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."

Comments

Well, here's my take

[the_mad_poster]

My general take on Linux, take it or leave it or try to convince me why I should change my outlook.

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.

The problem with Linux is not that it's not production ready, it's that it's a system that doesn't have anything special to offer and has nowhere new left to go. It has taken a large chunk of the market share away from the old, cumbersome UNIX systems, with their painful licensing models and lackluster support, but now it has no more market share to chip at because the supermajority of disk space that is left is in the form of desktops.

And Linux is just nothing special in that realm.

I speak authoritatively on the subject because my experience with Linux begins many moons ago with an old system called Linux Mandrake, now called Mandriva Linux. It started with version 5.2, a system forked from the Red Hat 5.2 release. I have since used Mandrake 6.0, Red Hat 7.0 and 7.3, 8.0, 9.0, Fedora Core 2, and variations from SuSE.

The first version I used was painful. It was a horrible system with a horrible interface and horrible documentation. Managing it was excruciating, and it wasn't uncommon for a seemingly simple change to break numerous systems in unrelated modules and drivers. The GUI was weak, disorganized, and difficult to manipulate. The desktop was hard to customize, and the interfaces were slow and cumbersome. Installing and uninstalling was nearly impossible because packages scattered files across a confusing, oblique filesystem, and it was a very common occurrence to find rpm entries had been corrupted and left unusable.

These problems I experienced were not uncommon and plagued Linux for years, leaving astute IT professionals shaking their heads, and young, energetic, and idealistic kids suffering under a burdensome system. I think it is fair to say that the rise in Linux use during the IT bubble and the subsequent pop of that bubble is not a completely coincidental correlation. Literally millions of man hours were lost in this time to troublesome Linux boxes and that sort of loss can hit new IPOs hard when it comes time to pay the piper.

It took many, many years and thousands of developers, but the system finally began to shed its inadequacies and "quirks" and develop into a full-fledged corporate workhorse. The managers who had been shaking their heads warily approached new versions and their confidence was bolstered as the GUIs began to fill out, the quirks began to shrink to the background, and more application support became the norm on new releases.

Now, Linux is a force to be reckoned with in backoffices and server racks. It is not, however, any closer to dethroning Windows as the supreme ruler of meatspace userland.

There is a very simple reason for this: it sucks.

I know, I know, I just finished zipping up the body bag on the "Linux isn't production ready" myth, but we've moved to a whole new realm here. We've gone from the terminology of fsck to frag. From SMP to MMORPG.

The problem is that everyone knows Windows and everyone's applications already run on Windows. There is no purpose in learning a new system because Windows is now polished and stable, and maintains its original attractiveness through its continued ease-of-use. Like Linux, it has shed its inadequacies and become a competent and powerful system in its own right.

So, in effect, we have the Windows system which has provided a consistent and simple interface for a decade now, and the Linux system which is an alien world to most people. Both function competently, though Linux still suffers a bit from the problem of glut thanks to its monolothic structure, and neither really offers a serious bnenefit over the other. As Joe Sixpack sitting in my cubicle, I have to think "Well, then why should I switch?" As the IT manager evaluating the cost of switching, I have to ask, "Well, how can you justify the tens of thousands I'll need to spe

Re:Well, here's my take

[PocketPick]

Mandrake Linux isn't really that old of a system. I remember purchasing the 8.0 distribution at Circuit City just about 2 1/2 years ago.

Re:Well, here's my take

[wolffman1982]

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.

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 .com's.

Re:Well, here's my take

[KaptNKrunchy]

Plus, Jews use Linux.

Duh, it's free! (my appologies to my fellow jews, just couldn't resist)

Re:Well, here's my take

[aussersterne]

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.

Re:Well, here's my take

[aussersterne]

I guess that's the thing - those tools in a Linux command line aren't unique (except uniq :). Those tools are ported to Windows, and have been for ever. Sure, some of the shells aren't available but the big two are (bash & ksh).

You are, of course, correct. Oh, to be able to install cygwin+GNU utilities on all my company's Windows workstations (DROOL).

Unfortunately, it seems the IT department was trained in a Windows house and has some odd conception about nature of operating systems and some kind of a priori "pristine" state. We only use "pristine" Red Hat and "pristine" Windows (and anyone caught in violation of this policy is hung from a tree) and we only add to them "certified" (i.e. expensive, with support contracts) tools.

The result is that they spend $$$ on silly tools for the Windows components of the infrastructure that perform only 1/100th as well as a few GNU utils at the command line would. *sigh*

The funny thing is that they aren't even aware of anything other than the GUI. IT will stumble past an editor or two (i.e. me) working at the command line on a Linux station and ask in worried fashioon if I am "hacking something." I am loathe to try to explain to them that I have walked all the way across the building to use a Linux station on a particular database or directory tree because in so doing I can save two days' work of data processing just by spending ten minutes with bash+perl+tools.

It's a sad world. Think H.G. Wells.

Re:Well, here's my take

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Linux still suffers a bit from the problem of glut thanks to its monolothic structure..."

...and this is about where your comment lost all credibility, and consequently my attention.

Re:Well, here's my take

[Eric Damron]

"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.

Re:Well, here's my take

[radarsat1]

I am loathe to try to explain to them that I have walked all the way across the building to use a Linux station on a particular database or directory tree because in so doing I can save two days' work of data processing just by spending ten minutes with bash+perl+tools.

Next time try using SSH instead. ;-)

(Actually I started this just to write that snide comment, but it actually encapsulates a HUGE advantage of Linux/*nix that I've really come to appreciate in the last year or so: You can get a hell of a lot more done remotely in a Unix environment than you can with Windows. I can work on 3 or 4 computers simultaneously without moving from my desk. Which I do quite often, actually. Programming, compiling, testing under various environments, etc, even remotely operating equipment for testing purposes. With Windows I use VNC, which is hardly the best use of the network bandwidth. Meanwhile my co-workers are still running up and down the stairs... Okay so it's not an advantage in terms of exercise and health, but that's a whole other story. I know I must be lucky that they put up with me and my vices in our Windows-oriented environment at work, I don't have to deal with this "pristine" problem you have. Thank goodness.)

Re:Well, here's my take

[TheRealSlimShady]

Dude, terminal services has been available for remote admin of Windows servers for five years now. If they're still running up and down stairs (or indeed using VNC) they're doing something badly wrong. Terminal Services is much lighter on bandwidth than VNC, and in dedicated LAN/WAN environments is great. Not so great over dial-up, but still usable in an emergency.

Re:Well, here's my take

[Xabraxas]

I speak authoritatively on the subject because my experience with Linux begins many moons ago with an old system called Linux Mandrake...

Your opinion is still your opinion no matter how "authoritatively" you speak.

These problems I experienced were not uncommon and plagued Linux for years, leaving astute IT professionals shaking their heads, and young, energetic, and idealistic kids suffering under a burdensome system. I think it is fair to say that the rise in Linux use during the IT bubble and the subsequent pop of that bubble is not a completely coincidental correlation. Literally millions of man hours were lost in this time to troublesome Linux boxes and that sort of loss can hit new IPOs hard when it comes time to pay the piper.

You've got to be kidding me. Are you seriously suggesting that Linux is responsible for the dotcom bust? If anything it was the other way around. Linux was responsible for the sudden upsurge in the internet; unrealistic investment was responsible for the crash.

Why, indeed? In the end, the Linux system offers nothing of value that Windows doesn't.

That's simply not true. Linux gives me the ability to fine tune it. For example, when the newest version of WindowMaker came out the old patches I used with it would no longer work. I rewrote those patches and intergrated them into a local repository so I could install the newest WindowMaker with my revised patches through the package manager. Just the other day I made a one line adjustment to the source code of a gnome-specific piece of software to allow it to open ROX instead of nautilus. Try that with Windows. Not every user will take advantage of these capabilities but it is an utter lie to say that Linux offers nothing more.

Re:Well, here's my take

[vettemph]

Article was posted at 8:57
Your reply was posted at 8:58
That's 806 Words Per minute.
Very Impressive Mr. Gates!

This was obviously a planned attack from MS labs.

Re:Well, here's my take

[VectorSC]

The_mad_posters arguements are pretty good, guys. You have to give him that. Every point he has brought up is real, from my perspective as a Linux developer, poweruser, security consultant, and general computer dude.

I see people at home using Linux, MacOS X, and Windows all of the time. And most of what I see is trouble issues with these systems.

Because of this, I can add another point, one that may seem totally strange and out of place here, but nonetheless accurate.

Home Linux users with Windows level user ability feel trapped when they use a Linux system instead.
Why? Because Windows provides the most user friendly method of downloading, installing, and using software of the Big3.

You install a piece of software on Windows, and you get 1) a central place to uninstall the junk you just put on there, 2) An Icon on your Desktop that you can click on, and 3) an icon in the infamous start menu.

Under linux, I have to hit the commmand line more than 50% of the time, and using the 10o or so different uninstaller/installer systems that come with linux is a REAL pain in the ass for the standard user.

Under Windows, I almost never HAVE to use the command line to do something. Under linux, it's just the opposite.

Hell, even OSX is moving from an easy to use system to more convolution in installation. For example, is it a .sit file, or a .dmg? And if I just drag this onto the dock, will it have to mount that .dmg every damn time I use this program? (of course I know how to fix that, but remember, not everyone is savvy out there), and what about this installer thingy?

Some of these problems are being addressed. In fact, the SymphonyOS problem is trying to address all of these flaws and more all at once. (note the bias of a developer here, BTW.)

So, give me my cake, and watch me eat it, too!

Re:Well, here's my take

[letxa2000]

Grandparent's Camry went 150 in free-fall after being driven off a cliff.

Re:Well, here's my take

[Randseed]

Pretty sure there is at least 1 windows box running in a local hospital. Police stations don't use computers, no? Well, I guess these aren't important after all.

I might as well comment on this since health care came into it.

Most hospitals use Windows exclusively for user interface boxes. Their backend systems use things like AIX, Linux, or some other flavor of UNIX to run the databases and such. The catch is that universally these user (Windows) systems are overloaded, cumbersome, full of security holes, and a total mess.

Take a real life example of a hospital system that has one major inpatient facility, and a bunch of outlying clinics. Their backend uses some UNIX variant, and they use some Windows program to interface with it. So far not bad. Enter the problems.

First off, there is no unified user home directory system. (Yes, Windows can do this.) Under UNIX, the simplest way to handle it is do a networked stock setup of all the user machines, mount home directories under NFS (or preferably something better), and avoid a lot of problem. This helps with data security, because patient information (e.g., the progress note I just typed in Word) is saved under my user account with default permissions of -rw-------. Second, this means that if I go to one of the outlying clinics, I can still access my files.

I've actually thought really hard for a few years now about why these hospitals blow literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on Windows machines, when they could set up Linux machines that are better administatable for much less. After they set this up, they have to deal with all the random crap of people violating the security protocol by installing God only knows what (Gator, anyone?) which, even if it affects only their account, is still a problem.

But perhaps the biggest problem with Windows in these environments is this: The things take so god awful long to log a user in (two minutes at least at my last place of work on a 2GHz box) for whatever reason that much of the time people don't even bother to log in and out. That leaves a terminal sitting there, and makes the password protection at the OS level worthless. (Yes, obviously something is wrong with all these installations -- probably Novell -- but it's universal. I've never seen a Linux installation that bad, EVER, in ten years.)

Re:Well, here's my take

[Columcille]

Something like 12 years ago I did my first linux installation - Slackware from a stack of floppy disks. Since Slackware I've moved to Redhat, then Mandrake, and now Gentoo. Quite a lot has changed in the Linux world over the last 12 years. In Linux terms, 2 years is quite old.

Re:Well, here's my take

[drgonzo59]

Same goes for some of the medical equipment. Some MRIs and such have often some UNIX variant installed to control them. As a general observation I would say that in a critical environment Unix/Linux systems are preffered over MS Windows. Somehow just that fact says something about the qualities of both systems.

I used to have a Windows partition until 2 days ago when my IBM 60GXP "Deathstar" died with the infamous click-o-death. I don't think I will bother installing Windows again. The _only_ thing I was using it is to play the latest games, so I'll have to do without that. My main operating system is Ubuntu Linux - very nice distro, fell in love with it at the first sight. For me Linux reached the point where I would use it on a Desktop instead of Windows.

Re:Well, here's my take

[It'sYerMam]

I think at least part of the problem with all of these "Linux isn't ready" arguments is that there is so much focus on getting "Joe Average" to switch over. I truly wonder whether Linux will ever be the right option for Joe Average - there's no doubt that with a system as customisable as Linux, there will be added complexity, and to reduce one is to reduce the other, at least at the surface level. The challenge for people like the GNOME guys has always been to balance user-friendliness against customisation.

However, would it not be better to ignore "Joe Average" or "Joe Beloe Average" at any rate, and focus on people who are better able to handle the technicalities? Of course, that doesn't mean a regression, nor ignoring Linux's current failings (such as dependencies) but it does mean moving the focus away from getting everyone and his grandmother to migrate.

Re:Well, here's my take

[KaptNKrunchy]

well shit maybe i'm not then. guess my moms lied to me all these years. bitch probably just didn't wanna buy me any christmas presents.

Linux Objectives

[fembots]

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?

Re:Linux Objectives

[bedroll]

Linux doesn't have to be any more like Windows than it has to be like Mac OSX. If devs try to make consistant and logical interfaces for their applications, and make those applications useful, then people will use them. I don't think developers should change things to be more like Windows, because they should be trying to be better than Windows.

My opinion on home desktops: Microsoft can keep them. I don't want Linux to be screwed up by attempts to make it work like Windows. I don't think Linux needs to have any more of a userbase than it already has. If it gets it, then great. If it continues on the path it's been taking then it'll probably have a broader userbase anyway. Why should the FL/OSS community worry about rapid adoption? We know that we'll be around later. We just need a large enough userbase that it can't be ignored, we need it for interoperability and nothing more.

I don't agree with everything that the article says. I don't think that the desktop experience for a GNome or KDE user is so perplexing that they can't figure it out. More likely they'll have no problem at all with anything if whatever administrator that installs the OS shows them where a few apps are.

This all comes back to the user being separate from the administrator. I don't want to use an OS that confuses those two (like most Windows setups do). I'm happier using an OS where someone with a clue is the administrator and the user is kept out of those tasks.

Re:Linux Objectives

[ZephyrXero]

Well, asking what Linux is doing is kind of confusing because Linux isn't an operating system...it's a kernel. GNU's not an operating system either...it's a userland. But these things are all platforms on which you can build your operating system. Linux systems tend to be similar, but they dont' have to be. The two biggest direvatives of Linux are Red Hat (and other RPM based distros) and Debian (and deb based distros). Each Linux distro has different goals, otherwise they'd all be working together. Some focus on server type systems, while others focus on a friendly easy to use desktop that competes directly with Windows and MacOS. I know some Linux guys that desperately want it to stay underground and not get "bloated with Windows like crap", while some us (like me) really do want it to become the number one Desktop OS. To use one of Linus' metaphors for Linux...it's like asking What do car deals want? Are they trying to dominate the horse and buggy market?

PS. I'd suggest Ubuntu for anyone new to Linux ;)

Re:Linux Objectives

[Mornelithe]

Was the "objective" of Linux ever world domination?

I thought it was a bunch of people working in their spare time (and more recently, for corporations) to produce a Free operating system that they would enjoy using/developing, and, in many cases, that other people would enjoy using as well.

Many people have some political agenda when they work on Free/Open Source Software. Many people don't. Asking "what is [Linux] trying to achieve," isn't a very well-defined question, because "Linux" is not a single sentient entity. It's a community of people with many different goals and ideas.

Re:Linux Objectives

[ZephyrXero]

Unfortunately, not every household has someone "with a clue" to be that administator. I'm not disagreeing that you should keep standard user and root accounts seperate, but to pretend that everyone will be able to just figure it out is ridiculous.

I don't think Gnome or KDE are any more confusing than the Windows interface. What is confusing though is program installation. People like Autopackage and Klik are working to make it easier..but the distro guys aren't willing to give up their archaic repostitory system. Having a repository for the OS and popular libraries is fine...but keeping a repository of every single program available is impossible. The only other thing that really confuses people is the cryptic posix file structure...but some distros like Gobo and RubyX are making strides to change that already.

I think Linux is at the point the old Mozilla browser was at a year or two ago...it's great if you take the time to get used to it, but it's too complicated and at times ugly to deal with for the average person. When the Firefox equivalent of a linux distro finally happens it really will explode.

Re:Linux Objectives

[gcauthon]

Linux doesn't have to be like Windows. But it would be nice if some of the distributions solved a few of the problems that are already fixed in Windows.

For example, it would be nice to have a simple directory structure that makes sense. The FHS doesn't cut it. The /usr/bin directory is for "most" commands? The /usr/local directory is for software installed by the "administrator"? WTF?

What's with the single threaded linear bootup process? The kernel is capable of running how many process in parallel? And yet the init daemon has to start one service at a time in linear fasion regardless of dependencies?

We've got JFS, AFS, NFS, NTFS, ABCFS but how about a filesystem that supports generation datasets? Wasn't that available on other systems back in, oh I dunno 1900? It seems useful on other systems like VMS and OS. I guess Windows doesn't have this either so here's a chance to *gasp* make an improvement past Windows!

insightful

[diegocgteleline.es]

So, in order to be a successful desktop OS, linux needs to be more user-friendly. Film at 11.

Re:insightful

[nomadic]

So, in order to be a successful desktop OS, linux needs to be more user-friendly. Film at 11.

Yes, seems obvious, but most of the developers never seem to actually listen to it when it's said.

Re:insightful

[cshark]

I say, let's make a graphic interface for Linux designed around Mozilla, the Mozilla toolkit, and XPCOM. It already comes damn close to being able to do it, and developing apps for it would be a breeze. Not to mention all of the software installation problems that would solve. Besides, I think it would be funny to watch all these pretentious Mozilla guys put in their place with a little bit of irony.

Here's how I see it

[Anonymous Butthead]

I'm tired of this "Linux isnt ready for the desktop" bs...

To be honest with you, if Linux runs on any *Desktop* it's ready. It may not be ready for Grannies system, but it is running.

Granted, this comment is totally biased, but hell, I think freeBSD is also desktop-ready. (Linux, FreeBSD, are used on desktops here)

Re:Here's how I see it

[sgant]

Really...and how do they determine it's "not ready for the desktop"?

How about setting up someone with Linux already installed on a system? Much like Windows systems that are pre-installed on machines? I know I was the one that always had to go and reinstall windows on many people's machine because it was too confusing for them...so does this mean since people can install Windows that it's not "ready for the desktop"? The same can be said for OSX.

Any person not familiar with a computer will be confused on any system...be it OSX/Windows/KDE/Gnome. No one that's never touched a computer before will be able to just sit down and run one of them without a little reading/training. Sorry folks, but that's the truth. Each system usually has a "getting started" tutorial to get people up to speed.

Linux is as ready for the desktop as any other system out there. And all this article is just BS. It's just this guys feelings. He's not doing any tests or research. He didn't go out and test 50 grandmothers and sat them down in front of a computer and see what would happen. It's just this guys feelings and opinion.

But they do...

[HappyHead]

But my mother and father already use Linux - mostly for the games though.

Re:But they do...

[ZzzzSleep]

Quoth Soul-Burn666

Windows is not easier to use than various linux windowmanagers. It's just the switch which is tough.

Which is one of the points that the article is making.

"Linux is going to need a serious migration plan"

"When Regular People fire up the Linux desktop for the first time, the browser, office suite, email client, IM client, file manager, etc, each need to carry over as much as possible of the Windows application settings and all or very nearly all of the user data. Without this, the hill is just too steep to climb and Regular People will not make the climb."

Anything that makes the switch less painful is a good thing.

Fundamental assumption?

[aussersterne]

All presupposing (as is so often done) that the ultimate "goal of Linux" (thereby attributing to "Linux" intentionality that it no doubt does not possess) is to woo Windows users away from their desktops, rather than to provide a superior computing and data processing platform.

I am very happy with the latter, which Linux has provided me with for some years now, and if Linux ceases to do so in favor of attempting the former, I'll happily switch to some other platform (until "I hate elitsts" n00bs who want to be elite but don't want to work for it invade and begin to transform-to-inefficiency that one as well, at which point I'll move on yet again).

Give me efficient computing or give me death. I want to manage my reams of data and my network tasks. I don't care if it jives with the [utterly inefficient] way of doing things in Windows, or if the Windows users care to adopt my methods.

I just want the powerful tools, unpolluted, task-oriented, intelligently designed, that let me talk to my computer using the language through which it can most quickly and subtly be isntructed.

It's not an elitist view, it's the view of a data processing pragmatist with a lot of tasks to juggle and a lot of work to get done.

it IS ready...

[override11]

Windows was never thought of as 'easy' when it first came out. You still had to learn how to use it, what to click to close a window, the concepts of using a mouse, right click, etc. Linux is just different enough from a window PC that there will be a learning curve. Frankly, I wouldnt want another OS that was exactly like windows.

Anything worth doing is worth some effort. Just sit down with linux for a bit and you will find it can do everything that Windows can do, just a bit different.

Repost: my Linux desktop experiment

[gelfling]

Project:
Find a Linux desktop distro which can be installed on a low end PC and function as a credible replacement for Win95/98 which previously ran on that hardware. The OS has to be semi-easy to install, relatively bug free, it has to support a modicum of normal desktop apps that the typical student or home user would use or be able to use, and it has to be relatively straightforward to maintain from the perspective of installing printers and other common devices as well as installing patches or updates. It has to boot in a reasonable amount of time and it has to recover from a 'pull the plug' shutdown with few if any messages or user intervention. No Windows OS software or partitions are preserved.

Hardware
An IBM PC750 model 6887 (mod 80H engineering model never marketed). 112MB RAM. 2 IDE drives: 6GB and 4GB. The BIOS limits a single drive to 6GB. A 40x12x16 CDRW. AMDK6-2 400 drop in replacement CPU. D-Link, 10/100Ethernet NIC, Realtek 8129 family. AWE64 ISA sound card. I acknowledge that this is an ancient machine that is neither supported nor can be affordably upgraded. It is theoretically possible to upgrade RAM to 144MB but very expensive. Video is embedded S3VG64+.

RH based:
All the RH based distros are very similar look and feel and toolset. They are require significant hardware to run well. They all boot with a failure to start the sound server. If you have the hardware to run them they are probably a good choice for a desktop. General hardware minimum recommendations are at least 128MB RAM and 400Mhz CPU. Practical minimums are at least twice that: 256MB RAM and 700 -1200Mhz CPU minimum and at least 3-4GB diskspace. Some distros check the disk and made the volume a hard requirement.. Generally, from a pure usage perspective there is little to distinguish them from one another. Some had a much easier time installing printers in CUPS for example but I did not install anything significant to see whether one had more success than another. Sound server generally failed on boot. Video cards were generally detected as S3VG64 generic and not '+'; changing resolution was hit or miss. I did not try to install or run Wine. While they install well and have an elegant look and feel they are basically unusable with this hardware.

ELX - Automatic partition, very clean. This may be an orphan product however good it is.
Cobind - Very similar, manual partition, low numbered release (0.1)
SOT/LBA - Very similar, manual partition
Lorma - Very similar, manual partition. Developed at and for Lorma College. Multiple versions for i386 and 686 but the differences are not obvious on an AMDK6
OpenNA - Installs but does not run on AMDK6

Live CDs:
Most are Knoppix/Debian based distros and with the exception of Knoppix strangely, require user intervention for installation to input manual frame buffer params. These lightweight distros all have more or less the same applications. Individual variations are minor and focus on hardware support or multimedia. There is Knoppix and there is everything else. Knoppix runs very well is very complete, in fact it's a little bloated and runs fairly slow. These distros are all pretty much the same in terms of which apps they have and they run. Feather and DSL really are stripped down, many of their apps are text based in a Window or use Dilo instead of Firefox or Konquerer. Some do not install or run at all. The only unusual one is Puppy which looks almost identical to Win98. Puppy also has a very complicated mode to install on to the harddrive - I'm not sure if it's possible. Video was detected adequately. Most are not numbered version 1.0 or higher

Peanut - Does not install, does not run on AMDK6
Feather - Good script for to hard drive. Runs either on CD or harddrive equally well. With a little more RAM you can dump the entire OS into a RAMdisk. Primitive GUI, printer installation is difficult.
DSL - Very simple, fast installation. Primitive gui. Printer installation is difficult.
Sl

When you get right down to it ...

[ScrewMaster]

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.

PS

[SQLz]

Make sure to tell that to Ebay, Google, Disney, Yahoo, IBM, and about upteen other major companies who have large installations of Linux desktops.

Don't confuse the market segments.

[khasim]

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).

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[Synbiosis]

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.

Uh, no. I'm one such power user, and the problem with Linux is that moderate customization requires intimate knowledge of the command line and Linux's quirks.

I'm an XP man, but when I used a PowerBook for two weeks, I could easily install and remove programs, connect my external hard drive, and had some interface customizations up and running in a matter of minutes.

Compare that with my Linux experience: Two months ago, I installed Kubuntu onto my laptop. It's very likely that all of the issues that I ran into are easily fixable, but the solutions were simply not apparent or mentioned on all the help sites I went to. Let me tell you one thing: Most people don't like recompiling the kernel, compiling programs, or compiling drivers. It's probably a simple process (I've never had success with it myself), but it simply should not be required for usability purposes.

First issue: Installing software. This blew ass. First, I had to find out the name of the package, and tried to use apt-get. This didn't pan out. Then I found out that the servers that apt-get was trying to use were disabled, or something to that effect, so I had to go and edit a text file to allow for this. This pissed me off quite a bit, because had I not been dual-booting Windows at the time, I would have had no way of knowing how to fix it.

Second Issue: Getting my wifi card to work. This was fairly important, as my connection utilized my campus's wireless. So whenever I had an issue, I had to reboot into Windows and search for it. I never managed to get it to work, even though I have one that's fairly ubiquitous (Intel 2100). After futzing around with the command line for a couple of hours and browsing some sites, I tried to figure out how to install the drivers derived from the intel open-source release. Then I foudn I'd have to compile the drivers or whatnot, and I gave up there until I could find someone experienced in the matter.

Third Issue: I couldn't get it to sleep. I spent a good 40 or 50 minutes to find out that I needed to recompile the kernel to include support for sleep.

Fourth Issue: Realizing that I had just wasted my time installing Linux. I could do everything I could do in Windows, except it took me twice as long. Screen space was a serious issue. Using OpenOffice at 1024x768 felt like using MS Word at 640x480. My screen always felt cramped. Image editing in GIMP just sucked. Even when using Photoshop, I felt that 1024x768 wasn't sufficient for some of the stuff I was working on, and using GIMP made me feel like I was working at 800x600.

Obviously, I'm back to XP. I'm willing to spend the extra $300 to save the time and frustration that I've had using Linux. I realize that pretty much all of these issues are 'trivial', but the fact that I ran into all of these problems in the span of two days seems unacceptable. When I used OSX for the very first time, it took me less than two hours to become proficient. XP took me 4. Linux needs to get to the point where a power user like myself can be quite proficient over the span of a day.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[TheDefenistrator]

Thats no power user....thats a space station!

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[tehdaemon]

Have you ever tried to run Windows on a laptop without the drivers and utilities provided by the laptop maker? I have. The drivers were for XP home and we were trying 2K. Almost nothing worked. We then tried Fedora core 4 on the same laptop. While there were a few problems, most stuff worked. I am posting from Ubuntu, it is easier than fedora (IMHO)

The problem is not linux, it is manufacturer support. Windows is actually much worse than most linux distro's, but because the manufacturer supports the laptop, it (usuallly!) works fairly well. If they gave the same support to linux it would work just fine.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[Synbiosis]

Yes, I have, with decent success. Beyond my modem, I get pretty much everything running fine on a clean install of XP. I wasn't expecting video acceleration, but I was hoping I could at least get my wireless card working.

I'd read that Intel had released Linux drivers for my wireless card about a year ago. I had figured that such support would have been integrated into Kubuntu, which was the most recent distribution at the time, but I was wrong.

IMO, if a driver for a wireless card that's as popular as the Intel ones still isn't supported in a default install when drivers were released months ago, Linux still has serious support issues.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[tokabola]

Uh, no. I'm one such power user, and the problem with Linux is that moderate customization requires intimate knowledge of the command line and Linux's quirks.

That's funny, I set up a half dozen systems with Mandrake 10.0 and never had to use the command line once. Sure, there are some things that can't be customized without using the cli, but making those same customizations in Windows often requires editing the registry, or installing third party add ons. Personnally, the cli is a lot easier for me to work with than the Windows Registry.

To address your "issues",
First: I guess you missed seeing the graphical frontend for your package manager (can't remember the name of the one for that distro)? You could have browsed a list of available packages (with descriptions and usually a link to the projects homepage, and installe them with a couple clicks of the mouse. Personnally, I find that much easier than driving to the Windows package manager (AKA Best Buy, Comp USA, etc).

Second: The reason your Wifi card works under Windows is because the maker of your laptop did all the dirty work (like driver installation and configuration) for you. Had you purchased the computer with Linux pre-installed the Wifi would have worked "out of the box" and you'ld be whining about having to make it work when you added the Windows install.

Third: same as above. Most laptops don't function correctly on the regular version of Windows, either - that's why the maker of your laptop provided the customized install and recovery disc (or partition). Chances are your WIFI and APM stuff wouldn't work "out of the box" with a regular retail version of Windows

Fourth: it's all in your head. I've never felt that Linux is "cramped" compared to windows at the same resolution. And I vastly preferr the Gimp over photoshop for what I do - mostly web and 3-d textures. If I was a photographer I'm sure I'd prefer Photoshop - but the Gimp's "make seamless" tool makes it so much more usefull than PS for me. That's just a matter of preference - YMMV.

As for compiling things - you don't need to with most distros. I used Linux successfully and happily for a couple years before I ever had reason to compile anything.

I think the only real problem you have with Linux is that you don't know how to use it. Once upon a time you didn't know how to use Windows, either, but you learned. Now, however, you're a big bad "power user" and your ego won't let you go back to being a noob and learning Linux. To bad - your loss.

Tommy

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[nri]

"moderate customization requires intimate knowledge of the command line and Linux's quirks"

And exactly how do you customise WindowsXP ? Change the colors maybe ?

I use debian (+ enlightenment) cause I can use the mouse wheel to shade windows when focused on the title bar and switch desktops when scrolled on the desktop. How the f*ck can you do that with windows ?

Can't be done. Sure you can change windows.ini / shell=exporer to something else (you used to be able to once upon a time), but as a general rule of thumb, Linux is more configurable, while windows is not.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[gordo3000]

I think you got your example wrong. Vendors like intel cooperate just the same with windows as they do with Linux, they release compiled drivers. Why someone who runs linux feels they should get more than that confounds me.

Really, its as long as open source zealots are not willing to coexist with closed source(even though most closed source is willing to go the other way) many Linux distributions will have a steeper learning curve.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[Synbiosis]

Heh, this entire thread reminds me of a bash quote:

<dm> I discovered that you'd never get an answer to a problem from Linux Gurus by asking. You have to troll in order for someone to help you with a Linux problem.
<dm> For example, I didn't know how to find files by contents and the man pages were way too confusing. What did I do? I knew from experience that if I just asked, I'd be told to read the man pages even though it was too hard for me.
<dm> Instead, I did what works. Trolling. By stating that Linux sucked because it was so hard to find a file compared to Windows, I got every self-described Linux Guru around the world coming to my aid. They gave me examples after examples of different ways to do it. All this in order to prove to everyone that Linux was better.
* ion has quit IRC (Ping timeout)
<dm> brings a tear to my eye... :') so true..
<dm> So if you're starting out Linux, I advise you to use the same method as I did to get help. Start the sentence with "Linux is gay because it can't do XXX like Windows can". You will have PhDs running to tell you how to solve your problems.
<dm> this person must be a kindred spirit of mine

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[Randseed]

You aren't missing anything. These hardware vendors are in bed with Microsoft. Nothing keeps them from releasing the specs, letting someone else write a driver for it, and letting someone else do the technical support. And before someone says that then they'll be flooded with tech support calls, they already are from users who can't get their hardware to work, or are using some kludge piece of crap like ndiswrapper and having problems under it.

One machine I have has a DLink wireless card in it. I installed the acx_100 driver, which seems to be the driver for it. Unfortunately, the manufacturer has some bogus "feature" in the hardware that causes the network card to reset itself every so often. When that happens, the network card drops off the net, and doesn't come back up until a reboot.

The proper thing for the manufacturer to do is either release a Linux driver for their card, or document the incompatability so that I can hack support for it into the driver and release it. In this case, I've done the work for them, for crying out loud.

By the way, I did call the DLink cretins and ask about this. They knew nothing. Their answer was that they don't support Linux. When you release hardware, either release drivers for the predominant operating systems (which is now Linux and Windows), or at least have the decency to release the specs so someone can cover your lazy ass. They don't do this.

I think they honestly think that someone isn't eventually going to get pissed off enough to reverse engineer the damned card, which if I can ever isolate the problem I'm going to do and blow all over the Internet, along with a message proclaiming how much their company sucks.

BroadCom is another one. They release no information about their cards, and lock users into them by building them into the laptop. So you buy a new HP laptop, and its wireless card is a BroadCom. Oops. Sorry.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[robolemon]

One reason that people want Linux drivers uncompiled is so that they could compile it for a platform other than x86. While I'm not here to say that supporting so many platforms is the right solution from a Linux-on-the-desktop standpoint, it is the state of Linux these days, and opens up the ability to use a lot of older or obscure hardware that never could run Windows in the first place. It would probably work better if some sort of board could evaluate hardware drivers and give a rating ranging from Open Source to Unusable (although no hardware manufacturer would put the Unusable rating badge on their box!) Then Linux people could only buy hardware or complete systems that check out with a rating of Pre-Compiled Driver Available or Open Source or whatever level of support they desire. But it would need to be someone people would trust, like the FSF or someone. Although the FSF probably wouldn't make much of a distinction between pre-compiled and doesn't work.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[Vantage13]

IMO, if a driver for a wireless card that's as popular as the Intel ones still isn't supported in a default install when drivers were released months ago, Linux still has serious support issues.

So I suppose when XP doesn't come by default with drivers for hardware released two months ago that it too has serious support issues?

XP won't come with drivers for hardware that has come out after its release. The manufacturer provides the drivers. So if hardware manufacturers can provide drivers for XP is it unreasonable for them to produce Linux drivers on that same CD? On top of that they go to great effort to provide it in the format requested by MS themselves to be compatible with their OS.

Is it unreasonable for them to provide a linux driver in the format requested by Linux developers?

Is it reasonable to blame the Linux distro and not MS even though both haven't included the driver in the default install?

I don't see how these two situations are really different? XP needs third party driver for your card to work. Linux needs third party driver for your card to work. If anything, it's up to the hardware manufacturer to make sure the user experience is the best it can be. At the moment, they don't seem to be trying all that hard...

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[Vantage13]

OS X took me 2 hours. XP took me 4. Kubuntu.... I spent the better part of two days and I was still as frustrated as ever.

But let's compare apples to apples here. Your XP laptop was preconfigured when you got it and I assume you didn't get OS X running on that same laptop, so you most likely used a piece of apple hardware (funny how all the apple hardware works with that preinstalled apple OS). And next tried to install a different OS that was not preconfigured to run on any of that hardware and are amazed when you run into difficulties.

A fair comparison would be to get someone to set up a Linux computer for you that has all compatible hardware installed on it and all hardware working and then see if you still have as much trouble. I suspect it would take you no more time to get accustomed to using the OS as it did for any of the others.

There are companies that sell preconfigured Linux systems (though you may have to hunt to find one). I suggest you give one of them a try.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[MightyMartian]

And yet I, a guy who does tech support for a small ISP, is going to get calls as to Norton's latest piece of crap firewall and virus package is blocking all web traffic, or not letting the guy send his email. His printer will suddenly stop working, and he'll have to pay some pimply 18 year old to get rid of all the spyware he's managed to get on his system. Even worse, if he goes out and gets a new video card, he may find out that the drivers aren't quite up to snuff and performance is the shits.

Windows is no panacea. If it was, there wouldn't be an entire tech support and repair industry based around it.

As to it's GUI, that really hasn't changed, despite cosmetics, in a decade (and is still inferior to the old OS/2 WPS that was badly ripped off for Chicago). There's nothing particularly marvelous about the GUI, and half the people I deal with suddenly find themselves in the deepest, uncharted jungle when you ask them to click on the Start button. It's probably one of the least innovative GUIs ever developed. What Windows has that other desktop-class OSs don't is about fifteen years of bullying and underhanded dealings with hardware manufacturers. It scammed, threatened and robbed its way to the top, so that now anyone with another operating system is hitting a brick wall whose sole purpose is to keep MS on top. If some of these hardware manufacturers would simply give the damn specs to the open source community, that advantage would disappear. By now KDE and Gnome are at the very least the equals of Windows, and I tend to think they may be slightly better.

So, in short, is Linux perfect? Nope, absolutely not. But then again, Windows isn't either, and the advantage that it has is due to its maker being a predatory monopolist, and nothing to do with any particular technical advantage.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[IamTheRealMike]

That's correct, Ubuntu Universe is disabled by default, despite the fact that most of the packages you will want are there.

This is silly. It's been raised on the Ubuntu lists time and time again. Nonetheless, they refuse to enable it, because Canonical can't guarantee security updates for it. That's also silly, in my books, but then I find the whole idea of a Universe repository very silly indeed; it's simply not possible for a distro to ever be 'finished' like that.

Unfortunately, whilst new means of distributing software are being developed, the distribution developers generally strongly dislike them and sometimes go out of their way to cause difficulty for them. At some point there'll probably be a new wave of distros derived from the current ones that take the last "easy steps" to make Linux really usable for family and friends. Hell I'll do it myself one day if need be. Fedora is so close yet so far!

Still ... it's easy for Asa to criticise now. But think about all those years that Mozilla lumbered on with essentially zero popularity outside of the geek world. It wasn't until Firefox (which took years to develop) reached version 1 that things really took off. Linux is still in the Mozilla Seamonkey stage: cute features are being developed but that last stretch hasn't been reached yet. Arguably, it hasn't even been started.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[rjshields]

I'm an XP man

That says it all, entire post summed up in four words. Linux is a unix-like OS for unix-like people. You're not going to get on very well with it if you come along expecting it to behave like windows. You say you are a "power user" but you seem remarkably naive.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[drsquare]

1. How much freedom have you sacrificed by installing a driver? I mean, compare a computer without a driver, and a computer with a closed-source driver. How does the former give you more freedom than the latter. Installing a driver doesn't take anything away. You can still read 'ls.c' if you want.

2. Having your computer actually work is more than a 'little convenience'. Unless you think that using your hardware is a luxury, a mere trifle which isn't as important as peering through source code of software you don't understand anyway. For people in the real world, the whole point of a computer is that it works, and we can use it to get our work done, not to read source code for the hell of it. A computer without working hardware is useful only as a doorstop.

3. It's not a learning curve. Having your hardware not working is a learning WALL. You can't learn anything when your computer doesn't do anything.

4. There's no benefit to learning something which should be automatic. Do you still mill your own wheat between rocks? There's nothing to be gained by spending hours searching documentation just to make your computer sleep when it's supposed to.

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[lsdino]

Good starter list, but I think you're off on ripping CDs (DVDs sure, but CDs are so mainstream. Even *I* don't rip DVDs and I write C++ and C# code for fun and for a living).

To paraphrase a famous "redneck" comedian, you might be a Windows power user if you:

• Install anti-spyware software (if only users would do this!)
  
• Use cmd.exe
  
• Write batch files, .vbs, or .js files for automation
  
• Organize your start menu (again, if only...)
  
• Tweak "Group Policy" on your personal PC (e.g. to disable shutdown from the start menu or other random tweaks)
  
• run Regedit to make modifications
  
• Install the Power Toys pack (come on, it's got Power in it's name!)
  
• Inspect Start->Programs->Startup & removing bloat on a regular basis.
  
• Running msconfig to remove more programs from startup
  
• Running Server 2k3 instead of XP
  
• You've resized your task bar, or moved it to anywhere other than the start.
  

Fun topic! I'm sure others can come up with more...

Re:Don't confuse the market segments.

[asa]

Still ... it's easy for Asa to criticise now. But think about all those years that Mozilla lumbered on with essentially zero popularity outside of the geek world. It wasn't until Firefox (which took years to develop) reached version 1 that things really took off. Linux is still in the Mozilla Seamonkey stage: cute features are being developed but that last stretch hasn't been reached yet. Arguably, it hasn't even been started.

Ahh, friend. You've hit on exactly my point: It is _the_ right time for Linux to try to do for itself what Firefox did for Mozilla.

How did we do that with Firefox? Well, there were four things.... (did you read my blog post?)

- A

Linux needs a Screen of Death!

[tktk]

Windows has the Blue Screen of Death.
Longhorn has the Red Screen of Death.
Mac OS 9 had the Sad Mac and the Bomb.
OS X has the big power button in the background. (And maybe one more.)

And Linux? I don't know what it's got.

Linux users need some iconic way to know that they've really fsck'ed up the their computer. Then they can be satified when they haven't seen it in a while.

We need something....like a dead penguin. Or maybe a slightly stunned penguin. I don't know, get a Japanese manga artist to draw it.

Re:Linux needs a Screen of Death!

[antiMStroll]

"And Linux? I don't know what it's got."

LILILILILILILILILILILILI.....

Re:Linux needs a Screen of Death!

[ph43drus]

You ever seen a kernel oops? I have (faulty hardware). It's a spray of hexadecimal and cryptic CPU register names to the screen with the word "Oops!" at the top. It has a much better "scary computer entrails" look to it than any of those you've listed.

Jeff

Re:less stupid users

[PocketPick]

People who don't want to learn Linux aren't ignorant. But someone who actually would think that we should all spend our time surfing man pages and learning 100+ commands line applications so that we can do rudimentary tasks are. What would happen if you went to the bank, and the teller handed you 100 pages of documentation on how to perform a deposit?

Most people use thier computers read thier email, surf the internet, play a few games and use office-style applications. Linux offers this, but at no greater benefit than Windows or MacOS from a learning curve perspective.

Perhaps the wrong approach

[Sv-Manowar]

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

Re:Perhaps the wrong approach

[llamaluvr]

Right, but don't ya think that she's gotta point on providing some good migration tools? As I recall, that's what Apple does with that "Move2Mac" software they have. Yes, users should be prepared to learn some new paradigms, but their data will still be relevant.

Tired of the moaning

[jrcamp]

Regular People don't want their OK and Cancel buttons reversed -- tossing out years of finely tuned muscle memory.

I'm really sick about this mentality that seems to have actually increased in recent years. Everybody seems to think "well just because it doesn't work like Windows then it is flawed." We should not (and will not) bow down to these kinds of gripes. The coummunity is in the business of producing better software--not equal software.

In none of these write-ups do they care to mention viruses, spyware, or other basic design flaws Windows has. Or how things seem to bit-rot over time. All they do is moan about how things in Linux are different without digging into why it might actually be a better system. Or, if not, seeing what is being developed to solve certain problems.

Don't get me wrong, Linux has a long way to come in some areas. In others it is light-years ahead. I hope more people will join in with me to celebrate Linux's strenghts while being honest about where we are lacking and how to improve.

Re:Tired of the moaning

[natrius]

Everybody seems to think "well just because it doesn't work like Windows then it is flawed."

The article wasn't supposed to be a fair analysis of Linux. New users don't give thing fair analyses. If they don't like the button order and don't want to adapt, they won't use it. That was his point.

Re:Tired of the moaning

[asa]

Everybody seems to think "well just because it doesn't work like Windows then it is flawed." We should not (and will not) bow down to these kinds of gripes. The coummunity is in the business of producing better software--not equal software.

I don't think "just becuase it doesn't work like Windows then it is flawed" and I didn't say anything like that in my blog post. I said that if you want to get Windows users to migrate to Linux, you need to make the transition as easy as possible and that often means making some features and behaviors work like Windows.

Firefox didn't adopt IE's "be overrun by pop-ups" feature but we did adopt Ald+D to focus the addressbar. We decided it was worth more to the user to give them a pop-up free browser than to try to train them to use Ctrl+L to focus the addressbar.

It's not one or the other. Pick your battles. For linux to be successful in converting Windows users, it is going to have to make smart decisions about these kinds of issues. I can see approximately zero value in reversing the OK and Cancel buttons and I can see it being a very uncomfortable re-learning curve with a lot of pain when the user gets it wrong out of habit. Where is the value there. Why throw up that difficulty.

- A

Some good points, but...

[Coryoth]

First of all migration is raised as an issue: "When Regular People fire up the Linux desktop for the first time, the browser, office suite, email client, IM client, file manager, etc, each need to carry over as much as possible of the Windows application settings and all or very nearly all of the user data."

First of all that's a steep ask, but secondly I just don't think it's necessary. If that was required for people to switch no one would ever move to Apple. It's definitely a nice idea, and in the "nice to have" category, but I don't see that it's a deal-breaker.

The second point is API stability: "A user should be able to install Fedora Core 4 and go grab the latest Firefox release from Download.com and have it work without the need for finding and installing compat-libstdc++ or whatever."

This one is fixed - if developers would actually pay attention. Autopackage allows developers to package up their application into a self installing executable that can do dependency resolution. At that point not having compat-libstdc++ is the developer/packager's fault: they ought to have included an Autopackage for it in their repository so the installer can fetch it if it finds the right version of compat-libstdc++ isn't already installed. Better still, the people at Autopackage provide relaytool which allows developers to smoothly fallback to other library versions: for example, you can have your binary use the new GTK+ file chooser if it is available, but fallback to using the old one if it isn't. Which is really saying that the problem has been solved, it's up to the developers and people releasing the software to make use of the tools available.

The third point is preferences: "Gedit has about 30 user preferences spread across 5 tabs in a preferences window -- Notepad has about three."

Now that's not a great example becaue Gedit does a hell of a lot more than notepad, but I think the point is still very valid. To be fair I think GNOME has been putting in a lot of work on this front, and trying to clean a lot of these things up. That work is ongoing, and we can expect to see continuing improvment. That is, the way forward has been laid out, it's just a matter of continuing down the path.

The final point is "comfort":"The final major issue is comfort. Linux must feel comfortable to Windows users. Most people using computers today have been at it for a while now and they've been at it on Windows. Don't mess with their basic understanding of how things work."

I have to say, I think this one is a little dubious. If there is a better way of doing things why not do it? I think constraining yourself to the way Windows does things is a little pointless. There are plenty of things Windows does well, and it's fine to follow those examples, but there are plenty of things Windows does badly, and slavishly copying broken behaviour really doesn't make much sense.

I think the real point here is: be patient. I think the points are valid, but they are also largely well known, and being dealt with. Linux on the desktop is not going to "take off" anytime soon, but the rate of improvment in desktop Linux is tremendous, and it is making slow but steady inraods. Software installation (which has been the recent bugbear that people complain about) is looking quite good with Autopackage and Smart, but both of those are very new and it's going to take some time before a lot of stuff shifts over - that's life. GNOME is working hard on the preferences trim down and clean up, and, I think, is workign towards a fairly clean easy to use Desktop. KDE is headed in a different, but equally valid and interesting direction - I think the divergence is going to end up providing some real significant choice. Finally I think once all these bits properly fall into place and desktop Linux manages to make a dent in the enterprise (which seems to be where the major distros

Re:Some good points, but...

[asa]

f that was required for people to switch no one would ever move to Apple.

This is the third or forth time I've seem mention of this on this thread. I think you all overestimate the number of people switching to Apple. How many users have they actually taken from Windows? A million? Two million? It certainly isn't much more than that. I know it's apples to oranges, but Firefox gets about that many IE switchers _every_week_. How did we go from one or two million users total just a couple of years ago to many tens of millions of users today? In part by making it work the way IE users expected it to work (without dropping innovative and powerful features like tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking.)

If there is a better way of doing things why not do it? I think constraining yourself to the way Windows does things is a little pointless.

Why not do it? Because users don't like change. Because sometimes habit and comfort are more important than making it marginally better. Unless you can make a dramatic value addition for the user, change is probably a bad idea.

I think desktop Linux is looking good, and it's just a matter of time before it manages to carve out its niche.

I'm a big fan of Linux (and Mac and Windows, too) and I want it to be successful. I didn't write a blog post saying "Linux can't and won't succeed," I tried to point out the areas that I think are conditions for its success. I think there's a big opportunity pre-longhorn to show that we've got the right stuff. That window is closing and things will be much more difficult after that. I think it's dangerous for us to think "it's just a matter of time."

- A

if you don't help newbies...

[yagu]

From the post:

needs to do to get there for the "regular user" AKA mom, dad and grandma Bootsie

(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.

Linux is more ready than Windows

[AuMatar]

What does the average Joe need in a computer? He needs to be able to run a word processor, a spreadsheet, an email client, and a web browser. He needs nice easy to click icons to run those. He needs to be able to automaticly download upgrades. He needs to be able to do so without worrying about security, with some level of stability, and without having to do a lot of administration.

Lets go down the list.

Word processor- check. OO is a fine word processor. It does everything Joe User needs to do. It just does so differently than Office

Spreadsheet- check. OO again

Email client- check. Evolution or Thunderbird

Web browser- check. mozilla and firefox

Easy to click icons- check. Under Gnome or KDE

Automatic updates- check. The distro just needs to add a cron job to get all available uipdates at 3 am every morning

Security- check, and far better than Windows

Stability- check. And when programs do crash, they don't crash the OS. And rarely crash the WM. Better than windows

Administration- check. Distros set everything you need up for you. And the Admin programs with distros tend to be easier than the Windows control panel.

If given a pre-installed computer, Linux fits Joe User's needs better than Windows does. Even installing it isn't too bad- distros will pick defaults for you, and take away the choice of WM, email client, etc.

What some people seem to want is for Linux and all its apps to become an exact Windows clone. For there to be a magical 0 learning curve. This won't happen, and it shouldn't happen. Linux does things differently, many times for good reason. If you use a new system, you need to relearn it. Just like they had to learn Windows at one time. If anything its easier this time around- many of the concepts in Windows transfer over.

A fine post and everything but...

[flithm]

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.

Re:A fine post and everything but...

[kahanamoku]

> how the hell did you get first post with so much freakin' writing?

'The Next Slashdot Story Is Ready.... Subscribers Can See It Early'

Just maybe???

Re:A fine post and everything but...

[Rutulian]

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.

I agree with this 100%. My first linux experience was exactly the same way. Where is autoexec.bat? How do I set my PATH? Where are my programs? It takes a while, but now that I am used to it, it is very painful to have to use Windows/DOS. Now when I started using linux, I had only dabbled a little with Win 95/98. I hadn't become proficient in the "new Windows." So that probably made a big difference. The linux desktop has really caught up to WinXP and MacOSX in recent months, so now I wouldn't say the learning curve is all that steep, but a year and half ago it was.

Re:A fine post and everything but...

[Sloppy]

how the hell did you get first post with so much freakin' writing?

That post is one of TMP's recent journal entries.

BTW, TMP is one of my favorite ranters on Slashdot, but this one .. I don't know. It just isn't angry enough. I wish some Linux-using republican would tailgate The Mad Poster for ten minutes, then pass him on the right-side shoulder while going 90 mph, revealing a bumper sticker on the back of their SUV, showing a penguin flipping him off. Then maybe we'd get a better rant.

C'mon, TMP, lay off the prozac.

Re:A fine post and everything but...

[kd4evr]

Hear, hear!

Our story sounds the same. My wife and I share a PC at home. She is an advanced computer user, with no technical backround, though.

First, she was impressed with the "Linux" "design" - she found the desktop and the distro (I'm not saying which not to start yet another rivalry) much more appealing than the Windows one. Next, she moved on to the features, quickly discovering greater possibilities (she did FrontPage, Powerpoint and Excel courses and even knows how and dares to use the stuff...) while exploring different tools and menus.

A phase of nagging followed since some things needed either:
- explaining: to eject the CD, use the "User mount tool" or something;
- or tweaking: hold on a sec, lemme have a look ... after a minute or a day ... ... There ya go!

She always had an option of rebooting back to windows if a file or a site didn't open. But this very step, rebooting, was a limitation in itself so windows was being used less and less often and at the same time, eventual complaints about Linux gradually stopped.

Once, I had her do a preview of a large collection of digital photos in both Win and Linux to compare the speed. Another point proved.

It turned out that in her Economy post-grad class, where they exchanged a lot of .doc, .ppt, and .crap, she was far from being the only one importing the files, editing and saving them back into Win formats with OpenOffice; took'em quite a while to figure out that not all of them are Windows slaves.

At her new job, the in-house geek, amazingly, offered to install whatever OS she wanted on her PC, but openly admitted, that she would be a "linux-first". To make sure she is in sync with the team, she opted for XP. Funly enough, they both had the same idea what browser to install - and again, I leave to your imagination what replaced the IE.

Her computer woes were mostly due to the fact that she had the false expectation that everything on the box has to understand what she is thinking - a common preconception of the computer illiterates mislead by Gates and company. The fact is, that while clinging to that concept, Windows software gave her as much pain as the next, because she improvised at everything instead of RTFM and understanding how things work. So her migration to Linux was plagued with similar aches and pains as her windows work, i.e. -why is this page number constantly shifted?-

Linux now works for her just as well as Windows, if not better.

I don't think Windows is desktop ready

[Nailer]

• You install it, there's no apps (or crap ones - compare IE to Firefox or Outlook Express to Evolution), or you pay lots of money to get them.
  
• You run as root by default, not for ease of use (how difficult is 'type your passsword to continue' that Fedora and OS X do?) but because Microsoft and Windows developers couldn't be bothered fixing things. And you get spyware and viruses as a result, and you fix most, but a few remain, and the whole thing moves like molasses. The SP2 'firewall' still lets in about 7 network ports by default, including those used for some of the major worms.
  

That's why I recommend Linux. I don't see either item changing soon either. I've played with Longhorns betas, and nothing's different. It's your computer, you may as well use it. That's why I recommend Fedora.

Re:I don't think Windows is desktop ready

[Thundersnatch]

The SP2 'firewall' still lets in about 7 network ports by default, including those used for some of the major worms.

This is total, complete BS. By default, the XP firewall allows *no* incoming ports, even to the local subnet. I just confirmed this earlier today with a brand new XP SP2 install.

You maye have installed XP in a corporate or campus environment that had a group policy which allowed incoming ports for file sharing to the local subnet. Or maybe you choose to allow file and printer sharing to the local subnet by checking a few boxes in the GUI. But those settings are absolutely not the Windows XP SP2 default.

The only program that is allowed to listen for connections by default is Remote Assistance. But those ports are only opened if you actually start remote assistance and use it to ask for help. It is an application-triggered firewall rule. You can confirm this yourself by hitting the "Restore Defaults" on the Advanced tab of the firewall control panel.

What a surprise!

[OzRoy]

What a big fucking surprise this has turned out to be.

66 comments, and what do I see? The majority of posters flaming away, or covering their ears screaming "I'm not listening, I'm not listening!"

And as long as this attitude continues linux will continue to suffer. For once in your geeky lives how about you sit back and think about what people are saying about your precious holy operating system. How about you take the constructive critisism and recognise it for what it is! These people are trying to HELP YOU! But no, you don't listen, and these problems will continue to plague Linux, and normal users will take one look and turn away leaving it forever in the hands of the fanatics.

Before people whine too much

[obeythefist]

I RTFA and it made some good points, and most importantly, they were constructive!

The author implies that one of the major reason Firefox was successful is the ease of migration. And it's true! Firefox will seamlessly "borrow" MSIE settings while leaving IE there in case you want to go back. This makes it a very comfortable transition.

Now, I don't think I'm the only windows user who thinks it would be excellent if I could install Linux and have it inherit at least some of the information from Windows. Now, I've seen enough Linux password changers for Windows to know Linux can crack open and interrogate the Windows registry.

Some really valid ideas in the article. Will people take notice? I hope so.

Apps

[SimURL]

I believe, the main reason that Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop is the lack of mature open source apps. Desktop users tend to use and have invested in many applications to do whatever it is that they do (i.e. productivity, internet, games, photos, etc.). It takes time to offer solutions (Wine, OpenOffice, etc.) that are as robust (or robust enough) and make it inexpensive and easy to tranfer data and the occasional Windows app (games) to a Linux box.

There is cost (which is slowly declining over time) associated with a transfer from Windows to Linux.

Windows Works Well for the Average User? Not!

[frohsinn]

Implicit in Asa's article is an assumption that Windows works well for the average user.

Windows works well for the "average" user? You must be kidding. I'll tell you what the "average" user experience in Windows is. The "average" user falls into one of two camps. The "Camp 1" user accepts the fact that his or her system operates with seriously degraded functionality, because it works well enough to satisfy the most important of his or her meager computing demands. "Camp 2 "people routinely reinstall windows when enough stuff breaks; mean time between reinstalls is about six months. How do I know this? I used to do ISP support work, and spent lots of time working with "Joe Sixpack" and his buddies. Sorry Asa, but you're not an "average" user. I'm glad that Windows is working well for you, but that by definition puts you in a category that is definitely not "average". When will the average user migrate to Linux? Simple. "Joe Sixpack" understands very well that you can't be cheaper than free. Once a critical mass of "Joe Sixpacks" start to realize they now have a free albeit slightly more cryptic option to replace an OS which costs money and tends to be broken most of the time for them.

We?

[msimm]

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.

I think part of the problem is Linux (as a Unix) is just so damn good on the server. So we get the distro's/developers with a kind of hybrid mindset. There needs to be some kind of official split between the Desktop and the Unix server (don't get me wrong, I love the server and cry when I have to work on our Solaris ..2.8.. boxes, but hey).

I mean seriously, where are the UI RFC's?

So for the record this portion of we still thinks Linux on the desktop is more of a hobbyists adventure (I love a good adventure).

Re:We?

[snorklewacker]

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.

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 ... 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.

So that's why they're backward.

Some of these points suck!

[Volvogga]

While Dotzler makes a few good points, I don't entirly agree with most of them. These in particular.

And what is a Regular Person to think when confronted with a choice between Helix Player, CD Player, and Music Player? Does the Music Player not understand CDs? What's "Helix" mean?
I threw this argument right out the fucking window. Anyone bought a Dell Computer lately? Ye Gods! You get Dell Musicmatch Jukebox (which has explorer controll over the music files), Windows Media Player (Movie control, I think), and Dell Media Experience. All of these play audio. Movies are Dell Media Experience, Windows Media Player, and the Start menu yeilds Power DVD by Cyberlink. Futher investigation would yeild that the Dell Media Experience seems to be nothing more than a front end for other programs, but is our so called "average user" going to be able to deduce that? Moving on to burning software, two icons were on my Dell Laptop desktop by default. "Burn CDs & DVDs with Sonic DigitalMedia LE" and "MyDVD LE". [Average User time] "So, lets see. Sonic does DVDs, so why is there another DVD program right next to it?" [Dummy mode is now on!]. And then we have 3 ISPs to choose from; AOL, Earthlink, and NetZero. Bah!

I don't want to start a desktop war but I really gotta say to the distros, pick a desktop and be happy. Regular People shouldn't have to (guess or learn enough to) choose between Gnome and KDE when they're installing your product.
This also irked me a bit. How many of the average users actually install windows now? Going back to my Dell Laptop I just got, WinXP was already installed on it, so much that I didn't have to activate the installation. If a computer company like Dell, IBM, Compaq, Sony, etc. were to preinstall Linux on their machines instead, would they allow the user to select the desktop on bootup? Personally, I think they would choose one and have you be stuck with it. The "average user" probably would not know the difference.

Meh. I liked the idea of Raskin with the Archy OS (http://rchi.raskincenter.org/aboutrchi/index.php) . Give the average users something simplistic and good enough to do what the average user wants, and leave the complex systems (Linux and, dare I say it, Windows) to those of us who know a little bit about what the box under the desk is and are willing to learn a little more.

Re:less stupid users

[tomstdenis]

That's like saying the house you build that won't stand a 10km/h wind shows how "construction work is easy".

If windows were easy to use it would be easy to use securely.

The fact that grandpa can't install, update, manage, us the anti-{spy, mal, virus, windows} software you have to install shows that it's not easy to use.

Next you'll say open-heart surgery is easy as well....

Tom

I failed to set up a printer on linux ... :-(

[dr_leviathan]

I'm a GNU/linux user (8 years, currently using Debian sarg via Knoppix) and have been recommending GNU/linux to friends and colleagues for years. I recenlty set my mom up with BeatrIX so she could do spreadsheet stuff.

She went ahead and bought a printer... but she couldn't set it up, so I drove three hours just to set up her printer (an HP OfficeJet 4215 connected via USB)... and failed miserably. The GUI wizard was able to detect the printer model string, but beyond that there was no evidence that it could reach the printer at all. Although the model string had the make and model the wizard couldn't use that information to select the make and model and thereby pick the right CUPS configuration. When I manually picked the make and model nothing happened. I searched all over for something wrong, but didn't know enough to figure it out (I've only successfully set up one or two printers on GNU/linux in my entire career, the most recent success was using CUPS to connect to a SAMBA shareed printer... that just worked and was easier than doing it on Windows 2000).

Not only did BeatrIX fail but so did Knoppix-V_3.8! I was rather demoralized. Meanwhile my step father (a WindowsXP user) chuckled at the botched attempts.

Granted, if she had a broadband connection I probably could have searched the internet for tips and tricks and eventually figured it out, however the conclusion I had to make was that my favorite distribution wasn't ready for the vast majority of regular computer users out there.

My solution will be to buy a !@#$%^&*() OfficeJet 4215 for myself just so I can figure out how to make the stupid thing work, and then make that 3 hour trip again.

But for Christmas she'll probably get a digital camera and a new struggle will begin. Notice, I'm not optimisitc anymore.

I LOVE GNU/linux as my desktop, but it sure isn't ready for the masses.

The Problem Isn't Linux

[alucinor]

The problem isn't Linux. It's a great kernel, very stable, and makes a great server of nearly any sort.

The problem is with trying to integrate the whole freakin' OSS world (plus a piece or three of proprietary stuff here and there) into a functioning distro.

Yeah, it'd be great (in a way) to have central control over the Free Desktop System, but that'd be a bit of an oxymoron.

Slowly, though, things are standardizing quite naturally ... the OSS ecosystem is killing off the weaker projects (like sound servers, oh jeez ... way too many of those) and little by little, all the pieces of a fully-functioning Linux/*BSD-based desktop OS are coming together. (And when I say *BSD, I mean anything but Darwin :)

Of course, as I say this, I had to run fsck.ext3 /dev/hdc1 today, as my Hoary Hedgehog installation mysteriously got hosed. The only thing I can think of causing this was that I was transcoding Return of the King overnight ... but that's just a shot in the dark.

You just proved my point.

[khasim]

You claim to be a power user, but you had problems with your wireless card and power management.

I said that power users would be the last segment (#4) to move to Linux because they wouldn't be happy until their hardware was supported.

I run Ubuntu and it runs great on fully supported hardware. But then, I also run my LCD screen as 1280x1024 so I don't have the space problems you do.

Re:You just proved my point.

[the_womble]

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.

Re:You just proved my point.

[dusik]

Indeed, a power user having trouble with power management?!?!

Seriously, though, you're right. That's Linux's main problem at this time, as I see it. I have fun tweaking and fixing things every day in Gentoo, but like the original article says, it's not for Regular People (and probably not for many of the Rest either). It will probably be a few more years before things like that really get ironed out. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude (and I sure hope I'm not kidding myself).

Re:You just proved my point.

[WhiteBandit]

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.

That is complete and utter bullshit. I'm not sure how you're able to make the claim that Windows power users only know how to do things, but don't know how it actually works. Part of the process in figuring out how to configure your computer for whatever reason, is understanding how it works.

Sure, for some hardcore gamers and such, you can read a guide on some cheesy gaming website that tells you how to opitimize for Battlefield 2 by increasing virtual memory or something. But it's part of a learning process nonetheless.

Then again, you could be saying that because a "GUI dumbs things down." I'm sorry, but I'd be willing to wager that the majority of mainstream users don't want to spend there time using various shells and hacking at text files all day.

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).

That said, I'm willing to agree with you. A default Linux package ships with everything the average user needs and usually it just works.

In my experience however (and ask 10 slashdotter's about their linux experiences and you'll have 12 different opinions), once you start installing more packages and such, it starts getting harder to maintain and keep track of. This can make it quite difficult for novice users. Especially using RPMS and the so-called "dependancy hell" that can result from it.

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.

I have to say, by far the easiest operating system I've ever installed anything on is OS X. Just open the disc image and basically drag the file onto your desktop or wherever and boom! It (usually) works! After that, I feel that Windows is the next easiest (that might have to do with the fact that Windows programs are so ubiquitous and therefore easy to find... and you usually have all the DLLs and such from previous installs that actually shipped with them. Then again, this leads to "DLL-Hell"...) followed by Linux as being the most difficult to install things on, on average.

Re:You just proved my point.

[the_womble]

I'm not sure how you're able to make the claim that Windows power users only know how to do things, but don't know how it actually works.

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.

Re:You just proved my point.

[indifferent children]

I have to say, by far the easiest operating system I've ever installed anything on is OS X. Just open the disc image and basically drag the file onto your desktop or wherever and boom! It (usually) works! After that, I feel that Windows is the next easiest (that might have to do with the fact that Windows programs are so ubiquitous and therefore easy to find... and you usually have all the DLLs and such from previous installs that actually shipped with them. Then again, this leads to "DLL-Hell"...) followed by Linux as being the most difficult to install things on, on average.

I don't think that you have used any of the Debian-based distros. The Debian apt-get is fantastic (the RPM-based apt-gets are still inferior). You need to know the name of the program that you want to install. After that, it is: apt-get install mozilla-firefox . And apt-get resolves all DLL-Hell-ish dependencies for you (recursively).

If you prefer GUIs, 'synaptic' shows you lists of all known applications, you click the apps that you want, and synaptic runs apt-get for you.

With OSX and Win32, you must go out on the Internet and find the packages that you want to install, download them, download any other packages to satisfy dependencies, and then use the 'easy' install procedures (in the correct dependency-driven order). Apt-get wins hands-down.

My Long Linux Adventure...

[TheNarrator]

I started using Linux on the Desktop in about 97 with Redhat 5.2. It sucked, badly. I basically used three applications. Xemacs, Netscape, the Shell and some now forgotten window manager. I used it for Real Work (TM) to build production Linux systems using mod_perl, which was also a screwy system, but that's another story.

For years I waited anxiously as KDE and Gnome faught their Open Source/Free war. I watched as I envangelized other developers to use Linux and dealt with their machines becoming totally foobared with the audio or video card not working right and having them not use any applications except shells and xload. I watched as Linux fortune's waxed and wained. I kept hoping for a good desktop and a sane system. I did every little update I could, waiting for the fix that would fix everything. I was disapointed over and over again by Ximian and early versions of KDE. RPM was maddening hell. Things were looking good for Linux at that time though. Windows was still unstable and Linux felt a lot more powerful at that time. Linux world in 1999 was a crazy party. Then the low point over the last 10 years for Linux came, Microsoft released Windows 2000. Finally they had a stable reasonable Internet ready operating system that didn't crash. I started hearing a lot of Linux desktop users giving Win2k it's due and switching back. I struggled on. Over the next five years there were bright spots such as Java getting released and stable on Linux and Firefox and Openoffice developing. I used redhat 9 for a long time. Stuck in a barely usable combination of Firefox, OpenOffice, Eclipse and terminal windows. Things were slow though. The system sucked. I even switched back to Win2k at home because I was sick of not being able to play Multimedia.

This year things have gotten a lot better. I discovered Ubuntu which has a no thinking required install system in apt-get. I have Firefox, Database Clients, JDK1.5, Eclipse (I rarely touch xemacs), KDE 3.4 ,which has finally worked out most of the bugs, Gaim, good hardware support, Linux 2.6, much improved performance. I EVEN HAVE GOOD FONTS, a huge accomplishment! When I go back to Windows XP at home there's really nothing that I get too excited about. Video is still an issue and cut and paste of course, but I don't do any non text authoring, except with open office which works fine, that's about it. Linux really needs to get something like COM/OLE nailed down and it will solve almost all of its problems. Mono and KParts seem to be attempts at this. So I went from 3 buggy barely usable desktop applications on Linux (Xemacs,netscape,terms) to at least 15 or more usable desktop applications. That's certainly progress.

(Warning: disgruntled unix user rant follows)

BTW, three things I'm sick of in Linux:

1. The C Language
Security Holes,
Constant Reinvention of the wheel due to lack
of portability and good component model.

2. Anti-XML Sentiment
Delimited Files Are Terrible.

3. Bloat Complaints
Are the only people left using Linux embedded systems developers??

4. Perl/Awk/Sed
I used it for years, totally ugly, unparsable, etc.

5. RPM
More time wasted than any thing else I've ever used in all of Linux.

Reread that article, dammit!

[diamondsw]

This link is so critical I'm putting it first: Progressive Disclosure

There's a lot of bullshit comments being made already, and the vast majority surround this one chunk:

Regular People don't want their OK and Cancel buttons reversed -- tossing out years of finely tuned muscle memory. Regular People shouldn't have to learn what /home means or how it differs from My Documents. ... Linux UI fundamentals need a reworking to match the habits that Windows users have been building over the last decade

Nothing else makes any real reference to being "Windows-like". Toss it out and read that article again. And again. And for anyone who designs a distro, read it, bookmark it, make it your home page, or print it and put it on your wall.

Asa is saying that Linux *must* be more user-focused, and there's almost nothing in his article except good suggestions that will not remove any of the "geeky cred" or usefulness of Linux.

Things like (for those too lazy to read the RTFA, or are reading with blinders on):

• Migration of user settings - even if just basic ones like bookmarks, documents, e-mail settings. Users will immediately feel more at home if their stuff is there and ready for them. Start small with things that are easy (bookmarks, a symbolic link back to their old documents, e-mail settings, perhaps their current wallpaper setting) and continue to build.
  
• Simple software installation - honestly, things like synaptic do a lot to help on this, but Linux needs to have a way for someone to download one thing and have it work. If that means that various Linux subsystems need to freeze their API's more, so be it. The Linux Standard Base project was working on this, and it needs to happen.
  
• Progressive Disclosure - Fewer features in front of the user, not more (but feel free to keep an "advanced" button with all the rest). Only show options that are applicable (the settings vs preferences example was excellent). Only show the "major" programs. The file browser/Open/Save dialogs need a lot of work - show the user how to easily get to where they need to be, and by default hide the "UNIXy" stuff - look at OS X for some inspiration.
  
• Defaults - Continue refining the "out-of-box" desktop experience (leaner main menus, more familiar default taskbar configuration, cleaner and more "professional" UI - Fedora is doing a *lot* right in this regard). Let it all be customizeable, but the defaults must be sensible for the largest (and simplest) audience.
  
• Comfort - This does not mean "like Windows". This means things should work as expected. Drives should mount automatically without any settings or fiddling. Documents should be easy to find. Applications should be easy to install. For God's sake, never allow the X clipboard near a "normal" user (FreeDesktop is working well on that one). Terminology should be simplified ("Home", "Mount", "Execute", and others must go). You should never, ever, ever have to touch a text file, or even hear about something called "fstab".

So, what functionality is the Linux power user going to lose? None. But you'll make it a lot easier for "normal" users to not only get things done, but have fewer questions for their support staff (you).

Re:Reread that article, dammit!

[AKAImBatman]

Asa is saying that Linux *must* be more user-focused, and there's almost nothing in his article except good suggestions that will not remove any of the "geeky cred" or usefulness of Linux.

Indeed. FWIW, I wrote an article on this not so long ago. One of the biggest backlashes was the complaint that "We don't want Linux to be like Windows!" I found this complaint to be humorous, because I never suggested anything even remotely like Windows. The design I suggested was more like OS X, but more advanced, powerful, and Linux focused.

Even so, I had to do a followup article to clear up many of the misconceptions people had about my suggested design.

Asa is right

[jalefkowit]

Unsurprisingly there's already a lot of "bah, this guy wants Linux dumbed down for n00bs" comments on this thread. Which totally misses the point:

Linux-on-the-desktop isn't just too complicated for n00bs -- it's too complicated for reasonably sharp users, too. And that's the problem.

I offer myself as an example. I am not the God of All Things Computing. But I've been tinkering with PCs since MS-DOS 3 days, I've used Windows, Macs, Linux and even CP/M for pete's sake. Today my primary desktop at home runs Ubuntu Linux. I'm comfortable compiling software from source tarballs and rooting through Google for HOWTOs and FAQs.

In short, I know my way around a computer -- and yet Ubuntu still manages to throw me for a loop more frequently than I'd like.

Example. The other day I installed the new Deer Park preview of Firefox. For some reason, its installer (bonus points to it for even having a graphical installer, btw) didn't add a shortcut for launching it to my GNOME panel. So I wanted to add one myself.

Easy? Right? Bzzt.

On Windows, here's the steps for adding a new item to the Start menu:

1. Click Start menu button
2. Navigate to folder where you'd like to add shortcut
3. Right-click folder name
4. Select "New Shortcut"
5. Wizard launches that walks you through finding the program you want the shortcut to point to, and giving the shortcut a name.

I figured there must be a way to manipulate the GNOME panel in a similar fashion. Nope. There is no direct way in Ubuntu Hoary to add a panel item to the menus through the GUI. Instead you have to open a shell, find /usr/share/applications, and create a .desktop file in there for your application.

But! You don't have permission to do that by default, so you have to use sudo to create the file. ("You do know how to use sudo, right Mom?")

And then -- once you figure out that you need to create a .desktop file, and where this file needs to go, and what format this file needs to be in, and you actually go and create it -- nothing happens! That's right, you don't see the item in your panel until the next time you log in, unless you manually restart the X server with CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE.

(Yes, you have to restart the window manager, or else it will appear that all your work was for naught. "Just restart the X server, Mom. Mom? Hello? Noob.")

The icing on the cake is that to find this answer, you have to go through three levels of redirection:

• Ubuntu tells you to refer to GNOME, since it's their desktop, Ubuntu's just distributing it
• GNOME tells you to refer to FreeDesktop.org, since it's their standard for panel items, GNOME is just packaging it
• FreeDesktop.org hides the instructions on how to write a .desktop file deep in a standards document.

("You do read standards documents, right Mom?")

I went through all that and finally got my shortcut added to the panel. But how many average users are gonna put up with that? (And Ubuntu does better at this stuff than most others.)

With all the spit and polish issues that Linux has, Asa is not the only Mozillian to find fault with it; former Moz UI gadfly Matthew Thomas (aka mpt), who's now with Ubuntu sponsor Canonical, recently posted a list of 69 usability flaws in Ubuntu Hoary, and old skooler Jamie Zawinski gave up Linux for OS X for good.

My case was not a case of "user who could not snap out of Windows-ism". I'm more than willing to embrace a better approach when I see it. But this is not a better approach fo

You forgot the the biggest segment

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Embedded. Cell phones, TVs, dektop boxes.

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.

I think its ready...

[zoftie]

but there is real lack of desktop applications. People WILL migrate to another operating system if they have the tools they need for whatever they do. Casual users won't bother, anyone who does use internet fairly often, by this time is sick and tired of viruses, worms and other internet grit, that gets into their lives. Now alot of people have always on connections, this implies greater exposure of your computer , when your system, no only not secured, but also runs OS that is very hard to secure , even for professionals.

Often the hardcore people who still want to play windows games, would make restore DVD of their bare system and reimage drive once a week, to keep slime off the machine.

Windows rapidly approaching desktop usability

[e_AltF4]

Windows rapidly approaching desktop usability

Define "Linux" and "desktop Linux"

[kollivier]

People always say "Linux" like it is one big community all moving towards one ultimate goal. It's not. All "Linux" is, really, is a kernel that can be used as the core of an operating system.

Look at the comments in the article. Do all the comments apply to all Linux-based distros? Many of the criticisms are not only already known (in a general sense), but also being addressed by some distros. If you look at Ubuntu Linux, for example, they've already taken steps to address many of the issues Asa pointed out. (One GUI, remove app clutter, focus on simplicity.) So exactly what is this "desktop Linux" he says is not ready? Is he talking about Ubuntu, RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Gentoo, etc., etc. Really, he's just talking in generalities.

And thinking and talking in generalities is a major part of the problem - how do you address a problem with 100 distributions? How do you standardize all these operating systems out there based on Linux? You can't, really. You can't sit around and wait for even a majority of distros to decide to come up with, and support, some standardized "Desktop Linux" experience.

In fact, the main issue with most *nix-based distros is that they're bound by their components and build systems to remain mostly the same as other *nix distros. They're different enough to not be the same, but similar enough not to really be different. There's a glut of distros but there's not that much going on in terms of actual desktop work outside of people tweaking GUIs and maintaining packages. So long as no one wants to try anything radical, how does anyone plan on this new and compelling alternative to Windows appearing?

But I wouldn't want to stop yet another person from pointing out the same deficiencies that people have been pointing out for years. Somehow it seems it's still news here. :-)

One major thing that everyone ignores...

[SparklingClearWit]

Pre-built, ready-to-run software that people want and use. Fuck all your endless variations on editors and mahjongg.

Let Bootsie buy Betty Crocker's recipes, and make it work.

Replace Photoshop with something that doesn't SO resemble its name (*cough*fucking Gimp*cough*).

Give users an easy way to buy a game/program and install it.

Mom, Joe Sixpack, and Bootsie NEVER want to see the command line. What if some new car company just decided that you'd use your left foot for the accelerator, and you'd use a motorcycle-style clutch "because studies show it's better"?

Christ. This site is becoming a blog for Linux cumguzzlers. Can't discuss shortcomings rationally.

Linux does some things WONDERFULLY. Windows does some things better. People like what they are USED to - don't fuck with it because "we say it's better!!1" - until people get that through their heads, desktop adoption will stagnate.

Almost There ....

[alucinor]

The Linux desktop is almost ready. Two major places to keep your eyes over the next two years:

Ubuntu
Suse

I'm deliberately leaving out Fedora/RedHat. Not to troll, but they don't really seem nearly as motivated in the desktop space as these other two entities do.

But then again, I get the sneaking suspiscion that the ultimate Linux desktop isn't going to come from a U.S. or Euro country ... keep your eyes on:

Brazil. They're preping to kick some desktop ass. Linux is definitely going to be a phenomenon as the 3rd world moves up.

grandma linux

[Al Al Cool J]

I've helped a lot of older people (70s+) with their computers, and one thing I've noticed is that many of them simply don't grok the whole idea behind windows management - minimize, maximize, resize, it'll all beyond them. They start an app, they work in that app, they close the app, then they start another one. The idea of having two apps running together side-by-side or overlapping, and jumping between them is too much for them.

My father, who has been using Windows on an almost daly basis since the Win3.1 days, is like that. Yesterday, for the umpteenth time, I had to go and help him because he said Word was no longer coming up. It was coming up, but had been inadvertantly resized to just the top window frame, and was so small that he hadn't noticed it. There were about a dozen instances of Word, all on top of each other.

And who here hasn't helped somebody who had accidently dragged the Winddows task bar to another edge of the desktop?

I would love to see a linux distro and/or window manager where I could lock down the behavior, preventing the user from accidently screwing everything up. I imagine you could do something like that, with a bit of effort, with icewm or fvwm. But it would be nice to have a ready-to-go distro, ubuntu-grandma or something, along with some remote admin tools already set up, like sshd and an easy way to connect a Remote Desktop session so I could see exactly what they were seeing.

Easy Linux, not Windows Clone Linux

[try_anything]

The answer to every usability question is not "copy Microsoft" or "make it work like Windows." Linux is a different system, and any attempt to put a Windows-clone GUI on top of it will give us a crippled system with a hard-to-discern inconsistencies that are more insidious to Windows users than obvious differences are. A policy of making the Linux GUI a clone of Windows will make the Linux desktop cheap-feeling and mediocre forever.

A ridiculous example of equating "different from Windows" with "too hard" is the article's comment about Helix Player. "Helix Player" is no less intuitive than "WinAmp," it's simpy different, and not arbitrarily so, because it would be a lie (and probably illegal) to call it "WinAmp."

What makes Windows popular and "easy" today is its history. Microsoft went through years of trial and error during which the Windows GUI was turned into a (relatively) intuitive handle on the Windows system. Windows was popular during this awkward growing period because of a variety of forces that no longer apply today. Microsoft seized the one and only chance to make a crappy, immature desktop GUI a commercial success, and now they have the advantage of a huge user base.

Linux simply can't replicate what happened with Windows. It must become polished before it becomes popular, and there aren't any shortcuts. The goal for Linux GUIs must be to make Linux as easy to learn and understand as possible, not to make Linux into a Windows work-alike.

Re:instead of linux it must be...

[linguae]

KDE, GNOME, XFCE this has nothing to do with linux, it affects BSDs too.

And, frankly, that's the biggest problem Linux faces toward desktop acceptance. No, forget Linux. That's the biggest problem Unix faces toward desktop acceptance, whether it is Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, etc. Unix has been dependent on the X Window System for its non-console output needs. For those of you who don't know the story, let me tell the story.

The people over X didn't agree on a single toolkit that all X applications use, and left that work to other developers. Motif was the official X toolkit for one point, but Motif was closed source and therefore not embraced by BSD and Linux developers, not to mention Motif is ugly. LessTif (a Motif clone) was developed to allow Motif developers to compile/run their apps in Linux, and some projects (notable the GIMP), created their own toolkits. Years later, a Linux user comes along and says, "Motif is ugly and hard to code in. CDE isn't very user friendly, and they're both proprietary. Imagine if we had a toolkit that was easy to develop with, and a desktop environment that's easy to use, just like Windows/Macintosh. I'll call it KDE!" So this developer starts work on KDE, which uses the QT toolkit.

Unfortunately, QT was released under a license that wasn't compatible with the GNU GPL, which is one of the most common licenses used on OSS development. So, instead of the GNU folks writing a GPL-licensed QT clone so that way they can still ethically use the growing amount of KDE applications out there, they decided to write their own toolkit and their own desktop environment. They adopted Gimp's toolkit (GTK) and started work on GNOME. Before long, users now had two competing desktop environments (KDE and GNOME), multitudes of toolkits (Motif [which became open-sourced 5 years ago], QT [which was GPL'd for OSS projects], GTK, wxWindows, GNUstep), and vast amounts of software tied to one toolkit.

The problem with getting Linux on the desktop is that even though a "Joe Average-ready" distribution (like Mandrake, Linspire, Ubuntu, or Fedora) picks a desktop environment, picks the applications (which depends on the desktop environment), and develops its own installer, we all call them "Linux," as if you can go down to the store and buy yourself a box of Linux 2.6.11. The problem with that is each distribution should be really regarded as its own OS, since each distribution may use a different desktop environment. For example, we don't call Mac OS X "FreeBSD," even though much of the underlying OS is based on FreeBSD. However, we don't refer to Mandrake or Ubuntu as "Mandrake OS" or "Ubuntu OS." The biggest problem with this all is when the user tries to install software. Let's say that the user decides to install Ubuntu on his computer. IIRC, Ubuntu uses GNOME as its main desktop environment. The user doesn't know about GTK, GNOME, Bonobo, ATK, Gail, and all of that other technical mess. However, let's say that the user has heard of a wonderful application called KOffice which meets his needs perfectly. When the user installs KOffice, he finds out that he needs to install another toolkit (all of that KDE/QT stuff) in order to run that application. When he opens KWord, he notices that everything from the buttons, the menus, and even the ordering of the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons are different than from a "native" application such as Evolution or GEdit. Being ignorant about toolkits, he then installs some other applications such as xpdf, some GTK 1.2 applications, OpenOffice (which uses its own toolkit), some Java Swing applications, and more. By the time he's finished, he would have to deal with almost a separate toolkit for each application that he's using.

The biggest problem with the Unix desktop is the X Window System. There is no consistency with the look-and-feel of applications. There is also no consistency with toolkits. Mac OS X did it right with Aqua, but Aqua isn't the X Window S

Re:Shhhhhhhhh......

[the_bard17]

Cooler? Maybe. Depends on your definition.

Configurable? Yes.

I run Linux mainly because I like buttons, dials, and switches. I want to be able to change this, and see what happens... fiddle with that, and watch as this and that changes.

I take pride out of what I assemble, what I've modified, and what I've changed. I like someone looking at my desktop, and saying "Never seen that before. What's this?"

I want the ability to do all that. I don't want a mega-corporation in charge of deciding what I can change, and what I can't.

To me, that's cool. Your definition of cool might differ, at which point you'll figure it's not cool. That's ok... you do your thing, I'll do mine.

Asa Dotzler is full of it

[typical]

It will need to install on machines next to Window, leaving that completely intact and easy to return to, and carry over all or nearly all of the user's data and settings.

Not going to happen. Doesn't happen with Mac OS. Too much proprietary setting information that changes format from version to version. This is a significant convenience, but I do not see it as crucial to adoption. People reconfigure all their apps when they upgrade their computer anyway -- Windows has extremely poor support for retaining application settings.

A user should be able to install Fedora Core 4 and go grab the latest Firefox release from Download.com and have it work without the need for finding and installing compat-libstdc++ or whatever.

I'll give that the environment is not perfect, and could be improved, but running a program, getting a list of packages and just choosing what you want and having it all automatically downloaded and installed (with dependencies autohandled, just as they have been for a long time) it's honestly easier to use than the Windows world. I'll give you that not everything is packaged, but I am a developer and power user, and I have only a few binaries in /usr/local/bin (thus unpackaged), and most of those were things that I wrote. Of the others, an nzb client, a readline wrapper to add readline support to apps that lack it (not of interest to the typical user), and a fuse userspace utility are the only things sitting in there. ~/bin contains a few more unpackaged things, but again almost everything was written by me -- the exceptions include a bin2iso converter, a grep colorizer, an ebook converter, a process memory dumper, a Gnutella client that I hack on, a parity file generator, an X11 memory usage analysis program, two interactive fiction game runtimes, a console MUD client, a console UNIX-DOS linefeed converter, a pair of programs to pack and unpack executables for reverse engineering, and a Super Nintendo emulator. A couple of those programs would be interesting to the typical user, but most probably would not. The rest of the binaries on my system come from just usage of yum. I will admit that configuring yum properly to use third-party repositories is a bit of a pain, but it's not *that* hard, and there are step-by-step instructions on dag/dries/atrpms/etc. And that's really the only unusual step.

The problem comes in when people treat Linux distros as they do proprietary software, which is designed around systems where all the vendors can't cooperate to provide downloads, because they *sell* their software. They start hunting around webpages to download software, when all they have to do is just fire up their package downloader. And compat-libstdc++ and friends get handled automatically.

Asking them to figure out complex system library and kernel compatibility issues is a one way ticket off of their desktop.

Is asking them to try synaptic or yum or another package manager?

I mean, Windows Update has at least as complex an interface, and Windows users are expected to use *that*.

I guess that some users might want somethng a bit more like Red Carpet -- a package manager that does a bit more hand-holding ("click on this square if you want a program to write letters with, and this one if you want to get games"), but it really isn't *that* complex. It's just different.

Regular People shouldn't have to (guess or learn enough to) choose between Gnome and KDE when they're installing your product.

IIRC, Fedora Core lets you choose which desktop environment you want to use every time you log in -- it's not as if trying it out is that bad. (I can't be sure of this, because I just use sawfish+gkrellm+xbindkeys, but I distinctly remember seeing a friend using a vanilla Fedora Core having a menu to select.)

Regular People don't need 15-20 mediocre games in a highly visible Games menu at the top of the Applications list.

Actually, I don't think that

It's the apps.

[khasim]

Yep. Most people don't buy an OS for the OS (except during the Win95 roll out).

They want to run certain apps. Their apps.

But the first step is getting their hardware supported. Once the hardware is supported, the Linux desktop market can start to grow.

Then we'll see how large it grows and whether it provides enough of a market for the developers of those apps to port them to Linux.

I believe it will. Just as the Linux server segment grew enough to support Oracle sales. But server apps are different than desktop apps so I may be wrong.

The OS is just the portion between the apps and the hardware.

Installing Programs

[natrius]

I agree with the points Asa makes about migration and installing programs, and of these, I'll address the one where I know progress is being made.

Installing programs has been a pain for new Linux users for a long time. It's hard enough to adjust to the new paradigm of getting programs from a central repository, and laying an inadequate interface on top of that doesn't help much either. The main problem with Synaptic, the best apt frontend I've used, is that you have to wade through tons of packages for libraries and servers that few end users will ever touch. To fix this, Ross Burton put together a program that lets you install and remove programs through a tree that mirrors the Applications menu. Instead of installing some cryptic package, you're adding a menu entry. It may not be perfect, but it's vastly simpler. I'm currently working on expanding the program to let you install any application, among other things.

The other issue that people have with installing applications is that the repository might not have the latest, greatest version that the user wants. Ubuntu freezes a set of packages and stabilizes them, which is an approach that works for many users and keeps things bug free. For the next version, the backports project will be come an official part of Ubuntu, making it easier for users to choose if they want the latest packages or the most stable ones. Users won't have to try to install the Firefox binary that the MoFo provides since they'll be able to get it straight from the repositories, precluding any weird library incompatibility problems.

Things are getting better.

former linux user

[kyle74]

as a former fedora core 3 user who returned to mac, here is my take....linux is a really cool os that is usable as long as everything installs off the rpm or disc correctly the 1st time. if i had to install from source (i.e. that tar.bgz BS) i was sunk. i rate myself as an average user of average ability, but if i couldn't ever figure it out i doubt my mother and/or grandparents could. i think i represent the type of users linux needs for widespread adoption. i gave up on linux when i went wireless and FC3 did not support my wireless card (d-link dwl g510). i believe linux can become a widespread OS if it can be more user friendly but it is obviously not there yet.

Why Linux Isn't Ready for the Desktop: ten points

[damicha]

10) the desktop is disappearing and replaced by portables, special function devices, small form factors (I never had a PC on a desk, btw: put it away, into the next room basement, etc, and just run kbd and video cables)

9) too big a QA team working 24/7 worldwide

8) too long up; if it does not crash, how do I know it is actually working at all?

7) does not support Microsoft only printers

6) does not support Microsoft only scanners

5) does not support Microsoft only cams

4) you need an emulator to run notepad.exe, what a waste!

3) way too many applications and developers; and those developers are actually talking to each other; very very spooky. I want silos!

2) networking is way too fast for normal people

1) no online activation, so how can it work at all, he?

Ready for networks?

[shrewtamer]

I'd agree that Linux isn't ready to be installed by average users. Neither is Windows. I think MacOS is the only OS I'd be happy to see installed by anyone - partly down to Apple's good work but also because of hardware compatibility.

I'd disagree about the need to install alongside windows and shift settings etc. Mostly only nerds upgrade their OS. People buy a computer they switch it on and expect it to work. Many companies are already selling PCs with linux preinstalled. It is up to them to choose good default software.

I think Linux is perfectly ready as a configured desktop for any user. Many of my friends come round my house and have no problem operating my computers - they're often unaware they're using Linux. A browser is a browser. No one has had a problem using Juk.

What I think is more important is that Linux is ready to be connected to a network. Windows obviously isn't. As network services are essential to so many desktop applications this has to be an important consideration.

Maybe MacOS X is ready for the generic desktop and networks. But after being shafted 3 times by Apple hardware I'll wait until I can install it on the quality components of my choice.

For most desktop applications I think all 3 major OS's are 'ready'. The network security is really where the pinch comes. Businesses need secure data and robust systems - a lot of people should be fired for choosing windows.

Re:Of course we bash them

[steelfood]

Make a program with a GUI that opens up LaTeX files and has a button named "Convert to JPEG." Have the program run the bash script at the click of the button. You might want to add things like a save-to directory, batch-conversion, quick preview, etc. afterwards, but that's basically the answer to your question.

That is, after all, the purpose of a GUI.

Now, you might have wanted to ask how a GUI would help write the bash script. Well, it won't. But writing the bash script requires a whole different level of knowledge and expertise, and the people who write scripts aren't the ones who'd be using the GUI. However, if you do have a GUI front-end to your script, you'd probably attract a lot more users.

Re:Of course we bash them

[Daniel Baumgarten]

Now, you might have wanted to ask how a GUI would help write the bash script. Well, it won't. But writing the bash script requires a whole different level of knowledge and expertise, and the people who write scripts aren't the ones who'd be using the GUI. However, if you do have a GUI front-end to your script, you'd probably attract a lot more users.

Of course, it's important to have the bash script in the first place so that someone who knows what he's doing can control it with another program. Modularity is something that Unix has and Windows doesn't. (It's also largely absent on the Mac.) Unfortunately, most graphical Unix apps don't properly utilize this advantage and instead try to act like the Mac OS or Windows, two operating systems that are fundamentally very different from Unix. And what we end up with is just free, copycat Windows. At just a slightly higher level of abstraction (you've added graphics and a file manager, essentially) the OS interface is completely different. Where's my scriptability? Where are all the filter programs for piping I/O? None of my apps seem to be using them. How come so many of these programs are so monolithic? This is anti-Unix!

Rather than imitating the founding fathers of the desktop, we should be trying to one-up them when we write graphical programs by designing them according to time-tested traditions. Graphics should add freedom to a user environment, not take it away.

Take Google for example

[gamer4Life]

Mod parent up.

Things don't have to black and white. An OS can be both user friendly AND powerful.

Look at the companies that Slashdot users rave about: Google, Apple, Mozilla.

All three have something in common...they make powerful and EASY-TO-USE applications. Easy enough for Joe Onepack to use without spending much time to learn. Yet they are powerful enough to satisfy the most hungry power user, and allow for users to tinker all they want.

For example, Firefox with it's plugins, extensions, etc...

Google Maps with it's API

Mac OS runs on BSD

Despite the power, they are easy to use even for first-time users.

But, I like Linux the way it is...

[zanidor]

From the article: "Just because you can include a feature doesn't mean that you should. Just because you can provide a user preference doesn't mean you should." This is one of the big things I _like_ about Linux. I like having the options, and being able to configure things exactly the way I want. I like that using Linux allows (forces) me to learn the details of how my system works. Without these things, it just wouldn't be Linux. I'm all for encouraging users to switch over, but not at the expense of what I consider to be the biggest draws of the OS.

Windows Power Users Are The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Asa is 100% wrong. The biggest obstacles to GNU/Linux or any other OS gaining desktop market share are the so-called Windows power users. The low level structured task workers are fine working with a dumb VT100 terminal, a locked-down Windows desktop, or a locked-down X11 kiosk. They learn to use the keyboard and/or mouse and fill out the forms required by the line-of-business app. If it's a Windows or X11 GUI, they learn to click on an icon or two to start apps. No installing software, no configuration, etc, that's done by the I.T. staff. They'll use what's put in front of them and they have no say in the decision. For embedded devices, users have no choice of interface either. This is 80% of workstation/terminal/POS device users. The real pains in the ass are the hobbyist Windows users, folks who picked up Windows fairly well along the way and consider themselves very computer literate. Because they were never fully professionally trained in computer science or programming (where they would have been exposed to the power of UNIX and other mainframe OSes) and they have little time or simply suffer from apathy, they oppose any changes that would require them to expose themselves to other platforms. Unfortunately many managers and executives fall into this position, as well as self-trained application developers. Their comfort zone is Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, IE, and the Start Button. Their programming skills are often limited to writing VBA applications to automate MS Office Apps which ties them to the Windows platform. This is the real obstacle to any OS that would unseat Microsoft. The best way to win these folks over is to show them a working GNU/Linux solution that solves a business problem, delivers low TCO and good ROI, and doesn't require them to interact with it except through a web interface or a Windows web service (SOAP) client app.
-gnulinuxadmin

Linux on the desktop

[wakejagr]

Every once in a while, I see someone (usually heavily modded troll, insightful, underrated, overrated, the whole deal) who agrees with me. I haven't noticed the "I don't care" platform on this story yet, though there will probably be several instances by the time I'm done typing this.

Anyhow, here goes: I really don't care what OS people use. I'm a linux person (debian, if you ask (sarge on servers and desktops, if you ask again)) who has even helped a few people switch to Linux from Windows. However, if people are happy to use Windows, I let them. I'll help out family/friends with config issues, but if there's a real problem, they're stuck, as I really don't know (Ok, really don't care to know) Windows config information.

You want to use Windows? Fine. Why does it have anything to do with me?

You want me to help you fix your computer? Run linux. Or pay me. Stupid job . . ..

Disappointed

[RAMMS EIN]

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

Re:Disappointed

[delire]

It is clear you haven't used Linux in years. why on earth you are compiling applications I don't know.

My sister, someone who hates computers, hated Windows, and simply hates Linux less, types the keyword of the kind of package she wishes to install in 'kpackage' and then hits the elusively titled 'Install' button to.. you guessed it.

Recently, after 2 years of Linux use she asked "what is the command line?", having heard about it from a friend. When asked how she's going with Linux she replied "i like the way i don't have to go to websites to install programs." That's her experience of Linux, in it's would be blazing, crippled complexity.

Secondly, why are you doing using redhat's experimental, sandbox OS, one even they admit is purely there as a public laboratory for testing developments that may or may not make it into their stable, supported, enterprise software.

Interesting this was also the case for the vacuous author of the original article.

Frankly I couldn't care either way, Linux is fun, free, powerful and flexible. Since when have computers not been about learning something.

Six Words:

[crhylove]

Grand. Theft. Auto. San. An. Dreas.

Thank you.

Pont 4!

[6wl]

I've been banging on about this with Linux (KDE especially) for years now.

KDE and the QT toolkit just seems to waste space - buttons have massive empty areas, scroll bars are way thinker than needed (and I've never found an easy way to scale them down).

The first thing I do when I boot up an XP machine from a fresh install is move the top window size down to 20 and scrol bars to 12. Yet in KDE you seem stuck with massive obtrusive buttons. Windows has a nice 2 pixel seperator, KDE will have about 12 pixels. Total waste of desktop real estate.

Dood...

[poptones]

Then don't buy their shit.

Seriously. I use ubuntu. Linux is my ONLY computing system and has been for years now.

Just don't buy their shit. it is not your "right" to use their hardware, nor is it your "right" to force them to sell or support something for a market they choose to ignore.

Support manufacturers who are reasonably friendly to linux. Vote with your feet.

Please dont switch to linux!

[evanfrey]

Personally, I don't want people that are not tech savvy to switch (at this time) for a few reasons.

1. It will mean more time explaining to people how to do this or that in Linux such as "How do I play a CD, do I use the Helix player, CD player or Music player?" Stick with Windows so I can tell you "I have no idea, I don't use Windows I use Linux"
2. Droves of so-called "experts" popping up to "fix" home users computers. Its a pandemic problem with Windows. X person uses Windows at home, he installs a printer, scanner and a new hard drive all by there self and all of a sudden, they have flyers everywhere to "fix" computers. (You've tried all the rest, now try the best!!!). Then at work, they are explaining to the boss why X thing will "certainly" work in Linux while I have to argue why this thing will NOT work, why the "expert" is NOT an expert just an idiot who thinks they are.
3. Flooding the market with useless Linux "experts" (redundant, maybe but for a reason). All of a sudden more and more "schools" start popping up offering to help you get your LCNE and your LHDJAKS certifications, which are absolutely useless other then to impress some idiot executive to get a job. If the MCSE craze showed us anything, its that too many bad cooks with useless certifications spoil it for everyone. They drive prices and demand way down.
4. Spy-ware companies tend to target the largest OS group (which currently is Windows) and I would HATE for them to start mass targeting Linux.

SOOOO.... being a Linux user PLEASE, home users, STAY AWAY. Linux is, at this point, not a very friendly place for people not willing to RTFM. There is a little thinking (and reading) at times to be able to do things and get things to work right. If your someone who would like to check out Linux, try a livecd (google Linux livecd) and be prepared to do a little reading and work to get your system to do what you want at times.

On a final note, its not that I don't want to have regular users on Linux at all...I've switched my wife to it (it took a year), its just that, in agreement with the article, its not totally a point and click environment and I like it that way. If it evolves into a more "Windows like" environment where the OS anticipates your every move (sometimes incorrectly) then great. Come on over. I wont be there. I use Linux not only because I don't mind the extra work involved, but because I like it.

Re:Exactly!

[It'sYerMam]

While a universal type of package might be useful, it's probably unlikely. What's more likely, I expect, is a source "package," like the emerge system except universal. You download, say, "firefox.ins" which is a tar.gz/bz2 file including at the root something like an INSTALL file, except designed to be read by a package manager. It could just be a shell script, or something more like an xml file including instructions to hand to make, ./configure and so on. When to ask for root passwords, perhaps define some kind of GUI for options to pass to the configure script.

Basically an installshield equivalent, that then becomes capable of installing on any distro. Sure, you still have the speed of installation being an issue what with compilation, but hopefully a system like this will be available in the not-too-distant future.

Black screen of death

[DogDude]

I've seen it. Last time I tried to use Ubuntu, I got a black screen with some white text that ended with one line that just said something along the lines of:

>

Worst error message ever. Had to re-install W2K

"user base"

[mnemonic_]

That's the problem with you linux guys, you talk about "user bases." If anything's too hard to use or install, you just lay the blame on the user for trying to breach his assigned "user base."

Take a look at Mac OS X. A power user can calibrate his color, run an Apache webserver and encrypt his files completely from a friendly GUI. For security he can enable a firewall and manage access ports by clicking check boxes. There's no "user base" bullshit saying "those things are too advanced, you must use a command line."

The first step in improving linux is tearing down the notion of exclusive user bases. Software can be easy to use and powerful, not just one or the other.

The ideal linux distro

[mnemonic_]

Let's face it; grandmas use linux only if their geek grandsons force it upon them. The vast majority of potential linux users are Windows XP power users. They want to update their system by clicking through graphical dialogs and don't need 4 different text editors. They want to install the OS using a GUI, but also want an OS that lets them use any cool open source software without troublesome install. And of course, they want something stable and fast.

How about a distro like this:

• Lycoris's installer and simplified partition manager
• Gentoo's portage, with Porthole graphical frontend
• 2.6 Kernel only
• GNOME only, with the stupid games removed
• Mac OS X's launchd (yes, it's GPL)
• Slackware's CD1 contents
• Knoppix's hardware detection and configuration
• i686 packages on one install DVD

The user partitions in the installer by adjusting a graphic with "Windows" and "Linux" bars, with the swap partition automatically sized based on the amount of RAM. ReiserFS is automatically chosen. He clicks "Install," and with the automatic hardware detection the installer configures a 2.6 kernel and compiles. It also sets reasonable CFLAGS for portage having detected the CPU make/model. GNOME, X.org, etc. are installed through i686 packages from the DVD. While all of this goes on, the user sees a single progress bar on the screen, without silly bullet points of progress. An hour or so later, everything just works.

After he starts using it, he wants to try new software. A built-in Firefox extension shows a small "install" bottom in the bottom right corner whenever the user is browsing a site for an open source software. Let's say he's looking at www.python.org, or bittorrent.sf.net. Clicking the Install button brings up Porthole and prompts him to install Python. He clicks "Install" to confirm, and Porthole fetches the port and compiles. launchd agents or daemons are automatically created as needed for software requiring startup runtime.

Every few weeks or so, portage checks for updated ports. It then prompts the user to install the updated ports, explaining possible conflicts and estimating install duration.

In the meantime, this linux distro boots up faster than 95% of comparable distros courtesy of Apple's launchd. It's got the efficiency of uniquely-compiled software using portage. Sound, video acceleration and networking all "just work" having Knoppix's autodetection and configuration. GNOME's (in the future, complete) system control center lets him adjust anything he needs. And the user finally has a linux system that's powerful and user friendly.

One thing these articles miss.

[Suppafly]

One thing these "linux is not ready for the desktop" type articles miss is that computers in general aren't really ready for the "regular user" AKA mom, dad and grandma Bootsie."

If you can't get your mom and dad to use windows or a mac, how are you going to get them to use linux?

Yeah, it's an analogy. So sue me.

[Petersko]

The problem is not linux, it is manufacturer support.

Sure you can buy ice cream. Just remember that this ice cream doesn't work with a lot of cups, cones, bowls or spoons. And even if it claims to work, it may only allow you to take bites in 1/2 teaspoon sizes or less. But if you wait long enough, it's sure to improve.

But it's totally worth it because you're no longer giving your hard-earned money to those bastards at Baskin-Robbins.

Linux vs Windows

[thriemus]

It's amazing the amount of "computer literate" people that cannot perform the most basic of functions in scripts. Also categorically I can tell you that I have 100 times the power in bash scripts than windows batch files and thats perhaps the reason that windows users cant get to grips with the command line. Almost anything can be configured from Linux command line but the same cannot be said for windows/dos. That level of functionality was never there for windows users they hit a minefield when faced with all the command options inherent to linux users. Try explaining what sed, awk or grep does to a windows user and it's very hard. Also they think in simple terms of 1 command per line and cannot get their heads round && or piping and redirection. Sometimes a wimp environment is not necessarily the most productive for a range of tasks however, nearly all of these functions can be performed in X.

Another thing that I have noticed with windows to linux users is that when you explain that if you want to know about a command then use the man command and that's where the problem arises IMHO. The majority of windows users don't want to have to read up on another operating system because they already know one. In my business I have deployed linux desktops to use RDP to connect to Win2K terminal services and have had amazing results and increased productivity due to lack of spyware/virus problems on the end users machine. Also with automatic YOU updates in SUSE I am not worried about the linux boxes posing too much of a security risk. This saves money on end user antivirus/spyware/firewall programs and because they only have access to a terminal server I don't have to worry about users saving important data on local hard drives that don't get backed up. So with a linux server running the usual snort, squid etc etc you only have a few points of entry to secure and protect from the ocean of headaches that arise from web browsing these days. Of course this is for a business model and home users are a completely different kettle of fish.

Where linux is lacking these days for a home user operating system is media and games. Ask a windows user these days what he is doing with his home pc and 95% of them will tell you the following:

1) Browsing the internet (Linux has Firefox so no problem here)
2) Downloading music (Linux has music players so no problem here)
3) Downloading Movies (This is a problem IMO)
4) 3D Games (This is linux's biggest shortfall for the home user desktop market)

Games cannot be played either can downloaded movies and thats ruling linux out of the end user market.

The problems of old such as installation, drivers (especially sound!!) have all been addressed. The problems above need looking at IMHO.

Just my 2 cents.