Years ago, the Linux open-source operating system seemed ready to offer a nonproprietary alternative to Microsoft Windows. But “Linux on the desktop” never took off.

Despite the technical merits of the distributions, Linux remained hard to configure and rough around the edges. And what did a user get whether she conquered the hurdles? An operating system that looked like Windows, only worse.

Keynoting at the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, Bob Sutor, IBM’s vice president of open source and

standards, suggested Linux developers can improve desktop Linux by taking a page from Apple’s playbook.

Windows-Free PCs

What desktop Linux needs is “some really good designers,” Sutor said. “Stop copying 2001 Windows. That’s not where the usability action is.”

Toward that end, IBM is making a new stab at selling “Windows-free” PCs to the enterprise. It joined with Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat to offer Linux desktop PCs to businesses, featuring IBM’s […]

Orginal post by Top Tech News