Slashdot Mirror
A Linux User Goes Back
An anonymous reader says "A friend of mine recently switched to using Windows XP after three and a half years of Linux. I thought the community might benefit from reading his story. Even as a dedicated Linux user, I agree with many of his points. 'Unix on the desktop" has come along way in recent years, yet could still stand much improvement. It is no longer an issue of having a fancy GUI (KDE can't get much better), but rather the real problems lie in the foundation.' Some of his points are wrong, but it's a reasonable article.
Some of his points are wrong, but it's a reasonable article.
/. has posted this article. I'm impressed by the maturity of the staff to do so.
Isn't the first step denial??
I'm joking, I'm joking.
Actually, I'm surprised
Now everyone else be mature and comment instead of flame, k?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
Imagine a marketroid given a linux box with email, a browser, and OpenOffice. He's going to absolutely hate it because of the fonts. I am a hard-core techie and I have a hard time looking at OpenOffice. But give the marketroid the same box with great-looking fonts and his tolerance for linux will go way up.
Fix the @#$%ing fonts!
kNIGits says: "Mr Joe Average is someone who wants to install their OS, boot it up, and it works. He wants to be able to upgrade his PC , and have the hardware work in a few short minutes. He wants to read email, browse the web, talk to his mates online, and play some games."
How is this different than a business user or someone who works in desktop support (aside from the games part)? It isn't. Until this scenario can be neatly met by Linux, it will forever be a server OS.
If anyone out there is support an installation of over 1000 linux desktops I would like to know their experiences.
And spend yet more money on a machine? No thanks!
Michael Loves Me!
The greatest point he makes is that, although there are plenty of gurus willing to help newbies with simple questions, there are even more elitests that will either flame your question or give you a "RTFM!"
I say, if you are friendly and willing to help newbies, answer their questions. If you want to flame, or send a RTFM, stay silent. If they don't get an answer, they'll eventually look their, anyway.
Elitests are the biggest weakness of Linux.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
that and XP is ugly, so much fluff. i hate the colors and the 3d style bars. give me a win2k anyday, (or linux with kde which can be made to look different with ease)
One point the person in the article seems to miss is that he clearly was into chasing the latest distributions whenever they came out, as he seemed to have jumped up the Mandrake/Redhat/Debian releases when they came out, and he even seemed to run the unstable releases too. In the Windows world you don't get to do this much at all (except for installing the security fixes and extra clipart upgrades). It sounds like that a good deal of his problems would go away if he stayed with a distribution when it stopped giving him problems just like if he sticks to WinXP for the next few years.
"...I haven't completely abandoned the Linux community. My home server still runs Mandrake, and IPCop on my gateway/firewall. There is no way I'd ever put any form of Windows on my server, nor would I ever connect a Windows PC directly to the internet without a *NIX gateway in between. Microsoft has a history of poor security, so I protect myself the only way I know how; using Linux. I will continue to advocate the use of GNU/Linux in the server arena. This is where its strength lies at the moment."
I am the only IT at my company, and all of our workstations run XP. Why is this? Because,
1. The software we need runs well on them.
2. Our users (not extremely computer literate) have problems, at times, doing things in Windows. How could I ever expect them to run Linux?
I run various flavors of boxen, but only on our servers or at home. I do not believe that Linux can hang with the ease of use of Windows.
Sure, Linux might be a better all around OS, but if it adds training time and cost to our infrastructure, it comes out to be much less useful than letting our employees run Windows with almost no training.
I use Linux (and various kinds of Unix) for the interface. I detest the mouse. Clicking all over the place is much too slow for my tastes. Clicking alternated with typing is even worse.
Tab completion is one of my favorite interface inventions ever.
Just my opinion.
The Desktop ain't rocket science... It just takes time effort and experience to get it workng the way most people want it to. Ximianis doing a pretty decent job at it and will only get better. I personally love the redcarpet feature for installing updates or new software. It just handles everything for you like it should.
I think this guy got into it too early and bailed at the wrong time. This is just the start of Linux on the desktop, before now nobody but a commited hacker could install and work with a linux desktop, now I think things are changing. Still could be better, but I would say things are in some ways better than the windows desktop. How many people install windows from scratch?
Linux just needs to come pre installed and pre configured on desktops and laptops, then we can start having some real fun.
That is exactly where I kinda thought he was making it all up. I actually use Debian unstable at work, and upgrade regularly.
Yes, there have been about 2-3 hiccups per year, but it is really nothing that someone who can set up RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, and SuSE cannot handle pretty easily. The truth is that Debian unstable is still more stable than most other distros.
I also agree about Mac OS X. I would definitely check it out before going Microsoft. It can run Microsoft Office, and it has an X server (Darwin), and it makes multimedia trivial (especially, for me, simple home digital movies).
Some of his points aren't wrong, they are just different from yours.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
X-Windows is an idea that sucked over a decade ago, and it hasn't improved much since. The whole concept, dumb graphics terminals tied to application servers, is obsolete. The problem is that it's marginally good enough that it hasn't been replaced on Linux by a better windowing architecture. More than anything else, X is the boat-anchor of Linux.
Perhaps it isn't that Linux isn't ready for the desktop, but rather people aren't ready for linux. I like Linux for the reasons that thus guy doesn't! I like compiling my own programs and I like editing my /etc/lilo.conf and my /etc/fstab. I like compiling my own kernel. It gives me a feeling of intimacy with the Operating System because I know exactly what is going on.
As for his X server gripes, I don't have any of his problems. My fonts out of Redhat and Mandrake are fine, I've got 3-D on my Radeon out of the box and I can play Tux Racer, my 2-d is as fast as on my windows boxes.
He says he hates recompiling his kernel every time he gets new hardware. What is wrong with the default distro kernel? They're usually full of everything conceivable, and you can even switch motherboards and usually have it boot flawlessly. Do that with Windows and you'll be fighting with drivers and IRQ conflicts as Windows tries to initialize the non-existant hardware before your new stuff. In my experience, recompiling the kernel/running kudzu is MUCH faster than messing with drivers. I switched all the hardware on one of my dual boot boxes, and Redhat was working in about 5 minutes with no reboots. Windows98 took about 2 hours before I just formatted and reinstalled.
Unlike this guy, I'm never going back. Ever.
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Mac OS X this, Mac OS X that.
maybe he wants to use Windows XP because of his x86 hardware? did anyone think of this? does anyone want to bother spending money for a Mac?
switching from Linux to Mac is more expensive than just fdisk'ing your HD and installing Windows XP.
you don't "switch" to a mac. you buy expensive new hardware and then you junk your old computer. Why go throught that step?
on a side note. Windows 2000 would probably be a better choice
Generic PC -- spend a few hundred dollars and you can try Mandrake, RedHat, SUSE, Windows XP, Windows 2000...
Macintosh -- spend over a grand and you can try os x. Tough luck if you don't like it.
Saying GNU/Linux isn't ready for the desktop based on you setting it up misses the point slightly... you found it difficult to set it up for your desktop, and as someone has already said, had you stuck to one distro, you *might* have got a nice desktop working. But what if someone came along and set it all up nicely for you? What if they got the fonts working, installed KDE with KOffice so you don't have to worry about Open/StarOffice's silly font system, got all the drivers sorted, put some nice little games on, put almost all of the software you needed on, and then gave it to you?
A friend of mine recently set-up a box for my parents, who have used Windows for the past few years, and freaked when IE crashed on them... the only thing they whined about was the Internet not working, but that's a bug we can fix. Other than that, because it was set-up, they were content, and it didn't crash, and the GIMP was faster than Photoshop.
If a company were to sell vanilla boxes all with the same hardware, one install and ghosting would solve all your problems except for X being sluggish.
My point is that your conclusions are generalised and oversimplistic. Yes, give a CD to a friend and they'll kill you for the stress you give them. But find someone who is able to set-up the box nicely for them, and they're not likely to be *that* miffed. There's still work, but its not like GNU/Linux is a no-go, oh well let's look at Windows and MacOSX... it's just an option. Nobody except the immature slashdotters pretend it matters if certain people prefer one OS to another, just so long as people in the end have the *choice* to go with a more free OS.
From the article:
When (not if) I go back to Linux, I'll definitely try SuSE again.
So on the long-term, we're still doing something good very well. We don't need or even want a 100% userbase at the moment.
My home server still runs Mandrake, and IPCop on my gateway/firewall. There is no way I'd ever put any form of Windows on my server, nor would I ever connect a Windows PC directly to the internet without a *NIX gateway in between. Microsoft has a history of poor security, so I protect myself the only way I know how; using Linux. I will continue to advocate the use of GNU/Linux in the server arena. This is where its strength lies at the moment.
Tony, when you're back in a couple of years or even a decade, remind me to buy you a beer.
My wife and I use Mozilla for web browsing and email, OpenOffice.org for word processing, and Psi (Jabber client) for instant messaging. All of these are true multi-user win32 programs, and are perfectly interoperable with their Linux counterparts.
And all of these are free software, so when KDE 5.0 and SuSE 12.0 are out, you can use those applications without any of the problems a lot of developers are now working on.
There are good points here that every Linux Newbie should read. I agree with most of them. I think that what wasn't said was that for most Linux Users it is an upgrade for people that want the "Fine-grained control" over the simplicity.
"I think you know what I'm talkin' about, Mr. President; We're gonna kill us a mummy!" - Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley
Jeez, some of you obviously didn't read the whole thing before you started commenting. He mentions both OS X and BeOS in his little rant. I can give some good reasons for not using either one, too.
OS X: You need new, overpriced, crappy hardware.
BeOS: Be Inc. is dead. It's got nowhere to go. I don't have enough faith in the BeOS community's attempts to keep it alive.
Hmmm...
Overall I agree with every single statement he said. Somehow, however, whenever I have tried to bring these points up in the past I am called an idiot or a troll. I am VERY glad to see the Linux community growing up a little bit and actually listening to arguments such as these. While I would definately consider myself to be a Linux n00b, the main reasons my attempts at migrating to Linux have failed are:
a) Driver installation is a pain
b) Application installation is a pain (compared to Windows)
c) When I looked for honest help my problem got shoved back in my face x5 because then I was just pissed off.
So now I've been using XP for a good few months. I like it. I know it's not secure, but I don't use Outlook or Media Player or any of that stuff so I'm not too worried about. I knew I'd be hooked on XP when I opened up my MP3 folder for the first time and it arranged them all by artist (in groups) and added some spiffy info from the ID3 tags. I just looked at my screen and said, "Wow." Plus it gives me nice thumbnails of all of my pr0n. =)
When I run Linux I look at my screen and say, "Shit. My sound isn't working."
I want to thank CmdrTaco for paying attention to this and getting these issues brought onto the front page.
-Yoweigh
(forgot my password and I'm at work)
He worries about kernel recompiles for new hardware. Yet Windows more often than not still wants a reboot for a driver install... and if he gets new hardware that often, won't he have some screamer than can build a new kernel in a few minutes?
He says X is big, bloated, and unstable. Yet X is nothing of the sort. It might have been bloated for computers designed in the mid 80's... but computers have grown alot since then. And X crashes very very rarely. An app has to misbehave gruesomely, for this to happen. What he really means, is that he has no clue about the distinction between X and his beloved KDE. And not to be too nasty to KDE, it's not the leanest code out there. Try windowmaker, the damn thing hangs X every once in awhile (read 4 times in 9 months) but I ssh back in, kill X and restart. Still more graceful than when a Windows GUI dies.
He even claims to be worried about DRM. Strangely, he gets over this really quick... to the point that he installs XP instead of a somewhat friendlier win2k. He's playing right into Micro$oft's hands... I'll laugh when he bitches about palladium 3 years from now.
But the most damning of all, he complains about problem's linux has with hardware and software compatibility, never realizing that he is as much to blame as anyone. Sure 3D is faster, nvidia and ati are beholden to M$. They will be, until the average moron quits giving that power to M$. Which is another way of saying "never".
Some people are gluttons for punishment. Just make sure you don't get cracked by standing too close when they beg for the whip.
"Mr Joe Average is someone who wants to install their OS, boot it up, and it works. He wants to be able to upgrade his PC , and have the hardware work in a few short minutes. He wants to read email, browse the web, talk to his mates online, and play some games."
That's EXACTLY right.
The biggest problem with Linux on the desktop is that there isn't a standard desktop. Which ironically is also it's best feature.
If you want linux to actually compete on the desktop, you need to have one desktop to represent the linux desktop. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have the freedom to tweak it to your heart's content. But the starting place for everyone should be the same. To convert an average user (ie. a user that doesn't give two cents about programming, but just wants to use the computer), you need to keep the learning curve as flat as possible. It's unfortunate that every distribution seems to have it's own way of doing things. Which means from linux box to linux box the computer will be completely alien to the inexperienced user.
Again, for an experienced user, this is a feature!
But to the average user this is just pure annoyance. They don't care what is happening underneath the desktop. They want to use their computer the way they use their TV. Turn it on, pick a channel, watch, turn off (repeat).
Not only are the distributions different, but versions of a distribution change too dramatically! I've had to change my desktop appearance at least 3-4 times in the last 2 years. And I've stuck to one distribution. From RedHat 6.2 to 7.3, I've seen gmc dissapear for nautilus, linuxconf go bye-bye and I still can't get zip files to open up within the file manager the way they used to. If this were my mother on her computer, she would have traded it in for WinXP the instant that her favorite webpages disappeared. There's no way that you're going to get her to go spelunking for config scripts!
A common desktop would be a nice start. But if you can't get all of the distributions to agree to one, then at least have a very small common "set" of desktops from which to choose. Upon installation you could have a "What OS are you familiar with?" checkbox, and then build the desktop accordingly (similar to KDE). This would also make the learning curve less steep. Win9x, Mac, OS/2, gnome, whatever... but in such a fashion that the average user would know exactly what to expect. Then the expert is free to go in and modify it to whatever he/she would like!
It's a little perverse, but I think one of the strengths of Windows is that it's such crap, and no one outside of Redmond really tries to convince you otherwise.
Take some other OS, like MacOS: My experience has been that if something breaks, you generally get useless answers like "Well, mine works fine" or "It shouldn't do that" or "I don't know how to help you," largely because normally, the thing works ok. People who can fix really difficult problems on Macs are few and far between in my experience.
Likewise, on Linux, intractible problems are answered with "You're doing something wrong" or "You're stupid" or "You don't want to do that" or "Recompile the kernel." There are lots of experts, many of whom are helpful, and can often help fix the problem, albeit without ever imparting to the naive user what they have to do to dig themselves out the next time. In the mean time, the user just feels stupid.
Windows, on the other hand, breaks and breaks often. Go to your nearby expert, and they'll roll their eyes and say, "Yeah, that happened to me, too" (probably because it did). First off, we have a community being built: users screwed by Windows. The nerd comes over, eats beer and pizza while he fixes your problem, all the while reassuring the user that it isn't because he was stupid, but because Windows sucks. User feels a lot less slighted, and because the tweakability is so limited on Windows, he might even learn to do it himself. Probably not, but at least he won't feel bad about asking for help again, 'cause he knows he won't be blamed.
We're all in it together.
Linux is designed and written by programmers, for programmers. If what you do most often on a computer is programming (like me), there is no better system, as far as I'm concerned,
Windows is designed by marketroids for a market. If what you do most often on a computer is what most people do, and you don't want to learn something different than what you're using in the office, there is no better system for that (with that second stipulation in mind).
MacOS is designed by a entirely different set of marketroids plus UI experts for a not-entirely understood market. But if you don't care about perfect interoperability with your windows buddies, there is no better system for that.
The point of all this is that I couldn't care less about desktop users not being able to use Linux. Both they and I will be much happier if they use something else.
Sure, I'll just go out and buy a copy of OS X for $100+ and install it on my current machine.
MAC's are cool, but so is x86 hardware. It's not as simple of a choice.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Mr Joe Average is someone who wants to install their OS, boot it up, and it works. He wants to be able to upgrade his PC , and have the hardware work in a few short minutes. He wants to read email, browse the web, talk to his mates online, and play some games.
Um, no. Mr. Joe User is crackhead who thinks that he should be able to turn on a computer and magically understand every aspect of it's operation. Mr. J wants to call tech support and have them tell him how to use his computer because he paid all that $499.00 for it, and they owe him some help. Mr. Joe User doesn't want to take any training or read any books or manuals. Mr. Joe User takes his car to Jiffy-Lube to get the oil chainged, but thinks he can install ram himself? No, no, not Mr. Joe User.
Mr. Joe User is the guy at our office (we run linux desktops) who doesn't get to have the root password on his box. Mr. Joe User is a user, he gets to come into work. Type in his user name, type in his password (he can do this because he keeps it on a sticky on his monitor) and lauch an office suite. In support, we don't hear from Mr. Joe User much any more, since we switched to linux, he desktop is stable, and he doesn't have the power to mess it up.
Is linux ok for Mr. Joe User? Sure, my grandma uses the system I setup for her to browse the web and send email, all on linux. Does she have the root password? Does she even know what a root password is? No, to both.
Mr. Joe User is a fool is he thinks he can be a system administrator without any training, reading, or studying, regardless of the os. My father uses Windows, and he called be all the time because he fouled something up, grandma rarely calls about the computer. She knows how to use her car and she knows how to use her linux computer. Would she try to change her spark plugs or oil? Nope. Would she try to recompile her kernel? Nope.
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
trying distribution after distribution in the hope of finding the holy grail of Linux desktops.
Hmmmm.... I don't know about that...
Me either. I've found the people that constantly churn distros are either not skilled enough to use Linux, or don't want to put the time to learn how to do things properly, and hope that some other distro will let them get by without learning anything.
The key thing is, which distro you use doesn't really matter. Some make your life easier than others, but the skills you learn work for all of them.
If something is impossible for you to do in Red Hat (for example), it's going to be impossible for you to do in any distro.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The price of freedom is, it seems, the price of faster screen refreshes and easy installation of cheap hardware.
For that he is willing to give the control of all electronic communication in the hands of a single corporation.
Paai
Yeah, 'cause when people say they want OS X, what they're talking about is the kernel. Not all those frilly things like the WHOLE USER EXPERIENCE.
Dumbass...
I read article with attention... That guy did only a mistake... Switching back. He MUST switch to Apple and Mac OS X. Unix-based OS on a user friendly platform... Linux is NOT a system for productivity at all... Not yet... and nobody seem intentioned to do this... Remeber a T-Shirt: "Linux for programming, Mac for productivity, Windows for solitaire...
There were some points in there that were a little undefended, but I didn't see any that were wrong. All in all, I'd say he hit the nail on the head. He even pointed out that he intends to switch back to Linux, when it is ready. I think this article really lays out soemthing that seems to be lacking in many Linux circles: Pragmatism. Eveyone is talking about "linux on the desktop" on how it's this big goal right now, but they seem to be missing the point. It doesn't matter how stable or configurable something is, if you want it "on the desktop" Joe User has to be able to _use_ it. And it's not ready for that. Granted, I use Linux as my desktop OS at home and for my independant work, but I'm not "Joe User", and even that is likely to change soon. OSX is exactly what I want and need in a work machine. But even then, I'll still keep my Wintendo, since that is practically the only platform for decent games, with a few notable exceptions.
At my day job, I use Win2k, because it works easily and I can do my job with it. That's the very reason I'm taking the server farm to Linux, away from MS server products. With Linux there, it works easily, and I can do my job with it.
If the Linux community wants Linux to become a serious force in the desktop world, we are well on their way, but we would do well to heed the points that were brought up here. Especially about X, it really is a pretty clunky system for desktop work. Apple seems to have the right idea, IMHO.
Packages are a nightmare right now, and it seems to be a real sore subject with a lot of people. I read somewhere recently about a guy who wanted to remove sendmail and use a differnet mailer system, but couldn't get the package to install. The general response was "who cares that it didn't work? that system sucks anyway, just stick with sendmail". They totally missed the point, it doesn't matter that the other system sucked. What matters is that he wanted to use it but couldn't, because the package system is so clunky. On other OSes he would have simply installed it, played with it, then _decided for himself_ that is sucked, and then switched back. Probably in less time than he wasted with the RPMs. Apt is a step in the right direction, but it's still not there yet.
This is getting too long and I'm rambling. I'm stopping now. Have fun.
It doesn't. http://www.apple.com/macosx
/etc text files were gone, some were still there but didn't actually do anything and some behaved normally. You didn't know which ones which without trial and error. The Unix file hierarchy was also destroyed with /Apps directories scattered about and binaries in /usr/etc (I still don't understand that). The schizophrenia has gotten better, but that was done by making OSX even less Unix like.
It really depends on what you want to do with it. The people from the fink people have done an excellent job of getting *nix apps working but if you think a *nix person will sit down and be instantly at home, think again.
When I first bought my NeXTStation I thought it would be like sitting down in front of a Solaris box... boy, was I wrong... it took me a while just to get used to NeXT way of configuring stuff, THEN I had to actually make it work for me. You were supposed to use the config app to configure stuff, but it couldn't do everything so you had to drop back to text files. Some of the standard
If you want a usable system that works the way it's supposed to, OSX is great. It's a beautiful system, but it's not "pretty Unix", it's a Mac workstation and selling it to people as anything but isn't telling them the whole story.
While it still does not have all the programs XP does, it still has more than Linux.
Well, isn't that cool. So you threw away all the money you invested in software for XP and have bought new versions for the Mac. Just getting the basic Adobe stuff up and running means you spent thousands.
They love people like you in marketing.
My reasons for not using Linux on the desktop are similar to this guy's, and I'd be willing to bet that very few of the people reading this are more technically able than I am so maybe it's another interesting data point. I was in the kernel group hacking the guys of a sophisticated SMP UNIX ten years ago and nowadays I write distributed filesystems for a living. I hack all day at work, then I go home and often hack some more. Conventional wisdom says I should love Linux, but it - and XFree86, which for all intents and purposes is part of the same package - has always been a big pain in the ass for me. Some examples:
OK, let's compare how Windows did in these areas.
Pretty stark comparison, isn't it? Now, the point isn't to say that Windows is all that great. As an OS professional I can recognize some of the very serious design mistakes they made, and their business practices deserve plenty of condemnation. It's also not my point that Linux is bad technically, although I have to say it's nowhere near as cutting-edge as its proponents would have you believe. The point is that one OS lets me add capabilities quickly and painlessly, while the other forces me to waste hours on broken builds, broken installs, and general dicking around with stuff that in my own professional life I'd barely even dignify by calling it a prototype.
As a result of all this, I don't consider Linux suitable as a user environment. When I'm doing development I prefer to do it on Linux...by logging into a Linux box remotely from my Windows desktop. It's not because I'm stupid, or lazy; as I said, I love to hack. It's because when I sit down at a computer I have a task in mind other than babysitting my OS. Maybe some people enjoy doing that for its own sake, but I went through that phase a long time ago and I have very little patience for it now. Windows simply wastes less of my time.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
I was getting tired of the 'stable' Debian release being so out of date, and the 'unstable' distribution being so... well... unstable. I got tired of stable too, so I apt-get dist-upgraded to unstable and I can't believe he found it too unstable, especially if Windows was the alternative. As long as my server isn't mission-critical, unstable is plenty stable for me where I can't remember the last time I needed to reboot for a crash. But perhaps as a home user, his demands are more than meets the eye...
I've nothing to say here...
... I just can't afford the hardware. The day they find a way to release OS X for x86, I (and i would bet a large portion of the market) are there. It's just got to be so hard to support so much hardware.
Berto
My hats off to this guy. I've been doing UNIX admin work for over 10 years now and I've been using Linux since 1994. It has NO PLACE on my desktop. As the old saying goes:
"Linux is only free if your time is worthless"
-- People who hate Windows use Linux. People who love UNIX use BSD.
Oh, it's easy to get a CDRW or scanner connected to a Sun? Solaris, IRIX, HP-UX, AIX.
The simple answer:
Just shell out the cash!
All you have to do is buy one of their supported drives (from Sun/SGI/HP/IBM) and you're all set!
If Linux was a car, it would still be that old junker that Uncle Fred keeps in his garage and tinkers with every weekend. He's having fun, but most everyelse just wants to drive someplace.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
While it is true that Linux has a number of niggling problems, Windows does as well. It seems that ultimately the reason he moved to XP was because of two things:
1) frustration with graphics in general (both performance and fonts)
2) frustration with hardware support
As far as #1 goes, I'll back him on that one. Fonts have continued to be an amazing pain to deal with. Both MacOS and Windows have systems that make managing fonts trivial. I susppose the source of the complication is that X provides multiple ways to provide fonts which complicates any unified easy means to add fonts.
As for performance of graphics, I find that the performance of Linux is on par with windows. And though admittedly I'm a power user, I find it rather handy every so often to be able to run remote applications so easily (thank heaven for SSH).
Now as for point #2, though his point is true, this should not be attributed to any inherent limitations in Linux itself. The problem is simply a matter of market share. Why support the few percentage points of the market who use Linux when you can just support Windows and cover 90+% of your users.
Personally I find that for 95% of what I do, Linux is as good if not better than Windows for doing it. Evolution is an excellent mail program, both mozilla and konqueror are great browsers. With crossover I'm now able to view a lot more of what's on the Internet. Honestly the only long running grip I have that hasn't been adequately addressed is the font problem.
If you've got problems with hardware support, just make sure to research your purchases before hand to suit your needs. I've only had problems when trying to install on very new hardware that wasn't built with running linux in mind.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I agree with you. MacOS X is a great Operating System, and deserves lots of praise, but: I won't buy a Mac until I can build one myself. Aside from that, I am not exactly partial to the way that Apple locks it's customers into upgrading entire machines just for the sake of running new software. As much as they try to make the G4 machines look modular, they are not. It is a totally different ballpark than what you get with a PC.
But then again, this is how they make their money, and some people are fine by playing by those rules.
I beg to differ. It is not obsolete, and it's getting bigger every day. I have a huge number of users who now interact with *nix X apps purely via Exceed. It's simply not economical to have two boxes under people's desks.
But it's not just that, in the Woindows space, terminal server just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Published apps via Citrix to thinner clients, or even pure thin clients.
And then look at XP itself, from an enterprise stanpoint one of the best things about it is that it comes with a terminal server built in to every client.
A lot of people are attacking this author over his stance that Linux should come down to the level of Joe User. The most common response I see is "Well, Joe User should come to Linux! Not Linux to Joe!" That is just idiotic. Computer geeks make up a very small chunk of the overall computer using populace, it's Joe who makes up the majority, and if we want a technology to become popular and successful on the desktop, we have to bring it to Joe... because Joe doesn't know, nor does he have the patience to figure it out otherwise.
:P
The point of technology is for it to serve users, to make tasks easier for them to accomplish. If you want Linux to succeed on the desktop, it has to become as easy and mindless to use as MacOS or Windows, otherwise it will always be a niche OS useful only on servers and for geeks who have the time and knowledge to mess with it.
Face it, when it comes to widespread success, we are not the people who decide what lives and what dies... it's the people who know far less and need far less out of their computers, because they are the majority.
And let the flames and negative karma begin
The fact that it's free, and not controlled by any one individual is it's biggest strength but also it's biggest weakness
The reason people bitch and moan about the fact that at the moment, desktop linux is not 100% perfect is simple: they've never seen this development model before. I can guarantee you, if I'd shown this person an early version of Windows (by comparing timescales, current Linux would be Windows 3.1) he'd barf. Ditto for showing people early betas of Mac OS X. I did in fact see some early betas of OS X and they sucked. Font support wasn't there right. Graphics was SLOW! Ditto with Mozilla, ditto with most software in fact.
People tend to forget that you can see Linux in all stages of its development. There is no period of hidden years with developers scurrying away under NDAs, you see it all the time. Yes, I know SuSE is on version 8, and KDE is on 3, but that's not to imply they are "ready" for anything, only that some people want to see them. Pretend the versions have the word beta in front of them. Happy now? Because that's basically the state of play at the moment.
All the problems he raised will be sorted out, and at the current rate of progress soon:
- X: why do people bitch about it so much? I think this guy heard "X is slow dude" and believed it. Seriously, I don't see any serious speed problems with X, maybe this was a problem a few years ago but I wasn't using Linux back then. SHM means communication between the server is basically instant. I would be more impressed if I could see statistics that demonstrate that X is much slower than anything else, not subjective impressions. Fonts are simply a technical issue, they will be fixed in time.
- Drivers: I was under the impression that kernel modules were pretty version independant. Of course this point wil always be valid to some extent, because people can and do make their own kernel versions. Anybody can change it enough so that kernel modules no longer work - I can't see how this point is valid as the majority of users need never recompile their kernel (I never have).
- Hardware setup: Linux doesn't have a few billion dollars lying around like some other platforms I could mention, and hardware vendors don't play ball. I can't see how this is the fault of Linux per se, it's merely an inevitable result of the fact that Linux is an open (non-proprietary) platform without any resources to buy the stuff, and currently without enough market share to make it worth their while. In time, hardware vendors will start producing drivers.
- Software distribution: yep, he's right here. As a side project, I'm working on a solution, as are many other people. This one will be solved in time, and is basically caused by the fact that there is no software management engine powerful enough to deal with the myriad differences between different Linux versions.
- Support: in time, this won't be a problem. Besides, has every Windows techie always been smiles and helpfulness? Most windows users rely on technical friends/family for when things go wrong - you have to rely on a stranger if you're unlucky and don't know any other Linux users. Elitists can be a problem, especially on IRC, but as Linux usage goes up, this will recede into the background.
To be honest, with the difficulties Linux has faced, I'm amazed it's here at all. All it's current problems will be solved given time, and at the end, we'll have an open platform that is available to all on equal terms. I think that's a fair reward for not having a tight hierarchy of leaders/dictators writing platforms for profit with everything under their control. I, for one, am not going back.I just bought a mac. Until now I have always wondered what it was exactly that Apple brought to the table. Until OS-X it just wasn't worth it, but now... I don't even bring the WinXP notebook home anymore and my Win2000 machine has become a big chunk of DASD on my network.
Sure, I tried Redhat and Caldera. They are nice, but Apple got it right. Unix stability with a beutiful GUI. Unless there are drastic changes to XP, I have no doubt that my next purchase will be a Mac.
Go buy a Mac. Nix on the desktop is wonderful.
"Some of his points are wrong"
Its called an opinion, and seeing how you didnt back up your comment with any proof, one could say the same about you...
No Premiere,
No After Effects,
No Illustrator,
No GoLive.
So basically if Adobe ported everything to Linux I'd be in... At least A|W Maya is available, only five more apps to go, c'mon Adobe! [Let the GIMP flamers fly.]
This statement is false.
I understand how he could feel the way that he does but much of what he says WAS true a few years ago but Linux is changing rapidly.
I find it much easier to install Linux than an old copy of Windows 98. The new Mandrake, and I'm sure other distros as well, will pick up all of my new hardware without a glitch whereas Windows 98 requires that I laboriously load each driver from support CDs that came with my equipment. This process can easily add an extra 30 - 45 minutes to the install process.
Newer versions of Windows will come with better built in support but as time goes by and new equipment comes out you end up right back in the same position. This happens with Linux distros as well but the big difference is that I can upgrade for free if I can't afford to pay for a distro.
His experience with being able to get on-line is totally different from mine. I have a cable modem that is attached to a routing switch which connects my home LAN. With mandrake I simply tell it to auto detect. No hassles. Maybe he has a regular dial up modem that isn't well supported. WinModems for example are not well supported.
I only have one piece of equipment that didn't get picked up by the default installation. That is my scanner. I purchased it without doing the research first and have regretted it ever since. It's a Cannon scanner and the reason Linux doesn't support it is that the specs are unavailable. It's my own fault and I will never gain buy without doing my homework first. If it doesn't support Linux it doesn't come into my home. I purchased an Epson printer that is actually better supported by Linux than by Windows.
As far as X being slow, it's interesting that Quake 3 for Linux runs faster than Quake 3 for windows if you use a NVIDIA graphics card and OpenGL. So, obviously Linux can be a gaming OS if people would write for it.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I doubt it can at the moment, but back whent it was NeXT's DisplayPostScript it definitly could, and did. I use to do the "shooting holes" thing on other people's display at school. Great fun.
Under OSX, if you were to dig deep enough into the frameworks you could probbably get a "MACH port" open to a remote machine's window server (one hopes tunneled over SSH) and there is a good (but not great) chance that it would "just work". Even the old sound APIs were that way. NeXT actually had a way to ask for this though, and Apple doesn't. Of corse so few people did anything at all with it on the NeXT, who blames them for dropping it?
For network transparency, yes. A step forward for anti-aliased text. A step forward in fact for anti-aliased everything. A step forward for using vector based drawing. A step forward for caring about the physical size of rendered objects rather then pixel sizes (rember it's all PostScript inside, even if it is pronounced PDF). Oh, and in gaurenteeing backing store to apps.
That could all be added to X11, but it wouldn't be apps that wanted to use those features would either fail on old X servers, or be six times as complex to write. And adding all that to X11 would take way to long.
Don't beleve me? Well think aobut this, Quartz is what NeXT had in 1990 (1991? 1989?) plus alpha transperency. Why didn't X take the decade and catch up already? Since it didn't, what makes you think Apple should have grabbed X11, and slammed all the wonderful crap the bought from NeXT into it?
(and yes I know about Keith Packards' nice aa extentions to X...but are they done yet? And are they pervasave like they are in Quartz? Oh, and do they solve the other 15 giant gaping voids that X has instead of features?)
If X11 hasn't cought up in a decade, do you think maybe it would be quicker for Apple to be able to make Quartz network transparent then for Apple to help X catch up? Oh....and does Apple's rather expensave "remote desktop" package count?
Sure, on the other hand unlike the other Unix vendors so far they seem to be winning. Sure, for reasons other then the rendering technology (it really isn't that much more then NeXT's DPS, or Sun's NeWS!). However the rendering technology is definitly not hurting them.
I have written a lot of X apps in my life. Ones that used Xlib directly (xtank for example - no I didn't write all of it, but I was one of the lead maintainers for far too long), ones that used toolkits (Xt and Xaw, Xt and Xmw, Xt and other random crap....GTK--, and others). I know just how big that baby is. If you add more to it, the rest of the bathwater will be forced out of the tub. Of corse you risk the tub busting through the floor too.
I don't hate X. But after writing some small OS X Carbon apps, I really can't keep defending X. I mean Quartz does so much more the X11, and it sure seems faster, and simpler to use. And I expect the network transparency could be fixed. Who knows, maybe I'll poke at that sometime.
IMHO, I agree that winXP and 2K are completely stable. This used to be a major reason to run Linux, but I don't think it applies anymore.
Let's say your a typical PC user that doesn't know the difference between a hard drive and a computer case (I can't count how many of my customers tell me the hard drive is making a noise when they mean the case).
You manage to find some neato piece of software and download it via Mozilla to your user folder. Now you've got a file foo.tar.gz. What next? What manual do you read to figure out what to do with it?? You double-click the file for some help, and after a few seconds you get a screen full of seemingly random characters. You then email or call a friend, or post in an on-line support forum to learn that you need to open a shell and type "gunzip -c foo.tar.gz | tar -xvf -". You think "That makes no sense, but okay." and you do it.
Now you get a command prompt back. Nothing that says the task completed successfully. Nothing that tells you what happened. You poke around in your GUI file browser and notice there is a new directory called "foo", so you double click it. You now see a bunch of files, one looks suspisiously useful "README". So you double click it.
The file tells you to type "./configure". Again you don't have a clue what it means so you type it in and the editor obligingly inserts the text at the top of the README document your are viewing. Nothing tells you there is an error, that a task completed, or that you just typed the command in the wrong place.
Another trip to email or posting to the support forum and you find you need to type that command (and all others) in to the shell prompt window. You get done with the "make install" command and again, nothing tells you that it all went well, what went where, or what to do next. Nothing in your home directory looks different so there's nothing new to double-click on.
For kicks you switch back to the shell and type the command "foo" (the name of the program you downloaded), and get back a "command not found" error message. Back to the email/support forum and you learn you must type "rehash" in the shell window, then you can type "startfoo" to actually get the program going.
There is nothing inherent about the filename "INSTALL" that tells a novice user that the installation directions are in that file. Even if the README exists and directs the user to INSTALL, there's still many points where there is no intuitiveness to the installation. A file named "HELP" would probably be the best choice for the "average" user.
Now compare that install to a Mac OS X software install: Download double-click the new icon, stuffit expander launches and expands the archive. (depending on browser config, this step may be optional) A new icon appears Double-click it A window opens with a big icon and text that says "drag to hard disk to install", or an icon named "Foo installer". You either drag or double-click. In either case, a window appears showing you the progress of what is going on. Usually during an actually installer program you get information about what will happen, where files are going, and what to do next. Almost anyone with any level of computer experience can figure this Mac OS X install with no help. Throughout the installation there are new icons and windows appearing as a direct result of user action. During operations they are informed of the status of the operation and the result of it. Until a GNU/Linux desktop can achieve this type of intuative ineraction it will never achieve any significant install base in the home user desktop environment.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I run X11 on NVidia, ATI, 3Dfx, and some handhelds. It is stable like a rock, small, lightning fast, and it doesn't crash, either itself or Linux.
KDE, Mozilla, and Gnome can be slow, and some misbehaved applications that don't use mouse grabs properly can make X11 appear to "crash" (it's really working fine, you just need to kill the application--happens under OSX and Windows as well).
Those are not X11's problems, they are problems with the toolkits that those systems use. Switching to a frame-buffer based system is not going to fix those problems with the applications.
Most Linux newbies have the SAME questions time again and time again. How do I configure X? How do I use non-ugly X fonts? How do I configure PPP? How do I install these new drivers? Instead of documenting these procedures in the numerious "Linux HOWTOs", these problems should be fixed in SOFTWARE. Anytime someone needs to download a HOWTO doc that describes some obscure incantation of commands and settings, I consider that a BUG in Linux.
cpeterso
Do you folks have even the slightest understanding of human psychology?
When we say "desktop" do we also mean "developer's desktop" or is that called workstation? Because as developer's desktop Linux (or in my case FreeBSD) is much nicer than any of win32s. I know a guy who refuses to use Linux on his desktop, but he also refuses to do any programming on his win2k and does everything on Linux. So my point is that Unix is not only suitable for servers, but also for desktops used for work.
I passed the Turing test.
I liked his article because it makes so much sense in this FUD filled area of which OS to use. Linux needs to be able to accept criticism to grow. Without criticism, the OS stagnates. His points on framebuffers are also interesting. X is the one thing that to me makes Linux ungainly. A much smaller system that would be more modular (not confined to GTK) would be nice.
There is a difference between ideology and reality.
So many open source hippie zealots (OSHZs) like to flame on about how all the problems that people attribute to linux are the fault of Microsoft not playing nice.
Okay, yes that's true, yes that's because of their monopolistic abuses.
But that doesn't make those problems go away, or make them any less real.
All you OSHZs need to realize that there is a huge difference between criticizing a platform on technical merits and criticizing a platform on practical merits.
Linux is simply not a viable solution, yet, for my mom, my sister, or my aunt. This is not due to *ANY* technical inferiority, it's just a fact. THe software available, the way the industry/market works precludes using linux as a desktop OS in many cases. Why is that so hard to accept?
I know linux well, very well. I know what it can and can't do. I know I *can* use it for my daily operations. I could get by with it quite well, but it would take me more time. Every time there is an upgrade to some MS product, I have to wait and/or fiddle with Linux until I get things more or less compatable again. Now.. I used to like that stuff.
But it takes too much time.
I would suggest your linux troubles would vanish if you would just spend a little time learning about what you're doing instead of blindly following instructions in HOWTOs and such.
On the other hand, some of us have this thing called A LIFE. I've done more than my share of changing config files, and like the lounge singer said, "the thrill is gone, baby".
I can just see the Linux advocate on his deathbed. He won't be thinking about his wife, or his children, or his family, he'll be lamenting not being able to read JUST ONE MORE installation guide.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Ok, point taken, but would you really recommend running Apache in default mode (highly likely for the type of user you are describing)? I think it is a good thing that some applications require the user to read a HOWTO or other documentation to install and run it, especially when it is (Inter-)net related. While reading the docs one can get a first impression of the dangers (and their impacts) of running that app, thereby already considering security measures at the time of the setup.
Click and run installations are very tempting for inexperienced users and their mistakes can hurt others, expecially on machines connected to the Internet.
Alas, that is not a question of which system is better, a graphical install via YaST is possible on SuSE as well, with the same possible side effects.
I feel so sig.
I gave Linux a chance. I gave Linux a lot of my time. I'm all but giving up Linux as a desktop solution.
When I hear of guys using linux everyday, they always talk of doing "real work" with it. I can't do MY "real work" with Linux. I can learn to program C/C++ with it, I can throw up a web site with it, I can protect myself from the outside world with it (my gateway/firewall runs linux), BUT I cannot do what amounts to "real work" in my world.
For me, "real work" consists of the following: Music Sequencing/Audio recording, 2D/3D graphic design, and a bit of Flash animation from time to time. I cannot do any of these with efficiancy under Linux. There is nothing available for sequencing and multi-track audio recording on the level of Cubase VST. There are no audio editing apps that have the sheer expandability that Wavelab and SoundForge have. There is nothing like Bryce5, 3D Studio Max, and TrueSpace. Blender doesn't cut it. PhotoShop rules in my world. The Gimp is nice, but it's a pain to use. Oh, Flash simply doesn't exist under Linux.
That's what "real work" is to lots of computer users. It seems that the Linux Elite forgot that many that use computers could care less about programming. They could care less about shell scripts, perl, and whatnot. They would like ease of use over everything else. They want a GUI, not a CLI for their apps. They want something to install without compiling.
They want an OS they don't have to fight with to use.
Before you even begin to write your elitist rant of a reply, understand this: I'm a systems administrator by day. I've worked for companies where I had to administer over 400 Sun boxes running Sybase by remote and I currently work in an environment with Sun servers, WinNT/2000 servers, and an AS/400. I CAN write shell scripts, I CAN compile apps without a problem, I CAN use Linux for what you may consider "real" work (except C programming, I'm using Linux to learn that), and my gateway is configured to act as a samba fileserver, ftp server, AND webserver. At the end of the day, though, I want to record a new dance tune (check my website for more info on that), I might want to whip up a new picture or whatever I want and I can't use Linux for these things.
Don't get me wrong here, I do like Linux and I'll always keep a hard drive in my machines dedicated to it. But for someone like me, Win2000 is the way to go (I hate Mac OS and I own 3 Macs... anyone wanna buy one?). I love the linux desktops/window managers, especially BlackBox and WindowMaker. I can setup a Linux gateway/router far faster than I can with Win2000. I like the ability to pick and choose what goes onto my machine with nearly unlimited flexibility (can't do that with Windows or MacOS). I like what Linux represents. I just can't use it for my "real work".
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
Here's the e-mail I sent to dude:
Hi,
Saw the mention on Slashdot.
While I agree and feel you're 100% right, I'm migrating from Windows 2000 to Linux.
The issues you raised are completely valid, but not being the average home user, they don't bother me that much, especially in the face of the headway Microsoft is making in its (assumed) goal of Internet domination.
I can't say that I blame you:
However, "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty." - Edward R. Murrow.
Despite all these frustrations with Linux, I can't condone your actions. We're 99.98% to the finish line, and the threat of losing is too great. If the Internet is Microsoft's, we're all locked in to one supplier, one philosophy, one vision. One *architecture*. We're too vulnerable, anyone and everyone.
The next Klez, Code Red, or licensing agreement, 5 months or 5 years from now, could shut the Internet down.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
"No manual shipped. Online guide sucks dick"
And how is that different than most Linux based software?
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Windows users are more pragmatic.
If something goes wrong it usually is "Oh, yeah, I've seen that before... let me show you how to fix it." It's not some sort of realization that it sucks, it's just a realization that complex software tends to be like this.
The same thing tends to happen with commercial Unix market, etc. Perhaps because it isn't a "movement", there isn't any defensiveness about it?
One of the troubles with Linux is that so few people really have good knowledge of it in a complex environment, and whenever you ask some question like... "Ok, I have a Linux server handling LDAP requests for about 3,000 clients. But occasionally it exhibits this behavior..."
You'll get maybe 1 person who has a clue, and 99 people who will say it works fine on their desktop at home.