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Asa Dotzler on Why Linux Isn't Ready for the Desktop
An anonymous reader writes "Asa Dotzler of The Mozilla Foundation compares the explosive growth of Firefox to the anything but explosive growth of Linux and what it needs to do to get there for the "regular user" AKA mom, dad and grandma Bootsie."
It seems Linux has to be "like Windows" to attract a broader user base. I thought that is obvious and has been talked about for many years.
The thing is, how many of the developers are willing to sacrify what they have built so far in exchange for a bigger market share? Are linux developers really keen to get as many people onboard at all cost?
I guess what I'm trying to understand is, what are the objectives in Linux? What is it trying to achieve? Is world domination still the name of the game?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Ma, Pa and Aunt Bootsie are irrelevant. The corporate world is where the money is, and that's the area where Microsoft is most concerned about losing market share to anything or anyone. Right now, people that buy a computer for home use are to a large degree constrained by what they use at work, which is most likely Windows. All this talk about Linux being ready for Joe Sixpack belies the fact that operating system acceptance begins in the workplace and filters down from there. If the idea really is to displace Microsoft, then the place to start is the cubicle farm, not the den. The original IBM PC, all those years ago, gained widespread popularity among the corporate set because it had a ready-to-go set of business applications (and, of course, the IBM name.) Everything else flowed from there ... and it's still true today. Linux really needs (and is getting) some heavy-duty office/business applications and functionality. That's what it will take.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I don't think the collapse of the irrational speculative bubble of the late 90's had any real correlation with those start-ups using cumbersome Linux systems. Rather, the reason peapod/pets/...com failed was because they were given amazing amounts of money to fund business models that didn't make money.
.com's.
The VC firms just wanted a company to grow as fast as possible in order to create a profitable IPO. Linux costs were a pittance compared to the misappropriation of money by these
There are 4 major market segments:
1. Servers
2. Corporate/government desktops
3. Mom/Grandma home users
4. Power users/Gamers
Linux is making huge gains in the server market. The statistics show that.
Linux is just starting to gain in the corporate/government desktop market. Expect this to take at least another 3 years.
Once OEMs are comfortable with Linux (due to large orders from corporations/governments), they will start offering it on desktops suitable for basic email/web surfing. The largest limitation is lack of drivers for new hardware. As this market grows (slowly), that will change.
Which will, finally, result in power users and gamers having Linux as an option. That means that the latest hardware will be released with good Linux drivers and the games will be available on Linux. The biggest problem here is the Microsoft desktop monopoly.
Other than that, a corporate KDE or GNOME desktop can be made to look almost exactly like a Win2K desktop so there is no need to worry about training the end users.
The value of Linux doesn't exist for the last two market segments (both home segments). The value exists for the server market and the corporate/government desktop market. But that value will drive the home adoption as people become familiar with Linux at work.
The original article is correct in that having a way to capture the info from Windows would be a major boost to Linux adoption in the home segments. But without the hardware/game support, it just isn't worth the trouble for the average user.
Firefox is worth the trouble of the few websites that don't support it because of all the great features of Firefox (no ad/spyware, very few popups, ad-blocker, etc).
The article seems to suggest that the general idea of "Putting things in the "right" place for Windows users will go a long way" is something that would be beneficial to linux switchers. The many users who have switched to OS X haven't needed this, and in fact have moved to systems where menu choices and design philosophy are significantly different to windows.
The reason for this not being a problem is that things are laid out in a way that's intuitive to those who just want to perform the action, rather than perform it in the way windows does. From my experience people who mostly use macs find it harder to use windows pc's on occasion than vice versa for precisely this reason. Windows has its usabilit nuances, and cloning them doesn't help people get a better experience from using the computer
Business Voyeur
Classic formulation: if you're not interested in adopting the Unix mindset (text-based text processing, pipes, small well-defined tools, a de-emphasis on graphical user interfaces, non-data-processing devices, etc.) then why choose a Unix operating system?
Linux offers a great deal of value that Windows doesn't. As someone who works with huge databases of text at a major publisher on a day-to-day basis and who has to use both systems at varying times, I can assure you of this. Just because you don't have the needs that justify the Linux learning curve doesn't mean that no-one else does. And even if you can't even see any features that Linux/Unix has that Windows doesn't, it's fairly rich of you to assume that everyone who chooses Linux/Unix over Windows does so simply becuase they are deluded.
I can honestly tell you that for any number of large jobs in my workplace, two or three commands at a Linux command line replace either dozens of labor hours, dozens of development hours, or the $$$ to purchase a specialized product in Windows.
What I don't understand is why desktop users who have no need of the "Unix philosophy" of data processing insist on complaining about an operating system that was designed to move DATA (not icons or mouse pointers) around efficiently.
If it doesn't fill your needs, don't use it. The unfathomable leap comes when you assert that no-one else should either.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
From the post:
(First off, I'm a little nervous about how the OP knew my grandma's name.)
If you don't help newbies with linux, especially ones not very technical, then linux may not be ready for mom, dad, and grandma. Applying this standard implies also then Windows is not ready for mom, dad, and grandma. I've spent countless hours (that I can't charge, and I'll NEVER get back) fixing, re-installing, helping, instructing, etc. in a support role for my parents from Windows 95 through Windows XP.
And, guess what? They're still struggling. Part of this stems from the fact they missed the technical revolution (and lest you diss my parents, one is a Doctor, the other is a Concert Violinist, played in the Pittsburgh Symphony). But most of it stems from the intractable problem of rendering technology intuitive and transparent to the lay-person.
Interestingly this problem plagues both Windows and linux. Interestingly, for Windows what I've found in coaxing my parents along the learning curve is Microsoft has done much if not most to make Windows obfuscated to my parents. Each new generation has left them re-learning pieces of the environment they had just about almost mastered... (they were this close!)
But, I do think linux is up to the desktop task for many who use the internet for mostly surfing, e-mail, quick word docs, and simple spreadsheets. And I think linux actually fares better simply for the rock solid reliability. I haven't set up my parents with linux because I live 2000 miles away from them, so I'm a little paranoid that should something really bizarre happen, I wouldn't know who to have help them, while with Windows, though it demands more support, if I'm not available, there's always some quasi-pseudo expert ready to jump in and "fix" things.
However I have set up others with linux, and I've been amazed... the support calls simply stop! This is for people who satisfy the above criteria: internet surfers; e-mail junkies; and simple "office" tasks. The linux just works. There's probably a larger demographic out there that could use linux than most people think.
how the hell did you get first post with so much freakin' writing?
Did you type this up ages ago, just waiting for the day you could get first post with this?
As for my comments on your fine post:
I recently installed Linux on my non-computer literate girlfriend's computer. She was always afraid of Linux because whenever she tried to use my computer it was nothing like Windows.
I put on a nice easy to use distro, set her up with KDE, and let her go to town. She's now using GIMP, uses it for all her photographic needs (scanning, digital camera). She even sighs when she has to reboot to Windows.
She was amazed at the little things, like how cut 'n paste works. I could tell she was thinking "why wasn't it always this easy?"
Or how she can resize an entire "folder" of images with a couple of clicks and no fuss.
I really don't think it's so much a matter of Linux offering nothing of value that Windows doesn't, because that's simply not true. Linux has tons to offer the average person that Windows doesn't.
The major problem, as I see it, is that it requires changing the way you think about using a computer.
When I first started using Linux I got very frustrated for a while, simply because my mind is notoriously bad for resisting change. It didn't like having to re learn such simple stuff. In fact in the beginning I kind of felt like I was a prisoner to my computer. I no longer knew how it worked at all. No idea! How do things run at startup? How do I add a printer? It was all this huge mystery.
And then, even beyond that, everything is just Done Differently. You really have to change your mindset to become a fully functioning *nix/*BSD user.
For a lot of people that's a really hard thing to do. But the funny thing is it really doesn't take that long. No longer than a week later my girlfriend was installing her own applications, updating her system, etc.
Anyway I don't want to give the impression I don't agree with what you said, because that really was a good and well thought out post. For the most part I agree with what you said, I just wanted to add that.
"Linux is not a bad system, it just doesn't have anything to offer that its competitors don't already do as well or better."
It's not what Linux has that attracts me. It's what it has not.
It doesn't have a philosophy of lock in.
It doesn't have virus after virus taking my system down if I don't patch it daily.
It doesn't have a philosophy of limiting my fair use rights.
But most of all it doesn't have Microsoft with their anti competitive practices and their obnoxious licensing agreements.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I've been using Linux fulltime on the desktop since 1999-2000. What pisses me off is applications switching between ok/cancel positions themselves. When I don't need to worry about where the OK button is going to pop up in Firefox/Mozilla then I'll start to worry about the rest of the OE.
... but as usual for gnome these days, it was just another gratuitous jarring change. End users were told to suck it up and bask in the glow of gnome's superior wisdom.
You can thank gnome for that. They decided that since That Other Desktop Environment was ordering buttons according to the Windows interface convention (of "ok/cancel", "yes/no"), they'd just switch to the mac convention of "cancel/ok", "no/yes". They trotted out some high minded theory about how the lower-right corner of the dialog was "special", and how all these HCI studies (all put on by Apple of course) proved this was an enlightened change
So that's why they're backward.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
Linux excells where Joe Sixpack does not have to fiddle with set up. That includes situations where the computer is not visible to the users (embedded and servers) as well as those where someone else completely manages the box (eg. corporate desktops).
For the general home user I agree that Linux is a pig. I can't get my PC to play MP3s. The Winmodem needed a bunnch of hacking etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Not only will "power users" be the last to use Windows because they want all their hardware supported, but they are also usually specially "windows power users" they have invested a lot in learning how Windows and whatever apps they use do things, but they do not actually understand how they work so their "knowledge" is not transferable.
This is actually the group who the article call "regular users", real regular users are quite happy with Linux desktops - copy their files over, export their bookmarks and import into Firefox and that's it. This has worked fine for my father, my wife and some guys who worked for me (one is now planning to install Linux at home).
I also do not understand what he is talking about when it comes to installing applications. There are only three pieces of software I have installed which required anything more complicated than downloading the RPM, clicking in it to start the installer, and then typing the root password and clicking OK a few times. These were: Erlang, Firefox and Thunderbird.
In fact, bar Erlang (which needed to be compiled), Firefox has been by for the most problematic thing to install.
The scoop made me think that this would be a nice comparison of what made Firefox get adopted so quickly, and Linux so slowly. Instead, it gives the same old crappy arguments of why Linux is "not ready":
``The first issue, migration, is pretty serious.''
No, it's not. You don't need to run it next to Windows. You don't need to provide the same applications. You don't even need to provide an equivalent for every app. Nor all the games. OS X doesn't have all this. Is OS X not ready for the desktop?
``The second problem that blocks massive Linux Desktop growth is stability.'' (The use of "stability" is confusing. What he means is: you can go to a website, download an application, and expect it to run, i.e. binary compatibility)
This is the Windows Way. Linux has a better alternative: packaging. Applications packaged, tailored, and tested for your distribution. Try Debian. Go through a number of installs, uninstalls, upgrades, and dist-upgrades. Then tell me if you like the Windows Way better.
If you do like the Windows Way better, there is hope for you. It _is_ actually possible to distribute binaries that work. Opera has been doing it. StarOffice did this last time I checked (a very long time ago). I'm sure there are others.
``The third issue is a lack simplicity.''
The complaint here is that Linux gives you too much choice. Choice is not an antonym of simplicity. Try Ubuntu. Installation requires that you select a drive to install on, create a user account, select your keyboard and timezone, and wait for stuff to install. No hard choices there. Once installed, it has a nice GUI environment with one app for every job. Just because the choices exist, doesn't mean _you_ have to face them. You can have other people make them for you.
All the 237584704908c34 window managers are for people who like to experiment and try new things. If you don't want to bother with them, then don't.
``The final major issue is comfort. Linux must feel comfortable to Windows users.''
AKA, everything needs to be called the same and be in the exact same place as on Windows. Again, see the earlier argument about OS X. As for the new concepts of mounting and unmounting, have you heard of automount? I believe KNOPPIX uses it, complete with icons appearing on the desktop when you insert a drive.
So, with all these issues declared junk, what do I think is holding back Linux? Here's my list:
1. Linux isn't shoved down people's throats. This is why people have to "switch" in the first place. When people start using computers, they run Windows. At work, computers run Windows. When you buy a computer, it has Windows installed. Sure, there are exceptions, but for all practical purposes computer = Windows.
2. People don't care. Many in the Linux community want people to switch to this "better" system. To most people, Windows works fine. Why fix what isn't broken? This is also why Firefox users are still outnumbered by MSIE users.
3. The issues you raised are widely _seen_ as problems by people who haven't actually used Linux. Linux has a bad reputation for being user-unfriendly, which is entirely undeserved (and has been for years). One could even argue that the security problems with Windows make Linux easier for non-experts.
4. People are not sufficiently aware. They are not aware of how bad Windows is. They are not aware of how good Linux is. They are often not even aware that there is an alternative (they may have heard of Linux, but not understand what it is). If we want more users to switch, we need to educate people.
As for me, I don't really care what other people use. I've used DOS, Windows, various Linux distros, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS, and OS X. I like how I can write a program on one of the unix systems, then compile and run it on another. I don't like that it won't work on Windows, and that Windows is missing so many basic things, but Cygwin goes a
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I make the claim because I have known people for whom it is true. "Power users" known recipes for getting things done, and secondly their knowledge tends to be very narrow.
I think that you do not understand how people who know absolutely nothing about computers approach them. I would have agreed with your statement at one time, but I have slowly realised how many people get a lot of stuff done by learning sequences of actions, rather than actually understanding what is going on. Yes they do inevitably learn a little (especially if they start writing macros), but it is much less than you might think. If you have absolutely no idea of how computers work, you have no framework to learn from. A computer becomes a black box device that produces certain outputs for certain inputs and that's it.
Most people do not actually do much configuration beyond installing software (which these days is easy), and setting backgrounds and screen savers (and even there many users call the former the latter).
As of the narrowness of power users knowledge, let me give you a few examples. Many years ago I came across someone keeping a database in Wordperfect. They knew WordPerfect so they wrote a set of macros to do what they needed. That is a power user in action. More recently I have seen Excel used to circulate information - so that in order to see a single page that you wanted, you had to download an Excel file that ran to several megabyte with macros etc., the file had to be manually copied to the file server at each branch office. Putting the information on a web server would have been obviously better. This was the product of a "power user" who knew how to write VB scripts in Excel but little else.
As for software installation, I have not used OS X , but I would say that the better Linux distros (such as Mandrake) are at least as easy as Windows - easier if you stick to software from your distro. The hardest are of course very difficult to install (both OS and additional software), but they are designed for a different user base.