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Time to Try a Linux Desktop?
bigbadwlf writes "EWeek has an opinion column, posted yesterday titled, Isn't Now the Time to Try a Linux Desktop? Quote: 'The crackers currently have the whip hand over Windows, and Microsoft's assertion that Internet Explorer is now part of the operating system shows its flawed reasoning. Worried sick about the latest rash of Internet Explorer security problems? I have the perfect solution for you, one that's even better than switching to Mozilla, Firefox or Opera. Switch operating systems: Go to Linux.'"
SWITCH TO LINUX!!
mmm, why switch if i had your mom?
Maybe a new flavor of Linux should be introduced... Momix! All the power of Linux, with the creamy, juicy boobs of YOUR MOM!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Usability?
Ok, so maybe he is talking about how Windows has a uniformed application API. Oh wait, no they don't! They have several old API's that are still used, and even the Windows desktop it is apparent that multiple methods are used. Click the device manager and check out the menus; woops looks like the skins aren't all the same ;).
Let's see, usability features Linux is behind on. Um, virtual desktops? Oh wait no, Windows doesn't have those and neither does OS X. Now OS X has a couple good ones for it, and Microsoft provides the worst desktop switcher in history for XP (I've used it, it's slow on a 3000+ w/1GB of RAM).
Let's see, highlight pasting? Oh yea, Windows doesn't have that either.
Full use of the middle mouse button? Nope, missin that one too.
Window shading, oh no missing that too.
Always on top windows, woops out again!
grep and sed, oh no those advanced tools for administrators are not found in Windows. You gotta use ctrl+f and ctrl+v in notepad; gui is so much more productive for everyone right?
Full support of CSS2, well no one has that but Mozilla (usually default for distributions not on KDE) has excellent support. Certainly better than IE 6.xxxx.xxxx.xxx.x.x.x.xxxx.x.xxxx.xxx.build:xxx.
Maybe they mean Windows powerful application installer. Oh crap, no that's right. Software is responsible for removing itself and people often have failures removing "legitimate" apps.
Well, I bet he means Windows lack of little bugs. Oops, no right clicking on the desktop shows a lengthy wait for the menu. Come to think of it, it tries to mount the floppy when you right click that icon. Ever explained that one to a new computer user?
Come now, the argument is getting old. If linux weren't so usable us geeks wouldn't use it for hours everyday. I think you meant:
Different.
X11 is to Linux as Windows 1.x - ME is to DOS.
There's something wrong with using the CLI? Users are spoiled with a GUI. Give them a Windows machine that walks them though everything and they'll think they're on top of the world when it comes to computing. GUIs have opened the world of computing up to the average person, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But they've made everything too easy. Computers are not a magical box that can do whatever (as most people seem to think...), they're machines just like your toaster and fridge that need maintanance and other things.
/home (My Documents, anyone?).
Plopping down a user at a Linux terminal and having them learn how to use a shell a little here or there is a very good thing. Hopefully, they may have an idea of what computers once used to be, fully command-line driven with no GUI whatsoever. While it may confuse Joe SixPack, or someone's Granny, they don't need to learn too much. Heck, they probably won't ever see the CLI, let alone install drivers. But for users that do want to use it, it'll be there. They'll be able to understand how the operating system works and see more than just
I'm not saying that all users should be forced to use the CLI, but that it is certaintly NOT a bad thing.
Just for the record, I'm a sixteen year old male. While that may not seem relevant, I've been using computers for at least thirteen of those years (during the first three, obviously, I did nothing productive; just mashed keys to get results and played Sesame Street games, in DOS might I add). I've used DOS (some version), DOS 6.22, Win 3.1, Win95, Win98, WinNT, WinXP, Debian Linux, RedHat Linux, and Mandrake Linux. Back when all we had was DOS, I would mess around in the command line doing stupid, but entertaining things. It may just be the part of me that likes to tinker on a low level, but I was greatly disappointed in WinXP (and NT? I only used it a little bit) that pretty much got rid of the command line (yes, I know it's there, but it's pretty much useless now). When I first started using Linux, I was amazed by how much one still used the shell. While I didn't know any commands, I thought it was awesome and wanted to learn how to use this magnificent tool.