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Exploring Linux Desktop Myths
Krafty Koder writes "Over at Newsforge (Part of OSTG, Slashdot's Parent) there's an interesting article that attempts to dispells the myth that Linux isn't ready for the desktop or that Windows still beats Linux.
Three myths are explored - that Linux is harder to use, difficult to install and that there's not enough apps ."
I have a solitary Windows machine at home for gaming. Lots of nice hardware to play great games. Until I can get Thief (1, 2, Deadly Shadows), Half Life, System Shock (1, 2), etc on Linux I'll be keeping my Windows machine for that purpose.
Before the fanboys start yelping about Quake/Doom3 being out for Linux: I don't care. I want the lowest common denominator for my gaming and that's Windows.
Trolling is a art,
There is no denying that it's harder to use than Windows. Yes, getting widget X to work is just a matter of looking in the man page and finding the correct command and args - and hell, that may not even be hard for you or anyone else here. But it's still not something the average person will ever do.
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Besides that, it's ignorant to EXPECT an average computer user to just accept the fact that they need to start learning nifty commands XYZ - why should they? Why WOULD they? Most of the slashdot crowd probably learned it because they wanted to. Linux was something they wanted to use, and they wanted to learn to use it well.
All the average user wants is to be able to send an email, or browse the web for porno, or whatever. LET THEM
Different tools for different jobs. Use Linux if you want to be an uber-1337 power user. Use Windows if you just want to check your mail and surf porn.
Just like if you want to measure the height of a wall, all you need is a yardstick (Windows) - you don't need a damn laser-guided-super-gadget (Linux).
Sure, the super-gadget is arguably "better", but 99% of the people on earth don't need one, don't want one, and will never be inclined to learn to use one.
Why is that such a bad thing?
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Until Firefox renders every page just like IE does the public isn't going to care for it.
I hope that this day never comes. IE makes some bad bad mistakes in the way it renders and handles pages. Unfortunately people have built their websites around that IE functionality.
InfoWorld is running a special report on desktop Linux this week. The gist of the author's opinion is that Linux is ready for the desktop -- for a limited set of applications. What makes it less attractive to companies is the lack of good centralized managament tools and the perennial question: Yeah, but why would you switch?
I see a few people here already using Mozilla as an example of why Linux is superior to Windows, but I can install Mozilla on my existing Windows desktops way more easily than I can wipe them and install Linux. Ditto OpenOffice. We all know that the vast majority of PC hardware shipped to enterprises came with Windows pre-installed. Companies are going to need a really compelling reason to replace that with Linux, and "I can run Mozilla" isn't it.
That InfoWorld special report also includes a review of four desktop Linux distros, BTW. Red Hat scores favorably, but Sun Java Desktop comes in second.
Breakfast served all day!
It's the lack of drivers and ease of installing drivers that kills linux.
I spent 5 hours getting the latest ATI driver working after suffering with with slow speed with the mesa drivers while running celestia. After I finally got it going, glgears and fglxgears ran great. Celestia no longer worked, nor did a couple of other 3d apps I tried to run.
I spent hours trying to get alsa to work and gave up, having to settle on OSS with no volume control support.
I just installed real player 10 last night. Doesn't work with firefox, and when I got it to run ran very poorly compaired to real player 8.
Etc.. Etc.
I like learning about the system, but when you follow instuctions to the leter and it still doesn't work like it should, it gets damned frustrating.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
OK, I call bullshit. Tons of hardware doesn't work well or easily with Windows. People just never have to deal with it because Windows gets preinstalled.
My Kodak doesn't work in Linux. I plugged it into XP and it worked. Hmm. That didn't come preinstalled as I just bought it in December.
Really? I don't. Can you name any offhand?
The example I will continue to use is http://slashdot.org/. When it stops forcing a refresh to fix the sidebar then I will believe Firefox is "acceptable". It's amazing how many Firefox zealots ignore this with a brush off. General Windows users will not.
Sorry, dude, but have never had anyone I've shown firefox to complain about the ways it's different from IE. Office you may have a point about, though about 85% of companies don't need MS Office and don't use most of its features.
And again, you are dealing with people magnatudes higher in computer literacy apparently.
I use Photoshop, 3ds max, and Premiere every day I go to work. I've done that for 8+ years now. There is no collection of software on Linux that will allow me to get my job done to an equal level of quality and to file formats that I can share with my coworkers and get integrated into our final products (games).
Linux is not ready for my corporate desktop. The GIMP and Blender are interesting tools, I'll freely admit that. They are not replacements for industry standard tools like 3DS Max and Photoshop, though.
The author's marginalizing of apps he doesn't need doesn't at all imply that the apps aren't needed. The article is quite biased towards the author's views and needs. It does't present full picture of the problem.
But it's still not possible for Joe User to simply download an app and install it via an installation wizard like everyone is used to on Windows. You either run setup.exe there or some *.msi files and click "Next" a few times and you're finished.
Not so under Linux. I am a Linux developer myself, even earning my money as a Linux developer, and I know it's a tough problem to tackle in the Right Way(tm). But we should eventually try. The old installer from Loki games is a good example of how it should work (although I don't think it's the correct solution as there is no RPM or deb support in it). The really tough things here are first to get most projects to have support for such an installer and second for such an installer to support as many distributions as possible.
Of course Debian users will argue "well, just do an apt-get install foo", and Gentoo people will tell you to use emerge, but the point for Joe User is not to have to use the command line.
If we manage to deal with this problem I'll say Linux is really ready for desktop of everyone. I've set up the desktop that a few hundred people of the Bavarian Blood Donation Service use via their thinclients, so I know Linux is ready for desktop use if all the necessary applications are installed.
I recently installed mandrake 10 on my pc. I was tired of windows and wanted to finally make the jump to linux.
Big mistake.
By far, the easiest part was actually getting it to install. Mandrake has a fantastic install, and i commend them on that.
But I instantly lost functionality.
Things were annoyingly difficult to install. (command lines?! I havnt used those in almost a DECADE! Dont be an elistist here.)
It was slower then windows 2000. On all fronts. Opening programs, moving windows, even typing.
The applications did not play well with each other, at all.
Drag and drop never worked.
Configuring default settings was a pain.
Networking. Dear god. I spent 3 hours trying to get my network up, only to finally call my local network guru... who spent FOUR HOURS setting up my LAN. Which then stopped working when the computer rebooted due to a power outage.
Good luck trying to get a codec installed. Yeesh.
So I decided to go back to windows 2000, but only run open source apps on it.
Im here. Im totally willing to go open source only, but linux just BOMBED on me. It didnt work, and it was a struggle just to navigate.
You will not find a more willing computer user then me. Im serious. I WANT TO USE LINUX. But it just _sucks_ usability-wise compared to windows 2000.
(i would also like to thank the entire community for their help. you guys were awesome)
no
I'm sorry, but Windows does not have huge ease of use. It has huge long term familiarity and many people around the place who kind of know how to do things. OS X does not have ease of use for a typical user upgrading from OS 9; considerable retraining is required. In fact, I can well remember when I had to migrate from Unix + Mac Os to Windows: it was a steep uphill learning curve, especially making networking work.
I keep making this point, I will doubtless do it again. Twenty years ago, Diesel cars were a rarity in Europe. Gas ruled. "Everybody" understood gas engines which were "simple". Diesel was slow, smelly, hard to figure out. Where's the carb? The spark plugs? Only Diesel used about 30% less fuel than gas engines, and had a few other hidden advantages.
Twenty years on, and in Europe Diesel technology is heading for 50% of the market in some countries. The reason? Cost, and it turned out that it was actually harder to develop better gas engines than Diesel engines. Development has taken care of the problems, and Diesel has developed much faster than gas engines over the same period. Now, even Jaguar has to have a Diesel. If, in the US, SUVs and large cars ran on Diesel, Iraq wouldn't be a US problem.Middle East oil? Who needs it?
So look at the broader picture. Which platforms really look to have the easiest development route and the real lowest long term cost?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
His Myth 1: Linux is just as easy to install as Windows. -- My mom can install Windows (without any help from me -- I just tell her "If you don't know what to do, just click Next" -- and when she's done, she has a fully functional OS. The linux installation experience is dramatically more complicated, and it's unlikely the end-product will work right if it was done by a novice (he pretty much admits this).
Uh, I had my parents install RH9 by themselves with only the advice you gave "If you don't know what to do, just click Next" and when they were done they had a fully functional OS, Office suite, paint program, web and email applications, and (for my Dad, who is a math lecturer) complete working TeX system, complete with editors desgined to work with LaTeX.
The end product worked fine, and they continue to use it very happily.
Really, everything beyond Gentoo and Debian (though I hear the new Debian in staller is much better) can be installed by just clicking "next" when you don't know what to do, and it pretty much always results in a perfectly functional system. The only time it presents difficulty is if you are trying to preserve an existing Windows install, but then you can't install an existing Linux install when installing Windows by "just clicking next", so...
Jedidiah.
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I'm a little late commenting on this, so this probably won't get read (let alone modded), but still. Yes, Linux is harder. Yes, Windows is probably "better" for the Average Joe (TM), but that's not the point. We don't want people to use Linux because we think they'd be better off. It's because we all would be better off. Those who already use Linux need others to use it so manufacturers and developers sit up and notice us.
Don't tell someone they should use Linux because it's easier (you know it isn't) or that it's better (they'll give plenty of reasons why it isn't). Get them to use it because we'll all be better off. Would they prefer it if the only car you could buy was a Ford? Some will say yes, but then ask them what would stop Ford from charging twice, triple, quadruple even, more than they do now? Nothing. But there are many car makers, so prices stay at an (arguably) reasonable levels. Why can you buy a Gamecube for $199(CAN)? Because they're 3 major players out there all vying for the same market and they're willing to sell at a loss to get more customers who will then buy games. That's a Good Think (TM).
Why is Windows very expensive and all pervasive? Because there's no decent competition. That, my friends, is a Bad Thing.
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For most distros, it's easier than that.
:)
For slackware, you can download just about anything from here, and just type "installpkg [filename]"
Gentoo, you'd emerge it, without downloading it first "emerge [package]"
RedHat, you'd get the package, and use RPM to install it.
Debian, you'd apt-get it "apt-get [package]"
Updates are even easy in Slackware. We have one server on our network which updates it's packages nightly, and then 100+ other servers collect their updates from a cron running "slackupdate.sh -nc -l 2". For us, it's much more polite to have our own repository, than to have 100+ machines beat up the publically available ones.
You can do something similiar with Gentoo or Debian. I'm not sure how RedHat handles these.
But, for the stuff that doesn't come in packages, ya, three commands are pretty easy. All things considered, it's faster to type those, than to unzip, and click the annoying click-throughs to get a Windows program to install.
People are afraid of the kernel, but hell, all you have to do is download the kernel, and use the pretty menu driven configuration to pick what drivers you need, and just a couple commands later, you have a kernel optimized for your machine. With Windows, good luck getting out all the drivers that you don't need.
Most Windows users that I've talked to simply won't get away from Windows because they're too lazy to learn something new. Hell, they won't stop using MSIE, even after getting the spyware or virus of the day because of it. One guy I know got a virus from a site because of an MSIE exploit, and continues to use MSIE. He was fighting with it for two days to get rid of the virus. He simply won't consider Mozilla/FireFox or Opera. Why? Because he's been using MSIE for years.
It's very similiar to the people who held out on advancing from Windows 3.1 for so long. Why change, when it does things they like? It won't be until the "killer app" shows up for Linux that doesn't work anywhere else. Unfortunately for this process, most people are porting their applications over to Windows, to let everyone enjoy, so the "killer app" probably won't ever be a Linux-only application.
Several large banks still run OS/2. Why? Because it works for them. You'll still find lots of people running Win98. Likewise, you'll find people running very old versions of RedHat, because they're afraid of upgrading.
We've only recently started a campaign to upgrade our old Slack 7.0 to Slack 8.1 servers to Slack 10.0. I made a bootable CD to make this easy. It takes 1/2 dozen commands (including mounting the cd and destination partitions), and takes 5 to 10 minutes. Users rarely notice the downtime, and appreciate than things are faster now. How much pain would I be in upgrading from say WinNT to WinXP?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
"Even this isn't true. The OEM doesn't have to reject certain hardware as "not working with windows" because it all does."
Riiiigggghhhhtttttt.....
So, let's see you install XP on an iMac. How about a G4?
Your definition for "all" hardware is "that which works with the version of Windows that I'm installing".
I have accelerated video cards that haven't had Windows drivers since NT 4.0. They came out of an old Alpha box.
"Now I'm not blaming anyone here - it's often the fault of the manufacturers, and sure, I could write the drivers myself (well actually, I probably couldn't) but the fact is still that Linux causes me more problems than windows."
Welcome to "marketshare". And this situation will not change until Linux has 50%+ of the desktop market.
But you are confusing "marketshare" with "ready for the desktop".
There aren't many DeLoreans out there. And you have to pay particular attention when purchasing parts for them (and sometimes special order).
But that does not mean they aren't ready to be driven.
Which Windows? Windows ME? Windows 2000? Windows XP Home? Windows XP Professional?
There's significantly less of a difference between all versions of Windows than between the various Linux desktop. I mean, not internally, and not from an admin point of view, but from that of a user. Specifically, in the versions you mention there are only two flavors of GUI: the Windows 9x look, and the XP look. Note that XP can be set to look like Win 9x, and many of the folks where I work have done that.
Also, your comparison is unfair, because the versions you mention span several years. Currently, there is only Windows XP Pro and Home available for the desktop, Win 2000 and ME are obsolete. Or conversely, there have been a multitude of versions of every distribution mentioned.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Ahhh...
Yet another user who blames Linux because he had a bad experience with some distro.
I remember when I first started off. It was Red Hat 8.X if I am not mistaken. I mucked the intallation so bad, I reinstalled it a few times. Then I got fed-up and installed ALL packages, yes, it did reach to a 3GB installation, but everything worked.
But to me, it was a learning phase. I have never used Red Hat ever again. I've moved from Mandrake to SuSE to Mandrake to at long last Gentoo now.
One distro does not reflect how Linux is. There are plenty of options out there. Be bold and explore! Find one that suites you. Rather than complaining about Red Hat, I moved on to a different distro.
I've been using linux for almost 8 years now. I was introduced to it the usual way: a friend came over with a slackware CD saying that if I was really tired of Windows and wanted something I could do with as I pleased, I should try this.
We're 8 years later now, and a lot of things have changed for linux. It's stepped out of geekdom and entered the corporate world, taking small steps at a time and the occasional leap. From a relatively small group of technologically very adept people, it has grown to become the new pet-OS of wannabe-geeks and even for a while Linux threatened to become a buzz-word for certain companies to shamelessly promote themselves on an IT market that had suffered a damaging blow.
Three years ago I was at a school that gave introduction courses in linux as a member of a jury for (pardon my bad English) practical final. I was judging several projects that were made during the course of 9 weeks of internships in companies, and over half of them were made using linux. Of the 10 groups that presented a linux project, only two of them were capable of presenting a flawless project.
What really got me at that moment was, that even though linux had come so far in those 5 years, many last year students hadn't even the faintest idea how their OS really worked. The argument most used for the use of linux was that it was free (as in beer), and someone even managed to blurt out that linux was actually a product from Sun. After three days of judging, I came to a startling conclusion. Many of the linux projects I had seen were dodgy at best, the students had very little grasp on the tools they used, and many webprojects failed to provide even the simplest security to their database as I happely added SQL on their URL and displayed lists of unencrypted passwords.
The Windows projects I saw however were a lot more solid. SQL Insertion failed on nearly every project, and most students were up to speed on the technologies they had used. Most of the Windows projects were finished, or nearly finished, while the linux projects seemed to have a lot of rough edges (in fact a girl actually told me : "Don't do that, that corrupts our database and we don't know why").
What does this have to do with Linux on the desktop, you might ask. Well, if 4 years of training in programming and networking hasn't even thaught you the simplest of hacks (SQL Insertion), and you're practically lost without a GUI to configure your networkcard (but manage to boast about your networking project), there is either a fundamental problem with your education or your unwillingness to use google. The truth behind it is "ease of use". MS Visual Studio comes with a bunch of tools in one package, a graphical XML schema editor, a graphical database management system, click-n-paint GUI creation, and to top it off each of those students gets 4 years of excessive training in all of those tools.
Linux on the other hand, has most (if not all) of these things, but students don't know them. Those that do have knowledge of these tools are often complaining that they ran into problems (again because of lack of training, or googling). Many have spent two days finding out how to install a certain program, and most just give up asking their supervisors for aid (which they often can't provide).
This is the problem with linux, and this is why the linux desktop will never be as succesfull as we hope it will be: our diversity in tools and lack of proper bundling. Distributions do a good job at providing us with defaults, but provide too much goodness. Most linux machines have at least 7 compilers and interpreters installed by default, 6 MP3 players, 10 office suites, and horror of horrors 2 desktop environments.
Teaching students all these things is an impossible task, and that's why they aren't prepared for the choices they have to make when they are going to actively use linux. And educating users on using office package A, while there exists at least one package for every letter of the alphabet each wi
No. Not at all.
But let me mention this....
I just built a shiny new Athlon64 box with an nVidia chipset and nVidia graphics. WinXP installs fine. Then, I just load some drivers and everything works.
Now, if I wanted to install Linux, first I have to be paranoid about hosing my XP partition (oops). Second, if I want to use the nVidia drivers (which nVidia actually provides, bravo!), then all I have to do is RECOMPILE THE KERNEL! This is not a process that I wish to undertake, as I am not sure that I am competent enough to handle it. And I have been playing with Linux for a couple of years! I use Unix every day at work, and I am very comfortable around a command line. So I have had my new machine for a month, and have had Knoppix as the only Linux on it (which does not recognize the integrated gigabit ethernet port, so no web browsing for me).
So, it is possible to get all of my hardware working under linux? Yes. But, it is possible for ME to do this comfortably? No. Therein lies the difference.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
The funny thing about your example is that 64-bit Windows is still in beta while various x86-64 Linux distros are considered stable. So you're not really using all your hardware in Windows either unless you're comfortable with pre-release operating systems, which would seem odd for someone so worried about hosing their disk.
The nForce3 ethernet chipset will be in the next kernel release, it might even be in the most current one, I'm not sure. Within about 6 months, it will probably be supported by whatever distribution you use. Consider that open source developers can't really do anything for hardware until they get their hands on it, so there's usually a time lag in support for bleeding edge stuff like yours.