 10.10 and did not know how to rescue it. He had Windows on his computer but still insisted that he wanted Ubuntu.

When I first installed Ubuntu for him, he insisted that Windows should be the default choice on Grub. This time, however, he does not care. In fact, most of his computer use is on the Internet and for this he prefers Ubuntu as he says Windows is getting slower and slower. Part of the reason may be the 3D games he installed in it. And, like the rest, he truly uses Windows only for the 3D games.

After the new install, I showed him how to download, burn Clonezilla, back up the new Ubuntu installation and did a mock run of a restore.

There is one common thread through all the discussions and debates and also happening at school and with the students on their Ubuntu installs - the use of either Docky or Cairo Dock in preference to either Unity or Gnome 3.

I personally prefer Docky and in Unity I can drag and drop program icons on to it. I have not succeeded with Gnome 3 but a student found out that after opening a program, he could "pin" the icon permanently on to Docky.

With the Internet also, I find my students using more and more cloud services as well as Google Docs.

I believe the answer for the future lies in the younger generation. Already, some students have actually installed and started using Linux on their computers in primary school at 9 or 10 years of age.

When they grow up and start their careers and later some become CEOs, which path will they take? The Linux or Windows or Mac path? One parent is already migrating his workplace to Ubuntu - server and desktop.

I personally believe the young will carry (though not all) the Linux flag into the future simply because they have already learned to like it whether in the form of Ubuntu, Mint or any other distro.

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by DVD to iPod giveaway on Dec. 18, 2011

who is the big winners and who is the big losers,,i think the user is the big losers.

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by Kavurt on Dec. 18, 2011

This is an empty and time killing article.

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by darkduck on Dec. 18, 2011

My 5cents about winners and losers...

Greatest failures in 2011: http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/12/three-greatest-failures-in-linux-w...

Greatest successes in 2011: http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/12/three-greatest-successes-in-linux-...

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by an anonymous user on Dec. 19, 2011

It is really surprising that Gnome developers are not listening to users needs..I am using Linux Mint 11 and running Linux Mint 12 on a virtual machine..will shift once Linux MInt 13 is released when it will be more polished....

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by an anonymous user on Dec. 26, 2011

The big loser of 2011 is Linux. Unity fails, Gnome fails, and most importantly Linux community fails. Fighting each other over distro wars, competing the shares among Linux users while Windows 7 users are growing little by little. In future: ultrabooks would be popular, installing Linux would become more and more difficult because of partition issues. I can only see the failure of Desktop Linux.

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