TranslateProject/translated/talk/20140617 Does Linux Lack a Killer App.md

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Linux 缺乏一款杀手级应用程序吗?
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![](http://www.linuxinsider.com/images/rw302843/linux-killer-app.jpg)
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**Linux 最需要的就是游戏, Hyperlogos 的博主 Martin Espinoza 如是说。然而,“如果您把它限定到一款应用程序的话,最需要的很可能仍是 Photoshop 。尽管大家都在谈论 GIMP 已经变得多么多么强大,但它的易用性仍然是个悲催的噩梦;虽然开源社区有些相关的文档,但 GIMP 仍是处在缺乏文档的可怜状态。”**
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这些日子这儿越来越热了Linux 博客世界和 FOSS 论坛的粉丝们都蜂拥入带有破窗的休息室,边吹着冷空调,边讨论此话题。
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甚至是 [Linux Girl][9],这些天也被这些越来越多的潮流所冲击,正在 blogobar 上寻求能使其降温的慰籍,而且越来越频繁。
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虽然她们这样做比较正确但或许她们已经错过了最鲜最美味可口的辩论大餐。“Linux 缺少什么样的杀手级应用程序?”这个问题[已经扩大化了][1],关于此的讨论越演越烈,已经超出以往任何时候。
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开源软件世界的软件是如此令人难以置信的丰富,几乎涵盖了所有的领域,” **Linux Voice** 的 Mike Saunders 开头说到。“我们有桌面端的、服务端的、开发相关的及多媒体工具等一大笔来自开源世界的财富可以选择 -- 其中的某些还是在相关领域中最好的呢。”
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“但还缺少什么吗?” Sanders 接下来提出可争议的话题。“是不是存在一款杀手级应用程序,它会使你的主机不能 24x7 小时的在运行?”
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There was a momentary lull in the conversation around the bar as patrons pondered the suggestion. Linux Girl tried to enjoy the fleeting peace, but it didn't last for more than an instant.
### 'Depends on What You Do' ###
![Linux Girl](http://www.linuxinsider.com/images/article_images/linuxgirl_bg_pinkswirl_150x245.jpg)
"A long time ago Linux needed a lot of things," Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol offered. "These days, when every software and the kitchen sink are migrating to the cloud, everything is going to be multiplatform.
"I would say we lacked games, but that also is being taken care of," Ebersol said. "So I don't feel that we desperately need a killer app anymore."
The killer app "depends on what you do with your computer," consultant and [Slashdot][2] blogger Gerhard Mack opined. "If you are drafting, then the killer app is Autocad. But for other industries the killer app will be something else."
### 'The Enterprise Space' ###
Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien had a similar view.
"There isn't much left on the consumer level," O'Brien said. "I could maybe gripe about games or Nvidia drivers, and I don't really see anything that can replace Quicken. But for me the big difference maker is in the enterprise space.
"Microsoft owns that, and there is nothing that compares to Outlook/Exchange server, Sharepoint, etc.," he asserted. "I suspect part of the reason is that there are not a lot of open source developers who really care about that stuff."
### 'The Tide Is Changing' ###
It's not so much a "missing app" situation as a "not-enough-critical-mass" kind of problem, Google+ blogger Gonzalo Velasco C. suggested.
Many more people use Linux today than did five years ago, he noted; at the same time, many are tied to non-Linux-friendly applications.
"'Everybody' uses $kype, but we have half a dozen apps for that in GNU/Linux, from the simple and very useful Pidgin (my favorite) to Ekiga and similar VoIP apps," Gonzalo Velasco C. explained. "Some users still claim they need Photo$hop and don't take the time to master and suggest improvements for GIMP, Inkscape, Bender and others."
Games used to be missing, "but the tide is changing, mainly -- but not only -- because of Valve's brave SteamOS movement," he added.
### 'Retail Shelf Space' ###
"I don't think there are any 'killer' apps these days," blogger [Robert Pogson][3] agreed. "In Debian GNU/Linux, there are 40K packages. My main PC has only 3K installed and I lack nothing. I have multiple browsers, editors, compilers/interpreters, platforms, and with virtual machinery like KVM, I can play with multiple operating systems and different versions of software as needed.
"I can treat multiple machines as if they were a single machine from anywhere on the LAN," Pogson added. "I can access resources on any node on the LAN from any machine. What more do I need?"
That said, "several professionals have told me that video and image editors in GNU/Linux are a bit weak," he noted. "GIMP is being improved in bit-depth, so that should be covered. Lightworks will eventually be released as FLOSS, so video should be covered."
Nevertheless, "these are tiny niches in IT," he pointed out. "Many ordinary folks go decades without using those other special applications, so I don't think this is anything holding GNU/Linux back."
The real killer in the market, however, is lack of shelf space in retail stores, Pogson asserted. "Where that is covered, GNU/Linux thrives."
### 'Linux Has Lost Out to OS X' ###
Chris Travers, a [blogger][4] who works on the [LedgerSMB][5] project, had a different perspective.
"I don't think that it is a question of killer apps," he began. "The real issue is that on the desktop, Linux has generally lost out to OS X, while it is increasingly dominating the server market along with the BSDs. People who use Linux on the desktop tend to be looking for openness."
What Linux needs is either "the momentum of Microsoft or the smooth UI and attention to detail of OS X," Travers said. "These may come over time."
### The Documentation Problem ###
Linux isn't missing one killer app -- "what it's missing is polish, as always," [Hyperlogos][6] blogger Martin Espinoza opined. "No desktop environment for Linux has the polish of Windows XP, let alone Windows 7.
"Move away from the bloat and oversimplicity of GNOME or from the widget salad of [KDE][7] to what, Xfce or LXDE, with their perfectly horrible file managers and primitive panels?" Espinoza added. "GNOME is the only DE that ever got close, and then they decided to remove all the complexity and eliminate their reason to exist."
Windows is just "a nicer place to hang out," he asserted.
Still, if Linux is missing anything for broader acceptance, "that is games," Espinoza said. "If you were trying to narrow it down to one app, it would probably still be Photoshop. For all the talk of how great GIMP has become, usability is still an abject nightmare, and in spite of the OSS community's self-back-patting regarding documentation, there is no documentation for GIMP which is not pathetic."
GIMP "might be able to do most of the things Photoshop can do, but I'll probably never know," Espinoza concluded. "I suppose if I spent hours trolling fora I could find out how to use GIMP. This failing is shared by most OSS projects, including the ones that think they're really well-documented."
### 'Ease of Use and Support' ###
Ease of use and support are the "killer app" SoylentNews blogger hairyfeet named.
"Oh, a freshly installed Linux distro LOOKS nice, it works great; the problem is it doesn't CONTINUE to look nice or work great," he explained. "First update and whoops! Wireless no longer can use WPA V2. Second update? Whoops, say goodbye to sound, as Pulse has puked. First 'upgrade'? Uh oh, hope you didn't need that!
"THIS is what Windows and OS X have that Linux doesn't: the ease of use and support," hairyfeet concluded. "As long as it takes 15+ Linux releases to equal the same support cycle a single Windows release gets? Then I'm sorry, but your product is just not in the same league -- you are comparing HS baseball to the majors."
### 'Windows 8' ###
Last but not least, [Linux Rants][8] blogger Mike Stone had a surprising suggestion.
"The killer app that Linux has been missing all these years is Windows 8," Stone quipped.
"Seriously, I don't think there is a particular app that can be the 'killer app,'" he said. "Linux needs to have more mainstream application support, and that's going to mean Photoshop and Microsoft Office at the minimum. Thankfully, Microsoft has done their best to make Office less relevant, and most people don't need Photoshop."
Linux "could be reaching critical mass, and I was only partially joking when I said Windows 8 earlier," he concluded. "The application base in Linux is starting to arrive, and the current version of Windows is remarkably unpopular. Fingers crossed we see some motion here soon."
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[1]:http://www.linuxvoice.com/voice-of-the-masses-what-killer-app-is-linux-missing/
[2]:http://slashdot.org/
[3]:http://mrpogson.com/
[4]:http://ledgersmbdev.blogspot.com/
[5]:http://www.ledgersmb.org/
[6]:http://hyperlogos.org/
[7]:http://www.kde.org/
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[8]:http://linuxrants.com/
[9]:http://www.linux-girl.com