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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."
It's hard to reconcile because for nearly 20 years I've mostly stayed on the one true Windows path.
If you were using Windows in 1984 and kept using it... you have more problems than just trying to reconcile an OS.
wow
I cannot really find this relevant. I mean, we have all heard the Linux is better than Windows, blah blah blah. I mean, if someone (a real person, that is) posted a testimony that Windows is better than Linux, then it could be news, but this feels just like regurgitation.
We hold no grudge. Just donate half your money to the free software foundation. Thanks a million.
Let's see who can find the stock photo and the PR agency responsible for this. ;-)
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
This article is something like 10 small paragraphs long as an introduction to setting up and running (for a short while now) Linux. It is hardly worth the average Slashdot reader's time.
Sheer hell, it sounds like!
"That" was a "nice" "article" about "something".
You'd think a 'technical writer' or 'IT Editor' would be a little more knowledgeable about 'basic computing concepts' like 'disk partitioning' and maybe wouldn't use so many 'extraneous unnecessary quotation marks'.
I mean, it's 2003, for God's sakes.
The cake is a pie
Yet another person tries linux, finds to their surprise that it is possible for a collection of loosely tied enthusiasts to produce something that works well, and writes about it, with the weight of "I'm a tech writer, so my opinion is more valid ;-) ) It discourages me when I read comments like the one in the artice - "What was it like - surprisingly, rather like Windows". Rather than look for similarities between the two, see how well you can use it, and comment on that useability, not on it's similarities. This way, fewer first time adopters will be put off when they discover that some things definately are _not_ like Windows.
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
One true windows path? Where does the path lead to? Podunk, Nebraska?
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
"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?
Yeah. Just today I saw a post by a web-designer, explaining how he/she had never used Mozilla.
Sad, sad, sad.
(as if the original topic wasn't sad enough)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
From the article:
I know it sounds mad, but it's a fundamental tenet of this new religion. Here, software is not made by armies of "Microserfs" employed by a giant corporation, but by armies of volunteer programmers who "donate" their code to the public domain. By making underlying source code available to all, many hands and minds work on the software to improve it - hence "open source".
and later on:
My own installation was a breeze - at the beginning. Mandrake "partitioned" the PC's disk so it could "dual boot" to either Windows or Linux.
"People" who gratuitously overuse words in "quotes" too much these days give me Austin Powers "flashbacks" which make me "laugh."
~Philly
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
The whole MS goal is to encourage the user of its operating systems to buy "applications" which can be launched by a few clicks. A corollary to the Microsoft philosophy is that all human actions can be anticipated and distilled into a a few fixed menus.
There really isn't any problem with Microsoft products as long as the menus match the user's needs. However the frustration sets in when the user grows beyond Microsoft's predigested canned offerings. There is little one can do except possibly buy another "application" in the never ending quest for the final one. The game is rigged and your goal will always be just out of reach -- tomorrow, next month, next year.
You see, actually, it isn't really about buying new applications per se. It's about buying new menus, the eternal search for the perfect menu which will do it all.
The author should close with the Linux Prayer:
Our PC GOD Torvalds, which art in Transmeta^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSDN
Hallowed be thy skillz
Thy kernel comes, in the US and all the earth
Give us this day our daily updates.
And forgive us our holes, as we apply thine patch.
And lead us not into closed source, but deliver us from Microsoft.
For thine is the kernel, the skillz, and the leetness for ever and ever. Amen.
Only THEN, he can say: "Praise the PC god and Linux open-source apostles, I'm a believer."
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
No why on earth would he need to defrag his diskdrive before installing linux? There are two ways of doing this, either repartition the disk drive, or you install it on a FAT partition with the VFAT file system (not really recommended but it works). None of them requires defragmentation though...
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.
http://installfest.linux.net.nz/
As you can tell, it's only going on in New Zealand. Good for the Kiwis, but is there anything of the sort being done in the United States? I think we need Installfests here, too.
As for the article, I think everyone should quit carping. This is good press for Linux. I had the same experience in March when I made the "switch" on my main PC. Only difference is that my machine does not dual boot, and I'd had Aurora Linux on a Sparc since December '02. At any rate, though, the message needs to get out that Linux *IS* a genuine alternative, and this article does just that.
IAAL
Having RTFA and most of the comments, I'm a bit baffeled by the slasdot community today. Even I see this not as a article in how to use Linux or anything, but more as the sort of commentary that you can read on page three of most computermagazines these days. Saying things like "we knew that" and "is this news" actually misses the point, as he isn't speaking to those who already uses Linux but rather to those who still sees Windows as the only operating system out there. He isn't preaching to the choir my friends, he is preaching to the heatens, like myself.
The article / editorial / comment is more of a key than a crowbar... it may wet peoples appetite for the 'free*' OS they can get from their nerdy friends - even if the setup can be more of a hazzle than Windows is (well, than Windows can be; I used several hours patching up my spare PC yesterday after upgrading to XP). As such, I would say this is a good little article. He mentiones several of the pros of Linux, a few of the drawbacks, points out that it isn't a scary thing to try and that it is realivelty easy to do. He even adds a numer of links to distros, info on opensourse and the Linux Newbie Administration Guide... The only thing he don't add is the URL to knoppix so people could try Linux without having to change anything on their 'puter.
*) However you want to define 'free' as far as Linux go...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
.. 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.
Ok, I want to believe. I honestly do.
... what?
... people please. XP you have to pay for. Win9x, WinME, Windows 2000 are pretty much available for the asking on a trial basis. Assuming people are actually purchasing their applications the OS is a tiny fraction of the overall cost when you include their 3D modelling package, Photoshop, Games (Q3A for Linux wasn't free last time I checked, nor any of the Unreal series.)
... but I don't think I could find 8 apps to run, one for each virtual desktop.
I loaded RedHat around version 5.1 or 5.2 long, long ago - dedicated a machine to it, got it working, don't remember any of the particulars such as which shell I was using, hell it was 5 years ago (plus or minus.)
I got it running one afternoon, configured the modem (external modems by Hayes / USR - accept no substitutes) and got it talking to my ISP, used some version of Netscape that easily adequate for surfing at the time, I totally dug the 8-way virtual display under the GUI, I almost understood where everything on my drive was and why, had fun with the screen backgrounds (XEarth, etc..) and then
What did I do next? Not much else to do. None of my apps (read : games) were available at the time for Linux. I was unable to find replacements for any of my tools (read : an XTree clone such as ZTree, Office, Visual Studio, Drive Image, etc.) - I know now that there is a viable replacement for Office, but my professional experience doing development is on the MS platform. I have an entire support system for coming up with software on the MS platforms that I just haven't found (either where to find, or even that they exist) for Linux.
And of course there is the real reason we own home computers (and yes, I already mentioned it) : games. Flight simulators. Everquest (et.al MMORPGs) MechWarrior 2/3/4. Battles of Destiny. Yes, I know that Q3 is available on Linux, as is Unreal (well I believe it is) and the UT series. Anything else?
And as for cost
I would love to run a Linux box at home if for no other reason than the cool 8-way virtual desktop in the GUI
Linux is good enough. Quit making it better and spend some time coming up with apps - now THAT will get people to convert.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
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
It's nice to see a good article like this one. Sure it lacks depth, but it shows that even a hard core Windows user can see what draws many of us to use Linux instead. I would love to see a similar article where various people are forced to give up using Windows (or Mac) for a week and made to use Linux for their daily PC routine (of course with someone to help them along the way nearby) to see how quickly they adapt to the new environment.
-Cnik
What the hell does defragging have to do with anything?
Maybe nothing. Maybe his buddies didn't know what they were doing. He is just the messenger here, so don't shoot. That said, it used to be that you needed a defrag to be able to do a OS multi-boot on the same physical drive. Isn't that still the case?
Now for the meat...
No, not all distributions are free. Some companies may choose not to GPL their proprietary bells-and-whistles, such as installers and configuration utilities. I also dislike this article's erroneous insinuation that all Linux software is free.
You're absolutely correct. And it doesn't really matter one bit that you are correct. You see, the average person is quite content to use Windows until something better comes along. By something better, I mean it had better be (a) significantly faster/stable and/or (b) significantly cheaper and/or (c) significantly more feature rich (and easy to use) and/or (d) significantly more entertaining. Linux may or may not be faster/stable (it's debatable these days), it is more feature rich (but it's not easier to use), and it definitely is not more entertaining to the average person. So what does that leave? Cheaper. And how does every rabid Linux advocate start Linux evangelism? "Hey it's free! Here, take one."
The fact is that Joe Blow will choose Linux over Windows when doing so allows him to dodge the extra $200+ of cost of Windows + Office on a new computer. Joe had also better not care that most of the new games out there won't be usable under Linux. THEN he will choose Linux.
Don't get me wrong, I like Linux on the desktop. But please be realistic about why most people will choose it.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
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.
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.
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.
I know people may see this as "Propaganda", but considering the foothold Microsoft has on the industry, I think it's good to find more positive news relating to Linux. I find microsofts ad campain to be very propagandic. It's good to see some counter balance.
This story reminds me of my own conversion. It wasn't that long ago (This January) that I switched over to Linux completely. I was quite impressed with all the applications and how well they worked. I have always been a fan of GNU tools. It's nice to have both without dual booting.
I think it's pathetic that someone who writes articles on PC use took this long to just check out linux. It isn't like it's some obscure OS! It's half as old as his PC experience!
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
One of my favourite analogies when it comes to M$ and Linux comes from something I saw a couple of summers ago. Some soccer club was doing a fund raiser and selling food at a soccer tournament. They had bar-b-ques fired up, real beef burgers going, a salad bar where you could get the fixings you wanted for it and although it was mostly people improvising stuff they were serving up a damn good burger.
Half a block away there was a McDonalds, and me and some of the other watched people leave the stands, walk to the McDonalds and come back with a McDonalds hamburger (or whatever, Big Mac or what have you). The burgers the soccer club was selling were cheaper, clearly better by any definition of a burger and right there for the taking. The only explanation me and my friends could come up with for why people would walk to the McDonalds is brand.
Weird weird stuff.
Mrs Betty Blow, to create a character, is Joe Blow's wife. She has quite different wishes to the tech writer in the article. She has (IMHO) been poorly served by Windows et al in the past.
What she wants:
- Email
- Web browsing
- Letter writing
- Printing
- Solitaire
- That's it.
What she doesn't want to do:
- Change the mouse speed
- Change the colour scheme
- Change the monitor settings
- Change the time zone
- Muck about with screen savers
- Add or remove programs
- Select new hardware eg printers
- Play games other than Solitaire
- Use Internet chat
- Use fancy web sites with streaming audio etc
Hackers, you know how to use a system like Debian to build a setup that does these simple tasks. Just be local and be around. Use SSH or TightVNC to help sort out problems if you want.
By contrast, Windows presents a bewildering world full of control panels and other scary things. Betty's never going to touch them, so why clutter up the interface by presenting them? I don't know how many people fall into the Betty category but I'm willing to bet it's a lot more than we might think...
Why do OS converts, Mac evangelists, and Linux gurus always sound like religious fanatics? Computers are wonderful things, but they should not fill any sort of philosophical, spiritual, or political void in your life. Well, one of the reasons I am a GNU/Linux user is that the GPL is much more in keeping with traditional Judaeo-Christian morality.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
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
So what follows is only my opinion of what I think is best for the open source community and the end user as a whole.
Lead by example: Despite all the best technical arguments in the world, people's curiosity is tweaked by what appears to be different. "Wow that windows looks different?", "It's not windows." (count to 5 in head) "Really?.. well what is it?" Whatever your opinions are of Lindows and their ilk, the reality is that they are keeping things similar, but making them a little different. People look at it seriously and wonder what it is like to use, whether it will address some of the things that they didn't like about Windows etc. The more end users that linux attracts the more momentum to polish the experience. There is no reason at all why linux can't be polished, it's just usually because the community looks down on form over function. Unfortunately the mums and dads of the world don't know much about the function and can only judge by the form.
One of our complaints about windows is that it hides things from us or tries to second guess what we want - this is often held up by the non-techinical types as windows biggest strength. No amount of arguing that cmd.exe is crap will affect them.
I marvel at the mum and dad computer user because they treat computers as tools (as they really are). That is my mother will boot the machine, type in an email, send it, read her other messages and then turn the computer off. On the other hand I like to leave my machine on if not constantly, then at least for 8 or 9 hours at a stretch. Arguments on Stability simply don't impress her unless something crashes in the 20 minutes that she is using the machine (which is very rare).
One linux zealot I knew would constantly sprout the "linux is free" line. That would get people in in droves. He was quite happy to run off copies of mandrake or slackware and give them to those that were interested, but soon as they came to ask him questions (usually on how to get the modem working) it was "RTFM" or he'd help but make them feel stupid the entire time. So linux wasn't free because it was a trade off for these people of time versus money.
So now, I try to get linux running somewhere visible and quietly let others come to me to ask about it rather than taking it on the road. The more non-technical people we get championing linux the better because they will talk about it in "real world" terms and they will make the best advocates.
I just can't be bothered.
Good luck, Tim, wherever you are.
Finding God in a Dog