Slashdot Mirror
Introducing Linux to Joe Average
eco2geek writes "The local "alternative newspaper" is running a cover story titled 'The Rebel Alliance: An unlikely army of hacker hippies, geek visionaries, idealistic teachers and corporate giants is making Portland ground zero of a digital revolution.' I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call Portland 'ground zero' of anything, but the article does give the average reader a good introduction to what Linux is, why it's important, and some of the politics surrounding it. (The article also mentions 'the frenetic Slashdot.org.' :-)"
I've heard so much about the so-called "Rebellion" whenever Linux is mentioned. Sometimes I gotta admit that I dunno what they are talking about.
I use Linux not because I rebel against anyone, it's just that I got tired of the blue-screen-of-death cum you-gimme-more-$$$-and-we-still-won't-fix-the-bug thingy so I switched.
No rebellion, just got tired with you-know-who.
In other words, the "Rebellion" thingy may be overated.
Just my thoughts, anyway.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
(That would make a good slogan...)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
News flash: the open source and priprietary software poles are not actually involved in a zero-sum game, for all the mouthpieces in the respective camps love the sound of their own voices.
They serve different audiences, their goals sort in different orders, and they use different methods to achieve the same aim: getting the job done.
Yes, the demagogues can be entertaining or alarming, depending on the moment. Yes, the legal and technical skirmishes can be quite entertaining. Yes, the market power of his Majesty Satanic may eventually be diminished.
But no, the GPL worker's paradise will never be fully realized, and no, the GPL/BSD free-as-in-the-love-of-God software that continues to grow in usefullnes will not just go away, and no, you shan't be free of spam short of killing all your email boxes.
It's, like, a market, or something, dude.
Information Technology is a means to an end. What has occured is that too many view the means as an end unto itself, and expected to jump in and make ridiculous money for minimal effort. Guilty.
The market forces eroding the IT economy are perfectly reasonable, and the pathetic attempts of Some Cretinous Orangutans are unsurpsing. My fear is that the chemotherapy required to purge the legal system of the cancer of monopoly will have catastropic effects on the legal system, which is brittle enough on its own.
What a wandering rant.
I've talked to several non-linux users about why they don't use it, and I'm not talking about the die-hard MS supporters. I'm talking about people that have tried it at one time or another, ran it for a while, and just gave up on it.
Why did they give up instead of switching over to it as their primary desktop? Answers ranged over several salient (if not because they're real, at least because they're perceived) problems.
Die-hard linux people see variety as a good thing. That's true, and it's not true. Variety always has to be put in context, especially if there's a lot of it. Here's an example that even die-hard linux people can understand (assuming you're not chefs too). Let's say I'm making salsa and I send you to the store to pick up some heat. You don't know the first thing about peppers, and it just so happens I live next to a produce mart the likes of which you've never seen before. To choose from are: jalapenos, habaneros, anaheim, chipotle, ancho, pablano, thai, serrano, scotch bonnet, etc. What are you likely to do? That's right--grab the jalapenos, cuz that's what you've heard of before, even though they're probably not the best solution. Some die-hard linux people would argue, hey, if your goal is to help your buddy out, you'll head over to your favorite bookstore and read up, and then head back to the produce mart armed with this newfound knowledge. To these people I say, you are truly a die-hard fan of linux if you didn't get this point.
This is the pressure novices feel at every turn with linux, not just from what OS to install, but what is the install process? (Depends on the distro you've chosen.) How do I install an application? (Ibid.) Which application do I install if I want, say, an email client? (Good luck wading through all of the available options.) Why is it that everytime I head over to my buddy's house, he always knows about all this crap that I've never heard of, and he's got this smokin' setup that I wouldn't have the first clue how to begin assembling? How does one even keep up with all the choice that's available?
All frustrations that don't happen with Windows. You only rarely head over to a buddy's and see him running Mozilla instead of IE and think, hmm, I'd like that and didn't know about it. 99% of the time, you're both running the same media player, picture editor, etc, and if you're not, there's only a small handful of well-known choices to choose from.
The next barrier to installing/using linux on a long-term basis with these folks is what I call the annoyance/showstopper problem. Eventually, usually sooner than later, these people run into something that's either really annoying (they can't get X to run at a desired resolution, for example), or a really serious problem that impedes their ability to move forward (they can't connect to the web). They also don't really know where to look for help, or even how to find out where they should start. I myself ran into a problem years ago with RedHat, I simply wanted to upgrade the asteroids game, but the web of library dependencies that had to also be updated made it hardly worthwhile. Eventually, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work--I finally got to the end of a long dependency chain and discovered that, no matter what I did to upgrade this particular library, it wouldn't go in because it was replacing a basic graphics library that is used by virtual terminals. Because it was always in use, it couldn't be replaced, even in single-user mode. So I know this frustration well...even I was asking, how great can this OS be if a simple game can't easily be upgraded, and then it turns out when you finally commit yourself to an afternoon of hunting, it simply can't be upgraded at all? The bigger issue here for most users is, why should I have to know about library dependencies to upgrade a game, why are virtual terminals relevant to the problem I'm having, and what is a virtual terminal anyway? (The point is, whatever it is, it's totally unrelated to what I was trying to do, and most people find t
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
While linux is a strong techie's OS, it's also reached the point of being less of a pain in the arse to install and maintain than windows. Windows is such a pain in the arse to install that, if not for the fact it's usually pre-installed or supplied as a ghost image, most end users would have considerable difficulty installing.
It is possible to have a fully operational Fedora box in as little as 15 - 30 minutes that will keep itself updated. Everything that needs configuration can be done right from the GUI nowadays, from partitioning to building your firewall. You can make a kickstart disk to carry your efforts in package selection to other machines. You need not face an interrogation every damned time you change a major piece of hardware, or a few pieces of minor hardware.
While the techie community is capable of using operating systems that are difficult to install (openBSD, Darwin-i386 + Xfree86), the fact a good OS is easy to install/use/maintain will not drive them away.