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Windows Tech Writer Looks at Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Three days ago I accepted Linux into my life and while I'm not yet a convert, the experience has shaken my faith in Windows. It's hard to reconcile because for nearly 20 years I've mostly stayed on the one true Windows path."
I think he was talking of 20 years of personal computer use.
I mean, it's 2003, for God's sakes.
The cake is a pie
"Three days ago I accepted Linux into my life and while I'm not yet a convert, the experience has shaken my faith in Windows. It's hard to reconcile because for nearly 20 years I've mostly stayed on the one true Windows path."
If they have been using Windows for 20 years they are foremost a technical person, early adopter, and to some extent a knowledgable computer person.
The fact that Linux is always an "alternative" to Windows is in my opinion, just furthering the saying that "Linux is for people that hate Windows, BSD is for people that love UNIX". Why do Linux users always have to profess their fate to Linus & Stallman and in the same breath say something, ANYTHING, about Windows?
I run FreeBSD & NetBSD because I love UNIX and its capabilities and its features and EVERYTHING. It has nothing to do with Windows. Ever. I still run Windows XP and 2K. With Linux users it seems to be a conversion of holy nature like they are becoming a shaolin priest and can't look back....why?
Nice article probably, but Free and Open Source software is not "public domain". It _is_ copyrighted and comes with a license, which grants you the right to modify/redistribute, etc. Well, I guess I'll give the guy a break - he is new on the block. :-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Well, as most other people here, I support Linux. However, that does not mean that I think Slashdot should be just a propaganda machine, pumping out all positive material regarding Linux that the editors can find, no matter how newsworthy it is. I come here to read news for nerds, stuff that matters, not just to be subjected to "Microsoft sucks and Linux is the best".
The gift came to me via David and Roger, two very nice, not pushy, Linux missionaries who are involved with the coming Linux Installfest.
It wouldn't hurt to have more of their type.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
(If you don't know how to defrag, you're probably not ready for the Linux experience.)
Setting it all up can, however, be a little daunting...
Etc. This and other negative comments about usability in the article make an unintentional but important point.
Linux is not for ordinary people. It's for computer enthusiasts. Most people want to use the computer as a tool, not for its own sake. They have no interest in memorizing reams of arcane computer trivia in order to get email, surf the web, write, and work on spreadsheets.
Desktop Linux can't and won't satisfy the requirements of the ordinary user, even though it may be a great playground for hobbyists, as well as a perfectly reasonable solution on the server side for many applications. The conversion of a longtime computer hobbyist says nothing about the dream many Linux users have of their pet OS becoming a significant force in the desktop market. Neither they nor Chris Barton reflect the consumers in that market.
Actually, it's quite fitting for the average slashdot reader. Most people here are armchair Linux users. Some may even have a dual boot system set up. But the majority: "I only use Windows for games." (and email, slashdot, work, coding, chatting, and browsing my internet.)
It's no surprise that 95% of slashdot traffic comes from IE.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
This kind of feeling / comment can't be encouraging for people who want to make the switch from MS. As it mentions in the article (and a comment above), he had two 'nice, not pushy' guys to help with his install - people who would probably help him with a problem like this rather than sit back and laugh.
Sheer hell, it sounds like!
Back in the day, attempting to decipher the poorly written, unorganized, and very cryptic ppp, slip, and chat documentation could take hours if not weekends.
An hour is clearly a milestone of progress, here.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
.. the thing I found about Linux, is once you have it set up right, it is great for technophobes.
This is true about UNIX, in general. While Windows would behave as if it were born in a universe with no cause and effect, Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris, etc. just behave. With UNIX, most problems are either up-front configuration issues or external issues, such as an ISP going down for an evening.
UNIX is sort of like a hard mountain climb, which ends in a flat plateau of endless easy hiking with oasises along the way. Windows is just an endless climb where fatique makes hallucinations of plateaus appear and disapperar tauntingly.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
Linux is not for ordinary people. It's for computer enthusiasts. Most people want to use the computer as a tool, not for its own sake. They have no interest in memorizing reams of arcane computer trivia in order to get email, surf the web, write, and work on spreadsheets. ...Windows comes preinstalled. If you have a properly set up distribution with some good default choices (OpenOffice, Evolution etc.) it is not really any harder than on Windows, apart from unfamiliarity. Getting a Linux geek there to install and configure it shouldn't be the problem, the question is what it takes to keep it running, and more importantly if it runs the software people want to run.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Macs and X11 were usable in the 80s, but Windows was a joke until 3.11 (and not coincidently Microsoft started playing hardball on making other solutions work). Anyone doing real work at the time would have used the Borland or similar environments, or perhaps GEM (iirc).
But that doesn't take away from his point that he's been working in this environment for a very long time.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Since Knoppix boots right off the CD and doesn't touch your system then I feel that's the best way to get newbies interested. That way there is no commitment to just try Linux.
Most of the time it requires zero work to get them running Linux. After that they can decide if they want to really install Linux.
Even though I don't use it, KDE 3.1 usually produces a very favorable impression of Linux because it looks slick.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Linux is fundumentally designed as a replacement for UNIX, not a replacement for Windows.
I've been Linux-only for two years, and I've been running a Linux server for 4 years. As a result, I have a much different view on things.
While you ask for Visual Studio, I ask for a decent replacement for my developer tools. I don't even see "grep" for winshit, much less the pipes required to make it useful. I don't see a decent commandline, or any semblence thereof. COMMAND.COM is crap, and so is CMD.EXE(essentially COMMAND.COM+DOSKEY).
GUI utilities are $599.40+tax a dozen in Windows, and a dime of bandwidth a dozen in Linux. A good command line base is essential for me. I can search through all of HTTP access logs and only display the results of my dad checking his email to find his current IP address with a single, simple, line of shell code. Then I can securely connect to his computer and change whatever needs to be changed without wasting bandwidth with (Tight)VNC.
If you just want virtual desktops (which can be of any amount) check out LiteStep.
Pointing and clicking is like a baby pointing and screaming. Stuff gets done, but it's a lot faster to ask in an intelligible language. I'll never give up a great shell(zsh being my favorite) for a prettier interface.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
A decade ago, getting access to Unix was HARD. Sure, a few people could get a shell in a university timeshare setup. However, running 'ls' and 'pine' as non-root in a term emulator doesn't really compare to running a modern productive Unix 'desktop'.
I know a few guys like the author. People working with PCs in a business setting had DOS/Novell/OS2/Windows/NT and tons of apps and languages to deal with. Non-PC systems were usually VMS or IBM. Unix was easy to avoid because that's not where the applications were. (That's all changed, but only in the last 5 years or so as UNIX took over the high-end and Linux made the low-end accesible.)
If you're advocating, it's important to grok that "PC Culture" is as old and entrenced as Unix culture. People just don't like to throw out 20 years of What They Know for something different. In a lot of ways, Linux is the bridge between the PC world and the Unix world, but it's still a big jump to make.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I have been using Linux since RH 5.1 - worked my way through various 6's, 7's, and 8.0. I spent a considerable amount of time learning and understanding Linux, and got pretty knowledgeable about it. I tried very hard to go all-Linux, all the time, but I couldn't and still can't do it. Here's why: apps. Yes, apps.
OK, the Office situation I consider adequately covered. Ditto Internet: email, browsing, etc. I even converted my years of Quicken data over to CBB. And I couldn't care less about games. But I still found myself needing to dual-boot, and I hate needing to dual-boot.
It's the less mainstream stuff that's still missing. On Windows, I have some excellent topographic map software, nicely integrated with my GPS unit. I have some excellent birding software, with videos and birdsongs. Great genealogical software. Great sound editing software. Etc., etc. I looked pretty hard, but was not able to find Linux equivalents.
When Windows 2000 came out, that was a turning point. So much more stable than Windows 98. I generally run Windows 2000 now, and hardly ever boot into Linux. I don't have the time or inclination to maintain 2 systems, so I'll stick with Windows 2000, because it's good enough.
This is almost true. I just had a seven-day nightmare, trying to get an unrecognized wireless card to work with SuSE. The great advantage Microsoft has is that every piece of hardware you buy comes with Windows drivers.
(Actually, come to think of it, my card had a Linux driver. But I had to compile it myself (kernel versioning hell prevents precompiled drivers) and when the card wasn't autorecognized, there was no way their tech support would help. They just pointed me at the HOWTO.)
From which I conclude... well, don't buy Trendware wireless cards. But also, that Linux is going to impact the corporate desktop long before it really makes a difference in the home desktop.
Corporations can have hardware buying policies and make sure they get Linux-compatible hardware. Corporations have sysadmins who can use the wonderful command line. And Linux is naturally built for multi-user environments.
The home desktop is a much harder - and less lucrative - market to crack. I don't really see it, to be honest, until the corporate market has cracked.
Show me a Linux replacement for Adobe FrameMaker (or better yet, a port), and I'm there. Even at $599.40 or whatever Adobe's charging this week.
The original article was written from the point of view of a technical writer. IMO, any technical writer using MSTurd for documents over 100 pages in length needs to have his head examined. (Fuckin' Windows print drivers that won't print the same Word document the same way on two computers, meantime the FrameMaker d00dz are happily writing stuff in Frame on their Windoze laptops, then checking the files in to the source code control system at work, where they resume working on them from their Solaris and Windoze and Mac desktop boxen.)
I think FrameMaker's market share at the midrange of tech writers is pretty high, and for good reason. If you want to go beyond FrameMaker, you're talking even more money - Documentum-class document management systems, single sourcing from a big pile of XML into PDF, hardcopy, or HTML - but Linux ain't even in contention here.
It's sorta like Photoshop vs. The Gimp. The Gimp's great for Joe Tuxpack's vacation photos, but if you're doing color separations for inks that are requires to print on a billboard, and you wanna be damn sure it's the shade of puce that your Marketing department wast^H^H^H^Hpaid half a million bucks in researching, sorry kids, break out the Photoshop.
People, the guy writes for the New Zealand News, not Nework Computing. His audience is people who want to be informed about technology without being made to feel stupid about it.
The use of quotes is one technique to introduce terms in a way that acknowledges that the terms might be new to Windows users. The author wrote, "If you don't know how to defrag, you're probably not ready for the Linux experience." Note that he didn't say, "I don't know what defrag means." He wrote it in a way that made readers realize that there is some technical stuff going on with a Linux installation that might be new to them.
While it's funny to think that there are people out there who don't know how to defrag a disc or set up dual booting, or select the right distribution for their needs, the truth is that if Linux is going to penetrate the skulls of Joe and Joan Public, they'll need gentle introductions like the one provided by Mr. Barton.
I love to ride bicycles. But I hate going into a bike shop where the people who work their look down their nose at me simply because I don't shave my legs and ride a Lightspeed. If you've ever been in a bike shop like that, you know what it's like to be a Windows user confronted by sneering Linux know-it-alls. The "you're an idiot" mentality of so many Linux users is the opposite of true evangelism.
Chris Barton has the right approach to introducing Windows users to Linux in a non-threatening way. Kudos to the man.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I'm not buying your Red Hat 5.2 : Red Hat 9 :: Win3.1 : Win2k analogy. Windows 3.1 is a 16-bit DOS shell with a crude UI, and Windows 2000 is a 32-bit protected OS with pre-emptive multi-tasking.
So by your logic, Windows XP really isn't all that different than Windows NT 3. I mean Windows NT 3.0 was 32 bit pre-emptively multi-tasked operating system. In fact if you look at the help about for Windows XP you will see that it is in fact only Windows 5.1 (Windows 2000 was 5.0). Windows XP, just has better hardware support and a better interface (packages aren't any better though).
You are of course falling into the unfortunately common mistake of equating the kernel to the OS. They are not the same thing, yes Red Hat 9 runs a kernel that descended from the same kernel it ran with 5.2 (albeit significantly improved). However a kernel does not an Operating System make, just as a heart doesn't make a human being.
There are significant differences between Red Hat 5.2 and Red Hat 9.0. All the Linux distributuins have underdone *tremendous* amounts of growth during the past 5 years. In fact they have changed far more dramatically than Windows has in that same time frame.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
How plausible would a parallel article have been (a few years back), perhaps in Byte or Dr. Dobbs announcing that Amiga was ready for the masses?
:))
:) *That's* why suddenly there are complete systems that even many Windows diehards admit are either "good enough" or nearly there -- because it's not sudden at all.
(If someone can point to one, I'll take this back, but I don't *think* Amiga -- or BeOS, or a lot of others -- ever got past the Beautiful Swandive phase, no matter how nice they are, or how many people persist in not burying them
Bob Young's book about Red Hat's (so-far) success is titled "Under the Radar" -- seems like an apt phrase not just for Red Hat but more generally for the way Linux (or, to be fair, BSD) desktops have semi-suddenly become hip to heap praise on, much of it deserved.
OpenOffice, AbiWord, KOffice, Mozilla, the various free programming languages, the various free desktop environments, (etc etc) have been evolving for years, and the Free software matrix is both complete and flexible enough that a Grand Unified Final Answer hasn't been necessary. Rough edges are still there, probably always will be, but they demonstrate how dynamic the whole process is. Every minor release of GCC shows this, in fact
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5